Lifehacking is an odd term, but the benefits that the activity bring are well worth getting past that initial connotation.  To me, lifehacking is the process of making changes in your life, your routine, and the way you think, in order to make you more efficient, accomplish more, and generally getting yourself out of your way so that you can do the things you want.

Although the lay-person's idea of hacking is some 35 year-old sitting in their parent's basement breaking into the military's computers, the reality is that hackers are generally just people that tinker with their computers in order to optimize them as much as possible.  In order to determine the best ways that you can modify a system, you need to undergo a process of analysis to figure out how things fit together, and where you can make changes that will have the most benefit.  Lifehacking is analogous to this process, but applied to our life, our bodies, and our minds, rather than to a computer.

Although some people refer to each of these pursuits individually (mindhacking, bodyhacking, and lifehacking), I lump them all together into one term, because I find it hard enough to accept that I go around using the word lifehacking, let alone two other equally awkward sounding terms.

My three week retreat since leaving my job is mostly devoted to this pursuit, in preparation for the start of school, but also simply because I would like to establish a number of new and positive habits before I am under the familiar, crushing burden of school work, at which point I will not be given an opportunity to affect new change in my life until the first term is complete.

Today I'm just going to review some of the items I have recently introduced into my daily routines and life, and how they have allowed me to become more efficient.

Biphasic Sleep

I have recently posted the first of three weeks worth of journals related to my experiment with biphasic sleep.  The notion of biphasic sleep is that by sleeping in two intervals, rather than the more typical single interval, our sleep becomes more efficient, and thus we require less.

By introducing this routine into my life, I have been able to squeeze an extra two hours out of every day.  It is pretty rare that you will be able to introduce a lifehack that makes you efficient enough to gain an extra two hours out of every day, no questions asked.

The counterpoint to this method of sleeping is that having an extra two hours of wakefulness may be a waste of time if you spend a lot of time sitting around bored.  Personally I think boredom is the worst way to spend time imaginable, and so I diligently keep track of all my projects, ideas, and activities that I'm working on, and manage my tasks using the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology (more on this further down).  Whenever I'm bored, I review my TODO list, my projects, and see what I can work on and go from there.  If nothing jumps out at me, or I feel like I just need to relax and take a break, I'll read or play video games, and this is fine too. 

The real key here is that if you are considering making this change in your life, be sure that you've got things with which to fill your time.

Quicksilver

Quicksilver is an application that is available for Macs.

Before I go any further, I would like to preface this section by talking briefly about Macs (the computers).  I firmly believe that Apple makes products with one of their goals being that the user experience should be paramount above all else.  What this means is that using a Mac is almost always a pleasing experience.  Not only have Apple designed their products this way, but they have built their operating system in a manner that allows and encourages third-party developers to design programs that adhere to these same principles.  The end result is that you get a product that is very polished (not just superficially, but all the way up and down the user experience), and stays out of your way when you are using it.

I am not speaking as someone that has existed inside a Mac-only bubble his entire life - I grew up using Windows machines and went through my entire Computer Science undergrad using Windows machines.  I lovingly purchased and cobbled together powerful PCs, managed and upgraded the machines, networked and tinkered with them, and hacked with them to make my experience with them as efficient as possible.  Then I got a Mac and within a week realized that I would never again own another Windows machine unless absolutely necessary.  Everything is that much easier, that much more efficient, and that much more pleasing (this last point is where most techies typically get hung up, making the assumption that is the only thing that Macs have going for them.  That's fine with me, but it's inaccurate).

The Mac community is one that has developed around a shared appreciation for good design and efficiency, and as a result, Macs generally have a large amount of applications available that allow for these kinds of practices.  Chief among those products is Quicksilver.

Quicksilver can be summarized as a keyboard launcher, but this understates how much it can do for you.  In reality, Quicksilver allows you to do anything and everything rapidly and with just a few keystrokes.  If I have a file on my desktop that I want to move to a folder on my computer called Adam/Cool_Stuff/Ninjas/Robot_Parrots_vs_Ninjas/, I can do this in two ways. 

The standard way that many of us are used to doing is to click on the file on my desktop, hit cmd-x (ctrl-x for Windows users), then open a Finder or Explorer window, then click through our directory structure until we get to the appropriate folder, then hit cmd-v (ctrl-v for Windows users), pasting the file into the folder.

The Quicksilver way that I would accomplish this is to click the file on my desktop, hit cmd-escape (which brings up the Quicksilver window with my file selected), hit tab, type "move", hit tab again, and type "Robot_", and then enter.  I don't need to type the whole folder name because Quicksilver narrows down the list of places I can send the file as I continue typing until I'm left with just one result.  This is significantly faster, does not require using the mouse for a lot of the work (which is inefficient compared to the keyboard), and does not leave me with extra windows open that I then need to close.

This is a pretty mundane example.  How about a cooler one?  Let's say I'm reading an article online and I see a word I don't know.  Typically you would open a new tab, head over to http://dictionary.com, type in the word, read the definition, close the tab, and resume reading.  With Quicksilver, I highlight the word, type cmd-escape (which this time brings up my Quicksilver window with the highlighted word selected), tab, and then start typing "define".  As soon as the results are narrowed down to "Define word", I hit enter and a small window pops open showing me the definition for my word.  I can close this window quickly once finished by typing cmd-w.

For both of these examples, it is very easy to counter by saying "Yah, well, I have my own way of doing that, and it's plenty efficient, so there's no need for me to bother with Quicksilver".  This is a fair counter-point, when you are looking at specific cases.  However, the thing that makes Quicksilver not just handy, but essential, is that it provides an efficient way for you to do virtually everything you can possibly imagine, and always in a fairly intuitive manner.  Additionally, Quicksilver provides plugins for virtually everything you can imagine.  There's an iTunes plugin, so that you can change your volume, change to the next track, request a new song in iTunes DJ, and rate the current song, all with a minimal number of keystrokes and without having to leave the task you're currently working on.  There's a websearch plugin so that you can use Quicksilver to instantly search whatever site you like with the search string of your choice, without having to go through the process of opening up a new tab, typing the website you want to search, finding the search box, entering the search string, and hitting enter.

