1. Read a book for at least half an hour. Read a book is the next best thing after travel. It makes your brain wander off far away. Around the world. Makes you forget about whatever trouble you might have, once you are done, you’ll approach the trouble with new perspective.
2. Socialize with new people. Or at least people that you don’t see everyday. Makes you feel alive.
3. Learn for an hour. Even better, learn Rails. Spend an hour reading through books or watching screencast. Maybe it
   could be other thing. But the thing is, You don’t want you brain to stop learning.

That’s pretty much it, at least 2 ½ hours of your life are in your control now. Try to include health related thing to do for an hour, hit a gym for example.

Maybe it’s a specific goal, a business plan, an amazing dream or simply an idea. You just talk about it to everything that moves.

Now why you want to do that?

Because it is simple and duplicable.

Take me to your leader.
Whatever you say, not matter how stupid, if you really believe in it, it will spread out like a virus. People will share the same belief. In fact, some will even follow you. People don’t follow the smartest person around who always knows what to do, people will follow the person who believes in something. You might be a rookie, but if you really believe in you goal, even the experienced leader will go out of way to help you.

Can you hear the words coming out of your mouth?
By keep on repeating it, you will reinforce it deep within you. You’ll believe with the words coming out of your mouth. It’s an affirmation. You are not going to tell lies to yourself right? The stronger you believe in it, the easier it will be. It’s like the world revolve around you goals.

Human are bounded by the their promises.
It’s like making a promise. Once you say something to somebody, you are under direct agreement to make it happen (except when you are lying of course). You’ll have to make it happen. A man will be judged by his own words.

But this is where it becomes trickier. To understand the point, here’s a story about me:

Like I said, I’m a man of idea. Idea makes me feel alive. In fact it keeps alive. So when I come out with an idea, especially business idea, I’ll talk about it to everyone. Few people will be sold out to the idea and we’ll start looking into it. Most of the times, after consideration; we’ll abandon the idea. One or two will actually take off the ground. It’s pretty normal really.

Out of 10 ideas, 9 bound to fail. Out of 10 startups, 9 bound to fail. So chances are, only ONE idea from new startup will succeed, out of ONE HUNDRED ideas. There’s a lot of reasons to it, but lets talk about that later.

Here’s the problem: After you talk about a lot of ideas to enough people, and yet to successfully execute it, people will start questioning you.

“Bila nak kaya?” “When you’ll be rich?”
“Bila nak start next project?” “So when is you next project?” (Sarcastically of course)
“Idea lagik? Yang dulu pun tak jalan” “More ideas? Even the last one never kick off”

Special remark:
“Bincang jek keje, takde hasil pun” “Talk, talk, talk. And nothing.”

After enough people said it, you’ll be bound to believe them.

Heck, I’ve even updated my resume and planned to work with some big companies. Can’t even imagine that. It was a bad move. You see, when I believe in what other said, I’d loose grip on my own ideas and beliefs. That’s when the idea factory starting to shutdown slowly. And like I said, I’m and idea person. If my idea factory closed down, I’ll be dead.

Only lately, after spending a lot of time with bunch of entrepreneurs and business owners, it suddenly hits me. They are all experienced the same thing. Only 1 out of 10 ideas will ever kick off, and only 1 out of 10 will survive.

It’s pretty common. It’s not a big deal.

So when I think about it, those who said “Bincang jek keje, takde hasil pun” won’t understand this. They are working as an employee in some big company, living happily in their comfort zone. They won’t understand what it feels like to start your own business. To lead you own company. To struggle through the road less traveled.

So for bunch of my entrepreneur friends out there, don’t stop talking about your ideas, your plans, your goals and your dreams.

Spread out the passion. And it’ll be duplicated through the entire world.

Few people envy me, some think I’m lucky and a lot of them think:

“I got better ideas than you”

As much as I’m grateful with this gift, it’s also my biggest weaknesses.

Having a lot of ideas tend to make me lost focus and sidetracked before I could even say, DUPLICATE!

Every time I come out with new interesting idea, I will, without fail, sabotage it by thinking too far ahead. I will easily come up with ideas on how this project will evolve, how many features I can put in, amazing integration with existing projects and a lot of future upgrades.

I even think of solutions to problem that I might be facing in future. Can you imagine that? I barely started the project yet I’ve spent so much energy into solving problems that not even existed yet, heck, it might not even be a problem at all.

Before I know it, the project bloated with features and I’ll be overwhelmed with a lot of task. I will make an easy quit and just let the project fails.

