First, here is a little background about my education to give you an idea of where I’m coming from.  I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music composition (both taken at physical universities where I was sitting in class).  I am currently working on my thesis for a master’s focused on software engineering that I took primarily through online classes.  I am 31 years old and (apart from one semester after I got married) I have been enrolled in a college or university since graduation from high school. (My areas of interest tend to exceed what a single person can learn in one lifetime.)

This is a potential plan for getting a college education.  It is based on things that worked for me and things that I wish I had done.  It isn’t going to work for everyone, so it is probably best to read it as source for ideas–not something you should try to follow line by line.

1. Get your undergrad degree at a physical university. 90% of what you learn the first 4 years out of high school will not be in
   the classroom.  It is often painfully obvious if a 24 year old has been to college–not by their intelligence, but by their social skills.
2. Live on campus for your undergrad degree. If 90% of what you learn has to do with social life skills, living on campus is a good way to make sure you don’t miss any important lessons.  I’d also suggest living at least 2.5 hours from your home. If you are any closer, it starts becoming too easy to go home every weekend.
3. Network. Your undergraduate friends are likely to be some of the strongest friendships you’ll build.  Make an effort to meet new people and to stay in touch after college. Choose your close friends carefully because they will have a great impact on the habits and traits you develop.
4. Choose a school where people are smarter than you. If you are in the top 10% of the students at your school, it is unlikely that you will reach your full potential like you would if you were in the bottom 50%.  Professors have to tailor their courses toward the average student.  If the average student is well below what you are capable of, then you won’t get as much out of the classes.  Unfortunately, this often means going to the school that offers you the least in scholarships.  If you do go to a school where you are in the top percentile, make sure you constantly push yourself beyond what is required for an A.  Realize that getting an A may be like getting a B or C elsewhere and is not an indication of whether you really achieved your potential or not.
5. Study something you love, but find difficult. This may be controversial, but I don’t think your undergraduate degree needs to be focused on getting a job.  You will probably get more use out of a degree that made you a smarter person than a degree that prepared you for a particular industry that might be shipped to India in 4 years. Use your undergraduate degree to learn how to learn and how to think. For me, this was studying music theory. Choose a field where you can pour your whole heart into it.
6. Learn to write. Take classes that require lots of writing.  In the workforce, a lot of your co-workers are going to shy away from writing.  If you have developed your skills in this area it will help set you apart–regardless of where you are working.
7. Get a summer job. Don’t go for the job with the most money.  Choose the one where you will learn the most.  See your summer job as part of your education. Use your summer job to develop some type of skill that you can make good money at.  For me, this was working in computer networking.  If you can get a job during the school year to get more experience, that is even better.
8. After graduation, get a job. Hopefully your summer jobs will have given you a good idea of what you like doing.  Take that experience and put it to use.  Once again look for a job that will give you the best experience for the future, not just the best short-term pay. Also, look at their policy on paying for continuing education.  A job that pays less, but offers generous reimbursement for classes toward a Master’s degree, may be much more valuable than a higher paying job. Keep in mind that you are wanting more than a paycheck.  This job is a networking opportunity.  Try to build a base of people who will give you a good recommendation later on in life.  Take on projects and responsibilities to specifically fill out your resume.
9. Get a Master’s degree through distance education. If you like what you are doing, get the degree in that field.  If you don’t, choose another complementary field. Ideally, choose an area that your employer will help pay for classes.  Choose the best school possible (I have been impressed with Harvard and Stanford’s distance education setup).  Working full time and taking classes at night is hard, but it can be well worth the effort.
10. Look for your dream job. Now that you have a few years of experience and a master’s degree in a field you enjoy, you need to work
    on a plan to get your dream job.  It may take a few more years of getting additional experience, but know where you are headed.  For me, my dream job was to own my own company.  It took a number of years and a lot of hard work.  I’m still not completely where I want to be, but I’m definitely headed in the right direction.
11. Never Stop Learning. The world is not going to stay the same and neither should you.  It takes a conscious effort to acquire new skills for the rest of your life, if you want to stay on top.  Take advantage of distance education, but don’t overlook other non-classroom types of training.  Working with someone you really admire can be even more educational than spending a semester in a classroom.

