I am 28 now. I don’t think about the past or regret things much these days.

But sometimes I wish that I had known some of things I have learned over the last few years a bit earlier. That perhaps there had been a self-improvement class in school. And in some ways there probably was.

Because some of these 16 things in this article a teacher probably spoke about in class. But I forgot about them or didn’t pay attention.

Some of it would probably not have stuck in my mind anyway. Or just been too far outside my reality at the time for me to accept and use.

But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German language classes and use them for some personal development classes would have been a good idea. Perhaps for just an hour a week in high school. It would probably be useful for many students and on a larger scale quite helpful for society in general.

So here are 16 things I wish they had taught me in school (or I just would like to have known about earlier).

1. The 80/20 rule.

This is one of the best ways to make better use of your time. The 80/20 rule – also known as The Pareto Principle – basically says that 80 percent of the value you will receive will come from 20 percent of your activities.

So a lot of what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to do as you may think.

You can just drop – or vastly decrease the time you spend on – a whole bunch of things.

And if you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on those things that really brings your value, happiness, fulfilment and so on.

2. Parkinson’s Law.

You can do things quicker than you think. This law says that a task will expand in time and seeming complexity depending on the time you set aside for it. For instance, if you say to yourself that you’ll come up with a solution within a week then the problem will seem to grow more difficult and you’ll spend more and more time trying to come up with a solution.

So focus your time on finding solutions. Then just give yourself an hour (instead of the whole day) or the day (instead of the whole week) to solve the problem. This will force your mind to focus on solutions and action.

The result may not be exactly as perfect as if you had spent a week on the task, but as mentioned in the previous point, 80 percent of the value will come from 20 percent of the activities anyway. Or you may wind up with a better result because you haven’t overcomplicated or overpolished things. This will help you to get things done faster, to improve your ability to focus and give you more free time where you can totally focus on what’s in front of you instead of having some looming task creating stress in the back of your mind.

3. Batching.

Boring or routine tasks can create a lot of procrastination and low-level anxiety. One good way to get these things done quickly is to batch them. This means that you do them all in row. You will be able to do them quicker because there is less “start-up time” compared to if you spread them out. And when you are batching you become fully engaged in the tasks and more focused.

A batch of things to do in an hour today may look like this: Clean your desk / answer today’s emails / do the dishes / make three calls / write a grocery shopping list for tomorrow.

4. First, give value. Then, get value. Not the other way around.

This is a bit of a counter-intuitive thing. There is often an idea that someone should give us something or do something for us before we give back. The problem is just that a lot of people think that way. And so far less than possible is given either way.

If you want to increase the value you receive (money, love, kindness, opportunities etc.) you have to increase the value you give. Because over time you pretty much get what you give. It would perhaps be nice to get something for nothing. But that seldom happens.

5. Be proactive. Not reactive.

This one ties into the last point. If everyone is reactive then very little will get done. You could sit and wait and hope for someone else to do something. And that happens pretty often, but it can take a lot of time before it happens.

A more useful and beneficial way is to be proactive, to simply be the one to take the first practical action and get the ball rolling. This not only saves you a lot of waiting, but is also more pleasurable since you feel like you have the power over your life. Instead of feeling like you are run by a bunch of random outside forces.

6. Mistakes and failures are good.

When you are young you just try things and fail until you learn. As you grow a bit older, you learn from - for example - school to not make mistakes. And you try less and less things.

This may cause you to stop being proactive and to fall into a habit of being reactive, of waiting for someone else to do something. I mean, what if you actually tried something and failed? Perhaps people would laugh at you?

Perhaps they would. But when you experience that you soon realize that it is seldom the end of the world. And a lot of the time people don’t care that much. They have their own challenges and lives to worry about.

And success in life often comes from not giving up despite mistakes and failure. It comes from being persistent.

