Enter Ads Worth Spreading and TED could visit your agency

We’re only two weeks away from the December 31 deadline for Ads Worth Spreading – TED’s initiative to recognize and reward innovation, ingenuity and intelligence in advertising. Please remember to enter before the holidays are here, as good intentions to submit your incredible work might give way to celebrations and vacations.

As a holiday bonus, we’ve got great news! Five agencies who enter the Ads Worth Spreading initiative will be randomly selected for a visit from TED. Our team will curate a special session for your agency, staged in the first half of 2012. These agency visits are designed to spark deeper conversations between TED and the global marketing community.

We look forward to seeing your work on the Ads Worth Spreading channel on YouTube, and to the possibilities of visiting the incredible places where you work, live and create.

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35 Reasons You Should Work With a Coach

A coach can help you with your X's and O's.

Working with a coach has become quite the norm in our modern work world. From professional athletes to successful business professionals, from mid-life moms to college graduates, the reasons for working with a coach are as varied as the individuals.

Coaching can take many forms, from individual sessions to group workshops, in person, on the phone or over the internet.

We can’t list them all, but here are 35 of the most common reasons I here from people.

I want to make changes or advance my career.I want help with strategic planning for my business or endeavor.I want to be more effective in the way I work or manage my business.I need help to develop my ideas into work that is both financially and personally rewarding.I want to become a stronger leader and learn how to better manage people.I want to build my brand and position myself as an expert in my field.I want to learn better negotiating skills and how to value my work appropriately.I want to increase my income and improve my financial security.I need help to determine appropriate action steps that will allow me to meet my goals.I need help to structure and organize my workday and schedule so I can get more done in less time.I want to improve my productivity and time management skills.I need to establish stronger boundaries so that my time and energy are respected by others.I want to be more compassionate and less critical of myself and others.I have crucial issues, conflicts or situations that I need to address in my life.I want to develop a greater understanding of my life and my role in connection to something larger.I need to improve my confidence and improve my sense of self-worth.I want to create a life plan that will help me to design the life I want.I am spinning in overwhelm and need help to get my life under control.I know that I have a purpose or a gift that I am meant to share, but I need help figuring out what that is.I need help to identify and assess what my personal wants and needs are for fulfillment and satisfaction.I want to cultivate a sense of gratitude and grace in my life.I need to learn how to better prioritize my goals and responsibilities.I need help to break through the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving my goals.I want to learn better ways to deal with difficult people in a constructive manner.I want to learn to develop and nurture my creativity in a way that fulfills me.I need help to learn how to manage stress and minimize its effects on my body.I want to find a sense of balance or fit best meets my personal and family needs.I want to improve my physical health, fitness and appearance.I need to cultivate positive habits and behaviors that will better serve my needs.I want to simplify my life. I’m tired of the hamster wheel.I need some help to improve my relationships with others or to find a nurturing relationship.I have a major health or life challenge that I need help to make constructive changes.I need to take better care of myself in all aspects of my life and make self-care a higher priority.I would like help to figure out what my personal needs are and how to satisfy them.I just want to be happier and experience more joy in life.

Do you have any other reasons you should work with a coach? Is there something I’ve missed that works for you? Please share with us in the comments below.

(Photo credit: A Football Diagram… via Shutterstock)

Royale Scuderi is a writer, life and business coach who empowers individuals and businesses to achieve higher productivity, growth, business success and work - life balance. She offers wisdom, insight and ideas to help you get the most out of your life at Productive Life Concepts.

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 8 – AgileBits

Well, we have reached the last week of our 12 Days of Giveaways. It’s been an exciting 7 days of some of the best productivity apps, services, and products that help you get things done, and today we are going to offer you one of the the best apps to keep your passwords and information secure from AgileBits.

But, before we do that we want to announce the winners of the David Allen Company’s three GTD Notetaker Wallets. Here are the three winning comments. The first is from Carl T. Holscher:

“The iPhone can be great for many things but I’ve never liked it for quick note taking. I love the feel of paper and the smooth ink as it glides across the page.

My wallet is 10 years old and falling apart and this will fill both voids, proper note-taking on the go and a lovely wallet I can be proud to own (and my wife will stop making fun of!)”

The next is quick and to the point from our friend Ammon:

“The addition of a ubiquitous capture tool would mean that 2012 will finally be the year I stop procrastinating and start “Getting Things Done”!”

And then this comment from our Facebook fan, Tim Stueve:

“I’ve been using my smartphone to capture things, but it would be more convenient to use the wallet/notepad, which I’ve been eying for some time. Goodbye battery failure/uncertainty, hello old reliable pen/paper!”

Hopefully your new notetaker wallets will help all of you capture things anywhere you are in 2012. Congratulations!

Try to guess that password!

AgileBits, the creator of the much loved password manager, 1Password and Knox, a leading solution for securing data, is today’s partner for the 12 Days of Giveaways. I have been using 1Password ever since I got my first Mac and like many of the other tools that we have given away, 1Password is an app that I can’t live without.

Most web users have more than one online account, whether it be for email, banking, social networks, forums, etc. But, the reality is that most people keep the same password for all their logons. This is a bad idea (hopefully as a savvy Lifehack.org reader we don’t need to tell you why!), but keeping a bunch of unique, secure passwords can be sort of a pain, especially when you have many online accounts.

Enter 1Password. 1Password is a secure password manager that allows you to create and store unique passwords that are protected by one master password. 1Password also integrates with your browser to allow for one click sign-on to any website that requires authentication. Another cool feature is that you can store credit card and bank account information securely. Also, if you have 1Password for your iOS device you can securely sync your password file with Dropbox.

Today, AgileBits is offering 100% off a single order up to $50 from their online store for one lucky Lifehack.org reader. That means you can pick yourself up a copy of 1Password (for Mac or Windows), or you can even pick up Knox if you are so inclined.

In order to enter to the giveaway, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“What are the first 3 online accounts you would secure with 1Password and why?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of AgileBits and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entry will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and the winner will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here on the website). For those entering the contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winners will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter.

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Here comes the sun!: Fellows Friday with Manuel Aguilar

Manuel Antonio Aguilar, director of technology for Quetsol, has made it his mission to bring sustainable light and power to rural villages in Guatemala and beyond.

What exactly does Quetsol do?
We aim to alleviate rural poverty by providing micro-scale appropriate-technology solutions. Specifically, we sell solar kits — combinations of small solar panels, batteries and other components — that give our customers renewable electricity to power light bulbs and charge mobile phones, laptops and a variety of other devices at a price that’s cheaper than candles. Besides a 10-watt unit that powers a LED bulbs and mobile chargers, we’re launching a 75-watt system that powers large devices like TVs, radios, and computers. We also have a 30-watt unit in the works, which will power a laptop.

Our entire target demographic is rural villagers whose primary access to light is candles — we design with their needs in mind and in collaboration with them. We ask our customers about the design, and according to their feedback we evolve the products and make necessary adaptations. We’re soon going to open-source everything, so that not only will people be able to fix the systems themselves, but build them from scratch if they want to — not just in Guatemala and Latin America, but anywhere.

A happy group of children play with their new Quetsol lighting kit. Photo: Quetsol

How did you get involved in this project? What’s your background, and how did you get excited about identifying these people and these needs?

I grew up in Guatemala City and went to Harvard to study astrophysics and physics. Afterwards, I worked for a few years in finance, which got me thinking a lot about natural resources and consumption and the way the world is being currently administered, at least with regard to natural resources. It also got me thinking about the severe lack of basic services giving rise to dire humanitarian consequences — poverty, health problems, lack of education. When thinking about how to best spend my talents and time, I thought, “What better way than to help solve these problems for my own country and people?” It seems the gravest difficulties are the ones we pay the least attention to. Because they seem so insurmountable, we just kick the can down the road. I got tired of having that attitude.

