If aliens made 100 clones of you with your skills, knowledge, attitude, and mindset, would the world be a better place to live or worse?
👽👽👽
Press, radio, TV, and social media are precisely clone-making machines.
Each of us resonates with what we consume.
👤 ➔ 📺📻📱 ➔ 👥👥👥😉👥👥👥
We have a conscious or unconscious tendency to copy who resembles us.
That’s called homophily (“love of being alike”).
👥👥👥 ❤️ 😉 ❤️ 👥👥👥
For example, people may be more likely to follow trends or form friendships, romantic relationships, or professional connections with individuals who share interests or have similar educational backgrounds at similar times.
👩🎓🧑🎓😉👨🎓👩🎓
Our network shapes us, and we shape our network as well. We copy not only our relatives and friends but also friends of friends and friends of friends of friends.
😉 ⇄ 👤 ⇄ 👤
You are connected to anyone on Earth by 6 degrees of separation: your friend is 1 degree from you, the friend of your friend is 2 degrees, and so on.
But we have influence and are influenced by 3 degrees on average.
😉 ⇄ 👤 ⇄👤 ⇄ 👤 ⋯ 👤 ⋯ 👤 ⋯ 👤
If you have 120 acquaintances, and each of them has 120 acquaintances, and each of those has that many, too, you can imagine how many people you may influence just by your presence.
And if you are on social networks, you probably have way more friends than 120.
🕸🕸🕸😉🕸🕸🕸
So, a few questions for you:
Does this make you feel paralyzed or more responsible for your actions?
Do your actions match your virtues?
Are you living your best self?
🦸♀️🦸🏻♂️🦸🏽♀️😉🦸🦸🏿♂️🦸🏻♂️
This information was strongly influenced by the book “Connected” by Nicholas Christakis, MD, Ph.D., and James Fowler, Ph.D.
Dealing with work priorities can be challenging on its own, but when personal matters come into play, it can feel overwhelming. Whether it’s a family crisis or a personal health issue, finding a way to balance your work responsibilities while still taking care of yourself and your loved ones is crucial.
Certain life events are sometimes so stressful, that they make it impossible to keep your attention at work related matters. Breakups, divorses, losing loved ones, emerging serious illnesses, financial hardship, being a victim of a crime or violence, and experiencing a natural disaster are all situations that make our lives unbearable. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has also been a major source of stress and mental health decline.
It’s important to communicate with your manager or supervisor if you’re experiencing a personal crisis that may impact your work priorities. Whether it’s a family emergency, health issue, or other private matter, letting them know what’s going on can help them offer support and adjust your workload accordingly or give flexible work hours.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help from colleagues. They may be able to offer you support, advice, or assistance with tasks or projects. And remember, this applies to company owners too – if you’re dealing with a personal crisis, you should feel comfortable communicating with your team to ensure work priorities are managed effectively.
Next, it’s essential to prioritize your tasks and focus on the most critical ones first. This may mean delegating some tasks to others or postponing non-essential tasks until you have more time and energy to tackle them.
If you’re struggling to stay productive at work while going through a personal crisis, know that you’re not alone. It’s common to feel overwhelmed and unmotivated during difficult times, and it’s important to prioritize your well-being and mental health above all else. There are several resources and strategies you can utilize to help manage your work productivity while navigating a personal crisis.
Also, seek out support from outside resources. Professional counseling or therapy can help you address the root causes of your personal crisis and provide coping strategies for managing your emotions. Support groups or peer networks can provide a sense of community and understanding, helping you feel less isolated and alone.
Finally, don’t forget to take care of yourself. Make self-care a priority, and don’t hesitate to take time off work if needed. Ensure you get enough sleep, eat healthy, and take breaks when needed. Use your breaks throughout the day to stretch, meditate, or take a walk outside. Remember, your well-being is more important than your productivity, and it’s okay to take things one day at a time. By utilizing these resources and strategies, you can manage your work productivity while prioritizing your mental health and well-being during a personal crisis.
Dealing with work priorities while being overwhelmed with personal matters can be a difficult and stressful experience. However, by communicating, prioritizing, taking care of yourself, and seeking help when needed, you can find a way to manage both your work and personal responsibilities. Remember to be kind to yourself and take things one day at a time.