So for JomRead Project, I’m doing a very systematic way to get things done. It’s a simple yet duplicable system.

I have one big goal in mind for JomRead, but in order to achieve it, I’ll break it down to smaller goals and missions. So every day I just do one small simple thing for JomRead. Most of the missions can be done within an hour. Everyday I’ll achieve small goals.

And by tasting success everyday, I get motivated everyday too! Everything seem a lot simpler when you do it one step at a time.

For example, we started with Facebook Page first then only decide; hey, wouldn’t it be better if we have our own domain name?

Or, we decided to ignore the potential problem of not having enough books because for now we don’t even have any members. Having one book at this time can be considered as a surplus, therefore there’s no such problem as not having enough books.

That’s the best thing about setting small goals and missions. If I make a mistake or fail to achieve a goal, the impact will be less threatening to the project as a whole. And like I said continuous successes no mater how small, will continually motivate people.

So there you go, simple system that I hope can be duplicated throughout the entire development of JomRead Project.

Cheers!

Update: I spent an hour a day doing things I enjoy doing with JomRead Project

So here’s a simple duplicable trick to better manage your email.

Before that; let’s talk about rules – there’s only one rule when it comes to email productivity.

Always keep your inbox empty.

Okay, maybe there’s another rule – don’t let email control your life.

Email is a passive communication, therefore it can wait. There’s no point checking your email every 30 seconds, or set annoying popup to tell you “You Got Mail” every time your buddy forward some useless joke about Obama or Clinton.

It’s all a distraction. Unless you’re a tech support, chances are, you only need to check your mail every few hours.

So here’s a duplicable system for more productivity when it comes to email. Do it step-by-step.

Delete
Do not be afraid to delete thing off your life. If it doesn’t seem important on first look, chances are – it is not important at all. Just delete it. This is the same concept when you meet new girl/guy. First impression counts.

Delegate
If somebody else can do it, just quickly forward it to that person. Don’t be a HERO.

Reply
Certain mails just need an acknowledgement from. Just quickly reply – Noted. If you must use more than one word, make sure it’s within 5 to 10 words. Enough. Don’t overdo it.

Do it
If it’s something that you can quickly do within few minutes, then go ahead, leave for mails for few minutes and come back when you got it done. Then proceed. Simple.

Mark as to-do
Now if it’s something that can’t be done quickly, mark it in your to-do list. Word of caution – This to-do list tends to accumulate pretty fast. So, before you tag it as another to-do, check again if it’s really necessary to delay it. Can it be deleted, delegated, quickly replied, done in few minutes? If all fail, then only mark it.

That’s it. Simple duplicable way to make your live easier and more productive

Remember, empty your inboxes.

Cheers!

As always, there’s nothing without flaws. The problem with using dream to drive you is – sometimes you don’t even know what your dream is. Or maybe you do know but it’s so vague, with little details.

Conclusion: If you don’t even have a clear and vivid picture of your dream, how can it be strong enough to drive you?

Solution: I heard this a lot.

Picture your dream vividly and believe in it until it all seems real.

Yeah, right. Another abstract advice. Easier said than done.

This is where the book comes in handy.

“It started slowly, with me taking a little more time for myself each week. I Stopped treating myself to ‘things’ as compensation for hard working, and instead started treating myself by doing what I wanted to do. For example, I made sure I spent at least one hour everyday doing something I really liked. Sometimes it was reading a novel I was excited about, other days it was going for a long walk or playing sports.”

“Eventually, the one hour became two, and that progressed to three, and before I knew it, I was totally focused on doing things I wanted to do, things that fulfilled my answer to ‘why am I here’”

The Why Are You Here Cafe, pg. 71

You see, the whole point is – why wait to do the things you love? Why wait to live your dream? Why don’t do it now? At least if you die tomorrow, you’ll be satisfied. We regret the things we didn’t do, not the thing we do badly.

How can I use dream to drive me if I already living the dream now?

I know you are going to ask that. I can predict the future ;-p

Now, I may sound like I’m contradicting myself. In fact there’s very thin line about the thing I’ll say next.

If you use dream as a reward or compensation, it’s normally based on fear. Fear of not achieving your dream. So you’ll work hard in order to achieve certain level which will allow you to live your dream. What happen from now till the day you achieve your dream? A lot of hard work, pull countless all-nighter? What happen if something bad happen tomorrow?

