Get Motivated wrap-up

I spent all of Tuesday, from 8 to 5 at the Coliseum for a Seminar that featured a variety of Motivational Speakers. I've been to similar events in the past and the warning usually is, leave your credit card at home, or you'll wind up spending a LOT more than you planned.

It was what I expected, if you take notes you'll find some inspiration, but for the most part, you really don't need to spend anything extra.

I even Googled the event and read lot's of positive reviews, and one negative.

Sherry Slater did a write up in today's Journal-Gazette that I'll point you to by clicking here and here too.

This photo was of the final speaker of the day, General Colin Powell.

Getting Healthy

I've been sitting on this post for a couple of days. It came in my email before Memorial Day but, I thought it might be best to wait until AFTER the big weekend to make these changes.

This is from the DumbLittleMan Blog, which has some pretty smart ideas:

How To Kill Your Addictions to Junk Food and Soda Pop

Posted: 20 May 2008 07:35 AM CDT

Written on 5/20/2008 by Garrett Whelan who writes about cooking for men or anyone trying to kick the fast food habit at FatBastardEats.com.

How can you kick junk food to the curb? Many of us have tried and failed, and tried and failed, and tried and ended up binging on Big Macs blended with ice cream, etc...

What we usually do is say, "After this bucket of KFC Chicken, I'm not eating this crap anymore!" Then we purge our house of all things sugary, we eat salads and whole wheat for about 3 days and then cave in the first time we drive past a Taco Bell. Where is the will power, the drive, the ambition you had a couple days ago?

That's because we try to stop eating junk food without thinking about it - without planning our escape. What we should do is worry about changing our habits. As Leo Babauta mentioned over at Zen Habits, forging new habits takes time and energy. If we want to kick our junk food habits we'll have to give both. That's why we're going to:

1. only change one habit at a time
   
2. give each change at least 2 weeks to become ingrained

After all, we've spent years building up these habits, we can't expect to take them down overnight. We'll do it smart, slow and consistent and we'll kick junk food to the curb.

I'm going to separate the tasks into kicking crap snacks, kicking fast food and kicking pop (soda to you philistines). Pick whichever will be easiest for you and do that first. A taste of success is incredibly motivating. Then do the one that will be hardest second while you're on an upswing.

Kick the Pop Habit

This one's probably the simplest. Not the easiest, but the simplest. You just keep downgrading every 2-4 weeks. Essentially switching terrible habits for bad and then switching bad for good.

• Regular -to- Diet: First switch from regular to diet pop and leave it at that for at least 2 weeks. I know that some people say diet is just as bad as regular but we don't want to be fighting our caffeine addiction at the same time we're fighting our sugar addiction. Remember we want to change habits in stages to have the highest chance of success.
  


• Diet -to- Caffeine Free Diet: If you do have a caffeine addiction this is where you'll find out. You're going to have about 3 days of feeling like a hangover mouth tastes while your body breaks the physical addiction. But stay on it for the full 2 weeks, we don't want to change too much too fast.
  


• Caffeine Free Diet -to- Flavored Water/Water: Now we're moving into healthy territory. If you can't stand drinking water I'm not going to lecture you. Just drink the flavored water with 0 calories they have now, it's just as good(if you don't mind paying for it). If you want you can use that as a jumping off point to regular water but either way you should be loosing weight and feeling better than when you were drinking pop.
  

Kick Fast Food

How do we beat crack for the single male? Yes, that's how hooked people are on this. How about this:

• Start by saving all your fast food receipts for one week
  
• Now, place a jar by your bed
• Each night, empty your pants, wallet, or purse of all the fast food receipts.
  

At the end of one week, you can add them all up and get a pretty good idea of how much you're spending on this crap. Round that up to the nearest $10 and cut it in half. That's how much you'll spend a week from now on.

Take that money and put it in a ziplock bag that you keep in your car. All your fast food will be paid for out of this fund, and when it dries up, that's it until next week. This will force you to ration and make choices.

Let it sink in for 2 weeks and don't forget to plan this out. Something has to replace all that fast food you're suddenly not eating. I suggest:

• Keep something in your car to eat on the way home from work, like an apple or some nuts - something filling and always ready.
  
• Have some frozen meals ready at home so you never wonder what you're going to eat tonight. If you can't make them yourself on the weekend, try those frozen skillets - something balanced and quick.
  

Then, when this new habit is a part of you, cut that dollar amount again, and again, and again until you're happy with how much (how little) fast food you're eating. I think under $10 a week is OK for most people.

Kick Crap Snacks

The first step to kicking crappy snack foods is doing a food inventory. What do you have in your kitchen? Cookies, chips, candy? And what are you eating them for? Which are your comfort food? Stress foods?

Then we're going to make a chart of all these snacks and for each one list a replacement snack. For example instead of potato chips you could eat tortilla chips with salsa. Now you can switch a crappy snack for it's healthier replacement. But no more than one every two weeks (pacing). Make yourself eat the new food daily so it becomes a part of your lifestyle and remember to snack before you get hungry.

It's a pretty straight forward process but here's a few tips to make it go smoother:

• If you have a craving for a crap snack that you absolutely have to give in to, buy an individual portion or eat just enough to satisfy your craving and throw out the rest. Keeping it around is crap-snack sabotage.
  
• If you have a sweet tooth, proportion something into bites and eat them after a healthy snack. For example cut a snickers bar into 8ths and keep each individually wrapped in the freezer, then eat one after you've filled up on popcorn. That gives you that sweet taste without having to fill up that sweet crap.

The three keys to kicking junk food are planning, pacing and sticking to it. Remember to take as long as you need to get these new habits ingrained, 2 weeks is a minimum. Better junk food free in 1 year than relapsing in 6 months.

