I took speed reading lessons about 15 years ago. At first, I was skeptical, but after the course was over, I was able to read about 3 times faster and able to double my understanding and retention rate. It really works !
One thing with speed reading, at least in my case, is that is it useful when you’re reading your regular publications and when you are familiar with the topic. If your reading something completely unsual, you’ll probably have to take you time.
Why?
Every field has its own vocabulary and technical words that have a unique meaning to its environment.
If so, you are probably worrying about tomorrow. Events that have already occurred may cause you regret, but they only appear to cause worry. If you just lost your job, you are not worrying about losing your job, that already happened. You are worrying about paying your bills and finding a new job. Those are worries about tomorrow.
Worrying is just a natural human emotion, and everyone worries, right?
Actually not. Worry is a bad habit that most people acquire, and like all habits, can be broken.
When you worry about what may or may not occur in the future, you miss the joy that is available today, each and every day. So is the answer to focus only on today, and let tomorrow take care of itself?
That sounds good… until tomorrow arrives and you are not prepared.
It’s a paradox. How does one balance living in the now with preparing responsibly for the future? The key to this dilemma lies in the distinction between worrying about the future, and preparing for the future.
The two concepts are not at all the same.
There are two aspects to preparing for the future. The one that is more familiar to most people is planning. You know the mortgage is due next week so you save the money. You know you want to fit into your clothes tomorrow, so you forgo that second helping (well not always). Planning for the future is fully compatible with living joyfully today. Thinking today could our last day always put things in perspective.
The other aspect of preparing for the future is accepting that things will probably not turn out the way you plan. Creating this acceptance of life’s uncertainties is much more challenging than following through on plans.
The source of most worry is a lack of acceptance of the uncertainties of the future. When one fully lives a life of acceptance, life’s caprices are not merely tolerated, but are enjoyed because they are life’s opportunities.
The recipe for a joyful life is planning and preparing for the future, while simultaneously accepting that you hold virtually no control over future events..
Practicing thankfulness and reducing your expectations are two ways to aprreciate what you already have and reducing your worries about what may happen or may not happen in the future.
Because time cannot be managed! Time goes on, whatever we do, we cannot change anything about it. If you even take a deeper look at it, you recognize that in reality time even doesn’t really exist: it is merely a concept we use as humans. And we pretend to measure it by using things like clocks: a mechanical or electronical devise that changes form and so displays a different condition when we look at it. What there is, is always the change in the present moment and our decision what to focus on in that moment, so we can shape the change the way we want to.
So what do we manage then?
What time-management really is, is self-management.
What do you do in the moment and what do you intent to do in the next moment?
And what is influencing what you do in the next moment?
“To comprehend a man’s life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone.
There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is till wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.”
John Hall Gladstone (7 March 1827 – 6 October 1902) was a Britishchemist. He served as President of thePhysical Society between 1874 and 1876 and during 1877–1879 was President of the Chemical Society. Apart from chemistry, where one of his most notable publications was on bromination of rubber, he undertook pioneering work in optics and spectroscopy.
There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.
When you run out of time and the consequences of not doing something important can be really serious, you always seem to find the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. You start early, you stay late and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than to face the negative consequences that would follow if you didn’t get it completed within the time limit.
So,there will never be enough time to do everything you have to do.
The fact is that most people today are over-loaded. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up.
Everyone has stacks of reading material they still have to go through.
What this means is that you will never catch up. Forget it.
All you can hope for is to be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.
There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.
The question for you today is:
“What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?”
All my life, I’ve felt driven to do as much as I can with my time. I have a lot of energy. I simply cannot sit still. The rare time when I can sit still is when I read a book. I’m interested in so many different things. I want to see as much as I can, learn as much as I can. I hate wasting time.
Oh, I was about to forget… I’m also a poor listener… because my mind is wandering all over the place when you speak to me. Please be patient with me because I’m also a slow learner. But I’m working on it.
