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Vibram five fingers

Ricky — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:48:04 +0000

Vibram five fingers are great alternative to barefoot walking. They’ve been around for a while now but I was resisting the urge to buy them.

A little background:

I’ve been questioning every single thing in my life, that seems to be set as norm or a necessity, these days. I have constant back pain, low energy, knees in pain, and now breathing problems. So, it was time to look at my lifestyle.

For example:

I had spent over a $1,000 for a decent mattress but my back is still hurting and I always wake up with a cramp, and feeling tired. Meanwhile, when I was in India, getting only a few hours sleep, I was sleeping on those thin mattresses, maybe 1″-2″ thick and I never had any back ache. So, do we really need to sleep on these thick mattresses?
Hot showers! When I was a kid in India, I always bathed with cold water, even in winter. Winter there at that time was maybe 10-15 degrees celsius but still it was quite chilly. Here I can’t seem to take a shower unless the water is quite warm! Is it really beneficial and necessary for us to take hot showers?
I constantly have high heat turned on in the winter time and high air conditioning in summer. Even if the weather is nice, I still have air conditioning on in my car. Could that be a reason for my breathing problems?
Knees and lower back hurting all the time even though I have really nice and comfortable shoes! I do the research and I find the most comfortable shoes in my price range, with nice orthotics etc., still my knees and lower back are in constant pain. Do more expensive shoes really help? What if I just tried walking without shoes? Doesn’t hurt to try!

So, that’s where my fascination with Vibram five fingers come in!

For a more thorough review about Vibram five fingers and their benefits, check out this post by Tim Ferriss.

There are only a few stores here that sell them. I went to one of them, they said they had run out of stock and next stock was arriving next year!! Since, the company itself has a huge back log! Then I went to a different one and they had run out as well but apparently they were receiving some stock from a company that recently went bankrupt!

Anyhow, I eventually found another store that carried my size and colour. So, I ended up getting Vibram FiveFingers KSO yesterday evening.

I haven’t tried wearing them outside yet. Wearing black KSOs almost looks like I have gorilla feet! So, we’ll see…

Latest update on habits

Ricky — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:14:16 +0000

Over the past few months I’d been trying to create new habits using different methods. Just to see which method would work and which method was the easiest to implement and continue with.

Write for my blog every single day

I started writing using Google documents. Every single day I would write for about 5-10 minutes towards a certain topic. After a few days I would spend the same amount of time to review what I had written and then post it on the blog. I would do it just before going to bed. Thus, going to bed was my trigger.

It worked beautifully until one day I decided to write on good and old paper instead of using my laptop, as my laptop was hooked to my television.

It was fine that day and I continued it for the next few days but eventually it died down. And before I realized it, already more than week had gone by without me writing anything.

Usually in the past I would have felt very bad that I couldn’t discipline myself and it would have kept reinforcing the belief that I was a failure.

This time, however, it was different. There was no reinforcing of any negative belief. There was no negative belief in fact! I was easily able to step back and analyze why I was not able to create that particular habit.

It came down to two things.

Convenience – When I would write using Google documents, on my laptop, it was easy for me to just copy and paste onto my blog. Meanwhile, when I had started writing on a piece of paper, it became quite cumbersome, or felt like it, to have to copy it again onto the blog. Also, when I started writing on a piece of paper it was easy for me to let my focus wander, writing about one thing today and totally different the next day.
Not having a strong enough reason for me to continue writing – I’ve found this to be quite a problem, as I mentioned previously. If I’m doing something for the sake of disciplining myself, it’s quite easy to fall out of it. On the other hand if there’s a strong enough reason for me to do something, I continue despite any obstacles.

Has anyone else found a better way to create habits? What are your experiences?

How to break a bad habit in 5 simple steps

Ricky — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 03:57:14 +0000

Just like trying to create a new habit, trying to break a bad habit can also be simplified into a few but very important steps. I’ve used these to break bad habits with great success as well.

1. Pick a habit that you want to break. In the beginning pick a simple habit.

2. Find out why you want to break that habit. Watch videos about the dangers of it, read blogs, talk to people who’ve broken that habit, and for extremely quick results, meet people who were hospitalized because of that habit, i.e. smoking.

