Is knowledge all powerful?

Sometimes I''ll listen to BBC Radio 4 in the morning; I catch up on the news and comment for the day. This morning on their "Thought for the day" slot a churchman (I didn't catch his name) was reflecting on the march of broadband technology and how we all seem to be excited by what it offers and unsettled by never quite knowing where it will lead us.

The topic broadened out to reflect on the way that we try and 'scoop' up knowledge from the internet, it truly is the university of the modern age. But knowledge alone does not always lead to wisdom or even a good outcome, what is sometimes missing is understanding.

The application of knowledge without understanding leads to that feeling of being unsettled. That seems to chime a chord with me. Knowledge and understanding together, now that is a rare combination.

So as you click from link to link on the web, you may find it more fulfilling to reflect on both the knowledge and the understanding of what you find.

Days for doing & days for not doing

As I have got older I have learned that 'listening' to what my body has to tell me is important.

There are times when a difficult schedule, disrupted sleep patterns or intense days of work can deplete your reserves of energy. Trying to squeeze in one more day of intense activity when our inner reserves are already depleted is damaging.

If we ask too much of our self, it drains our reserves of energy, weakens the immune system and leaves less us less able to cope with new challenges and demands.

So what can we do?

Think about dividing your time into 'Doing Days' & 'Not Doing Days'.

'Doing days' are those times when you are travelling, visiting clients or customers, undertaking physical activity, writing reports or essays; days that are action driven and that drain your reserves. 

'Not Doing Days' can be divided into two kinds, planning and preparation days and rest & recreation days.

'Planning/Follow up days' allow you to get the very best from your action days. You can set goals and formulate strategies that will allow you to achieve more on your action days. You are not being idle, but you are allowing yourself to both reflect on what has been done and plan what to do next. This is also the time to follow up on previous actions and ensure they were brought to a conclusion.

Rest & Recreation days allow you to reset the mind, restore the body and reconnect with those you care about. They are important because without the rest your ability to both work and think during your doing days is compromised; ultimately without sufficient Rest & Recreation you are a candidate for ill health possibly even an early death.

So how do you best divide your time?

It will depend on your own physiology and character as well as the demands of your environment.

A useful start for a 1 week period may be:

• 4 Doing Days
  
• 3 Not doing Days (broken down as below)
  
• 2 Not Doing Day for Planning & Preparation
• 1 Not Doing Day for Rest & Recreation

You can take the same approach for periods of time within the day. We tend to be more active and mentally focussed in the morning so this period is best used for more thinking or intensive activity. The afternoons are better suited for the more mundane or plodding activity that needs less mental concentration.

Take some time to play with the ideas here, I believe that if you adopt them they will allow you to be both more productive and healthier in the long run.

Can a virus make you fat?

It seems an unlikely idea but research in the USA indicates that there is a link between a virus that causes 'cold' style symptoms and being overweight.

Dr Dhurandhar and his team at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre have now documented more than 1,000 patients whose obesity appears to be linked to infection with the virus.

Dr Dhurandhar's team took blood samples from people at an obesity clinic.

They tested it for antibodies to Adenovirus-36 and found that 20% of the patients had encountered the virus at some point and were significantly heavier than their antibody negative counterparts.

The theory seems to be that the virus causes an increase in the number of fat cells rather than the size of the cells. This has the effect of permanently making the person more likely to gain weight when overeating occurs.

This is not the only cause of being overweight but may be a significant factor in why some people find it more difficult shift excess weight.

The virus is spread by the cold like symptoms it causes, coughs and sneezes. It's not worth trying to avoid larger people as a way of avoiding the virus, as it is infectious for a relatively short length of time.

Does any of this mean that someone with antibodies to Adenovirus-36 can't lose weight?
No.
It simply means that a weight loss program will need to include both sensible eating and exercise.

Follow this link to see the article on the BBC web and the related Horizon program.

Sleep, are you getting enough?

