Gone are the times when you have to drag yourself to a library to learn something, with the internet and this list at your fingertips, you will be able to gain access to lectures from some of the world’s best colleges, hear some inspirational talks and discover wonderful and useful information.

Photo by woodleywonderworks

1. Academic Earth

Academic Earth, founded by Richard Ludlow, aggregates lectures from some of America’s top universities – including Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford – in to one easy to navigate place.

The subjects range from architecture, to computer science, to Law, to Philosophy. There is also a lively community behind the site, so each lecture is graded and many can be downloaded as well. Sometimes you can even access the contents of entire courses.

2. TED – Ideas worth spreading

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, is an absolutely brilliant service. It contains a plethora of talks from innovators, comedians, designers, entertainers and many others from countless field.

The site is extremely easy to navigate, you can sort the talks using a range of categories and subject areas. All talks can be downloaded as either video or audio. Moreover, new talks are constantly being added and I personally guarantee that you will find a talk that will either inspire, entertain or teach you something.

3. LearnersTV

Learnerstv.com offers thousands of video lectures, notes, slides and other resources in a range of topics, though the majority are in science based subjects. I’ve found the natural science, computer science, medicine and management lectures to be particularly good and varied. At the time of writing this article there was a massive 9487 lectures on the site for your consumption!

4. MIT Open Courseware

This is a initiative by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has a whopping 1900 courses on offer with the same materials that they use to teach the undergraduate and some graduate courses.

Obviously a lot of the courses are science and engineering based, but there are plenty on offer in other areas as well (economics, gender studies, literature and more). Admittedly, it’s not as easy a site to navigate as some of the others, and video content must be viewed/downloaded either view iTunes or YouTube.

5. Lonely Planet

Of course, not everything has to be about engineering and literature; lonely planet has the must read guides people who wish to travel pretty much anyone in the world.

Offering practical tips from when and where to go, to history, work & study information to much more. Additionally there is a good range of beautiful pictures and videos.

6. MetaFilter

Probably the odd one out in this list, MetaFilter (or MeFi) provides a day-to-day commentary on news in subjects as wide ranging as politics, science, religion and technology.

The site (actually more accurately a blog) is wholly community based, and a very lively one at that. Of particular note is the askMeFi section, where you get answers to, view and answer useful questions.

Activity: Go and listen/read/watch to at least one lecture or talk. Let me know in the comments which one and how you found it.

Do you have any other resources that’s worth mentioning? Let me know in the comments.

“People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.”

- Richard Koch

Although the 80/20 rule, or the Pareto principle, sounds like a statistical formula, believe me its far from it. The 80/20 rule is something that I came across a little while ago, and it has c0mpletely changed my thinking. I believe that it is vitally important principle wheter you apply it in personal life or in your business.

Photo by kevindooley

In this post we look at exactly what the 80/20 rule is, and how it can be used in a professional and personal capacity. Read on to find out more.

Where it all began

In the early 1900s an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, was studying the distribution of wealth in Italy. Pareto noticed the unequal distribution of wealth, he noticed that around 20 percent of people owned around 80 percent of the wealth.

What is the 80/20 rule?

In the late 1940s Dr. Joseph Juran, working in the US, observed a universal principle – that 20 percent of something usually accounts for 80 percent of the output. He accredited it to Vilfredo Pareto and named it the Pareto Principle.

When 80 and 20 doesn’t add up to 100

If looked at more closely, then the 80/20 has nothing really to do with the numbers 80 and 20. The rule just observes the fact that most things in life are unevenly distributed. The 80/20 ratio doesn’t have to add up to 100. The ratio doesn’t matter, it could be anything, 70/10 or 90/15.

When life isn’t fair

Basically, what the take home message is that a select few individuals, tasks or whatever are responsible for the majority of the result or output. So to put things in perspective this could mean:

• 20% of customers are responsible for 80% of your business
• 20% of customers are responsible for 80% of complaints
• 20% of input creates 80% of work
• 80% of results come from 20% of effort

Remember we said that the 80/20 doesn’t have to add up to 100. So we could have 10 people working on a project, in this case 20% (or 2 people) could be responsible for 30% of the result, or 50% or 90%. We could have just one person actually working, whilst the other nine don’t do anything. In that case that one person (or 10%) is responsible for 100% of the work!

