Last week I discussed several techniques to help you keep promises to yourself, whether it be with sticking to your decision to work on a project or as a motivational tool in your efforts to build new habits. One of those techniques was to treat your promises almost like a business/legal contract. We don’t readily look to break those sorts of contracts so it makes sense to apply the same principle to your own personal work and growth. Shanel Yang commented on that post, using her legal background to leave a great, authentic example contract. This gave me a great idea to take that example and turn it into a contract template for everyone to use.

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Productivity bloggers love to go on about getting up early. After some GTD loving, sleep is probably the most discussed topic out there… except here. Is this where I’m going wrong? Anyways, why is it so important whether you drag your body out of bed at midday, 8AM or even (ouch!) 5AM? Apparently, from those who do it on a daily basis it is supposed to make you more productive, if only for the reason that you get more stuff done with less distractions because the rest of the world is still (wasting time) sleeping.

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Last week I finally bought The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. Like Getting Things Done it has something of a cult following. Though I’m only a quarter of the way through I’m already seeing some intriguing ideas that I will no doubt be discussing in the near future. In the meantime I’ve collated a selection of quotes from the book to give you an idea of what it’s all about.

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Organize IT recap for 20th June 2008.

• The amount of sleep you get is a big issue when it comes to your health, and the time you get up in the morning is equally debated in personal development circles. Many blogs argue that getting up early makes you more productive. Been there, tried it, doesn’t work for me. On Monday I am going to be discussing the myths related to productivity and sleep. Until then Time has a great look at recent studies suggesting that sleeping less than 6.5 hours or more than 8 hours is actually bad for you, completely breaking my belief that I was getting an healthy amount of sleep every night. What are your sleep patterns?
• It might surprise you to know that South Park, the often funny, often crude cartoon series (twelve years old and counting!) can actually teach us a few (sensible) things about business. Twenty five whole tips in fact.
• Instant messaging can apparently improve workplace productivity, because there are less distractions associated with it. I personally find this interesting because I’ve always found instant messaging to be very distracting in my personal life, so assumed the same would apply at work (not that I have the option to IM where I am). Nowadays I have totally cut out the use of programs like MSN and very carefully limit my time spent on social networking sites. Do you use instant messaging at work? How do you find it compares to conventional phonecalls and emails?

We all know the importance of keeping promises to people. Keeping promises leads to trust which is one of the bedrocks of any good relationship, whether it be with friends, work colleagues or your partner. However there is one element of keeping promises that gets overlooked - keeping promises to yourself.

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