Mine typically grows and grows over time until the list is a mile long and the bane of my existence.

The growing number of action items become unmanageable and a hazard to my sanity.

At this point, I declare to-do list bankruptcy.

It’s time to clear your cache, reboot, and start over.

The list is combed through for things that actually matter, everything is deleted, and I get a fresh start.

So the next time you run up an impossible list, it’s okay to take a machete to it.

Just tell them I gave you permission.

The post To Do List Bankruptcy appeared first on Things that Matter.

I am in the middle of 6 concurrent projects and I’m solving too many problems at once.

Focus is spread between too many things and its hard to keep sight on a single direction.

Luckily the end is in sight and things are winding down.

I certainly have learned a valuable lesson in all the chaos. It’s vividly clear to me what my core skills are and where my weaknesses lie.

Perhaps one needs to reach the brink of insanity to find out what is truly important.

What do you do to ensure you are focusing on the right things?

If the answer alludes you, Fix it.

The post Out of Focus appeared first on Things that Matter.

I think we all play a different persona online. This is perpetuated by the proliferation of social networks and the ubiquitous nature of decent cameras in our mobile devices.

You can record events with the click of a button and share that “memory” in an instant with people you don’t necessarily speak to anymore.

I think chronicling your life is awesome, if its for the right reasons. For you.

The other type of person sharing their life online via a multitude of smiling photos with friends, poses in front of exotic landmarks, and geotagged checkins to their every move aren’t doing it for themselves or even the sheer experience.

They want external validation. A like, a comment, an “I wish I were there” remark from an online onlooker.

Don’t be one of these people.

Instead, do things for you and for the thrill of it.

Match the happy Internet version of yourself to your actual self.

The post Internet You vs. Actual You appeared first on Things that Matter.

I know I’m moving and there are tracks behind me. Perhaps this is what is important.

The hardest part of doing something is starting.

Once in motion, you start working towards a flow. Once you are in flow (aka in the zone) it’s easy to make progress.

Keeping that lucid state on track towards an ambiguous destination, now that’s a challenge.

As long as I’m moving, there is a sense of purpose. Perhaps that is the destination?

Eventually you will reach your destination or realize there isn’t one to begin with and the journey was the destination all along.

One thing is for sure though: I’m not sure where I’m going but I’m going.

The post On Progress appeared first on Things that Matter.

It’s not rocket science. Watch this:

Convinced yet?

I had no background in any computer science before I started my business, I majored in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

I never took a single programming class in my entire life.

How did I do it then?

Google, a whole lot of Google.

Everything that you need is freely available online.

It also helps to meet someone who is a master. Having some hands on help when you hit the wall, is key.

Now, go forth and future proof your skill set.

The post Learn to Code appeared first on Things that Matter.

Banksy created art out of normal everyday street objects.

Walt Disney created a magical wonderland out of a swamp.

Steve jobs created a user friendly music player in a world where the more buttons/features used to win.

Everyday people are finding stagnant situations and rewriting the rules.

The next “problem” you encounter ask yourself, if I had the power to change this, what would I do differently to improve the experience?

Now remove if from that statement and do it.

The post Create Where There is None appeared first on Things that Matter.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” -Heraclitus Of Ephesus

Everything that you do, whether its for the first time or the hundredth, is a unique experience, or at least it could be.

It’s hard to envision remedial repetitive tasks in your day to day life as different. The fact remains though, you are different than you were yesterday and the task at hand doesn’t have to play out like it always does.

A culmination of the experiences of yesterday have shaped you into the person you are today.

Each moment a drop in the bucket that is you.

You shape those moments and have the power to influence the way they play out.

The post You Never Cross the Same River Twice appeared first on Things that Matter.

If you have ever said this, facepalm yourself. If you have ever heard this facepalm the perpetrator.

Would you like to know a secret? Google doesn’t give a shit about your “secrets”.

Google is an advertising company, not a clandestine agency hell bent on exposing your secret Japanese porn fetish.

Sure they are scanning your activity and serving ads tailored to your behavior. If you don’t want ads, turn on Adblock. Problem solved.

“But it’s the principle of the matter, my information is my information.”

If you really want to keep your precious information to yourself, opt out of the web. It’s very akin to a secret no longer becoming a secret once you tell another person.

Once you are on the web, your behavior is being tracked, analyzed, and utilized.

If you want to stick to your archaic principles, good luck.

Free awesome stuff on the web comes at a negligible cost. Demographic and behavior data used to serve you more relevant ads.

Note: you can opt out of ads with Adblock or *gasp* not click on ads.

If you still want to surf the web completely anonymously, you better learn how to use proxies.

If you are like 99.9999% of the rest of the world, you really don’t have anything to hide.

Take off your tinfoil hat and live a little.

The post Take Off Your Tinfoil Hat appeared first on Things that Matter.

1. The company selling the product at a lower cost has reached economies of scale and can afford to sell you the product at a cheaper cost than other competitors

or

2. (This is much more likely than the first scenario) You are buying a sub-par product, whether tangible in the product itself, or in the followup support/service related to that item.

What most people don’t think about when purchasing a product is the aftermath of that decision.

Let’s say you are in the market to get some web hosting. You have tons of options, but two stand out. The first is a cheap $6 a month package and the second is a little pricier at $30 a month.

You decide to buy super cheap web hosting at around 6 bucks a month.

The product is ‘okay’ (until you outgrow it) and it does what it claims it will do for 6 dollars a month.

Great! Now lets say that a year later you run into an issue with said hosting product and it needs to be fixed. The fact that the product is so cheap to begin with means that service is limited and spread thin across their hoards of other cheapskate buyers.

You end up having to send a bunch of your own time fixing thing. Hours and hours of your precious time, valued at X dollars an hour.

I charge $125 dollars an hour for my time.

This means spending 6 hours manually fixing a problem is (in terms of opportunity cost) costing me $750 dollars.

Now that other “expensive” option that was pushed aside for the “cheap/easy” hosting solution looks like bullshit compared to the 30$ a month option that runs automated backups for you and has customer support that will run through the trenches for you.

It would have cost me $720 (30 x 12 x 12) for two years of hosting from the more expensive 30$ a month hosting option, where I wouldn’t have to fix my own problems (or never run into them in the first place because of better site security).

Beware of hidden “what if” costs.

You get what you pay for.

The post You Get What You Pay For appeared first on Things that Matter.

I’m not sure I entirely agree. After all, 100% implies a finite resource.

If you are truly giving 100% in everything that you do, you are going to be completely exhausted.

Instead, I think to be great at something, sometimes secondary matters require a lesser degree of attention and effort.

For example, lets say you are a world class chef. You are a master at crafting delicious meals and can wow anyone’s taste buds. You give this 100% because its your passion and people recognize you for that.

One day, you decide to go into business for yourself. Now instead of giving your passion 100%, your attentions are spread around also operating the business. You have administrative tasks, marketing concerns, accounting, the list goes on.

Now instead of focusing 100% on being the best chef in the world, you know find yourself becoming a mediocre chef and a sub par business person.

You are spread too thin and your core suffers.

Pick what truly matters and give that 100%.

Outsource the rest.

The post Giving 100% appeared first on Things that Matter.