Originally published on April 25, 2007.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Freelance Switch Article
• Cutting Out Distractions
• Chimps and Children
• Kindle 2
• Reader Questions – Being Absent

This should be a pretty terrifying prospect for anyone. However, some people would find themselves unable to function at all, while others would find themselves merely handicapped. It all depends on how much effort each individual has put into learning new things in the last two years.

Some people graduate from college with the idea that they can stop learning. They pick up some additional education in the form of on-the job-training, but the amount they learn each year is very close to zero. Others assume that learning is something that is ongoing and that the rate of change in the world forces them to be constantly learning new things.

When you think about it, a good percentage of what you learned more than two years ago is irrelevant today. The rapid pace of technology and change in general are working together to make sure that much of what you learn today will be outdated or at least less relevant in two years.

If you aren’t constantly making an effort to learn new things, you’ll quickly find your education inadequate to cope with what the world has become. This doesn’t happen overnight and many people don’t even recognize the change. In fact, many people don’t realize what has happened until they lose their job and find themselves in need of work with few current skills.

The current economic situation really demonstrates this.  There are many employers out there looking for employees to pay $60k per year.  The jobs are going unfilled because they can’t find qualified employees.

We lived in Michigan for a while, and I was amazed at how many people were making a good living without any formal education, simply operating a particular piece of machinery at an automotive plant.  I’m not saying that there was not skill involved in running the machines, but when they lost their jobs they didn’t have much of a skill set to transfer somewhere else.

The only way to stay current is to make a consistent investment in your informal (and formal) education. You can never get comfortable or feel like you have learned everything you need to know.

Originally published December 1, 2006.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Podcasting Conference
• What Is Your Current Work Zone?
• Intellectual Diet
• Language and Learning
• Folder Templates

Steve Pavlina discovered that he could reduce the amount of sleep he required by an average of 90 minutes each day by getting up at 5 am 7 days per week. He only goes to bed when he is tired enough that he will immediately fall asleep. You can find more about his experience here and here.

Polyphasic sleep is a drastic method of changing your sleeping schedule. Basically, you try to train your body to enter deep sleep immediately by taking a 20 to 30 minute nap every 4 hours. In this way you only require 2 hours of sleep per day. For most people, this would translate into an extra 40 hours per week. Lifehack has some comments on an article by someone who uses this sleeping method.

Of course, even if you can get by with less sleep, there may be other harmful side effects. An article in Nutrition Action Health Letter (Jul/Aug 2005, Vol. 32 Issue 6) discusses some research from Europe into the causes of obesity in children. The researchers expected to find a link between the amount of time children spent in front of the television and obesity. Instead, they found that children who slept less weighted more. Another study in Wisconsin of middle-age government employees found a similar correlation.

Several people who are using the polyphasic sleep method mentioned that they require a lot more food. It seems reasonable that the body would need more food if it is more active, but polyphasic sleep could impede the body’s ability to regulate it’s own weight.

It is interesting to note that there seems to be very little research into polyphasic sleep. It has also been called Uberman’s sleep schedule and Dymaxion sleep. If you do a search through scientific journals, you’ll find many references to polyphasic, but very few of them are talking about fully replacing our regular sleeping pattern with 4 hour phases. Most of the time they are just referring to taking a several naps in addition to the main time you sleep.

One of the main people that has written about this type of sleep is Claudio Stampi. In particular, he wrote a book called “Why We Nap”. It sells for $155 on Amazon, so it isn’t something you can just pick up from your local bookstore. If anyone knows of some good research regarding this method of sleeping (especially how it impacts your health), please leave a comment.

Other random pieces of related info:

There was a study done on truck drivers printed in Biological Rhythm Research 2003, Vol 34, that talks about polyphasic sleep. In that research, they found evidence of a natural rhythm lending to taking several naps during a day. They also mentioned that if the naps are irregular, it could throw off the body’s sense of timing.

