It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. – Albert Einstein Recently at a very nice restaurant I observed a young gentleman pecking away at his iPhone. He did this while sitting at the bar with a friend and later throughout dinner…while he was eating. I couldn’t help but thinking that he was missing out on a very good meal and some quality time with a friend. This incident...

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. -Gustave Flaubert I often hear people say imposing a system on their work will stifle their creativity. But the opposite is true. Having a system for handling routine tasks takes the thinking out of it which frees your mind for more creative pursuits. Each decision you make about where to put something what to do about it drains you a little of your...

You may delay, but time will not. -Benjamin Franklin Time management is really a misnomer. Unlike a football game, you can’t mange the game clock of your life. It keeps running whether you like it or not. Because you can’t manage time you must instead manage how you choose to spend it. The choice is yours and yours alone. Always. Sometimes we feel as if we have “no choice.” But is that really true? It may seem that...

You don’t have to put on the red light. - Sting If you have ever used a Blackberry or some other smart phones, you know that the blinking red light tells you that you have a new e-mail   It seems harmless enough. But I know people who allow that little red light rule their lives. Each time it begins blinking they are compelled to check their new messages.  When the light isn’t blinking they begin to feel unwanted, unimportant...

This has been a very tough year. -  Bernard Madoff I don’t know if Madoff really said this, but I’m sure he’s thought about it a time or two.  And he would be right, it has been a difficult year for many of us. This week in the US we are taking some quiet time to celebrate Thanksgiving to give thanks for what we have. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on the good things that have happened in your life and/or...

If you can’t picture it being done, you can’t do it. - John Pich The quote above was from my late father-in-law. Although he never finished high school, he was one of the wisest people I have ever met. Like many men of his generation, he dropped out of high school to join the fight during World War II. After completing his tour he began his life’s work as a pipefitter. The quote you see is just one piece of wisdom he...

Everyone’s a super hero, everyone’s a Captain Kirk. - Nena Do you feel as if you will never catch up? Get used to it because it’s not going to change anytime soon. Part of the reason for the overloaded feeling is our natural tendency to believe we can do everything. We ignore the laws of physics and expect ourselves to be superhuman. Maybe that was true when new information came to us in a trickle. Today it’s...

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important. - Doris Lessing What’s the most important thing you could be doing with your time right now? (Other than reading this post of course.) Are you doing it? We often gravitate toward the easy things when it’s time to decide what to do next.  It’s comfortable and gives us a false sense that we’re accomplishing something....