Have a powerful reason — when things get difficult, “because it sounds nice” or “to look good” aren’t going to cut it.

Start tiny, with a simple but unbreakable promise to yourself to do one small thing every single day.

Watch your urges, and learn not to act on the whim of a moment.

Listen to your self-rationalizations, and don’t believe their lying ways.

Enjoy the habit, or you won’t stay with it longer than a week’s worth of sunrises.

I’ve quoted the whole post because I thought it was important enough to save you the effort of clicking through.

But you should totally be following zenhabits if you’re not already.

The post Self-discipline (according to zenhabits) appeared first on Luke Arms.

I don’t buy into everything I read on Zen Habits, but this post resonates deeply. Please read the whole thing.

I desperately need to become more comfortable with discomfort.

The post Discomfort appeared first on Luke Arms.

Seth Godin’s latest post wasn’t quite what I was expecting from the title.

Here’s a snippet:

Striving to get smarter, better and faster helps us create our future. The risk is that merely collecting, trading and discussing the tools turns into the point.

It’s possible that your next frontier isn’t to get more efficient, it’s to get more brave.

(See? It has absolutely nothing to do with compromised computers at Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Twitter.)

My 2012 was pretty overrated, so I’m currently doing more “life-hacking” than usual – ditching some of the things I don’t have time to do, removing friction wherever possible, trying to have more fun, etc. It’s all part of trying to make 2013 a better year.

But, as always, I’m finding it easy to focus on the minutiae of optimising myself rather than on Actually Getting Things Done.

Thanks for the timely post, Seth.

To bravery! #drink

The post “Hooked on hacking life” appeared first on Luke Arms.

0. Schedule a start, not an end to your meeting – it’s over when it’s over, even if that’s just 5 minutes.
1. Be on time!
2. No multi-tasking – no device usage unless necessary for the meeting.
3. If you’re not getting anything out of the meeting, leave.
4. Meetings are not for information sharing – that should be done before the meeting via email and/or agenda.
5. Who really needs to be at this meeting?
6. Agree to action items, if any, at the conclusion of the meeting.
7. Don’t feel bad about calling people out on any of the above – it’s the right thing to do.

The post Urban Airship Meeting Rules appeared first on Luke Arms.

From 52 Tiger:

Social media allows people to reach out and distract each other. The immediacy of the Internet is a benefit and a hindrance, reducing thoughts and stories to virtual Tic Tacs that we mindlessly pop into our mouths.

Sounds about right. I’ve been trying to unfollow my way to healthier use of Twitter, but some additional strategies may be required.

The post “Twitter is making me dumber” appeared first on Luke Arms.

Another inspirational post from Seth:

… most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it.

(Then again, I’m kinda copyediting by merely linking to Seth’s work. Whoops.)

The post Seth Godin: “You go first” appeared first on Luke Arms.

This is going to help me improve the usefulness of my Evernote account.

A lot.

Long but good.

The post “Semantic Notes” appeared first on Luke Arms.

I’ve had a fairly quiet Christmas, so here’s my gift to everyone else whose blog reader is depressingly empty:

A completely pointless post.

While I’m here, I’d like to mention how much I’m looking forward to my annual self-audit. I’ll be deciding what to quit, setting goals for 2013, improving my workflows, and generally getting my s*** together.

May your holiday be just as refreshing, reflective and purposeful. Unless you’re not getting a holiday, in which case, well, poor you.

The post No-one blogs at Christmas appeared first on Luke Arms.

I’d heard rumours that using pen and paper was good for you, but this still jumped out at me:

In fact, it is now proven that our brains actually improve in measurable ways when writing this way.

The post Pens. And paper. And actual ink. appeared first on Luke Arms.

It’s ironic because Seth is all about being productive / successful / decisive / courageous / creative / useful, and it’s taken me this long just to read one of his books from beginning to end.

It’s like never getting around to reading Getting Things Done (not that this was necessarily my experience, of course). One needs the cure before one can take the medicine!

Anyway, I just read The Dip (it helped that it was really short), and I found its message rather timely. It’s about quitting well (when stuck in a dead end or heading towards a precipice) and enduring strategically (but only when you know it’s worth it).

Given I’d just started trying to enumerate the components of my over-committed life – with a view to eliminating some and managing the rest better – I appreciated the reminder that to quit when necessary is not failure at all.

There was plenty of other good stuff, too. From one non-quitter to another (yes, I’m talking to you): it’s definitely worth quitting something to make room in your week for this little book.

The post The Dip appeared first on Luke Arms.

I don’t do mornings, but I really should.

The post First Things First: Making the Most of Your Morning appeared first on Luke Arms.

Does this ring true for anybody else?

The post Motivation to write (for “humble” Christians) appeared first on Luke Arms.

I’m really good at twitching.

Emails, tweets, news, blog posts, instagrams, plays from online game opponents. They’re all right there on my iPhone/iPad/notebook, and they all need to be checked constantly. Right? Of course right.

Or not. Seth Godin’s latest post is a timely reminder for me.

The post Do you twitch? appeared first on Luke Arms.

..be happy wherever you are, with whatever you’ve got, but always hungry for the thrill of creating art, of being missed if you’re gone and most of all, doing important work.

Seth Godin

The post Seth Godin on happiness and work appeared first on Luke Arms.