Johnson, Samuel

Tema: Escrita
O que é escrito sem esforço em geral é lido sem prazer

via @notiun

Bessa-Luís, Agustina

Tema: Sabedoria
A sabedoria seduz mais do que a mulher; até porque mais depressa se atinge a sabedoria, do que se encontra uma mulher perfeita

via @notiun

Santos, Gustavo

Tema: Mudança
A mudança implica dor. Dói porque nos obrigamos a romper com padrões calcinados de conforto e preguiça onde controlamos e sabemos tudo.

via @notiun

Mandela, Nelson

Tema: Humildade
Não é de todo correcto elevar qualquer ser humano à posição de um deus.

via @notiun

Onetti, Juan

Tema: Leitura
Má coisa é fomentar o gosto pela leitura nas crianças. Quando os jovens leitores forem mais crescidos, estarão indefesos perante a vida, que é ágrafa, analfabeta e audiovisual

via @notiun

Wertheimer, Emanuel

Tema: Hipocrisia
Quando deixa de existir a necessidade de lisonjear, tornamo-nos sinceros; então, a verdade do hipócrita é mais perniciosa do que a sua lisonja

via @notiun

Ibsen, Henrik

O verdadeiro espírito de revolta consiste justamente em exigir a felicidade aqui na vida

@notiun

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Não é a força mas a constância dos bons resultados que conduz os homens à felicidade

@notiun

Vargas Llosa, Mario

Só um idiota pode ser totalmente feliz

@notiun

Silva, Agostinho

Nem paz nem felicidade se recebem dos outros nem aos outros se dão. Está-se aqui tão sozinho como no nascer e no morrer

@notiun

Saramago, José

Eu não gosto de falar de felicidade, mas sim de harmonia: viver em harmonia com a nossa própria consciência, com o nosso meio envolvente, com a pessoa de quem se gosta, com os amigos. A harmonia é compatível com a indignação e a luta; a felicidade não, a felicidade é egoísta.

@notiun

Freud, Sigmund

O amor ou o ódio dos homens não espera, para se fixar, ter primeiro estudado e reconhecido a natureza das coisas. Os homens amam por impulso e por razões de sentimento que nada têm a ver com o conhecimento e às quais a reflexão e a meditação não podem deixar de tirar força.

via @notiun

Camões, Luís Vaz

Que o de que vive o mundo são mudanças. / Mudai, pois, o sentido e o cuidado. / Somente amando aquelas esperanças / Que duram para sempre com o amado.

via @notiun

Shakespeare, William

O amor não se vê com os olhos mas com o coração

via @notiun

Dinis, Júlio

Procura ser tão gentil, tão atraente e tão sedutor na intimidade de tua mulher, como se, de cada vez que te aproximares dela, tivesses de novo de a conquistar

via @notiun

7 Trending Project Management Tools to Help You Collaborate With Your Team

Project management plays a crucial role in every area of the business world. Whatever decision you make or whichever path you choose, executing your ideas and attaining your goals is rooted in effective project management.

A company cannot embark on a project before chalking out the essential steps to achieve their goals. This is a major setback for companies that start projects with poorly defined requirements and end up delivering a bad product.

Likewise, all policies are useless if they are not effectively implemented. This only leads to negatives consequences and poor business decisions. The motivation of every company should be to deliver quality results, and this can only be accomplished with proper project management.

When companies previously hired employees, they never used to examine their project management skills. As times change, however, companies have made it more important for their employees to have knowledge about its basic concepts. If you’re looking to take your project management to the next level, then it’s time to take the initiative and explore the online tools available for effective collaboration and project management.

1. Nutcache

Nutcache is an emerging favorite in the business world. The different features that this cloud-based project management and collaborative system offers are considerably unique.

