Brutal Decisions

As autumn really starts to kick in and I finally allow the kids to turn the heating on there are a few things I really enjoy.

Halloween is always fun. Mainly because of my mate Roger Taylor (still not the drummer from Queen). Roger is normally a cheerful chap but he becomes a miserable old man on 31st October.

You Better Knock

He doesn’t like the prospect of kids knocking on his door and asking for sweets. He hates this in fact.

Every year he pins a formally threatening notice on the outside of his front door, informing any would be trick or treaters that they’re not welcome to knock on his door and he’ll be reporting them to the police if they do so. 

This notice is laminated!

So every year on 31st October I go around to his at about 7.30pm and knock loudly on his door. Then I run round the corner and hide. 

From my vantage point I can see him at his doorstep glancing around, looking very cross. It’s childish I know but I’ve been doing it for years and he still doesn’t know it’s me. It’s worth the effort. You’re welcome to join me.

Twisted Firestarter

Bonfire night is fun too. Normally I’ll attend a local display, knocking back mulled wine and eating hot dogs. I enjoy joining in with the ‘oohs’ and ‘aaahs’ of the crowd as we watch thousands of pounds literally being set alight and fired into the sky.

Plus I look forward to experiencing apricity at this time of year. I’m still not one hundred percent sure how to use that word in a sentence but I think that’s correct. 

Earlier this year I talked about apricity and, as I’m sure you’ll remember, it means ‘the warmth of the sun in winter’.

What a brilliant word it is. It’s one of those words that if it didn’t already exist we’d have to hire someone to make it up. (Newly made up words are called toponyms by the way, the knowledge of which makes this paragraph really quite meta.)

Could It Be Magic

I came across a new word recently: ‘Subitise’. 

Heard of it? No?

Oh, okay, just the primary school teachers then. Fine. 

That makes sense because I came across ‘subitise’ when proofreading my wife’s school reports. I’ve learned that primary school kids are taught to subitise from an early age. It helps them to improve their sense of numbers.

Subitising is the ability to look at a small number of objects and instantly recognise how many objects there are without needing to count.

I remember watching Derren Brown subitise some quite large numbers on the telly. It’s a skill you can learn. You practise small but continually increase the objects, subitising larger and larger numbers. 

It's amazing how accurate you can become. Or rather how accurate Derren Brown can become. There are plenty of other ways to waste your time too but that’s a good one.

Scissor Sisters

Today I want to explore a word. It’s an old word but with a new meaning. Or a meaning that has somehow slipped by. For me at least.

The word currently messing with my head is ‘decide’. Not particularly exciting is it? But here’s the really cool thing. It’s to do with death. Murder in fact.

 The Latin root -cidium means "a killing," from caedere "to slay".

Think of other words like regicide, fungicide, homicide, fratricide, suicide, genocide. We all know that they are related to killing. But - listen up - decide is from the same family!

Decision is related to incision and scissors. The etymology of the word ‘decide’ is about "cutting off".

Cut Here

Today’s Top Tip is to embrace this concept of being brutal and downright murderous when you make your decisions. 

I bang on about priorities a lot and decision making is the essence of prioritising. You have to firstly decide what your top priorities are and then decide in which order you are going to tackle them.

But you can’t be dilly dallying about. You need to be ruthless. You have to cut off other options. You have to kill them off. This is true decision making.

I think that knowing this is what the word really means can help when you have a decision to make. Especially an important one.

In order to experience the benefits of prioritising what truly matters, you need to make firm decisions. You won't know whether it's the right decision until further down the line. The important part we're focusing on is simply that the decision must be made.

The clarifying and motivating power of a firmly executed decision can move you forward so much more quickly and effectively if your priorities aren’t competing with each other.

So this weekend take five minutes to reflect about that thing you've been holding back on. You know, the decision you've been avoiding because . . . well, because. Throw the dice, cast your lot and make that decision. Good luck!