Expedients to procrastination

I’m addicted to self improvement and self help books, some time ago, I don’t remember wich book was but is a recurring subject, I read about some techniques to help you do what you are not able to stick with.

I got a real problem, the source of this blog really is my necessity to find something helping me not to procrastinate, take action and stay focused on a subject at hand. Those three words are a part of the solution: procrastination, take action be focused.
Take the first, I often find myself in a state of mind where I need to do something, I know I have to, it needs only a little mental step to do it like a jump… but I don’t do that! Let’s make an example, in the evening I know I have to wake me up at 5.00 AM the next morning. And “I have to…” doesn’t mean I have to be at work at 6 but more “I want” to wake me up early to work on “my secret project” MSP. So I set my alarm at 5.00 AM. The next morning it’s so easy to ignore the alarm, sleep on, forget about my MSP and lose many precious hours.

My techniques to overcome this are two: first, motivate myself before go to sleep, say to myself that “I HAVE TO WAKE UP” because MSP it’s really important to realize my unlived life (what I would like to be but I’m not yet); second, and more effective, when the alarm start ringing, I need something to keep me awake, a trick. I usually turn myself on the back, because this way it’s harder for me fall asleep, and I put a leg out of the blanket to be sure not to sleep again. This way it works, in about 10 minutes I realize I have to wake up.

These are the tricks I need to keep me going on my motivation and self improvement journey.
I hope you all will post your comments to help me find some more tricks to try.
I leave the other 2 subjects, take action and be focused for further reading in next posts.

afoolfighting

My self improvement and motivational book list

It’s a lot of time I have my favorite books in mind, some of them I read two or three times, here is my list:

1 – The Black Swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb – Open up your mind, give you a new perspective on how many things we take for granted and are not.
2 – The Power of Less – Leo Babauta – I often feel overwhelmed by things to do, I love this book cause it give some solutions to the problem.
3 – The War of Art – Steven Pressfield – Great book, reading it I understood what my ego means and hate it. I hate a bit also Pressfield because on the book he uncover this truth to me.
4 – The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason – I didn’t read it but listened to the audiobook many many many times going to work by car and it’s amazing! This title motivate me a lot, knowing that all this stuff were Babylonian belief it’s huge.
5 – A Whole New Mind – Daniel H. Pink – Creativity is definitely something you need, in order to reach an higher state… financially or mentally.
6 – The 4-Hour Workweek – Timothy Ferriss – Turns your mind up-side-down, I would like to emulate his lifestyle.
afoolfighting

 

The 4-Hour Workweek

Weight loss

Christmas has passed and I feel a bit over weight, I am always seated at work, winter it’s not really good to run or bike and even swimming, what I was doing once a week, I’m not good anymore to stick with.

Since two or three weeks I’m asking my self why I’m not able to stick with a commitment like say “go swimming once a week” or “run two evenings a week for 30 minutes”. It’s not easy to manage all the things to do every day, your job, play with your son, declutter your house, dealing with some dates or other commitments.

So I will start from my diet, some principles I would like to apply to it are:

1. keep hunger
2. don’t satisfy the moment greed but think when you feel better, more ‘in shape’, more slim…
3. think of what are your meal composed of, especially if you are eating snacks, sweets and so on
4. when you have a snack find better alternatives to fat food like: fruits, nuts, vegetables
5. during meals eat more vegetables, fruits and less carbs

I have prepared some assignments referring previous principles, this are assignment for myself but it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t follow them:

• for breakfast substitute cookies with fruits
• keep hunger between meals until you hear some stomach noise and maybe have a little of headache. Than keep hunger for at least half an hour before eating
• In the evening don’t eat too much at dinner, don’t eat sugar, cookies and milk and eat at least two hours before go to bed
• every time you look at a snack please visualize the following image thinking of the impact it will have on your life, think at all the things being overweight can prevent you to do with your family, your son, your wife and so on.

I started talking about not being able to stick with a commitment, this is a common issue for many peoples. In the case of fat loss I find helpful remember why I’m not eating a snack. I want to fell better with myself, feel in shape, have the possibility to play with my son as many days as I can and enjoy all the things life will bring to me.

I will write my updates on my weight… today I’m 88 kg.

afoolfighting

UPDATES:

12-27-2010 – I can’t resist and eat my mother’s chocolate cake this evening.

12-29-2010 – My mom’s chocolate cake is finished!

12-30-2010 – For breakfast only fruits, no croissant!

I don’t know…

I really don’t know where to start from. There are so many thoughts I had from the time I started to think on writing a blog.

Basically I would like it to be a set of post regarding my journey on self improving myself.

How many things this means… so many that I even don’t imagine. Some are already running on my head, they appear some times between a line of code, I’m a software engineer, or  laughing with my son, driving my car the way back home don’t even remembering if I stopped at traffic lights.

It’s time to start, this will make me grow, I hope, improve my English, with my audience’s help; at the moment I don’t have a audience but… never mind, I could even don’t ever have a audience and I will learn so much on myself that it will worth writing it.

You may ask me why “a fool fighting”? I look at me and I see a stupid man continuously fighting against everything like many of us do daily but don’t really knowing where are going. A fool as  someone looking at things without preconceptions, innocently as they are and searching the real essence of them in depth. As someone said “know yourself” I’m convinced that my ego is the main obstacle to overcome to reach what I really want. I want to meet my ego, study him, knowing him and find out methods to preventing him to hurt me.

I just please anybody reading something on this blog to make me aware of any mistake and I will correct them.

afoolfighting