Eric Blue's Blog

Leo at Zen Habits has posted another great article on productivity. The following is an excerpt from the article on Emerson's thoughts on creativity and productivity.

Write Everything Down

"Men are born to write… Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him as a model and sits for its picture. He counts it all nonsense that they say, that some things are undescribable. He believes that all that can be thought can be written, first or last; and he would report the Holy Ghost, or attempt it. Nothing so broad, so subtle, or so dear, but comes therefore commended to his pen, and he will write. In his eyes, a man is the faculty of reporting, and the universe is the possibility of being reported."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A problem that Emerson faced his entire life was the possession of an unmanageable mind. His thoughts leaped quickly from one idea to another. He had moments in life where insights sprang from his mind like water from a broken dam. During these times, Emerson had trouble organizing his thoughts effectively. Yet these deluges were gone in a flash and he was then beset with an intellectual dry spell. He compared the challenge of managing his mind to that of harnessing thunderbolts.

In order to manage these fluctuations, Emerson kept a journal. Every day he collected even the smallest thought, idea, or dream that crossed his mind. This enabled Emerson to better organize his thoughts when they flowed freely and to spur new ideas when he hit a dry spell. Writing helped Emerson make sense of the world. He would revisit the ideas he had recorded and add to them as he gained new insights. Thanks to Emerson’s journaling habit, we are blessed today with his great essays on simplicity and self-reliance.

I can relate to this post on a few different levels, and can certainly relate to the feeling of the ebb and flow of creative maelstroms. The value of journaling is clear, and the ability to collect and organize your thoughts and ideas in a single place is a fantastic way to channel your creative output (think Memex).

Source: http://zenhabits.net/2008/06/lessons-in-productivity-from-ralph-waldo-emerson/

Posted by EricB at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Why is it that the beginning of the year always feels electrical with the excitement of *this year* being the one where you achieve all of your most important goals? Like most people, starting on New Year's, I spend time thinking about my goals, write many of them down, and start taking action. While I am happy with the progress I've made in the past, I've had the feeling that many of my goals seem to lose momentum after a few months. Starting a couple months ago I began researching how I could effectively be reminded about my goals on a daily basis, but not be overwhelmed by tons of information or underwhelmed by boring goals written on a piece of paper.

My research has paid off. I've leveraged my interest in information visualization, organization, and mind maps to create a unique approach to goal setting, and I want to share this technique with you. The entire process of getting your goals into the mind map takes 4 steps:

Overview
Step 1 - Find Your Purpose and Passion
Step 2 - Create Your Vision
Step 3 - Download the Mind Map Template and Install Mind Mapping Software
Step 4 - Write Down Your Goals

Overview

The mind map template I've created serves two purposes:

1. Give a quick overview - All of your goals can be easily printed and viewed on a single 8 1/2 X 11 piece of paper. Goals are organized by a particular area of your life (Physical, Financial, Relationship) and allows you to be reminded to keep a healthy balance. And, all goals have visual markers to show their priority in relationship to each other.

2. Save detailed information - Since the mind map will also be saved on your computer, you can add much greater detail than the printed version. This detail includes specific information for how you will achieve your goal (who, what, when, where, and why). And, also allows you to write down your longer-term goals, and even keep a personal journal.

The Internet and Blogosphere is literally filled with thousands of e-books, articles, blogs, and websites with tons of information on how to set goals. I'm not going to try to reinvent the wheel for this article, so I'm just going to give some pointers to some of the more useful resources I've found. OK, so let's get started.

