I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
~ Douglas Adams

Wow, did I underestimate the amount of work I had coming my way in the past couple of weeks. To an extent even that I totally ignored be an original, my twitter-accounts and all the goals I set for myself a couple of weeks ago. I simply needed the time for other things, both work and family related.

I had more stuff to do, than time to do it in. And whenever time is limited you need to make choices. One of the choices we make all the time, but often without giving it much attention, is the choice to focus attention and energy, or to divide it. The results are very different though.

Do you want to do some things very well and other things not at all, or do you want to do them all but in a half-hearted mediocre attempt? The former appeals to most people, yet the latter is the most common course of action. This is due to the fact that choosing NOT to do some activities, requires the ability to say no. And saying no can be hard.

How to choose what to do and what not to do

If you choose to do some things and ignore others, it’s best to choose this deliberately. This usually is my pitfall … I tend to subconsciously drop stuff. And although this works most of the times, it also causes an uneasy feeling of not having a total overview.

A simple tool I use to create that overview is the Eisenhower Matrix. A simple matrix that lets you rate activities on two scales, an importance scale and an urgency scale. You can plot the activities in there and quickly see the relative positions with regard to importance and urgency.

Usually it’s very obvious where the stress comes from. It’s having too many activities on the urgency side of the matrix. And things get on the urgency side due to deadlines, often imposed by others. Although deadlines are not the only factor creating urgency, caring for a child that’s ill for instance is also very much urgency driven.

Take care of urgent matters first

The 2nd quadrant of the matrix is the most important quadrant. It’s the high importance, low urgency quadrant. This is where a lot of the things we want to do reside. But if there’s too much stuff in the urgency side, you’ll never get to it.

This sort of was my case last couple of weeks. Deadlines seemed to pop-up out of nowhere, and they all landed around the first week of May. It’s an uneasy feeling when deadlines pop-up out of nowhere, and they did, mostly at my job as a teacher. I’m still in my first year of employment there, and you really have to have gone through an entire schoolyear to really understand and know all the different processes and deadlines you’ll have to deal with.

So with so many urgent stuff to work on, you really have only one real option: grind your way through it all! The important stuff before the unimportant stuff, and all family matters in front and in between.

Whoosh

Most of the deadlines have gone whoosh now. My time schedule is under less strain, and my mind is a lot clearer again. Time and space to write blog posts again, and soon I’ll restart my goals too. But first I have to get a new overview of all my current activities and plot them in an updated Eisenhower Matrix. Preparation is gold.

This post Deadlines and the urgency side of the Eisenhower Matrix was brought to you by be an original

In this article I will be setting new goals, and setting guidelines for how I want to live life. This is the second and final part of this article. You may want to read part 1 of this post on my guidelines and goals to make sense of part 2.

Five states of life – continued

In the previous article I already covered the first three of the five areas:

• Material state
• Active state
• Social state
• Emotional state
• Physical state

The next to work on is:

Emotional state

This is about how you feel, about the inner voice and about inner peace if you will.

The old guidelines

• I listen to my intuition and take it seriously
• There is no failure, only feedback I can learn from

The central values here are Love and Authenticity. This state for me is about being rooted from within (the authenticity part) and in connection with life and people (the love part). In my mission statement I say that I love life, and that I have a lot of love to give. That authentic love needs to be expressed, and there are various ways I can do that.

Obviously love is expressed in relationships with family, friends and loved ones. And even in those close relationships, there are a variety of ways that love manifests itself. Becoming a father really made me aware of that.

What I recently rediscovered is that music is something that helps me get in touch with my emotions too. Apparantly that’s even a common factor for people, as I’ve read in an article that the first language (“goegoegoegaga”) that we communicate in (with newborn babies) is best labeled as music, instead of as language. It serves the purpose of communicating emotions to the baby, helping them to make sense of the world. I’m definitely going to write about this more, fascinating stuff!

