Back in elementary school I was in a class in which we did a study on dreams. Not just meanings of dreams and facts and the like, but actually ways to remember them. Not only was it pretty sweet to be able to wake up and remember a lot of the stuff you just dreamed, but it was cool to go back months later and check out the dream journal we kept and right then, vividly remember the dreams I had months before.

Hopefully something I’ll be able to do here on a monthly basis is post an “assignment” of sorts. An activity for you to do that will, in some way, provide a better understanding of yourself or your surroundings.

So this months assignment is to remember your dreams.

“How the flip flop do I do that Josh?” Ah, good question. Yes, there really is a methodology to this and yes, if done correctly, it will work.

Step 1.
When you lay down to go to sleep say out loud “Remember your dreams.” repeatedly. Say it atleast 10-20 times. The key here is “out loud.” Doing this trains your brain/memory to do just that…remember your dreams. All dreams are in some way affected by day-to-day thoughts/activities/etc and audibly saying “Remember your dreams.” puts the action into your brain.

Step 2.
After audibly saying “Remember your dreams.”, say it to yourself another 10-20 times. The same reason as Step 1 applies to this.

Step 3.
Make sure you have a notepad right beside your bed and the second you wake up, roll over and start writing. Write as many details about your dreams as you can.

Step 4.
There is no step 4.

That’s all there is to it. Yes, you might feel like an idiot saying “Remember your dreams” out loud, but that’s a HUGE key to this working. It might take a few nights for things to get moving with this and for you to vividly remember your dreams, but after getting in a habit of it you’ll train your brain to do it automatically.

Our dreams are some of the most creative things our brains throw together and being able to remember them can be extremely rewarding.

Good luck and sweet dreams!

So a couple of weeks ago I posed the question asking when (or if) you showered. The response was absolutely stellar with over 130 responses. So huge thanks for that.

Here are the results:
54% of you shower in the morning
24% of you shower in both the morning and evening
22% of you shower only in the evening

Now for my answer.

I shower twice a day. I shower at night immediately before I go to bed and in the morning soon after I wake up. Why? It ultimately goes back to getting a good nights rest.

I didn’t start showering in the evening until I wrote the first post about this, but I’ve been doing it since then and can’t believe I hadn’t started sooner.

It perviously took me 30 minutes to an hour to go to sleep every single night for as long as I can remember. Since showering at night, I’m out of it within a matter of minutes.

Like others who shower at night, I find it helps totally relax me. I turn the water on as hot as I can bear it and just stand there for about 10 minutes. I’ll then do a fairly quick bathe and from there go directly to bed. It usually helps to get your hair as dry as you can with a towel, but a little dampness will help you feel refreshed when you lie down.

So my suggestion? Shower at night right before you go to bed and shower again when you wake up. Try if for atleast one week. If you don’t get to sleep faster and sleep better…you can kick me in the shins.

It is hard, but it is possible to be close to 100% effective in all areas of your life. Being 100% (let’s call it 95% — no one is perfect, so they say) effective can be done by focusing on one area at a time – usually by concentrating on one “project” at a time. In addition, you do it by only concentrating on one task at a time on each project. Finally, the whole time you have to work hard at staying motivated – a challenge in itself.

h3. It Is Hard

In today’s world of fast personal computers, stable operating systems, and fast information delivery (Blogs, The Web, E-mails, IM), people feel like and are forced to attempt to multi-task just like those fast personal computers. Last year, Bill Gates wrote the following in his Executive E-Mail column:

A recent study showed that 56 percent of workers are overwhelmed by multiple simultaneous projects and interrupted too often; one-third say that multi-tasking and distractions are keeping them from stepping back to process and reflect on the work they’re doing. In the United Kingdom, it’s estimated that stress accounts for nearly one-third of absenteeism and sick leave.
(Source: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/2005/05-19newworldofwork.asp)

That stress factor shows that multitasking like that is not how our brains work, or should be asked to work. (Side note: I am not a psychology major, nor have I studied such. This is strictly a personal opinion I am expressing.)

