How to snap out of feeling lethargic
This past week or so I have been feeling really lethargic. Like a subdued feeling has come over me and left me somewhat distant from the world. My weekend has consisted of roaming around, not really achieving anything or enjoying my time off work. This has continued into the first day of the week, and while this has not affected productivity, I have not been my chirpy self. I am not sure if this is a result of not eating meat, however I decided it had to stop and it had to stop right now.
So how do you snap out of this lethargic, subdued feeling? EXCERCISE!
Finishing work today I hopped on the stationary bike and completed 23 minutes of HITT cardio. When I had finished I was shaking a little and very thirsty. After cooling down and rehydrating myself I am feeling great. It really is unbelievable how different I feel.
23 minutes, just 23 minutes is all it took to make me feel focused, determined, energised and back with the living. I just had to share it with you immediately. If it has this effect on me when I am feeling down, imagine the results when I am my usual hyper self.
Whether coming back from injury (like me, groin) or if you have just fallen into a rut, get yourself out and do a little exercise. You owe yourself 20 minutes a day at the very least.
Let me know how you get on if you decide to take my advice. I would be interested to know.
Posted to Life, Productivity
February Challenge
I decided this month I wanted to try and see what life would be like without eating meat. I will find this one extremely difficult because I like the taste of meat. At least February is a short month so if I hate it I only have to do it for 29 days this year.
The best thing about doing monthly challenges, is that you get to give something a real go and at the end of it you don’t have to feel guilty if you go back to how things were before.
My starting weight is 163lbs, it will be interesting to see what effects this has on my mind and body.
I will be drinking alcohol this month, however something has changed within me, I no longer have to reason with myself to not have a drink. I just don’t feel like I want one any more. I will however still have a few when I socialise with friends on a night out, but I wont be drinking when I watch football, movies, or sat in the house anymore.
Posted to Life, Nutrition, Productivity
January Review
Every January millions of people make new years resolutions they stick to for a few weeks. I only made one - To act. I also set myself a January challenge to not drink alcohol, which I have now completed. As a side effect I have increased my overall productivity in many areas. Since the beginning of this year I have made the following positive changes to my life :-
- Not had one single cigarette
- Not had one drop of alcohol
- Consumed clean foods with only the odd treat
- Performed regular exercise
- Read 2 books
- Listened to 5 audio books
- Cancelled my satellite TV
- Lost 9lbs - Start weight 172lbs - End weight 163lbs
- Become a regular poster on my blog
I really feel like I have hit the ground running, my energy levels are through the roof, I feel determined to do absolutely anything.
The key to a major change in your life is to start small, work on the little tasks, get the results under your belt and continuously improve.
Thanks for stopping by, hope your getting something from the site. Check back tomorrow for my February challenge announcement.
Posted to Life, Productivity
No distractions please
Darkroom is a place to do just normal writing without any distractions. It allows people to just write, no popups, no emails, no images, just simple writing.
Once you have your text inserted, you can then paste your text into wordpress for formatting.
A must have utility for any blogger.
Posted to Blogging, Productivity
1 way - 100% guaranteed to change your life for the better
I have done it, Just like that. All it took was 10 minutes of my life and it will be the best decision I have ever made. I cancelled my satellite TV subscription. Yes, cancelled, not reduced but totally cancelled.
I decided enough was enough, I was never going to emulate the success of the likes of www.37signals.com, www.stevepavlina.com, www.iwillchangeyourlife.com, www.lifehacker.com etc. Sitting around every night watching pointless programs over and over again convincing myself that I will change it all tomorrow.
So there it is, I now have around 5 hours every evening to do whatever I want. One things for sure though, I won’t be sat in front of the box, I will be at the gym, working on this site, reading, learning, pushing myself, being curious.
Please leave comments or drop me a line if you have done something similar.
PS I also saved £50 a month that is going straight into my savings account 
Posted to Life, Productivity
Act now, think later!
Have you ever put something off, only to eventually complete it and wonder what all the fuss and procrastination was about? If you act before weighing up all the pros and cons (looking for reasons not to act) you will be surprised how much you can actually get done in a day.
Top tip: Write a tiny list of just 3 of the most important things you would like to achieve today. Keep it small at first and just do them, before long you will start making larger lists as you will develop the habit of list=action.
Posted to Productivity
How to read more books
One of the things I have become much better at in the past few years is reading more books. Some of them for fun, some for work and some for personal development. The hardest part of self development is discipline and you here phrases often like “I wish I had time to exercise/read more”.
Well why not combine the two with the use of audiobooks? I was lucky enough to have been given the new iPod Nano for christmas and thought I would give audiobooks a try. Let me tell you they are great and I love them. Simply hop on the treadmill or bike and away you go, half an hour later you have read/listened to a good chunk of a book and managed to get your heart rate going at the same time.
I think they’re great, there are tonnes of them available too. Audible is probably the biggest supplier of them and you can find a huge range of books on most topics.
Posted to Life, Productivity
January Challenge Update
Since beginning my January challenge I have been recording my weight on a daily basis. My eating habits are still the same, fairly clean eating with the odd bit of indulgence. The results so far are pretty amazing really since I have only dropped alcohol.
01 Jan - 173lbs
02 Jan - 173lbs
03 Jan - 172.5lbs
04 Jan - 172lbs
05 Jan - 172lbs
06 Jan - 169.5lbs
07 Jan - 169lbs
08 Jan - 168lbs
09 Jan - 167lbs
10 Jan - 167lbs
11 Jan - 166.5lbs
12 Jan - 165.5lbs
WOW that’s 7.5 lbs in body weight gone it 12 days. Most of that will be water but a few lbs will be body fat.
I get weighed every morning at the same time right after a visit to the toilet. This keeps things consistent which is important otherwise you have no real idea of the progress your making. To demonstrate this fact I got re-weighed today after breakfast and I had gained 2lbs.
I will continue to keep track of my progress and will post another update on my January challenge at the end of the month. One thing I can say is I feel more energetic for it and more motivated. There really is nothing like progress for giving you more motivation you should really try it, it doesn’t need to be the first day of the month to start either.
Go on, give it a try, write down your goal and todays date with your current stats in a .txt file. Stop drinking, start running or whatever it is you want to do and take your measurements at the same time everyday. Only then will you really know how your body responds to things.
Posted to Life, Nutrition, Productivity
It’s all about motivation
Personally I find when doing pretty much anything it helps me to look at how someone else is performing to enhance my performance. It’s good to identify that you’re slacking and it really helps to see someone else doing well to get you out of a rut.
I have only been doing this for a week exactly as of today, Starr Horne has only been doing it a couple of days so I would say were in a similar position and face similar challenges. I hope seeing his progress motivates me - who knows maybe I will have the same effect on him.
I wish him the best of luck and I have already subscribed to his feed.
Posted to Business, Productivity
The Tools
I thought I would share with your my working environment that I will be utilising throughout my project. PC’s have taken a bit of a slating lately with the launch of the new iMac, however as you can see my workspace is gorgeous and low profile.
Here is the whole layout
For completness I thought I would take one of my day job working environment which is almost as impressive.
To me having a nice clean and tidy place to work is essential to getting things done. It helps me stay organised and focus on the task at hand without too many distractions.
One of my colleagues doesn’t share my view on the matter.
Posted to Productivity
