Archive for the ‘Life Experiments’ Category

This is actually something I’ve been planning on doing for quite a while now, and since my Productivity Heat Mapping life experiment is over, I have resources to hone in on a new, interesting, fulfilling facet of life: Connection.

Given my recent inner involvement with the people I am closest to, I am surprised to find that in my understanding of the fulfillment and living an engaged life, I have yet to focus specifically on relationships. 

Given this new experiment, I’m going to be spending less time writing and far more time hitting the gym with friends, organizing summer social events, doing karaoke, hitting the bars, and generally involving myself with the bonds I have forged and would like to forge.

Understanding social dynamics and “best practices” for having fulfilling relationships with others is going to now be the majority of my focus for the entire months of June and July.

At least 50% of my work will be related to friendship, and I will periodically post specifically about my experiences and understandings here in this post (in addition to the other articles I write).

May 18th, the seventh day of productivity heat mapping. I do some writing and then deliver flyers to some houses with my friend. Advertising for my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy is definitely worthwhile for me – but doing it with my friend made it 10 times as much fun. Increased state and increased productivity yielded a level 3 spike.

I felt a little off while teaching Jiu Jitu in the eventing, but filming technique afterwards was a lot of fun as always. I become overwhelmingly tired and passed right out at 10:00PM.

May 19th, way too much sleep! I’m starting to feel as though my body is crying out to me, but to be honest working off of 4-5 hours hasn’t been an issue for me, I’m still eager to keep up with that habit.

I had an idea to listen to fun music in the early morning while I do my regular routine of brushing teeth and eating. I can even do this while checking emails (basically, I can bump some awesome tunes whenever I don’t need to fully engage intellectually – as in writing or reading). 

I felt very much in the busywork level 2 phase. I realize that I must change my focus or change my routine because I seem to be in a relatively stressed state and not an ideally creative state. I realize the origin of this state but I find it tough to shift from sometimes.

In the evening I hung with my good friend and we talked about a new project for social involvement, we’re calling it the Summer FunBoys (yep, FunBoys is one word… the site and the idea are new, but check out www.summerfunboys.tk). Its a group for organizing social events, organizing community service events, and spreading fun in our town.

Teaching BJJ went well, too, afterwards I visited some friends at a nice sushi place before heading home.

May 20th, awesome morning. I went out and did an “hour of power” (an idea I picked up from Anthony Robbins) – where I got in a nice morning jog and combined it with a focus of what I was excited about / appreciateive of. This really got me amped.

During the running and writing for my eBook, I had flashes of 100% “on-ness” where I just felt ON completely. Totally aligned with my present action, totally merging my action and awareness into one.

I felt quite tired around 3:00PM while writing, and I think its because I’ve come to associate my room with slumber. Even though I’m in my chair writing, I’m in the environment in which I sleep at night – and I feel that this makes me feel tired though I don’t need sleep. I moved my compute to the dining room, which has more windows anyways.

I then went to a different branch of my bank and totally became friends with all the bank ladies at once, it was crazy. We just started bantering and joking and holding up the line it was hilarious.

After feeling disengaged while teaching Jiu Jitsu, I went home, did some work on my projects and passed out. Again… like a freekin’ brick.

Realization:

I think I’m selling myself short in placing most of my expereinces with friends in the yellow zone. Cultivating great relationships is definitely one of my highest ends. Being engaged and enjoying myself with friends is “productive” in the sense of alignment with my highest ends – though it might not always “produce” in terms of money made or articles written. Friendship is something I’m planning on studying a lot more on my own.

I’ve also come to the realization about my experience of tension the purpose of this website: to offer quality content. Hence, when I find myself trying to hammer something out I’ve got to slow down. Getting hits and making money are lower on the totem pole than my own creative expression and harvesting of good ideas and experiences – which translates to the best content for readers!

May 15th, I wake up an immediately get to doing some writing and website design work. I feel so much more stressed than anything else – which isn’t usual for me. However, given my recent project list and my lack of sleep for the sake of accomplishing more things, I might be in an adjustment phase.

