Wow, more than 700 entries in our giveaway — thanks to all participants! Now it’s time to meet the lucky 12 who will receive their free ebooks… Here they are:

Derek Watson, Ashley Nielsen, Susan Blackman, Akila, Naz, Vicky Buckland, Olaia, Bhaskar Jha, Cary, coy, Mary Frances, Adrian Chira (full draw results)

Congratulations! I’ll get in touch with you today so you can start enjoying your ebooks as soon as possible!

What if I didn’t win?

Don’t let that stop you from getting the ebooks you want! These ebooks are premium guides that I know will make a difference to a lot of people. Their authors worked hard to create and compile information in a way that’s easy to read and understand and that — above anything else — is actionable. So, even if you didn’t get them for free, if you believe one or more of these ebooks will be useful to you, go get them right now!

Litemind Readers’ Top 5 Picks

[Update] Many of you asked me which ebooks were the most popular choices among participants. So, by popular request, here are Litemind Readers’ top picks listed first.

1. Learn More, Study Less

by Scott H. Young

What if I told you everything you know about how to learn, study and succeed in school was wrong? Through researching speed learners, school experts and pinpointing the hidden weaknesses most students face, I’ve been able to come up with my own system — holistic learning.

Holistic learning is the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of trying to pound information into your skull, you can weave it into existing understandings. By using these strategies you can actually “get” any subject you want to study.

Learn more about ‘Learn More, Study Less’

2. The Essential Motivation Handbook

by Leo Babauta and Eric Hamm

Are you in need of a motivational boost? The Essential Motivation Handbook was created to address those everyday motivation, productivity and self-improvement issues that seem to plague so many of us.

You can use this ebook as a handy reference any time you need motivation and as an easy way to find dozens of great motivation tips without having to spend time searching for them online and filtering out the useless stuff.

Learn more about ‘The Essential Motivation Handbook’

3. How to be More Creative

by Marelisa Fábrega

How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists is your guide to leading a more creative, inspired life. It shows that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts, but is important in any field.

The purpose of this ebook is not just to give you information, but to transform you into a more creative and innovative person. Get practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor.

Learn more about ‘How to be More Creative’

4. The Personal Excellence Book

by Celestine Chua

The Personal Excellence Book is your essential handbook to help you live life to your best. At nearly 800 pages long, it contains 120 in-depth, self-exploratory articles and exercises.

Covering 9 key categories of personal growth — including Purpose & Meaning, Goals and Success, Cultivating Habits, Emotional Mastery, Relationships, Productivity and more — The Personal Excellence Book is a one-stop guide if you’re serious about living a life of your highest meaning and potential.

Learn more about ‘The Personal Excellence Book’

5. How to Change a Habit

by Scott H. Young

Do you have a habit you would like to change? This book is about learning the right strategies so you don’t need to constantly rely on willpower. Exercising, quitting television, cutting down e-mail, waking up earlier — which are normally painful and long processes. By practicing the right techniques you can learn how to do it with far less pain and much better results.

Learn more about ‘How to Change a Habit’

All Ebooks

How to Live Your Best Life

by Marelisa Fábrega

Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies.

How To Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List will show you how. By the time you finish reading this ebook you’ll know exactly what you want in each area of your life, and you’ll have defined exactly how you’re going to get it.

Learn more about ‘How to Live Your Best Life’

Doing with Less

by Daniel Richard

The fastest way to go broke is to spend on the things that you don’t love. In a society that had taught us to have more of everything — from junk to spending on the unnecessary — how can one go from funding dreams with debt to becoming debt-free, ending the addiction of overconsumption and start living again?

Doing With Less is written to guide you to make changes in your live, bringing out the minimalist in you, and making you thrive with less in a rush-rush society.

Learn more about ‘Doing with Less’

Regain Your Balance

by Ali Hale

Regain Your Balance is designed to help you get back in control of your life. Tackling six key areas – your time, creativity, focus, environment, recharging, and money – it’s packed with motivation, ideas and tips to help you find your balance again. With bonus worksheets and a two-minute questionnaire to get you started, you’ll feel calmer — and on top of things — straight away.

Learn more about ‘Regain Your Balance’

The Personality Puzzle

by Hunter Nuttall

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality assessment in the world. While simple on the surface, one’s four-letter type offers amazing insight into their personality. Solve the personality puzzle, and get a much deeper look into yourself and everyone you meet. Whether you’re a type theory newbie or a die-hard typewatcher, this ebook will give you a fresh and entertaining perspective on how to enjoy better relationships and a better life.