When you first learn to ride your bike you may fall over and over. Bruise a knee and cry a bit. But you get up, brush yourself off and get on the saddle again. And eventually you learn how to ride a bike. If you can just reconnect to your 5 year old self and do things that way - instead of giving up after a try/failure or two as grown-ups often do – you would probably experience a lot more interesting things, learn valuable lessons and have quite a bit more success.

7. Don’t beat yourself up.

Why do people give up after just few mistakes or failures? Well, I think one big reason is because they beat themselves up way too much. But it’s a kinda pointless habit. It only creates additional and unnecessary pain inside you and wastes your precious time. It’s best to try to drop this habit as much as you can.

8. Assume rapport.

Meeting new people is fun. But it can also induce nervousness. We all want to make a good first impression and not get stuck in an awkward conversation.

The best way to do this that I have found so far is to assume rapport. This means that you simply pretend that you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you start the interaction in that frame of mind instead of the nervous one.

This works surprisingly well. You can read more about it in How to Have Less Awkward Conversations: Assuming Rapport.

9. Use your reticular activation system to your advantage.

I learned about the organs and the inner workings of the body in class but nobody told me about the reticular activation system. And that’s a shame, because this is one of the most powerful things you can learn about. What this focus system, this R.A.S, in your mind does is to allow you to see in your surroundings what you focus your thoughts on. It pretty much always helps you to find what you are looking for.

So you really need to focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. And keep that focus steady.

Setting goals and reviewing them frequently is one way to keep your focus on what’s important and to help you take action that will move your closer to toward where you want to go. Another way is just to use external reminders such as pieces of paper where you can, for instance, write down a few things from this post like “Give value” or “Assume rapport”. And then you can put those pieces of paper on your fridge, bathroom mirror etc.

10. Your attitude changes your reality.

We have all heard that you should keep a positive attitude or perhaps that “you need to change your attitude!”. That is a nice piece of advice I suppose, but without any more reasons to do it is very easy to just brush such suggestions off and continue using your old attitude.

But the thing that I’ve discovered the last few years is that if you change your attitude, you actually change your reality. When you for instance use a positive attitude instead of a negative one you start to see things and viewpoints that were invisible to you before. You may think to yourself “why haven’t I thought about things this way before?”.

When you change you attitude you change what you focus on. And all things in your world can now be seen in a different light.

This is of course very similar to the previous tip but I wanted to give this one some space. Because changing your attitude can create an insane change in your world. It might not look like it if you just think about it though. Pessimism might seem like realism. But that is mostly because your R.A.S is tuned into seeing all the negative things you want to see. And that makes you “right” a lot of the time. And perhaps that is what you want. On the other hand, there are more fun things than being right all the time.

If you try changing your attitude for real – instead of analysing such a concept in your mind - you’ll be surprised.

You may want to read more about this topic in Take the Positivity Challenge!

11. Gratitude is a simple way to make yourself feel happy.

Sure, I was probably told that I should be grateful. Perhaps because it was the right thing to do or just something I should do. But if someone had said that feeling grateful about things for minute or two is a great way to turn a negative mood into a happy one I would probably have practised gratitude more. It is also a good tool for keeping your attitude up and focusing on the right things. And to make other people happy. Which tends to make you even happier, since emotions are contagious.

12. Don’t compare yourself to others.

The ego wants to compare. It wants to find reasons for you to feel good about yourself (“I’ve got a new bike!”). But by doing that it also becomes very hard to not compare yourself to others who have more than you (“Oh no, Bill has bought an even nicer bike!”). And so you don’t feel so good about yourself once again. If you compare yourself to others you let the world around control how you feel about yourself. It always becomes a rollercoaster of emotions.

A more useful way is to compare yourself to yourself. To look at how far you have come, what you have accomplished and how you have grown. It may not sound like that much fun but in the long run it brings a lot more inner stillness, personal power and positive feelings.

13. 80-90% of what you fear will happen never really come into reality.

This is a big one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.

14. Don’t take things too seriously.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in things. But most of the things you worry about never come into reality. And what may seem like a big problem right now you may not even remember in three years.

