Why Fear setting is as Important as Goal setting
I watched this Tim Ferriss’ TED Talk on ‘Why you should define your fears instead of your goals’. I found it very useful. Many times our fears are unfounded and this is what stops is from achieving our goals and loving a happy life. I liked the conversation of ‘fear setting’ to dissect the fear and find a way around it. Do watch.
Typing Mastery: The Quest for an Error-free 70 Words Per Minute
I have always been decent in typewriting. I learnt this during my 10th standard annual vacations and that has laid a good foundation. However, I don’t know how to operate the number keys and the special characters.
Offlate, I noticed a lot of errors in my typing. This started to slow down my typing and worse, it has started to affect my flow of thoughts. And so I set off on a mission to brush up on my typing lessons. My goal: 70 words per minute with less than 1% errors.
I took up a paid subscription in GoodTyping.com, one of the best online typing mastery websites. I finished all the 48 typing lessons in the last one month. I devoted about half hour each day to practice the lessons and now I average about 50 words per minute with about 2% errors. I intend to take advanced tests every day and my goal is to touch 70 WPM with 1% errors by July 31st.
Why is flawless typing so important to me? For two main reasons. I have been consciously focusing on blogging everyday and aiming to complete the 1000 day blogging challenge. Second, I’m focused on finishing two books this year. Both these ambitious goals require a considerable amount of time at the keyboard. The better I am at typing means the better I will do at both these challenges.
Have you heard of this story of this woodcutter who spent sharpening his axe? That’s the same thing for me with typing.
I would strongly recommend one of two online courses for improving your typing. GoodTyping and KeyHero.
KeyHero, is what I use to test my typing skills in order to reduce the errors.
What is the Use of Listening to Podcasts or Reading Books if I Don’t Act on Them?
A strong realization hit me. All the books that I read, the podcasts I listen to and the conferences I attend are of no use if I don’t act on the knowledge to improve my life or others’ lives.
This realization hit me even harder this morning when I was going through the notes I took in a conference I recently attended. I had written down the four books that the opening keynote speaker had recommended. It’s now over two weeks since the event finished and I had not even so much as even googled for these books let alone buying them.
I then looked at the impressive list of podcasts that I listened to in the last six months. Truly impressive, I must immodestly add. But what’s the use of listening to world-class podcasts if I don’t act on great advice? The same goes for the numerous books I’ve read.
Starting today, I’m making the following changes. 1) I will write down a synopsis with key points of every podcast I listen to and every book that I read. 2) I will put an action plan to implement the advice and suggestions I’ve learned from them.
I will share the important points and my experiments in adopting these best practices openly with you so that you can benefit from them too. Onwards and upwards. Here we go.