Among other things, the author mentioned that the three most important things about managing a store are organization, organization, and organization. If you are well organized, you can accomplish more with less effort. A store manager who organizes her team well, for instance, doesn’t need to work long hours to get things done. She can just put in normal hours and still enjoy good results.

I believe the same principle applies to individuals. If you organize your life well, you can accomplish more with less time and energy. You will get things done and still have time for your loved ones. You will also have time to rest and to grow yourself (for example, by reading books).

So I’d like to ask you:

How do you organize your life?

By life here I mean both your life at work and at home.

Please share your answer in the comments so that everyone can read it. Thanks!

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Three Criteria of a Lifestyle Business

Since the goal is freedom, a lifestyle business should meet three criteria:

1. Location independence.
   This means that you can work on your business wherever you want. You are not constrained to a certain place. If you want to work on a tropical island, then you can do that. If you want to work on a mountain, that’s also possible.
2. Time independence.
   This means that you can work on your business whenever you want. There are no office hours that you must abide to. Plus, in my case, I require that there is no deadline from an external party (for example, a client). Having such a deadline means that I don’t have complete control over my time.
3. Passive income.
   This means that you don’t have to keep working to earn money. If you want to stop working for, say, one month, you can do that and the money will still come.

Ideally, you should meet all three criteria, but it’s up to you. For example: if you value location independence but don’t mind having deadlines from your clients (as is the case with online freelancing), then that’s fine. Just choose the degree of freedom that works for you. Personally, I aim to meet all three criteria.

What businesses, then, meet those criteria? Here are some examples:

1. Blogging

If you are a blogger:

• You can update your blog from anywhere in the world (location independence).
• You can write anytime you want with no deadline from others (time independence).
• The money will still come even if you choose not to update your blog for some time (passive income).

2. App development

You can publish apps on marketplaces like Apple App Store and Google Play. If you do that:

• You can develop your apps from anywhere in the world (location independence).
• You can work on your apps anytime you want (time independence).
• Once your apps are on the marketplace, they can keep selling (passive income).

3. Stock photography

You can sell stock photos on places like iStockPhoto and Fotolia. You will make money whenever someone downloads your work. In this business:

• You can upload your photos from anywhere you want (location independence).
• You can take and upload your photos anytime you want (time independence).
• Once your photos are online, they can keep selling (passive income).

Of course, there are other kinds of lifestyle businesses, but these three are good examples.

Let’s now look at how to build such a business.

Three Steps in Building a Lifestyle Business

Lifestyle business has many benefits, but it also has a drawback: it’s hard to build. It might take months or even years before you succeed. But the good news is that it’s doable.

If you want to start a lifestyle business, my advice is to start it as a side business. Don’t risk your livelihood by leaving your day job. Instead, build your business over time while still keeping your day job. Once it grows, you can leave your day job if you want to.

Here are the main steps to build a lifestyle business:

1. Identify your passion.

As I said above, building the business takes time. Therefore, you need something that can keep you motivated along the way, and that is your passion.

If you do the work just for money, you won’t be able to stay for long. Most likely you will give up in a few months. But if you do it because you love it, you will be able to go through the difficult times that may come.

Be careful though: don’t just choose any passion of yours. It must be something that people want. You must find the intersection between them.

In my case, the early months of this blog were hard. I barely had any visitors at all. But I love personal development and, therefore, I kept working on this blog until it eventually grew.

2. Start building your platform.

After identifying your passion, you must build a platform around it. The platform is the means by which you reach your target audience.

A common way to build a platform is to start a blog. Having a blog allows you to interact with an audience that shares your passion. You can also start a podcast, a YouTube channel, or a Twitter account. The choice is yours.

This step is the hardest in the process, so don’t expect instant success. You must have patience and persistence here.

3. Find ways to make money.

After you have a sizable platform, you can then think about how to monetize it. Most people start with placing advertisements on their blogs, but you can also sell your own products. The key here is to provide value and maintain trust with your audience.

***

I’ve been building my lifestyle business for years now. I still have a long way to go, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been enjoying relative freedom. For instance, I’ve no longer had a day job in the past four years. I can also work on any project I want, whenever I want it. I’m not a millionaire, but I’m enjoying my life.

Of course, building a lifestyle business is not for everyone, but it’s an option that you may want to consider.

Do you have any tips or thoughts on it? Please share them in the comments.

Build Your Business the Right Way

Having your own business – even if it’s just a side business – is a good way to diversify your income sources.

A Dent in the Universe: 36 Small-Business Lessons from Steve Jobs is an e-book I wrote that can help you best run your own business. If you are still thinking about starting a business, it can help you start with the right mindset and attitude. If you already have a business, it can help you take it to the next level.

