After a difficult surgery, I successfully removed 4 square "Memory" cards from my wife's MacBook, I have a new piece of advice from people with small children. Put a piece of tape over your slot load drives. :) … [Read more...] about Children and Slotload DVD drives
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Expect Change
Years ago there was a millionaire who was getting old. He decided he wanted to provide for his heirs, but he wanted to protect them from poor investments that would make them lose the fortune he had built up. He had his lawyer draft his will in a way that would provide for his heirs, but only allow his money to be invested in a reliable, solid industry. The industry he chose was electric street cars. Within a generation, his descendants were pumping gasoline at service stations. The millionaire had good intentions, but he was short-sighted. His basic failure was that he didn't expect change. He correctly assumed that people would always need cheap transportation. He incorrectly … [Read more...] about Expect Change
Four Important Folders on my Computer
Here are four folders that I have in my Documents on my hard drive that I've found save me time. Receipts - When I buy something online that I need to keep track of, I'll print a copy of the receipt page to a PDF and save it in this file. Usually I'll save it with the date as part of the file name. For example: 20071012-cell-phone-order.pdf. This makes it easy to find records of purchases. Rebates - Rebates are awful. Basically, companies are betting on the fact that you won't take the time to fill out the paperwork and send it in. I've found if I keep everything in a single location, it makes it a lot easier for me to gather up all the pieces of info I need and it is easier to … [Read more...] about Four Important Folders on my Computer
Striving for Greatness
Statistically speaking, you are unlikely to achieve above average success on accident. Here is a short list of things that seem like common qualities in people who achieve greatness. If you have qualities you'd like to see added to the list, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. Embrace Failure – The lives of the greatest successful people would often seem like horrible failures if you remove their one or two biggest achievements. Successful people often fail. While they aren’t intentionally trying to fail, they see it as a path to success. Failure is part of the learning process and is seen as a necessary step toward success. Right Place, Right Time – Most great people … [Read more...] about Striving for Greatness
Investing in Education
Education is an investment in the future. Just like investments have different rates of returns, studying different things will give you different payback. There are generally two types of education available to people after high school. A technical education prepares you to do specific tasks. A general education prepares you be able to learn. Many people don't understand the difference between these two types of learning. Going to massage school may seem great in the short term. It doesn't take too long to learn and the pay is significantly better than what you can get from a job right after high school. However, it doesn't really prepare you for changing jobs in the future. A … [Read more...] about Investing in Education
Productivity and Values
The concept of being productive is meaningless without a good understanding of your values or what is important to you personally. Being productive isn't just a matter of being busy. It isn't a matter of doing a lot of things. Productivity is accomplishing important things. Many people try to get organized so they can do more, but really they are just trying to fit a bunch more unimportant things into their day. Until they define what is really important to them, just scheduling a bunch of tasks won't help them really accomplish more. Sometimes being productive doesn't mean doing more. In fact, sometimes it can mean doing fewer tasks each day. When these tasks are carefully … [Read more...] about Productivity and Values
Stretching Yourself
Take the time to do something hard. Take the time to do something new. Your biggest surges of growth will come from stretching yourself. You can stretch yourself in small ways by trying a new type of food, talking with a stranger, or watching a movie that is different than your norm. You can stretch yourself in big ways by quitting your job and going into business for yourself. Regardless of how you go about it, you will grow more by stretching yourself on a consistent basis than by reading every self-help book you can find. When you are looking for things to stretch your capabilities, here are a few things to keep in mind. What are the risks? You need to understand the impact of … [Read more...] about Stretching Yourself
Paper vs. Importance
I have noticed the most important people have a very clear desk. This also tends to be the case for people with much less important jobs. To illustrate, I've created a graph. I'm sure this isn't true across the board, but it does seem to be at least partially true. How clear are the desks of the most important three people at your organization? Here are a few reasons that paper seems to go down as importance goes up: The top person can always give his paper to someone else, so it pushes the paper down toward people of mid level importance. The mid-level people will only push the paper down so far, themselves, because it is their neck on the line if something gets messed … [Read more...] about Paper vs. Importance
Manly Contest
Just a quick reminder about The Art of Manliness' Old Spice contest to find the Man of the Year. You have a few more days until November 8th, to nominate the person you feel displays the ideal traits of “Manliness”. The winner gets $2,000 in cash and the top 10 entries all get a selection of Old Spice products. … [Read more...] about Manly Contest
Top 5 Time Savers
Yesterday we looked at my list of top 5 time wasters, so today it seemed appropriate to look at the top 5 time savers. It is hard to measure the value of something that saves you time, so these may seem fairly random. Your suggestions for top time savers are welcomed in the comment section below. Podcasts in the Car - I have a system that allows me to subscribe to podcasts, transfer them to an iPod that hooks directly to my car stereo (when I turn off the car the iPod is paused until I start it back up again), and delete podcasts once I've listened to them. This allows me to keep informed on many topics with very little effort on my part and very little wasted time. I generally go … [Read more...] about Top 5 Time Savers