What a paradox that to write about productivity for those who always postpone things, I am procrastinating myself while scrolling productivity and business tips on Twitter. The problem is that I shouldn’t focus on productivity to be productive. Instead, I should focus on my goals. And develop effective habits.
The trick is just to start doing what you planned. And so I started, and in this article, I will give you a glimpse of those habits that you should develop to live a more thriving and meaningful life.
Know your WHY’s
Always be aware of why you are doing what you are doing. You will always have very little motivation if your reasons are vague.
Do you work just for survival? Or for financial stability? Or for recognition? Or for impact? Or for self-expression?
Finish what you started
Decide in advance which of your projects are to be finished and which of them are just experiments.
Don’t start working on new projects until the old ones are completed. Learn the habit of getting things done.
Focus on your strengths
Nobody is perfect. Everyone has their flaws. As well as their strengths.
Don’t be sorry about what you can’t do. Identify what you can do best, and make that even better.
Ask others for help when it’s too hard to handle yourself or takes too much time.
Start now with what you have
Perfect conditions will never exist. So you have to start doing what you want or need to do now. Not next month, not next week, not tomorrow. But now.
Start ideating, prioritizing, and planning. Take the first steps. Even if that’s for 20 minutes. The goal is to build productive habits.
Create TODO lists
Have three TODO lists: “Must do,” “Should do,” and “Want to do.” Execute tasks from those lists according to your priorities and energy levels.
Don’t waste your time on “wants” if your “musts” are not done yet.
Break big tasks into smaller chunks
Sometimes your tasks are so huge that you just get overwhelmed and perplexed. Where should you start? How can you plan and estimate?
The trick here is to split the big task into smaller ones and evaluate them separately.
Find your prime biological time
Identify your most productive time of day. Maybe it’s your mornings, maybe afternoons, or maybe nights.
It’s your Power Hours that you should use for the most critical or creative work.
Schedule daily work time in blocks
Split your days into segments and dedicate those segments to different types of work. For example, 13:30 – 15:00 is for writing and replying to emails.
Do only one thing at a time. Don’t switch contexts. You will be more productive, focussing on only one type of work at a time.
Gamify your work
Try not to break a chain by working on something for a regular time daily. For example, building something for 1 hour every day.
Or, if you have some tedious tasks to do, decide on some point system to reward yourself for a certain amount of completed tasks.
Choose peace, not conflict
When communicating, aim to be calm, understanding, and harmonious. Unnecessary conflicts just drain your energy and make you less than productive.
Usually, complicated people are so because of their difficult pasts. So be aware of that, and it will help you be more peaceful.
Have an accountability partner
Struggling on your dreams alone might be difficult. There are a million reasons not to do something you wish to have done. The tiredness after the primary job, wishing to spend time with your friends or family, exciting TV show, or a new series on Netflix.
Don’t make excuses, and have a friend to talk with about your progress. This will make you more inspired and accountable against that person.
Control your devices
Don’t fall into the trap of digital devices. Instead, make smartphones, computers, and TV work for you, not control you.
Switch off most notifications not to distract you. Then, when you need more focus, go to Airplane mode.
Install apps that let you prioritize, plan your time, focus better.
Focus on the 20% most important tasks
The Pareto principle says that by doing just 20% of the most critical tasks, you can achieve 80% of the impact.
Identify which tasks make this 20% of your lists and focus on them.
Work hard on your mindset
Life is as finite and fatal as you define it. You can have a fixed mindset, thinking that you have developed during your childhood and youth, and nothing can be changed afterward.
Or you can be in a growth mindset thinking that you can continuously develop yourself, survive mistakes and learn from them, and work on life-changing projects.
Hold yourself accountable – drive your own life
Don’t wait for someone else to fix your life and make your dreams come true. Be the driver of your own life.
Design your life, take action, and go forward!
Invitation
There is more to that. If you learned something new and want to dive deeper, check these concise productivity tips I recently published. There are many more tips there (80 to be exact) for your goal setting, motivation, self-awareness, priorities, planning, efficiency, and growth.
For more than a decade, I was focused only on the technical part of website building with Django. In the process, I have built a bunch of interesting cultural websites. But I always felt that those sleepless nights were not worthy of the impact.
They say, “Don’t work hard, work smart!” I agree with that phrase, and for me it’s not about working less hours. For me, it’s working as much as necessary, but on things that matter most.
So after years of collecting facts about life, I connected the dots and came up with make-impact.org – a social donation platform, which became one of the most important long-term projects. All my planning goes around this project.
