Using Google Sheet and Google Docs

For some time now, I have been using Google Sheets and Google Docs instead of Microsoft Word and Excel.

There are a number of reasons:

• Google Docs can be setup so there are no page breaks; just continuous scrolling. This makes so much sense if you are planning to read the doc online and not print it out.
• Easier to share content with others and collaborate if required.
• Easier to provide a link in Evernote than attach a file.
• No need to remember to save; it automatically saves for you.
• Past versions automatically archived.
• Easier to embed onto Life Trove if I want to share the contents.
  
  

All in all, I much prefer it. I have migrated all my documents now to Google.

Google Sheet

Google Docs

Using Evernote for Compass and Wisdom Trove

This year, I moved all my information relating to Compass and Wisdom Trove to Evernote. Previously I have been using Mindmanager and Excel.

Evernote is really powerful and flexible. It provides some great benefits as an information management system

Benefits

• Facilitates dashboards for tasks and life management.
• Favourite notes, notebooks, and tags accessible in the left column.
• Note links for seamless cross-referencing between notes.
• Organisation by notebooks and tags for flexible categorization.
• Powerful search, even within PDFs, images, and attachments.
• Access across multiple devices for on-the-go productivity.
• Ability to attach various file types, including PDFs, docs, sheets, and mind maps. Best of breed apps for different needs all integrated.
• Collaboration features for shared notes and teamwork.
• Note history archive for tracking changes and restoring versions.
• Scalable: Wisdom Trove ended up having 1000's of notes.
• Ability to create tables.

Using Excel to create a life dashboard

 I would later use this idea extensively in Evernote.

View

Compass (1990 - )

Introduction

• This is something that has been developing since I was 20 years old.  It accelerated in 2013, inspired by the wisdom I was collecting for Wisdom Trove.

What is it?

• An evolving system (set of principles, practices, exercises, skills, processes, tools and guiding wisdom) that can be applied to any project - including the greatest project of all: living a meaningful and inspired life.

Purpose

• Allow me to apply and experiment with wisdom from Wisdom Trove to transform my life and passion projects.
• Practices, exercises, principles, processes and wisdom to move me towards my life’s purpose and vision and help me with my passion projects.
• Support me in connecting to Consciousness and growing in love.
• Provide a conscious process of growing, learning, transcending and evolving.
• Help me to tap into universal intelligence, inspiration and revelation (beyond the mind).
• Increase my sense of well being and lessen psychological pain.
• Increase my sense of meaning, fulfillment and gratitude.
• Allow me to embrace life more and experience moments of aliveness.
• Help me to develop and share my gifts with others.
• Give me a sense of my life being “in order.” 
• To allow my mind to go on retreat and rest in Being (mind like water).
• Get perspective during tough times - life is an ebb and a flow (especially through well-being charting and reflection)
• Appreciating and learning from the past, planning for and anticipating the future, and most of all, embracing the present.

Components

• Purpose: A clear sense of my life purpose and the purpose of each passion project.
• Vision: A clear picture of my desired outcome for my life and each passion project.
• Guiding principles: Principles and values that guide my life and each passion project.
• Strategy: Initiatives for each major area of my life. Strategic plans for my passion projects.
• Success measures: How I measure success based on my purpose and vision.
• Planning and reviewing: Bucket list, weekly and annual planning and reviewing.
• Processes: Identifying life and project processes and making them as fun and effortless as possible.
• Task management: A way to manage my daily tasks based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
• Passion projects: Projects that tap into my life purpose and vision.
• Guiding wisdom: A collection of wisdom I find especially relevant to my life.
• Guiding quotes: A collection of quotes I particularly resonate with.
• Guiding questions: Useful questions to ask myself regularly.
• Progress tracking: Tracking and celebrating progress in my life and my passion projects.
• Well-being charts: Charts of my well-being and spiritual connection.
• Digital journal: A gratitude journal to curate all I love (especially memories) and to share parts of my life with loved ones.
• Practices: Regular practices and skills including serving others, prayer, mindfulness, meditation, creative thinking, reflecting, decision making, problem solving, exercise.
• Inspiration: A trove of inspiration, immersing myself in works of genius, documentaries, museums, reading etc.
• Lists: A collection of regularly updated lists including things I’m grateful for, things I’m proud of, moments of joy I’ve experienced, spiritual experiences, insights, my life challenges and what I’ve learned from them.
• Risks and worries: A log of my worries with actions I can take and contingency plans where relevant.
• Tools: The tools I use to manage Compass include Evernote, Mindmanager, Excel and Blogger.