I know it appears that astrophysics to solar energy is a big leap. I was always really interested in astrophysics as a personal, philosophical, spiritual pursuit, but life is so short, and the problems facing us so big and so easily solvable at the same time. I couldn’t justify to myself locking myself away in a closet without looking at them.

Why did you choose to focus on solar energy?

Poverty has a whole host of variables nonlinearly correlated with each other, but energy is a key variable. Not having access to lighting at night has been demonstrated time and again to severely limit educational progress, yet it’s a relatively easy to solve problem. Water and agriculture are also key, but I don’t know much about them. I did know that a solar panel could easily accomplish all the basic tasks of lighting and communication. And the personal computer is the window into all available information. So we figured solar energy would offer the most value for money.

Our customers also have mobile phones, which are an important economic tool. Guatemala has a very robust telecommunications system, and phones can be acquired quite cheaply. People spend money on prepaid minutes and charging the handsets, which sometimes involves walking up to two hours in one direction, two hours back for the nearest power outlet. So it’s a great loss of productivity, and the cost adds up as well, at 70 cents or so per charge. Being able to charge a phone at home is a great relief.

How did you identify your villages?

When we started doing the market research, we wanted to find out exactly how much people were spending on what in terms of light and power. Simultaneously, we did product research. How would it cost to produce each unit? With my friend and cofounder Juan Rodriguez, I drove around to random villages, knocked on people’s houses and said, “Can we ask you a few questions?” They would be very nice and let us in. After we had gathered all the information, we said, “Definitely. There’s demand. The economics work. We’ve got to do it.” With our idea, we entered and won a business plan competition sponsored by AIDG, an NGO that was created by Peter Haas, currently a Senior Fellow. This gave us $50,000 of initial financing. Adding that to $25,000 of our own money, we got started with $75,000, with which we purchased the first round of inventory and covered operating costs. We’ve continually grown, selling six units the first month to close to a thousand a year later.

So this is an entrepreneurial business model, not a charitable humanitarian project.

That’s right. All our clients pay for their units. Not many can come up with the $240 up front, so eventually, we formed a partnership with a large microcredit NGO, which had 60 branches all over the country. The NGO offered the credit to the customers, and when they purchased units, we would get paid immediately, while the foundation handled the repayment obligations. This left us free to handle our technical servicing and guarantees.

People get very excited the first time they are able to charge their phone in their own home. Photo: Quetsol

Why is it important that this be a for-profit business rather than a technology that’s given away?

It’s been demonstrated time and time again that people tend to not value what they’re getting for free. But when people have a financial stake in something — or, to use the industry parlance, they have skin in the game — then they take care of it. They feel responsible. Yes, of course, we need profit to produce more inventory, and pay for the growing infrastructure that it will take to cover those half a million homes in Guatemala without light, and eventually Latin America and beyond. That takes economic sustainability, which can only come from revenue.

Quetsol does have a charitable side: we’ve structured a foundation which will allow people interested in donating — we’ve had a lot of interest — to get those fiscal benefits, too. And Quetsol the enterprise will sell to Quetsol Foundation, which gets a discount. But even the foundation has a policy of no giving away. So, for example, we have a community of a hundred households. Then, rather than give away a hundred units, for example, we’ll heavily subsidize them, so each household will pay something like 25 percent. That pool of money then goes towards getting a large system for the community as a whole — for a school or for a clinic, for example. This way, people will feel they’ve made an investment, while still contributing towards the community as a whole.

How will the open-source aspect of your business plan work, and how will that benefit you as well as people who are using it?

We will be publishing a booklet on how the technology is put together, and distribute it free in booklet form and on the internet, hopefully in the first quarter of 2012. Open source benefits everyone. It will benefit our customers because they’ll have all the information available to them. We do offer a full-service warranty, so it’s our obligation to make sure the technology works or otherwise repair or replace. But it’s valuable to learn how your own machines work. More importantly, open-sourcing it will allow others around the world to do it. There are 1.5 billion people without access to electricity. If Quetsol were to try to provide light to all of them, many more generations of children would have to live in darkness. I would rather disseminate quickly to everyone. How does that help us? Well, it helps us achieve the mission — which is NOT to make the most money possible, but to solve the problem. And making money is a requirement if we want to solve the problem. It’s the means to the end. We’ll reach this goal faster if there are many companies doing what we do.

What’s it been like to be a TED Fellow?
It’s been an incredibly inspiring opportunity to meet some of the world’s most gifted people doing some of the most world-changing and beautiful work. The most powerful aspect for me has been getting exposure to incredible ideas woven in such a multidisciplinary way – it literally feels like your brain is opening and expanding at a TED conference.

The Fellows program itself has provided me with great support through a coaching program, an amazing network within my field, and an incredible group of people that are constantly feeding my brain with great ideas and resources with which to accelerate my project. I’ve been inspired personally by the work of such individual TED Fellows as Marcin Jakubowski of Open Source Ecology. In general, I’m most thankful for the inspiration I get seeing such amazing people work from so many different angles to express and advance humanity.

A creative work-around to lack of flat space: hanging the Quesol battery box from the ceiling! Photo: Quetsol

What’s next for Quetsol?
We’ve been busy expanding our operations and infrastructure. We’re now opening up a second servicing branch in Coban, a part of the country where there’s the least electricity coverage, and where our sales were the strongest in the last year or so. Until now, we’d been doing all post-sales servicing via phone and mail. The new branch allows customers there to get their units serviced by walking into a shop. We expect the majority of our customers to be in this region in the long run.

So far, we’ve reached about 200 villages, and from July 2011 to now we’ve sold about 500 systems. And we’re about to hit a very heavy growth phase. Until now, we’ve had 60 distribution points with working in partnership with one microfinance service. But recently, we signed with the largest bank in Guatemala, which has close to 900 branches. We’re going to start with a pilot project, opening 50 distribution points at the bank’s branches where customers can buy the product AND get credit. Once those are up and running, we’ll distribute via all branches of that bank, which should take us to about 700 distribution points. Of course, we’ll increase our inventory accordingly to fulfill the increased demand.

There are many aspiring social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to take their passion and ideas to the next level. What one piece of advice would you give them, based on your own experience and successes?

Not taking “no” for an answer. The “no” can come in many different forms; from being told “It can’t be done” to thinking “No one is doing it, it must not be worthwhile” — from obstacles that hint it shouldn’t be done to apparent personal obstacles. “No” can be quite a frequent occurrence, and if you accept it easily, your idea is more prone to failure.

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 7 – The David Allen Company

Today is another day of Lifehack’s 12 Days of Giveaways where we feature some of the best productivity services, apps, and products that you can get your hands on. We really appreciate all of the entries so far this week and last, and after today’s awesome prizes from the David Allen Company we only have one week left. Don’t worry though; today there are three chances to win!

Before we get to what we and David Allen Company are giving away, let’s first announce and congratulate the winner of The Womack Company prize pack. Andrea Aresca, had this awesome comment here at Lifehack.org:

“I will be more INTENTIONAL in defining what I want to achieve in every “account” of my life.
I will be more SPECIFIC in describing the outcome of each one of my projects.
I will make the habit of FOCUSING a bit extra time daily on 1 very important thing I’ve chosen the day before.”

We at Lifehack hope that The Womack Company products are going to help you out in the new year, Andrea. Congratulations!