And I believe I am not the only programmer who sometimes feels that they want to make a positive impact with their skills. So I brainstormed 17 Django project ideas. You can choose one and realize it as a hobby project, open-source platform, startup, or non-profit organization; alone, with a team of developers, or collaborating with some non-technical people.
Idea #1: Low Qualification Job Search
The job market is pretty competitive, and not all people can keep up with the train. You could build a job search website for jobs that don’t require high education or lots of working experience. It could be helpful for people with language barriers, harsh living conditions, or those who are very young or very old. You could build it for your city, region, or country.
Idea #2: Discounted Meals and Products
Get inspired from Too Good To Go and build a progressive web app for your city about discounted restaurant meals and shop products whose expiration date is close to the end, but they are still good to eat.
Idea #3: Personal Health Advisor and Tracker
Build a website for setting your personal health improvement goals and tracking the progress. For example, maybe one wants to start eating more particular vegetables every week, jogging daily, lose or gain weight, or get rid of unhealthy addictions. Let people choose their health goals and check in with each progressive step. Allow using the website anonymously.
Idea #4: Online Primary and Elementary School Materials
Some people don’t have access to schools in general or miss some classes because of illnesses. You could build a global and open wiki-based primary and elementary school education website for children and adults. It should be translatable and localizable. It would also be interesting to compare the same subject teachings in different countries side-by-side.
Idea #5: Psychological Support for Women
You could build a website with a video chat providing psychological support to discriminated or violently abused women. The help could be given by professionals or emphatic volunteers. The technical part can be implemented using django-channels, WebSockets, and WebRTC.
Idea #6: Rain-harvesting Companies around the World
Rain harvesting is one of the available ways to solve the problem of the lack of drinking water. There could be a platform comparing rain-harvesting companies all around the world. What are the installation prices? What are the countries they are working with? How many people have they saved? This website would allow people to find the most optimal company to build a rain harvesting system for them.
Idea #7: Closest Electric Car Charging Stations
Use the Open Charge Map API and create a progressive web app that shows the nearest electric car charging station and how to get there.
Idea #8: Escrow-based Remote Job Search
As remote jobs are getting more and more popular, there is still a matter of trust between the employees and employers. “Will the job taker complete their job in a good quality?” “Will the company pay the employee on time?” There are Escrow services to fix this issue. These are third parties that take and hold the money until the job is done. You could build a remote job search website promoting the usage of Escrow.com or another escrow service provider.
Idea #9: Open Work Locations
You could build a website listing coworking spaces and cafes with free wifi in your city. It should include the map, price ranges, details if registration is required, and other information necessary for remote workers.
Idea #10: Most Admired Companies
There could be a social website listing the most admired companies to work for in your country. Companies could be rated by working conditions, salary equality, growth opportunities, work relations, and other criteria. Anyone could suggest such a company, and they would be rated by their current and former employees anonymously.
Idea #11: Tiny Houses
The cost of accommodation is a critical problem in many locations of the world. You could develop a website that lists examples of tiny houses and their building schemas and instructions.
Idea #12: Catalog of Recycled Products
You could work on a product catalog with links to online shops, selling things produced from collected plastic. For example, these sunglasses are made of plastic collected from the ocean. Where available, you could use affiliate marketing links.
Idea #13: Information for Climate-change Migrants
You could work on a website for climate-change migrants with information about getting registered, housing, education, and jobs in a new city or country with better climate conditions.
Idea #14: Fishes, Fishing, and Overfishing
Scrape parts of FishBase and create a website about fishes, fishing, and overfishing in your region or the world. Engage people about the marine world and inform them about the damage done by overfishing.
Idea #15: Plant Trees
Create an E-commerce shop or Software as a Service and integrate RaaS (Reforestation as a Service). Let a tree be planted for every sale.
Idea #16: Positive Parenting
Create a progressive web app about positive parenting. For inspiration and information check this article.
Idea #17: Constructive Forum
Create a forum with topic voting and automatic hate speech detection and flagging. For example, maybe you could use a combination of Sentiment analysis from text-processing.com and usage of profanity words to find negativity in forum posts.
It’s your turn
I hope this post inspired you. If you decided to start a startup with one of those ideas, don’t forget to do your research at first. What are the competitors in your area? What would be your unique selling point? Etc.
