Useful---very useful!

[sabrinamari]

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/do-it-now.htm

A good and unusual read. There are many potentially helpful ideas here, from which I can pick and choose. A good opportunity to learn something of value from someone else's experiments.

Comments

[showingup.livejournal.com]

"Understand that failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is an essential part of success. Once you succeed, no one will remember your failures anyway. Microsoft wasn't Bill Gates' and Paul Allen's first business venture. Who remembers that their original Traf-o-Data business was a flop? The actor Jim Carey was booed off many a stage while a young comedian. We have electric light bulbs because Thomas Edison refused to give up even after 10,000 failed experiments. If the word "failure" is anathema to you, then reframe it: You either succeed, or you have a learning experience."

That's the big one for me.

[spiffnolee.livejournal.com]

I absolutely advocate almost everything he says.

However, doing long projects all at once doesn't work as well for me. I want to do the first draft all at once, but I need to step away and clear my head before revising.

He says he can't force himself to do things he doesn't want to do, but I think he's pointing out that he tricks himself into wanting to do them. That's great--whatever gets you through the hard stuff.

I use a more-detailed planning system (Franklin Covey) that helps me set priorities. I've recently learned that the tasks need to be small chunks, especially the less-fun ones. That way, I can reward myself with more check marks! Also, the task needs to be immediately actionable (I got this from GTD): if the job is to write your will, then the tasks are 1) Find lawyer's phone number, 2) Call lawyer to schedule. You can't do 2) without the first one, and it's hard to motivate yourself to do a task when you have to do another task just to start.

I could write essays on each of his points. But they're pretty much in the classes I already teach. :-)

[eoma-p.livejournal.com]

Good stuff! Thanks for sharing. I started getting the "failure is okay" message when we watched Meet the Robinsons with the kids. Keep moving forward was my mental catch phrase for a couple of years.