I’m very excited about today’s giveaway because I am a devout user of it and have been for about a year now. And, since we are in the spirit of giving, it feels great to share the awesomeness and ubiquitousness (it’s a word now!) of the David Allen Notetaker Wallet with 3 Lifehack readers.

First, The David Allen Company is a, “global training and consulting company, widely considered the leading authority in the fields of organizational and personal productivity,” as if you didn’t know. But, really, The David Allen Company and the GTD system (something that we are quite fond of here at Lifehack.org) are almost synonymous.

If you are a GTD follower in any way and have listened to Mr. David Allen wax about GTD outside of his books, then you have surely heard of his infamous Notetaker Wallet. The “evening module” or “UCT” (ubiquitous capture tool), as David Allen has aptly called the notetaker wallet, is a sturdy accessory with an awesome little paper pad and a “wicked cool” expandable pen. If you are a knowledge worker, or just someone that wants to get the next great idea, thing to pick up from the store, or current project’s next action out of your mind and into your system so you can concentrate on the work at hand anywhere you are, then you seriously need this tool.

Also, these wallets are super high quality. My Ballistics style wallet is the strongest wallet I have ever owned.

So, what are we giving away?

That’s right. The David Allen Company isn’t messing around and you won’t be either when you turn into a ubiquitous capturing machine with your new GTD Notetaker Wallet in 2012.

In order to enter to win one of the three GTD Notetaker Wallets, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“How will the addition of a ubiquitous capture tool enhance your productivity this coming year?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of The David Allen Company and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entries will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and winners will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here on the website). For those entering the contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday (Monday 12/19/2011)  and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winners will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand. The David Allen Company will ship you your Notetaker Wallet flat rate (even Internationally). The item will be marked as a “gift” and the winner will have to pay an taxes that are required by their country.

Good luck!

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter.

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 5 – TextExpander

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Transplanted corneas are a window to the soul

A fascinating note on the social meaning of eyes and why people are much more reluctant to donate the cornea after death than other bodily organs.

From a recent article in the journal Transplanatation:

At the time that a patient is diagnosed as brain dead, a substantial proportion of families who give consent to heart and kidney donation specifically refuse eye donation. This in part may relate to the failure of those involved in transplantation medicine and public education to fully appreciate the different meanings attached to the body of a recently deceased person.

Medicine and science have long understood the body as a “machine.” This view has fitted with medical notions of transplantation, with donors being a source of biologic “goods.” However, even a cursory glance at the rituals surrounding death makes it apparent that there is more to a dead body than simply its biologic parts; in death, bodies continue as the physical substrate of relationships. Of all the organs, it is the eyes that are identified as the site of sentience, and there is a long tradition of visual primacy and visual symbolism in virtually all aspects of culture.

It therefore seems likely that of all the body parts, it is the eyes that are most central to social relationships. A request to donate the eyes therefore is unlikely to be heard simply in medical terms as a request to donate a “superfluous” body part for the benefit of another. That the eyes are not simply biologic provides one explanation for both the lower rates of corneal donation, compared with that of other organs, and the lack of adequate corneal donation to meet demand.

What’s interesting is that the operation to remove the cornea does no visible damage to the donor. It’s just the idea of the thing that puts people off.

Link to locked article on eyes, meaning and cornea transplants.

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A prosthetic eye to treat blindness: Sheila Nirenberg on TED.com

At TEDMED, Sheila Nirenberg shows a bold way to create sight in people with certain kinds of blindness: by hooking into the optic nerve and sending signals from a camera direct to the brain. (Recorded at TEDMED 2011, October 2011, in San Diego, California. Duration: 16:00)

Watch Sheila Nirenberg‘s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.

Learn more about our content partner TEDMED >>

Watch more talks from our friends at TEDMED on TED.com >>

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The Ultimate Holiday Gift (and How to Give and Receive It)

This gift is better to give AND receive.

We’re only a few days away from Christmas, and while not everyone celebrates that particular holiday, this time of year is a cause for celebration for many all over the world. It’s a time for reflection, a time for companionship and a time for giving.

The Western world tends to get really caught up in the giving part — or more accurately, the receiving part. That’s not something that can be deterred easily. Getting people to be more into the giving than receiving is a tough sell. It can be done, but it takes a lot on the part of many to break through.

But what if that sell could be much easier? What if I told you that the one giving the gift could also receive the same gift in kind — and yet it would be completely different than the one they gave? Better still, what if I told you that this gift is the ultimate holiday gift?

Now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll tell you.

The ultimate holiday gift is attention.

How is attention the ultimate holiday gift?

Attention is valuable, but only if it is paid.Attention is free, but also has a price.Attention is short-term, but can have long-term impact.

When you pay attention to someone or to something, you add value to it. Whether it is a family member or friend, a piece of software or a work project — when you give it your full attention it increases in value. And not just for the person or “thing” receiving it. You receive the value as well.

That value can be returned in knowledge, expertise, love, gratitude and — yes — even monetarily. The key to determining the value rests in how much of your attention you give. The more you give, the more you get.

How do you give more attention? By connecting and disconnecting. Connect as fully as possible with the person or thing you want to give attention to and disconnect from everything else. This doesn’t need to — and shouldn’t — be permanent. But it does need to happen in those moments.

The currency of attention is time. How much you want to spend is up to you, but remember that quality is always more valuable than quantity when you’re dealing with “time economics”.

Attention can be given and taken freely. It can also be applied when giving gifts other than attention.

For example, you can start planning now — or giving attention to — those who you want to give gifts to next holiday season. Rather than wait until it must have your attention (and likely less than full attention at that), you can take small moments to build up the list of people and corresponding gifts throughout the year. This means you’ll be better prepared going into next year and don’t need to focus on holiday shopping in the six weeks leading up to Christmas. It also means you won’t forget anyone that might not make the cut due to simple forgetfulness or a constrained budget.

The end result is a less stressful holiday season, which is better for everyone. And you’re able to do that by giving attention to a list like this over a longer timespan and taking your attention away from it whenever you want because you’re on top of it.

Even when you offer your attention for a short period of time, the effects of that full attentiveness can have a big impact over the long term.

You may work really hard on a small project and leave everything else in the dust over a 2 week period. Then when the project is finished you move your attention back to other things while that project begins to live a life of its own. A book that you might decide to write and self-publish or an app you’ve developed would be perfect examples. As these items sell, you’ll make money over the long-term because they have a longer shelf life than the time you spent giving them your utmost attention.

Relationships can benefit from both short and long term attention. Client relationships for small projects may only last a few weeks, but they’ll have a lasting impact on both them and your reputation. Longer term relationships with family and friends can be handled by giving attention to the little things (occasional phone calls/emails, connecting on social networks, etc.) and also the larger things. But the bottom line is that in order to have a give and take happening with attention, you need to be as fully engaged as possible.

Attention is the ultimate gift, but it is also the hardest one for many of us to offer. In a world where our attention can be easily taken away from us and to things and people that don’t warrant it, we must actually pay attention to, well…attention.

Which means that attention is the ultimate gift you can give not just to others, but to yourself as well.

I’m wondering how many of you were able to give this piece your full attention while reading it. Did you shift away from it? Was it because I couldn’t hold your attention or that you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give it? I’d be interested to know in the comments.

(Photo credit: Christmas. Gift woman showing beautiful red gift box. via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 6 – The Womack Company

We’re at the halfway mark of Lifehack’s 12 Days of Giveaways holiday promotion and it’s been a great success so far. We’ve received plenty of entries with some great comments for each — it’s too bad we can only choose a limited amount of winners.

That said, there are still giveaways coming each weekday until the 23rd of December. There’s still lots of chances to take home something to help boost your productivity for the coming year, and we’re going to keep that going today with a giveaway from The Womack Company.

