The Fiery Source » Life Hacks

Are you in touch with someone who is negative?

Bob — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:16:15 +0000

Are you in touch with someone who is negative? If yes, then probably you are aware of the fact that his company is not enjoyable. Negative persons kill the spirit of any conversation. Even if you are saying something positive, they will somehow change the direction of the topic to highlight the negative points. Some of the worst types are real suckers of energy.

I have dealt with a lot of negative people. In junior college, I had to confront a lot of negative students and teachers. The school not being a very good one, it reflected on the qualities of the students who were dejected just being there. I was shocked in the beginning, but I learnt slowly how to deal with them.

Dealing with negativity is my chosen field of work today; I get a chance to meet many negative clients and readers. I choose not to be affected by their negative energy, and I deal with it consciously. I have 9 wonderful tips to share with you and they will help you in tackling negative people.

Do not try to score brownie points
This is important. Do not try to get into a heated debate with someone who is negative. A negative person believes in what he says and it is hard to make him change his views through a pep talk. He will counter your views with his reasoning which he thinks is correct. You will start feeling down after some time. You can be positive for some time, but if he doesn’t relent, it is better to back off rather than to enter into a debate.

Wear the shoes they are wearing
What happened when the person who irritated you asked you to cool down? Did you cool down or felt more aggrieved? From what I have learned in my dealings, negative people feel reassured when someone lends an ear to them rather when someone tries to give them suggestions. If you relate to their problems, they will themselves come up with solutions. They know the solutions; it is only a matter of bringing them out.

Ask if and how you can help
If you listen to negative people, they are all the time complaining. Complaining is their way of asking for help. Instead of suggesting a solution that they may immediately reject, ask how you can help. You are a friend, if you lend an empathetic ear to them.

Avoid topics that make him feel negative
You are falling into his trap if you start a topic which brings out negativity in him. Stay clear of such topics and keep the conversation light about something he likes. No doubt he will find fault with everything, there are some topics even he feels good about. Once you have brought him to a general topic and made him cheerful, do not let the conversation veer to any topic that might make him sink again.

If negativity comes to fore, ignore it
If the person starts to sink in his own negativity, avoid his comments by just saying OK, and no more. Show your interest to his comments when he is positive. If you keep repeating this trend, Pavlov’s proverbial dog syndrome works. He feels rewarded when he is positive, and so he tries to be more positive.

Be lavish in praise when he is positive
Negativity is a vicious cycle. A negative person is as negative to himself as he is to others. Do not show your negative feelings towards him or else he will feel the same way about himself. Try to figure out what he is good at, and try to concentrate on them. Superficially, he might show that your praise doesn’t make any difference, but inwards he feels good about it. First positive feelings come to him, and he will start to nurture them.

Avoid being in a one to one conversation
Let the conversation include others also. This will help you to avoid certain comments, and you will be better able to help the person as you do not bear the burden of negativity all the time. In a one to one conversation, you find it difficult to deal with all the negativity. With other people in the conversation, you can always change the topic with ease.

Do not have preconceived notions
The person can be victimized by you in a very subtle manner of speaking. He may not be negative on a particular point, but you perceive him to be, as you judge him by your own goggle. Be alert and do not let your judgment get colored this way. You know that you can perceive him as positive or negative on any given trait. If you see light at the end of the tunnel, you will ultimately reach to light. If you see some positive traits in the person, do not ignore them. Let them come to the fore and see the light of the day. This is what you are there for.

If everything fails, avoid the person
If you feel that you have given it your best shot, but nothing good came out of it, it is better to start avoiding the person altogether. But before doing so, let him understand the gravity of the situation so that he uses the self help method to come out of his negativity. If you are not able to help him out, it is better to say clear of the person.

