The Little Book of Less=More (How
to change your life by doing less)
January
Less=More: FUN, 85 Years Old, Visualisations, Affirmations, My Possibility,
Change Now! Have a Break, Roles in Life, My Updates, Organic Growth, More, Self
Promotion, More of the Less Bit, Organic Goals, Goals, Vision and Action,
Newspapers, TV, Sleep, Less, Introduction.
Feb Less=More:
Attributional Thinking, Success Motivates, Motivation and Luck, Mind Maps,
Priorities, Word Strings, Conscious Competence, Morning Pages, Unblocking The
Artist (Creative Expression), Mix with Positive People, Winning Formula – If
you want something doing then do it yourself, Confidence, Perspective, Work
Patterns, People, Awareness, Synchronicity, Breaking Promises!, Equal =, Play
Big in Life and Shine Your Light, What’s the Worst that can Happen?,
Perception, Good Days and Bad Days.
March Less=More:
Perfectionism, More Georgia, He’s Stupid Enough to be Neutral, Move On,
Anti-Role Models, Role Models, Sunshine and Vitamin D, Risk and Failure, Twix,
Doing Less Again!, Fitting it all In, Family, Paradox of Leadership, Commit,
Timetable, Neuro Linguistic Programming (Six Step Reframing
Outline), FreeCell, Quality of Time, 2 Chairs, 3
Perspectives, Motivation Again!.
April Less=More: Sharpen the Saw, Reframing,
What Can You Give?, Action not Words, Play to your Strengths, Windsurf or
Cycle, 5 Memorable Things per Year,
Legacy, Anger, Commitment Again, Just Do It!, Roller Coaster Day, Smile,
Live Today, Animal, Dreams take time to come true, Eat LESS, Form Storm Norm
Perform, Shoot for the Stars and Hit The Moon, !,
Get Up Early and Go Out for Breakfast, Book Shop, Top Dog, Underdog, Parts of
Yourself, I Can’t Even Motivate Myself!, Myers Briggs, Beware of Symptoms and
not Cures.
May Less=More:
Having a Child, Group Psychology, Peer Mentoring, More Chaos Theory, Pain to
Change, Repeated Patterns, Tension for Change, Don’t believe the Hype, Looking
Forward, Be Careful of What You Ask For, Nothing, Coaching, Rhythm, Energy
Level, Hitting the Low, and Dreams, Give it a Go, Change, Can You Face What
You’ve Become?, Just one good thing each day, Yet More of the Less, Degrees of
Separation, Give and Take, Bad Hours, Be
Honest with Yourself, Sleep, Chaos Theory, Dreams Coming True Again, Draw a
line now and Start Again, What is it You Really Want in Life?, You are what you
Eat, Roller Coaster, Commit and all else will follow.
June Less=More:
Fate, Motivation Quote, Call Reluctance and Motivation, Kick Start, What Colour
is Your Parachute?, Best Use of Time, Nothing to write about. Baby Grounding,
Have a Dream, and Put in the hard work and it pays off later, Possibility
Again, Open your mind, Easy Networking, Luck, Joy, Money, Beating Oneself Up,
How to be an Artist, More Chaos Theory, Having a Child, Group Psychology, Peer
Mentoring, More Chaos Theory, Pain to Change, Repeated Patterns, Tension for
Change, Don’t believe the Hype.
July Less=More:
Back to Less, Hang in There, Back to my Goals, Conditions for Lack of
Creativity, Creative Watersheds.
August
Less=More: Perfectionism, Think Big, Time Out for Nature, Scott Adams,
Making the Time, Home by the Sea, Bouncing Back, Catch Phrase, Adversity,
Coincidences and Public Speaking, Life Plan.
Sept Less=More:
Have you plateaued?, Creativity, Life and getting on with things, Action Fork,
What do Dream Mean?, Tired, What God Wants, What really matters, If you keep on
doing what your doing, What’s Important?, Kick Starting Yourself, First Things
First, Sharpen The Saw and Set Goals, Will you have any regrets?, Persist, What
Matters?, Just Write, Setbacks, Gut Feel and Luck, SuperNetworkers, Complete
One Thing Every Day, Pushing the Boundaries again, Think Big, Commitment
Phobics.
