Its meant to say when “less (<)” “equals (=)” “more (>)”. Its a concept that I am slowly growing to love.

The idea is not new but one that I am newly embracing. With the challenges we face in the “information age”, I believe its an idea that can only continue to receive greater acceptance. Our time, attention and resources are limited by nature. And the rate of growth of distractions and messages to consume is insatiable. So its a matter of time when something has got to give.

You know what I’m talking about right?

Today, we struggle with unprecedented volumes of information and messages that fights for our precious attention and causes us to accumulate more “stuff” and leave a bigger environmental footprint on our planet.

Ever have trouble managing your email? I do. And also with status updates from Facebook, Twitter and the litany of other social media sites. Even when we are on the move, we’re distracted with mobile devices that beep, vibrate and blink at us at all times of the day.

Do you have everything you need to live? I’m pretty sure you already do. So if you think about it, for most businesses to exist today, they HAVE to convince us to buy stuff we don’t need. On the television and news, theres an endless barrage of advertisements and messages that fight for our attention. The objective and outcome is that it pushes us towards consuming more, buy more stuff, do more activities, multi-task, always more more more!

So when is less equal to more? For example:

• Is it better to have 500 “friends” on Facebook or just 2 or 3 really good friends you actually like to spend time with?
• Is it better to work 14- hour days or earn less and spend more time with your children or your spouse?
• Is it better to have a closet full of clothes you will never wear or just 5 pieces of clothing you love wearing?

These are just a couple of random examples. But at the core of the minimalist philosophy, its all about limiting all areas of life so that you enjoy a better quality of life. Its a very powerful tool. The simple act of limiting a particular area of your life, causes you to immediately value it more and get more out of it.

Listen, I’m no expert in this area. It sounds absurd initially to put any limits on our life choices but the benefits to our mind, body and spirit is tremendous. Not to mention the potential benefits to those around us like our family and friends and ultimately for the planet.

I’m taking baby steps. Here’s 2 initiatives that I’ve already started:

1. I only check email once at 7am (before my running) and once at 5pm.
2. I labelled all my clothes from 1 to 10. 1 being stuff I always pick and wear and 10 being items I have not worn in years. I then donated all my clothes ranked 4 or more. (that was a tough one, but very beneficial to my appreciation of minimalism)
3. I only single-task meaning I make a list of things I want to get done on a particular project and I only work on one task at a time and not move on to the next until the previous one is completed.

Like a real baby – I’m stumbling and falling every so often. Especially since a big part of my business involves social media! But I’m excited. I’m motivated by  even the little benefits as I begin to feel less stress, gain more time and actually get more productive.

I hope to get better at this and continue finding more ways to accomplish more by doing less and experiencing more joy out of life by having less “stuff” and distractions.

From my personal experience, I tend to agree to with Derek’s view. I’ve always kept my biggest goals over the last 10 years to myself. Not because I knew about these psychology studies but because one of my fears is being ridiculed about them.

I’ve also experienced what Derek talked about in his video. For example, there was a few times when I shared a tweet or posted on Facebook that I’m going to work on something that I was excited about. To which some friends would reply with accolades and encouragement as friends do. And then the motivation I feel is diminished because the social “reward” albeit undeserved has already been had. Has this ever happened to you?

My conclusion is that this is actually pretty darn good advice. I do think that if you have big goals, write them down, live them everyday in your mind but don’t ever, ever tell people about them until AFTER you’ve achieved them.

I thought this idea was worth expanding and sharing because it can have a profound impact on your personal level of success in all areas of your life.

Personally, the idea resonated with me because I have been writing down long-term goals (almost daily) for as long as I can remember. Keeping my mind focussed on my long-term goals have helped me to make daily decisions that move me towards my goals rather than away from them.

I made this short 4 minute video to explain the idea more clearly. I hope you find it useful:

In “the secret truth about executing great ideas” Frans Johansson discusses the main similarities among successful innovators.

I find his points very true. When we read or hear about success stories, very often, we are only exposed to the the main “sexy” bits of the story. However, the most important parts of the story gets left out because they are comparatively unattractive. Its refreshing to see his a non-conformist view of what it really takes to execute great ideas.

My favorite part is at minute 16 – “the purpose of strategy is to convince yourself to take action”.

How To Set Up 3 Monitors for an iMac (or other Apple computer).

