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time management

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  • How to get a good night’s sleep

    Sleep is the part of life when you recharge your batteries and gather new strengths, especially to overcome daily challenges. A sufficient amount of sleep is necessary for functioning creatively, leading a healthy lifestyle and enjoying everyday life. But oftentimes, you don’t give enough time to sleep, convinced that you’ll be able to do more throughout the day; or you might be even suffering from insomnia.

    However, in the long run, you’re actually doing yourself a lot of harm with a lack of sleep. Both your productivity and your creative abilities fall, you’re significantly more irritable and sensitive, and a lack of sleep can also lead to chronic fatigue and diseases. I absolutely agree that needing less sleep than others is a huge advantage. But despite that, it’s necessary that you ensure that you get as much sleep as you need. Nevertheless, your health should be in the first place.

    I myself need eight hours of sleep, because otherwise I just don’t function like I should. I wade through the day more than live it, I’m less focused, I lose sensory sharpness, and I could go on. If I don’t sleep enough for a longer period of time, I get sick very quickly. Besides that, I’m also very sensitive to various conditions that have to be fulfilled in order for me to fall asleep easily. This is why I spent some more time thinking about what truly contributes to a good night’s sleep.

    Let’s look at a few key elements that contribute to you waking up well-rested. Here are 24 secrets how to get a good night’s sleep:

    24 best pieces of advice how to get a good night’s sleep:

    1. No food four hours before sleep

    Food habits take the first place by far. If you eat right before sleep, the body uses up energy mostly for digestion instead of resting and regenerating. Whenever I’m at a business or private dinner and I “stuff myself” with food, I wake up feeling more or less sleep-deprived the next day. Food before bed kills peaceful sleep as well as contributes to excess body weight the most. You simply do yourself a huge favour if you don’t eat in the evening; it’s best if you eat nothing after seven o’clock.

    That’s why the first rule that you should try to follow is no food at least three to four hours before sleep. Better four hours. Even if it’s necessary to turn down an invitation to a business dinner – better to do lunch instead. If you don’t manage to eat anything after lunch until the evening, it makes sense to eat something light, no meals that are complex or difficult to digest. Trust me, whenever you eat something heavy or in big quantities in the evening, you’ll always be sorry the next day. Very sorry.

    2. No screens two hours before bed

    Besides food, devices with an active screen right before sleep are the biggest enemies of peaceful rest. An active screen strongly stimulates the eyes and the brain, and so you’re simply not ready to sleep. The rule you should try to follow is no active screens at least two hours before sleep. And you shouldn’t watch television anyway. If you find it problematic to not have an iPad or any other device in your hands, increase the transaction costs. Only have your iPad far away in the office.

    The only acceptable device in the evening is Amazon’s Kindle, which has a passive screen. It’s similar to reading a book, but you can have an unlimited amount of books in a single book. In short, your brain will understand that Kindle is not a “computer”. The only thing you have to be careful about is reading something light before sleep. Classic literature or math equations will make your brain go crazy and you definitely won’t fall asleep easily.

    It’s also essential that you don’t have electrical devices, such as clocks and similar, near your heads during sleep. Instead, they should be as far away as possible. It’s especially crucial that they don’t shine. The more electrical devices that you have turned on in your bedroom, even if they don’t give off light, the harder you’ll fall asleep; much less if they do give off light.

    3. Go to sleep before midnight

    I once read that each hour of sleep before midnight counts double. Well, I don’t know if that’s true for everyone, but I definitely wake up significantly better rested if I go to bed before midnight. Every time I distract myself with something, be it a computer, work or reading, and stay up an hour or two after midnight, I regret it the next morning, even though I sleep for enough hours.

    On top of that, it’s harder for me to fall asleep if I look at the screen before midnight. If it’s at all possible – which it usually is, except for a few rare days – go to sleep before midnight. Try it and see for yourself if going to sleep before midnight has any effect on how well rested you wake up the next day.

    4. A sufficient amount of sleep

    The number of hours of sleep that you afford is, of course, crucial for how well-rested you’ll wake up. Experts recommend 7 to 8 hours of sleep. For me personally, 7 hours of sleep is too little. I feel that I’m not rested enough throughout the entire day. I’ve accepted this and I try to sleep around 8 hours as many days a week as possible.

    Even though I have an hour less at my disposal, I do a lot more with the given time. Some can simply function normally with only 6 hours of sleep. If that’s really enough and not taking advantage of the body, so much the better. They also say that you need less and less sleep as you get older. Well, this hasn’t happened with me yet, but it might be true.

    It’s also known that too much sleep has a negative effect on well-being, which I can also confirm on the basis of my own experience. With me, it’s somehow true that if I sleep more than 8.5 hours, I don’t feel like I should. Much like too little sleep, too much sleep isn’t good either. It’s best if you have a set internal clock and sleep schedule, and wake up exactly when you need to. Your body knows when to go to sleep and when to wake up better than a clock does.

    5. Oxygen and temperature

    The body needs oxygen, even during sleep. If you don’t believe me, try not breathing for a couple of minutes. This is why it’s recommended that you air out your bedroom before sleep, making it fresh and full of oxygen.

    It’s even better to sleep with an open window; if you aren’t too cold, of course. Experts estimate that sleeping in a room where the temperature is too high isn’t that good. It’s best if the temperature is somewhat lower (approx. 18 – 22 degrees C). Everyone should figure that out for themselves. And for guys, lower temperature helps produce testosterone, which means better sexual performance at least.

    Me, I wake up feeling the most rested at a lower temperature and an open window supplying a steady flow of fresh air. If you can’t sleep with an open window because you’re cold, at least air out the room before going to bed. But you should absolutely choose what suits you best.

    6. Regular exercise

    It’s no secret that regular exercise has a lot of positive effects. Even on sleep. Every single one of us can probably confirm that. During the periods when I exercise regularly, I fall asleep much more easily, I sleep better and wake up feeling better rested. During the periods when I don’t do regular exercise, my quality of sleep gets systematically worse from one week to the next. By exercising regularly, you can do yourself the biggest favour, especially for the quality of life.

    But you have to figure out the time of day when exercise suits you best. I, for example, can’t fall asleep if I exercise before going to bed. Impossible. I have to exercise at least 3 to 4 hours before sleeping. Afternoon is best. Morning doesn’t suit me that well either, because then I feel slightly tired and constantly hungry throughout the day.

    But some people prefer to exercise in the evening and then immediately fall asleep from tiredness. You have to listen to your body and figure out what suits you best. The charm lies in the fact that we’re all different – there are certain general guidelines, but all of us have to figure out what suits us best on our own.

    Sleep Like In Nature

    7. Investing into a high-quality bed

    One of the best investments you can make in life is a bed with the best possible mattress and bed sheets. The difference in sleep quality is incredible. It’s true that a quality bed isn’t cheap, but you shouldn’t see a quality bed as an expense but rather as an investment.

    Depending on your sleep quality, you’ll be a lot better rested and more productive, which also means that you’ll enjoy life more and profit from the investment sooner or later.