Learn more »

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As you might have known, Google Reader will be shut down on July 1. It means that you will no longer get updates from this blog (and any other blogs you follow) if you don’t move away from it before July 1. Therefore you need to move to an alternative.

There are two alternatives that I recommend:

1. Get updates by email. This is convenient because you will get new posts directly in your inbox. For this, go to this page and follow the instructions there.
2. Use Feedly. Feedly is a feed reader that can import your Google Reader data. That way your transition will be seamless. Please visit this page for more information.

Since Google Reader will cease to function in a matter of days, you should act quickly. I hope to stay connected to you through the new medium.

Being in the field of IT, I can really feel the pace of things. It seems like no week goes by without a new technology coming out. If I were satisfied with sticking only with what I learned years ago, my skills would soon be obsolete.

I believe such a situation happens, not just in IT, but also in other fields. That’s why it’s important that you constantly update your knowledge and refresh your skill set.

But how can we be effective at learning?

Based on my observations, there are some characteristics that effective learners have. You should aim to develop them in yourself. Here are four characteristics of effective learners:

1. They are curious

As I wrote in How to Educate Yourself Online, your curiosity is like the fuel that will determine how far you’ll go. The more curious you are, the further you will go.

Curiosity makes a big difference in the process of learning. If you are curious, you will enjoy learning. Learning will become an adventure. As a result, you will do more of it. Over time, the gap between those who have curiosity and those who don’t will become huge.

2. They are process-oriented

A while back, I read The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner. It’s a relatively short book, but it gives me a useful perspective on becoming an effective learner.

One thing the author emphasizes is the importance of focusing on the process instead of the product. To be a good learner, being process-oriented is essential. You should focus on the process of getting better instead of the end result.

For instance, in learning music, rather than worrying about whether you can play a piece, you should focus on improving the techniques that will get you there. Figure out where you lack and practice it. If you do this, the outcomes will take care of themselves.

There are some benefits of having this mindset:

• You minimize disappointment and frustration.
  If you focus on the product, you will be disappointed when you don’t get what you want. But if you focus on the process, you won’t have such a negative feeling. Your goal is simply to improve yourself as much as you can.
• It focuses your energy on what’s important.
  Mastering a skill requires a lot of energy. Having a process-oriented mindset allows you to focus your energy on what’s important (that is, improving your techniques). You don’t waste your energy worrying about something that’s beyond your control.
• You have the patience to go through the process.
  If you focus on the product, you might not have the patience necessary to go through the process. You just want to get the final result. As a result, you might take shortcuts (with bad consequences) or simply give up.
  On the other hand, if you focus on the process, you will have the patience necessary. That will enable you to go through the process and eventually get the desired outcomes. Plus, you will enjoy the journey.

3. They apply what they’ve learned

To fully learn something, you need to apply what you have learned. That’s why I’m an advocate of having side projects.

Working on a project takes time and energy, so you don’t need to create a project for everything. Do it only for a few things that you want to learn deeper. My article entitled Learn New Skills With Project-Based Learning explains more about it.

4. They retain what they’ve learned

It’s easy to forget what we have learned. That’s why you need to think not only about how to acquire knowledge but also how to retain it. When you are losing your grip on certain knowledge, you should be able to “reinstall” it with relative ease.

Taking notes is a common approach that people take. But make sure that your notes are effective: they should be able to trigger your memory in the least amount of time.

In reading books, a good method to retain knowledge is to highlight the key points of a book. It makes it easy for you to “reinstall” the knowledge later on.

***

Having these four characteristics will help you become an effective learner. You will be able not only to adapt, but also to thrive in a changing world.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions on becoming a good learner? Feel free to share them in the comments.

For interesting links and updates, please follow me on Twitter.

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Seeing the big picture helps me understand the overall situation. That, in turn, gives me some benefits:

• I know where I fit in.
  Knowing the overall situation helps me know where my position is related to other things.
• I know what action to take.
  Since I know where my position is, I can figure out what action I should take. Reading The World Is Flat, for instance, led me to creating this blog.
• I can avoid doing unnecessary things.
  Since I get the overall picture, I can figure out whether or not something is necessary to achieve my goal. I can then avoid wasting time on things that are unnecessary.

Seeing the big picture, as you can see, has significant benefits. And you can use this approach for life planning.

Let’s look at it in more detail.