First off, for those of you who will go on to have multiple monitors, and if you’re like me (an Apple user), you’re going to need to need some extra adapters. The iMac and Apple laptops only have 1 mini-DV output built in. So in order to add two additional monitors, you will need to find a way to either split the mini-DV output to two sources or use a USB to DVI adapter. I made a video below to show you how to do it:

KWord USB Adaptor: http://goo.gl/Wj6IB | Matrox Dual Head 2 Go: http://amzn.to/hdxjbm

Examples of How The Additional Monitors Help

By default, I keep the center monitor clear for the actual workspace. Normally, I am either surfing the web, word processing, creating spreadsheets or image editing in this space. On my left, I keep the email open so that I can glance at incoming emails but I don’t check them unless I am expecting urgent mails. On my right screen, I keep my to do list software (called “Things”) and my calendar to remind me of the important task I have for the day.

When I am not expecting emails, I normally leave the Seesmic Desktop and Tweet Deck applications open to monitor activity across my Facebook pages and Twitter pages. These two application allow me to view them in panels across the screen without having to switch windows.

When I am video editing, I keep my photos and videos on the right screen while I leave the center screen for the actual editing work.

When I am working on my blog, I keep the center space for the WordPress dashboard and the right monitor for the actual page that I am working on. That way, whenever I update something, I just hit the refresh on the right monitor and the changes show up without me having to switch windows.

If I’m writing an article and need reference articles open – I will have them open constantly on the left and/or the right monitor as well.

Conclusion

Computer monitors like those from Dell are relatively inexpensive. If you are looking for a way to increase your productivity and save time when you work, then I could not recommend more strongly that you setup 3 monitors (if not 2 monitors). Also, you do not need to get very large sizes. I added 2 x 24 inch Dell Ultra Sharp monitors because the maximum output resolution on the USB to DVI adapter is 1920 x 1080. Also, as you can see from my examples of how I use them, they used more as a place to reference content rather than a workspace. The point is, if you’re choosing between size and quantity – go for a smaller sizes but add the additional monitor.

So, I work with a desktop, laptop, iPhone and iPad. My biggest pet peeve was having my contacts, calendar, documents and other items missing from my computer or device when I needed it!

So began my quest to find a way to manage all these data sets that I use on a daily basis. A lot of solutions came at a monthly cost. That was a no-no for me and so I started experimenting with all the different free services out there including some freemium services.

After much trial and error, I believe that I have found the optimum solution for now. So here’s how I do it:

Contacts & Calendars

Syncing contacts between my Desktop and my iPhone and iPad is simple enough. I just use iTunes and choose to sync my contacts and calendar. So every time I dock my devices to my main computer, the calendar and contacts are synchronized.
But synching between my desktop and laptop proved to be a real pain. That is until I found Plaxo’s sync point service.

Sign-up with Plaxo for free and download their desktop app to do your first sync.

Next, select “add a synch point” and choose to add a new computer. You can also sync with Google apps (Google Calendar and Google Contacts) but I found it was not necessary.

Now download the Plaxo desktop application on your laptop and sync with the same Plaxo account. Voila! Now your Address Book and iCal will always be in sync!

Now you are free to add contacts or appointments from any device and at the end of the day they will all be on all your devices.

Todos

Next came the todo list. Now if you are happy using the todo’s inside iCal, then you can ignore this part.
But being the productivity geek that I am – I needed something much more powerful. The Rolls Royce of task management apps that I found is called “Things” from Cultured Code.

And the reason they rock is because they have a desktop version, iPhone version and iPad version. Now you will need to pay for all 3 versions. This is fine for me because its a one-time expense but I use it everyday!

So once installed, all devices sync automatically with each other every time these devices are on the same WiFi network. No need to dock.

Also, by placing the Things database file on my Dropbox folder (read below), my todos also sync with my laptop the same way.

Additionally, I created a special calendar in iCal to sync with my ToDo items, so that any item I specify in Things that has a date, the item and task will be added to my iCal.

Now I can manage my todos from any device and they will always be synchronized.

Email

With email, this is also easily managed by Apple’s Mail application in all devices.

However, the key is to set up IMAP accounts for your mail accounts. This way, if I read any email from any device, it is marked as “read” on all my devices.

So again, I can check email or send email from any device and a the end of the day, all the mail accounts are synchronized.

Documents

Document is a rather tricky one. To sync documents between computers, the best solution out there is DropBox.