    8. Bed location

    This element of good sleep strongly depends on whether you believe in energies or not. I do to a certain extent, therefore I’ve measured energy flows (water flows etc.) under my bed and made sure my bed isn’t near them. I cannot say whether this is important or not, but it’s definitely true that I sleep better in certain areas than in others. Each space definitely has its own energy. Some also swear on Feng shui when placing a bed. But this is truly an area where each individual has to figure out whether the bed location has any value added or not. I believe that some people are more sensible to energies than others, and if energies aren’t right for you in a certain place, then you can have problems with sleep, nightmares and similar.

    9. No coffee, alcohol or drugs

    By drinking coffee, you definitely confuse your internal clock. I myself have not been drinking coffee for a couple of years now, and I have no need for it. If you do drink coffee, the most suitable time is definitely in the morning. The closer to the evening that you are, the harder you’ll fall asleep if you drink coffee or your quality of sleep won’t be that good. So you have to be very careful when drinking it.

    Same with alcohol. If it seems that alcohol and maybe even drugs relax you, the quality of sleep is actually significantly worse. It’s better to go for a quick jog than to help yourself out with alcohol or drugs. With these kinds of substances, you don’t do anything good for your body, neither in the short term nor in the long. By excessively consuming alcohol and drugs, you definitely damage your sleep quality as well as your health. You’re locking yourself into an emotional cage with no easy exit.

    10. Dark and quiet

    It’s scientifically proven that you sleep best in the dark and quiet. That’s why it’s important that the television is off, all noises are eliminated and the body is thus prepared for sleep. Dark also supposedly plays an important role in allowing all important chemical reactions during sleep to happen. It’s recommended to close the blinds and curtains, especially if the full moon is getting closer or already occurring (so that you don’t sleepwalk because of it).

    I’m very sensitive and have a hard time falling asleep if I’m not in the dark and quiet. Introverts usually have that kind of problems. But I know a lot of people who aren’t bothered by that at all. They can fall asleep at any time and anywhere, no matter the conditions, as long as they’re sleepy enough. I can’t do that, so I also can’t really judge the quality of such sleep. You have to find out for yourself, but the dark and quiet will probably help.

    11. No skin-tight underwear

    An important finding originating from Taoism is the concept of energy flow (ch’i) in the body. You can really block your energy flow by wearing skin-tight underwear (one that squeezes the manhood or breasts). And it’s scientifically proven that it messes with the production of testosterone (for men).

    Such energy blockades can strongly contribute to worse sleep. That’s why it might be a good idea to see if you find it easier and better to fall asleep in clothes that are meant for night sleep and aren’t too snug where they aren’t supposed to be. Pyjamas.

    12. Let your worries flow away

    It’s difficult to fall asleep and relax to the world of dreams if you’re troubled by difficult thoughts. It’s very important that before sleep, you let go of the worries and troubles arising from your negative thoughts. The burden of every day is enough on its own and it doesn’t make any sense to live worrying about what could happen tomorrow. That definitely doesn’t always work, but you have to do your best.

    You can help yourself by drawing a hot bath before sleep, listening to relaxing music, reading relaxing content, meditation, visualisation, affirmations or any other tool that can relax you. If nothing else, you have dozens of smartphone apps that can help you relax (just don’t look at the screen).

    Beside eating too much in the evening, I have the biggest problems with sleep if I’m bothered by negative thoughts and worries. Controlling your mind is thus an incredibly important life skill. Learn it.

    13. No work two hours before sleep

    Negative thoughts and intense feelings can also be caused by work responsibilities, especially if you focus on them right before sleep. They don’t have to be difficult duties at all. Even getting into the flow of some work and being chased by deadlines can contribute to you not being able to fall asleep.

    That’s why it’s good that you finish work at least two hours before sleep. It’s even better if you’re ultra-productive for 8 hours, during which you can do all essential things, spend 8 hours charging your batteries and then devote the rest of the time to other activities that fill your life.

    Sleeping Family

    14. No liquids two hours before bed

    It’s hard to get well-rested if you get up often during the night. Drinking water throughout the day is definitely crucial and it’s recommended that you have a flask with you the whole time.

    But drinking water before sleep naturally forces you to get up more times that necessary during the night. That’s why it’s good to not drink anything at least two hours before bed; and before you head into the world of dreams, you shouldn’t forget to go to the toilet.

    15. Going to sleep when you’re sleepy and intervals of sleepiness

    The worst thing you can do is pressure yourself because you can’t fall asleep. If you lie down and try to fall asleep but can’t, that’s an excellent opportunity to take a book into your hands. You should go to sleep when you’re truly sleepy. But still get up at the same time every day.

    Research says that sleep takes place in intervals that last about 90 minutes and that in each interval, different sleep phases take turns. At the start of the interval, you get sleepy. So if you aren’t sleepy, you should wait for the new cycle to begin.

    I noticed that with myself as well. If I become sleepy and don’t go to sleep, I’m awake again and have to wait for quite some time to get sleepy again. It’s the worst if you get sleepy before midnight and don’t go to sleep, and then the new interval of sleepiness only comes late after midnight. As already mentioned, you’ll regret your decision the next day.

    16. No annoying alarms

    It’s best to wake up without an alarm. Once you have a set sleep schedule, that’s not difficult. Most days, I have no problems waking up without an alarm.

    I do have my alarm on just in case, but it’s with relaxing music on my smartphone (far away from my head). Well, to feel better, I also have the more annoying one set for the extreme hour when it’s absolutely necessary to wake up, but I rarely need it. If you need an alarm clock, set some music or sounds to which you’ll wake up gladly.

    17. The bed is (almost) exclusively for sleeping

    Some experts emphasise that the bed should only be for sleeping. Well, and for one other activity – sex, of course. The brain is thus supposed to associate bed with sleep and once you lie down, you simply fall asleep; after having sex. Maybe that has a big effect on some people. I haven’t noticed a significant difference if I also use my bed for reading, meditating, listening to music etc.

    18. Fresh bed sheets and a shower

    It’s necessary that before sleep, you wash out all the “dirt” that you collected during the day. You’ll feel significantly better. Morning and evening showers have an incredibly beneficent effect on peaceful sleep as well as on productivity and well-being during the day.

    Of course a freshly washed body feels best with fresh bed sheets, which have to be changed often enough. New and fresh brings nice things and events into your life.

    19. Dream diary

    Some people benefit a lot from keeping a sleep diary (hour, quality of sleep, dreams, experiences etc.). A dream diary is most useful when you’re experimenting with what suits you and what doesn’t, but it definitely also has value added if you monitor your dreams, especially if psychology is close to us. I don’t keep a dream diary myself, except sometimes when I use my subconscious to solve complex problems or when I don’t understand a part of myself well enough.

    Investing energy into keeping a dream diary signals that you’re prepared to take enough time for yourself, your quality of life and good sleep. If you keep a dream diary, I’m sure that you’ll also take care of all the other elements that contribute to better sleep. Sometimes, the best strategy is starting with the thing that requires the most energy and effort, because everything else seems significantly easier afterwards.

