All posts by Aaron Simmons

I’m figuring out how to be the best possible version of me, a journey that takes me down many roads — like Leonardo DaVicinci, but not nearly as awesome.
accomplishment, perfectionism, self improvement

A Map That’s “Good Enough”

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I have a map on my wall from about the 17th century (a replica, that is), and here’s what I love about it: it was a perfectly useful map in its time, even though it wasn’t 100% accurate. I like to keep that in mind when I feel my perfectionism creeping in.

Perfectionism can be a dreadful disease. Although it may not officially kill anybody, it prevents them from living. Life is action — and perfectionism, when it reaches extremes, prevents people from taking action for fear of not performing perfectly.

Perfection seems like a worthy goal, but this lofty ideal is also its downfall. Unfortunately, perfection, in any field and in all capacities, is not possible. Excellence is possible. Virtuosity is possible. But perfection? Not in this lifetime! Perfectionists fail even before they begin because they are dedicated to accomplishing a goal that cannot be done.

So, what’s a perfectionist to do? Well, there are 3 things that may help:

  1. Remember the imperfect map. Ancient maps needed only to get a sailor from one port to another without ramming into the shore. They didn’t need to be accurate by inches but by miles. After all, the sailors could look for themselves once they knew they were getting close. When you do something, remember that you are doing it for a specific purpose. As long as the purpose is fulfilled, mission accomplished. Anything beyond that is nice, but unnecessary. Make sure you aren’t letting details bog you down that, when looked at from a mission viewpoint, don’t actually impact the project.

  2. Love to improvise. Nothing goes according to plan, even with the best plans. Be prepared to make adjustments along the way. So, since you’ll be making changes along the way, why not just get started now? The world’s greatest masterpieces (some of which come very close to perfection) were not created in a single attempt. Paintings and sculptures are created by “roughing-in” the basic form and then fine-tuning it a little bit at a time. Remember, it’s the final product that matters, not the middle product or the fledgeling product. All (near) perfect projects start as absolutely imperfect projects.

  3. Let go. Perfectionism is rooted in self-consciousness and a fear of looking foolish. I know, I’ve been there. And there’s an old joke that may prove useful in this regard: you wouldn’t care what people thought of you if you realized how rarely they do. I know, it sounds harsh. But really, everybody else is too busy managing their own lives to pay much attention to yours. So you’re free to get out there and take a chance. If you mess up, not many people will notice — and of the ones that notice, not a single one will remember it a year from now. Then, you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and continue to adjust (remember, you love to improvise now) until you get it right.

Babblermouth is far from perfect. As I look at it, there are many things that I want to fix and so many improvements that can be made to it. Over time, they’ll get done. In the past, I might have waited until I had the perfect design before I wrote my first post (and would have, of course, waited until my first post was perfect before posting it). But I made the leap. After all, the point of blogging is to share your ideas with readers — and that’s getting done.

introspection, prioritization, relaxation, stress relief

The Next Big Challenge

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Ok, so you’ve mastered time management. You can pack more accomplishment into one day than most people can put into a week. Now you are ready for a real challenge: do nothing.

If you’ve never tried meditation before, you are missing one of the biggest challenges you will ever face. Now, I’m not talking about meditation as a mystical or spiritual practice. This article is about meditation as a relaxation technique and a method for training the mind for which there is no equal.

The goal is deceptively simple: All you need to do is sit still and try to focus solely on one thing or to avoid focusing on any one thing. No problem, right? Wrong! In my experience, nobody ever meditates well the first time.

To try your first meditation, sit comfortably and close your eyes. Sit down as though you never intend to get back up. Some people may insist that you cross your legs or hold your hands in very specific ways, but the only thing that I’ve found matters is keeping good posture — it helps you to breathe more deeply. Your only task in this first exercise is to count your breaths from 1 to 9, and repeat counting from 1 to 9 until your time is up. Set a timer for 10 minutes (one with a gentle alarm if you can…after all, this is about relaxation) for your first attempt.

