Monthly Archives: July 2008

Taking Notes Changed My Life

GTD Notes
I really mean the above statement!

A common thread I have on this blog is the importance of having the ability to take notes whenever you can. Every second between you having a thought, and recording it is a second closer to you forgetting the note. This is a key involvement of GTD when processing actions to Get Things Done.

For me, I carry a Moleskine wherever I go and now I am armed with my new shiny iPhone 3G. I have a post on OmniFocus for the 3G coming soon as I am loving the ability to sync my tasks and carry them around with me. I have also started using Evernote and the application between the web, iPhone, and desktop client is really slick. More to come on that as well.

Now, the reason I am writing this post is that I have just read a great post over at Lifehacker about the five best note taking tools. Evernote is on this list as well as my old time favourite, the pen and paper. The blog post covers Evernote, Pen and paper, Microsoft OneNote, Google Notebook, and Personal Wiki.

Check out the blog post and see what you think..

The Magic of Thinking Big – Book Review

One book that I have read quite recently was The Magic of Thinking Big, by Dr David J. Schwartz.

The book is written by Dr David J. Schwartz who was a professor at Georgia State University before starting a consulting firm that focuses on leadership development.

The front cover of the book drew me in with the blurb of “Set your goals high then exceed them!” Being one for believing in the importance of setting goals I thought the book seemed like a good read and the reviews on Amazon where non too shabby so I decided to invest the time in reading the book.

The book is around 350 pages in length and is split into what I would call mini section chapters. There is no real flow to the book with no clear sections and each section/chapter seems to address a specific issue, for example their are chapters called “How to overcome the fear of other people“, “Think as big as you really are“, and “Get the thinking big view of your job“. The benefit of this type of structure is that you can pick up the book and just read one of the 30 page or so chapters and then put it down. I have also found that I have gone back to a few of the chapters since reading it to re-read and the organisation allows you to do so as a reference manual.

I must admit that I found the book quite old fashioned in its thinking and it seemed to cater more for corporate America, people working for large corporates and happy to do so. Being more of an entrepreneur I found some of the advice against my core values, but we are all different, and I did find the book a positive use of my time. The book does utilise real world examples for every aspect that is covered. This helps the reader relate to the advice given as the author explains situations which he has experienced where somebody has benefited from the advice in the book.

The book is very similar to the famous Think and Grow Rich from Napoleon Hill in the fact that it instills the confidence in the reader that you are what you think, and the mind is the strongest muscle in your body that when trained and utilized correctly can bring with it results.

So, in summary, worth a read but not up their with the best books and I would give it a 3 out of 5.

WordPress iPhone App

Just a quick post as I am writing this blog post from my Hotel room in Winchester as I am working away for a while with a client.

The cool thing is that I am writing this using the brand new WordPress App for the iPhone.

The App allows you to add multiple blogs and view, edit, and write new posts.

This will be great for me to write little Twitted type snippets to my blogs although adding images and links may prove hard with no copy and paste yet on the iPhone.

Well, I am going to start my day now. Have a good one!

Zig Ziglar – Prime the Pump

I think Zig Ziglar is just great.

If you do not know who he is, he is a Southern American Motivational Speaker and has been on the speaking circuit since the 1980s. I have blogged about Zig before and his Motivational Podcast.

One of the videos on Zigs podcast is one with his very famous Water Pump. This was Zigs trademark in the early days and I urge you to watch this, and hopefully you will make the connection to the words that Zig is saying.

I think there are many truths in this video, ones that can help you in a lot of aspects of your life.

Watch the video, and I would love to have your comments and feedback.