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Almost three weeks ago, I put out a poll asking what you wanted to read on this blog, I’m delighted that some of you spent the time to complete it. As you can see from the chart below, the results were fairly even.
Its great that you want to read more about goal identification and achievement because I am keen to write about this topic as I think it keeps me focussed on what I’m trying to achieve. I’m usually happy to talk about productivity especially as it’s what I originally started this blog for, plus I believe if I’m more productive I will achieve my goals more quickly. These are the two topics I was hoping you would want to read about 
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What you want to read
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Posted on 3rd July 2009 8 views
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There are some tasks that you really want to do, but are so big that you don’t know how you’ll find the time to complete it, or even where to start. There are two solutions:
- put aside a day (or longer) and work on it until the task is finished
- work on the task a little bit regularly over a longer period of time
I’m a big fan of the little and often approach and have used it for yeasr within different organisation systems and it is one of the features of AutoFocus, in fact it is positively encouraged.
Advantages of little and often
- less resistance to starting the task if you know you only need to work on it for a short time
- less procrastination as you can stop working on the task when you get tired of it and lose focus
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Little and often (getting big things done)
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Posted on 22nd June 2009 83 views
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I’ve been writing this blog for over two years and I noticed recently that the topics I’m writing about have changed slightly and I’m interested in your thoughts about the future direction. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments, but I’ve also created a poll below and in the sidebar to make it easy; you can select up to 5 responses.
What do you want to read about on this blog?
- Goal identification and achievement (75.0%, 3 Votes)
- Productivity (50.0%, 2 Votes)
- Journal writing (50.0%, 2 Votes)
- Dealing with work / hot desking (50.0%, 2 Votes)
- More personal posts (50.0%, 2 Votes)
- I like what you are currently writing (0.0%, 0 Votes)
- Links to other blogs and sites (0.0%, 0 Votes)
- Asking for your help (0.0%, 0 Votes)
- My opinion on different topics (0.0%, 0 Votes)
- Mother and baby (0.0%, 0 Votes)
- Fewer personal posts (0.0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 4
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I started this blog after using Live Journal for a year and realising I wanted to practice my writing in a way I didn’t think I could on LiveJournal. The current strap line Revelations along the way to a simpler, happier and more successful life shows my intentions when I started this blog and the majority of posts were related to productivity.
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What do you want to read on this blog?
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Posted on 15th June 2009 118 views
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I have undertaken monthly reviews as well as wheel of life reviews for some time, however I felt I should be getting more out of these reviews to ensure I was working towards my goals. Although I think the wheel of life is a great tool to help develop your desired life balance, my concern was that it was subjective and therefore probably not a good monitoring tool.
New wheel of life method
To try and resolve this, during May 2009 I kept a note of the tasks and activities I completed, and plotted the number against each of my goal areas. Of course, it is not perfect as I have not been able to make a note of every single task, plus the number of tasks does not necessarily equal time spent on tasks or importance of tasks, but it is fairly quick and easy to keep track.
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Introducing wheel of life progress review (May 2009)
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Posted on 12th June 2009 112 views
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Every year Cancer Rearch UK organise a series of women only 5km (3 mile) sponsored runs across the UK. Although they are called Race for Life everyone gets a medal as the aim is to finish anyway you can, whether it is running, walking, pushing a pram or wheelchair or doing a three legged race.
I’ve always been a sprinter and thought I’d done my only long distance run when I completed a Race for Life 7 years ago, but signed up for this year after it was suggested it would be a good target to lose some of my pregnancy weight. I was keen to run the race despite having only completed the distance once before, but found it difficult to find time to train and two weeks before the run the furthest I’d gone was 1.6km and that only involved 6 minutes of running.
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I completed my 5km Race for life
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Posted on 8th June 2009 153 views
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Writing down your goals is good, but of course it is even better to take action to help realise the goals. When I announced the second draft of my goals, Gary asked how often I considered them. This got me thinking; I intend to review them at the end of each month using a wheel of life, but was this good enough? I decided that as well as a regular review, I also needed a regular reminder of my goals.
I created desktop wallpaper for my laptop depicting each of my goals, so I am reminded of them whenever I use my laptop. This was a task I could have spent a long time on by finding the perfect pictures and learning how to use photoshop to get the perfect layout. Instead I put something together very quickly finding the best pictures I could and over time I intend to update it when I find better pictures. This means the wallpaper isn’t as pretty as it could be and some of the images are a bit of a loose connection to the goal, but as it is acting as a reminder to me it is doing its job.
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Creating a goal daily reminder
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Posted on 5th June 2009 189 views
Under: goals |
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AutoFocus is such a simple system that I think some people find are finding it difficult to get started. When I wrote my review of the system I thought about including some pictures of my set up, but decided against it because after all it is just a list. However after several requests, here is a description of my AutoFocus set up, which is pretty close to following Mark Forster’s instructions.
The book
My book is an A5 hardback wide ruled notebook. This is a book I already had in the house and from the notes on the inside cover appears to be a book from work that I previously used to track progress as part of my management diploma course. My bookmark was a gift from my sister from Japan and is a cat that clips to the cover of the book and the tail marks the page with my current task.
Posted on 27th May 2009 274 views
Under: productivity |
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Over a year ago I asked for some advice on selecting a hosting company for my blog, but despite a couple of suggestions I have still not transferred my site. I have since been advised to use a UK hosting company so that we are both under the same legal criteria and unfortunately the earlier suggestions were both US companies.
I have done some research and have found several companies that appear to meet my requirements, but I’ve realised I don’t know how to tell a good hosting company. Of course, I want to spend as little as possible, particularly as my blog doesn’t make any money (yet), but I’m happy to pay more for a reliable and helpful company. I have read that you sometimes need to be careful of the very cheap provider; so how do I tell? I have found several UK review sites, but I’m not sure I can trust any of them as they seem to be mostly about promoting affiliate links.
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Ask Advice: What to look for in a web hosting company?
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Posted on 6th May 2009 426 views
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One of my goals is to have multiple sources of income including passive income. My first action has been to review my current situation so I have a baseline and to aid in decision making.
Definition of my income
- I will exclude my husband’s income, however I will half any joint income we have e.g. saving accounts
- I will not include ‘theoretical’ money such as share value increases, I will only count money that I can access
- I will not include my daughter’s money, so for example, I will ignore the child benefit I receive
Current sources of income
I currently have three sources of income, my salary (or statutory maternity pay at the moment), interest on bank accounts and income from my blog - well it happened once! Each month I get a cash rebate from my credit card company, however I am excluding this because it is a percentage of my bill, so the way to increase the rebate is to spend more and that is not an action I want to encourage.
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Review of current income (April 2009)
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Posted on 5th May 2009 200 views
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April has been a better month and I feel I’m starting to make progress in many areas. I’m currently thinking about ways of tracking and reporting on this progress, so until I’ve decided this is another combined blog and personal progress update.
Blog - Using AutoFocus and focusing on one post a week my rate is approaching that of last summer, I assume this is also the reason for the slow increase in the number of subscribers that peaked at 190; obviously my goal now is to get to 200 subscribers. I have finally got Gravatars and nested comments in to my theme; I’ve been trying to do this since I installed wordpress 2.7 and finally completed it this morning. I haven’t looked at the styling yet so that is now on my task list.
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Progress in the last month? (April 2009)
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Posted on 30th April 2009 242 views
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