The point is that the 50-50 relationship between two related sets of data is an exception rather than a phenomena. However, we still have this notion that there is a direct correlation between input and reward. The age old saying ‘what you put in is what you get’ doesn’t hold true.

How it can help you

The 80/20 rule is an invaluable principle. Once you understand the principle (and hopefully you have a good understanding now), you will notice the 80/20 ratio everywhere. The key, however, is to determine which or what the key activities are. Your aim should be to stop wasting time on the 80% of the activities that cause you dissatisfaction. Instead devote your resources on the 20% of actives that produce the best outcome.

The 80/20 business

In a business environment, this is usually easier to identify then it is in your personal life. In your work, consider the things you do day-to-day. Only around 20 percent of all of these tasks really  make a difference. That may sound harsh, but I challenge you to analyse your work and I’m sure you will come to a similar conclusion.

Now identify and focus on those 20 percent of things. If you need to push things off your to-do list then make sure it’s not one of the above things. If you’re in a management position, then you may realise that about 20% of your staff are responsible for 80% of the output. Make sure to reward those staff members.

Similarly, identify the 20% of the customers that are responsible for 80% of your revenue, then make sure to look after those customers.

That does not mean that you should fire or stop looking after the other 80% of the staff or customers. Instead, you should focus as much of your time as possible in looking after and improving/encouraging these staff/customers. This may seem somewhat illogical, but you will get better results turning good to better than you will making the better into great.

The 80/20 lifestyle

It can be a bit more tricky to try and apply the 80/20 rule to your life, but it can potentially yield higher results.

This quote pretty much sums it up for me:

You can have anything you want, but you cannot have everything you want

My understanding of this quote is that you should be focusing on a small number of goals, that will get you closer to the dream that you will achieve. As oppose to doing a bit of everything and not really getting anywhere.

So you need to decide on what your true passions are and what your true values are and focus most of your efforts on that.

Most people tend to be working towards something that requires 80% effort  to only produce 20% of results. What you need to do is to slowly start shifting these two ratio’s around. You need to start chasing your passion.

This does not mean that you quit your current job and start your own business (if that’s your passion). But, you could start your business part-time whilst working and start shifting more and more focus on to your business over time. You will not only benefit from the monetary rewards but will also find more fulfilment because now you are focusing on what you want to be doing.

Final thoughts

The point of the Pareto principle is to realise that most things in life are not evenly distributed. Choose to and focus on the 20% of things that are most important. Don’t just work harder but work smarter. And work smarter on the right things.

It is important to understand that the Pareto principle is only a rule, and not law. It doesn’t apply to everything. if you’re seeking quality then you need to focus on all the detail, you need all 100%. However, If you’re trying the get the most bang for your buck then focusing on the critical, high yielding information is the best strategy.

Lets hear from you. What are your thoughts on the 80/20 rule? Do you think it applies to you?

The personal MBA (PMBA), created by the bold headed and enterprising Josh Kaufman, has been around and continuously updated since 2005.

The PMBA is aimed at those that are serious about getting the same education as an MBA program but without the fees! Check out the manifesto to get a better idea:

MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work. The Personal MBA features the very best business books available, based on thousands of hours of research. So skip b-school and the $100,000 loan: you can get a world-class business education simply by reading these books.

The PMBA is a collection of the best business books that are currently available. There are currently (2009 list) 94 books included in a range of categories. From books on the human mind and opportunity identification through to entrepreneurship and sales.

It is a extensive and excellent reading list, even if you are currently on a MBA programme.

What’s new in the 2009 version

The 2009 version adds 15 new books to the list, with a redesign of the list (which I personally like more) and with each book getting its own summary page.

Additionally Josh has added a new feature, the Business Book Recommender. With this, Josh’s goal is to help you find the perfect business book in 30 seconds or less. [for more on the update see here]

You can check out the Personal MBA website for more information, or visit the Reading list directly.

We have been learning, thinking and making notes from very early on in our lives, however we never really learn how to retain this information or how to develop better ideas. These essential skills are not taught at schools.

Photo by: quartermane

Mind mapping allows us to do just that – to think creatively, assimilate information,  take effective notes and to accelerate learning. This phenomenon, popularised by world renowned pop-psychologist Tony Buzan, has been around for more than 30 years.