h3. But It Can Be Done

Awhile back, I had a conversation with a good friend of mine. He said “It is so <insert your own expletive here> hard to be 100%effective in all areas of my life at once. It is easy to get one or two areas working well at any given time, but not ALL at the same time.” I reminded him that one of our favorite motivational speakers, Joel Weldon, coaches us to “just keep improving everyday.” Also, I was about to write “Do you want us to rip your proverbial engine open and install a cam to make all the cylinders fire in 100% perfect timing?” when I realized that maybe that is the “improving” we can work on – getting our “timing” right. You do not have to be 100% perfect in all areas of your life at that one particular moment. You just need to focus on, as David Allen says, the "next action," or in other words the very next step, and only the next step, you can take on the project. Then, when that next action is completed, fire “cylinder number 2” and move on to the next action (or switch to another project if it has a higher priority).  Using this focused mentality will let you stay 100% (well, again, let’s say 95%) effective in all areas of your life, but, it takes motivation.

h3. Staying Motivated

You have to stay motivated to be effective. It is hard; we all know that. Sometimes all of your work is overwhelming. Sometimes it is all just very boring. However, you have to just suck it up and stay on track. One way to do this is to remind yourself why you are staying motivated.
Tom Peters provided a good example of this in his blog awhile back:

This may be day 45 and mile 76,000 for me, but for the Client it is D-Day for an Important Event (often their year’s #1 event, for God’s sake); hence my exhaustion and accompanying short temper must be thrust aside … and downright cheeriness and spirited engagement must become the invariant orders of the day. Besides, such cheeriness, even if feigned, cheers me up first and foremost!
(Source: http://www.tompeters.com/entries.php?note=008294.php)

Another quote I personally use is one from Will Smith in the movie Hitch“Wake up every day, as if it was on purpose!” Saying this to myself after clicking “Ok” to the alarm from my Palm usually is the difference between getting up and snoozing five more times!

h3. “You Can Do It!”

Like that goofy guy on the Geico Car Insurance commercials says, “You can do it!!” (Who is that guy anyway?) It is hard, but, effectiveness is achievable – even though it feels out of reach as you pop open that To Do list and stare at an average of 150 items. It just takes constant work and some self-motivation. In the end, however, the feeling of being that effective is oh so worth it.

h3. About Jeffrey W. Cox

Jeffrey Cox is an entrepreneur who lives in Phoenix Arizona, his adopted home state. He has been a recognized and successful IT consultant for over 20 years. Last year, he made a shift to focus on his passion, personal productivity and organization, by starting Foresight. Foresight is a company with a mission to help people get their To Do lists done by being more successful with their lists, projects and goals. You can sign up today for his insightful newsletter as well as stay informed about Foresight’s forth-coming product launch – an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that will truly let you focus on getting the right things done.

Jeffrey can be contacted at jeffrey@FixYourToDoList.com and blogs at
http://www.FixYourToDoList.com/blog

Start your own business. Incorporation services. Nevada, Florida, Texas or any U.S. State.

This post is me gathering some info for a future post…a survey, if you will.

Basically what I’d like to know is if you shower in the evening, before you go to bed, or in the morning before you go to work…and why.

I’ll refrain from what I do and why until the next post.

For practically all my life I’ve had trouble going to sleep. I’m not an insomniac…I just think a lot. I’ll lie in bed thinking about what I want to do tomorrow or what I should have done today or how much I love eating cold pizza or how absurdly messy my desk is….you get the idea. And when I say I have trouble going to sleep…I’m not talking 20 or 30 minutes…I’m talking 2 or 3 hours. Because what will happen is after about 45 minutes to an hour of trying to go to sleep, I start thinking about how I’m not asleep but I should be…and thus the cycle begins.

Now, I may be a bit of an extreme case here, but I know for a fact that there are others out there who have trouble going to sleep. So, I’ve pieced together various bits of advice I’ve received over the past few months that have not only helps me get to sleep faster, but helps me get a better nights sleep.

