You look at your watch and with great excitement you notice that it is 5:oo PM and time to leave the office to head home to relax for the night. You’ve got a whole bunch of new shows and movies waiting to be watched as you eat your dinner and down a few beers. You get up from your desk, stretch and head out the door.
Wait a second. Before you head out the door, play a little matching game with yourself.
Round One
Take out a piece of paper and a pen and fold it in half, directly down the middle. On the left side, write down each activity you performed that day. Then write down how long it took you to perform each particular activity. When you are done, move over to the right side of the page and write down a list of the activities you were supposed to or wanted to perform that day. Then write how long each of the activities should take to perform. When you are done, try and match up the tasks on the left and right sides and see how many matches you get. Good job, you just finished round one.
Round Two
From all of the matches that you have on your sheet, try and match up all the times (the amount of time you wrote down next to the task) between the left and right sides. If the right side is a lower number or equal to the left side, consider it a match. For more advanced players, feel free to use accomplishments instead of activities performed.
The more points you get, the better you did.
Obviously this game will only work if you are 100% honest with yourself. You can also play this game at home to see how much time you spend being productive and how much time you end up wasting.
Once you have played this game a few times, try playing the game in reverse by writing down the tasks on the right side before starting your day. How do you think your day will turn out? I’m guessing a little more productive. What about you?
Getting lucky is often about getting out of your comfort zone and opening yourself up to new and different opportunities. You can get lucky by listening to different people’s points of view and then looking at the situation from their perspective. You can also get lucky by putting yourself in situations and locations that are different from your norm. The internet, along with interactive maps, news from around the world and social networks that can connect you to people in countries across the globe has given us the tools to really jump out of our comfort zones but according to Ethan Zuckerman in the TED Talk below, we’re really missing out on this opportunity as a nation.
The talk is a little long but worth watching when you have the time.
According to Ethan’s talk, in the 1970′s, 35% of the news American’s consumed was international compared to only 12% in the 2000′s. He showed a picture created by Alisa Miller that portrays the world according to the news that we consumed from each country in July of 2009. I was able to get a similar version from February 2007 below. Alisa claims that today, we want to know more about the world than ever before and yet, the media is showing us less and less. In other words, the media is luck blocking us and trying to dumb us down.
The picture sort of reminds me of the old “World According to America Poster”.
With all the tools available online to reach people from around the world, people choose to spend the time with their local friends and other people they meet that share their interests. Even when people use social networks to discuss world news, they mostly discuss it with their friends and people with the same or similar perspective. You don’t see people friending strangers from other countries to hear their perspectives on what happens to be their “local” news. This leads to us discussing our own thoughts and what our media wants us to know. This can be very dangerous as we end up thinking that we are worldly and up to date but really we have no clue about what is really going on in the world around us.
Zuckerman feels that it is unfortunate that more people in North America don’t speak Chinese. After all, it is one of the leading and most important languages in the world. He points out a Chinese organization that devotes their time to translating news and information into Chinese and feels that America should do the same. Ethan is a co-founder of Global Voices, which aims to share news and opinions from locals in nations across the world in many languages.
Lucky people are the ones that take the road less traveled and in a world that we have the tools to reach the corners of the world, we should push through the media’s wall and pave a lucky path. Not many people are doing it so here is your lucky break!
When you sit down and turn on your computer, do you know exactly what you are about to do or are you just turning on your computer because it is something to do?
I constantly find myself sitting down at my computer without a clear agenda and goal in mind only to end up checking everything online that can possibly be checked. My email, my website analytics, my stock portfolio, my social networks, and anything else that may pop into my head at the time. What I find is that I end up using wasting a ton of time because I don’t have any agenda or plan to follow. I could probably get away with checking my email three times per day and checking my analytics and portfolios once or twice per month. I use social networks for a few reasons so the frequency of my using them would depend on the situation. I use them to stay in touch with people, to network, to promote myself and to learn about new features and applications. The point is that myself, along with much of the rest of the world gets lazy when we are in front of a computer.
Productivity is not Measured by Hours
Some people feel productive if they sit in front of a computer all day long and answer a few emails. A great day would be when you participated in a long chain of emails that came to a conclusion. In reality, that “productive” day could have been accomplished in a fraction of the time it took but so much time was wasted between each check of the email that it seems like you never stopped working.
