THE IVY LEE METHOD

Falling in love with starting is easy. Falling in love with finishing is hard. But, if you can learn to fall in love with the art of finishing—and the process of overcoming adversity, failures and working around obstacles—you’ll consistently follow through on your ideas.

  Mayo Oshin

When I read this quote I thought, "That's me!" I am not good at finishing things - household chores, crafts -  all sorts of things.I start things and do part of them really well and then get sick of things or forget about them. I am super organized in some areas such as my recipe collections and laundering clothes. Then I am completely disorganized in other areas such as actually getting the clean laundry into cupboards - and there is only me in the house!


I have mentioned before that I am looking for the  optimal   system for getting things done and finished. I just don't get the things done each day that I plan. I have tried various systems including the Bullet Journal System which many people swear by, but just made me very anxious.

In my recent reading and search for helpful tips on being productive, I came across Ivy Lee. He was a highly respected productivity expert and pioneer in the field of public relations at the beginning of the twentieth century.

He had a notable system for getting things done, which he shared with various industries. It was a simple daily routine for achieving peak productivity.
 

1. At the end of each work day, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
2. Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
3. When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
4. Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
5. Repeat this process every working day.

In a nutshell this system appears to work because it is simple; it imposes limits on what has to be done; you know where you are going to start for the day; and it requires single tasking rather than multi-tasking.

I have given it a try and found it quite successful. The secret is to still break tasks down into small pieces and don't make each of the  6 things to be done too broad.

Bonsai trees

This past week has been very quiet. I did some gardening.

I am making a collection of bonsai trees. I take them from the garden when they are very small.

So far I have 2 native Bleeding Heart trees ( Homalanthus populifolius)  and one I think is some type of acacia.

 By the lake

On Saturday Peter and I went for a walk by Lake Illawarra. I can never go past a dandelion ready to blow.

And I'm not sure what this flower below is but it seems to be in bloom most of the year and is very striking

After much searching I decided that it was probably the beginnings of a coral tree of some type.

Fear of the Inexplicable
by Ranier Maria Rilke

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe’s stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry, scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

Interesting sites

1. Bubble domes in the Irish woods

Photo source

Scattered throughout a woodland resort in Northern Ireland, these bubble domes provide an unforgettable glamping experience. Click here to read more.



2. Dementia linked to lifestyle

Photo source

Dementia seems to be affected by lifestyle. Click here to read more.


3. Why the forest gives you awe

Photo source

 Why do we feel awe in a forest? Click here to find out.