I have a love-hate relationship with note taking. I love it when I have a system for storing, filing and retrieving the information. I hate note-taking, when I know my notes will end up in a notebook or pile of other notes that will never be referenced. Lifehacker’s Gina Trapini summarizes a few methods for taking great notes and making your notes more usable in her latest post, Geek to Live: Take Great Notes

A Summary:

Method 1: Symbolize the next action

Using notepaper or a simple text file on your laptop or tablet, indent the pages of your notes in from the left margin. Then, use a simple system of symbols to mark off 4 different information types in the column space left in the margin.

* [ ] A square checkbox denotes a to do item
* ( ) A circle indicates a task to be assigned to someone else
* * An asterisk is an important fact
* ? A question mark goes next to items to research or ask about

After the meeting, a quick vertical scan of the margin area makes it easy to add tasks to your to do list and calendar, send out requests to others, and further research questions. (This method is the brainchild of Michael Hyatt, someone who clearly has mastered the art of attending meetings.)

Method 2: Split your page into quadrants

Another way to visually separate information types is to split your note-taking page into quadrants and record different kinds of information - like questions, reference and todo’s - into the separate areas on the page. Rumor has it this is how Bill Gates - someone known for taking amazingly detailed meeting notes - gets it done.

Method 3: Record and summarize - Use The Cornell Note-taking Method to divide your notes into independent sections to make information retrieval easy.

According to Stephen Covey, Cubicle Fu Master and author of “7 habits of Highly Effective People,” being the boss is all about attitude. Not the kind of attitude that gets you a time-out, but the kind that the female praying mantis has towards her unsuspecting male mate: lull them, empathize with them, and use that power to gain influence (no need to actually sever their head or sleep with them).

From Covey:

If you remember nothing else from this blog remember this: leadership has nothing to do with formal authority, it has everything to do with influence.

Read Stephen Covey’s full article here.

Location: Novato, CA
What it is: NLP Marin is an organization that trains people in their own version of Neuro Linguistic Programming. They offer certification programs, as well as Family Constellation evenings, and other courses.

If NLP usually turns you off, or you find it gimmicky, manipulative, or overblown, then I would recommend this course as a breath of fresh air for beginners and those with more experience as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Location: http://www.personalgrowthvideo.org
What it is: The best of Personal Growth Videos from around the Web. Read the rest of this entry »

What it is: This book is a transcription of talks on Zen Buddhist practice that Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki delivered to a small sitting group in Los Altos California in 1970. He came down from San Francisco once a week to join the group’s meditation periods, and afterwards answered their questions, encouraged them in their practice of Zen, and helped them to have perspective on their lives. His approach was informal, and he drew his examples from ordinary events and common sense.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was a Soto Zen priest and the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. He was born 1904 in rural Japan, arrived in the United States to teach in 1959, and died of cancer in San Francisco in 1971.
Read the rest of this entry »

What it is: Wikipedia says, “Jonathan Haidt is associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on the psychological bases of morality across different cultures. His book The Happiness Hypothesis examines ten “great ideas” dating from antiquity and their continued relevance to the happy life.” Read the rest of this entry »

What it is: “I Am That” is a collection of transcripted talks of the teachings of an Indian spiritual teacher who went by the name Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. As Amazon.com says, “‘I Am That’ preserves Maharaj’s dialogues with the followers who came from around the world seeking his guidance in destroying false identities. The sage’s sole concern was with human suffering and the ending of suffering. It was his mission to guide the individual to an understanding of his true nature and the timelessness of being. He taught that mind must recognize and penetrate its own state of being, ‘being this or that, here or that, then or now,’ but just timeless being.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj was born in 1897 with the name “Maruti”, and lived a simple uneducated life, as a husband and shopkeeper in the slums of Bombay, until he died in 1981. He is considered by some however to have attained the supreme state of “moksha” (Sanskrit for “enlightenment” or “liberation”), and to be one of the deepest modern masters of the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta (emphasizing direct nondualistic realization of truth). Read the rest of this entry »

What it is: La Wik states, “Codependent No More was the debut book of self-help author Melody Beattie. It was originally published in 1987 by the publishing division of the Hazelden Foundation. The book became a phenomenon of the self-help movement, going on to sell over eight million copies, six million copies of them in the United States.

Codependent No More introduced the word ‘codependent’ to the wider world. The term ‘codependent’ originated as a term to describe people who use relationships with others as their sole source of value and identity. These people often end up in relationships with either drug addicted or alcohol addicted spouses or lovers. In the book, Beattie explains that a codependent is a person who believes their happiness is derived from other people or one person in particular, and eventually the codependent becomes obsessed with controlling the behavior of the people/person that they believe is making them happy.

Rather like Bill Wilson’s Alcoholics Anonymous five decades earlier, Read the rest of this entry »

What it is: Insert DVD, step onto your mat, take a deep breath, and let the transformation begin. This DVD provides yoga instruction that touches all levels of practicioners. And the best part: no reason to miss a class, all you have to do is push play. It’s Yoga-to-go, for when you’re on the go and need to ‘find your balance’. Read the rest of this entry »

What it is: Our friends at Wikipedia have this to say, “Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk … [He was] born December 7, 1927 in Sri Lanka. He was ordained as a monk at the age of 12, and … came to the United States at the invitation of the Sasana Sevaka Society in 1968 … He is the author of the considerably influential work Mindfulness in Plain English.” The book is a staple of the American “Vipassana”, or mindfulness meditation, scene. As an act of generosity by its author, It is available for free at a number of places on the web (flex your Google-fu to check it out). Read the rest of this entry »