    20. If you wake up feeling sleep-deprived, accept it

    Sometimes, it just doesn’t work any other way and you wake up feeling sleep-deprived; maybe because of work, difficult thoughts, food or anything else. Accept that and don’t worry.

    Go through your day as calmly as possible, and don’t make the same mistake in the evening. The worst thing you can do is to burden an underslept body and spirit with additional worries that don’t make any sense. Even if you aren’t able to fall asleep for several days in a row, it’s important to accept that and do everything you can to get back to your set sleep schedule. No additional pressure.

    21. Set sleep schedule

    It’s best if you create your own sleep schedule with your habits as soon as possible. Wake up every day at the same time and go to sleep before midnight. The steadier that your sleep schedule is every day, the more easily you fall asleep and the better rested you wake up.

    It’s also useful to know the concepts of a morning and evening type of person. If your responsibilities allow you, you can also probably turn your schedule around (being awake at night and sleeping during the day) and still wake up feeling well-rested. A turned-around sleep schedule is mostly characteristic of creatives, musicians, visionaries, thinkers and even entrepreneurs, in a certain stage. But you still have to make an assessment for yourself and decide if the turned-around sleep schedule allows you to get enough sleep and rest, and not walk around the world as zombies.

    22. Catch up on lost sleep

    Of course there are also exceptional periods when you have to grit your teeth and give up on sleep – before exams, work deadlines, when a baby joins the family etc. So sometimes you pull an all-nighter or spend an entire week or even several weeks not sleeping much. That’s when it’s crucial that you don’t overwhelm your body with other things and that you catch up on sleep as soon as possible. If not sooner, then weekends are an ideal opportunity to return what you took from the body. It’s especially important that you try to strain your body like that as rarely as possible. After all, you do a lot of energy harm to yourself with a lack of sleep and sooner or later, there will be time when you have to pay the bill for taking advantage of your body.

    23. Be careful with naps

    Some people can simply substitute lost sleep with a nap; others have a lot more difficulty. In the Western society, an afternoon nap like that is often called a “power nap”. It’s only up to you to find out what suits you. It doesn’t suit me at all. If I fall asleep for just 5 minutes in the afternoon, I won’t be able to fall asleep late into the night. Strange, I know, but that’s just how it is. Even if I’m underslept, I prefer to hold out until the evening and then go to bed an hour early. But I know a lot of people who simply need a power nap and afterwards, they wake up full of new energy.

    An afternoon nap mostly suits those whose work enthusiasm decreases somewhat during the afternoon. Then they can fall asleep without problems in the evening as well. It’s true that there are certain guidelines on how to get a good night’s sleep, but everyone needs to find out what suits them best. Experiment and find out for yourself.

    24. So little is needed

    Most advice for better sleep in this article requires an input of several minutes of energy each day. Don’t let procrastination or laziness encroach upon the best possible sleep that you so strongly deserve. So little is needed in life for you to get the sweetest experiences. Remember: your job isn’t to do remarkable things, but to make everyday things remarkable, which also includes getting a good night’s sleep. I wish you a lot of peaceful sleep!

  • Margin and taking a step back

    There’s no doubt that in order to have outstanding long-term quality in life, you need to lead a balanced lifestyle. Yet balance is a word that’s often misused and wrongly interpreted. I also had a wrong perspective on balance a decade ago. I was sure that balance in life is like a calm sea, like a perfect puzzle where everything is in order – you have a partner you never fight with, you exercise every single day, eat perfect meals, everybody respects you at work etc. Every single area of life is precisely planned with just the right amount of everything. I was wrong.

    Let me explain. Balance in life is often compared to balance in nature. That’s why I also correlated balance in life to a calm sea in nature. But one day, after a severe storm, I asked myself whether balance in nature really exists. Unbearable cold in the North and South poles on the one hand, and unbearable heat in the desert on the other, things like storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, and many other extreme natural phenomena. I don’t think there’s a place on Earth where the temperatures are perfect throughout the entire year and neither are the wind and other weather conditions; there are always storms, earthquakes or other natural disasters and extremes present.

    There definitely is balance in nature, but the balance is not a calm sea, but rather the sum of all different extremes (hot and cold) and quiet periods in between. Balance in nature is the calm before as well as after a storm. It’s a quiet and peaceful feeling after every extreme situation, allowing you to prepare for the next one. Of course there are places on Earth that are more exposed to extremes and others that are less, but it’s the same in life, depending where you live.

    Earth level

    Balance in life therefore doesn’t mean having everything in perfect order, a dull life where nothing exciting happens, it means taking a rest after an extreme state and preparing yourself for the next sprint. In other words, life is neither a marathon nor a sprint, but rather a series of sprints with periods of rest in between. By the way, that’s also the fundamental philosophy of agile management. A series of sprints.

    Studying for finals, proving yourself at your first job, getting a baby, relationship break-ups, moving away from home, changing a job, improving your physical fitness level, getting a severe illness – everything brings some form of a storm into life, together with its changes and challenges. Some situations are more extreme, some less.

    But all situations demand focus, dedication, sacrifice, pushing yourself and so on. You can’t just give back a baby if you’d like to sleep more. If you’re asking yourself why that is so, the answer is quite simple: a smooth sea never made a skillful sailor and one of your purposes in this life is to grow and develop.

    But there’s also another side to this equation that you have to understand. As I mentioned, life is a series of sprints with rest periods. Even in nature, the sun shines after a storm every time. That means balance. Everything you do in life excessively for a longer period of time backfires sooner or later. Putting yourself under stress for years is definitely the best way to slowly destroy your life and become a zombie.

    Taking a rest is therefore definitely a very important concept in life management. The general recommendation for all workaholics is to take time off at least one day per week, one extended weekend (4 days) for every quarter and additional two full-time weeks a year. On the off days, you should be lazy and do nothing, or do some activities that really relax you – taking care of your garden or pool, travelling, getting a massage, reading magazines, watching TV or doing other things that will completely disconnect you from this world.

    In addition to taking a rest, there are two more concepts that can help you manage a series of sprints in life with adequate rest. The first one is called (1) having enough margin in life. The second concept is that (2) you sometimes have to take a step back in order to take two steps forward afterwards. Let’s look deeply into both concepts.

    You need bigger margin

    Margin in life

    Margin in life has been quite a popular concept in time management ever since the book Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives was published. I really recommend the book, since it provides a very good definition for how to use margin in life for a higher quality of living. I’ll summarize the main points, and then you can decide whether reading the book is worth it.

    The idea of margin is that you have physical, mental, emotional, and financial limits that are more or less fixed. When you exceed this limit, it leads to overload and consequently to more stress, intensity and unhappiness. On the other hand, if you let some space between your maximum capacity and how much you take upon yourself it leads to you restoring your emotional, physical, time and other reserves. The space between your maximum capacity and how much you take upon yourself is called margin.