Productivity is measured by accomplishments
For me, a productive day is a day where I waste as little time as possible and accomplish something that will bring me closer to a goal. Sometimes that goal is finishing a project or a major piece of a project for a client or securing a new client altogether. Sometimes it’s doing something to promote myself or my business. No matter what it is, it is measured in accomplishments, not time spent on my computer or number of emails answered.
The same can be applied to your personal time. When you come home from work, do you turn on the TV? Do you go online to surf the net? I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with doing either of these activities but I am saying that you should know what you are getting into. For example, instead of just turning on the TV, consciously decide “I need to relax so I’ll watch 2 shows”. Instead of just going online, decide “I’ll check the news and then see who’s online to talk to for the next 30 minutes”.
Unless…..
Unless… you just want to “waste time”. But, if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t want to waste time. This blog is about getting lucky and finding opportunity in everything that we do. You can’t find opportunity when you keep doing the same thing over and over. As the Albert Einstein so eloquently put it, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. When we turn on the TV, we end up watching the same types of shows, often while zoning out. When we spend time on social networks, we end up spending time with the same friends and sharing the same type of content with each other. If you want to get lucky online, participate in new conversations on open networks like Twitter or finding new types of content through sites like StumbleUpon. Just make sure that before you log on, that you decide what you will be doing and for how long you will be doing it. Otherwise you just get sucked in.
If you have an agenda before starting something, even as simple as checking your email, you will end up saving yourself a lot of time that otherwise would have been wasted. Then you can squeeze more activities into your day, be more productive, accomplish much more and get really lucky.
Doing something because you “have nothing better to do” always seems to have a negative connotation. You are bored and someone asks you if you want to go to the mall and your response is “okay, i’ve got nothing better to do”. I personally think that doing something because you have “nothing better to do” is the absolute best thing you can possibly do with your time.
If you think about it, having “nothing better to do” means that the particular activity that you are thinking about doing is the absolute best thing you can possibly be doing with your time at that given moment. Obviously if you are bored and have nothing to do and going to the mall becomes an option, it is the best thing you can do at the moment. I love going to the mall because it is full of lucky opportunities. Something is always happening at the mall. You can people watch, notice trends, see the newest products, get a feel for what is going on in your community and so much more, but that’s just the mall.
I work because I have nothing better to do. I love the work that I do, I love being creative and helping people and I love making a living to support my family. I can’t think of anything better to do with my time during the day when my kids are at school.
I spend time with my family because I have nothing better to do. My family is the most important thing in my life and I can’t think of anything in the world that I would rather do than spend time with my family.
I blog because I have nothing better to do. I love to blog and share my thoughts with anyone who is willing to listen. I enjoy getting my ideas down on paper (or an electronic document). Most of all, I enjoy reading through my archives and impress myself with articles I’ve written in the past.
As you can see, doing something because you “have nothing better to do” is a really good thing and you should be doing everything in life because it is the best thing you can be doing at any given moment. What are you doing because you have “nothing better to do”?
Have you ever accidentally sent an email before you wanted it to go out? Possibly you were in the middle of writing a sentence, pressed enter and voila, the email was sent.
Sending unfinished emails or even worse accidentally sending emails that you might regret if you read them over can potentially hurt relationships and at best just look very unprofessional but there is a simple fix to prevent this from ever happening again.
Write your e-mails backwards. That’s right. Write the content of the email and perfect it before deciding on the most appropriate subject line. Then when the email is complete, add the recipient’s e-mail address into the address bar. That way, if you accidentally press the wrong button, the email has nowhere to go.
For a silly email between friends this may not seem like much but for a business related email, this little trick can save your a lot of frustration because once it sends, you can’t take it back.
Have you ever sent an email that wasn’t ready to go out? How did you deal with it?
We all love shiny objects. They are the newest thing in town that everybody is talking about. The new toys, games, videos, business ideas, social platforms and more. Who can forget (or maybe remember) Chia Pets, Virtual pets, yo-yos, hula hoops, hula hoops that count how many times they go around and so on. Each had its place but slowly faded away leaving nothing but a slightly faded memory that brings a smile to our faces when we reminisce. It won’t be long before we reminisce about the dorks on Twitter promising 2 million pointless followers within a week. Since I’m the entrepreneurial type that’s always on the lookout for new things, I pass by more shiny objects than anyone can handle. The question is, How do I handle them?
