Last One

This is the last post in my write a blogpost every day in January challenge. So I figure it's time to get meta. I started this challenge because I had previously tried to start this blog. Then I ended up with barely anything on this blog. Then I wanted to have something on this blog, because I told someone I would. Rather than one good post, it's a lot of small posts, though.

Starting this challenge gave me an excuse for the writing to not be great (actually, an excuse for it to be terrible). It's a lot easier to write something when you don't pressure yourself to make it too meaningful.

Writing these 30 posts has made me realise how contradictory I can be. In every post, I can poke holes in the things I've said.

New challenge starting tomorrow: 30+ minutes of cardio every day for as many days in a row as I can manage (first goal is getting through February).

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html

Little Things

It's funny the things we remember sometimes. A little detail - a phrase, a sight, a sound - will stick in our memories, when things we'd much rather remember - where we left our keys, for example - won't come back no matter how hard we will them to.

Sometimes, these things aren't important at all. But often, I wonder if this is really the case. I will reflect more on a particular tidbit of memory and draw connections with other small tidbits. Soon enough, the tidbits form a big tidbit, that I wouldn't have seen before without each of the small bits.

As things are in the large, so they are in the small. See what you can pick up from noticing the details, and you might be surprised.

Stressless

Stress less until you're stressless. When we are under stress, it can be hard for us to develop creative solutions. You're in fight-or-flight mode, engaging your basest instincts. Unless you're Leonardo da Vinci, your basest instincts preclude being very creative.

Is stress ever helpful? It can be. A little bit of stress can make you concentrate. A little more stress can get some adrenaline pumping.

But don't let stress ever be your baseline state. The more stress you start off with, the less excess capacity you have to handle stress when things go wrong (and things will go wrong!)

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2011/04/04/a_hard_thing_is_done_by_figuring_out_how_to_start.html

Concentrate

It can be hard to concentrate, sometimes. Especially with a wide array of distractions readily available. And yet, to do anything more than habitual drudgery, we need to be able to concentrate. And not just for a minute at a time between searching tweets. So how does one concentrate in a world filled with distractions?

There are two options. Change your environment to minimise distractions. The second is to change yourself to be less distracted. Sometimes you won't be able to change your environment.

It would be nice to focus in a quiet park. Tuning into some radio (using earphones) could be the next best thing. If your work involves a lot of co-operation, however, this may be impossible. You're left with using your own brain to tune out the noise.

Have you tried doodling?

Tracking progress

If you're trying to improve something, you should track it. Tracking does a couple of very important things.

1. It forces you to have an idea of what you're measuring. If you're a writer and your measure is how long you spend with a pen in hand, you might find a pen in your hand walking down the street, but that doesn't exactly help you getting your book ready for publishing.
2. It gets in your face. If you're not putting the effort in, it's not hidden from you. You'll start to see a trend and notice when you haven't been hitting your targets.

If you start tracking, and you notice your metrics improving, but you don't notice any progress (over a sustained period of time) that's a hint that you're tracking the wrong thing.

I recommend tracking in chunks of a day.

Links:
http://calendaraboutnothing.com/
http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret?tag=softwaremotivation

Teaching

Ah teaching, the sharing of knowledge from one to another, and then another to others. It's like a bittorrent swarm that's just starting up. At first, one holds all the knowledge, shares it out a chunk at a time, and then that recipient can share the knowledge too. If it works, pretty soon everybody is sharing knowledge and everyone has all the pieces, and newcomers are inundated with knowledge as fast as they can take it in. No longer are they limited by the amount of teachers - everybody is a teacher.

A most curious part of teaching, however, is that in teaching, you also learn a lot. The equivalent bittorrent analogy is that no individual has all the pieces, but collectively, a full copy exists. Only by sharing, can the pieces be put together, and everybody is better off for it (ignoring throughput costs).

plz seed knowledge

Thankfulness

Do you remember the last time somebody thanked you for something? Do you remember how you felt when it happened?

Usually, thanks is reserved for a special occasion. Perhaps you did something far beyond your call of duty, or have been outstanding over a period of time. But wouldn't it be better if we recognised these every time they happened? With just a little thank you?

Little things don't cost a lot, but can mean much. It motivates you to go out of your way to help somebody. And you may also feel compelled to thank others more often.

If everybody thanked everybody for every little thing, does the thanks then become meaningless? Perhaps. But when everybody can thank everybody (that they meet) for something, that would be a lovely world to be a part of.