    Margin is the space between your load and your limits. Margin is the opposite of overload. R. Swenson

    Almost everybody in today’s busy world let themselves only enough space to just get by and nothing more (operating on a daily/weekly maximum or near it) so they are constantly over-stressed and anxious. The right solution is bigger margin that leads to higher quality and happiness in life. With the right margin, you can slow down and give yourself more space to really enjoy life.

    Margin is nothing but breathing room, and you need four basic margins:

    • Emotional
    • Physical
    • Time
    • Financial

    Here are some examples:

    • If you need bigger physical margin, cut down on some projects, exercise less if you’re over-training, don’t go to partying every weekend or go to sleep earlier, for example.
    • If you need bigger time margin, learn to manage your time better and before you do that (learning how to manage time means taking a new activity and goal), cancel two other activities that are at least as time-consuming.
    • If you need bigger emotional margin, you can take a weekend off totally for yourself and isolate yourself from the world and people. This especially goes for introverts.
    • If you need bigger financial margin, you can downsize your home or your car instead of taking on another job.

    To have the right margin, you simply have to set limits in life. Maximums and minimums. Minimums make sure you don’t under-perform and progress in too low a gear. With maximums, you have to make sure you don’t operate at your upper limit or even exceed it for a longer period of time. You make sure you keep enough margin in life so you can breathe.

    Now comes the hardest question. If life is a series of sprints, should you give it your all in every sprint? The answer is yes and no. The shorter the sprint, with less margin you can survive if you get enough rest after the sprint. The longer the sprint, the more you have to make sure that you have enough margin, even though you’re sprinting. If you know that it’s going to be a long sprint, you definitely don’t do it at your maximum, because you’ll only hurt yourself sooner or later.

    A very good thing is that you can be very flexible when it comes to having enough margin in life. You can reschedule your daily or weekly obligations, you can cancel some projects, downgrade something financially demanding, simplify, sell things, outsource, automate etc. The moment you feel overwhelmed, you can do something to increase your margin. Maybe you’ll have a feeling of slower progress, but there’s no point in fast progress if you’re overloaded and completely unhappy in life.

    The longer the sprint, the more careful you have to be about setting your upper limit and taking care of your margin in order to have time to breathe.

    Taking a step back

    The second concept that can help you with a series of sprints in a lifetime is taking a step back. As mentioned before, sometimes you have to take one step back in order to take two steps forward. Neither linear nor rapid improvements really take place in straight or exponential lines. There are always ups and downs along the road, and sometimes just taking a rest isn’t enough, sometimes you actually have to go back. There are no straight lines in nature.

    path_to_success3

    There are four most frequent scenarios when you have to take a step back:

    1. When you want more than your foundations can handle
    2. When you’re overloaded for a longer period of time without any margin
    3. When you have gone too far along the way based on wrong assumptions (climbing the wrong ladder)
    4. When there’s a rapid unexpected change in an environment and your strategy is not adequate anymore

    Taking a step back is usually not a conscious decision. That’s why you HAVE to take a step back. Most often, life forces you to take a step back; and the more you insist on not taking a step back, the harder life is pushing you back until you seriously hurt yourself.

    If life demands from you to take a step back, the best advice ever is to do it. It may be a short-term punishment, but it’s a long-term gift, because if you want something badly enough, you will take care of the essentials and come back to continue the path afterwards. If you’re aware of that, the following quote definitely makes sense in life: “An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming.”

    Here are some examples for each of the scenarios, just for getting a more plastic picture. You decide to start running to be fit. (1) Instead of starting slow and pacing up day by day, you want to run a half-marathon right away. You throw up in the middle of the way and because of all the stress, you simply don’t want to hear about running for an entire month. That’s a big step back. (2) You run every day without taking any rest, your calves and knees start to hurt, the pain escalates, but you still run all the way anyway until your bones get stress fractures. Because of the injury, you can’t run for another few months. That’s a step back. (3) You think that running is easy, something everybody can do, and so you don’t need any knowledge about it – the technique, equipment etc. Because of a wrong technique, you hurt yourself. Again a step back. (4) It’s a cold and rainy day and you don’t feel well, but you go for a run anyway, because it’s written in your plan. The next day, you get a flu or a cold. Again no running.

    When life forces you to take a step back, you’re usually quite far along on the wrong path. Before that happens, you get many signals that you’re doing something wrong, but usually you don’t listen to yourself. You ignore a problem, and ignorance only causes it to grow until it really hits you hard and knocks you out.

    Pain is an obvious indicator that something’s wrong. Physical pain shows that there’s something wrong with your body. Many times, you may be causing the pain simply by doing something excessively (sports, alcohol, food etc.). “No pain no gain” can be the worst advice you can get in this context. Emotional pain shows you that there’s something wrong in other areas of life.

    Remember, it’s not the future that you’re afraid of. It’s repeating the past that makes you anxious. Don’t resist life, you must have learnt that much.

    The good news is that if you learn to listen to your body and emotions, you can take a step back by yourself, way before things get serious and life forces you to take a step back. You maybe don’t even need to take a step back if you react fast enough (observation to action), but only need to increase margin in your life. Nevertheless, if you ignore your body and your feelings, life will force you to get some margin in life by kicking you a step back sooner or later.

    Learn to listen to your body and your emotions. They’re a compass helping you make the right decisions for managing your daily life and ensuring you quality and happiness. Your body and your emotions can help you make the right decisions for your long-term success. It may take you longer than planned to reach your goals, but to be honest, it’s about the road not the end goal, no matter how hard that is to accept (everyone wants the final event, but only a few respect the process). That’s what being lean and agile is really about.

    Make sure you have enough margin in life. The longer the sprint you will undertake, the more careful you have to be about enough margin. If you’ve set your limits wrong and are exhausting yourself, take a step back. Your body and your emotions will give you several signals to take that action and the quiet signals will begin immediately after you start over-burning your system. If you somehow miss all the signals and life knocks you down, respect that and embrace that you’ve fucked up. Take a step back, regroup, make a new plan, adjust, and all that will give you strength to take two steps forward, right after you take care of foundations and essentials. If you won’t take a step back, the knockout will only be more severe next time.

  • Immediate implementation

    I will sound a little bit harsh in this post because it’s a difficult truth, but most people are very judging towards others and very indulgent towards themselves (for the same things), at least in a few major areas of life that define the quality of living – health, wealth, relationships etc. and that are, in their essence, very hard to manage. It’s not easy to have a six-pack, even less so to get rich or have really close and deep relationships with family, friends and your spouse.

    As an exaggerated example: people think that if they use olive oil and take a walk once a month, they live a healthy lifestyle, even though they stuff their faces with hamburgers at the same time; or maybe they think they’re wealthy because they can lease an expensive car or whatever. At the same time, they’re very critical towards others who basically do the same, although maybe just in a slightly different way; for example, people who feel better about themselves because of olive oil are very critical towards their friends who think they live healthy because they use brown sugar and a sauna belt.

    Many studies have shown that people see themselves as much better than they are. One of the studies showed the same with individuals who rated the driving skills of themselves and others; almost everybody rated themselves to be a very good driver, much better than they really were. On the other hand, they’ve rated other drivers much worse compared to the objective reality. It’s called illusory superiority.