1. Don’t watch TV or even so much as look at a computer screen atleast 30 minutes before you lie down. The light from both a television as well as a computer monitor mimic the same intensity of light as sunlight. This fools your body and brain into thinking it’s nowhere near time for sleep.
2. Drink milk. Milk has an amino acid in it called Tryptophan that increase the levels of serotonin and/or melatonin in the brain which slow down brain activity. It’s science folks.
3. Go to bed when you are tired. Different strokes for different folks here. Just because your wife goes to bed at 9PM doesn’t mean you are ready. You might only require seven and half hours of sleep while she might require ten. If you aren’t tired, do something low-key until you are, like read a book, play solitaire (NOT on your computer), or play with some legos.
4. Reserve the bed for bed things (ie sleep and sex). I for one don’t strictly follow this rule as I’ll read some before I go to sleep, but for some people this is a must.
5. Meditate. No, don’t cross your legs and hum, but focus on relaxing…if that makes sense. Take deep, long breaths. Tense each muscle one at a time from head to toe. Focusing on doing this takes your mind off of other things and you’ll be in lala land in no time.
6. Excercise during the day. I emphasize during the day. Excercising at night just gets everything going instead of shutting down for sleep. But excercising during the day tires the muscles out and makes for a solid nights sleep.

These are the majority of the things I have either tried or actually do routinely. What are some things that have worked for you?

Whenever you’re about to embark on a large project—be it writing a novel, redesigning a website, or painting a masterpiece—finding a place to begin can cause anxiety that prevents you from moving forward.

While some planning is necessary before beginning a project, too much planning can allow doubts and second thoughts to cloud your vision. If you find yourself having trouble writing the first sentence or drawing the first line, skip that step. The best place to start is often not at the beginning.

Don’t be afraid to jump right into the middle of a project and allow yourself to work both ways at once. If you’re staring at a blank piece of paper, an empty canvas, or a white screen, you need to find a place where you already know what’s going to happen. Attack it from that angle and let the rest follow.

I’m most familiar with this method in writing. Too often, beginning writers will spend most of their time crafting a clever opening and will rush through the rest of the story in order to finish. In many cases, the opening is the part that needs to be cut anyway, while the rest of the writing suffers from not enough attention. The story often begins later than you think it does.

I’ve also experienced this with a website redesign where the designer was stuck on the placement of the logo. It turns out that she didn’t like the way the logo looked on screen (it was designed for print) and was having trouble getting past that point. I shifted the conversation to a different aspect of the site, and we were able to move forward.

The beginning of a creative project is the most exciting and the most nerve wracking. Don’t place too much emphasis on the beginning because it highlights the seemingly far away ending. Jump into the middle of your project and break out of the linear mode of thinking.

Author Bio: Britt Parrott is the communications manager for an engineering firm in Portland, Oregon, by day and a screenwriter by night. He posts most of his nonsense at Perhapses.

In starting my own business I’ve noticed that trying to establish or stick to a routine is very helpful in keeping everything as stress-free as possible. It’s very hard to do and I’ve had to slow way down on some fronts to stay sane.

(Hell, to simply have a moments peace!)

I’ve noticed in the last few weeks it’s become harder and harder for me to keep up with all my obligations. I went through another of my “quitting exercises” and that should help a bit. I also spent some time creating and formalizing a loose weekly schedule for myself.

I fully expect this to be a big help, provided I can keep it intact, as it will further allow me to focus by setting aside time for activities that need it. I figured it might be fun and educational to share that schedule and get your thoughts on it.

So here is how I’m hoping for my “typical” week to break down:

* Monday is meeting day. I’ve got a standing meeting in the early afternoon and if I can, I like to have other meetings on Monday to get them out of the way. I’m not a big meeting person and my whole week goes much better if I can get past them early on.
* Tuesday is my wild card day. I usually try and leave it pretty open for whatever I have going on at the moment. That can mean meetings on hellish weeks or heads-down work on productive weeks. Or anything else, Tuesday needs to be flexible.
* Wednesday is my hard work day. I usually plan out my whole day, turn off distractions and getting to work, work, work. It’s also my writing day. I spend a good chunk of time in the evening working on my various columns and features, doing my best to finish them off.
* Thursday is planning day. I like to kick off projects and have status-type meetings on Thursday as I feel it’s the best day to plan for the next week.
* Friday is wrapping-things-up day. My Fridays are kind of like a less intense version of my Wednesdays. I tend to get as much done as possible, as early as possible and I usually focus on those projects that are nearing completion. I really don’t like meetings on Fridays or kicking things off in any formal fashion. I like to clear the decks for my weekend.