3. Find out your trigger that causes you to act on that habit. E.g. whenever you’re in the presence of people who’re smoking, you have an urge to smoke. So, the trigger would be you being around smokers. Whenever you feel sad you start to eat, so the trigger would be your getting sad. As soon as you sit on your couch, you turn the tv on, so the trigger would be you sitting on the couch.

4. Keep your motivation up by exposing yourself to the dangers of this habit by either reading something, watching some videos, or hanging around people who are breaking the same habit or have already broken the same habit, every single day.

5. Whenever you hit a trigger that normally causes you to act on the habit you’re trying to break, do something different right away before you can act out of habit. As soon as you sit on your couch, whip out a book and start reading it, or just stop hanging around smokers, or whenever you get sad, right away start writing in a journal.

Trick is to have a strong enough reason to break that habit. Then monitoring your triggers. As soon as you hit your trigger and want to act on your old habit, immediately put a break there. Break that pattern! If you do that enough times, trigger will get weaker. That’s pretty much all there is to it. Don’t forget that by actually trying various ways you’ll learn much more than just reading about them. Just don’t give up!

How to create a new habit in 5 simple steps

Ricky — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 03:38:20 +0000

A lot has been written about developing habits. Even I’ve written a lot about them but I’ve found the following 5 steps to be really effective when trying to establish a new habit. I’ve actually tested these steps many times and they’ve succeeded in establishing new habits every single time.

1. Pick a habit that you want to create

2. Break that habit down into small steps, 1st step being ridiculously small and easy

3. Write down why you want to create that habit, keep asking yourself why until you start to feel good every time you think about that habit

4. Read your “why” every single day at least one time, preferably once before going to bed and once right after you wake up

5. Perform the steps every single day and increasing in intensity every week. So, you would repeat the same easy step every single day for one week and next week you would increase the intensity slightly and keep it up for second week, and then increase again for third week and so on

We are what we repeatedly do

Ricky — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:45:55 +0000

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

I remember hearing that we should take pride in everything we do.

What if you’re doing something just to pay the bills, should you still do the best job possible?

What if you’re working at a job that you dislike or hate? Should you still put in your best effort there?

What if you don’t get credit for work and in fact credit goes to someone else? Should you still keep on putting your best work?

If you have a job just to pay the bills, is it ok to do your personal stuff while at work? I.e. blogging while at work? Paying your bills while at work? Browse the internet? And so on…

What if the more you do, more is given to you? Should you still keep on doing the best that you possibly can at your job?

Almost all of my life I have had jobs which I disliked but had to do them due to our family’s financial situation. I’ve been working ever since I was 12. Did every single job imaginable!

In the beginning I used to always put in that extra effort above and beyond what was required of me. Later I realized that no one valued my extra work. Not only that but people took credit for my work and in fact made fun of me for working so hard. Also, all of my income went in to the family. Our whole family was like that though. Every one working hard to just make ends meet. Still, I never saw the benefit of working hard since I never got to ever treat myself with my income. As far as I knew, I worked hard for free!

Slowly but surely I started doing the minimum amount of work at jobs which I disliked. Actually I did little more than bare minimum at jobs so I wouldn’t get fired but never gave it my best. I knew I had to work to survive but also realized I did not have to go out of my way to give the job my best.

I always thought I would put in my best effort at a job which I totally loved.

Recently I realized that that’s actually become a habit of mine. No matter what I do I am not able to give it my best. I learned that even if I found something I was loving, sooner or later I slowed down and gave up! I never put in that extra effort that might have taken me over the top! I couldn’t understand why. I was held back because of my bad habits.

That’s when I realized the truth in always giving it your best, no matter what you’re doing! Because that’s how habits form. Once a habit is formed, it’s not that easy to get rid of it especially since it’s been reinforced for more than 20 years.

I’ve noticed one thing at different jobs that I’ve held in the computer industry. I’m sure it’s quite similar in other industries as well. If you do a lot of work you end up setting expectations. If at some time you do a little less work, then you’re questioned as to why you’re slowing down. That’s why you see a lot of people just taking it easy at work. They’re doing a little work when you know they can easily do 5-10 times their usual amount in much less than a full day’s work.

