When we were kids, our parents restricted us in many ways. They decided what clothes we would wear, what food we would eat, and how much time we would spend playing computer games. Nowadays we are on our own.

The sad part is that we are prone to succumb to various temptations. Nothing stops me from turning on my computer and watching funny videos on YouTube for three hours in a row. I have no difficulty of buying a bucket of vanilla ice cream and eating it in one sitting. A single click will allow me to spend $100 on a shiny trinket. Thanks to eBay and PayPal. No one will blame me for being lazy at work. There is a great chance I say an elaborate excuse for not hitting the gym today. You get my point.

It’s all available! The power of choosing makes us vulnerable. Bad behaviors are often the addictive ones.

Decide from this very moment to use your computer for educational and working purposes. Commit yourself to lifting heavy weights three or four times a week. Make a ritual of reading a book every single morning. Limit your choices to scheduled activities. Too much pleasure turns into pain.

A very successful man once gave me a great advice. “Become your own father to yourself,” — he said. Self-discipline matters.

I use the rule of 5 minutes. Every time I’m about to do a stupid thing I pause, acknowledge my urge, and murmur: “I’ll wait for 5 minutes and then I’ll indulge myself.” I will repeat the same process over and over again. It works. However, sometimes I fall off a wagon. The best way of dealing with setbacks is just to stand up and to continue going.

People deceive themselves by justifying their inappropriate behavior. They believe tomorrow will be different. The reality is far from those idealistic views. There is little or no chance you stop craving chocolate or a cheeseburger. I doubt the idea of me suddenly liking lifting a barbell while experiencing pain in my muscles. English grammar is very captivating, but who wants to study it willingly on his or her spare time?

We live in the age of endless entertainment. We have so much going on around us, so we cannot imagine how people lived before without the Internet, cell phones, cars, mp3 players, etc. Stores are full of goods. Cities are always busy. All this give us great opportunities to improve our lives while at the same time drain our energy and shift our focus.

Every one of us has to filter a tremendous amount of information on a daily basis. A human brain quickly loses the ability of being on its peak performance. When we deprive ourselves of enough hours of sleep and sustain the energy of our bodies on taking too much caffeine, we tend to blame ourselves for the lack of willpower.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” You’ve heard the phrase many times. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are as long as you’re not standing still. It seems that restrictions will negatively influence our lives. On the contrary, self-discipline cuts off unnecessary stuff and gives you a real chance to make a breakthrough in each area of your life.

Think long-term and step up boldly! The rest will follow.

I remember times when I tried to motivate myself to action. I listened to my favorite music or speeches of motivational speakers. I went to a cinema, hung out with my friends, or had a great lunch in a local fast food restaurant. All those activities should give me enough energy to start moving towards solving a problem. In spite of my efforts, something wrong was with that strategy. It rarely worked. Moreover, after having done such things, I felt like a squeezed lemon.

Hundreds of books have been read by me over the years on the subject of procrastination. They contained great ideas, but many of them were a pure rubbish. As soon as a book was closed, my good mood swung on the negative side. Every time I cast a glance on my schedule, my muscles got tense, my throat got dry, and my hands began shaking. All of a sudden, my whole body repelled the idea of taking action.

People around me experienced the same problem. Some of them openly admitted their weakness. I did not want to become a victim. Once I got crazy, because a series of bad events happened due to my lack of willpower. I promised myself never repeat the same mistake again. It was a naïve thought, not a strong commitment.

A chapter in a book changed everything. The author of the book said the best strategy is to start small and gradually reach the state of a workflow. There is no turning back the moment you are fully engaged in an activity. Instead of sitting comfortably in an armchair, waiting for inspiration, and sipping tea, wash the dishes. In other words, begin with an easy task at hand. Thus, you warm up the brain. Soon it will operate at its full capacity and you will start experiencing moments of enlightenment. Wonderful solutions to your problems will literally pop up in your head out of nowhere. It will be hard for you to stop working. You may skip a meal, but you will be full of energy nevertheless.

The author’s opinion was that action generates inspiration, not otherwise. The more a person tries to motivate himself, the less effective it actually is.

I applied the knowledge and experienced miracles. An accomplished tiny mundane task led me to a bigger one, which, by-turn, invoked a chain reaction. Following the technique, I’ve done more in a week than I usually did in a month. That simple realization cheered me up.

