Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

One-liners for life

I just discovered a very cool idea, courtesy of Gretchen and The Happiness Project.  For the last year, she's been keeping a One Sentence Journal for a year now - I am very intrigued, and thinking of doing the same.  Consider this, from her post:

"Each night, I write one sentence (well, actually, usually it's three or four sentences, but by calling it a "one sentence journal" I keep my expectations realistic) about what happened that day to me, the Big Man, and the girls.

Right now, I can't imagine forgetting the time when the Little Girl said politely, "Can I have some more pajamas on my pasta?" when she meant "parmesan," but I will, I will."

Don't know about you, but I think that's pretty cool.  She also has plans to create bound books of the sentences for her girls and her husband.  Check out the details in her post.

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pzizz: State of the art power napping

I recently discovered a fascinating tool called "pzizz" and am really enjoying it. Developed by Brainwave Enterprises Ltd., pzizz is software (Windows or Mac) that generates "soundtracks" to help you sleep or take a power nap to re-energize yourself in the middle of the day. pzizz applies techniques learned from scientific sleep research, and creates special sounds that enable you to relax while stimulating your brain at a subconscious level, stimulating your brain waves in a way that energizes you.

Rev up or calm down - it's your choice

The pzizz software enables you to generate customized nap soundtracks of a length you specify. There are two "modules" available for pzizz:

  • Energizer Nap - generates a nap soundtrack designed to help you take the ultimate power nap (you can program it for as long as you want - they recommend you take 20-40 minute power naps for greatest effect. Each Energizer map ends with an "alarm" sound to wake you up so you can continue your day.
  • Sleep Nap - generates a nap soundtrack designed to help you get to sleep and achieve a restful, deep sleep. Sleep naps fade out at the end so you stay asleep.

The software can play the nap files directly on your computer, or you can play them using iTunes or on your mp3 player. If you're playing them on your computer, you can tell the software to automatically shut down your computer or put it to sleep (or do nothing, if you prefer). Each time you generate a nap, it creates a new soundtrack so you don't get bored.

What an experience!

Using a pzizz nap soundtrack is a very interesting experience, and I initially did it just to see what would happen (you can download sample mp3's of the "energizer" and "sleep" modules from the pzizz site). I tried it with one of the "Energizer" naps and found it to be very relaxing and every bit as energizing as they say.

The soundtracks are calming combinations of soothing sounds and music. Additionally, you can turn on an option that tells pzizz to add in some encouraging messages using Neuro Linguistic Programming (also known as NLP, or the power of suggestion) to further improve your state of mind. This isn't the subliminal, "secret message" sort of thing that conspiracy theorists worry about - it's just a quiet voice saying words of encouragement designed to leave a lasting, positive effect.

On the pzizz site, there are some interesting statistics and explanations of some of the science behind this along with scientific data on the value of power naps.

Mid-day power naps

I've been trying these at home and liked it so much, I purchased the software (it's about 30 bucks per module, or you can get both for $50).

Now, I'm going to expand my use of pzizz and try out the Energizer Nap at lunch during the day to see if it helps with my focus, energy level, and - ultimately - my productivity. I'm also going to test these modules next time I'm trying to deal with jet lag to see if it helps.

I'll let you know what I find in my experimentation. Meanwhile, go download one of the samples and have a nap - on me!

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Me on GTD Update: -Capturing

Update: I've received some great suggestions and links to other resources in the comments to this post - check them out and feel free to add your own tips and experiences.

You should also check out a great riff on this topic by John at Success Begins Today [link]

-- Dwayne

As a long-time Getting Things Done (GTD) follower, I love it and I hate it. I love it because it's simple, powerful, and flexible. I hate it because it's too flexible. I've had a hard time getting a specific workflow down and sticking to it. GTD doesn't have rigid "props" for me to use as mental queues like many other systems (with the Franklin-Covey systems, you can "ground yourself" to the daily task list - with GTD, there are a number of lists).

Reminder Part of my new year reset is to try to streamline my use of GTD and establish better rituals to help me keep up a consistent approach to evaluating my choices, scheduling, etc. (if you've visited here in the past, you'll know that this sort of thing is a recurring theme for me - I'm a bit of a GTD binge user).

If you have experiences or resources that have helped you create a set of daily habits for GTD, please let me know.

Please note that I'm not after yet another copy of David Allen's GTD Workflow chart - I know that one very well. What I am looking for is something that provides periodic nudges to condition me to automatically look to the lists, etc. as I find myself in between scheduled tasks. Something about the way I'm wired causes me to drift away from my lists, and I think I need some cues to bring me back to them.

