Achieve-IT!

Best Goal Setting and Personal Productivity Articles from May 2008

May was a fun month for the blog.  Although it didn’t start out that way.  I spent the first part of the month rebuilding the site due to it being hacked.  But I think we recovered quickly with some good material, new site enhancements and great comments. 

We came very close to crossing the 5000 daily reader mark once and for all in May.  One day, it hit 4,985.  Stop teasing already!  :)  You can help me break this goal by telling a couple friends about this blog.  Refer them to an article you might have liked, or post a link from your website.  I want to cross the 5,000 reader mark this month!

Here are the most warmly received articles from May - which are also a good place to start when telling a friend about Persistence Unlimited:

• 12 Hacks for Becoming a D.I.Y. Master - Amaze Your Friends & Baffle Your Enemies - DIY masters are the Renaissance men and women who you can call on at any time to build, repair or mod just about anything.  If you are new to DIY or want to go deeper down the rabbit hole, this is a good article to start. 

• 10 Tiny Things That Make My Life Easier - Sometimes big productivity comes in small packages.  Here are 10 tiny things that help me.  Maybe they’ll help you too.

• I had a blast writing a review series of my new-favorite shoes.  They’ve eased the pain in my feet and actually helped me sleep better believe it or not!

•      Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 1
•      Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 2
•      Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 3
•      Finn Comfort Shoe Review part 4

If this is your first day reading my blog, welcome! 

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How I Dropped A Whole Lot More Than 20 Pounds By Eating Chocolate Chip Pancakes…

Over a nice breakfast this morning, my kids were quizzing me about pancakes. 

I am by no means an expert because pancakes add little value to the outcome of my life.  But their questions reminded me of when I was a kid how I learned an important lesson about pancakes - of the chocolate chip variety.

When I was 12 or so we didn’t have a lot of money to go out to eat.  So it was a rare occasion I found myself out to eat breakfast.  But every time we had breakfast out,  I dove into the menu searching for the coveted chocolate chip pancake dish I longed for.  Often times the restaurant wouldn’t have it.  When the restaurant did have these morsel laden pancakes, my Mom wouldn’t let me get them.  She had good reason.  Before I hit my teens, I was overweight and meals involving chocolate and pancakes would contribute to my chub-factor. 

But this one Sunday was special.  She wanted to celebrate a job promotion, so it was a Sunday breakfast out and Lo, they had Chocolate Chip pancakes on the menu!  I sheepishly asked if I could order them to which she replied “just this once.”

I couldn’t wait.  In my mind, these pancakes would be like getting a 3 big chocolate chip cookies stacked on one another.  How happy I was at last to finally taste the sweetness of this coveted dish. 

Mount Everest

When the dish finally arrived, I’ll say it looked even better than it did in the picture.  The plate was huge.  Chocolate chips were not only baked into the pancakes, there was a generous pile forming a mini-Mount Everest of cocoa of them on top of the cakes.  And to top everything off, there was whipped cream cresting the outer edges of the flapjacks thereby sealing the visual representations of the neighboring Himalayan peaks.  Ok, I’m on a mountain theme, just work with me.

The first bite was wonderful.  A dream come true.  The cakes were perfect, the chocolate decadent.  I took another bite and then another.  What joy to be a kid devouring a mountain of chocolate, whipped topping and pancakes.  Was this heaven? 

Base Camp #3

Then, I hit a pitfall.  I got to about the half way mark on the pancakes.  Like reaching base camp 3 on an Everest expedition, my mind threw me.  I was a little dizzy and sick to my stomach.  In an instant, I knew I had too much.

I must have done something wrong, I thought.  Maybe I should have started on the south side and skipped the base camp of whipped cream topping.  Or maybe I should have forgone the chocolate chip peak for a tour of the lower foothills.  I had no idea.  But I did know it was too late. 

To save face, I put on a big smile and offered some to my sister, hoping, no praying, she’d take the other half.  No, she said.  She wasn’t having any of it.