I nearly complete part of a website, and that makes me feel better. For some odd reason, completion comes with a sense of relief and pleasure. Ideally Iw ould be able to experience those feelings whenever I chose to, but it seems like when I “get things done” I feel some sort of pleasure – probably because I value accomplishment towards my highest aims, or even getting things off my project list.

I had very little focus throughout the day though I was getting things done. I felt in my head. Later in the afternoon I got together with friends to deliver flyers and go to the gym. Even this basic amount of human contact rejouvenated me, I’d been inside writing and working on the web all day – its always feels as though I draw from my fun interactions with people I care about.

So tired by the time the night comes…. so tired. Too a nap, woke up to read… passed right out.

May 16th. Whoooaaaa forgot to set the alarm properly! Nearly 8 hours of sleep when I include the nap before bed on the 15th. Craziness! I snap right up to get some projects going before I do 3 hours worth of lawn mowing.

Around 2:00PM (where you see the orange level 3s) I had an awesome idea for an eBook that I now plan on writing! I will be writing a 30+ page eBook on applying the ideas of sport psychology to everyday life. It relates to my two greatest areas of study (kinesiology and psychology). I got pumped on it and started tearing into it. I also started another philosophical inquiry – both of which I worked on for the sake of diving into the ideas and learning / enjoying. This brought my state right up.

Late at night I also decide to push myself, I really wanted to get that orange zone back. I turned up the urgency, but in a way that let me feel the eager RUSH and not the stress. Developing this kind of state control is something I want to work more with.

May 17th, got less than 3 hours of sleep because I overslept the night before. My 2nd hour of consciousness I hit the orange zone because I was not only writing something I wanted to write – but I was coming close to completion (which as I said before seems to have a value more so to my subconscious than my conscious mind). 

A few hours after that, I began being bothered by some thoughts of “is this actually benefitting you?” I dropped the writing and got into a bit of speed reading because it felt like learning and growth. I’m all about doing the “busywork” in the spirit of excellence when it needs to be done (we’re always going to bump into relatively growth-less activity, its my mission to draw from it what I can and enjoy it when its the best given task to tackle), but I wanted something different.

In the night I eat with my family and then go to visit a friend who lives near the beach. Fun time, but as soon as I got home the tiredness hit me like a ton of bricks. When I am out socializing it seems as though the fatigue doesn’t set in, but once I’m alone, or sitting, or especially slouching or lying, I’m OUT like a light.

Realization:

I keep myself riding on level 2 (yellow) the vast majority of the time, and I realize why this is. First, when I’m by myself I am always engaged in productive activity. I shower fast, I read and write for my projects, I design sites, etc… When I’m with my friends, I may not be accomplishing as much (though we do “productive” things like go to the gym or talk about entrepreneurial projects), but I usually feel a lot better being around them. I value and enjoy the time I spend with them. Hence, wether I’m alone or with friends I find myself mostly around level 2.

May 11th, day one of the productivity heat mapping experiment.

It started off in a bit of shock, I got nearly 6 hours of sleep because I neglected to set my alarm properly (PM instead of AM). I usually aim for 4 to 5 hours max – its part of a different Life Experiment.

This was an amazing day for me, energetically. I felt in flow almost the entire day, and the “productive sensation” was on – I was outside my head, focused not only on what I was doing but on how cool it all was!

My level 4 periods weren’t even for my own projects, they were while I was delivering carpet for my father’s business. Even though I know thats not going to be my life path, I was pumped to do it because I knew it was what was best in that moment, and that in the evening I’d be writing and reading furiously!

I was listening to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” in the car and voice recording key points to my cell phone. That evening I wrote down all these key points in a new word document.

May 12th, the second day of experimentation. 

This time I got a bit over two hours of sleep. I knew that I got a bunch the night before (on my terms, anyway), and I wanted to see hwo well I could roll on two hours.

I realize while teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class that I feel more engaged and productive when I am teaching relatively new material or unique concepts. If it interests me more, or if I can learn from it, I feel more “on.”

