I published the first post here on the LFI porch on November 1, 2010. So much has happened since then. Life has accelerated so much it’s hard to keep up. Do you know what I mean? For instance, rather than telling you what I’ve learned in the past five years I’ll tell you five things I have learned over the past month? Yeah, that fast.

1. I learned an effective way to motivate and affirm myself. I started keeping a second appointment book – one with a page per day to record the things I do each day.  I am finding I’m less likely to waste time when I want to be actively recording productivity. I’ve never felt more on top of my game!
2. I learned to take a different approach to solving problems. I schedule them. I put them in my other appointment book where I make my To Do plan for the day. Yesterday I solved three problems by lunchtime. It felt so good I found myself casting about for more problems to solve.
3. I learned a way to take a different perspective to gain clarity. I’ve been looking at the manuscript of my second book for so long now that sometimes it’s hard to “see” it but the other day I had an idea. I copied one small section from the Google Doc, where I’m writing it, onto a Word document and edited it there. This works. I see things on the Word Doc that I missed on the Google Doc.
4. I learned that persistence really does pay off. I’ve been doing yoga now for seven months and I still practice at least five days a week.  Even though I’m not a yogini yet, I see incremental improvements in my ability to hold the poses. I’ve noticed that doing yoga is helping me to feel more grounded and balanced.
5. I learned that I love learning. In this information-rich age it’s easy to keep up if you have a love of learning – and a love of steep learning curves. (I do enjoy steep learning curves!) What fun!

Your turn! It’s been a while since we’ve had a noisy chat here on the porch! Grab a cup of tea or coffee and settle in! What have you learned in the past five years? What have you learned in the past month?

Photo Credit: Eli Brody