I like to stay informed of the latest industry news and thought leader’s ideas so I read a lot and listen to podcasts whenever I get the chance including my regular workouts, walks and long drives. When you absorb that much information, ideas are bound to hit you about how to use new platforms, technology or tools. Showering works just as well for generating ideas. So many ideas lead to either wasting a lot of time on things that will never pan out or a whole bunch of decision paralysis.
The Simplest System
I created a very simple system that seems to work for me so I’ll share it with you hoping it will work for you too. I make a list. I have one document with a numbered list of ideas. Every time I have an idea, I add it to the list. It doesn’t matter if it’s my own idea or someone else’s, a business idea or a way to use a new tool. I just keep adding them all to the list. Now the secret to the success of this little system is time. I keep adding ideas to the list but when I am done, I save the list and leave it alone for a little while. Once a month or so, I open it up and skim through the list. Some of the ideas are ridiculous, some are brilliant but will never work, some are decent and can be used in some situations. If an idea still looks as good to you a month or a few months later as it did when you jotted it down, go for it. If it doesn’t, you know what to do with it.
It is amazing to read your own thoughts and ideas as if they were somebody else’s. That is one of the reasons that I love to blog. I often look back at my archives, read my old advice and am blown away that it was me that wrote it. You should try this with your own blog and if you don’t blog, try reading a paper you wrote in college.
Another Use of the “Time System”
You can also use this “Time System” to proofread your own work. The only drawback is that it takes “time” which you don’t always have when working on a deadline. When working on a project and you are completely immersed in it, you will make mistakes, typos and little errors that you will completely miss when proofreading. If you wait a few months between writing and proofreading, you’ll catch all the mistakes and do a better job than most editors.
Have you used the “Time System” or something similar? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks http://www.flickr.com/photos/nosha/ for the pic.
Everybody has heard the saying that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” or something similar. The traditional way of understanding the saying is that when you are holding a prize in your hand, you shouldn’t throw it away to find out what’s behind door number two. Our subconscious minds take the saying a little differently though. They say, “A bird in my hand is worth more than the same bird in your hand”. When you own something, it takes on a completely new level of value. You form mental and emotional attachments to your property incomprehensible to everyone else.
I’ve been keeping my eyes open lately for a potential house to purchase. An ongoing theme that I’ve seen so far is that people feel that their homes are worth more than they really are. As a buyer, I look at the home as a piece of land, a structure and a whole bunch of living space. The sellers look at it as a home with memories. A place where they grew up or raised their children. The place where they held parties and had great times. You can’t put a dollar amount on memories but then again, you can’t sell them either so they are worthless to the buyer. When selling your house, you have to be realistic about how much the actual house is really worth and not what it is worth to you.
On a smaller scale, we as human beings are just as bad. There are many things that we would never buy (or never buy again), but if we already own them, we cannot get ourselves to get rid of them. Think about your old comic book collection or clothes that you haven’t worn in years. I thought about this recently when looking at my collection of domain names that I own. There are some domains that I continue to pay $8.99/year for that I would never even think of buying if I didn’t already own them. There are many domains that I own because of an idea I had that I never pursued or because of an old project that is not in existence anymore.
To see the extent of the value gap between owners and potential buyers, watch this video by Dan Ariely, where he speaks about what Duke basketball season ticket holders are willing to sell their tickets for and what non ticket holders are willing to buy them for.
Lucky people get passed the inexplicable emotional attachment to the bird in their hand and think realistically. Unlucky people think that they may make some money off of all the old “stuff” they hoarded for all of these years and continue to pack everything away. The amount that you will make off of the sales and the frustration you go through to sell it are not worth the money you are spending on storing and maintaining your possessions.
Looks like I am going to do some spring cleaning. What are you going to do about those birds in your hand? Let me know in the comments.
When I was about 7 years old, my class learned about the Titanic and how it ended up at the bottom of the ocean. It was such a massive ship and the captain felt that a tiny little iceberg couldn’t do any damage to the Goliath of a ship he was conducting. As any 7 year old knows, that was just the tip of the iceberg. In life, you can learn a lot from the Titanic and specifically Icebergs. Just because it looks tiny, it doesn’t mean that you are seeing the whole picture. From the Captain’s point of view, he could only see what was above the water, not what was below. If he was able to see the whole picture, the titanic would have had a very different ending, James Cameron wouldn’t have made so much money from Titanic the movie and thousands of people would have had 3 more hours of their time, if they all lived happily ever after.
