The first problem with simplifying in general is that people automatically assume it’s about cutting out activities and getting rid of the low value interests in your life. Far from it, in fact. As I discussed last week, you have to consider the cumulative effect of stopping doing a particular activity for the sake of simplifying your life. What seems trivial now, may prove to be of high value in the future. All that time I spend on Twitter and Friendfeed might seem wasted considering the handful of visitors I get from it every week, but those people over time become the ones who comment the most and share ideas with me. Over a year, that’s invaluable

The second problem with simplifying your life is how far to take it. Let’s take the 80/20 rule as an example here because it really sums up the whole principle of simplifying, even if people don’t always refer directly to it. When you first start to 80/20 your life the results are pretty obvious. You identify the 20% of clothes you wear 80% of the time and suitably store or throw out the rest. You pinpoint the 20% of hobbies that give you the most satisfaction and opt to stop pursuing any others. Sounds simple enough, right?

But then what? Do you 80/20 to infinity (and beyond)? Do you simplify and simplify till all you’re left with is the one most important project, the one set of clothes you wear the most, the one customer that gives you the most profit and the one best friend you spend your time with? I’ll let you guys answer that one…

Businesses don’t exactly help the situation. They continue to force more stupid work hours, leaving us with less free time to fit in all the stress-releasing fun we need as a result. In fact, in the near future (if it’s not happening already) companies will probably have offices on one floor and bars and clubs on another so their employees will never need to leave the building on a weekend. I’m waiting for the time when companies start asking why work and play need to be seperate things (because work is so much fun, right?). If you find yourself dancing away with a Smirnoff Ice in your hand while simultaneously analyzing the latest sales figures with your team you’ll know things have gone too far.

The whole work hard, play hard mantra unfortunately shows no sign of stopping even though it’s quite frankly a marketing con. How hard must you really be working if you still have the time and energy to go partying afterwards? And how heavily must you be playing if you are still able to do a demanding day at work without much sleep and probably an hangover? Red Bull sales must be through the roof! But what else can we do? Well why would you even want to work hard for the sake of it? Try working smart and playing smart instead. Rather than spending all your time knee-deep in work, look at how to streamline your workflow, become more producutive and use your time better. That way you won’t feel pressured to find quick-fix ways of having a good time.

Because time is a finite resource we seem to have this inbuilt instinct to not waste it and try and make the most of it. Hence we fill our time up with stuff. Do you get that urge? It usually hits me most on a Sunday when my to-do list is complete and I’m supposed to be relaxing. The problem with this is that being busy means f**k all if you’re not doing the right things. It’s almost as bad as sitting on your ass all day (every day) watching the TV. Both approaches mean you’re wasting your time and your energy. We wouldn’t be happy if our power stations, with all the coal they burn, could only provide the power to light one street. Alternatively, think of the environmental uproar cars would create if they all had the fuel efficiency of a Ferrari.

As an example of how predictably bad we are with time, Parkinson’s law states in basic terms that work expands to fill the time available to it. If you have a week to complete a small project chances are you will milk that week for all it’s worth. If you have a day to clean your home before guests arrive in the afternoon, you probably won’t really start tidying until thirty minutes before they come knocking (having spent most of the day choosing to unknot your hoover cable). Both are examples of how inefficient we are with our time (thankfully Parkinson’s law can be also manipulated to our advantage).

Hopefully you can see how becoming more effective (choosing the right tasks) and efficient (doing those tasks in an economical way) will make the difference between whether you are saying, “I don’t have enough time!” or, “I have plenty of time, let’s do something fun!” I think a part of our psyche gets scared at the idea of having free time so we rush in and try to fill it up, when instead we should be looking for the right balance. It’s time to break that mindset.

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.

Fair enough, that does make a lot of sense and I’m sure it works brilliantly… for those who can get up that early. Problem is it is now generally accepted that people function better at different times of the day. For every early bird there is a night owl (and probably a bunch of other birds between them). Let’s take a look at our caveman ancestors for a moment. Imagine if they all rose at the same time. Think of all the fights that would ensue when they all tried to hunt their breakfast. Or the struggle to get near the river for a drink. Nowadays it’s called the morning rush hour and the river has become a Starbucks, but the principle is the same.