    I somehow understand that since life is hard, having a good opinion about yourself and your skills can help you go through life, even if the subjective standard / reality is far from the truth. It may be easier to live with being sparing towards yourself, but it can also lead towards you lowering standards and not achieving your maximum potential in different areas of life.

    There’s no doubt that I have the same cognitive bias from time to time, but overall I’m wired a little bit differently, with all the advantages and disadvantages that go with it. I’m actually the exact opposite type of person, very critical towards myself and often ascribing to other people much more than they deserve , at least in the beginning when I’m getting to know somebody new.

    A little bit of black humor about that: When I die, I want the people I did group projects with to lower me into my grave so they can let me down the last time.

    Back then, it was quite a shocking realization for me that most people are more or less talkers, and only a few are really doers. My rough estimate today would be that only one or two people out of ten are actually doers, and others only talk, discuss, dream, but never do shit for making their life better or meeting their commitments. Sometimes even when they do commit verbally, they don’t deliver their end of the bargain.

    That’s why I don’t pay that much attention to what people say anymore. Instead, I prefer to observe what people do.

    It’s a concept from the lean startup. Marketers have figured out that surveys don’t give you real answers for whether people would buy something or not, because they don’t even know themselves. That’s is why in the lean start-up methodology, you try to simulate a real-life buying scenario with a minimum viable product.

    Anyway, with time it became obvious to me that people who are doers perform much better in life. They really improve themselves, get promoted, start their own business, run marathons and progress in many different ways they desire in life. All the really successful people are definitely doers. On the other hand, not all doers are successful, but the ones who do smart work, instead of only hard work, definitely are.

    Next to getting their hands actually dirty and focusing on results, most doers have two outstanding abilities that make outliers and ultra-achievers out of them:

    • The first one is promptly testing new ideas, and implementing and keeping the ones that work in their lives.
    • The second one is observing and getting feedback from their environment and adjusting strategy accordingly.

    The first one is about the essence of constant improvement and self-growth. In practice, every improvement means nothing but doing things differently, in a different way from before. The second one is about staying agile and not acting only based on ego and assumptions, but also calculating outside forces into the strategy to achieve a certain goal.

    Get your hands dirty

    From an idea to testing and execution

    As I briefly mentioned before, talkers only discuss ideas, exchange their opinions, dream about things, but at the end of the day, they don’t do shit to really progress in life. When they see someone actually doing things and getting dirty, they criticize them.

    S/he definitely walks on water because s/he can’t swim.

    That’s the big majority of people. When they don’t have something (because it can’t be leased), they dream about it. Expensive home and car. Luxury travel. Hot body. Having their own business or whatever. On the other hand, what they do have, they put on a pedestal, without any high standards. And many times those are the things that were given to them or that they acquired by luck.

    Here’s a good video that explains how people ignore lucky circumstances and falsely contribute the winning to their competences more than the circumstances (good genes, inheritance, country etc.). Many of them even become cocky in the process.

    [ted id=1897]

    It’s not always like that, I don’t want to be too critical and negative, but many times that is the case; to be honest, I’m exaggerating a little bit to make a point. But even the very famous quote explaining that “small minds discuss people, average minds discuss things and events, and great minds talk about ideas” is misleading about success from the point I’m trying to make. Talking about ideas is definitely better than talking about events and things, but only talking about ideas and having a great mind won’t get you anywhere. You need to take a step further, you have to be a doer, not only a talker or thinker.

    Doers are usually quite different from talkers. Many doers don’t talk much and prefer to let their work speak for itself. No real king has to tell people that he’s the king. Doers like to talk about ideas, to get new insights and clues for new potential life experiments, but what they like even more is real progress and concrete results. They prefer to swim rather than only discuss different swimming styles.

    Doers are the ones who test and quickly implement ideas into their lives. They hear, read or see a new thing they like, and they test it immediately. If they like it, if it gives them a result they want, they put in all the effort necessary to keep it in their lives.

    When doers hear a new idea they like, they’re aware they have to test it out for themselves first. Because what works for one person may not work for someone else. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. What’s important is that the best doers test everything in small steps and in a very smart way. So as to not get burnt or too invested in something that’s not proven on their own skin yet.

    When best doers test something new, they observe what’s happening inside (body, mind, heart, spirit) and outside them (environment), and if the idea leads to personal improvement and faster progress towards their goals, they put in the effort to form a new habit; all the way until they find a new, even better idea. If it doesn’t work, they discard it.

    Immediate testing and (if it works) implementation is the key to execution, it’s the secret sauce of doers and their progress.

    • Talkers discuss how good it would be to save money, doers hear about the automation of saving and try it with the next few payments they receive. If it works, they keep the system going.
    • Talkers tell other people how great their partner is and how they’d spend more time with them if they could, but they’re so busy, doers make room to take their spouse on a date at least once per week, without any distractions.
    • Talkers brainstorm how good it would be to have a business, doers write down their business ideas, analyze and prioritize them, build MVPs, test what works and what doesn’t, and improve their idea until they find the right product/market fit.
    • Talkers complain how hard and without value college is, doers finish a college and while doing so, build an awesome business network, acquire extensive work experiences and do other stuff that makes their CV look ten times better compared to all other schoolmates.

    The only downside to testing all different ideas is not sticking to anything. There’s one group of people, who are neither talkers neither real doers. They try and test all different things, but never stick to anything. Usually there’s some kind of fear behind that, most frequently a fear of failure or a fear of success. You definitely want to stick to the best behavioral pattern you currently know for a specific thing you want to achieve in life. Only searching, thinking and overanalyzing without any discipline and implementation is a big waste in life.

    What you need is to have a system in place that works for you, but in addition to that, you should always be testing and trying new things in order to improve the system (and your behavioral patterns). Most of the time, you do small linear changes, but from time to time, you get disruptive ideas that can help you make a rapid change and get to a totally different level of operation (for example going from being an employee to being an investor etc.).

    From observation to action

    The second important part of immediate implementation is constantly adjusting strategy based on the feedback from an environment. The fact is that you’re part of a larger system and every single action of yours triggers a reaction from the environment. The environmental reaction can either (more or less) accelerate your motion or block it.

    There are always forces that work to your advantage and to your disadvantage, but at the end of the day, what matters a lot are the final direction and the magnitude as a sum of all forces. The difference of progress when an environment supports your actions or blocks them can be enormous. Something doers always count into their strategy.

    In business, there’s a saying that markets always win; markets as an example of one of the very important outside forces, besides legislation, politics, influencers, social trends, technological paradigms, and so on.

    Ego is the only thing that really stands in your way of observing something happening in the environment and consequently adjusting your strategy and action. It’s hard not to be right, but the gap between the objective and subjective reality always exists. If you don’t accept that and you let your ego prevail, you build your actions only on untested assumptions and you should remember that wrong assumptions are the mother of all fuckups. The bigger the gap, the bigger the potential fuckup.

