Quick Hits of the Week

Live from my Nashville hotel room, here are this week’s Quick Hits:

• I am terrible about staying on top of my email. My inbox is constantly full of dated messages that I would love to read, but I just don’t have the time or energy to do so. A lot of what I’m keeping is junk. Clearing your inbox every day, or achieving Inbox Zero, is a worthy goal, though. There is a lot of advice out there for how to do it, but I think Michael Hyatt’s suggestions are some of the best.

• Before I get too far into this thought, let me be clear that I do love my country. I love the freedoms that it was founded on and the rights that we enjoy and continue to fight for here. That being said, it’s important to recognize that we don’t have it all together. Really. I think our country could be compared to a young boy moving into adolescence. We tend to think too much about ourselves. We’re overly fascinated with sex and violence. We worry about stupid things, and we think countries older than us just don’t understand. I think Mark Manson’s list of 10 things most Americans don’t know about America is generally good advice (especially points 4, 7, 8, and 10). Now, that doesn’t mean I want this young country to grow up to be any other nation than itself, but I am sure that we can stand on our principles as we continue to grow into national maturity.

• Speaking of freedom and maturity, while I support our military servicemen to be free to enjoy whichever form of entertainment they find engages them, I can’t see this as a mature choice.

• If you’re trying to convince another person to consider what you say, then you’re trying to influence them. We want to influence people when we’re sharing a part of our life that we feel passionate about. Maybe we’re trying to promote our ideas, products or services. Or maybe we just want them to go see that great movie that we just saw. Either way, we all want to be able to influence people better, and Brian Tracy has five common mistakes we should avoid when doing so.

• A lot of people are memorializing the late Stephen Covey in their own way. I give you the Seven Habits of Highly Defective Parents, and the Seven Habits of Highly Vindictive People. Either way, I always have trouble with reaching Synergy.

Is there something valuable or important or cool or funny or weird or awesome out there I missed this week? I can’t hit it all, but you should let me know about it by dropping me a line or sharing it in the comments below! I’d appreciate the heads up.