Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret August 31, 2007
Posted by Jade Barclay in goals, gtd, productivity, Seinfled, writing.add a comment
Been having some fun GTD (getting things done – David Allen style) and I stumbled across this… I love it…. “Don’t break the chain” (and he doesn’t mean chain letters)
Recent Productivity faves:
http://www.davidco.com – Getting Things Done (free zip of all GTD articles)
http://www.joesgoals.com – great little tool to keep you on track
http://www.43folders.com – great GTD & productivity resource
http://www.30h30d.com – 30 hours 30 days, one page of simple high-impact goodness from Andy Wibbels (great for multiple projects and the compulsively overwhelmed)
http://www.37signals.com – genius software for productive collaborative projects
and of course, the Seinfeld article from lifehacker.com
http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php
rethinking vegan, oil and bombs December 20, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, air, bombs, co2, ev, fuel, global warming, goals, leadership, oil, quest, values, vegan, wargames, waste.1 comment so far
Dunno about you, but I really value air. And water. They’re kinda important. Just a bit. So, I was already in the market for a hybrid car, and my imminent seachange has us excitedly planning our vege garden and getting back into wholefoods and baking and all that jazz. I’m also doing things to plant a tree a month (at least, probably more), boycott ethanol fuels (they destroy more water and waste more resources than standard fuels), and continuing to find ways to invest in our future on this planet – enriching our habits and habitats – rather than ignoring important things til we run out of air or water or both.
That in mind, I had a divinely guided themed flight back from DWD (best dwd EVER, just quietly), watching back-to-back movies including: “An Inconvenient Truth”… “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and a bit of “Fast Food Nation” etc
….and then I got emailed this article to boot…. http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.html
My new seachange home also happens to be the beef capital of Australia, and pretty much the mining capital as well…….. so, into the belly of the beast, any ideas to help blow it up from the inside??
Speaking of blowing things up, I found out that war games are scheduled to bomb our delightful wonder-of-the-world great barrier reef just off the coast of my new home town in May/June 2007. http://www.peaceconvergence.com/ Are we nuts, people?? I mean, Seriously!?!?!
I can’t help but think I’m getting thrown into the middle of mining-beef-and-bomb-central for a reason… if everything happens for a reason and it serves and it’s guided, then this can’t be an accident, can it?
If you’ve got any ideas or contacts or anything you’re doing or anyone else is doing that may help or even spark an idea or two about any of these issues, please let me know. I would deeply and eternally appreciate anything you’ve got to offer, even just your own thoughts on the matter – even the most innane trivial stuff can be immensely valuable in the right hands.
Many oceans of love, many generations of gratitude, Jade
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Emotion? November 16, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, emotions, goals, management, mothers, neuroscience, school, values, writing.add a comment
Crap things only feel crap when we make those emotions wrong and try to avoid them in ourselves and others. When we try to avoid making anyone feel hurt or upset or angry or frustrated or confused or overwhelmed. But, what’s so bad about feeling any of those things?
I reckon there oughta be two compulsory things in this world: YOGA and ARTS
YOGA – coz crappy posture = crappy feelings = no oxygen to the brain = no access to the powerhouse of resources you’re dragging around with you every day. If people actually felt great in their bodies and stopped taxing them so bad thru misuse everything would change.
ARTS – coz then you rekindle the love of the dance of life, an innate passion for contrast and curiosity for depth and meaning. Everything you see, hear, feel, notice and observe becomes less about trying to keep the peace or maintain balance (balance schmalance, this is a life of divine extremes, a dance, swinging like a pirate on the pendulum between the furthest points, then swinging even further on the next run), and it all becomes material for your next creative project, regardless of your chosen art form.
Art is myth, and myth is the language of the soul. We all know that a good story has twists and surprises, it isn’t bland and numb and
predictable, so why would we curse our lives to be that way?
My stand-up comedy teacher said: “Personal development is great, but make sure you don’t get too fixed. You’ll run out of material.”
Feeling Delicious November 16, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in emotions, goals, love, neuroscience, values.add a comment
A friend wrote me a discourse about depression and such, followed by the PS “I think you would argue that a ‘painful’ emotion is not a ‘bad’ emotion.” hehehe – he was right, that’s exactly what I was thinking!
There ain’t no such thing as negative and positive, good and bad, esp when it comes to emotions. They’re all different colours and tastes and textures. I choose to group emotions into taste categories, like sweet, sour, savoury, bland, tangy, spicy, etc.