I read a report recently that said that vast majority of people in the Western world are sleep deprived. I'm not sure if that is correct but I do know that many people have problems with lack of sleep from time to time.

I spoke to one person recently whose quality of sleep had become much worse recently; the reason? Money. They had invested in a holiday home in the sun, they paid a deposit and then took on a mortgage in Euros. Whilst £1 bought about 1.5Euro things were ok, but as Sterling fell in value the mortgage payments went up and up. Soon the holiday home payments became more expensive than their main home mortgage. Result? Worry, fear, anxiety and lack of sleep.

In this particular case nothing but direct and positive action will change the situation but for many people a few simple techniques can help.

Struggling to get to sleep?
Write your worries down on a piece of paper before going to bed. It's like letting someone else do the worrying for you whilst you get to sleep.

Grandma had it right, a warm drink as you go to bed will sooth you to sleep. Make sure that it is not tea or coffee though, the caffeine will stop you dropping off.

Some gentle exercise before going to bed, taking the dog for a walk for example will both reduce the stress chemicals adrenaline and cortisol as well as relaxing the muscles.

Waking up in the night with worries?
Staying in bed whilst worrying about your situation is almost always counterproductive. Get up and do something useful for 30 minutes or so. An element of physical work will help you to relax and then go back to bed; you'll be much more likely to drop off.

Using the technique of listing your concerns on a piece of paper can help stop the endless mental chatter that keeps you awake. Make your list and then give yourself permission to go back to sleep.

Listen to some music with a relatively slow beat, Mozart is often cited as ideal to help you get to sleep.

Still a struggle?
If none of these techniques delivers what you need you may find that a recording designed to help you get to sleep is helpful. Try the Sleep Easy recording that I created specifically for those struggling to get to sleep. I've had some great feedback on this MP3, people love the way it allows you to let go of your present problems.

Have you tried the 21 day rule?

Sometimes we decide on doing something and then, after several days, come up with a million reasons/excuses why not to do it now or even at all. Perhaps we simply just forget why we wanted to do it so much in the first place.

If that sounds familiar, you might want to give the "21 days rule" a trial.

For the first 21 days you do exactly what you decided to do without asking questions, or thinking about the reasons why. You even remind yourself that you will be able to decide to stop doing it after a month.

But after that month you're already used to the new habit and so now that habit seems completely reasonable.

It may just help you save those New Year resolutions that slipped by.

Cannabis reclassified as a Class B drug in the UK

In the one to one work I have done over the last few years, there have been occasions when the techniques I use have been tested to the limit.

Cannabis use or misuse has been responsible for two of those challenging situations.

Those who grew up through the 1960s saw cannabis use as less dangerous than alcohol and as little more than a pleasant social recreation that helped a person to relax. That relaxation is brought about by the chemical compound THC and the amount in cannabis varies widely from as little as 1% to as much as 20%.

According to Wikipedia:

The average levels of THC in marijuana sold in United States rose from 3.5% in 1988 to 7% in 2003 and 8.5% in 2006.

"Skunk" cannabis is a potent strain of cannabis, grown through selective breeding and usually hydroponics, that is a cross-breed of Cannabis sativa and C. indica. Skunk cannabis potency ranges usually from 6% to 15% and rarely as high as 20%. The average THC level in the 'coffeehouses' in the Netherlands is about 18–19%.

So here is the root of the issue, if Cannabis is used in moderation it can, in some circumstances be a very effective form of pain control that has few if any side effects. Alternatively it can be the route into more addictive forms of cannabis, the so called skunk, that can cause paranoia, even potentially being cited as a cause of schizophrenia.

Taking a middle path through this quagmire of facts and cultural baggage is impossible. So ignoring the legal point for now what is it useful to say?

1) Mild forms of cannabis with lower values of THC can be useful form of pain control and smoking it is about as dangerous as smoking a cigarette.

2) Teenagers often start smoking mild forms of cannabis before progressing to skunk style weed.