Mind maps are a way of graphically organising information and developing thoughts and ideas. The idea is to create a diagram that presents ideas, tasks and anything else radiating around and outwards from a central theme.

What are the benefits of mind mapping?

Mind mapping is a extremely useful and effective method of identifying and understanding key information about a given topic. Using mind maps you can construct detailed, yet concise topic diagrams.

What really sets mind maps apart from everything else is their ability to break away from linear, one dimensional thinking (lists) in to multi dimensional thinking. They make use of both sides our brain by integrating colours, shapes and imagination.

Additionally, here are a couple more advantages of using mind maps:

• Abandon lists
• Quick to review
• Effective mnemonics
• Encourages creativity
• Utilizes both sides of our brain
• Shows links between several related topics

What can you use mind maps for?

Due to their versatility and possibility of customization they can be used for any number of things. Some of their uses include:

• Planning tasks
• Problem solving
• Note taking
• Exam Revision
• Study skills
• Summarizing information
• Breaking down complex problems
• Idea generation
• Presenting complex information in a manageable format

How to create mind maps?

The examples below give you some ideas of what mind maps look like, but to create one for yourself here are the basic steps.

• Start with a blank piece of unruled paper, in landscape.
• In the centre of the page write down/draw your central theme, title or question
• Think of ideas, associations, actions and strategies relating to your central theme. Let these branch out from the centre, create a new branch for each key point. These are your level one subdivisions.
• Now, focus on each of the key points and create branches from each. Create as many subdivisions as required.
• Be open and creative, no idea is too dumb. Write everything down. Don’t worry if you’re missing information – you can keep adding more detail as you think of it.
• Think outside of the box. Make your mind maps as colourful as you want, include cartoons and pictures. Make them what you want them to be.

A finished mind map may have topics and ideas radiating in every direction. Think of mind maps as a tree, where your central theme is the tree trunk, and ideas radiate as braches, twigs and leaves.

Some examples

To show the effectiveness of mind maps, here are some examples of my mind maps and some others have done. In fact this site was planned and developed using a mind map, and I frequently use mind maps to plan posts and generate ideas.

Actually its interesting to note that a lot of my mind maps don’t conform to the guidelines set by Tony Buzan, because I’ve developed my own system that I find to be more useful for me.

Idea generations using mind maps:

This is one of my initial mind map, when I was thinking about some content for this blog. I’ve now got a electronic version which I add to every time a new idea occurs.

Developing ideas:

From the initial map I take an individual idea and draw up a mind map that becomes the outline for a post. Here are two examples:

The mind map used to write my post on creating better schedules:

Presenting complex ideas:

This is a mind map outlining central nervous system (CNS) infections, taken from the book Mind Maps in medicine by P. McDermott and D.N Clarke.

Summarizing material:

This is hand drawn by artist John Clapp summarizing 65% of the book “Vision + Art: The biology of seeing” on one sheet of paper.

This is a mind map on mind mapping, from Tony Buzan’s website.

Improving your mind maps

Here are some tips that will help you improve your mind maps:

• Use key words, and where possible images
• Use colours to show associations and make things stand out
• Use visual aids, such as icons to show links between different elements
• Use symbols and develop your own conventions
• Make important things stand out, if they stand out on paper they will stand out in your mind
• Don’t limit yourself. If you run out of space then attach more paper and continue rather than start a new map
• Write down ideas as they occur, don’t think whether they are relevant or not – this can be done later
• Think as fast as possible, if you run out of ideas then draw empty lines to encourage more
• Revisit your mind map and add more information if you need to
• Develop your own style
• Have fun with the process

Summary

When you first start using mind mapping, it may not seem as effective as more conventional methods you’ve been using for years. But with practice they will become second nature, and you will wonder how you worked without them.

Mind maps are an extremely effective and efficient method of taking notes, serving as mnemonics, and summarizing information. They not only outline the facts but also show the structure of each idea relative to the central theme i.e. the most important idea will have the most branches.

Additionally, they allow us to think more creatively and use both hemispheres of our brain. Which allows better retention of information and make associations between different topics that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Resources:

Books: The Mind Map book is an excellent starting point and resource to learn more about mind mapping.

