Alec Mackenzie is right on target with this quote —

Got a minute? never means just one minute. Before you answer, always ask, What’s this about?

In your experience. Was it really a minute?

One of the earliest lessons my mother taught me was the value of time. She kept on pounding the classic saying —

Time is Gold

I only got to realize this when I worked for consulting companies where chargeability rates per hour was a big deal. Counting the number of hours worked and the productivity that goes with it was awakening.

I am the kind of person that cannot sleep well at night with pending tasks not accomplished for the day.
As William James would put it —

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

Successful people are a minority compared to those who have never made it big. The difference does not lie solely on the resources the person has, education, opportunity, etc. The difference is the height of the burning ambition the person has in achieving whatever goals he has set to achieve.
Ambition is not something that pushed you to start something and leave you cold after the journey has started. Chances are bumps and obstacles shall be encountered, missed goals will be normal, failure a fixture; the only way for us to be somebody is to constantly look into ourselves adjust, re-create and re-focus our ambitions. Ambition is a companion that should accompany us until we become successful in our chosen path. After success has been attained; a whole new level of ambition is required to retain our status.
During our lifetime ambition should evolve together with us otherwise we will look back as grand ma’s and pa’s telling our grandchildren that “we could have been this and that”.
What are the habits that should go with ambition?

1. Vision — Every ambition starts with a vision. This is the time when we begin to see something that other’s or most people do not. When I was a kid I would always tell my friends stories about things I felt will be happening. Guess what? They laughed. Nothing much has changed when I was growing up other than laughter evolved to complete silence. Silence of disagreement.
2. Be narrow minded — This is very bad in the eyes of most people. I believe this is required as my experiences tell me that people who doesn’t agree in your visions give you a hell of negative comments discouraging you from going after that ambition. They just can’t see what you see and its difficult to make them see what you can especially when you are 20 to 30 years younger than them. You will encounter setbacks and failures. But despite this, you should remain optimistic that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
3. Grab the opportunity that makes sense — Not all opportunities makes sense. Never believe in the saying that opportunity only knocks once in your life because if you are to become a success you should be able to make opportunity knock at your door often. There will be times that you may need to step back to succeed. Still this is opportunity at hand either directly or indirectly.
4. Be realistic — My previous slogan was “Nothing Is Impossible”. But after reading the Adidas slogan — “Impossible Is Nothing” I came to realize that dreams should still be realistic. We must learn to adjust and readjust our dreams to make them highly deliverable. Its not about lowering our standards but its about being smart in choosing the level of ambition at that time.
5. Do it for a Greater Cause One of the successful business leaders in our country gave a speech to his Alma Mater a few years back. He narrated how the Vietnamese won the battle against the Americans in world war confrontation because they had a cause to defend themselves and their country. They went there for a greater cause than their own. I also believe that if your only concern is personal wealth then becoming successful will be so near yet so far. We should have a greater cause for doing what we are doing to endure pain, obstacles, hard ships and every negative things that come your way.
6. Don’t be Evil — Google has proven how to become successful without doing Evil. Success done through evil deeds is a journey not worth taking.
7. Change — As Jack Welch would put it — “Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.”

Aside from the list given there are lots of other habits that go with Ambition that we shall discover along the way.
Remember, Never treat ambition as the starting point but as a companion that will go along your journey in life.
The Psychology of Achievement: Develop the Top Achiever’s Mindset

I find myself organized in a lot of ways — from my life’s objectives, dreams, career path and progressions, education, etc. But I also find myself de-organized in a lot of things — my desk, my clothing cabinet, my drawer, etc. Come to think of it the things I am not organized are the things just in front of me. These are the day to day things I encounter — the basic things in life.
Do I really need to get these basic things Organized?
Yes. I found out throughout the years when things are organized things are easier to accomplish. Clutter becomes eye sore. This eye sore drain your emotions by making things appear complex, bigger and more difficult to handle. It’s like having a mountain of task right in front of you. This may also cause delay especially when looking for something that is buried right under the pile of things we have. By causing small minor delays everyday it may lead to stress and loss of a large amount of considerable time.
Furthermore, the appearance of unorganized things around us makes the load appear heavier. How about the lost opportunities? I have found discount cards, coupons, and redeemable items having expired a week or two later because they got buried under a pile of paper.
By being organized we free ourselves from chaos, gives us control over situations, gets that extra minute or so everyday from getting the things as soon as we need them, and also showing a good example that everyone may imitate. By getting organized the people around us would usually be compelled by following our leadership since they do not want to be the cause of delay either.
How do I get organized?
I have come up with a three step process on how to go about it. This is simple and easy to follow.

1. Look around you
2. Rank the areas based on the importance on what needs to be organized first
3. Do it one area at a time

What next after getting organized?
After getting organized the next step is staying organized. This is very important because no matter how we organize things we will always go back into a cycle if we do not stay organized. This should be a daily activity for us. Do not wait until there is a pile of things in front of us before we realize we need to get organized. By putting this into our daily activity it becomes part of our system already. The more it gets part of our system the easier we will be able to do it without even noticing the effort we put into getting organized.
Roadblocks to getting organized
On a day to day activity we find ourselves being hampered from our goal of being organized because of a number of reasons:

1. The possibility that it may be forgotten
2. We become mechanical

Often times we do not want to organize ourselves because we might keep the important documents in places that become inaccessible. Worst we may forget them and not be reminded later on the need of these documents. The solution I have for this are:

1. Organize in such as way that the most important documents are the most accessible ones for us.
2. We may keep a calendar to remind us of these document files. I use outlook to oversee these things for me.
3. We may just throw away the least important documents we feel will not be used for the next three years.
4. We may also scan these documents and keep them inside our hard disks.

