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?

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Wouldn’t it be nice to get up at 11 AM on a weekend, check your email account and then feel like you’ve been incredibly productive while you slept?

..I certainly love the feeling! It’s excellent especially after a long day working on unrelated things… I really do love outsourcing and the time zone difference. Getting up in the morning to see what’s been happening to make me money while I slept is as good as it gets

So you love the idea of outsourcing and have read tons about how outsourcing can save you tons of time, stress and headaches… the main question then is how do you get started?

There’s 3 options as I see it..

1. Contact freelancers yourself
2. Go to a outsourcing platform and post a request for a bid
3. Ask people you know for referrals..

While number 1 and 3 are great ways to do it…today’s topic is number 2..

There are tons and tons of these sites out there that connect buyers with providers and help you find someone to do something for you like designing your website or writing your resume etc..

Some of the most popular ones include elance.com, rentacoder.com, getafreelancer.com and guru.com…and of course oDesk.com

oDesk is a fairly “new” service and I love it! If you do any sort of outsourcing or have been thinking of trying out outsourcing check out oDesk…I absolutely love the service!

And here’s the top 5 things I love about it…

1. oDesk lets providers showcase their abilities and help them stand out with tests etc - As a freelancer you definitely want to stand out from the crowd and showcase all your skills… Now, as a buyer you want to find the people who have the skill-set you’re looking for… And oDesk makes that incredibly easy by letting providers take tests to prove their skills..

That’s especially good when you don’t get to “see” potential employees or see them work infront of you..

2. oDesk is much more than a hiring place - Again, I love this! I love the fact that oDesk makes managing teams so much easier. For example, when you hire someone for a hourly task…odesk will automatically calculate the number of hours they’ve worked for you and take the money out of your account without YOU having to do that work..

3. You get to “see” progress - Alright, this isn’t a feature I use a lot but if you do hire someone hourly you can see screenshots of their screen and figure out what they’ve been doing. I think I’ve used the feature about twice but again, it’s good to know that the people I’ve hired weren’t playing Soltaire while they claimed to be working for me..

4. The “Hire” Screen saves time - I love the Hire Screen and especially the fact that I can preview the cover letters. This is a big plus…it saves me time from having to click everyone’s name  and look at their comments. I can easily look at their coverletters and decide if I even want to look at their profiles.

Now for the number one reason…

I know what you’re thinking all the techy bells and whistles are good but….what about the providers..are they top notch?

And here’s my experience: I’ve loved most of the providers I’ve worked with through oDesk. I found them highly qualified and professional.

Of course choosing the right provider is a lot of work but I found that there’s more of these high quality providers out there on Odesk!

Give it a shot! I think you’ll love the service (and please do let me know what you think of it if you decide to try it out)

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Well, here’s a pretty cool web 2.0 service that can help you keep tabs on what everyone’s doing (and what they are not doing) and of course to coordinate activities and fix schedule based on that…

Yammer.com - “Twitter” type site for business

Here’s a couple ways to use this one for better productivity..

1. Check up on stuff that people aren’t doing… So you got person A to do a couple things for you…they’re off doing it and will sumbit a report to you next week…That’s all well and fine but wouldn’t it make sense to see if they’re doing something wrong, missing something? So you can correct the problem faster and stop wasting time due to mis-communication?

2. Coordinating too many projects? No worries! Keep up with the members in your team so you know exactly what to do next… Think about it…you’re working on 3 different projects with 3 different groups…you start working on project A because to you it’s the most important thing….But…team B is having slight issues and can’t deliver on time…. Now, when you are done your part for the project…you get the “news” about the problem …team B calls in to say everything’s done and ready to go…

Here’s your problem: The stuff you worked on now has to be delayed
The stuff that could’ve been done now..can’t be done because you haven’t done your part yet..

Sound familiar? Coordinating team work was never an easy task and this is where most “teams” seem to waste too much of their time…

And that’s where I see the promises of Yammer…in facilitating short to the point updates for team members to work together more efficiently..

