Nicholas Bate

The Tools of Excellence v4, 8: The Check-List

Man is a generalist. No harm in that: he is remarkably adept at adapting and to enhance this process has created a batch of tools which allows enhanced performance. 

What are the Tools of Excellence?

8: The Check List

As pilots take their seats, they’ review their check-lists. They know them off by heart, but just to be safe. We’ve done a few holidays, but a simple check-list is good, just to ensure we don’t forget anything. Trying to get some changes into the morning routine before the first Zoom call? Meditation, 10 minutes high-intensity workout, 10 minutes Italian vocabulary? A check-list would be perfect.

Get the tools to be brilliant in a Brave New World.

TBC

The Tools of Excellence, v4: 7, The Skipping Rope

Man is a generalist. No harm in that: he is remarkably adept at adapting and to enhance this process has created a batch of tools which allows enhanced performance. 

What are the Tools of Excellence?

7: The Skipping Rope

It's perfect. Instant CV work-out. Heart rate raised, challenged and calmed in the briefest of workouts. But the necessary demands made of muscles and bones, too: arms, legs, back. 

It's perfect: light, small and easily transported. It can alway be in your travel bag.

Choose carefully for your height, start with the classic school play-ground 'single under' and then speed up those wrists and achieve some boxer's 'double-unders'.

It's a tool for excellence for staying fit, strong and agile.

TBC

Sunday 35

1. 25 Mini Standards.
2. The Writing Primer.
3. Bram, A Spy Story: a story of coming of age, of Queen and country and the origins of Covid-19. “Once you start reading this book, it’s difficult to put down. Initially, you are immersed in the delights of Oxford academia, only to then be exposed to the starkness and brutality of Moscow during the Cold War. Bram, a brilliant Oxford chemist, turns spy whose mission is to save the world from a highly dangerous and ubiquitous threat. This book is characterised by most of the attributes of a good spy story with action, heroic exploits by a larger-than-life protagonist and a strong plot. Well worth a read.”
   
4. How to Start your Very Own Business.
5. Instant Productivity.
6. Seven choices.
7. 22 Essentials.
8. How to Create your Home Office.
9. plus The Start Up Myths
10. Stay STRONG
11. Crazy Bold Experiments
12. Just say NO to PPT
13. The Marketing Primer.
14. Being the Best version of you, the book, back in stock.
15. Redundancy
16. Hunter-Gatherer 21C
17. Tackling Stress.
18. Manage that career
19. Be Bold 101
20. You still haven’t read Being The Best?! 
21. Things They Don’t Teach at Business School
22. the secrets of success
23. Life Tips 101
24. Zen & Art of Cubicle Freedom
25. Carnage At Kodak
26. The Very Best Drugs You Need
27. Billions of Light Years Away In Another Galaxy
28. 22 Routes To Your Non Fiction Book
29. Lists For The Life You Love
30. How To Lessen E-Mail Pain
31. Professionalism 101
32. 21 Ways to Improve your Zoom Conference Call.
33. Productivity Primer
34. 101, redux
35. The Basic Basics

On Writing 7

1. Start at the scene that inspires you to write the book, the one you have such clarity over. Write it.
2. Write a list of the characters: name, one line description of character 
3. Write the final paragraph. Yes, it's hard but it's only one paragraph. You can do it.
4. Describe an important thing in the book. The house, the getaway car, the gun, the scarf...
5. Write 100 words on why this novel needs to see the light of day. Do not mention money.
6. Write the opening paragraph. Don't do melodrama: get on with it.
7. Create your writing schedule. Stick it up on the wall. Do today's goal.

Never Stop, 7

1. Reading;
2. Writing;
3. Walking;
4. Learning;
5. Producing;
6. Trying
7. Being who you really are.

The Most Powerful Productivity Tips

Behind every spreadsheet is a beautiful real world.

Beyond every PPT deck is a language which make sense.

Wednesday Measures of Health, 7

1. A sense of humour.
2. Clarity beyond conference calls and the digital interrupt.
3. To awake refreshed.
4. Insatiable curiosity.
5. Ability to stand for hours, walk for miles and take the stairs always.
6. The addictions managed.
7. A joie de vivre.

 

1. A sense of humour.
2. Clarity beyond conference calls and the digital interrupt.
3. To awake refreshed.
4. Insatiable curiosity.
5. Ability to stand for hours, walk for miles and take the stairs always.
6. The addictions managed.
7. A joie de vivre.

Tuesday Truths 22

1. There are decisions you might have made when you were younger which you can still make now you are older.
2. Worthwhile stuff is hard.
3. We are wired to be distracted: it has huge evolutionary benefit. But that benefit evolved when distraction was infrequent. Now its frequency is numbing our brain, reducing romance to sex and killing the album.
4. A schedule and 'no' will get amazing things achieved. 
5. You are one of many until you show value, not just experience, in your CV. Then you are short-listed.
6. Your body needs more drugs from hiking, night skies and free-wheeling conversations with good buddies and fewer from your doctor. 
7. Everybody now runs their own business. Ask: why would anyone want to employ me?
8. Big tasks when broken down become both time friendly and brain friendly.
9. It is very, very easy to pull ahead of the crowd: decide to do so and stop needing the approval of others.
10. Productivity isn't a number of things ticked: it's results which meet your goals.
11. Iteration will produce excellence.
12. Practice will produce mastery.
13. Mastery will produce more happiness than money.
14. Money is only worth the thing in the transaction.
15. Freedom is priceless.
16. Health is priceless.
17. Priceless isn't expensive. Priceless is a decision.
18. The Beatles were not just Masters of Music but also Masters of Growing-Up.
19. In a world of busyness, your greatest asset is your ability to focus and give attention to that which you seek.
20. To chase standard of living to the point of busyness can be to lose quality of life.
21. It doesn't take time to cook. It takes time for the body to recover from highly process food.
22. Writing (1) by hand (2) for no reason at all (3) regularly is remarkably therapeutic.

On Writing, 103

Monday getting you down?

Write about it. 

‘They shared a cigarette by the back door that dull Monday morning, their only common interest being nicotine but it was enough to spark a plan…….

The Tools of Excellence v4, 6: The Egg-Timer.

Man is a generalist. No harm in that: remarkably adept at adapting and to enhance this process has created a batch of tools which allows enhanced performance. 

What are the Tools of Excellence?

6: The Egg-timer.

It’s analog, it’s aesthetically pleasing and it gets you focused. Get one with a running time of about 45 minutes. As you commence work, invert the timer. Work and occasionally look up and observe the running sand. Only change mode-different task, cup of tea, short walk, check mail-once the sand has run through. Just you, the task and your running mate, the flow of sand. Find focus and zen-like concentration. 

Get the tools to be brilliant in a Brave New World.