-Garrett

Productivity

You may have noticed that I have been reposting stories and articles from others, along with my own writing lately.

Anthony Juliano posted this on his SoundBite Back Blog:

Productivity tips for every hour of the day

Posted: 27 May 2008 06:26 AM CDT

Although it sounds like a contradiction in terms, it's easy to procrastinate about productivity. Being more productive sounds great in theory, but it also sounds like a lot of work. The problem is, like a lot of things, people tend to try to do everything at once and end up burning out shortly after they start. And that leads to a downward spiral of less productivity, less satisfaction, and less free time.

There is, however, a better way. Instead of taking on the overwhelming task of trying to simultaneously incorporate all the productivity advice you've heard, take it one hour at a time. Look for ways to make the most out of every part of your day, and you just may end up with more hours left over to do the things you really want to do. Here's an example of how to make small changes in your productivity every hour of every day.

6 a.m. Start your day with some exercise. It doesn't matter whether you walk, run, or hit the gym. If you want to work out, doing it first thing in the morning is the best way to make sure that it gets done. And it kicks things off with a great energy boost that makes your first hours more productive.

7 a.m. Eat something. When you're running late, you may be tempted to skip breakfast. However, taking 15 minutes to eat something substantial instead of losing energy or snacking all morning will save you time and make you more likely to get things done right up until lunch.

8 a.m. Plan your day. Take a few minutes to update your to-do list, glance at your calendar, and plan how you'll spend your time. This is the single most important step in making your day as productive as possible.

9 a.m. Check your e-mail, then go offline. Delete any messages you can. Respond to anything that will take less then 5 minutes to answer. Add anything else to your to-do list. And after that's done, set your e-mail to "offline" before you check it again. Otherwise, you risk spending your whole day volleying e-mails back and forth. Repeat this step no more than once every hour, unless you're waiting for an urgent message.

10 a.m. Do the hardest thing on your to-do list. What's nagging you? What's the one task you're dreading? Chances are it's preventing you from focusing on other work. Get it out of the way. There's a very good chance that it's not as bad as you think it is, and worrying about it certainly isn't going to make it any better.

11 a.m. Make one trip around the office. Instead of getting up every time you need to deliver something, retrieve something, get a drink, or visit a co-worker, save as many steps as you can by holding deliverables in an out basket. Then, when you have to do something that just can't wait, get a few other things done while you're up and around. Short of going to the bathroom, it's rare that you absolutely have to leave your desk for any one thing. A lot of times, however, we do so because we're avoiding work--like that thing you should have taken care of at 10 a.m.

12 noon. Go out to lunch--and walk, if possible. Yes, there are days when going out to lunch is impossible. But whenever you can, get out, get some air, and take a walk if you can. Give your eyes, your back, and your brain a rest, and you'll come back feeling re-energized and ready for the afternoon.

1 p.m. When you have a meeting, set limits. Start every meeting with these two statements to keep everyone focused:

• We're going to conclude in 60 minutes (or however long you need)
• We're here to talk about (subject) and decide (outcome)

Be strict about the purpose, start time and end time, or you'll waste time. And have one person take notes and e-mail them to everyone.

2 p.m. Sometimes, you have to pick up the phone. E-mail always seems more efficient than other forms of communication, and it often is. But "easier" does not always equal "more efficient." Remember, there are times when you just have to pick up the phone:

• When a client/customer prefers to communicate over the phone
• When the e-mail you're about to send will only lead to more questions
• When you're trying to schedule a meeting with one person not using the same calendar software as you
• When what you're planning to say is critical, controversial, or risks being misunderstood

And by all means, when you're on the phone, don't send/read e-mails. You won't be giving either the phone call or the e-mail message the attention it deserves.

3 p.m. If someone comes to your office, give him your full attention, or ask him to come back. If someone visits you in your office, he either:

• Thinks what they have to say is important or complex enough to warrant a face-to-face conversation, or
  
• Is just trying to avoid work

The first person deserves your full attention, which means putting the phone and e-mail aside--literally, if possible--and looking him in the eye. The value of multitasking is overstated in most cases, and it certainly isn't as important a skill as active listening. As for the second person, tell him you'd love to talk, but you can't right now. Ask him if he's free for lunch tomorrow.

4 p.m. Get ready for tomorrow--the office edition. What tasks do you need to set in motion, or what do you need to prepare for, in order to get ready for the next work day? Any meetings in the morning that you need to be ready for? Any files that you need to find? Take every action you can anticipate.

5 p.m. Leave work on time. It's rare that there's something on your desk that absolutely can't wait until tomorrow. Your time is better spent getting a break from work and feeling like you've had time to yourself.

6 p.m. Eat something healthy. You can't be productive if you don't feel good. There's no substitute for exercise and eating right.

7 p.m. Relax. Do something fun. Turn off your brain. Play with your kids. Goof off. You don't have to be productive all the time.

8 p.m. Get ready for tomorrow--the home edition. Anticipate everything you need from home for the next day. Set out the clothes you plan to wear, including your exercise clothes for the morning (which makes it a lot easier to get out the door). Get your work stuff ready to go. Shine your shoes if you have something big planned the next day. Do anything you can that you'd otherwise have to do in the morning.

9 p.m. Read. Learning is one of the best ways to stay productive, and reading is still the best way to discover something new.

10 p.m. - 6 a.m. Sleep*. Until we find a substitute for sleep, one of your greatest productivity tools is putting your head on the pillow, shutting your eyes, and doing nothing for eight hours.

What other recommendations do you have for staying productive every hour of every day?

*Have trouble getting to sleep? Check out these suggestions from Gretchen Rubin on The Huffington Post.

Photo: clix on stock.xchng