http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog Enlightened Action Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:28:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Starting a habit is relatively easy. Maintaining it is the hard part. Last week I talked about how essential habits like meditation and exercise can so easily get cut out of your schedule when things get busy. Most of the people who commented on that post agreed that they had ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/09/07/how-to-make-sure-that-nothing-gets-between-you-and-your-good-habits/ Work is getting out of hand. You are staying back later and later. Your social calendar is bulging with commitments. There just isn't enough time to do everything. What's the first thing that you stop doing? 1. Getting your normal amount of sleep 2. Exercising 3. Meditation / Having thinking time to yourself It's ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/31/if-youre-busy-is-it-ok-to-cut-back-on-sleep-and-exercise/ How often do you regret things that happened in the past? I know some people who spend most of their life saying things like: "If I hadn't stuffed up that interview, I would have got that job" "I wish I hadn't married him/her" "If only things had worked out between us" Regret is the ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/24/never-regret-anything/ We all know the feeling: You get to the end of a long day and you think "What on earth did I achieve today? You can read all the books you can find on time management (and believe me I have) but ultimately it all comes down to one thing: Maximising the ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/17/the-simplest-most-effective-time-management-system-ever/ If there was a master list of self-development advice somewhere, I'm pretty sure one of the items on the list would be "Don't complain". In the classic self-development book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" Dale Carnegie admonished people to stop "criticising, condemning or complaining". All being signs of a ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/13/if-youre-not-complaining-theres-something-wrong-with-you/ I just got off the phone with a friend who told me that they were in a bad mood. Why? Because it was Sunday night. What's wrong with Sunday night? Nothing wrong with Sunday night except that it comes right before Monday morning. And Monday morning means back to work. Hating Monday ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/10/what-do-you-do-if-you-hate-monday-mornings/ I read a blog post a couple of months ago that talked about the question of making your goals public or not. The article cited a psychology study conducted in 2008 involving 63 law students whose goal was to read more law journals. It tested whether the ones who announced their goal ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/06/does-telling-everyone-about-your-goals-make-you-more-likely-to-achieve-them/ I have a confession to make. Over the last year or so, although most people didn't notice it, my waistline has been getting bigger and bigger. I knew I had to eat less but whenever I tried to cut down my eating, I felt really hungry. Ok, I realise this is ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/08/03/how-to-eat-less-and-still-be-happy/ I wanted to share with you a little trick that I've started using to stop procrastination. You know the feeling. You have a project or task that you know you have to do but the thought of sitting down and doing it is just too much to bear. It's either too ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/07/30/a-great-trick-for-overcoming-procrastination/ When people hear about this website, often the first thing they ask is what does the name Kaizan mean? To some it sounds very familiar. Perhaps because we chose a name that derives from the Japanese word kaizen, which means continuous improvement. In this post, I thought I'd explain the concept ... http://www.kaizan.co.uk/blog/2009/07/27/what-is-kaizen/