Aren’t smartphones great? Many people seem to think so since more and more of them own one these days. You can make phone-calls, send text messages, process your email, read the news, look up information, play games that are much cooler than Snake or check out the latest YouTube videos. Not only are they a fancy accessory that let you show off how cool, trendy and rich you are but the best part is you never have to miss out on anything again; you’re always connected and up to date! Great right? Nope,.. WRONG!

In love with gadgets

I have always loved gadgets and innovative technology. I loved owning the newest phones, game-consoles and PC’s that I could afford. Of course I liked the fact that people thought it was cool that I had that stuff but mostly I loved trying out what it could all do to enhance my life. But, as most things go, the novelty wears off and what’s left is “just another thing”. But somehow it’s different now…

Me being a little bit of a geek, I loved the features that have been appearing on the new mobile phones over the past years. How amazing to be able to get in contact with people wherever you are and, even better, wherever they are; (nowhere to hide anymore!) How great was it to take pictures and videos of random things you ran into while on the road? I really enjoyed the increasing connectedness and the ability to get in touch with friends in so many new ways. Recently however, I’ve noticed that this increased connectedness seems to be turning on me.

Always connected

Not only are we connected by phone-call, text-message and email, all the social networks have also crept onto your smartphone. Great right, now you can tell (random) people all the random things you encounter throughout your day, without the need to go home and fire up your computer. To be honest, I still thought this was pretty cool. But to be able to be updated about current (random) events in the world, the amazing tech-people introduced to world to…. Push messages! No more need to even fetch and open your messages, they just download themselves and open themselves right away! Can you believe it? Someone sent you an email or posted on your Facebook wall and you knew within 5 seconds. (*Quick! Reply! He/She is probably still online anyway because you noticed so fast!)

No more!

And this is where it started turning on me. People were starting to expect me to read every message they had sent me and reply instantly. Sure I could understand that because, truth be told, I used to like being able to do that.
However, I was working on a project a while back and had my phone lying on my desk (in silent mode). It was then that I started to notice HOW MANY TIMES I was actually interrupted from the actual work at hand by that annoying buzzing of the phone. *Bzzz.. Email* … *Bzz… Email* … *Bzz WhatsApp-message*,.. *Bzz*..*BZZ*..BZZ..BZZ..BZZ..BZZ.. ARRGH!

Mutany!!

I’m not sure why I never noticed before but since then I started to pay more attention to it and it started to scare me. My best gadget-friend had turned from something that used to enhance my productivity into something that was actually sucking the productivity out of my day. The possibility to browse the internet, watch videos and get in touch with people are already enough to consider your smartphone an enemy of productivity; It’s pretty much Procrastination-heaven waiting in your pocket. But as long as it’s in your pocket and shuts up, I can deal with that temptation. However, thanks to the brilliant technicians our smartphones are now push-messaging their way out of our pockets.  (Next-stop, Procrastination-heaven!)

Fighting back

Thank goodness I still remember that I am supposed to be in charge of my life (and pants) and I decide what deserves my attention. So what I did was: I remembered what it was I thought was so great about my smartphone. It was the ability to access people and information anywhere, at will. And I guess the magic is in the “AT WILL” part. Everything was perfect until the phone started thinking it knew better than me, and this started me flooding me with things that were supposed to be interesting and required my immediate attention.

I guess my smartphone got a little bit too smart for my (and eventually its-) own good. I decided to remove all push-functionality from my phone. Whenever I want to read my email, I’ll just open the application and wheel it in. I did the same for my Facebook and twitter apps, although I’m even considering removing them completely. (It’s harder to procrastinate on social networks if they’re no longer installed) The only push-functionality I left in place is WhatsApp, since it works just like a normal text message.

Wrapping up

I’m really happy with the choices I made to take a technological step back and dumbed down my smartphone a bit. All the good stuff is still there but I decide when it gets my attention instead of it screaming for mine.
Having messages buzzing and beeping for your attention is a real killer for your concentration and thus your productivity. Take a moment to decide if you really need to get all that pushed information right now or if it can just wait until later. Some of it can wait until you get home, some of it can wait until you completed your to-do list or perhaps until you’re on the bus/train/metro.

Don’t let your phone outsmart you into broken concentration and procrastination, show it who’s boss!

As you may or may not be aware of, I started a new job at the beginning of February. It’s great to meet new people, face new challenges and have some more money to spend on nice things. Apart from that, one of the things that also comes with working in a large organization is email. And as it turns out, lots… and lots of email.