The biggest surprise for people new to meditation is just how easily distracted an untrained mind can be. Here is an example of a typical first try: breathe in…breathe out…1…hmm, I wonder if I turned the coffee pot off — BZZT! You just lost your focus. Trying again, breathe in…breathe out…1…breathe in…breathe out…2…wow, I got to “2” without losing my focus — BZZT! You did it again.

Yes, it’s frustrating. And over the course of 10 minutes, it is extremely unlikely that you can get to “9” without getting distracted. Eventually, however, you find that those random thoughts diminish until finally your mind does what you direct it to, and only what you direct it to. This is a territory unlike any other you may have experienced, and an extraordinary paradox — you will be at once both fully relaxed and yet completely focused! And once you’ve been there, you will want to return!

Like any skill, meditation becomes easier with practice. In a first attempt, you may not even reach that point of relaxed concentration. Over time, however, you become able to access it at will.

So, how do you “use” meditation? On the surface, it can look like meditation does nothing. But, do not forget that the seeds of all action are rooted in the mind. It is in this sense that meditation helps you be even more effective when you are not meditating. By creating focused, clear thinking, you set the foundation for focused, clear action. Relaxed concentration is also the optimal mental state for problem solving. If you are having trouble accomplishing a goal, get into a state of relaxed concentration and then direct your thinking toward finding a solution. You will find that those solutions are more elegant than any attempts you may have made in the past!

As a final thought, consider this: if you feel like you are too busy to attempt meditation, you may need to try it now more than ever!

carbon credits, environmental policy, indulgences, responsibility

Indulging Modern Indulgences

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Carbon credits have an interesting partner in history. I see a close link between the growing practice of buying “carbon credits” and the curious practice of buying indulgences as sold by the Roman Catholic church in the early 1500’s.

An indulgence, in Roman Catholic theology, is the granting of full or partial pardon of temporal punishment for sins that have already been confessed and forgiven. In layman’s terms, the idea is this: you will be punished later for your sins, but you will be punished a little bit less if you are granted an indulgence (my apologies to practicing Catholics if this oversimplifies the matter). Indulgences are typically granted for acts of piety, such as devoting oneself to prayer or reading the scriptures with great reverence.

The granting of indulgences eventually became corrupted and indulgences eventually became commodities that could be bought. Pope Leo X, for example, sought to rebuild St Peter’s Basilica by aggressively marketing the granting of indulgences in exchange for alms-giving. This abuse of the doctrine of indulgences soon became one of many contentious issues that led Martin Luther to develop his famed 95 theses.

So, through a corrupted granting of indulgences, people could atone for their sins by fronting a little bit of cash. Carbon credits, as I will demonstrate, encourage people to atone for their environmental sins in the same manner.

Let’s look at an example of how carbon credits operate. Average Joe begins shopping for a new vehicle. He’s environmentally conscious, and begins looking at the Earth-friendly cars that have the best gas mileage. If he only needed a car to get to work and back, no problem; but he needs something to take all of his kids (and their friends) to soccer practice during the week, and to haul all of the home-improvement supplies (most notably, plywood) for his weekend projects. So, the 1960’s space capsule on wheels just doesn’t cut it. He needs — gasp! — an SUV to do what he needs to do. However, owning an SUV makes Joe feel incredibly guilty. How can he justify owning an SUV when he knows how much damage he would be doing to the environment? Enter the carbon credit.

Carbon credits are presented as a way for Joe to offset his “carbon footprint” (that’s the guilt that he feels over the carbon emissions his SUV puts out). When Joe buys carbon credits, his money goes to, let’s say, Johnny Appleseed. Johnny now can go out and plant new trees with that carbon money and, in theory, those new trees will suck all of Joe’s unpleasant additional carbon right out of the air. Carbon in, carbon out. A perfect balance!

