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Monthly Archives: July 2010
things i like: the new Dustbuster
I absolutely love this thing: Our condo is small, but we have a cat and we eat dinner at the coffee table; we don’t need to do floor-to-ceiling industrial cleanings so much as we need to vacuum up random clumps … Continue reading
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doing stuff you don’t want to do
There’s stuff you’re not going to want to do, there’s stuff that’s hard to do, there’s stuff you’re not even that good at doing, and there’s stuff that might even be somebody else’s job. Sometimes, you have to do this … Continue reading
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leveraging natural tendencies
There are about a million different personality evaluation tools, and it’s not surprising that one called “Strength Finder” is focused on maximizing strengths rather than minimizing weaknesses. In fact, my first exposure to methodology seemed to go as far as … Continue reading
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strengths and weaknesses
I’m with my main client company for an all-hands meeting for a few days, which includes one of the endless variation of personality assessment quizzes. This particular one is designed to assess five key categories of “strengths.” I don’t mean … Continue reading
plan, then deviate
The conclusion I’ve come to with the whole “personal discipline” thing is that you need to use structure to break up the massive task of being disciplined about everything all at once into small bite-sized chunks. So the challenge now … Continue reading
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things i like: Minecraft
Blog warning: do NOT read this or sign up for this game if you have meaningful work you want to accomplish. After all that stuff about personal discipline, Minecraft has seriously diminshed my motivation to do any work that doesn’t … Continue reading
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discipline 4: the secret to discipline
I’ve been using the mantra, “discipline“, saying it to myself when I wake up in the morning, when I don’t feel like doing the dishes, when I don’t want to write or I don’t want to do work or I … Continue reading
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discipline 3: discipline in a “now” world
Let’s take a step back. Why is discipline such a difficult thing to have? Two parts to my theory: first, if you’re reading this, the worst thing that might ever happen to you–and this is still unlikely at best–is that … Continue reading
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discipline 2: discipline and ritual
I think that ritual has to do with structure. While grad school was not easy, neither was it hard, because it formed a comforting structural framework for my life. Part of my identity was Mark Dalius, part-time MBA student at … Continue reading
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discipline 1: it’s hard to get things done
It’s hard to get things done, and I think the key to the struggle lies in discipline. I don’t have much of it anymore, and I don’t think anybody else does either, by and large. I feel like I, and … Continue reading
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