Spend time with your loved ones

Consequently, if you tend to feel overwhelmed or never have enough time to finish your work, I encourage you to double the time you give yourself to finish your tasks. Try this method and see what happens during the day and how you feel at the end of it. What you may realize is that inaccurate forecasting can create unnecessary stress and impact negatively on your self-esteem. You'll probably discover that merely by giving yourself more time, you'll accomplish the same amount of work--if not more--and will feel much better about yourself. Take enough breaks Are you working non-stop from morning to night without taking enough breaks? After all, you need to hustle right? While you may believe that every minute counts and that the fewer breaks you take, the more productive you will be, studies actually show this is not the case. What actions will you shift? Do you need to stop talking too much? Do you need to update your image? Do you need to receive compliments with grace and ease? Do you need to start having and sharing your opinions? Do you need to stop procrastinating? Is there an action you need to take to respect yourself more? Do you need to admit when you don't know something? Do you need to start asking directly for what you want or need? The five things I need to do differently are: How did people back then get information and music? How did they socialize?

Cultural evolution The process whereby cultures develop and propagate according to systems of belief or behavior that contribute to the success of a society. Cultural Diffusion: Spreading the Word Once a component of culture develops, the more adaptive it is, the more readily it generally spreads. The transfer of inventions, knowledge, and ideas from one culture to another, a process that the anthropologist Ralph Linton (1936) labeled cultural diffusion, is made possible by the human capacity for communication and learning, combined with the urge to explore and grow. This diffusion often occurs through friendly contact, business and trade, mass communication, and immigration, but it also commonly results from conquest and colonization. For example, many aspects of Roman culture were diffused throughout Europe as the Roman Empire spread its domination across Europe and beyond, often by means of extreme violence. Cultural diffusion In fact, high-achievers take regular breaks as part of their strategy to perform at the highest level. Brendon Burchard, the best-selling author of High-Performance Habits, takes breaks very seriously and recommends his clients to take a break from work every 45-60 minutes. If your butt lands in a chair, then set a 50-minute timer on your phone or computer. At fifty minutes, no matter what you're working on, stand up, move, breathe, set an intention, and then return to work. What about you? How often should you take breaks? Below are the techniques considered to be the most effective: Every 75-90 minutes: Robert Pozen, author of Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours, encourages people to take a break every 75- 90 minutes. This is because it is difficult to remain focused for more than 90 minutes at a time. It's only as you become conscious of how your actions (or inactions) are robbing you of your power that you can begin to make a shift--awareness is the first step. Challenge yourself to change the way you behave in one small way each day.

For example, if you're used to allowing your husband to select the movie you'll see, pick out the movie yourself. If your office is overflowing with clutter, spend 10 minutes a day getting it organized. Find a quiet place to plan your day. Take one hour a day to do exactly what you want to do. Be patient and compassionate with yourself--these changes won't happen over night. Take Action! Put Your Power Tools Together Before we finish this article, let's create an action plan that will inspire you to change your thoughts, words and actions. The transfer of inventions, knowledge, and ideas from one culture to another. Through cultural diffusion, a culture doesn't have to depend solely on the ingenuity of its own members to meet the adaptive challenges of the environment; For example, Europe's location and sea-travel-friendly coastlines allowed its evolving cultures to benefit extensively from cultural diffusion in terms of technological innovation and development (Diamond & Bellwood, 2003). Historical examples of ideas that have diffused in this manner include the belief in one deity (monotheism), knowledge that the earth revolves around the sun, and the idea that women should have equal rights with men. And the easier travel and communication became around the globe, the more quickly cultural diffusion occurred. Under such conditions, inventions are especially likely to spread rapidly, as can be seen with radio, television, computers, the Internet, and cell phones. Of course, as this diffusion occurs, other cultures typically adapt these influences for their own purposes. When Marco Polo brought the technology for making pasta back from the Far East, the Italians developed their own forms and uses for it; But these modifications are not always so unambiguously beneficial. The Internet has led to development of web sites devoted to things such as music and comic articles in some cultures, but it has led to web sites devoted to racism and spreading terrorism in others. Every 52 minutes: The startup, Draugiem Group, ran an experiment and found that the most productive people took frequent breaks working 52 minutes and taking 17-minute breaks.

While they may seem like long breaks, in reality, if you can remain focused for fifty-two minutes, you will be more effective at work, and your breaks will be well-deserved. Every 25 minutes: This is called the Pomodoro technique. The idea is to work 25 minutes and take 5-minute breaks every half hour. Now, which method should you use? This depends. The only way to know which one works best for you is to try them out. I encourage you to test each method for a week and see which one works best for you. Fill in the following information: To retrain my mind I will: I will develop and strengthen the voice of my inner ally by doing the following three things: I will replace the following words or phrases with new, empowering ones: Old Word/Phrase New Word/Phrase I will stop doing: I will start doing: Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox (Harper, San Francisco, 1989) When I want to reorient my thinking in the right direction, I pick up this article. Filled with practical wisdom, it's one of my favorites. Some contemporary cultural traditions, such as the Easter egg hunt, are rooted in cultural practices from different eras and countries, such as pagan and Egyptian rituals. This is just one colorful example of cultural diffusion.

An oft-overlooked consequence of cultural diffusion is that all but the most isolated of cultures are actually hybrid products of many cultures (Linton, 1936). To mention a few examples: Americans often think of horses and cows as prototypical symbols of the American West, but they were first domesticated in Southwest Asia. Windmills and wooden shoes, so closely associated with Holland, originally appeared in Persia (now Iran). The use of eggs to symbolize the Christian Easter celebration dates back to pagan fertility ceremonies as well as to Egyptian traditions 5,000 years ago. The general point is that much of what people consider central characteristics of their own culture are actually elements borrowed from other cultures and subsequently elaborated on (Rosenthal & Levy, 2013). Thus, cultures are amazingly complex and useful adaptations, best viewed as cumulative collaborative products of the ingenuity of the entire human species, and hence should be sources of pride for us all rather than only for members of particular groups. Cultural Transmission Cultural innovation and diffusion across generations requires a specific kind of social interaction between experienced teachers and youngsters open to learning through formal instruction or imitation. Note that it may also depend on the tasks you perform. For instance, for a task that requires a great deal of creativity, perhaps working in blocks of 75- 90 minutes might work best as it gives you more time to enter the flow. Alternatively, for tasks that require less or minimal concentration, working in blocks of 25 minutes might be more effective. Do you feel like a hamster in a wheel, continuously running but never reaching your destination and feeling like you're not in control of your day? In the previous section, you learned how to declutter your mind and your environment to help you feel more at peace and less overwhelmed. In this section, you'll discover how to sharpen your focus to help boost your productivity. Let's get started. Assess your productivity Are you productive or are you merely busy? If you feel overwhelmed, the reason may be that you spend too much time on unproductive tasks. Find and Use Your Inner Power by Emmet Fox (Harper, San Francisco, 1992) This article is a series of short essays on the power of thought to direct the course of your life.