Learn more about ‘The Personality Puzzle’

The Power of Positivity

by Henrik Edberg

The Power of Positivity contains 22 chapters where we explore the tips and strategies that can help you to greatly improve your life in areas such as weight loss, confidence, social skills, productivity, self esteem and attitude. It’s a constructive and practical guide to living a more positive, happy and successful life.

Learn more about ‘The Power of Positivity’

Passionate Living

by Henri Juntilla

Passionate Living is a simple guide to getting you started on following your passion. There comes a time in each of our lives when we need to stop squandering our potential and start doing what we truly love.

Passionate Living is a book filled with my personal experiences on how to make that happen. It’s a simple and effective guide that deals with aspects ranging from fear and the lack of time to the specific steps I took to get to where I am now.

Learn more about ‘Passionate Living’

The Art of Being Minimalist

by Everett Bogue

The Art of Being Minimalist teaches you how to apply simplicity in your life to achieve your goals. Last year I quit my job, moved across the country with everything in my backpack and $3,000 in the bank — everyone said I’d starve, but instead I opted to live a minimalist life. This is what I learned: when you don’t have all of the junk, you can achieve the important.

Learn more about ‘The Art of Being Minimalist’

(Note: If you’re still on the fence about buying the ebooks, remember that nearly all of them have money-back guarantees — just in case you’re not 100% satisfied. So you have nothing to risk, really. All I ask from you is: if you’re serious about improving yourself, don’t let possible doubts hold you back.)

And, once again — thank you for participating in this commemorative giveaway. This has been really fun and I’ve been blown away by your response! I feel very lucky to be part of such a vibrant community!

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This weekend marked 3 years since the first post on Litemind! To celebrate the date, I have a special treat for you.

For the past few days I have been talking to many fellow personal development bloggers… Many of them, in addition to their blogs’ free articles, also sell ebooks with premium content. These ebooks are great and well worth the money (as their customers can attest) — and today you have the chance to get them for free!

Yes, each of these authors agreed to give away copies of their ebooks to a few lucky Litemind readers! And it’s really easy to join and participate.

How to Participate in the Giveaway

1. For a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment with the 3 ebooks that you would like to win, in order of preference, chosen from the list below. You have until August 2nd (next Monday) to post your comment. (One entry per person, please.)
2. I will publish the list of winners on Wednesday, August 4th. There will be 12 winners — each one getting one of the ebooks. (If two or more winners choose the same ebook as their top preference, I’ll use their second and third choices, giving preference to the winners who were drawn first.)

Personal Development Ebooks

Here is the list of personal development ebooks, in random order, for you to choose. The descriptions were provided by their authors. Many of the ebooks have free chapter previews, so make sure you visit the links to get more details.

Anyway, make your choices, pick the three you like best and let me know in the comments below.

1. The Essential Motivation Handbook

by Leo Babauta and Eric Hamm

Are you in need of a motivational boost? The Essential Motivation Handbook was created to address those everyday motivation, productivity and self-improvement issues that seem to plague so many of us.

You can use this ebook as a handy reference any time you need motivation and as an easy way to find dozens of great motivation tips without having to spend time searching for them online and filtering out the useless stuff.

Learn more about ‘The Essential Motivation Handbook’

2. How to Change a Habit

by Scott H. Young

Do you have a habit you would like to change? This book is about learning the right strategies so you don’t need to constantly rely on willpower. Exercising, quitting television, cutting down e-mail, waking up earlier — which are normally painful and long processes. By practicing the right techniques you can learn how to do it with far less pain and much better results.

Learn more about ‘How to Change a Habit’

3. How to Live Your Best Life

by Marelisa Fábrega

Imagine waking up each morning to a life that’s centered around your life goals, instead of trying to fit what’s most important to you into the nooks and crannies.

How To Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List will show you how. By the time you finish reading this ebook you’ll know exactly what you want in each area of your life, and you’ll have defined exactly how you’re going to get it.

Learn more about ‘How to Live Your Best Life’

4. Doing with Less

by Daniel Richard

The fastest way to go broke is to spend on the things that you don’t love. In a society that had taught us to have more of everything — from junk to spending on the unnecessary — how can one go from funding dreams with debt to becoming debt-free, ending the addiction of overconsumption and start living again?

Doing With Less is written to guide you to make changes in your live, bringing out the minimalist in you, and making you thrive with less in a rush-rush society.