Software: Both FreeMind (free, open source) and Mindjet MindManager (commercial) are excellent software if you wish to construct mind maps on your computer. If you want to work on the web then MindMeister is an excellent and free online mind mapping tool.

Others: Additionally you can visit Tony Buzan’s site for more information of mind mapping and other techniques or have a look at a video of Tony talking about mind mapping.

In part one we learned of some reasons why we procrastinate and what effects it can have. At the end of the post I outlined how important it is to accept that we choose to procrastinate and to make a conscious decision to do something about it.

Photo by: tomsaint11

Here I share 15 tips that I have found to be useful to me or that have helped my friends and family in beating procrastination. Some of the tips I share may be useful, whilst some may be completely irrelevant and some may come in handy ten years down the road.

1. Prioritize: you either procrastinate or you take action. Decide which of your tasks are the most urgent and important, then take action on it.
2. Write it down: create a to-do list. This not only makes sure you have a record of what needs to be done, but will also get you in a habit of doing those things. Plus there is a added sense of accomplishment in crossing the task off your list, no matter how small .
3. Toss out your old habits: as the saying famously goes “old habits die hard” – we all build up a tome of bad habits over time, and I think it’s about time you give those up and adapt more effective and better habits.
4. Keep it simple: sometimes we procrastinate if things get too complicated. We tell ourselves things like “this will take me some time, I’ll do it later”. Break up your tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. Try and simplify your life and your workspace.
5. Falling behind doesn’t mean failure: If you fall behind in what you’re trying to do then don’t give up – don’t let those old habits take over your hard work. Pick up from where you left off, if you missed two tasks today then aim to complete three tomorrow – two from yesterday and one from today.
6. Divide and conquer: so you have a lot on your plate, well you can’t do it all yourself. Delegate the less important tasks – explain what you need done and why, and get their commitment. You get to spend more time on tasks more important to you, whilst the other, less important (but necessary) tasks still get done.
7. Seek help: if you’re having trouble getting something done and you can’t delegate it, don’t agonize over the problem repeatedly – seek advice. Who else is there that has expertise in your area? What resources do you have access to?
8. I want to spend time with my friend/spouse: we all want to spend time with our loved ones but don’t let that become the excuse for not doing your work. Let your friends (and spouse) know the dates you absolutely cannot make. Similarly if there is a special event you really want to attend then schedule your work around that.
9. Say no: This builds upon the previous points, there are times where you just cannot make exceptions and have to say no. If there are two conflicting tasks then pick the one that’s more urgent and discard the other.
10. Commitments, oh commitments: there comes a time when we just take on too much. Don’t stretch yourself too thin, temporarily this may be okay but over the long run this is not good for your work or your health.
11. What is so urgent?: especially in business, everything may seem urgent but is it? Not everything that you are told is urgent, filter out the truly urgent from the rest and work accordingly.
12. “You’ve got mail”: Voice mails and emails often distract us away from our actual work. Respond to the important messages and schedule time aside for your the rest at the end of the day, after you’ve finished your work.
13. Do what you hate first: there are tasks that we just don’t like doing, get these done and over with first and then the rest.
14. Morning, afternoon or night?: Are you more productive in the morning? If so, then do the most difficult or boring tasks then, when you have the most energy.
15. Stop overbooking: I used to do this, as I am sure a lot of you do as well. We constantly try and cram as much as we can in our agendas and calendars. The overbooking then becomes another excuse to not do something. Set aside a fixed number of hours per day/week where you will devote time to what is important to you.

As you can see from the list, beating procrastination does not have to mean a radical change of your lifestyle. Instead, what I propose via these tips is to be able to manage life  better (or at least one aspect of it). Doing so will result in being under less stress and being generally more satisfied with your life.

Procrastination, if gone ignored, can result in losing out on time, wasting resources and missing opportunities.

Do you any additional tips? How do you beat procrastination? Let us know in the comments

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday and avoiding today.” - Wayne Dyer

Procrastination is present in every aspect of our lives, and we have mastered it to perfection. We have been practising from soon after we were born. During our younger years (and to for some even now), we procrastinated in doing our chores, we procrastinated in studying at school, college and university and during our adult life we procrastinate during work and other activities.