The problem with this approach is that it maintains the status-quo at best. Rather than making it better, it merely keeps it from getting worse. If Joe truly cares about his impact on the environment, then he should adjust his own behavior rather than paying somebody else to pick up the slack. Rather than driving to the grocery store 5 days a week, his family could keep a list and shop only on Wednesday nights. He could ride his bike to work on nicer days. He could turn his thermostat down a couple of degrees and start wearing more sweaters. But if he is buying carbon credits, he has no further motivation to do any of those things. In his mind, he’s “covered”, environmentally speaking.

What would be the effect if we brought this philosophy to other realms? Would “diversity credits” allow bigots to continue to spew racial epithets and discriminate against minorities as long as they made generous donations to the United Negro College Fund? Would wicked little children be allowed to torture stray cats so long as they offset it by donating their allowances to the humane society? Perhaps if drunk drivers were to buy “Blood-Alcohol-Content Credits”, they…well, you get the idea.

Carbon credits do nothing to resolve the problem they claim to resolve. If anything, they trivialize it! Environmental policy, as with any problem, is best addressed with action at the individual level — not money.

law of cause and effect, parenting, responsibility, social problems

Where Have All The Parents Gone?

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Maybe I am now officially an old curmudgeon, but I swear children are less respectful and more obnoxious than they were when I was a child. However, I don’t think it is fair to blame the kids. In truth, kids are no different than than they’ve ever been — but parents have changed quite a bit! Here are some examples inspired by real life events:

Johnny has trouble behaving in school. He frequently gets into fights with the other kids, and after ignoring many failed requests to stop hitting others, Johnny is suspended. His mother’s reaction? She storms into the school and demands that the school remove the suspension. Her son, she says, would never hit anybody. And besides, it would be too inconvenient to find daycare on such short notice.

Johnny’s mother brings him with her to visit a friend’s house. A short while later, Johnny draws all over the host’s white drapes with permanent marker. Perhaps the greater insult is that his art isn’t even very good. His mother’s reaction? She kneels down in front of him, smiles and says in a sing-song voice, “Johnny, we only draw on paper, ok? Now, this is your first warning”. No apology is made, and no offer to replace the drapes.

It’s way past Johnny’s bed time, and he is ignoring all requests to finish getting dressed and into bed. His father finally tells him quite firmly to get into bed, or there’s going to be trouble. Johnny screams “I don’t want to go to bed,” and punches him in the thigh. His father’s reaction? He acts as though nothing happened, and goes downstairs to play Freecell.

Parenting is not a biological description — parenting is a job description. And it’s a serious job that we must perform to the best of our ability, because the stakes are high. If we fail, we destroy not one but two lives!

The role of a parent is this: to train children to live harmoniously in a world where there are consequences for their actions. This is certainly a practical approach, because this is a world where there are consequences for our actions. Once children understand that there actions have consequences and begin to choose their actions accordingly, a bright and beautiful future opens up for them.

First of all, self-destructive behaviors practically disappear: smoking and drugs lose their allure because the risk is too great. Abstinance becomes more appealing than sexual promiscuity. Also, children are less likely to misbehave in school because it just isn’t worth it to be disruptive.

In addition to avoiding decisions that have negative consequences, children begin to seek out actions that have positive consequences. They treat other people with respect and actively seek to help out around the home. They focus on their studies and have plans for a brighter future. In short, a proper understanding of consequences — also known as the law of cause and effect — inevitably leads to taking responsibility for one’s own life.

Parents clearly wield tremendous power over their children’s well-being, and it must be used with great care and diligence. Good parents don’t shield children from the consequences of their actions. Rather, good parents help their children endure those consequences. Then, most importantly, they ensure that the lesson is learned so that it need never happen again.

drama, football, NFL, time management

How To Watch Football

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Ah, football season has returned. I love what football stands for: pure competition, where victory doesn’t go to the team with the most skill, but with the most perseverance. The tension and drama of the game tick higher and higher as the clock continues to tick down toward that final second.

