The Habit of Lateness

When I was in college my roommate had a very difficult time getting up in the morning, so he was often running late.  To help get to class on time, he set his clock ahead about 5 minutes.  This worked well for about a week.

It took about 7 days for him to get use to the idea that the clock was
set ahead and it started losing its effectiveness.  No big deal.  He
just bumped it another two minutes forward and he started being on time
again…for about a week.

[Read more]

Sunlight to Reset your Internal Clock

If you ever find yourself having trouble sleeping at night and feeling tired during the day, don’t forget that your internal clock is set based on sunlight.  Getting even just 15 minutes of direct sunlight every day can do a lot to help reset your internal clock if you are coming from another timezone or have just messed your schedule up by working a bunch of late nights.

Sunlight can also help you when you are feeling tired.  It is amazing how much you can improve a sluggish afternoon, just by opening the blinds and getting some direct sunlight into the room or taking a 10 minute walk outside in the light.

I’m not sure if sunlight works best because of the spectrum or if it is just the intensity.  You can get some benefit from artificial lighting, but I’ve never been able to duplicate the full effect of sunlight.  We usually underestimate just how powerful sunlight is and most well lit offices are still extremely dark compared with being outside on a bright day.

The Deadly Well - Teaching to Learn

When you need to remember something you’ve learned, one of the best things you can do is explain your new knowledge to someone else.  When I was studying music theory, I thought I had a firm grasp on the subject.  However when I went back and taught it to incoming freshmen I discovered how much better I understood once I had to explain it to others.

I still use this technique today.  When there is something that I think I understand, I’ll try to explain it to my wife to help me remember and to see if I understand things as well as I think I do.

My mother teaches grade school and uses this principle all the time. When her sister and her sister’s 5 year old grandson were coming to spend a few days on my parents farm, she used this to teach the energetic little boy about the rules of the farm.  First she took the youngster around and showed him where he could and couldn’t go.  She showed him the well that was dug by my great grandparents and explained that he shouldn’t go near it because, "if kids were to fall in it, they would probably die".

Once she had covered everything, she sent the  little boy to get his grandmother and teach the rules to her.  My mom followed at a distance listening.  When he got to the well he told his grandma, "This is a well.  Stay away from it because many kids have fallen in and died".

How Much Information Is There?

Berkeley has an interesting study from 2003 that looks at how much information is being produced in the world. The results are pretty amazing.  Here are some of the highlights:

[Read more]

Doing Less

Much of the current writing about time management and productivity focuses on fitting more tasks into each day.  The idea is that the more tasks we are able to complete, the more productive we are.

To a certain extent this makes sense.  If we spend time procrastinating instead of working, we’ll be more productive if we can cut out unproductive activities. However, taking an "assembly line" approach to productivity does have its limits.

[Read more]

17 Things you Should Stop Doing

This is a list of 17 things you shouldn’t be doing any more because they waste time. Old habits die hard and it can be difficult to shift yourself from an old familiar way of doing something to a new better way. 

Take a look at the list and see if there is anything you can change to help make you more productive. If you have any suggestions please add them in the comments.

[Read more]

A Desk for Your Desk

With all of our modern gadgetry, it is easy for our desks to get covered with wires, routers, cell phone charger cables, etc.  Here is a simple solution to help cut down on the amount of visual clutter you have to face when working.

[Read more]

April Fools Day

Happy April Fools Day.  Here is a tip for playing an April Fools joke on a coworker, spouse or friend.

1. Make a screen shot of their desktop. (On windows, this is done by pushing "print screen" and then pasting the clipboard into Paint and saving the image.  On a Mac this is done by hitting Apple+Shift+4 and then selecting from corner to corner.)
2. Set the screen shot as the computer’s wall paper. You will have two icons for each desktop icon.  The real one on top and the fake one underneath.
3. Move all the real icons to the other side of the screen, but leave the trash can in the original location.

When they see the duplicate icons, they will most likely move them to the trash can. None of the remaining icons will work  because they are just on the wall paper. Obviously there are some bad things that can happen with this–especially if your target is in the habit of emptying the trash.  If they have important files on their desktop, you might want to back them up to a folder elsewhere just in case.

Blacklighter

Most office supply stores sell high-lighters.   The idea is pretty good.  You high-light important text in yellow or pink to make it easy to find again.  So if you are reading a book or report, you simply high-light the important parts of the text.

Obviously this can help you find information more quickly in the future, but it isn’t really the most productive method.  Instead of using a high-lighter use a black magic marker and simply cover up all the text that isn’t important.  That way it won’t be around to distract you when you come back looking for the important stuff.

This is particularly helpful if you are working with legal contracts. 

Left Handed Pencil

I’m right handed, but I feel for people who are left handed and living in a world where so many common items are designed for "North paws".  Sometimes there isn’t much you can do about it, but when it comes to the standard wooden pencil, left handed writers no longer need to suffer.  Here are the steps to convert a normal right handed pencil into one designed for left handers.

1. Start with an unsharpened number 2 standard lead pencil.
2. Wiggle the metal that holds the eraser until it comes off in your hand.
3. Push the metal over the opposite end. (The end the right handers usually sharpen.)
4. If necessary use a pair of pliers to help crimp the metal back to the pencil.
5. Sharpen the end that the right handed people normally write with.

Viola!  You now have a pencil to use in your left hand that is just as ergonomic as a normal pencil is for a right handed user.

In New York there is a non-profit company that is going to try to convert 500 pencils each day to give out to left handed school children.  The director of the company is left handed and feels he suffered greatly using right handed pencils in grade school.  This is his way of giving back to the community.  They are actively seeking volunteers and will mail you a set of pencils if you would like to help contribute your time.

« Previous Page — Next Page »