How to Keep Focus for Longer Period of Time

Bob — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:49:36 +0000

Majority of people who start reading an article won’t even bother to finish reading it, says Nick Carr. This idea is so common these days. The reason is that some people can’t focus on what they’re reading. There are books than can help you, particularly this book from Amazon entitled Getting Things done, the problem is- can you finish reading it? It would probably go to your book shelf and kept unread for a long time, just like what happened to other books of yours. Don’t focus on the wrong thing. Stop worrying about how you will gather the details on what you’re reading; think about how you will keep on reading. Keeping focus is actually a form of survival athleticism- staying on power and being patient just like in a running in a marathon. Another key that can help you is to have a healthy and fit mind.

The brain has the ability to adapt to changes and making new arranges for upcoming experiences, it is called Neuroplasticity. The human brain is not a divine being; it’s a certain part of the body that requires a lot of care. If you care for your brain, the same way you care for other parts of your body, then you need balance diet and exercise. Things like having an empty inbox and eradicating activities and discussions that are not required would surely ease the tension in your brain- thus, keeping you more focus. Remember our attention span is not changeable. Furthermore, don’t train your brain to be easily distracted by little tensions.

There’s an excellent technique that would surely work if you’re aiming to keep focus quickly, it is called Pomodoro technique. What you need is a timer that will tell you when to start, stop and then, continue working. You can start with at least 10 minute work with only 2 minute break. Use a timer, even the timer on your computer would do. Continue doing the Pomodoro technique until you can keep a 35 minutes work with only 2 minute work with Instant Messaging on. Just imagine that you are in a marathon.

Get Rid of Using the Second Monitor The myth of using second monitor has been around for quite a long time. People think that they could quickly finish work if they multitask- through the use of the second monitor. However, this is not really useful at all since you will have two distractions instead of only one. The idea of using a second monitor started at year 2003, by a monitor manufacturer, video card manufacturer and the University of Utah. This notion turned out to be more like a marketing document. The best way is to use one large monitor instead of using two.

Arrange Spaces in OS X There’s an effective virtual desktop on OS X called Spaces, where you can keep your email, twitter and surfing browser all in one ‘space’. This would surely turn out to be an effective tool to keep your focus. Set your pomodoro timer and get into the ‘space’. That way, you have only limited browsing and a text editor to write the article.

Avoid hitting the Cursor or Mouse when typing or working When you are using the ’35 minute work intervals’ turn your mouse off and continue working. That way, you can keep focus on your task when you are avoiding the mouse. Why? It is because the mouse drives you clicking at websites. Working without the use of a mouse is like running on a marathon with a several chicken-wing stop shops. If you won’t continue running you’d surely dive into temptation and won’t reach the finish line. In addition, you can make use of Divvy that will assist you manage the windows without using the mouse and suppose you need to make a few research you can use a software Vimium.

Set-up a Practical Habit You can use your 2 minute break for generating tools for your next projects. You can start with eradicating the task you don’t need for that task to keep you motivated. Close the browsers you don’t need and start with a new one. Don’t simply jump into the new work without setting up the work space properly.

Limit the browse tabs Do the No More Tabs Chrome extension. Limit your browse tabs. That way, you will keep focus on a certain web page and continue working without having a single distraction or problem.

Choose a Suitable Workplace Even though you are working at home, you will still have a variety of distractions. You can listen to instrumental music while working. Furthermore, it is important that you prepare a few light snacks like nuts and beverage. Set up a desk and a comfortable chair. Working at home is much better than working in your office where there are a lot of people to deal with and work with. There are a lot of distractions in the office.

Summary Just like in workouts and staying fit-exercises: focus-trainings vary on people. For instance, it took me 70 minutes researching and writing this piece, which before it take me a whole day. Now, I even have enough time to read lengthy manuscripts which I think I could never do before.

For those individuals who are experiencing difficulties in keeping focus, you could make use of the idea of provigil. Take time to consider using attention fitness regimen or solutions. Furthermore, you could make use of other essential tips, such as:

1. Take one work at a time.
2. Put more effort when doing number one step.
3. Slow down once in a while. You’re not required to finish the attention span marathon in one day.

Train your brain the way you do your body so it will get used to being focused most of the time. Don’t rush, the results will pay off in time.