Life Planning in Five Steps

To apply the big-picture approach to life planning, here are five steps:

1. See the big picture of your past years.

First of all, you need to know how your life has been. How is the big picture of your past years? For this, I use a simple life map. There I put important events and achievements in my past years (I usually have less than five entries per year). Looking at the map helps me see the big picture of how my life has been.

2. Figure out your future direction.

Checking your past years can help you figure out your future direction. For instance, is there any pattern in the past that you can use for the future? In my case, I had several achievements in IT so it makes sense to build upon them in the future.

By checking your life map, you might recognize idle potential, hidden patterns, and the direction that you have taken. You can use them to think about where you should go.

3. Set long term goals.

After figuring out your future direction, you can project the big picture of your future. How will your life be years from now? A good thing to do here is to set long-term goals. In my case, I have a few goals for the year 2020. These goals give me an overall picture of how my life would be years from now.

4. Beware of distractions.

Your life map might reveal not just useful patterns, but also inefficiencies. You might find that you’ve spent time on things that turned out to be unnecessary. You should be careful not to let such things happen again in the future.

5. Do regular review.

Day-to-day busyness can easily distract you from the direction that you have planned. That’s why you need to have a regular review time. It helps you reconnect with your plan and brings you back on track. It also allows you to adjust things as necessary.

***

Many people live their lives on autopilot. They aren’t aware of where their lives are going. That, of course, is not a good way to live. Using this big-picture approach can help you live a more effective life.

How do you plan your life? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Start Your Own Business the Right Way

Having your own business – even if it’s just a side business – is a good way to diversify your income sources.

A Dent in the Universe: 36 Small-Business Lessons from Steve Jobs is an e-book I wrote that can help you best run your own business. If you are still thinking about starting a business, it can help you start with the right mindset and attitude. If you already have a business, it can help you take it to the next level.

Click here for free preview

Click here to get the e-book (in all three formats: PDF, iPad, and Kindle)

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I’m not going to give you detailed tips on it (Breakthrough Rapid Reading is a good book for that), but I’d like to give you one simple tip that I have found useful.

It uses something called “no-stakes practice” that Tim Ferriss mentioned in an interview. In essence, it means that in order to be good at a technique, you should practice it in a pressure-free environment. For instance, if you want to learn how to shoot in basketball, you should practice it alone when there is no fear of embarrassment from other people. That way you can focus on your technique until it becomes good.

Applied to reading skills, it means that you should practice the skills in a way that is pressure-free. What is the pressure? Well, you might have a different opinion, but for me the pressure is the need to comprehend the material. That’s the case when I read a book or article that contains ideas I can’t afford to lose.

Consequently, the first step is to find non-essential materials to practice on. The materials that fall under this category are different for everyone. In my case, I have articles that I use for this purpose. The articles fall under the “nice to know but not essential” category. Therefore, I can afford to miss the ideas.

The next step after finding the materials is to use your finger as a pacer. Move your finger throughout the text and follow it with your eyes. Since your goal is to increase your reading speed, you should move your finger faster than your normal reading speed. This technique is useful to eliminate (or at least reduce) sub-vocalization, which is an obstacle to faster reading.

Combining the two parts above, here is a tip on how to read faster:
Find non-essential reading materials to practice finger pacing on.

I’ve tried this technique for some time now and it works. It trains my mind to comprehend the text at a faster rate without the fear of missing an important idea. I can later use my improved reading skill on “real” reading materials.

What do you think? Do you have a suggestion on how to read faster? Feel free to share it in the comments.

Start Your Own Business the Right Way

Having your own business – even if it’s just a side business – is a good way to diversify your income sources.

A Dent in the Universe: 36 Small-Business Lessons from Steve Jobs is an e-book I wrote that can help you best run your own business. If you are still thinking about starting a business, it can help you start with the right mindset and attitude. If you already have a business, it can help you take it to the next level.

Learn more »

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It was a great read, but I especially like the closing paragraph. It’s about how the writer (Burkhard Bilger) went out with a NASA scientist named Grotzinger. They visited Death Valley in California, which has similar terrain to Mars. Here is the paragraph:

After we’d hiked down to the valley again, Grotzinger pulled an ice chest from the back of his S.U.V. and set out a picnic of salami and cheese, hard rolls, and ripe tomatoes. The valley seemed barren now, he said, but in the spring, after a dusting of rain, it would be bright with cactus blossoms and yellow creosote. When he camped here with his students, he could sometimes hear kangaroo rats or kit foxes moving beyond the firelight. “On a clear night, with the stars and planets blazing above you, it could be breathtakingly beautiful,” he said. “You look at enough pictures from Mars, and you really start to appreciate the Earth.”

