If you want a better life, but are willing to do more than just hope and actually create your own future, and if you like simple changes that come with big benefits, take a look at a tool, in fact, a solution that is Simple, Legal, Inexpensive, Good For You, Practical And Works Every Time

Make a change in how you learn - not in what you learn, but in how you learn - is among the easiest and most profitable changes you can make in life. The initial investment is small and the potential benefit infinite. It is like finding gold in a field of gold that has not previously been mined for gold. Among the best little known secrets around, it beats artificial life sweeteners by (s)miles.

The skill of learning is often overlooked because we take learning for granted. The first thing we do when we come into this life, right after taking our first breath, is learning. If you're like me, chances are you got so busy learning, you never stopped. You never even stopped to learn how to learn - a mistake, because the difference in learning versus learning the right way is enormous. At least it's what I found from personal experience. I used to think learning about learning was an oxymoron. Now I know it can be the difference between a life and an extraordinary life.

How You Learn Determines Everything

How you learn determines what you know. What you know leads to what you do and don't do in life - the choices you make. What you do (and refrain from doing) produces the results in life. The sum of your results added up, are your life. Therefore, change how you learn and you change your life! Simple, legal, inexpensive, lasting, good for you, good for others, works every time and never fails.

What Is Learning, Anyway?

All learning involves teaching. In an ideal world the teacher is an actual person in an actual classroom. In the real world the teacher often has no face and the lessons, as well as the exams, just happen. In fact, much learning is achieved in this way, when there is no-one around but you and you find yourself both teacher and student at the same time.

Take a minute to imagine. Does the teacher know about both the teaching and the learning? How are you teaching yourself - what are your teaching style and method? What would you teach? Are you - the student - hungry to learn and explore? Is there joy and harmony between the teacher and the student? To take your life to a whole new level, simply make your vision real - create the best teacher-student interaction you're capable of. It's within your control.

What We Learn

What we learn typically consists of learning about the world around us, then about life, then about success, and lastly, about ourselves.

While closely entwined and operating together in harmony, the basic areas of learning - the world, life, success and ourselves - are also separate entities, each subject to its own rules and regulations as it were. You can achieve great progress in one area of learning while remaining utterly stuck and confused in another. There are people who "know everything" but achieve little, as well as people who "know nothing" yet possess the midas touch. It is difficult also to achieve balance, as evidenced by stories of rich and famous disasters - people who are successful in one area of their lives, sometimes exceedingly so, yet unable to transfer success to other areas of their life.

Learn (And Do) More By Learning Less

The first step to a better life is to stop all learning ... with the exception of the learning needed, if any, for doing great things (specifically, what you believe are great things). The best way to achieve a truly great life is to do excellent work. The best way to do excellent work is to love what you do. Resolve to work primarily for the sensation you have while working. If you are still looking for what you love to do, limit your learning to what's needed to find it. Learn to ask the right questions. If you knew today were the last day of your life, would you still go with the plans you had for today? If the answer is "No" for too many days in a row, it might be time to make changes. Do not settle. Keep looking. Do not lose faith.

Learn less and let go. Let go of what you can hold on with your hands, and of what you can hold on with your mind, but never ever let go of your faith and never ever let go with your heart. Your heart already knows what you truly want to become.

Happy new learning and happy new life!

Relevant Quotes

• “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vincent Lombardi
• “Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.” – Steven Covey
• “The whole course of things is to teach us faith.” – Emerson
• "You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself." – Galileo
• "Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils." – Hector Berlioz

Related Blogs, Blog Posts

• http://commadot.com/the-curse-of-knowledge/

Thanks to Chris Brogan over at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ I stumbled upon a little big video on the topic of sharing. The people at Red Hat don't just share in an everyday kind of way, they've made sharing the cornerstone of their business model. With impressive results, which they happily share with - you guessed it - their shareholders. Indeed, sharing their product (for free) has allowed Red Hat to become a billion dollar company – billion as in a thousand millions - proving again, as if proof were needed, sharing your passion can be profitable business.

Sharing is a good idea any time. For example, share your dreams of an own business or for a career change with a couple of friends and see whether it touches, moves or inspires them. If not, revise. Sharing dreams and passions leads to spending more time with people who share your desire to succeed. Focus on the sharing, leave the marketing at the door, see your business grow. See your happiness grow, too (the state of mind in which your thinking is pleasant a good share of the time). For a stark contrast to sharing, try keeping it to yourself. Travel alone to a wonderful location that offers breathtaking scenery. You're by yourself, so the scenery only takes your breath away. No-one around to share it with. How does it feel? Makes the Red Hat people look even brighter, doesn't it?