But back to my own guidelines: if music is connected to emotions, making music might also be a great way to express them. It may serve as a way to live through emotions, in other ways than is done in relationships. So to sum all these new insights up, here are the new guidelines:

The new guidelines

• Trust intuition
• Keep the music alive
• Express yourself

Physical state

This is about what you want with your body and mind.

The old guidelines

• I listen to my body and keep myself in balance
• I have a lithe and athletic body with excellent stamina
• My diet mainly consists of healthy organic food

The central value here is Growth, although the aspect of design and impact are important here too. The physical aspect is not really represented in my mission statement anymore, at least not specifically. In order to radiate positive energy though, you need to have high levels of energy. When you feel depleted, you won’t be able to radiate that energy.

Recently I discovered that I look at the physical aspect from a threshold level. My stamina and energy levels need to be above a certain level in order to feel good. But above that level, I don’t have great ambitions. So if we look at the old guideline “I have a lithe and athletic body with excellent stamina”, the stamina part is no longer valid. As far as the athletic body part, that is still true. That part is about being visually pleasing (which originates from the design aspect that I mentioned).

This state is not only about the body, it’s also about the mind. If there is a challenge for me with respect to the mind, than it’s keeping it from creating chaos. I have so many interests and such a desire to learn, that I often get caught up by too many things that are occupying my mind. This is something that needs attention too.

As far as the guidelines go, I shuffled them around quite a bit:

The new guidelines

• Feel healthy and energetic
• Shape up
• Free your mind

And that completes the guidelines in all the five states. Now on to new goals.

New goals

Even though I’ve worked my way through all five different states, I’m not setting goals for all of them simultaneously (again). I have done so in the past, and it turned out to be too much to focus on for me. I’ve discovered that having only a handful of goals works better than having lots of goals. I also discovered that goals with a short deadline work better for me too.

I’ve said this in previous articles already, but I’m going to set three goals. One that focuses on a result, one that focuses on effort and one just for fun. They’re three different types of goals, probably with a very different dynamic. I’m also going to work with a six week timeframe, after which I evaluate the goals and set new ones.

After working my way through all these different levels, I have enough ideas for a lot of different goals. The way I’m going to choose them is less structured than the previous part of the process. Because I’m starting with actively working with goals again, I’m going to choose the ones that give me the most energy from the start. It is best to start with a good experience!

So here are the three different goals:

Result goal:

I want to make some real progress in the “Less stuff” guideline in the Material state. So the goal is to get rid of 100 things over the coming six weeks. That equals more than 2 per day on average. Some of the stuff I’ll throw away (responsibly of course), some of it I’ll give away and some of it I’ll be selling (I hope! This would certainly help the “more cash in” guideline as a side-effect!).

Effort goal:

Over the past year or so, I have pretty much neglected working out at all. On the days I work at school I walk between 4 and 5 kilometers (in total) between school and the trainstation, and even though that’s a good habit that benefits my stamina and physique, it’s not really a workout. I want to improve how I look, so for the effort goal I set that I have to do some strength training everyday.

Fun goal:

As far as the fun goal is concerned. I choose to make music. And since this is the fun goal, I will not define a result I need to obtain or a daily effort I have to put in. Making music is one of the things I want to be consciously working on, without pressure.

And there they are. I’ll be reviewing my progress every week in my weekly reviews. These goals start today, Saterday February 20. The six week deadline is on Friday April 2. And now for some progress!

This post Guidelines and new goals – part 2 was brought to you by be an original

In this article I will be setting new goals, and setting guidelines for how I want to live life.

Quick recap

But before we begin, let’s first take a look at the previous two steps that I took to get to this article. First I revisited my personal core values, taking another look at how they influence my life at this moment in time.

My five personal core values are:

Love – Fun – Growth – Authenticity – Freedom

I discovered that the values Growth and Fun have an outward focus, and the others are primarily inward focused.

