Generation X and Social Media (How to become more productive without giving up your use of the internet)
Social media use is the new hub of the 21st Century, and no generation is exempt from its addictive and obsessive over-indulgence. According to a 2016 result from the Pew Research Center, and published by statista.com, it was found that 96 percent of Americans ages...
Crash Course in Home Simplifying
One of the great laws of productivity is that a project expands to fill the time allotted to it. Thankfully, it works the other way too, and with a bit of concentration and a plan, you can tackle a seemingly huge project like “simplify the house” and make great...
How to Love the Home You Have
If you’re looking for more contentment at home, you’re in luck. There are many tiny habits that you can incorporate into your daily routine to help you feel happier at home. Even if your current house or apartment isn’t everything you desire, you’ll be more content...
3 Reasons To Not Settle For Freelance Work For A Living
Being an entrepreneur is a very demanding position to be in. I’ve talked about only some of the challenges that an entrepreneur needs to go through. The other big problem is finding a way to turn a profit. Now I’ve talked before about how easy it is to make a profit....
6 Useful Tricks I Learned After the First 6 Months at my 1st Work
I’m extremely happy about my first job. Let me tell you why. I just had my first 6 months at my first job and I can’t believe how time goes by so fast. A supervisor at my workplace once told me this: “You know you’re old when you feel like time slips by so fast.” He’s...
4 Best Practices to Run a Business Smoothly
Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or a budding one, how a business is run is important. In fact, how it is run can determine whether your business will sink or prosper. I’ve talked briefly about how the entrepreneur lifestyle can seem glamorous. How some people...
5 Benefits of Adopting an Experimental Mindset
Learn something. Try something. Improve something. Repeat. We have never been inundated with more information. Access to anything we have ever wanted to learn is a click away. We can learn from the greatest minds in the world by listening to Tim Ferriss. We can learn...
I am a survivor
... and so are you. “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ~Helen Keller Reflect. I decided to make a list of all I have survived in my life. I doubt my list is exhaustive, but I am amazed by the length of it anyway. If you...
5 Steps to Train Your Brain to Focus
I confess…I’m prone to distraction. And it used to be impossible for me to stay on any one task for more than 10 minutes at a time. There were just too many things competing for my attention. It would start when I was writing and had to do a little research. I love...
Inspire and Motivate Yourself to be Uncommonly Productive: What to do when you hit the wall.
The wall. Everyone knows it. They hit the wall - the productivity wall - at some point throughout their day. First, we try to power through. Then we take a break, go for a walk, get some coffee. And yet, we cannot seem to breakthrough. Suddenly we are considering...
How to Have Conversations with Meaning
Regardless of if you are confident in your own skin or not, this is a guide to build your confidence but also to have conversations with purpose and growth behind them. Have you ever had conversations that have gone nowhere at all? I’m sure you have online all the...
Want to Be More Productive? Build a Writing Routine Using These Brain-Based Principles
“Truth be told, it turns out timing and planning are everything!” I had a list of articles that needed to be written, a book draft to complete, and I’d been sitting at my desk for what felt like an eternity, barely making a dent in my list. So I got up to stretch my...
Here are 5 Morning Rituals That Make You Feel Great
Practice these every day for awesome feels and great productivity. Let me ask you a question: Do you have a morning ritual? Of course, you have. But does that morning ritual make you feel great? Every day you routinely wake up and you go through it on auto-pilot. You...
When The Road To Daylight Is Through The Gloom
I know where I am. I look ahead to where I want to be. Each step must take me closer. It’s hard. Sometimes, like today, I feel that I will just die with things left undone, unsaid, and unfinished. That my fear will come true and my memorial will be, ‘Well, at least...
Turn the Page
Bad Results I was coming off three bad races in a row, two DNFs (Did Not Finish) and a DFL (Dead Fricking Last) and I was beginning to think that maybe I needed to retire from this trail racing/ultra running thing and run normal distances like the marathon or...
The One Thing to Avoid Doing on Social Media
There are many types of approaches to grow your business, and that’s alright. But it’s this particular approach that bothers me a lot and I’m not alone in that. Many marketers and influencers a like have said this tactic doesn’t work. Here’s how to break that habit,...
Leadership Thoughts From the Treadmill
Treadmill or Dreadmill? Treadmill runs are my least favorite way to get exercise but when it is -13 outside with a foot of fresh snow, the outdoor running needs to take a backseat. At least that was what I was trying to convince myself as I ran on the dreadmill....