Football’s life and breath are found in those final moments of the game. A team can be behind by 14 points with only 5 minutes left in the game, and still come up with a victory. In those last moments, every decision counts and perseverance is king. If they succeed, it is the come-back win at the end of the game that everybody talks about, no matter how incredible a touchdown pass earlier in the game may have been. And it’s that last second of the game that has changed the way I watch football forever.

You, see, I am now a 4th-quarter fan. By that, I mean I begin to watch my noon game at about 2:30. That is usually around the end of the 3rd quarter, beginning of the 4th. But that’s not to say that I’ve missed out on any of the excitement. Sure, I miss some athletic catches and some powerful tackles, but these are not the things that make football games great.

Although I enjoy football, the games are terribly long. I have a life to live, and can no longer devote 3 hours a week to following my favorite team through the season — but I can easily watch a single quarter every week. It’s the best of both worlds!

So, if you’ve caught the time management bug and can’t help but feel a little guilty when watching football (but can’t quite turn away), become a 4th-quarter fan. It truly is the finest way to watch football.

apologetics, Christianity, faith, reliability of Bible

I Am Not A Brainwashed Moron

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I attended public school as a child and a public university as an adult. One thing my instructors consistently taught me throughout the years, either explicitly and implicitly (regardless of the subject), was this: Only brainwashed morons could be Christians.

Since I am a Christian and am not a brainwashed moron, I feel this sentiment begs an argument. I will ignore the flagrant condescension inherent in the claim and instead focus only on its most important (and false) assumption: That the evidence for the historicity of Christ does not warrant rational belief, and that you would therefore have to be a moron to put your faith in it.

I believe that this assumption is rooted in three major misconceptions:

  1. The New Testament is not a reliably historical account of events and belongs more appropriately on the fiction shelf. This misconception completely ignores the very motives that the gospels themselves express. The author of the Gospel of Luke, for instance, explicitly states that he has carefully researched the facts. Such research inherently includes seeking input from primary sources — including speaking to witnesses of the events. Because he set out specifically to prepare a historical document based on facts, there are plenty of specific references to people, places and even the times that these events occurred. Luke 2, for instance, is loaded with such details, specifically naming Caesar Augustus, Quirinius, Syria, Galilee, Judea, Bethlehem and Nazareth. Perhaps the most interesting detail is the mention of Nazareth — a region so insignificant that until recently it was thought to not even exist. The Gospels were intended from the beginning to be historical records, supply the very details that could be used to refute them if it were possible, and were written during a time when witnesses who could have refuted them would have.

  2. Christianity would crumble if it would acknowledge the “other” Gospels (those of Thomas, Judas and Mary, for instance). Admittedly, the fact that some “Gospels” are not included in the official canon of scripture can make it appear that the Church actively ignores evidence that contradicts their “dogmatic, preconceived notions”. On closer examination, however, it becomes obvious why the Gnostic Gospels are not included in the classic canon of scripture: they don’t match. The character names are the same, but the characters are not. In the Gospel of Thomas, for instance, the boy Jesus is reported to have killed another boy for bumping into him on the street. Is this just showing a different side of Jesus, or a totally fictitious one? Well, let me offer an illustration. I love the book “Huckleberry Finn”. But if I were to pen a new “lost” chapter to the book, one in which Jim speaks the Queen’s English and Huck becomes a hardworking oil baron, on what grounds should I or anybody demand that it be included in the book? Anybody that has read the rest of the book will instantly realize that my chapter does not belong in Huckleberry Finn. As with the Gnostic gospels, merely having characters with the same names doesn’t make them fit in the broader context of the book.

