Category Archives: Time

Great books I’ve read in the last year.

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While I have always enjoyed reading, I haven’t always been a big reader.  Reading was always something I did when I had to.  The first book I can remember reading on my own, without anyone making me, was called “King of the Wind”.  It was a book about a horse named Sham, and his mute stable boy named Agba.  I don’t remember much of the story because I read it in third grade, but I remember really liking it.

I became a serious reader when I became a Christian.  I made it a point to read my Bible every night before I would go to sleep.  I also developed a strong appetite for teaching books by Christian authors like Kenneth E. Hagin & Kenneth Copeland.  I read all I could get my hands on.

After several years, I became exposed to other famous authors and famous non fiction books, such as Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people, and John Maxwell’s 21 irrefutable laws of Leadership.  I try to flip through these every year or two to keep fresh on their content.  With few exceptions, I stick mainly to non-fiction.

This year I put forth serious effort to read more, good quality books.  The one’s I talk about here came highly recommended. I would have to say, while I liked some more than others, they were all good and I would recommend all of them to anyone who’s goal is personal growth.  So, without further ado, here’s my list.

The Art of Work – A proven path to discover what you were meant to do.  By Jeff Goins.  Published by Thomas Nelson.

In The Art of Work,  Jeff breaks the book into three main parts, Preparation, Action & Completion.  He examines our purpose, and our journey toward fulfill our calling.  He examines how we look at vocation, career & calling, ultimately leading to the truth “Meaningful work is available to anyone who dares to find it”.

 

 

Launch – Jeff Walker.  Published by Morgan James.     Jeff Walker outlines his secret formula for marketing online.  Jeff started with humble beginnings as a stay at home dad with an interest in the stock market.  His first online business started with a subscription newsletter about the stock market and grew from there.

Jeff points out that there are a lot of online marketers out there, teaching a lot of stuff, but we need to pay attention to the successful ones.  What’s important isn’t necessarily what they are teaching, it’s what they are doing.  The successful ones are usually using Jeff’s formula. Launch outlines how almost anyone can start an online business.

 

Platform – Get noticed in a noisy world. By Michael Hyatt.  Published by Thomas Nelson.

Michael is the former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers.  He points out that while there were some tremendous book ideas submitted for publishing over the years, many were refused because no one had ever heard of the author.  Michael outlines why we need a platform and offers step by step guidance in building your own, including building your home base, expanding your reach and handling social media.

 

 

The One Thing, The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results.  By Gary Keller. (Published by Bard Press).
Gary is the Chairman of the board and co-founder of Keller Williams Realty, the largest real estate company in the world.  The One Thing focuses on success and productivity by addressing three major points.
A. The lies we’ve been told about productivity and work, and how they have misled and derailed our success.
B. The simple truth about real productivity.
C. Getting extraordinary results and unlocking your possibilities.
It’s a great book that even comes with a “Do not disturb, I’m working on my one thing” door hanger bound into the back of the book.

 

Living Forward –  a proven plan to stop drifting and get the life you want.  Michael Hyatt & Daniel Harkavy.  (Published by Baker Books).
This book focuses on our desire for a life of meaning and significance, joy and satisfaction.  Michael & Daniel break down life planning into three main parts.  First, understanding the need, second, understanding the mission, and finally, making it happen.  This book is very interactive, and asks you to take a minimum of one full day to stop, and give real real, intentional thought to your life.

They first ask you to write your own eulogy, with a sharp focus on how you want to be remembered.  The authors encourage you to break your life into categories, and then establish a vision in each.  Living Forward helps you to identify and write down the goals for each category, and establish a plan to accomplish them, while continuing to grow in each.  Both Daniel & Michael are Christians and they acknowledge that our plans will change as we come to know and more fully understand God’s direction for our lives.  They have a built in review schedule for you to tweak, update, or fully revise your life plan.  I highly recommend this book.

 

Essentialism – Greg Mckeown.  (Published by Crown Business).    Greg starts off telling the story of Dieter Rams, a lead designer for Braun.  Deiter designed by a principle which in German is stated – Weniger aber besser. The English translation is “Less, but better”.  I now have this statement on the wall in my office at work.

It was Deiter that we can thank for taking the home stereo from being the Oak, or walnut monolith of the past, that took up a large portion of the living room, to being the sleek, streamlined component based stereo that fit in far less space.  Less, but better.  Essentialism is not about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done.  Peter Drucker said “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”  There are a lot of people who are very busy but not productive.

Essentialism examines the discipline of finding the essential, and eliminating what is not.  It asks and answers the question:  How can we discern the trivial many, from the vital few.