Maybe my mom would want some?  “No you enjoy them.” she said.

I was stuck.  I stared down at the plate of now gooey chocolate, cream infused batter and became more nauseous by the second.  Maybe I could take them to go and sneak them into the trash when nobody was looking.  No, they are getting soggy as-is.  They won’t keep.  My Mom said.  If you want them, go ahead and finish them up.  I don’t know if she even had a clue I wanted to throw up.  She may have thought I was still enjoying them.

Descending From The Peak

Finally, I had to come clean.  They are making me sick, I told her.  Thankfully she said to stop eating them.

To this day, almost 30 years later, the thought of chocolate chip pancakes makes me a little nauseous.

Bottled Oxygen

But the experience was important because I learned two lessons that day.  First, the old saying “be careful what you wish for because you might get it.”  I got what I wished for and regretted almost every minute of it.

The second lesson was that food can’t make me happy.  Chocolate is good but only if taken in small quantities.  The same with cake.  But neither can make me happy. 

In retrospect, I think the great chocolate chip pancake experiment drove a wedge deep in my mind about how eating can be both pleasure and pain.  That small portions are good, large portions are bad.  Like the adult who doesn’t drink alcohol because he threw up from drinking as a 15 year old, I formed the same association with food.

I have been thin since high-school (minus my first year of marriage when gained and subsequently lost over 50lbs. due to Kim’s delicious cooking.)   I still like chocolate, but I am careful with it.  Never too much.  I still like pancakes but 1 or 2 is plenty. 

If you struggle with weight loss, you can draw upon a similar event from your childhood.  Maybe you ate too much ice cream one day or ate potato chips until you were sick. 

You don’t need to scar yourself for life like I did but maybe just thinking about those incidents more often would help.  Or try pinning a picture that represents your eating to the point of nausea to your refrigerator to remind you that you should both be careful what you wish for and that food cannot make you happy…

Get more great articles on weight management and slimming down by subscribing to my my nonfat RSS feed.  I’d love to have YOU as a daily reader!

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links for 2008-05-29

• Teacher lets Morningside students vote autistic classmate out of class, 5
  1. School recommends student be tested for autism. 2. School organizes vote same child out of class before testing complete. What’s wrong with this picture? In tomorrow’s news, same teacher shows class how to kick walkers out from under the elderly…
  (tags: school autism wtf education abuse)
• How to Build Influential Relationships by Doing Favors
  New perspective on building relationships by doing favors for people.
  (tags: relationships career)
• 1012 + Ajax/Javascript/Dhtml examples and demos to download
  I’ll probably need at least 1 of these in the coming months.
  (tags: ajax javascript tutorials webdesign)
• REMY: The Alarm Clock Blanket
  Wild invention using biofeedback where your entire blanket becomes an alarm clock.
  (tags: inventions technology)
• Foldershare is a useful tool
  “download the Mac or PC software, and give your customer or whomever you choose access to the online folders you create you can work on a file or your customer can work on a file and the most current version will be saved in one place.” Might be good for
  (tags: microsoft collaborating work files)

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The Illusion of Difficulty Makes Task Management Hard

Have you ever had a task you were putting off and putting off until you just couldn’t stand it anymore.  Then finally, you start and it takes a whole 10 minutes to do? 

I’m sure we all can relate to this. 

Some tasks are great at creating the illusion of great difficulty.

• The task says “This is going to take forever.”
• The task says “You’re going to hate working on me.”
• The task says “There’s going to be lots of pain involved when you start.”
• The task says “Hope you are ready to be bored because a lot of boredom is coming your way.”

It’s easy to get faked out by tasks like this.  If you let enough time pass, you’ll start to believe what your mind is telling you about the task. 

But the best answer for tasks that speak such nonsense is action.  Action puts a lie to the task’s devious ways. 