3) Teenagers who smoke skunk are most at risk from the psychoactive ingredients that can lead to permanent changes in the functioning of the brain. These effects can include psychosis, schizophrenia, paranoia and simple anxiety.

4) Smoking cannabis lowers inhibitions that can lead a user to start experimenting with other drugs, the so called 'Gateway theory'.

My personal take awy from this is, if you're a teenager don't touch cannabis, it will alter your brain function permamently and not for the better.

If you have a chronic pain condition see if your family Doctor can get you onto a medication that includes THC.

The reality is that since it has been used by mankind for around 4000 years it is not likely to go away no matter how a Government classifies it.

Decision making tree

When you are planning what to do next with your life, I think it is useful to pull together a list of the goals that you would like to achieve.

I call this the list of 100 things. This exercise may take a few hours to do in an evening or at the weekend but it is worth doing.

Grab yourself a large pad of paper or even better a few stacks of post-it notes and on each post-it or new line on the paper write out one thing you would like to do, see, obtain or learn etc. These things can be trivial or immense, they all count. Make these items things that you would like to do within the next 10 years.

Most people get to 30 or so things quite quickly and then falter. Having someone with you to remind of all those ambitions you used to talk about is helpful. Nothing is off limits, you may have no money to spend today but in 10 years who knows what you will have achieved.

Getting to 80 is the next challenge, now you'll begin to see why a friend is useful; go for the final push though and get all 100 things down.

Wow! Time to take a break.

Now it's time to sort these wishes into 4 individual piles.

Things to achieve within 1 year
Things to achieve within 3 years
Things to achieve within 5 years
Things to achieve within 10 years

Well we're nearly there now, is this begining to look like an action plan for life? I hope so!

It's time to decide on the priority of which things to do first, concentrate your efforts on year 1 because that is where you'll take immediate action. It might be that you can see a simple pattern to the order in which to do these things or you may feel like you need a helping hand.

One way to get a real handle on what to do first is to employ a knock-out contest. The picture on the left will give you the idea. Load up the boxes on the left hand side with your tasks/ideas/desires and pit one against another through a few rounds until you emerge with a winner.

The sheet is an aid to decision making that helps the user define what tasks are most appropriate to do next.

Click on the picture to download a printable PDF version of this picture.

In the 16 pink boxes on the left enter the list of tasks that have been generated through previous work. One task per box, the order of entry is not really that important but obvious competitive options should be grouped together.

Using a knockout system, two pink boxes feed into one yellow decision making box. Only one task can be carried forward to the next round (the orange boxes). Choose which task seems most appropriate to be carried forward and continue until you finish with your most important or pressing task.

Try different combinations of tasks and different orderings to test the outcome. In the end you have to comfortable with the results!

When you have completed the decision tree, work from the right back towards the left in terms of pursuing the actions and goals.

Re-evaluate the situation often!

Take your time and have fun with this, keep a note of your results too.

EFT part 2

For this posting I wanted to tell you a bit more about how EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) can be used.

I often make use of the method in conjunction with hypnotherapy, I find that teaching the client how to empower themself to deal with an immediate fear or anxiety often leads to fast and effective change.

As I explain the EFT method to a client, they are often incredulous, sceptical sometimes even mocking that something like this can work. Generally however they have sufficient trust in me to give it a go.

Gary Craig likens the emotional difficulties we have to interference on a TV set. We know the transmitted signal is ok, we know the TV is working perfectly but every now and again the picture will be disrupted by a glitch somewhere in the communications channel.

His view is that a thought or a memory leads not directly to a feeling but it is communicated through the body system and where there is a "glitch" we sometime interpret the thought or memory as a negative emotion, physical pain or psychological blockage.

The idea of the method is to free that 'blockage' so that the mind/body communications flow without interruption and without the negative emotions.

When I first learned about the method I too was sceptical. I trained as an engineer as some of the notions ablout body meridian energy lines just seemed plain weird.