Oct Less=More:
Spooky Contacts, Problem Solution Problem, Going off at a Tangent, Circle of Innovation, Life is too short to be
jerked around, Public/Professional Speaking, Business Mix, What Kind of Animal
are You?, Time Planning, Covey’s Weekly Planner, Unlimited Resource, Personal Mission
Statement, Moneymaking, Profile, Not Enough Time, Oprah says, 5 Things Everyday, Personal Mission
Generator, What’s getting Tony, Con’s
History Teacher and Michel Thomas, Plan the Big Things First, The best way to
predict your future is create it! Response-able, Homeward Bound, Walking in
Sunshine,
Nov Less=More; Conditions for Creativity, Einstein, Dreamy, Curious Coincidence, Curiosity, Values, Right Now, Culture not
People, Ripple
Effects, Insight of the
Week, Eating Less, Give yourself permission to suck,
Incrementalism and Pruning, Actors, Time Waster or
Creator?, Deep Thought, Complete Blank, Immortality,
Dance like no-one else is
looking!, Time Out, Humour and what works, Opportunity, Not Getting
Along, Blank Again, Sporting
Fate, Associations, Blank,
Small Steps.
Saturday 30th November 2002
This subject has
been sitting there for quite a while.
I don’t know what
I meant when I wrote the title.
I remember having
a very creative day and reminding myself I should write something about that.
I guess
everyone’s creativity occurs in different ways.
I can only speak
for myself.
My creativity is
often at its best when I’m under pressure to deliver and finish something.
I can spend many
weeks of apparent inactivity but then I can blast something out very quickly.
It may mean that
I’ve been thinking about it for weeks, enabling me to do something very quick
and creative.
The other one I
noticed yesterday, was that I was creating something new for 10 minutes, having
a 5 minute break and then going back for another 10 minutes.
Rapid fire
creativity.
The most creative
times I remember are when I give myself a whole chunk of time.
Either go
somewhere on my own to be creative or assign a half day or full day to
brainstorm with a colleague or friend.
I’ve done that
about 3 or 4 times in my life and I can very clearly remember the outcomes of
those meetings.
They were real
watersheds for me in my life.
Don’t be too hard
on yourself to create. Often it’s when
you release the tension, the tightened fist that you start to create or problem
solve.
I remember as a 9
year old being told by a teacher who was very creative, that if you do something
late at night, like set off a task that needs some creativity applied, your
mind will work on it overnight.
My best thoughts
often come not whilst out walking or cycling, but in the shower.
I don’t know what
it is about our shower, but in 10 minutes my brain can come up with 10 new
ideas.
Visualisations
are very good for coming up with answers and ideas.
Pacing around the
house also works for me.
Inspiring
programmes, books or magazines work as well.
They show you that you’re on the right track.
Sometimes you
need something to narrow your horizons.
Creative cards, coloured cards, De Bono 6 Hats, Tarot Cards, anything
that gives you a focused direction.
The one thing
that doesn’t work for me is eating so my head buzzes!
I snack a lot when
I’m creating but I wonder how much that helps.
A good Twix now
and again has always seemed to help.
I’ve done more
last minute essays, reports, proposals and writing, to a Twix (or two) than any
other substance of abuse!
And sometimes you
just have to grind it out, so that it looks like creativity but in fact it’s
evolved dross.
90% perspiration,
10% inspiration.
Friday 29th November 2002
Just finished
reading E=MC²
today.
WoW! Totally
inspiring that someone can dream and think such things and predict without
experimentation.
That’s often lost
with people’s understand of science.
You have to
hypothesise first before you experiment and prove your hypothesis.
But in order to
hypothesise you often have to have intuition.
Einstein’s
approach inspires me, because I use my intuition a lot.
I’m no expert but
I can see things which just don’t add up.
Mad Cow Disease,
X-Rays, Vaccinations, Diet, SIDS.
There’s some
groundbreaking work being done in all of these areas by people who trust their
intuition and don’t just go with flow.