If you’re suffering from the same disease as me… “Restlessness”,
you have to discover this man : “The Real-Life Indiana Jones”. His name is John Goddard.
Here is a video that summarizes his life story.
If you like to read and want to know more about John,
I encourage you to visit his website to learn about his life story and his life achievements.
In other words, we should try to be fully aware of each moment, to do one thing at the time with people, to be active and productive and to simply be ourselves.
A little sadness from the world’s vast store,
And may I be so favoured as to make
Of joy’s too scanty sum a little more
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth,
Let me give something that shall aid my. kind –
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me to-night look back across the span
‘Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say –
Because of some good act to beast or man – “The world is better that I lived to-day.”
Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in Johnstown, Wisconsin, east of Janesville, the youngest of four children. The family soon moved north of Madison. She started writing poetry at a very early age, and was well known as a poet in her own state by the time she graduated from high school.
Her most famous poem, “Solitude”, was first published in the February 25, 1883 issue of The New York Sun. The inspiration for the poem came as she was travelling to attend the Governor’s inaugural ball in Madison, Wisconsin. On her way to the celebration, there was a young woman dressed in black sitting across the aisle from her. The woman was crying. Miss Wheeler sat next to her and sought to comfort her for the rest of the journey. When they arrived, the poet was so depressed that she could barely attend the scheduled festivities. As she looked at her own radiant face in the mirror, she suddenly recalled the sorrowful widow. It was at that moment that she wrote the opening lines of “Solitude”:
The past has shrived and buried deep
All yesterdays – there let them sleep,
Nor seek to summon back one ghost
Of that innumerable host.
Concern yourself with but to-day;
Woo it and teach it to obey
Your wish and will. Since time began
To-day has been the friend of man.
But in his blindness and his sorrow
He looks to yesterday and to-morrow.
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
_________________________________________
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850 – October 30, 1919) was an American author and poet. Her best-known work wasPoems of Passion. Her most enduring work was “Solitude”, which contains the lines: “Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone”. Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was published in 1918, a year before her death.
How do you feel about asking other people for help?
I’ve noticed that many of us get uncomfortable about requesting support. While we’re all different and we each have our own unique perspective and talents, it seems that this can be quite a challlenge for most of us to ask for help.
When I feel stressed out, when I try to do everything myself, either because I feel insecure about asking for help or because I think that I’m the only one who can do it the “right” way. At other times, I can be quite pushy with my “demands” for help.
I’ve also experienced personally and seen in others many times throughout my life, that there is a middle way between going it all alone and demanding help from others. So many times in the past, I tried to do it all, read it all, check it all and not sleep at all. I had to learn how to stop doing “the one-man-show”.
The irony of this whole thing is that most of us like to help others, while many of us find it difficult asking others for help ourselves.
Asking for help can make us feel vulnerable. We usually think that we should be able to do everything ourselves or that by admitting we need help, we are somehow being weak. In addition, many of us are sensitive about being told NO and by asking others to help us we put ourselves out there and risk being rejected.
What if we had more freedom to ask for what we wanted and for specific help from other people? What if we could make requests in a confident and humble way? What if we remembered that we are worthy of other people’s help and that our ability to both ask for and receive it not only supports us, but also gives them an opportunity to contribute. It always surprises that most people really want to help.
It can be a little scary, we may get our feelings hurt from time to time, and on occasion people may have some opinions or reactions to what we ask for or how we do so. But, when we give ourselves permission and remind ourselves that it’s not only okay, but essential for us to ask for help, we can create a true sense of support in our lives.
Alone it seems to go faster, together we go further!
Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day and every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.
What would you do?
Draw out every cent of course and figure out how to spend it later! Well we do have such a bank; its name is the bank of time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever you failed to invest to good purpose. How much time do you write off at the end of the day?
Do you know?
Planning in advance will help you determine what you’ll do next as you arrange the order for accomplishing the activities on your list.
The challenge is that our most important resource, our time, is limited.