    At the end of the day, it’s an easy choice. (1) You can act based on your assumptions and ego (“I can’t be wrong”), hoping that the gap between the objective and subjective reality isn’t too colossal or not even admitting to yourself that the gap could exist. Nevertheless, experience very clearly shows that it’s only a matter of time before you fuck something up in a big way because you rely on your personal interpretation too much.

    It may feel good to be sure that you’re right and to stroke your ego with mantras like “my way or the highway”, but the pain after being wrong is then so much greater. The more you build your life strategy or business strategy or any other strategy based on your ego and untested assumptions, the bigger your ego gets (because you put all faith in it) and the more it hurts when the bubble bursts; and sooner or later it will burst, because nobody is right 100 % of time.

    The second path you can take makes much more sense. (2) You know that your interpretation of the world is wrong and that there are big errors present. You know that your brain has very limited information and an even more limited capacity for processing captured information and that on top of that you are biased from many different angles. Even the collective brains’ processing power of outstanding teams is quite limited. You know there’s a big gap between the subjective (how you think things are) and the objective reality (how things really are).

    Because you know all that, you consciously decide that you’re wrong (before you’re right). You list your assumptions but make baby steps to test them one by one. You regularly gather feedback from the environment and adjust your motion based on the feedback. You keep your vision or goal in mind, but stay totally agile on how you’ll achieve your goal.

    That’s what “from observation to action” means. You have a system of gathering information from your environment based on every smaller or bigger action of yours, and you also decide on your next step based on the feedback you get from the environment. It may hurt your ego that some of your assumptions were wrong, but your awareness that you’re always wrong before you’re right has to be stronger and give you the courage to stay adaptable and continue with testing all the way until you have enough data to understand the objective reality as closely as possible and thus achieve your goal more easily. Sometimes better understanding the environment with testing (superior insights) enables you to achieve something you want.

    Just do it

    Besides ego problems, the challenge to stay adaptable is also that much greater because of the following two factors:

    • None of us like rapid changes and none of us like to change themselves rapidly because it hinders our sense of security and identity. But you can learn to like change. Being agile and adaptable means constantly changing yourself. Your mind has to be like air or plasma.
    • In addition to that, we believe that bad things only happen to people on TV or far away from us. It’s not easy to admit that the world is a harder place to live in than it may seem at a first glance. That’s why we build naïve ideals we believe in, that’s why a change in an environment must be really colossal before we act (adjust) and consequently, we usually act too late.

    Here are some classic examples:

    • An industry you work in goes down, people start losing jobs, the future market outlook is very pessimistic, but you somehow hope everything will be alright without acting in any way. After a short period of time, you’re fired and mad as hell at the economy, politics etc.
    • You see big behavioral changes in your partner (hiding their phone, staying late at work etc.), but you assume that your partner really couldn’t cheat on you because s/he is so special. After a few months, you’re shocked when your spouse tells you that s/he is leaving you.
    • Your crush gives you signals that s/he likes you, but you don’t do anything, because you assume that if s/he would really like you, s/he would make the first step. Consequently, nothing happens but maybe you’ve just wasted the best potential relationship of your life.
    • The same goes for your money, business relationships, health or any other area of life that’s interdependent and related to the outside environment.

    Burying your head in the sand and hoping that something bad will go away or that luck will strike you somehow is naïve. Problems and changes are like monsters. You have to kill them when they’re small, because they only grow bigger and are harder to solve with time.

    Therefore, to be more agile and adaptable, you must have shorter intervals of gathering and analyzing feedback from your environment and be regularly adjusting your strategy and action. Monthly adjusting intervals are probably okay, but weekly ones are even better, depending on which area of life we’re considering. You’re the captain of your life and you always have to observe what’s happening in your environment.

    • You see your body fat percentage go up on a smart scale. That’s an observation that needs action in terms of diet and exercise.
    • You noticed that your spouse is getting more and more moody. That’s an observation that needs action in terms of better communication, spending more loving time together, more lovemaking or whatever.
    • You observe that your wealth manager is charging you bigger and bigger provisions while your returns are getting worse and worse. It’s an observation that needs immediate action, maybe by negotiating a better deal or changing your wealth manager or even starting to manage your money on your own.
    • Have you read a book and got an idea for getting more productive? That’s a realization that needs to be tested and, if it works, immediately implemented into your life.
    • You’ve noticed that you envy someone something? Good, that means you have a compass for what you want in life. Now study how that person got the thing you want and implement the insights into your life strategy.
    • You have a friend that’s really good at making money, getting good grades, flirting or whatever. Observe how s/he does it, learn, and in the next second, test the same ideas and behavior yourself, adjusting them to your personal situation.

    The key is that when you get an idea, when you experience an epiphany, when you acquire new knowledge or when you observe changes in your environment, you act as quickly as possible. You change how you behave, act, and where and how you invest your resources. Remember that you grow by doing things differently and you can’t grow if you only think and observe without acting.

    Just do it is probably the best slogan ever, but you have to do it in a smart scientific way, regularly measuring your progress. Be inspired. Test and experiment and test. Implement and keep what works. Observe and adjust your actions based on observation and feedback. Be a doer, not a talker.

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  • Technology detox

    On the opposite side of hard (and smart) work, there are two important concepts you have to follow in life for a long-term success. The first one is called “sharpening the saw”. The idea of sharpening the saw was developed by Steven Covey and it simply means that you shouldn’t only work hard, but also regularly take care of your physical wellness, emotional health, competences and sense of mission. The second important concept is putting the saw down, which means resting enough and that also includes taking the time completely away from all electronic devices.

    Sharpening the saw

    Let’s first say a few words about sharpening the saw. Below are some general minimums connected to sharpening the saw that you should follow each day in order to stay efficient, strong and successfully cope with life challenges.

    • Body: Exercise at least 3 times per week for one hour, eat some seasonal fruit every day, eat veggies with every single meal, drink 1 liter of water daily, and minimize your sugar and junk food intake.
    • Emotions: You need strong and loving relationships with your (1) family – with as many members as possible, since in most cases, it’s very difficult to get along with all of them, (2) spouse, and (3) a few close friends in your private and business life. These are the three pillars of strong personal relationships and sound emotional health. You also have to make sure you wipe out all cognitive distortions and develop an outlook on life that’s as positive as possible. You should have zero tolerance towards negative thoughts. Zero.
    • Intellect: You should read something positive and motivational every day. You should read at least one book per month. You should devote at least two days per month to updating your professional knowledge and analyzing all industry novelties, trends etc. Going to a few seminars or conferences per year also makes sense.
    • Soul: Every day, before going to sleep and when waking up, you should think about everything you’re grateful for and why you’re proud of yourself. You should review your life mission at least once a month, reminding yourself why you’re here and how you can contribute to the world the most. You should also donate some of your time or money every month.

    Putting down the saw

    The second important concept is putting down the saw. You’re a human being not a robot, so only sawing and sharpening the saw, which is also a kind of work, doesn’t lead to bigger long-term productivity. When you push yourself over a certain level of hard work, your efficiency and good mood start to suffer. You start making mistakes, it’s much harder to keep priorities in check, your level of tolerance drops, and so on.