It would be pointless writing this without having experimented with it myself. A few months ago I tried to get into the habit of waking up early. The only problem was no matter how much sleep I would get I’d never feel any better when I woke up in the morning. It was almost as though 7.00AM was the boundary upon which my sleepy body started to get cranky and fight back. Any later I felt fine, but if I got up earlier then grumpiness, lack of focus, motivation and various other unpleasantries would ensue, regardless of whether I had six hours or nine hours of sleep. I’m all for streamlining my life but putting myself through that so I could empty my inbox or get the bills posted quicker didn’t seem worth it. Especially when I could simply streamline my workload and relax instead.

If getting up early suits you personally and your lifestyle overall, great! You’ll get more done and feel better in the process. But if you are, for instance, someone who really comes to life during the evenings then take advantage of it instead of struggling away trying not to let your eyelids close. For all those people commenting on these posts about getting up early, saying they struggle to do it, guess what! You don’t have to. The early bird might be able to take advantage of everyone else being asleep, but you can equally take advantage of your energized evenings because people are too busy lounging in front of the TV. Though people continue to labor in a rigid 9-5 world, there are always measures you can take to let your life and work fit around your sleeping habits and not the other way around.

A lot of advice suggests that you should always look to do something new to expand your comfort zone, they will even go so far as to advise that you do a new thing every day. You decide to go to a new bar on Monday, smile at a stranger on Tuesday and admit you were wrong to a colleague on Wednesday. Realistically, what will any of that achieve in the long run? We all agree that habits don’t change overnight, so why should the boundaries of our comfort zone be affected by a bunch of random one-off actions?

Personal growth seems to be intrinsically tied to the idea of expanding ones comfort zone through regularly pushing ourselves into new situations and experiences. Especially in business. Ever had a personal review where you’ve been told you’re treading water? Oddly it’s never good enough to evolve and improve on what you have, you instead need to look for the next rock to jump on. Thus we have a culture of mentally unsettled managers who are constantly bombarded with new things. It’s not so much significant that they come away with anything of value, it’s simply the fact they get a new experience under their belts.

Yes, it’s incredibly important that you be open to new experiences and interests. It ties into the whole idea of being curious and inquisitive. There is nothing worse for personal growth than being close-minded. The more new things you do (even just one time), the more you will learn, the more you will experience, the more your mind will grow. As people get older they tend to slip into routine, and it gets to the point where anything that upsets that routine is both scary and intimidating. That is what you should be trying to put off as long as possible.

If you want to do something new everyday that’s brilliant. But don’t do it to expand your comfort zone, that’s a flawed concept. Do it because you want to grow your curiosity, learn new things, understand yourself better and ultimately learn to cope with all the anxieties that accompany a new situation or experience.

But what of the comfort zone itself? It shouldn’t be ignored, instead it should be treated in a different way. The comfort zone covers those actions, areas, environments, tasks, tastes in food, music etc that you are comfortable with, that define who you are. It doesn’t form overnight and the idea that doing something new once will actually make a single dent on that comfort zone is naive.

Effectively, your comfort zone is your base of operations, your place of strength. You want to culture it, feed it and make it a fortress by learning to know what you like and dislike, what makes you happy and what doesn’t. I went for a lesson of snowboarding a few months back. Tried it, wasn’t quite what I expected so I’ve not been since. However, I discovered a little bit more about what things I am into. If you foster a strong comfort zone, you can venture out into the wildest unknowns and do completely different things, because at the end of the day you know you have a strong comfort zone to come back to.

The big problem is that a lot of people don’t really know or understand themselves that well. When they are told to be themselves, they are more likely to go around consciously acting out an image of themselves which is more influenced by how a person views themselves, how they want to be viewed, and how they think others view them. Ironically, they probably acted more like their true selves before they ever took the advice.

It’s especially dangerous when the statement is taken at face value. If you always act like an idiot, you can use it as an excuse not to change. It also creates the illusion that certain actions are “not you” and allows you to use that as an excuse to explain away reckless/silly actions.

The advice to be yourself is true to a point, but only as part of a bigger statement. Unfortunately it tends to be used as a soundbite without much explanation to follow it. It’s certainly not as marketable, but what they really mean is to understand yourself, then make the best of yourself and always look to improve and evolve yourself.

People naturally evolve and grow throughout their lives, and if you are consciously aware of it you can influence that process, and actively take measures to become a better person. Plus, a person who understands themselves more ultimately comes across as more natural and aware of the pros and cons of their personality.