Also, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts. Which of the projects would seem to you the most crucial? Which of them would you like to work on?
“Most people spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning a life.”
― Chet Holmes
When choosing your future, some of your decisions will have long-lasting effects and can lead to lots of success or disappointments, whereas some others will be valid only for a day or two, so why bother about them too much. You could follow the Pareto principle saying that for 80% of the effect, you will need 20% of effort, so you should identify the 20% of what’s long-term and act on it. Let’s explore which decisions are short-term and which are long-term.
Short term
Short-term decisions are usually triggered by life events and news and are often made based on emotions. Short-term considerations could be caused by fear of missing out or worry about what other people will think about you. On the other hand, they can be spontaneous, playful, opportunistic, open-minded as well.
Things to do during the day. Unless it’s some life event like a birthday party, wedding, job interview, conference talk, or a show, you usually won’t need lengthy preparation.
What to wear. Why spend too much time thinking about what to wear on a regular day? Instead, just choose something that matches together, fits the weather, suits the occasion, and is comfortable.
What to eat. Choose whatever you like or are used to unless you are on a special diet.
What music to listen to. Listen to what follows your mood or supports the mood you would like to get into.
What presents to give to your friends, family, lovers. Most of the celebrations in life are recurring and relatively frequent. So surprise your people with something spontaneous.
What TV programs or movies to watch. Choose whatever seems essential or entertaining to you.
What galleries or museums to visit. Take opportunities to see whatever interesting exhibitions are open in your city or the city you visit.
As a proverb says, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
Long term
Long-term decisions are usually based on personal philosophy of life. You use logic and strategies to direct your energy towards growth. Otherwise, your life will likely stagnate or destroy you, and you will have lots of regrets about living conditions.
Where to live. Your living location and conditions will have an effect on your solitude or social life, career, love life, speed and rhythm of daily routine, etc. You can choose to live with your relatives, in a shared apartment with flatmates, in a dormitory, in a rented or owned apartment, house, or villa. And all that will have different outcomes on your future life.
What to study. Your job opportunities, quality of life, and overall happiness in your life will depend on what you learn at University, College, Academy, or Professional School. Will you study something that you are interested in or something that your parents were impressed about? Will you learn something that you are passionate about, something that the market demands, or something in between?
Where to work. Will you work for survival, self-expression, self-fulfillment, or a local or global mission? It all depends on what job you will choose and how it matches your personality. Will, each of your employment, be the basis for your following ones, or will they be just a waste of career experience while searching for your field?
What name to give to your baby. In my life, I’ve met people who hated their first or last names because those names made them difficult to reach the expectations they had from life. Not in all countries, it is possible to change your name. So when choosing a name for your newborn, choose wisely.
What name to give to your company, product, or service. Just as for the baby name, the name of your business can also have a long-lasting effect. Especially if you care not only about the sales but also about your company’s branding and distant future.
What goals to aim for. You can have many passions in life and lots of possible directions to go with your life. But which of those directions is the most optimal for your character, skills, and needs?
What’s your main reason for living. Why were you born on this planet? What’s the purpose of your life? These existential questions are definitely long-term and require deep self-analysis.
“Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values.”
– Joshua L. Liebman
It depends
Some decisions can either be quick and spontaneous or thoughtful and logical depending on what kind of person you are:
What events, conferences, or festivals to go to. Are you going to different gatherings for entertainment or getting information and resources for your projects?
What books to read. Are you reading books to have rest or to get knowledge for your career and self-development?
What podcasts to listen to. Do you listen to podcasts to fill your silence with chitchat or to learn something valuable and inspirational for life?
What country to visit for vacation. Do you choose your traveling spontaneously, or do you have a bucket list for life?
What newspapers or magazines to subscribe to. Do you read whatever is popular or what supports your knowledge for lifestyle or career?
What theatre plays to watch. Do you go to theaters to have a good time or to widen your viewpoint?
If you consider that your time is limited, you will probably try to save it by choosing what goes along with your values and goals. You will visit events, read books, and listen to podcasts useful for your primary activities. On the other hand, if you consider that your time is limitless, you will make decisions based on what feels right at the moment: you will go to events that will seem attractive, shocking, or inspiring. You will read books that entertain you much. You will listen to podcasts where the people seem most charismatic or grounded according to your preferences or where the topics seem interesting to you.
