All I really need to know, I learned from my Grandmother…
Growing up my grandmother always had a way of doing things, as she called it, the right way.
She always said that if you do it right the first time, you won't have to do it again…She also was a stickler for taking care of things right away.
Always arrive early, dress properly, be courteous, first impressions matter, eat with the correct fork, keep your elbows off the table, etc., etc. the list went on and on…
So out of all the nuances and subtleties of living a “proper” life, I listened attentively, digested hundreds of pieces of advice,and have culled it down to what I use daily to make my professional and personal life better and more manageable.
Write everything down and make note of the things that are important.
In my experience this has been done by carrying my notebook everywhere, by emailing myself from my phone constantly, and by taking mental note of context to strengthen recall.While jotting things down obsessively is all well and good, having a system to help organize this information is probably a good idea.Use things like the date, project name, people involved, location of the idea and other helpful words that might help remember the idea later on. Using digital tools like Evernote, Google Keep, Catch, and others will help dramatically cut down the amount of information you have to record yourself so I highly recommend coming up with a plan that involves some of these tools.
Do everything right away, don't dawdle…
Anything that has an action item that you can take care of in the moment, don't hesitate to act right away. Do a little legwork, make some progress on it immediately, don't lose momentum or focus. If something is standing in the way plan and schedule for that next required step and keep moving where your can. Just take action now and plan out the remaining steps, this will ensure a clear path to success for a project or whatever you do in life.
Write everything down on a calendar, it is your friend.
This is the age of digital calendars, Siri reminders, Facebook events,work calendars,Meetups, etc. Your actual schedule is easily lost in the mix of all these distractions. That’s why it is important to keep a large physical calendar that helps to visualize your schedule in a meaningful way. Put in up on a wall that forces you to see it on a regular basis. This will help you internalize the information and keep you from needing to check your digital calendars so often.
Read, read, read, and read some more. Don't watch T.V. it rots your brain.
With the amount of media between Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and the other big dogs in the room, we have an enourmous amount of distractions besides T.V. Information is like a sword; wield it correctly and it will give you great strength, abuse it and it will take your life. Make sure what your take in is high in quality and variety. Read a great diversity of information that comes from a number of sources. Don't limit yourself to just the internet, the newspaper, Reddit, etc.. Cast your nets wide and use digital tools to help organize and timeshift articles for reading later.
Readability, Instapaper, Pocket, are great tools to help get rid of the unimportant styling, superfluous material, and cleanup layout. They let you get down to the juicy bits, a.k.a. the actual article. This allows you to gather articles and blog posts from around the internet, timeshift the content and deliver it to a number of digital devices for batched reading later. That said, remember books are great too and you can still use digital tools like GoodReads. It’s social so you can find friends (like me!), and share to other networks. So get out there and get some reading done and share with your friends.
Always clean up after yourself when you are done
This is an important step that allows you to make small steps to cleanup as you go and help a project from getting too complex and out of control. After each day or session of a project, assess where you have left off; cleanup tools, document progress, commit code, etc.. This allows for a vital digestion process to happen and help to make the project feel clear and continuous.
A clean shop is a safe and efficient shop.
Take time for quiet, constructive time each day.
Instead of taking naps when I was young, I would have time to myself to play in my room. I would usually make things with my Legos, play office with my computer, create some art or draw. The point was to take time out of the day and create something on my own and be by myself for a while. These days I usually will code a little project, learn a new technology like NodeJS or Firebase,or whatever tickles my fancy, just to keep it light and easy. Take some time out of your day and make something!
Well that’s about all I can compress into a post but I think I've done my grandmother justice or at least a little for now. I’m sure there are many lessons and rules I've missed here so I’m sorry in advance Nan and I’ll be sure to write more, read more, and cleanup after myself more often!
