Limit Screen Time, Limit Sitting

One of the hazards of our modern lifestyle is our tendency to become more and more addicted to staring at screens, and more and more sedentary.

We look at laptops and desktop computers, iPhones and Androids and iPads and iPods, TVs and movie screens, play video games, watch videos, surf the web, socialize online, work online. And we’re sitting the whole time.

I’m a victim of this as much as anyone else. My family and I are drifting toward this lifestyle, and while I’m no Luddite, I do believe that we should live less as victims and more consciously.

Too much screen time means less active time, less personal socializing, less focus on the present, less time for cooking healthy food, less time reading novels, painting, making music, making time for the ones you love. And too much sitting means fewer years on your life.

So what’s a better way?

Limits.

Limit how much screen time you have each day. Limit your sitting to short periods with breaks in between.

I realize that many people have jobs that require them to have a minimum amount of computer time, and probably mostly sitting. So I don’t recommend a certain number, only that you figure out a limit and work with that.

Though I’ve set limits for myself in the past, I’ll admit that they’ve eroded in recent months, so that my screen time has grown over time. And not just for me — for my wife and kids. So recently Eva and I set limits for ourselves, and we’ve been working with them.

We find them to be great. I find daily limits to be a better balance than going on week-long or month-long digital sabbaticals, which aren’t realistic for many people.

Here’s an example:

We set a limit of either 4 or 5 hours of total screen time a day. (We haven’t figured out what’s best yet, still experimenting.)That total is broken into 30-minute chunks. So if it’s 5 hours total, that’s 10 chunks of 30 minutes.At the start of a 30-minute chunk, I set a computer timer and put a tally mark on a text document, so I know how many chunks I’ve used today. When the bell rings, I close my laptop.After the 30-minute chunk, I take a break of at least 30 minutes. I try to get up and move, stretch, play with the kids, get outside. I also often read a novel. The moving is good for my body, and helps me to think.If I have things I want to look up online, or write online, I’ll just make a note of it and do it when I start my next 30-minute chunk.

This isn’t the only way to do it — you’ll have to find the limit that works for you, and the chunk size that works for you. But the idea is to set limits, and to break the total up into pieces so you’ll take breaks and do other things.

We’ve loved it: we’re reading more books, spending more personal time with each other and the kids, getting more chores done, exercising more, playing outside more.

It also means that because we have a limit, we have to figure out the best way to use that time. We have to make choices — what’s worthy of our limited time, and what isn’t? This means more conscious use of our time.

We haven’t instituted the limits with the kids yet, though we have been talking to them about it and getting them thinking about what would work best for them. And we do tell them to take breaks from devices throughout the day, so they’ll do other things.

For the kids, this has meant they have more unstructured, imaginative play, more reading, more art and music, more activity. Kids get addicted to screens just as much as adults do, and it’s not a healthy thing for them. We’re trying to teach them ways to live a healthy lifestyle, which is a lesson with lifelong benefits.

We’ve found this lifestyle to be healthier, better for relationships, better for our peace of mind. And to me, that means it’s something worth keeping.

More reading:

How to Limit Your Child’s Screen TimeReduce Screen TimeSetting Computer Limits

View the original article here

How to Stay Young…Even with Kids

People often feel their age once they become parents. Not only does the physical toll of childcare begin to wear down the body, but so does the emotional stress on the mind.

Left unchecked, this can gradually degenerate into an unfortunate physiological condition, often technically referred to as “Old & Cranky”. To avoid such a diagnosis and recapture the feeling of “young & hip”, here are three practical tips:

It is difficult to have fun playing with your children. How can it be “fun” when you are constantly interrupted with zillion questions while you are on your smartphone/Facebook complaining to another parent about the tedium of playing with your kids? However, have you ever really tried to “play” with them, at their level, seeing things through their perspective, empathise with the things that fascinate and frustrate them? Doing so will, of course, feel a little childish but isn’t that the whole point—to rescue yourself from “Old & Crankiness”?

In any case, isn’t finding the answer to your child’s question “why are some dogs’ poo white?” just as stimulating as responding to your friend’s question “Why did Celebrity X break up with Celebrity Y”? More importantly, adopting this attitude may actually put some real “fun” into your interaction with the children.

The most crucial prerequisite to this action is to get hold of a trustworthy babysitter—someone you feel comfortable leaving your precious children with once a week while you and your partner are out painting the town red. Labouring through a forced dinner at a fancy restaurant worrying about how they are at home does not qualify as painting the town red, nor does sitting through a poshy musical while texting the babysitter once every 10 minutes.

I am talking about really re-living the good ‘ol days when you were both young and spontaneous, knocking back cheap beers at an even cheaper pizzeria, fooling around at the back of a cinema with no clues about what is on the screen or just dancing (badly) the night away, laughing and jabbering about everything but the children.

Think back to a time in B.C. (Before Children) when you were truly passionate about something (watching TV doesn’t count), be it pursuits of physical (running, cycling), intellectual (chess, poker?) or even eccentric nature (stamp collecting, writing). Then recite the “story” that you automatically trot out in A.D. (After Descendents arrived) as to why you can no longer pursue these passions (no time, no money, no energy, etc).

Now, completely invalidate the “story” by resuscitating all the reasons that first attracted you to those old hobbies, or developing zeal for new ones. This simple act of igniting a passion in one area not only can add an extracurricular strand of excitement to your life, but also has the potential to diversify your mood away from being exclusively dictated by how well your work progresses during the week and how your children behave at the end of it.

If these tips make you sigh with trepidation because of the perceived efforts required, it is a sign that you are already at an advanced stage of the “Old & Cranky” ailment. Snap out of it and force yourself into these actions. While they may seem daunting at the beginning, the consequent benefits will be appreciated by, not just yourself, but also your partner and your children. As for those who already do these things (and more) as a matter of course, you should really be the one writing for Lifehack, suggesting further steps that people like me should take to feel more “lively and crazy”, even with kids who are livelier and crazier.

(Photo credit: Kite Flying via Shutterstock)

Brian works in the finance industry and does not profess to be either a productivity expert or an accomplished blogger. He is merely a father to two very energetic young boys, who has had to learn the importance of: military organisation, endless patience and, failing all that, sneaking away for a run.

View the original article here

Ghost image in my mind

Offbeat indie singer Charlotte Gainsbourg released a 2009 song about being fMRI brain scanned that even incoporated sounds from an actual scanner.

The track is called IRM, presumably because Gainsbourg is a French speaker and ‘magnetic resonance imaging’ in French is imagerie par résonance magnétique – which, by the way, is also the sound of a mysterious Parisian stranger whispering sweet nothings in your ear.

If you’re not familiar with what an MRI machine sounds like, listen out for the ‘buzz plus alien tractor beam’ sound in the song.

There is also what looks like an interesting error in the song. At one point she sings “Analyse EKG, Can you see a memory?”

As EKG usually refers to an electrocardigram – a measure of heart function – it’s unlikely she’ll see many memories there.

An EEG, on the other hand, measures electrical activity from the brain, and was probably what was intended.

Here’s the wonderfully poetic neuroscience lyrics in full:

Take a picture what’s inside
Ghost watching my mind
Neural pattern like a spider
Capillary to the centre

Hold still and press a button
Looking through a glass onion
Following the X-Ray eye
From the cortex to medulla

Analyse E K G
Can you see a memory
Register all my fears
On a flowchart disappear

Leave my head demagnetised
Tell me where the trauma lies
In the scan of pathogen
Or the shadow of my sin

The track is great by the way. MRI never sounded so hip.

Link to Charlotte Gainsbourg track IRM.

View the original article here

Applying the SOF Truths to Your Life and Business

The United States Special Operations Forces (SOF) consist of Army Special Forces Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Air Force Special Op Wings, Marine Special Ops Regiment and other units. The SOF truths were created over 25 years ago to guide special operations in strategic planning, planning missions, and everyday activities.

