10 Ideas For The Interested This Week - For The Interested

10 Ideas For The Interested This Week

“Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.” — Marshall McLuhan

We carry assumptions into every exchange we have with people.

Often, those assumptions are negative.

One person can’t be trusted, another is out to get you, and another doesn’t care about you.

Sometimes those assumptions are right, but they’re often wrong.

Switch up your assumptions and watch what happens.

You might be surprised how many people live up to them.

Now, on to this week’s ideas…

1. THE BEST AUTO-REPLY EMAIL I’VE EVER SEEN

“A reminder we can choose to be as busy (or not busy) as we’d like to be. Our inbox works for us — not the other way around.”

It’s not often you come across an email that could change your life, but this definitely qualifies as one.

In this post I share the best auto-reply email I’ve ever received — one I got recently from a successful lawyer who clearly has his priorities in order.

2. 13 WAYS TO SPEED UP YOUR CAREER GROWTH

“Volunteer to be the note taker in every meeting. The note taker has a tremendous amount of power inside a company. Your notes become the record of what happened in a meeting. You literally have the power to shape projects and ideas.”

No matter what career path you’re on, I bet you’ll find at least a couple of helpful tips in this post.

Sean Johnson breaks down 13 ways to turn your career into a f-ing rocket ship including to show up first, sign up for the crappy projects nobody wants to do, and become a unicorn.

3. 10 CREATIVE WAYS TO DECLUTTER YOUR HOME

“A simple task of locating 12 items to throw away, 12 items to donate, and 12 items to be returned to their proper home can be a really fun and exciting way to quickly organize 36 things in your house.”

When the Becoming Minimalist blog recently linked to my post about how to improve your phone habits, I discovered the reason that blog has millions of readers — it’s packed with great articles.

In this one, Joshua Becker shares 10 creative ways to declutter your home including to give away one item each day, change your perspective, and commit just five minutes a day to decluttering.

4. WHY MOST WRITERS FAIL

“There are benefits of writing, and some of these benefits — perhaps the most valuable benefits — exist even if you can’t find one single reader.”

The only way to fail as a writer is to stop writing. And yet, that’s exactly what most writers do — especially when they don’t have many readers.

Adam Feil explores this concept and shares three benefits of writing even if you have no readers including that explaining something helps you understand it and that writing helps keep you focused on other people.

5. NOBODY CAN STOP YOU FROM GETTING YOUR DREAM JOB

“Stop looking for reasons you can’t do the work of your dreams. Start looking for ways you can.”

You’ll get your dream job when you start doing your dream work — not the other way around.

In this post I explain why you don’t need anybody to give you your dream job to start doing your dream work and offer a bit of inspiration for you to do just that.

6. WHY YOU SHOULD DO HARDER STUFF

“Always choose harder stuff. When given the option to choose between something challenging and rewarding and something less challenging and less rewarding, always choose the more challenging thing.”

Happiness doesn’t come from accomplishing easy tasks — it comes from conquering difficult ones.

Zak Slayback explains why you should do harder stuff and points out the benefits of pushing yourself to do hard things — even if you ultimately fail at them.

7. STEVE JOBS ON HOW TO LIVE A BROAD LIFE

“Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

It’s amazing what you can get out of a watching a 45-second video.

Hackerpreneur shares this old snippet in which Steve Jobs explains how to live a broad life.

Watching it is well worth a minute of your time.

8. 16 PSYCHOLOGICAL TRICKS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU IMMEDIATELY

“If you describe someone else as genuine and kind, people will also associate you with those qualities. The reverse is also true: If you are constantly trashing people behind their backs, your friends will start to associate the negative qualities with you as well.”

Please use this one for good and not evil.

The Independent shares 16 psychological tricks to make people like you based on scientific research.

The tips include to mimic the person you’re with, reveal your flaws, and display positive emotions.

9. SEVEN PIECES OF WISDOM TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU WORK

“Learning does not entail the study of one domain but rather a diversity of them. This facillitates the process of cross-pollinating ideas and concepts, introducing you to new methods and ways of thinking.”

This 99U post features seven pieces of wisdom about work from people like Steven Pressfield, Kurt Vonnegut, and even Marcus Aurelius.

The advice includes reminders to ask for what you want, ship and don’t look back, and build your routine.

10. THERE’S A LOT OF INTERRUPTING GOING ON THESE DAYS

“Men are almost three times as likely to interrupt women as they are to interrupt other men. Women interrupt each other constantly, and almost never interrupt men.”

If you feel like people are always interrupting you in conversations that’s probably because they are — and you’re doing the same to them.

Kieran Snyder conducted an informal experiment where she tracked 15 hours worth of conversations to see how often people were interrupted and if there were any noticeable differences among genders.

She found that we interrupt each other a lot and there are significant differences among genders when it comes to the patters of interruption.