Tuesday Night OLists Happy Hour: Habits of Excellence

"We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle

Tonight in OLists Happy Hour, we are going to discuss Habits of Excellence, inspired by this quote from Aristotle.

I came by this specific formulation for tonight's Happy Hour menu by a slightly round-about track.  I had read a post in last week's Objectivist Blog Roundup by John Drake, over at his blog, Try Reason!

The post is short and sweet, titled Emotions and Self-discipline.  It's a quick read - his blog is full of quick reads on topics like productivity, ambition, and goal-setting.  The sentence that stood out for me was this:

When I'm feeling bored or fidgety or frustrated, I need to discipline myself to either deal with the emotions quickly or file them away until I have time to fully work through the issues that are causing the emotions.

I won't speak for anyone else, but I know that I can pretty easily get to feeling bored, fidgety, and/or frustrated when faced with a desktop-full of work that needs to get done.  As I was contemplating turning the idea of self-discipline into Happy Hour Menu, a vague memory of the Aristotle quote came floating up from my subconscious.  It struck me that part of a long-term strategy of productivity would necessarily include the development of particular, strategic habits to stay motivated and combat the tendency to get stalled out, thus keeping yourself on track.

Then, a few minutes later, I happened to be looking at a friend's facebook page (ok, perhaps I was fidgeting), and there was the Aristotle quote staring right at me.

I'm telling you, it was meant to be!

Tonight's Menu:

Appetizer:  Looking at the things in your life at which you excel, what specific practices can you identify as habits of excellence that you practice with consistency?

Drink Special:  How can you see yourself applying these successful habits to areas in your life that you want to jump start?  What other ways can you think of to stay motivated?

Happy Hour Mechanics:

Happy Hour takes place in the OList Chatroom, every Tuesday night, from 9-10 p.m. Eastern and 6-7 p.m. Pacific.

Point your browser to www.olist.com/chat.  You will be asked for a login and password - check your OList email for these.

You will see the chat window that looks like this:

On the right is the list of users participating; on the left is the chat itself.  At the bottom, you have the option of logging in through your facebook account, or as a guest.  If you log in through facebook, it will pull your profile picture into the list next to your name, which is a nice feature.


For general information on the OLists Socials, check out the OList Events page here.

Your hosts for the OList Socials are @DianaHsieh, @laforgetm (aka William Green) and myself, @Earl3d