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A few days ago I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, waiting on my wife. They had a TV tuned to a local station, showing the morning news. With my only other entertainment option being to read a 9 month old copy of “Good Housekeeping” - I settled in to watch the news.
There was a teaser right before a commercial block promising a must-see segment on how to protect my baby from RSV. I don’t have a baby and I wasn’t even sure what the heck “RSV” was, but the anchor sold it with such urgency that I knew I must stay tuned to learn these potentially life-saving tips.
When the commercials were over, the lead in promise me that I would soon be thanking the local news team for this vital information about saving my baby’s life from RSV; thus the segment began.
(Read the rest of this article…)
February 20th, 2006
Jacob
Most people think there are three S’s in the word “success”, but that’s not true, there are really four S’s in the word “success.”
These four S’s are:
- Set it
- Share it
- Start it
- Stick to it
Okay, I should admit something, these are really the four S’s in goals, but when you achieve your goals you move towards success. Let’s look at these 4 S’s in a little more detail.
(Read the rest of this article…)
February 18th, 2006
Jacob
About a week ago Brad Issac had an article up on his web site titled How to Take A Caffeine Nap - and the timing was a bit uncanny with my own experiments with napping and power napping.
So today I tried combining my power nap with a shot of caffeine.
To put things in perspective, I’m not a big consumer of caffeine. I drink the occasional diet soft drink or iced tea, and very little coffee. My drink of choice is ice-cold water.
So today when I sat down for my power nap, I preceded it with a “Biggie” diet Coke from Wendy’s, and tried to get restful and relaxed.
One thing that really struck me was how vivid the images in my mind were - even more than usual. I never felt like I was completely asleep - I teetered right on that edge between sleep and wakefulness - but the images were very vivid and “real” and the thoughts just seemed to flow and swirl around in my head.
I had a bit of grogginess when I first roused myself, but it’s been about 15 minutes since my nap and I feel completely alert and fully rested. I’m not ready to attribute the experience fully to the caffeine after just one experience, but today’s nap was certainly a different experience than my previous naps.
I think some more experimentation with caffeine and napping is required, but after just one go at it I feel like there is something to the idea. If you’re into napping, you might want to give a caffeine nap a try yourself!
February 17th, 2006
Jacob
Yesterday I had the opportunity to lie down in a comfortable place while taking my nap. Let me forewarn you that unless you have immensely strong will power, this might not be the best idea.
I got comfortable, set a timer for 20 minutes and stretched out, ready to relax. Within minutes I was sound asleep and instead of power napping for 20 minutes, I slept for an hour and twenty minutes! I didn’t hear the timer I set, and finally was awake enough to look at my wrist watch and realize how long I had been out. I felt groggy and “thick headed” because it was too long of a nap.
So a word of caution if you’re power napping; don’t get to comfortable and fall completely asleep. If you’re not careful you’ll end up oversleeping and groggy at the end.
Today was much better - again I didn’t use any music of other aids to take power nap. I’ve found that after a day or two of it taking me longer to get settled down and relaxed, I so far feel like I get a deeper nap when I don’t use any music of the Pzizz software. Today I even noticed some hypnagogic images float through my mind. You can experience hypnagogic images and sounds when you’re right on the edge between being awake and being asleep. They’re sort of a dream you have while you’re awake.
I don’t really recall any specific details, but I realized that I wasn’t asleep and I was dreaming. It was a very surreal experience, not unlike a lucid dream.
I feel much more refreshed this afternoon.
So far power napping is getting two big thumbs up from me. I don’t feel like I’m quite as cranky and crabby in the afternoons because I’m more relaxed. Taking a 20 minute break in the middle of the day for “me time” has also a great stress reliever as well.
February 16th, 2006
Jacob
If you have a few minutes I encourage you to check out Erik Vossman’s site, “Can you become good at everything?” It’s an interesting collections of articles from one ambitious person - you really get a sense of excitement and passion about life in his writing.
I highly recommend reading about his personal battle against cancer; it’s a powerful story.
February 16th, 2006
Jacob
We are creatures of habit; for many of us, consistency makes us feel all “warm-n-fuzzy” inside. And we like avoiding pain in life, so we tend to gravitate towards habits that build consistency, which makes us feel “warm-n-fuzzy.”
To put it in layman’s terms, we let our desire for comfort let us get ourselves stuck in ruts.
Five weeks ago I started attending classes in management and mathematics. I happened to sit in whatever seat was available in the first session of each class. At the second session in both classes I noticed that I, along with almost everyone else, was sitting in the same seat we had the week before.
That got me thinking about our unconscious drive for consistency and it got me paying attention to my own behaviors as well as the behaviors of everyone around me.
(Read the rest of this article…)
February 16th, 2006
Jacob
I’m starting my second week of taking power naps during the day. For the last two days I’ve been napping without using any music or the Pzizz software I had been using last week. I want to have a control to see if I find a certain method works better for me.
I have noticed that when I “go it alone” I have been having a much more difficult time getting settled down and actually relaxing. My office is on a busy hallway and there is a lot of foot traffic and noise outside my door all day long - it’s very noticeable even when the door is closed (apparently because my door is made of balsa wood!). Couple that with the general noise of our warehouse (it’s on the other side of my back wall) and you end up with a pretty noisy environment in which to be resting and relaxing.
