Monday, 16 January 2017

Unleash Your Hidden Creativity

No matter how creative or “un-creative” you may think you are, there’s always room for improvement. Creativity is one of the most powerful tools available to humans. Many of the world’s greatest challenges have been, and will be, solved by those that set their inner creativity loose on problems and challenges. You’ll be surprised by just how much you can enhance your creativity.

Enhance your creativity and find more elegant solutions to life’s challenges:

  1. Ask a child for an opinion. Children often have brilliant ideas. You’ll have to reconsider the challenge to explain it clearly. This alone might spark new ideas. Children frequently have impractical solutions, but their ideas can open up new avenues of thought. Ask a child and listen to the answer.
  2. Try to be creative early in the morning and late at night. Those periods of time just after awakening and just before falling asleep are special. Your conscious mind isn’t fully alert and your ability to think freely and imaginatively is enhanced. Take advantage of these two prime creativity periods each day.
  3. Suspend your judgment. One of the biggest obstacles to creativity is premature judgment. All your ideas and creations won’t be good. Consider all the possibilities before dismissing any of the available options.
  4. Surround yourself with creativity. Spend time in museums, art galleries, or at the symphony. Read great literary works. Spend time with artists or listening to live music.
  5. Come up with at least five new ideas each day. Great ideas are like great songs. You have to come up with a lot of them to discover a few hits. Example: Would you like to earn more money? Ask yourself, “What are five ways I can earn at least x-dollars each month?”.
  6. What ideas would you give a friend in the same situation? Remove yourself from the equation and you’ll find that ideas flow more freely. Imagine a friend in the same situation you’re currently experiencing. What would you tell him? What ideas do you have? You can uncover some of your best ideas this way.
  7. Think while taking a walk. Actually, any simple activity can do. Mowing the lawn, running on a treadmill, vacuuming the carpet, or swimming laps are other good examples. These simple activities keep part of your practical mind busy, but the creative part of your mind is free to roam. It can be an effective time to think of your five daily ideas.
  8. What would the most creative person you know do? Imagine what Thomas Edison would do or your very creative brother in law. Think about it and see what pops up.
  9. Meditation can increase activity on the right side of the brain. Getting to a calm, peaceful state before considering creative solutions.

You can enhance the level of creativity you enjoy each day. You’re only using a small part of your mental capabilities. You have creative capabilities that would amaze you. Develop your creative skills and see the world from a new perspective. You can be more creative today than you were yesterday.

Thursday, 12 January 2017

Wednesday, 11 January 2017

Increase Your Personal Productivity

There never seems to be enough time to get everything done. Actually there is enough time. What we often lose sight of is how much time we waste on the wrong things! There are people that run multiple companies simultaneously and still have time for dinner with the family each night. They can do that because they use their time more wisely than most.

Make the most of your time and increase your productivity:

  1. Learn how you waste time. Even if you’re the best worker at your company, you still probably waste time. Determine how you waste time at work and at home. Notice what you do when you’re sick of work, tired, bored, or stressed. Using your time effectively is a key component of becoming more productive. Track how much time you spend on valuable work per day whether at the office or at home. Become aware of when you are off task and how much time you are spending.
  2. Eliminate distractions. While some people can concentrate with chaos all around them, most of us do best with as few distractions as possible. Control what you can in your environment. The fewer distractions you have, the more you can accomplish. Silence your personal cell phone during work hours. Remove email alerts and check email only at predetermined times. Close the door or turn off instant messaging so you are able to concentrate on key projects.
  3. Prioritize your priorities. If you have a dozen priorities, you don’t have any priorities at all. Develop a list each evening of your three top priorities for the next day. Do everything you can to accomplish those three things. Avoid wasting time each morning trying to determine how you’ll spend your day. You should already know when you wake up.
  4. Spend time on the most effective actions. There’s a difference between being busy and being effective. Imagine you’re having a dinner party and your house is a mess. You could be busy cleaning out your bedroom closet, but that’s not accomplishing much in this instance. All activities aren’t equal. Spend your time doing the most important things, even if they’re the least enjoyable.
  5. Take regular breaks. You might be able to work hard from 8am to noon, but you’ll have nothing left in the afternoon. Studies have shown that taking intermittent 10-minute breaks greatly increases productivity over a full day. Give yourself an even longer break every few hours. You’ll stay fresh and find your ability to focus is less-compromised later in the day.
  6. Develop a morning routine. The most successful people are the most productive. And the most successful people also have a morning routine. Get out of bed early and get your day started productively. Have a good breakfast, exercise, meditate, or do whatever else will get you primed for the day. Apply the same concept to work. Have a work routine that addresses those tasks you do each day. Plan them and get them done.
  7. Choose the best time for each activity in your life. Do you buy groceries at the most convenient time, or do you go when everyone else is at the store? You could save a lot of time by going after 7pm in the middle of the week or early on the weekend.

