Scott H Young

From the Web

Review of The Entrepreneur’s Manual -Ben reviews the book and has some great tips for new entrepreneurs.  It’s no secret that entrepreneurship is a passion of mine, so I try to gobble up every piece of novel advice on the subject I can get my hands on.

The World is Fine - I agree with Leo.  Although there is definitely room for improvement, I would say that the world is a fine place, and in many directions it is getting better.

Why Not? - Scott shares this entry on the difference between regretting actions and regretting inaction.  In the end, we regret more the things we didn’t do.

Apparently 8 gold medals isn’t enough for some people… - Chris, from his fantastic blog The Art of Nonconformity, writes about a recent feature on Michael Phelps.  Despite breaking the record for number of gold medals won, many people were still critical of his methods.  The lesson: you will always have critics, even if your ideas are sound and your approach is flawless.  It’s better to learn how to ignore the critics than to try to persuade everyone.

From the Archives

Do You Need More Effort or Better Opportunities?

“One way to split up the world is to divide areas of life into those that need opportunities versus those that only need effort. For example, imagine you are writing a book. Writing a book is mostly a matter of effort. Having a stroke of creative genius helps, but ultimately finishing is about putting in the effort to write every day.

Compare that to publishing a best-selling book. Effort doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore. Many authors will pour their soul into a book for years only to sell a few hundred copies. While other authors can churn out best-sellers in a series. Publishing a best-seller is about having the right opportunities, effort isn’t the limiting factor.”

Update on Posting Schedule

Based on the feedback I’ve received from readers, I’ve decided to cut down my writing from 4 articles per week with a weekly Friday Links, down to 2 articles per week, and Friday Links every second week.

Notes on Affiliate Relationships

I run affiliate programs here on the website.  Although they account for a small portion of the income for this website (direct sales and advertising are more important), they still make up a portion of my earnings.   As always, links I leave in bold, mean I earn a commission on sales (usually it is through Amazon).  I’ll always have and will continue using this linking scheme for anyone who is interested in which links are non-affiliated.

I’ve written a lot of articles about productivity over the last two years.  Since I set the goal of making myself more productive several years ago, I’ve read dozens of books and thousands of articles on the topic.  If you’re trying to become more productive, it can be a bit daunting to get started.  Just on this website, I’d estimate there are about 300 articles aimed at tackling the idea through one perspective or another.

Because of this vast spread of ideas, I’ve written an ebook that combines the most important ideas into one source.  The Little Book of Productivity is exactly that, an ebook containing ninety-nine ideas designed to make you more productive.  Some of the ideas will be familiar to readers who have read every article I’ve written.  Others are completely new, ideas I haven’t had a chance to write into an article.

I don’t usually write lists of tips.  Although I love reading a good list of tips, that isn’t my style of writing.  As a result, each idea in The Little Book of Productivity, is exactly that: an idea.  A mini-article exploring a useful principle of productivity.

The ebook is split into seven chapters, and I’m giving the first one, “Beating Procrastination”, away for free.

The full book has all seven chapters and ninety-nine ideas to make you more productive.  You can get the ebook here, for $9.95.  As always, I’ve put a 120-day return policy for the book, so there is no risk in giving the ideas a try.

Here’s a taste of the full book, with just one idea from the preview chapter:

Schedule Calibration

Let’s play a trust exercise. You’re going to stand up and then fall backwards. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.

What? You fell backwards and hit the floor. That must have hurt. It’s not really my fault, see I wrote this months before you’re reading it. And we aren’t even in the same location.

It would be understandable if you didn’t trust me after my little prank. It would be hard to rely on me in the future if you can’t trust me. While it’s easy to understand why a lack of trust damages a relationship, it can be harder to see how a lack of trust keeps you procrastinating.

When you don’t trust your to-do list, it’s easy to procrastinate. When you finish everything on your list, and proceed to add more, that’s violating trust. Before you started working, you had motivated yourself by saying you would be finished when the list was over. Adding more tasks breaks that trust, so you can’t motivate yourself again.

Schedule calibration is when you have full trust in your to-do list. When it says you have a lot of work to do, you get all of it done. When it says you are finished, you stop. By keeping that trust, you avoid bad habits of both overwork and laziness.

Download Free Chapter — “Beating Procrastination”

Get the Full EBook