They were not like this to begin with. They got trained to be lazier!

So, I’m not saying start giving it your best at your jobs which you dislike or hate. What I am saying is whatever you do, no matter how little, start doing it the best possible way!

E.g. if you’re working at a fast food restaurant. Don’t try to serve 100 customers when your colleagues are only serving 25! Instead serve the same number as others but serve them well! A little smile here and there, a little politeness, whatever you can do to give it that extra edge!

Now, you’re not doing this for others! You’re doing it for yourself. Soon, you’ll develop the habit to do the best no matter what you’re doing.

And when the time comes and you find your passion, you won’t be slowed down by your bad habits but will be fully ready and prepared for it!

After all, like Aristotle said, excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit!

Haven’t been updating the blog…

Ricky — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:13:21 +0000

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated the blog. I’ve actually been quite busy lately with lots of things on the go. I really want to write about my experience in India. I was there for two weeks and all I can say is that it was one of the best experience of my life.
At the same time, I am experimenting with different goals so that’s keeping me busy too.
I’ve tried establishing a lot of new habits over the years but majority of them have fallen through. So, I’ve been trying to find ways to establish new habits.
Stay tuned…

I spilled coffee on my laptop

Ricky — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:14:57 +0000

That’s right! I spilled coffee, well actually tea, on one of my most treasured items, my Apple Macbook Pro!

My desktop PC was crashing all the time and I think first the fan, then video card, then power supply and finally the mother board is gone!

I had purchased a Macbook Pro two years ago. Never gave me any trouble! Looked amazing! Beautiful! Simple beautiful design! Aluminum body, keyboard lighting up during night, I absolutely loved it. Never had any issues with any viruses or spy ware. Did not install any anti-virus or anti-spy ware software and did not need to. Even though apple’s operating system is not totally immune but it’s been quite robust.

In the same amount of time I had reinstalled windows xp on my PC several times, not to mention all the extra software just to keep it running virus and spyware free.

Anyhow, after cancelling the cable if I ever needed to watch anything I would just connect my laptop to my tv and watch it on youtube. It’s been perfect. I am watching only what I want to watch and nothing else.

Day before yesterday I was watching tv while having a nice cup of tea on the couch in front of it. I got up, my foot got entangled in the slippers and all of my tea got spilled on top of my laptop! I was just shocked. I quickly wiped it off. I think I had tears in my eyes.

But it’s still working! The keys on the keyboard are a little harder to press, especially the space bar. And instead of all the keys lighting up at night, only about 5-6 are lighting up!

I am going to find out if there is something that can be done. Because besides this laptop I don’t have a computer at home and more than that, I love my macbook pro!

Focus on one thing at a time

Ricky — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:36:13 +0000

My mind is everywhere. I want to do this but I need to do this or I want to do this but what if I’m wasting my time with this, maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do both at the same time?

Never really concentrating on one thing long enough to see it to fruition.

Recently, I was concentrating on affirmations and finding out what worked for me and what didn’t. Then I got interested in eating healthy. Then it was exercising. Then it was using the law of attraction more effectively. Then it was de-cluttering my house and keeping it that way. Then it was “maybe I should try to go on a vegetarian diet for a month?” Then I thought maybe I should buy organic meat and try that before going on a vegetarian diet. Then I thought about how I can work fewer hours at work and still get paid the same. Then I thought more about gossiping at work and how I am getting involved again. Then I thought about doing some more 30 day experiments. Then I thought about over 4,000 email messages that are in my yahoo account that I should clean out. And this is not all, that’s just what I can think of right now.

In the end I ended up doing a lot of things in bits and pieces but nothing to full completion.

So, you can see that I did not do anything effectively.

This is the multi-tasking world, with multi-tasking mentality! At work, you should be able to respond to your emails, converse with your colleagues/boss, work on your project and update the reporting sheets all at the same time.

I started looking around at people who were achieving enormous results in a very short period of time and every single one of them had one thing in common. They were all focusing on that particular item with all of their energy.