Photo by Ed Yourdon

How to Focus [InfoVegan]

10 Essential Ways in Using Humor on Leadership

Bob — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:51:46 +0000

10 Essential Ways in Using Humor on Leadership

Getting to the funny side of life, citing jokes and being a comedian sometimes can offer great self-rewards. A person laughing for 20 minutes consumes the same amount of energy he/she disposes during a 3 minute of intense arguments. According to Robert Half International research 84% of directors think that a worker who knows how to look inside the fun side of life carry-out his work effectively than those who do not know how. Adopting humor in a very serious place like the office can ease heavy loads of work, as well as lessens arguments circling inside the work areas. A person who knows how to be funny or even hilarious sometimes is more likely to form new ideas and has the ability to create harmony and build connections on his workers, plus be a worthy leader. Given that in mind, you should develop your ability being a comedian. As a matter of fact, here are 10 essential tips on how to be effectively humorous by David Letterman.

#10. Reflect your Life and Look for Happiness

There’s happiness everyday, what you need is to constantly look for it. You may not be aware of it but sometimes it’s just sitting outside your window. Find happiness in what you do.
They say that happiness can be found thru helping others. That’s true. All you need is to meet new people and gain new friends. You can learn advice from the bookHow to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Did you know that children can laugh 400 times a day, unlike adults who can only laugh 15 times daily? Try to make it 40, at least you’re 10% there to laughing 400 times a day like kids do.
The effortless way to laugh is to read comic strips, joke books and hilarious notes.
Try to look for funny instances even during tight circumstances.

#9. Take a Mental Note of What Makes you Laugh

Assuming that you are aiming to laugh 40 times a day then you must figure out the things or instances that drive you laughing out loud. Make a list of things that make you laugh. Let’s assume that there are 107 reasons that make you laugh try to make the number hilarious and don’t be fixed with 100 reasons only. 107 are much better.
13 Comedy Flicks
11 Funny TV Programs
5 Hilarious Phrases
19 Jester Stories
5 Comical Cartoons
7 Very Funny Audio and Video
11 Entertaining Comedian
7 Humorous TV Personalities
7 Laughable Photos
7 People You Know that are Terribly Funny or have funny faces
15 Amusing things
TOTAL = 107 Funny and Humorous Things

Keep this funny ideas coming and read them whenever you feel like laughing or need something to make you smile.

#8. Make Use of your Personal Funny Moments and Experience

Real-life experiences are great source on how to be a competent leader. Search for funny instances in your personal experiences, such as:
Humorous ideas that have been mentioned and retold by others
Mental, physical and interpersonal pratfalls
Awkward moments in life or sudden occurrences that befall on unlikely situations
Certain instances when you were still learning or adapting to certain environment
Tight and complex chapters of your life

Difficult situations can be altered with funny ones thru adapting those you have learned back in childhood. Like those knock-knock jokes that simply made you laugh, by pointing out familiar events in life, picking out suitable words and phrases, as well as noting when to laugh. Knock-knock jokes are funnier when it comes surprisingly. You laugh for the fact that you were thinking of an answer which you don’t really know even though it’s right before you.

#7. Learn from others and Implement it

Aside from your own funny experiences there are those experiences by others; it’s a continual tradition of borrowing and adapting to jokes and humorous situations made by others. There are so many ways where we can get this funny ideas and things which some of us don’t pay attention. These humors can be found in pictures, videos, text and contents. There’s more! They can also be found at:
Cartoons – You can mimic the cartoon’s character, way of speaking as well as action and several styles of moving.
Comedians – You can learn a lot from watching a comedian, from his way of talking and delivering funny phrases to making faces. It’s important to learn from these people for you to be effectively and professionally funny.

#6. Determine your Audience

Make sure you know when to crack a joke and when it is not suitable. Thus, it is essential to determine your audience perspective so you could choose which joke you can deliver.
Take consider of the administration’s approach toward humor
Get to know your audience structure since this can influence humor that will be used
Care and appreciation for your audience is much important than making fun of them
Encourage others to have fun or get into humor since you don’t know either they have sense of humor themselves

Practice using ad lib on your audience but make sure you know how to insert ad lib properly. It is essential to know these ad libs well so that you’ll never get wrong from using them. You can even rehearse before delivering ad libs. You can try “funny” feedbacks and implement purposed ad libs.

