4 de junho de 2015

There is only limited time!

I do not remember a life without a computer. Perhaps, in the future, childs will hesitate to believe the old ones telling stories of a past without computers.

Of course, I did not use my old computer like Elon Musk did, I used to play videogames and stuff. I had not a single idea of what programming was when I was his age. But, at that moment I did not realize that I got into a world of abundancy.

Now, as I write these words many resources for learning come to my mind such as Coursera, edX, etc. All free online resources. We do not need anything but internet these days to enter to a huge world of knowledge. 

In very few words, in my personal opinion, it is not enough to gather knowledge, but what builds a great human being is applying the knonwledge.

With the ability to get knowledge and the idea that you have to apply it you can start having an impact on whatever you want, let's say money. So, here are the words from James Altucher of how you can gather some money with knowledge that comes from the internet.

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Ok, now you know where to find the knowledge, but knowledge is such a broad field. Besides, you have to add the fact that we all want to achieve something specific in life such as get better in finances, learn psychology, a little bit of quantum mechanics, and so on and so on.

Hence, you will have to develop the ability to select your most important task at each moment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done quickly and well. 

Why? because we have limited time! - time is such a bitch! - You will have to know how to choose which information is important for you, so you reach your goal in an optimun path.

Now, let's talk about tasks in general because we all have duties besides reaching what we wanto to be in life.

Important tasks,
  • spend time with your family
  • go to the grocery store
  • do your homework to have good grades
  • do networking

But remember that you have only limited time! At this point you need to leverage what is a high value task for you, at this very moment, and which others can be postponed. Perhaps, you have a test tomorrow then you need to do your homework, or you run out of food and feel hungry then you will have to go the grocery store.

Maybe, complete the last three tasks will take you almost the whole day and leave you super tired. If you feel tired then you will not enjoy the time with your family {I consider this one the most important task}. So it is important to know how to do this task quickly and well.

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Now, I want to introduce you to the frog.

A frog is not only your biggest and more important task but also the one that you are more likely to procastinate on.

Let's expand a little bit more the idea. What is an important task? It is something that you may like or you may not like to do but has a good amount of impact on your inmediate or long future.

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On a daily basis we have tons of tasks to do. We have many frogs. Some of them are ugliest than others. At some point you see yourself so overwhelmen by the amount of tasks that you have to do that you get paralyzed.

So, what is the trick to begin?

Well, just begin, do something!

Really, and I mean these words.

But, as usual, you have really ugly frogs and not so bad frogs. Most of the times the ugliest frogs are the ones that will have more impact on your future self. It can be writting your senior thesis and do excersice comparing to, let's say, walk your dog.

So, the first rule is to eat the ugliest frog first! The one that you dislike the most. 

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At this point you know the first rule, and next you will have to discipline yourself to begin inmediately and to persist before do something else.

Discipline is one of the most important skills in life one can have.

I really believe these words so much that when I would be growing my children one of the basic stuff would be to try to guide them to the way of discipline.

Math is ok, history too, but if you do not have discipline it will not stick.

When I read one of Cal Newport books, I remember from paragrahp (or was it a chapter? I do not remember) that facebook was the devil. I think I can name some more: instagram, whatsapp, etc.

Of course I know the importantce of all of these tools, but they do not match my idea of trying to introduce new input to your mind and at the same time posting that you are introducing 'new input in your mind' (add a picture with these words) and waiting for the comments from your friends.

So, no more distractions is a must to begin inmediately!

And to persist!, such a difficult activity if you are not used to dive yourself into a topic at full time.

But fortunately you can train yourself to persist. Therefore, you will have to increase your stamina.

A casual example would be your way into running a full marathon. At the beginnign you just give small steps maybe 5K the most, but with the proper guideline you will reach the 42K. It is all about training.

Every step, even if it small, will lead you to your goal, so do not stop taking steps.

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A task (frog) whether if it is easy or hard consums energy. So, you should better try to use your most productive hours dealing with the ugliest frogs because energy, as time, is limited too.

The decision to wether use your time on not so bad frogs or ugly frogs is an important decision.

It is a big deal to know what you will do inmediately and what you will do later, if you do it at all.

It is a change or expansion of paradigm that will do the work to adopt the new habit of taking importan decisions.

Take actions that come from important decisions. Get use to it, leverage your actions according to what you like to be and see in the future.

To put you in a diet, before you take a decision ask yourself this:

What requires inmediate attention if only I could do one thing? The rest may not even be important. 
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The second rule goes like this: "If you have to eat a live frog at all, it does not pay to sit and look at it for very long"

If you know your frog then do it. You are not gaining a thing at all for staring at it; perhaps, you are losing time.

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Have you ever come to think how do successful people achieve stuff?

We do only see the 30 seconds of glory, but behind that there were thousand of hours of continous effort!

So, learn from experts in all aspects of your life.

To learn a new skill you will need decision, discipline, and determination.

All improvements in your outer life begin with important changes on the inside. With the mental picture of yourself.

What I really like about this paradigm is that it adds value to everybody. It has been said a lot that your future life could only be impacted by your born nest. With this paradigm you are the only one who will be in charge of your future acomplishements!

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In this post I put down some own comments about the Introduction chapter of the book mentioned below.

Author: Brian Tracy
Type of book: Self development, time-management

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