Again, don't look at the specific examples and tell yourself that you can do that in a different way.  The reason that Quicksilver shines is that it allows you to do almost everything this quickly and effectively.  Once you start tinkering with it and adding new plugins, you'll be amazed that you were able to function without it.

Windows users - your best choice is something called Launchy (which I used at work).  Launchy is better than nothing, but it doesn't have the modular design that Quicksilver does, meaning that it doesn't have anywhere near the comprehensiveness or number of plugins that Quicksilver does.  Still, just adding a keyboard launcher can make you more efficient.  Hitting alt-enter, and typing "excel" is generally going to be faster than using the mouse to click through a number times to get to Excel from the Start menu.

Getting Things Done (GTD)

Being organized and having effective time-management skills will both create more time for you.  By having a clear head and an awareness of what tasks you have on your plate at any given time, you will be able to spend more time present in the moment, and waste less time trying to remember what that thing was that you had to do, and figure out what your next step is.

While many people will throw up their arms and claim "I'm just not good at being organized", this is a cop-out.  Organization and time-management are both skills that can be practiced and cultivated.  Although some people will naturally be more intuitive at applying these skills, there is no reason that you cannot learn new skills to organize yourself, and new methods for coping with everything that life demands of us.

Getting Things Done is a methodology conceived of by David Allen.  This method provides a workflow and a system for dealing with every new piece of information that comes at you, tracking your projects and tasks, and completing things in a timely manner.  My mentor at Refractions, Krista Stellar, had been practicing GTD for a while before I started working with her, and it was something that I learned largely through osmosis.  In spite of the many excellent things she taught me, I think that the introduction to GTD was the most significant thing that I took away from my time spent working with her. 

The reason for this is simply that the GTD methodology can be applied to almost everything that comes at you in life, and staying organized and on top of things will give you a relaxed sense of control.  Stress robs us of our ability to think clearly, our ability to enjoy ourselves, and our ability to remain present.  By eliminating stress related to poor organization, you will remove this time-sink from your life, and gain more time to focus on the things that are important.

If you are interested in reading more about GTD, you can click the appropriate tag on the cloud to the right, or check out Merlin Mann's 43Folders blog post here.

If taking on an entire new system seems like too much overhead right now, you can start by making two changes in your daily routine:

1. Start maintaining a TODO list.  Write down whatever you have to do, along with any information related to each item that is needed to accomplish it.  When you finish an item, cross it off your TODO list.  At the start of each day, create a new TODO list, and review your old TODO list.  If there are items that you no longer care about, cross them off, and  move over all of the remainingitems that did not get finished from the previous day's TODO list.
2. Apply the two minute rule.  Whenever a new piece of information or task comes at you, deal with it immediately in two minutes.  If you can finish it right away in two minutes or less, get it done.  If you cannot finish it in two minutes, but it is something you will do soon, add it to your TODO list.  If it is something that you need to file away, do so.  Whatever it is, deal with it in two minutes.

Just by implementing these two rules, you will remove a lot of the overhead that is caused by letting new pieces of information come at you and simply sit in your inbox (physical or e-mail), or worse yet, in your head.

Remember the Milk (RTM)

Remember the milk is a web-application that integrates perfectly with the GTD methodology.  Instead of needing to maintain a physical, or paper-based system, RTM allows you to maintain all of your tasks, projects, and todo lists online.  Not only is all of this information available to you wherever you have access to the web, but it is also supported by an iPhone app and syncing software for other smartphones.

Although I won't go into detail about RTM today (that is a topic for another time), I think that this is the most significant evolution I have made to my personal system since I began blogging about it. 

Multi-tasking

Everyone likes to talk about multi-tasking at work, but typically what they really mean is that they're browsing the web when they should be working on a spreadsheet.  This kind of multi-tasking is inefficient, and should really be labelled "working with distractions".  Although I completely appreciate the need for healthy distraction and allow myself that same luxury, this is not the type of multi-tasking that I'm referring to.

The type of multi-tasking I'm talking about doesn't even need to take place in front of a computer screen.  When I'm referring to multi-tasking, I simply mean accomplishing more than one thing at once.  If you take a few minutes to think about your daily routine, there are likely certain activities that you will do that include periods of time where you're not doing anything.  Some excellent examples from my own life are:

• Walking to and from work
• Working out
• Biking
• Waiting for someone to meet me
• Getting ready in the morning

Walking to and from work and biking are essentially periods of down time for my mind.  Sometimes it is important to have time to just let yourself zone out, and I encourage you to grant yourself this from time to time.  However, the rest of the time, you could be putting your mind to work.  One excellent way to accomplish this is using audiobooks and podcasts.  Audiobooks are a great way to learn while you're doing something physical, allowing you to focus your mind on something constructive while your body works physically.  There are podcasts available on virtually every subject these days, and these present great opportunities to increase the breadth of your knowledge.  Have you got a recurring TODO item like "learn Spanish"?  Download an audio book or podcast related to this topic and get started.

Working out represents a decent amount of downtime, as your mind is not really working throughout, and you also need to rest your muscles in between each set.  I find that with a set of free-weights at home, I can usually complete emptying the dishwasher and folding my laundry by the time I am done my workout, simply by getting up and working on these chores in between each set.

By making sure that you have a notebook and pencil with you whenever you go out, and your iPod, you can ensure that you never have to sit around doing nothing while you wait for someone to meet you.  You can work on brainstorming or planning out a project you have in mind with the notebook (and throw on music while you're doing this), or just spend the time listening to an audiobook or podcast.

You can make your morning routine more efficient by pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and bringing it with you into the bedroom while you pick out what you're going to wear for the day and do your hair.  Some people have weird hang-ups about eating food anywhere but the kitchen and the dining room, but I don't think there's much validity to this (especially given that the bathroom is generally one of the cleanest places in your house.  Let's not talk about your keyboard; you're not eating around that are you?).  If your response to this is that you don't eat breakfast in the morning and you save time that way, then you should re-evaluate your priorities.  Saving time in the morning at the expense of your health is the wrong way to go - eat your breakfast, and make time for it by multi-tasking.