  3. The claims made in the New Testament are too fantastic to be taken as fact. If we were to use only what “seems possible” as our benchmark, we would be using a poor standard indeed. For a glimpse into just how strange a world this is, take a look at “twin studies”. Twin studies are used to determine the influences of nature versus nurture in the development of the human psyche, and are conducted by following the lives of twins who were separated at birth — same genetics (nature), but different families (nurture). More than once, the similarities in the lives of the twins are staggering. They end up liking the same foods, having the same occupations, driving the same cars (makes AND models!), and sometimes even their wives have the same first names! But however improbable that may be, it does happen. Now, look at the New Testament. These books, which were written with the full intent of recording history accurately and by men who stood to gain nothing by doing so, tell of a man who is born, miraculously heals several people on many different occasions — including raising people from the dead — and claims to be the very son of God whose arrival was predicted centuries before in the book of Isaiah. He then is killed as predicted centuries before and rises again, fully alive, to be seen by many witnesses over a period of 40 days before ascending into the heavens. Improbable? Certainly. Impossible? Nothing is impossible, and due to the credibility of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there is every reason to believe it is true.

Christianity does not demand a “blind” faith. Christians are welcome to test their faith against reason, because the Christian faith has substance and stands up to an honest search for the facts. I believe in the life-saving work of Jesus not because I have been brainwashed, not because I have ignored evidence to the contrary, and not because I fervently wish it were true. I believe because I have examined the evidence and found that the record preserved in the New Testament is credible and continues to stand the test of time.

If you are finding that the facts don’t warrant a belief in Jesus, perhaps your research is incomplete?

Recommended Reading:

business, life lessons, Marketing, mistakes, start-ups

Lessons From A Dot-Bomb CEO

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The best “mistake” of my life taught me a lot about how not to run a business. You see, I have a confession to make: I’m a Dot-Bomb CEO. Here’s the story of Midwestern Cybertising, and the lessons I’ve learned:

Prior to 1994, the Internet existed as pages and pages of text, with hyperlink shortcuts that brought you to other pages of text or to new sections on the same page of text. Text, text, text. Not bad if you like to read, but people today would hardly recognize it as “the Internet”. Then, a little program called “Netscape” changed everything by making the Internet a visual, multimedia experience. That moved it from the world of computer nerds and placed it firmly into the hands of businesses and consumers alike.

Enter Midwestern Cybertising. Some friends and I realized that this could be the new media for customer service and advertising, and jumped right into creating our own web development company. It was the classic garage biz — all of our HTML and graphic design was completed in my bedroom at my parent’s house! Our monthly server fee of about $15 comprised our entire operating budget.

One thing that I am proud of to this day is that my friends and I were YEARS ahead of the curve. If you can believe it, our biggest obstacle was trying to convince businesses that it would be valuable to have a web page! Our entire company consisted of three people — two of us planned to return to college at the end of summer break — unless, of course, our company made us phenomenally rich.

Unfortunately, our company did not make us phenomenally rich. By the end of summer, we had sold only one account (for $500, which we were never able to collect), and had one additional prospect that we were unable to close on. Eventually, we lost interest in our company and moved on to pursue other interests.

Here is what I learned from our adventure:

You are not in business to make money. You are in business to help other people or businesses — just don’t do it for free. Being clear about what your business does and how it benefits your clients makes it a lot easier for you to sell your services and products. My friends and I constantly had trouble explaining why it was necessary for businesses to have web pages as a matter of customer service. We saw only a money river and jumped in. It never occurred to us that we’d have to explain to people how badly they needed our services. We figured they knew.

Marketing is a start-up business’s most important activity. When we started our business, the first thing we did was incorporate. That used up almost all of our start-up money, and in hindsight did nothing for us. We were three college kids who had nothing; if we were to lose everything we had in our business, we wouldn’t have lost anything. In the end, our business imploded because nobody knew who we were or what we did.

Plan to fail or plan to succeed, but have a plan. Planning is a critical step in starting a business. By the time you’ve invested your first dollar in your business, you should already have a clear idea of what your business’s primary product or service is, how much you plan to charge for those products and services, who your ideal clients are, where you expect to find those ideal clients, how you plan to contact those clients, how much goods or services you must sell this month (and next month and the month after), and how many prospects you need to contact to make that happen. Time is critical for a start-up business. By doing detailed planning before you begin, you can hit the ground running. My friends and I did our planning all summer long — as much as 90 days after investing in our business. By the time we had worked out the details, we had to return to school…which brings us to the next item:

Give it your all, or don’t give it anything. Don’t have something to fall back on. If a business is worth starting, it’s worth giving it all you’ve got. My friends and I approached our business as a hobby for the most part, thinking it would be neat if we made a lot of money at it. We never seriously considered dropping out of school to build our business. But, if our business had actually grown as well as we thought it would, quitting school would have been necessary. So before we’d even begun, the business lost out to our education.

