Sj Scott Quotes

If a task will take you two minutes or less to do, deal with it immediately and move on.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it’s all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” – Marcus Aurelius Ever

In other words, our willpower works like a muscle and it weakens throughout the day, since it’s used constantly. We all have a limit to our willpower, and once we’ve reached the limit, it becomes very difficult to focus.

the ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there—buried

Be regular and orderly with your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Never let motivation become the determining factor for getting exercise.

Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.” ~ Ray Bradbury

Getting rid of unnecessary stuff (also known as “decluttering”) is the simplest way to minimize your daily obligations.

Numerous studies have indicated that people who put in too many hours at their jobs, either by choice or by requirement, become inefficient. With rare exceptions, they burn out and lose their creative edge.

Many entrepreneurs have a “can do” attitude, which is often a requirement if you want to succeed. Unfortunately, this attitude often leads to a dangerous mindset where you feel like you need to do everything yourself.

** Take up meditation. Set a timer for 15 minutes, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. When your mind wanders, redirect your thoughts to your breathing. Increase your time spent meditating until you can meditate for a full hour each morning.

the simplest way to create a lasting change is to set a goal that is easy to complete on a consistent basis.

Meditation is a lot like doing reps at a gym. It strengthens your attention muscle.

When you organize and eliminate clutter, you free yourself from stress and anxiety by eliminating feelings of overwhelm.

Awareness is always the first step toward change. We

10-Minute Declutter” is for anyone who is tired of being surrounded by items they don’t need and wants to regain control of their living environment.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Routines limit the number of decisions you have to make, increasing your odds of doing the right thing.

Energy is usually at its peak during the first part of your day, which means you should be completing habits that inspire or excite you about the day ahead.

It’s hard to be happy in a relationship unless we are first happy with ourselves. That’s why it’s important to take a few moments every day to do something we thoroughly enjoy, whether it’s a quick five-minute meditation or maybe listening to your favorite song. When we are happy, we can make others happy, improving our social lives and relationships immensely.

Change is good…sometimes. Too much change causes unnecessary stress and anxiety. You only have so much “stress capital,” so spend it on the things that truly matter, rather than on trivial day-to-day living.

Look at your list of MITs and underline the one that you know you’d put off indefinitely if you had the chance. Get started on this task before you have a chance to think about it. Don’t work on your other tasks until it’s finished.

To better understand people and interact with them socially, it is important to spend some time thinking about their lives and what they are going through. You will be able to better relate to people when you think about things from their point of view.

In fact, nearly every negative thought you have relates to the past or future. It’s common to find yourself trapped in a looping cycle of regretful thinking or worry thoughts, even while feeling desperate to escape the never-ending tape playing in your mind.

Even mild dehydration can cause headaches and fatigue, affect your concentration, impair short-term memory and impede mental function. If you want to be at your most productive, it’s important for your brain to be firing on all cylinders. Therefore, you should make sure you are sufficiently hydrated before starting work.

#96. Spend a Few Minutes Cuddling Your Significant Other/Child/Pet Physical touch is hugely important to our wellbeing. Cuddling releases oxytocin, the “happy hormone,” which can help reduce stress and even boost your immune system. Physical touch can also make the bonding process easier and improve communication between couples or parents and children.

I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” ~ William Faulkner

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” – Winnie the Pooh

If you truly want to learn something new, then you need to work at it every day.

The more we ponder our despair, the more despondent we become.

If you have a willingness to carve out time to work on a skill every day, you’ll slowly make that transition from novice to expert!

It doesn’t matter why you procrastinate. What’s important is to recognize that you’re making excuses, and then do something about it.

You need to bootstrap when you first start your business, but once money starts coming in, it’s important to focus on your strengths and hire people to do everything else.

Keep in mind that people overestimate what they can do in the short term and underestimate what can be done on a long-term basis.

Since a high value is placed on being social, people tend to undervalue people who are quieter, which leads to the perception that introverts are indifferent or uncaring.

quando uma tarefa difícil se torna um hábito, ela se torna difícil de ser deixada de lado.

you can learn anything—if you’re willing to commit to the process. In

Studies have shown that the average social media user consumes 285 pieces of content a day, which equates to about 54,000 words (the length of an average novel).