But I’ve been doing my best and while I find it’s taken me long to get relaxed without headphones and Pzizz playing, I can do it. I’ve also noticed that once I do get relaxed I feel like it’s at a deeper level. By the end of my nap I’m almost completely asleep and after stretching and “waking up” I find that I have more energy.
I think it’s possible because there isn’t anything other than normal office noise that my brain is concentrating on (and it’s learned to tune that out for the most part). When I used Pzizz last week I felt like I was able to get settled down much more quickly, but when I don’t use anything I feel like my naps have been deeper and more restful.
My plan is to finish out this week with no music or Pzizz while I nap. Next week I’ll use some soothing and relaxing music from a CD I own which doesn’t promise any specific restful results. My quest is to find out the best and most restful way to power nap. After doing it for the last week, I’m confident as I start on my second week of power napping that it’s a very valuable tool. I feel much more relaxed and energetic during the day, and I feel like my stress level is lower too. I highly recommend you give it a try if you’ve been reading these articles, but haven’t yet tried it for yourself.
February 15th, 2006
Jacob
Following up on my Micro Life Organizer (MiLO), I am pleased to announce my Financial Life Organizer (FiLO) for your consideration.
Over the last few months I’ve been reading numerous books on building wealth, and one of the core themes running throughout all of these books has been; if you don’t track your spending, you’ll spend to much. If you spend to much, and have a “high consumption” lifestyle, you’ll never be wealthy.
Since I’m not counting on winning the PowerBall lottery anytime soon, and no one in my family will be leaving anything behind when they shuffle off their mortal coil, I decided I needed a better way to track my spending.
Keeping track of checks and credit card expenses isn’t completely difficult in this day of on-line banking and instant account checking. But I find that I don’t check these tools on a daily basis. At best I check them weekly, and I can spend a surprisingly large amount of money in a week if I’m not careful! And forget about tracking cash - if I have $20 in my pocket there is no way on God’s green Earth that I’ll remember what the heck I spend it on 24 hours after it’s gone.
Given my lack of a fortune coming at the hands of the lottery or a distance, but insanely rich great-great-aunt, and my lack of discipline to capture my monetary transactions in all their various places on a daily basis; I knew I needed a better solution. So I sat down and created FiLO.
The essence of a FiLO is a cash, check and credit card register that folds neatly into a 2.75″ x 4.25″ booklet that you can stick in your pocket or carry in your wallet. The goal is to make sure I never have an excuse to not record a financial transaction.
And I figured if I find FiLO useful, other people might too…people like you!
Of course, you want to see what FiLO looks like; in terms of form if looks exactly like MiLO.
When FiLO is folded, it’s only a bit bigger than a credit card and gives you seven pages to track your financial transactions. The back page is a “Get Excited & Motivated” page and shows you how even saving a tiny bit of money, but doing it on a regular basis, can make you wealthy in your lifetime!
FiLO is free for you to use and pass around to anyone you think would get benefit from it. Here’s where to download it:
PLEASE NOTE: If you’re printing this PDF with Windows, make sure to select “Page Scaling = None” on the print options when you print out a FiLO or Acrobat Reader will shrink the FiLO down by a few percent and it will not fold properly. This is one of the biggest frustrations people using Windows will have printing out a FiLO for themselves.
I hope you enjoy using your FiLO, and I hope it can help you keep closer tabs on your spending. Good luck and good wealth!
February 14th, 2006
Jacob
Day 1: 2/7/06
I took my first power nap from 2:28pm - 2:48pm - the time seemed to slip by very quickly. At first I thought taking 20 minutes out of my day would feel like forever, but that wasn’t the case. The “nap” was over before it felt like any real time had slipped by.
I took this power nap while seated at my desk chair. On thing that struck me after it was over was how much tension I had been carrying in my shoulders and back. I felt like a lot of it had melted away and I felt much “looser” and less “knotted up.”
I was shocked at how deeply it felt I had gone. I almost felt as if I had actually been asleep for the 20 minutes, but to my knowledge I didn’t actually fall asleep at any time during the power nap.
I did the Pzizz “Energizer nap” with the voice guiding throughout the entire course of the session. While I did notice the voice while relaxing, now that I’ve been “awake” for 4 minutes (2:52pm) I am a bit fuzzy on what was said. It was there, but not in a distracting way. It was very soothing, warm and relaxing.
Update: It’s been an hour since my power nap and I notice that I feel a lot more invigorated this afternoon than usual. It is a placebo effect or a benefit of the power nap? Time will tell.
(Read the rest of this article…)
February 13th, 2006
Jacob
After posting the article titled, “The weight of an idea.” I had several people inquire about the index cards I print out for myself.
I used Adobe Pagemaker to lay the card out and I keep a stack of them near me pretty much everywhere I go. A pack of 100 index cards costs about $0.99 and I figure my printer (an HP LaserJet 1000) costs me about $0.02 per card to print. So my total cost to print my own cards is around $0.03 each, or $3.00 per hundred - cheap!
I’ve tried printing these cards with an ink jet printer, but I found that the ink is sucked into the card stock and ends up looking blurry and a bit gray for my tastes. The laser printer gives very crisp lines and text and is dead-on black. It looks very professional when you jot a note on one and hand it to a colleague - they’ll think you had cards custom printed - snazzy!
I’ve created two PDFs of this card if you want to print them at home for your own use.
(Read the rest of this article…)
February 12th, 2006
Jacob
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