    Being a workaholic is an emotional issue, not something to admire and be proud of. I haven’t seen any truly successful person who’s extremely tired all the time, totally burned-out and doesn’t take care of themselves first. So let’s look at some general guidelines for putting the saw down in order to keep long-term productivity and happiness in check:

    • Take one day per week totally off
    • Take one extended weekend (4 days) completely off every quarter
    • Go on vacation for a whole week (8 – 9 days) at least two times per year

    An important part of putting down the saw is to really do zero work. That means doing nothing connected to your job and doing no other intense work for your body, emotions, mind or soul. Of course you can go hiking or surfing, which means you’re also taking care of your body, of course you can read fiction, which means you’re also training your mind, you can definitely spend quality time with the people you love, which also means you’re building deep and loving connections, and so on. But the main idea of putting down the saw is zero pressure and zero stress.

    However, the “contemporary saw” has one big problem. It’s always with you, no matter if you are working, if you are spending time outside of the office or if you are taking time for pleasure. It’s connected to the internet and it can always interrupt you. Your sawing equipment (all the electronic devices you work with) has become a very capable machine that can either dramatically increase your productivity or, if you don’t manage it properly, stifle it; and you don’t want the latter to happen.

    You also need to recharge
    You also need to recharge, not only your devices.

    Really turning off and putting down your saw

    Your saw (mobile phone, tablet, notebook, desktop PC) is like a slot machine in the casino: the most addictive invention ever. With a simple drag or by pressing the refresh button, you have access to an endless feed of news, entertainment, social connections, mail, work and other information. You basically always take your office (work) with you no matter where you go (except maybe into the pool). And work isn’t the only thing you have with you all the time. Instead, there’s also all the various “social pressures”, which put stress on you if you’re enjoying life more than your acquaintances who are posting selfies on social networks.

    So many times you may think you put down the saw, but in reality you did not. Being on vacation and obsessively checking your e-mail, news feeds and social networks doesn’t really mean putting down your saw.

    It only means putting down the saw, picking it up, checking the display, putting it down, picking it up, checking the display again, putting it down, picking it up, and so on endlessly throughout the day.

    Doing that is the worst possible option, because you’re neither really working nor completely resting. You may recharge your batteries slightly, but not nearly as much as you could if you were resting completely. I’m very aware that jobs are becoming more and more demanding and require you to be available at least on email, even when you’re on vacation, but if you want to stay at the peak of your productivity in the long term, there must be periods when you completely disconnect; and you can easily explain that to your boss, clients, coworkers or anyone else.

    I call it “technology detox”. Too much of anything, even good things, becomes toxic. You can even poison yourself and die from drinking too much water. Well, for that to happen, you’d have to drink a huge amount of water in a really short period of time, but you get the point.

    An average person checks their smart phone a few hundred times a day. A few hundred times. Doing that continuously day by day, week by week, month by month and even year by year of course leaves negative consequences.

    You can find many studies that clearly show that if you don’t manage technology, but instead technology manages you (meaning you have zero discipline about when and how much you use technology), then sooner or later, you may start suffering from an inability to focus, concentrate, and prioritize important tasks. You can also damage your eyesight, your posture gets worse, you lose the connection with your inner self, and so on.

    Therefore it’s extremely important that you regularly take the time off and completely away from your digital devices. No smart phones, no notebooks, no netbooks, no tablets, no desktop computers, no smart watches and no TV. The only device allowed is an e-book reader like Kindle, but only for reading books, not for browsing the internet or anything like that.

    Turn off your devices

    Here are my minimums for technology detox, when I turn off all devices that need electricity:

    • One day every two weeks (two days per month, basically)
    • One weekend every quarter
    • One or two whole weeks during the summer vacation

    Going off the grid isn’t easy, but after a day or two, something magical happens.

    • You really become completely relaxed,
    • you get more alert to your surroundings (nature, environment …),
    • you notice what’s happening around you much better (actions, reactions, connections),
    • you can pay a lot more attention to the people you meet, but the best thing by far is that
    • you start feeling much more connected to yourself.
    • You can think better,
    • you can enjoy life by being more present in the moment,
    • you stop worrying about other people and
    • you can really feel your batteries being recharged.

    Try it and you’ll be surprised how much good the technology detox can do for you.

    Technology is like fire, you can cook a meal with it or you can get burned. If you manage technology and not vice versa, then it’s the best tool and leverage to work, connect, create and have fun. But if you become too addicted and don’t know how to set limits, you can quickly become a slave to technology and to everyone sending you e-mails and poking you on social networks – you start following their agenda. At that point, you stop living your own life and start wasting precious seconds on thousands of people who are competing for a moment of your attention.

  • Manipulating your discipline with transaction costs

    Transaction costs (also known as friction costs) are a very important term in economics and finance, representing costs of participating in the market. In economics, transaction costs are divided into three main categories, such as search and information costs, bargaining costs and negotiations, doing all the legal and paperwork, as well as policing and enforcement costs, representing the legal authorities that make sure everyone sticks to the deal. Transaction costs may also include transportation and communication costs. In short, transaction costs are all the opportunity costs in terms of the time, energy and money it takes to make a transaction on a market.

    For example, when participating in the stock market, you have to pay the brokers’ commission, then there are payments to the bank, government fees, and so on. And if you go to buy one item in a different market-store, because the item is a little bit cheaper there, you have to consider transportation costs, that are again transaction costs and have an overall influence on how good deal you get.

    Logically, transaction costs decrease the net result and financial returns. If you trade a lot, you want to make sure that transaction costs are as low as possible. Because of their impact on the net result, transaction costs play an important role when we’re deciding whether to make a deal on the market or not.

    Very similar every activity that you (want to) do has some transaction costs, and they have a strong influence on your self-discipline. The higher the transaction costs, the more effort and discipline it takes to do a desired activity. The lower the transaction costs, the more easily you take action or enforce a new routine. Knowing that gives you the power to manipulate your discipline by influencing transaction costs. Let’s see how.

    Discipline is like a muscle

    Firstly, you have to be aware that willpower, discipline and cognitive abilities are like a muscle. You have a fixed daily dose of discipline/cognitive power and there’s only so much you can do to stay organized, disciplined, make good decisions and follow your desired daily agenda. It’s totally true that you can train your cognitive abilities and self-discipline (and you should) like you can train your muscles, but a maximum always exists. You aren’t a robot and once you reach your maximum, you simply have to give yourself a break; unproductive or old bad habits will start to prevail, no matter what.

    You probably know the feeling when after following a strict diet for a long time, you say to yourself “I’ve had enough of this s*it” and open a bag of chips.

    As I already mentioned, one way to be more disciplined is to train your discipline muscles. When you’re forcing yourself to do something, whether you like doing it or not, you train your self-discipline. You push yourself to stay more focused and better stick to actions that lead to your planed outcome (goals). The more you push yourself, easier it gets to stay disciplined.