Be Efficient

So those are some of the important lifehacks that I've taken on board, both recently and in the not-too-distant past.  I recommend giving any of these a shot if you ever find yourself wishing that you had more time.  Choose one of these that compels you, and commit yourself to trying it out for two weeks to see if it works for you.  Whatever you do, make sure you keep one thing in mind: if you find yourself complaining about being bored, you are not allowed to complain about not having enough time.

I finished work last week, and had three weeks ahead of me.  Prior to the end of work, I had been collecting a large number of projects that I wanted to tackle before school started. I will be writing later on about some of those, but today's topic is related to what is probably the weirdest project on my list.

This project is to move from sleeping in one single unbroken phase (usually 8 hours), to a biphasic sleeping pattern, consisting of a core sleep at night, and a nap during the day.

There are many reasons for doing this, but the most significant is that by changing to this sleeping pattern, I am able to go from requiring about 8 hours of sleep to 6 hours (in theory).  If you are reading this blog, you likely have some kind of passing interest in productivity, as I write about the subject fairly often.  Can you think of a lifehack or productivity trick that you have implemented recently that has netted you an extra two hours of spare time everyday?  Most of us cannot answer "yes" to that question.  I, however, can, and that is what this entry is about.

Two hours may not seem like a very big number to you when you first read it, but let me put that into perspective.  We spend about 8 hours of our day sleeping (typically), which leaves us with 16 hours of wakefulness during which we can actually do stuff.  Adding an extra two hours onto that is an increase of 1/8th to the amount of time you have available to you.  At the end of the week, that is an extra 14 hours within which to do things.  If you prefer the longterm picture, let's say I live to the age of 75.  I have started this experiment at the age of 30, which means I can sleep biphasically for the next 45 years.  That roughly translates to gaining an extra 5.5 years of life.

These claims probably sound grandiose, and that's fine.  Hacking your sleeping habits is certainly not for everyone.  Bay's initial reaction upon me mentioning this to her was "I don't like this at all".  After discussing with her, we concluded that she didn't like it for the following reasons:

• It's weird
• We won't get to go to bed together anymore
• She likes sleeping next to me

The first point is technically correct, but irrelevant.  Something being weird is usually just an indication that something is different from the status quo.  The virtue of simply being different from the status quo should never be a reason not to try something out.  One of the more disappointing conversations I had recently was related to a friend telling me that he was a fan of the status quo, but without being able to provide any real validation to support this stance.  The status quo is nothing other than what we are currently comfortable with due to familiarity.

The second point is totally valid.  It's important to both of us to spend time chatting in bed, cuddling, reading, being close to each other, and well... yah.  Fortunately, this point was easy to mitigate.  I could simply plan my core sleep so that I would go to bed when Bay would, and get up earlier.  My original plan was to stay up later and wake up with Bay, but it would not be a problem to switch this up so that we could have time in the evening together.

The last point is kind of romantic, but not really relevant beyond that.  The time we spend sleeping is time during which we are almost entirely oblivious to the world.  Our body is resting and recovering from the day, and in order to do this effectively, it switches off our receptiveness to external stimuli.  Although spending more time sleeping together is a romantic notion, I would rather have extra time that I could spend with Bay during my waking hours due to the fact that I'd accomplished more of my chores during the early morning when she was asleep.

After talking this through, and letting Bay know that I was simply conducting an experiment for three weeks to see how things went, she acquiesced (though she continued to shake her head at her weird husband), and I figured out what I would do.  The plan was this:

• Core sleep of 4.5 hours from 11:00PM to 3:30AM
• Nap of 1.5 from 4:00PM to 5:30PM

The nap time would hopefully be adaptable (as would the core sleep, depending on when Bay was ready), but I have no guarantee of this, so I just chose what might feel like a reasonable time to get some shut eye once school starts.

The other thing I planned was to journal about the experience, so that I could become part of the many polyphasic sleepers on the internet that are logging their own experiences, and so that I could maintain some objective distance and look back and review how things are going.  This is, after all, an experiment.

So, without further ado, here is the first week of my journal based on the experience:

Bi-phasic Sleep Journal - Week One

Started: August 17

Day 1 (Monday)

Discussed options with Bay, and agreed that going to sleep together was something we wanted to maintain.  Went to bed at 11:00 with Bay, and set my alarm for 3:30, aiming for 4.5 hours of sleep (three intervals of ninety minutes each).  Woke up around 1:30ish, went to bathroom.  Checked clock to make sure I'm on track, and fell back asleep.  Woke up again at 3:20, checked alarm, went to bathroom and got up.

Took me a little bit of time to get into gear.  Worked out, reviewed e-mail, completed a task off my TODO list and started on another, this time reviewing and learning about AppleScript.

8:00

Starting to get a little bit sleepy.  Going to head out of the house to attempt to snap out of it.  Yawning.

-Nap-

Fell asleep quite easily, and napped for the full time.  Woke up at one point and realized I had been dreaming.  This had occurred within less than 30 minutes, as my iPod was still playing and I'd set it to shut off in 30 minutes.  This is the first time in my experiment that I've actually felt compelled to fall back asleep after getting up.

Day 2 (Tuesday)

Went to sleep with Bay at 11, and stayed up until around 11:20 talking.  Set my alarm for 4 to give myself 10 minutes to fall asleep and then 4.5 hours from then until I needed to wake up.  Alarm went off at 4 (I didn't wake up naturally before it this time), but it was quite easy to get up.  I had obviously just finished a sleep cycle, as I was able to rise out of bed fairly quickly and didn't feel groggy.  Brushed my teeth, worked out, and started on a few projects.  It's now 6:00 and I still feel pretty on the ball.

Have not been yawning today, though it is now 12:30, and I can tell that my body is starting to prepare itself for a nap.  My eyelids feel just slightly sandy.

-Nap-

Again fell asleep easily.  I noted that I was partially aware of myself falling asleep, much like yesterday.  Perhaps this is the doorway toward lucid dreaming.

I woke up briefly at 4:00 to check my alarm, out of fear that I was sleeping through it but this turned out to be baseless.  Went back to sleep and woke up again at 4:23, and then got back to my routine.  The most annoying part about sleeping is how greasy my face feels when I wake up - easily remedied by washing my face, still, annoying.

