Kaizan Blog

Work is getting out of hand. You are staying back later and later. Your social calendar is bulging with commitments. There just isn’t enough time to do everything. What’s the first thing that you stop doing?

1. Getting your normal amount of sleep

2. Exercising

3. Meditation / Having thinking time to yourself

It’s a general pattern that when time is short and we need to cut back on some activities to cope with a full workload, the first thing we do is cut back on something from the list above (if you actually do them at all!).

Why?

Because there aren’t really any short term ill effects from not doing them and also because they involve commitments to no one else but yourself. Generally, no one is going to jump and down at you if you don’t go for a walk in the morning or meditate at night. On the other hand, what if you decided to skip picking up your child from school tomorrow? No doubt your child, spouse, school and child protection officer would soon be letting you know what they thought.

Not that I’m advocating leaving children waiting at the school gates, but the fact is we underestimate the importance of sleep, exercise and time to ourselves. These are not optional extras. They are actually crucial activities with profound long term effects on our health, well being and productivity.

I don’t want to sound hardline on this, but the fact is even skipping these activities for a few days (when things get busy) is a dangerous practice.  I’m sure we can all recall times when we took a break for a few days from an important activity that eventually turned into a week, then a month and then a few months! We do it because the effects of not attending to these activities is not immediate. But the damage builds up over time.

Of course, it’s easy to say “I don’t have time to do everything” and insist that if you could fit these activities in, you would. But let me ask you this: if you woke up late for work, would you run out the door in your pyjamas? No, you would get dressed. Some people would insist on having a shower. Of course by taking the time to get properly dressed, you make yourself even more late. But no doubt, you believe that being properly dressed when you leave the house to go to work is a necessity. Well exercise, meditation and a decent amount of sleep are also necessities. And until you accord these three activities their due respect, they will be jettisoned from your schedule every time something else comes up.

Action Step

Consider the importance you place on exercise, sleep and thinking time/meditation. How easily do these activities get pushed off your timetable?

If you value the contribution these activities make to your life, schedule them in. Schedule the time and the place you will do them. And don’t break the appointment. Keep the promise to yourself.

Photo by Normanack // CC by 2.0

How often do you regret things that happened in the past? I know some people who spend most of their life saying things like:

“If I hadn’t stuffed up that interview, I would have got that job”

“I wish I hadn’t married him/her”

“If only things had worked out between us”

Regret is the close cousin of anxiety. While anxiety is worry about the future, regret is worry about the past. Thinking about the past in order to learn a lesson (so as not to repeat the mistake again) is sensible. Ruminating about the past and wondering “what if” is not helpful at all.

I decided several years ago, that regretting past decisions was something I was never going to do. No matter how something turned out, I would not look back and beat myself up for not making the “correct” decision. I have stuck by this resolution because I know that:

1.  Every decision I have ever made as been with good intentions. I have never consciously tried to make my life worse. Knowing this, how can I turn around and feel upset with myself if something turns out bad?

2. I can only make decisions with the information I have at the time. There is no point looking back, with the benefit of hindsight and ruing a decision you made. If you had known what was going to happen, you probably would have made a different decision.

If you remember these two points, you really can’t regret any decision you have ever made. You always (consciously) try to do what you think is best for yourself. And you can only ever work with the information you know.

Even when you make what seem like objectively bad decisions (e.g. smoking, not exercising etc) you do these because there is some other stronger reason against making the “right” choice. We all have good reasons why we do what we do.

Action Step

We all know the feeling: You get to the end of a long day and you think “What on earth did I achieve today?

You can read all the books you can find on time management (and believe me I have) but ultimately it all comes down to one thing:

Maximising the limited time you have, to focus on high value activities

That’s it.

If you are highly organised but spend your time on low value activities then you are not going to be a success. Similarly, if you are focussed on high value activities but are so inefficient that most of your time is wasted, you will be unsuccessful.

