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Hi everyone! Recently I joined AMA (Academy of Martial Arts) and took some lessons! It was very fun, I encourage everyone to give it a try if it’s something you’re interested it! Talking about martial arts, I remember something I read in the book Getting Thing Done by David Allen.

He mentioned that in karate, there is a position of perfect readiness, called “Mind Like Water”. What does that mean? Think about water in a pond, what happens when you throw a pebble in it? It reacts exactly how it should, based on the speed and mass of the pebble. It doesn’t over react or under react, it reacts just the way it’s supposed to.

This is how perfect productivity should be like, you need to make sure that you take care of everything that’s thrown at you with the correct amount of energy and effort. Too often we spend way too much or way too little energy and effort on everything that’s thrown at us. Anytime that you do not react like water, you’re being inefficient. Now, I know you’re thinking that this is all talk and theory, and there’s nothing practical you can do about it, and  70% efficiency is still pretty good. But those 30%s can add up pretty quickly, and you’ll find yourself overwhelmed with work before you know it! Think about how much more you can do if you can harness that 30%! So how can you achieve this “mind like water” state?

The key is to have a clear mind and be flexible! Not too many people can have a clear mind these days, there are so many things going on in our lives that our minds are constantly crowded with thoughts, stress, and unfinished commitments. In that state, how can anyone blame you for over reacting or under reacting? You’re already pushed to the limit, you really don’t have the time or the energy to think about how to appropriately deal with things. Most of the time, you just want results, no matter how you get there.

To achieve a “mind like water”, or close to it, you’ll need to practice. Yes, these things need practice too! Focus on having a clear mind and being flexible, and be consistent and active about it!

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Your mind can never really be clear, but you have to at least feel comfortable. Now this is hard, we have many things screaming for our attention any second of the day. I find it useful to instead only focus at one thing at a time. There are many studies and literature out there that suggests that our brain can only really focus on one thing at a time, I’m currently looking into that theory at the moment (I’ll tell you if I get anywhere with that!). The key to this is to have a good collection system, this means that you have to collect every bit of unfinished tasks or thought you have in a place where YOU ARE CERTAIN that you will go back to. You have to really go back to it, you can’t fool your brain into this. Getting Things Done offers a great collection system I’m currently using, and it does the job very well!

As a simple exercise, try to write down everything you have to do, including the next actions (not ALL actions) for all of them, and put it in a place where you know you’ll come back to it a few hours later. Try to clear your mind of everything that worries you or screaming for your attention. If you don’t think you can absolutely clear your mind, focus on one thing only, and if it really bugs you finish the next action for that particular task. As you practice more, you’ll get better at this.

When you have a clear mind, you can be very productive and creative, a constant state of clear mind is very powerful. However, don’t expect that just because you have a clear mind, you won’t procrastinate, that’s a part of human nature that will always be there. =P

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If you’re reading this for self-improvement, you’re probably a very ambitious person. You probably have so many things you want to do, and made so many commitments to both yourself and others. These commitments take up a lot of our energy even subconsciously, and they’re usually the things that’s constantly bugging you and giving you a sense of incompleteness.

In the book Getting Things Done, David told us that we have to deal with these commitments, and not just bury it away somewhere. When you make an agreement with yourself to do something, your brain will constantly remind you about it, this takes a lot of energy, and your mind isn’t clear. In order to deal with these agreements in a positive way, you need to be flexible and proactive. Here are the 3 ways David suggests you deal with your agreements:

• Don’t make the agreement – We all like to do as much as we can, but when we’re overwhelmed by many things, we might not do any of them well enough. Sometimes it’s important to say “no”. Commit to whatever you say yes to, and know when you can’t commit anymore. This will demonstrate to others that you will always stick to your words, and have a good level of self discipline.
• Complete the agreement – This is obvious, you know it feels good to actually finish something you promised yourself or others that you’ll do. Completing an agreement with yourself will both make you feel great, and give you a positive energy, or motivation to do more!
• Renegotiate the agreement – When you made the commitment, but can’t complete it, this is when you have a problem. At this point, the best thing to do is to renegotiate the agreement with yourself. Maybe change the due date with yourself, or change the amount of detail you want to put in. Make sure others in the team knows this as well. This is very important for you to have a clear mind, and this is where the flexibility is. You have to be flexible to your own schedule, sometimes it’s OK to renegotiate. We have to change our plans all the time, but most of the time, we’re forced to make a change at the last second. In this case, we feel like we have no control and become very stressed. Re-make the contract with yourself proactively (rather than being forced to), tell yourself it’s not OK to have the task done differently, and your brain will stop bothering you.

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As David Allen mentioned in his book, the power in Karate comes from speed not strength, and a tense muscle is a slow one. And indeed, I was told on the first day that I needed to be relaxed in my Karate classes! Your brain functions the best when it’s clear and relaxed, and that’s when you can deal with everything thrown at you “like water”.

Have you ever watched Pokemon as a kid? What does Ash tell his pokemon to do everytime the opponent uses double team? Close your eyes, clear your thoughts, and sense where the opponent is! Same deal! See you already know this when you were 7 years old! You just need to apply it to your work and studies as well!

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I hope that this post has helped you, and the next time you’re stressed out, just think about “mind like water”! Better yet, apply “mind like water” to your every day life! Remember to practice clearing your mind often, and be flexible.