I really like the concept of tastes and hungers re: emotions, coz hungers get satiated and return, tastes vary from moment to moment. They’re a message, a calling from deep within us, calling us to go open the fridge and search for meaning, pick up the phone and delivery menu, a call to action to make a change to our biochemistry, our focus, a call to give ourselves a boost of nurturing and nutrition. Emotions are that same call to action.
The biggest issue comes when we misinterpret emotions, or when they get stuck in an inappropriate trigger/anchor loop. And some complement each other, and some clash.
And it’s not just doctors that focus on ‘taking the pain away,” loved ones and bystanders do that too. Often loved ones can be the most potent enablers of all. Empathy is a bad idea if you use it to make people (or yourself) feel more comfortable staying in one emotion or another (even excitement), instead of interpreting those emotions as a call to action. If ANY emotion hangs around too long, you end up stuck and numb.
The key, I feel, is flexibility and interpretation, and not getting stuck on unaware autopilot, salivating on cue like pavlov’s mutts (aware autopilot is way cool, tho).
I fully, fully, fully agree with the inarticulate nature of ‘depression’. After working with some teens earlier this year, I actually did a post on precisely that, with a bunch of emo-vocab to play with…… (my most highly commented/replied-to post to date, btw) http://jdverse.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/make-or-break-words/
Write-Off Progress 2006 November 1, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, goals, NaNoWriMo, writing.2 comments
Never knew writing parties could be so much fun!
I’d love to do a word-count write-off between my son and I, but the youth program’s on a different server – I’ll see what we can wrangle out of NaNo HQ
Also, seriously stoked – after informing bookstore #7 that they really oughta stock up on these little puppies in October each year, I managed to track down the last copy of No Plot? No Problem! in Sydney! (That’s the guide to the crazy month-long novelling adventure written by the NaNoWriMo founder himself, Chris Baty – and he just launched a novel-writing kit for 2006)
5 Days to NaNoWriMo October 26, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, goals, NaNoWriMo, writing.add a comment
It’s nearly November! Halloween is the day before fiction time!
This is my 3rd NaNoWriMo, and I’m so excited coz my son’s decided to join in the shenanigans this year. He’s more organised than I am – got his chapter titles and outlines done already! I tend to go with the no-plot-no-problem theory.
The aim of the game is to write a 50,000 word novel during the 30 days of November (even if they’re 50,000 bad words). It started in 1999 with 21 people, and this year is looking like 75,000 will be writing feverishly all month. This is such a fun way to start a powerful ritual and relationship with your unconscious mind. I encourage everyone to do it, especially non-writers or people who think they have very little to say. Just the commitment of writing 1,500 words a day starts so many valuable habits.
- NaNoWriMo gets that inner editor/critic out of the way and you just let things pour out fast and furious – this helps with any kind of writing or speaking your mind or meeting deadlines, totally engages your unconscious mind in the process
- even if the first stuff you write is complete dribble, if you keep going it gets better, so by the end of the month you rock! (at least more than you used to!)
- NaNoWriMo makes you better at managing time – usually you have a life to fit this around, so you might get up an hour earlier, or write at lunch time – and after November you can dedicated that well-defined timeslot to some other meaningful project, like exercising, or reading, or playing and instrument, or building that ship in a bottle you’ve always been dreaming of
- NaNoWriMo engages kids in meaningful fun. Last year over 100 schools participated with entire classes as young as grade 3 writing every day. This year they’ve launched the Official NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program. My son and I already alternate bedtime stories – sometimes we’ll read one, other times we’ll write one
- Even though it’s totally free, they still raise bucketloads for brilliant charities each year – the 2006 target is $200,000
- It’s a cool forum to make new friends – online and off
- And at the very least you’ll have a novel (or part of one) to give everyone for xmas!
If you come join in the fun, let us know. I’m jadeee and my son is ozzyazza. The WrimoRadio podcast last year was stellar, I actually referred back to it during other projects throughout the year.
Management Zombie Equation! October 25, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in goals, leadership, management, work.add a comment
This soooo rocks…. another gem from Christian: Knocking the Exuberance Out of Employees
Four Questions… October 16, 2006
Posted by Jade Barclay in activites, goals, values.add a comment
Have you ever achieved a goal and it didn’t feel as victorious as you imagined it would?? Want to get beyond the smokescreen goals and values to the real deep ones hiding beneath and beyond all the hype?
- If you could be anyone – who would you be, what would you do and why?
- What are you chasing?
- What are you running from?
- What are you missing/ignoring?
#4 has all the gold – try it, and be honest… the answers might just surprise you.
