Your perfect productive day Fast Company

http://www.fastcompany.com/embed/7e80a69083404?rel=1&src=embed&veggiemode=1

Momentum

With starting a business or project it takes a while for the momentum to build. At one of the places I work the projects have started to pick up, we are getting some great wins. Thankfully! It feels like we’ve reached the top of the latest climb and it’s flattening a bit.

It’s been a a big lesson for me in letting go. We let go on both projects, were open about our position and vulnerable. Magically it gave people the space to give their input and ideas. To lend a hand.

Racism is a business, Akala

Thought provoking words from Akala on everyday racism.

“Everyday racism is the normalised experiences we encounter daily based on our difference from the white norm…..

Fighting prejudice both within our society and within ourselves.”

 

If this affects us so much as adults it’s even sadder when we see the effects of everyday racism on young children, as this experiment the “doll test” shows.

I have seen both of these on facebook in recent days.They really made me think about how subconscious and normalised everyday racism is. We all live the idea of the white experience as the norm.

Like in Akala’s example, I myself have to consciously fight the stereotypes even though I am black and I know they are wrong.

I tested my automatic instincts in a few months ago with the brilliant Harvard research project, Project Implicit. I wasn’t surprised to find that I like a lot of respondents, I had an automatic preference for white people compared to black people.

…. But it did make me think deeply my automatic reactions and question more the messages I consume. I’ve have to make a decision to move away from the “Single Story” as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says. To make sure I read, listen and watch stories from a range of people.

 

Responding to stress

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Tweski on responding to stress

A more peacefilled life

 

1.  Magic mornings- make the most of your mornings
2. Make things
3. Breathe more deeply
4. Ask, what is on the other side of fear?
5. Exercise- walk daily
6. Clear your mind
7. Start a daily diary/ journalling practice- write everything that comes to you/ is occupying your mind
8. Experience the anxiety, allow it to overwhelm you for a limited amount of time (11 am rule)
9. Create a worry box, where you write down and physically put away worry
10. Say what you are afraid of, speak about it to someone, identify the emotion 

Change…………

A friend describes life as Cartographers map
We are travelling, exploring the world around us
Every day we experience lots of small changes that we don’t perceive or notice
Once in a while the big ones come along that are life changing

It feels like you’re on a rock clinging on for dear life
You can look back and see where you came from and all the opportunities before you
but you don’t know where to swim to next.

Sometimes we are laid flat out to get us to notice ourselves
To notice the world around us and where we going
We reach our depths have to crawl out
Let go (the hardest thing to do)

And start swimming
Making time for things you love, walking, drawing, but add variety
So it’s not one thing you expect to bring you through

Trust that something will come and you will be able to spot it
Your Intuition will kick in

Talking having safe space to talk allows you to assign meaning to change
The journey is the learning, the swimming and exploring

100 ways to uncomplicate your life

I rediscovered this whilst sorting out my stuff over the Christmas break. Such true advice!

From Bella Mumma

Here are 100 ways to uncomplicate your life… 

1. Don’t try to read other people’s minds

2.Get up 30 minutes earlier so that you don’t rush/get a ticket while driving too fast/have to explain why you’re late/get fired

3. Get 8 hours of sleep per night so that you think more clearly

4. Stick to your budget

5. Start saving and investing every week, no matter how little you can spare

6. Balance your checkbook

7. Don’t try to be friends with everyone. Cultivate closer relationships with fewer people.

8. Don’t try to do business with everyone. Identify your target client and take very good care of them.

9. Before getting angry, ask yourself if it will really matter in 20 years

10. Focus on being a good person, not on pleasing others

11. Stay home this Saturday, and finish off that nagging chore that you need to finish

12. Kiss and make up

13. Make a weekly menu, and shop for only those items at the market

14. Ask your grandparents the best way to uncomplicate life, and try it for a month

15. Fill up your gas tank when it’s half full

16. Don’t drink alcohol when you’re tired, sad or mad

17. Pay your bills on time

18. Get an annual physical examination

19. Say “I love you” to your significant other and to your children. Studies show that more marriages last, and fewer kids use drugs, when these words are spoken every day.