In the night I talked to my friends about something we’re doing this summer called the Summer FunBoys, a group we made up for fun to serve and engage the community in fun ways. It was an awesome conversation. At the time, I think I did this time a disservice by calling it a 2 (yellow), it was an awesome talk. 

I notice something on this night (something that continues since the inclusion of my “Sleep Less” Life Experiment). Each night I aim to recap 3 great things that happened during that day. Lately when I hit the bed, I’m out like a light every single time, and I’m unable to savor those little magic moments.

May 13th, still a pretty phenomenally productive day despite my accumulated 6 hours of sleep total in the last 48 hours.

I woke up with no initial big BLAST to accomplish, I had no immediate goals in mind though my project list was as full as ever – I just didn’t set anything juicy for myself in the morning. 

While doing some writing in the green (1) zone, and in the yellow (2) and orange (3) zones, I realize that my higher productivity / emotional state times are when I am focused specifically on how AWESOME it will be to complete these goals, and the grand vision I have – in addition to building something interesting in the present.

ALRIGHT!

I am pumped to write this right now because this whole speed reading thing has been amazing. We learn so much faster than we give ourselves credit for.

Recently I posted about the speed reading tips that have worked best for me (check it out in the Self Development category).

With these limited tips I’ve gotten pretty comfortable reading about 900 word per minute, from my not-so-long-ago 250 word per minute.

Granted, I’m not at 100% comprehension (there is a lot of material that you should never even try at 900 word per minute because it would be impossible to process). However, through a combination of skills I’d say that my comprehension is about 25-30% most of the time, enough to get a firm grasp of the “skeleton” of the writing. 

Its surprising to me that once you get used to it, you can skip words or lines here and there and your brain still takes in the content you never even looked at – or at least it fills in the blanks with context.

Though I’ve already laid out an extended list of tips on my previous post on speed reading, I’m getting an even clearer picture of exactly what’s getting results. For me, the most important aspects of developing speed and comprehension have been these:

-Expand your peripheral vision (be able to look directly at one word, but take in the ones to the left, the right, and even the words above and below it)

-Trust your brain (understand that your brain will be able to get the big picture and even the important details even if you don’t look directly at every single word)

-Find a rhythm (become smooth with “ticking” your eyes from spot to spot across the lines, swiftly moving to the next line. On a line with 11 words, one or two direct “ticks” – or “eye stops” – should suffice)

In combination with the reading exercises I’ve been doing, I think anyone can more than double their reading speed in a month. However, I’d certainly recommend that you also get information from a lot of sources and see what sticks with you.

My goal by the end of May is to be reading at 1000 words per minute! By the end of June, I aim to crank up my comprehension and reach my goal for this life experiment (about 50% comprehension at 1000 WPM).

It has come this far…

I almost wasn’t expecting it – I’ve now been doing this 4 to 5 hour per night sleeping experiment for exactly a month. The experience itself has changed the way I think about and value sleep. It has also completely changed a lot of my sleeping habits – for better or for worse. 

I must admit, I have taken 2 naps throughout this Life Experiment. However, both were under an hour in length.

In addition, I slipped up on setting my alarm and had two nights were I accidently slept in, once for 6 hours, once for 7 hours. To redeem my pattern, however, I slept for only 2.5 hours the night after these slip-ups (I was so tired I set the alarm for “pm” not “am”).

I’m proud to say that I’m not a coffee addict either. I drink coffee only about half the time, and though it certainly does seem to have a noticeable effect – I do not guzzle it. One cup every other day, thats my creed and I’ve stuck to it.

I can definitely say that the experiment has its pros and its cons, so with thirty days experience in sleeping an average of 4.5 hours per night, here’s what I have to say:

Consequences of Less Sleep:

• I often find that by about 10 or 11 pm, my body wants to shut down – plain and simple. It usually cannot deal with sustained activity for more than 20 hours when it is running on only 4 hours of sleep. On more that one occasion this is prevented me from going out at night because I knew I didn’t even feel safe driving.
• When I’ve been awake for 20 or more hours, my nose gets stuffy. It seems odd, but I frequently get the sniffles after these long days. I’ll be up reading or writing and all of a sudden I’ll feel like I’m coming down with a cold. This might also have to do with allergies, though it seems odd that they would all of a sudden effect me at midnight…
• Spending too much time alone in the wee morning hours sometimes doesn’t feel right. Though the time is productive, I’m usually pretty eager to hop up and see my friends when I’ve spent the first 4 or 5 dark morning hours by myself (nobody else is up!).

