The 5 Best Productivity Books to Read
I have read many productivity books over the years. These are books that aim to improve your personal productivity. They aim to help you get more done in less time.
Among them, I have some favorites. There are many other books on productivity, of course, but these are the ones that you should read if you want to read just a few of them.
Without further ado, here the five best productivity books to read.
1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (book) (summary)
Years after it was first published in 1989, this book is still on Amazon’s best sellers list. That’s amazing because there are hundreds of thousands of books ...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 30, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Learning Working Source Type: blogs
Cyber Monday Deal: Get 60% Off My E-books
After the first deal on Black Friday, today I’d like to give you my second (and last) deal: for three days only, you can get my e-books for 60% off.
There are three e-books that you can get. The first one is Motivation Booster, a collection of my best motivational writings, revised and updated. The second one is A Dent in the Universe, a collection of business lessons from Steve Jobs that can help you build your own business. The third one is Wisdom of the Ages, a collection of the best quotes for living successfully.
You can now get Motivation Booster for $3.50 (normal price: $8.99), A Dent in the Universe for $2....
Source: Life Optimizer - November 28, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: General Source Type: blogs
Black Friday Deal: Get 50% Off Blinkist Forever
Blinkist has a Black Friday deal for you: for one day only, you can get a Blinkist subscription for 50% off forever.
In case you aren’t familiar with it, Blinkist is a service that gives you the key insights of non-fiction books so that you don’t need to read entire books. Instead of spending days on a book, you just need to spend around 15 minutes. As a result, you can learn from a lot more books in the same amount of time. It’s a good way to learn more in less time.
Blinkist has an app available for iOS and Android, so you can read the content on your favorite device. I have been a happy subscriber for more than t...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 25, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: General Source Type: blogs
A Key to Moving to the Next Level
I recently read two things that gave me the idea for this post. The first one is a summary of Disrupt Yourself by Whitney L. Johnson. The second one is the autobiography of Ray Kroc, the man who built McDonald’s. Both of them taught me an important lesson:
To move to the next level in life, you may need to disrupt yourself.
The concept of disruption was popularized in the business world by a book titled The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. It tells the stories of how big companies failed because of disruptions in their businesses. They couldn’t see a new wave coming. Or they saw it, but they hesitated to...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 23, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Purpose Working Source Type: blogs
How to Feel Energized Throughout the Day: 6 Proven Tips
It’s great to feel energized throughout the day. You will work with focus and enthusiasm. You will get more done in less time. You will also feel happy about your day. It’s a great state of being.
Now, I want to admit that I don’t always feel energized. There are days when I feel the opposite. But I’m glad that there are more good days than bad ones, and along the way I learned some lessons on how to feel energized.
Without further ado, here are six things you should do to feel energized throughout the day.
1. Get enough sleep.
Whenever I lack energy during the day, it’s usually because I lack sleep. Lacking slee...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 17, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Health Source Type: blogs
A Quick Guide to Overcoming Fear of Failure
How do you feel about failure? If you are like most people, failure makes you uncomfortable. It’s something you want to stay away from. The fact is: fear of failure is a common type of fear that many people have.
I wish I could say that I’m immune to it, but I’m not. Looking back, I can see that I was afraid of failing. I have made progress, but I’m still working on it now.
What should we do then? How can we overcome our fear of failure?
From what I have learned, the first step to overcoming fear of failure is having the right perspective toward failure. Instead of seeing it as something negative, you should see i...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 10, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Working Source Type: blogs
How to Live a Meaningful Life Without Money Worries
We can’t deny the fact that we need money. We need money to pay our bills. We also need it to advance in our lives (e.g. for education). But what is the right way to treat money? How can we live a meaningful life without money worries?
I believe this quote by Jonathan Swift gives us a good answer:
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
I like this quote. In my opinion, it captures the essence of how our attitude toward money should be. Money should be in your head, but not in your heart.
What does it mean?
First, it means that you should think about money and treat it in a rational way. You shou...
Source: Life Optimizer - November 3, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Finance Purpose Source Type: blogs
A Simple Framework for Maximizing Happiness at Work
I’m a curious person with a wide range of interests. I’m interested in computer programming, writing, personal development, and business. I’m also interested in a few other fields that I haven’t mentioned.
A question that often arises in my mind is this: how should I manage these different interests?
