If you dont get your priorities straight, your life will fall apart

If you dont get your priorities straight, your life will fall apartIf you dont get your priorities straight, your life will fall apartI have a friend who, in all outward appearances, is doing extremely well in his life.Hes making millions of dollars. His fame and reputation are spreading far and wide. He is brilliant and seems to know all of the answers.But then, I just found out last night that hes been going through a major divorce.He has a few kids whom he loves, but who he hasnt been around very much to play with.There is a common leidion that you can have it all. Its a very seductive idea. But its not true.The fundamental core of the word decision means to literally cut-off alternative options. When you choose one thing, you simultaneously close the door on many others.This is why making decisions is so hard.A true decision involves risk, opportunity cost, uncertainty, and commitment.True decisions involve couragebecause it takes courage to commit to something beyond your own mo mentary feelings. It takes courage to commit to a future filled with unknowns.Thomas Monson once said, Choose your love, and love your choice.Ive seen over and over in the past year how easy it is for people to walk away from their marriages. The honeymoon phase has long since passed. Their relationship has gotten slightly apathetic. They arent investing in the relationship like they once did.The grass begins looking much greener ALL OVER THE PLACE.The thrill of a new and exciting relationship (or project) starts to fill the mind.Why is a new relationship so attractive? Because its all future.The longer youre in a relationship, the mora past there is in that relationship, and thus, the mora likely you are to fall into patterns.Unless you are continually creating a future that is bigger than your past, your past will be repeated in the futureand that is how things can get boring pretty quickly.When you first start something out, its incredibly easy to be flexible. Youre willing to do practically anything for the relationship. You want it really bad.But after time passes, do you still approach the relationship that way?Or, since you have it now, have you stopped prioritizing your relationship?Its extremely easy to fall into this trap.Its easy to fall into patterns where you stop truly investing in a bigger future.Life gets busy.Youve got to pay the bills and do all the stuff. It can be exhausting.But life was busy before and somehow, you found all sorts of creative energy to invest the relationship.What if its not about the busyness of life, if were really being honest?What if youve just gotten too busy with other things?What if your mind is just somewhere else?What if youve gotten lazy?What if, now that you have what you want, you want something else?Its easy to drift.Only when the relationship comes to an abrupt end, like in my friends situation, does it become painfully obvious about what had slowly been happening over a number of years.If you dont pay attent ion to your life on a daily basis, it will absolutely drift in directions you may not like.You have to be completely clear on your core priorities.If youre not completely clear on what matters to you, then you dont have direction in your life. You dont have values. Your life will be a ship in the ocean without a sail or compassjust following the wind.It is not a priority if youre not investing in it.It is not a priority if youre not thinking about it.Its not a priority if youre not pouring time into it.Its not a priority if you dont love it deeply.Its not a priority if you dont have a vision for it.What are your priorities?What evidence is there that what you just thought about actually is a priority?How much have you invested in those priorities in the past 12 weeks?Of all things, relationships are some of the easiest to take for granted over time.If your key relationships arent something youre approaching with a beginners mindsetas you did when you were first trying to establish t he relationshipthen the relationship is probably not a priority to you.That may be weird to hear.It is highly likely that your romantic relationshipno matter how much you say and think you love this personis not actually a priority to you.If the relationship is not a priority, then that relationship has drifted into an apathetic patternand apathetic and boring patterns dont have a lot of life. If your relationship doesnt have life, then it will likely end.One, or both, of you, will begin looking for life and future and possibility somewhere else.You cant have many prioritiesJim Collins said in Good to Great, If you have more than three priorities, you have none.That may be a little extremebut it also brings up a good point. If you are focused on many different things, then you arent really focused at all.Focus requires zeroing in. It means making a decision.If youre focused on several different things in your life, in which direction are you actually going?If youre focused on severa l different things in your life, is it possible you actually have misled yourself? What if youre not really going where you think you are? What if youre actually drifting, and you havent fully committed.It takes courage to be committed and to make decisions.But without courage and commitment, you can never develop confidence.What are your priorities?Are you clear on them?Are you investing in them?Are you willing to give up a lot of other things to ensure that your true priorities are where your mind and heart are?If not, then you probably dont have priorities. And without priorities, you dont have a clear future that youre creating.Ready to upgrade?Ive created a cheat sheet for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. If you follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.Get the cheat sheet hereThis article first appeared on Medium.