    Discipline and muscle training are very welcome, but a maximum still always exists. Even if you regularly train your discipline, you achieve your global maximum sooner or later. You simply can’t be disciplined 24/7. That’s why you also have to consider the second part of the equation. The less discipline and cognitive power every action takes, the more good actions/decisions you can do/make given your current maximum.

    Let’s say you have 80 units of discipline per day. On average, it takes 5 units of discipline (with transaction costs) to make a good decision and enforce a desired new behaviour. You can make 16 disciplined decisions/actions, but after that, you’re out of willpower. If you train your cognitive abilities and discipline power, you can maybe reach 120 units of discipline per day. That means 24 disciplined decisions, and thus you’re making progress much faster. But if your (global) maximum is 120 units, there’s only one more thing you can do to get even more disciplined. You can lower the transaction costs in a way that every decision takes fewer units of discipline. If you manage to decrease them from 5 to 4, you get 6 new disciplined decisions, that is 30 in total. Going from 16 to 30 means being almost twice as disciplined and productive.

    Low transaction costs

    Transaction costs and your discipline

    The easiest way to lower the necessary willpower and other resources for making good decisions and following a new desired behaviour is by decreasing transaction costs (or, in some cases, increasing them for undesired behaviour). By doing this, you have more willpower and cognitive abilities available to be more disciplined and organized in other activities during the day.

    The formula for manipulating transaction costs is very simple.

    • You want to automate wherever possible, and minimize the number of irrelevant decisions to zero, so there are no transaction costs at all.
    • For a desired (new) behaviour, you want to decrease transactional costs to the minimum, really going as low as possible.
    • For an undesired behaviour, you want to increase transactional costs to the maximum, always putting new obstacles in your way.

    Let’s look at some practical examples.

    You want to get in shape. Having a bag of chips at home means it takes you almost zero energy to start eating unhealthy food. All you have to do is take the chips out of the cupboard, open the bag and you can start stuffing your face with junk food. The transaction costs are almost zero. If you always have chips and cookies on the kitchen counter where you can just grab the unhealthy snack, transaction costs are nearly zero. Having cookies in your pocket means that transaction costs really are zero. You’re constantly tempted and undesired behaviour takes zero effort.

    On the other hand, if you don’t have any junk food at home, the transaction costs are much higher. You have to change your clothes, drive to the grocery store or gas station, decide which junk food to get, buy it, come home, and only then can you enjoy your snack. It takes much more effort and energy, thus transaction costs are quite high. The further you have to drive, the higher the cost. At some point transaction costs are so high, you rather eat an apple than make all the effort to get to the junk food.

    Let’s look at another example from a different perspective. If you live close to the gym, if you always have your training gear near you, if you can just step through your door and start running or jump into the pool, the transaction costs to start exercising are low. It takes a minimum of your willpower, time and other resources to start training. But if you have to drive far to get to the gym, if you always have to call your friends to find a gym buddy, if your sports bag is not ready etc., the transaction costs are high and it takes a lot of effort to start the desired behaviour.

    By decreasing or increasing transaction costs, you can manipulate your discipline a lot, especially in the beginning when you’re enforcing new desired behaviour and developing new healthy habits. Make sure that it takes a lot to perform an undesired behaviour and that there are almost zero transaction costs for the new habits you want to develop.

    Here are some additional ideas for how you can manipulate your discipline with transaction costs:

    • When you get your paycheck, automatically transfer a certain amount to your savings account. Automate paying yourself first.
    • Don’t just impulsively buy expensive things with a credit card when you are in the shopping center. Make a system with many check points that you have to cross in order to buy an expensive item. For example, first you have to put the item on a wish list, discuss it with your partner, wait a few weeks, find the best price etc.
    • Make your files, folders and apps that lead to your progress easily accessible with shortcuts, bookmarks etc., and delete all entertainment apps and folders that are constantly distracting you. You can also install a web-nanny that blocks your social networks if you use them too much.
    • Unplug your TV and change your programs so you’ll never ever turn your TV on again.
    • Always have a book with you and put one next to your bed. You can also do the same with banana.
    • When you’re doing focused work, turn off your mobile phone (it takes quite an effort to enter all the pass-codes and PINs) and make it hard as hell to open e-mail or any other distraction apps
    • Use e-mail templates with Yesware and automation apps like IFTTT.
    • You can dress yourself the same every day, like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs did. That’s how you’ll save cognitive decisions and willpower for other, more important things.

    There are many other ways of manipulating transaction costs. Think of the behaviours and habits you want to get rid of and make it as hard as possible to get started. On the other hand, make it as easy as possible to start and perform the good habits and enforce new behaviour. If you additionally manipulate habit triggers and rewards, you will become a superhero of self-discipline sooner or later.

  • A short morning meeting with yourself

    The most popular agile development framework is called Scrum. An important part of the Scrum process is the so-called Daily Scrum. The Daily Scrum is a very short meeting with a team before the work begins, especially meant to coordinate team effort and overcome eventual roadblocks.

    The meeting shouldn’t last longer than 15 minutes and it not only coordinates, it also contributes a lot to keeping a strong working momentum, motivation and communication. The meeting agenda is very simple and straightforward. Every team member answers the following three questions:

    • What have you done since the last meeting?
    • What are you planning to do today?
    • Is there anything preventing you from achieving your goals?

    The purpose of the meeting is not to resolve issues, but just to detect them and bring them to the awareness of all team members. Another very important part is that the meeting should always be held at the same location and at the same time every day, and should start on time.

    The meeting should also be a stand-up meeting. Meetings can be big time wasters, especially if people aren’t on time, there’s a lot of small talk, there’s no clear agenda and purpose to the meeting and so on. But if you stay standing up, the meeting members are definitely not tempted to exceed the time limit.

    Your short morning meeting

    In agile development, the Daily Scrum has many planning and clarifying benefits. It doesn’t take long, the investment is small (if it’s done right), and the rewards are big. That’s why you should also have a short morning meeting with yourself, because you want to:

    • Be constantly connected to yourself and listen to your mind, body and emotions
    • Align your daily tasks and effort with your sprint and endgame
    • Keep momentum and motivation
    • Detect and consider roadblocks in the process you follow and keep a flexible mentality
    • Focus yourself for the rest of your day

    The best thing to do is to make your short morning meeting a part of your morning kick-off routine. Because you should hold this meeting at the same time every day. Before you start working, you take 5 to 15 minutes, open a notebook or word processor, and answer three very simple questions:

    • What did I do yesterday?
    • What do I plan to do today? (Limited to three to five important things you can do in the flow…)
    • Is there anything preventing me from achieving my goals?

    By answering these three simple questions, you’ll refresh what you were doing in the past to keep the momentum, you’ll focus your activities for the upcoming day and you’ll think about the potential roadblocks that you can encounter through your day. Being aware of the roadblocks makes it easier to handle them later.

    While having your short morning meeting, make sure that you don’t listen only to your mind, but also to your body, spirit and health. Consider your level of energy as well as your emotions, intuition, mission and other feedback you get from yourself and your environment.

    If you visualize your progress, don’t forget to move sticky notes on your Kanban board.