Stress is the curse of living in modern times. Everyone suffers from stress. And the stress we suffer takes a heavy toll on our bodies, emotions and minds. Watching television may be a form of relaxation for some, but it is not recommended.. When we watch TV we are bombarded with commercials, ads, sounds and images. Relaxation takes on added importance in light of this matter.
Today, try to find a moment with complete silence for at least 1 hour.
How?
Turn off the TV, mp3 player, radio, and your computer for a while.
Attend a yoga class. It’s a great method for relaxation.
Go for a walk in the woods if possible and listen to the calmness of nature.
Take a nap in the middle of the day. It’s Sunday…
Take the time to breath properly. It is one of the easiest methods to relax. Most of us have forgotten how to breath naturally. Take a deep breathe.
One great way to relax is getting a massage. To gain full relaxation, you need to totally surrender to the touch of person delivering it to you.
It will be a good investment of time.
Today is a time to take care of yourself. Tomorrow will be another hectic day.
“Voracious” means to be very greedy or eager in some desire or pursuit.
The intensity of your desire will determine how long it takes for you to reach your goal. When it comes to reading, writing, respecting some deadlines, exercising, traveling, learning new skills, and meeting new and different people, I consider myself to be extremely “Voracious”.
What is good about being “Voracious” it that it saves a lot of time.When we enjoy doing an activity, it takes a lot less energy. That is why it is so important to invest more time on our natural strengths. On the other hand, we can delegate or eliminate what we don’t like to do.
This is the way to keep our level of voraciousness extremely high.
SteveJobs knew his life was ending soon; he had to make it count. Here’s an excerpt from his famous Stanford commencement speech:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Mr. Jobs at Stanford University in June 2005, almost a year after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Over the years as I’ve sought out ideas, principles and strategies to life’s challenges, I’ve come across four simple words that can make living worthwhile.
First, life is worthwhile if you LEARN. What you don’t know WILL hurt you. You have to have learning to exist, let alone succeed. Life is worthwhile if you learn from your own experiences—negative or positive. We learn to do it right by first sometimes doing it wrong. We call that a positive negative. We also learn from other people’s experiences, both positive and negative. I’ve always said that it is too bad failures don’t give seminars. Obviously, we don’t want to pay them so they aren’t usually touring around giving seminars. But that information would be very valuable—we would learn how someone who had it all then messed it up. Learning from other people’s experiences and mistakes is valuable information because we can learn what not to do without the pain of having tried and failed ourselves.
We learn by what we see, so pay attention. We learn by what we hear, so be a good listener. Now I do suggest that you should be a selective listener; don’t just let anybody dump into your mental factory. We learn from what we read, so learn from every source; learn from lectures; learn from songs; learn from sermons; learn from conversations with people who care. Always keep learning.
Second, life is worthwhile if you TRY. You can’t just learn; now you have to try something to see if you can do it. Try to make a difference, try to make some progress, try to learn a new skill, try to learn a new sport. It doesn’t mean you can do everything, but there are a lot of things you can do, if you just try. Try your best. Give it every effort. Why not go all out?
Third, life is worthwhile if you STAY. You have to stay from spring until harvest. If you have signed up for the day or for the game or for the project, see it through. Sometimes calamity comes and then it is worth wrapping it up. And that’s the end, but just don’t end in the middle. Maybe on the next project you pass, but on this one, if you signed up, see it through.
And lastly, life is worthwhile if you CARE. If you care at all you will get some results, if you care enough you can get incredible results. Care enough to make a difference. Care enough to turn somebody around. Care enough to start a new enterprise. Care enough to change it all. Care enough to be the highest producer. Care enough to set some records. Care enough to win.
Four powerful little words: learn, try, stay and care. What difference can you make in your life today by putting these words to work?
“To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.”
This is risky business! But when we are convinced that our ideas are the right ones, we must fight for them. Just think of Galileo, Martin Luther, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King…
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36525 days to live 