• Action says “It’s actually not bad once you get started.”
• Action says “I am more motivated after I get started.”
• Action says “I was putting this off for nothing.”
• Action says “Automatically, I cross the finish line.”

Action requires one basic commitment - a commitment to start. 

Do something, ANYTHING to get started.  Start by cracking open a book, plugging in a cable, unloading one dish from the dishwasher.  All you need do is start, then like magic, action takes over. 

But first you must start.

So…

Start — > NOW!

Give your friends a kick in the seat of the pants! Feel free to share this article by clicking one of the icons below and submitting it to your friends on Digg, StumbleUpon or other networks.

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links for 2008-05-28

• How to Read Popular Magazines on your Desktop for Free
  A sneaky way to get some popular magazine content for free using an Apple Safari web browser
  (tags: ebooks free hacks reading)

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Hitting Rock Bottom and Losing 100+ Pounds…Two Smart Questions For Breaking Bad Habits

My wife handed me a Ladies Home Journal this afternoon to point out an interesting article on weight loss. 

Basically, the article featured five women who had all lost over 100 pounds each and kept it off for over a year. 

Some started at over 300 pounds and had lost an amazing 140+ pounds.

I always love to see success stories like these.  I enjoy looking at the before and after pictures.  I could do that all day in fact.  I find it inspiring seeing the good guys and gals winning for a change. 

Photo by Henning Buchholz 

What stood out to me in this article was two specific questions all of the women answered.  One was “what got you here?”  And the other was What was your turning point? (when you started losing weight.)  The first question implies that whatever we seek to get rid of such as weight, drinking alcohol, quitting smoking or other bad habits had an origin somewhere. 

What got you here?

One woman discussed having an alcoholic father and having to share food with 10 other siblings.  Since food wasn’t abundant, she felt like she was starving all the time.  When she grew up and could eat more, she ate more. 

Whatever your bad habit might be, it has an origin. 

What is it?  Why are you doing this to yourself?  You might ask. 

What was the turning point?

Two women revealed that what turned them around was the death of someone close to them.  A father who died due to heart disease warns against overeating like no other warning - ask me I know…

Another participant said she compared her weight to her husband who was 7 inches taller than her and found out she weighed more than him.  The embarrassment of walking with him and imagining other people feeling sorry for him for having such a “fat wife” was more than she could take.

I like knowing someone’s turning point because it tells what she is thinking.  Being able to see the thought process goes straight to the heart of what we can adopt to fight our own battles. 

In other words, if you could adopt either their humiliation or fear when it was helpful to stop a destructive habit wouldn’t it make habit busting easier?  We are all motivated in similar ways.  Getting someone else’s thought process as they turned the corner is very powerful.

What to do with your answers

In asking what got you here and what was (or could be) your turning point, you’ll have two important answers. 

So if you’d permit me to push your buttons for a few minutes…

Think about what got you in the place you are right now.  Whether you want or need to lose 100 lbs or if you want to eliminate your financial debt.  There was a certain pattern or habit that got you here.  What was it?  When did it start?

When you know what got you here, you can think about how you’ve matured since that time.  Consider the price you are paying to hang on to that which was from long ago.  Are you still willing to pay it?  Can you give it to someone else?

And then, seek out your turning point.  What tragedy would have to take place before you’d take your goal seriously?  Who would have to die?  What loss would you have to endure in order for you to put your all into your goal?

Maybe, just maybe you won’t need a tragedy or major humiliation to turn the corner.  Perhaps you can do some visualization where you allow yourself to feel what would happen if you don’t turn the corner. 

What would happen anyway?  If you don’t follow though, who will you let down?  How long will you suffer?  What price will you ultimately pay?

I think they are all good questions to think about, especially when what we are doing causes us pain.

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Save Lots-O-Money At The Pump

We all can use some help saving some bucks at the pump. 

The site Drive Smarter Challenge lets you enter your make and model of car and then kicks back a roadmap of strategies you can use to cut your gas bill.