 

The Traveler’s Gift – Seven decisions that determine personal success.  By Andy Andrews.  (Published by Thomas Nelson).
The Traveler’s Gift is a fictional story of a man named David Ponder.  David is a 46 year old man struggling with his life.  On the way home from being fired from his job, David is in a car accident.  His last words before losing consciousness are “God, Why Me?”

David awakens in another time, and in the course of his journey through time, he meets seven people.  Each person gives David a scroll with a message on it.  These messages are nuggets of wisdom that ultimately change David’s life.

 

Decisive, How to make better choices in life and work. By Chip and Dan Heath.  (Published by Crown Business).
I found this book very insightful.  It helped me recognize areas in my decision making that were not very helpful.  The Heath Brothers examine decision making by highlighting the four villains of decision making.  There is good advice and guidance for the person struggling with choices.

They discuss everything from our tendency to only collect research that supports our already held beliefs or desires, to our tendency to only look at our problems through a remarkably narrow frame of vision.

 

Love Does – Discover a secretly incredible life in an ordinary world.   By Bob Goff.  (Published by Thomas Nelson).
Bob is the founder and CEO of Restore International.  A nonprofit organization fighting injustices against children. He also shares leadership in a law firm in Washington state called Goff & Dewalt, which practices in Washington and California.  He also serves as Honorary Consul to the Republic of Uganda.

This book is full of remarkable and interesting stories from Bob’s own life.  Each chapter declares a topic, Bob gives a short sentence about his personal belief, and then tells a story about it.

This book challenges the Christian to move away from the heavy weight of being religious, and just start loving, serving and helping people.

 

Take the Stairs – Seven steps to achieving true success.  By Rory Vaden.  (Published by Pedigree Publishing).

This book examines productivity, procrastination and self discipline.  Rory outlines seven strategies for helping us to live a more disciplined life.

He points out that many people don’t take the stairs because they are too busy looking for the escalator.  Rory points out that there really is no escalator, and that, once you kill the idea that there is an escalator (an easy way), you’ll realize that the fastest way to get what you want is to actually do the work, and make your goals a reality.

 

There you have it.  These were all worth my time to read, and I find myself using nuggets from each of them in my everyday life.

What books have you read that you would recommend?  Please share in the comments.

Until next time,

Art

Where Did The Time Go?

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My Life In A Graph.

This image is a graph I threw together to represent my life on earth.  I don’t know how long I will live but for the sake of the graph, I chose 94 years old.  Each block represents a week.  There are 52 blocks wide and 94 blocks down.  The highlighted portion shows the time that I’ve already spent.  The blocks that are not highlighted represent the yet to be lived portion of my life.

my-life

I got the idea for this graph, watching Tim Urban give a TEDtalk about procrastination (see link at the bottom).  Tim showed a similar graph for a 90 year old person.

While some might think this is a bit morbid, I think it’s important to measure these things because we as humans, have a tendency to drift and put things off until “Someday”.

Where did the time go?

Have you ever looked back at some important event in your life and suddenly realized how many years had passed since it happened?  Where did the time go?  It may seem like it was only yesterday.  We’re human. If we are not intentional, we will lose track of time.  That’s really what this is about…Time, and how we use it.

In Tim’s speech, he humorously outlines the difference between the brain of a normal person, and the brain of a chronic procrastinator.  While they both looked very similar, the procrastinator’s brain had one difference.  It’s what Tim calls the “Immediate Gratification Monkey”.

People everywhere living with regret.

One of the thoughts that I came away with after watching Tim’s talk was that there are people everywhere living with regret.  Why?  Because regret is usually what comes after procrastination has run it’s course.

Many things that we might procrastinate on are short term & temporary.  A report due to your boss at the end of the month, or a low interest rate on a loan.  These things are tied to time and have a relatively immediate consequence attached to them.  Even if you have to put in extra hours, do extra stuff, or lose sleep to get these done, you’re not likely to totally forget because of the consequences.

There are other things though, that are not tied to time and don’t have an immediate consequence.  It’s these things that cause so much of our regret.  These are the things in the “Someday” slot.  I wrote in a previous post about how I had asked my dad if we would ever go see Elvis Presley live.  My dad said “Someday”.  Just a few years later Elvis passed away.  Someday never came (see link at the bottom).

Someday!  

How many people had big dreams, dreams of traveling to some place they long desired to see, but in the twilight of their lives, they looked back with regret? They never made it happen.  Maybe they had broken relationships that they always intended to fix, or hurt feelings they always intended to forgive…someday.  Suddenly, they realized that it’s too late.  they are too old, their health is failing, or that other person is now gone.

