Kevin Hall.

I love to be surprised and this book surprised me in many ways.  There is so much in the personal development community that has become tired and re-hashed, but I found this book to be a breath of fresh air.  I was originally very skeptical with the premise that understanding the origin of words could make any real difference in ones life, let alone help someone discover their purpose in life.  In the past when I've heard people pontificate about the origin of a particular word it has sounded like an academic exercise only of interest to those who enjoy reading dictionaries in their spare time.

Little did I realize that pulling apart the origin of words does in fact lead to deeper meaning and causes real reflection.  Thinking about a new word from another culture has caused me to examine common, tired ideas in a fresh light.  Re-examining a familiar word in a new way, and thinking deeply about what it means has led me to think in a fresh way.  Kevin is a masterful storyteller who is able to pull out great examples of how these words apply in common, everyday life.  The book is fun and captivating and not at all some kind of dry, academic tome.

It's hard to find a favorite word from the book, but the one I have found myself reflecting on the most is Genshai which means to never treat another person in a way that would make them feel small.  The examples Kevin uses are inspiring, moving, and thought-provoking.

In addition Kevin begins to describe in this book some powerful strategies for journaling and learning more deeply from everyday experience.

The book is both illuminating and inspiring and at least in the Top 5 of all the books I've read in the past 10 years.  It's a truly amazing book.  Aspire! is currently only available on the Power of Words web-site: http://www.powerofwords.net.  Do yourself a favor and be one of the first people on the planet to read this book.

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In my last post I described my current GTD setup using OmniFocus. This works really well, but doesn't always make it easy to keep the important and unimportant activities sorted out and enables confusion between activity and achievement. A couple things I find really useful for making sure I'm focusing on the important things are:

1. Identifying 3 major goals for each day. I try to focus on completing these before even reading e-mail or getting caught up in the emergencies of the day. This is a great way to focus on what is really important each day. I also love the idea of avoiding e-mail until some of the important things get done. There will always be more e-mail to read and answer. The trouble with e-mail is that when you reply, people just write back, leading to more e-mail and if you always feel the need to read and reply quickly you can easily get stuck in an endless cycle of communication that may or may not be leading to results on the most important things.
2. In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey describes 4 Quadrants for classifying your activities based on Urgency and Importance. The ideal scenario is to have activities focused in Quadrant II, that is those that are both urgent and important. By classifying the items on your activities list into 4 Quadrants , it becomes quite easy to focus on the most important things. In Omnifocus this functionality is lacking, but I use the Flag feature to identify Quadrant I activities that are both important and urgent. The Weekly review forces thinking each week into Quadrant II. By using the tip above of focusing on 3 strategic and important items each day it is fairly easy to ensure that the important activities are being address. This is of course true if one isn't over-committing. That will be a future topic.

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