But before we get to that…here are the winning entries from yesterday’s giveaway.

Our questions was, “What text expansion or automation from TextExpander will save you the most time and why?”, and the two winning comments were submitted by Jasedit and Stef Gonzaga, who wrote (respectively):

“I have to write a daily status update for work, and it’d make my life far easier to be able to shortcut half the boilerplate. Plus I can imagine it making Markdown far easier to work with. Here’s to hoping!”

“Textexpander will save me time from inserting my byline for blog posts in HTML format, content for product descriptions, and shipping and billing info when shopping online. I sure hope I get a copy!”

Congratulations to both winners! Now…what’s up for grabs today, you ask?

Jason Womack and The Womack Company have a simple mission in mind:

“Improving your productivity, one day at a time, through implementing best-practices of psychology, sociology and technology.”

That’s it. Pretty simple, right? Not entirely…it takes a lot of expertise and the ability to inspire to see a mission like that through. The Womack Company has that in spades. The company has been around for nearly five years — not to mention that Jason Womack has worked with the likes of David Allen (among others) during many more years of study and service beyond that. The Womack Company focusses on workplace performance, individual productivity, talent development and continual improvement — and they deliver the goods to help those who work with them raise their games.

Now, The Womack Company is giving one Lifehack reader a chance to raise their game as well.

Today’s giveaway includes one copy of the following:

In order to enter to win this prize pack, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“How do you plan to make your best even better for the coming year?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of The Womack Company and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entry will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and winners will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here the website). For those entering contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winner will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

(Photo credit: Three Colorful Arrow Signs via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 10 – Evernote

Evernote T-Shirt Design

We only have a couple of more days left in our 12 Days of Giveaways where we have been giving away some of the best productivity apps, services, and products that the web has to offer. We are quickly approaching the end of our giveaway and today we have one of the best offerings to date from our friends at Evernote. But, we first need to congratulate the three winners of Patrick Rhone’s “Keeping it Straight” books.

First, aaron_z in the comments from yesterday’s giveaway talked about keeping college and life straight. He’s getting the ebook version of Keeping It Straight. Here’s an excerpt:

“Walking is like meditation for me. A morning walk will allow me to clear my head and focus on what I am going to do *today* and go to college with a smile on my face. :)”

Mario Kroll commented on Facebook about how he wants to clean the cruft out of his life. He’s getting the print version:

“I’m going to try and keep straight what is most important in my life, my work and my interpersonal relationships and focus on those, while passing on or reducing the many things that add very little value to those aspects or even take away from them.”

And then Erin Feldman commented on Facebook about responsibility. She’s taking home the signed copy of Keeping It Straight!

“… Another item is to stop apologizing when I shouldn’t. I need to learn to balance my own sense of responsibility with the realization that I’m not always to blame.”

Congratulations to our three winners! We hope you can gain some insight that helps you simplify your life and productivity in 2012.

I have been an on-again-off-again user of Evernote for years now and in the past few months I have added it back to my list of daily productivity tools (with some recommendation from Mr. Mike Vardy).

To be absolutely frank, Evernote is the best digital notetaking and information management application I have used to date. What makes Evernote so darn good is that I can use it on my Mac, my PC at work, my iPhone, or even my Android device. I can even use it with my Livescribe Pen. Talk about ubiquitous capture.

Evernote allows users to take notes (rich text too!), send and keep pictures, tag pretty much everything, create notebooks where you can combine notes, and much, much more. Also, Evernote has been picking up its game lately with the addition of the new Evernote Food (for tracking your food choices in Evernote) and Evernote Hello (for keeping track of all the faces of the pretty people you meet). These two apps show that Evernote is trying to place itself as the “one” app that you need to keep track of everything.

But, instead of me telling you about the awesomeness that is Evernote, we are going to be giving away some prizes that do that much better. Today we are giving away one lucky Lifehack reader

A 1 year subscription to Evernote PremiumA stylish Evernote t-shirt (Editor’s Note: If the winner is from outside the continental US, the shirt will not be part of the package due to shipping restrictions. Rather than limit the whole giveaway to this area because of this, we decided to make it global with this exception. Thanks for your understanding.)And the be-all-to-end-all getting started guide for Evernote, “Evernote Essentials” by the infamous Brett Kelly.

With this prize pack you will be set to use Evernote to become and stay more productive in 2012.

In order to enter to the giveaway, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“How will you use Evernote in 2012 to stay more organized and become more productive?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of Stepcase and Evernote (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entry will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and the winner will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here on the website). For those entering the contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winners will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter.

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The Allen Telescope Array is back!

A note from TED Prize winner Jill Tarter…

At TED last February, Chris Anderson told the audience that without a White Knight stepping up to support my SETI observing program on the Allen Telescope Array, the antennas would soon be put into a safe hibernation mode in preparation for shutting down the array. That’s because our University of California Berkeley partner was no longer able to find federal and state funds to pay for operations of the Hat Creek Observatory where the array was built. No White Knight materialized; hibernation commenced April 15. Since April, the cryogenics have been kept running to protect the delicate low noise amplifiers in the innovative feed/receiver systems on the antennas, physical security has been maintained, our extraordinary computing equipment has been stored in our Mountain View lab for safekeeping, but the weeds on site grew unchecked, and no data were taken from the sky.

But we never lost the dream of re-starting. Recovery was a three-part process: first, working with UC Berkeley to forestall the immediate site remediation activities that would be required at the cessation of the US Forest Service land use permit; second, find a new task for the array and a partner to maintain and operate it while sharing time with SETI; and third, find support for my SETI team to restore our observing capabilities and once again begin exploring the sky. It hasn’t been easy, and the future is still a bit uncertain, but as of September 1, we were back on site, greasing antenna bearings, reinstalling computers, rewriting software to accommodate new modes of operating, fixing a frozen compressor on the old HVAC system, and yes, mowing down the weeds. We have a short-term contract to assess the utility of the Allen Telescope Array as part of the US Air Force’s important space situational awareness mission, and we hope this will turn into a long-term partnership. We are working with the Forest Service to have the land use permit transferred. We also experimented with crowdfunding to raise the money needed for my team to do the work involved in getting the array and our SonATA signal detection system up and running again -– thousands of wonderful SETI Stars from around the world came to our aid on SETIStars.org, meeting the 40-day funding challenge we set -– WOW!

In a delightful coincidence, we were finally ready to relaunch our SETI exploration of the 1,235 exoplanet candidates announced last February by the Kepler mission (the worlds that we had been targeting prior to hibernation), and the date of our relaunch was yesterday; the opening day of the First Kepler Science Conference! We started observing again and the Kepler team announced the discovery of Kepler 22b, the first Earth-size planet in orbit within the habitable zone around a star like our Sun -– not quite Earth 2.0, but getting close. And by the way, they also gave us another 1000+ exoplanet candidates to explore.

So for the next two years or so, we know exactly what we need to do, and where we want to look. Planets are real, planets are plentiful, and some of the systems are starting to look a bit familiar. What a great time to be doing SETI! Federal and institutional funding sources have brought the search for life elsewhere in the galaxy to an exciting threshold. My astrobiology colleagues will be trying to search for biosignatures from exoplanets circling other stars, and at the Center for SETI Research we are moving forward with the public’s quest to know whether there is any intelligent, technological life on these worlds. As always, the funding for the SETI effort needs to be found: about $100,000 a month, every month, every year. We are going to repurpose and evolve SETIStars.org to allow supporters to more closely follow our progress, to interact with us in ways that keep them involved and motivated. The setiQuest community that launched as part of my 2009 TED Prize wish is already helping us with the technical challenges of our work. This is humanity’s search, and we cannot do it without global support — some of which I hope will come from the TED community.