Otherwise I feel fully awake and refreshed.  So far I'm enjoying biphasic.

Day 3 (Wednesday)

Again went to sleep at 11, aiming for consistency.  This was probably the hardest time waking up yet.  It wasn't really hard per se, it was just difficult to drag myself out of bed.  I think I may have been in the final stages of REM sleep, as I was in the middle of some kind of imagery when my alarm went off.  The biggest thing I miss is that feeling of waking up from 8 hours of sleep.  However, I suspect that that may just be a mental thing, rather than an actual physiological thing.  Based on my performance (physical and mental) I don't think I'm actually accumulating sleep debt, though that will remain to be seen toward the end of this week when I will feel most inclined to sleep in.

-Nap-

Falling into bed for the scheduled nap felt relaxing as always.  I slept fairly soundly, waking up briefly before falling back asleep again, and woke up 10 minutes before my alarm went off - usually the indication of the end of my sleep cycle it seems.

Interestingly, when napping, I am usually much more aware of the process of me falling asleep, this time remaining conscious throughout the process of my limbs twitching a little bit prior to actually falling asleep.  Again no trouble waking up, but I sure do hate the greasy feeling I have on my face whenever I take a nap.  I've established the following routine upon waking up from a nap: brush mouthguard, brush teeth, wash face with cold water.  This process is a familiar routine and helps get my mind back into the state of wakefulness.  The cold water on my face feels great and refreshing.

Day 4 (Thursday)

I got up easily, but am finding it fairly difficult to stay focused and awake an hour later (5:00AM).  This is the first morning where I have started things off by working out.  I've made tea and starting off with some cognitive tasks - we'll see how things go.

After the rough start for the first hour, I'm back on track.  The tea may have helped, or it could have been sitting down and doing something that demanded interaction and attention (today that was playing Super Street Fighter 2 - the previous three days it was working out).  One thing that I find really nice about sleeping biphasically is that I no longer need to stress out about getting to bed too late. 

Typically the amount of sleep that I get would be tied to when I get to bed, as I would not be able to sleep in past my alarm, which I would set to go off to give me enough time to wake up, get ready, and head out the door for work or school.  With biphasic sleeping, since I'm typically getting up four hours before I would need to leave for work or anything, I have tons of leeway to stay up a little later than I would normally, without it impacting my ability to get the 4.5 hours that I need for my core sleep.

Being up early has dramatically improved my ability to devote some time to things that I've wanted to accomplish previously, such as dancing - it's pretty easy to book an hour of practice when I don't have any other demands on my time, so that's what I've been doing from 6:00 - 7:00 in the morning.

Day 5 (Friday)

It's getting easier to wake up in the morning, but getting up from the nap can still be a little bit frustrating, as I'm not used to the usual feeling of 'restarting the engine' in the afternoon that comes from waking from a nap.  This weekend will be a good test of the biphasic sleeping pattern, and seeing how it fits in with the rest of my life.  I have a bit of a dualistic nature when it comes to activity.  During the week, I'm very focused on tasks, exercise, and a well-timed schedule.  On the weekends, I love hanging out with friends, socializing, partying, and letting things flow in a manner that is much less regimented.  Probably most significantly, while I still aim to get the right amount of sleep (I truly believe that getting good rest, drinking lots of water, exercising, and stretching are the closest you can get to a fountain of youth), the times I go to sleep are completely contingent on whatever I end up doing on Friday and Saturday.  If I'm going out to the bar (rare), or heading to a friend's place for drinks, it's quite likely that I may not actually get into bed until 2:00AM the next morning.  In the past, as long as I made sure I woke up around 9 or 10, I would get enough rest, and not lose my entire day (is there anything worse than sleeping in to noon?  I hate doing this).

I'm heading out to a hiphop show with Brooke, Jo, Piper, and Jesse tonight at Plan B (WTF), and suspect that this will lead to a late evening.  My intention is to act no differently than I normally would.  If biphasic sleeping does not allow me to do the things that I normally would, it isn't going to be a useful thing for me.

-Nap-

Nothing specific to report about my nap today, other than to state that the worst part of biphasic so far is definitely having to go through the waking process a second time every day.  When I say waking process, I mean, opening my eyes, shutting off my alarm, getting out of bed, brushing my teeth, cleaning my mouthguard, washing my face, and having something to eat to get things rolling. 

The good news is that this is really the only bad thing I can say about it, and I absolutely love the way I feel the rest of the time.  My energy levels are more consistent, and I feel motivated and energized throughout the day, rather than experiencing surges of energy at specific points during the day, followed by periods completely lacking in energy.  Getting up at 3:30, which sounds utterly disgusting without any context, is awesome when you consider that I wake up easily and feeling fully rested, and then have three hours within which I can work on whatever I like before I even need to start thinking about getting ready for work, school, etc.

Day 6 (Saturday)

So, I had a good night last night, and after Plan B, we went to The Mint to hang out for a bit and chat before finding our separate ways home.  I would elaborate more on the night, but this is a journal related to biphasic sleeping, and not a blog or a Facebook status update, so I'll stay focused.

I got in at 2:00 AM this morning, and I usually need about a half hour to wind down prior to being ready for bed.  Additionally, I had been drinking at the club, so I was a still a little tipsy when my head hit the pillow at 2:30 (I did, however, make a point of drinking two large bottles of water, as I always do, to ensure that I didn't wake up feeling de-hydrated).  I set my alarm for 4.5 hours later, and at 7:00, got up out of bed, once again, feeling refreshed and ready for the day.  Honestly, I was pretty amazed.  I figured that being out and getting to sleep later would have a detrimental effect on the whole system and play havoc with my new sleeping pattern, but it integrated perfectly.

The thing that I find fascinating is that the only real requirement here is that I get 4.5 hours of core sleep at some point before the next day.  With a monophasic sleeping pattern, the main requirement is that you get 7.5 hours of sleep before you get back up.  If you go to bed later, that's acceptable, provided that you stay in bed long enough to meet this requirement.  You can then reset your sleeping pattern by going to sleep at a reasonable hour the following night and getting 7.5 hours again.  Biphasically, it's the same thing.  I just need to make sure that I get 4.5 hours of sleep during my core sleep, and can then reset again by taking my nap at the usual time, and going from there.