It’s criminal
that some scientists and governments still behave as the scientists 100 years
ago did to the people who were changing the way we view the world.
You have to be
brave to go against current thinking, and hang in there.
The book is
written in way that shows that those who made groundbreaking discoveries were
educated non-conventionally, and were outcasts from an early age.
This enabled them
to not think like sheep.
Even reading E=MC², I still find
it amazing what Einstein came up with.
Thursday 28th November 2002
“They could understand if relativity and
the equation (E=mc²)
had come from fresh experimental results; if Einstein had built some new-style
apparatus in a laboratory to look more closely at what Marie Curie or others
were finding, and so had discoveries which no one else did.
But what they could not grasp was that he
didn’t have any labs.
The”latest findings” he worked with came
from the scientists who’d died decades or even centuries before.
But that didn’t matter.
Einstein hadn’t come up with his ideas by
patiently putting together a range of new results.
Instead, as we saw, he just spent a long
time “dreamily” thinking about light and speed and what was logically possible
in our universe and what wasn’t.
But it only seemed “dreamy” to outsiders
who didn’t understand him.
What he ended up accomplishing was one of
the major intellectual achievements of all time.” E=mc² David Bodanis
Just remember
that. Dreamy.
What were you
Dreamy about today?
What crazy ideas
do you have which you dismiss?
Wednesday 27th November 2002
WoW!
I’m just reading E=MC², A
biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.
And I was
thinking some more about my strong curiosity.
I looked up some
quotations on curiosity and who should pop up but one of my heroes!
“The important thing is not to stop
questioning. Curiosity has its own
reasons for existing. One cannot help
but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the
marvellous structure of reality. It is
enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every
day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
Albert Einstein
And better still,
given what I feel about the medical side of science, this rings very very true.
“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle
that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy
curiosity of inquiry.”
Albert Einstein
Albert should
have met my doctor today.
Tuesday 26th November 2002
I’ve realised
something over the last few days.
Curiosity!
Curiosity is one
of my core values.
I didn’t realise
how strong it is.
It’s what drives
me to waste so much time on the internet, to read so many articles, to surf so
much.
It’s also what
drives me to want to engage and question when people show me new things.
I can’t
understand that when I’m training people and I wave a book or magazine in the
air why people don’t come up in the breaktime to have a look.
Now I know. They’re not as curious as me!
It’s two edged
sword my curiosity. It drives my
knowledge and self education, but it also uses up huge amounts of time!
What’s your
curiosity like? You probably don’t care!
That’s because you’re not curious and you’ve got better things to do
with your time!
Sunday 24th November 2002
Last week I had a
look at what my values are.
It’s important to
know what your values are or what you would like them to be, because they’re
what drive you.
If you see money
as important then usually that’s what drives you.
If you see family
as important then usually that’s what drives you.
What if you have
to choose between making money or spending time with your family?
It becomes a life
balance. That’s why values are so
important.
Stephen Covey
calls them Roles in life.
What Roles do you
have and which are most important.
Have a think
about it.
If you’re not
satisfied with your current roles and values then change them.
What would you
life them to be?
Mine are; Health,
Family, Integrity, Quality of Life, Curiosity.
Advancement,
Creativity, Success, Contribution, Open-Mindedness, Spirituality, Play,
Loyalty, Security, Friendship, Wealth, Intimacy.
What are yours?
Saturday 23rd November 2002
One of those things
that someone sends you.
Even though it’s
another one of those obvious things, I liked it, it’s true and the pictures are
great.
I
have a competitor!
The Daily
Motivator This is where I got the ‘right now” link from.
The
difference is, he seems to be getting 1,000,000 hits a month and I’m not!
Good
idea, well executed. Boy he’s packs it
all into his life.
Sometimes
people think that about my background and experiences, and yet here I sit, desk
and room in a mess hardly getting anything done!
Friday 22nd November 2002
What’s the most
important part of an organisation? The
People?
No. The culture.
I heard that one today and it really resonated.
If the culture is
right, it will attract the people.
But if the people
are right and culture is wrong then the organisation is doomed.
I’ve witnessed
this twice recently, where in the downturn, managers think they can use it to
fire and then hire the people they want.