The Tom sawyer effect
I’m not sure you are familiar with the term but I do assume you’ve heard of Tom Sawyer before. The Tom Sawer principle originates from a scene where Tom is ordered to paint a fence white. Tom wasn’t particularly fond of doing work of any kind so he found a way to get out of it. He started projecting the idea onto passing people that painting that fence was actually a lot of fun. Yet, when they asked them if they could have a go at it, he promptly refused. Eventually people started paying him for the privilege of painting the fence.
Yes, Tom turned something that was boring work to him into something others would actually pay to be able to do. He essentially managed to turn a task into a privilege, work into play.

The Tom Sawyer principle can also be seen in many other situations in life but also in reverse. For example, extremely wealthy people that like to drive a horse and carriage for fun in their spare time. However, as soon as someone would offer them money to take them somewhere it completely took all the fun out of it and turned it into work. As soon as their fun turned into work, they lost all interest. (There is some fascinating research done on this, from kids to adults that is worth checking out)

Back to Email:
Do you remember when you first got to use email? I thought it was amazing! Even though I didn’t have that many people to send emails to in the beginning, simply because it wasn’t widely adopted, just the thought of communicating this fast across enormous distances felt awesome to me! The more people started using it, the higher its value of email became, as is with any network. Email was fun to use! Now queue the office…
In offices, email has started taking over people’s schedule. It’s often no longer a tool but an objective: “Get through all your email today”. There are now tons of freelance consultants making money on teaching people how to cope with this seemingly endless flow of incoming emails clogging up their day and annihilating their productivity.
Luckily I’m aware of this problem and intend not to become a victim of it.

But sadly, I am starting to become a victim of the Tom Sawyer effect. Email, once fun to use, is turning into work. I get dozens of emails to read. Ever since the CC-box was invented, so was the “FYI” (for your information) email. Since it’s so easy to send messages, documents etc around your colleagues automatically assume you can (and want to) read everything they send you.

Alarm bells ringing
Last week I found myself experiencing my inbox as a burden for the first and almost freaked out! Just one paragraph earlier I stated that I wasn’t going become a victim of letting my day be dictated by my inbox. From that moment on I took it upon myself to just clean my inbox as fast as I could, preferably using the “delete” button. (If you’re looking for a great time-saver, that key could become one of your best friends, I assure you.)
I’m glad I almost freaked out because it gave me a timely wakeup call. Stop sending useless emails, stop CC’ing people to make them think they are either important or to “prove” you are actually working during office hours. If you recognize yourself doing one of these things, you’re contributing to the flood of email. Just,… stop it!

Wrapping up
Realise when you’ve let yourself be tempted into turning something that used to be fun into work (or worse). Then take action to take back control of the situation. Take simple steps, start today! In the case of email, it’s simple: Just send less of it, to less people and only when it actually serves a purpose.

Somewhere between breakfast and lunch there is a point where you may start to feel drowsy. Especially if you’re a modest break-fast eater like me, you might be bothered by a productivity dip around 11AM. Personally, I hate ‘m because they’re interfering with my plans for the day.

When you run out of fuel and get stranded on the side of the road, you call triple-A. Instead, a lot of people (especially office workers) call upon Triple-C: Coffee, more coffee and yes… even more coffee. Probably not the best thing you can do for yourself, even though it might get you through another 30 minutes or so. To stay with the car-metaphor, don’t put stuff in your tank you know is going to ruin your engine. You know well enough what your human-engine runs best on.

So if you’re a modest breakfast-eater like me, be sure to bring some decent fuel with you to your workplace. I’m not saying you should whip out a banana while you’re giving a business presentation, but having some fruit instead of coffee will keep your mind just as sharp.

Now get back to work

Do you remember the last time a piece of music gave you goosebumps? Was it a great soundtrack while watching a movie or some lyrics that sounded almost as they had been written just for you? Countless styles of music have emerged these days, something you might say. But one thing that all of them share is that they seem to be able to touch the people that listen to them on a far deeper -almost primal- level. You may be brought to tears, feel like you are in love, get inspired, get fired up to make a change or even compelled to destroy the next thing that gets in your way. Somehow music is able to tap into our being on a much deeper level then words can.