Based on the new insights, I rewrote my personal mission statement into this:

I, Lodewijk van den Broek, love life and have a lot of love to give. I radiate positive energy and inspire others to learn and laugh. I thrive on growing my freedom and authenticity.

Or as a mantra: learning life laughing

From the conceptual to the practical

Knowing my personal core values is very valuable, because they are the core influencers of my decisions. They do so regardless of me knowing them, but the knowledge helps me understand why I make decisions the way I do (or why I doubt about others).

My personal mission statement is a way of formulating what my “true North” is, it gives me direction in my life. So knowing my values and having a statement, gives me direction and insight in my decision process. But direction and insight are still rather conceptual. To be able to work on goals or to be able to take day-to-day decisions easily, another step is required.

Last time I used a division in five different aspects of life to define guidelines for each. I continued from there and set several goals for each different aspect.

Five aspects * several goals per aspect = too many goals

I still like the five aspects though, and I’m going to use them again for the guidelines. For the goals however I already decided earlier that I only want three of them simultaneously. One focused on results, one focused on effort and one just for fun. And I want to work with timeframes of six weeks.

Five states of life

The five states of life are a guideline to explore different aspects of life. There are probably many other ways of looking at life that will fit this exercise too. I might explore that sometime, but for now that’s not my focus.

My values and mission statement need to trickle down into these guidelines. So for every state, I want to know what the central values are. And I look at the part of my mission statement where this value is represented. I also look back at the guidelines I set last time. So, here we go!

Material state

This is everything regarding money and possessions

The old guidelines

1. I will not buy stuff I cannot easily afford
2. I have financial freedom
3. I own a large and spacious house with free views and a garden

The central value here is Freedom. Looking at the old guidelines, I still like number one. The other two however don’t seem to be fitting as guidelines. Being financially free is more an ambition, that may become a guideline once I reach that point (newsflash: I haven’t). The third one has a solution built in, which limits its function as a guideline.

In my mission statement I state that I thrive on growing my freedom, and that’s very much true for this particular state. My guidelines should reflect that attitude of growth. But what’s does freedom mean in this context? I could write an entire blogpost about that question, but for now I’ll leave it at this:

The new guidelines

• Less stuff
• Less cash out
• More cash in

The last one is tricky though, because it might lead to financial freedom, but compromise that same value on other states. Something to watch out for!

Active state

This is how you are active in life, the way you add value to society. This can be work, volunteer work, but also hobbies.

The old guidelines

• I create grand and beautiful things that have growth and fun as a central theme
• I create positive energy for myself and pass it on in interaction with other people
• Action is the only way of learning
• Simple is always better than complex

The central values here are Growth and Fun. The active state is very outward focused and I already discovered that these values suit that focus for me. I also discovered that high impact and design play a role here too, and that already shows in the old guidelines. In my mission statement I talk about positive energy and about inspiring people to learn and laugh.

So looking back at these guidelines, they’re still pretty accurate. I still like to rewrite them to make them shorter. So here it goes:

The new guidelines

• Teach and learn
• Have fun
• Create beauty

Social state

This is about you in relationship with others. What is your role as human being, as parent, child, spouse, friend, colleague and so on.

The old guidelines

1. I make people cheerful and make them think
2. I help other when they ask me, and the people I love before they ask me
3. I love nature and give her back as much as she gives me

The central values in this state are Love and Fun. At least one of the two needs to be the basis for a lasting social relationship, but preferably both. There are different forms and levels of love of course.

The love and the fun that are connected with this social state are already reflected in the guidelines. The part where I make people think is better off in my active state though, there’s no need to mix these states unnecessarily. But all in all, these guidelines are still pretty much okay. I made them a little shorter though:

The new guidelines

• Love and have fun
• Be there before you’re needed
• Give back to nature

End of part 1

This turned out into an exercise that took me further than I expected at first. I’m half way through here; two more states need to be revisited and the process needs to be result in a set of goals. Those will be in the next part of this post.