Picture by: brdavids

In this first post, I outline some of the reasons why I think we procrastinate as well as looking what could happen if procrastination goes untreated. Then, we finish this post with outlining the first few steps that need to be taken to overcome procrastination.

Why do we procrastinate?

Generally speaking we tend to avoid the “why I am doing this?”, and rather just focus on “how do I solve it?” That’s all good and well, but there are times when this question needs to be tackled, especially if the problem is a persisting one and if we want to move forward.

The idea here is to understand why you procrastinate, so next time you are able to identify and overcome it. Here are 9 common reasons of procrastination:

1. You don’t want to do it: sometimes it is just this simple, you don’t want to do something so you keep putting it off until you have no choice but to do it
2. It’s difficult: if something is difficult or you perceive it to be difficult then you are likely to either do a easier task or tell yourself to not do it
3. Time consuming: similarly, if something is going to take up a lot of your time, then you simply keep putting it off for later and reassure yourself that you can’t commit that amount of time on it right now
4. Perfectionism: if everything needs to be perfect, then everything requires a lot of effort. You’d rather miss out the task, then risk doing it so it’s not perfect.
5. Commitment: you don’t understand why you should be doing this, or why it’s important or you might even think that it’s a waste of time. Then would you waste your time on this? Leave it for later, and later and later
6. Failure: if you fail then you’ll have to answer those questions. If you fear that you may fail the task then you will try and avoid doing the task completely.
7. Fear: apart from the fear of failure, there is also the fear of success (if you succeed then you have to repeat your success) and fear of not knowing what to do next. Sometimes it seems easier to ignore the task then think about all of these things
8. Frustration: if you have a especially low frustration threshold, and know something will be difficult, challenging or frustrating in any other way the we just move on to something more entertaining
9. History: we’ve been frustrating for all these years, so why change now

Exercise: brainstorm some of the reasons why you most often procrastinate, if you’re stuck then try asking yourself these four questions:

• What do I usually do instead of doing the urgent thing?
• What would I rather do then working or studying?
• What do I tend to focus on when I sit down to get things done?
• How do I procrastinate?

The science behind it

In 2007 Psychological Bulletin published a paper by Piers Steel, titled “The Nature of Procrastination: A Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review of Quintessential Self-Regulatory Failure”. In this paper Steel presented a mathematical formula for procrastination.

The equation calculates how desirable a task or choice will be (utility) to an individual. This is done by weighing up the expectation (E) of finishing a task and its value (V) against the persons desire to complete the task and how soon it needs to be done (ΓD).

If a tasks is not urgent, nor do you have the necessary skills or knowledge to complete the task then you are more likely to procrastinate. On the other hand, if you are confident in your ability and the task carried a tight deadline, then you would be less likely to procrastinate.

By the way, if you wish to read this article you can either download the PDF version here.

The procrastination cycle

The procrastination cycle is a simple idea that I scribbled down when brainstorming this post. I’ve decided to include it here to show the effect procrastination can have, and has on your work, life and health.

A couple of things to note from the diagram:

• There is too much stress
• There doesn’t seem to be any management
• There is illness
• By the end of the cycle the initial task is not done but discarded

We can, probably, never fully stop procrastinating, just like we can never realistically avoid stress. So the take home message is to learn how to manage procrastination and stress so it does not have a detrimental effect on your life or health.

The first step

Now we understand why we procrastinate and the effects it can have, it’s time to take action and overcome procrastination.

The very first step in working through procrastination is accepting the fact that you choose to procrastinate. Sure when asked, we all defend ourselves and usually start the first round of the blame-game. However, keep in mind that there is a fine line between taking responsibility and being too hard on yourself.

Make a conscious decision to not procrastinate any more or to at the very least reduce your procrastination to as little as possible, after all we’re not perfect! Ask yourself, “In what ways and where do I procrastinate?”.

Personally I find that I procrastinate more when I have a lot to do, and I procrastinate by doing the less urgent stuff. For example, I am procrastinating right now by working on this post instead of writing up a report I have to submit tomorrow!

We all procrastinate; don’t beat yourself up over it, sulking and drowning in your own tears! Admit it, accept that it is a problem, decide on what you will do, and then do it.

That’s it for part one, in part two of this post I go through a number of tips that can help drastically reduce procrastination. Don’t want to miss the next part, then you may want to subscribe to be notified when it’s published.

