Hacking Your Passions

I had several goals going into the Blog-A-Thon.

• Write a huge number of posts
• Have the content of the posts be meaningful
• Establish the three new blogs I had in mind to begin - Heartprint, Internal Innovation, and Resolution Revolution
• Write at least one new post on each of my eleven blogs
• Introduce my group writing contest
• Have fun
• Learn about myself
• Help others

I accomplished all but the first and fifth ones, and I am working on getting that fifth one tackled before evening’s end. 

I also got a lot of things done in the last 31 hours that I had no idea I would accomplish. I sort of planned on just writing, but life got in the way in interesting ways. Besides writing, I

• cleaned the bathrooms
• did five loads of laundry
• made the beds
• vacuumed
• joined a gym (and was not particularly upset by most of my measurements)
• had dinner with my wife’s parents and aunt
• filled a swimming pool
• slept a reasonable amount of time

So the answer to “was the day particularly successful” is a resounding “yes”! no one contributed any money to Make a Difference, but I think I didn’t market that well either. I’ll give that more thought - would sure like to get some donations flowing their way.

Anyway, tomorrow will be time for doing chores around the house and out and about. But chances are, I’ll get a few blog posts in too. And I’ll be quite happy with it, I suspect.

I have picked up a few neat tricks over the last year and a half, now that I’m at least occasionally a business traveller. Ways to fold clothes in on themselves so as to maximize space, minimize wrinkles, and get a week’s worth of gear in carry-ons for airplane travel (so as to not have to check luggage in). The somewhat inexplicable and potentially frustrating inverse relationship that seems to exist between the speed/cost of high speed internet access at a hotel and the cost of the room per night (cheap hotels almost always have better and free access, and seem more likely to have wi-fi).

Reading through this list of forty additional tips, I’m seeing a few that could come in handy in the future, like…

Buy something from a local store. Want to blend in? Try making a purchase from a local grocery store. The local bag will make you look more like a native and is much less likely to be stolen than an expensive purse or day pack.

Split up cash and credit cards. When traveling, alone or otherwise, it’s always a good idea to keep at least some of your money and credit cards separate. This way, if you do lose one set you’ll have another to fall back on and your trip won’t be disrupted as heavily.

Keep your hotel’s phone number and address on you. You don’t want to end up stranded in a foreign country with no way to get back to your hotel. Keep your hotel’s business card with you so you can show it to the cab driver if you don’t speak the language and have the number handy so you can call if you need to.

I spent a year of my life recently going through an intense development program at the company I currently work for. I learned untold numbers of new skills, and built significantly on those I already possessed. I learned over time how to succeed in that role, how to take the potential it held and what was expected of me and push myself to harness the opportunities present and excel. In other words, I would deem my role in that program a success.

As I moved into my new role in the company, I wondered how to take what I had learned and apply it to the new tasks at hand. What had made me successful in meeting/exceeding expectations in regards to my previous responsibilities, however, didn’t necessarily transfer one-for-one to the new role. I addressed this discovery with a friend and fellow coworker, who challenged me to consider that what worked before might not apply at all to the new job. Some things have, but it has been wonderful and an entirely new journey to learn what I need to do differently to meet and exceed the needs of my new team.

When I read this post regarding getting past done, and learning what you can from the successes and failures of a project once it’s passed, the first thing I thought of was this “aha” I had, of taking the new role and treating it like, well, something new, different, with different needs and responsibilities and expectations.

I really enjoyed this list of different ideas on how to stay productive. There are many things I had already known and taken to heart on the list (and some that are sort of obvious, I think - though I don’t like to presume), but there are a few gems that I definitely need to pay more attention to:

29. Shut the room door to block distraction - I hate to do this when I am home since I’ve already not seen my wife all day, but if there’s something I just have to get done in a small amount of time, I need to just explain that, close the door, git’r done, and then enjoy relaxing time with my wife afterwards.

26. Read books on subjects that interest you to refresh your mind - I do read a lot of self-development books, but I’ve been neglecting about every other kind of reading. I need to focus on some autobiographies and history reading to satisfy that part of my curiosity, and I probably need to delve into fiction more often and let my imagination run around in some non-reality-based worlds for a while.

6. Look in the mirror and compliment yourself, just say “God, you are good looking !” - Seems a bit goofy, but I’m game to try something new tomorrow morning

Beginning oh, say, NOW, I will begin blogging for 31 hours. My goal of blogging 31 times on average over the course of the 31 days of January is a HUGE stretch to reach at this point, so I’ll need to do something huge to even come close. Something like blogging for 31 hours straight. I will blog across all of my different blogging outlets at some point in that time span, including:

• Iain’s Den
• Follow Your Passions
• Hacking Your Passions
• Harness Your Passions
• Four Hour Challenge
• The Winter Festival of Pie
• Orange
• 100 Lists of 100

And three all new blogs:

• Heartprint
• Internal Innovation
• Resolution Revolution 

There will also be a contest. Details to come.

Generally, the fact that we as human beings need to spend a good 25-33% of our existence sleeping has been a constant source of frustration for me. However, this argument on the importance of sleep and how it can actually lead to increased productivity… well, it made me feel better about things, for this morning at least.

Consider for a moment some of the negative results of a constant habit or way of life where you never get enough sleep: there is a malfunctioning of the brain; reaction time slows down; ability to focus attention is impaired; your memory lapses and your ability to think creatively suffers; you feel drowsy and you lack good judgement in both minor and critical situations.

Now where’s my coffee…

This nice, well thought out tool by David Seah to determine and visually represent the worth of accomplishing a particular goal versus the others on your list, so as to prioritize time more effectively. I’ve created similar tools in Excel for my personal use, and certainly his criteria don’t work very well for the things I care about tracking, but the concept, idea, and execution is really nicely put together, and I love the way the points are tracked.

Lifehack.org holds within its grasp the penultimate blog post on how to make the most of to do lists - how to write them, how to make them work, how to keep doing them and make it a habit. I’ll be spending some time digging through this entry.

Also, for those who joke about people who spend so much time doing lists instead of just doing the things on them - an hour spent planning saves ten in execution. It’s not just about making sure you remember everything, it’s prioritizing and making sure nothing is missed, and that you aren’t spending an hour now doing something when in half an hour something is due that would only take fifteen minutes. Or as a coworker once put it, it’s about putting out the fire that’s closest to burning you.

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about storytelling as a dying art form. From the popularity of reality shows to the lack of time we spend with our kids telling them stories (as in making them up out of your head, in an entertaining way, rather than reading them for someone else), this may in fact be the case. Whether or not we are in fact losing the knack for storytelling as a culture, practicing the use of storytelling as a way to learn faster, prepare for exams, and retain information longer might be a good way to push ourselves to enhance our storytelling ability.

Holistic learning is based on the principle that learning works as a whole and not through rote memorization. When all of your ideas are connected together, it becomes far easier to remember them. When you have many different associations to the same idea, you can still retain the information even if you forget one association.

Some days, even the most vigilant life hackers need to take a break and have to do lists like this.