This post is about timeboxing, which I highly recommend. In the past I used it only intermittently, but found it to be so effective I now use it routinely. I learned about timeboxing while preparing for Christmas, usually setting aside 12 hours for the task, which for me involves both the making and shopping of gifts. Because Christmas comes with a deadline that will not be moved, it didn't take me long to understand the need, and benefits, of timeboxing. By late summer I decide the type of gifts I'd love for each person. Next I order the materials needed to make the gifts, as much as possible online, or I reluctantly hit the shops. By taking advantage of my flexible schedule I avoid rush hours and waiting in line and, given my dislike of shopping malls, I'm usually in-and-out quickly. It leaves me with about 10 hours to actually make and wrap the gifts. I also use timeboxing when confronted with a project or task too big to complete at once. I might not be sure where to begin, or it seems it will be a while before I get to finish a meaningful chunk. Or maybe it’s something I resist doing for some reason, hence the temptation to procrastinate. In such cases I revert to timeboxing to simply jump and just do it ... for a while. I usually allocate 30-90 minutes tops, let go of any particular accomplishment and simply get going, regardless of where and how far exactly. An example for using this approach is when writing a new article or a next chapter in a book. Sometimes it just flows and an article completes itself in a single stretch, but most of the time it's hard labor performed in chunks over multiple sessions. Timeboxing helps to jump into the thick of it and frees me to set aside any worries about effectiveness and so forth. Then I simply repeat the process until the work is done. To start with enthusiasm, even at the risk of achieving nothing, beats procrastination every time.

Accomplish More Than You Hope For

As described in an earlier blog post, action may result in zero accomplishment, but the absence of action guarantees it. What’s more, action is also a great anti-depressant. Fill your moments with action, and there will be little time left for worry. Once begun - you have now overcome inertia and are focused on the task - action creates its own dynamic. You might well end up working (much) longer than you originally intended. Hours may pass before you even feel the desire to stop. The result often baffles expectations. You end up accomplishing more than originally hoped for.

A Good Repellent Against Procrastination & Perfectionism (These Two Often Go Hand In Hand)

Timeboxing increases the likelihood of getting things done. The box takes away the room for procrastination. It forces you to focus on the best you can do with what you have where you are. You'll soon abandon perfect for good is good enough - a good thing, since perfectionism often creates the need for timeboxing in the first place. If you're working in product development or similar where moving a deadline is seldom an option, product features might be entirely determined by the time available to implement them. If you get behind, you cut the nice-to-have product features.

Regardless of the exact nature of your work, chances are you are practicing timeboxing on and off, too, yet might be unaware of its true potential. If so, read on.

7 Steps To Transform Helpful Into Powerful

While timeboxing by itself is a helpful technique, we live in a competitive world where helpful does little more than score points. To actually win the battle for peoples' hearts and minds, and wallets, you need more than helpful - you need great personal power. Timeboxing can make the winning difference. For it to do so, it must first be transformed from helpful into powerful. This transformation happens when you integrate timeboxing with traditional time management systems and, implied, with your vision and goals. I created the graphic at the beginning of the blog post to help you with the process.

Step 1: List your Intentions - your goals and what you'll do after you reach them. As shown in the graphic, my goal is the achievement of financial and geographic freedom. Whatever you intend to do after your goal have been achieved, be sure to also somehow reflect it in your present goals, work and life. Waiting for tomorrow to be happy would only put you at risk of waiting forever.

Step 2: List the Means you have identified and decided will get you there.

Step 3: List your Resources, starting with yourself.

Step 4: List the Activities you have decided to do, specifically, to get you to your goals.

Step 5: Decide how you allocate your time among your various resources. Time happens to be the one resource not shown in the graph. The step of allocating your limited resource of time to your resources, which all consume time, is akin to gardening where you would decide which plants to water. How you allocate your time is more important than how you allocate your money, for your time is finite. In the example shown, 54% of my (waking) time is allocated to the business directly (Clients & Marketing, and Develop My Offer), and 46% to my Self. 16% of Self time is earmarked for Self Development and Professional Mastery. Since these benefit my clients and business indirectly, it makes for a 70/30 ratio overall (70% business/30% self). With this I feel comfortable given my current station in life. Depending on your family life, career and business, your allocations will differ substantially, of course.

Step 6: Translate your allocations into a graph that will guide you when you plan actual activities and desired outcomes (in the example show below, on a weekly basis). It ensures your daily activities stay in alignment with and in support of your true goals and intentions for life.

My example assumes 17-hour days. Time boxes (the amount of time allocated), once decided, are rigid to a point. By contrast, the placement of time boxes can be flexible, depending on the nature of your work. On weekends in particular, the placement and sequencing of time boxes may change depending on weather and such :-)

Step 7: KIS (keep it simple)! Apply the Pareto principle throughout (the 80/20 rule).