The November issue of Scientific American mentions unpublished research where a drug known as CX717 was able to improve the performance of sleep deprived humans. Previously the drug was given to sleep deprived monkeys. The monkeys were then given memory tests (which usually degraded with lack of sleep). With the drug, the sleepy monkeys were able to perform at the same level as well rested monkeys. However, when the drug was given to rested monkeys, they performed better on the memory tests, so the drug may be more related to improving memory than to suppressing the need for sleep.

Arshad Chowdhury of Metronaps is trying to cash in on people people who need more sleep. He invented a “sleep pod” that you can pay $14 to take a 20 minute nap. At the end of 20 minutes the pod vibrates to wake you up. The pods have a type of dome to cover your head and he has them installed in the Empire State Building and the Vancouver Airport. The Metronap pods might be the perfect thing for someone who wants to try to use the polyphasic sleep method, but don’t have an office area where they can take the required short naps during the day.

Originally published October 20, 2005.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• The Promise of Sleep — Book
• Cell Phones and Sleep
• Articles on Sleep
• Reader Question – How to Wake Up
• Sleeping Brains

1. Malthus’ theory is just flat out wrong.
2. He didn’t take into consideration the growth of technology and the productivity of farming over the last 200 years has increased faster than what is necessary to (temporarily) prevent worldwide famine.
3. Population levels determine agricultural output, not the other way around.
4. Malthus didn’t understand the impact of geniuses.

I’m not really interested in discussing Malthus or his theories here, but I do want to talk about point number four–geniuses.  Some economists have pointed out that greater population means a greater number of geniuses and geniuses are the people that can really causes leaps in productivity for the world as a whole.

Eli Whitney’s invention changed cotton cloth from an expensive luxury to a common commodity available to everyone. Edison’s light bulb dramatically extended the amount of time people could spend working productively. Einstein’s theories paved the way for nuclear power (to power those light bulbs).

Throughout history, individuals made contributions that altered life for most of the rest of the planet.  These are the geniuses that create the huge leaps in productivity.  It is easy to look at them and say “wow, I wish I were someone smart like that.”  The funny thing is that these people were recognized for their brilliance after the fact.  Edison’s teacher didn’t think he was teachable, so his mom had to home school him. He was fired from an early job working on a train when he caught a box car on fire.  These aren’t exactly signs of genius.

Einstein applied to go to college in Switzerland, but failed the entrance exam.  When he graduated from the college that accepted him, he couldn’t find a position teaching anywhere. After two years, he took a job that a family friend helped him secure at the patent office as an assistant examiner.  While this wasn’t a horrible job, it isn’t the type of thing you’d expect a “genius” to be doing.

I’m not trying to say that these were just ordinary people. However, it is easy to get caught up in what they accomplished and forget that they had many of the same struggles we all face. It wasn’t their lack of making mistakes or sheer intellect that made them great.  It was the fact that they did something.  They took risks,  published papers, and performed experiments.  We recognize their intelligence because of what they accomplished, but most of the credit should go toward their willingness to try and to keep trying.

We call them geniuses because they made a lasting, positive change on the world around them.  In that sense, genius is something we can all strive for.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Messing with Other People’s Time Management
• Striving for Greatness
• Passive Income
• Top 5 Worst Productivity Ideas
• Investment allocation

Is it illegal to wear a ski mask into a bank to conduct business?

Obviously, I would not suggest trying this to find out. The brief snippet of this conversation I overheard started me thinking about how important it is to understand others’ perception. If you walk into a bank wearing a ski mask, your intentions are far less important than others’ perceptions of your intentions.

When I’m on a bus or subway, I like looking around and trying to see how much I can tell about the fellow passengers just by looking at them. It is a simple way I try to keep myself in practice of noticing small details about people.

But just as important is the ability to understand how you are being perceived by others. We often plow ahead with our ideas without any thought as to how others perceive our actions and attitudes.

Here are some things to ask yourself after interactions with others:

• What did the person hear? What you said and what they heard may be very different things. Based on what you know about the person, which parts of your conversation would they be likely to remember? If they were to immediately summarize your conversation with someone else, what are likely to be the main points they remember?
• Did they feel threatened? If you challenge the status quo, don’t assume that others will focus on the value of your ideas. Entrenched stakeholders are often threatened by new ideas. This is especially true if you are dealing with people, who over many years, have molded their jobs into positions that require very little real work.
• How do they perceive your authority? Misreading this piece of information can cause all kinds of roadblocks.