However, EFT does not rely on belief to be sucessful, indeed many of my most sceptical clients have made hugely significant and positive changes in their live.

I have stopped trying to understand at a deep level how the method works; I just know that for many, many people it works very well. If you have been struggling to make changes in your life and have found it a challenge it would be well worth given EFT a try.

EFT is a constant surprise

I first heard about EFT or the Emotional Freedom Technique about three years ago.

It is, as the name suggests, a way of dealing with negative emotions both from past events and present day circumstances. The method is based on techniques developed first by Roger Callahan a clinical psychologist who started studying Applied Kinesiology (AK), which involves the body's energy meridians.

In 1980, Dr Callahan was treating Mary, a patient who had a phobia of water. After 18 months of treatment and trying various therapies, including hypnosis and behaviour therapy, Mary had barely improved. Callahan had a moment of inspiration.

Mary said she could feel the anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Callahan knew that the stomach meridian passed beneath both eyes.

As Mary imagined her fear, he tapped beneath one of Mary's eyes. Her fear of water instantly vanished and she has remained phobia-free to this day, more than 20 years later. This story is recounted in his book "Tapping The Healer Within".

I read the book and was intrigued by the method (which he called Thought Field Therapy) but thought that the complicated tapping "algorithms" were something that would be too difficult to apply in a clinical setting.

It seems I was not alone in thinking this, Gary Craig was an engineer (not a Psychologist!) who was investigating psychological techniques. He wanted to know why many changes techniques did not deliver the promised results. Having heard about Callahan's work he learned the method and developed it further into a comprehensive and easy to use system.

The EFT method involves a mix of tapping acupressure points, affirmations, eye rolls and humming. At first pass it sounds nuts and most unlikely to do anything except make you feel silly. But it turns out that this technique used in conjunction with hypnosis is a powerful and effective method that can change a person's life in just a few clinical sessions.

I'll explore this method more in my next blog entry.

Obama and change

It's impossible to miss the inauguration of the new US President Barack Obama in the news. His campaign mantra was "change" although what changes he is planning to make are less clear.

The one million people lining the streets of Washington however, felt the need and desire for that change. It is in situations like these where we see how clearly, that emotions are more powerful than logic.

In any contest between logic and emotion, logic will lose. For much of the time, when the emotion is anxiety or fear this stops us being all we can be. Logic may tell us that we have skills and resources that we can use to achieve our goals, but if fear gets in the way we will often feel paralysed and unable to make a step forward.

Today however the emotions are positive; hope is filling the USA in a situation where many people are struggling to keep their jobs or pay their bills. This time, that ability of the emotion to overwhelm logic is a wonderful thing. Just possibly this hope will enable people to look past the difficulties of the immediate situation and use all their resources to achieve a brighter future.

Travelling somewhere?

Driving today can be an exercise in frustration with delays and slow journey times draining the productive time from your day.

So why not use that time to catch up on the latest information?

Download podcasts and MP3s to a CD or your MP3 player and listen to the latest business and personal development whilst you travel.

Use freecorder or a similar program to record live audio feeds. If you need to convert MP3s to a WAV file (for burning to a CD) then the Open Source program, Audacity is superb.

I use Nero to burn CDs but there are plenty of other choice out there. Each CD will give you about 60 minutes of listening time.

Now you're ready to tackle that long journey and if there are delays your time will not be wasted.

Blue Monday?

According to reports on the UK broadcaster the BBC, today is the most depressing day of the year. Dubbed Blue Monday by some, the combination of the poor weather, credit card bills arriving in the post and the general economic gloom come together to create the most mood sapping day in the year.

You may have your own way of combating the low mood but if not. try these methods to improve your outlook:

1) Get outside in the daylight.

Low light levels are linked to depression, go outside and spend time in daylight, even if the sun is not shining.