Recently, a friend approached me to complain about the web developer that he had just fired. The guy built him an e-commerce website for about $3000 for my friend’s business which has been working out pretty well for him. The business has been doing well and has been expanding so much that the website now needs a “search” feature for visitors to properly navigate it and find what they want. My friend was flabbergasted when the developer told him that the search feature he was looking for would cost about $1200 to develop. When he finished complaining, I asked him what he wanted the search to do and he told me. Basically, what he was looking for was a very customized search engine that would integrate with all of his products. I told my friend that $1200 seemed reasonable for what he was interested in doing. ”But it’s just a tiny little search box! All I want is a tiny little box on the side of the site”. If he wanted, he could have put a free Google Search Applet on his site which would use Google to search his site but he wasn’t interested. He needed specific features in his search box. This is a perfect example of someone just seeing the tip of the iceberg. He has no clue what goes into the back end of web development. The same goes for anything else in life. How can anyone make good decisions if they don’t see the whole picture.
Lucky people try and get all the facts. They research, they talk to people and hire professionals and consultants when needed to make sure they have the whole picture and make the best decisions. My friend could have held onto a very good web developer if he would have just done a little research to learn what was involved in adding his “tiny little search box”. Next time, before making rash decisions, try and look for the whole picture and you will get lucky.
Looking back to my days in school all the way from first grade until the end of college, there were certain courses that I enjoyed doing homework in while the majority of course work felt like a chore.The courses that I enjoyed doing homework for were the courses that I really enjoyed.The rest of the courses were basically, a means to an end.
Part of being an entrepreneur is seeing the world a little differently than everyone else and focusing on problems and how they can be solved.Being an entrepreneur myself, I find new problems and potential solutions on a daily basis.I get excited about these ideas and create plans to turn these solutions into businesses.I have files with hundreds of these ideas and plans of action but for most of them, the excitement fades away after a little while, as I get excited about the next idea.That is where the “I Hate Homework Test” comes in to play.
Tuchman writes that to find your passion and an idea that you can turn into a profitable business, you need to have a certain excitement for the topic that is unmatched by the excitement for the rest of your ideas.You need to be able to say “I love this” and “I can’t believe I actually get paid for this” about your idea.To find out if you have the right passion and excitement, just think about doing research on your market and finding out more about how you will move forward.Does any of this seem like homework or is this something you would do for hours on end in your spare time, even if it wasn’t your business?If any of it seems like homework, then this idea is not for you.Otherwise, you may have hit gold!
It is so simple and yet so accurate.Over the years, I have gained and lost excitement about so many ideas but the one that stuck is what I am passionate about, marketing and technology.I started Flid Media, a marketing agency specializing in digital media over a year ago and I am going strong.Even when I worked at a traditional marketing firm with almost no connection to social media or technology, I spent most of my free time reading about it and listening to related podcasts.Looking back, if I would have done the “I Hate Homework Test”, I would have started Flid Media even sooner.
Ideas are worth a dime a dozen so the next time you have a “brilliant” idea, do yourself a favour and take the “I Hate Homework Test”.It can save you hours of time and effort.
My score dropped by 32 points because of a mistake last month but was corrected quickly because I monitored my score.
The average person never sees his credit score or finds out about his credit’s health until he is about to make a big purchase such as a car or house or needs to take out a loan. At that point, they are often shocked at what they find out. Any late or missed payments can kill your score but even worse, someone else can be using your information and killing your score for you.
I am proud to say that I have been keeping track of my credit score by monitoring it regularly through free annual credit reports and more recently through Credit Karma, a free online service for monitoring your credit score. About a month ago on Credit Karma, I noticed that my score dropped over 30 points. I always pay my bills on time and in full, so I figured it had to be some sort of mistake.
I immediately called the credit agencies and my credit card companies to figure out what happened and it turned out that I used a department store credit card (to save 5% off my purchase) a month before and haven’t paid my bill yet. I forgot about using the card and the credit card company didn’t put my apartment number on the bill it came back to them. When speaking to them, they realized it was their fault and said that they would correct it with the credit agencies. I was lucky that I caught it right away because if a few months went by, i’m not sure that the company would be so quick to make the changes.
Don’t wait until the last minute to check on your credit’s health. Just like your personal health, it needs regular checkups just to make sure everything is ok. Have you had any similar problems?
This self improvement blog is full of advice on how to increase your luck and improve your life. You can start off by reading 40 Ways to Increase your Luck.
”.