They’re in for a
nasty shock, because it’s not the people who are the problem but the culture.
They need to
change the culture and the people who they currently have will be magnificent.
Thursday 21st November 2002
I heard a great
story about a Nepalese woman whose husband produced seeds.
Counter to her
culture she gave a seed exporter a small free sample.
The seed exporter
from the sample ordered more and invited her to a trade exhibition where she
created so much business by giving samples for free her area of Nepal has
become a massive seed growing region.
And all because
she gave something away, initially
Time for me to run
some free sample courses, me thinks.
Wednesday 20th November 2002
“When the
economy slows, when people lose their jobs, when people can't afford to live
the way they'd like to, peoples' fuses get shorter than normal. And that leads
to something you might see around you: an anger epidemic. But here's the good
news. You can redirect most anger you feel in the positive ways listed below.
When you feel good inside,
you'll be more patient and balanced - and a lot less likely to get your
feathers ruffled by life's little inconveniences.”
Tuesday 19th November 2002
Just ordered and
received a book from Amazon,
Another book like
the Allen Carr Easyweigh book about reframing how you see food rather than
dieting or willpower.
I’m more
interested in it for the techniques than the overeating.
I’ve cut out a
lot of things recently. Tea, biscuits,
chocolate, too much carbohydrate, Ritz crackers, other assortments.
More water.
But I am left
with one growing addiction.
Yoghurt!! Lots of them, low fat and those small Yoplait
ones. Very strange.
Let’s see what
the good book says.
Monday 18th November 2002
Quote
from the Wil
Wheaton blog
"give yourself permission to suck, and fix it later."
Very
true, just get on with it and sort the problems out later.
Get
rid of the perfectionism and procrastination.
Sunday 17th November 2002
Two quotes from
Tom Peters recent slides.
“Incrementalism is Innovation’s worst enemy”
Nicholas Negroponte
I like that
one. I prefer evolution to revolution,
but sometimes when you’re on the wrong track it takes someone to come along
from a completely different direction.
“Rose gardeners face a choice every spring: how to prune our roses. The long-term
fate of a rose garden depends on this decision. If you want to have the largest
and most glorious roses of the neighborhood, you will prune hard. You will
reduce each rose plant to a maximum of three stems. This represents a policy of
low tolerance and tight control. You force the plant to make the maximum use of
its available resources, by putting them into the rose’s ‘core business.’
However, if this is an unlucky year [late frost, deer, green-fly invasion], you
may lose the main stems or the whole plant! Pruning hard is a dangerous policy
in an unpredictable environment. Thus, if you are in a spot where you know
nature may play tricks on you, you may opt for a policy of high tolerance. You
will leave more stems on the plant. You will never have the biggest roses, but
you have a much-enhanced chance of having roses every year. You will achieve a
gradual renewal of the plant. In short, tolerant pruning achieves two ends: (1)
It makes it easier to cope with unexpected environmental changes. (2) It leads
to a continuous restructuring of the plant. The policy of tolerance admittedly
wastes resources—the extra buds drain away nutrients from the main stem. But in
an unpredictable environment, this policy of tolerance makes the rose
healthier. Tolerance of internal weakness, ironically, allows the rose to be
stronger in the long run.”—Arie De Geus, The Living Company
So there are two
options, depending on the circumstance.
Prune hard to for big roses, and prune gently to guarantee roses. Big risks or no risks. Your choice.
Saturday 16th November 2002
I’ve always found
it irritating that we hold famous actors in such high esteem.
All this fame
thing in the media which has now gone completely overboard.
But on reflection
I’ve changed my mind.
Actors are people
who apply themselves.
Whether or not it
comes easy to them, they have to sit down and learn their lines. That takes strong willed application.
They stick at
things through the knock backs.
They hang in
there for years.
The have a dream;
they know what they want and they pursue it through thick and thin.
Love ‘em or hate
‘em, they are people who stick at it and are very determined to succeed.
So in some ways
they are role-models.
Friday 15th November 2002
In my working
life I’ve always wasted a lot of time.
Tetris, Minesweeper, FreeCell. Snowboard!
