Over the last holiday, I spent some time thinking about how we relax. Personally, I find that there are two ways achieve "down time". The first way is when I intentionally plan to take some time relaxing. This occurs when my wife and I decide to watch a movie, go on a walk, take some vacation and visit family, or go to the lake. The second way is when I have a list of things that I need to work on, but I really want to take a break. In this situation, I intend to do work, but instead I find myself fiddling with some gadget, browsing the web, etc. The first way of getting down time is relaxing, fun and refreshing. The second is frustrating and makes me feel worn out and like I need to … [Read more...] about Relaxing on Purpose
Archives for August 2008
Investing in Excercise
There has been a long running belief that your body never produces new brain cells. This has been disproved. The brain does create new brain cells. There was a study done recently with mice to see how exercise impacted memory. The research was conducted by Fred Gage of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. Gage and his colleagues allowed a group of old mice and a group of young mice to exercise on a running wheel as much as they wanted. The mice ran about 2 miles every day. The researchers also kept a third group of older mice that didn't exercise. After a month of the regular exercise, the team subjected the mice to a memory test. The researchers taught the … [Read more...] about Investing in Excercise
10 Articles on Working from Home
High-Paying Work-from-Home Jobs-AOL This article describes several different ways that a person can work from home and still earn a good salary. The list includes many different options from several areas requiring various skills. Some of the job suggestions include running a travel agency, Medical claims processing, graphics design, property managing etc. Going Green by Working from Home-Sun It is interesting how gas prices and other environmental factors have inadvertently encouraged many companies to "go green". Sun has made it an option for some of their employees to work from home about 2 days per week. This small change has allowed employees to save approx. $1,700 in gas costs and … [Read more...] about 10 Articles on Working from Home
Don’t try to Catch a Pizza Thief using Email
Like most technological advances, email can help productivity, but it can also hurt it. It takes intentional effort to reap the benefits of advances without suffering from their negative side effects. Easy communication is good when you have something that needs to be communicated. Easy communication is bad when it means you are saying things that just waste everyone's time. I ran across an article titled "Efficiency Experts" that talked about how Joe Phelps (CEO of the Phelps Group Inc.) explained proper use of email to his staff using a recent example of an employee who had used email to try to track down who stole his piece of pizza. With technology revolutionizing … [Read more...] about Don’t try to Catch a Pizza Thief using Email
Friends
You can add Productivity501 as a friend on: StumbleUpon, Digg, YouTube, and Vimeo … [Read more...] about Friends
Sleeping Brains
Scientists implanted rats with special sensors and then trained them to run a particular course in order to find cheese. They found that they could tell where each rat was in the course by monitoring which cells were firing in the rats' brains. When the rats were sleeping, the scientists noticed something strange. The cells continued to fire in the same order. It was as if the rats were practicing running the course in their sleep. In another experiment, people were given a mechanical task to learn and repeat quickly. Scientists measured the areas of their brain that were active when performing the task right after learning it. Then they let some of the test group sleep and kept … [Read more...] about Sleeping Brains
Fat People to Pay $25 Per Month
Back in May I mentioned American Airline's new charge for checked luggage and asked if people would mind paying for their flight based on their weight. In the comments many people thought this was discrimination against people with a "disability". Well Alabama is now going to charge fat people $25 per month for insurance unless they are working at shedding the extra pounds. They have a pretty generous definition of who is fat enough to pay the fee--your BMI has to be over 35 (30 is usually considered obese). If you are 5'6" that means you are probably over 220 pounds. They already charge $24 per month to smokers. What would you think if your insurance gave you $25 for being at a healthy … [Read more...] about Fat People to Pay $25 Per Month
GTD in Outlook
Samkale has some great tips for people wanting to follow a GTD type system using Outlook. The post includes some solid ideas for organizing and categorizing information and then shows several scripting examples for making things work faster. … [Read more...] about GTD in Outlook
Math Impaired
I've been following the news about the sub-prime markets and foreclosures in the US. In a nutshell, here is what has happened. Companies that lend money for house loans had been doing very well, but their customer base was shrinking--there are only so many homes you can sell to one person.To compensate they started trying to sell to people who wouldn't normally qualify for a home loan. For example, some companies would get a list of people who had recently had their cars repossessed and use that as a list of potential clients. (I've written a more detailed explanation of the subprime mess in a previous post.) This is kind of what Citibank did in the 90s by offering credit cards to … [Read more...] about Math Impaired
Loneliness is Unhealthy