3. Keeping everyone on the same page

4. Organization: If you work with more than 2 people and have any sort of team management or project co-ordination role…I know how though it is to keep tabs of what everyone is doing…especially if you do this for more than 2 projects at the same time.. So being able to get a quick overview is extremely helpful : )

Something else — How about Yammer for Students?

I think this is a good area of development for sites like Twitter and Yammer…think about university students who work in tons of teams on various different projects..

I remember doing tons of that..in fact, we even had a course on project management and team management in first year engineering but…even with that team management is pretty hard. You always get people who work at different paces, who’re passionate about different parts of a project and you’re sitting there scratching your head trying to figure out how to pull it all together and hand in the project!

At least that’s what engineering is like, I can’t speak for all faculties but I do think something like this would catch on in that world.

Anyhow…back to the main thing…

Here’s the link, test drive it with your team and see what it does for you.

I’ll be using it with my team for the next couple days and let you know how it goes!

Yammer.com - “Twitter” type site for business

And in case you’re wondering Yammer launched on Sep 8 08 at TechCrunch50

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And if you feel that your computer slows you down and decreases your productivity at times, here’s a quick link for you..

Make Windows Faster

Nothing to sell you on that site…just a lot of really cool tips. I suggest starting with their 50 lightweight applications and seeing if there’s something on that list that can be used.

I recently switched from iTunes to Songbird and the speed increase has been pretty significant.

Also, using aMSN instead of MSN messenger reduces the memory used up by quite a bit. aMSN is fully functional and without all the random features that you probably don’t use anyway!

Take a look at the list…a lot of really good tips there.

Here’s the link again

Do let me know what you think of it : -)

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….How did it feel?

Well, you may have enjoyed not having to do the task but chances are….that procrastination took up a bit of your sleep, took you on guilt trips and stressed you out a little…

Isn’t that what procrastination is like? Kind of like Caffeine..you feel slightly good when you do it and then you sit back and have to deal with all the “after effects”..

And when it comes to procrastination there are tons and tons of reasons why we procrastinate…today’s topic is procrastination caused by boring tasks…And let’s face it…boredom is probably one of the biggest causes of procrastination (and it’s the one that’s most often ignored too!)

So..you have a task, that is slightly (or immensely) boring and you need to get it done …you’ve got it in your agenda and planned everything but when it comes to execution…something’s not working around there…

What do you do?

Freak out? (..maybe just a little )

How about using this little tip?

Mini Vacations

I don’t know about you but I love mini vacations. It feels incredibly good to be able to declare a day a “holiday”…

I hear ya….Saturdays and Sundays are technically “holidays”..but let me ask you something…how many of your weekends have been a true holiday?

It just seems weekends mean more stress, more stuff to get done, more bills to pay, more laundry to do..doesn’t it?

Would you like weekends where you get to simply relax and do nothing?!?

I sure do! And I call those weekends my “mini vacations”

Here’s what I do during my “mini vacations”

- I stay away from work 100%…I don’t even think about my projects, my emails or the people I’m waiting on or the people who’ve annoyed me

- I don’t do laundry, bills or anything that sounds “boring” or like a chore

- I sit back and watch movies or read books (fiction)

- I do what I’d like to be doing not what I *should* be doing…

And that’s what makes the mini vacations good…getting rid of the *shoulds* and the pressure to produce results..

Sound like a good idea?

If you like the idea of a mini vacation…just hang tight, that’s our topic for this week…but for today if you think the whole thing sounds like rubbish…here’s another attempt at getting you to try the concept..

It’s one of those things like a clear and empty head, you don’t get to see how good it feels until you experience it once…

So, try it out…just once and I’ll guarantee you..you’ll love it!

How many mini vacations

Ok…this depends on your schedule..If you’re too busy with things falling out of place everywhere let me be honest and say you might be able to squeeze in one every two or three months..

If you have things under control (at least on the weekends) you maybe able to squeeze in a couple each month..

How taking Mini Vacations can make you more productive

There is one condition to taking mini vacations…are you ready?

You get to take mini vacations only when you’ve been good all week…i.e. when you’ve been productive all week and got your most important tasks done…

Why?

