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Life Optimizer

How to Live Life to the Fullest - Personal Growth and Effectiveness

Learn New Skills With Project-Based LearningJuly 1

Learning is something I always enjoy. I love learning because it gives me new challenges to overcome. In the past, however, I often learned just for learning’s sake. There was nothing real I got out of it. I just absorbed new knowledge without thinking about its practical value.

Recently I realized that while learning is fun, it’s even more fun if it’s related to my practical needs. The thrill of learning something that can immediately improve my life is more than just learning for learning’s sake. For that reason, now I mainly learn new skills that can improve my life and help me achieve my goals.

The best way to do that is project-based learning. With project-based learning, you create and work on a project that uses the skill you want to learn. Rather than just absorbing knowledge, you create something real.

Here are some examples of project-based learning:

• To learn a new programming language, you create a simple game using that language.
• To learn web design, you create a design for your personal web site.
• To learn to play guitar, you prepare to perform at a local event.
• To learn a new language, you write a short story in that language.

Why Project-Based Learning is Good

There are several reasons why pr

Assess Your Potential Before Taking ActionJune 26

Note: This is a guest post by Armen Shirvanian of Timeless Information

Before you start a task, you are going to want to assess the potential limit you can hit in aspects of the project. If you are about to set up a meeting for 24 dancers in your local area for them to get to know each other, you want to take the time to see how far your skills can take the occurrence. Will you simply keep it as a networking event, or will you try to set up a future dance contest, or will you go even further, and have everyone provide their information to be part of an e-mail group that continues to communicate with each other?

You want to assess your potential before you take action, so that you can judge whether the ending results of your efforts will be satisfying. If you are invited to give a speech, and are not sure if it is worth your time, this is the time to judge how far you can take the event. You might be able to give the speech, and at the same time make it remarkable enough to have a chance at attaining employment with one of the hiring individuals (from your desired place of employment) that would be present in the audience. In that case, it would then be more than worth it. If you couldn’t see yourself bringing a lot to the table, the speech

Proven Principles for Managing Your EnergyJune 18

When people talk about productivity, one term that often shows up in their conversations is time management. There are countless books that talk about time management. But there is one less-popular term that may actually be more important when it comes to productivity. That term is energy management.

The importance of energy management is discussed thoroughly in The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. The book argues that managing your energy, not time, is the key to high performance.

Looking at my own experiences, I agree with them. If you want to be productive, managing your energy is more important than managing your time. To see if it’s true, just look at your experiences. Have you ever been so productive that you can accomplish a lot in little time? On the other hand, have you ever felt like you can’t accomplish anything despite having a lot of time?

These experiences show that the quantity of time you have isn’t necessarily related to your productivity. What makes the difference is your energy level. In the first situation, your energy level is high and that’s why you can

4 Good Resources to Learn HistoryJune 12

In The Joy of Living Today, I wrote that one reason to learn history is to make you realize how good your life is so that you can be grateful for it. But there are other reasons to learn history. Learning history helps you see current and future events from a rich perspective. It helps you avoid the mistakes people made in the past. It also helps you make the right decisions in life. In short, learning history makes you wise.

But what resources should we use to learn history? Here are my favorite resources:

1. Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast

If you aren’t interested in history, Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast is a good starting point. It discusses the interesting aspects of many historical events. For example, one episode talks about whether or not Genghis Khan really killed 1,748,000 people in one hour and another episode talks about the cursed tomb of King Tut. The episodes are short (usually under 15 minutes) so they won’t take much time to listen to.

2. Wikipedia

If you want t

The Joy of Living TodayJune 8

After watching Red Cliff (which led to me writing The Importance of Being Smart), I decided to read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the historical novel upon which the movie is based. I’ve been familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms for more than ten years since its PC game was my favorite game, but I never read the book itself (here is an electronic copy of the book).

One thing I notice throughout the book is the level of warfare and violence at that time. There was almost no time of peace. The warlords always fought each other even for seemingly simple matters. And the level of violence was horrible. Those who faced death penalty suffered brutal deaths. The winning party could do whatever they wanted to the losing one.

This happened not only in China, but also in other civilizations. You just need to watch movies like Apocalypto to understand what I mean.

It make