Go to DropBox and create a free account. This allows you 2GB of data to sync. I found this to be more than enough for my needs.

Now you install the Dropbox desktop app and create a folder that is always synchronized. Now install Dropbox in your laptop and you will have the same folder on both computers that is always synchronized.

Next, install the free Dropbox app for iPhone and iPad. Now all the files in your Dropbox folder will appear here too.

Now with iPhone and iPad, they way to view and edit docs like MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint and PDFs are managed by another app I use called “Docs2Go”.

This is a paid app but I have found that it is very useful if I ever need to create or read docs on my mobile devices.

Docs2Go also come with a desktop application that allows WiFi synching with the iPhone and iPad versions. But in order to sync – you need to launch the Docs2Go desktop all and click the synch button. That’s too many steps for my liking!

Now comes my solution – because I have Dropbox installed, I just added all the document folders I manage with Docs2Go inside the Dropbox folder. So now, I can access these documents inside my mobile devices via Dropbox without needing to manually sycn my Docs2Go folder.

As a side note, the Docs2Go apps also allows you to sync with your Google Docs account anywhere you are. These are additional option which I don’t really use right now but may be useful for you if you collaborate with others and want to share files using Google Docs.

Having said that, Dropbox also allows you to share selected folders for collaboration. So its your choice how you want to make the most of these features.

Text and Multimedia Notes

For text and multimedia notes like photos and audio notes, the simplest way is to use Evernote.

Like Dropbox, they have a desktop app, iPhone app and iPad app. This app allows you to take photos, record an audio note or just type some text.

All these will be automatically synchronized between all your devices.

Like Dropbox, there’s a limit to how much data you can transfer each month. Again, I have found that the free account has more than sufficient data space for my needs.

Passwords and Bookmarks

Finally, I should mention about passwords and bookmarks. This is still a work in progress for me because I have not found the perfect solution yet. But what I got going right now is working ok.

My default web browser is Google Chrome. Google Chrome automatically allows you to sync bookmarks with your Google Account.

So on both my computers, the browsing experience is identical. e.g. I have the same book marks and theme.

As for passwords, I use a software called 1Password. They also have an iPhone and iPad app. So far, this app keeps my passwords and secured notes synchronized between my main computer and my mobile devices.

The only limitation right now is that the Google Chrome iPassword extension is still in beta mode and does not have the full features yet.

But like I said, this is an acceptable solution for now.

Recommendations and Future Updates

This quest of mine to find the ultimate mix of software, apps and best-practices to manage all the common data between my computers and devices is ongoing.

If you have any recommendations please do add them to the comments below.

If you want to keep in the loop of my discoveries and experiments, please subscribe to this blog.

I strongly encourage you to use some of this simple logic to plan areas of your life. You need to also understand that if your income is not growing geometrically via investments and re-investment, then pretty soon inflation is going to catch up with all of us.

Warning: This video can be pretty scary. But the good news is that with awareness comes the ability for you to take action.

(the video above is part of a playlist,
it will advance in the series automatically as each video ends)

There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, if you have a detailed description of all of the above, you are already way ahead of 99% of the population who don’t set specific enough goals and review them often enough. (Are you in the former category or the latter? Hmmm.)

The Need to Look Within

Now its very easy when we are setting goals, to neglect a very important question. And that is to ask, “Who Do You Have To Become?” in order to acehive this goal. It is this inward looking question that has the greatest impact on your outer world results. This could make a WORLD of difference to your success rate in life.

Just the other day, I was thinking to myself, “Man, I am so lucky to have and enjoy all the success in my life”. My family, my health, my income sources and so on. In fact I was beginning to feel a little bit guilty because I am exposed to so many people struggling in some or all of these important areas in life.

And that’s when I caught myself and got the inspiration for this article. You see, I realized that everything of importance in my life did not result because of luck. Its because of the person I became in order to earn the right to enjoy these privileges. And therefore, it is my God given right. And so too it is your God given right to be able to become better than who you are today (no matter how great you already are) to enjoy even greater rewards in your life.

How This Affects Key Areas In Your Life

Let me get into specifics. Most business success can be traced back (in hindsight) to a few key moments or events. Meeting the right person, sealing a key agreement, closing a key sale and so on. I was looking at some of my most successful businesses and it was a result of a few key meetings and overcoming specific challenges at the time.

