Rapid Fire Learning - Five for November

November has been a terrific month of learning. Thanks for taking a moment and letting me share my journey with you. With only five days left in this month, here is the five-course meal of learning I feasted on.

1. Gratitude changes everything.
I feel better about life when I'm thankful for it. Being grateful is a tremendous gift to both give and receive. People are appreciative when I recognize their contribution through my gratitude. I feel like giving even more when someone expresses their thanks to me. Gratitude is the best thing to combat a prideful attitude. A handwritten thank you note is a special gift.

2. I'm more productive when I clear the clutter.
This month, I completely cleared off my workspace of everything except my computer and phone. I had to remove file holders, stacks of papers, office supplies (stapler, tape, pens, etc), random sticky notes, and other items that had found a home on my desk. When I was done, I had a completely clean work area. I've spent the last few weeks managing my clean sweep. I try to go paperless whenever possible. I clean off any clutter each night. I have found that I am much better at working on one thing at a time this way. It's less distracting.

3. Hulu is pretty good.
I must say that I was bitter (I realize this conflicts with #1) when I found out that NBC had pulled it's TV show The Office off of iTunes and was now running it on Amazon. For one thing, I can no longer watch this season's episodes on my iPod. But NBC's release of Hulu is fairly decent. I had to wait to get an invitation for the beta. Not sure when they'll fully open it to the public. I like Hulu for a couple of reasons: 1) I tend to watch more and more of my favorite shows online, 2) The video player is so much better than the one they have up on NBC.com. Check it out here.

4. There's a very REAL difference between ideal values and real values.
Ideal values are those things that you want or hope to value. Real values are the values you actually live out through your actions and behaviors. You may communicate to others your ideal values, trying to encourage them that they're you're real values, but your behavior will prove what is really true. Thus, it's important to know what your values really are. If you only communicate your ideal values, you'll confuse everyone in your life when you start acting in contradictory ways.

5. Christmas lights are easier to put up the second time around.
Last year was the first year I put lights up on the house we currently live in. It took me quite a while to figure out what to connect everything to and where to run all of the extension cords. This year, I already knew the plan. I strung the lights in less than half the time, only having to change a few broken bulbs. Now I can focus on enhancing the presention (we might add a few candy canes and light-up reindeer). Familiarity helps speed things up. But it only comes when I'm willing to dive in and try something for the first time. Experience enhances my execution. Evaluated experience helps me to improve and not repeat the same mistakes I made before.
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Author: Tim Milburn
Tim currently trains, equips, and develops student leaders on a daily basis. You can view more of his writing and resources at www.studentlinc.net.

Comments

[Susan]

Regarding your item #2 "I'm more productive when I clear the clutter.", I totally agree.

I feel much better after making some order and disposing obsolete documents and papers.

Lately I was exposed to a nice small software for digitizing papers (throwing??) which uses tags for categorization - http://www.42tags.com

-Susan

[Rosa Say]

I love what you have written about gratitude Tim, and you know that you are equally striking a hot button for me with number 4 on values! People may truly have the intentions of their ideal values, but it is very human to trip up with demonstrating them well enough so that other people's perceptions of us agree!

[Rosa Say]

I checked out Hulu Tim, and they are now offering their beta to everyone right from the home page.

I am always interested in why people choose the names that they do, and found this interesting...

"Why Hulu? Objectively, Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we’re building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premier content when, where and how you want it."

I wonder how much research they did... hulu is "feather" in Hawaiian.

[David Zinger]

I enjoy and appreciate what you learn from gratitude to the impace of clutter.