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The Parable of the Modern Farmer

Once upon a time, there was a farmer. This farmer lived in a different age than his forefathers, who were also farmers.

Instead of specializing in tomatoes or cotton as his ancestors had done, our farmer was gifted with the ability to decide every day what to plant and nurture. By the time the next day rolled around, the previous day’s crops were ready for harvest. (In these fields, crops grew very fast.)

While making decisions about his daily planting priorities, the farmer also thought about the meaning of life. Was the purpose of his existence all about ears of corn and bushels of strawberries? No, of course not. The farmer knew he wanted something more than the tasks he worked on while the sun was coming up.

The farmer also knew that in some areas of his life, he wanted to slow down and breathe easy. He did that already, reading Zen Habits every day on his mobile device while plowing the fields. He did not check email until the sun reached high noon, and he maintained few possessions that did not bring joy to his life or regular maintenance for his tractor.

The farmer was in good health, had a loving family, and kept up a routine of picking through carrots and alfalfa each week.

But the farmer knew that this routine was not enough. Deep inside his soul, the farmer wanted a challenge.

The farmer decided he should set out to build something that would improve the state of the world. But what would it be?

At first he was perplexed. “I’m just a farmer,” he thought. But then, as he was bringing in a bumper crop of sweet potatoes one afternoon, he began to understand that there was much more he could offer the world than the vegetables he harvested during his day job.

Once he started to think in this new way, the ideas kept coming. Should he begin a community tractor pull, bringing together the neighbors for a friendly competition? Write a highly-trafficked blog on cotton pesticides (“7 Simple Ways to Keep Production High”)? Distribute his excess starter crops to an enterprising young farmer in a land far away?

He wasn’t exactly sure which project he would choose, and he knew he might change his mind later. But in determining to begin something, the farmer felt a surge of confidence rush over him. The possibilities were as plentiful as the colors in the sunset he viewed each evening from the rocking chair on the porch.

What would the farmer build? How would he ultimately change the world?

As the moon rose over his latest crop and the farmer sat in the chair, he thought about the possibilities and said to himself, “I’m ready.” And then the farmer got off his porch and went to work.

Chris Guillebeau is the author of The Art of Non-Conformity blog and bestselling book. You can download his new manifesto on creating a legacy project, The Tower, for free.

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Quashing the Self-Improvement Urge

One of the driving forces of my life for many years was the need to improve myself. It’s one of the driving forces for people who read my work as well.

It’s an incredibly pervasive urge: we are always trying to improve, and if we’re not, that’s something we should improve.

It’s everywhere. Where does this urge come from? It’s embedded in our culture — in the U.S. from Benjamin Franklin to the early entrepreneurial titans, everyone is trying to better themselves. It goes deeper, to ancient Western ideals of the perfect well-rounded person. But it flourished in the 20th century, from Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill to Stephen Covey. And now it’s in full bloom, with blogs. And yes, I’m part of this movement.

So what’s the problem? You could say it’s great that people are constantly trying to improve themselves, but where does it end? When is anyone ever content with who they are? We are taught that we are not good enough yet, that we must improve, and so … we always feel a little inadequate.

This is true no matter how much you’ve accomplished. You might have achieved a thousand goals, but do you have defined abs? Are your boobs big and bouncy? Do you have perfect skin? Have you read every classic in literature? Do you know fine wines, fine art, and every great musician from classical to jazz to punk to rock? Do you have success as an entrepreneur, as a writer? Can you speak several languages, and have you traveled the world? Do you own fewer than 100 things, or a small house? Are you a fast runner, and have you run a 100 miler? Can you Crossfit, or lift 1,000 pounds in the Big Three lifts? Do you have the perfect home, and can you cook gourmet meals? Are you the perfect parent, or have perfect work-life balance? Can you do yoga, meditate, juggle and do magic? Do you brew the perfect cup of coffee, or tea, or beer? Can you recite Shelly, Shakespeare, Homer? Are you good at picking up women, are you the perfect friend, the perfect lover, a romantic husband, a wife who meets her husband’s needs, a master craftsman, a hacker and a programmer, a knitter or sewer, a home-repair expert, knowledgeable in investing and real estate, do you know the perfect system for goals and use the perfect to-do software, is your phone as nice as his, or your bag as nice as hers, do you have cute boots or a manly shave? Are you debt free, or car free or gluten free? Do you give to charity or volunteer at shelters or build schools for Africa? Is your TV as large as mine, or your penis?

Are you adequate? Are you confident of that?

We are never adequate, never perfect, never self-confident, never good enough, never comfortable with ourselves, never satisfied, never there, never content.

And it becomes the reason we buy self-help products, fitness products, gadgets to make us cooler, nicer clothes, nicer cars and homes, nicer bags and boots, plastic surgery and drugs, courses and classes and coaches and retreats. It will never stop, because we will never be good enough.

We must improve. We must read every self-improvement book. When we read a blog, we must try that method, because it will make us better. When we read someone else’s account of his achievements, his goal system, his entrepreneurial lifestyle, her yoga routine, her journaling method, her reading list, we must try it. We will always read what others are doing, in case it will help us get better. We will always try what others are doing, try every diet and every system, because it helped them get better, so maybe it will help us too. Soon, we will find the ultimate solutions, soon we will get there. No, that hasn’t happened yet, but maybe this year will be the year.

Maybe 2012 will be the year we reach perfection.

Or maybe it will never stop, until we die, and that’s a part of life — life is a constant striving for improvement, and we’d hate to ever stop wanting to improve, because that means we’re dead, right? Even if that means that as we die, we wonder if we could have been better, and our last thought is, “Am I adequate as a person?” Even if that means we are never happy with ourselves, at least we are striving to be happy with ourselves, right?

What if instead, we learned to be happy with ourselves?

What would happen?

Would we stop striving to improve? Would that be horrible, if we were just content and didn’t need to better ourselves every minute of every week? Would we be lazy slobs, or would we instead be happy, and in being happy do things that make us happy rather than make us better? And in being happy, perhaps we would show others how to be happy? And crazy as it might sound, maybe we’d start a little mini-revolution of happiness, so that people wouldn’t feel so inadequate, or need to spend every dime on products, or spend all their time on self-improvement.

A revolution of contentment.

Think of how this might simplify your life. Think of how many self-improvement books you read, or listen to in the car. Think of how many products you buy to make yourself better. Think of how many things you read online, in the hopes of being better. Think of how many things you do because you feel inadequate. Think of how much time this would free up, how much mental energy.

Realize that you are already perfect. You are there. You can breathe a sigh of relief.

The urge to improve yourself will come up again. Watch it, like a funny little clown trying to tease your soul, but don’t let your soul feel worse for the teasing. Don’t let yourself react to this little clown, nor feel the pain of his attack. Let him do his dance, say his funny things, and then go away.

Quash the urge to improve, to be better. It only makes you feel inadequate.

And then explore the world of contentment. It’s a place of wonderment.

‘Contentment is the greatest treasure.’ ~Lao Tzu

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Turn Yourself Into a Savvy Buyer While Christmas Shopping

Maybe you slept in on Black Friday simply unable to muster the will to battle hundreds of other people storming the gates of the local WalMart. Perhaps you are waiting for your next paycheck in December before you start searching for good deals. Or, maybe - just maybe - you believe retailers will cut costs even further because they NEED to liquidate their inventories before the end of the year.

