What do you think they are up to?

Time Challenge Step # 6 – Deadlines

If you’ve been following this Challenge since the beginning, then you will probably have written down all the projects you will be working on for the next couple of months. But when do you plan on completing them?

A mistake we often make is to work but not have a specific time to finish it. We adopt the ‘as long as it takes’ attitude and that’s quite bad for our time management skills.

If you work or study, then you know that there is a deadline for every single thing you do at school or at work. There is a set time for you to submit that paper or finish preparing those reports.

Why do you think that is?

Why do you think teachers and managers give us deadlines to finish our work?

Because we would never get them done otherwise! We would simply leave it for “later” or move on a more pleasant or easier task.

The problem is that many of our projects are personal, which means nobody will ever give us a set time to finish them. And that’s where the 6^th Step of our Challenge comes in. Here’s what you will do:

Look at the list of projects you wrote on Step # 2.

Make a list of everything you will need to do in order to accomplish each one.

Based on this list and all the steps you will need to take in order to achieve what you want in you project, calculate the amount of time you think it’s going to take to finish each one.

And finally, set a date, a deadline for each project. Make sure to write the date in front of the title of each project.

You have to be realistic about the deadline, but it’s also important that you challenge yourself to complete your project soon, because the sooner you get it done, the sooner you will have what you want and the sooner you will be able to move on to other things.

You should also have deadlines for small tasks you do everyday. Have a specific time/day you want to finish each task (including eating your frog), and you will see that you will be more focused and faster than ever!

Now, let’s get to work! 

Moneyball

I didn’t really want to watch this movie when it came out… it looked very boring. Some people recommended it to me, but still, I don’t know why, I just didn’t think it was a good movie. Boy, was I wrong!

This movie has no action, it doesn’t have a lot of emotion, there are no fights, no drama, but I liked it a lot!!!

It’s a story based on true events about the baseball manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt). I don’t understand anything about Baseball, but the movie shows that if compared with other teams, the one managed by Billy was quite poor and therefore had no conditions to buy the best players and as a consequence, they could never win a game, let alone compete in championships.

So, Billy’s goal was to find a way to use the limited financial resources he had to put together a team that was good enough to start wining some matches and take the whole team out of the awful situation they found themselves in.

It’s a lot to explain here, that’s why you should watch the movie and pay very close attention :), but to summarize it, he chooses to use a strategy created by a man everyone deemed to be crazy. Instead of looking at a player’s appearance and at everything the other teams looked at when buying a player, he starts looking at the statistics… how much a specific player could score points.

He faces a lot of difficulties because no one believes in his new strategy, the coach does not make things any easier for him, no one believes in him, only another guy whom he hired to work for him, who by the way started the whole idea.

Am I saying too much?

Let me try and summarize more lol. So, he starts doing some crazy things… he fires the “best” players he had, forces the coach to change the positions of the players on the team, he changes the way he treats the players; he does everything he knew and could, for he really believed in it.

And what happens??? It works!

This movie teaches us that if you want to make the difference, you will have to be different and not go by what everybody is already doing. It shows the story of a man who really knew how to make lemonade out of the bitter lemons in his life!

And that to reach success or to solve a problem is just a matter of faith, proper planning and mathematics.

Awesome movie! I absolutely recommend it! 

Safe House

This is a R rated movie

After watching The Vow, which was not very good, I went for some action.

What can I say about Safe House…?

Denzel Washington is in it, which is already a reason to believe that the movie is going to be good. 

And so it was.

I really liked it but it was not so much because of the plot, but more because of the action. It’s definitely the kind of story we have seen before, but good nonetheless.

There are fights 90% of the time, so if you are not in the mood for something slow and mellow, Safe House is probably the movie for you to watch.

It’s kind of like ‘Bourne Trilogy'. The fights look very real and the guy actually gets hurt… A LOT lol.

I like movies like this (not the kind where people get hurt of course, but the ones that keep you on the edge of your seat), but I understand that not everyone does.

So, for those who liked Bourne, I recommend it. You will probably like this one as well.

If not, then maybe you should just stay away from all the fighting ;)

Time Out

This week I will not post the next step for our Time Challenge. My partners and I are using this week to regroup and reorganize ourselves.

See you next week!

Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows

 I’m going to keep this review really short.

You know when the first movie is very good and the second is a complete disappointment?

Well, that is NOT the case with Sherlock Holmes 2. In fact I think I even liked this last one better.

It’s very entertaining, very intriguing and most importantly very funny! I laughed throughout the movie.

Robert Downey Jr. plays his role exceptionally well, including speaking with a British accent.

They couldn’t have done better.  

Excellent, excellent movie!

You must see it!!!

The Vow

I always thought that there’s something about a serious actor (meaning an actor who always has a serious face regardless of the movie he’s in) who does a romantic movie. I don’t know, I think that the mysterious kind of face just adds to the whole story… and this were my thoughts exactly when I first saw the trailer of The Vow.