2) Check your diet

Without daylight our vitamin levels can be lower in winter than in summer so you may find it helpful to insure against this by taking a multi-vitamin suppliment. (Watch for too much Vitamin A if you ar pregnant though)

3) Count your blessings

It's not very fashionable but the old church teaching of counting your blessings can serve to remind you that not everything is dull and gloomy.

4) Do something that makes you laugh

Laughing releases all kinds of feel good chemicals into the body. As the old saying goes (with apologies to Readers Digest) Laughter is the best medecine.

Or try visiting the web site of the Optimist Society. That should cheer you up!

A natural cure for stress and anxiety

Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

Stress and anxiety have a variety of causes but the chemicals that are released in the body are the same. Adrenalin and cortisol are the big chemical messengers but they are many more.

These chemicals are designed to get us to either fight the threat or run away from it. What often happens of course is that we have these feelings whilst in an office environment and neither fighting or running seems appropriate there.

So go for a walk. As you exercise, your body will use up the unwanted chemical messengers and your anxiety will naturally diminish.

A diary is a useful tool for change

A journal or a diary might not seem like a powerful tool for personal change and realization, but it is.

Most change happens gradually and yet what we want and what we notice are the big "crash, bang zing" changes. As a consequence we tend to disregard positive gradual change and that also stops us being a joyous about the change as we should be. There just wasn't enough "crash bang zing".

To avoid this problem I recommend that you keep a journal or diary to record your thoughts each day. From day to day it may seem as if little has changed or improved but as you review a week or a month at a time those positive changes become so much more clear.

A diary; simple eh? But so useful.

Some days are for thinking and some for doing

Some days with your mind as sharp as a razor, clear strategic thinking is easy and insights are gained into the most difficult problems.

Then there are the days when it seems hard to marshal your thoughts into a logical sequence. Days when just keeping going is a major challenge. This what I call a plodding day; a day when things get done mechanically, without much thought.

The trick is to recognise which day is which. Trying to do your thinking on a plodding day is counter-productive and results in frustration.

Likewise, doing a plodding job on a day when your mind is fizzing with new ideas will not deliver the best results either.

So match your tasks to how you feel and be more productive whatever kind of day you are having.

Champix (Chantix) and cravings

I met someone recently who decided in the Autumn of 2008 to stop smoking. He had already tried going cold turkey, patches and nasal sprays and knew that they did not work for him.

So he went to the Quit Smoking Clinic at his family Doctor surgery where they prescribed Champix (also known as Chamtix in the USA).


After about 2 weeks of taking the drug he stopped smoking; so far so good. His stomach was knotted with pain each morning and his digestion was not working like it used to but he had stopped smoking.

By January 2009 this man was desperate, because the Champix had done nothing to deal with his cravings. He may not have been smoking but he still had in place all the old links and associations with smoking.

He went back to his Doctor who said why not give the drug another go? The man was not keen, he remembered the stomach cramps. Then as almost an afterthought, the Doctor added "you could try hypnosis for the craving".

What a shame the Doctor did not mention this to the man last October! There would have been , no drugs, no side effects just the change to becoming a non-smoker.

Sadly, at least here in the UK, Doctors are not able to prescribe hypnosis as a quit smoking aid.

When hypnosis has been demonstrated again and again to be more effective than all others forms of therapy for smoking, why is it not something that a Doctor can write a prescription for?

An old method but still a good one

Half way through January those New Year resolutions may not have the power they once had at the start of the month.

Here's an old technique but still a good one for when you are trying to stop doing something.

Take sturdy elastic band and put it around your wrist; we want the blood to keep flowing, so make sure it is not too tight.

Now each time you have that thought cross your mind that you want to stop, pull out the elastic band and let snap back on to your wrist...ITS GOING TO HURT!

You will begin to associate 'that' thought or action with the pain of the band snapping back into place and pretty soon your unconscious mind will build the connection that this unwanted thought or action will lead to pain; it wont take long.

Then those unwanted thoughts or actions will occur less often. Used in conjunction with other methods this will help you stay on track with those New Year resolutions.