During my time as a Green Beret we made the SOF truths an important yardstick when we went about our operations. The SOF truths have much applicability in the business world and even your personal life.  Here are the SOF truths translated into general terms:

People, not technology or equipment make the difference. The right people, with the right training operating the right equipment will get er done.  On the other hand, spending money on technology will never make up for inexperienced or unmotivated people. There will always be a need for a hand on the joystick.

Invest in training for your business. Treat your people right and it will pay your investment back many fold. In your personal life, invest time in building relationships and even yourself. You can spend all the money in the world in technology but if you don’t take care of yourself, it will go to waste.

A small number of people, carefully selected, well trained, highly motivated are much more preferable to a large number of general forces who might not be up to the task.

Special Operations is all about doing things differently. Many of the operations use the principle of leverage.  Use a small amount of force to provide the impetus to get something much larger going. In business we are seeing small startups able to get business ideas off the ground quickly and profitably to market. Personally you want a small tight circle of quality friends, people who will give you spot on advice (even when it hurts) instead of a large number of distant apathetic acquaintances.

It takes years to recruit, train, and develop the level of proficiency in people required for these missions. It also years to develop the level of cohesion, esprit de corps and trust necessary for the units to become fully capable. You cannot speed up the process and expect the same results.

Yes it takes money to invest in your company. Training costs are not immediately recoverable. Yet when you need the skills, you often really need them. It also takes investment in the soft interpersonal skills and team building that are required when crisis occur. Finally when it looks bad, only time spent developing loyalty and trust will pay off and keep your employees from jumping ship. Same with your personal life. First it takes time to develop a group of friends you can count on. If you have a spouse or children, their belief and trust in you will come from action after action over time. You cannot expect them to instantly come to your side if you haven’t taken time to demonstrate you can be counted on.

It takes time to develop highly trained, proficient teams. You have to develop them before you need them.

As we talked about before, when you need people in your business and life to help you, most often you really need them at that particular moment. Do your preparation work beforehand.

The ability of SOF forces to execute their missions has never been without the assistance of normal forces. The other forces only serve to increase the effectiveness of SOF.

The lesson here is that you cannot do it all by yourself. Even if you develop the best teams in the world, you will need other skills and talents that do not exist on your team. Recognize and accept that. One pitfall that SOF has fallen into before is that of an air superiority, the idea that they were better than any of the rest of the military. Yes, they had special skills and talents. However, the air of superiority did not serve them well when they had to go and ask for help.

You will always need outside assistance. If that comes from your suppliers, your financiers, your customers, or maybe your neighbors. Approaching these partnerships with an air of cooperation and acceptance instead of superiority will go far in getting what you want accomplished, accomplished. Make sure you grow and develop these relationships.

While you may not be a Green Beret, Navy SEAL or Marine Force Recon, applying these truths will help you remember what is important in life and what you can do to make sure you are keeping track of the right things.

(Photo credit: Black Leather Army Boots and Bag via Shutterstock)

For 20 years, Michael Martel was a Green Beret in the US Army. He now works with select people to put Special Forces like effectiveness into their lives and businesses.  Go to his Amazon Author's Page and learn about his book Get ER Done: The Green Beret Guide to Productivity. His site Achieve the Green Beret Way has many other tools for achieving outstanding results.

View the original article here

Simplify.

‘In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.’ ~Henry David Thoreau

The tendency of life in our society is to become more complicated: Internet, television, shopping, work, family commitments, possessions, eating, debt … these things pile on top of each other endlessly.

This is a rather bad formula, as our days have a limited capacity, and so do we as humans. We can only do so much, only handle so many tasks and possessions and social commitments, and filling ourselves to those limits means we stress our breaking points.

It takes a bit of conscious effort to simplify, but it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever learned to do.

Simplify everything. That might sound hard, but with practice it’s actually fairly easy, and leads to a quiet, content, lovely life full of space, with only the things in it that matter to me: my family, my writing, with some reading and workouts thrown in.

So how do you simplify? As simply as possible.

Here are a few ways:

Block off some disconnected time. The Internet is amazing, but always being connected means you’re always pulled in a thousand directions at once. It’s hard to focus, hard to connect with others, hard to get out into nature and be active. So schedule some time every day for disconnection: maybe a block in the morning where you get your best work done, and a block in the afternoon when you get out and active, or connect with friends or family.Start eliminating commitments. List your commitments, and pick one to eliminate today. It’s a simple matter of making a call or sending an email explaining that you can’t do the commitment. Trust me, they’ll find a way to live without you. You’ll start to free up time for what’s more important to you.Start purging possessions. Every day, find 5 things to donate or give to friends. Or clear an entire shelf or countertop, leaving only the things you actually use, getting rid of the rest. Slowly your possessions will be simplified to just the essentials.Ban shopping for 30 days. You can do this. Don’t buy anything except the essentials (food, toiletries, basic supplies). If you think you really need it, put it on a list to be evaluated after the 30 days.Wash your bowl. When you’re done eating, mindfully wash your bowl. When you’re done with anything, get in the habit of pausing before moving onto the next thing, and cleaning up after yourself. Put your food away. Put your clothes where they belong. Put your keys in one spot. Clean the sink before you leave it. This simple habit will keep you mindful while saving you lots of cleanup later.Schedule time for what’s important. What’s most important to you? Your spouse or kids? Creating? Reading novels? Cooking, gardening, crafts, carpentry? Make the time for it.Get outdoors once a day. Too often we are stuck at a desk or on the couch. Get outside, take a walk, enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Go for a hike or a run with a friend. Play some sports. Run around and play tag with your kids. These simple activities will change your life.Eat some plants. Learn some simple recipes that incorporate super healthy foods you might not be eating: kale, spinach, broccoli, quinoa, berries, flaxseeds, lentils, avocados, black beans, squash, raw almonds and walnuts, garlic, turmeric, cayenne, cinnamon. These simple plants will make you strong like oxen.Drink tea. Green tea brewed from relatively fresh whole tea leaves is calming, healthy, and wonderful. A daily tea ritual keeps you grounded and mindful.

View the original article here

The Wisdom of Allowing Things to Happen

The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.
~The Daodejing

This has been what I’ve been learning over the past couple of years. Allowing things to happen.

It goes counter to our usual instincts in Western society — we are doers, creators of our destiny, we make things happen … we don’t wait for it to happen! That’s what I was taught from an early age, in school and by every motivational sports movie I ever watched. So allowing things to happen is not my normal way.

I have never been one to be passive, to let things happen instead of making them happen, to let go of control of things.

But here’s what I’ve been learning:

This control we think we have over our lives and our destinies … it’s an illusion. As the guy who had his life turned upside down by a heart attack, the woman who lost her father to death and had to drop everything, the family who lost their home to a hurricane, the entrepreneur that was doing well until the economy collapsed and no one was spending, the hard-working employee who was laid off when the economy tanked, the cyclist who was hit by a car, the car that skid because someone ran onto the road who had been obscured, the mom whose son has autism despite her doing everything right during pregnancy … it happens every day, where we think we’re in control but we’re really not. Do we control all the people around us who affect our lives so intimately? Do we control the overwhelming power of nature? There’s so much out of our control that what we think is control is really an illusion.To control your cow, give it a bigger pasture. This is a great quote from Zen Master Suzuki Roshi, talking about controlling your mind. I see the cow and her pasture as a form of allowing things to happen — instead of tightly controlling something, you’re opening up, giving it more room, a bigger pasture. The cow will be happier, will roam around, will do as she pleases, and yet your needs will also be met. The same is true of anything else — stepping back and allowing things to happen means things will take care of themselves, and your needs will also be met. And you’ve done no work.You have less stress, less to worry about. Imagine allowing things to happen naturally, and things work out, and all you did was smile and watch. You don’t have to worry about shaping things, about controlling something that doesn’t want to be controlled. You don’t have to push, and fix leaks, and put out fires. You just let things work on their own. They happen.Things will surprise you. Let’s say you’re allowing something to happen. You might want it to go a certain way, to a certain outcome. That’s your goal. But what if you let go of this idea? What if you say, “I don’t know what will happen.” (Btw, you really don’t.) What if you say, “Let’s see what happens.” Then things will happen, but not the way you planned. The outcome might be completely different than what you’d hoped for. But it can still be great, just different. It might even be wonderful, and surprising. Surprises are good, if we accept that things always change and that change is good.You learn how things work. Instead of trying to make things work the way you want them to work, just watch them work. You’ll learn much more about human nature, about the nature of the world, as you see things work without you controlling it. It might change you.

