I've been following the Doonsbury comic strip since my early collage days in the 1970's. It's paralleled my life at many times in amazing ways, and it continues to do so now. One of the main characters, Rick Redfern, a reporter at the Washington Post for many years, just got laid off in the comic strip last week. His situation has many similarities to mine, and it will be interesting to see where this story line goes. My compliments to the author Gary Tredeau for tacking on this increasingly common social trend.
The relevant sequence of events starts with this strip.
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label articles. Show all posts
Monday, March 2, 2009
Friday, June 13, 2008
The 100 Possession Challenge
I've been interested in decluttering my life for a while, and in spurts I give it a try (though often not getting beyond one room). It turns out that some people are willing to try taking this to the extreme in the "Olympics of decluttering" and reducing their personal possessions to 100 items. Gulp! My family had an interesting conversation about it over lunch today, and decided that it would have to be 100 items per person, and jointly owned family-stuff wouldn't count. But still, getting down to even 200-300 items would be an extreme challenge. I'm not sure if I'll give it a try, but at least it give me great inspiration to work on decluttering my life more. By the way, did you know that ancient Buddhist Law of Possessions allowed a monk to have only 8 possessions? Interesting.... I believe that is roughly what Gandhi owned when he died.
If you want to read more, try the Zen Habits web site article here. ( The Zen Habits site is an incredibly wonderful site in general when it comes to decluttering you possessions, your mind, and examining your priorities.) There is also a guy blogging about his efforts. And finally, surprise, there was even a recent Time magazine article about this movement.
If you want to read more, try the Zen Habits web site article here. ( The Zen Habits site is an incredibly wonderful site in general when it comes to decluttering you possessions, your mind, and examining your priorities.) There is also a guy blogging about his efforts. And finally, surprise, there was even a recent Time magazine article about this movement.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
10 Career Killers to Avoid - part 2
Thomas Hoffman has an interesting article in Computerworld on 10 Career Killers to Avoid. Here are some more interesting thoughts that are worth exploring (part 2)
6. Believing You Knowing all the answers. "... Winners remain unceasingly interested in learning new ideas and approaches. Asking a lot of questions is a hallmark of great leaders" [ Remember, the world keeps changing and that rate of change is increasing. Learning needs to be a life long process, now more than ever. ]
7. Surrounding yourself with "brown-nosers." - Get a good set of friends and advisers that can give you honest views on how you're doing, and good advice when you face difficult decisions.
8. Forgetting to give credit to others. - Your reputation for honesty and integrity will impact how much people are willing to work with you.
9. Failing to self-promote. "Bragging is one thing, but letting colleagues throughout your industry know of your success is quite another" [In any career, I've always maintained that it's your own responsibility to keep your manager informed of what you're doing, the problems you've overcome, and your successes. Finding a way to document or report these to others is also a good idea. Now, if I could just learn how to better promote this blog... I guess that's an important "to-do" task for me.]
10. Losing perspective. "Despite your best attempts to do everything right, sometimes you approach roadblocks and seek the advice and perspective of a respected friend or colleague... Don't forget the reasons why the business exists, why you're in this business, and what you intended to accomplish when you entered this industry. You need to be excited about what it is you're doing, and you need to put more enthusiasm into what it is you're doing. If you're not looking forward to getting out of bed in the morning, you're working on a downward trend"
6. Believing You Knowing all the answers. "... Winners remain unceasingly interested in learning new ideas and approaches. Asking a lot of questions is a hallmark of great leaders" [ Remember, the world keeps changing and that rate of change is increasing. Learning needs to be a life long process, now more than ever. ]
7. Surrounding yourself with "brown-nosers." - Get a good set of friends and advisers that can give you honest views on how you're doing, and good advice when you face difficult decisions.
8. Forgetting to give credit to others. - Your reputation for honesty and integrity will impact how much people are willing to work with you.
9. Failing to self-promote. "Bragging is one thing, but letting colleagues throughout your industry know of your success is quite another" [In any career, I've always maintained that it's your own responsibility to keep your manager informed of what you're doing, the problems you've overcome, and your successes. Finding a way to document or report these to others is also a good idea. Now, if I could just learn how to better promote this blog... I guess that's an important "to-do" task for me.]
10. Losing perspective. "Despite your best attempts to do everything right, sometimes you approach roadblocks and seek the advice and perspective of a respected friend or colleague... Don't forget the reasons why the business exists, why you're in this business, and what you intended to accomplish when you entered this industry. You need to be excited about what it is you're doing, and you need to put more enthusiasm into what it is you're doing. If you're not looking forward to getting out of bed in the morning, you're working on a downward trend"
Friday, August 31, 2007
NY Times Article on Setting Life Goals
Alex Williams wrote a NY Times article titled Ten things to Do Before This Article Is Finished (Aug 26, 2007). It's a fascinating description of the growing phenomena of people writing down their life goals - a list of things they want to accomplish before they die. This is apparently becoming quite popular with a number of web sites devoted to collecting a summary of the most popular goals sent in by people (ex: www.43things.com )
People are often drawn to create a list of life goals because they feel unmotivated, lack a sense of accomplishment or direction, or just need more focus in their lives. Working through the list of goals gives more meaning to their lives, creates a greater sense of accomplishment, introduces them to new activities, and helps them take steps towards self-improvement.
One women described a fascinating exercise she undertook to make good on her vow to "develop persistence". She trained herself to pause at work every 15 minutes to record the activities she had just finished. The point, she said, is to eliminate distractions and time wasting activities. She says she has doubled her daily productive hours. I'm tempted to try that.
The article also observed the growing phenomena that "baby boomers are at a point in our life that this is the moment to stop and take stock". All this is really great as far as I'm concerned. But there seemed to be one important element missing - a discussion of how you chose what goals to set. Among the life goals given as examples in the article were: attain the perfect golf swing, see a dinosaur fossil,get a tattoo, and learn to surf. Those are all fun (except maybe for the tattoo one) and can add a sense of adventure to your life. But can't help but think that life should be more than just a series of personal adventures undertaken for the fun of it. Such adventures should be a part of life, but the main goals? That seems a little shallow to me.
People are often drawn to create a list of life goals because they feel unmotivated, lack a sense of accomplishment or direction, or just need more focus in their lives. Working through the list of goals gives more meaning to their lives, creates a greater sense of accomplishment, introduces them to new activities, and helps them take steps towards self-improvement.
One women described a fascinating exercise she undertook to make good on her vow to "develop persistence". She trained herself to pause at work every 15 minutes to record the activities she had just finished. The point, she said, is to eliminate distractions and time wasting activities. She says she has doubled her daily productive hours. I'm tempted to try that.
The article also observed the growing phenomena that "baby boomers are at a point in our life that this is the moment to stop and take stock". All this is really great as far as I'm concerned. But there seemed to be one important element missing - a discussion of how you chose what goals to set. Among the life goals given as examples in the article were: attain the perfect golf swing, see a dinosaur fossil,get a tattoo, and learn to surf. Those are all fun (except maybe for the tattoo one) and can add a sense of adventure to your life. But can't help but think that life should be more than just a series of personal adventures undertaken for the fun of it. Such adventures should be a part of life, but the main goals? That seems a little shallow to me.
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