TorstenCaspar

Your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.

Pretend your brain is a white board. Is it covered with to-do lists and “DO NOT ERASE”? Is there space for drawing and combining ideas?

If we don’t appropriately manage the ‘open loops’ in our life, our attention will get pulled.

Overwhelm comes from not clarifying what your intended outcome is, not deciding what the very next action is, and not reminding yourself of your intended outcome and action.

You need to transform all the ‘stuff’ you attract and accumulate into a clear inventory of meaningful actions, projects, and usable information.

Getting things done requires defining what “done” means and what “doing” looks like.

Mastering your workflow involves capturing what has your attention, clarifying what it means, putting it where it belongs, reviewing it frequently and engaging with it.

If an action will take less than two minutes, it should be done at the moment it is defined.

Anxiety and guilt don’t come from having too much to do; it comes from breaking agreements with yourself.

Startups need a specially designed form of management to cater to their very particular needs as fledgling companies.

Validated learning is the process by which employees can measure their output and success through experiential lessons. The more validated learning achieved, the more successful a startup can become.

The Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop is the steering mechanism by which a startup can drive toward its end goal.

Innovation accounting informs the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop that gives startups the information needed to decide when to persevere and when to pivot without being reactionary.

The ability to know when to continue on a path or to change direction is vital to the future of a startup.

Lean startup entrepreneurs cannot rely on hunches or assumptions. They must get out there and see what’s happening for themselves.

A lean startup employs a small-batch approach. Before embarking on a lengthy journey toward product development, the company leaders first test out smaller iterations to be sure that what they are creating is valuable.

Growth is sustainable when new customers are acquired from the actions of previous customers.

Speed is a life-or-death necessity for a startup, but quality should not be sacrificed in a bid to accelerate.

Intrapreneurs—entrepreneurs tasked with creating new products or ventures within an existing corporation—should also use the lean startup method.

Smile big at the right time. Women who were slower to smile in the corporate world are perceived as more credible.

The flooding smile: when meeting someone, don’t smile right away. Pause for a moment, then let a big flooding smile go over your mouth and eyes. This will give them the impression that the smile is more genuine

Use your eyes–strong eye contact gives the impression of respect and affection. It also gives the impression of being an abstract thinker.

The sticky eyes technique: hold your gaze as much as possible. When talking about personal matters with another men, hold your gaze a little less.

The epoxy see eyes technique: hold gaze on the subject even when another party is speaking. Conveys intense confidence and interest in the subject. Use with caution.

Watch your posture whenever you walk through a doorway. Hold your head high, your shoulders back, and your torso out. This will convey confidence and command respect.

There are five emotional love languages—five ways that people speak and understand emotional love.

If I identify and learn to speak my spouse’s primary love language, I will have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving marriage.

We have been led to believe that if we are really in love, it will last forever. However, once the experience of falling in love has run it’s course, we return to the world of reality and begin to assert ourselves.

Some couples believe that the end of the “in-love” experience means they have only two options: a life of misery with their spouse or jump ship and try again.

However, there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was—a temporary emotional high—and now pursue “real love” with our spouse.

Your wife’s complaints are the most powerful indicators of her primary love language.

There is nothing more powerful that you can do than to love your wife even when she’s not responding positively.

Habits are regular practices or routines that define our whole life and the outcomes we achieve; therefore, they are the concept of self-improvement.

Small habit changes can produce outsized effects that improve or degrade quality of life.

Good habits yield positive results over the long term. Bad habits only bring short-term gain.

Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because I don’t want to change, but because I have the wrong system for change.

My habits are intertwined with my personal identity.

If I want to break a bad habit it is useful to use a commitment device, this is a preventative measure to limits future actions.

All my outcomes are a delayed reaction to my long-standing habits. If I want to change my outcomes, I need to change my habits.

How I talk about a new habit, even to myself, affects the implementation of the habit. With the right mindset and a clear vision “Why do I want to implement a new habit?”, it will become much easier and successful.

A new habit is more likely to become ingrained if it’s easy, hence start with very small first steps and establish them.

Environments can be designed to better support good habits or establish new habits.

Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if I’m willing to stick with them.

If I want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on my system instead.

The most effective way to change my habits is to focus not on what I want to achieve, but on who I wish to become.

The Four Laws of Behavior Change are a simple set of rules we can use to build better habits. They are 1. make it obvious 2. make it attractive 3. make it easy 4 make it satisfying

My environment is the invisible hand that shapes my behavior.

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Differencing: We listen to differences; we discount sounds that remains the same. To make it easy for your conversation partners train to variate your voice.

Filters like, culture, language, values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, intentions etc. take us down to what we pay attention to.

Exercise 1: Silence Just three minutes a day of silence is a wonderful exercise to reset your ears and to recalibrate, so that you can hear the quite again.

Exercise 2: The Mixer If I am in a noisy place like a coffee bar or in nature at a lake try to identify the different noises. How many individual channels of sound can I hear? Where are they? It improves the quality of my listening.

Exercise 3: Savoring Learn to enjoy mundane sounds. It could be a tumble dryer or a coffee grinder. Try to identify repeating sound patterns or to find similar sounds.

Exercise 4: Listening Positions Play with my listening positions, get conscious about them and move my listening position to different places, whatever is appropriate to listen to.

Exercise 5: Recieve · Pay attention to the person Appreciate · Little verbal/noise feedback Summarise · very important Ask · questions afterwards

In life, our mindset determines which road we travel on. One road is paved in scarcity and the other road is filled with abundance at every turn. In any moment, we can choose to change which road we want to travel on.