Ability isn’t enough. I don’t want to brag, but my friends and I were truly cutting-edge. We utilized all the latest technology, had beautifully designed pages, and were utilizing search-engine optimization (SEO) before it was even being talked about. If ability was what makes a successful business, you would have read about us in Time magazine. However, it is sales and marketing that bring in the clients. After all, what good is it to be the best if nobody knows about it? Ability brings satisfied customers back, but sales and marketing brings them in the first time.

One final lesson I would offer is this: If you learn from everything you do, nothing you do is in vain. I have never started another business, and may never again. But I’ve never regretted my experience with Midwestern Cybertising. I learned a lot from the experience, and not only what not to do. I have also learned a lot about the right things to do, too — in business as well as in life.

creativity, einstein factor, image streaming, subconscious, symbolism

Image Streaming: Here Goes!

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The Other Voice In Your Head

You are familiar with the language of the left brain. That’s the voice in the back of your head saying you can do it or you’ll never win, and it never seems to shut up. The right brain, however, is more cryptic. It chooses to speak in pictures. Much like the left brain, the right brain is always “on”, and it is always “talking” to you.

The Right Brain Speaks In Pictures

This is important, for it is through the right brain that you have direct access to your subconscious (the logical left brain actively ignores the subconscious). And it is often the subconscious that is credited with breakthroughs in science and thought! By tapping into the stream of images offered by your right brain, you tap into a deep reservoir of remarkable intelligence and intuition. This is called “image streaming”.

Image streaming is a major focus of the book “The Einstein Factor” by Win Wenger. By closing your eyes and allowing yourself to see the images that are already there, you begin to see a world of strange and new possibilities. But perhaps the most difficult part of image streaming is interpreting the images in the first place. It’s like learning a new langage: right-brainese. Rarely are the images literal. They are usually symbolic, and with a symbolism that is unique to you. Spiders, for instance, might represent abject terror to one person, while they might represent an ancient wisdom to another.

Yes, Even You Can Visualize

And if you claim to be somebody who “can’t visualize”, don’t worry. You’ve been visualizing for years and just aren’t aware of it. If you were a child, there was almost certainly a time when you daydreamed. That’s visualization. Still don’t believe me? Try this exercise:

  1. Read this sentence: Sally ran home crying because she spilled her ice cream cone on the sidewalk.
  2. Now, look away from the screen.
  3. Without looking at the screen, try to recall what you have read.
  4. Congratulations, you just completed a visualization!

When you recalled what you read, you were not trying to recall the words on the screen but the images they describe. In fact, even if you were only able to recall the words, you were visualizing — because you weren’t seeing them with your eyes, but with your mind. In fact, any memory that you have is a visualization.

A Look At My Own Image Stream

To satisfy my own curiosity and for the benefit of those of you who may read this, I thought I would try it out:

I’m standing in a field, the grass is waving back and forth in the wind. I hear the shriek of an eagle, and look up to see that it is swooping down on me as though to catch me in its talons. I duck, covering my head for protection, and the eagle circles back up into the sky. As I look down, I see a field mouse in the grass. It wasn’t me that the eagle was attacking after all, it was this mouse. I feel indignant, because this mouse is utterly helpless and the eagle is frighteningly powerful. I take it upon myself to defend this mouse, and I stand firm as the eagle circles around for a new attack. I have no way to defend myself or the mouse. I look down at my hand, see that my hand is flat, rigid like a knife. As the eagle swoops down, I stab my hand at the center of the eagle’s chest and it drops out of the sky. I am relieved for the mouse, but saddened for the eagle.

