One of my most popular posts was a mind map that attempted to capture the main themes of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. Presentation Zen has a great post which applies the themes in the book to presentations and it’s well worth a read. I particularly liked one of the...
I have just discovered the chief happiness officer blog, which focused on happiness at work and I think it’s great. Just this morning I was talking to Graham on the phone while out walking (I had nothing better to do, Graham was late for a meeting!) and I was saying how...
I have been meditating twice a day now for just over 3 years and it now plays a major part in my life, initialy I started to meditate just to help me manage the constant pain I am in, but as the years went by I realised that it has...
The Inescapable data blog has two recent posts (here and here) that describe some of the gathering momentum around home working that are worth reading. I am a great fan of home working personally, although I have some short term reservations about how home working is often implemented by companies. ...
Over the past couple of years I have thought a lot about work life balance and think I have made real progress. One of the small tips I have found useful is to subscribe to a number of more positive Ezine Articles on various self improvement topics. I find it...
Kathy has yet another amazing post on her Creating Passionate Users site about the fact that animals love exercise, and she questions why we don’t. Well whilst I think its a great article with wonderful pictures of her horses if she came around to my house and saw my four...
I must admit that I rarely listen to or read national or international news, I find the signal to noise ration to be very low, I pick up a little from the Saturday paper and from my family and friends. Of course I scan a lot of focussed blog entries...
Its pretty rare that I get burnt-out, partly because I am pretty aware of my workload and the pressure I am under, but also because I have this sort of unwritten – until now – strategy:
I am still on a journey of discovery to try and “find what I love doing”, I am fairly content in my work, find it interesting and challenging, but I don’t feel I make a difference, at home I spend most of the time with my family – which is great – but very internal focused. I would like both work and home life to change over time to be more community centred and to feel that I am giving something back to the world and that I live in a more natural and sustainable way. My relatively poor health is currently the excuse I hide behind that stops me taking the risk associated with change.
I do however continue to be on the lookout for advise in this area and I recently cam across these two articles, one by Steve Jobs – You’ve got to find what you love and the other my Dave Pollard ‘Business’ Advice for Young Adults (and Their Parents & Teachers). Check them out if you ever think about your work or worry about how you are preparing your kids to help them make good choices about their future work choices.
In this post I talked about my approach to time management. Graham has this great story on his site that illustrates the same approach but much more eloquently!
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He asked the students if the jar was full.They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly, and the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full; they agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”
The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor, as …