But then I thought, what if it was someone else who was in my shoes at that time. Would they have been able to capitalize on it? Could they deliver in that moment?

I juxtaposed all the people I know who are currently struggling in the area of business and put them in my shoes, I may be wrong but in my imagination they would not have been able to close those opportunities or even recognize it in the first place.

So the point is, if you don’t become the kind of person who can recognize opportunities and be able to do whatever it takes to close the deal when it matters, you will NEVER be successful in business. Because despite getting opportunity after opportunity, if you are not up to it, you will miss time and time again.

The same goes for relationships. Think of your ideal soulmate. Think of how they look, what are their values and think about all their habits, behaviors and virtues. Now ask yourself, if you met that person right now, “will they be equally attracted to you?”.

You see, whether its your business, your relationships, your health and your wealth, you need to become the person who fits into your own dreams.

How often do we read of people who hit the lottery only to end up bankrupt and suicidal in just a few years after the money has been spent? You see, that person did not grow to become a person who can manage money well.

They could have. I mean, I’m sure there are those who win the lottery and then manage to fill the gap by investing in themselves to learn how to manage wealth. But the key here is that if you fill that gap and become a person who is able to manage millions of dollars, then you don’t need to depend on winning the lottery. Get it?

What You Need To Do

So if you seriously want to succeed, you first need to be able to describe exactly what it is you want. That’s a given.

Secondly, you need to be able to accurately estimate, what skills, values, abilities, habits and resources you will need to be able to enjoy those opportunities. Skills like being able to communicate well, to be a great sales person, to be physically fit, to be creative and innovative, to be able to manage money well and so on.

Now it may not be easy for you to correctly identify these traits right from the beginning but any progress you make it the right direction will do. Each step you take towards becoming a better person in all areas of your life will reveal more information as to what you need to learn, do or be.

Finally, I would add, that it is in your best interest to find and study the people who already have EXACTLY what you want in life. Find a role model. And I don’t mean find a different person for business, a different person for relationships..etc. I mean find someone who has the EXACT lifestyle you want!

Read their biography, learn about their habits, their values. If possible, get them to mentor you. This will be the best way, realistically, to accomplish your goals.

Have you ever been to a seminar or read a great book and be profoundly moved by some new knowledge only to find that after 2 or 3 months (or less), most of that knowledge is no longer within your grasp?

Another example – did your parents make you learn some kind of musical instrument as a child? But if for whatever reason, that practice did not carry through to your adult years, you will find that you can no longer play the instrument.

You may have spent tens of thousands of dollars and years of your life learning something. But unless you use that information everyday, your mind, by design, will soon move that information out of the conscious part of your brain to be archived in the unconscious part of the brain. And if a long enough time passes, you may not be able to recall that information again. Here’s the rule:

What you don’t use, you lose!

This is truly the reason why a lot of people are unhappy or unsuccessful. It’s not that they don’t know what they need to do to solve their life problems. But its because they don’t make it a habit or they don’t have a system to keep in their “active” memory that knowledge which is most important for their happiness or success.

You see, the process of forgetting is a very natural process. Our conscious mind can only handle so much “active” knowledge at a time. Without this mechanism, we humans would be overwhelmed with the data and quite likely go insane.

So the question I want to pose to you is – how to we keep knowledge that is most important and empowering for us “active” so that it can help us make the most of our life?

You see, you can broadly classify the knowledge in your mind as follows:

1. Important and Frequently Used
2. Important and Infrequently Used
3. Not Important and Frequently Used
4. Not Important and Infrequently Used

Knowledge that is used regularly is always kept “active” so you need not worry to much about these two quadrants. Knowledge that is not important and infrequently used, well you can simply ignore because it is inconsequential.

The key then, is to focus on the information that is important in your life that is rarely used. Extra care needs to be taken here because the content here is slowly being lost over time. But this information can help you in your life during rare but critical decision periods in your lifetime. How do you make sure you can count on this knowledge when you need it the most?

Three Steps To Keep What Is Important In Your Active Memory

The first step is to be aware of the four categories above. Whenever you learn something of value where you think – “Oh I really need to adopt that principle in my life or business”, you need to write it down. That’s why journaling is such a powerful practice. Keep a book where you write down all the important principles that you hold dear that you may not use everyday yet. Meaning, anything that falls into the quadrant with the “star” in the diagram above.

