Auto-Simplify Your Life

I never miss an episode of The Office. The reason? Because it’s an awesome show. Another reason is that my DVR is set to record the show automatically every Thursday at 8.

Automation is a good thing when it comes ensuring you catch your TV shows. It can also be a good tool for improving and simplifying your life in other ways.

Automating aspects of your life allows you to be lazy. I don’t know about you but I like being lazy, or at least I like having the option of being able to be lazy.

Here are a few ways to automate your life:

• Set up Google Reader to automatically pull articles from your favorite blogs.

• Automatically invest or save a portion of your paycheck. Take the money right off the top. It doesn’t have to be a lot. You will get used to not having that money. It will pay off in the end and cause you a lot less stress.
  

• DVR your favorite shows. My recommendations: The Office, 30 Rock, Top Chef. Watch them without commercials and spend the extra time doing something worthwhile.
  

•  Set up your coffeemaker before you go to bed. Spend 30 seconds setting it up so you do not have to stumble around in the morning. Wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee.  This is also helpful in not spending a lot of money at Starbucks.
  

• Autopay your bills. It is pretty easy and straightforward to set up autopay on most bills.  I set up my bills to pay right before they are due. This is my way of sticking it to the big banks and credit card companies. (Take that Bank of America!) No late fees. No hassle.
  

•  Pack yourself a nice, healthy lunch for work. When you are at work and hungry you’ll eat anything, including a healthy lunch. If you are not a morning person pack it the night before.
  

These things all sound nice but the biggest hurdle to any of them is doing work now while reaping the benefits later. In our world of instant gratification investing time and energy now without immediately getting something back is rare. But it can be worth it, saving you time, energy and stress down the road. And best of all it can ensure you do not miss Michael Scott and the gang.

Photo: Toronto Rob

Creating Habits to Overcome Laziness

"I believe that goals — especially ones that are worth reaching — are ultimately achieved through the building of good habits."
Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

It is easy to dream about the things that you want to achieve. The hard part is following through and getting them done. A huge influence on me and this website is a blog called Zen Habits. If you have not heard of it follow the link and check it out. It is my favorite blog to read and easily the most beneficial.

One of main ideas behind Zen Habit's is the importance of reaching goals through the building of habits. The process for forming these habits is to start small and incrementally change what you do. For example, if you want to wake up earlier, do it slowly. Get up 15 minutes earlier for a couple days. Once you get used to that wake up 15 minutes earlier than your new time. You might be able to go from 9 am to 5:30 am for a couple days but this will probably lead to you crashing and going back to the old routine. If you are interested in getting up earlier check out Zen Habit's post on the benefits of getting up earlier and how to do it.

This idea of forming habits slowly can be applicable to reaching many different goals, such as: eating better, working out more, studying more, watching less TV , aimlessly surfing on the internet less, etc.

A key notion that the blog emphasizes is to focus on improving only a few areas at a time. Put all your extra attention on improving these areas. Once you build a habit it becomes part of your life. You can then move on to the next thing you want to focus on. If you focus on too many things at one time it can be very overwhelming and will increase your chance of failure.

Here are a few habits that I have been working on recently:

• Getting up earlier. This is one is tough and I even consider myself a morning person. I used to get up for work at 7 am and leave for work at 7:45 am. I slowly got it down to 6, but whether I actually get up then really depends on how late I stayed up the previous night. Committing to getting up earlier necessitates committing to going to bed earlier (which can be tough, especially if your fiancee is a night owl). Having nearly two hours in the morning before leaving for work is pretty great. It allows me to workout (when I feel like it), make a good breakfast, pack a good lunch, write and just get ready slowly. Relaxing and drinking a cup of coffee is my favorite way to start the day.

• Working out more. I have recently started writing down how much I work out everyday. I have not yet set a goal for how much I want to workout but even writing it down is motivating. The hard part will be keeping up with this habit in the winter.
  

• Staying in the moment. I am really working on focusing on the present and enjoying the little things. This means not worrying about what happened in the past and what might happen in the future. This one is a lot harder because it is not a finite thing and difficult to measure, but the goal is definitely worth seeking.
  

Reaching goals through building habits is about lifestyle changes. It is a slow process, but definitely worth it.

Photo: Jens Poder

Embrace Your Laziness to be More Productive

There is a ton of advice out there on ways to improve your life. There are times when it is easy to soak up this information and dream of improvement. Other times its hard to even get off the couch, much less practice for a marathon or meditate or learn a new language.

For me there is a certain natural ebb and flow to my productivity. In the mornings I have all the drive in the world (at least after I have my first cup of coffee). Come 3 pm on a work week and I almost always hit a wall and just want to go home. The same thing usually happens during the seasons. Spring through fall it is generally easy to be productive, but come winter I just want to hibernate.

It is important to remember that everyone feels lazy at certain times. It is ok. This does not mean that you cannot improve or reach your goals.

Learning how to deal with the laziness and still find time to work towards your goals is really the key.

Here are my keys for dealing with fluctuating ambition levels:

• Embrace your laziness. Take advantage of some down time. Enjoy not doing anything. Do not feel guilty. Restore your mind and body. This step is crucial to avoid burnout.

• Be productive when you have ambition. Use your natural energy cycles to your benefit. Understand when you usually are productive and take advantage of the time. If you are not a morning person, work hard in the evening when you have the energy. When you know you are not going to have the energy or ambition, pushing yourself into something you do not want to do often leads to failure.

• The key is balance. If you combine the first two tips I gave, you might be thinking, "Nice, I can just not work when I don't want to and I'll reach my goals!" Its not that easy (good things in life never are). Inactivity for 95 % of the day will lead you no where. Embracing the fact that you will get lazy is a good idea. But connected to this is the idea that when you are not lazy you get things done. You make a choice of action. Work towards your goals. Use the ambition that you have inside, the dreams of a better life and work hard to get the things you want.

And when you accomplish a big goal or reach a milestone, go grab a cold one with some friends or just curl up on the couch and be lazy.

Photo: Claudio Matsuoka