Nutcache appeals to many businesses because it makes organizing plans and procedures quite handy, and moreover provides a certain degree of advantage in managing different projects. Nutcache offers the following features:

• Manage your budget and deadlines effectively.
• Develop client-based projects and also apply deadlines to each of them.
• Determine each project’s expense, and thus figure out what you’ll be investing in them.
• Compare the performance of different projects and invite more clients to do business.
• Allocate separate tasks to different teams based on their preferred management methods.

2. Casual

Among the most popular management tools is Casual, an online collaboration and project management platform designed for companies which prefer:

• Teams that are either small or growing.
• Projects that are developed without any particular manager.
• Projects which are brand new or recurring.

Project managers can do the following using this tool:

• Draw project plans with schedules, dependencies, and resources.
• Observe the big picture, and stay in control the entire time.
• Automatically document the project and work proactively.

3. Huddle

When companies need a collaborative system that provides added security along with efficient project management methodologies, then Huddle is the most appealing platform. The UK and United States governments also use this technology to manage their operations.

Huddle makes data encryption possible across shared servers. It also allows professional debates and discussions, which are needed for active changes in ongoing projects. It also lets managers grant permissions to specific people, thus restricting sensitive privileges to select employees.

4. Freedcamp

Freedcamp is a project management tool that can be used for any type of planning, be it a camping trip, wedding, or office project. It offers a clean and easy-to-use digital interface of systems like task lists and sticky notes.

It includes a calendar tool that allows you to switch between daily, weekly, and monthly schedules.They also provide a lot of free applications with unlimited users, projects, and 200 MB of storage, though you will need to pay more if you want to use more apps and storage.

5. Redbooth

Redbooth is one of the best project collaboration tools that combines teamwork and web-based management. Its main aim is transforming “company wide collaboration”, which makes it more convenient to get things done.

It also provides a real-time communication platform for easy communication and increased productivity. There are team workspaces, business chats, HD video conferencing, task management, and a mobile app to provide you with ultimate ease-of-access.

6. Teamwork

Teamwork helps you to manage projects in the most efficient way possible by reducing unnecessary meetings to help get things done. It also allows both your team and your clients to work together and check the status of the project.

It can be integrated with most everyday apps, so that implementing it requires no extra work. Status options are there to give you updates on other team members, and privacy options for senior management to deal with the team.

7. Proofhub

Proofhub basically provides project management and collaboration under one roof. It helps you plan, team up, organize, and deliver your work with ease. It allows you to stay in constant touch with team members, give and discuss tasks, chat to communicate in real-time, share your files using Google drive or Dropbox, and finally deliver your project on time.

It comes with advanced features such as security, personalization, accessibility, notifications, and a lot more. To try it out you can use the free 30 day trial.

Featured photo credit: Group-Project via edge.alluremedia.com.au

The post 7 Trending Project Management Tools to Help You Collaborate With Your Team appeared first on Lifehack.

from Lifehack http://ift.tt/1KPoJRX

8 Ways to Lower Your Utility Bill This Summer

Most people’s utility bills skyrocket in the dead heat of the summer months for a variety of reasons. But they don’t have to.

Luckily for us, Arctic Air Services has provided a go-to guide that aims to lower your utility usage throughout the hazy days of July and August. Maintaining an eco-friendly household will not only save you money throughout the summer, but it will also help conserve energy and help the environment in the long run.

The guide offers 8 ways to lower your utility bills by tweaking your usage of a variety of household appliances throughout the summer. Arctic Air discusses how you can save money and the environment by cutting down on your use of certain appliances such as fans and air conditioners, especially when you’re not home. You’ll also learn how to save money and energy through tweaks to your laundry and shower routines, while not sacrificing any much-needed cleansing time.

Using these hacks in conjunction with each other can drastically lower your utility bill, which will leave you with more money in your pocket that can go toward that dream vacation you’ve always wanted. And, of course, since you’ll be gone for a week, that’s another seven days you won’t have much utility usage at all!