Taking yourself, your thoughts and your emotions too seriously often just seems to lead to more unnecessary suffering. So relax a little more and lighten up a bit. It can do wonders for your mood and as an extension of that; your life.

15. Write everything down.

If your memory is anything like mine then it’s like a leaking bucket. Many of your good or great ideas may be lost forever if you don’t make a habit of writing things down. This is also a good way to keep your focus on what you want. Read more about it in Why You Should Write Things Down.

16. There are opportunities in just about every experience.

In pretty much any experience there are always things that you can learn from it and things within the experience that can help you to grow. Negative experiences, mistakes and failure can sometimes be even better than a success because it teaches you something totally new, something that another success could never teach you.

Whenever you have a “negative experience” ask yourself: where is the opportunity in this? What is good about this situation? One negative experience can – with time – help you create many very positive experiences.

What do you wish someone had told you in school or you had just learned earlier in life?

  我28歲了。我并不懷念過去或者后悔什么。

但是有時我希望我能夠更早一點學會那些我通過這些年才學到的東西。可能在學校有很多自修課。從另一個角度來說也確實是這樣的。

因為本文中這16件事情中的一些，老師可能在課堂上講過。但是我忘了，或者根本就沒有注意。

有些事情可能根本沒有在我心中留下印象。或者是超出了實際情況在那個階段讓我去接受和應用。

但是我仍然認為從那些諸如德語課上抽出幾小時用于個人發展課會是一個好主意。可能每周僅僅占用中學里的一個小時。這可能對于很多學生來說非常有用，并且對于一般的社會具有更大范圍的幫助。

所以這里有16件事情我希望我能在學校里就能學到（甚至我只希望能更早一點的了解）

1.80、20規則

這是是一個更好利用你的時間的好方法之一。80/20規則-也被稱為柏拉圖原則-基本上來說你的80%的收獲是來自于你20%的行動。

所以你做的大部分事情或許根本就不如你想的那么有用甚至是根本就不需要。

你可以放棄一大部分的事情。-或者至少大量減少你花費在這上面的時間。

如果你這樣做你將擁有更多的時間和精力放在能夠給你帶來價值，快樂，成就等等的事情上。

2.帕金森定律

你能夠比你想象中的要更快的做事情。這條定律說的是一個任務將按時展開并且它看起來的復雜度取決于你為他預留的時間。舉個例子，如果你給你自己一周的時間拿出解決方案，那么這個問題就會看起來變得更困難，而使你花費更多的時間去試圖拿出一個解決方案。

所以把你的時間放在尋找解決方案上。然后僅給你自己一個小時（或者一整天）或者一整天（或者一整個星期）去解決這個問題。這將迫使你集中思想在解決方案和行動上。

結局也許沒有你為之花費一周的時間去完成任務所做的那么完美，但是就像前一個提出的觀點，無論如何80%的價值來自于20%的創造。或者你或許最終能獲得一個更好的結果因為你不用做超復雜的或者超精細的事情。這能夠幫助你快速完成事情，改善你專注的能力，并且能使你擁有更多自由的時間在那些你面前需產生的壓力。要解決，而又能夠完全專注處理的事情上，取代你心深處對于迫在眉睫的事情所產生的壓力。

3.批量處理

枯燥及規條性的任務造成很多的拖延和低層次的焦慮。一個能使這些事情處理的快起來的好方法是批量處理他們。這意味著你將按部就班的處理他們。相對于你把他們分別來做，你可以做到更快是因為不需要“啟動時間”。并且當你批量處理時你會變得充分參與還有重點更突出。

今天在一個小時里的要做的一批事情就像是這樣：清理你的桌子/回復今天的郵件/洗餐具/打三個電話/寫明天去食品店的購物清單

4.首先，付出，然后，收獲，沒有第二條路。

這是一個有點反直覺的事情。一般的觀念是有些人應該先給我們一些東西或者為我們做一些事情，然后我們再回饋。問題是大多數人都這么想。而且遠遠低于可能的是真的能夠通過這些方法付出。