I’ve tried to plan for flexibility, yet still have some blocks of time (like my writing time) set aside and as “untouchable”. Some flex is needed for creative bursts or times when energy is higher or lower than normal. Oh, and the fact that I can’t get everyone to play by my rules!

I’ve actually had this “schedule” in place for a while in the back of my mind. Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows how I feel about Fridays for example. And Wednesday has always been about working my tail off.

I’m curious to know if any of you have a similar schedule or biases towards certain days of the week. Going forward I hope this can help me get more done and still leave me with the free time I need to keep a level head. Wish me luck.

I’ve been really productive lately. As such I’ve had little time to devote to many of my pet projects. I’m finding out that it’s much better for my overall stress level to drop some things. In essence–to quit. Even if I wasn’t devoting time and energy to them, they were there, weighing on me in the back of my mind, nagging at me for attention.

It’s hard for me to give up on good ideas, but I feel that in order to do something great not only do you need a good idea to start with, you need to be able to focus on that idea and execute. It’s hard to focus when you have so many things going on. Sometimes you’ve got to let things go.

h3. Prioritize Then Quit!

I recently went through an exercise that I found took a huge weight off my shoulders. I made lists of all the things that take up my time. My work, my blogs, my commitments, my hobbies…everything. I then went through and prioritized within those lists. It was hard, but it had to be done. Without getting into detail, my “professional” list looked something like this:

# My new business (Blue Flavor for those who don’t know)
# Asterisk – My “personal” professional site
# Upcoming speaking gigs. (SXSW being the most important to me)
# Lifehacker and Publish.com (Because they are keeping me afloat right now)
# To-Done
# Community writing (I do a bit pro-bono writing)
# My Travel site project
# My book on blogging
# My Web design book
# My blogging site
# Etc.

I then went through my lists and made notes that gave me an indication of how much time I was spending on each item. I also noted how much focus I had to use. For example, when I’m working on client work for my new business, I often have to put all my focus towards that while I’m doing it. That means closing e-mail, not answering the phone, etc.

The lists and notes gave me a good idea of where I should be spending my time. For example, Asterisk is a high priority that doesn’t take a ton of time and needs focus at times, but not all the time. That’s good! My travel site project was taking a ton of time and focus and it’s not a high priority. That’s bad.

I did the same thing with my personal life. I then merged the lists and re-prioritized, trying to do my best to be honest with myself about what was important. Importance was guaged on many factors and with work/life balance in mind. Something that was fun might be more important than something good for my career, for example. When this was done I had a pretty good idea of what I felt was important and how much time and focus I was spending on each item in my list.

Then I started making cuts. I completely stopped working on several side projects. I filed a few book outlines away for a possible revisitation in the future. I quit playing X-Men Legends 2 and Guild Wars in favor of Age of Empires 3. I said no to some writing gigs I’d been mulling about. I stopped watching What Not To Wear with Staci. I did all of this to try and free up time and more importantly focus on the things on the top of my list.

There were a few things I couldn’t just cut. For those I set aside time to wrap them up and finish them off. Vowing to be more selective about what I agree to in the future.

At first I felt guilty. Guilty! Now that I look back a bit, I think that’s kind of silly. Most of what I quit were things I’d brought on myself. If anyone was being let down it was me and as I’d just shown myself–I had bigger fish to fry. After a few days though, I felt really good about the decisions I’d made. I felt physically lighter. Heck, I feel even better just writing about it here. I’m a quitter and I love it! ;0)

I did all of this a few weeks back and the last two weeks have been, for the most part, really good! My stress level is lower. I feel much more on top of things and I’ve managed to get a ton of good, important, things done. The hardest part was getting past that guilty feeling, but that went away once I realized how much better I was feeling and how much more focus I was able to put into things that really mattered to me.

