Pick The Brain

Friday, 19 February 2010 00:00

1. Exercise During the Day. If you're struggling to fit exercise into your day, try looking for ways to get active in your lunch hour or straight after work.
2. Stop Work in the Middle of a Task. At the end of the day, try stopping work in the middle of a task. The advantage here is that instead of building up the energy to get stuck in on something new  you've got an easy little task to start off your day.
3. Avoid Caffeine in the Evening. Drinking tea, coffee, cola or other caffeinated drinks in the evening is almost certainly going to have a bad effect on your sleep.
4. Set Out Your Clothes the Night Before. Decide exactly what you're wearing and hang your clothes at the far edge of your closet, or over a chair or on a door.
5. Don't Eat a Heavy Dinner. You could eat a bit earlier in the evening, or simply eat a lighter meal at dinner time.
6. Journal or Read Before Bed. Many of us find it hard to "switch off" at the end of the day.
7. Know What You're Doing First Thing. What's your morning routine like? Decide before you go to sleep then you won't have to wake up dithering about what to do first.
8. Get to Bed On Time. 
9. Visualize Sleeping Well. When you lie down to sleep, visualize getting a really great night's sleep. 

Zen Habits

Friday, 19 February 2010 00:00

1. Keep the scope as simple as possible. You don't need to do everything with this project. In fact, if you can just do one thing, that's perfect.
2. Practice 'Good Enough'. Perfectionism is the enemy of completion. You can always make it better in the next version.
3. Kill extra features. Similar to simplifying the scope, you'll want to try to make your creation do as little as possible. Want it to talk and walk and cook breakfast? Just try for talking.
4. Make it public, quick. Your goal should be to get your project in some working form out to your customers/readers/public as soon as possible. In as few steps, as quickly, as easily, as simply as possible. 

Pick The Brain

Thursday, 18 February 2010 09:21

1. Yogic Breathing. One of the five principles of Yoga is Pranayama. It is a breathing exercise that promotes proper breathing. Proper breathing in the Yogic sense is to bring more oxygen to your brain and blood, while also controlling the Prana (life force energy).
2. Sungazing. Sungazing is an interesting concept, which involves gazing at the sun to give your body the nourishment it requires. 
3. Sauna. Sauna has some pretty impressive health benefits. It has even been shown that taking cold showers in conjunction with a sauna challenges your immune system and reduces stress hormones. 
4. Oil Pulling. Oil pulling is an Indian folk remedy, where you take an oil, such as sunflower oil, and you swish it in your mouth in the morning before eating anything for about 10-20 minutes. Helps against certain bacteria in your mouth.
5. Finding Your Passion. Passion is critical to happiness and although I have found no large studies done on the effects of passion on people's health and happiness, but it has been shown that happier people live longer.

Zen Habits

Thursday, 18 February 2010 09:11

9 simple ways you can bring yourself into flow

1. Pick a enjoyable, challenging activity. The easiest way to enter flow is by doing something you love. The activity also needs to challenge you.
2. Eliminate distractions. Turn off your phone, log out of twitter, switch off gmail.
3. Think before you do. Do any research or preparation before you engage in the activity you wish to flow in. 
4. Isolate yourself. The best way to achieve flow is alone.
5. Let go. Give up any expectations that you have for yourself.
6. Give yourself a time limit. Give yourself 30 minutes of uninterrupted flow time and just go at it with everything you've got. 
7. Keep moving. Continuous motion is key to flow, don't give your mind a chance to start second guessing what you're doing. 
8. Don't think. Switch off the part of your brain that observes what you're doing. This is your self-consciousness, your ego, your sabotage.
9. Practice. Like any useful skill, flow takes time to master. Don't stress if you can't do it right away.