No matter what the reason is, the goal for many is clear: Purchase as many presents as possible for the lowest possible cost. If you are in that crowd, here are some hints for being more than a bargain hunter; we're talking about becoming a savvy buyer.
Haggle
You may not think that the local appliance store is willing to go down from the printed sales price, but you would be surprised what a failing economy does to salespeople. If you have knowledge on your side (like what the competitors are selling the same item for), you can get them to come down on prices, add extended warranties, deliver for free, install for free, etc. In addition to these, don't forget the freebies.

Be willing to walk away
Don't be afraid to be difficult. If you don't get the deal you want, tell them you are going to leave. This works even better when you cart is loaded with other purchases and you are willing to let all of those go because you don't get the deal on what you really want.

Bring up competitors
This works well when you are looking at very competitive business - like car dealerships or electronics or even credit card companies who are pumping up your interest rate. If you are in a store, it works even better. If you say, "that other store was selling those same things for cheaper" loud enough, you'll get all sorts of attention.

Cash, cash, cash
Not only should you bring cash for your purchases to keep you on your budget, you should tell the salesman you intend to pay with cash and thus save them the 3%-5% that Visa collects on each purchase. Some stores will drop the price simply because it's a cash purchase.

Another trick is to be sure you only bring as much cash as you are willing to spend. This will eliminate the possibility of you exceeding your budget. It also may help persuade a sales manager when you are haggling over the price of an item.

Shut up
When in doubt, keep your hands in your pockets and keep your mouth shut. This will make the salesman dicker himself down on prices when you don't seem happy with his initial offer. They may even divulge some juicy information, like the markup price or even if what your looking at is the best model. Remember, the sales person wants to make the sale more than you want to purchase it!
The Golden Rule! Don't be afraid to ask for a discount
If all else fails, ask for a deal. There may be sales coming up you don't know about, special pricing or even a coupon that the store has on hand. Even small bargains add up to big ones. "What else can you toss in" is a single sentence that can amount to some huge discounts or freebies.These aren't just holiday strategies; use them all year long and you can become a big-time bargainer. If you feel embarrassed or cheap by asking for discounts, remember that you are never going to see this salesperson again! You will however see your bank account balance for the rest of your life! Written on 12/01/2008 by Mike Koehler. Mike Koehler is a multimedia journalist in Oklahoma City working full-time to save the newspaper business while helping his wife raise three kids under age 8. In his spare time he sleeps. E-mail Mike at kmanconsulting@gmail.com.

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Explore your blind spot (free ebook)

I’ve written an ebook called ‘Explore your blind spot’. It’s about, er, exploring your blind spot! In the best tradition of Mind Hacks I take you from the raw experience to the cutting edge of scientific theory. The blind spot is a simple phenomenon of our visual processing, but one we don’t notice day to day. In the ebook I talk about how it provides a great example of the way consciousness is constructed despite ‘missing’ information. Like the ebook subtitle says, the blind spot gives us an insight into the mind hides its own tracks.

The ebook is available in all major formats here and is creative commons licensed. That means it is free, not just to download but also to share. You can even edit it and pass on modified versions, as long as you keep it CC licensed.

I’ve written this book as an experiment in ebook publishing, and as a test-bed for what I think could be a good format for presenting open-source guides to the myriad interesting phenomena of psychology. If you’ve got feedback let me know.

Link to Explore your blind spot, a free ebook by Tom Stafford

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 9 – Keeping It Straight

Now is the time of year where things can get pretty hectic — and likely already are. Today’s offering in Lifehack’s 12 Days of Giveaways is one that can serve to slow you down when you’re going to need it the most. It’s a great book by Patrick Rhone (Minimal Mac, the Enough podcast) called Keeping It Straight: You, Me & Everything Else, and it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

But before we get to that, let’s find out who won yesterday’s giveaway.

Our 8th giveaway was courtesy of AgileBits, and one lucky Lifehack reader had the chance to win 100% off a single order up to $50 from their online store. Since 1Password is the company’s most popular product, we asked the following question:

“What are the first 3 online accounts you would secure with 1Password and why?”

And the winning entry was left by goeasgles21, who was really specific when they said:

“1. iTunes – to finally thwart my teenaged daughter/hacker who likes to go on shopping sprees; 2. Amazon, to which I send a goodly portion of my income every year; and 3. My bank, so that what remains of my income stays where I put it.”

Definitely smart uses for 1Password. Congratulations!

Today, Patrick Rhone has offered different versions of Keeping it Straight to three lucky Lifehack.org readers. What is the book all about? I’ll let the book’s website describe it, as it does it best:

Keeping It Straight is Patrick Rhone’s very personal meditation on his own life and experiences. His clear insights identify the jumble and distractions of life today and offer simple and useful advice on how to discover and focus on what really matters. This collection of short essays is filled with clear, direct, and useful observations on productivity, life, and living.

Here’s what’s up for grabs, courtesy of the book’s author, Patrick Rhone:
1 ebook edition
1 paperback edition
1 signed hardcover edition

If you need to get some perspective into what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and — most importantly — why you’re doing it, then you absolutely must pick up Keeping It Straight. It is truly a holistic reading experience. I can’t wait to read his next book, Enough, comes out.

In order to enter to the giveaway, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“What is one thing you are going “keep straight” in your life in the coming year?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The winning entry will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and the winner will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here on the website). For those entering the contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winners will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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An unborn brain flowering connections

We’ve mentioned some amazing advances in brain scanning unborn babies before on Mind Hacks and this image is another step in that remarkable science.

The coloured fibres in the image are still-developing white matter circuits in the brain of an unborn baby at 36 weeks, picked out by a diffusion MRI scan.

The scan is from a paper just published in Topics in Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Diffusion-tensor imaging or DTI can identify white matter connections, the brain’s ‘cabling’, by picking out which water molecules in the brain only move along restricted paths.

It’s a bit like having a tube in a beehive. Even if you had no idea where the tube was, you could work out its location if you had information on the bee’s movements, because bees inside the tube can only move in one direction.

The same principal applies and DWI looks for the white matter ‘tubes’ by looking for where the brain’s water molecules can only move in certain directions.

This relies on the brain being relatively still so these scans are difficult to do in unborn babies because of their tendency to move around in the womb.

Nevertheless, when they work, the results are spectacular, and we can see the unborn brain flowering into a neurally connected marvel.

Link to locked study on Fetal Diffusion Imaging.

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The crowd dynamics of the city safari

The Economist has a fascinating article about the weird way that pedestrians behave as they walk through cities and how this knowledge is being applied to make city-living easier and safer.

IMAGINE that you are French. You are walking along a busy pavement in Paris and another pedestrian is approaching from the opposite direction. A collision will occur unless you each move out of the other’s way. Which way do you step?

The answer is almost certainly to the right. Replay the same scene in many parts of Asia, however, and you would probably move to the left. It is not obvious why. There is no instruction to head in a specific direction (South Korea, where there is a campaign to get people to walk on the right, is an exception). There is no simple correlation with the side of the road on which people drive: Londoners funnel to the right on pavements, for example.

Although seemingly a trivial difference, the impact could be quite significant when, for example, trying to design emergency exit routes for international sporting events when people from many cultures mix.

The article is full of curious culture observations about how people move in crowds and the science of how and why people select their peoplescape navigating strategies.

Fascinating stuff.

Link to Economist article ‘The wisdom of crowds’ (via @mocost).

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Sitting and Watching

‘No matter what gets in the way or which way the wind does blow… I’ll just sit here and watch the river flow.’ ~Bob Dylan

Have you ever felt that we are rushing through life, that we get so caught up in busy-ness that life is passing us almost without notice?

I get this feeling all the time.

The antidote is simple: sitting and watching.