I no longer rely on motivation to shift me from being idle to reaching the peak performance. Motivation works only when you are sure the exact event is going to happen in the future as a result of your endeavor. For instance, if I give you $1,000,000 for creating a piece of software, nothing will stop you from writing a source code, considering the fact I’m honest person and you know a specific algorithm, which will guarantee your program to function correctly. In the real world you may put a lot of effort into something only to find out later it has been in vain.

Human brain works all the time and consumes a lot of energy. A person, who plays a computer game, exhausts himself in the same way as his friend, who prepares for exams. Therefore, the idea that listening to your favorite music will give you extra energy is fundamentally wrong. Songs give you a short burst of enthusiasm. It won’t last for several hours in a row.

Big things have small beginnings.

It was a nice summer evening. The sun shone brightly, there were no clouds in the sky. I decided to put on my sneakers and train my lungs by running in the woods. Everything went great. Suddenly it seemed something fell out of my pocket on the road, so I looked back and spotted a little speck on the horizon. It was a figure of a man. Apparently, he had a stroll in the forest. Fortunately, nothing was missing from my pockets. I continued jogging.

Several minutes later I heard someone’s breath and heavy steps behind my back. I turned my head and saw an old running man with a long beard and bushy mustache. He had been that tiny black dot, which I had noticed before. The old man effortlessly outstripped me and moved forward. I followed the runner, hoping to leave him behind. After all, as a young lad I must have had more energy. To my surprise, I couldn’t shorten the distance between two of us, no matter how hard I tried. My heart pounded heavily, my lungs turned into a burning chamber, and my legs ached. Slowly but steadily, the man drew away from me. Despite the pain, I refused to give up.

Occasionally, I lost sight of the sportsman. It happened when he turned left or right. He got far ahead of me and looked like a figurine. At the end he became a very small speck. Soon thereafter, the man vanished. I clenched my teeth, acknowledging my defeat. I had been running for an hour. My whole body was exhausted and demanded water, which was not available to my misfortune.

It dawned on me I didn’t recognize the location. On top of everything, it was getting dark fast. I would have traded my soul for a cup of tea, if the devil had granted such an opportunity. While running, I had not paid any attention to the surroundings. All my vision had been concentrated on the old man.

I sat down and leaned my back against an old big tree. Everything indicated it would be a long way home…

I followed a path and found myself in a small clearing. It was obvious I got lost in the woods. There was a complete silence. I would be happy to hear a voice or a noise from a highway. However, only grass and leaves rustled underfoot. The forest was a pretty safe place, but the darkness invoked fear. If a serial killer were nearby, what would I do? Hunger, thirst, and pain tormented my body.

All attempts to figure out the shortcut to civilization ended up badly. I roamed in the woods, cursing the situation. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself pronouncing a strong word every now and then.

Wandering alone in the woods in a pitch-dark night was not as pleasant as I had expected. Tree branches scratched my skin mercilessly. I stumbled over roots several times. Thorns of bushes pierced my flesh, making me bawling. My clothes was covered with sticky seeds. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I chose one direction and decided go straightforward and do not deviate. Eventually I would reach a border of the forest. It couldn’t be boundless.

An hour later artificial light helped me to get out of the woods. I resembled a savage man from a prehistoric age. Who would have thought that a running routine would lead to a long nightmarish adventure?

The abbreviation OHIO means “Only Handle It Once”. The OHIO method helps anyone to arrange his or her documents, papers, computer files, bills and other things like that in the shortest period of time possible. The best solution, of course, is to prevent quick accumulation of useless information on the first place. However, at times we aren’t concerned about the consequences of our actions. We just need to write down a number or an address on a paper, which is within our grasp.

Huge stacks of unsorted data can scare you. It’s a good idea to store jottings that may be useful in the future. If a piece of information can’t be retrieved on demand in a reasonable amount of time, it has no practical value. Imagine a dictionary where the words are printed in non-alphabetical order. Would you like to use such a book? It is still possible to find your chosen word, but is it convenient and time-saving?

Today I have a clear and simple way of dealing with papers in my drawers and files on my computer. It wasn’t always the case. I had a flash drive with a storage capacity of 28,5 Gb. Although I used only a tiny fraction of documents, I had a gigabyte or two of free space available. The very essential files were scattered across the folders and everything seemed to me very important to be got rid of.

Several times I was ready to make order and sort things out. Every time I experienced a disappointing setback. It was a painstaking, monotonous, and highly unpleasant task. At the beginning I eliminated the papers that were obviously obsolete. It was a rare category. Usually papers contained unsorted lines of words that had been put randomly on it. Those papers were placed aside only to grab my attention once more later.