This post Guidelines and new goals – part 1 was brought to you by be an original

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Yesterday my wife and I had our 4th wedding anniversary and she suprised me with tickets to a concert by Bløf, a Dutch band. Their music is about emotions, worries, love, unfulfilled desires, confusion and hope. We have very good memories linked to their music, because we played one of their albums a lot when we were on holiday in British Columbia in western Canada.

Immersed in music

One of the things I know about myself, is that whenever I’m immersed in music – like you are in concert hall – I make a connection with the vibe in the music and become attuned to it. It touches me on an emotional level. The same thing happened last night. As soon as Bløf started playing, I felt that I was touched by the music and that I got tears in my eyes. Happy tears, but tears nonetheless.

Tears in public … argh. I’m a guy; guys are supposed to be tough and crying is not part of being tough – let alone crying in public! This is one of the societal pressures I have felt very strong during my life. I was raised in a family where crying was “not done”, especially the boys might even get ridiculed for it (sorry Dad, I know you’re reading this, but yeah … you did).

So there I was, with the woman I love celebrating our wedding anniversary, immersed in music that touched me emotionally – and I was fighting tears. That kind of tears you apart, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless.

Tears on stage and on my cheeks

Three weeks before the concert, Paskal the lead singer became father for the first time, and he talked about that several times. At one point – about halfway through the concert – he was introducing a song that was written by the bass guitarist for his girlfriend who was pregnant at the time. While introducing that song he choked up and stood there silence in tears, happy tears that is. And there he stood crying … on stage … in front of five hunderd people.

It was at that point that I felt something change inside me. He stood there in front of that audience and allowed himself the freedom to experience and express that emotion on stage. And I was in the anonimity of the audience and I was trying to hide it. It couldn’t be further apart. And from that moment on I didn’t try to hide it anymore.
I let the emotion be there and let it express itself. I felt a tear run down my cheek and I just left it there. It was an authentic feeling, they were happy tears that sprang from love and I felt the freedom to just be there with that emotion, out in the open. Three core values working in harmony.

Applause … for tears

And then the strangest thing happened, now I think back at that moment. While Paskal was there on stage, all choked up and trying to compose himself enough to sing again, people in the audience started applauding him, men and women alike. What were they applauding for? Were they applauding for his guts to express that emotion on stage, even though they look down upon that behavior in everyday life? Or is it just a commendable trait for musicians and not for other men? Or were they applauding for seeing someone do, what they are afraid to do themselves?

I don’t know. I just know that I made a step towards living more attuned to my core values, and for that I’m grateful. I’m an emotional guy, and tears come to my eyes easily. People will notice that anyway, so why hide it? It’s nothing to be ashamed about.

This post the guts to cry happy tears on stage was brought to you by be an original

Naming your personal core values is one thing, but understanding how they influence your life is quite another. Words have different meanings to different people. They may even have several meanings withing one person, depending on context or condition.

So to truly understand how my personal core values influence my life and my decisions, I’m going to investigate them one by one. This is the first step in my process to define new goals that are aligned with my values and ambitions.

Freedom

Last time I wrote that Freedom is a very important and strong value for me. That’s still very true. Freedom is best defined for me like this:

the absence of restraints that hold me back or that violate my values

I usually choose to formulate postive formulation instead of negative ones, but I found that this definition most suits how I feel about this value. Working on this value is a process of identifying restraints, investigating them and finding ways to defuse them.

The central theme for this value at this moment in my life is the pursuit of freedom of activity. There are plenty of things I want to do – and a lot of them are rooted in one or more of my core values – but I simply haven’t found the freedom to do all of them yet. Time constraints, financial constraints, and mental constraints are the three aspects that have the most influence.

Growth

Although this is the latest addition to my value set (I used to have a set of only four core values), this is a very important one. So important even, that I took it for granted without even identifying it. Growth is at the core of everything I do.

Growth to me is:

the attitude to continuously try new things, the courage to fail and the peace of mind to learn from the failures. Growth is striving to become better than you are.