Because frankly, even if you do take a mini vacations when you have tons of things that are behind schedule or when things aren’t working..you’re just not going to enjoy it!

And when it comes to dealing with boring tasks that make you want to procrastinate…enjoyment is the most important thing!

You need to be able to look at the boring task and say…”Yeah, I’ll hate this BUT when I get it done…I get to take a mini vacation which is going to be a ton of fun”

So..there you have it…

If you’re sick and tired of boring tasks…pump in some excitement with mini vacations..

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And it does take time to apply personal development strategies and get results from them!

Here’s how personal development ‘works out’ for most people (Hey, I did this for a long time too!) …they come across a book, pick out a technique or two and then one of these 3 barriers to personal growth kicks in..

1. Skeptical Family and Friends…

Alright this isn’t something a lot of people want to talk about…definitely not a topic for a polite conversation on achieving your goals…

But here’s the reality…when you get started with personal development there is a change (a big chance if your family and friends aren’t involved in personal growth) that you will encounter some resistance from them.

They might call you a maniac or label you a ‘crazy dreamer’…that’s OK

You can get support from others who are into personal development and understand where you are coming from..

This doesn’t mean start hating your family… I’ve seen too many people do that. Just talk to them and see if you can find ‘common grounds’.

2. Lack of results

There are no magic pills out there when it comes to improving your abilities and finding the success you’re looking for…

Way too many people give up because they don’t see the results they’re looking for when they’re looking for it…

The solution here is to have patience..

Now, when I say “have patience”…please understand that I don’t mean keep doing the thing that isn’t working — instead, figure out what’s not working and figure out if you can fix it…

3. Lack of systems

When I started out trying various strategies to improve my skills, cultivate new habits etc…this is the one I struggled with the most!

You get excited about something say improving how you spend your time…you read up a few cool tips and want to implement them into your life..

That’s all sweet and amazing isn’t it?

Well, here’s the problem…

There is a difference between tips and systems.. A lot of times small tips will help you make massive changes but if you want the changes to stick around or if you want something that’s consistent and delivers you results day in and day out….you’ll want to look out for (or create) systems that will help you get the results you want..

Technorati Tags: time management, personal development, barriers to personal growth, self growth

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If you’ve never heard of EFT before..here’s a quick summary:

EFT stands for emotional freedom technique and basically it works like Chinese acupressure and acupuncture..except it’s much easier and can be done at home.

The basic assumption is that there are some meridian points in your body where a lot of stress and a lot of energy sit around or circle around… And the idea is to get rid of stress and negative habits by relieving these points in the body.

With EFT, you don’t put needles in your body…all you do is tap a few points..

Interesting? Unbelievable perhaps?

There’s a lot of talk about whether or not EFT actually works and whether or not EFT procrastination techniques work…

Here’s the deal..

I’ve tried EFT in the past and it has worked for me! I got rid of a chronic headache in 5 minutes (and the headache hasn’t come back in 2 years!)..

Will it work for you?

That’s the most important question..isn’t it?

And the answer is…it may and it may not…

With anything like EFT (or any other ‘healing or medication system’…some people get healed by it..others don’t)

The most important thing is you’ll have to try it for yourself and see..

And here’s the good news about EFT

1. You don’t have to use needles on your body (I have nothing against acupuncture and I know a lot of people who’ve seen great results from it)

2. It’s fairly easy to use and you can try it at home without spending too much money

3. With eft it’s fairly easy and quick to see results (or the lack thereof) helping you make your decisions easily..

So..that’s my thoughts…eft can work great but it’s one of those things that differs from individual to individual..

Try it yourself, if it works — great..if not, let’s move on!

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And here are the top 10 best firefox plugins for increasing your productivity..

1. Leechblock : Wasting too much time on twitter? Facebook? Stumble Upon? Leechblock is here to rescue you! Use leechblock to “block” you from visiting these websites during specific times of the day. (Most useful when you’re trying to get work done but just can’t beat the urge to check up what your friends are tweeting about)

2. Meetimer: Are you a serial procrastinator? Need to track where your time is actually going (which btw is a great technique to start taking back control of your time)..This little add on will show you exactly where you’ve ‘been’ all day. Perfect for starters.

