on time and happiness

speed vs. quality

one of the most obvious facts today is, that speed increased dramatically. That holds not only true for the computers you work with but your daily schedule as well.

To find a break and re-gain some time is often a hard task. Even more so, if your job requires your attention more often than not. Find below a list of things you can do, to simplify your life or just reduce noise.

newspapers

i find it amusing how many people read newspapers. Most of the stuff in there are ads. Some are labeled as those, others are disguised as content. If you really want to know something, you should use in-depth or niche magazines. They can cover you with much more useful information while the average newspapers just tips a toe into every puddle - with no real background. Save some time and do not read up on daily news. The more important things will come through to you, anyway.

News is something someone somewhere doesn’t want printed. Everything else is advertising. — Lord Northcliffe

avoid ads

similar to avoid reading newspapers, avoid ads. They all try to make you feel bad, if you do not have 'this' or 'that'. Do not give them the power to make you feel bad. It is just plain wrong. Exactly the opposite is the case: If you are happy with less things, the less your happiness can be taken down. Being a constant target for thousands of companies one is confronted with more than 10.000 ad impressions per day (on- and offline). This creates a huge noise in the head that you just do not need.

focus

Whenever you do something, do it. Do only this and nothing else. It is a good thing, humans can do more than one thing at a time, but you should not do it. Why? Easy: It distracts you and sucks energy out of you. You will be better at whatever you are doing, if you just focus on that and leave the rest as it is. Then, you will get much more reward and satisfaction from that. That alone is worth the focus. But even more so: Feeling now rewarded and completely finished with one thing, you are much more concentrated, focused and happy to work on the next task. So, you will reach a higher happiness and life-quality like that.

listen to music

our brain is educated with facts and figures. We all think, we decide on a rationale base. But that is simply not true. If you want to let more good feelings in your day, listen to music. It makes you emotions come out and take over. They are supposed to do that, we are just trained to avoid that. Letting your emotions be more up-front helps you to reduce stress. They are an outlet for all your bad feelings and help you to re-focus.

write

if you are confronted with a huge amount of minor tasks, do yourself a favor and write them down. Even, if they are probably faster to do than to write down. If you plan your day with a list of things to do, it helps you stay focussed. But there is more to that: If you get new tasks throughout the day, you can just write them down and avoid to become distracted. They are just added and not mixed up with your tasks. And now for the best: Checking all these items off, one by one is a reward. It enables some hormones in our bodies to feel better. So why would you cut that out, just for the sake of not writing it down?

reflect

more often than not we are just stressed with what we are doing. I remember times, where i just flew to the next task, not even noticing how many i already had done. That drains our batteries. So, why not stop for a moment once in a while and look back? It helps you to understand what you already accomplished. It helps you to feel better because you can see your progress, your achievements and how you evolved over time. Other than that, it should help you to arrange things in the future to be more aligned with your wishes and targets.

sleep

sleeping is, where our body recharges. Do you really think it is worth that one hour that it takes longer in the evening to finish something? Well, you are wrong. It does not fit the bill, if you realize that this energy is missed from the next day. Think of your energy as a dose you get per day. If you work longer, you just steal the energy from tomorrow. Even if you do not realize it, but working over hours for more than a week drains you so much, it will have a huge impact of your performance for more than one week. So, just stick with it: go to bed early and regularly. There are no excuses. You will benefit from that dramatically.

eat healthy

It looks so obvious to do, but it is the most often thing to ignore. People always get lazy (because of all the work, you know?) and then they start to cut off the good and important things first. Eating good and healthy food is so important to us, our bodies and our overall performance it should be the least possible way of saving time. Instead of going to restaurants which are all in competition price-wise and therefore deliver low or even bad quality cook for yourself. Choose only the best ingredients you can find. If you have to opt for restaurants, choose salad more often and try to go to these restaurants that avoid glutamate and other non-beneficial ingredients. It will boost your energy better than any energy drink could give you.

eat chocolate

in one sentence i tell you to eat healthy. And in the next one i tell you to eat chocolate. Is this guy crazy or something? No, i am not. You should have sweets in your day. But avoid them right before or after a meal. They should be in, when your concentration lowers or your mood is down. It kicks off some hormones to get you back on track. But remind yourself: Just a bit of chocolate is enough! You do not get 10x more happiness if you eat 10x more chocolate…

drink

Our human body is 70% water. Our brain can not work without water. Make it a habit to drink. If you hands are dry or your eyes are hurting, that is a clear sign that you do not drink enough. Go, get yourself a pitcher of water on your table and drink it through out the day. It should help you stay more concentrated and make you more productive.

communicate honestly

if you feel bad with a decision in your team or someone is offensive, whatever it is, that bugs you: go and get a clean table with it. In most cases it is best to just talk to the one in person. If that does not help, try to get help from a .

simple is enough

do not use office. Use notepad.

smile

people work like this: if you smile at them, they smile back. So, if you smile all day long, people will smile back. Imagine a world where everyone smiles at you. Go for it, it is in your hand.

tidy up

clean your workspace, tidy up your desk. Some people need chaos to work properly. These are creative workers and most of them still need some tidiness. So, it is not that you need it, but you are lazy. Get over it, tidy up and feel free with your environment reflecting your minds state.

exercise

It is a good idea to move your body as often as possible. But you should exercise at least once a week. Twice is even better. The more agile your body is, the more agile your brain works. Simple as that.