Don't Be Right, Be Interesting

Karl Marx was influential - but was he right or just interesting?

"Dear Lord, please make all the bad people good, and all the good people interesting." - Dave Bartram, lead singer of Showaddywaddy

In a recent article in the Guardian Oliver Burkeman points out that it is more important to be interesting than to be right.  It is an intriguing thought.  It is one that certainly makes sense to me.  In fact I am a perfect example in that I find a lot of what Steve Pavlina writes to be not just wrong, but completely contradictory to my world view.  But because he writes in an interesting way I still read him rather than people who are more accurate.

Media Diet Update - Easy Win!

I have been on my media diet for three days now.  I feel much better.   I have a residual nagging worry that the world's problems are not going to get solved as quickly if I don't have an opinion about them, but I have noticed a distinct uptick in the amount of writing I am doing.  Most habits are hard to build and take a long time to pay off.  This one is both easy and is paying off almost straight away.

If you are still a news junkie, the good news is that I estimate I have freed up about thirty minutes a day.  If you are happy with that cost for your addiction then you are getting a good deal.

Build Habits One Step At A Time

I am feeling a bit frustrated this morning.  Despite getting up on target and despite starting the day with a decent exercise routine, I am still procrastinating at getting started doing actual productive stuff.  My ideal is to be clearing important items off my todo list before 7.00 am and here I am only just getting going on my personal development blog - at just before.   These posts take me about 20 minutes so that is another target missed.

A Media Diet

I am and have always been a bit of a news junkie.  One of the first things I do in the morning is check the newspaper online.  I typically wake up to news on the radio, so by the time I am doing that I already have an idea of the main events and I am looking for comment and analysis.  I have well thought out opinions on most of the major issues of the day.  This is all something that is so deeply ingrained in me that to do any different seems not only unthinkable, but almost a betrayal of my being.

Early Rising Update II

The Bank Holiday and a trip damaged the development of my early rising habit development programme rather more than I had hoped, intended or expected.  But I am climbing back on the wagon now.  It is rather a glorious feeling to tapping away at a blog post this early in the morning - it is just gone half past six -knowing that this is the second bit of writing of the day and that I have already had a run.

Batching Jobs

No, not that kind of batch

One tip from time management experts is batching similar jobs together.  The advantage is obvious.  You focus on one type of activity at a suitable time when you have all the resources you need together.  That way you work most efficiently and get the most done.   It all sounds good.  It has the further less obvious advantage that you need to be well organised and on top of your tasks in order to be able to batch tasks.

Today's Strategic Plan

I'll be doing a strategic plan every day in May.  I think it makes most sense to do them in a hardback notebook, using pencil.  But I will do this first one as a blog post.  The exact format is one of the things I will be working on during this month of experimentation.  So here is the first iteration.