Putting It On Paper Can Solve Your Problems

Make a List, Prioritize  Your Life

 If you are dissatisfied with your lot in life, it can seem like a fairly daunting prospect to just decide that you are not going to stand for it anymore and make a change for the better. Where do you even start? It can seem like the hardest part of all is just to make sense of everything. Few of us are lucky enough to have just one problem, which if it is fixed will iron everything out and give us a simple life. One problem seems to lead to another one, two matters that are interconnected can each seem to complicate solving the other, and unravelling them can be so daunting that people give up on ever changing anything and just resolve to make the best of their lot in life. This is however not the best option to take. Unless you attack problems at the source, they will continue to make life difficult.

Approaching a personal development plan is daunting, yes. But when you sit and think about it, how wonderful would it be to be able to say that you are tackling your problems head on? There is a cliché that says that getting started is half the battle won. The reason this has become a cliché is because there is more than a morsel of truth in it. If you want to tackle your problems head on, then the best first step to take is making a list. What is it that you want to improve about your life? Do you want to give up a bad habit that is dragging you down? Is it a personal relationship issue? Is it a financial worry? These are just three sides to the issue of personal development, and there are certainly several other categories into which problems can fall. Your instincts will tell you which ones are your key issues.

When you put something down on paper, it makes it easier to isolate what exactly the crux of the problem is. Don’t limit it to a few words, write down everything that the problem makes you think and feel. Then isolate the key words in what you have written. Think about how you can address these problems. Evaluate different solutions and look at how each one will affect you. This will help you identify where you might end up swapping one problem for another, and allow you to take the solutions on their merits.

It may make for a harrowing experience, seeing your problems written down on paper. But both symbolically and psychologically it can make a real difference. The problems are no longer only on your mind, they are down on paper, and what you have in front of you is a battle plan, or game plan. You cannot defeat an enemy that you cannot see, but once you can see it, it becomes solid. And nothing that is solid is invulnerable. It makes a big difference to be able to see where you can attack a problem and once you do it, you will feel a whole lot better. It would be simplistic to say it will be easy sailing from there, but you will at least have steadied the ship.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com site. This article originally published on the above website on Mar 30, 2009.

Why Choose Bamboo For Your Home?

Choosing Bamboo in Your Home

The earth provides us with absolutely everything that we need in order to survive without damaging the planet. The problem is that we usually choose alternatives that hurt the planet. Two of the most common resources we use are cotton and timber. These two items are important to our civilization because they clothe us and provide us with housing. However, they also hurt the planet in that large areas must be cleared for cotton, and the pesticide use on cotton damages the environment. As well, cutting down timber takes away important animal habitats, and hurts the earth’s ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

In Asia, there is no cotton and timber is not used as extensively as it is here, so what do they use? They use bamboo and bamboo is something that the Earth provides for us that we can use without damaging the environment. Here are just some of the amazing facts about this wonder-plant.

1.   Bamboo grows at one foot per day, making it the fastest growing plant on Earth. While many think of bamboo as a tree, it is actually the world’s largest grass species.

2.   Bamboo can be harvested in only three years, versus ten years for many tree species.

3.   When bamboo is harvested, the bamboo stalk will keep growing, allowing one stalk to be harvested multiple times. Timber is a one-shot deal, once harvested, that is it for that tree.

4.   Bamboo is used to reinforce concrete in Asia, as well as the primary element of scaffolding in many Asian countries.

5.   Bamboo has the same tensile strength as steel when it is in stalk form.

6.   When converted into fabric, bamboo is as soft as silk. However, it is also hypoallergenic, which makes it perfect for baby clothes.

7.   No pesticides need to be used to grow bamboo because of its amazing growth rate.

8.   Bamboo towels are 1/3 as thick as cotton towels, but it can absorb 1.5 times as much water.

9.   Bamboo can also be used in your home to make:

1.   Counters

2.   Floors

3.   Furniture

4.   Cupboards

5.   Walls

This just shows what an amazing plant bamboo is. For thousands of years, it has been used in Asia for everything from homes to food, and it is a distinctive part of their culture these days. The Western World is beginning to catch on to the power of this plant, and many countries are not only beginning to import bamboo, but they are also growing it themselves. While China supplies about 80 percent of the bamboo in the world, places like Europe, the United States, Australia and even Canada are beginning to start growing their own bamboo. Given everything listed here, it is really no surprise that many experts feel that bamboo is going to be the most important plant resource of the 21st century. Where timber was important for the 19th and 20th centuries, bamboo is the plant of the new millennium.

Bamboo is highly environmentally-friendly, and the perfect alternative to using timber and cotton in our changing world.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to AhmedDawn.com. This article originally published on the above website on Mar 13, 2010.

Why Decluttering Makes Perfect Financial Sense

How Hoarding Can Be Your Enemy

First Published: October 1, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

Many of us find that the key to being financially secure is to ensure that we always have one eye on what is coming in and one on what’s going out. Making sure that there is more coming in than going out is, in most opinions, absolutely essential. But hoarding money is one thing, while hoarding possessions is quite another. Many people become quite attached to their possessions, and will keep the old ones no matter how many new they add. The reasons for this are perfectly understandable – when we bought them, these possessions represented something useful to us. It is often quite a wrench to part with them.