I was first introduced to SWOT analysis during my brief period working for Harte-Hanks, and since then I have used it many, many times. You have no doubt come across SWOT analysis during your professional or academic career, if not, then not to worry. In a nutshell SWOT analysis is used to reveal a businesses Strengths and Weaknesses, and the Opportunity and Threats facing that business.

Photo by: Jacob Botter

In this post I go through how to use SWOT as a personal analysis tool to discover where you are now and where you should be headed. I’ve included a simple worksheet which you can download and print off.

Note: SWOT analysis is a powerful technique, and it works best if you take time to work through each step. I would personally recommend that you read through this post then put aside about an hour to do the worksheet.

Benefits

The four concepts behind SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunity and threats) are quite clear, however their benefits may not be so.

Utilizing your strength in your personal and professional life will not only mean you will enjoy what you do (who doesn’t like doing things they are good at?), but will also mean that you will progress further, faster.

Understanding your weaknesses is equally as important, if not more so, because our weakness is what we tend to focus on more often. By knowing what your weaknesses are you are able to improve, avoid or delegate those tasks.

Opportunity refer to things that you can utilize and take advantage off, where as threats are things that may slow you in your path towards success.

Putting the pieces together

Strengths: This is the part you should spend the most time on. Some questions that you may want to ask yourself:

• What makes you unique?
• What is your selling point?
• What skills/traits/characteristics do others point out in you?
• What are some of things that you’re really proud of?
• What do other consider to be your strengths?

Additionally a book such as strengths finder 2.0 might be a useful resource.

Weaknesses: Consider what some of your personal weaknesses are. You may find some of these questions of help:

• What are some areas where you could improve?
• What are some of the areas other perceive as your weak point?
• Are there any areas other consistently outperform you in?
• What are some things you tend to avoid?
• What are some things you do only out of necessity?

Opportunities: These are normally external elements that may influence your success. Consider your strengths and see what opportunities are tied in with them.

• What would you love to do, that you’re also good at?
• What opportunities are available to you?
• What weaknesses are holding you back? What could you do, if these weaknesses weren’t holding you back?
• What trends are you aware of? What are some of the opportunities that arise as a result of these?

Threats: These are external factors that may hinder your success. A threat analysis will often put the problem in new perspective, and shine a light on what needs to be done.

• What are some of the things that may get in your way in achieving success?
• Are any of your weaknesses a threat to you?
• What setbacks could you face?
• What have others done or are doing in your position/situation?
• What obstacles are you facing?

The other person

A useful step at this point is to get a close friend or colleague (or even your boss) to carry out a SWOT analysis on you. This will not only give you an external and (hopefully) unbiased perspective but also allows you to compare your own findings with those of your friend or colleague.

The next step

Through using the personal SWOT analysis you will be able to get an insight into yourself. You will gain a fresh perspective on where you are now and where should be headed.

SWOT offers up a chance to analyze your personal strengths and weaknesses and give you the possibility to consider the opportunities and threats that arise as a result. With this information to hand you could focus more on your strengths, minimize your weaknesses, take advantage of the opportunities and prepare in advance for the threats that you may face.

Finally, although SWOT analysis can be a excellent self-reflection technique, it is only half the picture. You now understand yourself better, the next step is to identify and define your goals. I will be looking at this in more detail in the coming weeks.

Download worksheet.

How did you get on? Do you have any have any ideas that may build upon this technique? Are there other techniques you have you used to do similar things?

icon by: dryicons.com

]]> http://www.abhijatsaraswat.com/2009/02/how-to-use-swot-as-a-personal-analysis-tool/feed/ 0 http://www.abhijatsaraswat.com/2009/02/the-why-of-why/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-why-of-why http://www.abhijatsaraswat.com/2009/02/the-why-of-why/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:30:19 +0000 Abhijat http://abhijatsaraswat.com/?p=386

Questioning is a natural skill, one that we learn and practice many times over as soon as we can speak. As humans, we are curious by nature.

Photo by Eleaf

As coaches, questioning is a important part of what we do, overlooked only by active listening! However, there are some questions that we really shouldn’t ask (at least not too often).

In this short post I discuss one of the culprits – why. Why is a question word that should be used with great caution!