heres the right way to format your resume

heres the right way to format your resume heres the right way to format your resume The hardest part of writing an effective resume is figuring out the content how to talk about your achievements in ways that tie to what an employer is looking for. But people also do an awful lot of agonizing about the smaller details of a resume things like format, length and even font choices.Lets put those worries to rest. Here are answers to the fruchtwein commonly asked questions about how to format a resume.Is there a basic resume format that works for most people?In general, your resume should have the following sections in the following orderName and contact infoWork history, listed in reverse chronological order (for each job, list your title, the employers name, the dates you worked there and a bulleted list of achievements)EducationSome people also include a short profile or summary section before their work history. This is optional, but has increased in popularity in recent years. The idea is to provide an overall framing for your candidacy.Some people also find it useful to include sections for volunteer work or special skills. Again, this is optional, but in some cases it may strengthen your candidacy.Does it ever make sense to use a functional resume rather than a chronological one?Functional resumes which are focused on one long list of skills and accomplishments rather than connecting them to a chronological work listing are widely disliked by employers, since they make it difficult to understand what the candidates work progression has been. Hiring managers also tend to assume that candidates using this format are trying to hide weak experience or significant work gaps. Since using this format is likely to start you out on the wrong foot with hiring managers, stick to the chronological format over the functional.What belongs in the education section?Generally your education section will be just a line or two. You should list any degrees youve attained sin ce high school, and the college or university that granted them. You generally dont need to go into detail about your coursework just the degrees themselves are sufficient.You might also list certificates or other forms of continuing education here, but be choosy about what you list. Anything listed in this section should be substantial, so you shouldnt include, say, a list of 15 day-long seminars you attended or every conference in which youve participated.Should you talk about your work experience using bullet points or paragraphs?When youre describing your work experience, always use bullet points. Hiring managers are skimming your resume, and big blocks of text are harder to absorb quickly than bullet points are. Plus, many hiring managers eyes will glaze over if your resume appears to be one long block of text. Save that for your cover letter.What about length? Is it okayfor resumes to be more than two pages?The old one-page resume rule is dead, but that doesnt mean you can th row out all the rules about length Your resume still should not be more than two pages. If youre a recent graduate, stick to one page.If that feels painful to you, keep in mind that the longer your resume is, the less likely hiring managers are to see the parts you most want them to see. Most hiring managers spend just a few seconds scanning resumes initially if your resume is several pages long, how many highlights will they really spot? Plus, a long resume can make you come across as unable to tell what information is important and whats less important.Should you stick to a plain, basic layout or can a creative resume design score you points? In most cases, you should stick to a plain, basic layout. The most important thing about your resume design is that it should be easy to scan and well-organized. Few hiring managers want to see unusual colors or innovative templates. The traditional resume layout may feel boring, but hiring managers know how to quickly find the information th ey want on it, and thats to your advantage.Does font choice matter?Hiring managers wont care about what font you use as long as you choose one thats easy on the eyes. Your resume is not the place for a flowery cursive font or anything thats going to make it difficult to skim quickly. Sample different fonts and pick one that you like and thats easy to read. Georgia, Calibri, Arial and even old-school Times New Roman are all fine. (Really, a good litmus test for your resume font is that no one should be thinking about it. You want your content to stand out, not your font selection skills.)And dont forget that font size matters Dont choose a font size smaller than 11 anything else can be hard for some people to read.