By giving yourself a taste of your dream, it would actually motivate you even more. You will want to spend more hours living your dream. So, you got to work smart instead of hard, because you want more hours for your dream.

Even better, you dream is not something vague anymore. It’s real. You are living it everyday. You are living you life now, not tomorrow.

In fact, if you don’t really know what your dream is, use that one-hour period to try something new. Meet new people, read new books, research on things that you might enjoy, watch travel and living channels. If you’ve tried a lot of thing, one of them bound to really hit it off.

So there you go, easy and simple duplicable routine for you. Live a better live an hour a day.

Cheers!

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might oft win, by fearing to attempt.

Shakespeare

Lets just hope our confidence would win out. Cheers!

The cow in your dream means, you are about to milk your long term effort.
The smiley clown means, you are going to get rich and smile all day long like a clown.

So here I am, trying to write something just for the sake of writing… or staying awake, or trying to sleep.

You’ve seen this type of entry everywhere around the blogosphere haven’t you? Yeah, like other blogger, after blogging for quite a while (10 posts is a lot, really), I’m sure everybody will definitely come to a point where there can’t really write/no idea/writer’s block/whatever you call it.

What really holds me back when writing is – myself.

Yeah, guilty as charged. Every single time, just write one line, then the inner editor in me starts to analyze the line, trying to fix it, check spelling, grammar checking (ok, maybe not so much) and million other checking an editor would do.

Then comes the inner proof reader, mark few points here and there and before I know it, I was busy fixing that one line I wrote 48 minutes ago. And the train of thought already departed 44 minutes ago.

Next stop! (Insert famous blog here)

And all I got with me is a one liner.

Luckily, I found a solution to that. I remember reading it on copyblogger. Can’t find the original post, but lots of good tips there, pick what you like or use everything. I’m personally not fond of memorizing everything at once, thanks to my secondary school teacher, but that’s another story.

So the best single idea I got from copyblogger is – Turn Off Your Monitor When You Start Writing.

Brilliant! Now your internal editor and proofreader can’t do their job. How can they? There’s nothing to see (try proofread that! :-p). But the writer in you can still keep punching the keyboard and come out with a great story before the train leaves.

Once you are done, turn back on the monitor and both editor and proofreader can finish their job.

Of course, as laptop user, it’s quite hard to turn my monitor off and on. So here here’s how I do it.

Change to font color to WHITE.

I call it – the Art of Blank Page

Cheers!

Vishen from Mindvalley once said;

“There are four reasons why you would want to do anything. It could be money, fun, education or to save the word.”

He has changed the latter to Social cause. I would still prefer “To Save The World”, a bit more catchy don’t you think?

Okay, this is pretty much the same as my previous post – Why Do You Want To Start Your Own Business? But on a higher level. Maybe previously you can’t really find a specific priority; this chart shows the whole idea in bigger perspective.

Now, in Vinshen’s own word, I (try to) quote;

“Given 12 points, how would you distribute them among these four reasons?”

Done?

Which reason gets the highest point?

Money? You may have hundreds of valid reason why you choose money. Good, it’s your life. Nothing is wrong with being rich.

Fun? There are lots of ways to define fun. Attracted to risk could also means fun to you. Helping others can be fun. Being around fun people can be fun.

Education? You want to learn something new! I personally advocate this. You can never stop learning.

Or maybe you want to save the world. Be a hero. Help somebody achieves greater things in life. Save the whale. Save a life.

You see, all you need is a reason, or a dream, or a goal, a passion or whatever you might call it.

You got to really understand why you want to bear the pain. Why you want to live through the struggle. You got to put a meaning to your journey. You got to light up the fire inside you. Only then, no matter what you want to do, you’ll get it through.

Not many survived this journey. Not because they’ve failed.

They just quit because there’s no more fire burning bright inside them.

Do you want to quit?

Extra income
Financial freedom
Have own business (Duh!)
More spare time
Personal development
Helping others
Meeting new people
Retirement
Leave a legacy.

Now, if you want to start a new business, it’s time for you to do a quick reality check. Just answer these questions.

1) What is your number one priority? (from the list above)
2) Why did you pick that one?
3) Why is that important to you?
4) What are the consequences of not having hat opportunity?
5) Why would that worry you?

If none are important to you right now, consider this – If one was to be important, which one would it be?

If you still can’t find any priority, then you might not ready to venture into the world of business owner. Don’t worry, maybe it’s not time yet for you to shine. You might want to stay as an employee to gain knowledge and experience.

Cheers!

Credit goes to Allan Pease