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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.
Short Exercise Update
I’ve taken a couple of days off from my bike riding. And this would be problematic if I wasn’t about to type the words, I have still be working out. I’ve still been ensuring I keep up the cardio work, as well as doing some added stuff around it too. Should be back on the bike soon but If not. I will still be 
doing different forms of exercise to keep me on the right path. A friend also recommended a book called “The Pyramid Diet” by Danni Levy (the funny thing is I used to watched some of here programmes when I watched the active channel). I took a quick look at reviews but will do more on it today. Don’t go and run to buy it because although I know recommendations are the main way people act. I have not yet done any in-depth research and have not even purchased it. Perhaps after purchase and implementation I will feel like I can do so. In my next article, find out where I buy my books from and how I do so. It will be entitled “Where I Buy My Books And How”
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.
Middle East Outlook – What is next for the Middle East?
This month has been a very interesting month in regards to power and authority in the Middle East. The battle in the Middle East and surrounding area is not a new one, although we have only recently started to see and hear of preventative action. We have seen dictators in the Middle East and the East in general ruling for many years – in many cases decades (all gone un-noticed, or at least unpublicized). 
The question one should ask themselves is why? Why are things now so bad in these places, when these things have been going on for years? I don’t think anyone can really answer this question and provide a reasonable solution as to why for many years these things were allowed to happen unchecked. This leads me to believe and I am sure many others that perhaps there are ulterior motives. Perhaps money, perhaps a previous deal has expired, I don’t know but anyone with reasonable sense should come to some sort of similar conclusions. What we need to remember is this is not the first outbreak in the Eastern world. We came across Egypt & Libya not long ago – both nations which were headed by dictators for longer than twenty years. These were men the Western world made deals with, invested in but are the same people who after some time, these agreements must have elapsed.
What Next For The Middle East?
I predict more and more after the likeness of Egypt & Libya, maybe things will go back to Africa, to places such as Zimbabwe but who knows? Syria seems to be a more trying situation than any of the other two countries above. Countries are more reluctant it seems to make a move. David Cameron’s government just told him no, Obama has looked like a man without power in the US And France seem to be back-pedalling. I did hear recently that it may be down to investments but I cannot speak too much about this because I have not looked into it as of yet.
What is definitely evident is the West are cleaning up dictators and I’m sure making hefty gains by doing so. The backlash is however that who is going to power in place of these dictators are people who seem like those they took out of power. Perhaps new deals have been made and the clock has restarted.
Time Will Tell.
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.
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