This article is part of a series called, "Maximum Productivity " in which I’ll explore the topic of adventure.

See the rest of the series here:
Intro: Maximum Productivity: Series Introduction
Part 1: Maximum Productivity: Perspective
Part 2: Maximum Productivity: Attitude
Part 3: Maximum Productivity: Focus
Part 4: Maximum Productivity: Persistence
Part 5: Maximum Productivity: Adventure
Part 6: Maximum Productivity: Connections

Expect the Unexpected

If there is anything you can definitely expect in learning to maximize your productivity, it’s going to be that you will have some new experiences.  Some good, some bad, some productive and some not but all will teach you something and all are useful to learn an important trait of any productivity master, the trait of adventure!

As you read in my last article about persistence, once you have that underway, you will find yourself needing to change plans and try new action steps to find what works and does not work.  This will undoubtedly bring new challenges and you will certainly have new adventures along the way.

Learn From It

As you progress with your new perspective, focus, attitude and persistence, you will be building many experiences and adventures to learn from.  Take account of what changes you’ve made in each of these areas and how it works to expand your productivity.  Adventures are also wonderful ways to remember things.  The mind wires far more associations for new experiences that are adventurous than it does for boring and unexcited regular events.  If you think that you can maximize productivity without having any adventures that excite the mind, you’ll be missing something.  Making things more exciting, taking risks, and just being more energetic in your activities is adventurous and an easy way to make tasks more fun, contagious and easier to do.

Story Telling

I’ve written about the advantages of storytelling before but looked at it with a number of advantages except that for productivity.  There is definitely a lot of advantages in having adventurous stories to help teach and learn things.  I think that the spirit that is needed for successful storytelling is the same that is needed for an adventurous spirit for productivity.  These are all similarly important for using adventure to be more productive:

• look for the positive things
• make a strong point
• highlight humorous details
• stay excited and energetic
• put expression into the way you tell it
• reuse successes and stories that work well
• paint a vivid picture in your mind
• enjoy telling and remembering it

All these things are important for an adventurous spirit and it’s that spirit that builds on your attitude and actions to be even more productive.

Connections and Relationships

While you can certainly have adventures on your own, most people would agree that they are much more memorable and exciting if you have them with other people.  These relationships built during adventures can be very deep as they don’t just connect people at a daily superficial level but in some exciting shared experience.  It feels good to share these memories with others and it definitely reinforces the desire for such adventures when they go well.  The same applies with being more productive, if you do it together with close connections and relationships, it is much more satisfying to share the successes together.  You can feed off each other and encourage each other to get through some of the difficult times and you can make a more difficult adventure much more bearable by having a friend at your side.  Becoming productive is not all easy and you will certainly reach points where it just doesn’t feel good.  That could be due to struggles, difficulties in learning new things, tough habits to break, relationships strained because of change, challenges in not know the answers or right approach.  All of these make maximizing your productivity hard and so any close connections and relationships you have to get through that are very important.

Comfort Zone

An adventurous soul is one who is not afraid to try new things and take on new challenges.  This happens only when you break out your normal life habits that feel comfortable and get into a new zone of change and unknown.  Its these areas that you will discover the most and learn about yourself.  Think about the most amazing and inspiring stories and adventures you have ever heard.  Where they about a guy who did his day job for 45 years, played golf and bingo for 20 more and then died?  No, they are about people who do the unthinkable, challenge the impossible, overcome unbeatable odds, continuously do outrageous and ridiculous things.  They are the adventures and people who have surprising events, massive change in their lives, zero or little comfort and are happy and willing to do what most consider to be a little on the side of crazy.  It’s about reaching past your everyday life and expanding it, stretching your abilities and pushing yourself and your limits farther than most are willing.  That comfort zone we settle into with a wall of possessions holds us to a level of complacency and comfort that is tough to break free of.  Change That!  Look for some adventure and get out of your comfort zone.  Do it in areas of productivity and you will discover things about yourself you never know possible.  You can do more than you ever knew and you’ll quite likely, find you enjoy it a whole lot more than you ever thought possible.

I hope I can encourage at least some of my readers here to take a serious look at this with your productivity in your life.  Whether you are a student, worker, blogger, teacher or parent, recognize the things you are repeating over and over in your life.  Do they make you happy?  Do you want more of those or is there some room for change and new adventures?  What have you always wanted to be better at but never taken a step to master?  Is there any adventures you could take to help you study and increase your productivity in your life?  I hope so.  I’d love to hear about your ideas, please comment below or add your stories of adventure

Posted by Mike King under Life | 11 Comments »

I’ve looked at various topics here at LearnThis.ca around improving your productivity in your life through techniques, tools, skills and practices but I’ve never linked or presented many of them together.  This is an introduction only for the start of a series of articles that do just that and it will look at maximizing productivity in all areas of your life.  I’ve learned from everything I read that personal development has a fairly high level of overlap in how things can be applied and even though there are very specific things to look at with each article, book or coaching idea, there is also a lot of overlap between them.  This series will examine how those overlapping themes can be learned, applied and mastered for maximizing our productivity.  So, please read through the topics and come back for the rest of this series!  Subscribe to my RSS feed or email feed to ensure you don’t miss any!