Guding principles

• Spiritual connection
• Managing my life consciously and strategically but with heart and soul
• Learning, growing, transcending, evolving
• Processes and practices integrated into everyday life
• Helping me to embrace life, not escape into my computer
• Experimenting with new approaches and breaking patterns.
• As much focus on visioning and planning (future thinking) as collecting and reflecting on the past.
• A process, not a destination
• Developing skills through daily practices (a lifestyle)
• Being my own personal coach (patient, constructive, encouraging, affirming, compassionate)
• Coming from a place of inspiration, passion, excitement and fun, not striving or self imposing.
• Intentions and principles, not rigid rules. Guides and inspires my life, rather than rules it.
• A combination of routines and shaking things up
• Applying the wisdom of Wisdom Trove into my own life - then feeding real life wisdom back into it
• Celebrating progress.
• Seeing mistakes, back-sliding, failures, plateaus as inevitable and a chance to learn
• Capturing that translates into insight and action.
• Doing it to embrace life more, not to “improve” or because I’m incomplete
• Vision, purpose
• Strategy, planning
• Process
• Review, reflect, learn
• One step at a time with vision in mind
• Power of small steps
• Power of habit, ritual, routine, process
• Integrated into daily life
• Practice, action, implementation
• Effectiveness, efficiency
• Fun
• Meaningful productivity
• Success defined, measured
• Evolving, learning
• Focused
• Practical
• Experimentation (life is my lab and I am the experimental subject)
•  Relaxed
• Fluid
• Simple
• Real impact

Scope     

• Past - tracking, learning from, re-framing, celebrating, savouring, sharing
• Now - applying and living (principles, skills, being, savouring, doing, learning)    
• Future - visioning, planning, preparing, anticipating

Success measures

• Practice, practice, practice: not getting lost in systems and theory
• Real life impact - tangible, visible, experienceable transformations in my life
• Depth of connection with loved ones
• Certain key practices becoming daily “can’t do withouts”
• Well being (inner peace, inner joy, sense of meaning and purpose)
• Spiritual connectiveness (degree of surrender, trust, gratitude, prayer, Being)
• Usefulness and degree of enjoyment from my passion projects
• Moments of aliveness (joy, connection, release, love, triumph, peace, wonder)
• Skill development
• Confidence
• Increased resilience (bouncing back)
• Feedback from others 
• Income
• visible real life change

What success is not

• Hours spent at the computer
• Amount of data
• The system itself if there is no real life impact

Guiding quotes

• A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.  Kahlil Gibran  
• Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.  M I Finley    
• What’s measured improves.  Peter F. Drucker    
• You can't control what you can't measure.  Tom DeMarco    
• A list of 5 key things, read daily and practiced, is infinitely more valuable than an encycolpaedia of knowledge.  
• Socrates:   The unexamined life is not worth living.
• Alphonso Lingis:   The unlived life is not worth examining. 
• Life is only worth examining because this can help us to live more fully.  Time Freke

My life purpose and vision

To be a calm, loving, open space for consciousness to flow into the world

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Purpose

I connect to the spiritual power of my Inner Being by …

• Resting deeply in Awareness both in stillness and in the midst of doing.
• Surrendering to Life’s unfolding, loving what is, enjoying this wondrous play of form.
• Ever expanding spaciousness within mind and body.
• An ever deepening sense of oneness with everyone and everything. It's all God, Godding!
• Mindful walks and photography in nature.
• Heartfelt gratitude and prayer.
• Resting, exercising, and nourishing the body.

In so doing, I become a calm, loving, open space for Consciousness I am to flow into the world...

• A space for love and connection.
• A space to explore and share wisdom that helps people transcend their limits and discover inner power, joy and freedom.
• A space to perceive, capture and share wonder and beauty.
• A space for creativity, inspiration, revelation and insight to flow free.

"I am a hole in a flute that the Christ's breath moves through..... listen to this music.”  Hafiz

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Guiding Values

• Spacious, Aware, Surrendered
• Oneness, Love, Connection
• Inspiration, Creativity, Free flow
• Wonder, Beauty, Gratitude
• Wisdom, Insight, Truth
• Calmness, Stillness, Effortlessness
• Laughter, Fun, Adventure
• Simplicity, Focus, Balance

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Vision


Connection to Being

• Life lives through me: experiencing, loving and creating through this temporary form I take.
• Spacious, aware and surrendered in all I do.
• The mind on retreat, finding the gap and resting in Being, then coming out to play.
• Every movement is a chance to loosen and release. 
• One thing at a time, taking my time.
• An abundant flow of psychic energy. 
• Transcending limits as I connect more and more deeply to the love and power within.

Love and Connection

• Deep, authentic, fearless connection with the beautiful beings in my life.  Sharing fun and laughter.
• Helping, inspiring and encouraging others, making a real difference to their lives.
• A wonderful group of friends to share my passions with (hiking, spirituality, photography, dancing)
• Savouring every minute with beautiful Mack.