So, remarkably, I was able to go out to the club, have some drinks with some friends, come home, go to sleep at 2:30, sleep for 4.5 hours, and then wake up ready to go about my day as normal at 7:30 the next day.  Pretty incredible isn't it?  There is one drawback to combining inebriation with biphasic sleeping, and this is that instead of having eight hours within which my liver can process and extract the alcohol from my blood, it only has 4.5 hours.  If you're in the habit of large and frequent drinking binges, you'll be able to wake up fine, but you're probably going to get out of bed and walk straight in to a wall.  Then again, if you're in the habit of frequent drinking binges, you're probably not the sort of person that is particularly keen on being productive and hacking your life and your sleeping patterns like I am.

-Nap-

I met up with Davin and Jay this morning for breakfast (after being up for 2.5 hours), and then hung out and played Magic with them.  After they left, I took my nap at 5:00PM, and then woke up, got ready, and headed out with Dan and Kellie for some drinks and conversation (great day!).  Fall asleep for my nap has consistently been easy so far, and once again I woke up just before my alarm went off.  After finishing up at the Bent Mast, I came home, tidied things up, and then went to bed at 1:45AM.

Day 7 (Sunday)

The end of the first week of my experiment!  My alarm woke me at 6:30, and I got straight up out of bed and started the day.  One of the things that I absolutely love about this sleeping habit is that I no longer feel like a slave to my sleeping tendencies.  I recognize how cheesy that sounds, so let me try to explain.  Normally on the weekends, I would go to sleep whenever I was ready to, and then set some time that I wanted to get up.  I would try to ensure that I was getting 7.5 hours of sleep, but if I went to bed at 2:30 (I really enjoy getting stuff done late at night on the weekends), I would usually aim to arise at 9:00 in the morning, which meant I would only get 6.5 hours.  In these cases, one of two things would happen: I would hit the snooze button 6 or 7 times before I was finally able to tear myself out of bed, OR, I would groggily pull myself out of bed and spend most of the day with low energy levels and require caffeine to rev myself up (which would then lead to further spikes in my energy levels).

Now that I'm sleeping biphasically, this cycle is shattered.  The first key is that I am always aware of what time I go to bed, and what time I need to get up in order to ensure that I get three full cycles of sleep (at 90 minutes a cycle, that is 4.5 hours).  By doing this, I'm ensuring that I never have my alarm go off and wake me up in the middle of REM sleep, and this is the situation that leads to you feeling completely blindsided when that alarm goes off.  Getting woken in your REM sleep is the worst thing that you can do, as it robs you of the most important part of your sleep, and precludes your body from going through it's natural process of gradually coming out of that deep, deep slumber.  Even if I stay up late, I don't need to worry about sleeping in through my day; even if I don't get into bed until 4:00AM, the latest I'm going to get up is 9:00 the next morning (allowing myself 30 minutes to fall asleep, and then 4.5 hours of actual sleep).  I know this sounds ridiculous, but I actually feel like I've leveled up.  Being in control of my sleep, and not the other way around, is amazing.

This is a significant discovery for me, and I think coming to this conclusion is enough reason for me to adopt and maintain this habit beyond the end of the experiment (which will be over in two more weeks).

Although initially I was concerned that having to nap would play havoc with my scheduling, it has not been an issue so far.  So far I have been able to shift my nap as needed within about a four-hour window, which is quite a lot of leeway.  I would not want to leave my nap much later than this, as I would start to feel a dip in energy (though probably less so than the middle of the day on a monophasic sleep schedule), and I would be pushing my nap and the next phase of my core sleep pretty close together.  To really remain consistent, it is ideal to have your nap half-way between your previous and next core phases of sleep.  I currently am not working (taking the time off to prepare for the Fall, when school will start), so I have the luxury of a fairly open schedule.  I will have to see how and when I can fit napping into my schedule come the start of school, but unless there is something drastic preventing me from doing so, I will be aiming to maintain this new habit.

This marks the end of my first week of experimentation with biphasic sleeping, and the end of the first set of journaling.  Although I had originally planned to publish the entire journal at the end of three weeks, this starting to reach a good length, and I think it makes more sense to publish on a weekly basis.  I will continue to keep journals for the remaining two weeks, so keep it locked if you find this subject matter interesting.

A friend and I were talking recently about GTD, and some of the difficulties he was having with his own implementation.  The conversation we ended up having turned out to be a good primer on some additional GTD tips, so I thought I'd reproduce the conversation here (after anonymizing my friend's input).

The initial discussion was about the difficulty of actually starting a project, even after you've come up with the next step for it.  My first e-mail was a sample of what my own PROJECT folder looked like:

Adam Quiney wrote:
-----------------

If you're interested, here's what my Project folder looks like
 
--Adam


PROJECTS
----------------

* Finish re-grouting bathtub
    * NS: Get out grout and finish job

* Consolidate office supplies (don't need second plastic tray device)
    * Next step: Talk to Bay about this, and look through the two to see what we have

* Set up RTM
    * NS: Read Lifehacker's guide to RTM

* Change tagTrack script for iTunes, to allow replacing existing tags
    * NS: Review code and determine where this is set



My friend wrote:
---------------------------

Nice set up.  Here's mine, and I encourage your criticism of the way I have it set up.

TODO

Now:
Start business - set up web site, talk to friend about his start-up
Return saw to dad - clean saw
Return clothes to friend - put them in squash bag

Soon:
Clean and organize garage - clear out garbage
Closet doors - install hardware attachments
Finish flooring - measure and cut bathroom boarding
Baseboards - caulk trim

Later:
Learn to speak French fluently - any courses available through work?


Adam Quiney wrote:
-----------------

It's pretty well organized, and I notice that you use lists proper to GTD - Now, Soon, Later.  I tried this originally, but it didn't quite fit with me.  Now, I just have a TODO list (included below) and a PROJECT list.  The project list mostly has stuff that you've got under Now and Soon.