20. For just one day, imagine everyone’s intentions are good because most people’s are

21. Give away clothes that haven’t been worn in two years

22. Throw out clothes that are in disrepair, and can’t be mended

23. When you have a conflict with someone, talk it out. Don’t let it turn into more than it is.

24. Know what your priorities are in life, and act as if they are your priorities

25. Tell the truth

26. Don’t cheat

27. Don’t steal

28. If you’re holding on to a ridiculous grudge, let it go

29. Clean your house weekly, so that it doesn’t become too large a chore

30. Do your best at work, or at school

31. Don’t eat when you aren’t hungry

32. Eat when you are hungry

33. Be yourself

34. Say no unapologetically

35. Cook simple meals

36. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses

37. Pay off your car before buying a new one

38. Organise your desk at the office

39. Change your smoke alarm batteries when the clocks spring forward, and again when they fall back

40. Organise your important paperwork

41. Take only half the clothes that you planned to take with you on holiday

42. Help your children with their homework every night, and have an open dialogue with their teachers

43. Have white sheets and white towels in children’s rooms/bathrooms, because they’re easily bleached

44. Spend your time with nice people

45. Avoid drama

46. Don’t text or talk on the phone while driving

47. Turn off the television/video games/computer; they’re time consumers

48. Don’t engage in office politics

49. Refuse to gossip, or talk behind other people’s backs

50. Do the dishes right after dinner

51. Never go to sleep angry

52. Ask nicely for what you need and want

53. Walk 10,000 steps per day to help your heart

54. Do 20 push-ups before speaking in anger

55. Leave work at work

56. Don’t befriend anyone that isn’t trustworthy

57. Don’t envy others

58. Have your oil changed

59. Take vitamin C BEFORE you catch a cold

60. Don’t work more than 8 hours per day

61. Weed your garden weekly

62. Wash your car weekly

63. Have a spring cleaning month every year, and do one room at a time

64. You don’t need to be best friends with work colleagues, but build respectful partnerships

65. Don’t drink and drive

66. Don’t look for reasons to be angry or sad, look for reasons to be happy. You’ll always be able to find plenty of each.

67. Be friendly with your neighbours

68. Return emails and phone messages promptly

69. Schedule in free time

70. Don’t procrastinate

71. Do what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it

72. Be more flexible when you’re able to be

73. Forgive and forget. End of story.

74. Break the consumerism habit…put a three month moratorium in place on buying anything not deemed a necessity

75. Start your diet on September 1, rather than January 1, so that you won’t also have holiday pounds to lose

76. Take care of any health issues or concerns

77. Have your tires rotated

78. Have your brakes checked

79. Have your eyes checked

80. Don’t let your imagination run away with you

81. Let go of perfection in others

82. Let go of perfection in yourself

83. Don’t try to help those that refuse to help themselves

84. Find a way to reduce your commute to work

85. Have an alloted amount of worry time per day/week, that you strictly abide by

86. Drink more water

87. Eat more salmon

88. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill

89. Wear your hair in a classic, easy to care for style

90. Finish what you start

91. Wear classic clothes and shoes that never go out of style

92. Create a daily routine

>93. Have a 1, 5, 10 and 20 year plan for your financial and life goals

94. Slow down

95. Eat out less often

96. When you ask your husband which outfit looks best, thank him for his answer and wear the one he liked rather than focusing on why he didn’t like the other one

97. Allow your children to grow up

98. Clean out your garage, and donate anything that hasn’t been used in the past year

99. Stretch every day

100. If a relationship is over, let it go

Take care of yourself first

Words of wisdom from Jada Pinkett Smith

Information to Insight

Information (facts provided or learned about something or someone) hear, read or observe.

Its external, till you try it yourself. Practice it. Then it becomes…..

Knowledge.

Something you know and are familiar with.

When an experience allows you to use that knowledge it becomes….

Wisdom. 

You build your ability to think and act with experience, knowledge and understanding.

A continous exploration of these experiences to make meaning and learn from them it becomes…..

Insight.

Question to Ask Instead of “What Do You Do?”

Absolutely love this post on medium on what to ask instead of ‘what do you do?’

I find it a hard question to answer because I do so many different things. What are you working on? is much better and more interesting.

‘What do you do?’ is so fraught with instant judgements based on the work the person does. “We are more than our jobs.”

Made me wonder; what did we ask each other when we were kids?

Check out the article here.