The next issue is about being mechanical. I have heard a number of times already that the most intelligent people do not have time to organize. Their creativity cannot be hampered by being organized and they need to keep their things just where they are.
Phew, do they realize how much more information they could feed their brains by being organized? Do they realize how much time they could spend from being organized? By saving more time we are able to boost our productivity by using the daily additional time we have in other personal development activities.
Getting organized is something we need to commit ourselves into. It is not easy at start but once we reap the benefits of it we will surely stay organized all the time.
The next time you feel throwing your things around saves you time, think again.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

I think it’s safe to say that everyone is guilty of procrastination at least once in their life. We have to be aware that procastination is a sickness which only resides in your mind. There are a lot of reasons why people procrastinate and we shall be discussing the most common ones.
Plain boring
The task is boring and people normally put this off for some other time. Think again. The more we procrastinate; the more we find ourselves being drawn from completing our tasks which would feel more unpleasant as time goes by.
But remember its all in the mind. Think of it in another way. Instead of thinking how boring it is, think how much relief and satisfaction it would give by finishing it right away. Get excited that the faster you accomplish your tasks the faster it gets off your world.
Confused
Confusion kills productivity. Whenever we are confused, our initial preference is to put it away for the time being. I have been guilty of this occasionally. My general principle says I cannot waste time resolving issues when I can accomplish other things right away.
My previous architect disagreed though. He would stress to seek out help, use Google groups and find every means possible to understand and get it done. His main philosophy is that I will have to finish it, so finish it now, and not tomorrow, or in any other day.
Failure
Everyone fears failure. Everyone wants to win either knowingly or unconsciously. Proscatination is a bigger failure than failure itself. Face failure like a Man.
Procrastination is bad as time flies so fast and you will never notice how much opportunities have gone away because of this attitude.
Get hold of yourself and get things done. Its all in the mind.
Updated: 102006
The Substitute – Failure Is Not an Option

I stumbled upon a site who talks about how IM and productivity rarely mix which is exactly the opposite on how I view instant messaging. He says something like this:

Unfortunately it seems that more than anything else it’s a constant distraction that eats time…
The only true way to avoid this problem is to turn it off.

This is a big surprise for me since IM has saved me in a lot of ways throughout my young career. It has boosted my productivity level to enormous heights that I can’t seem to imagine what life would have been without it.
By reading the article and sweeping through the comments page people had different views and purpose on how they use their instant messenger.
This is a powerful tool that used correctly can actually speed up your progress in life.
What are the instant messengers I use?
I first had Yahoo Messenger a few years back and have recently gotten MSN, GTalk and lately AIM.
How to avoid distractions?
I actually don’t . Looking at the list of people I added to my messenger I came to realize that the people I have added are those who share the same interests that I have. They are people I have met in work, hot contacts, college and high school friends, and family members who were in the same wavelength as I am. When I say the same wave length this means we are a group of serious achievers.
This only means one thing. The hundreds of people I have added are busy career minded people. They do not pop for any reason at all than business. Yes, they could disturb and eat up your time whenever they need help or career advice. On the other side they are also the people you can pop in anytime if help is needed.
My IM is my 911 emergency call number. If I am stuck in a technological problem then a pop is all I need. If I need resource or advice on a certain decision then an IM pop is my first option. Countless of times the messenger saved me a lot of hours and gave me the answers right when I needed them most. The amount of help that was given to me was more than what I have given.
It’s not that I am selfish but it’s just the way it goes. Probably a statistician could explain the numbers behind it.
Anyway, to conclude; IM is an extremely powerful tool. Do not use it against you but rather use it to your advantage.
Internet Annoyances : How to Fix the Most Annoying Things about Going Online (Annoyances)

I am updating (July 27, 2006, 2350) this 5-month-old post because it fit Darren’s New Blog Writing Project on premise of: Write a post on the topic of what I’d do differently if I had to start my blog again.
1. The first thing I’d do is avoid signing-up on link exchange sites. Very, very bad. I got mails from sites telling me they already linked up to my site and wanted a link back. I checked the link and it is placed on a site that is totally way, way out of my topic and some being offensive and pornographic. I emailed them to remove the link but they would not respond anymore. As a result, I could never get out of my Google Page Rank of 2. I learned my lesson as my other sites have a PR of 5 — FIFA World Cup is one of them.
2. The second is having a focus. As I have previously written:
Keep Reading

I looked at the number of posts I have done so far. Much to my surprise I found too little technology articles. Probably I am getting burned out that I do not feel writing anything about technology as my escape for relaxation.
I suddenly remembered what my former superior pounded on me and everyone else:

Focus, focus, focus…

My current superior Paolo recently e-mailed me that “Focus is the key to success” regarding the burn-out feeling the whole team is experiencing because of the tremendous workload upon us these days.
In the end, “Focus” is still a prerequisite no matter what.

I was watching a commercial for tennis open a few years back when it said

They were second to none.

An attitude I buried into my system.