#5. Get to know certain Regulations and Limits in using Humor

Be aware of particular humors to be used in the work areas. There are certain jokes, pranks, and comments regarding religion, sex, and ethnicity and racial which are risky to use. Thus, it is advisable to avoid threading these kinds of humor at work because it could affect your career.
There are certain points to remember to stay ‘safe’ when using humor at work. Basically, statements should be true if it pertains to a joke, comment or picture.
Make sure you can tell that joke, comment or show that image to your mother
You wouldn’t get angry if you’re the one they joke about
Be certain that your joke won’t generate any FCC violation
Lastly, everyone can relate to your humor styles
Moderate your concept or much better, revise or make a new one.

#4. Suit Yourself

An effective leader knows how to look at the funny side of line. They can laugh freely and tends to drive laughter to others. Leaders should know how to use self-insulting humor properly; these are self-insulting humor which can downplay their own talents, qualifications, awards and accomplishments.
Don’t use self-deprecating humor; however you can use this type of humor at appropriate times. These include:
Instances when you are confident and self-assured
Parts when your qualifications and skill are tested or proven
Manners that suits your own character and feeling

Assuming that you are adapting other’s self-insulting humor, be sure that you know what their views are in certain instances. For instance, a non-technical Marketing VP call out “data geeks” in the audience for her goal to establish a connection failed.

#3. Search for Humor Ideas Everywhere

Your workplace is the best source of humor since it is filled with different people of different characters. You can find a lot of humor from certain situations in wordplay, misunderstandings, vagueness, paradoxes, pain and inconsistencies. Assuming that you work in this type of industry, you’ll surely find a lot of humor.
Being a leader, it’s your responsibility to make use of chances and promote humor effectively thru:
Making your sense of humor good to others
Avoid using humor that hurt in the industry
Don’t use humor when you are restless or stressed, it can cause a very obvious nastiness

#2. Spread Happiness All Around

The key to being happy in your leadership position is by having happy people around you. These means that you have to mingle with people who are funny, knows how to throw laughter and constantly encourage other people to be happy. Develop relationships with these happy people. Make time with them. Know how they have successfully used humor and borrow these ways that suits you. Aside from spending happy times with these people, pick 3-4 persons and create a casual comedy team out of them. Collect their feedback that can help you in making new humor ideas as well as revise new ones. You can find several humor ideas which can pass the ‘safe’ test set, however those are not suitable for audience.

#1. Splurge into the Fun

The key to effectively using humor as a leader is thru distributing it in your work areas. However, there are certain things to remember:
Rehearse or exercise you humor to determine which environment best suits it. Thus, you can take it to larger group of people.
Make gestures when to laugh in your words, actions and tone of speaking. This will permit people to laugh in the workplace.
Lastly, be sincere in adopting humor thru putting fun and reduce burden at workplace, that would be much fun than laughter.

Systematic and Organized: 8 Tips for an Orderly World

Bob — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:24:16 +0000

Photo by BLW Photography

Staying organized is easier said than done. It is harder than many would assume. Getting organized once is easy, but staying organized requires a lot of dedication and self discipline on your part. It is because you need to keep on repeating the actions that made you organized day after day after day. Doing it once or twice is not enough. You may have to start all over again.

That’s no big deal because if you prefer to live in a chaotic manner, you will find that picking up things you need takes as much time as you would take if you stack them systematically everyday. And there are additional benefits too. What you need to do is really simple. And it becomes fun and a habit once you choose to be systematic. But for those who want something new in life, this system seems to be boring. What they need to realize is that these repetitive actions are necessary for an orderly life that is not chaotic.