Originally published August 29, 2007.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• False Memories
• Experienced-Based Education
• Study Tips
• Preparing for New Technology
• Dealing with Difficulties

At the beginning of any job, you will have many opportunities to learn because everything is new.  This section is marked by the green zone. Every day will involve new experiences and learning new things. As time goes on, this tends to level out, as shown by the yellow zone. Sometimes the yellow zone is only temporary and you will be given new responsibilities that will have new learning opportunities–you’ll basically start the cycle over again.

If this doesn’t happen and you remain at a reduced learning rate for a period of time, you’ll move into the red zone. The red zone is particularly dangerous because it means you are becoming accustomed to a lack of personal growth and a lack of challenges. If you stay in this zone for too long, you will actually reduce your capabilities to take on challenging assignments.

So when should you look for a new job? While you are in the green zone, you will be facing a lot of challenges. Some of these will be difficult and sometimes you might even fail. This is not an indication that you should move on. It means you are still growing. One mistake I see people make is leaving jobs where they are still learning just because it isn’t easy.

When you get into the yellow zone, it is time to start re-evaluating things. You need to honestly access the chances of  getting different responsibilities that would move you back into the green zone. You also must consider your potential for salary growth. If you are at the high end of the pay scale, continued growth may not translated into growth in pay. When you get to the yellow zone, you may need to sit down with your employer and talk about your future at the company to get a feel for what opportunities might become available if you stick around.

Even if your employer doesn’t have any new or challenging projects, the yellow zone can be a good place to try to take advantage of any educational opportunities. If your employer offers tuition reimbursement, you might look at working on an advanced degree.  Sometimes additional education will help give you a new way of looking at your current job and open your eyes to opportunities for improvement that your employer may not think to ask for.

At a previous employer, I had been in the yellow zone for about a year. I had already used the educational benefits to do most of the coursework I needed for a second master’s degree. Finally I sat down with my boss and asked, “What are the new challenges I’m going to get to experience in the next 6 months?” He told me that there wasn’t really anything they wanted me to do other than just keep things running the way they were. A few days later, I submitted my resignation. For me, the challenge was getting things to the point where my department was running smoothly. Simply maintaining the status quo would have been easy. The organization was pretty flexible with work schedules as long as things were getting done, so simply maintaining things would have translated into a lot of free time for me. The idea of not having new challenges scared me because I looked around and saw a number of other employees who were basically on cruise control. They had nice non-stressful jobs, but it had been years since they had ever attempted anything challenging. My fear was that I would become like that.

I took a job with another company where I figured I had about a 60% chance of being able to be successful and a 40% chance of failing horribly. The first few months were extremely difficult, but I learned a tremendous amount. More importantly, I raised the bar on what I was capable of doing. This experience has served me well. There are many small and large successes I’ve had in life that I can directly trace back to the decision to leave the easy job and take one that would challenge me.

What work zone are you in?  How long are you comfortable staying there?

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Excellence – Perfection vs. Efficiency
• The Zone
• Binge Productivity
• Interview Productive Work Zone
• Personal Development: Continual Improvement

I learned a number of things that day. One of the more interesting facts was the way that the pegs in the piano hold a tune.  I noticed that Fred would never tune directly to a note, he would always over-tune and then come back to the desired pitch.  He explained that if he simply tuned to the correct pitch, that note would soon revert to its previous flatness.  By tuning the note a bit sharp and then back down to the correct pitch, Fred wouldn’t get called back out the next day because the piano was out of tune again.  If he didn’t over-tune first, the wood and peg would “remember” where they had been and soon revert to their previous position.

When I am trying to change or create a habit, I think about the piano tuner.  Sometimes to get from A to B, you must go to C and then come back.  If you want to exercise every other day, it might make sense to spend a month working out every 24 hours as you develop the habit.  If you want to stop eating as many sweets, you may want to do away with them entirely for a while until your body and mind adjust.