But is that time
wasting or creative thinking time which enables me to work very fast when I
need to?
Right now I have
actions and tasks to do, and what am I doing right now? I’m writing this.
But what I
realise now is that I’ve changed the way I use my ‘dead’ time from computer
games or phone calls to friends into output.
Now I write or
fiddle with my Outlook address book, so that I have some output to show for my
dead “thinking” time.
At least at the
end of the day if I’ve achieved nothing, I have all this writing and content to
show for my time.
This is something
crucial to consider. In the time that
you ‘waste’, accept that you do waste time, and instead of beating yourself up
for it, ask yourself what you could be doing instead of watching the TV,
snacking, phoning, chat, smoking, coffee, gaming, newspaper, surfing, that
would have some solid output but doesn’t feel like work or actions. Most of the time wasting activities that we
do to chill out, can all be converted into chilling out things which have some
solid output at the end of the day.
Instead of
computer games, sort your Outlook address book out. Surfing?
Weblog instead. Chatting? Network instead. Eating and TV? I have no idea what the contrary to this one
is because I still snack and watch a bit of nonsense TV.
Thursday 14th November 2002
I realised that
what I need is more Deep Thought to get my creative and motivational juices
flowing.
And my best
thoughts are in the shower. My most
mundane thoughts are also in the shower, like today I thought about Deep
Thought, but I also thought about looking up the England Euro ’96 teams to see
how bad Terry Venables is as a manager playing unbalanced teams!
I don’t give
myself enough Deep Thought time.
Showers, Walks, Roller Blade, Sitting, Café with someone.
I tell myself I’m
too busy for this and yet I don’t get things done by denying myself these
pleasures in life.
I think I’ll have
another shower.
Wednesday 13th November 2002
Ever had one of
those days when your mind goes completely blank.
I’m having one of
those days this afternoon.
I just don’t know
where to start with things.
It feels
overwhelming.
I have no immediate
urgent and important deadlines to meet.
And because those
types of actions aren’t there today, I have free choice.
So do you do the
small things or take a chunk of a big thing.
The choice is
mine and I can’t decide, I’m frozen, wasting time.
Maybe I’m blown
from this morning’s presentation which takes it out of me.
A tough one this
morning because some of the attendees were very technical and knowledgeable.
That’s not the
problem because I love people who know as much if not more than me, it’s just
that it was a mixed audience.
And that’s the
most difficult to train. Catering for
both extremes. I had no warning of this
coming this morning.
I would have done
the presentation differently had I known.
And I couldn’t have known because some of the attendees were late
joiners.
Anyway, back to
the point. I had a go just now at a
weekly Covey timesheet. Sod it! I just don’t feel like it today.
Do a few
calls. Sod it! I don’t feel like it.
The question is
if it’s a windy day, and difficult to cycle in, what’s the windsurfing
option? Writing!
That’s what I’m
doing right now and it sure feels good.
I was going to do
my writing later, but actually, that’s what I feel like right now; writing, my
windsurfing for the day.
Tuesday 12th November 2002
I don’t want to achieve immortality
through my work . . . I want to achieve it through not dying.
- Woody Allen
Monday 11th November 2002
I was driving
along today and written on the side of a hippy looking Combo Van,
“Dance like
no-one else is looking.”
The penny didn’t
drop at first.
And then I
thought; how profound.
It’s true, I
always dance like someone else is looking which is why I dance so badly and
don’t enjoy dancing!
It’s true I should
dance like no-one else is looking.
I dance pretty
well in the bathroom mirror.
But it takes
things a stage further.
Not only dance
like no-one else is looking, but do everything for yourself and not to please
others.
In fact it
reminds me of the other half of the Barry Humphries quote that I didn’t type.
“But if you live your life trying to please
your children, you won’t please them.
You can’t be the person you think they
might love.
I decided that pleasing myself was the
best course of action.
It is the same approach with comedy.
I’ve tried to do things to amuse myself.
If I sent a market researcher out there to what people wanted, I would fail.”
I don’t mean be
selfish but stop trying to impress others or be good for others, or care about
what others think.
Be yourself.