The central theme for Growth in my life is to find direction. The desire to grow is there, nothing to complain about that. It’s just that I have a tendency to start too many different paths to learn and grow. My challenge here is to focus my energy on a distinct set of growth areas.

Love

Love is a complicated value and a really simple one at the same time. Sometimes I feel like I will never understand it, and yet I know when it tries to tell me something and usually I understand it too. Confusing and clarifying at the same time.

Even though all values are first and foremost felt from within, and definions are only attempts to put them in words, this is absolutely true for Love. How do you define love? The best I can come up with is:

The willingness to place emotional relationships above ambitions.

But this is only an approximation, hardly a definition set in stone.

As for the central theme here … it’s about balancing my family life and my ambitions. Actually, balance is not the right word … it’s about finding a way for them to enhance eachother.

Fun

Fun! I’m here to have lots of fun! Like I said before, it’s easy to let this one slip, especially if you try to fit in and are totally focused on ambitions and growth.

Fun for me is:

the ability to play and be playful. It’s about not taking life too seriously.

What about the central theme for this value? Well I thought about this one for quite some time. It’s too easy to just say that I need to put more fun in the stuff I do. So for this one I’m gonna turn it upside down, and say that I need to do something with the primary purpose of having fun doing it.

Authenticity

Outside pressure and influences are the factors to consider when evaluating this value. It takes a lot of guts to know who you are, and to be who you are in face of a society that wants you to be what they want you to be. And those two views are often contradictory; they are in my case.

Authenticity for me is:

the ability to know who you are and to act accordingly

The latter part is equally important as the first part – maybe even more important.

With respect to this value, the central theme in my life right now is to act upon what I know and feel about myself. To acknowledge things I know about myself, but are hesitant to admit (because they might be weird, or might contradict society’s expectations).

Recap

This is a long and detailed post, but an important one too. This is the foundation upon which I’m going to build my “house” of goals.

In this post I reviewed each personal core value by itself, but there’s an interdependence between them of course. The best activities are those that feed all values simultaneousely without becoming average.

The challenge is to build upon these values and find goals and guiding principles that enhance all my values.

In the next post I’ll be further investigating how these values translate into my personal mission statement and my guiding principles.

This post revisiting my personal core values in detail was brought to you by be an original

Wednesday. 5:12am
It’s dark in the bedroom.

The faint light emitted by the display of a cell phone illuminates the inside of a small closet. A guy is fumbling around in a drawer with socks, apparently not finding what he needs.

He’s acting quietly, only two steps away from a bed. One side of the bed is still warm, the other side is still in use.

After rummaging around some more, they guy picks up a pair of socks and quietly leaves the room.

I’ve been running for a three weeks again, training to finish half a marathon in the autumn this year. Last Wednesday during my run I learned a couple of things. One of them is that improper socks increase the chance of blisters (ouch).

Over the past four runs I have increased both my distance and speed on every run:

1. 3.5 km | 21:19 | 9.8 km/h
2. 4.2 km | 25:30 | 9.9 km/h
3. 5.0 km | 29:55 | 10.0 km/h
4. 6.1 km | 35:28 | 10.3 km/h

That’s really encouraging, but I should look out for getting overly confident. As you can see in the increase in distance, well even that increasing. First 0.7 km more, then 0.8 km and even 1.1 km on the last run. At this pace, I’ll be running marathons in a matter of weeks! (yes, that’s overconfident)

During that run though, my body was giving me signals. My stamina was not a problem, but my right knee was protesting a little. I noticed a faint irritation, a muscle maybe. Somewhat later, I began to realize that I was developing a blister on one of my toes on my right foot. Hmm, the right side again.

This week I began reading a new book Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky and Rich: Spike’s Guide to Success, and while running I was going through the “8 to be great”. Push and Persist are two of them. So I pushed myself and persisted.