Not too long ago, I was asked by a client of mine how long it would take to complete a certain large project. After thinking about it for a while, I gave what I thought was a fair estimate given all of the parameters, possible hurdles and building in time for contingencies. The client then asked me if I could do it faster than that. They asked if I could do it in about a third of what I had estimated.

h3. Making The Best Use of Time

I am sure that we have all faced this riddle at some point in our careers or even in our “regular” lives. In this age of corporate downsizing, outsourcing and trying to get the same amount done with less resources, some of us face it daily. I would even argue that the current near Atkins Diet sized obsession with productivity many are having is directly tied to this quest for time management alchemy. Not just how to optimize the time we have but how to actually make time itself somehow change and bend to our will.

After some thought, I offered the client following response…

Time not spent on the front end of a project is usually spent on the back end. Sometimes, it is even multiplied. Therefore, it will take the same amount of time, if not more, no matter what.

You see, the time that project would have taken did not somehow magically change because the actual time that I was given to complete it had. Could I have done that job in the timeframe the client wanted? Sure. Would I have had to spend just as much time as I originally quoted after the fact correcting mistakes and problems because I rushed through it? Probably. Would it be harder, and thus take more time, to make such corrections after the fact than to get them done right the first time? Definitely. Yet I can’t even tell you for how long, by how many clients and managers and in how many different ways I have been asked to do this very thing. I know I am not alone. As a matter of fact, a common joke in the computer industry is “You can have it cheap, you can have it fast or you can have it done well. Pick two.”

What you trade in time you most often exchange for quality or quantity. Sometimes you have to change the project or task that you set out to do. Sometimes you just don’t have the time you need for the project at hand. Maybe you cut a corner here and there. Maybe you drop less important aspects. In this case, the time itself does not change. The quality or quantity of the project changes accordingly with the time saved. It is now a different project, with possibly less than satisfactory results.

I try to use this approach with even the simplest items on my daily task list. For instance, I try to take an honest look at what I want to accomplish in the 15 minutes of time I may have to make a phone call. I am not going to make a call that I know has an hour worth of discussion in that time frame. If I do, I know that I will be trading a true discussion of the topics for bullet points at best. I may have to make another call to the same person later that will make up for, or even equal the time I chose not to spend in the first place. Is that the most effective use of the time? I think not.

Therefore, when you have a block of time to fill be careful to choose the right sized task to fill it. Like most things in this world, when it comes to time, nothing is free.

Author Bio: Patrick Rhone is a computer consultant and writer who is obsessed with productivity, organization, gadgets and expensive office supplies. More of his work can be found at http://patrickrhone.com.

Lately, I have taken on large tasks that are primarily my own responsibility. I have a little help but I alone comprise the bulk of the team. These tasks include moving a home-grown company intranet to an open source content management system and relandscaping my whole yard.

Fortunately, the view from my office window has provided me with more than just a place to daydream. High-rise condos are being constructed next to my workplace, and although they will block my view of downtown Portland, they have inspired my approach to managing large tasks.

A large construction site is an amazing thing to watch from up high. From my comfortable viewpoint, I have taken away some insight that has guided my own approach to managing large tasks—create a staging area before starting any work.

In the case of the intranet, I didn’t have the luxury of an actual staging server and was initially overwhelmed at the thought of getting all the static pages (over 500) into the CMS, not to mention redesigning the template, incorporating legacy applications, and the issues of installing everything on a Windows server. I previously only had experience installing Drupal on a remote host, which mainly required creating and naming a database.

I decided to download all the components I would need and set it up on my own machine before moving to the server. My computer became the staging area. Once I had everything downloaded, I waited for a day when I had an open block of several hours to do the install. The files on my desktop were a reminder of the next action I needed to take.

Once I had created my own staging area, I was able to get past my “wall” and got the motivation to start. I installed Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Drupal and got it all working within thirty minutes. One of the big hurdles for me was the fear that I’d run into problems with the install and be stuck, but I ended up having plenty of time for tinkering and installing extra modules.

So the next time you’re facing a large task, take a tip from the construction industry and create a staging area.

• Create a safe space where you can put all the resources you’ll need for the task.
• Keep this area in your view whenever possible.
• Pull items from your staging area only when they are needed.
• Keep your staging area organized. Break it into sections that make sense to you.

Author Bio: Britt Parrott is the communications manager for an engineering firm in Portland, Oregon, by day and a screenwriter by night. He posts most of his nonsense at Perhapses.