Dance like no-one
else is looking.
Sunday 10th November 2002
Lord knows I
don’t practise what I preach on this one.
But I have a
friend stuck on the work treadmill.
Can’t get off the
treadmill.
But he won’t even
take 30 minutes of his life to have a think about what he really wants, where
he’d like to be in 5 years time.
Please. Just take 30 minutes of your life, to change
your life for the better.
All you have to
do is answer these or plenty of other questions from plenty of other motivation
books, but these will do.
Come on, spend
just 30 minutes or more on that.
Dream a bit, have
some fun, write it all down, and you know what?
It starts to come
true.
You don’t even
have to do any actions, just let your mind work on it.
Saturday 9th November 2002
“I’ve tried to do things to amuse myself. If
I sent a market researcher out there to what people wanted, I would fail.”
Barry Humphries
(Dame Edna Everage)
Friday 8th November 2002
“The reason most people do not recognise
opportunity is that it usually goes around wearing overalls, looking like hard
work.” Thomas Edison
So I looked for
more quotes on opportunity and found this one.
“I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of
people who do. Luck to me is something
else: hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.” Lucille
Ball
And I looked for
another Edison quote and found this one.
“There is no expedient to which a man will
not go to avoid the labour of thinking.” Thomas Edison
Thursday 7th November 2002
“People are rarely fired for incompetence.
It’s not getting along that’s almost
always the underlying cause for dismissal.” Stuart Margulies
I loved that when
I read it yesterday. The more I thought
about it the more it seems true.
After all since
when did being incompetent hold anyone back from climbing the corporate ladder?
Wednesday 6th November 2002
Yet another blank
on this one today.
Had a very quiet
day, not great inspiring thoughts.
Let’s write a few
more lines here and see if anything comes to mind, and great wisdom.
Nope!
I was going to
write about my favourite non fiction books, but I put that in my
Weblog.
Tuesday 5th November 2002
Yet again
sporting fate has struck.
The Gods of fate
have struck again to produce a unique sporting event.
Damien Oliver’s
brother was killed last week in a horse race.
Damien Oliver chose to ride in the Melbourne Cup this week
and to the delight of the crowd won the Melbourne Cup.
It always amazes
me how fate turns its hand in sport.
And this one is
exceptional.
The horse he was
on was the second favourite, and I thought backed by a sympathy vote, but
nevertheless it has happened again.
What is this
magic that brings United to win the European Champions League, Sampras to win
his 14th title, Ivanisevic to win Wimbledon?
And I’ve said it
before so it’s on the record, Everton or Man City will win the Premiership
before Newcastle or Chelsea.
And watch Everton
go.
Monday 4th November 2002
Pig, Pink Floyd,
Dark Side of the Moon, Patrick Moore, Morecambe and Wise, Sunshine, Rain,
Manchester, United, Beckham, Keane, Robbie, Leeds, Chelsea, Bates, Clive, Andy,
Williams, Marie, Wendy, Islington, Monopoly, Park Lane, Red House, Green House,
Ozone, Antarctic, Bear, Mints, Fox, Hunting, Jacket, Trousers, We’re out
tonight!
We are out
tonight!
Sunday 3rd November 2002
I’m blank today
on this one.
My back’s been
hurting over the last 2 days, not spasms but an ache on both sides going down
to my legs.
I seem to have
done it from too much sitting on the same chair at my PC, writing this type of
stuff!
Difficult to
concentrate.
Friday 1st November 2002
Now in November,
and just 2 months to go before I’ve been writing 4 bits of writing for a year.
That’s an average
of 20 items per month, 12 months, 240 pieces of writing each on 4 subjects.
Nearly 1000
pieces of writing.
Amazing how it
adds up.
Small Steps.
I learnt that
from The Artist’s Way and writing morning pages.
I intend to edit
each of The Little Book of Less = More, Rimmer Shit, and The Lazy Salesman,
into subject areas instead of dates.
Who cares what
I’ve written on a particular date. But,
I think putting the pieces into heading will help and starts to look like the
notes for a book.
I highly
recommend giving it a go. There’s no
pressure other than the discipline to sit down and write.