When I was studying piano, I used to practice playing scales with each hand playing in a different key.  This wasn’t something I was ever likely to do in real music, but it helped push the fingerings into my subconscious.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Personal Productivity from Management Theory – McGregor
• Do You Read Enough?
• Two Task Lists
• Links of Interest from LifeRemix
• What Would You Tell Yourself in High School

A good example of personal data that ignores this little truth is your electric bill.  Electric bills aren’t real time–you get them once each month.  By the time you see how much you owe, you only have a vague idea about what might have produced those dollar figures.  You might see a low bill and think “Oh yeah, we were gone most of the month.”  You might see a high bill and think, “I guess we had a warmer July than normal.”  Either way, you don’t really get any good information about what you can do to get closer to a desired outcome.

If you really want to manage your electricity usage, you need to be able to see in real-time what you are using.  Outside of trying to look at the meter or count the number of times the little wheel thing spins, there hasn’t been a good way to really know how much electricity you are using at a given point in time, until recently.

Now you can buy Electricity Monitors that give you a real-time view of exactly how much electricity and money you are consuming.  We recently started using the next generation of The Energy Detective and it is amazing how it changes the way you think about your energy usage.  In fact, most people drop their electricity consumption by 20% when they install a device like this simply because it makes them more aware of how their actions translate into kilowatt hours and dollars.

If there is anything you want to improve or get better control over, a great first step is to simply give yourself a good, timely way of measuring it and seeing if you are improving or getting worse.

(The Habit List can be a great way to visualize this type of information, but you can also use Excel, Numbers or even just a paper based chart or log.)

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• 10 Articles on Managing Email
• Tuesday’s Tip: Make it Easy to Exercise
• Papers – Paperless Office for Academics
• Top 5 Worst Productivity Ideas
• The Promise of Sleep — Book

Einstein had been given a book by Maxwell about electromagnetic.  He started reading and made it about 10 pages into the book before he was confused.  So he started over.  The second time he made it 15 pages before he stopped understanding the text.  So he started over again.  Gradually he made his way through the entire book.

I was very impressed with his determination and the willingness to start over if something wasn’t making sense.  The theory of relativity was developed using these same qualities of thought.  When something didn’t make sense he would backup and question the fundamental “givens” that were underlying his assumptions.

People don’t like to start over.  I think the average person who reads a book and finds it incomprehensible would probably just stop reading and move on to something else.  Staying determined when something is very difficult is hard, but pushing through something difficult expands your capabilities for dealing with future problems.

Originally published April 26, 2007.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Productive Blogger: Starting Slow
• 10 Articles on Managing Email
• Productivity at the Fringes
• Binge Productivity
• How big are your blocks?

Obviously, it is expected that there would be some difference because of the varied muscle motor skills required by each activity.  However, the difference was greater than what would be expected by just the required motor differences. The conclusion of the researchers was that we think significantly differently when writing by hand than we do when using a computer. This has some important implications for creativity.  By simply changing the way we record our thoughts, we can change the neurons that are firing inside our heads.  Using different neurons opens up the possibility of making different types of connections and associations.

This isn’t to say that switching how you write will suddenly make you a genius, but it can help you reach your full potential.  As a simple exercise, try writing about a subject using a computer and then coming back and writing about it again the next day using a pen and paper.  You’ll probably find that you make some new associations that you didn’t make previously.  This is partially because of the way your brain tends to work on things subconsciously and partially because changing the way you write causes your brain to work differently.

Composers have used this trick for years when they get stuck writing music.  It is common practice for them to switch to a different instrument to help get over a brain block.  The different instrument causes them to think about the musical “problem” in a different way.

You can use a similar approach when you feel like you are suffering from a lack of creativity.  Even simple things like working in a different place can help change your mind’s context in ways that can help trigger new creative thoughts. Here is a list of some things you can do to help trigger different parts of your brain:

• Change Where You Work – This can be as simple as moving from the desk to the dining room table for a few hours, or as drastic as spending a month in a Mexican villa across the border.
• Use a Different Tool – This is similar to the idea of switching from writing with the computer to writing by hand, but it can be done in other ways as well.  If you are writing, try using a typewriter for a while.  If you are working for creative numerical solutions, switch to using a calculator and ledger paper instead of a spreadsheet. If you normally use Microsoft Word, switch to using a simpler text editor.
• Talk to Someone Else – If you are brain storming for a solution to a problem, consider discussing it with someone totally outside of your area of expertise.  Talk to a child or your grandparent. You may find that the process of defining the problem for someone outside of the problem domain can help clarify a solution.
• Take a Break – Sometimes just doing something totally unrelated can help you generate creative ideas.  Better yet, do something you’ve never done before.  This can be as simple as visiting a new coffee shop or as drastic as moving to a foreign country.