Learn more about ‘Doing with Less’

5. Regain Your Balance

by Ali Hale

Regain Your Balance is designed to help you get back in control of your life. Tackling six key areas – your time, creativity, focus, environment, recharging, and money – it’s packed with motivation, ideas and tips to help you find your balance again. With bonus worksheets and a two-minute questionnaire to get you started, you’ll feel calmer — and on top of things — straight away.

Learn more about ‘Regain Your Balance’

6. The Personality Puzzle

by Hunter Nuttall

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality assessment in the world. While simple on the surface, one’s four-letter type offers amazing insight into their personality. Solve the personality puzzle, and get a much deeper look into yourself and everyone you meet. Whether you’re a type theory newbie or a die-hard typewatcher, this ebook will give you a fresh and entertaining perspective on how to enjoy better relationships and a better life.

Learn more about ‘The Personality Puzzle’

7. The Power of Positivity

by Henrik Edberg

The Power of Positivity contains 22 chapters where we explore the tips and strategies that can help you to greatly improve your life in areas such as weight loss, confidence, social skills, productivity, self esteem and attitude. It’s a constructive and practical guide to living a more positive, happy and successful life.

Learn more about ‘The Power of Positivity’

8. The Personal Excellence Book

by Celestine Chua

The Personal Excellence Book is your essential handbook to help you live life to your best. At nearly 800 pages long, it contains 120 in-depth, self-exploratory articles and exercises.

Covering 9 key categories of personal growth — including Purpose & Meaning, Goals and Success, Cultivating Habits, Emotional Mastery, Relationships, Productivity and more — The Personal Excellence Book is a one-stop guide if you’re serious about living a life of your highest meaning and potential.

Learn more about ‘The Personal Excellence Book’

9. Passionate Living

by Henri Juntilla

Passionate Living is a simple guide to getting you started on following your passion. There comes a time in each of our lives when we need to stop squandering our potential and start doing what we truly love.

Passionate Living is a book filled with my personal experiences on how to make that happen. It’s a simple and effective guide that deals with aspects ranging from fear and the lack of time to the specific steps I took to get to where I am now.

Learn more about ‘Passionate Living’

10. The Art of Being Minimalist

by Everett Bogue

The Art of Being Minimalist teaches you how to apply simplicity in your life to achieve your goals. Last year I quit my job, moved across the country with everything in my backpack and $3,000 in the bank — everyone said I’d starve, but instead I opted to live a minimalist life. This is what I learned: when you don’t have all of the junk, you can achieve the important.

Learn more about ‘The Art of Being Minimalist’

11. Learn More, Study Less

by Scott H. Young

What if I told you everything you know about how to learn, study and succeed in school was wrong? Through researching speed learners, school experts and pinpointing the hidden weaknesses most students face, I’ve been able to come up with my own system — holistic learning.

Holistic learning is the opposite of rote memorization. Instead of trying to pound information into your skull, you can weave it into existing understandings. By using these strategies you can actually “get” any subject you want to study.

Learn more about ‘Learn More, Study Less’

12. How to be More Creative

by Marelisa Fábrega

How to Be More Creative – A Handbook for Alchemists is your guide to leading a more creative, inspired life. It shows that creativity is not the sole domain of the arts, but is important in any field.

The purpose of this ebook is not just to give you information, but to transform you into a more creative and innovative person. Get practical advice on how to be more creative in every life endeavor.

Learn more about ‘How to be More Creative’

Whether you’re a newcomer or an old-time reader, thank you for being around during these 3 years — it means a lot to me. And good luck everyone!

PS1: Just like I did with the Personal Excellence Project, I want to make sure the random draw process is as transparent as possible. To pick the winners I’ll use a random sequence generator, numbering the comments (in chronological order) and using a public and yet unknown piece of data as the seed. I will use Amazon‘s stock last trading price for August 3rd. That makes sure the draw is fair and that its authenticity can be verified by anyone. (I know many people wouldn’t care about this kind of stuff, but I do.)

PS2: I’d like to spread the word to as many people as possible about this giveaway. So, if you’re feeling particularly generous, I would be very grateful if you tweeted it or shared it with your friends on Facebook (buttons right below). Thanks!

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Will you help me make this website better? Today, instead of providing new content, I’d like to ask you to speak your mind and take this quick survey.

It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes, and your feedback will give me invaluable ideas and insights on how I can make the website better for you.

Two quick things about the survey:

• All 5 questions are optional. The more feedback I get the better, but feel free to answer only the questions you want. Also, the more thorough your answers are the better, but feel free to be as brief as you want. Any information you can provide, no matter how small, will help me.
• The survey is anonymous. Although I have included contact fields, they’re also optional and are there only for those of you who wouldn’t mind me thanking you personally or asking specific questions about your feedback. Also, I may post the results in the future, but won’t publish anyone’s details.

