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Where I Buy My Books And How
As you may or may not know, I like to read books frequently. I aim at a bare minimum to read one full book a month. From time to time I may add an additional eBook to go alongside. This keeps the mind ticking, it keeps me progressing to where I want to get to and finally is a high valued hobby of mine. I don’t just buy books from anywhere and I always look for the best deals. Time and time again I find that Amazon is the place to go to get my books (later in the article I will tell you how I buy from Amazon). 
Usually once a month I go to Amazon and purchase the book I will read for a future month. I purchased a few books a few months back, So I am basically set for the rest of the year. Starting next year I may just buy 12 books in advance and have the reading set out already. What I would then do is purchase books also throughout the year and read them as I please. Some of you may be thinking by now Amazon isn’t nothing special, give me something new. For those of you thinking this way, we will now look at how I buy my books from Amazon. And I will use a few real life examples I have come across.
I have spoken in recent articles about how important recommendation is in today’s world. Many books I read have been recommended from others or by the books I have read. When I want to purchase a book I go to Amazon and search for the book. After finding the book (maybe one time I haven’t found the book). I click on the book and observe the price. What I then do if I haven’t checked reviews prior is read through reviews (good and bad). I want to see what people think about it. Some bad reviews may not be valid for me and vice versa with good reviews. After I have fully decided to buy the book, I immediately click on “USED.” No typo, yes the used section. And scout the price difference. What you will find is, usually the prices are dramatically different (remember I will show you real life examples below). I then look for the book which has a “Like new” or “Very good” next to it and this is my book. What you will find is these two types of descriptive books are just as good as the new copy you would have bought for sometimes 5x the price. You will begin to save loads of money and ultimately this is money you will pay for all your future books. Find my live examples below.
I purchased “The Millionaire Next Door – Thomas J Stanley” earlier this year for £0.63. With postage it ended up less than £3.50. This was a hardcover book which was “Like new” and looked like it had never been touched when I opened the envelope. To purchase the book “New” would have cost me £15 upwards from Amazon. I could buy 5 copies basically for the price of this one new book. The four other books will be the next four months (think about it).
I bought “Today Matters – John C Maxwell” for £1.58. Including postage it came to less than £4.50. This again was hardcover format. What I saw on Amazon’s site when I checked for a new copy can’t be right. For a new copy of the book, it would cost over £30 to purchase it. These are just two examples and I have more like this. The point is, you could be saving loads of money.
After X Amount Of Days I Got Back On The Bike!
I wrote an article yesterday about sorting out priorities, you can click here to read it if you haven’t already but please come back and finish off this 
article. You can kind of say the two are linked because when I got out of bed this morning (around 5:30 AM), I had just finished reading the Bible, which I aim to do every day before I start my day. I headed over to my laptop and was thinking about the blog post I was going to write today (This is another thing I am trying to sort out because for the second year running, I am failing to complete a post a day – How hard can it really be?).
Anyway I started thinking about new priorities (which are really old) that I wanted to reinstate. Now I started thinking about my first online callings. One was my blog and I am taking more time with it and giving it more of my attention, regardless of whatever other things I am trying to do. The point is, I definitely have the time, It just comes down to my priorities. As I sat down, another one immediately can into my mind…”Get back on the bike.” Like that it was back and it is something I am looking to start doing seriously again. As I write these very words, another thing shot to the front of my memory which is language practice. I did think of typing tomorrow I will start again but there is no time like the present, I will get back into the swing of things today and perhaps write a blog post about it in the future. This blog post today isn’t about business but I find it hard to walk over this point without using the words “passive income.” What I am actually doing here is taking actions and by me doing these things, more things are coming back to me without little or no work. All I am doing currently is writing today’s blog post but I already have two potential articles now for tomorrow and the day after (getting back on the bike again day#1 & back to Greek day #1). Guess what? This seems like a good stream of investment because I have now thought (while typing) of a daily review/oversight of my day of biking and my day of Greek. That is how easy action multiplies! If I did this every day, I would have a full year’s worth of content for my blog and would complete my task of posting every day.