This might be easier if I had the same routine every day, but I travel a lot and end up doing a lot of opportunistic things based on the work that I do. Rituals that will work regardless of location, time, etc. would be best. Other considerations are that I work with Outlook as my calendaring program (synced to my Treo 650 via Goodlink), and am using KeyNotes and KeyTasks to sync my notes and tasks with Outlook (Goodlink doesn't handle categories - that's a fatal flaw).

As I dusted off the old search engine, I've found some great articles from other practitioners that I think are worth sharing.

The interesting thing I've noticed is how many of my blogging pals have already commented on the articles I've found - I don't feel so alone in this after all

Got others? Please share.

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Spiritual clutter

Continuing on my recent clutter theme, I want to relate an "a-ha" brought on by some comments from a visiting missionary at church this morning. This is a little philosophical, so bear with me.

Our visiting missionary was talking about how we are called to leave behind things that make it more difficult for us to live the life we want to live. The "things" we need to leave behind are sometimes physical, but he asked us to broaden our perspective to include relationships, grudges, and so forth. Of these, he said something like, "If you don't get past those blockers, you'll never have a better life." He also emphasized that getting clearer on what that "better life" is for you can make it easier to choose what to leave behind.

What he said reminds me of some of the core principles of Getting Things Done, and I think the impact is very similar. In GTD, David Allen talks about how you need to get everything out of your head and into a trusted system so you can free up "psychic RAM" and focus on more productive uses of your time and energy.

Likewise, if you hang on to grudges, frustrations, problem relationships, etc. those things will grab a piece of your psyche and prevent you from using your gifts in the most productive, fulfilling ways.

Definitely got me thinking about how I can clean up some of the spiritual / emotional clutter. For example:

  • Who can I forgive (or ask for forgiveness) and get past a grudge?
  • Who can I apologize to and make amends?
  • Do I have any relationships where it's time to move on and stop trying to "make it better?"
  • Are there areas where I'm struggling because I don't have a clear idea what my "best life" looks like?
  • and so on...

Great food for thought.

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My scattered brain

Lately, I have been working on uncluttering my inbox. Sure, in the spirit of Getting Things Done, I "get In to empty" every day, but I realized I've been processing waaay too many messages that have little or no relevance to me, and handling too many pieces of paper. I want to share some of the things I've done, and hear from you about additional steps you may have taken to trim down your inbox.

Spam filtering

I've experimented with a number of add-on spam filters for Outlook (most of them have free trials) and have settled on Cloudmark Desktop, and am quite happy with it. It's very easy to use, and is based on a 'neighborhood watch' kind of model - all users are able to report things they believe are spam, and messages flagged by enough people are reviewed and added to the spam list, if appropriate. Likewise, if you find a message that you think was mis-identified as spam, you can unblock it which unblocks it for you (this sometimes happens when people who are too lazy to unsubscribe to messages just hit the Block button on the toolbar instead). At right is a snapshot of my stats since I started using it in January, for perspective.
Unsubscribe more aggressively
I've been paying more attention to newsletters, Google alerts, and other recurring email traffic and unsubscribing from them if I notice that I always (or almost always) delete them without reading. Same goes for offers from vendors I've purchased from, particularly if I'm no longer using their product.
I've also been unsubscribing to physical mail, as well. Letting magazine subscriptions end, returning unsolicited or unwanted mail (in their own postpaid envelopes with a note asking them to remove me from their mailing lists), and so forth.
Deleting, rather than responding to more email
I'm getting better at not jumping into the fray on email threads that don't directly pertain to me or my primary goals. I'm seeing a gradual, but persisten, decline in mail volume from this. Once I realize I no longer want to follow an email thread, I use ClearContext's "Unsubscribe" button to make it disappear from my view (don't fret - it puts these things in a special Unsubscribed folder where you can go re-subscribe if you make a mistake).
Automate recurring bills
Last year, I wrote about "outsourcing the drudgery" in my life. I've now gone a bit further and set up every service I can as an "autopay" account, and converting to electronic statements if they offer them (this allows me to easily use NitroPDF to mark them up and forward them for expense reporting, and makes it easy for me to file the statements electronically so I can retrieve them if I need to.
Back off on the email "whack a mole"
When I first discovered the joy of an empty email inbox, I constantly watched it and tried to keep it empty. Now, I only "work" my email inbox about 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon, and sometimes a quick check in the evening. And I still get to empty every day.
This helps partially because it prevents "rathole emailing" since many problems have resolved themselves by the time I see them. It also helps because the limited time windows help me do a better job of sticking to the 2-minute rule, etc.
I shared my tips for getting a very large email inbox down to a very empty one a while back - if your inbox is overloaded, this may help.
And I'm still looking for more ways. What about you? Any tricks you've discovered that you'd like to share?