Without further ado, here it is:

>> Take the Quick Survey <<

Thank you for participating, you’re awesome!

(A special thanks goes to Glen Allsop for the inspiration for this. I’ve been thinking a long time about creating a survey, and this post inspired me to finally do it.)

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Today marks Litemind’s second anniversary!

As a way to celebrate the date, I put together a free ebook with the very best content from this website — presented with a nice layout, beautiful typography and in a convenient format suitable for onscreen reading and printing.

The Ebook

It has been a while since I wanted to make a compilation of past articles from the site. As I was thinking about a way to mark the occasion, I decided to do it with a bit of flair and put some of my interests in typography and design to use. And that’s how the ebook The Very Best of Litemind — 2 Years of Mind Explorations was born.

The idea of creating the ebook was straightforward: packing only the finest articles together, turning them into a single high-quality, beautifully-presented package.

My goal was to give an opportunity for new readers to check out articles they might not have seen yet, and at the same time push the quality of the reading experience up for all readers. Whether you’re new to the site (Welcome!) or a regular (Thanks for staying!), I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it.

Get the Ebook

The ebook is a gift to all Litemind Newsletter subscribers. That means that the ebook should be in your inbox by now if you are already a subscriber. If you’re not, you can get instant access to it by subscribing using the form below.

If you’re not familiar yet with the Litemind Newsletter, its aim is simple: to form a group of loyal Litemind readers who are passionate about the topics we discuss here and who want more than what the website offers.

People who are part of this select group have, via the newsletter, access to extra content that expands on the ideas on the website. Newsletter subscribers may also participate in exclusive contests (like last year’s remarkable Personal Excellence Project), as well as receiving priority announcements and more.

So if you’re interested in the ebook and in being part of this group, don’t forget to subscribe. (It’s free, and you can unsubscribe anytime you want.)

Of course, if you are not interested in the newsletter and the ebook, you can always browse the archives or check the list of featured posts on the sidebar. All ebook articles will continue to be available online for free (just as all the other articles published to date).

Future Directions for Litemind

Besides the obvious focus on the newsletter, in last year’s anniversary post I outlined some other general directions I would like to explore. Opening up communication channels, fostering reader engagement, featuring guest bloggers and posting regularly on Twitter (follow me!) were some of them.

These goals continue pretty much the same, so for now it’s just a matter of fine-tuning what went well and adjusting what could have been better.

I can also announce that there are some exciting new initiatives in the works, such as a long-overdue site redesign, new collaborative projects, as well as some nifty surprises — stay tuned!

Another Year Goes By, Many More to Come!

Running this website continues to be a hugely rewarding experience! I’m really looking forward to the years ahead!

Thanks for these great 2 years of exciting mind explorations — it has been a privilege to have you around.

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Have you joined the Personal Excellence Project yet?

This is just a quick reminder of the fast-approaching deadline and to stir you to act while there’s still time:

You have only until this Thursday 27 November to submit your tip.
(Which means the clock is ticking — hurry up and join now!)

If you’re still unconvinced about joining, bear in mind that participation is a lot easier than it seems.

Many readers have contacted me telling me that they don’t have any tips — or that their tips wouldn’t be ‘good enough’ to participate. Others are concerned that their tips are not particularly new and that they’re afraid they can’t add much to the mix.

Not true! This project is about real people — you — sharing real, honest advice. You don’t need to have a brand-new, never-published masterpiece. I’m sure that in all of the material you’ve come across in your Internet travels there’s one thing that helped you more than anything in your quest for a better life. Remember, this is about sharing what works for you.

And since many of you took the time to contact me in private and explain why you think your tips are not worth it, why not share them with the whole group instead — “unworthy or not” — and let everybody else speak their mind? C’mon! This is the best way to test your ideas and learn more about them: share them with others!

So even if you’re one of those who may have been put off by the list of rules or by the anxiety-inducing ‘excellence’ in the title, now you know how much I really want to hear from you all!

Aside from the utter satisfaction of sharing your own tip with a large number of like-minded people — you can surprise yourself and win at least a prize in the random drawing, just for having shared it (not to mention that you have a real chance to get the two sizeable prizes for the first two top tips).

So hurry up and join the fun!

Update: Submissions are now closed — check out the entries!

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It has been a year since the last collaborative project, and since such projects are always fun, I figured — why not run a new one? The good news is that this time participation won’t be limited to bloggers: all Litemind readers can participate and have a chance to win.