Why do we ask why so much?

I suppose the answer is quite obvious, at least it’s quite obvious when it comes to me. You may or may not agree with me.

I ask why because, I feel the need to know the reasons behind why someone did something. So, I frequently ask questions like these:

• Why did you do that?
• Why are we doing this?
• Why do you feel that way?
• Why do you like that?

Now, whilst reading the list you may be thinking – I ask some of those questions too, what’s wrong with them? I used to think these were great questions until recently, when I had a big argument with my girlfriend and most of the questions I was asking were why’s.

What’s wrong with asking why?

I did not get any answers, and we both only grew more frustrated. So what was wrong with the questions? A lot of why questions evoke either a defensive (e.g. why did you do that?), critical or disapproving response. Or even worse still, they force upon a need to justify the persons action (e.g. why do you like that?). The very last thing that is needed in a conversation or especially in an argument is to corner the other person.

So what’s the solution? For me substituting why with what (or another question word) generally works well. It will make you seem more accepting to hear the other persons answer, and not as aggressive. For example, instead of asking: why did you do that? Try something like: What do you (did you) think you will achieve by doing that?

Of course, I’m not saying that you should stop asking why questions all together. Sometimes, when your initial questions don’t reveal enough information then a why question can in fact be a very powerful tool. A question like – why is it important that you do this right now? – can be effective if used in a timely manner.

What are your thought? Do you ask a lot of why questions – do they usually hurt or help? Let us know in the comments.

Over the years I’ve made many mistakes, and as a result I’ve found myself developing a peculiar habit – an annual review of my life. I’m a strong advocate of not regretting the past, and the truth-be-told I wouldn’t know most of what I do now without some of these mistakes.

Having said that, if I could go back in time then I would tell a few things to the younger me. Of course this isn’t an exhaustive list but rather just some things I feel are the most important to me.

Photo by nattu

1. Failing is not the end of the world: In fact failing is one of best awful things in the world. During most of my life, especially whilst I was studying, I had been convinced by pretty much everyone that if I fail then the world would end! One day I failed a test and you know what the world didn’t end – instead I received some very helpful feedback on which areas I needed to work on most.

Lesson: Accept failure with grace and learn whatever is on offer as a result.

2. Multi-tasking is overrated: Most of my female friends and colleagues have been bragging about their astounding ability to multi-task, among other things. Well I’m sorry to say multi-tasking is counterproductive (see also NY Times.com). All multi-tasking does is bring about a lot of stress (more things to worry about) and can even reduce the quality of your work (your attention is spread across a multitude of things).

Lesson: Focus on one thing at a time, finish that and then move on to the next. I use a wonderfully brilliant (and free) tool to do this – Now do this.

3. Junk food catches up on you. During my student years and when workings with short snappy breaks, I got a bit too accustomed to the burgers, pizza and the other “I’m sure it’s not that bad” category food. Getting out of shape, or dare I say it – Fat – was never really a concern for me. I always thought that I would worry about those things when I was in the 40′s. Its only now that the results are showing.

Lesson: Think about what you eat and what effect it will have on you five years down the line.

4. Financial planning is important: I’ve never been the best at financial planning. I suppose my biggest pitfall was impulse buying, and being a tech-lover this always cost me big. Buying the next big thing, ordering this-and-that online and just basically throwing away money on things that were great but I didn’t really need. I never really tracked my expenses as I believed in living in the now.

Lesson: Living in the now is great, but it doesn’t have to mean no money. Planning is distinguishing between what you need and want. I set aside a percentage of my income each month for this, and it allows me to still have what I want without too much worry.

5. Make time what for your passions: I hear “I don’t have time to do what I love” a lot, and I used to repeat this too. I used to have a few hobbies I really enjoyed doing, but I always complained I had too much to do – and as a result I wasn’t the happiest I could be. The main problem, I thought, was that I wouldn’t get to spend as much time with my friends and family as I would’ve liked.

Lesson: I decided to put some time aside each week on things I really loved doing, I didn’t let anything or anyone interfere with this time – my friends and family were not only understanding but oftentimes supportive and it resulted in me being much, much happier.

6. Everything problem is relative: When I look back at the kind of problems I used to worry about 5 or 10 years ago, and compare them to things I worry about today it all seems so irrelevant and unimportant. I can say with near-enough absolute certainty that this will be the case when I look back to today, 10 years down the line.

