I recently got a new blackberry and I must say I’m totally addicted to it! And of course the moment I got my Crackberry…I started looking for Free or cheap solutions to increase my productivity while on the road. And here’s the list for my fellow CrackBerry Addicts..

1. Gmail for Blackberry

Not only can you check your regular gmail emails with this, you can also use Gmail’s enterprise or small business edition and check multiple accounts easily. Can we say WOW now? And, it also comes with some handy shortcuts

2. Docs to Go and PDF to Go

Here’s office for your phone. Easily create and edit Word Excel and Powerpoint documents and read pdf files. Excellent for catching up with all the stuff right before a meeting

This one isn’t free but worth it!

3. Google Apps

Search the net, get feeds from your google reader account, access your google docs all easily with Google Apps for your phone.

4. MemoPad

This is by far my most favorite app and the simplest of all. It lets you create memos i.e. capture your ideas as soon as you get them.

5. BB Meta Blog

Blog from your blackberry?Why not And it’s totally free plus no messing with php files (eek!)

6. Google Calendar Sync

I love Google Calendar and I cannot live without important reminders on my Berry…so, why not marry the two?

7. Insta Spell Check

I’m a horrible speller on my berry (Hey, I went into engineering for a reason ) and I hate the fact that the native spell checker by RIM doesn’t highlight words as I type them wrong. Plus, this one is just more convenient. Don’t believe me, check out this review from BerryReview.

8. Ascendo Money

Not only can I keep track of my personal expenses, I can also track my business expenses, see how much money is left into each account and keep track of where my money is really going. I LOVE this app!

9. ShortCut Berrry

Nobody likes having to navigate screens and scrolling up and down to find the apps they want to use. That’s when ShortCut Berry comes in. One button and you are well on your way to playing with your favorite Berry app. Great time (and thumb) saver.

10. Viigo

A free app to let you stay connected to the latest RSS feeds for your favorite sources

Other cool apps

TwitterBerry - To stay connected with your colleagues and upto date on your projects.

MilkSync - If you are a Remember The Milk User, you really do need to get this one!

Facebook - Never miss a beat

Anything else you’d like to add? Any incredibly useful app that I totally missed? Just let me know!

And it absolutely sucks when that happens!

So, here’s a great post I just found  by Alex Shalman on 30 Ways to Slow down and de-stress and I think you’ll love it! Alex’s tips are excellent and I personally use some of them..especially #3.

Every time I’m stressed out, I do run for my treadmill. It sure doesn’t sound relaxing but trust me, it helps (especially if you set it on high and run instead of just walking — it takes your mind off the ugly thing stressing you out). Plus, it’s good for your health..

No wonder I’ve lost some weight recently, somethings have me running for the treadmill every hour or so

Enjoy the article!

I was listening to 177 Mental Toughness Secrets by Steve Siebold this morning and one of the secrets he talks about is the whole waiting for the “right time” syndrome.

I must admit I was quite hesitant to embrace the idea of not waiting for the “right time” when I first heard about it. It sounded like the greatest betrayl of our intuitive feelings!

That was a couple years ago…my thoughts on this topic have changed a lot since applying some of his strategies into my life AND in working with a lot of people who’re struggling with procrastination…

And here’s the scoop…

Intuitive feeling is a good thing but when waiting for the “right time” stops you from achieving your goals…it’s probably not an intuitive feeling, it’s usually your fear of failure or perfectionism tendencies acting up!

And that’s exactly where most of us get stuck! We have a goal and then we end up listening to this feeling that says “Uh…not today”

Well here’s a quick way to get over the “not today” argument… Listen, the “right time’” is never going to come down and knock on your doors…it’s something YOU have to create..

Falling victim to the “right time will come and will eventually motivate me to get this thing done” will just put you into a panic mode when the deadline’s too close or worse yet, it will prevent you from achieving your major goals..

So the next time you’re waiting for the “right time” feeling…try this…Just get started on the work…

Counter-intuitive? You bet!

But here’s the deal with this…

The hardest part of feeling good about what you’re going to do is to overcome the inertia of doing it…it’s the inertia that creates the “maybe this isn’t the right time” feeling to try to keep you from not doing it. (Remember Newton? A body at rest remains in rest..)

Just try it!

(and let me know how it goes)

So…which side of the debate is correct? The people who think getting up is the most noble thing to do or the ones who think getting up early can decrease productivity?

Well…my answer is both of them.. And experience has shown both of them are correct..

How can that be? Well, I agree getting up early can increase the amount of time you have significantly but our body also seems to have a natural rhythm (hey, isn’t everything in our body pretty much a cycle?) So it makes sense that we have ‘ sleep cycles’ and getting up at different points of the sleep cycle has different effects on our overall productivity..