That’s all very good, Leo, you’re thinking. But that won’t put the food on my table.

Maybe you’re right. And so, don’t let me stop you from what you need to do. Carry on. I’ll just sit back and watch.

View the original article here

The Promises We Make to Ourselves

Each day offers us a new promise.  A new beginning. A chance to do better and be a better person at home, work, and everything else in between. We set goals for ourselves to accomplish.  It starts off good.

But then the kids wake up, the phone rings, the emails come through, Facebook and Twitter messages come in, a conference call occurs, lunch happens, client meetings, and then next thing you know, it’s dinner time. Time to relax. Sip a good cup of tea, a cup of coffee, wine (or whatever your choice might be), and then bedtime.  We then lay our head down on our pillow, look up in the dark room and think to ourselves:

“What did we really accomplish today? What happened to our promises to ourselves? Sure, we were busy, but did we get the right things done?  Did we forget or just talk ourselves out of our vision to do better today because we were too busy?”

In this post, I’ll share with you three ways to change this routine.

Keeping yourself accountable is one of the best ways to see measurable results.  Think of one to three things you want to do differently and write them down.  This is the “what”.  It could be anything at all, like I want to run a 5k, I want to learn how make sushi, I want to become a better public speaker, etc. From there, write down why this goal is important to you. It might seem foreign or bizarre, but it will feel good after you do it. Next, write down where you need to be in order to accomplish those things you wrote down (i.e., the gym, a community college course, at home, etc). Then, write down when you believe you can accomplish these things and jot down key milestones you want to accomplish along the way (i.e., rewarding yourself for finishing week 4 of an 8 week running course).  Be honest with yourself in your time commitments. Finally, and most importantly, write down how you are going to feel when you finish.  How will your spouse feel?  How will a business partner feel?  Knowing how you’ll feel is almost more important than knowing what you want to do because it enables you to clearly define the outcome.

Create a chart.  Nothing fancy.  In fact, make one that you can physically check off.  It will feel better!  On this chart, you’ll check off every day that you plan to accomplish this task.  For instance, if I promise myself I will run three times a week so that I can run a 5k, I will check off each time I do it.  When I get to week 4, I’ll have a place that shows I’ve accomplished a key milestone.  All too often we get caught up in “which app should I use” but I assure you, simple pen and paper will win here – and if you put it in a place that you will always see, it will help keep yourself accountable.

Each week, review the checkmarks on the chart.  Did you accomplish what you set out to do for that week?  What few things went right for you?  What challenges did you have?  What could have gone better or differently? What did you learn about yourself during this process?  Writing a log at the end of each week helps you to “think out loud” about the things that will help you.  When you successfully complete those one to three things (because you can!), reward yourself.  You’ve honored your commitments.  Write down how it feels and then compare that to what you wrote down in the beginning.  Do you feel the same? Better? Different?  How has your life changed, if any, as a result?

If you follow these three steps, each day won’t just be a chance to do better or become better … you will be better as a result! You will be able to go through the course of your day more confident, and when you rest your head on your pillow and look up in the dark room and think to yourself about what you accomplished during the day, you can smile and sleep better!

(Photo credit: Child with Raised hand Making a Promise via Shutterstock)

Author. Presenter. Consultant. Productivity Guru. I authored the eBook, "Evernote®: The unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done", which is sold in the Evernote Trunk and the Official Springpad eBook. My success can only follow yours!

View the original article here

Tynan’s Rules for Living

When the godfather of blogging tells you to write a post, you write that post.

Two days ago Leo and I were talking about habits and procrastination and things like that. I told him about a few of the rules I have for myself, and he said that I ought to write a blog post about it.

This morning I woke up to an email where he, again, told me that I should write a blog post about it. I’m not one to risk getting a horse’s head in my bed, so I’m writing the post. Actually, Leo’s vegan, so it would probably be a giant chunk of Tempeh. Still.

I find gray areas very difficult to work with. I think most people do. If I simply told myself to “eat healthier”, I would probably barely change my diet at all. However, when I give myself black and white rules, I follow them pretty well. The difference is that with black and white rules, you don’t have a thought process to go through– you just act. With gray areas you require yourself to think over every decision, opening the window to excuses.

Following is a sample of the rules I follow. It’s not a complete list, but you should get the idea.

1. When you say you’re going to do something, do it. I believe that without his word, a man is nothing. This rule applies to things I tell others I will do as well as things I tell myself I’ll do.

2. Don’t lie, don’t exaggerate, don’t withhold information, don’t mislead. This rule exists mainly because it affects my performance in every day life. If I know that whatever I do will be related with perfect fidelity to others, I do it better. It also allows me to show proper respect to the people in my life. The one exception is authority figures who have the power to enforce rules but make them. For example, I might lie to a police officer to try to get out of a speeding ticket.

3. Show up on time, always. This rule is pretty recent, maybe a year or so. I’ve decided that when I commit to being somewhere at a particular time, I will always be there at exactly that time. The trick is to just get there five minutes early every single time and wait. It’s a very very minor inconvenience in return for being much more reliable.

4. No sugar, refined grains. I do cheat days every week or two, either when traveling or when it’s the polite thing to do around other people. I used to skip Christmas dinner and make my own food, but now I’ll use that as a cheat day and eat with my family.

5. Walk out of movies, stop reading books, leave parties. If I’m participating in some sort of entertainment and I realize that it’s not going to be worth the additional time spent, I leave. The fact that I paid $10 and watched half of the movie is irrelevant. The real decision at hand is: how do I want to spend the next hour of my life.

6. Computer is off at midnight. The only real exception to this would be if by not doing so I would break rule #1 to other people. If I told myself I was going to do something but wouldn’t be able to by shutting off the computer, I consider that to be good punishment for not getting it done earlier.

7. Listen to people. I used to be bad at this and I hate it when people don’t pay attention in conversation. So when I have a conversation with someone, I make sure I’m really listening and not just waiting for my turn to speak. Sounds basic, but I’d say 50% of people don’t do it.

8. Do the right thing, even if it comes at personal cost. I have a very strong set of morals, which aren’t necessarily totally congruent with everyone else’s, but I defend them and keep them strong by living by them as closely as I can. For example, the story I wrote a couple weeks ago about the Vegas poker chip.

9. Only wear wool. Wool is a better fabric than cotton in just about every way. It’s warmer when it’s cold, breathes well when it’s warm, dries faster and feels drier when wet, absorbs far less odor, etc. Anything that touches my skin directly (shirt, pants, underwear, socks, hat, etc) is wool.

10. Only wear thin soled shoes. It’s better for your feet and joints. I wear invisible shoe sandals and vibram five fingers.

11. When buying things, buy the best or something temporary and disposable. If the purchase is replacing something (and given how minimalist I am, it pretty much always is), it should be smaller and lighter than whatever it replaced. I like high quality items that retain their value well, and I like making my traveling easier. I might sometimes buy something that’s a tiny bit heavier, but overall my backpack has gotten smaller and lighter every year. If it doesn’t make financial sense to buy the best, I invest the smallest amount of money possible in a temporary fix. In other words, I would buy a $9 Casio or a $1000+ Rolex, but never a $100 Seiko.