Featured photo credit: Arctic Air Services, Inc. via i.imgur.com

The post 8 Ways to Lower Your Utility Bill This Summer appeared first on Lifehack.

from Lifehack http://ift.tt/1irApOh

The 3 Things Elon Musk Knows About School That All Students Should Copy

Elon Musk (the real-life Tony Stark) has become a technological icon of our era, and he represents the pinnacle of both big thinking and the successful execution of game-changing ideas. So we shouldn’t be at all surprised that recently, he decided to disrupt traditional education, in his own backyard.

Now, we can’t all go out and design our own school, and hire our own personalized teachers, but here are 3 things we can all emulate, as students, when it comes to educating ourselves:

1. School should focus on problems, not subjects

“It’s important to teach problem solving, or teach to the problem and not the tools.” ~Elon Musk

As Socrates discovered long ago, true discovery happens when we present ourselves with intelligent questions, rather than adhere to pre-determined answers- and this couldn’t be more true for students.

As Elon recognized, teaching students by giving them answers to problems that they haven’t yet had a chance to explore (or even understand) destroys creativity, narrows the mind, and leads to boredom.

This is why he’s designed a “problem focus” into his Ad Astra school’s principles. I call this the Goldilocks Principle:

Give yourself a question or set of answers that are too easy and you’ll get bored.

Give yourself a problem that’s too complex or difficult, and you’ll get overwhelmed.

But give yourself a tough problem- one that you can see yourself ultimately solving- and you’ll unlock endless motivation to find the answer.

2. Schools should be student-paced

“Some people love English or languages. Some people love math. Some people love music. Different abilities, different times… It makes more sense to cater the education to match their aptitudes and abilities.” ~ Elon Musk

The complexities of the human mind make it such that students don’t fit into a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits all mold when it comes to learning. This is why you can have one student in class who is disengaged because they’re light years ahead, and one student in class who’s disengaged because they have no idea what’s going on.

But that DOESN’T mean that their potential for learning is any different – and in order to make the most of that potential, a student’s education should ideally be individualized and paced in a way that takes advantage of their current interests and ability level.

Without a huge bankroll, though, this can seem difficult to execute within the context of traditional grade school and college education…

But with the advent of YouTube, MOOCs, and other flexible learning arrangements, try to think of some ways you could customize your learning experience to fit your interests.

Super interested in Quantum Physics? Take a dive down that rabbit hole.

Not so thrilled with 19th century British history? Nothing wrong with just doing the bare minimum and moving on…

3 . Schools should be so interesting that students WANT to come every day

“The kids really love going to school.” ~ Elon Musk

Instead of watching the drudging droves of unsatisfied children walking into school each morning, imagine a world where kids ASK their parents to take them to school, and sprint into class, brimming with energy for the day’s activities…

Well this is what Elon hopes to maintain at his school, and it’s a model we should try to emulate. Just think of how much FASTER you learn playing your favorite game or sport, than listening to a boring lecture in a class you don’t care about.

And it turns out, from a psychological perspective, the first two component’s of the Ad Astra model, contribute to this level of educational enjoyment. The more you can (1) focus on interesting problems to solve, and (2) cater the process to your interests, the more exiting you’ll find learning, and the more productive you’ll be.

Featured photo credit: Heisenberg Media via flickr.com

The post The 3 Things Elon Musk Knows About School That All Students Should Copy appeared first on Lifehack.

from Lifehack http://ift.tt/1irAnpE

10 Ways for Students to Crush It Next Semester

A fresh, new semester is right around the corner. And that means a chance for us students to start with a clean slate, forget whatever happened with that Chemistry lab last semester, and upgrade our study habits so that we can really crush it this time around.

Here are 10 ways to get you started.

1. Develop “true grit” when it comes to studying

As it turns out, the highly-esteemed, much debated “IQ” is actually a pretty poor predictor of academic performance.

This is good news for us, because there’s a different characteristic – one the we are in control of – that researcher Angela Duckworth has identified, called “grit,” which correlates much more highly with success.