So…. what would happen if I started doing that? hmm…

I’ve done a lot of 30 day experiments but since I feel like there is so much I want to do, taking a whole month for just one item seems like a long time. It’s not really because time is passing anyways and a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also, a month can easily pass by just in all this confusion. Instead of getting confused, I could have done some one thing for that month. If I started to just do things that I want to or would love to do, I would learn a lot more about myself whether I failed or succeeded.

I have trained myself to be disciplined whenever I need to be. I don’t doubt that I can concentrate on one thing for a whole month for example. It’s just deciding which one thing to concentrate on. It’s more in my mind than anything else.

Still I have to look out for myself and work with myself so instead I will devise some 7 day experiments. I will totally focus on one item for 7 days.

That means not even browsing the internet for other stuff. Totally excluding, even going to forums or websites that are not directly related to my goal of the week. Let’s see what happens!

Ivy Lee’s system

In one of his books Napoleon Hill tells a story about Ivy Lee who was working with Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel. Ivy Lee is considered the father of modern public relations.

Charles Schawb told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective – helping them better utilize their time. Lee provided a system to Schwab and told Schwab to first try the system out for a while and then pay him whatever Schwab thought the idea was worth.

This is basically what Ivy Lee told Charles Schwab:

List the six most important things you have to do tomorrow
Number them in order of importance/priority
Take the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until it is completed
Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of day. If you don’t finish all six you probably wouldn’t have finished them using any other system anyway

In a short while after trying this system out, Schwab sent Ivy Lee a cheque for $25,000. Now this was in 1920s so you can imagine what that amount is today. This shows you what Schwab thought of Lee’s idea and Napoleon Hill gave it to us for free!

There are literally thousands of time management books, tapes, videos, seminars out there but so often we get caught up in designing really complex systems that we lose track of the basics. If Charles Schwab thought so highly of this basic system, and if this simple system helped people at that level, surely it can help us!

Focus on one thing until it’s done! I am going to devise some experiments for myself and find out what can be achieved in one week!

Saying good bye to cable TV

Ricky — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:24:35 +0000

I’ve been meaning to cancel my cable for a while now. Problem is that I really enjoy watching tv. As an experiment I once gave up tv watching for about two months using strictly my will power and self discipline.

After that I started watching tv again. There is nothing better than watching some show, that you enjoy, after coming home from work. I enjoy mystery shows the most. These days there are a ton of mystery shows. Anytime you turn the tv on, you’re bound to find something to watch.

Killing brain cells

I am not joking but it really feels like I’m getting dumb if I keep watching tv. I have realized that I can’t think, can’t concentrate, can’t even do simple things effectively while watching tv. Every time I have needed to concentrate I have had to turn the tv off.

As I really love to think, tv is actually coming in my way. My mind seems cloudy and foggy even after the tv is off.

But I just did not want to resort to using discipline again as that just doesn’t seem to last.

Even now I’m sitting watching “Without a trace”. I don’t really watch this show but it’s on right now so why not!?

Cable tv discount ended

Recently all my discounts ended for my cable tv. I could have called and negotiated better discounts once again as I always have been doing but I decided against it.

I called and cancelled the cable!!! Wuhooo!!!

Well, I have until 24th of July before it’s cancelled.

Instead of using strictly discipline, I am changing my environment to change myself. If you want to stop smoking, you stop hanging out with people who smoke. If you want to stop watching tv, you cancel your cable!

How much time does your job take daily?

Ricky — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:00:12 +0000

If you’re an employee of a company, have you ever thought about how much time your job actually takes from your day?

I was thinking about this recently. It’s so easy to say that I work 9-5, thus 8 hours a day but why was I feeling so burnt out all the time!?

That’s when I started adding up all the hours relating to my job.

Commuting for work: 1 hour 45 minutes one way, thus 3 hours and 30 minutes daily

Time at work: 7 hours and 30 minutes (if I eat at desk so no lunch) to 8 hours

Time to unwind from work: at least 1 hour

Time to prepare for work (getting ready, preparing lunch and so on): 45 minutes to 1 hour

Total time spent around my job: 12 hours and 45 minutes to 13 hours and 30 minutes

No wonder I feel so tired all the time! I spent majority of my day going to work, preparing for work and at work!

That brings another interesting question. How much am I really making an hour then? My hourly rate is going to go down quite a bit if I divide by 13+ hours instead of regular 8 hours!