Jan 4
Benjamin Franklin also employed concentration cycles as part of his lifelong self-improvement program. According to his autobiography, he compiled his list of thirteen virtues when he was twenty, and his plan was to attend to each one in true cyclical fashion. He would concentrate on one quality for a week, then go on to the next. In this way, he would concentrate on each quality four times in any given year. Read more
Jan 3
Brainstorming, in any area, grants your mind an unfettered opportunity to frolic about in cloud bursts of ideas and lightning flashes of possibilities. Realize, some minds take to such outpourings better than others. A few—often those least used to being called upon for original, unscripted thinking—sit pensive, uncomfortable, and unproductive for so long, the inner being may almost convince itself that it inhabits a body with no mind of its own.
Rest assured, this is a categorical impossibility. Read more
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
—No. 110 from Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation
The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior are ascribed to George Washington, but not because he originated the list, which was already over 130 years old when his tutor assigned it to him as a penmanship assignment. Presumably, during those intervening 130 years, he was not the only school boy set to copying it by his tutor; surely others had longhanded the little statements as well.
What he did do was keep the list handy, making it part of his real life, rather than treating it like a school assignment. He did not pack it away in a bundle of forgotten school papers or throw it out once he received his mark. He reviewed it regularly, and made it part of his continued improvement as an adult. Read more
If the good news about the 80/20 principle is we can expect major results for reasonable effort, what other news do we need to hear? As with most topics, time spent considering the balance points is usually time well spent.
The other side of the 80/20 principle is if we can accomplish 80 percent of result with 20 percent of input, then doubling or tripling input will not, indeed cannot double or triple result. We already know about this, the law of diminishing returns. Read more
Out in the realm of abstract math—not to be mistaken with arithmetic that simply connects or separates concrete numbers by straightforward operations like adding and subtracting—the mysterious “they” have repeatedly demonstrated in a variety of applications an interesting mathematical aspect to life. Roughly 80 percent of outcome almost always comes from something close to 20 percent of input. Read more
Priority Stewardship 