Read on to learn how you can participate and be in the run to win 5 prizes, totaling more than US$ 800 in software and cash grants.

Theme

To participate, simply tell us your very best personal excellence tip.

What do I mean by ‘personal excellence tip’? It’s that one secret, that one practical advice you can give — the one that you know for sure makes the greatest positive contribution to your life.

It may be a tip for increasing productivity or heightening creativity, or maybe a tactic you use to deal with procrastination or perfectionism. Maybe it’s a rule of thumb or a personal mantra that you live by. Maybe it’s something that makes you think more clearly. A specific technique or idea or something that you feel really makes a positive impact on your life? I don’t know what it is — you’re the one to tell.

Entries will be chosen by the participants themselves, who will vote on the best entries following criteria such as usefulness and originality.

As an example: If I were to participate (I won’t, obviously), I would send a tip such as this one:

Use time boxes. Instead of working on a task until it’s done, commit to work on it for a specific amount of time instead. I use this concept every day, and it works wonders to keep me focused, counter perfectionism and avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed by daunting tasks (details).

(It has the structure ‘Title’, ‘brief description’, ‘why I use it or how I benefit from using it’.)

Easy, uh? Now all you need is to show us what you’ve got by sending your tip.

Prizes

There will be some cool prizes for the best tips, as well as some prizes given randomly, so that anyone who participates has a chance to win something.

First Prize

• A MindManager 8 Windows License (US$ 349 value, free trial available), plus
• US$ 100. (That is, the winner takes home a US$449 package!)

MindManager 8 is the brand new version of my mind mapping tool of choice — one which I’ve been recommending for years both for personal and business use. (The mind maps I create for this site — such as the book summaries — are made using MindManager.)

If you’re the grand winner, you also get an additional US$100. This way, if you can’t benefit from the license (e.g., you don’t use Windows), you can still benefit from the prize (and maybe give away the software license to someone else if you like).

Second Prize

• An iMindMap 3 Ultimate Windows License (US$ 295 value, free trial available), plus
• US$ 30

I recently started trialing Tony Buzan’s iMindMap software, and I really like what I see. The maps created with iMindMap are very beautiful and have a very natural and ‘organic’ feel, making them look almost hand-drawn.

There’s also an extra cash prize of US$ 30 for the second prize.

Additional Prizes

Joining the two winners on the podium, 3 other participants picked at random will also take US$ 30 home each.

How to Participate

1. Sign up for the free Litemind Newsletter.
To send your tip and participate, the only requirement is that you must have signed up for the Litemind e-mail newsletter.

This serves as a validation of identity to help the contest run smoothly. It’s also a way to reward loyal readers who signed up already, and as an incentive for more people to sign up and enjoy the newsletter. If you enjoy the contents of this site, it’s a safe bet you’ll also enjoy the newsletter (and even if you don’t, you can unsubscribe after the contest is over, so there is no harm done).

To sign up for the newsletter, click here.

Note: Signing up for the newsletter is not the same thing as subscribing to get the latest articles by e-mail. If you’re not sure whether you’re subscribed or not, just try to sign up again to be sure.
Also note that you’ll only be subscribed after you click on a confirmation link that will be sent to you, so make sure you provide a valid e-mail address and that you click on the confirmation link.

2. Send your tip.
When writing your tip, give it a short, descriptive title (one sentence usually works best). Right after the title, write a short paragraph about it, either describing it a little bit or giving a quick story or personal example to illustrate it. Describe it in a way that makes it applicable to as many people as possible. Avoid tips that are too specific or limited to particular jobs or situations.

Do not use the comments section to send your entry. You’ll receive the instructions on how to send your tip after signing up for the newsletter. If you’re already signed up, you should already have received these instructions (if you didn’t get the e-mail message, please contact me and I’ll be glad to help).

Important: Only one entry will be accepted per subscriber. Entering the contest using multiple e-mail addresses is not allowed and will disqualify the participant.

3. Submissions close on Thursday, November 27 2008, at midnight (GMT-12 — which means that if it’s still November 27 2008 wherever you are in the world, you’re good to go).

4. On December 1, I’ll publish a post with the final list of entries. A pre-selection of entries may be necessary (see additional rules below), so check if your entry made it to the final list.

5. The participants who made it to the final list will have until Monday, December 8 2008 (midnight, GMT-12) to cast votes on their favorite entries, using the comments section on that post. They must pick at least 5 favorite entries, and as many as they like.