如果你想要增加你所獲得的價值（金錢，愛情，善良，機遇等等）你必須增加你付出的價值。因為久而久之你所付出的都會有所收獲。甚至可能很棒的是你將獲得不曾擁有的。但是這很少發生。

5.主動去做，不要被動去做

這一點和最后一點是有聯系的。如果所有的人都被動，那么幾乎就沒有什么能做了。你可能會坐下等待，然后希望別人去做些什么。這些事經常發生，但是他發生前卻浪費了大量的時間。

一種很有用的并且有意的方法就是積極主動，僅僅是一個簡單的最初的實際行動讓球滾動起來。這不僅僅節省了你很多等待的時間，而且他同樣使你愉快，當你感覺到你的生命里充滿了力量的時候。而不是感覺你被一堆隨機的外部事物驅使著。

5.錯誤和失敗是好事

當你年輕的時候，你嘗試很多事情，失敗直到你學會一些事情。當你長的大一點后，你從-比如-學校里去學習如何不犯錯。然后你越來越少的嘗試新事物。

這導致你變得不再積極主動，并且沉溺于被動的習慣，等待別人去做些什么。我的意思是，如果你真正嘗試過什么事情并且失敗了嗎？可能別人會嘲笑你嗎？

也許他們會。但是當你經歷了這些你很快會意識到這不是世界末日。而且更多的時候人們根本就不在乎這么多。他們有他們自己的挑戰和生活去操心呢。

并且生活中的成功往往來自于盡管犯錯和失敗卻不放棄。成功源于堅持。

當你第一次學習騎自行車時你可能摔倒一次又一次。摔破膝蓋還哭泣。但是你站起來，振作精神，再一次騎上去。最終你學會了騎自行車。如果你能夠僅僅找到你5歲時候的自己，而且像那樣做事情-而不是嘗試或者失敗或者類似的你常做的行為之后就輕易放棄的習慣-你完全可能經歷很多有趣的事情，學習到有價值的課程并且獲得更多的成功。

7。不要自己打擊自己

為什么人們總是在小小的錯誤或失敗之后就放棄？當然，我想一個很大的原因是他們打擊自己的太多了。但是這是一種沒有意義的習慣。這只會增加你內心中多余的也是沒有必要的痛苦，而且浪費你寶貴的時間。最好盡可能的改掉這個習慣。

8.設想融洽關系

見到新人是有趣的。但是也同樣會讓人緊張。我們都希望給人留下好的第一印象而且不要陷入一種尷尬的談話中。

我長久以來所發現的最好的方法是設想融洽關系。就是說你僅僅需要假裝是和你最好的朋友見面。然后你就能影響你的心境取代原來緊張的感覺。

這個方法出奇的有效。你可以在《如何減少尷尬對話》一文里了解到更多。

9.激活你的優勢網

我在課堂上學會了身體的內部和器官的工作，但是沒有人告訴我關于網絡激活系統。這是恥辱，因為這是你能夠學到的最有力的東西。這個所關注的系統，既R。A。S系統，在你內心中運轉，使你關注你周圍的你思考的東西。這通常幫助你找到你尋找的東西。

所以你真正需要關注的是你想要的東西，不是你根本不想要的東西，然后保持持續專注。

設定一個目標并且常常回顧它是一種方法，讓你保持專注于那些重要的事情，并且幫助你向著你的目標靠近而行動。另一種方法就是使用外部提醒就像在你能貼的地方貼小紙條，舉個例子，在貼紙上寫下一些事情例如“付出”或者“假設好朋友”。然后你可以把這些紙條貼在你的冰箱上，浴室的鏡子上等等。

10.你的態度改變你的現實狀態

我們都聽過我們需要保持積極的態度，或者“你需要改變你的態度”。這是我提供的一個很好的建議，但是如果沒有更多的理由去做就非常容易把建議放到一邊，并且繼續自己的舊態度。