12. Do things other people aren’t doing. This one is more of a heuristic than a rule, but I include it because it defines so many of my decisions. When making a choice, I will greatly favor the unknown over the known. I feel like this is how you contribute to society, even if it’s in a very small way.

13. Always be learning something. I always have at least one learning project going on at all times. Right now it’s Violin. Soon I’ll be as good as I want to be (able to play one full Mozart song poorly), and I will move on to either Chinese or Japanese.

14. Never have debt. I would suffer way before having debt. That doesn’t mean I won’t borrow $20 from a friend if I forget my wallet, but I would never finance anything other than a house, and only then because I can get a higher return on my money than a mortgage would charge me.

15. Always have a one year buffer of money. Through the years I’ve managed to save up enough to support myself fully for a year (in my RV, cooking my own food). I invest my money buffer to grow it, but I wouldn’t spend it on anything other than living expenses if needed. I do this not because I’m cautious, but because it gives me the freedom to choose how I spend my time, and thus take risks.

Find more from Tynan about living an independent, minimalist lifestyle (and more) at Tynan.com.

View the original article here

Investing

Another way to earn passive income is through investing. I’ve already mentioned real estate investing, but of course you can also generate income from many other types of investments such as owning stock in a company or earning interest with a certificate of deposit.

Investments can pay off with interest, dividends, and capital gains. Depending on the current tax laws and how much you’re earning, your investment gains may also be subjected to lower taxes than other forms of income, partly because governments want to encourage more economic growth.

Here are some general assessments to make with regards to different investments:

Facts – What are the specific details of the investment? For businesses this is called fundamental analysis. Look at the current state of the business, including its physical property, technology, intellectual property, cash, cashflow, debt, and industry conditions. This helps you evaluate the investment relative to other potential investments.

Performance – If this is a pre-existing investment, you can look at its past performance. While past performance can’t predict the future accurately, it’s an indicator of where things are headed. Technical analysis is an approach to investing that looks at past performance metrics to assess the likelihood that an investment will increase in value.

Risk – How risky is the investment? Does it seem fairly stable, or has it been experiencing high volatility?

Return – What is the expected rate of return? Do you anticipate a reasonable payoff relative to your investment and the perceived risk?

Control – How much control do you personally wield over this investment? If you buy common stock in a company, you may be able to exert a small degree of influence as a stockholder. If you sit on the Board of Directors, you can exert more influence. And if you’re the CEO, you can exert even more influence. This is a mixed blessing. More control means you have more abilities to steer your investments, but it also means you bear more responsibility if things go south.

Impact – Are you investing to make as much money as possible, or are you responsibly contributing through your investments? Where you invest your money, time, and energy will impact how you feel about yourself as well as how you influence the overall economy. Will you invest in weapons, junk food, soda, drugs, oil drilling, cosmetics, banking, entertainment, gambling, pesticides, cigarettes, factory farming, etc? If you put money in an S&P 500 index fund, you’re supporting all of these things and more. See for yourself where your money is going.

I tend to put a lot of weight on that last factor when considering investments. For this reason I even regard charitable donations as a form of investment. I may not see a financial return from those outlays, but I can still contribute to the impact.

If you try to invest from a place that doesn’t align with your values, you’ll probably end up sabotaging yourself. In the past I owned some mutual funds, but I dumped them many years ago. I prefer not to directly support companies like Monsanto, McDonald’s, and Philip Morris in pursuing goals that seem so out of alignment with my values.

My favorite places to invest are: (1) in my own personal growth, and (2) in my own business. Investing in personal growth means paying for growth-inducing experiences like books, audio programs, courses, seminars, coaching, training, travel, and more — anything that helps you grow. See The Best Place to Invest Your Money for details. Investing in a business that you own can help make the business more stable, so you can enjoy passive income from it for years or decades to come.

Some people confuse trading with long-term investing. Trading is closer to active income, whereby you buy and sell quickly and repeatedly, making gains on these exchanges. Even if you do well with trading, your income stops when you aren’t actively working. Long-term investing is a more passive approach, whereby you do most of your work up front to select good investments, then (hopefully) watch them increase in value with minimal maintenance on your part. If you’re checking on a stock price every day, that isn’t particularly passive.

While the admonition “it takes money to make money” can apply to investing, there’s still plenty of room for people who can skillfully invest other people’s money, sharing in the gains. Whether you have money to invest or not, some degree of skill is important, either skill at picking investments or at picking investment advisors. These skills can of course be developed over time, regardless of your starting point.

I can’t personally advise you much on becoming a pro investor since it hasn’t been a serious interest of mine. I feel it’s important to mention it in this series for the sake of thoroughness, but if this is your preferred vehicle, you’ll need to seek out other resources for more specific help.

The main contribution I want to make here is to encourage you to think carefully about the long-term impact of your investments on the world as a whole. You’ll find it much easier to invest in alignment with your values since you won’t be fighting a part of yourself (i.e. less self-sabotage). The good news is that there’s still plenty of money to be made from intelligent investments that create positive ripples for others. There’s no need to settle for harmful investments that violate your values and leave you feeling conflicted and incongruent.

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Site Build It! - Start your own money-making website
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose

If you've found Steve's work helpful, please donate to show your support.
Follow Steve on Twitter  -  Add Steve on Google+  -  Get Steve's Free newsletter

View the original article here

An Abdominal Workout Plan to Help You Build Strong, Flat Abs

Do you feel frustrated because you can’t build strong, flat abs no matter how many crunches or leg raises you perform? You’re not alone. I receive emails from guys and girls every day who do ab exercises constantly without getting the results they desire.

This article makes the often elusive flat, strong abs a thing of the past. That’s because I’ve cracked the code and figured out what exercises really work. Give this abdominal workout plan a try for yourself and after a few weeks you will find your abs are flatter and stronger than ever before.

Many people think that the only functions of the abdominal muscles are to crunch your chest toward your knees and raise your legs upward. This is why exercises like crunches, leg raises, and sit ups are so popular. The main problem with this is that these are just a few of the ways your abs work. Another, perhaps bigger issue is that these exercises train the muscles of your hips more than anything else.

In reality your ab muscles have several functions. They are to stabilize your spine, absorb force, flex and extend the trunk, and twist from the waist. A great abdominal workout plan is therefore one that uses exercises that work your abs in each of these ways. Since they are like any other muscle, you need to train them using enough resistance to force them to recover and grow stronger. This means sets of 5-12 reps. Anything else is a waste of time.

Before you proceed be forewarned. Don’t expect to find any crunches or situps in the workout below. I’ve instead included exercises that work your abs and the rest of your body in a more functional manner. Trust me, you’ll feel your abs are being trained 100% every workout. The results will speak for themselves.

You should do this abdominal workout plan 3 times a week. I prefer doing it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This allows for enough time to rest, recover, and grow between workouts.

You will be alternating between 2 workouts, labeled A and B. Each are listed below along with an example as to how it’s performed.

Ab Workout A

Alternating Kettlebell SwingsKettlebell Front Squats1 Arm Kettlebell RowResistance Band Push Ups (only use resistance bands if you can do more than 10 regular push ups)Farmers WalksMedicine Ball Side Throws

Ab Workout B

Alternate between A and B workouts at every session. I’ve listed how this will be performed for the first 4 weeks. After 4 weeks of training this way you can start a new workout or begin again with workout A.

Week One
Monday: Workout A
Wednesday: Workout B
Friday: Workout A

Week Two
Monday: Workout B
Wednesday: Workout A
Friday: Workout B

Week Three
Monday: Workout A
Wednesday: Workout B
Friday: Workout A

Week Four
Monday: Workout B
Wednesday: Workout A
Friday: Workout B

Sets and Reps
Here are the sets and reps you will do for each exercise every week. Start with a weight that you can do for the prescribed number of repetitions with good technique.