And Btw, if you want to read up on some of the really cool findings about sleeping, how to sleep less and wake up with more energy..I highly recommend picking up this book I recommended last month..it’s quite fascinating..

Anyhow…all that stuff aside..Here’s what I want to share with you today…

Do you remember the blog post where I said I have a HORRIBLE time getting up? And how my sleep schedule was costing me a lot of time?

Well, fast forward a couple months….I’ve tried tons of different strategies for sleep structuring and getting up early…only to get frustrated!

I swear I tried every strategy to the T but they don’t seem to work for me…I must be a really lazy person or a really deep sleeper or something like that eh?

Well, turns out…sleep patterns and getting up early means a ton of different things for lots of different people..And if love your sleep the way I do or find it extremely hard to get up in the morning..here’s 5 things I’ve learned that can cut your learning curve and help you wake up earlier (or on time atleast)…

1. Understand that it’s not a quick solution: Guess what? Your sleep pattern has been with you for a long long time…And it’s going to be challenging to change it. Can you change it though? Absolutely! It’s like recovering from a really bad jet lag…can you do it? Yes..will it take some time? Yes!

And the methods I’ll share with you here aren’t some quick tips or hacks or anything like that…they are things that work at the root of the problem to produce long term results (they way they did for me)…And I think that’s the most important stuff..don’t you?

2. Know your sleep cycle: Fancy terms? Not at all…I know it sounds strange, weird or complex when you hear it first but it really breaks down to this: You want to think back to the days when you felt amazing or highly productive after getting up..The days when you were full of energy and felt very well rested..

Having a hard time coming up with one? So did I! And here’s what you do when that happens:

a. Think of the days you got up a little easily than “normal” days…was it a different time? Did you go to bed at a different time? What was different?

b. If that doesn’t help..experiment with a couple different wake up times. Even 30 minutes difference can make a HUGE impact on your productivity. Let me give you an example:

I used to get up at 7:00 (in fact that’s what I did all last year)…And guess what? I always had a hard time getting up..I was cranky and generally not a very pleasant person to be with early in the morning

But…my mood would turn up and I’d get my energy back at around 9.

So I decided to get up at 9 on a weekend and guess what? I felt amazing! I had more energy than ever before, got up in a good mood and had a clear head…

Now 9 is good…but unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of getting up whenever I wish…So I experimented with a couple different times and came up with one that works perfect for me. And that time happens to be 5:45…I get almost the same effects as getting up at 9 and I can still get everywhere on time.

So, the deal is..you’ll have to do some experiments and figure out the time that works best for you..

(I told you this wasn’t a quick process that stops working in couple weeks…But it’s worth the time and effort you take now)

3. How are you getting up? Is someone else waking you up in the morning? Stop that right away! If someone else is waking you up (or trying to)…chances are that person is sick of it and you’re probably sick of them yelling at you in the morning while you’re in the middle of your lovely dreamland..

Yeah, I understand! Waking people up can create tons of stress in your relationship with them…seriously! So, drop that right away…

Also…having someone yell at you or having a nasty alarm go off in the morning can start your day off on a bad note and increase your stress level..

Try a good alarm for a much safer route..

4. Try a series of alarms : Hard time hearing your alarm? Do you end up hitting the snooze button too much? Try a couple different alarms that go off within a couple minutes of each others. I currently use 3 different ones that go off within 15 minutes and I get up on the 3rd one…every day.

It gives me some sort of perceived control over the alarm (I hate having to get up just because some little device thinks I should get up and starts screaming early in the morning ) But most importantly, this stops you from going into a new deep sleep cycle.

And the most important benefit of this is the habit…the habit of getting up at the 3rd alarm every time. It’s easier to set that habit…than having to jump off everytime the stupid alarm rings. (With this, you can ignore your alarm twice atleast!)

5. One Step at a time: If you are used to getting up at 8:30 everyday don’t start cutting off 2 hours right off the back. Yeah I know getting 2 hours extra a day is highly tempting but it can screw up your natural sleep cycle and make you incredibly unproductive.

What you want to remember here is the habit we set in the previous step. Once you have the habit of getting up on the 3rd alarm everytime..it gets easier to do that even when you move the times ahead by 30 or so minutes. I recommend move up 30 minutes every week until you’re at your desired wake up time…It seems to be the range that works best for most people.

And think about it…30 min a day isn’t bad..that’s 15 hours saved every month! And if you’re into fitness and healthy eating..that’s enough time to make yourself a healthy breakfast and lunch…

The question is..what are you going to do with the time you save? Because saving time is one thing..using it properly is an entirely different story…

How would you use the extra amount of time you gain by getting up a little earlier each day?