One last thing: a call to action is rarely useful at the end of an email. It works fine on a blog, but in an email, make all your “asks” at the top. Making me fish through 779 words to find your request to me is a slog. Start with that at the top even if you have to fill in the story so that I understand what you’re asking of me.

Seth Godin has created an excellent Email checklist. Read it and follow it. It will please those that get your emails.

Then there is the basic rule – don’t waste other people’s time. Only email those that really need what’s in the mail.

People in the To-field can be expected to act on the mail. Those that get a mail as CC get it as information only and are not required to take any action.

Seth Godin touches on the topic of blind-copies (BCC). Avoid that, it might backfire when people find out that you are not open and honest about who gets your emails.

There’s too much emphasis these days on productivity, on hyperefficiency, on squeezing the most production out of every last minute. People have forgotten how to relax. How to be lazy. How to enjoy life.

Productivity is not good in itself, it’s very important to decide what we do. We need to manage our attention and our priorities.

It’s possible we’re trying to get more done because we love doing it — and if that’s the case, that’s wonderful. But even then, working long hours and neglecting the rest of life isn’t always the best idea. Sometimes it’s good to Get Less Done, to relax, to breathe.

We do need to relax and breathe. No one runs their car engine on full throttle all the time, why do it with yourself?

Leo lists some useful tips on how to relax and ends the post like this:

Step by step, learn to relax. Learn that productivity isn’t everything. Creating is great, but you don’t need to fill every second with work. When you do work, get excited, pour yourself into it, work on important, high-impact tasks … and then relax.

Now I’ll do what I do on a regular basis, it’s also in Leo’s list of tips, I’ll go for a walk.

Related posts:
Start Managing Your Attention
An 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused
Which Time Horizons Do You Use?
The jar of life – stones, pebbles and sand

You can’t manufacture time, you can’t reproduce time, you can’t slow time down or turn it around and make it run in the other direction. You can’t trade bad hours for good ones, either. About all the time management you can do is to cram as much productive work as possible into each day. What you can manage, however, is your attention.

The e-book includes a simple question that helps us indentify what our top priority should be:

If I could accomplish only one thing right now, what would that one thing be?

The e-book also describes the Eisenhower method for sorting our tasks by importance and urgency, it’s simple yet powerful.

Related posts:
An 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused
Which Time Horizons Do You Use?
The jar of life – stones, pebbles and sand

It’s an interesting article that made me think about which time horizons I use and why. Ed writes that ‘The 10 time horizons (See image) flow continuously from this immediate moment to my very last breath’.

I don’t agree with that, there are three horizons that I see as ‘timeless’ in the sense that we don’t know when it happens and how they fit in among the other. They are ‘in this job’, ‘in this career’ and ‘before I retire’. We can plan for them but I think these three horizons are on a different scale.

Ed Batista gives us these questions that help us check if we are using the right time horizon.

When we assess our lives–our fulfillment, our effectiveness, what’s working, what’s not working–how far ahead do we look? How far ahead should we look? Is that time horizon a good fit for the issues under consideration? And what issues are most relevant to us in a given time horizon?

when looking ahead it’s helpful to realize that I’ve moved from one horizon into the next. It prompts me to ask: Am I in the right timeframe? Should I take a step back–or jump even further ahead? Should my approach change? Am I still asking the right questions? Are the same issues in play?

The time horizons that I use are:
• Now.
• Today.
• This week.
• One month.
• 12 months.

I use An 18 Minute Plan That Keeps You Focused which means you refocus once an hour during the day. That keeps me on track with Now and Today.

The timeless horizons that I use are the same as Ed’s:
• In this job.
• In this career.
• Before I retire.

Which Time Horizons Do You Use?

STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful? Write those things down.

I already use pen and paper for my planning, see Task management my way – pen and paper, step 1 above is just doing it differently from what I do today.

STEP 1, continued. Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.

My planning is usually not done in time slots, more a list of things for that day. Using time slots will make it clearer what actually can be done in one day. What really hit home was the ‘when and where’ part of the article (read more in their post):

If you want to get something done, decide when and where you’re going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

This is a smart trick, a regular reminder to check that you are on track and on time. It’s easier to manage hour by hour than to manage on day level.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

This is a great one too. I do review my days but not in a more formal way. Doing what’s in step three above will make the learning process much clearer.

Update.
I found a nice free software for Windows that gives me chimes on the hour, Talking Desktop Clock. That helps me with step 2 above.