I popped in my 2004 Toyota Solara and got back 6 strategies estimated to save me $430 a year.   Most of the tips were basic stuff like filling up your tires and clearing heavy junk (i.e. golf clubs) out of the trunk.  But it would be cool if some other people got some specific tips like “Install a sneezledoodle in your carburetor and save $1500 a year.”

via Curbly

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Gadget Lust: Kindle e-Book Reader

Am I lusting after the right gadget?  Help me decide if Amazon Kindle e-Book reader is for me or is it going to kill my productivity…

I think I’ve made it plainly known that I love reading e-books.

Since the year 2000 I’ve been reading novels, how-to books and biographies on Pocket PC devices.  Pocket PCs are great for reading in short spurts - especially in bed because of their backlit screen.  You don’t have to worry about waking the Mrs. while reading. 

However, the trade off is the text is small (probably eye straining) unless I up the font size.  When I increase the font the type decreases the screen real estate.  Thus, I might only be reading 1 paragraph before having to turn the page.

Many of the early reviews of the Kindle say my Pocket PC headaches are solved.  And this review makes me want to drop the money today.  But I don’t want another gadget just lying around if I can help it.  Maybe you can help me decide if it’s right for me

PPC Productivity and Vocabulary Building

Another major benefit of the Pocket PC and Mobipocket reader (which happens to be the underlying technology of the Kindle) is it’s dictionary option.  I purchased an Oxford dictionary which turns any reading session into a learning session.  As I read and come across a word I don’t know, I immediately tap and hold and choose look up.  Then I get a definition immediately.  From there, I copy and paste the word and definition to my Supermemo flash card program. 

Although this is cumbersome to an extent, it works well for building my vocabulary.

Also, there’s something to be said to having all your tools in one place.  If I can manage my task list, calendar, email and read an e-book from the same device that’s good right?

PPC Reading Downsides

• Screen real estate - As mentioned, you don’t have the screen real estate for say reading for an entire afternoon.  I’ve often felt some eye strain after reading for longer stints.  Also some books I wouldn’t even attempt to read on the Pocket PC.  Technical manuals on programming are a good example.  Reading code is challenging enough.  Having it roll on for 100 pages makes it nearly impossible.
• Fewer Selections - What is frustrating to me is hearing about a book I’d love to read and it not being available for Mobipocket reader.  That is where the Kindle seems to have a huge advantage.  Where many of the Pocket PC Mobipocket books are Romance novels and Adult erotica, Amazon has captured many more professional titles including most of the bestsellers list.  More selections mean more reading.
• Short Battery life - By most everyone’s measurement, the Pocket PC gets very short battery life.  Try 6-8 hours one one battery charge.  A lot of it has to do with the back light eating up the energy.  Some of it goes due to the WiFi radio.  The Kindle boasts the possibility of weeks on one charge.

Perceived Advantages of the Kindle

Since I do not own a Kindle, I can only go on what I’ve read.  Here are the advantages that the Kindle seems to boast.