This system is as simple I could dare make it. It is designed to help you use your time more efficiently but also make sure that you don’t lose sight of what is important. There are 3 steps:

1. The first step is the ultra-simple To Do list.  At the beginning of the day, write down 4 important tasks that need to be completed. Focus on these as much as you can and try and get them all done. At the end of the day, if for some good reason, you haven’t completed all the tasks on your list, you move the remainder onto the next day’s list.
   
   
   
   The key here is that the tasks must represent your highest value activities. For instance, if you are a salesperson, your highest value activities are getting new clients, following up existing clients and keeping up to date with your products and sales techniques. Your 4 goals should reflect this.
   
   
   
   Even if your major activities aren’t all covered in a particular day, you should make sure over the course of a week, that no major areas are overlooked.Everything you do during the day, should be held against the 4 important tasks.




2. The second step in this time management system is to use your time better. As boring as it sounds, the best thing I ever did when it came to time management was to write down how I spent my time, hour by hour. I’ve read this suggestion in lots of time management books, but always ignored it because it seemed like an unnecessary hassle. Boy, was I wrong.
   
   
   
   The first week I kept a time log, I realised why I never got as much done as I had planned to. In my mind I thought I was working 10 hour days, but actual quality work time was closer to 6 hours. So basically I was working half the time I thought I was. Makes a big difference!
   
   
   
   But the best thing about recording my time usage was that the second week I did it, I was very conscious of time wastage. My quality work time jumped from 6 hours per day to 8.5 hours per day. Just being aware of how I was spending my time, made me use it more efficiently.
   
   
   
   The key to applying this time management technique, is that you really need to be vigilant about writing down your time usage. Most people who try this, end up forgetting to fill in their time log.  The trick is that for the first few days, you need LOTS and LOTS of reminders to fill in your timesheet. That means cellphone alarms, post it notes in car, in bathroom, in office, everywhere. It’s not a habit for you to write down your time usage, so you need lots of reminding.
   
   
   
   Keep track of your time for a couple of weeks. In the beginning it will be tough, but will get easier as time goes by. You will notice a lot of interesting things you didn’t realise about how you use your time and the best thing is, you will find yourself being more efficient without even realising it.




3. Lastly, keep a note of the goals that you have completed during the week as an ongoing list. People often don’t feel like they have achieved anything because they forget all the projects they completed during the year. If you keep a list of what you have achieved, you will be able to refer to it during the year and celebrate how much you have accomplished.

Action Step

Try out this time management system. It’s really easy. Write down 4 goals per day. And then keep a track of how you spend your time. The hardest part is at the beginning when you need to remember to write out the goals and fill in the time log. The rest takes care of itself.

See also:

Time Management - 7 Ways to Get the Most out of your Time

A Great Trick for Overcoming Procrastination

Photo by Robert van der Steeg // CC by 2.0

If there was a master list of self-development advice somewhere, I’m pretty sure one of the items on the list would be “Don’t complain”. In the classic self-development book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” Dale Carnegie admonished people to stop “criticising, condemning or complaining”. All being signs of a miserable person that no one would want to be around.

As a general rule I have to agree with that. People who constantly complain are pretty bad company. And when you are constantly focussing on the negative, it makes it hard to be optimistic or successful.

But what about the opposite of the complainer? The “easy going” person who will pretty much agree with everything. They don’t like making a scene. Even with their friends, they pretty much go along with what everyone else wants.  When they are in a relationship, they always give in to the other person. “Easy going” people are so easy to get on with! Doesn’t everyone love them? Aren’t they just brilliant people?

I’m not so sure. In theory it’s good to practice zen-like acceptance but in fact a lot of these people aren’t “easy going” because they are enlightened souls who accept all that comes their way. Their willingness to give in to others is actually a response based on fear. Fear of asserting themselves. They give in, because they don’t feel confident enough to express their own view.

