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How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

japhr.blogspot.com

101–110 of 118 posts

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#102
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used this in the past to track multiple goals in this way: http://www.joesgoals.com/

Thanks for the suggestion, I like this so far. My biggest beef with idonethis is the single check mark to indicate any activity whatsoever, making it less usable for tracking multiple goals.

Exactly. When I used this, I had some work and exercise-related positive goals, a multi-point goal (cooking, which I love but don't always make time for) and one negative line (caving in to the gaming addiction of the moment).

At some point I abandoned it, but I can't remember what caused me to break the habit. I might have more luck with an iPhone app that kept the chains in my face more often?

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#103

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

Try out http://dontbreakthechain.com/ - it's awesome.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#104
post #86

Someone else with a similar attitude I find inspiring: Les Stroud. He'd go to some random remote wilderness location, take a few video cameras and nothing else, and record himself surviving for a week. Result: Survivorman , a hit TV show going into its fourth season, with at least 3 spinoff shows. A more mundane example: my brother took a photograph every day for a year. Not a big deal, no particular subjects or goal…

There's also this guy, who painted every day for nine years, and went from a completely unskilled beginner to a master artist: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3031684

Thanks for making me waste an embarrassing number of hours!

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#105

I applaud the author for his tenacity. There is no doubt that kind of discipline produces results, both in terms of work product and personal advancement. However, I have serious doubts about the merits of writing a book about a subject intricacies and philosophy of which you have not yet had the chance to distill through the lens of experience. The method may, perhaps, work for simple recipes, how tos and other proc…

As an editor at a publisher, I think book should not write this way, even for cutting edge technology that lack of documents. One can put his articles on web, but a book means responsibility. To ensure that a reasonable structure, good reading experience, the contents of profound value, of course, does not misleading the reader.

For the publisher, if know the author do not have professional background, should not publishing their book. Because that means risking a lot.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#106
post #9
post #6

This is a great way of working. I just wonder if the books are: (a) any good? (b) selling? There's a huge difference between writing a good book and sticking a couple of notes together. Anyone read the books in question? EDIT: I didn't see that one of the books was published - search on Amazon gave nothing and all I could find was a buy-my-book landing page. Sorry about that.

AFAIK many folks have a dream of getting a book published , not gettting it to be a best seller. (Probably getting a book published means less in the digital age but still a cool thing to have done.)

This only true the first time. The thrill of being a published author wears off quickly when you realize that this doesn't pay the rent. (In my case, the second time 'round I figured out how to get it to pay the rent as well. Believe me, it's very satisfying.)

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#108
post #68

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

http://chains.cc is a good gui for this

This is a really nice site. Thanks.

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#109

Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]: He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll h…

Specific to open source on Github, but I've encountered this before: http://calendaraboutnothing.com/

Neat :)

Re: How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome

#110
I have to say I am outraged by the amount of negativity on the comments. How do you think all the masters we respect started out?. Did Steve jobs give his best sales speech on day 1?. Did roger federer win the very first grandslam he played in ?, Did Obama gave the perfect speech on his very first attempt?. They tried and improved to be what they are and can't we applaud him for his effort and guide him if we think we are more capable and experienced rather than looking down on his work?.

Hats off to you man for doing something not many have managed to do. keep doing it and you'll scale new Heights.

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