Try it today.

Quick tip for the day

Put your important documents on a memory card or stick so that you can access them wherever you happen to be.

Many of these devices have password protection built in ; use this if you are carrying scans of personal ID documents.

Sunday Night-preparing for the week ahead

Do you plan for the work week ahead or fly by the seat of the pants?

A little bit of planning goes along way to avoiding disasters; so tomorrow morning, before you dive headlong through the front door to start your day, take a few moments out.

Think about what you need to achieve your plans for the day and then make sure you have it.

I could tell you the story about the trip to the airport and the sudden realisation that I didn't know where my passport was but you may be able to guess that stress that I instantly felt.

So what do you need for your perfect Monday?

Saturday-a time to catch up

It's Saturday morning and after a busy week it's good to catch up with those things that somehow got left behind in the hurly burly of life.

The new video I created (see the post below) is being viewed on YouTube (Google video is yet to show any results) so hopefully in some small way, I've helped a few people to relax.

My plans for next week involve re-editing the Self Hypnosis Handbook that I first put together in 2005 and have only ever given away to personal therapy clients. I plan to offer the book as an e-book download but am wondering whether I should create a printed version as well. What do you think?

Have a great weekend

No doom and gloom here!

There has been so much doom and gloom in the news recently that I thought I would do one small thing to turn back the tide.

Even though many people have only been back at work for a few days, news reports are saying that we feel as stressed out now as we did before Christmas.

Ok, let's change that. Watch the video below for 8 minutes of de-stress relaxation and let me know how you enjoyed it. Let's call this a credit crunch busting relaxation video. By the way, the pictures are from Yosemite in the USA.

Anxiety, food & Dementia

In the next week or so the UK government is going to outline its strategy for dealing with Dementia in England. On the BBC Breakfast TV show this morning an expert was asked what step we might all take to stave off this illness.

His response was that 20% of dementia could be avoided altogether by ensuring that you eat a diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables ensuring that you get lots of anti-oxidants and vitamins, Vitamin C in particular.

In previous studies vitamin B3 has been show to be helpful as well in reducing a damaging protein that causes Alzheimer's disease. B3 is found in meat, fish and potatoes.


It seems that with each new study that is published diet seems to form an ever more important role in the prevention of disease.

In my own one to one therapy work I see many people with raised levels of anxiety leading to a lack of self confidence and sometimes panic attacks.

So here are three simple, diet related ways to lower your overall level of anxiety;

1) How much tea, coffee or cola/energy drinks to you take each day. If you are up to 8 cups of coffee a day or several cans of Red Bull, the caffeine will be doing its best to over excite the brain. Try reducing the amount of caffeine you drink, or for at least part of the day switch to a decaf version.

2) Related to point 1, some people just do not drink enough liquids throughout the day. For most people about 1.5 litres (about 2.5 pints) is enough and this can be almost any non-alcoholic, un-caffeinated drink. Water, milk, fruit juice, and fruit infusions will all do the job just fine. Being correctly hydrated will ensure that you brain is working most effectively for you.

3) Consider taking a multivitamin and multi-trace element supplement. If your diet is not quite as good as it might be then these low-cost additions to your diet will ensure that you have the building blocks you need to reduce anxiety. A low level of Magnesium for example is often cited as leading to increased anxiety.

The good news is that taking these simple steps will also help reduce the risk of you having dementia later in life.

I'd like to see a hypnotherapist but it costs too much...

There are many people who want to change something in their life and know that hypnosis would help them make that change; but something stops them making the next move.

Often it is fear that stops that person making the next step. Fear of exposing one's problems to another person is just the start of difficulties. It is natural to fear the unknown and when we don't understand the process of therapeutic change, that fear can become a roadblock to a better life. Fear of how much that change might cost also acts as a barrier especially when personal finances are under tremendous strain in this time of recession.