Of course, if you spend all of your time just trying to mix things up to be creative, your productivity will go down.  However, spending a little time making sure that you aren’t getting stuck in a thinking rut can be extremely valuable and can help you make leaps ahead in your personal effectiveness.

Originally published December 1, 2006.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Laptop for taking Notes
• Focus for Results
• Sleeping Brains
• Take a Nap for Memory
• How to Study

What struck me as amazing is how easily he came in, looked at the bathroom, came up with an optimal placement and started on it.  It looked pretty easy.  Later, he was marking the tiles that needed to be cut and handing them to me to cut on the tile saw.  He would hold the tile one way, make a mark, hold it another, make a mark and then use a square to draw a line showing me where to cut it.  Simple.  Not really.

I tried my hand at marking the tile while he made some complicated cuts.  It took me nearly three minutes just to figure out how to get the square aligned with the tile to cut the diagonal I needed.  Even then, I did something wrong because the tile didn’t quite fit once I cut it.

When I was young, I remember watching a skilled person exercising their craft and thinking, “That doesn’t look hard.  I could do that.”  Maybe it is a slightly higher level of maturity or just raw experience that now made me watch (and attempt to help) and think “Look how skilled he is.  He makes it look so easy!”

It is common to overlook the amount of experience behind the ease with which a skilled worker performs their job.  Getting good at something takes an investment of time, and there aren’t shortcuts.  If you want to develop a skill, you have to make the investment of time in order to get to the point that people will look at you working and say, “That looks easy!”

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Within Reach
• The Sacred To-do List
• Top 5 Time Wasters
• International Holidays
• Work vs. Time

On a very basic level, experiences that are unfamiliar usually add more value than experiences that are familiar.  This is because unfamiliar experiences require much more of our attention, which means we are in a better state to learn something new.  Obviously, this concept must be used in moderation.  Someone who never experiences the same thing twice will never have a chance to benefit from anything learned, but in general, new experiences are what make people interesting and push them to grow.

High school is a new experience.  College is a new experience.  However, at some point traditional education becomes repetitive–not in the sense that you won’t learn anything else–but in the sense that the environment is so familiar that it is easy to become less aware of your experience and not learn as much.

To counter this, an individual who wants to be in a state of constant learning needs to introduce new experiences into their life.  Spending a summer in a different part of the country. Learning a new language through trial and error. Going to a drive-in movie (or some other entertainment event that is new to you). These are all things that can stretch and expand your experience in life.

These types of experiences often result in very little “book knowledge”.  However, they will often provide you with a better understanding of yourself as you experience your reaction to different situations.  They will also provide you with a better understanding of others’ viewpoints and background which can be invaluable in working effectively with others.

Becoming a well rounded human isn’t something that happens by accident.  You can spend your entire lifetime developing your potential.

Originally published August 14, 2007.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Alternative Education
• Noise Canceling Headsets
• Investing in Education
• Maximizing Benefits
• Learning to Stay Current

They Stop Growing

Many people graduate from college, have a few years of growth and then stop growing. Maybe they don’t stop growing entirely, but they stop attempting things where they might fail. After all, they now have a mortgage and family to think about! They may still continue to grow incrementally in their area of specialty, but they aren’t going to experience any exponential gains in their capabilities.

This path is safe and that is why most people choose it. Being average is safe because you’ll be in the same situation as the majority of other people. If safety is what you are looking for in life, then you will be a wonderful average human being.

