Get things done

"See a man who is diligent and skilled in what he does he will stand before kings and not ordinary men". 

The world is a great place with greater people for the good or bad. How do we compete in this world? How do we get better that these great people? How are we going to be good at something, when we can't even get the simplest task we have done within a day? All the great people around the world and the normal people all have at least one thing in common, we all have only 24 hours in our day to day life. So what makes the difference? what makes them the geniuses and millionaires? It's how they use the time they are given and how they manage to get the most done within that time and how they channel their will power within the days work appropriately.

With that thought in mind let me ask you this question..

Are you maintaining a list/ to-do list? 

Lists create cognitive loading. Sherlock Holmes ones said "mind is an attic, everything you put in will eventually pile up and you won't be able to put new things in"(I know Sherlock Holmes is not a real person and Arthur Conan Doyle was actually the man behind the mind). Warren Buffet said, "For every good thing you put in you have to take something out". I'm not saying don't have a list, have one but make sure you don't put everything into that list. I would recommend you apply the two minute rule and with your to-do list. Do not put down things that take no more than two minutes to get them done into your to do list. You can have a different list to maintain you shopping list or your chores. But as your main to-do list have only the most important things you have to get done within the day. Any time a task hits you like buying a book or buying milk or writing an email to someone that has to be done, that has to be taken off you place then and there. If you can't do it at that time allocate a time in you day may be 15 minutes or even an hour and get all that done and get it off your chest. Men of action ruled the world.

"Do not put it off for tomorrow, anything you can do now"

Your will power is finite, do not put it or use it on things that does not need your attention instead go for the tasks that actually need more will power. In other words you use your finite will power to do your chores as well as your assignments. It does not mean that you don't have enough will power to get through the whole day. You have to exercise your will power and train it to endure more and get more things done. Till you get to the stage where you have enough will power to get all the things done within the day make sure you use your finite will power to get the right tasks done first. This also could be put in simpler terms like; do not open your face book first thing in the morning, do not open your e-mail first thing in the morning and etc... Instead get your priorities straight and get things done.

Importance of Reading

On many of the other pages of advice on this site I have emphasized how important reading is as far as learning English is concerned. Reading is a fundamental to function in today's society. It's a scary yet true thought that there are many adults who cannot read well enough to understand the instruction on a medicine bottle or fill out applications without help. A person is limited in what he can accomplish without good reading and comprehensive skills. 

Reading is NOT retaining information of what ever we read. That is called studying. Reading is to train your mind just like you workout to train your body. Just like working out in a gym for a day is not gonna do you any good, reading only on the 1st of January every year is not going to get you anywhere. You have to be consistent and you have to make it a habit. I've heard people say reading is boring and it is useless. But in reality making reading into a habit is more important than working out, eating right or even sleeping right.

Why should we read? 

How much do you read? In this media obsessed time with tablets and iphones and laptops we spend alot of our time with social medias such as facebook, Instagram and Youtube watching and absorbing information in very different ways. Let's see what reading does to us :

It's definitely going to make you alot smarter. There's alot of ways you retain information; when you are watching television or movies is not the same as going through words in a book. Reading a book keeps your brain sharper by keeping you attention span while you read. You might think Reading slows you down while the fast pace medias like video tutorials make you learn things quick. But thats not how you brain works. 

Why is reading slow? why can't we read faster? have you ever thought about that? well, this is the reason; your brain can only understand information at that speed. In other words your reading speed is actually the speed you understand a context. Reading is slower than other fast pace medias now-a-days but with practice you can make it fast. You can start to understand long comprehensive contexts very quick.

A famous entrepreneur Jim Rohn once said that "You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with". Mostly we have friends who like to go out partying and get wasted you are probably doing the same, but if you have friends who go to gym  on a daily basis and eat healthy then you are more likely to be healthier than an average Joe. Of course there are exceptions to this but the general consensus is that there's some truth to this idea. We learn from our surroundings. We are sophisticated species who copy each other. This is where our Accents, culture, slang even traditions come from. This is why most successful people always have had a mentor who inspired them to be successful. Mark Zuckerberg had Steve jobs, Bill Gates had Warren Buffett, these are some of the modern day examples. Why am I saying all these? We cannot surround our selves with people like Zuckerberg or Gates or Warren Buffett but we can definitely surround our selves with their thoughts and ideas through reading about them and their biographies. Learn from them and grow to be successful.

You might not agree with me on this but books and reading can be entertaining. This is why you would see more people reading on their vacation or when ever they get some free time. But for it to be fun you have to make it a habit, a natural response than to force it into you. What I actually mean by 'not force it into you' is, don't start with heavy classics, start with something light- a few hundred pages , something fun. 

Its seems fairly obvious, when you get down to day-to-day approach to life it's key. There's alot of time in our life which we mostly occupy scrolling up and down in a website reading the trolling comments which could be put into reading something that could actually be of some use in a greater way.