Later that day, my ankle started sending me messages as well. The right ankle. Right again…

Stop right there, Lodewijk! Your body is sending messages, stop and listen, it usually has something meaningful to tell you.

The knee and the ankle.
They show faint feelings of irritation. Nothing serious, will cure with some rest. The solution is to ease the schedule a bit. Don’t overdue it, is what they try to teach me.

All irritations on the right side.
This is a sign of improper technique I guess. I’m not dividing the strain evenly over all parts of my body. Something to focus on in the next run, maybe even find someone who can train me proper technique.

Blisters.
They tell me to use proper equipment. Not regular socks, but socks made for running. Not tennis shoes, but running shoes. Yeah, I knew this but ignored it anyway. Not smart…thank you blisters.

The messages are only warnings, no injuries…yet.

Warning that I may be pushing too hard. So besides getting the right attitude and right equipment, it’s also time to learn some more about training schedules for marathons. After all, I don’t want to get injured by ignorance.

Time to learn something from the people who did this before. Successfully.

This post Injured By Ignorance was brought to you by be an original

A couple of months ago, I shared the process of writing my personal mission statement on the blog. I started by defining my personal core values, translated that into my personal mission statement and followed through by making guidelines and goals.

At the time I used a Dutch website that guides that process and gives examples of the values and mission statements of other people. Although it’s important to really connect to your own values and define your own mission statement, examples are a great way to get inspired. They also can open your eyes to areas of your life that you may have unwillingly left out.

My blogging friend Stephen of Productivity in Context came up with the idea of building a list of personal mission statements, and asked several fellow bloggers to participate. So this post is an attempt to build a list of examples of mission statements of the readers of How to be an Original. But I’m also very interested to know how you use them, or why you’re not making one.

Have it or hate it? … personal core values, mission statements?

Do you have … (or hate)

• Personal core values?
• A personal mission statement?
• A guiding principle?

How do you use them …

• All the time in everyday life?
• Only when the going gets really tough?
• Only on new years eve?

I’ll kick off with mine in the comments…

This post Care to share your Personal Mission Statement? was brought to you by be an original

When you are learning new stuff, there will come a time when you hit a plateau. At the plateau it feels like you’re not making any progress at all, no matter how hard you try. This can be a very frustrating experience, and unfortunately a lot of people give up learning and move on to something else (I know I have!). But the plateau is not an end, it’s a natural phase of the learning process and you are in fact still making progress.

Early stage learning
If we take learning a new sport as an example. When you first start you are a blank, you know nothing or not much about the sport. In the early months you will acquire new skills, learn the rules, experience the dynamics, and maybe even pick up some strategic insights. Progress is good! You see and experience that you get better at the sport every week and the progress satisfies you.

Hitting the plateau
But then slowly creeping in, your progress is not very visible anymore. You’re not learning a lot of new skills, you basically know them all already. There’s room for improvement, but you know the basics. You know the rules, have a feeling for the basic dynamics and crude strategies of the sport. You’re no longer a beginner, you are at intermediate level.

This is where you hit the plateau. The plateau is the experience where you feel that no matter how hard you try, there is no progress in learning. And even though this is not entirely true, the feeling is very real.

There are two major things happening here. The first is that you have progressed passed the bend in the learning curve. There are different stages in the learning curve:

• Beginner stage (0% to 60%)
  The curve is very steep and you learn very fast
• Intermediate stage (60% to 80%)
  This is passed the bend in the total curve. Learning speed declines and this phase takes longer than the beginner stage.
• Advanced stage (80% to 95%)
  Learning speed declines even further and the length of the stage increases as again.
• Expert or Master stage (95% to 100%)
  Learning speed drops to slow progress and the length of the stage stretches into eternity

So once you hit Intermediate level, your progress slows down. And at the same time it gets increasingly difficult to measure that progress, especially for the one learning the new sport. These effects combined result in the feeling that you have hit a plateau in learning.

Beating the plateau
Even when the plateau is not really a plateau (you’re still making progress), how can you beat the feeling that you’re not making progress? Here are some suggestions:

• Focus on the fun
  Focus on enjoying what you’re doing, rather than on the progress you want to make. You have left the beginner stage, you’re at intermediate level already, now have some fun!
• Take some time off
  If you get frustrated with the new sport (or every other learning process), take some time off. If you’re losing the fun, don’t pursue your learning goals relentlessly. Take some time off to regain the fun, but don’t quit!
• Celebrate your intermediate level
  You’re not a beginner anymore! Be proud! At this time you can change from learning to gaining experience. At the intermediate stage and beyond gaining experience is the learning process. You have the rudimentary skills, now repeat them a lot to integrate them into your system. And by doing so you’re building confidence.
• Accept that there is not learning plateau
  The learning plateau is not real, it’s a mental concept. You are making progress, it just doesn’t feel like it. Accept that there’s no learning plateau and reframe it to the concept of slower progress of more advanced stages. There is no learning plateau…

This post How to beat a learning plateau was brought to you by be an original

Today is the last day of July, the goal-free month. Tomorrow is August, and the start of one of the biggest habit changes I have ever undertaken. Tomorrow is the first day of adopting the habit of waking up early, I named it the Early Bird Challenge.

In a previous article I wrote about the reasons why I want to be an early bird. There are a lot of benefits to changing, however during the change these benefits are not there yet (certainly not in full effect). So during this month I need determination and support. And to support me during this month, I will join Leo’s August Challenge, over at Zen Habits. And my spouse of course supports me as well, and I empowered her to help me (by being grateful for the occasional poke in the ribs around 5am).

Preparation
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
- Alexander Graham Bell

Going cold-turkey is not an option, as my internal clock needs to adjust to the new time-settings. It’s kind of like jetlag, but then the other way around. So in preparation, I need to know what I want to achieve (goal), how I’m going to get there (schedule) and what I need to make it happen (tools).

Goal:

• Waking up at 4:30 am daily (yes even in the weekends)

Schedule:

• 6:00 (August 1-5)
• 5:30 (August 6-12)
• 5:00 (August 13-19)
• 4:30 (August 20-31)

Tools:

• Silent alarm-clock
• Coffee-machine
• Daily check-in to Leo’s August Challenge

The schedule is setup in such a way that a new time starts on a Monday, which already is an existing marker in the week. And on Mondays I work from home, so when the change is hard on me, I have some flexibility to adjust during the day.

The silent alarm clock needs a little explanation. As this habit change is meant only for me, and not for my spouse, I needed to find a way to be woken by an alarm clock without waking her up. Sound wakes us both (abruptly) and light wakes us both too (be it gradually). So I had my mind set on an alarm that only vibrates.

I know they exist, as people with hearing disabilities often use this as an alarm. My cell phone has this function, but not without sound. So I made a mp3 with a minute of silence, and use that as the sound signal. All I have to do is to put this under my pillow and it wakes me up, and only me.

Great expectations
If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.
- Norman Vincent Peale

I have been visualizing myself waking up early for a couple of weeks. My expectations for the benefits are:

• Better rested.
  I expect that this habit will ultimately result in more sleep, as compared to now.
• More family time.
  I explained this in my previous article
• More appropriate time for exercise.
  Exercising in the morning energizes you. Exercising at night energizes you as well…but then you can’t really use that if you plan to go to bed and actually get some sleep.
• Better focus for blog writing.
  Time available in the morning is not so fluid as at night. At night I can choose to delay going to bed to get an article done. This is an advantage, but this also leaves room for interruptions during writing (and I allow them too easy). In the morning I have to stay focussed. My family waking up acts as the deadline then, and that is not something I control.

Sweet

Weekly updates
I will check-in daily at Leo’s forums. On my blog I will post a weekly progress report with my experiences along the way. This is going to be exciting, but I can sure use your support! Motivational comments, or e-mails or in whatever form you like are greatly appreciated

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