So, you might ask, what’s the problem? The world needs dominant and submissive people. In a relationship, if one person is more headstrong then the other should be more accommodating.

Well, if giving in all the time had no ill-effects, I might agree with you. But that’s not the case. Each time you give in to someone else’s will (because you were too scared to say otherwise) you store up a bit more frustration. Some of these apparently calm, easy going people are actually bundles of rage. Scratch the surface and the anger is seething below.

What I’m trying to say is complaining can be bad but not complaining can be worse. Especially if the person’s not complaining because they don’t feel confident enough to assert their true feelings.

Action Step

If you complain too much. Stop it! People don’t like being around you when you are like that. What’s too much complaining? When you respond to most situations during the day with a negative opinion.

On the other hand, if you are the sort of person who let’s others get their way most of the time, ask yourself this: Are you actually easy going, or are you just too afraid to make a fuss? Don’t store up anger. It’s not like a fine wine.. it doesn’t get better the longer you keep it.

Photo by Aturkus // CC by 2.0

I just got off the phone with a friend who told me that they were in a bad mood. Why? Because it was Sunday night. What’s wrong with Sunday night? Nothing wrong with Sunday night except that it comes right before Monday morning. And Monday morning means back to work.

Hating Monday mornings is very common. But the fact that something is common doesn’t make it right. If you hate Monday mornings because you hate going to work then maybe it’s time to think about why?

When you aren’t enjoying your work it also affects every other part of your life. If you let it go too far it can even affect your health. Apprehension about work is why you are most likely to have a heart attack on Monday morning between 6 and 10am.

It’s soooo easy to spot someone who isn’t passionate about their job. The salesperson who dislikes his job, is the guy that you hope DOESN’T serve you. When you aren’t enjoying your work you spread your unhappiness to everyone you meet.

So if work is getting you down, here are some things to remember:

1. All jobs have parts that we don’t like doing. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that there’s a perfect job out there with no downside. On the other hand if you hate your entire job and dread every day then that’s a sign that things need to change.
2. Sometimes there are tough periods at work, when things are a bit more difficult than usual. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a terrible job. Make sure that you don’t confuse a rough patch with a bad job.
3. Sometimes simply writing down the good and bad things about your job may be enough to help you see that either your job isn’t so bad or actually that it’s much worse than you thought!
4. If you decide that you really aren’t enjoying your job, leaving it is NOT the only solution. Often it’s just a matter of making it better. Never assume that you can’t change anything about your current job.
5. You should be trying to spend more time on the tasks that you enjoy and are better at. This will result in higher job satisfaction and productivity. This is the foundation of and rationale for delegation and out-sourcing.
6. If the job you are doing is genuinely getting you down and tweaking it isn’t going to help then you have to consider your options. With the economy as it is, jumping ship isn’t the best idea, but of course it depends on your particular industry. Internal transfer is another alternative.
7. Do you have a dream that you never dared follow? Often the Monday morning blues are your subconscious mind’s way of telling you that you aren’t doing what you were meant to be doing. You have one chance at this life so why hold back? Giving up the status quo and chasing a dream is definitely not for the faint hearted but it can be the most satisfying and rewarding thing you ever do.

Life is too short to hate what you do. And your job takes up too much of your waking life to allow yourself to be unhappy during working hours. Don’t settle for second best.

Photo “I Hate Mondays” by MommaSnap // CC by 2.0

I read a blog post a couple of months ago that talked about the question of making your goals public or not. The article cited a psychology study conducted in 2008 involving 63 law students whose goal was to read more law journals. It tested whether the ones who announced their goal in public were more likely to follow through with their intention.

In the past,  it has generally been thought that announcing your goals in public is a good thing. The idea is that by committing publicly to a course of action, you increase the stakes and make giving up on your goal not just disappointing to you, but socially unacceptable too. People don’t want to look bad in front of their friends and family and get the all too familiar “I told you so”.