How the 80/20 Rule Increases Your Productivity and Multiplies Your Margin
In 1848 a man by the name of Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto was born in Italy who would provide the world with one of the most intriguing rules of time management and productivity. The 80/20 Rule, better known as the Pareto Principle, denotes this simple reality:...
How to Properly Create and Follow Through With To-Do Lists
Ah, to-do lists. Think of them as you will, but to-do lists are as frequent in my life as post-it notes (and believe me, I love using post-it notes). For myself, to-do lists are incredibly important to my business. My business is quite literally run by a to-do list....
Get Off Your Ass And Do Something
A Productive Way of Life In the early stages of running my business, I was someone who struggled with working. Procrastination was a common theme for me and I also succumbed easily to distractions. For several years that was my life where I did minimal work and...
Don’t Be Safe. Be You.
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A Shedd Recently a friend and I sat down to catch up. One of the questions I wanted to make sure and ask him as our conversation continued was what he thought about some of the more recent...
How I’m Using Post-it Notes to Stay Productive
A confession on why I find post-it notes so helpful and I can’t live without them anymore. The first week of January I vowed to clean up the space that I’m working in. But over the past few weeks, my desk is warmed with tiny pieces of coloured paper. From written...
Stop Complaining and Comparing
Start accepting and contrasting. Have you wasted your life complaining about not having enough? Not doing enough? Not experiencing enough? Have you wasted time comparing yourself to an old classmate via Instagram or Facebook? Oh, look at him on his fancy new...
Make the Most of Time
My pillow and warm blanket kept me, hostage, longer than I should have let them. Thank goodness for the snooze button that allowed extra time for cozy sleep…until I had to scramble to get up so I wouldn’t be late to start my day. Time. I want it to linger on the...
Focus, Correct, Expand: A 3 Step Strategy to Expanding Quickly
How to achieve massive growth and staying productive by managing these three aspects in your business. Last week I spoke about the many issues that Subway is plagued with. But one of the massive issues that have backfired Subway is the fact there are so many...
Planning Ahead For What’s Really Important (To You)
Editorial note: I wrote this several months ago, why I didn’t publish it — I have no idea. Maybe I was afraid of the backlash. Afraid my “friends” trying to make as much money as they can wouldn’t appreciate my philosophy. Maybe I was embarrassed that I want to live a...
One Thing You Can Do to Make It a Good Year
No matter what your circumstances are, you can make this a good year. We welcome every new year with a celebration. It’s easy at the beginning of the year to call it happy and expect good things. Will it last? If we don’t do something we’ll find ourselves with a good...
Breaking Hidden Rules Made Me More Productive
It was all about breaking a hidden rule Finish I recently read a book called Finish by an author I follow, Jon Acuff. In it, he talks about the reasons we don’t finish the projects or goals we set out for ourselves, and he offers research-driven, practical advice to...
What We Can Learn About Productivity From Subway
2017 was the year the Subway branch store of nearly 27,000 stores strong in the US in 2016 plummeted to 25,835 by the end of 2017. Today we’ll look into some of the causes of that, but also how we can use this news to increase our own productivity in our own lives....
Instructive Life Lessons from My Cat for the New Year
It’s a New Year and everyone’s getting on the goal-setting bandwagon — including my cat. It’s remarkable! It’s not like she walked up and made the announcement to me. You know felines. They like to think they are subtle and unobserved unless they decide it’s time for...
Environment Makes the Difference: My Low-Stress, No Fuss Method to Clean My Home
Control your external environment and set the tone for your internal environment. Creating a small space of beauty It was three months past my initial diagnosis of depression, and I was finally starting to feel better. I wasn’t on medications yet, but the classes,...
Magnetic Motivation
Shaping our goals and visions to pull us into the future we want now. Pizza is now off the menu. Got to battle the bulge a bit so I can’t eat pizza anymore. The cheese has too many calories (and what is pizza without melty cheese you can sink your teeth in?) and the...
The Only New Year’s Resolution You Need to Make This Year
As we embark on a fresh beginning to 2018, many begin to make at least one New Year’s Resolution. Here are some things to think about as you consider yours. Make 2018 amazing! You want 2018 to be an amazing year, right? It will be the year you say, I made it! I did...
6 Principles to Empower Making Decisions
Our daily decisions matter. We have all made decisions we regret — some immediately, some down the road and some continually! How should we make decisions in our daily lives? How can we be sure we are making the right decision? There is a solid process for making...
