Healthy Hacking
So there was a dude at the office who was using a gym ball as a chair. It seemed really cool to me. Freedom to sit in strange ways in front of the computer and claim its healthy. So of course I got one for myself too!
If you are considering doing the same, here are a few things I have noticed so far:
- It’s a bit tricky in the beginning, but you get to used to it rather quickly. So no worries there.
- There are many approaches. I can think of three ways to sit on this thing:
- Normally. As if it was a chair.
- “Lotus” -like thingy, as I do most of the time.
- On your knees
Pick your favorite.
- Size matters.
- Balancing on the ball is a lot of fun. It just tends to distract you from whatever you were trying to do on the computer. But it has to be good exercise for abdomen and back, so nevermind.
- This thing has never come across the word slippery. It’s impossible to move spatially on this. Which means you had better figure out a perfect location to hop on from where you can comfortably type. Any attempt to get closer leads to rolling (or better yet, compensating move and rolling backwards).
- It is very handy to store the ball beneath the table when you are not using it. Chairs do this, but this saves a little bit of floor space and looks way cooler.
- Sturdy desk would be nice in cases of emergency, a.k.a side-slide.
Not sure if this makes any sense, but so far I’m happy with the setup.
Breaking Routines
Slow commute - stopping for a cup of coffee on the way to the office
I have a routine. I wakeup, I do my morning stuff, eat breakfast, and head to the office. Generally the faster I manage to go through this process the happier I am. I have been effective! I am already in the office!
This morning I thought that I’d do some work on other stuff before heading to office. However, trying to break from the pattern seemed to be surprisingly difficult. It was confusing. I worked in a few extra hours yesterday, and was in no hurry to the office. Still, when I diverted my steps from the normal commute route and came to the cafe, I felt almost a bit guilty for not following my dull pattern. The excitement was close to the feeling of stepping on a stage and giving a presentation. And it’s definitely not the place that is exciting (although it’s very comfy and I got some good thinking done).
I really like the idea of a slow morning. So far early evening has been victorious.
Is this excitement due to doing what I really like, as opposed to what I expect I should be doing?
Don’t Panic
It’s an old, often quoted and universal advice.
It’s a natural reaction, which kicks you to action. Too bad that action is not usually thought trough. Much better option is to accept the situation and act calmly.
Today I called in to a teleconference meeting, only to find out that I was supposed to be at the meeting venue in person. Seems like I had missed some detail in the invitation (like the city it was held in). We quickly decided that I will arrive at the venue as soon as I can. In the tiny amount of panic (a.k.a. hurry) created by this unexpected situation, I did act too quickly. Only after I had jumped into the tram I realized that I could have actually listened on the meeting while traveling. Just didn’t think of taking the telco codes with me when running out of the office.
The power of Coffee
I have always been a tea person. I have only gotten to the habit of drinking coffee over the past year, and even then it’s quite infrequent. I still need my coffee to come with plenty of sugar and milk (yeah call me wussy), and even then it’s not really that good.
I started to ponder what has changed. Why did I start drinking coffee? And the conclusion was that coffee is more exciting than tea. Sad but true. Most places don’t really offer any fancy tea options, where as with coffee you have a nearly endless list of options (ok, that’s stretching it quite far, we don’t have that many options on coffee either). But the branding is much more cool. A cup of organic coffee from from Peru (a wild guess) sounds and looks much more exciting than a cup of yellow label tea. There are some really cool and exciting tea brands available, but you can only get them from stores.
A cup of good green tea or chai beats coffee any day. So give me more variety (and not the chocolate chip tea -kind of variety)!
I want a tefé instead of café.
(after coming up with the word tefé, I checked.. and what do you know, it’s a city in Brazil which you can’t reach by road. How appropriate)
468 days, and counting
Time flies. Time crawls. But no matter what you do, you can’t make it reverse its flow.
Almost a year ago, right before my 28th birthday I was in France, having a great time with some of my nice friends. In the midst of fun games, beach life, electronic skateboards, and great food, I made a commitment to myself. I decided that I would accomplish something before I reach the mighty age of 30.
Since then a lot has happened. But all of that has been “normal” so to speak. Not taking any value out of those, but what I was after with my decision was to reach something extraordinary. Something brilliant. It doesn’t have to be anything big. As long as it’s meaningful. Something to be passionate about.