How to solve short or long-term decisions?
You can make short-term decisions using intuition, common sense, or randomness. For example, it doesn’t really matter so much what exactly you gonna wear today at work. What matters more is what clothes you buy to wear for work. It doesn’t really matter what dish you are going to try today. What matters more is what diet you are going to take in your life. It doesn’t matter too much what song you will listen to today at your lunch break. What matters more is in what mood and mindset your playlists are going to put you into.
When it comes to short-term decisions, choose what inspires you or solves a problem.
When it comes to long-term decisions, it’s better to weigh the options before making a decision. And for this reason, the most valuable tool to do that is probably the strategic prioritizer “1st things 1st”. Half an hour of prioritizing with “1st things 1st” can save you from months or even years of frustration and regrets. “1st things 1st” lets you make the most optimal decisions based on your knowledge and intuition.
This is how it goes. First, you start prioritization by defining your success criteria. Second, you list out things to prioritize. Third, you rate each item by each measure. And lastly, the tool calculates your priorities and groups them into something to choose for sure, things to consider, and things to eliminate or skip. It’s as easy as that.
Somewhat 80 years ago, an American psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow generalized a hierarchy of needs, where each level of needs builds upon the previous one. At the very base, people require a smartphone with the Internet. Just kidding.
The overview of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
At the very base, we all have physiological needs. To stay alive, we need to eat when we have hunger, drink when we are thirsty, have something to wear for the right body temperature, get to the WC when we need it, have a place to sleep, and probably someone to sleep with.
Then we have safety needs, such as a stable source of income, having where to live, being secure outside, at home, and at work, having some rules to follow, being treated well in case of illnesses, and getting help in case of fire or other catastrophes. At this level, we want to have structure and order. We want to know our limits and live stable and predictable lives.
These two steps ensure that a person will survive physically in this world.
Then we have a need to love, be loved, and belong. At this level, life without connections feels empty. We require pets, friends, lovers, family, coworkers, communities. We want to be a part of something bigger. We want to share intimacy and tenderness, affection and belonging.
The next level is the need of esteem. We want to feel strength, self-esteem, and self-love inside of us. At the same time, we want recognition for our achieved mastery and respect for our competence from the outside world. At this level, we demand reputation and prestige.
Then there is the need of self-actualization. At this level, we want to explore, learn more, stimulate our minds. We want to play, grow, bring our best to the world. We need to be in harmony, order, and beauty.
The needs and priorities
At all of those levels we make decisions.
At the bottom of the hierarchy we need to choose what to do to survive physically.
Then we need to make decisions what to do to survive psychologically without becoming robots or zombies.
Then we need to decide what to do to become more than social animals.
Then we need to find a way how to escape the narcissism and arrogance.
Finally we need to make decisions what to do to achieve the full harmony in the world.
To make conscious decisions we have to prioritize some things over others. Let’s explore some of the crucial decisions we make at each level of our needs.
Physiological needs
What are you going to eat and drink to survive another month, week, or even this day?
When choosing food and drinks, you would typically ask yourself: Is your food cheap? Does it fill you? Is it tasty?
To get to the upper levels, you should also ask: Is your food healthy? Is your food nutritious? Does it give enough energy to you? Will your friends or family like it? Will you get a compliment for making this dish? Will your cooking skills be honored? Is it made from the best ingredients? Won’t you need to throw half your ingredients away? Is your food supply chain practical, ethical, fairtrade?
What are you going to wear?
When choosing clothes and shoes, you would typically ask yourself: Do they fit the season? Are they clean? Do they look appropriate?
To get to higher levels, you should also ask: Are they comfortable? Do they look good? Will your friends and loved ones like it? Do you feel like yourself in those clothes? Do you look respectful with this outfit? Do you need another piece of jacket this year? Are you living your authentic self with these clothes?
Safety needs
What job should you have?
When choosing a career, you would typically ask yourself: Is it paid enough? Do you understand, and can you do what they ask you there? Is it not too hard? Is it not too boring?
To get to the upper levels, you should also ask: Do you feel accepted by coworkers? Are coworkers friendly? Are you recognized for your work? Does your salary match your skills? Does the work fulfill you? Do you grow enough there? Do you do something meaningful there? Are you living your full potential at your work?
What should you buy today?
When choosing a purchase, you would typically ask yourself: Is it affordable? Do you want it? Do you need it?
