Make it so

To many people are drifting through life accepting whatever comes their way rather than creating a plan to get what they really want.

This Thanksgiving take the time to identify and prioritize the things you want out of life rather accepting crap.
You can achieve your wishes by falling these 4 simple steps, Lock on, Act, Manage, and Persist.
1. Step One: Lock On

Decide what you want to wish for.

2. Step Two: Act

When you take action, you make a giant leap from thinking to living

3. Step Three: Manage Your Progress

Track the causes you've set in motion to make sure they are producing the effects you want.

4. Step Four: Persist

Finish what you start.
(From The Magic Lamp, Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals by Keith Ellis)

It's your life. You can be on the field or be in the bleachers the choice is yours.

Are you a "Satisficer"?

Are you misliving your life by being a satisficer? Taking the easy way out of things. Doing the bare minimum?
Satisficing - A solution to a problem is a satisficing solution if it works, barely works, but there is no particular reason to think it either the best solution, or the one that maximizes expected utility (because you can't be botherd or don't have the gumption to do something that may be slightly more demanding. Satisficing strategies put up with what does the job (barely does the job), without expending effort on searching for possibly better solutions.

Can you transcend Mediocrity?

Most post people succumb to the ease, lure of, mediocrity that surrounds them and subsequently live a marginalized life of convenience (and stagnation), rather than a life of ever growing passion and excitement.

Making Time to Work Out

Not having enough time to work out is often a reason why many people can't/don't/won't workout. However, there are some relatively simple things you can do immediately to create pockets of time to squeeze a workout routine into, especially in the morning. The tips listed below are assuming you're going to work out in the morning.

Some things you can do to save to or create time to work out in the morning are:

• Write your daily goals for the day the night before (you do create a prioritized list of daily goals...don't you?). This will save you the time about having to try to organize your day in the morning and I guarantee you sleep better.
• Make a morning "to do" list for your children. Help them help themselves. You will be surprised how much they can accomplish on their own if they know exactly what is expected of them and how to do it.
• Stop hitting snooze. Who are you kidding? You're not really getting a few extra winks... you're just lying there wasting time when you could be working out.
• Use your coffee timer to automatically brew your morning coffee.
• Have your breakfast ready to go the night before (consider making a Shakeology drink the night before for breakfast).
• Prepare your lunch and your children's the night before. For yourself, you may consider having something like Shakeology or P90X protein bars for lunch.
• Lay out your work clothes and your children's the night before.
• Lay out your workout clothes the night before.
• Have your workout DVD, workout log, etc ready the night before.
• Lay out your weights or resistance bands the night before in the order that you will use them. This will reduce the time you spend looking for weights between routines. You may even consider buying a set of Bowflex Select dumbbells. Changing the weight of the dumbbells is easy and fast.
• Choose a spot to put your car keys or cell phone each night after work. This will save you the time of scrambling around looking for stuff. Choose a spot and make it a habit.
• Reduce TV Time and use that time to organize for the next day. Only watch the stuff you love. And never, ever turn the TV on in the morning. It will only distract you.

Individually, these tips may not appear to save you significant amounts of time. However, cumulatively they will save you at least 15 minutes and that's plenty of time to get a small workout completed and that's better than nothing.

Six Sigma will fade as a brand

Interesting snippet from John Sall on Six Sigma.
http://tinyurl.com/SixSigmaWillFadeAsABrand

Are you too busy drowning to save yourself?

Whoever admits that he is too busy to improve his methods has acknowledged himself to be at the end of his rope. And that is always the "saddest" predicament which anyone can get into.

J. Ogden Armou

Life is self-service

"Life is like a self-service gas station. You can sit in your car and honk, or you can fill your tank yourself. No one honks longer, louder, or with less effect than a victim. "
Keith Ellis