Self Improvement

Career / Self Improvement / productivity — No Comments
11
Jul 11

Applying Game Theory to Real Life

It’s a concept I’ve thought of before, but it hit me again last week. I was working on a project at my new job that tapped into my CSS skills (something I’ve really never gotten to use much at an actual job before) and I immediately had a thought that put a ‘CSS +1’ notice rising from the top of my head…RPG style.

The idea of formal ‘game theory’ is fairly broad and not really what I am getting at. I’m really looking at the aspects of an RPG (Role Playing Game) style game that cause people to continue playing it and how it relates to real life. In any good RPG, the player controls a single character and completes some kind of tasks, goals, or achievements. Upon completion, the character receives some kind of experience points, which unlock new tasks, goal, and possible achievements. During the whole process, the character usually develops by gaining more points toward various traits like strength, endurance, magic, etc. and a whole slew of side skills.

This character building idea keeps a player enthralled as challenges become more and more difficult, but the character is increasingly capable of more difficult tasks.

This is basically how most people go through their lives and careers, but they just don’t realize it because it’s not naturally quantified. You don’t increase your CSS skill by one when you learn a new trick, you just learn the new trick. And generally, we don’t have good enough vision to see what the next progression of our lives will be until we’re standing at the edge, staring it down.

People have tried to create websites that feed into this idea (like MotivationRPG and Fitocracy specifically for fitness), but I think that real life is ultimately far too complicated to be contained in such a concept. However, I think it is why people get enthralled with things like competing in sports and competitions. You can build up your abilities and then see results in a usually logical fashion.

Sports aside, it can still be a good strategy to use to motivate you in just about any aspect of life. The tricky part is quantifying skills and using a goal setting system as your vision for progression.

Maybe this was an incoherent ramble, but that’s okay, because I leveled up in MySQL today.

Lifestyle Design / Self Improvement — 2 Comments
27
Sep 10

Being an Entrepreneur Lends Itself to True Freedom

It was probably Tuesday or Wednesday night this week that I had a dawning realization. When my job ends, I can literally do anything I want. If I want to pick up and go to the beach for the week, I can. If I want to go hiking on a Wednesday morning, I can. It is amazing to have this much freedom.

I don’t think people really understand what they’re missing when they spend 50 hours per week in a cubicle and 10 more hours per week driving back and forth to that cubicle. It isn’t the work that is the problem; it is the format of how the work has to be done and the crazy restrictions placed on employees. Upon reflection, it seems completely archaic with today’s technology.

</rant>

Now that I’ve realized all of the possibilities in front of me, I think it only makes sense to create a list of those things that I want to accomplish in life. I had previously been thinking about putting together a life list, or bucket list, like so many ‘lifestyle design’ bloggers have in the past. Without ever doing something like this before, it was quite daunting to try to list out the biggest things I want to accomplish in life. This next part sounds really stupid now that I’m writing it down: I didn’t want the list to limit what I could do in life. Really, Brad? Really?

Anyway, I finally got my head on straight when I read through a post at Advanced Riskology, where Tyler wrote a lengthy post about Writing Your Own Biography ahead of time. He basically breaks down life as if it is a project (which is a pretty cool analogy) and uses project management techniques to plan out what you hope to accomplish in the various stages. What I really loved was his constant reiteration throughout that the plan is flexible and can be changed at any time. Just because you planned it doesn’t mean you have to force it to happen if circumstances change.

So although I had thought about it previously, this was the post that got me to actually write a couple ideas down. My list is still a work in progress, with several of the items undefined, but I think I’ll post it on the site relatively soon (along with an About page…). Maybe just a little more polish and I’ll launch the beta version.

The other blog post that really helped me out with the planning was How to Make a Life List You’ll Actually Do, by David at Raptitude. He breaks down how to make your list realistic by making it a collection on intentions, not just wishes. Also some pearls of wisdom to check and see if you’re adding items for the right reasons. For example, he asks “would you still do it if you weren’t allowed to tell anyone? Climb Everest? Read War and Peace? Really?” Yeeaah…NO.

I think your life list has to come from your own motivations. If you don’t desperately want to complete an item, including all of the costs and sacrifices it may or may not require, then I don’t think it should be on your list. It is a major consideration that I need to weigh into each of my ideas.

For instance, I totally put the standard ‘go to all 50 states’ on there. However, what does a geographic border have to do with anything? Not that it isn’t a valuable and worthwhile goal if that is really want you want to spend your money and time on, but I think I’d rather pick 50 sweet things in the USA that I want to see/do and check those off rather than stepping foot in every political outline of the map!

Be on the lookout for my list in the next couple of weeks.

Self Improvement — No Comments
26
May 10

Too Many Goals, Too Little Time

Okay, so I fell off the wagon on my goal list. I’ve kept up some of them, but changing my habits around (read as ‘entire lifestyle’) was too dramatic to hang on to. I can definitely see the benefit of focusing on one thing at a time as I mentioned in my last post. So, what is my actual progress?

