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Category: Thinking Clearly

Keep This At The Top Of Your Priority List

You know what one of your top priorities should be?

Figuring out what your top priorities are.

Imagine if you spent your money without any notion of what needed to be budgeted for bills.

Maybe you even remember living like this at one point in your life.

…Probably not for long though.

Because what usually ends up happening is you spend more than you should’ve and then are left short when it comes time to pay bills.

And not because you didn’t have enough money, but because you didn’t properly prioritize your money.

This is how it works for spending time, too.

Spend/budget time on your top priorities first and then spend what remains how you’d like.

The other way around almost always ends with regret.


P.s. 23 Greg McKeown Quotes from Essentialism and How To Live Better Via Less

Do Not Touch

From where do you allocate extra time when you get really busy?

From:

  • Family time?
  • Reading time?
  • Sleep time?

Or:

  • TV time?
  • Video game time?
  • Social media time?

Here’s the thing: Certain priorities should never be touched.

If they are, you’re too busy.

Or, hate to break it to you, they aren’t (really) a priority.

Period.

Don’t Sleep On This One

Underrated productivity hack: move slower.

When you move slower your mental and physical state calms.

When you’re calm your mind thinks more clearly.

When you think more clearly you get more done.

How To Clear A Pond

Step 1) Stop agitating it. Every disturbance clouds the water and sends ripples of distress throughout. This causes the pond to become cloudy and mudded.

Step 2) Filter the water. When a pond is still, most of the wandering particles will settle and the water will clear. But, running the water through a filtration process will expedite and enhance the process of clearing the water. Filtering also removes particles from the pond altogether rather than simply allowing them to settle to the pond’s floor.

Why should you care?

Because a pond is often used as a metaphor for the mind.

And understanding what disrupts and clears a pond can help us understand what disrupts and clears our mind.

So, how can we follow this same two step process for our mind?

Step 1) Stop agitating it. Every disturbance that you allow in through your senses will cause your mind to cloud and become mudded. Every hateful, demeaning, negative, hurtful, upsetting, gossipy, self-limiting, comparison-oriented thought does this. Exposing yourself to more of the opposite helps; meditating helps; blocking sources that agitate you helps.

Step 2) Filter your thoughts. Writing is thought filtered. When you start writing regularly, you’ll think more clearly, act more deliberately, and understand your emotions more than ever before. You could do gratitude themed writing in the morning, reflective/day-planning/goal oriented writing in the evening, thought-releasing journaling during the day, or just write to a blog like I do about whatever is on your mind.

You’d be surprised at how effective this process is at clearing your mind.

And just think about how much easier it will be to see the content of your mind’s pond once it’s finally cleared…

Want Something Out Of Your Mind?

“Out of sight, out of mind” can be an excellent model for improving the overall quality of your life.

Put what you want IN your mind, IN sight.

Take what you DON’T want in your mind, OUT of sight.

As obvious as this might sound, I can’t tell you how many people keep what they don’t want in their mind in sight and keep what they do want in their mind out of sight.

Look closely at what you allow to stay in (and out of) sight for the entire duration of a typical day and adjust accordingly.

And not just physically—digitally, too.

Don’t underestimate this.

Ignoring Conflict Doesn’t Lead To Peace

Here’s a thought: want to cultivate inner peace? Stop avoiding inner conflict.

What happens when a fight breaks out and nobody does anything about it? It continues.

And in many cases: it escalates.

It takes the brave bystander to step in before things start to settle; the courageous cop to heave themselves into the middle of a barrage of fists; the over-worked and under-rested parent to draw the line and invoke discipline before the family feuds finally dissipate.

It’s the willingness to confront conflict that leads to peace.

Not the willingness to peacefully ignore conflict in hope that it resolves itself.

Living In Imaginary Prison

Living your truth will set you free.

Living a lie will confine you into a cell of your own making.

Freedom is saying what you think and how you feel, as who you are.

Captivity is saying what you think others want to hear, based on how they feel, so that you can be who they think you are.

Don’t you see? The entire thinking process is under arrest by the anarchical judgements of others.

But, here, in this prison, there are no iron bars. There are no orange jumpsuits. There are no keys or guards.

This cell, the one you might find yourself in when you live a lie, is imaginary.

Whatever guards, keys, jumpsuits, and iron bars you feel incarcerated by, have been (and can only ever be) sentenced by you.

And so is the case for your sentence to freedom—it’s all decided within the confines of your mind.

So, how do you free yourself?

  1. Share your truth—with those closest to you, first. This is the key that will unlock your cell.
  2. Embody your truth—start to carry your truth with you into the outer areas of connection in your life. This is you walking out of jail and adjusting back to the “real world.”
  3. Live your truth—Continue to embody your truth until your truth (finally) becomes you.