Making a commitment (or third) on this blog is as good a place to start as any.
30 years of age is a limit that means less and less the closer you come to it. However, it’s a limit that is currently sufficiently close and far for me to manage something. After all, setting personal deadlines does help in reaching your goals (or so they claim). Feel free to give me a kick if you see nothing happening.
468 days left and counting.
A Fresh Start
How often are you given a change to take a fresh start on your career?
Image by slowwkidd3923 @ PhotoBucket
New perspectives usually arise when you start at a new company or change from a position to another. It is interesting to notice how even the idea of working in a different environment, or in a different position in relation to your current environment, can lead to new insights. It does one good to sometimes stop and try to see things from the viewpoint of others. It does not only make you a nicer person, but also greatly enhances your chances of getting your own point-of-view understood by the others.
I will soonish take on the role of project manager, and I’m anxiously waiting how different things will seem compared to my experiences as a software developer. I have already spotted myself whining on things that are completely sensible for a developer to whine about, but make no sense on the project manager point-of-view. Will be an interesting road ahead…
My attemps at blogging have not really taken off. This time I’m trying to get myself back on the wagon and start writing out my thoughts on career development, IT-business and leading a happy life (talk about blog specialization another day, ok?).
Wakeup challenge conclusions
The 5-day-wakeup-challenge is now over. Even though I only got my wakeup time to 20 minutes earlier (06:00), I’m very pleased with the results. You can see my report from the week here. Here are my conclusions:
1. Waking up earlier allows for more productive time
When you wake up early, you usually get started with being productive early. It should not matter if you work from home or go to the office each day. If you work for the same amount of time that you normally would, you are free of work earlier and can spend your evenings on something else.
Of course, the amount of non-sleeping hours is not different, it’s just shifted. For several years I thought my most productive moments where those just around midnight. If this works for you, then it works for you. However, these days I feel that mornings are much more productive, as there are no friends to talk to in IRC and even YouTube is not so luring at the beginning of the day. Well, getting older and having a day job that I can’t really take home might play a part here too.
2. Slow mornings are good for productivity
Most people will agree that working while tired is not as productive as working while completely awake and focused. So if you wake up early, won’t that mean that you will be more tired as you got less sleep? Definitely not.
I would actually place more importance to allowing oneself to wake up properly than on the actual time of that wake up. Having a slow breakfast, doing some exercising, reading the news with time – all of these should guarantee that you are fully awake once you start working. If you wake up a bit earlier, you can focus on yourself for a moment before rushing to work. If waking up earlier is not an option, I would suggest going to work later. 20 minutes can make a big difference when used properly.
3. Sticking to the habit
I think I proved myself that taking time for some exercise in the morning had a positive impact on my days. The following weeks will show how difficult it is to maintain the habit.
Next challenge? Learn to wake up without alarm clock. 
Smartphone, the savior of commute time
With regards to commuting, I suppose I’m fairly lucky. It takes me about 25 minutes to get from home to office. That’s quite short even for such a small city that Helsinki is. During summer when I can cope with the idea of riding my bicycle instead of public transport, it shortens down to ~15 minutes. However, that 25 minutes is split between few stations on the subway and then tram/bus for 10 minutes. Easy, but not optimal.
With such short periods in a single mode of transport, it is fairly hard to get anything done. Most books have chapters that I can’t finish during that time, and I like reading chapter by chapter. One can always just read the mostly uninteresting and a bit old news from those free newspapers that are handed out, but they are … mostly uninteresting and old.
I have also tried listening to podcasts / audiobooks. That works very well, apart from the fact that there is way too much noise from busses passing by when I’m waiting for the tram. Might just be a case of good old crappy headphones, but I’ve tried a few differnt pairs.
Bring in the smartphone with dataplan! What difference that would make! I could go through my blogroll with a device that much more handy to keep in hand than book. I could have access to news that interest me, and are as fresh as they get. It would probably even provide a better player for listening to audiobooks, so that I could do a handy pause when I come across a place where I can’t hear anything for the environmental noise. Not to even mention the possibility to take notes of ideas and actually find them later (I have several notebooks full of lost ideas)
Despite my ideas of minimalism and hope that someday my employer would offer me such a benefit, I think I might have to put my own money on the line here.
Early Mornings
Ever dreamed you could have longer days?
