​A little old now, in the grand scheme of things, but still a good one.  Like a form of meditation, the one figured controls allow you to gently and calmly carve your way down a mountain, collecting scarves as you go.
 
Beautifully designed, allow yourself ten minutes downtime to recharge as you fly down the slopes.

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

Apart from containing the most sustainable diet plan on the planet, the slow carb diet, this book is filled with teachings to improve your whole life.
 
Tim perhaps puts it best:

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

​Seeking true wisdom seems, to me, like piecing together nuggets of advice that seem paradoxical until you truly understand them for yourself.
 
The trouble with listening to others alone is that you either get conflicting information or you pigeon hole yourself into one way of thinking.  You must internalise what you hear, read, see and make it true to yourself.
 
Want to be successful? Easy, look for others more than yourself. Or. Easy, be ruthless in going after what you want. Both have been seen to be true, but how can it be so?
 
Back when I used to run more, we used to joke that it wasn’t the fastest person to run the 10k that won. It was the person that can run the 10k the fastest and still drink the most beers afterwards as that showed that you had balance in your life.
 
We could have run faster if we did not drink, cut out desserts, trained every day instead of socialising. But the goal was not to win the race at all costs of missing going out, it was to enjoy running.
 
If the goal was to win an Olympic medal, then clearly our strategy is not enough. People training for that have a singular focus and never give up. Until they give up. Or until they get the medal. Either way, there is a price to other things they could have been doing.
 
When setting your goals and choosing who to listen to you must decide if that is the person you want to be.
 
Do you want to be alone? Do you want to be hated? Do you want only fleeting relationships?
 
Because to get the surface level success that the masses covet, there may be some payoffs your idols had to make that you are not immediately aware of.
 
Decide what your goal is before you get on the treadmill otherwise it may be tricky to get off. And when you do, you might find you are back where you started in some areas of your life.

​What if you worked eight hours at a corporate job then spent three hours working on a side project?
 
What if you did your side job in the middle of the day: worked two hours at your corporate job, three hours on a side project and then six hours back at your normal job?
 
What if you juggled your energy between the two all day and got more done in both?
 
What is you found out that you get better results, more consistently – and had more energy – only doing four hours of work a day in total between the two?
 
Why does anyone care about this spit?  And why are people really worried about the gig economy?
 
Taxes.  Not workers’ rights or productivity.  If everyone has time to be their own corporate entity then the government will receive much less tax.  Or worse, the population may realise they are much better than anyone ever thought and stop becoming full time worker-consumers.

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

​I read three or four books at the same time. Someone asked me, “well won't you finish them faster if you focus on one book.” Yes, but the goal is not to get to the end of the book as fast as possible. It is to link as much different knowledge as possible to find the connections that others don't. If I’m enjoying a book then I want it to last as long as possible.
 
The other day I came across the quote in the picture followed by this excerpt from the Tao Te Ching:
 
The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.
 
The point of planning is not to get a plan.  It is to do the act of planning.
 
If I'm executing a task then single tasking is the way forward. If I am thinking then I want that to be as broad as possible.
 
Split your time into thinking and doing and do not confuse the two. Plan and then ruthlessly execute.
 
And enjoy each step.  Why rush?  The goal is not to get to the end.  The goal is to work towards a goal.

​It is amazing to still see how many people have their email popping up, interrupting them from whatever they are doing.
 
By not turning off the notifications, you are basically telling yourself that whatever you have chosen to do proactively is not as important as anyone else’s request for your time. Either that, or the work you are doing is so boring that you welcome any respite in the form of a reactive interruption.
 
This is no way to work. Or live.
 
Kill the interruptions and do some great work.

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

​Whilst I was working at a corporate job I searched for an app to help me run meetings more effectively and could not find one. I noticed that no one, not even senior executives, can run a meeting properly. There is never and agenda, people talk for hours, and everyone underneath them on the org chart is trapped in meeting hell!
 
It was not until a year or two later that I put the idea into practice. I had always wanted to run my own company but always made excuses to not start. When I was on a beach holiday I read 4-hour workweek, Think and Grow Rich and The Icarus Deception all back to back. I thought, 'what I would do if I already had £100m in the bank,' and I decided that I would love to design and create iOS apps. My pet peeve was people saying they did not have time for things. I joined this to the earlier idea of a meeting timer app, and hey presto.
 
Because I decided that I would do this even if I already were a multimillionaire, then I did not have the goal of making any money.  That would (hopefully) be a nice benefit.
 
When I got back to work my company announced that they were making my whole team and me redundant. I thought that if I do not do it now, I never will. There will never be a perfect time.
 
And there is never a perfect time. Just start.

​After reading Crush It! years ago, and then following Gary Vee’s immense social powerhouse rise to fame through Vaynermedia, I caught up on his subsequent books recently.
 
Although social media and the internet moves fast, the principals and tactics of this book are a must read for anyone producing content for the internet (i.e. everyone).

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog

​It still surprises me that mentees hear very general advice from “mentors” in a corporate setting.  (Mentors in the loosest sense of the word.  They are slightly higher on the org chart than you - see reverse the org chart).
 
It benefits the organisation to give very general feedback.  No one will ever know if you have achieved it or not by your next annual review.  They keep their downsizing options open.
 
You know you are talking to someone experienced when they can break it down for you.  If there is not something you can do daily, then it is not actionable. 
 
Push your boss to turn their feedback into a daily habit and find out if they are good or lucky.

​Lots of advice is to hunker down, to save your nuts for the winter.  Get your head down, study, get good grades, get a good job.

Lately, there is lots of other advice to be a leader, entrepreneur, raise capital, raise debt, travel the world, make more money.

Neither track is bad advice.  But why not do both?

Make more money and save more money.  Work a full-time job and do one on the side.  Have roots somewhere and travel too.

The trouble with advice is that it comes from the worldview of the person giving it, not from the worldview of the person receiving it.

If you are introverted, have a brilliant idea and are a little timid then following advice to listen more, read more, and to be cautious is tempting as it is your natural self.  Similarly, if you are already overconfident, talk over people, and act before thinking, then getting advice to be brasher, to do more and to pester people might not be the best.

In either case, seeking out advice that is less like your current self, whilst not losing who you are is surely the secret to the game.

If you have low self-esteem then thinking that you are better than everyone around you is just an antidote to bring you back to normal.  If you are already arrogant, then the same advice is an overdose likely to tip you over the edge of social norms.

Whatever you are like, whatever you are doing.  You can do it all.

Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.

What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog