3 Things Today

Jonas Hauram has discovered that if he just eats nothing all day his productivity goes through the roof:

“I used to graze all day, like some kind of feeble cow. Firstly, it was a waste of time. Secondly, i felt sluggish afterwards. Combined, my operational efficiency wasn‚Äôt optimum. Thankfully, there was a solution. It‚Äôs simple: I DON‚ÄôT EAT IN THE DAYTIME! The result: I‚ÄôM HUNGRY ALL DAY LONG! The effect: I can work 15 hours straight, without any breaks, feeling absolutely motivated.”

Say Leadership calls on everyone to use October as a chance to get focused on all those goals we said we would get done this year. Any loops you still have open at this point need to be refocused or they just ain’t gonna get done:

“So here we are in October, the month that begs for closure in whatever you had hoped to achieve in the year, for let‚Äôs face it: November and December are mostly about the holidays to come, that seemingly relentless line up of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve and New Years Day. School breaks, holiday parties, gift shopping and a rapid succession of other schedule changes annihilate the predictability of your routine. It‚Äôs supposed to be joyful, but somehow it becomes a cruel gauntlet that wreaks havoc on any sense of normality you tried to get to until this calendar parade started colliding with your psyche, stressing you out. No wonder most New Year‚Äôs resolutions are rooted in nothing more but emotional turmoil.”

Steve Pavlina has decided to try polyphasic sleep to see how it goes (that is sleeping for 20 minutes every 4 hours). The idea is that after a two week adjustment period you can get by comfortably on only 2 hours sleep a day.

Uberman has the best polyphasic sleep log:

“During the first week, you WILL be tired, but actually I found that kind of fun. Day one and two, you just feel like you haven’t slept, and those naps aren’t doing you any good because you just toss around for twenty minutes, or, usually on day two, you drop off and then want to kill yourself when the alarm goes off 20 minutes later. Stick with it. Days 3-5, if you like to meditate, now’s the time. For one thing, with twenty-two waking hours per day, you’re gonna run out of things to do by this time. For another thing, you’ll be high as fuck by the end of the first week, as your body adjusts and your mind starts to get this really weird clear-dreaming feeling. If you’ve ever played with sleep deprivation, you know what high I’m talking about. And no, you won’t die on this schedule like you would if you just stopped sleeping or something; in fact, I was really getting the hang of it by day ten. By day twelve, I felt like a million bucks, and continued to feel that way for six more months.”

Also check out this realtime sleep log.

DIY Planner has this detailed piece which brilliantly outlines a whole host of paper planner hacks and offers a solution to one of the most vexing - how to manage recurring tasks on paper:

“the circle on the right indicates that it’s a repeating item, so an unchecked one reminds me to a) carry it ahead the proper interval, and b) check it off after doing so. Specifically, in this case I’d do the following: Noticing the circle on the left, I’d pay the bill and check off the circle. I’d also notice the circle on the right, copy the item two weeks in the future (including the repeating portion because this task is on-going), and check off that circle as well.”

There is a even a solution for keeping your planner in sync with another persons’ paper planner. And they said it couldn’t be done!

Go read the whole article.

The very, very, very excellent musings of Paul Ford:

“These last few months I‚Äôve had real trouble getting things done, which has really bothered me because I really like programming and writing; those are two of my favorite things to do while sitting. When I‚Äôm not getting enough done I get unhappy and depressed and think about the billions of years I‚Äôll be dead before the heat death of the universe erases everything. I want to feel like I did something during my brief life besides check my email. “

And my favorite line: “When I‚Äôm in my most distractible place I don‚Äôt chew my thoughts properly.”

DIY Planner has been posting this great series on how to keep your own commonplace book - that is, a book of all your significant snippets be they photos, clippings, or notes.

“Take your time, work it lovingly and faithfully, and you’ll find that over four centuries of users really did know a little something about gathering information and learning. Computer programmers didn’t invent knowledge management, and in fact I wouldn’t be remiss in arguing that nowadays we just have more access to instant but impractical information overloading our brains and distracting us from issues of importance.”

I am a bit skeptical but Glen Rhodes has a good essay on the beauty of biphasic sleep cycles:

“Naps are the key to direct Theta brainwave access. Theta brainwaves are the brainwaves of hyper awareness. The more theta you have during your waking hours, the more creatively intelligent you are–it’s really that simple.”

The idea is to have two short sleeps per 24 hours instead of pushing all the sleep into one 8 hour stretch:

“The key thing is, it MUST be divided up into two distinct sleep sessions¬†per day.¬† It’s not enough to just get 4.5 hours and say “that’s my sleep done for today”.¬† You’ll have a hell of a time staying awake for the remaining 19+ hours. You’ve got to divide it into two (or more) sleep sessions. The REM sleep you achieve has to be spaced throughout the day for it to have the¬†proper “flushing” effect.”

The science of interruptions looks at a recent study where participants were given a 42-inch screen as opposed to. a 15-inch one.

One veteran researcher claimed he has “never seen a single tweak to a computer system so significantly improve a user’s productivity.” On the bigger screen, people completed the tasks at least 10 percent more quickly - and some as much as 44 percent more quickly.

No more need to put off buying the 30‚Äù Apple Cinema display… haha!

Japanese photographer MasaMania has this photo essay about a man reading while next to a street band and concludes:

“If western scientist sees this picture, they conclude that the best way of concentration is to become homeless. This is new knowledge.”

This crude little flash movie is both odd and fun.

It’s based on the paradoxical notion that anarchists have to be more organized than average if they don’t want to depend on power structures, and presents some ideas on how to kick the boss habit.