How about just waking up early? Yeah, I know, it does make you go to bed earlier and lose some precious YouTube watching time from the evening. I haven’t yet been completely converted to the idea either. But quite many people claim that days feel longer if you wakeup early, so let’s give it a shot.
Actually, I have been waking up rather early during the whole past year. Mostly around 06:20, which allows me to be at the office around 07:30. That seems to work for me. I get the benefit of quiet morning hours at the office to be productive, while also being able to leave reasonably early and use the evening for something else.
When I spotted this lifehack campaign for learning to wake up early, I decided to push the bar a bit. How about trying to wake up around 05:30 and do some morning exercise? I’ll give it a shot. If you wish to take part, see the campaign and join in!
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UPDATES
Record of my success for the campaign is updated here:
Monday, March 22nd: Alarm set to 06:00; Got up at 05:50
Out of courtesy to my wife, I only set the alarm to 06:00. I still managed to get up before the alarm went off! So even if missed my target time by 20 minutes, I’d consider this a great start.
Stretching had to for the exercise part. As I replied to Seth in the comments, the snowy / icy / slushy pavement does not really encourage jogging in the morning. Maybe later. For now, getting in some stretching and still managing to arrive at the office by 07:30 is, as said, a good start.
The weirdest thing? I don’t generally remember by dreams, but this time I woke up while being sworn at with the words “son of a mother duck!”
Tuesday, March 23rd: Alarm set to 06:00, Got up at 06:00.
Second day of challenge was not so glorious. The alarm rang. Then it rang a bit louder. And it probably rang a few times more before I actually woke up. Not nearly as nice as waking up without the alarm.
Anyway, managed to jump right out of bed and got in some good stretching before heading for the office. It is definitely worth it – even the commute time feels better as you are more awake.
Wednesday, March 24th: Alarm set to 06:00, Got up at 06:00
Third day of the challenge. Managed to wakeup, although tucking in for another half an hour seemed like a great option. However, as I had persuaded my wife to get up at the same time, which she did, I couldn’t just snooze away. I think I will have to consider getting one of the vibrating alarms suggested in the comments
This time the morning exercise felt a bit more forced, and didn’t have that much enthusiasm for it. But pushing through was definitely worth it. The commute time has gotten so much more energetic, that I even stopped by a bakery to buy a bunch of croissants to share around the office
Yesterday I really felt that perhaps just sleeping in and taking enough time for yourself in the morning before coming to the office would result in just the same effect. After this morning I can’t agree with myself anymore. There is something great about being awake early.
Thursday, March 25th: Alarm set to 06:00; Got up at 06:00
This feels like a normal routine by now. And it seems to really work. The morning exercise really gives the day a faster start. I’m definitely going to keep to this new morning routine, even if the actual wake up time changes.
That being said, now it’s time to be productive rather than write these updates.
Friday, March 26th: Alarm set to 06:00; Got up at 06:00
Waking up poses no problems at all. Although there is a downside – I fall asleep at 22:00 in the evening. That’s when my social life with my friends (=irc) generally begins. Oh well, one thing at a time I suppose.
Before I go on to sketch together a full post on my thoughts about the campaign, I’ll end this by saying that I’m definitely going to keep on the habit of exercising in the mornings, even if my wake up time starts to slide.
Thanks and good luck to all other participants of the challenge!
Advertising bypass
While reading Free by Chris Anderson, where advertising takes up quite a large chunk of the book, I started to think about my own relationship to advertising. I was a bit surprised to notice that I don’t really pay them any attention. Do they really have any effect on our generation?
For example, while watching TV I don’t really pay enough attention to ads to even remember what was advertised. I might look at them as funny clips, and analyze if they are entertaining and well done, but I’m pretty sure my consumer behavior is not altered by them. Groceries? I make those decisions in the store, and I won’t remember any ads there. It’s much more about prize, previous experience and even package. Cars? I ain’t that rich. Software? Gimme a break. Deodorant? Funny ads, but won’t buy that stuff.
So do I have a specific advertisement bypass gene which makes me a bad target, or has our generation been schooled to filter advertising? Or am I just arrogant in thinking that ads don’t have an effect on me?
Somebody would say that it’s just TV. But I actually try to avoid clicking on ads in the Internet too. And I don’t know why.
Bashing