One day I was driving a car. I listened to an audiobook and the author explained the OHIO method. He claimed it would help anybody to finally combat mayhem. The system was very simple. You sit at your desk with a pile of papers is lying in front of you. The moment a paper is in your hands there are only three actions. The first option is to crumple it and throw it into a bin. The second thing you can do is to transfer the paper into a specific category or to extract the important information out of it before it goes to the bin. In the third case, you put a paper into a specific folder, which is labeled as “See Three Months Later”. If you live without that folder more than 90 days after it has been filled – you shred it.

I was skeptical about the method. I thought it would not be applicable in my case. Then I remembered that four years before my hard drive had malfunctioned. As a result, I had lost approximately 500 Gb of data. Back then, I had thought my life would be over. In reality, nothing bad happened.

There were files and papers I hadn’t seen for years. Were they critical after all?

Be ready to pay $1 for charity for each paper in the “See Three Month Later” folder. This simple trick will boost your decisiveness on the next level. The same strategy applies to computer files as well.

Several times in my life I have been on the brink of death. I could literally claim myself being ‘a lucky bustard’ after such moments. Ordinary highways sometimes turned into extremely dangerous places due to inadequate drivers.

From what point of time driving like a psycho became acceptable? Why am I perceived as a weirdo, while conforming the road rules? I know, at times the rules are overprotective. I also know that certain models of cars are more stable and, therefore, may be driven at greater speeds. However, there’s a basic road culture. If you intend to change your lane, please, use your rear lights to indicate the maneuver you are about to commit! For God’s sake, you may kill a motorcyclist! Playing checkers on a road is disgusting! It is not cool and far from impressive.

There is a tradition in Russia to outrun a car that moves slower than your own only to push the brake pedal right after. Thus, you show how you despise a tortoise on the wheels that is crawling behind. Unfortunately, you put the hind part of your car at risk. If a road accident happens, you not only jeopardize your bones, you create a heavy traffic as well. What’s the point of such actions? If you really need to be at some place soon, why stop yourself? Simply outrun the car that is in front of you and move on to your destination. Use a horn to express your dissatisfaction.

Quite recently, on the way to my country house my means of transportation has avoided an imminent collision with a ghost car in the night. The incident occurred in the rural area. The road wasn’t lit by any artificial lights. I reached the speed of 90 km/h, according to the display of my speedometer. All of a sudden, ahead of me I recognized features of… a car! Its body was black; its speed was no more than 20 km/h. No rear, or other lights, were switched on! The road had just two lanes: one for each direction. I pushed the brake pedal so hard that all my personal belongings, which had been located on the back seats, were swept away by an unforeseen jerk of the car. I swore.

…It was a late evening. My eyes beheld a landscape of a sublime beauty. Just a few things in the whole world could be more pleasing to do than cruising along the two-lane road at that very moment. I enjoyed the beauty of nature and ruminated about something important. On the side mirror of my car I witnessed an automobile, which was outrunning everyone on the contraflow lane of the road. Such action had been prohibited by the road marking and the road signs. The driver broke the rules on purpose. I was in the front of the line of obedient drivers, so when the wrong doer reached me, he cut me off, and, in a blink of a second, I saw his grin. I horned violently. He showed me his middle finger. My hands wanted to strangle him immediately. If I had had a gun, I would have shot him without hesitation. The black BMW of my offender turned into a tiny dot and then vanished. Soon I saw a café nearby and pulled over to replenish my energy…

The food was delicious and my spirit lifted. I sat behind the steering wheel, revved the engine, and continued my way… About 10 km later, I recognized the black BMW. It had collided with a small truck. Thousands of glass pieces were randomly scattered on the surface of the highway. The beacons of a police car and an ambulance illuminated the scene. The driver, who had shown me his middle finger an hour ago, lay on the stretches. The blood covered his face, which was perfectly still. I couldn’t say, whether he was dead or alive. I noticed the driver of the truck. Doctors carefully examined his arm as if it were broken…

Highway is not a racetrack. It’s just a matter of time when you eventually realize it…

People think their single vote doesn’t matter. “We already know who the winner of this election will be, so why bother?” they usually say. Others justify themselves in a different way. “I don’t want to be a part of this farce!” “I don’t like any of the candidates and there’s no option to vote against all of them. I will stay at home.” “I’m not interested in politics. I understand nothing in it.” “I have things to do on Sunday. I would like to vote, but I simply have no time.”