To get to the higher levels, you should also ask: Is it long-lasting? Will that improve your comfort? Will that improve your relationships? Is that a brand you like? Will that look prestigious? Will that represent the status you are at? Is it useful? Does it look authentic and original? Is it ethically and ecologically made and brought to your shops?
Love & belonging needs
Which event should you attend?
When choosing events to go to, you would typically ask yourself: Would you go to this event for solidarity? Do you like the content of the event? Do you like the people who will gather there? Is it a chance to make new friends?
To get to the upper levels, you should also ask: do you feel like yourself in these kinds of events? Is it a chance to express yourself and gain recognition there? Is it not too long? Is there a chance to meet people of the same interests and social status? Can you make an impact at such events? Can you feel authentic at such events?
What present to get to your friend?
When choosing a present, you would typically ask yourself: Can you afford it? Will your friend like it? Is it something they don’t have yet?
To get to the higher levels, you should also ask: Will that present match your friend’s social status? Will that gift show your admiration and respect for your friend? Will that present lift your friend? Will that present add up to the authenticity of your friend?
Esteem needs
What should be your goals for the upcoming years?
When choosing long-term goals, you would typically ask yourself: Is that goal specific? Can it be measured? Is it attainable for you? Is it realistic to achieve it? Is the timing correct for this goal?
To get to the upper level, you should also ask: Is the goal positively stated? Is it ethical? Is it challenging you? Is it environmentally sound?
What books should you read?
When choosing your next book to read, you would typically ask yourself: Does it bring you knowledge and understanding? Does it improve your skills? Is it widespread or reputable literature? Is it interesting? Is it entertaining?
To get to the higher level, you should also ask: Does it make you a better human being? Does it lift you up spiritually? Does it help to find yourself or going towards your personal mission?
Need for self-actualization
What are the activities that you could call your Ikigai?
When choosing your reason for being, you would typically ask yourself: Do you love doing it? Are you good at it? Can you be paid for it? Does the world need it?
To go even further, you should ask yourself: Is it healthy? Is it ethical? Is it sustainable? Is it ecological? Is it progressive?
What should you do today?
When choosing the next optimal action to do today, you would typically ask yourself: Does that bring you closer to your goals? Does it remove bottlenecks? Does it make money or reduce costs?
To go even further, you should ask yourself: Is it impactful? Is it ethically, socially, and ecologically responsible? Does it bring more health and clarity to your life?
Invitation
So you have to make decisions and prioritize your choices at all levels of needs. The strategic prioritizer “1st things 1st” was designed to help you not lose yourself among all those choices and dimensions and help you grow as an individual, personality, and spirit. You are invited to use it and make your life more progressive.
If you are still struggling at the survival phase, but you would still like to make better decisions in your life, drop me a message and your reasons at the contact form. Every month I will select several people to use the tool for free.
One kind of events in life happens spontaneously, unplanned, powered by intuition, and seeming random. Calling a friend, buying a chocolate bar, or sitting down on a bench at a fountain doesn’t require special preparation.
Another kind of events requires making hard decisions because of the urge to gain something huge or the risk of losing something important. In those cases, it’s better to get prepared.
In life, as in nature, everything happens in cycles. Previously I introduced you to the cycle of long-term success as I saw it at that moment. Today, I have refined the mentioned cycle, and now it consists of these 5 steps: research, prioritize, plan, act, reflect.
1. Research
Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. – Zora Neale Hurston
First of all, before taking a measured action, you would need to find out what your choices are today. You can use a search engine, Wikipedia, references, podcasts, magazines, books, or anything else that provides you with information that you could utilize in your field of focus. Gather information with the intent to incorporate it into your activities.
2. Prioritize
“If everything is important, then nothing is.” – Patrick M. Lencioni
There are several ways to set priorities for your activities. You can use the flexible and mighty prioritizer “1st things 1st”, decision matrices in Excel sheets, Eisenhower Matrix on a piece of paper, or maybe just selecting the first several priorities intuitively.
3. Plan
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. – Jim Rohn
Put your most important activities on the schedule. You can use Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, monday.com, any other scheduling app, or even an analog calendar on your wall or in your Moleskine. Try not to have more than 3 activities in a day. Book yourself or your colleagues for the vital work to do.
4. Act
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. – William James
Now it’s time to do what you have planned. Have a necessary meeting or a zoom call, speak, write, or perform what’s on your list today this hour.