但是近幾年我發現如果你改變了你的態度，你就真正的改變了你的現狀。當你比方說使用積極的態度替代消極的態度，你就開始能夠看到以前不能體會和發現的事務以及觀點。你可能會想“為什么我以前沒有這么想？”。

當你改變了你的態度你就改變了你關注的東西。你世界里的所有事物現在都可以用不同的方式去看待。

這確實和前面的點非常類似，但是我仍然想要專門拿出來說。因為改變你的態度可以給你的世界帶來瘋狂的變化。不過如果你只是隨便想想就不是這樣了。悲觀主義可能看起來非常像現實注意。但是更重要的原因是你的R.A.S能連帶出所有的你想看到的負面因素。這就使得你大部分時間都“偏右”。也可能這就是你希望的。另一方面，有很多事情比所有時間都“偏右”有趣。

如果你試圖真正改變你的態度-而不是在分析你心中的概念-你將得到驚喜。

你也許愿意了解更多關于《迎接積極的挑戰》

11.感激是一個讓你感到高興的簡單方法

當然，我可能說過我應該感激。可能因為這是正確的事情或者僅僅是一些我需要做的事情。但是如果有人曾經說過心存感激1，2分鐘是一個讓消極情緒變得開心起來的好辦法，我可能會更多的嘗試感恩。這也是一個好讓你保持態度并且關注正確事情的好方法。還能使其他人感到開心。也會使得你更開心，因為情緒是相互傳染的。

12.不要和別人攀比

本能喜歡比較。會希望為自己找到一些理由讓自己感到快樂（我買了一輛新自行車）。但是當這么做時，又很難不去和那些擁有比你多的人比較（“oh，不，比爾買了一輛更漂亮的自行車”）。然后你又一次感覺不那么好了。如果你拿自己和別人比較，你就使得世界只圍繞著“你覺得自己怎么樣”所控制。這就往往變成了情緒的過山車。

一個更有用的方法是自己和自己比。看看自己走了多遠，自己完成了什么，自己如何成長。這聽起來沒有那么有意思但是從長久開看這能來帶很多的內心沉靜，個人力量和積極的感覺。

13.80-90%你害怕的事情根本就不存在

這是很重要的一點。很多你擔心的事情從來都不會發生。他們僅僅是是你內心的心魔。如果他們真的發生了，他們也并不如你所想的那樣痛苦和糟糕。擔心常常只是浪費時間。

這確實說起來容易。但是如果你提醒你自己，在你人生中你所擔心的事情真正發生是非常少的，你就能慢慢放下你思想中的很多擔心了。

14.不要把事看得太嚴重。

沉溺在一件事里很容易。但是你擔心的大部分事情都不會實際發生。而且你現在看起來非常大的一個困難，三年后你甚至都不記得它了。

讓你自己，你的思想和你的情緒太緊張常常只會帶來不必要的痛苦。所以放松一點，陽光一點。這樣對你的心情有奇妙的效果，也同樣有效果于你其他的東西，你的生活。

15.寫下所有的東西

如果你的記憶和我差不多那它就像個漏水的桶。如果你沒有養成好習慣記錄下來，你很多好的或者很棒的主意就有可能永遠失去了。這也同樣是一個好方法讓你關注與你所想要的東西。了解更多《為什么你應該把事情寫下來》。

16.任何的經歷都蘊含機遇

在非常多的經歷中都包含些什么，你可以從中學到東西，這些東西可以幫助你成長。不好的經驗，錯誤，失敗有的時候甚至比那些成功的還有價值，因為這教會了你一些完全新鮮的東西，一些成功所沒法教你的事情。

無論何時你遇到了不好的經歷告訴你自己：這里的機遇是什么？這種情況的好處在哪里？一個負面的經歷可以-借助時間的推移-幫助你創造很多有益的經驗。

你希望有人能夠在學校里就告訴你這些事情或者至少能夠跟早些的學到這些嗎？