Reflections on a Michelangelo Quote
“If you knew how much work went into it, you would not call it genius.” It took over two years for one of the most revered artistic geniuses in history to complete his statue of David. But the fact he was a genius didn’t mean he didn’t have to do the work. He still...
How to Simplify Your Work Space to Improve Creativity
Want to improve creativity? Maybe your workspace is holding you back. Creative types are messy, right? We get that reputation a lot. When I’m up to my eyeballs in a project, my office can be downright chaotic. Creative people tend to keep a lot of stuff because we see...
How to Find More Time for What Really Matters
Rethinking how we think about our time Ever wonder when you're going to find time for, well anything? What if an abundance of provision fell from the sky each day like manna? Would we grab it and save it? What if we were guaranteed the same amount every day — an...
Save Yourself Some Time, Here’s How to do Christmas Shopping Right
My solid strategy for Christmas shopping never changes from year to year and since applying it, Christmas shopping has been a wonderful experience for me. I want to share this strategy and how it can also tie into living a more positive life. As I’ve said before,...
I’m Not Setting Any Goals This Year
Maybe you shouldn’t, either This is the time of year that every personal development writer starts using a dirty, four-letter word: Goal. And the tips they give for setting and achieving goals are consistent, evidence-based, and solid. Almost without exception, they...
4 Ways to Join the Start-up World
In order of increasing difficulty. Have you ever considered joining a start-up? Do you have a great idea that the world can't live without? Maybe this will inspire you to join the start-up world. I’m from the Greater Toronto Area, and when I’m not listening to Drake,...
The Most Important Thing I Learned From My Former Mentor That Changed Me Forever
In business it’s vital to have a mentor, however, not everyone is suitable to be your mentor. I learned that with my first mentor when I went into in business, but I learned something else that’s equally important that has changed my views drastically. Today I’ll...
Creating a Plan to Achieving Your Goals
What does it take to actually complete or achieve goals? It is the end of another year and everyone is talking about goal setting and life planning. Why? Because we want to live the best years of our lives now. Every year, people set New Years Resolutions and goals...
3 Tips for Choosing Your Holiday Pace
The sprint towards Christmas is now on. How ready are you for the month of December? Is your calendar jammed packed with activities, traditions, work-related obligations as well as shopping to-dos? How will you choose your pace for the holiday season? Lately, I’ve...
Why The Holiday Season Is Perfect For Self Improvement
My personal thoughts on the holiday season, but also why it’s perfect for diving into self-improvement right now. I also share a guide on how to ease into self-improvement activities around the holiday season. December, the month where everyone has a lot of mixed...
3 Reasons for Respecting the Gift of Time
Have you ever heard of the man or woman that seen running alongside their bicycle? A passerby asks “Why are you running alongside your bicycle?” The ‘running’ man or woman replied: “Because I don’t have time to stop and get on my bicycle.” Have you ever felt like...
This Is How You Did It — How One Idea Brought You Here
A simple guide that explains how the rich and successful have gotten to where they are now. This is by following some of the actions that the successful and rich took to get to where they are today. Moreover, I outline what one must do to achieve these things. It’s...
5 Questions Your Mentor Should be Asking
My first job out of college was for a state social service agency. I’d moved to San Diego on a whim, with no job or prospects. Just two suitcases, four hundred bucks, and that ridiculous sense of invincibility you have when you’re 23. My job search was a joke. For...
Focus on This 1 Skill to be a Better Man
Hey, Man! Let me ask you a question: Are you where you want to be right now in life? You likely answered “No.” to this question. How do I know? Because you’re young and you’re a dude. You don’t have everything you want in life, yet. But, what if you could? What if you...
21 Tips and Tricks to be More Productive
Over the last month, can you think back to what your work hours have been? Have you been settling into the traditional 9 am to 5 pm job? Or more than 40 hours a week? Do those hours feel excruciatingly stressful or productive? Our work cultures today, seem to work us...
How to Do What You Don’t Want to Do
I’ll ask the obvious question first: Why would you want to do what you don’t want to do? Why even discuss doing what you don’t want to do? The answer is, quite simply, not that simple. If you’re feeling stuck and tired of procrastinating, this is how to do what you...
How to Keep Busy Teens Involved in Music
It is a busy time of year in music studios and school music programs. As a parent and teacher, there are countless concerts, performances, and end of year events. They are all great opportunities but honestly, it can be a little overwhelming sometimes. It’s also the...