Take a minute out of your busy day to sit with me, and talk. Take a moment to imagine being in the middle of traffic — you’re driving, stressed out by the high amount of traffic, trying to get somewhere before you’re late, angry at other drivers who are rude or idiotic, completely focused on making your way through this jungle of metal on a ribbon of asphalt. Now you’ve gotten to the end, phew, you made it, wonderful, and you’re only a few minutes late … but did you notice the scenery you passed along the way? Did you talk to any of the other people along your path? Did you enjoy the ride?

No, probably not. You were so caught up in getting there, in the details of navigating, in the stress of driving, that you didn’t have time to notice your surroundings, the people nearby, or the wonderful journey. This is how we are in life.

Now imagine that you pulled over, and got out of the car, and found a grassy spot to sit. And you watched the other cars zoom by. And you watched the grass blown gently by the wind, and the birds making a flocking pattern overhead, and the clouds lazily watching you back.

Sit and watch.

We don’t do this, because it’s useless to do something that isn’t productive, that doesn’t improve our lives. But as Alan Watts wrote in The Way of Zen:

“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”

It’s interesting, too, what we see when we sit and watch. We will notice others rushing, and worried, and angry, and in them see a mirror of ourselves. We will notice children laughing (or crying) with their parents, and remember what we’re missing when we rush to improve our lives.

More interesting is what you see when you sit and watch yourself. You learn to step outside yourself, and act as an observer. You see your thoughts, and learn more about yourself than you ever could if you were rushing to take action. You see your self-doubts, and self-criticism, and wonder where they came from (a bad incident in childhood, perhaps?) and wonder if you are smart enough to let them go. You see your rationalizations, and realize that they are bullshit, and learn to let those go too. You see your fears, and realize what hold they have over you, and realize that you can make them powerless, by just sitting and watching them, not taking action on them.

By sitting and watching, you come to know yourself.

You learn the most valuable lessons about life, by sitting and watching.

And as we know from the observer effect in physics, by watching, we change what we watch.

Take a few minutes today, to sit and watch. It might change your life.

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Christmas Lifehacks: Essentials for a 21st Century Santa Claus

Jolly old St. Nicholas has been around for years. After watching a recent live-action redux of “The Year Without a Santa Claus” where Santa has shifted into the new millennium, I started to think about what the 21st century Santa would have in his toolkit in order to make his rounds on Christmas Eve in a more efficient and effective way.

It turns out he may have some of the same tools we’re using today in order to get more done. Let’s break down what Santa Claus of the 21st century could (and should) be using this holiday season.

Traditionally, this has been written down by Santa on what appears to be a never-ending scroll of paper. This is a problem for the following reasons:

What if the child was nice at first, then turned naughty? That means a whole lot of crossing out of names.Where does he keep this monstrous list? He’d need a pretty big file folder. And for archival purposes, he’d need a really big file cabinet.How does he remember that list anyway? Santa’s not getting any younger, and the chances of him missing a house or two during his Christmas Eve run is becoming more likely every year. Even saints aren’t perfect.

So what Santa needs in this day and age is some sort of application htat can be easily modified, doesn’t take up a ton of space and is portable.

Sounds like a job for an app like Evernote.

Evernote is available on a ton of platforms, is mobile and can be used to keep trck of both those who are naughty and nice. Santa could have a Naughty notebook and a Nice notebook, and could even use location-awareness if he saw fit.

With Evernote’s ubiquitous nature, he has a wide variety of devices he could choose from to run it on – and it syncs so there’d be no real need to “check it twice”.

As for the device he’d use to run it, I’m sure his elves could make him one that could run an OS that Evernote supports.

Santa’s sack is massive – and magical. There’s likely no replacing it with anything manmade…yet.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t update his wardrobe to fit a few more things in. Perhaps a pair of pants from Scott-E-Vest would be ideal for him to hold the keys to his sleigh, his Evernote-equipped mobile device and all those cookies he gathers during his travels would be a good, er…fit.

Mind you, they don’t come in red.

It’s tough to keep track of inventory of any store or warehouse, but one can only imagine how much Santa’s got on his shelves in his workshop. If he wants to keep his stock levels lean and mean, then he’s got a number of choices to help him do just that.

Delicious Library 2 for the Mac would let him keep tabs on what he has for personal stock, and Bento would allow him to keep a deeper inventory available for quick reference on the Mac, iPad and iPhone. Even Google Docs would work to keep tabs on what he has on hand – and it’s cross-platform.

How to offload some of that stuff during the Christmas season is an entirely other matter, but Santa can pinpoint who might want what with an iOS app called Gift Plan. Evernote can also work in a pinch since he’s already using it for his naughty and nice list.

So with all of this technology at his side, Santa can head out on Christmas Eve and do his thing faster and better. That should give him some time to work on shedding a few of those unwanted pounds during his down time, right?

You know, I think there’s an app for that…

Speaking of apps, if you have other suggestions of applications that would be great for Santa Claus (or yourself) to help you get the kind of stuff Santa does done, leave them in the comments.

(Photo credit: Santa Claus with Laptop via Shutterstock)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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Are You Making These 7 Productivity Mistakes?

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The 12 Days of Giveaways: Day 11 – Helvetindex Cards

As we head into the final days of our 12 Days of Giveaways promo, we’ve got some cool analog tools to offer. Today we bring you the excellent design and craftsmanship of Helvetindex Cards, which will not only help 5 lucky Lifehack readers get things done — but will give them some quality looking material to do it with.

But before we get to that, let’s take care of announcing the winner of yesterday’s 12 Days of Giveaways winner. We had a ton of responses to this one, which was an Evernote prize pack and a copy of the must-have companion book to Evernote, Brett Kelly’s Evernote Essentials.

The question we asked was:

“How will you use Evernote in 2012 to stay more organized and become more productive?”

And the winning comment was left by Anne Geissman Cartwright, who said:

“My life is about to go topsyturvy–my husband and I are launching a complete remodel of our house. But the rest of my life will continue on: freelancing as a book editor; taking classes at the local college (I just finished up with some graphic design and Emergency Medical Technician training), working in Search & Rescue. I need to stay on top of my schedule, my finances, various sorts of information. The mere idea of having everything I need for my Search & Rescue and EMT work always available in one handy place makes me quiver with delight. But to have everything else at hand as well, and organized–oh, bliss! I’d love to make Evernote a regular, can’t-do-without-it part of my life.”

Congratulations, Anne — I hope you get as much out of Evernote as I have. I’m an avid user; it’s a mainstay on all of my computing devices. I’m sure it will help you give your productivity a boost — and with all you’ve got on the go, it sounds like a boost will come in handy in 2012!

Now…on to today’s giveaway!

No matter how you slice it, paper is still a big part of a lot people’s productivity systems. There’s no compatibility issues, no software upgrades needed and it’s both portable and disposable. I’ve been using index cards as part of a Hipster PDA capture tool for years, and the cards I used were as cheap as they came. Oddly enough — or perhaps not — I treated the tasks on the cards as poorly as I treated the cards. Silly, perhaps…but it’s how it went. So I stopped using them and went to a different method of paper capture. I started using higher quality goods and stock, and soon everything I captured on them had more quality attached to them as well. But there were still no index cards that matched the quality of my other paper products, so I kept my binder clips in a drawer, unused.

Then Aaron Mahnke created Helvetindex Cards.

These cards are made of high quality stock and are a pleasure to use. There are spaces at the top of the card to mark with dates, topics or whatever your system dictates. Helvetindex Cards don’t force you into a system, they let you bring them into yours. I’m still working through my pack of 100 cards and my binder clips now have something to hold on to again. My Hipster PDA is back where it belongs: with me at all times…along with the Helvetindex Cards that I use to make it.

