I’m not a big fan of blog memes, but I also don’t want to be anti-social, so I decided to combine three of them into one post. I also thought my readers might be interested in my answers, so if you are, read on. If not, you can skip this one.

Simply Successful Secrets
I was tagged about three weeks ago by Donald Latumahina of Life Optimizer with a challenge to list the top 5-10 things I do every day to be more successful. Here they are:

1. Wake early. Long-time readers know this about me, but becoming an early riser is one of the best things I’ve done. It has allowed me to get a jump start on my day, to be more productive, and to enjoy one of the most wonderful, peaceful times of day. I love early mornings.
2. Run. Last year I ran my first marathon, and I plan to make it the first of many. Running releases tension, worries, anger. It’s my meditation, my zazen. Plus, it slims the waistline.
3. Do the Most Important Thing first. I’ve gotten more done with a combination of this habit and waking early than everything else put together. Once you’ve done your Most Important Thing, everything else is extra.
4. Try to simplify everything. Possessions, clutter, thought processes, needs, words. Simplicity allows for greater focus, which allows for greater productivity, which allows me to pursue my dreams and relax more during my free time. It starts with simplifying.
5. Family Day. One of the best things I’ve ever done was implementing Family Day on Sundays. It has bonded my family better than anything else I’ve done, and has made me ridiculously happy.
6. Frugality. On a daily basis, I’ve learned to spend less, shop less, want less, than ever before. This has allowed me to help eliminate my debt, save, and get my finances under control, and focus on the things that make me happy without spending a lot of money. Like Family Day.
7. Think positive. The habit that made all my other habit changes possible. It’s my most important habit of all.

Gotta Get Goals
Next, Alex Shalman challenged me to “list and write about the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta’ get so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life.” Here they are:

• Get out of debt, and save to retire early. I should be out of debt by early next year. Once that’s done, I will celebrate, and start investing towards early retirement.
• Build my dream house. I don’t want anything fancy. A simple, peaceful mansion house on the beach or cliffside will do. I’d like it to be one-story, with lots of light and room. And a great big bathtub to soak in.
• Live my passion. I’ve found my passion — it’s writing for this blog. If I could do that for a living, I would be very happy. Doing what you love is one of the three keys to happiness.
• Travel the world. Well, not the whole world, as I have other things to do, but there’s a long list of places I really want to visit before I die. I plan to be doing a lot of this when I retire early.
• Be a great dad. I think I’m already a pretty darn good dad, but I want to look back on life and say I was a great dad. If I can do that, I will die happy.
• Make my wife happy for the rest of her life. When she’s happy, I’m deliriously happy. This may be my life’s work, but I will love every minute of it.

Not in that order.

Be Original
Finally, I was tagged by Mohit Singhania of Best Blog Basket to “list and write about 5 to 10 methods you use to create original posts. It has to be a method you use regularly. These should be the best, quickest and easiest to apply methods.”

First, I’m not sure if my posts are entirely original — they are often a composite of knowledge I’ve read about on the web and in books, through the filter of my experience and what I have learned, and the mistakes I’ve made, in trying to implement this knowledge. But here they are anyway:

• Write about what I love. This is probably the most important step. If you write about something you’re not very interested in, it will show. If you write about something you passionately care about, that you read about on a daily basis, that inspires you to write, it will shine through. And more often than not, it will be original, because the original part is the passion in your writing, not necessarily the information.
• Put myself into every post. It’s incredibly difficult to come up with an original idea, as so many great thinkers have come before us. Most thoughts have been thought before. But there has never been a “me” before, and if I put my thoughts, experiences, hopes, fears and deepest desires into my writing, it will be different, at least a little, from other writing.
• Cut out the unnecessary. How do you carve an elephant in stone? Just chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. When I write, I cut out everything that repeats itself, that’s not essential to the post, and that’s been written about many times before. What’s left, I hope, is just the best stuff, and I also hope that it’s original in some way.
• Be useful. This is my goal with every post. I want to not only write about an interesting topic, but to give my readers suggestions and tips that will truly be useful to them. I only decided to write this post because I thought it could be useful to some readers.
• Make lists. I overdo this one, but I am a natural listmaker. Just about every post I write has a list. If you dislike lists, you’ll probably dislike my site. But on a positive note, I always find lists easy to read and remember, and lists force me to distill what I want to say into concrete steps or blocks.

Who am I tagging next? Every blogger, big or small, who reads this post. That’s you! Be sure to link back to this post so I can go read your answers. The good news: you can choose which of the three memes you want to write about, or do all three if you like.