There are some interesting comments in the post The Importance of Being Smart and here I’d like to discuss one of them. It’s a comment by Chew: I have something to add to being smart. It’s about beginning with the end in mind. No amount of smartness can outsmart the need to begin with the end in mind. I love it. I don’t know about you, but I often find myself in such a situation. When I need to achieve a goal, I often frame it as achieving the goal in a certain way. As a result, I exclude other ways to achieve it. This, I’m afraid, is a common problem. When people need to get a task done, they tend to do it in the most obvious way or the way that most other people do. This is a bad idea because by definition following the crowd means being average. That’s why it’s important to begin with the end in mind. Instead of taking the most obvious route, take a step back and get a complete picture of the goal. Then ask yourself: what are the possible ways to achieve the goal? Notice that the question is not whether or not there is other way because there are always other ways. The question helps you find new possibilities you might never think of before. You can take the concept further by questioning the goal itself. Why? Because a goal is just a way to achieve an even bigger goal. Just take acquiring arrows as an example. Acquiring arrows is a way to achieve the bigger goal of winning the battle. So you should ask yourself: is acquiring arrows necessary to win the battle? What are other ways to win the battle? Thinking that you need to acquire arrows without considering other options means that you don’t begin with the end in mind. You can still move further because winning the battle is a way to win the war, but you get the idea. Applying this principle in your life will give you interesting insights. Just look at something that you do and ask yourself the bigger goal you want to achieve through it. By keep questioning you will eventually find the ultimate goal of your life. You should then work backward and find the best way to accomplish your goals at each level. Here is an example: Let’s stop at this point. You should now work backward by asking this question: From your answers you might realize that you don’t need to buy stuff to be happy. Instead, there are other possibilities. Let’s say that the best answer you find is giving. Then the next question is: This way you begin with the end and move backward to the point where you are now. Beginning with the end in mind is important. Not only will it help you find more creative ways to achieve your goals, but it will also help you find the right goals in life. Photo by muha
A: To make money
A: To be able to buy what I want.
A: To make me happy.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Achieve Goals by Beginning With the End in Mind
Free Passive Income Resources
Passive income is our key to financial freedom. The more passive income we generate, the less dependent we are on our job. At one point, when our passive income exceeds our expenses, we can stop working anytime we want and still live the lifestyle we desire. That is financial freedom. But passive income takes time to build. You can’t expect to start working on it now and be financially freedom next year unless you are very lucky. So the best time to start is now. The earlier you start working to build your passive income, the sooner you will reap the results. That’s why I put together this list of free passive income resources. There are a lot free passive income resources out there, but I put only the useful ones here. I hope this list can be a starting point and a companion in your journey toward financial freedom. The list starts with the definitions followed by the e-books, articles, and audio resources. Definitions E-Books Articles – General Articles – Internet Marketing Articles – Miscellanous Audio Bonus – Recommended Books While collecting these resources, I noticed that there are several books which are often mentioned regarding passive income. These books are not free, but I add them here in case you want to learn more about the subject. I have read all of them except the last one. Here they are:
Personal Analytics: The Next Big Thing in Self Improvement?
Recently the idea of personal analytics hits me more and more. What is personal analytics? It’s a way of making decisions in someone’s life based on numbers. You measure certain aspects of your life, analyze the results, and make decisions based on them. It started about two years ago when I read an excerpt of the book Super Crunchers. The book talks about how smart companies “act by numbers.” Instead of making decisions based on intuition, they make decisions based on what they measure and calculate. For instance, they use mathematical models to accurately predict how the customers will behave in certain situations and adjust their operations accordingly. This way the companies can directly make the right decisions without wasting their resources. The book even says that those companies know about your preferences better than you. Reading that made me think: is it possible to apply that at individual level? Can individuals live by numbers? Can someone make decisions for his life not based on intuition but based on facts? If we can apply that, that will be a great leap forward. Just like the companies, you will be able to optimize your life to get the most out of it. As it turns out, some people already do that. They already live by numbers to optimize their lives. My favorite example is Jim Collins, the author of Built to Last and Good to Great. Here is what The New York Times wrote about him: And in a corner of the white board at the end of his long conference room, Mr. Collins keeps this short list: Creative 53% Teaching 28% Other 19% That, he explains, is a running tally of how he’s spending his time, and whether he’s sticking to a big goal he set for himself years ago: to spend 50 percent of his workdays on creative pursuits like research and writing books, 30 percent on teaching-related activities, and 20 percent on all the other things he has to do. These aren’t ballpark guesstimates. Mr. Collins, who is 51, keeps a stopwatch with three separate timers in his pocket at all times, stopping and starting them as he switches activities. Then he regularly logs the times into a spreadsheet. That’s not all. From the same article: Oh, he sleeps with vigor, too. He figures that he needs to get 70 to 75 hours of sleep every 10 days, and once went to a sleep lab to learn more about his own patterns. Now – surprise, surprise – he logs his time spent on a pillow, naps included, and monitors a rolling average. “If I start falling below that,” he says, pointing to the short list on his whiteboard, “I can still teach and do ‘other,’ but I can’t create.” Isn’t that amazing? He carefully measures certain parts of his life in order to improve them. He makes his decisions not based on memory or intuition but based on numbers. Jim Collins is the best example I’ve found so far of someone who is living by numbers. But will personal analytics be a common phenomenon? Well, there is one difficulty here: the data-gathering process. A company has a lot of resources to measure almost anything in its operation. It can set up a separate division to do just that. But an individual has limited resources. You have only yourself to do everything. I’m sure many people won’t be patient and diligent enough for that. Even those who do must be careful not to spend too many resources on it at the expense of the real, productive work. Because of these difficulties, only a few people like Jim Collins apply personal analytics effectively. Fortunately, it may change in the future. There are new products coming out that make it easy for you to gather data. One good example is the Nike+ system: Veronica Noone attached a small sensor to her running shoes and headed out the door. She pressed start on her iPod and began keeping track of every step she took. It wasn’t a long run – just 1.67 miles in 18 minutes and 36 seconds, but it was the start of something very big for her. Since that day, she’s run 95 more times, logging 283.8 miles in about 48 hours on the road. She’s burned 28,672 calories. And her weight, which topped 225 pounds when she was pregnant, has settled in at about 145. Noone knows all of that thanks to the sensor system, called Nike+. After each run, she can sync her iPod to the Nike+ Web site and get a visual representation of the workout – a single green line. Its length shows how far she’s gone, and the peaks and valleys reflect her speed. Products like Nike+ make data gathering effortless. We can expect more and more products like that emerge in the future. When that happens, you can easily measure many aspects of your life and use them to optimize your life.