6. On December 10 2008, the winners will be announced. Every time an entry gets mentioned as a favorite, it gets one point. The two entries with the most points get first and second prizes, respectively. If there’s a draw, the entry that was submitted first gets ranked higher. I’ll also announce the random winners (see below for randomness criteria).

Additional Rules and Guidelines (aka ‘The Fine Print’)

Here are some additional points (in no particular order) to make sure this contest runs as smoothly as possible:

1. As you probably noticed, the entry requirements are pretty relaxed. Although I’m leaving the judgment of their quality to the participants themselves, I reserve the right to remove or edit entries that I find to be offensive, irrelevant, too long, poorly written or inappropriate for the contest or the site.

2. I have no idea how many participants will take part in the project — there may be just a few, but there may also be a lot. For this reason, to keep things manageable for me and for the participants, I chose to limit the final list of entries to 100. That means that, if necessary, I’ll do a pre-selection to keep the number of entries to 100 at most.

3. One entry per participant only will be accepted. If there’s suspicion of any kind of fraud — either in the submission or in the voting — I reserve the right to disqualify any candidate at any time. I don’t believe it will ever get to this, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear about this.

4. If more than one participant sends the same tip, in very similar forms, I will keep only the one that was sent first.

5. To be eligible for the prizes, in addition to be in the final list, you need to cast your votes by the deadline. Also, you can’t vote on your own entry.

6. The cash prizes will be paid via Paypal or as Amazon Gift Cards, winner’s choice.

7. This contest is not open to immediate associates of Litemind, its sponsors or any of the organizations or subsidiaries associated with this contest.

8. Criteria for Random Draw. To make sure the random draw is fair, I will use the following procedure, which makes the drawing authenticity verifiable by anyone:

   1. I will enter the list with the names in Random.Org, which is a known, trustworthy third-party, assigning numbers starting from 1, in the order the entries are listed in the post.
   2. I will use random.org random sequence generator, using as the seed for randomness Amazon’s stock last trading price for December 9 2008. (I happen to like Amazon.com).
   3. The first three numbers in the results will be the winners. If any of these is already one of the winners, I’ll pick the next number and so on.

9. If you’re a blogger or have an online resource to share about the tip, you’ll have the chance to provide a URL to go along with the tip — but bear in mind that the tip must stand on its own, i.e., one should not need to access the link to be able to understand the tip.

10. To increase your chance of winning, please keep the entries as short as possible. Bear in mind that many people only skim (especially if there are too many entries), so make sure to make a good impression quickly. (Use 60 words or so total as a guideline.)
11. My decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Whew! Hopefully I covered everything. Oh, one last thing: don’t forget to have fun. Seriously! These projects can be very enjoyable and you always learn a thing or two…

Good luck!

Sign up for the Litemind Newsletter to join now.

Update: Submissions are now closed — check out the entries!

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• Personal Excellence Project: Submissions Close This Thursday November 27
• Litemind Personal Excellence Project Winners
• Lists Group Writing Project Winners
• Lists Group Writing Project Entries
• Announcing the Lists Group Writing Project

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Today marks Litemind’s first anniversary. When I started the site, I really didn’t know what to expect, but looking back from today, I am very glad I decided to take that first imperfect step…

Running this website has been a truly enjoyable and worthwhile experience in every aspect. It’s a great feeling knowing that the ideas I share here have been useful to many people. Not only that, but it’s amazing to realize how this website has been instrumental for my own personal growth. Thank you all!

A special ‘thank you’ also goes to the many of you that helped spread the word about the site or otherwise expressed appreciation for it.

I surely enjoy praise — who doesn’t? — but an even bigger round of thanks goes to those who provided me with honest criticism; those who exposed flaws in my reasoning or made suggestions to make this site better. It’s great to have you around pointing out my blind spots. Providing specific feedback is one of the best ways you can help me with the site.

Looking Ahead

Fortunately, Litemind is no longer the lone place it was a year ago. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized that I hadn’t completely broken free from the ‘monologue’ mindset of the early days.

A great part of blogging is about having a community of readers and bloggers interacting with each other, exploring, exchanging and discussing ideas together. And collaborating more closely with you is something that I’m sure will make Litemind a richer experience for us all.

Increasing involvement with you readers is my main goal for this site from now on.

Let me share with you some steps I’m undertaking towards that goal.

Opening Up Communication Channels

About a month ago, I quietly added a poll at the bottom of every page in this site. Even without any announcement, the participation has been great. The lesson? Readers are willing to participate when given the chance. Based on that, I decided to always have some kind of poll active in the site, as I think it’s a quick and effective way of communication we can use.

