Owner: Productive Flourishing URL:http://www.productiveflourishing.com Join Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:35:44 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This blog joins flourishing and productivity for a meaningful life. It combines theories of productivity and flourishing with tips and tools for how to be productive and how to flourish. It also offers free planners, aids, and tools. Site statistics:Click here
Clay made it in!! 2008-04-16 21:21:10 I just found out today that your friend and mine, Clay Collins, made it on Alltop’s Lifehack page.
I wanted to take a second to cheer him on and give him some gratz love. For those of you who haven’t been following this blogging phenom, his first blog post on TheGrowingLife was on January 24, 2008. [...]
A Special Theory of Productivity 2008-04-16 13:41:09 I mentioned after I completed the Daily Productivity
Planner that I figured out how to write this post. Life intervened and I lost the muse. I’m currently in the process of reconstructing the train of thought, but it’s going to be rather rough.
The hardest part I’m having in articulating the ideas in this post [...] Read more:Special
, Theory
Revolution Money Exchange Extension 2008-04-15 18:32:10 I wanted to take a second and let everyone know that Revolution MoneyExchange
extended their signup bonus of $25 to May 15, 2008! As I mentioned earlier, Revolution Money Exchange is a new competitor to Paypal that allows you to send or receive money without being charged. I’ve been really happy with [...] Read more:Extension
Don’t We Get to Choose What Words Mean? 2008-04-13 11:03:18 Clay (author of TheGrowingLife) wrote a brilliant comment on my last post dissenting (somewhat) about the importance of words, roots, and their meaning. I started to write a comment in response but it became clear that that response is its own post.
First, I really appreciate Clay voicing his comment, for multiple reasons. I [...] Read more:Words
Replacing Passion With Vitality 2008-04-12 16:24:55 Loren at Writing Power asked a question the other day that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently since I was thinking about metaphors and how language affects our thinking and behavior.
Her question:
“What term would you like to see replace “passion” in our personal development lexicon?”
The reason we want to switch terms is because passion’s [...] Read more:Passion
, Vitality
Build a Small Fire and Sit Close to It 2008-04-11 20:55:54 This Friday’s meditation is an original in the Taoist spirit:
Try to be everywhere, and you will find yourself nowhere.
Try to be there for everyone, and you will be there for no one.
Try to always be available, and you will never be available.
Try to work all the time, and you will not work anytime.
Build
a small [...] Read more:Small
, Close
Broken Theme and Something In-between 2008-04-11 14:13:08 Many of you have probably noticed that my pages load really, really slowly. I’ve been doing some research on the guts of my system, and I’ve been able to determine why. Some of it is due to my ignorance, and others go way beyond that.
While doing speed tests this morning, I came across something very [...] Read more:Broken
, Theme
The Metaphors We Live By 2008-04-10 18:49:17 Are you feeling down today? Want to know how to save time? He’s in a dark mood today. I’m trying to get more done.
All of the sentences above involve the use of metaphors. “The essence of metaphors,” Lakoff and Johnson argued in Metaphors We Live By, “is understanding one kind of [...]
How Friends Help You Flourish 2008-04-08 09:30:16 Friends and flourishing are like cookies and milk: the addition of the one makes the other so much better. But friends and flourishing are unlike cookies and milk in that you can’t have one without the other.
“Friends,” Aristotle says, “are our second selves.” They help define who we are and improve our character. [...] Read more:Friends
, Flourish
Make $25 in 3 Minutes, Right Now 2008-04-06 10:26:00 There’s a new money transfer game in town besides Paypal, and they want your membership so much so that they are giving $25 for you just to sign up. There are no strings attached, no obligations to use the service, no trial offers that you need to remember to quit, and the process is [...] Read more:Right
Failure is an Opportunity 2008-04-18 16:31:38 Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else
there is no end to the blame.
Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.
–Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Commentary:
I’ve had a few setbacks this week - good things I was expecting did not come my way. I [...] Read more:Opportunity
What is Alltop? 2008-04-19 16:32:34 The other day I mentioned that Clay Collins made it on Alltop’s Lifehack page. I didn’t do a great job of explaining what Alltop was then, but I wanted to take a second and do so now.
