Switching To Deliberate Living
Someone asked me recently why I have made this switch to deliberate living. He said it seemed like over-thinking and too much structure; why not just go with the flow? It’s been brought home to me that none of us live forever and we have limited time on this earth. I don’t want to look back at my life and realize I accomplished nothing because I frittered away my time on social media or pointless tasks or projects that were thrust upon me by others. This is my life, and I want to be able to live it according to how I feel is best. Another person asked me how deliberate living is different from intentional living. I think it depends on what you consider the word “intentional” to mean. Intent, to me, is just the mindset, but doesn’t necessarily bear out in the action. And the…
Deliberate Task Management: Responsibility
One of the things about living a more deliberate life is that it means I have to take full responsibility for my decisions. It has been brought home to me that what I do is a choice, which requires a decision, and this has led me to consider more of what I am doing - and not doing - at any time. I see too many instances of blame and excuses every day. What do blame and excuses do to help me live a more deliberate and productive life? Nothing. So how can you remove blame and excuses from your life? Read on. SM Excerpt One of the things about living a more deliberate life is that it means I have to take full responsibility for my decisions. It has been brought home to me that what I do is a choice, which requires a decision, and…
Deliberate Social Media
Many people that I talk with are surprised to know that outside of the blog, I don’t use Facebook or Twitter. Some react with disdain (“How can you possibly know what’s going on?”) or frustration (“How can I reach you if you don’t read Facebook?”). It’s a deliberate choice, and the result of a long journey. I’ve had a rough journey in popular culture over the past few years. First I decided not to read/watch/listen to news. I made this decision after realizing I was angry every morning when I got to work - a direct result of listening to the news. Then, during my year of insanity teaching high school, I took a social media sabbatical because the principal monitored our personal feeds and reprimanded teachers if they wrote something he deemed inappropriate. While I resented this at the time, it gave me a break from…
The Deliberate Task List: Controlling What I Do
One of the things from Getting Things Done that doesn’t work for me is the long lists of tasks split into contexts. It encourages me to take on too much for a current day. If I put my tasks on my calendar, I would see that there aren’t enough hours, but this requires an accuracy in estimating tasks that even after years of practice I don’t posses. The end result of putting too much on myself is that I get overwhelmed by what I want to do, and shut down; or I overextend myself and go past my energy limits, which in turn leads to long periods of not doing anything. Neither one is productive. Over the past few weeks I have been experiencing what I call “planner blindness”. I’ve been using a modified bullet journal system with time blocking on my iPad for months. It’s flexible…
Some Thoughts On Attention
I recently listened to the TED Radio Hour on Attention. And then I listened again, paying much closer attention. What I heard has given me a lot of food for thought.
Picking Things To Stink At
Most of us are not experts at everything. (You might know someone who claims to be - and aren't they annoying?) The real deal is that we all have to pick the things we're going to work on being good at. As a consequence, we end up having things to stink at.Today we will look at making sure this is a conscious decision - and how to mitigate the consequences.
Why The Tortoise and Hare Isn’t About Pace
Aesop's fables have infiltrated our culture to a remarkable degree. The story of the Tortoise and the Hare is an example of one of these fables. I was always taught that the moral of the Tortoise and the Hare is "slow and steady wins the race." But I've recently had cause to look at this fable again, and I find that really isn't the moral at all. Here's what it's really about.
Why Intentional Living Isn’t Enough: Choosing Deliberate Living
Are you making progress toward your goals? Or do you find yourself often off-plan? I am very good at putting together plans. But once I got to the plans, I often found that I wasn't getting things done. The problem was that I was only making intentions, and I wasn't following through with deliberate action.