One possible way around these fears is to use hypnosis CDs and MP3s. The cost of these audio products is much lower than the cost of one to one therapy work, so what are the pros and cons of taking this approach?

The negative side of using pre-recorded hypnosis products

1. Change may take longer to achieve compared to personal one to one therapy
2. The recording is fixed, a hypnotherapist can adjust the therapy as different aspects become known
3. There may not be a recording that exactly covers your needs
4. Using a hypnosis recording is a more 'passive' experience, a therapist will often use other exercises as well as hypnosis to make that change more effective

The positive side of using pre-recorded hypnosis products

1. The user is in charge of the process, using the recording as often as they want
2. There is no need to travel to see a therapist, change is just a download away
3. The financial costs are much lower compared to one-to-one therapy
4. The user can return to recording at any time if they want to reinforce the change (a self confidence booster for example)
5. The user is often more open to allowing the change to happen when they have control of the process.

Listen first
It is always helpful to hear some of the hypnotherapy recording before buying it. This is not possible on many hypnosis web sites but on the Gift4life site you can listen to a sample before buying and downloading the track.

Time to change?
Even though many people are living through the most difficult financial times, making a positive life change is still possible and affordable. On the Gift4life site you can download hypnotherapy MP3s from as little as £7.75 (that's about $11 or 8 Euros).

Is now the time to make a start for you?

Getting things done

There must be hundreds of ways to become more effective and productive but here is a method I have been using for the last few months that really seems to have worked.

The old way of working

In the old days the first thing I would do in the morning was boot up the PC log into my email and get stuck in to whatever was in the inbox. In other words I was reacting to other people's agendas and allowing them to define how I started my working day.

The new way of working

For the first 15 minutes of the day...leave the PC alone or turned off!

Allow yourself to reflect and think about what is important to you in the day ahead. Without the chatter and noise of email, you'll quickly put together a list of things that can usefully be done that day.

Work sideways

When writing out that list, turn your piece of paper sideways so that you are writing with the long edge horizontal and the short edge vertical. It seems to give you more space to write down your thoughts and allows them to flow more easily.

There is another reason to work sideways and I'll get to that in a moment.

Start working!

So now begin your regular day but be guided by your list first and your email inbox second. Put a line through each task as you complete it. It feels good to complete your own tasks.

End of day

At the end of the working day, your sheet of paper will probably be covered with notes, scribbles and crossings out, this is a valuable document so why not take a picture of it.

I use my Canon digital camera to take a picture of the page (because it was turned sideways it fits the frame very well). When I connect the camera to my PC the image is automatically date stamped and stored in my picture folders on the PC. This means I can easily go back and refer to what I was doing on any given day. The best thing is that this automatic indexing driven by the date stamp from when the picture was taken.

Give it a try

Try this for yourself, I'm sure there are numerous tweaks that might improve the method but this has the advantage of being very simple to use and understand. No matter how many PDAs and programs I use, notes taken on a piece of paper still seem to come out on top. Using this method I have those notes sequenced and stored very easily.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on.

I love Lifehacker!

If you want to get in touch with your inner geek or just find a way to get a battery display on your Canon digital camera, then Lifehacker.com is a great place to visit.

There is strong bias towards computers and how to use/abuse them but they also carry lots of interesting articles on how to re-use old gadgets and how to create good stuff from junk.

Just a word of warning though, it is way too easy to get sidetracked by yet another interesting article on the site and lose lots of time!

The 30 day trial idea

I'm back on the idea of how to most effectively make changes in your life and a while ago came across a guy called Steve Pavlina. He has a very interesting web blog about personal development.

He has borrowed the 30 day trial concept from the old days of Shareware and used it to makes changes in his life.

I know from personal experience of working with clients that it often takes around 3 weeks to make a real change in a habit. Steve's approach is to say, try this new habit for 30 days and then see if you want to continue.

For many people the idea of making a life long change in their eating or exercise habits is just too daunting a jump and so they do nothing at all.