If you are interested in growth and in reaching your full potential, you can’t let safety be your top priority. I’m not saying to be foolish and quit your job to go create a weblog about your experience eating food from street vendors in third world countries when you are barely making your loan payments already. I’m talking about not ignoring opportunities because they have some chance of failure. Take calculated risks–risks where the cost of failure is small, but the rewards of success are great.

Scary or Safe — How are you wired?

Lets say you’ve been working at the same job for 5 years. You learned a lot in the first 3 or 4 years at the company, but there aren’t any really new challenges in your job and that is unlikely to change. You get a standard 6% raise every year. The company is stable and your job is very secure.

Depending on how you are wired, this may sound like a nice place to be or a very scary situation. On one hand, the job sounds safe, has a pay rate that will keep up with inflation, and is something you are good at. On the other hand, it sounds like you are unlikely to develop any new skills in the foreseeable future. For me, personally, this is terrifying. I know what the effects of having zero muscular movement for 6 months are on the physical body and I definitely don’t want that to happen to my mind.

I have actually been in this situation three times and each time I found a different job. I had to make a choice between personal growth and safety. All three times I chose personal growth. Since I expect to come to a point where I have to make this decision, I am able to prepare for it. This preparation helps remove some of the risks involved.

Preparation

So, how do you prepare for these types of decisions?  First, you have to prepare mentally.  This means you have to see your current job or situation as a stepping stone.  Don’t get so caught up in what you are doing that you never look outside of your world.  Don’t make your job the only place where you have any type of social contact.  Don’t let your identity become so caught up in your specific job that you can’t leave without going through some type of personal crisis. Generally, most of the advice in Don’t Depend on Your Job is relevant here as well.

You also have to prepare financially.  Sometimes opportunities that may help you grow don’t pay as much as your current job.  Sometimes if you are jumping into something that will really stretch you, there may be concern that you will fail.  If you make a change with no concern that you will fail, you probably aren’t setting your sights high enough.

Keeping your expenses low and having a decent savings buffer are two ways you can prepare financially for taking on new and difficult opportunities.  It is a lot easier to take a new job (where you might fail) if you know you have 9 months of savings set aside than if you are going to be looking at bankruptcy if you miss a single paycheck. Understanding your health insurance and knowing how you can insure yourself if you don’t have a job are two other things that can help you prepare financially.

Getting in the right mental and financial state can go a long ways toward making sure that you will be able to take advantage of any great opportunities that come your way and that you won’t be holding yourself back from growth (both mental and financial) because of fear.

Originally published November 23, 2006.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Preparing for New Technology
• Dealing with Difficulties
• Cell Phones and Sleep
• Not Because it is Easy
• Children and Slotload DVD drives

Behind the Blog: How I Write an Entry-Get Rich Slowly
In this article, the author outlines how the process of how he creates articles for his blog. He shows through his own experiences how an article takes much time and planning to create before it is ever even nearly ready to be published.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Productive Blogger: Starting Slow
• Getting the Most Out of Magazines
• Tuesday’s Tip: Using a Feed Reader
• Facebook
• Tuesdays Tip: Time for Reading

My piano teacher went on to tell me about how her mentor had stopped her in the middle of playing a piece because she got distracted by a bird on the outside of the window. Taci King was a very kind woman, but she made it clear that I wasn’t going to get any better unless I learned to control my mind and concentrate on the task at hand and at that moment, the task at hand was playing a particular piece of music.

This lesson has stuck in my mind more than any other from the two years I studied with her in high-school.  I remember it every time I’m trying to do something and seem to be hitting a brick wall.  I stop and ask myself, “Am I really thinking about what I’m doing?”

Thinking Hard or Hardly Thinking

I’ve heard that we only use 5% of our brains.  If that is true, then most people only give 2% or 3% of their full capability to the task they are currently working on.  Concentrating is hard.  It is very hard and most people just don’t do it.  It is easier to plod along doing nearly brain dead work because it feels like we are doing something–even if our efficiency on that task is abysmal. (Some of the more recent studies I’ve read suggest that we actually use more of our brain that people originally realized.  However, I don’t know anyone who thinks we use our brain to its full capacity.)