Perspective

I guess the first point to understand is what is productivity.  While productivity as a definition is simply producing readily and abundantly, that itself leaves a huge gap as to what you are producing.  And that is where I will start things off in this series by looking at your life, tasks, work and everything you do and wish to do from a perspective that matters to you!  Being productive is useless if it’s not on the things that matter to you.  So perspective is first.

Attitude

Next in the series will be to explore attitude.  So much about personal development and certainly this site is about your attitude towards things.  This is no less true when it comes to learning and mastering productivity.

Focus

The right knowledge and attitude towards something is useless if you have no time or attention spent on it.  Focus is absolutely required to become productive and really, it is a key part of the action steps.  We’ll look closer at how to apply focus in our lives and to gain the most from doing it!

Persistence

Productivity is something that seems to come and go for a lot of people.  We all go through phases in life so of course there will be variation, but maximizing productivity is about applying the right techniques to be consistent.  With all the things that can get in the way, we need to be very persistent to make this happen.  We’ll look specifically at how to do this once you’ve captured segments of great productivity.  Keeping it going is the real payoff!

Adventure

Everyone knows how challenging life can be and that it seems to throw stuff in our way all the time.  Most people think of those things as obstacles to avoid and prevent but what about the adventure that comes with those obstacles.  Most of the great stories in life and of people are always about ridiculous odds, crazy circumstances, difficult challenges, surprising events, and all kinds of other things that just don’t happen every day.  Looking to make some of these things happen is a great way to expand your ability to produce and we’ll discuss how those adventures can improve your productivity.

Connections

All this work is lost within a single person’s life if it isn’t shared with others.  You’ll also require the help of others if you really want to be at your maximum productivity.  This article will explore the value of connections and relationships in maximizing your productivity.

See the rest of the series here:
Intro: Maximum Productivity: Series Introduction
Part 1: Maximum Productivity: Perspective
Part 2: Maximum Productivity: Attitude
Part 3: Maximum Productivity: Focus
Part 4: Maximum Productivity: Persistence
Part 5: Maximum Productivity: Adventure
Part 6: Maximum Productivity: Connections

Posted by Mike King under Life | 9 Comments »

I’ve got one more guest post to everyone to and that is my latest article called, How to Find and Develop your Own Internal Motivation at PickYourBrain.com/blog.

The only reason people ever really do anything is due to motivation.  It may be our work, our hobbies, our relationships or even our chores, but one way or another, there is motivation that drives us to do the things we do.  This article is about finding out where this motivation comes from and how to develop it internally.

Again, I’d love to see people’s comments on that article and would appreciate any help to promote it as PickYourBrain.com is also a great resource for motivation articles among other topics.

Posted by Mike King under Business | 1 Comment »

Everyone Makes Mistakes

Accepting the fact that everyone makes mistakes is easier said than done. Everyone is taught their whole lives to NOT make mistakes and have often been trained or re-enforced negatively when a mistake is made. Perfection seems to be the target of most people in their work, relationships and life.

What Impact Does Your Mistake Have?

I think the important factor in determining whether a mistake is acceptable or not is in the impact of your mistake. Most mistakes don’t actually cause any damage and they are generally not intended to cause harm either. If harm is intended, that is more of a choice in action, than a casual every day kind of mistake being made. Do the mistakes you make have a lasting impact or something that can easily be cleaned up or dealt with?

You may have to take care of some cleanup yourself in doing something over, taking more time to fix or repair something or perhaps you owe someone an apology ? Often, a simple mistake has no impact at all, it was simply not done in the way that was expected. Whatever the impact is, take a look at who or what was involved, and decide if something needs to be done at all to recover from the mistake that was made.

Accepting Mistakes in Others

If you’re going to accept your own mistakes then you ought to do the same for others. You can’t easily accept the mistakes of others, if you don’t first accept your own mistakes, so they go hand in hand. Learn to ask some simple questions when a mistake is made to simplify the outcome instead of beating yourself up (or someone else) about a simple mistake.

• How much was I (or someone else) actually hurt from this mistake?
• What is the lasting impact of this mistake?
• Was their harm done intentionally or by accident?
• Can it be corrected? How?
• What can I learn from this?