Your side-consulting business is a good project, but I would break that down further.  The major project is "Start side business".  There's another project under that which is "Set up website".  The next step for setting up the website is "Meet with Adam and talk about what is involved", and the _true_ next step for that item is "Get in touch with Adam, arrange meeting".  I would track the projects under their own heading, and just move over the next steps when you think you are ready to work on them.  That way your TODO list is much less daunting, and this will eliminate one of the passive barriers to getting stuff done - seeing _massive_ projects on your list just makes you not want to do them.  Seeing "Get in touch with Adam and set up meeting" is an easy two-minute task involving an e-mail.

You can see that my TODO items don't have next steps for them, because I usually only move a "next step" type item over to the TODO list.  That way my TODO list only ever has small, easily digestable chunks of work on it.

You'll notice I also have a "WAITING FOR" category on my list - that's where I put anything that /was/ on my TODO list, that I've acted on, and am now waiting for something before I can pick it back up.  Eg, your list would have under WAITING FOR: "Arrange meeting with Adam.  WF: (Waiting for) Adam to get back to me".

Whenever I notice that something has sat on my list for a while and hasn't gotten done, I re-examine it and ask "Why aren't I doing this?".   Sometimes the answer is "Because I don't care about it" in which case I can just delete it and forget about it.  Sometimes the answer is "Because it's way too big", then I break it down further and replace thenext step on my todo list.

Thoughts?

--Adam


TODO
----------

* Transfer music from External Drive to Mini and MacBook

* Blog

* Prune Minibonsai

* Clear out voice memos

* Upgrade Quicksilver (on desktop)

Waiting For
-----------------

Chores
----------

* Recycling
* Vacuum

Download
--------------

* Update for Firefox


My friend wrote:
--------------------

That's great input.

I agree with you - the TODO of setting up a business isn't sufficiently broken down by merely listing the two rather vague next steps I have beside it.

The notion of "setting up a web site" in itself isn't sufficient, since that isn't a task I can just sit down and complete without employing several other kinds of next steps you talked about.  In addition, talking to my friend about how his business start up went also isn't a great 'next step.'  The appropriate one would really be 'email him to meet for coffee.'  'Email Adam to set up meeting', and 'Email friend
to meet for coffee' are both simple stress-less tasks that I could accomplish in minutes, but both would put me well on my way to accomplishing necessary steps in achieving important input required to
achieve my goal.

I like the notion of breaking things up into both a project list, and a todo list.  I could throw 'next steps' onto my todo, with a more elaborate project by project break down in a separate list.

 

 ----------

 

So that's that.  Talking this over, got me thinking about implementing contexts within my system, and so I sat down and set up exactly that in my TODO list.  If anyone's interested in hearing more about this, let me know.  Otherwise it'll be a post for another day.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of little things that increase the efficiency of things that I do frequently.

Below are a few programs that I have installed on my machine at work that enable this for me.  The machine that I have to use at work runs Windows XP, which sucks, because I truly believe that OS X is a vastly superior operating system when you care about efficiency and productivity.  However, without further ado:

• AltDrag

This is a simple, low memory-footprint program that does one function on Windows: Hold down the Alt key, then click anywhere on a window to move it around your screen.  Seems unnecessary, but it adds a little bit of efficiency when you don't have to go hunting for a title bar.

Once you've used this application, you'll be annoyed every time you have to sit down at a computer that doesn't have it installed.  You can download AltDrag here.

• WizMouse

Same idea as above.  A low memory-footprint that does one function on Windows: Whenever you use your scroll wheel, that event is drilled down to whatever window is directly beneath your mouse, rather than sending the event to the active window.  This doesn't change the focus or Z-order of your Windows. 

This is very handy, especially when doing things that require having something like an Excel spreadsheet and a web browser both open, both requiring scrolling.  WizMouse can be downloaded here.

• KeePass

This guy is a really tight password manager that I came across on Lifehacker.  KeePass allows you to keep strong and unique passwords for everything you need, and ensure that you never encounter a situation where you arrive at a website knowing you have a login, but unable to remember what it is.  KeePass creates an encrypted database file that you can also sync this across all of your computers using Dropbox, which means you just need to remember one strong password for KeePass, and one strong password for Dropbox.  Once you've got that, you can ensure that you maintain strong and unique passwords for everything you sign up for. You can download KeePass here.

• TopDesk

A simple application that allows Windows to mimic the expose functionality that exists in OS X (Macintosh's operating system).  Once you start using expose, you will rarely alt-tab again (although it's still the best way to quickly bounce back and forth between two applications).  You can download TopDesk in evaluation format to try it out, but it's worth paying for the full version.  You can download Topdesk here.

These programs will need to stay resident in your memory in order to function (with the exception of KeePass), but all of them are very low in terms of memory-footprint, and should not cause any significant problems.  Give them a shot and see if you like any of them.  I have gone as far as to install each of these on my thumb drive so that I can run them when I'm helping out a friend with their computer - they've become such a convenient part of my daily work that I can't stand having to work without them.

It's been around two months since I started leveraging Macintosh's Stickies to act as my digital task management system.  As all good processes should do, my system has evolved over time in order to better accommodate the things that I find necessary, and to prune out any unnecessary parts.

Up to this point, my system has evolved as follows:

• Attempt to implement a paper tickler system, similar to what I use at the office

This attempt failed fairly quickly.  I don't enjoy amassing large amounts of paper around the house, I don't have a convenient place to put a tickler file that isn't ugly (I don't spend a lot of time in our office, preferring to do most of my work in our dining and living rooms), and I wasn't checking it on a very frequent basis.

• Implement a rough system using Terminal windows
  

This step represented my change from a paper-based system to a digital one.  Not a bad start, but a long way to go.  You can read about this step and the one following here.

• Change over to using Stickies to manage tasks

This marks the start of my system actually becoming fluid and working well with my own tasks.  It is within this framework that the majority of the rest of my tweaking will occur.

The last step looked like this:


The latest evolution looks like this:



The changes I have made are not massive ones, but the little things make a difference over time.  A quick summary:

• Only the TODO window is fully expanded

The old system had four windows expanded by default - TODO, Blog, To Buy, and Projects.  However, this creates four windows that demand my attention by default.  By changing to a paradigm where I start and finish with just the TODO window being expanded, my eyes are immediately drawn to this location whenever I load up my system.

