evaluate | timotheories

The End of The Rainbow (Evaluate Life)

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Tim Kuefler

Well, we have arrived dear readers. It happens today.

Today you make the decision. The important one. The one that will change your life.

Don’t be scared, making decisions comes naturally to all of us. You made the decision to click on the link that led you here in the first place, didn’t you?

And that, my friends, is what life is all about. Making decisions.

But you’ve been putting one of those decisions off haven’t you? That’s right, I know you know which one. It’s okay though, we’ve all been there. But YOU do need to admit to yourself that you’ve been delaying action, and haven’t been addressing the problem at hand. Once you do that, then we can begin the process of changing your life. Now, depending on how much of a delay you’ve made with this decision, you may need to act immediately or spend some time in thought and in evaluation.

Which leads us to the wisest topic o’the day.

It’s time for you to evaluate your life my friends. The last preliminary topic in the Life Hacks series, and a great one at that. But I’m going to give you a summary of this key life skill before we go into more detail.

You need to start a proper life evaluation by making major decisions in the morning and then divvy up your day based on your productivity habits. Assess your passions at the end of each year, each month, each week, and before you go to bed. If you can do that you’ll focus and delegate out the unnecessary. Flexibility is important too, but if you get stuck try this – pretend you are away from work and/or home for a week, and you only have a few hours to accomplish your tasks.

Now that we’ve got a roadmap, let’s plot the journey rather carefully you creative cuties.

Make major decisions in the morning – Start your day the same way every morning by determining what that first/second/third important task of the day is. Simplify and clarify the actions needed to complete said task(s) and also ask yourself why it’s important to accomplish. If you can figure out how and why to eat the frog, you can get there on your terms.
Assess you passions – How do you feel? What is important to you? Prioritize them accordingly, and then determine if your friends are valuable (supportive or troublemaking), your identity is self-created or defined for you, your emotional output towards life is solid, if your sense of wonder is intact, you make mistakes AND acknowledge them, you take care of your health, have a good family life, and you are truly putting your best foot forward.
Delegate out the unnecessary – Surround yourself with people who are happy, and step back from habits of inaction and uncertainty. When you take on too much, just because, you are limiting yourself. You can share tasks with others and make your own load a little lighter. Life is full of uncertainty, but it’s up to you to go outside the lines in life’s colouring book.
Flexibility is important – This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but if you truly know your life’s purpose and you have the volition to stick to it, then you must learn to adjust the course as often as necessary to assure your success.
Imagine you have a few precious hours – If time is money, then truly, money is only as good as the time spent. Fortunes can be earned and lost many times over in a lifetime, but life itself is fleeting, so consider that age old problem: what if you only had a day to live, how would you spend it? Then you can decide if that task is leading you towards or away from the point.

Does this seem foreboding and like work. Well I hate to break it to you my dear readers, but if you’ve been following along in the last few months, you’d know that none of the 10 skills I asked you to invest in were going to be simple, but I know you have it in you, because you have a life purpose and a creative fire that needs fuel.

I’m out of theories for now, but be sure to check back tomorrow when I examine something timely and get you thinking about another kind of hidden treasure.

Tim!

Theories Unfurled (timotheories May 2016)

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Tim Kuefler

Hey there, dear readers! Can you feel it?

It’s the first Thursday of the month and that means it’s time for me to share with you this month’s schedule… Duh duh duh. It’s gonna be awesome though, so don’t hit backspace just yet or swipe left if you’re a millennial. The new schedule will ease all concerns.

*Disclaimer* As always, every week I purchase an album and movie one week ahead of the actual review release and while I have the best intentions, I don’t always get what I want… so if you follow me on instagram (@timotheories) you can actually see what’s coming.

In other words, I live in Canada, which is not as free and as brave as the US – please don’t be disappointed if the music and movie reviews change, because they’ll still be good ones. I promise.

Alright?

Great! Let’s get this show on the road! Here are the May entries you can expect to see on timotheories; I’ve even included the week of May 1-7 for easy recall later on –

Stimulating Sundays – (05/01) Importance of marketing, (05/08) your identity, (05/15) Cross Talk Ep.5, (05/29) David Wiens interview
Melodic Mondays – (05/02) Leon Bridges, (05/09) Plants and Animals, (05/16) LUH, (05/23) Mark Pritchard, (05/30) TBA
Theatrical Tuesdays – (05/03) Wolfcop, (05/10) Joy, (05/17) Deadpool, (05/24) The Witch, (05/31) Zoolander 2
Wisdom Wednesdays – (05/04) Quotes, (05/11) Ernest Hemingway, (05/18) communication is key, (05/25) evaluate life
Timely Thursday – (05/05) May 2016 preview, (05/12) Mother’s Day, (05/19) The Reading List, (05/26) flea markets

The year of all killer, no filler continues friends! As always we have an excellent lineup of reviews on film and music (if you’re a musician or filmmaker, drop me a line for your own review opportunity). We have an excellent Cross Talk lineup on the 15th, which coincidentally is my pick and close to my heart, so stay tuned for a case of David VS Goliath.

Okay, I know I’ve gotten into the habit of giving you a teaser of the Cross Talk episode, but I’ll do you one better and go into some more detail. This month Chris and I are going to be talking about under-appreciated films. The ones you love but can’t understand why they aren’t more popular… And we open up about our favourites too.

You won’t want to miss it.

Now let’s talk turkey about the May timotheories interview. So you know how I’ve been slowly improving on my videography skills, much like a ninja of motion? This is thanks, in large part, to the instruction of various creative types in my community who have given me advice on occasion. Well, I’ve decided to interview a friend of mine who is a photographer and a sculptor of light. He’s got an interesting back story too, but you’ll have to watch on the 29th to get the full picture. Might’ve been a bad pun there.