Staying organized made simple with these 8 wonder tricks

Find out actions that lead to your remaining disorganized and try to rectify these problem behaviors

Some of the common behaviors that are problematic in this regard are laziness, dilly dallying attitude, and leaving things to be done for later.

Point out exact places for organizing things

You work and school schedules are structured in the sense that they begin and end at specific times. You get little time in between. What you can do is to find a time slot before and after. You can take some time before you leave for work to do a little bit by your daily chores such as doing crockery in the dishwasher. You will find yourself in a cheerful mood when you come back as the dishes are all clean and stacked properly in their place. Similarly you can certainly find some time in the evening when you return from work and utilize it to checking your mail and responding to any voice mails that you may have received in the course of the day.

People who are leading a retired life lack this systematic work schedule but it is rather more important for them to stay organized. They can utilize the whale of time that they have at their disposal to stay organized. Once they start maintaining a routine, they will find a new purpose in life.

Include the most important organizing activities into your work schedule

Everyone has a routine and he knows the tasks he needs to perform in that time slot. You get up, have tea, shave and bath, dress up, eat breakfast and cleanup dishes, and check on your mails before you leave for your work. Similarly, while returning from work, you have a routine that includes purchasing things for the grocery, checking on mails, preparing dinner, helping kids with their school work, having dinner, watching TV, washing dishes etc. before you go to bed. In between all the daily chores you can include some tasks that pertain to organizing things around you. In due course of time you will find that they have become part of your daily routine and not something that you consciously choose to do.

Give a pat on your back when you change behavior

I will let you a secret that will be most helpful. Repeating a task twice or 4-5 days in a row does not make it your habit. It takes 21 continuous days of repetition to make an act into a habit. When we try to inculcate a new habit, it gets resisted by ourselves. But if you are determined and continue it for 21 days, it becomes a part of your routine and you do it on your own. It is easier said than done, and you may find it difficult to do something continuously for 21 days. You may face several breaks and repeated attempts to continue for 21 days, but when you finally manage it, you can celebrate as if you have done something special and give yourself a small treat in whatever fashion you like.

Give yourself several chances, but if you fail, take help from professionals

Well, you pay to get your car started, don’t you? To accept that you failed in your efforts to organize is difficult and hurts, but that’s the way it is. You have to accept that professionals and experts know it better than you and they invariably do a better job as they hold you accountable for a job not done. They set goals for you which you have to achieve to learn to stay organized.

Pay others to do jobs that you can’t do and can’t find time to do

If you find yourself doing it clumsily or not doing at all despite repeated attempts, paying others to do the job for you is not a bad idea. They do it better, and on time, making you goal of staying organized achievable, and in style.

Involve family members in staying organized

Having a systematic and organized place that is in order is good for everyone in the family. Invite your wife and kids to share the work load and assign duties to every member which will make it easier for you. Let the kids understand in the beginning of their lives, that they are responsible for their actions, and that staying organized is a job that has to be shared. It is fun for them as they learn it quickly and you will be amazed how systematic things become if you involve family in your efforts to become organized. Praise your kids for their efforts and occasionally reward them for their efforts. In due curse of time, it will become a habit for them which in itself be a reward.

Do not be too harsh on yourself, and accept frailties

Women folk think that they are responsible for keeping the house clean and systematic and develop a guilt feeling even when they work outside and also have to look around the kids and also have to do all the cooking. With kids under the age, accept that the house will never be as systematic as you want it to be. If however, you get help from others in the family in keeping thing orderly, you can heave a sigh of relief and will not feel stretched to limits.

Priorities change with age and changing times. While raising kids, all the attention is diverted to their well being and when they grow up and leave, you feel less pressure on yourself. Once you get retired, you find that you have a lot of time to get organized lead an orderly life. But you miss out on the work schedule and become a little lethargic as you have no deadlines to meet. Fight the urge to drop your routine and engage in activities that will take up your time.

When you lead an orderly life, you always have a clear vision of how to move forward and achieve your goals. Investment of just a few minutes per day is not bad, if you are getting peace of mind in return.

The Fiery Source » Life Hacks

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