UPDATE: The blog and forum will be on hiatus for the summer. Please register for the forum and watch for an update in October. We are going to have some really exciting stuff, including coverage of Stephen Smith’s trip to SOBCon Colorado – some real work.life.creativity!

I am not talking about a weekly review. I am talking about something we should do once or twice a year.

I am talking about asking ourselves objectively…

1. Are we on track with our goals?
2. Are we living in tune with those things that we value most?
3. What are we doing that can distract us from achieving our goals?

That having been said, this post is as much to me…as it is any other reader.

Though I have not taken a sabbatical or had a prolonged time of reflection, I have recently been pondering these questions and others to try to calibrate my own compass.

Change is not easy. Sometimes, the need for change can lead to a pattern of procrastination and self rejection. The truth is, however, that if we want our lives to be differnt…it is up to us to make it happen.

I was inspired the other day when I read a quote from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

In developing our own self-awareness, many of us discover ineffective scripts, deeply embedded habits that are totally unworthy of us, totally incongruent with the things we really value in life. We are responsible to use our imagination and creativity to write new ones that are more effective, more congruent with our deepest values and with the correct principles that give our values meaning.

So I look at myself and recognize there there are some scripts that I need to rewrite…some things I need to do differently.

So how do I plan to approach this?

1. I need to review my goals and make adjustments where necessary
2. I need to evaluate those things that consume my time, and test them against the things I value
3. I need to work to determine what things create extra “noise” in my life and steal my focus
4. I need to then draw up a plan to eliminate those things that are not consistent with my goals
5. Most importantly…execute the plan

What kinds of things do you do to help you eliminate ineffective habits?

Let’s talk about it here.

The last time was about 5 years ago and I worked independently for almost exactly one year. At the time it was just me and my two sons. In other words, I was a full time single dad as well as trying to live of of the proceeds of my business. In that year, I made a total of $17,685.00. Please read that number again. To break it down and make sure you understand it, I took care of a family of three on a budget that was way below the poverty level. I did not rob, or steal, or depend on government handouts, or charity, or friends, or relatives to make it through. I can tell you that my sons never had to do without a meal. The mortgage and all of my bills got paid (not always on time but they got paid). I even made sure we could rent the occasional movie or other small extravagance.

Even in this economy the lessons I learned in that time still bear true. There are two ways to have more money – make more or spend less. You see, in order to make it through that time, I knew that the answer was not to somehow find more money. In a business like mine, people call when they need you. Therefore, I have very little control over that. What I did have control over though was my expenses. I knew that if I could just define the absolute baseline of what I needed to feed my family and keep a roof over our heads, while not subtracting everything that makes life worth living, we could make it through.

I can say confidently that, for that one year period, I did better than most would have in that situation. This is because I quickly learned that true wealth is largely driven by finding out what you can do without. For instance, if someone comes to me and tells me that they need $100.00 a week for groceries, I know it is a myth they have made themselves believe. I can tell you for certain that my family of 3 lived off of $100.00 a month for groceries and not a single one of us went hungry. The question is, what are you willing to eat? Are you willing to eat it every day? If it is all you can afford, if it is the difference between being able to pay your mortgage or not, you may find the answer you give surprising to even you.

Things are much better this time and I am not going through this movie-ready rags-to-riches story to give myself a pat on the back. I am simply saying that creativity is often born out of desperate situations and hard choices. It is one of the reasons that I believe the people of this world, despite the current situation, will come out on the other side of this a much better place.

As always, feel free to discuss any thought raised by this post in the forums.

P.S. All apologies to Ramit for the post title

1. Time – Seems that I could knock a number of items off of my wish list if I could just buy what many of the books on there are meant to solve. My quest for being more productive and organized all center around not ever feeling like I have enough time. What is even more ironic is that, when I get these books, it takes me forever to read them because I just don’t have the time to do so. I actually even schedule time to read (i.e. literally block it out on my calendar) and I still find that even keeping that commitment to myself is difficult due to all of the other obligations and responsibilities in my life that I put first (and most often they rightfully deserve that placement).
2. Cloning – I am also stretched way to thin. There is literally not enough of me to satisfy all of the demands in my life. If there were several more than I would not need to purchase the item mentioned above. I suspect that, one day, I will be able to purchase this item somewhere. Maybe even in my lifetime. It is at least more likely we will find a way to be several places at once than it is to stretch time itself.
3. Capabilities – This would not even have to be all new capabilities. If we could just get upgrades to our current ones. For instance, if I could just be more focused and more organized perhaps I would not even need items #1 and #2 above. Like a Processor, RAM or Hard Drive upgrade, this should cost even less than a complete brain replacement but provide comparable benefits.

I am sure you can see where I am going here. The bottom line is: Don’t you wish there were some things you could buy that you can’t? What are some of the the things you would put on your wish list? Lets have some fun discussing it on the forums.

Another phenomenon that the movement has kicked off is a plethora of products that can be purchased to assist us in our effort to be organized.  Whether it is a PDA or a notebook…or one of my favorites…a fountain pen, there are all kinds of products out there to make our organization a more pleasurable experience.

Truth is, to do the job, one only needs a steno and a writing utensil.

For many of us, neat and cool tools provide motivation.  For example, when I bought my new Bomber Jacket Circa Notebook from Levenger over the Christmas holiday, I was quite motivated to use it.  Fountain pens are also something that I enjoy breaking in on my journal or my Circa.

But the motivation must, at some point, turn into a discipline or a habit, unless we want to spend a load of money on productivity “stuff”.  So solid habits must be developed in order to keep our systems going. However, we do fall off the wagon at times, and a new “toy” can help us get back on.

Do you sometimes use new productivity “tools” to movitivate you to stay with the plan?  Let’s talk about it in the forums.

Part of my problem was due to my (incorrect) idea that I had to capture everything. Of course, this is not the case. All one really needs to capture are the key high level items, any important details and, especially, any actions specific to you that may come from the meeting.

A little while back I reached out to others in the forums to gather some tips and tricks that might help. One of the things that bubbled up to the surface for me was the idea of mind mapping. Mind maps allow you to catch high level concepts and the connections and relationships between them. This ends up being very good for me because I can simply write a single word or phrase and, in doing so, I am not distracted. I ended up finding a good beginners introduction to mind mapping and committed to using it for my next note taking session. It worked well enough. That being said, it did have it’s limitations. I found that while it was great for capturing the high level ideas expressed, it was not very good at detail or extracting actions from the content.

Therefore, what I have settled on now is a hybrid note taking system. One that combines doing a mind map and capturing details and actions that are important or specific to me on another piece of paper. I actually keep two pages side by side, which is one of the many benefits to the Levenger Circa notebook system I use. One page is Cornell ruled (for details and actions) the other blank/non-ruled (for mind mapping). This combination works very well for me and allows me to stay engaged in the meeting and tease out every thing I need to remember long after the fact.

Have you had any similar experience with taking notes? Have tips or tricks to share. Well, what are you waiting for? Jum into the forums and share.