In the book Talent Is Overrated, the author looks at a number of studies that show most people don’t get any better at what they do.  Auditors fresh out of college with a few years of experience don’t perform (on average) any worse than the auditors with decades of experience.  Years of experience doesn’t give older stockbrokers any additional accuracy in picking stocks.  College admission officers with years of experience weren’t any better at picking the applicants who would be good students than their junior counterparts. Why is this?

Once people master the rudimentary skill of a task, they tend to go on autopilot.  Obviously there are some people who don’t do this.  Those people are the ones we call geniuses.

Geniuses

In many cases, being a genius isn’t a matter of being overly smart.  It is a matter of mental discipline to pay attention and hold yourself to a higher standard than just what you know you can get by with.  Geniuses  are the ones that pay attention to what they are doing and give the task at hand 100% of their mental effort.

Results don’t happen right away, but over time, people who pay attention pull far out in front of the people who are doing their work with the bare minimal mental effort necessary.

Distractions

When Taci told me I wasn’t paying attention to the piano piece I was playing, the world was a very different place.  I didn’t have a cell phone.  The Internet was primarily being used by researchers and if you wanted to email someone, you had to log into the same BBS system they were using (or use something called FIDOnet that I never really figured out).  If you wanted news, you read a newspaper.  If you wanted to know if a movie was any good, you’d either watch a review on TV or read it in a magazine.

Instant messaging, Twitter, the ding of an incoming email and Blackberries just didn’t exist, so the amount of distraction was much lower than today.  If you are trying to concentrate on something important now…well good luck.  It is going to take a lot of effort.

Two Sides

There are two sides to maintaining your concentration.  One is to minimize distractions.  For example, you can:

• Close your door.
• Unplug the phone
• Turn off your email “gong”
• Get up to work before everyone else
• Keep distractions out of your office
• Turn on an ambient sound cd to drown out distractions

All of those are good things, but unless you live a life completely disconnected from everything, they probably won’t cut it on their own.  You are going to have to train yourself to concentrate and apply mental discipline in the face of distraction.

Training to Ignore Distractions

When cowboys used to capture wild mustangs, they would put them into a head chute with walls that let only their heads stick out.  Then they would fill in all around them with grain.  The nervous horses  couldn’t thrash and hurt themselves.  The cowboys would take umbrellas and open them in the horse’s face, they would shoot off guns, they would ride by with other horses and bring barking dogs nearby.  While this was very un-”horse wisperer-ish,” it taught the horses to ignore all kinds of distractions.

You can do a lot to train yourself to ignore distractions just by making a conscious effort.  Sit down in a busy mall and try to read a book.  If you notice your mind starting to wander, reign yourself back in and focus on concentrating.

I’m not suggesting that you should try to work in a shopping mall when you need to concentrate.  But if you can concentrate in a mall, your office will seem like a very tranquil setting.

There once was a basketball coach who wanted to improve his players’ accuracy. He installed a smaller ring inside of the basketball hoop.  It was just slightly bigger than the ball, so to make a basket, the players had to shoot in a way that put the ball in the very dead center.  In practice, their shooting was horrible, then it got gradually better, but it was still pretty bad.  But, when the game came and they played on a regular basketball goal it seemed like all of their shots went in.  The hoops seemed huge compared to what they were used to using.

Five years after Taci told me I need to concentrate better, I was preparing a piano piece for a master class in college.  I knew the piece, but I wasn’t sure I could give it 100% of my focus in the actual performance.  I walked out of the small practice room and went out into the music department lobby where I found some students chatting.  I told them I needed help and wondered if they could cram into the small room with the grand piano.  They agreed.  As I played through the piece a few times, they just continued their conversation, laughing and joking.  The alarm on one of their watches went off.  Someone dropped a book on the floor, but the whole time I was focusing entirely on the piece of music.

Later that day, I performed the piece flawlessly and with 100% of my concentration on the task at hand. I still struggle with concentrating and giving my current project 100% of my focus, but I always remember that piano lesson where I wasn’t focused and years later the performance where I was.

Follow Productivity501 on Twitter..

---
Related Articles at Productivity501:

• Mindnode – Mind Mapping Software
• Dealing with Clutter
• The Zone
• Excercise and Cognitive Performance
• Getting the Most out of Podcast Lectures