Duckworth defines grit as, “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” It sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly effective. Your stick-to-it-iveness will not only up your chances for sticking with math homework, but can actually predict, with a high degree of accuracy, things like which incoming cadets will make it through West Point’s grueling training program.

Action Step: See how you stack up on the grit scale, and then work to “up” your grittiness.

2. Build “tiny” study habits

How many times have you said to yourself, “This is the year I get it shape,” only to promptly quit on your new gym habit a few weeks into the new year? For a lot of us, establishing new habits is tough, especially for things we know we “should” do, but don’t necessarily want to (like studying).

Well according to behavior scientist BJ Fogg, director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, it might be that we just have the wrong approach. Taking on big behavior change usually fails, but only because we try to take on activities that are too difficult at the beginning. Instead, Fogg’s “tiny” habit method focuses on establishing the habit first, and then increasing its duration and difficulty.

Each habit is composed of cue, routine, reward. The more you reinforce this cycle, the more likely it is that you’ll keep with it over time, ingraining that new activity into your psychology. So to accomplish this task, we want to do something so small that it will be trivially easy to repeat this habit cycle each day. This “tiny” habit could be as simple as doing 1 pushup each day (if you’re trying to start an exercise habit), or flossing just 1 tooth each night (if you’re trying to become a flosser, per your dentist’s recommendation).

Then, once it becomes a behavior you can reliably repeat (after a few weeks), you can start to increase the difficulty and/or duration until you reach your ultimate goal. And we can apply this same method towards studying.

Action Step: Try adding a 5-minute study session to your morning routine. Anybody can study for 5 minutes a day, so start there. After you’ve been able to do this for a few weeks, increase to 10, then 20…

3. “Gamify” Learning with a Habit RPG

Think of how easy it is to sit yourself down to play a video game. (Hell yea, Call of Duty here we come!)

That’s because the designers have “gamified” the process to make it more enjoyable. Gamification is a “process of making systems, services and activities more enjoyable and motivating”.

Well, it turns out that you can “gamify” learning and study habits in the same way, and that’s exactly what the people over at Habit RPG have done. Make progress on your new habit each day, and earn experience points, so that you can “level up” and progress through the game. And this works GREAT for getting yourself to study more.

Action Step: Join Habit RPG, set a learning goal, and get started.

4. “Bind” Yourself to Studying Using Beeminder

As much as we like to rely on motivation to get us through difficult work, you don’t need to wait to get motivated to sit down and start cranking through homework problems. And once way to make this easy for yourself is to create reliable motivation with negative bets. What does that mean? I’m talking about putting stakes on the line (e.g. cash) to keep yourself on track.

One way you can do this is by using a site like Beeminder to create a daily goal for yourself (e.g. study for an hour), with a penalty if you don’t keep up (e.g. you pay Beeminder $10 if you miss your goal 2 days in a row). This decreases the temptation to procrastinate, and gives you that extra “push” to get up off the couch and sit down to start on those practice problems.

Action Step: Set up a daily study goal (e.g. 30 minutes) on Beeminder.

5. Use the “Goldilocks” Principle to unlock your brain

In his book Why Students Don’t Like School, professor Daniel Willingham explains his guiding principle for learning:

“People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.”

This is the basis of what I call the Goldilocks Principle: Solving problems brings pleasure if they are hard enough that the answer isn’t totally certain, but no so hard that we can barely get started. Not too hard, not too easy, just right.

Action Step: If you find yourself getting bored with your work, make it more interesting by asking yourself questions that you don’t yet know the answer to. If you find yourself overwhelmed or unable to get started, think about how you can break down the problem into small 30-minute chunks.

6. Do practice problems before you’re ready

We all know, as students, how horrific tests can be. I still have nightmares about walking into class and completely blanking on physics finals. But it turns out that giving ourselves tests is one of the most effective ways to ensure that we’ll retain what we’re learning about.