For me, the last sentence is powerful: “You look at enough pictures from Mars, and you really start to appreciate the Earth.”

Just think about it. Compared to the other planets, the Earth is like heaven. Mars is covered in deadly deserts everywhere you look, not to mention the poisonous atmosphere. The other planets are even worse. They have extreme temperatures, terrible hurricanes, and often no place to step on. In contrast, here on Earth we have trees, waterfalls, birds, lakes, and fresh air. What a beautiful place. We, however, often take this place for granted. We don’t realize what a miracle the Earth actually is.

Similarly, we might have other things in life that we take for granted. Our health is a good example. In order for you to be healthy, so many things in your body have to work right. If even just one thing goes wrong, you could lose your health. Being healthy is miraculous, but often we don’t appreciate it enough.

You might have problems in your life. Everybody does. But you are more fortunate than you think.

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While he was at the White House, TR read at least one book a day, even when he was busy. If he had no event at night, he could read one or two more books. Not only that, he had a strong memory of what he had read. Often he could quote passages.

With TR, reading had become a habit since his youth. Whether he was with the cowboys or soldiers, his favorite pastime was reading. This habit gave him an immense knowledge and a broad perspective. It helped him become the effective person he was.

Why You Should Become a Voracious Reader

There are many benefits you can get by being an avid reader. Here are some of them (I focus on non-fiction books here):

• It broadens your perspective.
  Reading helps you see the world from a new perspective. Among other things, it helps you foresee new opportunities and threats. You will also be able to assess a situation more accurately.
• It helps you be more creative.
  By feeding your mind with many different ideas, there is a good chance that your various thoughts will cross-pollinate and produce fresh ideas. You will become more creative as a result.
• It relaxes your mind.
  TR said that reading is “a pure imaginative therapy.” Immersing yourself in a good book is like watching a good movie. It can take you to new worlds. Such an experience is entertaining and relaxing for your mind.
• It gives you a deeper appreciation of the world.
  Sometimes we don’t appreciate something because we don’t know how wonderful it actually is. Reading can give you a deeper understanding of the world around you which, in turn, will grow your appreciation of it.
• It enriches your conversational repertoire.
  Knowing more about the world around you means having more topics to converse with. That will help you connect with different kinds of people.

How to Become a Voracious Reader

Now that we have seen the benefits of becoming an avid reader, here are some ways to become one:

• Build your curiosity.
  If you are curious, you don’t need to push yourself to read. Instead, you will want to read because it will satisfy your curiosity. To build your curiosity, be aware that there are many interesting things in this world that you don’t know. Your life will be much more exciting if you find them. Even seemingly boring things have interesting sides if you dig deep enough.
• Teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows.
  This advice comes from Stephen King in On Writing. Whenever you have idle time, whether long or short, fill it with reading. Waiting in the doctor’s office could be a good time to read, so is waiting to board your plane. It means that you should always take a book with you. Fortunately, that’s easy to do these days: simply put e-books into your tablet or smartphone and you are set.
• Read diversely.
  Reading diversely prevents you from getting bored because you constantly enter new worlds. The sense of wonder will motivate you to read more.
• Immerse yourself in your reading.
  When you are reading, visualize what you read. Imagine being in the world. TR was so immersed in his reading that he couldn’t even hear his name being called. When you achieve this level, reading will become a flow. It will become a “pure imaginative therapy.” You will end up wanting more of it.

***

Do you have tips on becoming a voracious reader? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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There are many aspects of personal finance, so I’d like to focus on just one for now: saving money. Here is my question for you:

What are your best money-saving tips?

Please share your answer in the comments so that everyone can read it. Thanks!

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In this post I’d like to share with you some inspirational quotes about life. Many of them are classic, but they become classic precisely because they contain a lot of truth.

I carefully selected each of the quotes below. My hope is that they can inspire you to move to the next level.

Without further ado, here they are:

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.
Thomas A. Edison

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life
spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.
Winston Churchill

Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.
Steve Jobs

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience
your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.
Joseph Addison

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.
Chinese Proverb

A single day is enough to make us a little larger.
Paul Klee

The greatest friend of Truth is time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her
constant companion Humility.
Charles Caleb Colton

Think to Thank. In these three words are the finest capsule course for a happy
marriage, formula for enduring friendship, and a pattern for personal happiness.
Thomas S. Monson

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes
taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
Anne Bradstreet

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies
within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties
disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
Confucius

Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
Elmer G. Letterman

If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An
investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really.
Double your rate of failure.
Thomas J. Watson

If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot
solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
Shantideva

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was
started with a dream and a mouse.
Walt Disney

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