Well, that’s the conventional wisdom. But this study found the opposite result. Students who told everyone didn’t follow through on their goals as much as students who kept it quiet.

How can this be? Well, the study said that depending on the nature of the goal, you could actually be sabotaging your chances of success by telling others. Basically, goals where your intent is to be a “better person” are bad for public commitments. An example illustrates this best:

Let’s say Bob decides to tell his friends he is going to run a marathon in a year’s time. His reason for running the marathon is to “be a healthier person”. If he announces his goal to his friends, they will probably say things like: ”Wow, Bob you’re so health conscious. It’s so impressive that you are going to push yourself and do a marathon. You must really take your health seriously. I could never do that”.

In this case, Bob has received social approval from his friends just by declaring his goal. He feels like “a healthier person” from their praise without even having to put on his running shoes. In this case, his motivation to actually do the marathon is lowered because he has already received positive validation.

On the other hand, if Bob was running the marathon for a more concrete reason like losing 20 pounds weight, then his motivation is unaffected by his friends’ praise. They can compliment him all he likes, it still won’t make his waistline any smaller.

I must admit I was initially a bit sceptical of this theory. Surely, Bob would still be motivated to complete the marathon, because if he doesn’t then he looks foolish in front of his friends. His motivation for acting would be the thought of his friends saying “I told you so”.

But when you think about it, in the real world, how many of Bob’s friends would even remember that Bob had pledged to do the marathon a year later (when the race was scheduled). Hardly any. And the ones that remembered probably wouldn’t say anything. And probably on a subconscious level, Bob would know this. He would realise that there were really no negative public consequences to not completing the marathon.

Maybe there is something to this theory then? Maybe public announcments don’t work as an incentive, because most of our friends and family are too self-absorbed to remember that we made any announcements in the first place? And we know that they are self-absorbed, so we don’t get any extra motivation from telling them?

In fact, this week, I had my own personal experience with public announcements. On Monday’s blog post about How to Eat Less, I talked about how I changed my eating habits and lost weight, just by changing my approach to food. I received a lots of social approval from friends who read the post.

Following this, for some reason, I almost instantly felt less motivated to think about what I was eating. For the last month, I had been consciously thinking about every food choice I made. In the last two days since the post was published however, I’ve abandoned all caution and ate anything and everything.

Could it be, because I had approached my new food habits with a goal of “being more healthy” instead of a firm weight loss target, that as soon as I got positive validation for my behaviour, I had lost significant motivation to continue with my actions. Was this because my friends’ approval signalled to me on a subconscious level that I was already a healthy person? Interesting…

Action Step

Think about your goals. Are they firm concrete targets or more about being a “better person”. If they are firm targets, shout them from the rooftops. If not, keep it quiet for now because to quote the Gambler: “There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done.”

Have you had any experiences of telling people a goal and despite the threat of public shame you still didnt complete it? Let us know in the comments section.

See also:

The Key to Starting a New Habit

Photo by Aleera* // CC2.0

I have a confession to make. Over the last year or so, although most people didn’t notice it, my waistline has been getting bigger and bigger. I knew I had to eat less but whenever I tried to cut down my eating, I felt really hungry.

Ok, I realise this is sounding more and more like a diet pill commercial, but actually I just wanted to tell you about some of the thoughts and insights I’ve been having about food over the last month.

Of course, exercise is an important component of a healthy lifestyle, but the fact is, unless you eat less, you are going to struggle to lose weight.

A Typical Attempt to Eat Less

When someone decides they need to eat less, what do they usually do? Well heres an example of a typical “dieter’s” meal plan, the day before the diet and the day after:

Day before the diet: Big meals, lots of snacks including chocolates, potato chips (crisps) and  ice cream

Day 1 of the diet: Salads for lunch, steamed vegies for dinner. No more unhealthy snacks. Carrot sticks and rice cakes instead of chocolate and ice cream.

