How to start your day at 5:00 AM I have been an early-riser for over a year now. Monday through Friday I wake up at 5:00 AM without hitting the snooze button even once. I never take naps and rarely feel tired throughout the day. Many people simply “can’t” get up early because they are stuck in a routine. Relocate your alarm clock.Having an alarm clock too close to your bed is the number one reason people simply cannot get up in the morning. Scrap the snooze.The snooze feature on all modern alarm clocks serves absolutely no constructive purpose. Change up your buzzerIf you use the same buzzer day in and day out, you begin to develop a tolerance to the sound. Make a puzzleIf you absolutely cannot wake up without repetitive snoozing, try making a puzzle for yourself. Get into a routineGetting up at 5:00 AM is much easier if you are doing it Monday through Friday rather than sporadically during the week. Have a reasonMake sure you have a specific reason to get up in the morning.
How to feel better now What makes you happy? I find directly pursuing happiness is difficult to do. Many times the things we think will make us happy fail to do so. Instead I like to focus on growth and developing a strong life philosophy that can guide you through tough times and help you enjoy successes. But what about feeling good right now? Hack One: Goals Nothing creates a bigger jolt of enthusiasm than a new inspiring vision of the future. Hack Two: Chores Procrastination sucks. Hack Three: Laugh Don’t take yourself so damn seriously. Hack Four: Aid Help someone who needs it. Hack Five: Socialize One of the leading evolutionary theories for explaining the size of the human brain is our complex social structure. Hack Six: Inspiration Find something to get you inspired, even if just for a short time. Hack Seven: Exercise Exercise releases various chemicals into your brain which leave you feeling good. Hack Eight: Posture Change the way you hold your body to reflect someone who is happier. Hack Nine: Music
Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes (Photo: Dustin Diaz) How much more could you get done if you completed all of your required reading in 1/3 or 1/5 the time? Increasing reading speed is a process of controlling fine motor movement—period. This post is a condensed overview of principles I taught to undergraduates at Princeton University in 1998 at a seminar called the “PX Project.” I have never seen the method fail. The PX Project The PX Project, a single 3-hour cognitive experiment, produced an average increase in reading speed of 386%. It was tested with speakers of five languages, and even dyslexics were conditioned to read technical material at more than 3,000 words-per-minute (wpm), or 10 pages per minute. If you understand several basic principles of the human visual system, you can eliminate inefficiencies and increase speed while improving retention. First, several definitions and distinctions specific to the reading process: You do not read in a straight line, but rather in a sequence of saccadic movements (jumps).
7 stupid thinking errors you probably make The brain isn’t a flawless piece of machinery. Although it is powerful and comes in an easy to carry container, it has it’s weaknesses. A field in psychology which studies these errors, known as biases. Although you can’t upgrade your mental hardware, noticing these biases can clue you into possible mistakes.How Bias Hurts You If you were in a canoe, you’d probably want to know about any holes in the boat before you start paddling. Biases can be holes in your reasoning abilities and they can impair your decision making. Simply noticing these holes isn’t enough; a canoe will fill with water whether you are aware of a hole or not. Biases hurt you in a number of areas: Decision making. Here are some common thinking errors:1) Confirmation Bias The confirmation bias is a tendency to seek information to prove, rather than disprove our theories. Consider a study conducted by Peter Cathcart Wason. This is the tendency to see patterns where none actually exist.
The Gentle Art of Saying No It’s a simple fact that you can never be productive if you take on too many commitments — you simply spread yourself too thin and will not be able to get anything done, at least not well or on time. But requests for your time are coming in all the time — through phone, email, IM or in person. To stay productive, and minimize stress, you have to learn the Gentle Art of Saying No — an art that many people have problems with. What’s so hard about saying no? But it doesn’t have to be difficult or hard on your relationship. Value your time. What are your ways of saying “no”?
Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It) @Firesphere: Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source for that? @inverts: I did, it was an article on a Dutch website. I'm searching for an English source. It was testet with CAT scans etcetera, the male brain showed indeed no activity when asked to "shut your eyes and calm down, think of as less as possible" Where the female brain kept being active. *Searches on* A funny side-fact on this: "Female" gays, seem to never be able to "shutdown" where as "male" lesbians were able to completely stop thinking. Sorry, I am unable to find the article I got this information from. If I find it again, I'll let it know offcourse. @Firesphere: The article suggests from that information, that those with a "masculine" mindset (for lack of a better term) can shut their brains down; "feminine" brains always have at least one task running then?
Interview with Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek (1) If you heard of a new book called The 4-Hour Workweek, you know who is Timothy Ferriss. Tim speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, a national champion in Chinese kickboxing, and has been a popular guest lecturer at Princeton University since 2003. Recently his book caught my attention. The title itself is very attractive to me who work at least 40 hours per week (if not more). In Part 1 I ask Tim about some general questions, including his view on productivity and 20/80 rules. Q: Tim, you have done a lot in your life – you are a kickboxing champion, a world record holder in tango, as well as running a multinational firm. TTT: There are a few fun ones that stand out, like finally training in kendo in Japan, where I killed myself last September and fulfilled a life-long dream, but I’m definitely most “proud” of conquering two fears. Second, writing this book required me to conquer serious inner demons. TTT: There are a few reasons.
The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures « OkTrends 3.6 Beta 2 Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things: Facial Attitude. In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong. One of the first things we noticed when diving into our pool of photos is that men and women have very different approaches to the camera. Women smile about 50% more than men do and make that flirty-face four times as often. Now, you’re always told to look happy and make eye contact in social situations, but at least for your online dating photo, that’s just not optimal advice. Notice that, however, that flirting away from the camera is the single worst attitude a woman can take. Men’s photos are most effective when they look away from the camera and don’t smile: Weird. The Cleavage Shot
A 3-Step Cure for Digital Packrats, and How to Know If You’re On Post written by Leo Babauta. I have a confession to make: until recently, I was a digital packrat. While my outer life has become fairly simple, as I declutter my home and workspace, and my paper files have also become pretty simple, my digital life was a mess. I had all kinds of files on my hard drive, just because I thought I might need them. Trouble is, there are costs to such packrattery. How do I know? How to Know If You’re a Digital Packrat The main way to know: 1) you feel that you should keep a lot of files “just in case”; 2) it takes you too long to find stuff; 3) your digital life is becoming complicated, with multiple email accounts, drives, storage mediums and either a mess of files or a mess of folders. But here are a few symptoms: Do you have 20 or more folders and sub-folders in your documents folder on your hard drive? If you answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, more than likely, you’re a digital packrat. Go through a massive purge.