The next step is to create a powerful anchor so that you can recall it. What do I mean by an anchor? Well, this is a term in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). It means to create a trigger that you can use to actively recall a certain memory. There’s not enough scope in this article to get into how to install anchors but as a brief example, if every time you felt really excited and you snapped your fingers, you will begin to create a trigger. Repeat this often enough and the process of snapping your fingers will become your trigger to activate your state of excitement. You can use this process to “anchor” any emotion or memory.

The third step in the process is to create a system of active revision. Just as a smart student will set up a systematic schedule to revise his school work when exams are approaching – as adults, we need to have a system to revise the information that helps us most in our life.

Even the simple process of taking 10 minutes a day to count your blessings is a powerful practice. For example, if your family and your health is important to you, by taking 10 minutes a day to give thanks for your family and your health will help you to spend quality time with your family and adopt healthy habits and avoid unhealthy practices.

All too often, people do things to inadvertently hurt themselves or their loved ones simply because they have taken these treasures for granted. In other words, they have forgotten what’s important in their life.

Conclusion

So in summary, if you want to really improve the quality of your life and experiences, make it a habit to identify them and write down that which is most important to you. Create triggers to help you recall this information. And finally, set up a schedule to actively revise the information you have written in your journal.

You see, I bought a piano about 6 months ago because I would like my kids to learn when they are older. They are only 2 years old and 4 months old respectively now so they’ve got some time to go before they start. But I wanted them to be exposed to the instrument so I decided to take it up too.

I started teaching myself some pieces that I really like from Michael Nyman. I thought to myself “well, if it took me a whole year to learn, I will be happy with it”. I really liked the songs I was learning so it was a labor of love. Turned out that it doesn’t take that long to learn. This is the first song I chose to learn:

More importantly, all the while when I was taking up this instrument, I kept getting flashes and flashes of how similar the learning process was to my life experiences.

Here are some of my revelations:

1. You Need to Have a Clear Idea of Your Goal

This is so true. I would not be able to learn any of the pieces as fast as I did without first hearing the complete piece. I watched many YouTube videos of other people playing the pieces and it helped me to “hear” the music in my mind before I could play it myself.

In life, you need to find people who have the life you want and then learn their biography so you can achieve faster results too. And don’t just look at their net worth. Look at their entire life. Are they happy? Are they healthy? Are they living the life you want?

2. Break It Down Into Manageable Chunks!

Here’s what I do, I get the score for a piece that I want to learn. Because I can’t read notes, I transcribe the alphabet of the note with a pencil for each note. Then I play one section exclusively until I memorize it at the correct speed. I do this for the right hand first, then for the left. Then I take notes of which finger goes where for the most efficient execution and I write a number for that finger.This method allows me to learn a complete song within a month by practicing 2 hours a day. I can then play it fluently after 3 months of practice.

Similarly in life, when you’ve set your goals, first put it in writing. Then break it down into “attackable” chunks. And take action towards it daily. If the goal is really worth it, you will feel amazing satisfaction (and motivation) every time you finish a “chunk”!

3. Mistakes Galore Mean You Are On the Right Track!

I think it would be right to say if you never make any mistake at all, it means you will never hit your goal. Nobody is so perfect that they will be a master without making any mistake. I once heard a quote that says, “An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field”.  There is much truth in that.

In life, when we hit an obstacle or setback, we tend to recoil and give up. So the trick is to program you mind to know that mistakes means you are on the right track. Frustrations mean we are on track to get it right. And confusion means we are about to have a break through. This is true as long as you NEVER GIVE UP, learn from your mistakes and keep taking action.

4. Repetition is the Key to Success

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers” he showed that success was less to do with talent than practice. He found that the most established musicians are the ones with the most practice at what they do. He estimates that 10,000 hours of practice is the minimum time required to be “great” at something. And so with my piano practice, I play about 1 hour a day. Sometimes, I miss it. But sometimes, when the kids are asleep, I get my headphones on and can play for 3 to 5 hours straight!

In life, if you want to succeed, you need to master the basics of success. What are they? Make it a habit to set goals, take action, learn from your mistakes and to master your field of expertise.

5. Without Passion, All is Lost

Having said all of the above, the final lesson is that anything of value or worth requires passion. If you are not passionate about what you do, the process will be utterly unbearable! If you are passionate about your goal, the entire journey is pure bliss.