Getting in a state of mind

So now that I just told you something you already knew, let’s start working with it. What does a specific genre of music put you up to? Would you wake up better to a smooth jazz record or some hardrock tunes? I guess most of you would prefer waking up to some slower, softer sounds. But how about tearing down a wall in your house or a tree in your garden?
I’m not sure if you have been following the 2010 olympics or not, but one thing I noticed (especially with this post growing in my mind) was how those athletes were preparing for their events. Pretty much all of them were wearing headphones and using visualization to get into the state of mind that would allow them to perform record-breaking feats of strength and agility. They were trying to condition themselves so that they would surpass themselves in the hope of that being enough to surpass their competitors.

What are you preparing for?

Are you feeling slow when you actually want to go fast? Or are you nervously twitching when you actually wish you could slow down? Do you want to construct or destroy things?
Go find a piece of music that matches your desired state of mind and put it on, on your stereo or your mp3 player. I remember Steve Pavlina talking about “if you want to become something, you have to radiate the energy of the thing you want to become”. This is closely related to a Zen saying I heard from Wan Qi Kim some years back: “Ever thing is what it is because it has the energy to be that thing”. Music is a tool that can help you to start radiating that desired energy faster and thus becoming the thing you desire to be.

Feel what works

There’s no one genre that works for something. Maybe a reggae record wants you to chill out and smoke some pot or maybe it makes you want to cause havoc with a sledgehammer. It’s completely unimportant what piece of music it is, as long as it gets you in the state of mind you want to be in.

On a personal note;
I love to listen to John Mayer records when I want to slow down and relax for a quiet dinner. But highly contrasting I can enjoy the super-fast, energetic tunes from a Power Metal album to get my ass moving when I’m feeling slow. I enjoy some classic Japanese pan-flute tunes to quiet my mind for my meditations. I’ve given classical music a try for studying purposes but it never really did it for me. I enjoy late summer nights in my hammock with some reggae music and get shivers listening to heroic adventure movie soundtracks. Owh, and if I flip on an Enya record I’m sleeping like a baby in less than 15 minutes, lol

I hope these short examples show you that there’s no right and no wrong way to go. No matter how diverse your “tastes” in music may be, what’s important is that it works for YOU.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time you’re craving for a P.G. Snack

Life can be a drag sometimes. There are times when you wake up uninspired, feeling like you have to kick yourself in the ass get moving. Living an inspired life can slip through your fingers and usually you don’t even see it happening. You just suddenly realize that it has happened, and you’re really dissatisfied with it.

And then there are those other days you wish would never end. You wake up before you set your alarm, your head is spinning with ideas and you have an uncontrollable urge to get up and move, create, inspire,.. just do things. And as has been written time and time again throughout the history of the world, this is a great feeling.
Now let me tell you how I actually went from A to B in under 7 days.

Situation A:

Let me just paint you a picture of my life until the starting point of the transformation:
I had been working on my thesis for about 9 months. It had turned into a routine that held no challenge for me anymore. I got up every day knowing what I “had to do” but my heart just wasn’t in it anymore. And as you can imagine, remaining in this routine takes more energy from you then it gives back. I slept 8-9 hours every night and still felt like I was tired every morning.

Even though I had not achieved my master degree I had decided to take a chance and apply for a job that had just “suddenly appeared” into my life. It felt right to do so and I just went with it; what the h*ck right!?
About 1.5 months ago I received the final word that after two interviews I had been selected as the best candidate and that I could start on February 1st of the New Year. So up till that day I remained in my thesis-routine.
I expected a normal transition from one activity to the other but as it turned out, the universe had something else planned.

So what happened?

Five days before I was going to start my new job, I received word through twitter that a friend of mine was going to give a presentation on entrepreneurship at the university. I thought it would be nice to go and see what he had to say, since he’s doing well for himself and it would be nice to see him again. And even though it wasn’t rocket science that he delivered that day, it did somehow light the fuse to some invisible rocket that apparently I had strapped to my back.

I have taught myself the habit of writing down every (business) idea I have in a small moleskine notebook to make sure I don’t lose that thought. And as it usually goes with ideas, most of them are great at the time but upon further examination turn out to be just “okay”. That night I got another idea and instead of just writing it down, I immediately went to work on it. The rocket had been lit and had now taken off!

Having a great business venture idea while being at the point of starting my new job was clearly “not the best timing” I could have asked for. But since I also loved the idea of going to work in this new position I had gotten.