The secret to having it all is believing you already do

1. Thinking Big vs Thinking Small Thinking Big opens horizons, lifts limitations in my mind and enables me to achieve higher goals.

2. Plenty vs Lack I can afford what I want in life, there is plenty of everything in the world from resources, love, relationships, wealth and opportunities.

You never get beyond scarcity, you have to start beyond it.

3. Happiness vs Resentment I am optimistic and I can be genuinely happy for others.

4. Embracing Change vs Fear Of Change Change is an natural part of life and can create beautiful outcomes, but sometimes the transitions can be painful. Search for the good.

5. Proactive vs Reactive I actively create my future based on my values, priorities and goals.

6. Learning vs Knowing It All My natural curiosity and my thirst for knowledge help me to constantly develop and improve my skills.

7. What Is Working vs What Is Not Working I am focusing on "What is working", I am open minded and like to explore and try new opportunities.

If I want to reach my highest goals I must identify the underlying principles that lead me to success and I need to apply them.

We all want to succeed. One path to success is identifying the habits that can help me on my journey.

My individual talents, my creativity and experience define how I successfully implement and apply a specific principle. There is no general approach. The only general rule is to act in harmony with the rules of success.

Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are – or as we are conditioned to see it.

In a connected world, reaching great achievements is only possible with interdependence skills; independence as the most important goal in life is now obsolete.

Correctly applied knowledge and efficient learning are essential factors for competitiveness and success. I want to continuously improve my learning habits and efficiently internalize what I have learned.

Blame (victimism) only leads to short-term relief but does not solve any problem. I take responsibility for my situation and take the initiative to solve challenges.

I am the creative force in my life. Life is much better with a positive attitude.

I can only find balance and inner peace if I develop a good sense of my highest priorities, focus on them and live in harmony with them.

If I listen deeply and sincerely, I will understand people better and can build deeper relationships. First understand, then be understood.

How many on their deathbeds wished they’d spent more time at the office or watching TV? The answer is, No one. They think about their loved ones, their families, and those they have served.

Start applying what you are learning. To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.

Perhaps the most important discoveries are those which relate to the appropriate distribution of the periods of study...Acts of revision should be spaced in gradually increasing intervals, roughly intervals of one day, two days, four days, eight days, and so on.

The forgetting curve hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it.

From 1880 to 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus ran a study about the memorisation of nonsense syllables, such as "WID" and "ZOF" by repeatedly testing himself after various time periods and recording the results. He plotted these results on a graph creating what is now known as the "forgetting curve".

Murre and Dros present a successful replication of Ebbinghaus’ classic forgetting curve from 1880 based on the method of savings. The forgetting curve has indeed been replicated and that it is not completely smooth but most probably shows a jump upwards starting at the 24 hour data point.

The speed of forgetting depends on a number of factors such as the difficulty of the learned material (e.g. how meaningful it is), its representation and physiological factors such as stress and sleep. Furthermore higher original learning also reduces forgetting. The rate differs little between individuals.

Spitzer tested 1939 the effects of a type of spaced repetition with over 3600 students who were learning science facts and showed that spaced repetition was effective.

Spaced practice is a feasible and cost-effective way to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of learning, and has tremendous potential to improve educational outcomes.

Memory formation becomes more effective with longer inter-stimulus intervals between training sessions because of decreasing temporal overlap between successive, short-lived learning traces.

Clarity · Throughout the system, text is legible at every size, icons are precise and lucid, adornments are subtle and appropriate, and a sharpened focus on functionality motivates the design.

Clarity · Negative space, color, fonts, graphics, and interface elements subtly highlight important content and convey interactivity.

Deference · Fluid motion and a crisp, beautiful interface help people understand and interact with content while never competing with it. Content typically fills the entire screen, while translucency and blurring often hint at more.

Deference · Minimal use of bezels, gradients, and drop shadows keep the interface light and airy, while ensuring that content is paramount.

Depth · Distinct visual layers and realistic motion convey hierarchy, impart vitality, and facilitate understanding. Touch and discoverability heighten delight and enable access to functionality and additional content without losing context. Transitions provide a sense of depth as you navigate through content.

Aesthetic integrity · It represents how well an app’s appearance and behavior integrate with its function. For example, an app that helps people perform a serious task can keep them focused by using subtle, unobtrusive graphics, standard controls, and predictable behaviors.

Aesthetic integrity · An immersive app, such as a game, can deliver a captivating appearance that promises fun and excitement, while encouraging discovery.

Consistency · A consistent app implements familiar standards and paradigms by using system-provided interface elements, well-known icons, standard text styles, and uniform terminology. The app incorporates features and behaviors in ways people expect.

Direct Manipulation · The direct manipulation of onscreen content engages people and facilitates understanding. Users experience direct manipulation when they rotate the device or use gestures to affect onscreen content. Through direct manipulation, they can see the immediate, visible results of their actions.

Feedback · It acknowledges actions and shows results to keep people informed. The built-in iOS apps provide perceptible feedback in response to every user action.

Feedback · Interactive elements are highlighted briefly when tapped, progress indicators communicate the status of long-running operations, and animation and sound help clarify the results of actions.

Metaphors · People learn more quickly when an app’s virtual objects and actions are metaphors for familiar experiences—whether rooted in the real or digital world.

Metaphors · They work well in iOS because people physically interact with the screen. They move views out of the way to expose content beneath. They drag and swipe content. They toggle switches, move sliders, and scroll through picker values. They even flick through pages of books and magazines.

User Control · Throughout iOS, people—not apps—are in control. An app can suggest a course of action or warn about dangerous consequences, but it’s usually a mistake for the app to take over the decision-making. The best apps find the correct balance between enabling users and avoiding unwanted outcomes.