The Tao of How

You can have the best laid plans, but they can go absolutely awry if you don't get enough sleep. Yesterday was a great example of how significant sleep can be (or lack thereof) in creating a barrier to productivity. I wear a CPAP because I have sleep apnea. For the last two days I didn't wear my CPAP mask because I was trying to determine if the new mask I was using was actually working. Turns out, it was. I had not worn the mask on Saturday night or Sunday night, so when Monday morning came around I was useless. I woke up and began my morning routine and promptly fell asleep on the couch downstairs while I was trying to drink a cup of coffee. It did not get better from there. Sleep is often the first thing we sacrifice if we have things we're trying to accomplish in a given day. Maybe it is business travel for which we end up having to get up at the crack of dawn. When I travel I like to take early flights so I can get to where I'm going and have some time ...

When I started out this year, I created a Google doc to draft my goals for the year. Before we even get into the setting of goals, let's talk about cloud-based document management for a moment. I've used Google Drive for years now, and there's just no other way to do it than to have your documents cloud-based so you can access them from any computer or mobile device. If you're not doing this, please join the 21st century. We're now in 2020, and if you're saving things locally or carrying around a flash drive, please stop. Back to goals. I started a Google doc and jotted down some thoughts. I left the document open, and it is still open as a tab on my browser. I revisited it a few days later and categorized the goals. Looked for themes and trends. I looked at it again, and began to add bullet points under each goal in each category. The original exercise of brainstorming has no evolved into an organic planning document. Here's a suggestion. If yo...

What would you do if you didn't have your iPhone? Specifically, what would you be doing right now instead of using your phone? Phones have invaded our lives. We have them easily accessible whenever we find a few minutes of idle time that need to be occupied, and so we go to them for countless games and social media options. All are literally at our fingertips. This is an interesting exercise for those of us who had a life before we had a phone, and can remember (albeit with some difficulty) what it was like not to be plugged in all the time. Those who are a bit younger will always remember a time they had a phone, perhaps, but maybe for them it will be remembering how life was before the 'smart' phone. The younger generation will not know life without a smart phone. This concept of life with a smart phone available at all times has created a shift. In the no-phone generation, the individuals who had a life before a phone, we were deliberate about the times we e...

The year is 2020. We've reached the 8th day of the year, and I've spent these 8 days thinking about changes I can make that would help me to be more productive, live a healthier life, and optimize the time I spend investing in the things that will make me an overall better person. I've thought about the time wasters that are dragging me away from the things I should be doing, and of the good things I could do that would start to move the needle in the right direction away from unproductive to productive. So what are the changes I want to make this year? Sure, there are the standards that I think about every year. Lose weight. Run more. Eat better. Try to develop better sleep habits. Then those just seem to go by the wayside. I have years of journals I can look back on and see exactly how little progress I've made in these areas. No, this year is different. I want to make changes that will help me be a more productive person. Diet and exercise are tangential...

What happens to us molds us. The actions we choose to take in response to situations that arise are the actions by which we learn and grow. However, through all this we need to remember that we're individuals in charge of our own destinies. There is a difference between being an active participant in the process or just letting the waves push us around like jellyfish. Being impressionable means being easily influenced because of a lack of critical ability. If we are to be the ones in charge of deciding how we will react to situations and how we will let things affect us, we need to have the critical ability to determine whether we want to be impacted by external forces. This could be people, environments, or external stimuli (think commercials and little kids). We need to build the ability to be critical. To know that there is a significant amount of external stimuli to have to get through, and what we choose to do with it ultimately becomes the level to which we are acti...

During the holidays it can be tough to keep the house clean. Everything ends up being everywhere, and it can be difficult if not impossible to focus in such an environment. I read an article the other day, and will have to track down where I happened upon it, about the idea of resetting your space. At the end of an activity you should put the space back to a 'ready' state so the next time you need to use it you're ready to go. There's no need to waste time with setting things up if you can configure your spaces to be easily accessible and easy to use. This works in situations where a space is used for one purpose, but multi-use spaces can add a dimension of complexity to the issue. This is something I've tried to practice regularly, but you're only in control of so much when you live with a family that isn't necessarily like minded. Therefore, the resets I do on a regular basis are specific to my things and my areas. It is about compromise, and there...