How to Wait on the Turning Point When We Can’t See What’s Coming
It never fails. I’m in the turn lane with a clear view of oncoming traffic. I’m calculating in my mind where the break is. The turning point. Then, as if a wrench falls from the sky, another car pulls into the opposite turn lane. Now I can’t see. My view is blocked. I...
How To Go From Just Setting Goals, To Achieving Powerful Growth And Changing Your Life
How to begin acheiving growth How I went to talking about goals and setting them for the sake of attention, to crushing my goals, and sparking massive change in my life. Today, I share a guide that outlines my old thought process, why it was wrong, and the changes...
13 Survival Tactics Every Pastor Must Use When the Sky is Falling
Proven techniques to help you survive a church crisis. Every pastor knows ministry isn’t for wimps. If any occupation epitomizes the phrase “only the strong survive” it’s ministry. There’s no escaping the bulls-eye on your back. -Criticism, spoken in the back...
Want to Produce Great Work? You Don’t Need More Tools, Motivation, or Discipline.
Here’s the Solution Instead. If you’re struggling to get to work on your dreams, it’s tempting to think you need more information, more strategies, and more “tools to succeed”. After all, it’s easy to convince ourselves we don’t have what we want because we’re lacking...
Lose Weight Faster than Ever
No such thing as “fast”. Millions of people will see that headline and they’ll be reaching for their wallets and minds faster than a snowball in an avalanche. We want to lose weight, have that perfect body, be healthy and we want it fast and easy. Sadly though there...
These 5 actions will make you a better human
No question. Sometimes we just get by. But, in our finer moments, most of us wish to become better human beings. Why is that even important? Consider the English poet John Donne who proclaimed, “No man is an island.”* Do you think Donne could have even imagined our...
5 Easy Ways to Beat Negative Stress
Positive Stress versus Negative Stress We can experience positive stress or negative stress. Yes, we can experience stress in two forms indeed. Negative stress is obviously the one that we want to reduce and keep under control. In this article, we are going to focus...
How to Increase Sales when Persuasion Isn’t Cutting It.
"What are YOU gonna do about it!?" Increase Sales?! Frank’s tone implied, When am I going to stand up for what I believe in and will benefit kids? An urgent call interrupted a day in the mountains before his brother returned home. The team lead had to share her panic...
Do You Deserve Money?
Revise your relationship with money! Let’s talk about money! Yes, you’ve got me right! Yes, I know it is often considered a “dirty word” by idealistic, spiritual, and non-materialistic people. But how about “cleaning it up” together? I call myself a creative and many...
The Art of Pulverizing Excuses
Having Less Excuses, And Far More Action So far this week on my blog I’ve been sharing pointers and tips revolving around excuses. From finding more options to finding someone that can help you. But all in all I’ve been dancing around how exactly do we pulverize our...
How Not to be Held Captive by Fear
The wind howled. The rain pelted. The thunder cracked. The sky grew darker. Then bang… I used to fear a lot. As a matter of fact, fear kept me from doing many things. I didn’t like to eat at a restaurant alone or even with my kids. I didn’t want to travel anywhere by...
How to Relieve Stress and Anxiety
Stop everything you’re doing right now. Just stop, relax and think for a moment. Are you busy steamrolling ahead? Are you in a rush, racing against time to get things done? Do you feel anxious? Well….stop! It’s time to find out how to relieve stress and anxiety….once...
The Elephant That Will Not Forget to Boost Your Productivity
When young, the thought of a wild animal having a part in one’s life and growth were fanciful. Yet, for a shy, timid 10-year-old standing in front of the class, it would have been a defining moment. How your superman Dad had brought home a wild animal. A Lion, Bear,...
Know How Create, Share And File Will Make You More Productive
Beginning of Evernote In 2007, Evernote began and launched its first service in 2008. The inspiration behind the program from the beginning was ‘keeping simplicity’. Similar to other start-up companies, they experienced both great growth and a few difficult days. Jump...
3 Productivity Techniques Help Work-Life Balance
Getting Things Done. Have you ever marveled at sportsmen and women that get to the top of their profession? I am amazed at how simple they make everything about their sports look. I wondered “how were they successful?” and realised it’s to do with their technique....