If you haven’t done so, please take a few seconds and take the poll that’s now on. This one is about what your favorite topics are — an important feedback for letting me know your expectations about the site.

Fostering Reader Participation

This site has the privilege of having many insightful readers that contribute via comments. It’s not rare to have interesting comment threads still going on for articles that are several months old. In order to make those great discussions harder to miss, I am now showing the latest comments in the sidebar.

I would also like to bring you more into the spotlight. Some options I am considering are highlighting active commenters and discussing particularly insightful themes publicly.

Another area for improvement is having more collaborative projects on the site. One experiment we had here (the Lists Group Writing Project) was very stimulating and fun, so I thought about running more projects like that one.

Featuring Guest Bloggers

I already had a couple of guest bloggers this past year, and it was wonderful to bring different perspectives to the site. There are a lot of great minds around willing to share ideas, so I figured it would be even more productive to make more space available for this kind of collaboration. (If you’re interested in guest posting on Litemind, here are some helpful guidelines.)

“Getting Social”

I usually have links to share, quick questions to ask or half-baked ideas that I feel don’t deserve full blog posts. However, I still think these things should be shared and discussed.

For that reason, I recently got started in microblogging. (If you don’t know what microblogging is, think of it as instant messaging, but public instead of private.)

Microblogging is something that I initially resisted as I couldn’t see the value in it. Now I see it: it’s a quick, efficient and more informal channel of communication. Let me put it this way: if the blog is a presentation and the comments are the QA session at the end, then microblogging is the ‘water-cooler chat’: a much more informal and relaxed environment for conversations and sharing of ideas.

The microblogging platform I use is Twitter — which is both free to join and easy to use. You’re more than welcome to follow me there and join the conversation.

Also, if you use social media services such as Facebook, StumbleUpon or others, please feel free to check my activity there and to add me to your contact list, too.

Creating a Free Newsletter with Exclusive Content

Last but not least, I just opened up registration for an e-mail newsletter. By signing up for the newsletter, you’ll have access to extra, complementary content that will expand on the ideas in the website.

The details (such as when I’ll start sending the newsletters) aren’t yet finalized: it will all depend on many factors, including how people react to the idea and how many subscribers it gets.

One thing you can rest assured is that the newsletter will always be relevant to the topics of the website. If you enjoy the site, it’s a safe bet that you’ll enjoy receiving the newsletter.

Also, the details you provide (name and e-mail address) will be used solely for the purpose of sending you the newsletter. Your details will never be disclosed to any other third party.

To sign up for the newsletter, click here.

In Closing

Thanks again for a great year! I am truly excited about having you around and I’m eager to see how the coming years unfold at Litemind.

If you have any feedback about the ideas I outlined here or have any ideas of your own, please let me know in the comments (or in private, if you prefer). I really appreciate it!

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Inspired by the positive feedback I got for the article ‘Tackle Any Issue With a List of 100‘, I decided to kick off a Group Writing Project. Read on to check how you can participate, have some fun and be in the run to win a cash prize of US$100 along with some amazing creativity boosters.

To participate in the project, write a post on any topic, just make sure you write it in “list format”.

You could write “10 Ways to Be a Better Writer”, “5 Things I Hate about Litemind”, “100 Things I’m Grateful For” or anything else you see fit. Be creative and just try to pick topics that are not too niche-specific (e.g. it’s preferable to have a post “10 Ways to Sleep Better” than “20 Tips for Space Travel”). But remember that the goal is to have fun, so, again, I won’t be imposing limits (just make sure to keep it clean!).

Entries will be voted based on both originality and usefulness. To make it fair, the participants themselves will decide which entries are the best ones by voting for them. They also get to post their entries in their own blogs. That way, everybody gets to know new blogs and we can all expand our horizons. Back in September, I participated in two group writing projects and made many friends — and that made it a great experience regardless of winning or not the prizes.

(What? You don’t have a blog? Don’t let that stop you. Wouldn’t that be the perfect excuse to start one? Seriously, it’s easier than you think: just register at any free service such as Blogger, WordPress and you can have an online presence up in a matter of minutes. If you’re having trouble, let me know and I will do my best to help you.)

Prizes

The most voted entry gets US$ 100 (via PayPal or as an Amazon Gift Certificate).

