Creativity has always been a high value for me. I would not put myself on the super creative end when matched up against all creatives on the planet. However, I do love to create and am absolutely captivated by the creativity of others. So why a post on “Creativity” in the “Productivity” category of my blog? Those two don’t go together. They are opposites. Or are they? I actually believe everyone is made to create. Sometimes we are discouraged from creativity. Some other values stamp out the creativity bone in us. I do not believe productivity is the culprit though. Productivity is about efficiently using your time to accomplish the…
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Sleep More, Sit Less
It is an interesting dichotomy. We don’t get enough sleep and we sit too much. Both of these are killers, literally. Sleep Your body needs about 8 hours of sleep a night. Without it, you will be less productive, a less pleasant person to be around and tired (of course). You body needs sleep. My sweet spot is 7.5 hours. Less than this and I’ve noticed I feel groggy. More…well, I don’t usually have a problem with sleeping too much. My body wakes me up one way or another. Sitting Do you sit all day at work? That is bad. No really, it is not good for you. If you…
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Meet Weekly with Your Spouse
Each week, Michelle and I sit down to check in, cover “business” related topics and look at our schedule. It is an opportunity to make sure we are on the same page for this week and coming weeks. It is also a chance to float any new ideas we might have to one another. Not a Date This meeting is not a date. We do dates at other times. Some topics might flow into both, especially cool ideas for our family. However, checking in on one another’s to do lists and double checking the calendar typically max out our time at this weekly check-in before the kids can’t stand it…
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Get Away On A Personal Retreat
This past week I took a couple of mornings away from family and work to do a Quarterly Offsite. It was a great time of goal setting, prioritizing my life and resting. I was able to refocus on what is most important and add margin back into my life. Time, Information and Relationships Typically I have taken a trip out of town each Spring to do a Personal Retreat. Normally I would focus on my vision, and then prioritize, according to my vision, the three areas of my life that tend to creep and consume: 1) Time – Sometimes this would come first because I typically have multiple ideas…
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You Have Margin
“No I do NOT!” At least that is what I thought when the preacher brought this subject up recently. I don’t remember the topic of the sermon. (Stop judging me.) I just remember him saying, “We all have margin.” He clarified. Even though I don’t feel like I do have margin, I do. See, for most of us reading this post, we all are figuring out what to do with our extra time and money. We are not preoccupied with where we are going to live and what we are going to eat. This means you have margin. “I don’t get it.” Well, the point is you do not have…
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Focus on Your Goal, Nothing Else
Do you ever get distracted? I do. In life I am easily distracted by people, needs and opportunities. It is good to be open to interruptions, but if you have a goal, you can’t let distractions keep you from where you need to be. You must focus. People, needs and opportunities are all good things. In fact, they should all be a priority. However, you can’t serve all people, meet all needs or pursue every opportunity. You must focus. Here is another story from my children. We were swimming recently and our two oldest were racing across the pool. The older was using a kick-board to make it “even.” Still…
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Powerbot: My Secret for Integrating Evernote and Gmail
One of the challenges of Inbox Zero, that is clearing your email inbox daily, are 1) emails that require additional work (anything over 2 minutes) and/or 2) emails requiring you to come back to them at a future date. I absolutely love seeing an empty email inbox. However these are two barriers I run into regularly. My answer to this problem is Powerbot. This productivity tool allows me to quickly move emails out of my inbox to Evernote. Of course, Evernote gives every user a unique email to send emails to, however, Powerbot allows me to quickly select what notebook I want the email to go to, tag it, leave…
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Measuring Productivity…Not!
I was sitting down to write a post on productivity. I have a list of books I want to eventually do reviews on. One on the list is Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. This is a biography, not a nonfiction productivity book. I got to thinking. Is it productive to read biographies or even fiction books for that matter? Part of me thinks not. I struggle to see the direct correlation such reading has to productivity. However, just because I can’t measure, or find it hard to measure, the productivity of certain activities, this does not make them unproductive. Creativity is a product of such reading, which is not easily measured.…
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Winning from a Loss
“You learn more when you lose a football game than when you win.” – Danny Wuerffel We all lose at some point. Whether in a sport, at work or in our family, we experience setbacks, hangups and even failure. The important thing is to learn from these moments. The next time you frustrated from a “loss,” take the time to write down 5 things: 1) What do I need to own as my responsibility? (This may be one thing or several.) 2) What could I do differently next time? (Ideas) 3) Who do I need to talk to? (The goal here is to own my responsibility and/or for accountability purposes for next…
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Danny Wuerffel Quote