Thank you for reading, and please comment! I hope you all have great productivity for the rest of your life! =)

Hi everyone! I’m here to introduce another book again! This time it’s Liz Lynch’s Smart Networking.

This is my first serious attempt at trying to learn how to network, and for someone that wasn’t exposed to networking at all, it was a very insightful book that not only gave me the basics to networking, but some very good tricks as well! Liz talks about how to make yourself known the people that cares, and how to network smarter rather than harder.

I’m going to repeat a few words of wisdom from Liz here for everyone to read.

Value:

Yes, the key thing to making that relationship is to provide some sort of value to them. This is not just what you can do for them, value can be tangible or intangible. Tangible values are things you can actually give them or help them with. For example, referring them to a job oppotunity, helping them with a certain task, offering advice, recommending a good service, recommending a good book etc. Intangible values are things that you can make them feel. For example, making people feel appreciated, understood, admired, welcomed, or simply make them laugh!

Value is the fundamentals of relationships, we make friends because they make us happy in one way or another. It also feels great being able to give value to others, if you’ve ever felt great about helping other people, you know what I mean!

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Know what you want and tell people:

No matter how much someone wants to help you, they can’t if they don’t know what you want. Be specific, don’t assume that the other person already knows what you want. Everyone knows you want something from them, so don’t be afraid to tell them what it is. However, when asking for something, ALWAYS give the other person a way out, or a chance to say no naturally.

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Connect others:

One of the best way to network is by connecting other people, by doing so, you would’ve given value to many people. You also get to know more about others and become someone others can turn to when they need help. This is a very positive cycle that really helps everyone!

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Obviously, I cannot tell you everything that’s on the book, or else this post will be insanely long and Liz won’t get the money she deserve for her book! However, if you have the time and the willingness to find out more, I recommend that you read this book. Personally, I learned a lot, and was very motivated by this book. It got my almost non-existent networking on track, and gave me the final push to finally starting this blog site I was thinking of making for the longest time!

I have started something to help everyone network as well! In the meet people section, you can introduce yourself or  read about others who have introduced themselves here! In the introduce yourself page, you can fill out what you need help with and what help you can give others. These two questions are actually two of the most important and to the point questions that needs to be asked when networking! We usually spend so much time just getting to these questions, so let’s just get straight to it! I will personally go over everyone’s needs and see if I can help you with it, so you know you have AT LEAST one person that will attempt to help you with your needs!

I have recently started reading a very famous book Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’s a book that tells you how to increase your productivity, decrease the stress from your work and life, and shows you how to set up an organizational system from scratch!

I personally found this book VERY helpful, I can tell when David was just introducing his techniques that it will have a positive effect on me. After setting up the system, it helped me get a lot of things done that I would’ve otherwise never done! It’s also very motivating, some of the exercises he tells you to do in this book simply motivates you to do more stuff! I definitely recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t read it yet!

For those of you who wants some quick tips from this book, one of the most important things from this book is the “next action” principle. I’m sure everyone has a to do list somewhere, or has made one before. But what kinds of things were on there? Most people’s list looks like this:

• Study for accounting midterm
• Write Report
• Join some clubs on campus
• Get a new laptop

David classified these kind of things as “stuff”, things that you have to, but doesn’t have a clear picture of what you should be doing, and thus you resist it. What do you mean study for accounting midterm? That’s such as big project, not now, don’t have the energy now!

If your to-do list if full of “stuff” and the scenario above is familiar, you should start applying the next action principle. It’s very simple, define the next action for everything on your to-do list! Meaning:

• Open binder and write down the chapter numbers and topics I need to study, and mark the pages of my notes I need to study.
• Find out what the topic of the report is, brainstorm what knowledge I need to know on the topic. Research and jot some ideas down.
• Find out what clubs are on campus, ask some friends what clubs they’re in when I meet them.
• Figure out what features I need for the laptop, and check some major electronic stores to see if anything matches.

It’s probably easier to look at the second list than the first list. This is because your brain is no longer resisting or overwhelmed by the large volume of work it learned to associate with “study for midterm”. We have a natural resistance to “stuff”, because we don’t really know where to start, but normally it only takes 10 seconds to figure out the next action, we just don’t really want to think about it, but it makes a world of difference! We have to make this decision at some point anyways, but it’s better to make it “when it shows up rather than when it blows up”! So try it right now! Pick up your to do list, and decide on the next action for everything!

However, remember just because you’ve defined a next action, doesn’t mean you have to to it right away or at all.

In Getting Things Done, you’ll learn how to set up a whole organizational system based on this fundamental concept, and how to decide the next action the moment you get the task to be more productive in life. There is so much more in the book Getting Things Done, I think for students like us that have to balance life, activities, and school, it’s a must read! I will continue writing tips from this and other books to help you out, so say tuned!

Please comment and tell us what you think about this post, or share your own productivity and organizational tips!

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***Also everyone, I’m deciding to specialize in Information Technology, and possibly work towards a CA.IT designation. I’m still in the process of researching, if anyone has any information on what I need to do to get there, please contact me. I would really appreciate it! I would prefer to not take the courses required in UW because of my full and rather unflexible schedule. Thank you very much!