Get more done with the time you have available. Evaluate how you’re using your time, both productively and unproductively. Find your weak spots and develop a strategy to improve your behaviors and your approach. The key to productivity is using your time as wisely and efficiently as possible.

Tuesday, 10 January 2017

Rethink Your Daily Routine

The word “discipline” sounds more meaningful than the word “habit.” Discipline involves doing hard things now to enjoy benefits later. But really we want to establish a routine that helps us get to where we want to go, not continue in a routine that keeps us stuck where we’re at. Some of the best things in life are those things we work toward gaining over time.

Rethink some of your daily disciplines and perhaps shift to doing some new things this year. Here are some suggestions:

  1. Review your goals each day. It’s not enough to write down your goals. It’s necessary to review them at least once each day. You can keep your goals next to your bed and review them when you first wake up or at bedtime. Never forget about your goals again by reviewing them daily.
  2. Exercise for 30 minutes. A brisk walk can be enough. Regular exercise enhances your physical and emotional health. You’ll also look and feel better. Find a type of exercise that you enjoy. Consider joining a sports league.
  3. Read. Everything you’ll ever need to know is written in a book somewhere. Drop 30 minutes of TV and add 30 minutes of reading. The amount of knowledge you can gain over the course of a lifetime is staggering.
  4. Meditate. Meditation is a wonderful way to relieve stress and learn how to focus. You’ll be a more capable version of yourself if you add a short meditation session to your daily routine.
  5. Create a to-do list. Before retiring each evening, make a list of the most important tasks you want to complete the following day. Then prioritize the tasks. You’ll spend your time on the most important tasks and know what needs to be done the moment you wake up.
  6. Review your day. Take notice of what you did right, and what you did that was not helpful. By reviewing your day, you can make note of your successes and failures. You can then make the necessary adjustments to ensure that you have more successes and fewer failures going forward.
  7. Eat a healthy breakfast. Your first meal of the day is the most important. It sets the stage for the rest of the day. An unhealthy breakfast often leads to an unhealthy lunch and dinner, since the healthiness of the day seems ruined after a breakfast consisting of doughnuts.
  8. Write in a journal. Write your thoughts down at the end of the day. You’ll begin to see patterns in your thought processes and behavior that have escaped your prior awareness. You’ll also live a more interesting life, if only so that you have something more interesting to record that evening!
  9. Rise early. A non-rushed start to the day is more relaxing than running around in a hurry each morning. You can enjoy the earliest part of your day and get a head start on the rest of the world.

What other things could you add? Think about your hobbies. You might want to play the violin or draw each day. Maybe the idea of setting aside time to pray appeals to you. Regardless of the daily disciplines that are attractive to you, only add one per week. If you will add them slowly, they will have a better chance of sticking.

Give your life the priority it deserves by dedicating time each day to the disciplines that matter the most. Take control of your time so it doesn’t control you.