Read more:
The jar of life – stones, pebbles and sand
Let limitations guide you to creative solutions
55 Ways to Get More Energy

There are several versions available, these ones have great sound:
• J.K.Rowling speaking at Harvard part 1
• J.K.Rowling speaking at Harvard part 2
• J.K.Rowling speaking at Harvard part 3

This is part 1:

People are not buying what you are selling.
They are buying the result of what you are selling.

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One pot had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”

The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

Moral:
Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

In the spirit of “Ideas Worth Spreading,” TEDx is a program that enables schools, businesses, libraries or just groups of friends to enjoy a TED-like experience through events they themselves organize, design and host.

We’re supporting approved organizers by offering a free toolset that includes detailed advice, the right to use recorded TEDTalks, promotion on our site, connection to other organizers, and a little piece of our brand in the form of the TEDx label.

Wemind, @wemind on Twitter, is now officially planning TEDxCopenhagen, see also the TEDxCopenhagen Facebook page. You can also follow @TEDxCopenhagen on Twitter. Copenhagen is close to where I live and this can be a really interesting event.

Coaching is about change. It can be finding a new career, creating better balance in life or adding a new activity in order to “spice up” life. In these contexts we often talk about trying to find ones passion and to follow ones passion. But finding ones passion is sometimes easier said than done, we either make it too complicated or think (hope) that it will be obvious and just pop up.

It is said that “Find Your Passion; the Money Will Follow” or “Do what you love and money will follow“. Money is not guaranteed but finding and following your passion will for sure make life better. Your passion might be in a tiny market which means you can not make a living from that alone.

If you don’t know what your passion is, you are not alone. At INeedMotivation it says that According to a recent survey, about 75% of the population do not know what their true passion is.

Where to start?
Finding your passion is not just about work, it’s about your whole life. If we have activities off work that we are passionate about our life will improve. It’s also a way of testing if our passions can be transferred into a job or a business. Skellie writes that Your hidden talents are the things you could do that would make you happy. My view is that among your hidden talents is your passion.

Your hidden talents will always fit your personality or interests in some way. Instead of being hidden and random – things to be discovered by accident – the things you love doing actually make a lot of sense.

Life Script says it well, A passion in life isn’t something you’re born with. It’s cultivated by your interests, what stimulates you and what you are genuinely excited about.

At Lifehack it says If there’s already something you love doing, you’re ahead of the game. Now you just need to research the possibilities of making money from it. They offer some questions that will help you in the search for your passion.

Mike over at ZenDonut writes in 3 Steps To Develop Your Passion … Not Just “Find” It that:

My concept is that a passion is not just floating around waiting to bump you in the head (i.e. “to be found”), but rather, by taking an active approach, you can develop your passionate interests proactively.

I share that view, we have work to do in order to figure out what our (more or less) hidden talents are. Then we have to find out if we can make money from it and how.

How did I find my current passion?
I had been working with IT and computers for a long time. That was and still is a fast changing area which made my work my passion, learning and doing new things at a pace that kept me on my toes. Off work I have always been doing other things, being active in organizations and learning new things – more or less related to what I worked with. Personal development, my own and others, has been a running thread in my life.

As often happens, eventually my passion for IT and computers started to fade. I wanted to do something else but could not figure out what. Like Mike says above, I could not describe my passion yet I knew it was hidden somewhere within reach. That was rather frustrating but I started putting the pieces together. I described my own personal profile, in terms of knowledge – experience – interests etc, using mind mapping and other techniques to connect the dots. One thing I focused on was analyzing situations that made me really feel alive, what was the key and was there any common factors.

After spending time at connecting the dots I realized that many of my different interests overlapped to some extent. That made me curious and I focused on that common ground, the core area that united things. I started to describe that core area in more detail and then realized that I had found my passion: I want to help people be the best they can be.

I had been coaching friends and workmates for years but I decided to take a coaching course that made me a professional coach. I love working as a coach and I learn something from each client session.

Are we resisting it?
Jonathan Mead asks if we know what makes us feel alive, why do we resist it? Why do we avoid doing what we love to do? and lists four reasons. One of them is that we have turned our passion into work. “Anytime you feel that you must do something, you lose inspiration.” Once we have made a passion our work we do need to keep the fire burning, to re-ignite our passion.

Read more:
• 7 Questions To Finding Your True Passion
• The One Question
• The 5 Percent Trick: Finding Passion and Purpose in Life
• How Do You Find Your Passion In Life?
• Find Your Career Passion
• How to Find a Passion In Life (eHow)
• If you don’t have passion and purpose, greater productivity won’t help you!