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C'est la vie


From my life experiences, I learned that you can always rise up from the ashes, strengthened and transformed. Get fully immersed into the joys, the trials and tribulations of daily life, enjoy the ride, accept that you will get a little bruised and battered, without which we can’t prove that we have lived a fulfilling life.

Trust in the journey, respect the people that show us the path and love the relationships we make along the way.


Pondering...


We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

George Bernard Shaw


There has to be truth to that. I really believe that if we can find a way to stay young at heart that it will affect our physical age.


Consider this concept:

I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn’t bother you, because you didn’t know what you didn’t know and you didn’t care.

All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I want to live simple again.


I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow. So…here’s my checkbook and my car keys, my credit cards and all my responsibility. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you’ll have to catch me first!


Widget Of The Week...

Focus your attention on your intention. Most of us go through life on reactive mode, what action or task is going to come our way next.

A far more structured and productive method is Time Blocking. Whereby your time is divided intentional blocks and during those blocks a specific task is undertaken. This method is less prone to distraction and wastage.

With Time blocking, you pre assign the work/ task that will get done during that session, you avoid distractions and remain focused on the goal. In case a task takes longer than expected, you simply build an updated time block schedule. The key is maintaining intention about your time, not perfecting your planning.

When we remain reactive, we are allowing other people’s urgent and important actions to drive our agenda. You will be busy and exhausted but actually have very little satisfaction.

Time blocking demonstrates the amount of time a particular task takes and what can be achieved within a given time slot - uninterrupted.

Blocking time alone is not sufficient to live a meaningful and productive life, you will need to

focus on the actions required to be done and regularly review your accomplishments.

Multitasking seems like a great way to get a lot done at once. But research has shown that our brains are not nearly as good at handling multiple tasks as we like to think they are. In fact, some researchers suggest that multitasking can actually reduce productivity by as much as 40%.

Switching from one task to the next takes a serious toll on productivity. Multitaskers have more trouble tuning out distractions than people who focus on one task at a time. Also, doing so many different things at once can actually impair cognitive ability.

There is sufficient evidence to suggest that multitasking will impair your ability to perform normal everyday tasks, even when you are not multitasking.

Time blocking, or monotasking, allows you to focus on one project at a time. Not only will this approach cut down on mental errors, but it also can help you unleash your creativity, especially because you will be funneling all of your energy and attention into one task within its given time block.

Start by creating time blocks for the things you do every day like your morning routines and evening rituals, exercising, preparing presentations and meal preparation.

Time Blocking will assist you to regain control of your time and focus.


To learn more about productivity - click here


Wisdom/ What I'm Reading...

Influence by Robert B. Cialdini

It appears that we are all lore prone to be influenced by others than we think.

This book explains six basic psychological principles that we use as shortcuts, and which can be exploited for persuasion: reciprocation, scarcity, consistency, social proof, liking and authority.

Humans have an overpowering need to return favors.

Has anyone ever given you something and then asked you a favour! You are more likely to comply. As innocent as these gestures may seem, they are actually relatively simple tricks to influence your behavior.


You see, the first psychological principle of persuasion is the rule of reciprocation: we feel obliged to return favors.

In fact, people are so keen to rid themselves of the burden of reciprocity that they will often perform much larger favors in return for small ones.

Reciprocity plays a fundamental role in the way societies and social relationships work, we can not do away with this tradition totally, but we can learn to identify when it is being abused.

“For a limited time only!”

The infamous statement made by sales advertising campaigns to suggest scarcity.

We humans see opportunities as more valuable if their availability is limited, and this seems to be because we just plain hate missing out.

Creating scarcity or competition has the effect of making a particular product more desirable even though we never thought of buying it before.

To counter the eagerness that arises from scarcity, we should always consider whether we want the item in question because of its use to us (for example, its taste or function), or merely because of an irrational wish to possess it.


Research shows that once we commit to something with words or actions, we wish to be consistent with that commitment.

By asking someone to confirm something either verbally or in writing reaffirms that we are going to stick to our word.


Social Proof

The concept has given rise to “reviews” on online stores. The power of knowing someone like us also purchased X.

The power of authority in society

We have been brought up to respect and adhere to authority figures, without reason;

A nurse who got written instructions from a doctor – an authority figure – to treat a person with an ache in his right ear: “Administer the medicine in R ear.”

She proceeded to put the drops in the patient’s anus, and neither she nor the patient stopped to question how this would help his earache. That’s because authority negates independent thinking.

We tend to accept figures of authority, even those dressed with authority (uniforms) without question, hence we take instructions from those with authority much more easily.

The key is to be aware of these principles and utilize them to our advantage with caution.


Grab a read this weekend - click here

See you next week…


Yorumlar


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© 2020 Bullet Friday Edition by Priyesh Shah

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