I recently found an answer by reading a summary of The Da Vinci Curse. The goal of the book is to help those who have many interests but can’t determine which ones to focus on. It includes a framework to help them manage their interests and the corresponding opportunities.
The framework—called the BCG matrix—was ...
Source: Life Optimizer - October 27, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Purpose Working Source Type: blogs
A Key to Success: Choosing the Hard Way
Many people want to live a successful life. Not many, however, are willing to pay the price.
I have read the stories of many great people, and they all share common characteristics. In particular, there is one principle that I believe they all follow, whether they realize it or not. The principle is this:
Choose the hard way
Yes, choose the hard way. When given the choice between the easy way and the hard way, great people consistently choose the hard way.
A good example is Colonel Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. He once had a successful restaurant. Life was good for him. But one day the government moved th...
Source: Life Optimizer - October 19, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Source Type: blogs
9 Practical Ways to Become More Productive Today
Do you want to become more productive? There are many methods and tools you can use for that. Some of them, however, are pretty complicated and take time to apply.
But what if you want to become more productive today, not tomorrow or next week? Then you need something that’s simple and practical – something that you can apply right away.
Here are nine practical ways to become more productive today.
1. Exercise
Here is a fact: your productivity depends more on your energy management than time management.
Time management gets a lot of attention, but energy management is actually more important. Why? Because if your e...
Source: Life Optimizer - October 12, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Time management Working Source Type: blogs
Life Optimizer Has a New Look
I have something to tell you today: Life Optimizer has a new look!
It has been six years since I updated the look of the website. The last time I updated it was in 2010. So I think it’s time for a facelift.
I actually wanted to launch the new look at the 10th anniversary of Life Optimizer, but I couldn’t get it ready at that time. It still took quite a lot of work. But now I’m happy to tell you that it’s ready!
It still has some glitches here and there, and I’m still working on them, but overall it works. If you read this through an email or feed reader, click here to check it out. Enjoy! (Source: Life Optimizer)
Source: Life Optimizer - October 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: General Source Type: blogs
6 Success Lessons from the Story of Instagram
I recently listened to an excellent podcast episode from NPR. It’s about how Instagram was built.
The story is remarkable. The founders of Instagram – Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger – launched the app in October 2010. In April 2012 – just one and a half years later – the service was acquired by Facebook for 1 billion dollars!
How could someone make a billion dollars in just a year and a half? It’s amazing.
I learned some success lessons from the story, and I’d like to share them with you. Here they are:
1. Make something people want.
Making something people want is the key to business succes...
Source: Life Optimizer - September 29, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Innovation Working Source Type: blogs
The Why and How of Simplifying Life
If you want to live an effective life, one important thing you should focus on is simplifying your life. It’s not easy though; I’m still learning myself. I’m a person with many ideas on what to do and often got distracted here and there.
I was able to see this when reviewing my life map. There were times when I did things that turned out to be unnecessary. Worse, I could spend months on them. Of course, that didn’t help me progress in the right direction.
I slowly learned how to simplify my life, and here I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned on the why and how of simplifying life.
The Why
Why do you nee...
Source: Life Optimizer - September 22, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Time management Working Source Type: blogs
A Simple Lesson from My Recent Trip
My wife and I recently had a two-weeks trip to Vietnam and Thailand. It was exciting! The best part was that we got to meet some readers there.
I also learned some lessons from the trip, and I’d like to share the biggest lesson that I learned with you. The lesson is this:
To live your life to the fullest, you need to learn new languages.
It might be surprising to you; it certainly was to me because it never occurred to me before. But that’s what I learned: if you want to live your life to the fullest, you need to learn new languages.
Let me explain.
I spend most of my time in my home country, Indonesia. Obviously, I ca...
Source: Life Optimizer - September 17, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Learning Source Type: blogs
How to Deal with Stress and Remain Calm in Any Situation
Note: This post is written by Alicia Honeycutt
Stress. A word often used and a feeling that everyone can relate to.
Stress is a state of discomfort, a very intuitive reaction to anxiety; before you know it, it’s written all over your face, oozing from and stiffening your body even as you attempt to hide it and remain nonchalant.
The causes and triggers of stress are varied and you never really know when a situation turns stressful. Stress is directly related to pressure, deadlines and achievements. If you fall short of achieving something, you begin to feel the pressure, force yourself to work harder and cause yourself ...
Source: Life Optimizer - September 9, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Attitude Source Type: blogs