How to Find Your Quiet
We live loud, busy lives. Going all the time on the outside with noisy minds on the inside. How can we find any quiet spaces in our lives? How can we calm our inner world? It’s not easy but I found a way. And if I did, you can find your quiet too. Every day I have a...
How much can we believe our negative thoughts?
If you feel like you are swimming against the current and your arms can’t move, your voice is strained, and every good thing you do produces only more bad. I want you to stop. Drown for three seconds and get to know how close to death you are because negative thoughts...
Great Joy in the Middle of a Brutal Week!
What a week! During this seven day stretch: two friends died, my mother is in the hospital, my wife had surgery (and I do all the housework, laundry, meal preparation and so on until she is fully recovered) and I am dealing with a persistent and sometimes debilitating...
How to Overcome the Failure Myth
What exactly is the Failure Myth? Let’s break it down… First we’ll tackle the confusing mixed messages regarding failure. Optimists look at failure as a teacher and friend. believing failure teaches us things like try again, be persistent, never give up — spinning it...
What You Practice Today Is Not Important : A Music Teacher’s Manifesto
I use the Suzuki Method to teach the violin. Your child may be learning through a different style. They may be learning something completely different than music. You may be learning a new skill yourself. The following idea still applies. I could fill a whole book...
6 Things Introverts Hate
Living in an extroverted world is painful Being an introvert in an extroverted world is painful. My mom told me this story, so it must be true. “You were about five years old, and we were sitting in our car, waiting for the pedestrian to cross the street. Just as she...
Writing: My 3 Step Process for Getting Started
Sometimes getting started is the hardest part of writing. I’ve participated in a few writing challenges where the goal is to complete a certain number of words per month. Writing something everyday is key for me to be able to reach goals like this. Sometimes because I...
What Happened When I Ran My First Kickstarter Campaign
Don’t let the lack of money stop you from pursuing your dreams Kickstarter was never at the top of my list. I never saw it coming. “You should do Artprize,” my brother’s father-in-law tells me. “What’s Art prize?” I ask. I’d never heard of it until that moment. “It’s...
A Lesson in Life’s Messes
Life is messy. Some of you may read that line and think, “Duh Brandon. I think you are a little behind.” Truth be told, I might be. There are times (and they come way more often than not) that things do not go exactly as planned. Our plans may conflict with someone...
Press On
Let’s face it. There are days when we all have to do hard things we just do not want to do. It’s not always easy to get up in the morning. You may have had: a restless night a child kept you up a bad dream “baggage” carried over from yesterday or any number of...
The World’s REAL Currency
Regardless of what the media want you to believe, the world only has one currency. Yes. One. Can you guess what it is? Probably not. Euro? No. Yuan? Nope. Dollar? Not that one either. It’s not Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other crypto-currency. So, what is it? You use it...
Want to Kick Year-end / Holiday Stress? Think a Step Ahead
Planning is the key to success, regardless of the time of year. October is nearly over, and whether you’re ready for it or not, so is 2017. This time of the year can be stressful — that is if you don’t think a step ahead. Have you ever heard something obvious put in a...
![You are What [Who] You Listen to](https://www.publishousnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/pexels-photo-366063-e1509412168402-400x250.jpeg)
You are What [Who] You Listen to
Whether you believe me yet or not, you may be enslaved by the radio. Stop! Take that colander off your head, I’m not talking about that kind of radio enslavement. (The government would shut me down for sure if I started talking about… Wait… Um… Nevermind.) What I’m...
How to Reach Your Full Potential
You don’t have to settle for second best. It is within your ability to reach your full potential. Every human being has the ability to reach his/her full potential. That’s what you’ve been created for. Your purpose in life is to reach your full potential. So what is...
How To Improve The Quality Of Your Life
“Can you improve the quality of your life?” What would your answer be that question? Can it even be considered to be a fair question? Or have you made peace with the idea of “what’s meant to be will be”? Have you given up on all your dreams and have you accepted the...
Unleash Your Inner Beagle
Focus Less, Play More Persistence paid off. I stumbled off the plane at O’Hare, dragging my smelly backpack and my bad attitude with me. I’d spent 6 hours in turbulence, 4 hours sleeping like a pretzel at Heathrow, 2 hours on a bus, and 90 minutes on a sardine flight...
5 Step Crash Course in “I Believe”
Sometimes I discount their ramblings because of their tender ages, because what can they teach me? They take me to task on the matter of “I Believe” and teach a valuable lesson. School of Life It feels like I am perpetually in school. It is the joy of learning...