Self-testing, according to the research, can significantly improve the amount of material about a subject you retain later on (like, when a mid-term rolls around), and this effect is strongest when you DON’T review the material beforehand (i.e. you have to rely on your long-term memory to retrieve facts and procedures). It turns out all of those homework assignments you did as a kid could have paid off.

Action Step: Next time you get home from class, instead of jumping right into the books, try testing yourself on the material you just learned. Do this without studying first, and even if you don’t get the answers right, you’re subsequent study sessions will be more effective, and you’ll remember more later on.

7. Be lazy and sleep in

If you haven’t noticed, sleep is a bit of a taboo subject in our culture. Getting by on 4-6 hours of sleep is like a badge of honor, especially when it comes to work and school. Unfortunately, it’s quite possibly the dumbest thing you could do as a student.

According to the research (but honestly, do we really need research on this to tell you how crappy you feel after a short night of sleep?) chronic sleep deprivation “impairs attention and working memory, but it also affects other functions, such as long-term memory and decision-making. These are all things absolutely essential to learning. Besides, sleep itself is part of the learning process, consolidating new learning into long term memory as you progress through the different sleep cycles.

So unless you’re a fan of throwing away all of the hard work you put into learning each day, 7-9 hours of high-quality sleep each night should be in your future.

Action Step: Set a bedtime alarm. Childish? Yes. But if you back-calculate 8-9 hours from the time you need to wake up, and set yourself a reminder to go to bed, you can help ensure that you’re getting in the hours you need for optimum learning the next day when your morning alarm goes off.

8. Become a Pomodoro master

If procrastination is your thing, maybe all you need in your life is a simple timer. Becoming a master of the Pomodoro Technique, and getting in the habit of putting in short bursts of work followed by short breaks, can help you break through that wall, and actually start studying.

Action Step: Try doing one Pomodoro right now.

9. Let tough problems “percolate”

Sometimes you’re sitting there, banging your head against the wall, trying to wrap your mind around what is going on with this Calculus problem… But no matter how hard you try, you can’t seem to crack it.

It turns out part of the problem may be that you’re focusing too hard, and by doing so, not allowing your brain to access other thought patterns that may hold the answer to your problem. According to Benedict Carey, author of How We Learn, maybe what you need is to quit on your problem, and come back to it later, taking advantage of a phenomenon called “percolation.”

By quitting mid-problem, you give your subconscious mind a chance to dig around in the background and find a new way to look at that problem you’ve been focusing so hard on. Then when you come back to it, you’ve got a new perspective, and possibly an answer to that problem you previously considered impossible.

Action Step: The next time you find yourself frustrated with a difficult problem, and your progress has stalled, quit on it. Give it an hour or two. Then come back. You might be surprised how easy it seems once you come back to it.

10. Space it out and mix it up

How many of you have spent hours studying right before a test, taken the exam, and then promptly forgotten everything you just took that test on? It turns out spacing out our study sessions holds huge benefits beyond simply reducing stress and staying organized.

By putting in shorter, spaced-out study sessions, rather than huge marathon cram sessions, what you do learn will be more robust (you’ll be able to remember more, more often), and you’ll also retain the information longer.

Action Step: Engineer short study sessions into your schedule each week, even if it’s just 30 minutes in-between classes.

Featured photo credit: Francisco Osorio via flickr.com

The post 10 Ways for Students to Crush It Next Semester appeared first on Lifehack.

from Lifehack http://ift.tt/1KPhlpJ

7 Productivity Tips From Ben Franklin

If you are looking for ways to simplify your life, increase your productivity, and make a larger impact on the world around you, I suggest you study the life and work of Ben Franklin, the most influential American of the Revolutionary days. I recently read through his autobiography and discovered that Franklin was a curious character: a true Renaissance man, single-handedly revolutionizing the colonies through his work. A printer by profession, Franklin founded the first nationwide newsletter, Poor Richard’s Almanack, and used it as a medium to spread practical and moral advice through the colonies. He also made fundamental contributions to the earliest civil departments in the soon-to-be-independent colonies. As an amateur scientist, he also discovered new approaches in 18th century physics and meteorology. We could go on and on – the list of his accomplishments and awards would fill 20 pages.