These “Someday” issues often carry a far greater weight of regret.  The problem is that they are not tied to a short term consequence, so we don’t ever get to the point of panic over a deadline.  We will put off something that may be hard or painful to deal with, telling ourselves that we will deal with it eventually.  Eventually is a very nebulous, ethereal word. It’s not concrete.  Eventually is a synonym for Someday.  They both describe a realm where things go to never get done.

Chip & Dan Heath wrote a tremendous book called Decisive.  In chapter 11 they discuss the need for trip-wires.  They tell the story of a woman from Alabama who always wanted to visit Italy.  She had a chance to go once but because of work, she decided to put the trip off.  While she often thought about Italy, time slipped by. After several decades pass, her health deteriorated to the point that she couldn’t go at all.  The Heath brothers ask the question “When did she ‘Choose’ not to visit Italy?  Was it every day? Or never?  She surely never expected that her first decision to postpone the trip, would become a permanent one.”

Deciding by not deciding.

For plans like this, we need to install a trip-wire.  Something that would bring the choice to the forefront of our mind, forcing us to reconsider our plan, make it happen, or discard it.  We have to be intentional about these things because we have a tendency to run on autopilot a lot more than we know.  If this woman from Alabama could have put a time limit on her postponed trip, that said something like “If I haven’t visited Italy by my 38th birthday, I will either make it a high priority, or discard it”.

There are a lot of examples of this.  Has anyone heard of the band Van Halen’s stipulation in their concert rider that a bowl of M&M’s would be placed in the dressing room with all of the brown M&M’s removed?  I remember the first time I heard about that, I thought they were being ridiculous and difficult to work with.  It turns out though, that it was a trip-wire to quickly tell the band that the venue hadn’t fully read or followed the details of the contract.  It automatically put the band and roadies on high alert.  They would need to be extra careful about the staging, power availability & safety.

Moving forward.

It may be because I’m getting older, I don’t know.  I have been thinking a lot about my time.  I want to make sure I’m not just drifting.  I don’t want to let my dreams just float by and not live them because I let Busy get in the way of Important.

Where do you stand?  Is there something important to you, that the busyness of your life has crowded out?  Maybe it’s time to put it on the calendar.

 

Tim’s TEDtalk

My previous post Someday is never a safe bet.

Your Time = Your Life.

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Have you ever heard the idea that space is a fabric? All the events that we see are actually hung in this fabric. They are static and we are the ones in motion.  In motion, in that we are moving through time.  We move past these events and observe them as being events but in reality, they are there constantly and as we move past them in time, they have the appearance of “happening”.  This is radical over-simplification of part of a theory by a brilliant physicist named Richard Feynmann called Sum over Histories.

Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity states that light, rather than time is the constant in the universe.  The closer an object comes to traveling at light speed, the slower time becomes and at light speed, time stops.

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I think that the eternal perspective is to see all of time at once.  Every outcome readily visible.  Scripture states that God declares the end from the beginning (Is 46:10). Scripture also says in Heb_4:3, For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.  

Unfortunately for us, while we are on earth, we are stuck in time.  Being stuck in time, time is measuring our life.  You may have heard the story about the the dates on the headstone.  The first date represents the persons’ birth & the second, their death.  The hyphen between the numbers is what is really important.  That hyphen represents their life.  It represents how they spent their small but extremely precious time on earth.

Opportunity cost is truly illustrated in the spending of time. Once it’s spent, there is no getting it back.  Your time is a truly non-renewable resource.  What do you spend yours on?  What opportunity did you give up, so that you could do what you’re doing now?

When we are looking at someone’s time, we’re really looking at someone’s life. Their life is passing with each second.  When we interact, we are spending our life on each other.   When others are spending time on us, we should make sure that what we are asking them to spend their time on is valuable and not frivolous. Make sure it’s worth the price being paid for it.

I think it’s a tragedy to see even a small piece of someone’s life being wasted because someone else didn’t have the sense to respect their time, and there-by, wasted a precious piece of their life.

As a Christian with a heart to help others, my heart burns within me sometimes because I have so much I want to do.  I read Paul, the Apostle’s command to the Ephesian church:

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil Eph 5:15 & 16.

And to the Colossian church:

Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time Col 4:5.

This is the heart of the Lord.  My mandate is to redeem the time.  Buy it back.  Be intentional about how I spend it & leverage it to wring the most out of it for the Kingdom.  There’s a great work to be done.  He’s given each of us a place and a job to do.  Time is shorter than we think.

Take some time this week to examine yourself.  How are you spending your time? Because you are spending your life.