Like I said, this post isn’t about business but you can see how the principle of business are transferable. Staying with this theme just slightly, I was lying in bed around 3/4 AM thinking about how great & timeless Jesus was. I’m a firm believer in the fact all plans including business, life, wealth etc are found in the Bible. I was thinking about Business and how important marketing/exposure is, it really is the most important (Yes more important than the good product). I started thinking about how Jesus had such a big impact. Firstly, you should know I do believe Jesus had the best product on the market but this isn’t enough. If people don’t even accept free products today, this alone shows you product is not enough. Jesus didn’t say – “I have the best product on the market, everyone will come to me.” He actually did the opposite! He travelled around Israel teaching freely about his product and showing people real life examples of the product. Tried and Tested. Just to relate it to business I used the word product. I know some people may find offence in that but even if it was a product, it’s free anyway. Moving on, he not only travelled himself, he sent people out before him and with him. Ladies and gentlemen – please tell me what one of the biggest marketing strategies out there today is? Affiliate marketing! I’m merely using this to prove my previous point that these strategies are nested in the Bible one way or another.
It’s funny how my article post about getting back on the bike has turned into various other things but there you have it. Nearly 1000 words in less than thirty minutes all original. Since I completely sabotaged this article (unintentionally in many ways), I can do nothing else but tell you to look out for my upcoming article about getting back on the bike day #1 (now written) which will talk more about my bike experience and the struggles that came along.
Riding my bike is not in the top two things on my list so I was not riding before writing.
Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think and you can always share this post for free if you feel it was inspiring or helpful.
Thanks.
Israel.
Priorities: How To Reinstate Your Priorities
This article is all about priorities, and how we can reinstate previous priorities which are significant to their rightful places. I asked myself the question recently “I have the time to do things, why am I not doing some of the things I want to do any more?” The answer to this question is simple, My priorities have changed. It was not a special equation for me, it was not some riddle I needed to unfold. I’m still trying to maximise my time every day, just on different things. When you are busy doing things, you will begin to realise how things you did previously, are not always done any more. I asked myself another question, “how do I get some of the things I want to do back on my priorities?” I will write about my solutions for priorities below. 
How Do I Solve My Priorities Predicament?
My solution entails a strategy I came across when it came to increasing my work ethic and helping me complete tasks. The best thing apart from me not needing to learn something new is that the concept is real simple. My solution to this is “Write it down…” I write down what I want to reinstate and when I look at my list of priorities in the morning, I make sure I find time to do them. It is that simple for me. I aim to take no for an answer. If my key priorities are to do something when I first wake up. No matter what happens I will tell myself, I need this done and nothing can happen otherwise. This is a simple solution to fixing my priorities to the way I want them. Try it out and you will start to see that after some failed attempts, you will begin to make sure you do what is required, if you don’t, there will be serious repercussions. Things you really want to do which are not key priorities will be missed. Something simple like that I can aim at completing every day.
I would really like for you to try this technique I learned and let me know how it work out for you, leave comments and even email me or contact me via social media. You can even connect with me and share me some of your simple techniques which have worked for you.
Thanks.
One Day At A Time
The one day at a time rule means taking one day at a time. Lets say for example, every day you want to write a blog post. Perhaps setting a time every day to sit down and start writing may be the easiest way. Perhaps you’re so busy you just wait for an expected time in the day and start writing. One day at a time is a great principle. It is really simple. Every day you write down what needs to be done today and you go through the list. Long tasks which take longer than a day are broken down into days and after a certain amount of days the task is complete.
I do this task with book reading. I aim to read one main book each month and maybe a side book (like an ebook) alongside. The current book I am reading is about 300 pages, mathematically it would be about 10 pages a day but I don’t necessarily meet this requirement. For example, I read about 15-20 pages yesterday, today I may read more. I usually finish within the month and then spend the last days reviewing and rereading chapters. I remember when I read Today Matters by John Maxwell, I read the book in about 15-20 days and basically reread the book. Last month I finished reading my main monthly book in 10 days or so and barely touched the book again. One day at a time for me doesn’t mean I have to do the same things over and over again, but it does mean I need to give my best. Sometimes I adhere, other times I don’t. My aim is to obviously be consistent.
You don’t have to treat everything like this but if you slowly start to implement this strategy for tasks, you will start to reap it’s benefits.
Israel Ikhinmwin's Site 