Benefits of a Sleepless Lifestyle:

• The mornings are free for whatever I please. Waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning gives me plenty of time before any other part of my day begins. Even when I teach private lessons at 6 in the morning, I still have some reading or planning time while I hear the birds trying to chirp the sun over the horizon. If I don’t have any plans until noon, this time provides me with half a day for whatever productive activities I choose – which usually involves reading, writing, planning, and exercise (jogging is awesome right at daybreak).
• A little bit of time makes a difference. Right now I’m working on my reading speed and my typing speed. Getting up ridiculously early allows me to practice these skills on a daily basis. Imagine if you could pick any skill and work at it for 2 hours every single day. Be it stock trading, painting, a foreign language, etc… – you could become FAR more proficient with only a few months of 2 hour-per-day training. With the way I sleep now, I have an extra 3 or 4 hours per day – without feeling traumatic consequences in other areas of my life. Thats a lot of practice time.
• I’m getting used to waking up swiftly. This is a combination of having compelling things to do each morning, and also because my body doesn’t seem to go into full-blown hibernation mode when I only sleep for a few hours at a time.

Overall I’d call this habit of 4.5 hours of sleep per night FULLY IMPLEMENTED. I’m excited to see where else this project takes me, and if I alter it over time.

Here are some bits of wisdom I’ve picked up through living sleeplessly. These ideas might be of use to those of you looking to taper down your sleep, or those of you who just want to be more alert in the early morning:

Sleepless Wisdom:

• Having plans for the early morning hours makes waking up so much easier - I find that when I give myself some fun an exciting tasks for the morning (which I do regularly), getting up swiftly is easy
• Move around after waking up – Getting up and stumbling over to the computer to check emails or turning over to read a book is usually a ticket to slumbersville all over again. When you get up and focus on those things you’re eager to do during the day, take some deep breaths and walk like you do when you’re awake (the pre-coffee “zombie shuffle” only puts you back into Zzzzz-mode).
• More on body language - This is huge for me in this sleepless experiment. I notice that when I slouch on the couch or lay down to write or otherwise put myself into relaxed positions, my body takes the hint and my eyelids get heavy. When I sit up strait and walk with my head up high, its as though my body and mind associate this with alertness, and they respond accordingly.

If this gets too easy I might do an entire week on only 3 hours of sleep per night.

I’ll be updating this Life Experiment in another month’s time. Maybe I’ll have bags under my eyes by then… 

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Eagerly spinning through web content one Sunday (my day for research) I came across a site called “Productive Flourishing.” Though the entire site is filled with interesting ideas and insight, a particular article drew me in.

It was called “How Heatmapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive.” 

In this article the author (Charles) goes into detail on how to we might draw out our levels of productivity on a diagram signifying all 24 hours of a day. Each hour is represented by a color signifying its intensity in terms of the productive experience (more on this in a bit).

I became pumped about following my own productivity and decided to make it a 2 week Life Project out of it. I knew that it would provide me with some insight into my experience of “flow” and of “feeling productive.” I turned out to be right, but that’ll be the last post of the series.

Grey signifies sleep or its equivalent.

Green signifies unproductive time.

Yellow signifies some kind of productive striving and seems to be taking ground.

Orange involves a hightened level of productivity and eager drive, “flow.”

Red is the highest productive experience, a mental / emotional tornado of enthusiastiasbm.

For the sake of my own heat map, “productivity” implies alignment between my values and my action in a fashion that brings me closer to meaningful objectives or ends. It implies my full capacities engaged in activities that I deem best in terms of my ideals and my projects.

In this series of posts, I’m going to post articles covering a series of 3 to 4 days during my experiment. Since my project lasted 14 days, this will take about 4 total posts to get all of my days up on this site in the form of articles.