The manner in which Franklin lived is remarkably simple. He lays it out in his autobiography. Here are 7 key takeaways from how he was able to create such a vast impact on the course of US history in just one life time.

(1) Develop A Plan For Your Life – And Write It Down

Franklin describes how, during a transatlantic ship journey he took in his early twenties, he wrote down a plan for his entire life. Towards the end of his life, he rediscovered this plan in one of his journals, and was astonished at how closely his life course fit with his early plan for it – even though he was not purposefully carrying the plan out.

This overarching plan gave Franklin a sense for the overall direction of his life. He took to implementing it. You can do the same with a written plan for what you want to do with your life. You can consider what you want to have, who you want to be around, where you want to go, and what you want to do with your life. Write out 5 central plans for each of these. Now, save the paper you have written it on, or record it online, then later in life you can review this to see how you are progressing.

(2) Build A Consistent Day-to-Day Schedule

Franklin planned out his schedule for the 6 working days of each week, and maintained it for the majority of his working life. This allowed him to adjust to a routine. His detailed schedule included time for organizing, accounting, and leisure. Notice how simple the plan is. It only includes 6 actual working hours, yet Franklin was able to use this to great effect in his life. Also note the hour he devoted to organizing his space each day, and the questions he asked himself each morning and evening.

5: Rise, wash.
6: Powerful goodness! The morning. Morning prayer and plan for the day. [He asks himself], “What good business shall I do today?”
7: Study, and breakfast.
8-12: Work.
12-2: Read or overlook accounts, and dine.
2-4: Work.
4-6: Evening rest.
6: Put things in their places, ie: cleaning and organizing
7: Reflect on the day with the question: “What good have I done today?”
8: Supper, music, or diversion, or conversation
9: Examination of the day
10: Sleep

There is a saying: take care of your routine, and your routine will take care of you. Franklin did this and he notes it was a crucial element of his success.

(3) Generate A List Of Principles On Which To Base Your Life

Our life principles are like an operating system for our behavior. They govern how we run our lives. Franklin was quite explicit in determining how he lived his life. The short version is that he inspired to follow Jesus and Socrates. The longer version of his principles, as outlined in his autobiography:

“Temperance – avoiding eating so much as to dull the senses, and drinking not to elevation
Silence – speaking only when it is of benefit to self or others, and avoiding far-flung conversation
Order – letting all things have their places, and giving each part of one’s business its due time
Resolution – resolving to perform one’s duty, and performing without fail what you resolved to do
Frugality – waste nothing, and make no expense but what is beneficial to oneself and others
Industry – not wasting time, always being employed in something useful, and cutting off all unnecessary actions
Sincerity – making no hurtful deceit, thinking innocently and justly, and speaking accordingly
Justice – wrong no one by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are one’s duty
Moderation – avoid extremes, forbear resenting injury, so much as you think they deserve
Cleanliness – tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation
Tranquility – be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable
Chastity
Humility
Imitate Jesus and Socrates”

If you generate a similar list of principles on which you operate – and write it down – you will have a guide on which to base your actions in the world. You may deviate from it at times, as all humans do, but having the principles set in ink, or memorialized on a computer, will give you a clear reference point for how to carry yourself.

(4) Focus On Solving Problems That Surround You

Benjamin Franklin was able to build massive influence and create a lasting impression in human affairs, yet in his autobiography he never indicates if he had great aspirations. Instead, he simply focused on solving the immediate problems surrounding him.

The first problem he had as a young independent man who had just arrived in Philadelphia was creating a stable income. He solved this problem by inquiring with local printers, then using his expertise with books to get a entry-level job as printer’s apprentice. He slowly worked his way up and established his own printer’s shop, all the while actively engaging in commercial printing activities such as his Poor Richard’s Almanack. By the middle of his life, he says he built up sufficient wealth, enough to live on comfortably for the remainder of his life.