Step 1 - Find Your Purpose and Passion

Many people (my past self included) usually start setting their goals, and don't spend a lot of time figuring out who they are, and if these are the things they really want. It's like the analogy of making progress climbing the ladder, but only finding out that your ladder was up against the wrong wall the whole time. The point of finding your purpose is to locate the one thing that your absolutely passionate about in life, and then realign all of your activities and goals to that purpose. Here are some great links:

Steve Pavlina - How to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes

Curt Rosengren (Passion Catalyst) - The Occupational Adventure Guide

Personal Development Ideas blog - Discover Your True Self

Step 2 - Create Your Vision

Once you've uncovered your true purpose and passion, you should be feeling a lot clearer about the direction you want to take. Let's take it one step further and create your vision. You're vision is the long-term plan for what you *really* want in your life. Visualization is key, and there are some fantastic techniques you can use.

- Visualization

Instigator Blog - Achieve Your Goals With 3 Types of Visualization

- Written Vision Statements

Radical Mutual-Improvement - Write your ideal scene

- Vision Collages (Treasure Map)

Curt Rosengren (Passion Catalyst) - Treasure map

- Video Vision Statements

I've started blogging about this recently. Malcolm Cohan has created a fabulous way to make your own video vision statement. I'd highly recommend this!

Malcolm Cohan's Website
Eric Blue - Vision Statement: The Power of Goal Visualization
Eric Blue - My Personal Vision Statement

Step 3 - Download the Mind Map Template and Install Mind Mapping Software

I used MindManager to create the mind map template, however I can recommend some other (and free) mind map applications.

Mindjet MindManager 6 (Free 5-day Trial/Commercial)

FreeMind (Free/Open Source)

ConceptDraw MindMap (Free 30-day Trial/Commercial)

IMindMap (Free 30-day Trial/Commercial)

Now you're ready to download the goal mind map template:

Online Preview

Online Preview Using MindMap Viewer (flash)

Downloads
[Right-click and select Save Link As]

Goals Mind Map Template (.mmap)
(63KB, Mindjet MindManager format)

FreeMind (.mm)
(24KB, MM format)

Goals Mind Map Template (.xml)
(246KB, XML format - can be imported to other programs)

Screenshots

Step 4 - Write Down Your Goals

OK, this is it, the moment you've been waiting for! Fire up your mind mapping software, and load the template you just downloaded. To make your goal mind map most effective, I'd recommend setting a few guidelines when settings goals:

1. Balance in your life is important. I've created 8 major areas for categorizing your goals, ordered from right-left: (1) Physical/Health, (2) Career, (3) Contribution, (4) Finances, (5) Rest/Play/Hobbies, (6) Relationships, (7) Mental/Emotional, (8) Spiritual. These are not set in stone, so feel free to rename or modify these categories.

2. Try not to have more than 5 goals per each area.

3. S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Based) guidelines should be followed
*Who: Who is involved?
*What: What do I want to accomplish?
*When: Establish a time frame.
*Where: Identify a location.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

4. Assign each goal a priority within each respective area.

1 = Most Important: Critical!
2 = Desired
3 = Nice to Have

5. Focus is on short-term goals, but long-term goals are listed to keep perspective. Write down 3 year, 5 year, and lifetime goals.

6. Emphasize between 1-3 Top goals for the year. These take precedence over all others.

Posted by EricB at 01:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (1)

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Last month I posted about a new Internet phenomenon created by Malcolm Cohan. Malcolm's idea is for people to create their own personal video vision statement. I signed up for an online seminar that was held on New Year's day. The purpose of this seminar was to show you how to create your own video.

For the last few weeks, I've been slowly adding photos and modifying my statements. Today, I added a fantastic version of U2's song "Where The Streets Have No Name" by Joel Cage. Joel's acoustic version is really amazing. This song has always been inspiring to me, and I think it really helps bring a lot of meaning to my vision statement.

The video is ready now and available on YouTube.

Here is the direct video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMFZkAV8NRI

Posted by EricB at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

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Update: I've created my own vision statement, and posted here.

I found an amazing video this evening on MindHacks.org. A gentleman from Australia named Malcolm Cohan has put together a fantastic production titled "Think It So" that illustrates the power of goal visualization. You can visit his website here. Or, his YouTube page here.