Its very interesting to find the common threads and themes in terms of my level of activity and my energy / focus. Again, after the entire 2 week long life experiment has been posted, I’m going to write up a massive article on all that I’ve learned in terms of personal insight about PRODUCTIVITY and how we might apply it to our own lives.

Keep a lookout, I know you’ll enjoy it!

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Ever since I was in third grade I can remember being a slow reader. I was the slowest in my entire class. Even just a few months ago I was reading most material at the same speed I could say it out loud (200 words per minute). Personal growth-wise, this set off a proverbial fire alarm.

Then I realized just how much more I could take in if I didn’t have to sounds the words out in my hear one by one. How many more books could I read in a year?! How much more information could I take in and process towards self-development and writing my own material?!

So I ordered “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading.” Not because I think I’m a complete idiot, or even a partial idiot, but because the book had good reviews and didn’t cost me much.

A few months in and my comfortable reading speed is up to about 500 word per minute.

So here’s the experiment:

I want to be able to read 1000 words per minute by July 1st, 2009.

That means doubling my current reading speed and keeping my comprehension in tow months. I had this written down as one of my “by 2010? goals, but seriously, I think I can do it in less time.

If I don’t, at least you’ll have some funny stories to read about me trying. I’ll be posting back here in a few weeks time with another update, stay tuned.

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I’ve been doing this 4-5 hours of sleep thing for four weeks now, and honestly, I haven’t noticed a fragment of a difference from my previous experience on 7-8 hours of sleep. In fact, if there’s been any change at all, they’ve been POSITIVE changes:

1. I blast out of bed far more swiftly than I ever have.
2. When I do go to sleep, I don’t toss and turn, I’m out fast.
3. I am awake for an additional 3 to 4 hours each day!

Seriously, its hard to see why I ever slept for 8 hours.

At the same time, I have this odd feeling that this MUST come back and bite me at some point, everyone tells me it will and my entire life I’ve heard that we need a solid 7-9 hours of sleep per night to function at our best.

Well, we’ll just have to see about that. If I end up developing permanent raccoon eyes or find myself hollucinating, it might be time for a nap :}.

I’m starting to think about it like this:

If I work on my reading / typing speed for 3-4 extra hours a day, how will that affect my ability? If I study behavioral psychology for an extra 3-4 hours a day, how will that affect my understanding? I have SO much more time to allocate, and since I don’t feel drained this is perfectly good time for studying. I feel like if I lived like this and used my extra hours to study finance, I could start a Scottrade account a confidently buy and sell within 6 months or so.

Its 3 or 4 EXTRA hours. Mind boggling, but in the coolest way.

But UNITL THEN it seems like frankly… I’m getting more juice out of life by NOT SLEEPING.

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A bed? I don't even know what those are for!

Life Experiment: Sleep Less

I’ve always had a slight aversion to slumber. I wouldn’t call myself type – A, I’m not a stressed out fellow, but I like doing things, I like striving towards my meaningful objectives.

Recently I’ve had more exciting, meaningful objectives than ever. After waking up a few VERY early morning to teach private Brazilian Jiu Jitsu lessons, I discovered that I could run a whole day on 2 hours of sleep no problem.

Then I realized that I could sleep for only 4 hours after sleeping for only 2 hours the night before.

Then I got to the point I am now, where I sleep somewhere around 5 horus per night, and I love it.

As a disclaimer, you may have you get yourself PUMPED on some very compelling objectives in order to do this, but I found that its actually quite easy. Now I get to stay up SUPER late and study philosophy, work on inquiry, sing karaoke at the bar, or type up exciting new blog stuff!

Honestly I feel like my ability to write isn’t all that hindered by my lack of “recommened” sleep hours. I also don’t feel less efficacious in exercising. I’m not even drinking coffee daily.

Hey, this Living Experiment might crash and burn, but I’m going a couple weeks now and feeling strong!

Ironically enough I’m actually about to write my to-do list for tomorrow and pass out. I promise I won’t sleep for muct more than 4 or 5 hours, though.

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