July | 2010 | Ryan S. Taylor

Archive for: July, 2010

Working with the iPhone 4

Jul 31 2010 Published by ryanstaylor under Leisure, Motivation, Success

I’m the proud owner of a new iPhone 4. I ordered it on July 16th and it arrived yesterday morning. I wanted one to replace my laptop for most of my work. My laptop would only be used for heavy creative work.
Once I synced it to my laptop and activated it, I went to work installing app upon app! One of the first apps was WordPress. This blog is hosted by WordPress and I need to manage my it from my phone. I’m writing this post on my phone and it’s not a bad experience. With the phone resting on a table in landscape mode, I can type pretty easily.
Now that I can access all my email accounts, including my work email, plus the superior web browsing, my phone has become my primary tool and it’s only been one day!
I’m very happy with my purchase and I know I’ll be more productive now that I have access to everything I need in one device. And did I mention how gorgeous the screen is? Wow is l I can say! It’s far sharper than my MacBook pro and that’s a pretty sharp screen.

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Sh*t Happens

Jul 25 2010 Published by ryanstaylor under Motivation, Success

I have two mottos in life: live and let live, and shit happens. This article is about shit.

Shit happens basically means life has its ups and downs and sometimes bad things happen. Now, I write about being happy and always making the conscious choice of being happy. That said, there are going to be times where you simply have a bad day or things don’t always go your way. The key to lifelong happiness is shrugging off the bad days. There’s always tomorrow. Before the era of victimization, it was normal to just shrug off bad days. You move on. Sometimes you get into a rut but you will inevitably bounce back as long as you’re able to move on and know that your rut is very temporary. If you refuse to move on and carry mental anguish with you, your rut will continue on and on.

Look at it this way, when shit happens you can metaphorically choose the following:

Step around the shit. This is avoiding the shit because it doesn’t directly affect you. See it as an obstacle and navigate around it.
Jump over the shit. Depending on the situation, you’ll have to deal with certain types of shit. It may be just a short hop, or a high jump. You may get your shoes dirty. The point is, you’ll deal with it and get over it quickly.
Fall face first into the shit. Obviously this is to be avoided but many people fall face first over and over. The problem, or the outcome of the problem, sticks to them for a long time. People like this tend to hold grudges for years. They are unable to forgive and forget. The shit lingers.

The metaphor is crude but it drives home the point. Happiness is shrugging the shit off and getting on with enjoying life, like I am as I write this, smoking a wonderful cigar and sipping a rich, peaty scotch!

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Use Your Vacation Time

Jul 21 2010 Published by ryanstaylor under Health and Fitness, Leisure

Millions of people do not use all of their allotted vacation time. This time is earned every paycheck and, depending on how long you’ve worked for your company, can be 2-4 weeks every year or more. Yet people feel guilty for taking time off, or they are too busy to get away from the office.

Your vacation time is the perfect time to cut yourself off from work and relax. You don’t have to take the entire vacation allotment off in one shot, though sometimes that’s the best thing to do. Spread your vacation time throughout the year to coincide with holidays, anniversaries, birthdays and special occasions. Also schedule some time off “just because.”

Your vacation doesn’t have to always be a big, planned-out and expensive event. In these tough economic times, many people are going on “staycations.” They are staying home or close to home for their vacation. To me that is a wonderful vacation that allows for the most relaxation and recuperation. The stress and expense of traveling to “have fun” is eliminated when your vacation is at home. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now!

I haven’t been a complete couch potato. Each day we decide to do something, or nothing! Living in Los Angeles affords us the luxury to drive to different places each day in a relatively short time, traffic included. We’ve been to Anaheim to visit my brother and his family at Disneyland. We’ve spent the day in Santa Monica, Pasadena, and Hollywood to name a few. Other times we’ve just spent around town going to the movies, having a nice brunch or just relaxing at home. I’ve been spending a good deal of time on my patio enjoying cigars and scotch. In all, it’s been the perfect vacation. I’m feeling relaxed and refreshed. Work will await me next Tuesday but I’m ready for it.

To reiterate, use your vacation time. It is a benefit for you. If your boss isn’t keen on his staff taking vacation, or if your company has a culture of dissuading vacation time, then it may be high time to look for another job. Seriously, all work and no play not only makes Jack a dull boy, it can also kill him.

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Planning is Guessing

Jul 06 2010 Published by ryanstaylor under Goals, Success

I stole this title from a chapter in Rework¹, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. They argue that long-term business planning is really just a guessing game. “Plans let the past drive the future.” Formal, five-year business plans are simply guesses based on the past extrapolated into the future. They are about as useful as a five-year weather forecast. I’d like to take that same idea and apply it to personal goals.

Volumes have been written about the value of goal setting and the having a written plan for achieving said goals. Nearly every self-help guru expounds its virtues. The same problems that plague business plans also effect personal plans. The primary problem, as Fried and Hansson explain, is a written plan may prevent you from “improvising.” You need the ability to adapt and improvise in an ever-changing environment. As the title of a popular book states, “What got you here won’t get you where you’re going.” To put it bluntly: shit happens.

Goals are essential to achieving what you want, whether or not you write them down. I advocate writing them down, but you don’t need to obsess on the details. Goals are the destination. You’ll need a guide but you must be able to adapt and improvise when opportunities present themselves, much like finding alternate routes when traveling. Fried and Hansson suggest planning for this week, not this year. Sometimes you have to wing it and that goes against conventional wisdom. But, winging it may be just the thing you need to do to take a giant step forward.

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