Chances of success? Close to zero. It’s too much of a change all at once. As I mentioned, in a previous post about starting a new habit slow changes are much more sustainable. Making a drastic change in your diet is really difficult to maintain in the long run.

Why Do We Eat?

So, I started thinking about my eating habits and realised something interesting. I had always thought that the only time I ate was when I was hungry. But in fact, this was hardly ever the case. Yes that’s right, hunger was one of the least common reasons why I was eating.

In actual fact, most of my eating (especially unhealthy foods) was:

1. Habit - When I’m sitting watching the TV or a movie, I like to snack. Not because I’m hungry, but because it’s what I do.

2. Mindless - When snacking on crisps (chips), nuts or chocolate, I would notice that often my eating was totally mindless. I wasnt thinking about the food. I wasn’t even really enjoying it. I was just on automatic pilot, one bite after another.

3. Boredom Relief - As bad as it sounds, often if I felt bored, I would have a snack. I wasn’t actually hungry, I just wanted to pass time.

4. Stress Relief - Food is a nice way to feel less stressed. But surely so is a punchbag? Or a run around the block?

5. Conventional - “My plate has x amount of food on it. I must finish what’s on my plate.” Why? As children we were taught to eat everything on our plate, but when you think about it, for an adult it’s a crazy habit. How likely is it, that the amount you served yourself is exactly how much you need to satisfy your hunger?

6. Misguided - I can be most of the way through a big meal and still feel hungry. But if I stop and wait ten minutes, shock horror, I’m actually not hungry at all. I’m full. It still surprises me that our satiety (fullness) meter in our brain isn’t very reliable. It takes time to catch up with how much we’ve eaten. So using hunger as a measure of when to stop eating is not ideal.

So, taking into account all of this information,  I approached my food in a totally different way. I wasn’t going to change my diet drastically. I was just going to be thoughtful each moment of the day about why I was eating. I would look at eating as a way to get energy and not necessarily to keep me company, occupy me, soothe my worries or be part of my routine.

I decided to try this new approach to food for a month. The results were very interesting.

The Effects of Thinking About Your Eating

The most immediate change I noticed was that I was snacking much less. Just being aware that most of my eating was due to habit, boredom and stress meant that I could pause and say “Is this really necessary?”. I didn’t cut out the snacking completely but it meant that I was eating MUCH less than before.

I also noticed that at meal times, even though I hadn’t snacked all day (and therefore must have eaten a lot less than usual) I still didn’t feel the need to eat more to compensate.

The third thing I noticed was that despite eating less, I wasn’t constantly hungry. In the past, when I have consciously tried to limit my food I have noticed that my feelings of hunger would be increased. And when my hunger went up,  eventually I wouldnt be able to handle it and would cave in and have some kind of sugar rich food that gave me instant hunger relief.

Knowing that hunger wasn’t a reliable sign to stop eating at meal times was also an important insight. Whereas previously, I would finish a large meal and feel uncomfortably full and even  a little sick, now I was stopping ahead of time. Quite aside from avoiding needless eating, it meant I felt better after a meal too.

Over the month, I noticed no change in my energy levels, despite eating much less. This was a surprise to me.

After 30 days, I lost 3kg (7 pounds) which was a significant amount given that I had not had to switch to a “steamed vegies” meal plan, buy a fancy ab workout machine or run a marathon. It was simply a matter of reminding myself to think more carefully about what I was eating. That’s all.

So, that’s how a few new thoughts about food changed my approach to eating. I’m not saying this is for everyone, but it has been a good experience. My eating habits didn’t change immediately. I still had some days when I ate a lot, but over the 30 days, my intake gradually reduced.

I will be continuing in my new approach to eating and will let you know if the weight stays off,  goes down even further or rebounds.

Think about the things you eat, and why you eat them. Could it be possible, that most of your intake is due to habit, boredom, stress or misinterpreting your hunger?

Photo by Brianna Lehman