Channing Tatum rarely smiles in his movies, but he did such a good job on Dear John that I thought putting him together with Rachel McAdams, who did exceptionally well on ‘The Notebook’ by the way, would be just perfect.

The wife who suffers an accident and loses her memory. The husband who has to fight so she will fall in love with him again. The whole thing based on true events. It was the perfect love story… except the movie didn’t tell it right.

I must say that it wasn’t all I thought it would be. The husband doesn’t get many chances to show his love for his wife. The wife kind of gets on my nerves. There isn’t enough romance and the ‘chemistry’ between them was not quite there.

So, what do I do after watching the movie? I googled the real story, the one the movie is based on and guess what?

They have very little in common, which really added to my disappointment.

Here are a few things that are different between the movie and the real story:

Movie – They move in together and have sex before getting married

Real Story – They don’t sleep together until they are married and only live together after the wedding

Movie – They get divorced (oops, have I said too much? lol)

Real Story – They only get separated, but never divorced

Movie – God is not mentioned at all

Real Story  – Both husband and wife are Christians and live according to their faith in God… But Hollywood would never include that one, would they?

It’s an ok movie but will not go to my list of favorites.

I’m nothing if not traditional

In my last Twilight Series post, I talked about how dangerous it is for someone to live for someone else’s love, but today I’d like to draw your attention to one of the nicest things in the whole Twilight story.

Something rarely found nowadays: Principles and values.

If you put all fiction aside, you will have to agree with me that Edward was all about values. Maybe because in the story he is from another time, a time when people valued themselves and each other, where they respected limits and boundaries and when a relationship between a man and a woman wasn’t about passion or sex or keeping up with what everybody else was doing.

Here are a few things I really like about the way Edward deals with his relationship with Bella:

He’s all about family. He understands that there’s a place for everyone in a family. He respects his parents and siblings and does not ignore or forget about them because of his love for Bella.

He insists on Bella telling her dad about their relationship. He goes to her house to ask his permission.

He wanted what was best for her. He wanted her happiness, even if that meant leaving her.

They date but they don’t have sex. He thinks sex is to be had only after a couple is married.

And here’s the real killer for me: He wants to marry her! He doesn’t want to have her for a couple of weeks and then move on to someone else. He doesn’t want her so he can add one more name to his list and reinforce his reputation as a player. He wants to marry her!

Like I said, this is rarely found nowadays, but let’s say it happens. Let’s say a guy truly likes a girl and wants to wait for the right time to even date her. Let’s say he does not think of her as something to be used; he respects her and actually wants to wait until they are married to sleep together. What do you think would be the girl’s response to that kind of behavior?

Many would respond the same way Bella did. They “love” the guy so much (especially due to his many qualities) that they end up destroying the very qualities they love him for.

Edward wanted to ask permission to date Bella. She thought that was not necessary.

He wants to marry her. She thinks marriage is a failed institution and a thing from the past really.

He wants to keep himself until marriage. She wants to take her clothes off at the earliest opportunity.

Many women like to blame men for breaking their hearts, using them, disrespecting them, but how can they when they’ve long forsaken their own self-respect?

Girls need to start valuing themselves more, respecting themselves more and then people, including men, will start treating them likewise… 

You are my life now

Bella meets Edward. Bella falls in love with Edward.

Bella would do anything for him. Be anything for him.

Bella lives and breathes Edward.

Bella is dead scared to lose him.

Edward breaks up with Bella.

Bella falls apart.

Bella stops living.

This is what happens in the second movie. Edward loves her so much and is so concerned about her safety and happiness that he decides that she would have a better chance at that if he wasn’t around… And so he decides to leave her.

After that Bella falls into depression, has constant panic attacks, doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t look forward to anything anymore. It was like her life walked out the door the minute he walked out of her life.

I wish this was something that only happened in movies, but unfortunately this is pretty much the reality of many girls nowadays.

They meet a guy, fall head over hills for him and the ‘love’ they feel is so strong that they are absolutely sure they can’t live without him.

And so they do whatever is necessary to keep that person’s love.

They go against their better judgment.

They turn against their parents if they dare disagree with her ‘new found love’.

Others give themselves completely and unconditionally to the guy, just so they won’t lose them.

They turn away from friends, lose focus on their studies, forget about the plans they had for the future. They change the way they dress, hang out in places they would never go before, accept whatever and whenever, do whatever is necessary, risk everything for someone they say they love.

And the worst is, some even turn their backs on God and everything they once believed in. They abandon their faith; they throw their salvation out the window, and for what? For a guy who ‘loves’ them today and may ‘love’ someone else tomorrow.

They completely lose themselves.

But what if their ‘Edward’ turns out to be a jerk?

What if he decides he doesn’t ‘love’ her anymore?

What if her ‘life’ walks out on her and never even looks back?

If he was her life, what happens to her if he leaves?

What will she be left with?