The sad part is that many of these people have the ability to make a choice. Polling stations are located within 10 minutes of walk from their homes. Yet thousands of lame excuses are found to avoid making any effort. The funny part is non-voters like to complain about the government. They deliberately refuse to use the one and only legal option they have to make some changes, no matter how subtle the changes will be.

When I register and receive a ballot, my actions show that I care. If I don’t like any of the candidates, I spoil the ballot and drop in on the bottom of a voting booth. It doesn’t matter. No one will ever know who has done such a thing. Besides, someone may use his or her ballot in the same way. It’s not a crime, it’s a choice. What does matter is the government will know I am not a passive observer. I won’t tolerate corruption and misuse of rights.

I’m sick of people who claim themselves patriots and neglect elections. Love requires action. It’s easy to be fond of your country’s nature, history, and culture. Anyone has the right to be proud of the greatest achievements of his own country, which took place in the past. Why don’t such patriots understand that their silence will have serious consequences? Politicians have authority, so they have enough power to change the course of history both in negative and positive ways. One minor government measure leads to another. Nothing is neutral.

You don’t have to be an expert in politics to make the right decision. In this case, any decision is better than none. Just look around and ponder for a little. Believe me, there aren’t too many options, after all. Watch debates. Those politicians who reject having a conversation with their opponents are cowards. Period. They are afraid of being asked awkward questions. A truly strong candidate or a representative of a political party should want to interest as many voters as he possibly can. He is eager to spread the word about his wonderful legislative proposals.

I must admit, the means of propaganda have reached their pinnacle. Many people are fooled by the news, which distorts the reality. Why people do not see the obvious remains a mystery for me. A word of caution: you may severely damage your relationships with a relative or a friend, or a colleague, for that matter, trying to convince him or her of voting for a certain candidate you find superior to other ones. Avoid arguing. Briefly explain your position, never raise your voice, be calm and confident.

Your favorite candidate may not win. He or she may not even be in the list of candidates on a ballot. Accept it. Setback is not a defeat.

I’ve read thousands of parables. Most of them weren’t that good. In fact, a great number of those short stories disillusioned me. Only a few tales made a serious impact on my life. An example would be a narrative about a Genghis Khan’s falcon. Having read the parable, I got speechless. Almost a decade has passed and I still love the story. In hard times the narrative helped me to act in a sound manner.

There are many versions of this parable. I provide you with my favorite one.

One morning, the Mughal warrior, Genghis Khan and his courtiers went out hunting. His companions carried bows and arrows, but Genghis Khan carried on his arm his favourite falcon, which was better and surer than any arrow, because it could fly up into the skies and see everything that a human being could not. However, despite the group’s enthusiastic efforts, they found nothing. Disappointed, Genghis Khan returned to the encampment and in order not to take out his frustration on his companions, he left the rest of the party and rode on alone. They had stayed in the forest longer than expected, and Khan was desperately tired and thirsty. In the summer heat, all the streams had dried up, and he could find nothing to drink. Then, to his amazement, he saw a thread of water flowing from a rock just in front of him.

He removed the falcon from his arm, and took out the silver cup, which he always carried with him. It took a while to fill and, just as he was about to raise it to his lips, the falcon flew up, plucked the cup from his hands, and dashed it to the ground. Genghis Khan was furious, but then the falcon was his favourite, and perhaps it, too was thirsty. He picked up the cup, cleaned off the dirt, and filled it again. When the cup was only half-empty this time, the falcon again attacked it, spilling the water. Genghis Khan adored this bird, but he knew that he could not, under any circumstances, allow such disrespect, someone might be watching this scene from afar and, later on, would tell his warriors that the great conqueror was incapable of taming a mere bird. This time he drew his sword, picked up the cup and refilled it, keeping one eye on the stream and the other on the falcon. As soon as he had enough water in the cup and was ready to drink, the falcon again took flight and flew towards him. Khan, with one thrust, pierced the bird’s breast. The thread of water, however had dried up, but Khan, determined now to find something to drink, climbed the rock in search of the spring. To his surprise, there really was a pool of water and, in the middle of it dead lay one of the most poisonous snakes in the region. If he had drunk the water, he too, would have died.

Khan returned to camp with the dead falcon in his arms. He ordered a gold figurine of the bird to be made and on one of the wings, he had engraved:

“Even when a friend continues to do something you do not like, he continues to be your friend.”

And on the other wing, these words were engraved:

“Any action committed in anger is an action doomed to failure.”