If I was looking for an area to research, loneliness would not make the top of my list. But that is exactly what Steven Cole from the University of California, Los Angeles is studying. One of the more interesting discoveries has to do with a correlation between loneliness and detrimental gene activities. It appears that loneliness can actually change how your genes act and make your body less likely to produce antibodies and fight off viruses. I have heard that from a life expectancy standpoint, not getting married is statistically equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes each day for males. Perhaps this is related to the same results Dr. Cole found. Health issues aside, … [Read more...] about Loneliness is Unhealthy
International Travel and Credit Cards
If you are traveling out of the country, be sure to call your credit card company and have them place a note on your account regarding your trip. If their computers suddently see a bunch of activity internationally it is likely to trigger the fraud alerts. Letting them know ahead of time won't guarantee that it won't get cut off, but it can help. In my experience American Express is less likely be cut off than Visa or Mastercard. … [Read more...] about International Travel and Credit Cards
Socialization and Creativity
In the June/July issue of Scientific American Mind, Robert Epstein was quoted as saying: When children are very young, they all express creativity, but by the end of the first grade, very few do so. This is because of socialization. He talks about how much of what children learn in school stifles creativity. In addition to the formal training, the interactions with other children can encourage them to be "normal" which can also reduce their tendency to be creative. If Johnny likes to hum and make up tunes, but Robby gets the other kids to make fun of him for that, Johnny may stop expressing himself in that way. Being aware of how creativity can be repressed is useful in raising … [Read more...] about Socialization and Creativity
Laptop for taking Notes
Unclutter posted an article about using a laptop to take notes at college. I tend to disagree. It is hard to beat a pen and paper for taking notes. One thing that is commonly overlooked is how different tools exercise your mind. When you work on the computer it uses substantially different parts of your brain than when you write with pen and paper. (I don't know what happens if you use a typewriter.) Since so much research and writing papers is done on the computer, taking notes by hand allow you to interact with the content in as many different parts of the brain as possible. What do you think? Is a laptop an effective way to take notes in a classroom? … [Read more...] about Laptop for taking Notes
EVDO Card for Productivity
I am posting this note from the road. My wife is driving and I'm busy answering emails and arranging work with collegues from my laptop. The thing that makes this possible is a Sprint EVDO card. From a productivity standpoint, it is well worth the $60 per month. It more than pays for itself if I'm able to squeeze in an extra 30 minutes of work each month. … [Read more...] about EVDO Card for Productivity
Skype Now Sends Caller ID
Several months ago I tried using Skype and it wouldn't allow you to display your Skype-In number as the caller id to people you were calling. This was frustrating and I even sent a letter to the CEO of Skype about it. However, as Hayden Tompkins pointed out, this now works--I just hadn't checked it since it was fixed. You may have to manually enable it, but logging into your account and going into the Caller ID preferences. This is a great improvement because many people will just ignore calls that say UNKNOWN or from strange looking numbers. … [Read more...] about Skype Now Sends Caller ID
Skype Shortcoming
The biggest problem with using Skype occurs when you call out. Instead of seeing your number for Caller ID, the person you are calling will see 0123456789 or a random telephone number. Has anyone found a way to work around this and get it to display your dial back number? … [Read more...] about Skype Shortcoming
Cell Phones and Sleep
Some experiments seems to suggest that using a cell phone before going to bed can make it more difficult to fall asleep. It seems that the radio waves can mess with the mind and excite it. The effect is fairly subtle and is about equivalent to drinking half a cup of coffee, but still something to consider if you are having trouble going to sleep. … [Read more...] about Cell Phones and Sleep
Working Effectively with a New Assistant
Most successful and efficient people will eventually come to a point where they at least consider hiring an assistant. It seems like a very logical step. If some of your work can be handed off to someone else, then you can concentrate on the things that can only be done by you which will increase your personal productivity. Unfortunately many people hire assistants and end up in this type of situation: Lets say you are a mad scientist out to destroy the world. You can spend more time thinking up doomsday scenarios if you had an assistant to study gauges and push the buttons that simply must be studied and pushed to keep your diabolical lab running smoothly. So after a careful search … [Read more...] about Working Effectively with a New Assistant
Trademark Webinar
Legal Andrew is doing a webinar that covers trademark issues. If you have a company this would probably be well worth your time to check out. If you are a reader of Productivity501 the webinar is free. (Ok so it is actually free for everyone.) … [Read more...] about Trademark Webinar
Add Cucumbers to your Diet
If you are wanting to reduce your daily calories, consider eating a few cucumbers for their high mass, low calorie benefits. An entire pound of cucumbers will only give you 50 calories, so they are a simple way to get full without adding calories to your diet. … [Read more...] about Add Cucumbers to your Diet
The Zone
