Tag: advice

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. – from Excellent Advice for Living

We can summarize this advice as focus on what’s important. I too often see authors and others get distracted from the main point on which they are writing. I see this in meetings when people start to speculate about something related (or even unrelated) and forget the purpose of the work.

This becomes an even bigger issue when someone goes off to work on a project for a period of time and drifts away from their original goal or focus. You might think you don’t do this, but I bet most of you do. I know I do. I sometimes start to change my focus, thinking the current thing I’m working on is more important than the main goal.

An example is that I might be working on a new presentation. I’ll start to outline the talk, add some bullets and notes, maybe think about demos, etc. At some point, I get distracted with which pictures make my point and I start to waste time on choosing pictures, rather than remembering that the point of the talk isn’t a picture, it’s to teach something. The picture might help, but it’s not the most important thing and it’s not where I should spend a lot of time.

Today’s interruption culture of having notifications, slack, email, etc. available on devices makes this worse. The large amount of things we often engage in at any one time also makes this hard.

Focusing on what you want to achieve and keeping that in mind is important. For presentations, I often put my abstract in the first slide notes, so that I remember what I’m focusing on. For coaching, we often list a few things we want to work on, and as we run drills or evaluate the practice we can look back and see where our focus is. What was the main thing.

Keep the main thing the main thing.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

Investing small amounts of money over a long time works miracles, but no one wants to get rich slow.  – from Excellent Advice for Living

This is incredible advice, and something my parents instilled in me at a young age. I’ve had mixed financial success here, but I do think about this in a different way.

Learning new things and growing your career are things that happen slowly as well, but so many people don’t see the value of small things learned every day. Or managers don’t see the value of having employees learn constantly vs taking a week for a class.

Note, they sometimes don’t even want to give you a week to learn.

Whether you want to grow your finances or your career, regular investment is slow, but it pays incredible dividend over time. Learn, experiment, and practice your skills regularly. It works in music, in sports, and it also helps your career.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

Life gets better as you replace transactions with relationships. – from Excellent Advice for Living

This is incredible advice. I think that much of the complaints about the US from the rest of the world is how transactional we are. Whether this is with stuff we buy or neighbors or how we eat dinner or how we treat sports, we’ve often become transactional. What’s the best, fastest, easiest, most convenient, etc. We often want a quid pro quo for things we do.

When you spend more time with others, when you value the experience and what you get from it, life is better.

It can be harder, slower, etc., but I think it’s better.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

You are never too young to wonder “Why am I still doing this?” You need to have an excellent answer – from Excellent Advice for Living

I’d say that you’re also never too old to ask these questions either. When you realize that you’re doing something out of habit or familiarity and not for other reasons, I think it’s worth re-evaluating the situation.

It’s very easy to get into a rut and keep doing those things, even things you don’t like, from habit, obligation, or just because.

Don’t do that. Instead, make sure you actively choose to do things. Things you want, things that you are obligated to do, committed to, or even things that matter to you. Don’t just keep doing something for no reason.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.