Why do we get so hung up over it? Everybody procrastinates each and every day. The problem perhaps lies somewhere in the fact we humans struggle with forward planning, hence all the need for organizers and diaries. Cavemen didn’t worry about the future, they worked on their basic needs (food, water, shelter) as and when they needed to and that was pretty much all they had to worry about.

Modern society is naturally hugely more complex and our basic requirements are often taken for granted while we focus on other existential needs. However, there are very few things you can just go out and do right now. You have to plan and budget and seek advice and that is when the procrastination seeps in.

So essentially, what does procrastination cause you to do? It causes you to defer tasks till later dates, typically those tasks that provide us with the least benefit or fulfillment at the current time. For example, going out this evening is a much more enjoyable and immediate activity, compared to staying in and doing an assignment, from which the benefit to you (handing it in and getting a good mark) will not become apparent for perhaps another week.

Now let’s look at procrastination in a positive perspective and view the above example in a different light. The person may be leaving his assignment to the last minute but he will get it done (he has to work solidly for a couple of days but that is a separate point). He spent the first week after getting the assignment partying, going out and enjoying himself, but now in the second week the urgency of the assignment is more pressing. He has essentially followed his mind’s natural approach, of which procrastination is an element of that. Basically, he’s not doing things for the sake of it.

You could argue that by leaving it to the last minute he has caused himself stress and anxiety, compared to an individual who started the work early and was able to take his time. However, this latter individual was also essentially working against himself, having to consciously resist the desire for immediate satisfaction each and every day that he chose to work on the project when he didn’t really need to. Is that inner turmoil any better than the stresses of leaving something a little late to do?

Take another practical usage of procrastination. The first person has to buy a book for his course so he goes straight into town and picks it up at premium price. No procrastinating for this guy. The second person, however, puts it off for a few days. At this moment in time there is no immediate gain to him buying it (he naturally doesn’t want to spend so much money) and the timescale is too long (the course doesn’t start for a week). When he finally does decide it is time to pick it up a few days later he decides to do a little search and finds it is on special price on the internet so he has saved money. The first person wanted the book now, now, now so as not to procrastinate on being equipped for his course  but it meant he didn’t give himself the opportunity to take some timely research and planning.

I would be very interested in your thoughts on this topic. Do you agree that procrastination is not always the great burden it would seem to be or do you think this alternative argument is nonsense?

Confidence can be an attractive quality and displaying a confident demeanor is held in high regard in many Western societies, especially in business circles. A confident person is charming, knows what he wants and believes in his own abilities to get it. Unfortunately, confident people can also be those who cut you off on the road, act arrogant and cocky, and become blind to their own weaknesses. You won’t read many books telling you about the unwelcome side of the characteristic they are encouraging in you.

Of course you can’t just become confident. Self-help books will say you can build up your confidence with positive thinking and affirmations. The problem with this is it is superficial confidence because it’s not based on how you compare to other. It’s almost like a placebo effect. All it takes is one unpleasant situation to bring it crashing down again.

Some argue confidence is primarily down to genetics, others say much of it is down to how your parents treat you at a young age. But one thing for sure is that a lot of confidence when you’re older comes from numerous external factors – how you compare to others, people telling you how entertaining you how, how well you did that presentation, how good you are at sports… Consider how a football striker who suddenly stops scoring goals is always said have low confidence.

A popular student who is confident in so many other circumstances may quickly become reserved when put in front of a computer in IT class alongside a techie student. However if you put those two in a loud, crowded bar the roles are likely to be reversed. In each circumstance one of the students compares favourbly in his area of expertise and thus feels confident about his abilities.

To gain solid confidence you firstly need to gain competence in your skills. If you know how to do something and have built up these skills over time, then you will create a natural self-belief in your abilities. A great, confident public speaker won’t always have been that way. He’ll have practised and refined his abilities so that he’d be sure he could cope with all situations. If you are not competent in an area (and hence not confident), whether it be public speaking or socializing, ask yourself if you actually have much experience in it and then take the appropriate measures to learn and improve.

If you think you know all you need to know, then you are over-confident and likely to become that rude, cocky person I previously mentioned. As good as you might be, you can always improve. Taking that attidude with you in whatever you do will allow you to tread that fine balance between confidence and arrogance.