Category Archives: personal

The Power of When

“No such thing as spare time
No such thing as free time
No such thing as down time
All you got is life time”
— Henry Rollins, Shine

The Power of When is now available. What is it? Read on…

Realistically, when you take away the time for sleep, the time for eating, the time you want to spend with the people that matter, travel time, and the minutia that makes it all run, most people have about six hours of useable work day.

Six hours.

Looked at another way, that’s only about 25% of every day. All the meetings, all projects, all the deadlines, all the tasks, and everything else you need to do to keep the money ball rolling must fit in there somewhere. And, the only way to do so is to ask one simple question of all of these things.

When?

My friend Garrick van Buren and I have been thinking about and discussing this subject off and on for years now. In the process, we have been able to distill this idea into a simple set of tools to dramatically improve your productivity, eliminate your procrastination, and achieve your most important goals. We have turned this conversation into a ninety minute audio program that is available for purchase.

Here’s a 2 minute sample of what to expect:

Want to unlock your productivity and gain more free time? Want to banish To Do Lists forever and be confident you’re not missing anything? Want to achieve your most important goals while maintaining inbox zero? Want to know the one question that unlocks all of this?

You need The Power of When

P.S. Want to get a sense of some of the ideas discussed? Check out my post, A Time For Things and Better Things.

On Kicking Ass

There are times in our life when we simply kick ass.

It’s OK to kick a little ass sometimes. In fact, I argue that it is imperative to kick a whole lot of ass when the demands of life call for one to do so.

Like the revolution, the kicking ass will not be televised. You don’t have to prove that you have kicked ass. The fact that you kick ass will be obvious to everyone who knows you. You can go about your life, kicking ass along the way, and know deep inside yourself how much you kick ass.

That said, it is also OK to be proud of it. When one kicks ass of any amount, it is OK to declare that you have done so. Let the world know of your ass kickery.

In either case, make sure to take time to reflect on your ass kicking. Especially if the asses kicked are in amounts higher than the average. Enumerate and take pride on the number of asses kicked.

Personally, I see little need to take the names of the asses kicked. That will only slow one down. One cannot both kick ass and take names at the same time. One must kick ass, pause to take the name, then move on to the next ass kicking.

Unless one needs to keep detailed records of each ass kicked for tax or expense purposes. If so, then by all means, take names as well. Just be intentional about the trade off you are making by doing so.

Regardless, the reason I write this straight forward message is simple — we need everyone to kick more ass. The world has changed. There are increasingly less instances of both ass kicking and those that are ass kickers than there has been in the past. Ass kickers were once admired and plentiful. Ass kickers were desired. They are less so now. In fact, some believe they are actively discouraged. There are even those that claim our institutions of learning are turning ass kickers into ass kissers. So, those that kick ass are desperately needed in these hard times and the harder times to come. Those that do kick ass need to make themselves known as far and wide as possible in order to inspire others to kick ass. As an ass kicker it is your duty now, for the future.

Now, go forth and kick some ass.

I’m a writer. Writing is how I make this world better, friendlier, stronger place. If these words improved your day, please let me know by contributing here.

Random Notes and Thoughts #4

Here are some of the things that have passed through my head and have been captured, recorded, and, now, let go of.

  • My daughter says "It doesn’t care" in place of "It doesn’t matter". I love it. I think this should become a "thing". I’m going to try it out for a while just to see if people catch it.

  • I’ve come up with something I’m calling "The Universal Sandwich Theory". Follow along with me here: A sandwich made with bad ingredients and poorly made bread will be a horrible sandwich. A sandwich made with good ingredients but poorly made bread will be a bad sandwich. A sandwich made with great ingredients but poorly made bread will be a mediocre sandwich. Conversely, a sandwich made with bad ingredients and great bread will be a mediocre sandwich. A sandwich made with good ingredients and great bread will be a great sandwich. A sandwich made with great ingredients and great bread will be a fantastic sandwich. Bread is the most important ingredient of any sandwich. When making a sandwich, focus on getting the best bread you can. It makes whatever is happening in the middle better. (This also applies to way more than sandwiches.)

  • It’s getting really hard for me to believe that any of this is an accident.

  • I’ve been thinking a lot about turning age 50 in about 2.5 years — which is strange for me. I’m not one who has ever concerned myself too much with age or with "milestone" birthdays. In fact, in so many ways I don’t think of getting older with the passage of time, I think of getting better. But, for some reason, this milestone has especially been on my mind. Not in any alarming way. More in a "what I want to make sure I accomplish by age 50" sort of way. I want to make sure I have a plan for where I want to be and what I want age 50 to look and feel like.

  • I really enjoyed the Lord of The Ring movies as I was a big fan of the trilogy as a young teen. But, I was an even bigger fan of The Hobbit, which I had read first. There was something about Bilbo that really connected with me. So, when it was announced that a movie version was to be made I was excited to see what Director Peter Jackson would do with it. But, it was quickly followed by disappointment when word came out what he actually planned to do with it. Namely, stretch it out, somehow, into a trilogy and not at all staying true to the plot line and central story of the book. Therefore, I have yet to see a single one of these films. I already know I will be saddened and angry. Therefore, it makes me so happy that someone has taken it upon themselves to try to right this great wrong. A re-edited four hour single movie version available via torrent. I’m still waiting for it to complete but I’m excited once again. My faith in Humans and Hobbits alike is restored.

  • A short poem titled, About more than a coffee shop:

We live in a world where we pay
Three dollars for happiness
We could easily have
For thirty cents at home
But here, happiness is made for us
Delivered with a smile that pretends to care
At home, we are responsible
At home, we have to make our own

  • The way one arranges a living space tells me a whole lot about what is important to the people that live in it.

  • The fact that I’ve been pretty quiet on many social internet fronts as of late is both situational and intentional. Situational because I’ve been especially busy with client work and trying to fit writing into the spaces in-between and that leaves me little time for tweeting and sharing. Intentional because I’ve been trying to be better about simply sitting back and listening. Sometimes it feels like I’m just adding noise, even when I feel what I’m saying has value. I’m unsure it has a value greater than the noise it creates. So, for now, I’m trying to simply listen.

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