Also, to help get an extra boost in creativity, the three most voted entries also get to choose (in order of rank) among 3 great creativity products from Roger von Oech. Roger is a great guy who is really passionate about creativity. You probably know him from the great book A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative. Check out the products:

• Ball of Whacks
• Creative Whack Pack
• Innovative Whack Pack

How to Participate

1. Write a ‘List’ Post, as described above. Only one entry per participant! It should be recent and original (up to 60 days old is OK). You’re strongly encouraged (though not required) to link back to this blog to acknowledge your participation. Feel free to use the logo above or the one in the sidebar if you like.
2. Contact me no later than Monday, November 26 (UTC), including your name and the URL of your list. Important: Entries really, really close midnight on Monday, November 26 Coordinated Universal Time, so be early.
3. On November 27, I’ll post a list with all valid entries.
4. You have until Monday, December 3 (UTC) to read the participants’ entries and post a list with your favorite entries in your own blog. You should pick at least 3 favorite entries, and as many as you like (all, if you are so inclined).
5. On December 4 the winners will be announced. Every time an entry gets mentioned as a favorite it gets one point, regardless of position. The three entries with the most votes get the prize (if there’s a draw, the entry that was submitted first gets ranked higher).

Update: Submissions are now closed — check out the entries!

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• Lists Group Writing Project Winners

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This is a quick update about what has been going on here at Litemind recently.

Favorite Quotes Database

For those who enjoy famous quotes, I recently published my collection of favorite quotes. The list currently contains over 400 quotes, so you’re guaranteed to find some wisdom (or at least some humor) in there. If you don’t collect quotes, you may want to take a look at the article ‘5 Reasons to Collect Favorite Quotes‘ instead.

Blog Writing Projects

A blog writing project is when several bloggers write about the same subject or around the same central theme. These projects are really nice because everybody gets to know some very interesting new sites and people. The best entries in the project – decided by the participants – also usually get some extra exposure, and sometimes even win prizes.

Here are my votes for best entries in two writing projects I am participating:

Tips & Tricks Writing Project at Daily Blog Tips:

• 10 Tips for Successful Presentations by Computhomas.
• One Secret Tip to Improve Your Health by Niels.
• 9 Tips to be More Creative by CSS.

‘How To’ Writing Project at BlueJar:

• Mind Map Tutorial on Blogging by Monika.
• How To Promote Yourself (When You Don’t Want To.) by Dee.
• How To Make Your WordPress Blog Safer by Simon Ward.

Looking Forward

It has surely been a fun ride for me since this site launched about two months ago, as I could never have anticipated such a positive reaction from readers. I’ve also already met many nice people online, which, by itself, makes blogging really exciting and worthwhile.

I hate sounding like an Oscar winner, but now is a good time to thank all readers, specially these great people:

• Mauro Mello Jr. of Atena Consulting, for helping me out in reviewing my blog articles with amazing care.
• Mike Sansone, of ConverStations, who nominated Litemind to win an Outstanding New Blog Award.
• Priscilla Palmer, for including Litemind in her great List of Personal Development Bloggers, which spread like fire this month.
• All StumbleUpon users that gave positive reviews to the articles, which brought a large share of the 40,000 unique visitors so far.

Now it’s time to look ahead: Let me ask for your feedback on the site.

Are there any specific subjects you expect to see covered here? What do you like or dislike about the site? Please spend a minute or two and let me know what you think and what I can do to improve your experience here at Litemind.

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I‘ve been missing having a home in the Internet. I finally decided to get the blog rolling despite its obvious unpolished condition. So, please forgive me the dust around, and welcome!

The fact is that I’ve been a perfectionist for quite some time now. Well, I guess I still am – the difference is that I used to be proud of it.

The problem with being a perfectionist is that you don’t try out a lot of new things. And it isn’t hard to imagine why: when you have to meet so many self-imposed high standards, you just go back and do the same old stuff over and over again – the stuff you know you can meet those standards. Bad.

Much more productive than being stuck planning a perfect start is just starting. Start having the attitude to improve continuously. Don’t worry about where you are now. All you have to do is commit yourself to improve a little bit every day. And it’s exactly in this spirit that I now start this blog.

Honestly, I don’t know what pathways this blog will end up exploring. Currently, it is only an outlet for ideas about personal development, mind mapping and many other loosely-related topics. But defining the topics accurately is not important for me right now. I’m sure the blog’s identity will emerge soon enough (and until that happens nobody will be reading anyway). For now, the important thing is to start. Standing still waiting for inspiration didn’t work much so far.

Movement creates inspiration, not the other way around.

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• Personal Development Ebook Giveaway!
• One Year of Litemind
• How Can I Make Litemind More Useful for You?
• Free Ebook: The Very Best of Litemind, 2 Years of Mind Explorations

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