I’m soda and candy free. As much as I crave them (about twice per day), I have been able to hold off. It has been interesting in that it challenged me the way that going vegetarian did initially. For instance, I went into Burger King to grab a veggie burger on my lunch break and realized there wasn’t anything to drink other than water or pink lemonade, which I basically consider to be pink, non-carbonated soda. Water it is.

It’s amazing how ingrained some behaviors are and we’re not even aware of it.

My general cleanliness has improved, but I haven’t been anal about it. I think I can maintain the level that I’m at now while pursuing other goals without a problem. It’s not a focus, but rather something I just do because I naturally want to.

My dental care has been good, but not perfect. My general process now includes morning and nightly brushing with mouthwash always at night and sometimes in the morning. Breakfast really gets in the way of using mouthwash in the morning. I have a habit of grabbing a portable food and eating on the way to work. Since you aren’t supposed to eat or drink for 30 minutes after rinsing, breakfast and mouthwash directly compete so that is definitely a fight for another time. Flossing regularly will take it’s own thirty day challenge.

Exercise and a strict amount of work on my business have not gone well. I started fine, but quickly lost my motivation for these. Another difficulty was my increased level of sleepiness due to caffeine withdrawal. This was clearly a conflict of two different goals. I still have been doing both, but just having had the commitment that I intended.

I decided my television watching rule was a stupid idea in the first place. Watching TV for me is usually a result of no motivation to do other things or else a chance to unwind after ’strenuous activities’ like work or exercise. Needless to say, I watched a lot more television than I wanted to when I set my goals.

So where does this leave me now?

Well, I’m going to keep the strict limit on sodas and candy. It is working and I think I’m handling it well. I would hate to give it up now. However, the rest of these goals I’m going to have to be a lot less strict about. I will still try to work toward them because they are all an aspect of my life that I want to improve.

I think that is the ticket for attacking multiple goal items at one time. You can really only go cold turkey on one item at a time. Improvement can still be made in other areas, but so much focus is required to change a behavior absolutely that tackling multiple goals at the same time is really difficult.

Posts coming soon: the business I’m building, quarter life crisis?, and creating a life list

Self Improvement — 1 Comment
19
May 10

Breaking the Habit Edition

This is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever attempted (Embedded Systems Design excluded). I find myself at a contradiction of my normal behavior for almost all of my free time. I’m struggling to wake up early, to not passively watch television, and to generally just not be a lazy idiot. After some careful thought, laziness is the real habit that I’m attempting to break here; these individual items that I’m after are simply results of laziness.

It has been a fairly rough couple days. Things I thought would be easy are hard and that makes pretty much all of my goals are fairly difficult. I’ve definitely treaded the line of needing to self discipline for failure to accomplish one of my goals on a couple occasions, but I’ve rationalized my way out of it. I figure as long as I’m making an attempt at changing my behavior, then I’m within the constraints regardless of the actual action taken.

Here is my list of rules with updates:

1. Put things away after I use them.

This hasn’t been too bad. I’ve been making a conscious effort and it seems to be keeping the level of clutter down.

2. If I see an area that is cluttered, I will de-clutter it at that exact moment.

This made for an interesting start. I had to give myself a lot of leeway with it because my whole apartment was cluttered.  I would have been cleaning for two days straight. So, I’ve been lax on enforcing this one as long are the level of clutter is decreasing each day.  It would have been a better idea to start this when my apartment was clean.

3. Brush Teeth, Floss, Rinse with mouthwash twice per day.

This one isn’t so bad. It’s definitely not a built in habit yet though.  Each morning and night I catch myself as I try to go right to work or go to bed without the full cleaning.

4. Consume no soda or candy.

I originally thought this would be really difficult, so I was surprised when I didn’t want any soda or candy for the first two days. Today was a different story though.  My lack of sleep and caffeine built up and I had quite a slow afternoon.

5. Do a minimum of 2 hours of work on side business everyday.

It’s intriguing to have a set rule like this.  I was working on my business almost everyday, but my productivity and accomplishments varied quite a bit.  Now that I’m focused on a set time of two hours, I’m finding I get a lot more done and will push other things out of the way to get to work! This is a good one for sure.

6. Get at least a ½ hour of exercise everyday.

I’ve had some small hiccups, but have been accomplishing this every day.  I haven’t yet today, and being 9:30pm as I write this means I’ll really have to make myself.

7. Wake up at 7am every weekday, even on days off.

Well, I’ve been physically getting out of bed each day.  But once I fell asleep at my desk (at home, not at work) and once I fell asleep on the couch. Tomorrow I’m going to try to have something set out to do when I wake up (in this case, a short run).