But What Does It Mean?

Strange, huh? I’d tell you what I think it means, but why don’t you give it a try? Or try doing a visualization of your own. For best results, write down your image streams or record them into a voice recorder. That way, you will have a record of what they actually were, as opposed to what you remember them to be.

inspiration, wisdom, wordplay, words of wisdom, writing prompts

Fun With Truisms

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Use Contrasts To Discover Wisdom

This world is woven together by surprising contrasts and parallells. One interesting side effect is that it becomes very easy to create remarkably deep insights simply by twisting phrases around contrasting or parallell themes. For example: To be a friend to all…you must be all to a friend.

Simple. Rearranging the first clause creates a truism — a sentiment that is easily dismissed because it is so pithy. But when you peer into it more deeply, profound truth bursts forth. This simple statement addresses many searching questions: How do you make friends? How do you keep friends? What is a good friend? The answer is simple, but its meaning is great.

Use Wordplay To Discover The Secrets Of The Universe

If you enjoy wordplay, consider creating trusisms. You might even discover the soul of the universe along the way! Here are some more…

  1. To be “successful”, you must “be” successful.
  2. When you are talking, you aren’t listening.
  3. To understand your neighbor, seek to understand yourself.
  4. To get what you want, give what others need.
  5. Kindness is a selfless act. Cruelty is a selfish act.
  6. To discover wisdom, uncover your folly.
  7. To spend more tomorrow, spend less today.
  8. If you dream of success, succeed at your dreams.
  9. Thought creates nothing. Action creates everything.
  10. Giving hearts give more than giving hands.
  11. Evil thoughts and evil acts have the same victim.
  12. Hate begins with a thought. Love begins with an action.
  13. Light is the presence of light, but darkness is not the presence of darkness.
  14. To shower your family with presents, shower them with your presence.
  15. If you want only what you need, you need never be in want.
  16. Hate finds faults. Love accepts faults.
  17. Action builds hope. Sloth builds anguish.
  18. Busy bodies don’t have time to be busybodies.
  19. Physical limits constrain the body. The mind constrains itself.
  20. Today won’t be the same as yesterday. Tomorrow won’t be the same as today.
  21. Praising me makes me happy. Praising you makes us happy.
  22. Sometimes people that seem to have money only seem to have money.
  23. Lies require a host of proof. Truth requires none.
  24. Better questions lead to better answers.
  25. Rules lead the masses. Ideals lead the leaders.
accomplishment, goals, prioritization, time management

3 Things: Time Management For Scatterbrains

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The Planning Trap

There are several books about time management, and millions of people have been able to use the information in those books to organize their lives and to schedule time for success.

But for some of us, organization and schedules are as clumsy as a goose wearing rollerskates. For some of us, implementing a new time management process represents not merely a change in habits or attitudes, but a change to the very essence of our being.

Getting Things Done Without Over-Organizing

What is a genetically unorganized person to do? I’ve struggled with many systems, tips and tricks over the years. Some of them actually worked beautifully for the very short time that I remembered to implement them. But I have discovered one method that works to keep me consistently on top of my to-do list and always working toward my goals. That method is the “3-Things” method.

The beauty of the 3-Things method is in its simplicity. At the beginning of the day (or week, or month), you decide what three things are the most important things you need to do. That’s it!

Start The Day Off Right By Committing To 3 Things

By taking a moment each day to review what you most want to accomplish, you can easily make time for them. Even as you are determining your three things for the, you become aware of the perfect times to do them.

Make Sure Your 3 Things Are Important

But I should offer a warning: the effectiveness of this method depends entirely on your ability to properly assess what three things are in fact the most important things you need to do. Therefore, it is vital that you are clear about what makes an action item “important”.

This is where it can be very handy to have goals that matter to you. For example, if you have three major goals that you want to accomplish, then choosing your three most important tasks for the day is simple: choose tasks that will move you closer to those goals.

So, what are the three most important things you must accomplish today?