3. URL Fixer : Tired of typing goggle.com? google.cmo? gogole.com? URL fixer does exactly what it says and takes care of typos for you.

4. Colorize Tabs: Too many tabs open for research? (or whatever other reason) and just can’t find the one tab you actually need? Spending too much time trying to find the right tab? Here’s your solution — this little add-on will allow you to colorize tabs so you can get back to it in a flash.

5. Tree Style Tabs: Too many tabs taking up too much room? Tired of clicking the more arrow to see all your tabs? Need sub-tabs? Here’s a solution…make your tabs appear like a folder tree. The nice thing is you can change where you see your tabs. You can set them on the sidebar and then choose how much space they take up. Gives you tons of flexibility and allows you to regain some screen space.

6. Evernote Clipper : I don’t think I could live without evernote…and I don’t think I could live without ever note clipper either. Need to save a page to read later? You can either save up the entire page or select portions of it to save, hit the clipper and evernote takes care of the rest. This is digital data capture at it’s best.

7. Greasemonkey: Greasemonkey is an add on that allows you to run several scripts on websites you visit to increase your productivity and efficiency.

8.  No Squint : As some of you already know, I have terrible eyes and that means staring too long and hard on the monitor not only stresses my eyes but also gives me headaches and reduces my productivity. Thankfully, there’s no squint! An easy to use add on to increase font size on per-site basis. And yes, the point is it remembers your preferences for every site..

9. Your Favorite To do List Software’s Widget: Nothing keeps you more motivated than having a list of what you need to do right in front of you when you feel like procrastinating. And, the good news is firefox has addons for a ton of to do list sites like Remember the Milk, Todoist and so many more.

10. Gmail Manager: I’d be running around like crazy without this addon! Gmail Manager allows you to manage multiple gmail accounts easily. It saves me tons and tons and tons of time each and every day and seriously, I can’t imagine life without this little tool! If you have more than one gmail account, use this tool!

That’s it….Do you know of a firefox add-on that should be added to this list? Just leave your comments below and I’ll definitely check it out!

And yeah..do let me know if you liked the post..it took some time compiling (on a friday night too)!

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If you believe what you’re saying, let your belief shine through! If you don’t believe what you’re saying - my question is…why are you saying it in the first place?

Don’t just say “I think we have something that may help us get somewhere” if you believe it…just simply say “I have something that will help us get where we want to go”..

Listen, most people hide their beliefs and confidence in conversations because they don’t want to appear pushy or aggressive, I understand that. But, you know what? Speaking without ANY confidence will just make you look like you don’t have a backbone and people will start calling you a big pushover.

Of course you don’t have to be aggressive. Be respectful but don’t hide your beliefs + confidence!

People really like those who can stand up for their beliefs and make a point..

(And guys….yes, women do find men with confidence sexier)

Speaking confidently is a habit and trust me, if you ever end up selling or having to make a point at work or at home, you’ll need it…

And let me ask you something, who do you tend to trust most? People who maybe sort of know what they’re doing or people who definitely know what they are doing and can tell you exactly what they’re doing with full confidence?

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Do you love napping after a long day? I know I do…(And, I also know I overdo it sometimes!)

But the question is…do naps help you or harm you? Just read on and I’ll let you know the full deal on naps and napping

I just finished reading an excellent book on sleep - sleeping less, becoming more energetic etc and one of the interesting thing the author talks about is the concept of naps.

And here’s the news:

Napping is good for you as long as you don’t overdo it! A short 30-45 min nap will give you a ton of energy without pushing you down into deep sleep which makes it harder to get up and become productive.

~ Powerful Sleep

Apparently it’s all about our sleep cycle and Kacper (the author) has a ton of great graphs to show you how the sleep cycle goes on… It’s pretty cool..but what’s cooler is the fact that a short 30-45 minute nap can really boost your productivity..

AND…help you clear your head. I usually take a nap when I have a big decision to make and I’m completely split or after a really long and tiring day. The nap helps me get up and get back straight to work. It’s a good way to let your brain relax (and find you answers without you having to think about it)

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