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It you’re not using it, release it graciously to someone else—and make some money at the same time.

Любая незавершенная мысль будет занимать ум, пока вы либо не предпримете действие, либо не составите план того, как совершить такое действие

We all think we want to have a lot of choices, but the truth is that too many choices lead to overwhelm, causing people to make bad choices or shut down and do nothing.

is not an act of laziness. It is, in fact, an incredibly important factor to keep in mind when it comes to daily routines.

Willpower is compared to a muscle. In the same way that your muscles become fatigued with use, your willpower also becomes fatigued, and the amount of willpower you have

Mindfulness is very simple. It means you become intentionally aware of the present moment while paying close attention to your feelings, thoughts, and sensations of the body.

Thinking may seem automatic and uncontrollable, but many of our thought patterns are habitual and, well, thoughtless.

There’s a term for the phenomenon of needing to ask questions and have all of the information you need before getting started. It’s called “paralysis by analysis.

It’s important to put aside your internal editor and just get words down on the page when working on a first draft.

If I’m interested in it, there’s an audience of people just like me who will appreciate it.

increased choice leads to greater anxiety, indecision, paralysis, and dissatisfaction.

You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.

When we begin the day with gratitude, we train our minds to look for the positive rather than focusing on the challenges, frustrations, and slights we have encountered throughout the week.

However, when your body is on autopilot, moving along without conscious direction, your mind is free to do what it wants—and often what it wants is to focus on stressful and negative thoughts.

Smiling slows the heart and relaxes the body, and it releases endorphins that counteract and diminish stress hormones. It also has been shown to increase productivity while a person performs tasks.

We often feel like we don’t have time to declutter because we’re too busy consuming new stuff and information. But at some point, all this busyness is leading us to mental and emotional exhaustion.

#13. Make a “real people first” rule Consider making a personal commitment to avoid social media when you are in the presence of friends and family. If your spouse or kids are around, no checking Facebook. If you’re out to dinner with friends, no sneaking a peek at the Instagram that just popped in. Be fully present with the real people in your life rather than distracted by your virtual friends.

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there—buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.” – Deepak Chopra You

Where we were once laser-focused on our partner and how to make him or her happy, we are now more focused on ourselves and how we can protect our turf, nurse our wounds, and blame our partners when things turn sour.

Those are pretty telling numbers. Those results are based on 30 minutes of walking a day (about 4,000 to 5,000 steps). Plus, the positive benefits (according to the study) increase when participants added more distance and speed. And finally, this study showed that walking has a positive impact on all of the following: dementia, peripheral artery disease, obesity, diabetes, depression, colon cancer and even erectile dysfunction.

We can learn to break the habit of accumulating and perpetuating old emotion by flapping our wings, metaphorically speaking, and refrain from mentally dwelling on the past, regardless of whether something happened yesterday or 30 years ago. We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie-making.

For instance, let’s say part of your morning routine is to journal for 10 minutes. A decision to check your email “real quick” can lead to all kinds of distractions, such as clicking on a link in an email that goes to a blog post that has links to other blog posts. And of course there are the comments on the blog that you just have to respond to. Suddenly that 10-minute creativity routine has turned into a 30-minute rabbit hole of unproductive tasks.

Our culture reinforces accumulation, spending on luxury items and focusing too much time on material things instead of experiences and relationships. We’ve been taught the false narrative that more stuff equals greater happiness.

Pushy people assume that because I am an introvert that I can be pushed around. When they push, and I eventually enforce my personal boundaries, they actually become angry with me for doing so. Very irritating and a waste of my time.

Cziksentmihalyi defines flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.

What actions are required to reach the primary objective?” ** “What are my current strengths and resources?” ** “What obstacles will get in the way of my success?” ** “What additional skills do I need to develop to accomplish the main goal?

we try to quell the mental chatter by self-medicating with too much food, alcohol, drugs, work, sex, or exercise. But these are temporary solutions to muffle the noise and ease the pain. Soon enough, our thoughts are back at it again, and the cycle continues.