Situation B:

So here I am now, a full-time job, a thesis to write and a business venture underway. I wake up every day before my alarm, after about 6-7 hours of sleep. My head is spinning and I just want to do nothing more then get on with the day! Even when I get home after my day-job I don’t feel like turning on the TV or play a video-game; I just want to do more things! I’m currently really in the state where I now have to kick my own ass in order to go to bed instead of getting out of it!

I’ve always been a rational guy, assessing my situation well and deciding what the best thing to do would be. This has always given me a great sense of comfort because I knew that this was “the right thing to do”.
But as it is now, I have three major projects on my hands plus numerous things on the side and I have absolutely no clue how I am going to pull it all off. But here’s the weird thing (to me); I feel great about it!! I don’t even care that I don’t have a full-proof plan this time, I just know that I’m going to make it work!

Wrapping up

I had heard the advice “do what feels right” many times before, and I thought I understood it. (And I guess my brain did indeed.) But I had never actually experienced it for myself. Without getting lost in “What if?!” scenario’s I took on the challenges because it just felt right! There is just no “left-brain explanation” for it.

You can read all you want about productivity, inspiration, motivation and everything you “think” is going to help you get you to the next level. But I guess it’s like putting on your swim shorts, even though you’re wearing them you still don’t know what it’s like to swim.
But in all fairness, it’s better to have your swim shorts on when you dive in than still being in your suit or jeans

So without being very original, I will tell you not to restrict yourself to just reading about personal development. Start doing it, start living it, start becoming it!

People are always busy these days. They have a million things to do, and no free time to spare on the things they really want to do. And these are just normal people, not corporate bigshots or successful artists, doing everyday things. We feel like we’re not doing anything special and already we’re “busy”; often too busy to do the things we want to do. I guess your parents, or whoever raised you, told you the same thing from time to time: “You can’t have it all.” Or what about: “You’ve got to take the bad with the good.” Well that’s just great isn’t it? What a great way to convince yourself that you should accept these discomforts because they’re just part of life. Well I, for one, refuse to settle for that.

So what about the really successful people in the world? If you see an interview with one of today’s successful people in business and they give a tip for the viewers, it’s usually: “Just work at it, and work hard!”. And they are right! Thinking and planning will only get you up to the start, but action is where it’s at.  However, there’s a catch here, and I’ll tell you what it is. It’s in the mindset. Yes, that’s right. It’s in the fundamental mindset towards the work that has to be put in. I started this article describing how “busy” people are, or rather perceive they are. When was the last time you heard a successful person regard to themselves as “busy”?! And that is where the magic is….

So what’s the magic?
These people that have become very successful are doing so much, taking on so many ventures and projects. But they never tell you they are busy. How weird is that?! Well, not so much if you hear what they do say. They “do a lot of things”. Now don’t just roll your eyes and pretend these things are exactly the same. Because I will tell you why they are not, even remotely,… the same. (Just to be clear, getting 5 personal assistants and a staff of 50 people is not going to make you do more, or make you less busy)

The fundamental difference between busy and doing a lot is in the attitude. Whenever someone tells you they’re busy, there’s negativity in that statement. It’s more of a complaint then an actual representation of their reality. It’s almost like a cry for compassion; “look how busy I am, someone help me!”. On the other hand, people that do a lot of things never (or hardly ever) complain. They are on the positive side of the spectrum looking at what they are accomplishing, not at how miserable they are because of it.
So you see; Two people, doing exactly the same amount of work could have a totally different experience while doing it. Even if their results are the same, which won’t be likely, one will be feeling exhausted while the other feels energetic and proud of what he has accomplished.

Putting this into practice
Now let’s take that one step further. If you are feeling energetic and proud of yourself, you’ll feel much more comfortable taking on new challenges. Because there’s nothing you can’t handle! You’re up to the challenge, just bring it on! You’ll do a lot again, accomplish more and feel great while doing it!
So start putting yourself in this position. Whenever it feels like you’re getting “busy”, be aware that you’re drifting towards the negative side of things and change it. Start doing a lot of things instead. You’ll feel the difference almost immediately once you free yourself of the self-pity that “being busy” made you feel.

It’s not the end of the world if you do end up feeling busy, but just be sure you realize what you’re feeling. Self-pity will not get you anywhere and once you learn to recognize it creep into your life & work, you’ll grow to bored with it. So getting rid being busy starts by noticing and identifying when it happens to you. Be aware of the negativity it holds, and then just tell yourself:

Now go out and do lots of things!