GarthBox

They work well for organizing your kids playroom.

They work well for categorizing your work, too.

My favorite usage, though? Sorting your thoughts and emotions from the day.

Can you categorize them by who they are about? Can you categorize them into thoughts and emotions about the past, present, and future? How about sorting them into containers that are focused on your goals and a container for “everything else?”

It’s hard work to sort them not because sorting them into a container is hard; it’s hard work because of the actions we’ll have to take once we realize the containers our energy is going in.

Stay Positive & The Containers Are Our Choice

Giving with expectations is giving second.

Giving without expectations is giving first.

Giving with the hope of getting something back is giving second.

Giving with the hope they’ll get more out of it than you gave is giving first.

Giving where you both have more is giving first.

Giving where only you have more is giving second.

Giving because it says more about you than about them is giving second.

Giving because it says more about them than about you is giving first.

Stay Positive & That Gift You Wrapped? Is It First Or Second?

Restrictions can bring out the best work.

(Rather, what it actually does is eliminate the worst work.)

If you’re struggling to strike something remarkable, try adding a few more constraints around the project.

Do it until you’re just a bit frustrated.

That’s where the breakthroughs happen.

Stay Positive & There’s Always Constraints (It’s Our Job To Find The Right #)

There are two stages of making something better. The order of which doesn’t matter all that much.

What matters is that both are completed.

IMO, the project isn’t ready to ship until it has hit both stages.

They’re simple stages, too.

One stage is what you have done with the resources you own to make it better.

I can hand pick some better beers that go on tap at my bar, for example.

The other stage is what you have done with the help from others.

I can ask a brewer to come visit on the day we tap their beer so they can engage with our guests that are drinking their beer.

I’ve made it better and I’ve asked for help from someone else who can make it better.

That’s the one-two punch of betterment.

Stay Positive & Betterment —> Remarkability

There was a Wikipedia entry for that, too.

There was a library book before then.

There was a professor you could call before then.

It’s been on us to leverage the latest resource to help with the work at hand.

It always has been.

Stay Positive & If You’re Not Leaning Forward…

Facts are not inherently fun.

The fun comes from sharing a fact with someone who cares about the theme or subject matter of the fact.

That requires empathy.

Fun facts without empathy are merely noise.

Stay Positive & Did You Know Chickens Only Have About 25 Taste Buds?

A friend of mine took a pay cut to get a different job.

I wish that would happen more often.

Not the pay cut part, but the acknowledgement of a tradeoff worth making.

When we know what we want, the path isn’t always two steps forward to get it.

Often time it can be quicker if we take one step back.

Stay Positive & When You Wouldn’t Accept A Tradeoff, Then You Know You’re Set