In order to enter to win one of the five bundles of Helvetindex Cards, you need to leave a comment below or on our Facebook fan page that answers the following:

“When do you find yourself reaching for paper over digital tools — and why?”

Leaving a comment on both our Facebook fan page and here at Lifehack.org will get you 2 entries, so but you need to give us two items that you like the most – no copying and pasting!

Employees of Helvetindex Cards and of Stepcase (including current independent contractors of both) are not eligible for this contest. The prize can only be shipped to addresses within the continental United States and Canada, so keep that in mind when entering. The winning entry will be judged by the Stepcase Lifehack editing team and winners will be notified on the platform in which their winning entry was placed (either on the Lifehack.org Facebook wall or by email through our commenting system here the website). For those entering contest with a comment on our site, in order to be considered eligible, you MUST leave a contact email when leaving a comment (it’s the only way we’ll know how to contact you). Entries must be submitted by 10 am Eastern the following weekday and winners will be chosen by 12 pm Eastern time on the same day. The winner will be announced the same day on Lifehack.org, and will be notified beforehand.

Good luck!

(Photo courtesy of Helvetindex Cards)

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, and "productivityist". You can follow him on Twitter, listen to him regularly on his podcast, ProductiVardy, and read more from him at MikeVardy.com and at Vardy.me.

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The Absolute WORST Day to Take a Vacation (It’s Not When You Think!)

I need a vacation.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been working like crazy getting my book ready for publication, and laying all the groundwork to promote it. I coordinated with my 30 contributing authors to get their chapters polished and ready, I got the books designed, printed, and then shipped out to reviewers, and I’ve written dozens of guest posts to help spread the word.

Not to mention producing two video trailers, putting together a sweet launch offer, coordinating with reviewers… and doing everything I have to do as part of day-to-day client work.

All to say that I’m tired, and I could use a break.

And the book is done, launched last week – isn’t it time for me to be able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labor?

The prevailing wisdom states that our lives should follow a pattern that looks more or less like the one depicted to the right;

We choose a new goal – something that is important to us, that we’re willing to put time and energy into achieving.We work towards that goal. A lot. There are setbacks along the way, but we keep on trucking.We evaluate our success. As long as we haven’t achieved that goal, we buckle down and get back to work.Finally, we achieve the goal. Success! Victory! Now it’s time to reward ourselves with a vacation.

And of course, when we get back from vacation, it’s time to set a new goal, and start the whole cycle over again.

This is the prevailing wisdom, and according to the prevailing wisdom, I should be packing my bags right about now; after all, the book is published, the guest posts are written, the marketing is all done – in other words, the work has been completed, and the goal has been achieved.

Except that the prevailing wisdom is wrong, wrong, wrong. To understand why it’s wrong, we have to understand where it came from…

The prevailing wisdom comes from the corporate reality, and in that setting, the prevailing wisdom makes sense.

The job of managers in a corporate environment is to make sure that other people do theirs. To do that effectively, they have to do two things (in addition to giving clear instructions and allocating the actual work, of course):

Manage employees’ motivation. If employees aren’t motivated to get the job done, then they probably won’t. It’s the manager’s job to keep employees motivated to keep on working.Manage employees’ energy level. If employees are tired or burned out, then they won’t get much work done, either. It’s the manager’s job to manage workloads, and make sure that doesn’t happen.

Putting a vacation at the end of a project helps to achieve both of these objectives; it rewards employees for their hard work, which helps to keep them motivated, and it gives them an opportunity to recharge, so that they’re ready for more hard work when they get back.

But that logic doesn’t work if you’re running your own business, and in charge of your own income.

For one, you shouldn’t need a vacation to reward you for your hard work; the results of your hard work should be all the reward that you need. That’s the beauty of doing your own thing – at least part of the reason why you do it is that you love it, and find the work itself to be motivating.

(This intrinsic motivation is also why I believe that entrepreneurs are capable of doing so much more actual work than corporate employees; if you want to learn more about that, check out Dan Pink’s RSA Animate video about his book Drive.)

But even more importantly, because it doesn’t factor in two very important things: momentum, and the landscape of opportunity…

Momentum is a funny thing. You can’t touch it, or see it, but you can definitely feel it, and it can do wonderful things for your business. It is also the first big reason why you shouldn’t take a vacation after a big win.

Here are three basic rules for understanding momentum:

Wins create momentum.Action after a win multiplies momentum.Inaction dissipates momentum.

Simple enough, and pretty intuitive, right?

The upshot of these rules, though, is that after your big win, you should be doing everything that you can to ride and multiply the momentum, rather than taking a break and letting it dissipate.

There’s an even better reason to work after a big win, though: wins change everything.

Goals, by definition, are about changing something – if everything stayed exactly the same, then you wouldn’t have to work to achieve it. We have a lot of different kind of goals, but they all boil down to making us healthier, or happier, or better off. In other words, they’re about making our worlds a little bit better.

Better is good, but better is also different. It’s hard to change just one thing and leave everything else the same. Changing one thing changes everything. And when everything changes, new opportunities open up.

Now let me ask you, as an entrepreneur – when new opportunities are opening up, is it time to take a vacation, or is it time to seize those opportunities? Any entrepreneur worth his salt would say that it’s the latter – that’s just a part of the mindset that allows entrepreneurs to do what they do…

You know how when you start thinking about something, suddenly you start seeing it everywhere, as though you were “magnetically drawing it into your life”?

Some people call it “the secret” or the “law of attraction”, but I call it the “red Honda effect”. Thinking about something doesn’t magically draw it towards you, but it does focus your attention, so that you start noticing it around you (just like when you’re thinking about buying a red Honda, you start seeing them everywhere).

The same effect is at play when it comes to looking for opportunity. Just developing the mindset that opportunity is there, just waiting for you to find and seize it, will expand your frame of reference and allow you to see more possibilities.

(Want to read more about this? Check out Mindset by Carol Dweck, or Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson.)

Long story short? When things are going well, there’s always the opportunity to make them even better! :D Now, just to be clear, I’m not advocating the stereotype of the workaholic entrepreneur who never takes a break or vacation.

Entrepreneurs don’t need vacations to stay motivated, but we do need to manage our energy level, and vacations are a big part of that; it’s important for us to take breaks, breath some fresh air, and get some perspective on what we’re doing. In other words, even though we don’t need vacations as rewards, they’re great for resting and recharging – just so long as we don’t take one at a time that will take away our momentum, or kill an opportunity.

For an entrepreneur (or anyone who is in charge of their own income), vacations don’t come when projects are complete. On the contrary – they should come when the projects are still in progress, but you’re tired, and need to recharge to carry the ball the rest of the way:

Make sure not to skip the celebration box, because it’s important!

As the diagram indicates, our projects aren’t as nice and neat as the projects of a corporate employee, with a start, middle, end, and vacation before the next one. Our projects are messy, and blend into each other in a continuum of work and the pursuit of opportunity.

That’s great, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, but it’s also important to pause and celebrate the wins.

After the launch, my wife and I went out to a nice restaurant, and raised our glasses to toast my book finally being done and launched to the world.

But then the next day, I got back to work… ;)

What about you? Do you believe in a vacation after a big win, or do you agree that this is the time to look for new opportunities, and build on your momentum?

(Photo credit: Beach chair and umbrella from Shutterstock

Danny Iny (@DannyIny), a.k.a. the “Freddy Krueger of Blogging”, teaches marketing that works at Firepole Marketing. Together with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark and Mitch Joel, he wrote the book on building engaged audiences from scratch (available on Amazon, or as a free download).

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