• Screen real estate of a paper book - The Pocket PCs screen is so small that I don’t read certain books because in increasing the font size, I lose the amount of text that is displayed on the page.  I wouldn’t have this problem with the Kindle.
• Clearer typeface - Although I can enable ClearType on the Pocket PC, ClearType looks blurry to me.  So I don’t use it.  Everything I’ve read about the Kindle from independent reviews says the typeface is brilliant.
• No LCD flicker - I haven’t noticed LCD flicker on my Pocket PC, but they tell me it’s there.  the flicker contributes to eye strain and potentially headaches. 
• Less eye strain - Having clearer reading, no LCD flicker and larger screen real estate means less eye strain.  Thus, one could expect a
• Larger selection of titles - A several time a month problem I have with the Pocket PC Mobipocket reader is the lack of titles.  I don’t read any Romance novels or adult erotica, but those appear to be the largest selection of titles.  Amazon has a great advantage here in their ability to deliver hundreds of thousands of titles.
• $10 Price Tag on Books - Many of the Mobipocket books are priced at retail.  Meaning I can go up to Barnes and Noble and buy the same book for the same price of the e-Book.  I never liked that because where paper, binding and floor space cost a lot of money, electronic bits cost very little.  They could at least cut the price substantially.  But Amazon has set up a price plan where you can buy current titles for $9.99.  Buy 30 books and you’d conceivably save enough money to pay for the device itself.  It’s a good deal, but something about it makes me wary.  Although the $10 titles are a great deal now, I wonder how long will it last before they raise the price on all the books? 
• Built in dictionary - This is a wash because I’ve got the same Oxford dictionary installed on my Pocket PC.  But it’s good to know I won’t have to buy another one.
• Battery life - Where a Pocket PC with an extended battery lasts 6-8 hours, the Kindle will last perhaps a week or more.  Not that I’d be reading that long non-stop. 
• Free built in EVDO wireless Internet - Another wash for me, I have more Internet than I need, including EVDO via Bluetooth tethering on my cell phone.

Perceived Disadvantages of the Kindle

• No back light -  I have mixed feelings on this.  The Pocket PC allows me to read from bed at night without disturbing Kim.  If I get a Kindle, I’d have to use a light or buy a “book light”.  I’d probably opt for the book light, but still, that’s another gadget to keep up with.  Some people comment that the lack of a back light is an advantage because the flicker of LCD screens are stressful on the eyes. 
• High price tag - $400 for a Kindle.  Whew!  Although Pocket PCs are expensive too, I already have one.  So for me (at least) I save $400 if I read from my Pocket PC.
• Another gadget to keep up with - Bringing another gadget into my world means having another gadget to keep up with.  I probably would not carry the Kindle every day like I do the Pocket PC thus, wouldn’t have all my books with me. 
• Fragile hardware? - Some comments and reviews point to the Kindle as having some delicate hardware.  Breakage isn’t so much a concern for me because I’ve been carrying fragile devices for years.  But if the Kindle is more fragile than a Pocket PC we might have a problem.  Accidents do happen.  I don’t want to be out in the cold when one happens.
• No built in flash card software - As mentioned above, I clip vocabulary words and facts from books and paste them into Supermemo.  Kindle would mean I’d have to copy the text somehow to my computer and import it to my computer.  From there, I’d have to manipulate the text into flash card format.  This is something I could definitely do, but it would mean tripling the amount of work to get the same flash cards made.

Link: Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device 

So what do you think?  Do you own a Kindle?  If so, do you think it’s a good gadget for me?  Or will it kill my productivity?

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Productivity Boosting Shoes? Finn Comfort Review - 2 Weeks In

A reader named Brandon emailed me wondering why I hadn’t followed up on my Finn Comfort shoe reviews from a few weeks ago.  He is debating getting a pair for himself and because of the price, he’s still undecided.

Well, I didn’t post because I didn’t want to bore anyone and I also didn’t realize some of you were waiting to see what happened after they broke in.  Sorry - my fault.

So here is the latest…

The shoes have broken in very well as of a few days ago. They are very comfortable for the feel. I still notice some of the pressure points pushing into parts of my foot that I am not used to.  But they aren’t painful or irritating, just a new feeling I am still adjusting to.

Brandon asked me if they were worth the $300 price tag. Well, me being from from meager heritage, I’ve inherited much frugality. So I would feel bad recommending them if they weren’t all they claim to be.

Whether they are worth it is an individual opinion.  If you, like me, have foot, leg or knee pain from ill fitting shoes, how much is it worth to get rid of the pain?  If you take OTC pain medication because of it, that expense adds up over time.  But it would take at least 40 bottles of Tylenol to pay for a pair of Finn Comforts.  And me not being a podiatrist, I can’t really say if they will in fact help you.

I am only speaking as someone who had moderate pain every day as a result of walking in the shoes I used to wear. 