Learning from Mistakes

That last question is the one I like best to see what is available for learning from a mistake. Mistakes made are truly powerful in teaching new ways to approach problems. This is required to get new results and to improve ourselves so its critical that we look at mistakes as a learning opportunity so it can be improved on next time. If you are never making mistakes, then it is likely that you are not trying new things and learning from them, but instead doing things the same old, comfortable, safe way. This has little learning opportunities!

I believe that people who are willing to make and accept mistakes in others learn the fastest and become more dynamic in their problem solving because they learn to adapt quickly to new things and to change their approach.

Encouraging Harmless Mistakes

So, with understanding that simple mistakes are such a learning opportunity, I recommend that you encourage harmless mistakes. Or at least the behaviors, decisions and actions that have some risk, where mistakes are likely to happen. This is common in doing anything new and especially in things outside your comfort zone . You obviously don’t need to go looking to make mistakes, but putting yourself in new circumstances and trying out new things will inevitably lead to making mistakes. This is a good thing! Its a way to learn and a way to avoid a world of complacency because of any fears of making mistakes!

Encourage these same things with those around you! That may be your spouse, children and family or your colleagues. Instead of making fun of someone’s mistakes or yelling at them when they make a mistake, ask some of those simple questions, see what can be learned from them and encourage others to do the same, its a very powerful tool in life!

Posted by Mike King under Life | 9 Comments »

Something I believe is truly valuable in life is to reach out to others, new ideas and new experiences. Many people tend to settle into their routines where they can keep change to a minimum and feel comfortable in their lives. One major downside to this is that many people simply fall into a life of complacency never looking to expand. They just continue to live the same thing over and over again. This isn’t always bad but considering most people do have desires and plans to change some things and improve areas of their lives, its important to look for ways to practice that. I also believe that new experiences and people is joyous so definitely worthwhile pursuing. A few of the areas I recommend that you make a monthly effort (at least) at to ensure you don’t find yourself getting stuck in a continual drone cycle are the following:

• Get out of the office at lunch and meet with someone you rarely see. Rarely is someone you haven’t seen in over a YEAR! Call them up, invite them for lunch or coffee sometime and get away from your usual daily crowd.
• Step out of your circle of friends if your in a group and make a real effort to talk with someone else or someone new. Its great to have a close knit group of friends, but that shouldn’t limit you to ONLY those friends. Take some steps out of your normal group and introduce your self to someone new, or have a talk with someone you really don’t know that well or have just met recently.
• At work people often focus ONLY on what they are directly involved with. Its amazing to see how many people need help, struggle in their jobs and hundreds of nearby employees don’t do anything to assist them, even direct peers. Get away from your own focus, your own ego or competitive mindset and for just a few minutes think about the colleagues around you. An offer of help to teach them, simply to listen or maybe even to help them get something done goes a LONG way to develop a lasting relationship.
• Doing something for a complete stranger. Even having a brief conversation and introducing yourself in a public place. Try it sometime if you take public transit. Ask questions about that person, listen more than you talk and you can leave a lasting impression. How about complimenting a stranger. If you’ve ever done that you know the feeling when you see the HUGE smile it can put on another’s face.
• One step further (which you might include in a step above) is doing something for the poor or needy. I assume most people reading this blog have it fairly well off and live a very comfortable live. Get out of that comfort zone, don’t just let life slip by without making an impact on others. How about volunteering or serving the poor or inviting someone over or out for dinner.
• Break out of your normal reading and writing habits. Read a type of book or topic that you don’t normally read. Often our reservations are routed more in fear of change than anything else so you can discover new interests and insights by expanding your exposure to new ideas. If your a writer or blogger (common on here) then write to a new audience. How about writing about an uncommon or unfamiliar topic. Do some research and write about your findings in a new area.
• Tackle your fears and do something to face them instead of avoiding them. Maybe that is public speaking, some adrenaline sport, extreme activity, heights, whatever, just take it head on and get out of your comfort zone in doing it.
• Change your food and try some new things in your meals.

All of these things help you adapt better to change and makes stepping out of your comfort zone when you NEED to much, much easier. Its a lot easier to adapt to change and try something new if you’re well practiced at it. Change is good and it provides a path for learning, accomplishment and satisfaction. Eagerness to change is a mindset of many leaders and is a valuable trait when exploring your self and how you impact others.

So, I hope this gives a few ideas to reach out of your comfort zone and learn to accept the challenge quickly, look for the opportunities in it and to develop a mindset and positive attitude toward change. This personal strength builds great character and an ability to continue to analyze things and improve one-self. A great trait to have, and definitely one that is important for any reader of a blog like this. It will differentiate you and help break you free from areas of complacency in your life. You really DON’T have to be like everyone else. Its just seems so many people think they do nowadays.

Posted by Mike King under Life | 2 Comments »