There wasn't really a need to have the other windows open either - if I want to make sure that I blog soon, I simply put "Blog" as a todo item on my list.  When it comes time to actually write, I just expand my blog window and look over the potential topics that I've recorded, choose one that interests me, and get writing.

Likewise, items under projects simply require my review from time to time.  Whenever I feel like I have enough time on my hands that I can begin to tackle one of them, I open up the window and choose one of them.  Items that I need to purchase, can simply act as a list that I reference when Bay and I head out the door on the weekend to run errands and possibly spend some money.

As an aside, I highly recommend maintaining a list of items that you intend to buy.  Having those items written down and made tangible really makes it easier for you to focus on what you will be sacrificing when you spend your money frivolously.  If I check this list before heading out the door on a Saturday, it just makes it that easier to think "Hmm, this thing is cool, but if I get this, I'll have to wait even longer to get those bike gloves I wanted".

• Location Tickler has been expanded

I'm still trying to figure out the best way for this tickler to work.  The location tickler started to accrue a number of items that were related specifically to people, rather than locations.  Tasks that require another person are generally a little easier to act on than a specific location, as I can complete an item marked "Lend book to Davin" when I either go to Davin's place, or when he comes to my place.  On the other hand, a task marked "Drop clothes off at Salvation Army" requires that I physically be at the Salvation Army.

It is possible that over time these two items will merge back together.  For now, I maintain the two ticklers separately (though physically close to one another on my screen) because I want to be able to check only the People Tickler when I have people over, and both the Location and People Ticklers whenever I'm leaving the house.  The goal here is to make the process of reviewing the ticklers as efficient as possible, in order to encourage myself to actually use them.

Don't underestimate this last point - I'm still working to develop the habit of actually checking the ticklers whenever Bay or I leave the house.  I have an active item for Vancouver that says Bay and I need to return some items to Ikea.  However, Bay left the house to head over to the mainland this Friday, only to realize that we'd both forgotten this needed to be done.  That's okay, it's just another aspect of working to learn a new habit.

• List section

The list section just holds a number of lists that I maintain.  Ideas for dates, gifts, vacations, and other things that I think up, want to remember, but haven't had a place to store them up until now.  Whenever I have an idea that falls into one of these categories, I capture it wherever I am, and then add it to one of these lists when I get home.  If I don't yet have a list for this particular idea, I create one and add it to that.  Easy.

• Dance Lessons

Writing ongoing lessons means that I need to keep a stock of fresh ideas and techniques to teach my classes.  The process by which I do this usually involves jamming at the studio, Steve's place, or my kitchen when cooking, and playing around with various techniques.  Whenever I do something that strikes me as worth pursuing, I make a note in the appropriate sticky.  There are a number of different stickies under the dance heading, because there are a number of different techniques that all fall under the Popping umbrella.

When teaching a class, I find that it's better usually to stick to one or two of these techniques, in order to get people familiar with a couple of different ways of moving throughout the class, rather than jumping all over the place.  Having these stickies makes it easy for me to sit down during the week and say "What do I want to teach the class this week".  I can review the items that I've captured, grab a couple from each list, and then put together a lesson plan based on that.

• More meaningful use of color

When I initially put together the sticky system, my use of different coloured notes was more whimsical than anything.  I tried to apply colors that helped separate the open windows from one another, and to denote headers for various lists, such as the Location Tickler.

This time, I've updated the use of color to follow a more specific pattern.  Headers are generally coloured green to make them stand out a little more.  Beneath these headers sit the actual contents of each category, such as the names of people I need to talk to, specific locations, etc.

Any person or location under a tickler that has active items associated with them/it is colored red so that I can quickly get a feel for where I have tasks with just a glance.  This is in addition to updating the sticky itself to note how many active tasks I have.  So, for example, I have one active task with my friend Rob.  His sticky is coloured Red to indicate this, and there are also the words (1 ACTIVE) beside his name.  At a glance I can quickly determine where tasks are piling up.

That's the bulk of the changes that I've made so far.  As always this is an iterative process, so the more I use the system, the more refined I anticipate it will become.  Eventually I will get things to the point that I no longer really need to make changes in order to have it function in a manner that is most efficient for me on a daily basis.

A final note about the mobile counterpart to this system.  This is the voice-recording application that I've been using on my iPhone.  It was one of the first applications that I came across when I searched the app store on iTunes for voice recorder, but fortunately it's fit the bill perfectly.  Here is a screenshot of the application:

Today's my thirtieth birthday.  For a lot of people that's a pretty big milestone.  Some people see it as the start of entering mid-life, some the end of youth.  I try to live my life by staying present in the moment whenever possible, and so I aim to avoid finding myself in a position where my birthday comes around and I think "Holy crap, thirty years have already passed".  I like to believe (and only time will tell) that one of the best defenses about wasting your youth, your young adulthood, your mid-life, and all of the other incredible phases of your life, is to try and take the time whenever possible to appreciate it.

A brief interlude from the ongoing blog about the dance classes I'm taking.  This entry is about the latest attempt I've made at creating a system that works at home.

We've now breached April, and that means a couple of things.  For a start, at least on Vancouver Island, the beginnings of Spring are tangible.  The sun's getting up earlier, staying out later, our cherry blossoms have bloomed and look beautiful against the backdrop of a clear blue sky, and it's getting easier to get up early in the mornings.  I was even able to go out biking in a t-shirt yesterday. 

It also means that most of the people that set New Year's resolutions for themselves (even if they didn't title them as such) to exercise more often, have now failed in that goal.  I'm not being pessimistic or cynical about human nature here (even though I am, generally speaking) - I'm just stating statistics.

Why is it, that so many people set off with such good intentions, only to give up completely in less than three months time?  I think it's because they've failed to follow the cardinal rule of exercising (and working towards a healthy lifestyle): Have fun.