Since I last blogged about them, I’ve put some miles on the Finns…yes MILES.  Last weekend, my son volunteered to help a local animal rescue by walking a cute little dog in a parade.  Unexpectedly, the organizers asked me to accompany the walkers to help look after the smaller kids riding on the float. This troubled me some because I had slipped on the Finns before going to the parade. I had only been wearing the Finns for 5 days… Probably not long enough for a full break in.

I dreaded the possibility of limping in agony and hating the shoes by the end of the parade.  But we had battled traffic, parking and parade organizers  to get where we were.  And the Finns were the only shoes I had.   I didn’t have much of a choice.

So, my family walked the entire parade route… I am guessing 2.5 - 3.0 miles.

At the end of the parade, we stood around and chatted with potential adoptee families and viewed some of the other parade exhibits.

By the end, I had completely forgotten about the shoes until Kim mentioned how much her feet hurt from all that walking. I immediately zeroed in on how my feet were feeling. All I noticed was a slight irritation in my right big toe from my socks rubbing around inside the shoes. This was likely because I didn’t have them tied tight enough.

I have never been one to tie my shoes tightly because It always feels like I am cutting off the circulation to half my foot. Not so in the Finns, when I tie them tightly they feel just fine. And having them snug stops the rubbing around inside the shoe.

So, after a parade, the shoes were feeling wonderful. I would have never been able to walk a parade in Doc Marteens or Birkenstocks.  I would have opted for some running shoes for that distance.  Yet, even with running shoes, I’d expect at least some pain.

Restless Leg Syndrome

Another early benefit appears to be when I am not wearing the shoes. More frequently than I’d like to admit, I get foot cramps and leg restlessness at bedtime. It is very irritating and at times has kept me awake through most of the night. I don’t know if it is restless leg syndrome since I haven’t talked with a doctor about it.  But to me, it’s irritating as hell leg jumpiness syndrome. 

Since starting the Finns, I haven’t had this restless leg (or whatever it is) one time.

Yes, the jury is still out, but I hope it continues.  If these shoes stave off having to take some prescription pill or buy some specialized chair, then they would save money over time.

Less Expensive Alternative?

Now for price, are they worth the price? Here’s what I told Brandon. If there is a pair of shoes you like the style of but they don’t feel that great, consider purchasing the shoes and a quality Orthotic. Quality orthotics run between $20 and $50.  And are best fitted by an expert.  Otherwise, they can slide around or try to fix the wrong problem - thus resulting in not fixing your pain and perhaps creating new pain - definitely not recommended.    

Anyway, I told him to add the price of new shoes plus orthotic. Is the price near the cost of Finn Comforts or much less? If there isn’t much of a difference, the Finns are the way to go. If the prices aren’t even close, you can try the less expensive way. Unfortunately the consideration that you may be losing some of the insole quality and benefit by “rolling your own” might weigh on you.  But that’s possibly worth the risk if you are saving over $100. For me, I did the math and it just didn’t seem to be a good deal.  Plus, curiosity got me too - were they really that good?  So far, I’ll say they are. 

So that’s my 2 week update. I’ll let you know another update when I hit the next milestone.

P.S.  If you decide to buy a pair of Finn Comforts, please consider using my Amazon links above.  Amazon sends me a gift card every month for my referrals.  I’d like to use the next one to get my wife a pair too. :)

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links for 2008-05-23

• Using Twitter and Blogging to Motivate Yourself Towards Personal Finance and Other Personal Goals
  Interestinc concept on using your blog and twitter for money making motivation.
  (tags: money twitter blogging)
• 25 Ways to Help a Fellow Human Being Today
  “So strike back against the selfishness and greed of our modern world, and help out a fellow human being today. Not next month, but today.”
  (tags: generosity zen_habits helping)
• Oil’s perfect storm may blow over
  Some optimistic news on oil.
  (tags: oil economy optimistic)

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