And now we’ve covered it all, my friends. Or have we?

As you know, we’ve been playing with the idea of introducing a tabletop gaming series on timotheories for a few months now, and this month might actually see the realization of that idea. But with a different name. And did I mention I’m opening up the lines for international creative types to take Q&As with me? May could have some of those interviews in store. If you think you’ve got the stuff to duel with keyboards, please send me a note.

And those are all of the theories I can come up with for now friends.

Please leave some comments, to let us know what you want to see in coming months and subscribe to the blog too!

Tim!

Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Work Smarter (Life Hacks)

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Tim Kuefler

Another week! Another Wednesday! Another opportunity to share some wisdom with you dear readers! Today’s topic – how YOU can make art and also balance the other areas of your life simultaneously!

Think about it for a minute, what’s the most fascinating subject in this life to dedicate years of your life studying? The answer is none other than yourself, dear reader(s)!

I know it sounds selfish, but is there really a better use of your time then working on yourself? Let’s be serious, we all do need to ask the question – what’s in it for me? If you can’t answer that, you can’t begin to contribute in this world.

Okay, with that aside, I don’t truly have a life-changing list of top 10 ways to improve yourself, make life easier and get your art out there (it’s a lifelong commitment), but I definitely do have a resource to get you started and at the very least start working on basic areas of your life that are universal and can be refined to your specific purpose.

Lists or no, I honestly think the reasons are innumerable for why you should streamline your internal process, so timotheories came up with a curated strategy of things we all need to work on in order get our rear in gear, and remove that fear!

First lets get in the right mindset.

You can’t outsource being CEO of your own life.

– Leo Gura, Actualized.org

No one knows your life purpose better than you, and no one is going to hold you up and guide you directly towards your goals, but if you focus on these habits below, you’ll realize that life becomes just a bit easier, and you have more energy for the things important to you.

I visited a number of sources in order to come up with this list – from Inc., to Readers Digest, WikiHow, Buzzfeed, a blog called BufferSocial, Time, and finally Life Hack.

So what did I determine from the swath of tips?

Here are my top 10 skills to invest in, in no particular order.

Time management – Improve your time management skills by looking at your results regularly to see if you are on track or wasting time – Set up your calendar and having dedicated concentration time on specific tasks. Through time management systems, and recognizing that there is a difference between being quick versus in a hurry, you’ll improve here for sure.
Learning to love learning – You need to learn new things in order to keep up with the fast pace of digital tech. That means using keyboard shortcuts, improving your typing speed, and your reading speed, for starters. If you can figure out MACROS on your spreadsheets you’ll be surprised how much automation you can get out of menial tasks.
Communication is key – In a time when texting, email, and social media are the new favourites, try to use the phone more often. It saves on countless back and forth. And speaking of back and forth, be concise in your emails. Respond to calls and emails as quickly as you can, and when you can’t do that, set up a regular time to respond to your contacts.
Multi-task misery – Learn to multi-task the right way, by cutting it out of your life. If you keep a million tabs open on your browser, you’re gonna have a bad time. Please remove distractions while you work and spend time with others. Turn off your phone, close your tablet, and focus on the task at hand.
To-Do list – The ever popular to-do list is perfect for organizing your day into bite-size chunks. Make a daily one to automate certain processes, and really focus on the unique difficult tasks first. As the saying goes, eat that frog. If you want even more reinforcements, create a “to-don’t” list, of things you’ll never do, and stick to it!
Attitude is everything – Expect failure and fight paranoia in life – Failure is common when you are exploring. But not failing is never okay. Keep positive and realize it won’t always be this bad, but it won’t stay easy either. If you ask lots of questions, aren’t afraid to do menial work, and spend 10 minutes a day laughing out loud, when Sunday night appears, you’ll be excited for Monday.
Evaluate life – Make major decisions in the morning and divvy up your day based on your productivity habits. Assess your passions at the end of each year, each month, each week, and before you go to bed. If you can do that you’ll focus and delegate out the unnecessary. Flexibility is important too, but if you get stuck try this – pretend you are away from work and/or home for a week, and you only have a few hours to accomplish your tasks.
Plan to make plans – Plan regularly! Build routines to start your day AND end your day. You are going to have to organize throughout the day too, so make an outline to insure you aren’t starting from scratch over and over. Please also set deadlines for major projects by planning ahead. You’ll benefit from organizing your desk/workspace, minutes saves hours, believe me.
Community of colleagues – Please be social at work, so that you have a support base and network to lean on in your endeavours, and don’t be afraid to say no to anyone. If you can learn to do that AND under-promise while over-delivering, you’ll definitely find the time to finesse your brand pitch about you and gain some fans in the process.
Health matters – Your greatest resource is you. So build good habits to help you stop working and walk away after a certain point. Working smart doesn’t mean you also work hard. Health is important and managing stress, anxiety and depression are part of it. Try a standing desk for posture and circulation, get up every 45 minutes and move around too. Finally, pick a “Sabbath” day to refresh your soul, body, and mind.

So there you have it, I took all of the most brilliant advice on life hacks, and summarized it even further. No easy task, but worthwhile!

And that’s all the theories I’ve got for today! Are any of you already doing some of these things? All of them? Leave questions or comments, or send me an email! Subscribe if you liked this post and want to see more.

Otherwise, come back tomorrow for some love tips or something mushy related to it, at the very least.

Tim!