5. Reflect
It is only by reflecting on the past that one can create a better future. – Rithy Panh
If you got positive results, celebrate the wins. If you failed, see what you can learn from your mistakes. The next time will be better. Now go back to the first step and do the new research.
Final words
If you master the cycle of long-term success, you form a habit of success. Whether you win or lose, you gain experience and become excellent at what you do.
At some point in my life, I used to ask myself: if I am the most important person in my life, why would I ever need a role model to follow? People are faulty, make mistakes, sometimes have hidden agendas, and manipulate others; sometimes, they wear masks. Why would I need to follow someone else? Can’t I be the best version of myself just as I am out of my own character and personality?
The problem is that if you just concentrate on yourself, you can quickly lose focus of the big picture, become too narcissistic, and be blind to your faults. You don’t see yourself from aside too well and don’t have enough insights into which of your parts to improve. There is no limit to perfection and excellence. And no one has achieved it all.
Life is a journey of ups and downs. Sometimes you can go on your own. Sometimes you need help to stay on track. Different high-achievers have gained lots of experience and can teach you things you have never thought possible. You don’t have to accept everything a role model teaches you. You can filter the knowledge by what resonates with you. Grow, become the best authentic self, and pass the knowledge and tips to the younger generations or other less mature individuals.
Today I have several role models in my life and will introduce you to my top 3 ones. I don’t know too much about their biographies besides what they share online or in their books. But I like their achievements and points of view.
Robin Sharma
“Genius is less about your genealogy and more about your neuroplasticity. Masters are made, not born.” – Robin Sharma
Robin is a humanitarian and leadership missionary. He wrote several best-sellers like “The 5 AM Club”, “The Monk who Sold his Ferrari,” “The Leader Who Had No Title,” etc. Besides helping leaders from all around the world play the A-game, he motivates people of any profession to become the best version of themselves.
Robin Sharma is a master of words. He talks about leadership with swiss-army-knife preciseness. His books are full of classical wisdom and thoroughly thought through methodologies.
“Be radically proactive about any behavior that pays off in 10 years.” – James Clear
James is best known for his best selling book “Atomic Habits” about building good habits and his insightful newsletter 3-2-1, where every week he shares 3 personal ideas, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question for the reader.
James Clear digs deep into human psychology and makes his messages very concise and straight to the point.
“Don’t attach your happiness to your goals. Be happy before you attain them. You’ll find attaining them much easier when you make the journey and not the destination the key to your happiness.” – Vishen Lakhiani
Vishen is the founder of Mindvalley, a company that aims to transform the conventional education system. His company brings the knowledge of the best mindful people in the world in online courses called quests. Vishen is also the author of two transformational best sellers, “The Code of Extraordinary Mind” and “The Buddha and the Badass.”
Vishen Lakhiani is open-minded, rational, and spiritual. He urges you to think out of the box, give your intuition power, and listen to your soul.
Everyone is limited. But also everyone has lots of different experiences. If you want to grow, you need to decide for your direction where to grow. Having a role model is one of the ways to set that direction. And you don’t have to agree with everything he or she says. Just filter out what resonates with you, listen to your heart and your gut feeling. Then grow.
It’s 2020, and a lot of things happening now might seem very chaotic and confusing. Brexit inescapably happened. Man-caused global warming is changing landscapes. Oceans are flooded with plastic. The Covid19 pandemic brings risk to our lives and limits our mobility. Wildfires in Australia and the USA kill live beings. People are still experiencing discrimination and brutality because of skin color. Moreover, you might believe in some conspiracy theories that add to stress and anxiety about the current world situation. But do you want to stay under that stress, or would you instead want to have peace of mind?
First of all, what you can do is think about whether you can change any of that? Is it in your scope of control, or is it outside of your abilities? If you can’t control something, detach yourself from it. It is as it is. You have to adapt to it, but there is no necessity to keep worrying about it day after day.
If adversity happens to you directly and you are affected badly, you have to calm down and focus on what you can do to solve your situation. For example, if you lost a job due to Covid19, you have to find another one. Maybe even get some skills in another area than what you know already. Don’t panic. Clear your mind and surroundings at first.
If you have a chaotic mind, you probably also have a messy home. Start cleaning up your mind by cleaning up your home. Define places for each thing you want to keep. Get rid of or hide the things that bring you bad memories and emotions. It might take hours or days, but you will finally have a system for something you see every day.