8. Watch TV only for special events or for dual processing (while doing something productive)

This has been the most challenging of my rules and I should probably be punishing myself for my results.  I didn’t realize how ingrained television was in my daily routine. I use it to unwind and recharge after work. I used to wake up and watch sports center in the morning while my brain was waking up.

I’ve definitely still watched more TV than I should have, but I’m aware of it and try to do something else if I can.

Another issue I’ve had is decently bad headaches. I don’t have much choice but to sit in the dark or sit in the dark and listen to the television on a really low volume.  I don’t normally get headaches very often, so I wonder if they’re triggered by my change in sleep or diet.

Overall, it has been pretty difficult, but I’m hanging in there. I was disheartened today when I read a post by David at Raptitude that said:

“In my research on habit change, one point keeps coming up again and again: the likelihood of your habit sticking decreases dramatically for every additional habit you’re attempting to change at the same time. If you only focus on one habit, a successful take is almost guaranteed, but trying to change five habits concurrently almost guarantees failure for all of them.

The fact that habits can’t be changed en masse was always a difficult pill for me to swallow. I always tried to change everything at once, and it never worked.”

Well…oops. I guess I’ll have to try that much harder. After all, if I’m going to make it as a self employed internet entrepreneur I need to be an outlier anyway.  I might as well start outlying now.

Self Improvement — No Comments
16
May 10

Introspection | Myself under a Figurative Microscope

Lately I’ve been analyzing everything about myself. I mean everything, from career to hygiene to hobbies. I think it stems from a feeling that something is wrong and I’m not sure what it is. My life seems in disarray (although it’s really not that bad). There is a lot I don’t have control over, which is probably causing higher levels of anxiety.

I’ve always struggled with handling anxiety so I’d imagine my brain goes into a high alert status. After some processing I’ve decided that part of the solution is solving the problems that I don’t have control over. For some of them, it means doing something differently or minimizing responsibilities. For others, it simply means coming to grips with my lack of control.

I wonder if it’s a part of some kind of quarter life crisis or else some sort of natural life phase.  In fact, I’m positive that has something to do with it, although I’m sure my discontent in several areas of life is what really brought about this level of introspection.

It seems logical that the first step of progress should be determining what areas I’m really having trouble with. I briefly worked through a Wheel of Life exercise on Google Docs (courtesy of Jenny Blake, Life After College) and came up with a pretty solid list of things I can actively change that I perceive will make me happier.  It will be pretty interesting to find out whether making the changes will actually improve my happiness.

The only to find that information out is to make the changes and see how it goes.  So, much like a thousand bloggers before me, I’m going to challenge myself to actively work on these items for one month and see how it goes.  At the end of the time allotment I can analyze how the different elements have affected me and whether each one is something that I want to continue.

I suppose that what sets this challenge apart from the dozens of others I’ve read in the past is that I’m attempting to make a bunch of sweeping changes rather than just one at a time. I think it will be an advantage because I clearly won’t be able to forget what I’m doing since this will be a fairly all-encompassing challenge to my daily routine.

So, the items that I’ve identified as weaknesses are as follows:

  • Cleanliness - It stresses me out when there is clutter everywhere, so it would only make sense to not produce as much clutter.
  • Hygiene (specifically dental) – I’ve never had good dental hygiene habits and have a mouth full of fillings to prove it. My teeth are fairly sensitive now and I have a lot of concerns about the road I’m on if my bad habits continue (although it’s too bad I can’t undue the damage that is already done).
  • Focus on side business – I often find myself burnt out after work and come up with excuses to not get things done. If I don’t put in the work, then it won’t be successful.
  • Getting enough exercise – I’m sporadic about exercising even though it’s something that I enjoy.
  • Waking up early/on-time – I’m frequently “late” for work (although they’re pretty flexible and I don’t get penalized or anything, I just have to work later before I can leave) and it starts my day in a bad mood. Plus I think it causes me to lose time that I could otherwise be productive with.
  • Television watching – I use it as a time filler.  If I don’t have something specifically on my mind that I want to do, I become a de facto couch potato.  I don’t enjoy most of what I watch so it just becomes time down the toilet.

I know enough about myself that simply saying I should improve these things wouldn’t be enough to sustain my motivation for more than a day or so. What I need are firm rules that I’m not allowed to violate and consequences if I do violate them. So, here are the rules:

  1. Put things away after I use them.
  2. If I see an area that is cluttered, I will de-clutter it at that exact moment.
  3. Brush Teeth, Floss, Rinse with mouthwash twice per day.
  4. Consume no soda or candy.
  5. Do a minimum of 2 hours of work on side business everyday.
  6. Get at least a ½ hour of exercise everyday.
  7. Wake up at 7am every weekday, even on days off.
  8. Watch TV only for special events or for dual processing (while doing something productive)

Consequences: If a rule is violated, I will have to proclaim it publicly on this blog and also not be allowed to check my adsense stats the following day.

Today is the 16th of May so I will hold these rules in effect until the 15th of June. I’ll keep you updated.