During this time he also devoted himself to solving problems he encountered in Philadelphia and the colonies. He found that Philadelphia lacked a professional security force. The growing city was experiencing a nighttime crime problem and the security officers were unable to keep up with it. So, Franklin persuaded shopkeepers of the city to contribute a monthly fund to pay the salary of a more professional and organized security department, effectively an early version of the Philadelphia Police Department.

Another problem Franklin noticed and set out to solve was when he found that dust from the streets of Philadelphia blew into the shops, making them dirty and unwelcoming. He began to look for a solution, and one day noticed an older lady who developed an efficient method for sweeping a nearby street, utilizing the gutter system. Franklin took this idea and implemented a systematic method for removing clutter from the streets, involving repaved roads, strategically designed gutters, and a garbage disposal department. Again, he was able to raise the money for this from local shopkeepers, whose business would benefit from a tidier city.

Franklin also developed a number of other solutions to problems facing his surrounding citizens and the colonies-at-large, including introducing a fire department, a new stove system, and the academy that would eventually become the University of Pennsylvania.

What was the key to all of these creations of Franklin’s? Again, he focused on the problems directly around him, and set out to develop solutions for them. Many of these solutions later became introduced on a broader scale in the young American nation.

(5) Don’t Limit Yourself To One Role

“Specialization Is For Insects”

Franklin is renowned for his skills as printer, inventor, and statesman; however, he never saw himself as fitting into any one role. He instead developed a wide range of interests, and worked in these as a devoted amateur. His amateur status did not hold him back, though. Instead, he saw every area he studied with fresh eyes.

This amateur status actually aided his inventive capacity. He was less constrained by the reigning ideas of the time, so he was better positioned to introduce radical new ways of thinking about the world, whether in society or natural law. One example of this was his well-known discovery surrounding lightning and electricity. At his time, electricity was seen as more of a curiosity or matter of entertainment at science shows, rather than a matter for serious inquiry.

Franklin; however, wasn’t satisfied with the explanation of electricity he was given by a physicist at a Boston exhibition. He thus devoted himself almost entirely to the study of electricity for a period of years. He ultimately discovered the connection between lightning and electricity, as well as the concept of positive and negative charge. Franklin’s fresh approach to electricity – and many other areas of science – were not possible for someone in the established scientific establishment.

It may be somewhat more difficult for an amateur to make radical new discoveries in this highly specialized age, but Franklin’s model of being an amateur thinker in a wide variety of areas still works.

(6) Look After Yourself First

It may sound radical, but Franklin’s life shows us that we are better equipped to be productive and impactful if we take care of ourselves first. Frankin’s first mission after leaving home at 17 was to build his personal financial independence. He went to work as a printer’s apprentice, and at the age of 24 began his own printing shop. He focused this early period on developing his business prowess, and at a relatively young age gained the financial independence that allowed him to work freely on whatever he wanted to.

As Franklin put it: just as an empty potato sack cannot stand upright, so a person who lives in poverty cannot live virtuously.

(7) Disagree, But Don’t Be Disagreeable

Franklin developed a personal ambiance that served him well, even when dealing with personal or national enemies. He notes in his autobiography that, during the days leading up to the Revolution, he encountered an envoy from Britain on the streets of Boston. Even though they disagreed about the basic policies regarding the American colonies, Franklin and the envoy still enjoyed a friendly walk, dinner, and conversation over wine.

This habit helped Franklin in negotiations with the British, and later gained Franklin a position as ambassador to France, where he was widely loved by the people of Paris.

If you are interested in learning more about this fascinating historical character, I encourage you to read his autobiography. It is full of anecdotes and tidbits about life in the American colonies in the 18th century, as seen through the lenses of this down-to-Earth yet larger-than-life man.

The post 7 Productivity Tips From Ben Franklin appeared first on Lifehack.

from Lifehack http://ift.tt/1QdXgr3