The Beauty of Movement

The Beauty of Movement The Beauty of Movement The Beauty of MovementSure, theres plenty of art that requires a bit of engineering. Think of the pyramids, large-scale Jeff Koons, and movies. They all depend on someone that understands materials, movement, and energy. But when two the disciplines merely intersect, the engineering plays servant to the art. Rarely do they unite as one. The work of David C. Roy is that rarity. In his moving, mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic works, the engineering is the art and the mechanisms serve the beauty of mechanisms. For Roy, the problem of how to make something work beautifully, and how to make something beautiful are the same. Theyre all problems to solve, he says. Theres a lot of physical engineering, but the aesthetic problems are also fascinating. They use the same part of my brain. That brain once seemed destined for traditional engineering or the sciences. Roys father was an engineer who worked on early jet engines, and David followed in his foots teps, earning an engineering scholarship to Boston University. He switched to chemistry for a while and eventually received a degree in physics. But during his college years he was exposed to the world of art thanks to an evolving relationship with an art studentwho would become his wife. (The father-in-law was a mechanical engineer too). After a very brief stint as a programmer, Roy began to devote himself to wooden toys and things that moved. It was solving problems, and there were a whole lot of problems. I didnt know anything, he says. Building toys taught him woodworking and some mechanical basics. In his mind, though, he wanted to build dynamic pieces that didnt rely on air currentsa la Calderor require the hassle of having a chord dangle down from the sculptures.Designing the motion. Image David C. Roy I just wanted to make things move, he says. I reinvented the escapement. As I got control, it was How do I do this and make it interesting, how do I make interesting patterns a nd create different motions with a controlled release of energy? Roy didnt borrow much from clock innards to improve his escapement design because in his works the mechanism served a different ultimate purpose.In a clock you want very predictable, short periods of time. I wanted to create random, or unpredictable motion. Roy named his first sculpture Albert. It stood six feet tall, ran for 20 minutes, and sold for 125 dollars. The belastung figure was, perhaps, the most important. It meant that Roy could conceivably pursue his vision of kinetic wood full time. As his aesthetics grew more sophisticated, so did his engineering skills, always with the twin goals of creating the longest possible zustrom times and the most pleasing patterns. After mastering the escapement, bearings brought the next big leap to Roys sculptures. It was a huge change in what I could domuch more motion, much smoother, longer running times. But their use required new knowledge. They had to be seated, confined in a wooden space, and Roy had to throw himself into bearing research to determine which kind best suited his needs.Using Strata Design 3D to visualize a sculpture. Image David C. Roy The addition of constant force springs further lengthened run times and freed Roy from a dependency on pulleys and weights. They also changed the focus of his work from the beauty of the mechanism to the beauty of movement. But other tools along the way have been just as important, from a production viewpoint. The electric screwdriver was a godsend when it came out, says Roy. So was the computer. Where Roy had once done it all by hand, from drawing board to saw to sandpaper, he now relies on Bezier curves, Strata Design 3D, and a CNC machine. And run times for his ever-more stunning sculptures fall between 20 and 40 hours. Roys sculptures have supported him for 40 years now and put his kids through college. And they dont stay in the shop long. But he never considered hiring anyone to increase producti on. I like doing a whole lot of things and I like not having to boss other people around, he says. What fascinates me is taking problems and solving them on my own. Those days-long run times come thanks to the precision and experience Roys had with every part of every sculpture hes ever made. When I am doing a drawing I have a sense of what the limits are, how far I can push itthats been acquired over the years, because Ive been burned by trying to push it too far this way or that way. The failures that feed into your general knowledge are a hard thing to pass on. Failures, though, are a little less common for Roy than they once were. But the motivation behind each work has been a constant It needs to work, need to work well, but it needs to look good and be interesting, bring a smile, or make someone wonder why its happening . . . or just sit and watch it the way you watch a fire. Michael Abrams is an independent writer. For Further Discussion In a clock you want very predictable short periods of time. I wanted to create random, or unpredictable motion.David C. Roy, Artist