I mentioned New Year's resolutions, but this phenomenon really applies to any "get fit" kick that people embark upon.  Sometimes it's after a vacation that resulted in two weeks of drinking and zero days of exercise.  Sometimes it's after a long camping trip, and is preceded by a lemon juice/cayenne pepper cleanse (that's a topic for another time).  After a sustained period of feeling unhealthy, we're all pretty keen and full of motivation to flip the tables and get things started in the right direction.

You run out, buy some new gear, and head out the door for a grueling 1.5 hours at the gym, or a 45-minute jog, after not having done either for over half a year.  The results are predictable: You've got new gear and resolution-level motivation (I like to think of this as artificially-inflated motivation), both of which propel you through the work out.  You're not enjoying more than the first couple of minutes of it, and by the time you finish up, you're a heaving sweaty mess.  You head home, crack a beer, and tell yourself that you'll be doing that three times a week from now on (some of the truly brave/naive push this to five times a week).

However, when you wake up the next morning, your muscles are screaming in protest, and you can barely sit down.  "It'll be better tomorrow, in time for my next workout", you tell yourself, only to discover that that pain sticks with you for almost an entire week, holding your next workout hostage until it subsides.  When you're finally feeling whole again, you get yourself ready for the next workout, even though the only thing you can think about is the week-long pain that you've gone through, and the torturous upcoming hour or so that leads you down that path.

Does this sound familiar to you?  If not, go away - this post isn't for you.

The fact is, none of the above sounds like any fun.  What is the motivation for someone to continue with the above routine?  Getting fit?  Being healthy?  Looking good?  These are all abstract, long-term goals.  They are abstract because "being fit", and "looking good" are very nebulous terms.  It's very difficult to tie those down to something tangible that we can point at and say to ourselves, "Look at what I've accomplished!". 

These goals are also at a disadvantage because they are purely long-term goals.  No one gets fit after three or four workouts.  No one is going to look good in a couple of weeks - it's just not how the body works (so if you're planning on taking a vacation, you better start exercising now.  You're not going to get your body "beach ready" in a few short weeks).

Disclaimer: Yes, sometimes it is possible to get short-term results very quickly with radical dieting and over-exercise, but trust me, these short-term gains come with a very hefty price: the inevitability that in the long-term you're actually training your body to put on more fat, and yourself to practice negative yo-yo habits, instead of positive lifestyle changes.

No - if we want to make changes to our lifestyle that are healthy and are going to stick, we must obey the cardinal rule.  We have to have fun doing it.  No workout will always be fun, but whatever activity we are choosing for ourselves needs to have some kind of intrinsic value that we can appreciate and enjoy in the short-term.

There are a couple of factors that we have to account for in order to meet this goal:

1. Do something that you enjoy.

It's so easy, right? If only that was the case. 

Most people, when they make a resolution to get fit, choose either jogging or lifting weights at the gym, usually because these are the most obvious choices.  Jogging doesn't require much effort to start doing, and gyms are all over the place.  When we think of getting fit, these are usually the first two choices that come to mind.

However, does this make them the right choice for someone?  Absolutely not.  Just because a lot of people are doing a particular activity doesn't mean that it's going to be something you enjoy.  Do you like being outside?  (Consider this question honestly - you're not writing a personal ad here, you're trying to figure out your best choice of exercise).  Is planning out a route going to be something that you enjoy?

How about the gym?  Are you comfortable working out around a lot of other people (I've overcome this, but I hated it when I first started).  Does lifting weights seem like something that you'll enjoy?  Is there anything in particular about the culture present at a gym that will entice you to keep coming back?

Incidentally, this is an excellent reason to avoid the temptation to run out and buy yourself a new set of shoes, or a new tight-fitting t-shirt to wear to the gym.  Doing so may temporarily inflate your motivation, but it will also lock you into an activity that you should be approaching with the intent to evaluate initially. 

This lock-in is motivated in part because of our tendency to be swayed by the sunk-cost fallacy.    The motivation that you think you'll get by buying-in to a new activity is artificial at best, and self-defeating at worst.  By approaching something without investment, you're allowing yourself the liberty of changing to a new activity if you don't enjoy this one.

2.  Have fun while you're exercising.

Don't start out with a goal that is far-fetched and ridiculously challenging.  Give yourself a goal that is reasonable, and that will give you the space required to appreciate the activity that you're doing.

When a lot of people first start out jogging, they run intervals, jogging for five minutes, and walking for one minute.  This kind of approach is great, as it lets you ease into your new workout regime, and gives you time to look around you and really enjoy what you're doing.

If at any point during a workout you start to feel that you just want it to be over, maybe you need to dial back a little bit and take it a little easier.  Be willing to adjust the goal that you set for yourself at the start.  Remember: it's much better to adapt your goal and succeed than to adamantly stick to your initial goal and then give up on your routine all together.  Your goal is to find something that you are going to make a part of your lifestyle, not to simply get through the current workout.

3.  Push yourself

This advice may seem to conflict a little with the above item, but it's important that you maintain a healthy balance of the two.  Above all, your number one goal should be that you're doing something that you enjoy, and that you're doing it in a manner that allows for that enjoyment.  Once you've found that balance point, take yourself out of your comfort zone and push yourself.  It doesn't have to be a lot, and you don't need to go overboard.  Just be willing to make yourself work, and to get yourself sweating.

Items 2 and 3 may prove elusive for someone that is only just beginning a new workout routine.  The longer you workout and exercise, the more in-tune with your body you will become, and the easier time you will have understanding when you are ready to push yourself further, and when you need to dial back a bit and give yourself some time to simply be present in the moment.

Remember that, above all, in order for exercise to become a lasting part of a healthy lifestyle, you really have to enjoy it.  You're not going to be able to force this, so be willing to look until you find something that is right for you.  If you discover that you hate lifting weights at the gym, don't treat this as a failure on your part - treat it as an opportunity to adapt your goals and to try something new.

It's been a decent while since I've blogged.  Every time the spectre of a week passed without blogging raises its head, my mind goes to the many entries I've read stating that a good blog needs to be updated regularly.  Unfortunately, I'm just not geared that way.  I can appreciate that people that are paid to write professionally (even if only on a free-lance basis) need to be able to get the machine working and produce, but I don't enjoy writing when I'm not inspired.