You can break that barrier to progress by trialling a change for just 30 days and then check at the end if it still feels right. Follow the link for Steve's article.

Try it for yourself and let me know how you get on.

It's freezing! Time to think about 2009

Here is the UK it was -3.5 degrees C this morning and whilst that may be relatively warm for some it felt cold to me.

So today has become a day for staying in the warm and planning for 2009. So often that word 'planning' will make people switch off as they think about writing out lots of lists and notes that feel far too much like work.

So today here are some planning alternatives for you to consider as you think about what you want to achieve in the year ahead.

1) Write a list of all the things you would like to do. It's the old school approach but it will work well for some. See if you can get to 100 items, it can be surprisingly difficult.

2) Make a picture board or scrap book of what you want to happen in the next 12 months. Cut pictures from magazines and papers of the places you would like to go or the things you would like to enjoy.

3) Tech Savvy? Make a video of how you would like the year ahead to be. Even if you don't have a video camera many regular point and shoot digital cameras will take video. Mobile phones and web cams can be used as well. Edit with some free software like Windows MovieMaker or similar and create a short video of what you would like to achieve.

4) Make a voice recording on your MP3 player (or use Windows sound recorder) of what you want to be, do and have in 2009. Listen often to remind yourself of the path you want to take.

Use any or all of the techniques above and you are certain to get far more out of this New Year than those in the past.

Time to set your new year goals?

Today is 2nd January, many people are enjoying the last day off before going back to work on Monday 5th.

So just maybe this is the perfect time to think about how you are going to make your life better in 2009. (Just possibly with all the financial turmoil it may be that you are simply hoping to survive!)

Many of us will have had the experience of setting new year resolutions and then failing to achieve any of them.

So this year what about trying things a different way?

Take this time to set yourself some SMART goals. SMART is simply a way to define what you want to happen:

S = Specific. Make the goal specific, when will it happen, where, on your own or with others?
M = Measurable. How will you measure it? How many pounds off, how much money saved?
A = Achievable. Is it really possible to do this? Have other people done it?
R = Realistic. Given all the circumstances is the goal reasonable? Losing 50lbs in 2 weeks is impossible, doing the same over 50 weeks is very realistic.
T = Timely or time bound. When will this happen, what time markers will you set along the way?

By using the SMART model you are much more likely to achieve the goals that you set.

So what about an example; perhaps you have put on some weight over the holiday period and exercise has become something that happens very infrequently. You'd like things to be better but another diet just seems so dull; procrastination has set.

So lets try the SMART approach:
Specific
How much weight do you want to shed? How many pounds or kilos is right for you?
Be SPECIFIC. How many inches would you like to lose from your waist measurement? Be SPECIFIC.

Measurable
Some things are easy to measure, weight and size are simple to check. Other things are more difficult; how do you measure confidence or presentation skills. Find suitable ways to measure what you achieve against the goals that you set.

Achievable
Impossible to achieve goals result only in frustration and failure. Is what you want physically achievable? Has someone else done it before you? Are you attempting to alter the laws of physics to make that goal happen?

Realistic
How realistic is that you get a job next week that will double your pay? How realistic is it to achieve all your goals in one month? Most goals are a sequence of smaller steps that are easy to take on their own, but that add up to a huge change in your life. Make each step realistic to avoid the frustration of failure.

Timebound
This is just another way of saying, when will this happen? It's useful to set up a number of markers in time so that you know you are on track to achieving your ultimate goal. For example in the first month I will shed 8pounds of unwanted weight and lose 1 inch from my waist size.
Your ultimate goal might be that by June 17th 2009 I will have shed 25pounds and dropped 4 inches from my waist.


Making your New Year resolutions SMART will make it much easier for you to achieve your goals.

If you're ready for this but still feel in need of some help to deal with that procrastination then my hypnosis MP3 recording 'Beat Procrastination' is just the thing to break through that log jam of exscuses and get 2009 off to a flying start.

Happy New Year!