Alltop has provided such a great explanation of what they do that I’ll just give a sample from [...]
21 Ways to Quickly Short-Circuit a Funk 2008-04-21 14:20:44 The situation: you find yourself in a funk. I’m not talking about the Pepe’ Le Pew kind of funk - that just requires the generous application of soap and water. The kind of funk I’m talking about is where you’re almost inexplicably sad, slightly depressed, or down about something.
This happens to almost everyone [...] Read more:Short
, Circuit
Does RescueTime Rescue Your Time? 2008-04-25 09:50:49 In A Special Theory of Productivity I mentioned that I that I didn’t think Rescue
Time worked as a time management solution. That’s too broad and unhelpful of a statement, so I’ll spend some time reviewing RescueTime so you can see how I came to that conclusion.
What is RescueTime supposed to do?
I’ll give two [...]
Link Travelogue (Vol. 2) 2008-04-28 17:20:12 I’m going to jump on the meme suggested by Chris Brogan and take it one step further. I’m an active commenter, but I haven’t done as many link travologues as I’d like to, so I’ll make up some ground today.
8 Ways to Be Ruthless With Your Time - Lifehack
Thursday Bram, who I have no [...] Read more:Travelogue
What Elephants Can Teach Us About Personal Development 2008-04-29 11:03:55 We share something very unique with elephants. Elephants, though they’re one of the strongest animals on the planets, can be constrained with the smallest sticks and ropes.
In Southeast Asia, elephants are still used as a mode of transportation. Tourist are often amazed at the fact that the elephant handlers use small ropes tied [...] Read more:Personal
, Development
Dirty Hands and Personal Development 2008-05-04 12:07:56 Even though I was unable to post this or last Friday’s meditation, it’s still a goal of mine to write something that steps away from the standard topics on Productive Flourishing and instead just gives something to think about. For this week, it’s not a meditation, but instead an applied philosophical problem.
Before you run [...] Read more:Hands
, Personal
, Development
Link Travelogue (Vol. 3) 2008-05-08 10:38:57 Spring is in the air, and it seems as if the blogosphere has been a bit more quiet than normal. While the quantity of writing is down, the quality seems to be better. Enjoy the roundup!
Why Your Loved Ones Want You To Fail - IttyBiz
Why do your loved ones want you to fail? [...] Read more:Travelogue
The Ship of Theseus and Personal Identity 2008-05-09 21:40:58 Fridays (or, in the case of the last few weeks, weekends) are Food For Thought Days. On these days, I drop the normal “here’s a solution” standard and instead write a “here’s an interesting question” post. My goal in these posts is hence not to provide answers, but to introduce good questions.
I have [...] Read more:Personal
Give a Mother a Space of Her Own for Mother’s Day 2008-05-10 22:43:44 In my last post I ran through a list of Big Days that I’ve done a horrible job of honoring. One Big Day that’s not on the list is Mother’s Day. Of course, if we had children, it would be on the list.
I also mentioned getting thoughtful gifts for Big Days. Well, [...] Read more:Space
How to Avoid Being an Idiot and Show Your Lady You Love Her on a Big Day 2008-05-10 21:11:33 Last Wednesday was, hands down, the best day I have ever had in Nebraska. It was my five year anniversary with my lovely wife, Angela, and boy, was it nice.
Especially considering how much of an idiot I was.
See, I’m horrible at Big Day
s, and I’m fortunate enough to have several of them to make [...] Read more:Avoid
Make a Difference: Imagine, Then Act! 2008-05-15 18:57:25 We live in a world where tragedy befalls millions on a daily basis. The world may be better than it once was, but that doesn’t mean that it’s were it could be. It’s not hard to imagine how the world could be better.
But it’s hard to make the world we imagine a reality. [...] Read more:Imagine
What Makes an Act Courageous? 2008-05-19 08:08:19 This last week has been a bit strange on the writing front - I’ve mentally written a lot of posts, but I haven’t actually written them. Now we’ll just have to see whether they actually materialize into something worth reading.
The reason for the strangeness of the week has been due to me being on [...]