If you have a desire to live in an organized, simplified home, you’ve come to the right place. Throughout 10-Minute Declutter, not only will you learn the skills you need to organize your home, you’ll also discover an actionable strategy to implement immediately.

project lists is that they provide a simple action plan for when you are unsure of what to do next. They don’t overwhelm you because they are tucked away in a physical or digital folder, but you’ll have them available if you have extra time to work on a project-related task.

Now, I’m not a fan of fad diets. They simply don’t work long term because they’re either too restrictive or they don’t emphasize a lifestyle that can be maintained. The truth is that the people who follow fad diets do so in a “yo-yo” fashion. They lose weight and then put it back on. Sometimes they’ll even gain more weight. In my opinion, fad diets are usually one step forward, two steps back. Really, the only way to maintain an optimal weight is to focus on lifestyle modification. Weight loss is a simple equation, but is hard to do in the real world. The “magical” formula is to expend more energy than you take in.

It’s been said that the average person’s short-term memory can only retain seven chunks of information. So the theory behind cognitive load is that since you can only retain a small amount of information, you have to rely on long-term memory, habits and established processes to do basically everything in life.

The more we procrastinate on something important, the worse we feel about ourselves. The worse we feel, the less motivation we have to get moving on our work. The less motivation we have, the more we procrastinate with mindless distractions. It’s a vicious cycle that traps you in self-recriminations and anxiety.

ideas are lost if they aren’t captured in some way. Additionally, according to the Zeigarnick Effect, any incomplete thought—such as an idea or task you need to complete—will occupy your mind until you take some kind of action on it by either completing the task or capturing the idea with a plan for accomplishing the task.

You can trace every success (or failure) in your life back to a habit. What you do on a daily basis largely determines what you’ll achieve in life. Habits create routine, and let’s face it—most of us run our lives by some sort of routine. We get up in the morning and follow a preset pattern: Take a shower, brush our teeth, get dressed, make breakfast, drive to work, do work and then go home. Some of us choose to follow self-improvement habits: Set goals, read inspirational books, work on important projects and ignore wasteful distractions. Others choose self-destructive habits: Do the bare minimum, dull creativity through low-quality entertainment, eat junk food and blame others for their failures in life.

We can control and direct our thoughts, but it often feels like our thoughts have minds of their own, controlling us and how we feel. Thinking is necessary for solving problems, analyzing, making decisions, and planning, but in between the times of proactive mental endeavors, the mind roams like a wild monkey, dragging you through the brambles of rumination and negativity.

#88. Write Down 3 Things You're Thankful For Most people have heard the advice, “count your blessings," but few of us actually put this into practice. By getting into the habit of writing down just three things you’re thankful for in a gratitude journal every day, you’ll change your outlook on life, become happier, improve your relationships with others and reduce your stress levels.

Humans are curious creatures, and most people find it almost impossible to ignore their email and social media notifications until the end of their work sessions. If you’re being interrupted every few minutes by a ping or flashing browser tab, it will greatly reduce your productivity and concentration. Additionally, these social activities are pleasurable—they give our brains a little hit of dopamine, otherwise known as the happy hormone. In other words, social media can be addictive. A quick five minutes on Facebook can easily turn into an hour, as many of us can attest to. Rather than struggling against your brain’s natural inclination to procrastinate, save yourself a lot of time and hassle by simply closing your email tab and banning social media during work time.

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain - John J. Ratey, MD, with Eric Hagerman Exercise Every Day: 32 Tactics for Building the Exercise Habit (Even if you hate working out) - S.J. Scott No Gym Needed - Quick & Simple Workouts for Gals on the Go: Get a Toned Body in 30 Minutes or Less - Lise Cartwright Weight Loss Motivation Hacks: 7 Psychological Tricks That Keep You Motivated to Lose Weight - Derek Doepker Books

Everyone has their own particular way of communicating. If you’re someone who thinks better in isolation, then be honest with other team members. Tell them you don’t always work best in a team setting, but you will follow up each meeting with a number of ideas after you’ve had time to think. A simple follow-up email filled with suggestions can be a nice way to tie together what was discussed at a meeting, while providing a fresh perspective on the topic.