Wisdom and Insight

• Exploring, discovering, applying and sharing wisdom that raises consciousness and brings freedom and transcendence.
• Wisdom Trove:  The most meaningful wisdom site on the internet, widely used by influencers. Full of spiritual power, providing both substance and essence. A partner and team of curators.   
• Writing and collaborating on spiritual books, articles and teachings.  
• Sharing new empowering spiritual narratives that awaken people to sacredness and wonder.

Wonder and Beauty

• Wondrous, fun, adventurous experiences in the natural places of Australia and around the world, all captured in photos and on my blog.
• Nature photography: capturing wonder and beauty in both the vast vistas and tiniest details.
• Portrait photography: capturing inner essence, helping others to recognise their beauty.
• Photography projects and presentations that inspire.
• Balance and harmony between wisdom and insight (mind), love and connection (heart) and beauty and wonder (the senses).
• A beautiful home environment that raises consciousness and inspires creativity.

Clarity and Surrender

• A spacious life vision, purpose and plan that provides direction and inspiration.
• A continually expanding sense of possibility, inspired from within (inspiration and imagination) and without (bibliographies, documentaries, inspiration trove)
• Complete non-attachment to outcome, allowing Universal Intelligence to unfold this life experience as it wishes.  Your will, dear Life.  
• A streamlined process of visioning, planning and doing that allows the mind to be like water and to rest in Being, while also encouraging free flowing spontaneity 

Freedom and Abundance

• Complete freedom (finances, energy, health, time, skills, clarity) to do what I love and be fully alive.
• Abundant finances with the ability to go on spiritual retreats, invest in my projects, travel, enjoy the latest technology and share my abundance with others.

Honouring and loving this temporary form

• I recognise my body as the beloved living being it is and I nourish it with healthy exercise, food and rest.
• The body is spacious, strong, graceful, nourished, healthy and loved. 
• I rest in the aliveness and spaciousness of the body.
• I honour the unique wonder and beauty of this form, perfect in every way for Consciousness to experience what it is here to experience.
• I embrace the experience of being this character.
• I consciously release repressed emotions from the past to become ever lighter and more spacious.

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More detail

• My Purpose and Vision in Evernote

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My Spiritual Compass

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.  Lillian Smith

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I believe...

• in a benevolent universe that loves me completely
• We are sacred spirits on a sacred journey and love is what we are
• I am the sacred witness within and love, joy and peace are at my core
• This moment is perfect 
• I am enough as I am
• There is more than enough
• Simple and focused is beautiful
• Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage
• Stillness is my path to peace

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Living in the moment

• I let go to you, Great Mystery, and open out to your  wonder, wisdom, stillness, beauty and love
• Thank you, Great Mystery, for this golden moment of Now  
• Free in this moment to let it out, let it be, let it go, let it flow
• Free in this moment to be inmost calm and still
• Free in this moment to be fully present

Centred in you, Great Mystery,

• I come home to myself and to life
• I cherish the sacred spirit in each person I meet
• I do what I love to do, creating with love and passion
• I create powerful intentions, beliefs and habits
• I explore with fascination
• I'm thankful for all that is good in my life
• I celebrate wonder and stillness
• I share fun and laughter
• I rededicate myself again and again

My Values

• calmness, gratitude, stillness, passion, love and affirmation, adventure, courage, fun, simplicity, balance

Some Favourite Authors

• John Kehoe
• Deepak Chopra
• N.D. Walsch
• Eckhart Tolle

Teaching English: Vision Statement

I have an invaluable and constantly growing treasure trove of multiple high quality, proven English lessons on every area for every level at my finger tips wherever I am in the world. 

Preparing is almost instantaneous.  I just print and photocopy and / or boot up and go... 

As a result, I have plenty of time for a balanced and free life and to continue to invest in my teaching resources and other skills. 

I continually invent, experiment, adapt and grow my teaching skills and materials. 

I am an extremely effective teacher / trainer and make a real difference  to my students' lives.  I build up a network and keep in contact with many of my students. 

I branch out into other forms of training, including coaching and personal development. 

I act as a consultant in teaching and training and earn significant money from my skills, materials and resources.

Mind mapping with Mindmanager

I love mind mapping.  Mr Suttle, our Latin teacher, taught us how to do it at school. I used it extensively in both senior school and university. Then at Volvo, I discovered the wonders of MindManager, mind mapping software that took my mind mapping to a whole new level. I used it extensively at Volvo and Blackglass and in my English teaching. Most of all, though, I used it in my own life and it created the start of Compass (My life management system) and Wisdom Trove.  Much of the content in the maps also became parts of Life Trove (this blog).

I don't use mind mapping so much anymore since moving to Evernote, but I'm very thankful for the role it has played in my life.

Purpose 

Vision

Life as an art     View large

Values and Life Pillars

Focus
 

Self-knowledge

Affirmation

Habits

Compass

Taking action

Decision making

Life design

Insights

Humour

My life in review

Life highlights

2005 Highlights

Work experience

Guiding wisdom (that would become Wisdom Trove)

Decision making

English teaching