Every workout is to be performed as a circuit. Working out this way will help you burn more calories from stored body fat which will make your abs visible faster. You’ll do every exercise one after the other with no rest between each. Rest 2-5 minutes between each circuit.

Week 1: 3 circuits per workout. Perform 8 reps per exercise.Week 2: 3 circuits per workout. Increase the weight used on exercises you can do 10 times.Week 3: 4 sets for each exercise. Perform 8 reps per exercise.Week 4: 4 sets for each exercise. Increase the weight used on exercises you can do 10 times.Week 5: 5 sets for each exercise. Perform 8 reps per exercise.Week 6: 5 sets for each exercise. Increase the weight used on exercises you can do 10 times.

Since these are total body workouts you’ll find that you build muscle and get stronger throughout the rest of your body too. The only equipment you’ll need are a kettlebell, medicine ball, and resistance bands. You can substitute barbells and dumbbells if necessary.

After performing this workout for 4-6 weeks you can switch to a new program with a new focus. I recommend always including at least a few of the exercises from this workout in your programs to ensure your abs are always being trained properly.

While this abdominal workout plan will build flat abs that are stronger than ever, you have to eat right to get them to look the way you want. Dieting to lose fat doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply cutting our flour and sugar rich foods alone will help you obtain visible abs.

I recommend reading 3 Hacks To Help You Lose 10 Pounds In 21 Days for detailed tips to help you lose excess body fat.

Studies show that getting enough sleep is critical to keeping belly fat off too.

Now you know the right way to work out to build strong, lean, and functional abdominal muscles. All that’s left is for you to give it a try. Once you do I guarantee that you’ll never feel the need to perform another crunch, leg raise, or sit up.

(Photo credit: Man Showing Six-Pack with Woman via Shutterstock)

Curt is the founder of Stayfitcentral.com, a website that helps people build the body they deserve. Get a free copy of this eBook Fat Loss Confidential for cutting-edge diet and workout tips that will help you lose fat and get into great shape fast.

View the original article here

Free Audio on Goals, Life Purpose, and Relationships

Last week I shared a free audio program from Hale Dwoskin, author of The Sedona Method. Several thousand people have already listened to it, so it’s been pretty popular. I’m happy to say that Hale created another free audio on goals, life purpose, and relationships, and this one is free as well. It’s under 22 minutes, so it won’t take long to listen to it.

You can listen to both of these free audio here: Sedona Method – Free Audios

Today I replaced the Flash-based audio player with an HTML5 one, so now these audio programs can be played on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Previously people using those devices would have gotten a message saying that Flash had to be installed, but iStuff doesn’t currently support Flash.

I tested the new player on my iPhone and iPad, and it worked great.

You can also download the audio files if you want to listen to them later or if you’d like to save copies for yourself. Feel free to share them with others as well, such as by using the social media buttons on that page.

When I shared the first audio with you last week, I mentioned that I’d started going through the Sedona Method Supercourse, which includes 20 CDs worth of material. I finished CD 11 yesterday (as well as doing the accompanying workbook exercises), so I’m more than halfway through it now.

This program has also made me aware of just how much depth there is to the Sedona Method. When I first learned about it, I thought it was just one simple technique for releasing negative emotions, but now I can see that there’s much more to it and so many different ways to apply it.

The basic aim of these methods is to help you release both attachment and resistance to experiencing what you desire, so your desires can flow into your life more easily. Hale (often humorously) explains that wanting is not the same as having… and why having is quite a bit better.

I especially enjoyed the module on success and abundance, which includes some very beneficial exercises and a unique approach to goal achievement, including a new way to think about to-do lists — and why traditional lists can induce procrastination when you actually try to take action.

Even though I still have 9 CDs worth of material to go, it’s a no-brainer to recommend this course for anyone who wants to attract and enjoy what they desire with less effort and resistance.

If this course interests you, you can get it for a 46% discount off the regular price.

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Site Build It! - Start your own money-making website
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose

If you've found Steve's work helpful, please donate to show your support.
Follow Steve on Twitter  -  Add Steve on Google+  -  Get Steve's Free newsletter

View the original article here

BBC Future column: Why we love to hoard

Here’s last week’s column from BBC Future. The original is here. It’s not really about hoarding, its about the endowment effect and a really lovely piece of work that helped found the field of behavioural economics (and win Daniel Kahneman a Nobel prize). Oh, and I give some advice on how to de-clutter, lifehacker-style.

Question: How do you make something instantly twice as expensive?

Answer: By giving it away.

This might sound like a nonsensical riddle, but if you’ve ever felt overly possessive about your regular parking space, your pen, or your Star Wars box sets, then you’re experiencing some elements behind the psychology of ownership. Our brains tell us that we value something merely because it is a thing we have.

This riddle actually describes a phenomenon called the Endowment Effect. The parking space, the pen and the DVDs are probably the same as many others, but they’re special to you. Special because in some way they are yours.

You can see how the endowment effect escalates – how else can you explain the boxes of cassette tapes, shoes or mobile phones that fill several shelves of your room… or even several rooms?

No trade

To put a scientific lens on what’s going on here, a team led by psychologist Daniel Kahneman carried out a simple experiment. They took a class of ordinary University students and gave half of them a University-crested mug, the other half received $6 – the nominal cost of the mug.

Classic economics states that the students should begin to trade with each other. The people who were given cash but liked mugs should swop some of their cash a mug, and some of the people who were given mugs should swop their mugs for some cash. This, economic theory says, is how prices emerge – the interactions of all buyers and sellers finds the ideal price of goods. The price – in this case, of mugs – will be a perfect balance between the desires of people who want a mug and have cash, and the people who want cash and have a mug.

But economic theory lost out to psychology. Hardly any students traded. Those with mugs tended to keep them, asking on average for more than $5 to give up their mug. Those without mugs didn’t want to trade at this price, being only willing to spend an average of around $2.50 to purchase a mug.

Remember that the mugs were distributed at random. It would be weird if, by chance, all the “mug-lovers” ended up with mugs, and the “mug-haters” ended up without. Something else must be going on to explain the lack of trading. It seems the only way to understand the high-value placed on the mugs by people who were given one at random is if the simple act of being given a mug makes you value it twice as highly as before.

This is the endowment effect, and it is the reason why things reach a higher price at auctions – because people become attached to the thing they’re bidding for, experiencing a premature sense of ownership that pushes them to bid more than they would otherwise. It is also why car dealers want you to test drive the car, encouraging you in everyway to think about what it would be like to possess the car. The endowment effect is so strong that even imagined ownership can increase the value of something.

Breaking habits

The endowment effect is a reflection of a general bias in human psychology to favour the way things are, rather than the way they could be. I call this status quo bias, and we can see reflections of it in the strength of habits that guide our behaviour, in the preference we have for the familiar over the strange or the advantage the incumbent politician has over a challenger.

Knowing the powerful influence that possession has on our psychology, I take a simple step to counteract it. I try to use my knowledge of the endowment effect to help me de-clutter my life. Perhaps this can be useful to you too.

Say I am cleaning out my stuff. Before I learnt about the endowment effect I would go through my things one by one and try to make a decision on what to do with it. Quite reasonably, I would ask myself whether I should throw this away. At this point, although I didn’t have a name for it, the endowment effect would begin to work its magic, leading me to generate all sorts of reasons why I should keep an item based on a mistaken estimate of how valuable I found it. After hours of tidying I would have kept everything, including the 300 hundred rubber bands (they might be useful one day), the birthday card from two years ago (given to me by my mother) and the obscure computer cable (it was expensive).