There are two things that will impact how much you get done. First, there is the amount of time you spend. Obviously, you can get more done in 20 minutes than in 2. The second is how focused you are. This factor is referred to as, being in "the zone". When it comes to your personal productivity, the second factor is usually more important than the first. How many times have you spent 30 minutes working on a task that you didn't really want to do and made very little progress, but when you truly decide you want to complete that task it only takes 15 minutes? This a common occurrence for most people. Often the biggest differentiator between highly productive and less productive people … [Read more...] about The Zone
The Rat Experiment
There was an experiment where researchers were given a set of rats and told to rate their ability to learn mazes. They were told that certain rats were "smart rats" and had an abnormally high IQ. When the researchers tested the rats, their studies showed that the "smart rats" performed significantly better than the ordinary rats. The experiment, however, wasn't focused on the rats, it was testing the researchers. All of the rats were the same, but telling the researchers that some of the rats were smart caused them to rate the rats better, even though there was no difference. People will view what you do through their own set of prejudices. To a certain extent, your ability to … [Read more...] about The Rat Experiment
What Magazines Do You Read
I'd like to hear from readers about what magazines and publications you regularly read. Please leave a comment with a list of the publications you feel are worth your time. I am currently subscribed to: Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Science Illustrated, Mind, and Kiplinger Letter. … [Read more...] about What Magazines Do You Read
Trained Smelling Bees
Scientists are training bees to smell certain diseases. The bees are then used to recognize whether or not someone has a particular disease by smelling their breath. This is a far cry from the little hand held scanner StarTrek predicted we'd have, but it demonstrates a valuable lesson. Don't get so caught up in looking for high tech solutions that you overlook simple, but very effective low tech opportunities. … [Read more...] about Trained Smelling Bees
A few useful links
Unclutterer has some photos of a wall mounted laptop desk from Ikea. It looks like it would be useful in homes where you are short on space. GetRichSlowly examines some of the changes people are making due to high gas prices and considers getting a scooter. LIfeClever looks at some tools to help you focus on a single window in OS X. … [Read more...] about A few useful links
Take a Nap for Memory
Studies suggest that your memories are solidified while you sleep. Your brain does a lot of work during your rest--almost like it is busy filing and making sense of everything you've discovered while you were awake. When you've learned a new concept or information that you want to retain, consider taking a nap or reviewing it right before going to bed. This will give your brain the best chance to assimilate the new information. … [Read more...] about Take a Nap for Memory
Omnifocus Review
In our lives, as tasks build up, stress tends to build proportionally with the number of them that are present in our memories. In addition to worrying about the time needed to finish these tasks and the skills required to accomplish them, many of us are stuck worrying that we will forget what we needed to do in the first place! For those of us that need a bit of a hand in writing down and categorizing our everyday to-do list, the team at Omnifocus has produced a remarkable software product that allows a person to put tasks into a system that gives them the ability to prioritize, categorize and organize their tasks in a way that seems logical to that person. The best feature of Omnifocus is … [Read more...] about Omnifocus Review
Benefits of Expensive Oil
Most people are concerned about the high cost of gasoline. The countries that produce oil are, of course, thrilled. In the Middle East, people are paying millions of dollars on car license tags with unique numbers. Evidently, having a Rolls Royce isn't enough to make you stand out over there. Saeed Khouri paid $14 million dollars to be able to put a license tag containing "1" on his car. People living in the US and other countries that are primarily consumers and not producers of oil are less fond of the current pricing trend. However, in an effort to always discover the silver lining, we are going to look at some of the potential benefits of expensive oil. Technological … [Read more...] about Benefits of Expensive Oil
Pre-Charged Batteries
Duracell sent me a few of their new pre-charged batteries to try out. The idea is that people don't purchase rechargable batteries because they need to use them right away. In the past you couldn't pre-charge Ni-Cad rechargeable batteries because they would lose their charge while sitting on the shelf. The new pre-charged batteries seem to overcome this problem which also means you can charge up the batteries and not use it for awhile without losing power. I'm still testing them out to write up a better review of their performance. Duracell seems light on stats for the batteries with most of their efforts going into marketing based on humor, however the product seems good and will … [Read more...] about Pre-Charged Batteries
Language and Learning
For my freshman English class in college, I wrote a paper looking at the correlation between language and thought. My premise was that certain thought capabilities would be impossible without having a language in order to express those thoughts. There has been some recent research looking at how language can help with learning. The experiment was designed to see if people could learn information more quickly if there was a word associated with it. They were shown a series of "aliens". These were clay sculptures some had roughly shaped heads and others had smoother heads. The subjects of the experiments were told to tell if each alien was friendly or not. The smooth head aliens … [Read more...] about Language and Learning