Reading reaction or summary items. Each course participant should produce at least one a week. These can be on short items found in the newspaper or online. They also can cover chapters read in a book chosen to create a personal development goal. In small classes these are due every week beginning at the second class meeting.

Beginning the third week reaction pieces contribute to the course grade. This is usually by the number of items, independent of their quality. (The idea is to build a habit of recording what one is absorbing.)

If you are in a team with an approved project description see the material below regarding organizing: Questions ...

Team projects. All students work to help each other complete an acceptable joint project description statement. [Composing such items begins with merging individual statements about doing a project. It is best if this task is complete by the end of the third week: sometimes this goal isn't met.] Such statements consist of a title, the participants' names, and a paragraph that states in simple understandable terms exactly what is being designed.

Cooperation via in-person telephone, and email discussion is the essential step in forming a project team.

All involved need to agree on the individual work statements for each project participant.

"A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face ... It is one of the few havens remaining where a mind can get both provocation and privacy." -Edward P. Morgan

Ask the following every day as you prepare your prioritized DailyAction List:

Step I: Identify high priority goals in the Daily Action List.

1. Of my long-range and intermediate, high priority goals, which should I work on today?

2. What projects will give the highest return for time invested?

3. What projects will be the greatest threat to my survival or that of my company if I don't do them?

...

7. What has not been considered that will help yield long-term significant results?

Step II: Prioritize the Daily Action List. (Commit to Memory)

A = Vital B = Important C = Some Value

1. Which items will best help achieve my long-range and intermediate high priority goals?

2. What will help yield greatest long-term results?

3. What will give the highest payoff?

4. What will happen if I don't do each of these projects today? Who will it affect? Will anyone suffer?

5. On a long-term basis, which items will make me feel best to accomplish?

We can pay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves. - John Buchan

The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone. - Stella, Lady Reading

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer - Dean Acheson

You've got to sing like you don't need money,

Got to love like you'll never get hurt,

Got to dance like nobody's watching,

It's got to come from the heart if it's going to work.

1. Do I want it? 6. Is it timely?

2. Do I need it? 7. Is it quality?

3. Will it add something new? 8. Is it accurate and reliable?

4. Is it significant for my purposes? 9. Is the author an authority on the subject?

5. Do I foresee a use for it? 10. Is it easy to understand?

... At Sen. Hubert Humphrey's funeral, President Jimmy Carter quoted the Mahatma Gandhi as he listed the seven deadly sins. ... Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.

Apropos remaining silent when one should speak up is this ... written by a German Lutheran pastor who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and sent to Dachau concentration camp. He was freed by the Allied forces in 1945.

"In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me." - Rev. Martin Niemoeller

1. Exercise regularly. 5. Don't smoke.

2. Eat a good breakfast. 6. Drink moderately.

3. Don't eat between meals. 7. Get a good night's sleep.

4. Maintain weight (at age 25).