Now, knowing the power of the bias, for each item I ask myself a simple question: If I didn’t have this, how much effort would I put in to obtain it? And then more often or not I throw it away, concluding that if I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t want this.

Let this anti-endowment effect technique perform its magic for you, and you too will soon be joyously throwing away things that you only think you want, but actually wouldn’t trouble yourself to acquire if you didn’t have them.

And here’s the thing… it works for emails too. If someone sends me a link to an article or funny picture, I don’t think “I must look at that”, I ask “If I hadn’t just been sent this link, how hard would I endeavour to find out this information for myself?”. And then I delete the email, thinking that however fascinating that article on the London sewerage system sounds or that funny picture of a cat promises to be, I didn’t want them before the email was in my possession, so I probably don’t really want them now.

That’s my tip for managing my clutter. If you have any others, let me know.

View the original article here

Do You Take Yourself Too Seriously?

It’s difficult to take yourself seriously in a world where certain celebrities literally make millions of dollars a year by simply living their lives in such a manner that they provide frequent fodder for tabloid magazines. But then again, who says you have to take yourself too seriously? I think that many of us get in our own way sometimes by taking ourselves too seriously. Perhaps you take your job title too seriously, or maybe your hobbies you take too seriously? In one way or another, I think most of us are guilty of this.

It can be difficult to make progress when you are taking yourself too seriously. Let’s say that you’re a manager, and you spend all of your time micro-managing. When are you going to get your own work done? Are you working 70 hours a week, and blaming it on others, when you could be working 40-50 hours a week if you stopped taking yourself so seriously and micro-managing people who may in fact be perfectly capable of doing their jobs without your micro-management? Sometimes we simply stand in our own way, and I think that many of those times, it comes out of taking ourselves too seriously.

The Internet is full of people who take themselves too seriously. Just look around. You don’t have to wander far to find people arguing on someone’s Facebook wall or arguing in the comments section of a blog and so on. And that leads us to the #1 problem for a person who takes himself or herself too seriously:

You’re not open to advice, differing perspectives, or opposing opinions.

That might be okay if you’re the world’s leading authority on the subject matter in which you take so seriously, or even if you’re merely a renowned expert or perhaps an author on the subject. Let’s say, you know, just for the sake of argument… that you’re not. Shouldn’t you then be open to advice from those who are? What makes you think that you know better than them? For that matter, shouldn’t you be willing to listen to, acknowledge, and respect others’ opinions and perspectives?

Of course you should, but that’s a pretty tough thing to do when you take yourself too seriously that you’re arguing with someone in the comments section of a video on YouTube. And let’s not even talk about that Twitter war you had last week with the guy who said that Avatar is a terrible movie.

Think about conversations that you hear every day. A person is having a conversation about how delicious a new recipe that they tried last night was when in walks Mrs. Know-It-All, who immediately dismisses that recipe and offers up one that is “much better” which (of course) she also claims that she created (one simple Google search will probably prove that to be a fallacy).

Or the mild-mannered man excitedly telling a co-worker that he bowled 147 the night before, when suddenly Mr. Quasi-Alpha Male of the office loudly intrudes on the conversation to announce that he bowled 300 two nights in a row last summer (a story that everyone in the office has now heard at least a dozen times, and naturally, there are no witnesses). Everybody knows that guy. He’s the 40-something who was bald on top by age 28 with a beer gut the size of Texas who will bet you his mobile home and his ’89 Ford Mustang that he’s still the best athlete in town (nothing personal, Mr. Quasi-Alpha Male – you have a special place in, er…our hearts).

On one hand, it can be challenging to be passionate about something without taking it so seriously that you turn into one of the villainous people in the above examples. On the other hand, look at how those people come off. Do you really want to be like them?

If not, then I highly suggest that you take a close look at yourself and determine any areas in which you could be potentially taking yourself too seriously. When you isolate those areas, learn to lighten up over those things lest you behave like Mrs. Know-It-All or Mr. Quasi-Alpha Male the next time one of those topics comes up.

(Photo credit: One Man with Two Faces in the Mirror via Shutterstock)

Josh Bell writes about personal development at his website, including topics such as time management and goal setting. Grab your free copy of his motivational e-book from his website, and follow him on Twitter @joshbellblog.

View the original article here

Free Audio – Why You Aren’t Achieving Your Goals

Hale Dwoskin, author of The Sedona Method, has created another free audio to share with you called Why You Aren’t Achieving Your Goals… and What to Do About It.

Hale’s previous audios have received more than 10,000 listens so far, so there’s been a lot of interest in them.

You can listen to these free audios here: Sedona Method – Free Audios

I’m continuing to listen to the Sedona Method Supercourse on my own, and I’ve been having some interesting realizations along the way.

I especially appreciate Hale’s distinctions between wanting and having. As I went through one of the exercises, I realized that I was distracted by something I was thinking about buying. When the new iPads came out in March, I considered buying one but figured my original iPad was still good enough, so I didn’t get a new one.

But as I would continue to use my old iPad, I kept having thoughts like, I’ll bet this ebook would look really nice on that new retina display, and It would be nice if I had something faster and more responsive, so I didn’t have to wait as long for apps and pages to load, and It would be really nice to dictate this email instead of typing it.

But I dismissed those thoughts as justifications for something I didn’t need. A new iPad is an extravagance I can live without, I told myself.

I also thought that I might justify getting a new iPad by giving my old one to my kids, who love using it for games and YouTube videos when they’re at my house. But of course that’s just an excuse to get something I don’t need, came the mental reply to myself.

But I can easily afford it.

Yes, but you don’t need it, so you shouldn’t have it.

But I think I would use it a lot.

You can use the old one. It’s fine.

I can’t have it just because I want it?

No, you can’t. You need a better reason than that. But any reason you propose would be invalid, so don’t bother trying to convince me.

As I did the Sedona Method exercise, I observed and released many thoughts related to attachment, resistance, and justification with respect to a seemingly simple purchase decision. As I did this, I could even hear my Mom’s voice when I was a kid, saying, “Awww, you don’t really need that,” as we left a store empty handed. I realized I had a good deal of conditioning from early childhood that said, You can’t have what you want. You don’t need it.

It only took about 10 minutes to unearth and release this emotional programming. Afterwards I put the decision aside for a day or two. Then I took a fresh look at my interest in a new iPad. I decided that if I still wanted one, I would get one. And if I saw that I didn’t really want one, then I would let it go and be content with what I had.

And if I wanted one and got one, there would be no need to justify the purchase, seek approval, or ask permission.

Once I got that emotional programming out of the way, my thoughts on the matter shifted. Instead of wrestling with the emotional aspects of the decision, I became more curious. I went to Apple’s website and looked at the features of the new iPad. I considered whether it would be a worthwhile and practical purchase based on my expected usage patterns. I talked to Erin about giving the kids the old iPad and asked if she felt they could share it fairly. I went about making the decision on more logical grounds, no longer so influenced by past emotional programming.

I no longer felt a strong emotional attachment to having a new iPad, nor did I feel any emotional resistance to getting one. Overall I felt pretty neutral about it, like how I might feel if I was deciding which stapler to buy.

In a fairly short period of time, I concluded that yes, this would be a sensible purchase, and I went out and bought one that day. I’ve been using it for a few days now, and I can see that this was a good purchase for me. I’m using it every day, I appreciate the higher quality display (much easier on the eyes), and the faster processor delivers a nice speed improvement in app launching and page loading. I don’t really care about the camera or some of the other features, but overall I’m content with the decision.

Now when I’m using the new iPad, I don’t feel distracted by emotional programming telling me what I can or can’t have. I simply use it.