Take a problem you want to solve and plan the way how you are going to solve it. Divide the path to the solution into multiple steps that you can take one by one. For example, you were in a restaurant business but decided to learn software development. So you will borrow some money, take online courses on some technologies, create a project for a friend, work on your LinkedIn profile, and apply for a junior position at a chosen IT company.
If you feel down, maybe you are lack of brain fuel. The human brain runs on glucose and needs at least 420 kcals per day to maintain normal function. That’s 42 grapes or cherries, 4 bananas, or 4 big apples a day. It can as well be more or less depending on your body mass and the mental work intensity.
To have a harmonious mind, make sure to spend time with people you care about. But also have some time alone. You need both: a feeling of connection and love; and time for meditation or prayer, journaling, and exercising.
When doing something, try not to multitask. Focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking brings you more stress and makes you less productive. If you have several or many things to do in a day, create time blocks for each of those things. For example, you will spend two hours reading and answering emails, one hour for the industry news, and one hour for an online meeting. Try to stick to your plan.
Simplify your life. It is recommendable to choose up to three most important tasks every day and only focus on them. Quality is more important than quantity. When you work a lot, you have a risk of mental burnout. That’s especially often in the tech industry.
Try to get information in your head classified. Either connect the points of knowledge in your head and group them into categories. Or read more about your interests and find some categorizations on Wikipedia or other resources. This gives you more trust in yourself and your opinions.
Get an essential objective in your life. It should be a big aim worth pursuing. Then make a plan for how you will achieve your dreams. And try to progress towards it. Know that failures will happen on the way. But focus on the process and enjoy the ride.
Whether your first name is James, Mary, or X Æ A-Xii, your name not only identifies you but also shapes your character and influences how other people will accept you. With the wrong name, you could have problems with being accepted by the society you are living in. With the wrong name, you can have difficulties getting a partner or job you want. With the wrong name, you can have a weight of associations that people bring to it. When you are about to have a baby, don’t give them the wrong name.
Our story
My wife and I are from Lithuania, and we are living in Berlin, Germany. Before the births of our kids, we did some name researches to find names that would be well accepted in Germany as well as being Lithuanian. I wouldn’t be a programmer if I wouldn’t take 500 most popular names in Germany and filter them using Python programming language to see the ones with Lithuanian word endings. From that point, we got just a handful of names and intuitively chose the ones that we liked most. I hope that Joris and Laura will enjoy the names they got at birth and will live integral and successful lives.
If we didn’t trust our intuition, we could have used the strategic prioritizer 1st things 1st to analyze a few names by multiple aspects. Let’s see how we could have done that.
Using the prioritizer
At 1st things 1st, you can evaluate anything (like first names) by multiple criteria (like aspects) and get calculated priorities. The workflow looks like this:
You define your criteria or aspects.
You list out your things, like first names.
You evaluate each name by each aspect.
You explore the prioritized first names.
Step 1. Define your aspects
Let’s brainstorm for some aspects that we can use to evaluate first names:
Both parents like it
Easy to pronounce
Easy to spell
Sounds good together with the last name
Doesn’t have negative associations
Has a nice meaning
Unique
Traditional
Globally recognized
Authentic in your native country
Ethnically appropriate
Doesn’t prompt negative nicknames
Doesn’t sound foolish for a middle-aged person
Some relative has it
A person you admire has it
A favorite book or movie character has it
I will choose the ones that are most important to me and enter into the prioritizer.
Both parents like it
Easy to pronounce
Easy to spell
Globally recognized
Doesn't sound foolish for a middle aged person
Here they are all added to the tool:
Step 2. List out the first names
Now let’s list some first names that you thought could be good candidates, let’s say, for a daughter:
Lina
Laura
Ada
Lara
Emma
Step 3. Evaluate each name by each aspect
Then I go through the list of aspects and names and rate how each name matches each aspect.
Step 4. Explore the prioritized names
In the last step, I get all first names prioritized by how much they match all the aspects. “Laura” is in the first position with a 100% match. Other names got fewer points, so they are less recommended to choose.
Last thoughts
If people call you by another name already or you want to start a new chapter in your life, you can still officially change your first name in some countries. But if you care about your kids’ well being, choose their names wisely as soon as they come into this world.