His visualization technique, called a Vision Statement, is a twist on traditional affirmations and goal setting. In a nutshell, rather than using a paper-based goal visualization technique like a Treasure Map, or a Goal Collage, he has taken a high-tech approach and opted to create a slideshow/video of inspiring photographs, with music and captions that focus on what you want to achieve. Check out the video.....

Malcom is conducting an online seminar in Jan/Feb with step-by-step instructions for how to create your own Vision Statement. I'm definitely looking forward to this. I think this is going to be a powerful tool, and can see this gaining an enormous amount of momentum. I'm not sure if this is specific to my personal experience, or if these topics are becoming more mainstream, but there might be a new trend forming here.

Over the last year, I've had a couple recurring themes popping up in my research and day to day experiences. One major theme has been the Law of Attraction and Manifestation. Last year (in fact almost a year ago today) my wife's aunt gave me her copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill.

Shortly after reading this book, I started to dig back into success literature and some personal development websites. I was lucky to come across Steve Pavlina's excellent blog and found a pivoting article on the Law of Attraction. Shortly after reading this, I discovered The Secret DVD and finally got around to watching it last week. It's definitely an amazing piece of work, and hopefully will make many more people aware of how much they can affect their own reality.

Overall, I'd say the concept behind the Law of Attraction and Manifestation are intriguing. Regardless of one's personal belief in the possibility of esoteric metaphysical phenomenon that help shape our reality, I think there is real power in intentionality. In the case of the Vision Statement, I think this technique above all helps to:

1) Bring Clarification - the shear act of producing a vision statement (or treasure map/goal collage) will help people better figure out what they really want to accomplish in life. I'd recommend reading Steve Pavlina's numerous posts on finding your purpose and setting goals. It's probably safe to assume that 90% of the population is not willing to spend the time doing this exercise. This means that you are going to be much more prepared to recognize and act on opportunity when it presents itself.

2) Reinforce Focus - if you truly intend to be serious about watching your Vision Statement everyday when you wake up and before you go to bed, then this type of repetition is going to dramatically affect your focus and attention. In a sense, repetition of something used in a positive context, is going to help raise your level of consciousness. Learning to focus daily on your goals and what you want to achieve is going to help filter out (or significantly lessen) obstacles to your goals. These obstacles can be negative/repetitive thoughts, negative situations or relationships, spending time working on the wrong things (e.g. things that won't significantly help propel you to your goals). Short-term hurdles won't stop you from reaching your long-term goals.

3) Magnify Passion - one thing I've read and experienced numerous times is that you can visualize all day long, but if there is no emotion/energy/passion behind your goal then not much is going to happen. I believe that the critical detail in getting an effective Vision Statement is to pick your images, music, and affirmation text carefully. Whatever the goal or desired outcome, it needs to hold a lot of meaning for the person. And, it should bring about an intense feeling (intellectually and emotionally) when viewed. Coupled with repetition, this type of experience can really help motivate people to achieve their goals and stick with them even when motivation is naturally lowered (due to time and mood), or when different opportunities present themselves.

Naturally, wishful thinking by itself isn't going to be very effective. However, if you create an inspiring vision, energize it, and be consistent, then this is going to dramatically improve your mental focus and ability to acheive what you want. I think this, by itself, is going to really help a lot of people. Of course, factors like environment (physical and social), skill, knowledge, and determination are other tools that will ultimately help your chances with getting what you want in your reality.

Posted by EricB at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (2)

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This afternoon a friend of mine brought a nifty Motivational Poster Generator to my attention. Being that I'm a huge fan of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I decided to put this poster generator to good use.

For those of you who would like to become more familiar with FSM, I'd recommend visiting http://www.venganza.org/ (FSM image used in the generated poster is courtesy of this site).

Enjoy.......

Posted by EricB at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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I'm in the middle of reading Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving. At the end of each chapter is a relevant quote, and I found one that is definitely worth sharing.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. --- RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Posted by EricB at 07:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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