This may seem like a fairly basic example, but it was still pretty eye-opening for me to experience the difference between wanting and having and to see how unconscious patterns were keeping me stuck. It’s good to know that those old patterns can be released — and without having to replace them with anything in particular. You can just let go of those old patterns, using effective techniques like those in the Sedona Method. Instead of being knocked around by emotional triggers, you can approach decision-making more sensibly and get out of your own way.

Incidentally, your past programming may be very different than mine, so you may even disagree with my decision, which is fine. I have no attachment to your approval or disapproval over this choice. But if this story triggered any emotional responses in you as you read it, take note that these reactions are coming from patterns stored in your mind, not from the story itself. The story is just a story and has no inherent meaning; if it meant something to you, then you’d surely benefit from releasing some of that conditioning since it can and will affect your behavior, such as by creating unnecessary obstacles for you when you try to pursue a larger goal.

Hale is right about one thing: Having is better than wanting. It’s more peaceful, productive, and intelligent to have an experience instead of wanting it, especially if it’s fairly accessible. It’s good to let go of attachment to false desires for experiences you don’t really want, but if you release that attachment and still observe the desire — this time as a more practical intention as opposed to an emotional trigger — then you might as well go get it instead of vacillating over whether you should or shouldn’t… could or couldn’t… would or wouldn’t…

Note that if this course sounds interesting to you, you can still get it for a 46% discount off the regular price.

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Sedona Method - Free Audio - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Site Build It! - Start your own money-making website
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Life on Purpose - Discover your life purpose

If you've found Steve's work helpful, please donate to show your support.
Follow Steve on Twitter  -  Add Steve on Google+  -  Get Steve's Free newsletter

View the original article here

Projecting Nabokov

American Scholar has an excellent article on the use of psychology in the novels of Vladimir Nabokov – most famous as the author of Lolita.

As is now standard for literary criticism the article includes lots of florid prose and a spurious reference to ‘mirror neurons‘, but get past the flouncing and it’s a brilliant look at perhaps the most psychologically engaged author of the 20th century.

It’s not just that Nabokov’s novels are beautifully observed, insightful and run through with references to psychological theory, but also that he was a fierce combatant in the ‘Freud wars’:

Famously, Nabokov could not resist deriding Freud. And for good reason: Freud’s ideas were enormously influential, especially in Nabokov’s American years, but his claims were hollow. Nobel laureate Peter Medawar, perhaps the greatest of science essayists, declared in his book Pluto’s Republic, in terms akin to Nabokov’s, that Freudianism was “the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century.” Nabokov saw the intellectual vacuity of Freudian theory and its pervasiveness in the popular and the professional imagination. He thought it corrupted intellectual standards, infringed on personal freedom, undermined the ethics of personal responsibility, destroyed literary sensitivity, and distorted the real nature of childhood attachment to parents–the last of which has been amply confirmed by modern developmental psychology.

Cynics, and especially cynics of a Freudian persuasion, might suggest that if you’ve written a novel about paedophilia, the last thing you’d want is people probing your unconscious motivations and so Nabokov’s objections could be understood as a form of projection.

Others might suggest, and especially those of a non-Freudian persuasion, that orthodox psychoanalysis needs to inspire no other motivation in its critics as it is so patently ridiculous that it doesn’t even make good farce.

Actually, Freud wrote so widely, revised his ideas, contradicted himself, hit on genuine insights, and shamelessly embarrassed himself, all in equal measure, that to say you are ‘for’ or ‘against’ Freud is like saying you are ‘for’ or ‘against’ the Greek classics.

Link to article on Nabokov as psychologist (via @ferrisjabr)

View the original article here

Your Best Weapons Against Buying Crap You Don’t Need

I’ll admit it, but will you?

I get impulsive about buying that “thing”.

That new awesome thing that’s ten times better than the last awesome thing. You know, the crap I’ll regret buying the day after the return policy is up.

Why is that?

And why do we feel this way so often?

They don’t want you to know…but I do.

They are the advertisers.

The slick, ever-present advertisers planting messages in your mind that you want need what they’re selling.

I’m not against honest advertising that’s up front about its goals, reason for placement, and biases. But it seems like these don’t exist anymore.

It was more than enough when ads were just in commercials, magazines, and random web pages. But then they penetrated screen time before movies started.

And now they’re on gas pump handles, airplane tray tables, inside restrooms at bowling alleys, and floors at supermarkets.

Bad news for them though. You have weapons that they can’t defend against. Here’s how you use them.

You can’t avoid all 5,000+ ads you’re exposed to every day. And I can’t stop drug companies from spending over $60 billion on ads every year.

But we can use these simple tools to significantly reduce the number and impact.

Shut the sources off. You’re always one mute button, flip of the radio dial, or Readability app away from avoiding an ad. Do it for the benefits of silence if preventing their pocketbook infiltration isn’t enough. A few moments avoiding an ad is worth preventing their ability to make us spend money on things we don’t need (or want).Ads Complicate. Confucius said, “Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Ads are a big part of making life more complicated. And who wants more unexplained, uncontrolled complication? Appreciate the bounty of what you already own, eat, or drive instead of what you may be missing out on. When you’re tempted by a slick ad, just tell your brain, “Hey, brain. My life is plenty rich as is. You don’t need that.”Technology giveth ads…and taketh away. Technology will always come up with new ways to create and spread ads. Fortunately, technology also comes up with new ways to stop them. Use Adblock Plus for an annoyance-free online experience. And use PaperKarma to snap a picture of junk mail with your phone…and then never see mail from that vendor again.

Once you’ve mastered beginner mode you’ll probably want to level up to expert mode. Here are some awesome mind tricks and Jedi level tools to break an advertiser’s strangle hold on our spending habits.

Give these a whirl and experience some major ad-fighting super powers.

Political Ads Have More Truth Than Corporate Ads. For every time a politician or their support groups lie in an ad, there are a hundred corporations telling even bigger lies. The deception of cigarette companies, drug companies, and weight loss companies is just the start. If you don’t trust political ads then there’s no reason to trust ads from corporations. Anyone who says differently is probably trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on you.Define Why You Buy. People buy because it brings them more happiness, love, and freedom or less pain, stress, and worry. Describe what desired outcome will be achieved when you feel the urge to buy. If you can’t explain it, odds are the advertisers got to you again. Don’t feel bad. They do it to everyone. But take this as a sign there’s an external force influencing you without your best interests in mind.You’re Not a “Consumer.” You exist to do much more than consume. Stop thinking of yourself as a “consumer” and don’t worry about doing your part to “stimulate the economy.” The labels we apply to ourselves define who we are and why we do what we do. Ditch the consumer label and with it, ditch having someone else mold you into a person you’d rather not be.Cultivate Selective Ignorance. Man, it sure is sweet to have the newest and coolest thing out there, right? But at what cost? Your urge to buy the latest, shiniest thing decreases in correlation with your awareness that there’s something better out there. Reducing time spent learning about the latest fashion craze and technology gadget (and the ad campaigns alongside them) does wonders for controlling your appetite for more. Ignorance really is bliss to fight purchases you don’t need.Instant Information. When you realize you need widget X for project Y, you’re only one Google search, text, phone call, or social media question away from finding the best solution. Yes, you already have all the tools to find out who sells it and how you can get it. Remind me again why ads need to exist these days?

Even when advertising isn’t “helping” us buy things we don’t need, it has a dubious impact on our worldview and our values. And this doesn’t even account for the shudder-inducing effects of ads on children. It takes a little work to mobilize against its impact but it can be done.

So use one or more of these tools today and start enjoying a life free of unwanted influences. You’ll be happier and have a healthier relationship with money when you do.

Which of these tools are you going to use today? And are there ones you use as a secret weapon against advertising’s impacts? Please share a comment below, even if it’s just a short blurb.

(Photo credit: Shopping Cart on Screen via Shutterstock)

Joel Zaslofsky is the architect of the free Personal User Guide, allowing you to celebrate and share what makes you tick. When he’s not enjoying nature or chasing his son around the house, he’s creating actionable content at Value of Simple to help you have a simplified, organized, and money wise life.