However, the time will come when you cannot move because your house is so full of the many things you have collected without even really noticing, and after a period of time just squeezing things in wherever they will go starts to be both difficult and pointless. In this case it is really worth thinking long and hard about whether you actually need half of the stuff you have accumulated over the years. Of course you wanted it at the time, but the fact is that you have probably got by without it for some time now. Maybe someone else could get some use out of it. This is where online auction sites like eBay come in extremely useful for you, and for others.

If you have got to the point where you have so many hoarded possessions that they are beginning to bulge out from every available corner, then it really is time to de-clutter, and one way of doing this is to sell some of the things that you have collected it. If you are a hoarder by nature it is probably still in fairly good condition anyway, so why not have a look and see what people might pay for it? You might actually find that you benefit from having your own policy of only buying something new when you have cleared some space to put it into. Rather than just throwing it all into a dumpster – which a surprising number of people will do when it comes to the time to rearrange things – you could put it up for sale and make some money – allowing you to budget better for anything new that you buy.

You will find that if you use online auction sites, people will pay more for an item that has some rarity value, or that comes as part of a pair. The more things you have that are like this, the better when it comes to trying to raise some cash. Of course, you may find that some of the possessions have sentimental value to you. It is perhaps a good idea to hold on to some of this if you feel that you would be negatively affected by selling it on. The best advice in this situation is to ask yourself whether it is something that is preventing you from moving on, or something that helps you remember. This will help you decide.

The Power Of Change

Changing Why for Why Not Can Change Your Life

The most frequent complaint that many people have about the way their life is going just has to be “nothing ever changes”. People are sick and tired of their lives going the same way day after day. Most of us have probably had the feeling that we are living out the film “Groundhog Day” with ourselves in the Bill Murray role. Get up, go to work, come home, go to bed, with little changing in between. And the effect of this is, all too often, to make us discontented and fed up with our lot in life. And what do we do? Well, we get up, go to work, come home and go to bed. As a wise man once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

If we want our lives to change, it is we ourselves who need to take the first step in changing them. Life is not easy. Nor is it always exciting. And changing things is certainly not something that will happen overnight. But one thing that is undeniable is that too many of us shy away from changing things because we are concerned about how a change will affect our lives. Often the suggestion of doing something new is met by a response of “Why?”. “I could look for a new job, but why? I already have one!” “I could take up a hobby, but why? I have little enough time to myself as it is!” These same people will then complain about boredom at least once a day. The responsibility for changing things lies with individuals, not with anyone else.

When the idea of doing something different is floated, don’t just think “Why  should I?”. This just makes it easy to back out of changing your life. Not having enough reasons to do something is not an excuse – why not do it because it’s different? If it turns out you don’t like it, well, you live and learn. If it turns out that you love it, then you have added a new string to your bow, a new colour to your spectrum. In short, it makes your life a great deal richer. You could sit around for ever waiting for someone to convince you of the worthiness of an idea – or you could test it for yourself. You could go on forever asking “Why?” and all the person will be able to give you are their own reasons. Asking “Why not?” means finding out for yourself.

Sometimes people are scared of change – that’s normal. There is no guarantee that a change is going to bring all the joy you hoped it would. But opening yourself up to the possibilities out there is the only way you are going to experience the things you feel you are missing out on right now. It may sound like a naïve and wide-eyed interpretation of the world, but unless you give yourself the chance to do something different, you will carry on cursing the status quo. Better to light an candle than curse the darkness.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Entrepreneur Journey site. This article originally published on the above website on Mar 24, 2009.

How To Organize Your Home Office

Three Tips to Organize Your Home Office

First Published: Dec 5, 2013 SimplePersonalDevelopment.com

Your home office should be a place that offers you solitude and makes you work uninterrupted with passion and enthusiasm. However, if not properly organized, instead of offering you work-environment bliss, it will turn into stress and a distraction generating machine. Today, I will discuss three simple steps you can take to organize your home office.

Location – Your home office should ideally be somewhere with less home traffic, for example, away from the kitchen or living room. However, for many this may not be an option if you live in a small space. You can use portable wall dividers, partitions, screens, etc. If your room offers you an outside view, for some being able to look out the window or glass wall during work means more productivity. For others, it may be exactly the opposite. So set up your home office in such a way that it does not interfere with your natural rhythm to become productive.

Better Tools Offer Better Productivity - You should invest in ergonomically suitable furniture, high quality computers, monitors, lighting, and other necessary equipment you require for your home office. These may cost you more initially, however the output that comes from a comfortable and well-equipped workstation will pay off in the long run.

Minimalism – Like every other aspect in life, being minimalistic offers advantages as well when it comes to your home office. A home office full of clutter and unnecessary furniture can cut down your productivity significantly. I remember when I had 2 big screen monitors (occupying two computer desks) in my home office because I thought it looked cool. Once I got rid of one monitor and desk, I felt much better with more space increasing my productivity in the end. Get rid of all your clutter and things you never need, keep things in their place, manage all files, cables, and wires properly, and see how your productivity can shoot up.