According to Australian psychologist Dr. Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living, “Thus, evolution has shaped our brains so that we are hardwired to suffer psychologically: to compare, evaluate, and criticize ourselves, to focus on what we’re lacking, to rapidly become dissatisfied with what we have, and to imagine all sorts of frightening scenarios, most of which will never happen. No wonder humans find it hard to be happy!

#96. Spend a Few Minutes Cuddling Your Significant Other/Child/Pet Physical touch is hugely important to our wellbeing. Cuddling releases oxytocin, the “happy hormone,” which can help reduce stress and even boost your immune system. Physical touch can also make the bonding process easier and improve communication between couples or parents and children. Cuddling doesn’t have to be limited to romantic partners—you’ll get the same effect from hugging a friend, a child or even your favorite furry animal.

Warren Buffet famously said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” On a personal note, I applied this strategy in recent years, and it dramatically improved my happiness. Instead of accepting every offer that came my way, I said no to a bunch of things like public speaking gigs, side projects that were a distraction, people who didn’t add value to my life, and every business opportunity that didn’t perfectly align with my current goals.

Books on thriving & living one's calling: The Miracle Morning for Writers - Hal Elrod, Steve Scott, and Honoree Corder (if you only read one book on this list - or you're not sure which one to start with - pick this one) The Art of Work - Jeff Goins Prosperity For Writers: A Writer's Guide for Creating Abundance - Honoree Corder Choose Yourself - James Altucher 77 Good Habits for a Better Life - S.J. Scott Productive Habits Book Bundle - S. J. Scott 10-Minute Declutter: The Stress-Free Habit for Simplifying Your Home - Steve Scott & Barrie

leverage your day when it comes to habit stacking. Take advantage of your location and the time of day when it comes to your habits. Energy is usually at its peak during the first part of your day, which means you should be completing habits that inspire or excite you about the day ahead. A great example is sending an inspirational quote or story to a loved one. It takes energy to find such a piece of content and decide who to send it to, but this habit is highly rewarding and will help you kick off your day feeling great and ready to tackle all the following habits you have in your routine. Well, there you have it—all the important elements of habit stacking. You must take all these elements into account when creating your habit stacking routine because they all work together to ignite positive life changes.

Time required:

Make a list of the tasks you want to complete by the end of the day. Try to be realistic, rather than planning too much.

Buddhify has over 80 custom guided audio meditation tracks on various topics. Omvana, with dozens of guided meditations by very famous authors, teachers, and spiritual celebrities. Headspace has a series of 10-minute guided exercises for your mind.

Let us not look at the talents we wish we had or pine away for the gifts that are not ours, but instead do the best we can with what we have.” – B.J. Richardson

Even if you receive bad news, the earlier you hear it, the more opportunities you will have to overcome a potentially worse situation.

It’s not that hard to stop procrastinating. Really, all you have to do is form the same habits used by countless successful people and make them part of your routine.

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there—buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.” – Deepak Chopra

The steps to meditating are simple and straightforward, but the practice is not as easy as it seems. You’ll discover that, at first, trying to quiet your mind and maintain focus is like attempting to train fleas. But the more you practice, the easier and more enjoyable the experience becomes.

You only have a little time each day to make things happen, so you should focus on the tasks that give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Every email and text must be answered. Every latest device or contraption must be purchased. This keeps us constantly stirred up, busy with trivialities, and detached from the people around us and the feelings within us.

Write down what you see as the purpose of your work. Close your eyes and focus on that purpose for a moment. See that purpose as the motivation and reason behind everything you plan to do in the day ahead.

Your constant inner dialog distracts you from what is happening around you, right here and now. It causes you to miss valuable experiences and sabotages the joy of the present moment.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed. If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.

We’ve become obsessed with technology, and it’s impacting every aspect of how we live our lives. We are slaves to the gadgets that were supposed to simplify our lives, and prefer the quick fix of instant information and low-quality entertainment over real-world interactions and experiences.

What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?

It may make you hyperventilate to consider this idea, but one of the best ways to gain mental clarity in your life is to frequently take “digital sabbaticals” where you have no access to your cell phone, tablet, computer, or any device that connects you to the Internet.

Writing in longhand helps you process your thoughts and can often lead to a creative solution to your problem.