Words of Wisdom by MrWes

A pair of motivational books, “Getting Things Done” and “The Success Principles”, emphasize the need to clear your mind of all unfinished business so your mind can focus on the present as well as the future.

To use a Windows analogy: it’s like having a process running that’s associated with a program you installed a long time ago, but aren’t using anymore.  It isn’t needed anymore, but it takes up some of the CPU processing power.  It needs to be uninstalled in order to remove the associated process.

Sometimes, we have a project or task that we completed, but we never recorded the results or didn’t have an opportunity to pass along the wisdom.  These little loose ends need closure.  I have started working on my success logs.  This is the place I will record my successes along with wisdom learned.  The success logs will do three things for me.  First, it will allow me to record the wisdom I’ve gained through the experience.  Second, it will allow me to remove the subconscious process that was installed to handle that task.  Third, it will provide a place for me to review my successes whenever I need the encouragement.

The end result should a clearer mind and possibly more processing power for today and the future.

Till next time, Tie up your loose ends

The other day I was reading “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfeld.  This is a great book by the way.  It has 435 pages covering 64 chapters.  I’m over half way so I should be done with it in a few more weeks.  Remember the turtle principle.

Anyway, Jack was talking about distractions and how they can control your life and affect your focus.  It’s like a light went on for me.  I haven’t really tried to schedule out my distractions.  A little later in the book, he talks about scheduling days to focus on your core compentencies.  So, I started trying that.

For my focus day, I resolved to do the following for 8 hours:

• Turn off my emails
• Turned off my cell phone
• Put a sign on the door of my office “Do NOT disturb until 4:30pm”
• Put some headphones on & listened to music that helps me focus.

It was hard, but I stayed focused.  That was one of the most productive exercises I’ve done.  I plan to increase the number of focus days & group my distractions together on non-focus days.  I am so excited.  I can’t wait to see what will happen in the weeks to come.

Till next time, stay focused 😉

I’ve heard it said that one way to achieve success is to read a book a week.  I haven’t quite mastered reading a book a week.  For me, it’s more like one or two books a month.  I subscribe to the way of the turtle, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

My personal goal is to read at least one chapter a day.   The number of chapters the book has and the size of the chapters will affect how quickly I finish the book.  Here’s an example using one of the books I’ve read titled, “The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program.”  I purchased it at Barnes & Noble.  It has 11 chapters covering 201 pages.  So, depending on the length of the chapter, I would read this book in 11 days.  Sometimes, if it’s a very interesting book like “The Richest Man in Babylon”, I might read several chapters a day.

Using the turtle approach, I have read books like “The Millionaire Mind”, “The Millionarie Next Door”, “One minute millionaire”, “Financial Peace”,  “Total Money Makeover”, “Focal Point”,  and “Eat that frog” just to mention a few.  This short list doesn’t include the dozens of technical books I’ve read.  I’ll write about my favorite books I’ve read over the years in another blog.

Till next time, happy reading!