Lesson: Try and work on your problems but remember what seems like the biggest worry in the world today, will most probably be something laughable tomorrow. Develop some perspective.

7. Think big: If you want great things to happen in your life then aim for them. Of course you want to set realistic goals but there is absolutely nothing stopping you achieving those mountain sized goals in a couple of year’s time. Don’t be discouraged by the size of the goal, instead set milestones that will help you achieve those goals with ease.

Lesson: Develop a vision for the future and don’t let anything stop you. Break the really big stuff down to small, manageable milestones that you can work on straight away.

8. Keep a Journal: I’m not sure who said it but it certainly seems true “everyone has a perfect memory, but imperfect recall”. I actually realised this a long time ago but never actually took any action on it. How stupid of me. Keeping a journal of you and your partner’s (for some extra brownie points) lives will pay dividends later in life.

Lesson: Keep a tab on at least the major happenings in your and your partner’s life. You will be grateful when in 30 years time you still have a recollection of it all. Additionally if you ever write a autobiography this will be invaluable. I personally use Google docs for this, though I want to start using moleskin notebooks soon.

9. Read as much as you can, and never ever stop: Let’s face it – there is no way anyone of us can do everything there is to do. But, but we can share the experiences of millions of people who have done those things. Get in to the habit or reading every single day, and do so for the rest of your life. This isn’t school – there are no set texts. I read mostly on the subjects that interest me, but as a result of that I find that I become in interested in an even wider range of subjects!

Lesson: In the words of Will Smith “there is no new problem you can have, that someone hasn’t already solved and wrote about it in a book”.

I hope is of some help (or even entertainment). Would you add anything else to the list, share them in the comments below.

Time is perhaps the most important resource, and it is certainly a unique one in that once it’s used you can never get it back, and we never know exactly how much we have left. However, it seems that a lot of us take this precious commodity for granted.

Photo by apesara

There are many ways to make the best of your time – stop or lessen how much you procrastinate, schedule better, set goals and increase your productivity. Here I share some tips that I found to be quite useful in increasing my productivity.

Increases your productivity

So, what exactly is productivity? Productivity is that perfect balance between effectiveness and efficiency. Here is better productivity in three simple steps:

1. Be effective: this means being able to accomplish a purpose. So what’s your purpose? A good question to ask yourself is – “Why am I doing this?” Are you happy with answer you get? If not then should you really be doing this right now? Sure you might watch TV to relax, but do you really need to watch TV for two hours to accomplish that?

I personally believe that having an understanding of why we do what we do is quite important. In fact it’s a bit of an obsession for me, because I believe that if I understand that then I will have a better understanding of why we choose one task over another.

2. Invest your time better: Knowing where a lot of your time is being drained, ask yourself what you could be doing to better utilize your time? Do it.

3. Be efficient: You should know be doing something that best utilises your time, now all we have to do is get is done faster and better. I talk about this in more detail below.

More on effectiveness

Most importantly figure out what is important to you and what is not, and the best tool I can suggest for this something called the time management matrix. In order to manage your time well stay mostly in boxes I and II and completely avoid boxes III and IV. Try this for a week and you will see the difference for yourself.

Further efficiency

Here are some tips on achieving greater efficiency:

• Eliminate clutter and distraction: the more clutter there is the more complex the task will seem (as you’ll have to juggle more things around just to get started on your task). Additionally clutter adds a degree of subconscious stress.

If you need more proof:According to the Wall Street Journal (March, 1997) the average U.S. executive wastes 6 weeks per year searching for misplaced information from messy desks and files. That equals 5 hours per week or one hour per day. At $60,000/year in salaries, that is nearly $8,000/year in wasted time on the job.

• Do things smarter: this means getting things done with the least amount of effort but yielding the greatest rewards.
• Use all the tools available: try and automate your tasks as much as possible, by using technology and any other methods you can
• Outsource: There are some things that just have to be done, but you hate doing (I can think of at least a few). Why not pass them on to someone else who actually loves doing it

The question that some ask is why bother being productive? Ultimately, being productive means that we are able to do more of what we really love, more often.

How do you manage your time? Do you have any additional tips, let us know in the comments.