View the original article here

The rebirth of hypnosis

I’ve got an article in today’s Observer about the re-emergence of hypnosis into the scientific mainstream despite the fact that the technique is still associated with stereotypes.

The piece has been oddly titled ‘hypnosis is no laughing matter’, which kind of misses the point, because no-one laughs at it, but many scientists do find it uncomfortable because of its long-running associations with stage shows, high-street hypnotists and the like.

The sub-heading also suggests that the article is about the revival of hypnosis as a ‘clinical tool’ when the article only discusses the use of hypnosis in the lab.

However, get past the headings and the piece discusses the genuinely interesting cognitive science of hypnosis and suggestibility.

The recent research is interesting not so much because we are learning about hypnosis itself, but because it is helping us understand some quite striking things about the fundamentals of the mind.

Amir Raz and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal reported that it was possible to “switch off” automatic word reading and abolish the Stroop effect – a psychological phenomenon that demonstrates a conflict between meanings, such as where we are much slower to identify the ink colour of a word when the word itself describes a different hue. Furthermore, when this experiment was run in a brain scanner, participants showed much lower activation in both the anterior cingulate cortex, an area known to be particularly involved in resolving conflict between competing demands, and the visual cortex, which is crucial for recognising words. Although this may seem like a technicality, to the scientific world it was a strikingly persuasive demonstration that hypnosis could apparently disassemble an automatic and well-established psychological effect in a manner consistent with the brain processes that support it.

One of the other exciting areas is the use of hypnosis to temporarily induce altered states of consciousness that can then be studied in the lab. More of that in the article.

Link to Observer article.

View the original article here

Dedicated but Balanced

Here is an experiment I’d like you to try:

Log in to your banking account. Check how much money you have.

Now log out.

Now log back in, check how much money you have.

Now Log out.

Repeat this two to three more times.

I’m willing to bet my money that your money did not change as a result of how many times you checked on it.

The point of this experiment is obsessing about things isn’t actually action. It rarely, if ever changes the circumstance you are obsessing about.

There are dozens of examples of this in life, but none that hit as close to home for me as health and fitness.

We’ve become obsessed with obsessing about health and fitness. We argue, debate, nitpick, research, tweet, blog, think, try and then give up on countless health fitness theories on a daily basis, all in the name of chasing the promise of ‘health’.

This is something I have grown tired of – especially the endless promotion of obsession as health, exhaustion as virtue and suffering as dedication.

In my eyes the very act of trying to achieve a healthy body is becoming extremely unhealthy, almost a form of self-mortification where people use the gym and the avoidance of their favorite foods as a way to ‘punish’ themselves for their past ‘unhealthy’ indiscretions.

Maybe we can blame the unrealistic goals people have of attaining 0% body fat and giant incredible-hulk style muscles, and the thought that our failure to achieve these goals must be a testament to our poor dedication and work ethic. Or it could be the wrong diet, or wrong workout, or wrong grip when performing curls … who knows?

Whatever the cause, the fact is that health and nutrition is sick.

Workouts have slowly progressed into competitions to see who can punish themselves the hardest, to the point where vomit on the floor is something to be celebrated.

Food is also transforming. It’s no longer about enjoying your meals as much as it is fueling the body. People are slowly forgetting how to eat, and as a result eating is becoming a means-to-and-end – a way to control your body weight. And that’s it.

Food is either fuel, or a guilty bad habit.

Now, it is completely true that in my book Eat Stop Eat I talk about hormones, free fatty acids and how fasting sets up the ideal ‘fat loss metabolism’. However, it was more than just interesting science and a new style of eating (or not eating) that drove me to write that book – it was a desire to share a mind set.

That health can (and should) be about being ‘dedicated but balanced’, rather than ‘obsessed and inflexible’.

I call this the art of ‘detach and relax’ – and it’s one of the most important things I learned through fasting – the ability to focus your effort and attention, combined with the ability to scale them up and down as needed.

Health and fitness should be a part of your life, but it shouldn’t BE your life … at least, it doesn’t have to be.

You can be incredibly focused during your workout and put forth an amazing amount of effort. But then you can detach and relax. Don’t take it home with you, don’t obsess about it.

Your workout is done, your body is stimulated, now let it do what it does best. As much as you wish you could, you simply cannot control the finer aspects of how your body works. (If you doubt this then try to create a new vein in your right bicep, let me know how it goes)

You can be aware of what and when you are eating, but once you are done making a food decision, try to detach and relax. Don’t obsess about your food choices, don’t let your food control you. After all, food is your to be enjoyed.

Learn to be patient and to take breaks from eating. You do NOT have to eat all the time, and you certainly don’t need to fast all the time either.

Your food won’t disappear or become any less enjoyable because you waited. And really, small amount of patience – a slight pause – is all most of us need to realize “I don’t need this”, or “I can wait until diner” or even “I can wait until tomorrow – I’ve had enough today”.

Detach and Relax.

You simply can not be all health and fitness all the time.

Eat less, move more, don’t be afraid to break a sweat every once in a while, and remember to be balanced. When we obsess over health and nutrition, it is no longer healthy.

Give full focus and effort when it is appropriate. Be present during your workout session, but after that turn it off.

As much as some people may hate to hear it, and I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – there is more to life than chasing 0% body fat, blood and puke in the gym and the macro-nutrients on your plate.

Read more from Brad at his blog.

View the original article here

Focus on the Process and Not the Tools to Get Things Done

We live in an incredible time. Thanks to the genius of Steve Jobs, the way we communicate, the way we get things done, and how we look at design have been dramatically changed forever. That is the upside. The downside of course is that through the creativity of app developers across the world, we have a tough time deciding which app will best help us become more productive. We end up spending more time finding the right app and less time getting things done. The result is something I like to call “App Attention Disorder”!  In this post, I will talk about how combat this problem by focusing in on the process and not the app.

The problem with getting things done on a smartphone app is that some very smart developer created a program designed the way he or she thinks we want to be more productive. The downside of course, to no fault of their own. is that we end up “hacking” their app. We tinker. We tweak. We complain on their site that there is no:

sub-projectsworkspacesdue datesnotificationsintegration with Google Calendar or Google Taskssync with Dropbox or iCloud or Evernote…and the list goes on

Feeling as if we can still force a square peg into a round hole, we continue to tweak. Eventually, we realize we have spent more time playing with the app and less time actually tending to our commitments. So how do we get around this epidemic to our productivity? By focusing on the process and not the tools.

Whether you are a follower of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology, Pomodoro technique, Personal Kanban, Franklin Covey, or some combination of all of these plus your own system you’ve invented, stick to it. Research them all to figure out what will work best for you and then choose one organizational system and become a master of its principles.  Make the process a habit. Once you’ve picked a workflow, the question becomes of course, but which app do I use? In my consulting work, I always tell folks to focus on the process and the tool will come to them. What if we didn’t have an iPhone or Android? What if you just had paper? How would you organize your tasks, projects, and goals?

Take a giant step backwards and ask yourself these big questions:

What few things must absolutely go right in order for you to have a productivity workflow that works for you? What challenges have you had in the past?What has gone right for you?

Being able to honestly answer those questions will allow you to better understand which app (or paper) may work best.  That is the key: just knowing what works for you and what will keep you motivated and productive in conjunction with a structured time management system will help you best understand what tool(s) you need to help you get things done.

Once you get that right, you will undoubtedly have a “mind like water” and will be well on your way to getting things done!

Author. Presenter. Consultant. Productivity Guru. I authored the eBook, "Evernote®: The unofficial guide to capturing everything and getting things done", which is sold in the Evernote Trunk and the Official Springpad eBook. My success can only follow yours!

View the original article here