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A Christmas Story – A Tale of Craig’s List and Two Frying Pans

“My brother will love these.  It’s the first time he has had a home in four years.  Thank you so much.”

He smiled, gave me a big, musky, hug, and drove away.  I wasn’t sure if I had just done a good deed, or been hustled by a Craig’s List scam artist.

This story actually begins months before – so let’s go back to the beginning.

The Best Personal Development Books Reading List

Her email closed with – “are there any books you like?  what should I read?”

“Easy question” I thought to myself, as my fingers flew to the keyboard and I rattled off 10 books, then 20.  I could have gone on, but I stopped.

I took a step back, and realized that my reader didn’t need yet another long lists of books – there are plenty of those online, and if you want an endless list of reading material, check out this list of all the self improvement products at Amazon (1,140 at last count).

No – she was asking for my help, to sort through it all. The more items I gave her, the less helpful I would be. A better approach would be to give her a list that provided the best value – a list of the best personal development books, and the shorter better. This was a much more difficult problem.

After a lot of thought, I cut it down from twenty to the six four three most effective personal development books I have read. While the Pareto principle may not always hold in other situation, in this case a handful of the books I’ve read are responsible for most of my achievements and personal development. These books are the ones most worth your time to build a solid foundation for overall personal development and personal productivity.

The Problem with The Pareto Principle

“The Pareto principle … states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” (Pareto principle, Wikipedia)

If you’re trying to streamline your work-day and boost your income, you might have come across authors telling you “facts” like these:

  • 20% of your clients pay 80% of your income.
  • 20% of your output produces 80% of your income.
  • 20% of your time produces 80% of your income.

Whenever you see the Pareto principle cited, ask yourself “Is this true?” I’d argue that, in many cases, it just isn’t. In my freelance work, I’ve often not seen the Pareto principle upheld: I’ll give you the figures for each of these three claims in turn, so you can see how the clients/output/time to income ratio works for me.

Sid Cancels Commitment, World Does Not End. Sometimes, You Need To Just Let it Go

After a series of development mishaps this week, Sid Savara, discovered that his project was at risk of not being completed in time.

As the deadline loomed, Sid was hopelessly behind schedule.  Unable to work through implementation as quick as he had hoped, the deadline was going to get the better of him.  Tradeoffs needed to be made, long hours and additional developers were considered: everything was on the table.  Sid thus considered his options, made a decision, and lived with the fall out.

Altruism – One of the Keys to Happiness

Pop Quiz: What do you believe will make you happy?  A new car?  A promotion, a raise, perhaps?

While we all have different notions about what defines success and happiness, some common beliefs permeate our culture. One such belief is the ideal of the American Dream, the idea that anyone in the United States can achieve their goals, and material prosperity.

Society promotes the American Dream as an ideal to be aspired to – the type of life that we want to live, and the type of life we wish for our children.

Let’s take a step back and ask:  Will such a life, of achieving ones goals and material prosperity, ultimately make us happy?  And if not, what then are the keys the happiness?  Read on as we explore this question.

Am I Saving Money – Or Just Wasting My Time?

Following the theme of time-management in previous posts about paying myself first with my time, saving 10 hours a week by outsourcing my cooking, and my experiment outsourcing via virtual assistants, I’ve been wondering whether some of the things I do to save money are really just wasting my time.  Specifically, I wondered about waiting in long lines for cheaper gas.

I wondered though – if the lines are longer, is it worth it for how much I’m saving, or am I just wasting my time?

For the past couple months I have been noting how much longer it takes to fill up my tank at a cheaper gas station, and I decided to run the numbers and show you my results.

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