Quantum Gardener | Cultivating the possibility of life

Simplify

Posted on July 4, 2010 by David C. Buchan

How much of your routine is preventing you from reaching your goals and dreams? Or more precisely, what are you willing to give up and say no to in order to succeed? To find the time you need.

That’s the question I asked myself on Friday and this time I listened to my answer instead of brushing it aside. So easy to do as it flashed past in a instant.

I love writing on Quantum Gardener but write much less than I’d like because I don’t have time to do it properly. Therefore, and perhaps non-intuitively, blogging is something I choose to stop until I have time. You see the commitment to readers is more than typing. The recent upgrade to WordPress 3 has stolen at least 5 hours. They could have been better spent working towards earning my financial freedom so that I can write all day if I choose. Do my valued reader this will be the last post for a while. I will still be on Twitter @quantumgardener.

There are other tasks and projects valued to me that I now realise are taking too much time. Or at least interfering with progress towards my dreams. Each is a commitment I’ve made to myself and I find I need to honour them before other things. Partly because of the effort already invested. The good news it was me who made the initial commitment so I have full and unhindered power to renegotiate or declare completion. This blog post is a public declaration of my recommitments .

Renegotiating smaller tasks links to a habit I have of wanting to finish them in order to create space for large tasks. Eventually all I achieve are small ones.

In addition to a halt on blogging I put my photo cataloging on hold. Though justifiably proud of having catalogued 15,000+ family photos and video clips with date, location description, gps coordinates, event and people in them it distracts me and can wait until I have more capacity. As one of those tasks that never ends, I’ll keep up only the essentials of backup.

There are similar commitments I have around music in iTunes and my DVD/Blu-ray library.

Then there are books unread, movies unseen, podcasts unheard and games unplayed. I find myself working relentlessly trying to finish lists that grow quicker than I can keep up. Kind of like Lucy on the assembly line. All I generate are more ideas of projects to complete. Valuable for sure but costly when compared to what I’m missing.

I will however keep my 50 Book Challenge lists up to date. It’s easy to and provides a useful record.

Until I have the time to write and serve you better take care.

David

Posted in Quantum Gardener, Self improvement | 1 Comment

The meaning of flags from a six year old

Posted on June 13, 2010 by David C. Buchan

This morning during breakfast my youngest daughter and I were discussing flags on the back of a conversation about the countries competing in the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

I asked, “What are flags useful for?”, and she replied,

“For the Queen’s Birthday”
“Parades”
“Sticking on the moon to say it’s yours”
“Your planet”

I then asked what it meant if a flag was left half-way up a flag pole i.e., at half mast.

“Your country is half finished”

Can’t say fairer than that.

As adults we are often told to “think outside of the box”. Maybe the best way is to never build one in the first place. I’d challenge many adults to come up with that last answer.

Posted in Miscellaneous | Tagged flag, meaning | Leave a comment

Genghis Khan – A story untold

Posted on June 2, 2010 by David C. Buchan

by Jack Weatherford

I bought this book because it sounded interesting and was the most efficient way to use my monthly credit on audible.com. What an amazing story. Genghis Khan in my mind is undoubtedly one of the most successful men in history. All that you know about him is probably wrong. My world view has shifted significantly. He’s responsible for the structure of most of Asia, trade routes between Asia and Europe, the separation of church from state and the idea that a country’s leaders are not above the law.

The book chronicles his life and that of his direct and not-so-direct ancestors. The latter chapter finish with discussion of how the world view of Genghis Khan moved from admiration to loathing. It’s sad to recognise how some of the cultural narratives I’ve grown up with have been seeded by people who knew nothing or were so self centered as to impose their views for their own protection.

This story has only come to light in the past ten years as areas of Mongolia became open to scholars the world over. I hope you take the time to read his book and learn about the framework in which most of our world history resides.

Posted in Inspiration and motivation | Tagged 50-book-challenge, biography, book, book review, genghis khan | Leave a comment

It’s Time for 360 Degree Leaders to Move On

Posted on May 22, 2010 by David C. Buchan

Finished two good books this week. The 360 Degree Leader by John C. Maxwell and It’s Time to Move On! by Ralph Bruksos. Both are listed on my 50 book challenge (2010) reading list.

The 360 Degree Leader

I first heard John Maxwell speak of the 360 degree leader on an audio CD and was intrigued by the power of the realisation there are people like me who need to lead in all directions. Up, down and across.

This book outlines a framework for leadership which the eager learning leader can use to home their skills and understand the particular quirks and responsibilities of leading from the middle.

It’s Time to Move On!

Like being slapped in the face whilst simultaneously receiving a kick in the rear and a stern, “Tsk! Tsk!”, this book may prove to be just what I’ve needed to make the changes I’m after in my life.

Almost every page was like a mirror of my own experiences. Well, at least as far as they pertain to the feelings and emotions of dealing with change. To my knowledge I’ve never been thrown in the brig or done a stint as a fishing charter captain.

Change is all around us and we have the choice to fight it or embrace it. The trouble with fighting is that we always lose. For coping with unwanted change the book alone is worth a read yet the gold lies in it’s chapters on how to move past the resistance to embracing change and allowing yourself to go where you want to in life.

Posted in Inspiration and motivation, Self improvement | Tagged 360 degree, 360 degree leader, 50-book-challenge, book, book review, John C. Maxwell, leadership | Leave a comment

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Posted on May 12, 2010 by David C. Buchan

by Robert B. Cialdini

Defend yourself against the Click…whirr response engendered by your built in need to reciprocate, keep consistency with what you have said you’ll do, be part of the crowd, like people who take advantage of you, follow authority without question and your desire to own something scarce.

In Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B Cialdini explains with easy to understand examples, backed by scientific testing, how the social systems we’ve created as necessary to work together are taken advantage of by marketers and others. With understanding comes the ability to recognise when we are being conned and hopefully take steps to counteract our natural tendencies.

I found most interesting the discussion on social proof and in particular the notion that when faced with an unusual situation we look to others around us for guidance under the assumption that they will know something we don’t — at the same time failing to realise everyone else is doing the same. They assume we know more than them as we simultaneously assume the same in reverse. The result is stalemate and nothing happens. All it takes is for one person to take action and the others will follow on, free to help as they can. The author’s example of what to do if you have a heart attack in a crowd is potentially life-saving. Instead of hoping someone will help you, be direct and pick out an individual to call an ambulance. Otherwise you risk those around you waiting for someone else to call.

There was not one example given in the book that I couldn’t match to my own life experience and an associated regret at having been done over by someone more persuasive than myself. Protect yourself as I have by learning about the hidden influences in your life.

Posted in Personal knowledge management, Self improvement | Tagged 50-book-challenge, book, book review, influence, persuasion, psychology | 1 Comment

Plaxo account deleted due to security concerns

Posted on May 11, 2010 by David C. Buchan

After almost seven years of membership I have been forced to delete my Plaxo account due to security concerns.

Yesterday I received notification that “Artur” had accepted my connection. This is a highly unusual name for Australia and if I’d ever met an Artur I would have remembered.

Plaxo support guessed this was an outstanding invitation sent in 2007–2008.

“As per our records, you had sent out many invitations and connection requests to the contacts in the year 2007 and 2008. I guess the connection request to the Plaxo member “Artur” was also sent during that period.”

This is their response to the claim of a security breach.

Plaxo has been a wonderful service, providing a central service for the notification of address changes. Sadly I’ll lose out on that now but save myself further privacy violations.

Posted in Networking | Tagged plaxo, security, security breach | Leave a comment

Updated book lists

Posted on May 5, 2010 by David C. Buchan

I’m now using Goodreads to track, rate and comment on the books I’m reading as part of my annual 50 book challenge. I’ve updated the 2009 list and will have 2008 posted once complete. Thanks to Jack Vinson’s post for the idea.

Posted in Quantum Gardener | 1 Comment

Occasions helps you remember occasions

Posted on April 21, 2010 by David C. Buchan

Occasions — view in iTunes

If I’ve ever forgotten your birthday I’m sorry. Remembering them is something I don’t do all that well. Even when I remember I have slim chance of knowing how old you are. But now, thanks to Occassions on my iPhone, I should never miss your birthday again — assuming of course that I know it in the first place.

Occasions displays birthdays, anniversaries and other upcoming events on your iPhone. Each entry gives has a name, date and countdown. If a year is present Occasions calculates the age of the event. For example, Charles is turning 49 today, Berit is turning 39 in 2 days on Friday 23 April and Kirsty celebrates her 10th anniversary in 4½ months. If there is no year specified, you’ll get the date and number of days until the event only.

I know too many people. Do I have to enter their birthdays?

My contact list has close to 700 people which includes my 141 facebook friends. It’s fair to say that I don’t know all their birthdays but for those I do I’ve already keyed in their details. My facebook friends have keyed in their birthdays for me already. Either way I don’t want to key them into Occasions again.

An absolute strength of this program is its integration with the default iPhone contacts (address) book. Every person who has a birthday or anniversary will be loaded and kept up to date automatically.

You can also link Occasions to your facebook account and everyone who has given facebook applications the ability to access birthday details will be loaded as well. The application even matches names (or where it can’t suggests matches) between contacts and facebook. So, you don’t have to double-dip and buy two presents. Respectfully Occasions lets you confirm all matches, automatic or otherwise, and doesn’t just assume. Great if you know two people with the same name. Want more? It imports facebook avatar pics as well.

Playing nicely with Gmail contacts

Gmail recognises you may know the day and month of a birthday or anniversary but not the year. It allows you to miss any of day, month or year. And that’s great. However, the iPhone contacts app requires a year and if you haven’t specified one the date won’t transfer across and subsequently not be shown in Occasions (does this mean women will have to tell us how old they really are if they want gifts?). I’ve got around this by setting 1900 as the date. Few of my friends are 111. though some are moving that way. I’ve a great aunt and uncle which are 95 each and have just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.

My favourite band are playing. Can I get a countdown?

Yes, by creating a custom event. Simple. You can even load public holidays which for Australia includes Mothers’ and Fathers’ days.

Final words

I really like this app. It makes remembering birthdays easy. So much so that I’ve deleted corresponding entries from my Google calendar. I need only add the date to a person — which is where it belongs — and that’s it. There are ample notification, search and filter settings to play with to really configure things how you need to.

Priced at the lowest end of the app pricing scale (just above free), you may receive a copy for your birthday. That is, if your friends have Occasions on their iPhone.

Posted in Using technology | Tagged anniversary, birthday, iPhone, review | 2 Comments

Recognising enough is enough

Posted on March 11, 2010 by David C. Buchan

Yesterday the song Somewhere from Robbie William’s Reality Killed the Video Star started playing on my iPod. I asked my wife if she’d bought it and forgotten to tell me. She hadn’t. It was me and I’d completely forgotten.

If that’s not a definition of “enough is enough”, then I don’t know what is.

You and I live in a world where it is amazingly easy to collect and we seem intent on holding onto everything. DVD or Blu-ray movies, music on our iPods, books via Kindle and even conversations via Twitter and Facebook. Are we so scared that we’ll lose it all?

Posted in Self improvement | Tagged ask, book, books, collect, conversation, definition, facebook, ipod, music, no, play, twitter, wiki | Leave a comment