Notes, tips & habits to make life better
Welfare Educator • Teacher • Motivator
Lifestyle Researcher • Learner • Student

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Ask open-ended questions by remembering the acronym WHI and starting with why, what, how, and in what way, in order to become a better listener who encourages longer and more revealing answers from people.

  • WHI? - Why? - What? How? In what way? - Yes/Open
  • WHO? - Who? - When? Where? Would you? - No/Closed
  • Asking open-ended questions allows others to share their thoughts
  • Asking open-ended questions allows you to become a better listener
  • Why, what, how, and "in what way" encourage long open answers
  • Who, when, where, and "would you" encourage short fixed answers

March 25, 2025

Write A List Of Goals

Write down a list of your goals and dreams, because writing thoughts and ideas down is the first step to making them come to life.

12 Lists that help you get things done - Lifehack.org

A list of your short- and long-term goals can be a great motivator, as well as a trigger list to help generate new projects. I also like to have a list of areas of focus, the different roles that I play, each of which comes with a different set of tasks and goals.

Give Sincere Appreciation

Give honest and sincere appreciation. - Dale Carnegie

How To Win Friends And Influence People - Goodreads

Lincoln once began a letter saying: "Everybody likes a compliment." William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." He didn't speak, mind you, of the "wish" or the "desire" or the "longing" to be appreciated. He said the "craving" to be appreciated...Let's try to figure out the other person's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be "hearty in your [compliments] and lavish in your praise." and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime - repeat them years after you have forgotten them.

Pygmalion Effect

You can positively influence other people's lives by telling them you believe in them, you think they are a good person, they possess good qualities, and you expect they will perform well because they have the ability to do so.

Pygmalion effect - Wikipedia

The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area and low expectations lead to worse. It is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell so much in love with the perfectly beautiful statue he created that the statue came to life. According to the Pygmalion effect, the targets of the expectations internalize their positive labels, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly; a similar process works in the opposite direction in the case of low expectations. The idea behind the Pygmalion effect is that increasing the leader's expectation of the follower's performance will result in better follower performance. Within sociology, the effect is often cited with regard to education and social class.

Take Hourly Breaks To Refocus

Take a quick break every hour to evaluate what you have done and refocus on what task to do next.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

An 18 minute plan for managing your day - Harvard Business Review

Daily Habits List

  1. Exercise - Walk or exercise for 30 minutes
  2. Outdoors - Touch grass and get fresh air often
  3. Meditate - Meditate or breathe for 10 minutes
  4. Relax - Magnesium and chamomile tea at night
  5. Don't Smoke - Find a way to relax without smoking
  6. Green Tea - 5-HTP and drink green tea in afternoon

Simplify To The Essentials

"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential." - Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee’s top 7 fundamentals for getting your life in shape - Positivity Blog

If you want to improve your life then it’s tempting to want to add more. One problem with this may be that you don’t really have the time or energy to do more though. And so your efforts to improve become short-lived. Adding more and more just creates more stress and anxiety. Removing clutter and activities, tasks and thoughts that are not so important frees up time and energy for you to do more of what you really want to do. And as the clutter in your outer world decreases the clutter in your inner world also has a tendency to decrease. This has the added benefit of making it easier to actually enjoy whatever you are doing even more while you are doing it.

Music Genres List

  1. Party - Electronic, Dance, Dance Rock, Ska, Disco, Electronica, House, EDM
  2. Energy - Hard Rock, Blues Rock, Alt Rock, Punk Rock, Classic Rock, Metal
  3. Groovy - Rhythm & Blues, Funk, Hip Hop, Rap, World, Latin, Psych Rock, Jam Rock
  4. Lively - Adult Rock, Folk, Pop, Country, Britpop, New Wave, Progressive, Art
  5. Chill - Downtempo, Trip Hop, Chillout, Lofi, Jazz, Soul, Psychedelic, Dream
  6. Relax - Singer, Songwriter, Ambient, Easy, Blues, Lounge, Soft Rock, Soft Pop

Follow Your Own Dreams

Live your life by being true to yourself and following your own dreams and desires.

Top 5 regrets of the dying - Huffington Post

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

App Folders List

  1. Work - Productivity, Create, Documents, Mail, Calendar, Notes, Develop, Images
  2. Live - Communication, Phone, Chat, Social, Groups, Forums, Camera, Microphone
  3. Read - Reference, Dictionary, Education, Learning, Books, News, Magazines, Blogs
  4. Play - Entertainment, Music, Movies, Shows, Television, Videos, Radio, Podcasts
  5. Fact - Information, Database, Maps, Weather, Shopping, Money, Downloads, FTP
  6. Tool - Utilities, System, Terminal, Automation, Clocks, Home, Calculators, Converts