Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes. Hannah Arendt
Image source: Flickr – by gaganmoorthy – (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Tag: life (Page 4 of 4)
We all claim to be multi-tasking. But it is not true. Multi-tasking is actually inefficient. Multi-tasking has a cost. In fact, distractions seriously risk to impact on our jobs, our carreer and, above all, our life. We are no more able to focus on a single thing. There’s a lot at stake. Do you want to give “it” away?, asks Tracy Davidson in this TEDx.
Tracy Davidson is anchor of NBC10 News Today. She has been awarded many different prizes related to her job and her commitment in empowering women both personally and professionally.
At first glance, some might say this article is not related to leadership skills. In my opinion it is actually the opposite: the author explains 7 fundamental differences between “happy” and “unhappy” people that reveal how attitudes and the way we see the world and the others are decisive to succeed in whatever we do. Succeeding is not just a question of method: first of all, you should have the right approach to daily life and see things the good way. This is the reason why this psychology-oriented article gives good hints about leadership.
The author talks about seven differences in particular (my short comments in brackets):
1. Your default belief is that life is hard (as a consequence, every task will seem impossible)
2. You believe most people can’t be trusted. (this way you won’t be able to delegate)
3. You concentrate on what’s wrong in this world versus what’s right. (this will cause a lack of motivation: why should I get things better if everything around me will always be wrong?)
4. You compare yourself to others and harbor jealousy. (the good leader is never jealous, he appreciates and knows how to exploit for the best other people’s qualities instead)
5. You strive to control your life. (planning, planning, planning!)
6. You consider your future with worry and fear. (this way you’ll remain paralyzed in the process of decision-making)
7. You fill your conversations with gossip and complaints. (those who always complain are just losing time instead of how to solve the problems that caused the complains…)
Read the full article here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201306/what-happy-people-do-differently
image: Wikimedia (public domain)
Life does not consist mainly – or even largely – of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head. – Mark Twain
Image source – Flickr e_monk
Eric Barker from Time Online Magazine has found out how to improve our lives in a simple way, by just sending 5 emails:
• Every morning send a friend, family member or co-worker an email to say thanks for something.
• At the end of the week, send your boss an email and sum up what you’ve accomplished.
• Once a week email a potential mentor.
• Email a good friend and make plans.
• Send an email to someone you know (but don’t know very well) and check in.
More on: How to Make Your Life Better by Sending Five Simple Emails
Image source: Flickr – Biscarotte (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Posted by Camilla Sicuro.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Image Source: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5810891.Mahatma_Gandhi
If you love life, don’t waste your time because that’s what life is made of.
[original text: “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of”]
Benjamin Franklin
![Image by U.S. Government (Wikimedia Commons [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABenjamin-Franklin-U.S.-%24100-bill.jpg)
By U.S. Government (Wikimedia Commons [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The seven most expensive words in life are:
<< I did not know you could do that >>
Anonymous
Here is a Repost from Tommaso Coniglio’s Blog http://synapseburning.com
Tony Buzan is widely considered the “father” of Mind Maps – a revolutionary way of representing ideas and their interrelations – so I thought it fit for SynapseBurning.com to discuss this powerful tool by exploring his beautifully illustrated book, The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps. I am particularly passionate about the subject since I’ve used mind maps for over 10 years, and they have helped me enormously in writing, planning and problem solving (as a matter of fact, rarely does a week pass without me having the urge to produce a mind map for one reason or another).
Mind maps are extremely simple: starting from a central concept in the middle of the page, you branch out by drawing all the related ideas that come to mind. Each idea, which is represented by not more than a few words, is linked to others through a parent-child relation or through a sibling relation (take a look at the mind map I generated to create this post!).
The creation of a mind map typically consists of two phases: the brainstorming phase, when a very large number of ideas is generated; and the organizing phase, when these ideas are grouped into logical units. Each phase activates a distinct part of the brain (the principle of synergy): in the brainstorming phase, it’s the right side – the creative, intuitive, holistic, imaginative one; in the organizing phase, it’s the left side – the logical, analytical, relational one. This distinction is however mostly theoretical, since in practice brainstorming and organizing occur in rapid sequence or even simultaneously (i.e. organizing as you brainstorm). I personally prefer to keep them as distinct as possible, to free the brainstorming from the constraint of having to organize, which tends to stifle the process (it’s called “going wild”!).
There are three main uses for mind maps.
1. Creating. Whether our endeavor is writing or speaking, mind maps can assist us much better than the most common tool, the linear outline, which narrowly focuses on the organizational aspect and is thus less conducive to brainstorming, which requires absolute freedom to write down ideas without any type of constriction. The productivity guru David Allen said it best when he described his anguish as a child: during a writing assignment in class, he stared at “roman numeral number one” of his outline, without knowing what to put down first! He was waiting for a truly great idea to come… The truth is that at the beginning of any creative endeavor we probably don’t know what is to come first; good ideas won’t jump at us immediately, but that shouldn’t keep us from moving on. The only way to get good ideas is to have many ideas, and mind maps are the most powerful idea-generators. They are also remarkably effective in helping the writer discover connections between the ideas he has generated; he can then “move” them around until he is able to fashion them into a (hopefully) coherent stream of thought. This flexibility is amazing and… truly liberating!
2. Planning/problem solving. If an event or a project needs to happen, we have to find solutions that address all the possible “moving parts” so as to avoid the embarrassing “oops factor” (i.e. “I planned every thing but I forgot to consider x”). Again, thanks to their twofold nature, mind maps can help us dig out heaps of ideas and organize them into logical units that can be in turn broken down into manageable tasks.
3. Learning. When we are confronted with new material, the key is to understand the main ideas and separate them from the details. Mind maps help us do just that. The main branches represent the key points of a book, chapter, lesson etc, while the smaller branches contain less important information, which should be assimilated in relation to the central ideas. There is nothing like seeing both the big picture and the details, all in one. This “juggling” between ideas and their interrelation favours retention thanks to its innate reinforcing mechanism and the activation of both parts of the brain. That’s why it’s so much easier to learn something from a mind map that you’ve created than from flipping back and forth through a book you’ve underlined or notes you’ve scribbled.
Apart from explaining what mind maps are, their uses and why they work, Buzan provides some very useful complementary tips for boosting creativity, learning ability and for being successful, which I discuss in my next post.
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