This a test post using the WordPress Dash widget in OS X. It seems to fairly good. The only thing I miss are the quick html buttons in the normal wordpress interface, but I suppose that would clutter the widget. Otherwise it seems like a nice tool for making quick posts on the run. I’m amazed at how wordpress is pulling ahead of typepad and the other blogs in usability and features. Wordpress Dash is a nice example of that.
I have a real problem of getting myself out the door. Ask Meschter sometime about my inability to find my wallet and keys. The problem is that I’m almost always late for work or other appointments. It’s something I’m very aware of and feel terrible about. I had resigned myself that this is just the way I’ll be forever. In the spirit of Kaizen I wrote on a notecard, “What could I be doing to reduce my tardiness?” The point of this was not to come up with an a final solution to this problem, but just finding small improvements that might help me towards ameliorating the problem. I read this notecard everyday. The point is that by reminding myself of this problem, one day my unconscious might generate some solutions.
The other day I spontaneously came up with a partial answer to my Kaizen question. I noticed that I wake up with plenty of time to get to work, but somehow I always blow it in the last ten minutes when I’m trying to get out the door. Usually I’m forgetting something that I need to take with me and I have to run back into the house or back upstairs to get it. This results in multiple trips that often eat away two or three minutes. My solution to this problem is that I work my way out of the house by starting with the farthest room in the house from the front door. I scan the entire room looking for something I need to take or remember to do. When I finish scanning the room I say out loud, “Clear.” I leave the room and move to the next room and repeat the process. I systematically go through the entire house until I’m at the front door. By then I have everything I need. My scan always finds my wallet, keys, phone, hat, shoes, papers, books, mail, and everything else that needs to go with me. Through this process I never have to backtrack into a previous room. I’ve noticed that a surprising ancillary benefit is that it greatly reduces my stress level before I get to work - so I arrive at work clear minded and ready to start working. Am I still late to work? Yes, but I’ve noticed that since I’ve used this method I’m no longer late by over 10 minutes, and I do believe it’s shaved 2-3 minutes off my usual tardiness. I’m sure there are other pieces to this puzzle, but Kaizen thinking helped me discover a partial solution.
In the spirit of Kaizen here are some lifehacks I’ve come across.
Lifehack 1 I came across this one on 43 folders. I’ve been asking myself a Kaizen style question, “why do I procrastinate so much?” A lot of my things on my next steps list actually don’t take a lot of time to do. My technical writing professor in college once said, “there are only two stages in writing, the worrying stage and the doing stage. The secret to good writing is to spend as little time as possible in the worrying stage.” Likewise with next steps, I spend more time worrying about what I’m not doing than actually doing it. So when I write down a next step list, I write the anxiety associated with doing that action. Often I surprise myself when I do this exercise. Sometimes I realize that the anxiety is silly and once I realize that, the action becomes much easier to do. Other times I realize that anxiety is justified and that I need to steel myself to get the resolve to do that action.
Lifehack 2 I eat out a lot, more than I should. I also indulge myself far too much when I eat out, often eating things I would never make for myself. Rather than go cold turkey (no pun intended) and eat only salads everytime I’m out. I write a - on a notecard I carry with me everytime I eat an indulgement meal. The next time I go out I’ll try to eat something healthy and then draw | through the dash making it a + . The goal is to have more + than - at the end of the month. It’s a small step but certainly more motivating and less intimidating than eating salads at every meal.