TonsofTime – Enjoy the now

A fellow member of my Sangha sent me the link to this video. It has the chant of a monk and the words of the zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who I admire very much. And of course some great views of nature.

The Great Bell Chant from R Smittenaar on Vimeo.

The blog I Will Teach You To Be Rich features an excellent article by Cal Newport. Cal is a very successfull computer scientist and in this blogpost he reveals the secrets of his astonishing high productivity rate:

This past summer, for example, I completed my PhD in computer science at MIT. Simultaneous with writing my dissertation I finished the manuscript for my third book, which was handed in a month after my PhD defense and will be published by Random House in the summer of 2010. During this past year, I also managed to maintain my blog, Study Hacks, which enjoys over 50,000 unique visitors a month, and publish over a half-dozen peer-reviewed academic papers.

Put another way: I’m no slacker. But with only a few exceptions, all of this work took place between 8:30 and 5:30, only on weekdays. (My exercise, which I do every day, is also included in this block, as is an hour of dog walking. I really like my post-5:30 free time to be completely free.)

Here are some of Cal’s tips:

• Be ruthlessly results oriented. Analyse everything that comes on your path to see wether it will help you achieve results.
• Be very clear when people you deal with can expect results and keep your promises
• Refuse all potential projects if you queue is too crowded
• Don’t be afraid to drop a project when it turns out to be a drain on your time and energy or strays from your goals.
• Try to be less visible or available to others, for instance by working in less visible places, like a corner of a library.
• Batch and habitatize, try to create a habit of regularly occuring tasks by performing them on a fixed time of day.
• Start early on projects.
• Stick to your schedule if it works and do not appologize to people when they demand more access.

What I like about this post is that although the author quits working at 5.30 PM and never works on weekends, he is very productive. So apparently, there is a paradox: limiting yourself, you will perform better.

Last year, I studied the Rule of Benedict and how it can be applied to time management. See this book if you want to learn more. I use it often to create my own time boxes: I set a timer to 60 minutes and focus myself to keep on working on the same task for this period. But when the timer is ended and the hour is over, I immediately stop. Then I pauze for 15 minutes before I start another sequence, often a very different task. It’s a bit like time box management.

Here is a link to the complete article:
Time management: How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers and finishes by 5:30pm | I Will Teach You To Be Rich

See also the site charterforcompassion.org

Image courtesy of Zen

Last month, I have read the book The Power of Less by Leo Babauta.

After the announcement on the blog Zen Habits in January, I decided to order a copy of the book. Amazon however did not have enough stock and when I tried six months later, I could finally obtain it.

In The Power of Less, a number of chapters deal with changing the way you do things step by step. We get a prescription on how to install new habits and how to eradicate unhealthy ones. Important hereby is, to limit yourself to changing one habit at the time and setting achievable, easy goals, in order to keep motivation and the sense of progression.

Another important aspect of this guide is simplifying everything you do. This reminded me of Edward de Bono’s simplicity principles, although Leo Babauta does not use references to other books. The easy way we can simplify is:
1. Identify the essential
2. Eliminate the rest

Six easy principles for enhancing productivity
The productivity system in The Power of Less is easy to implement and removes all the complexity that we know from other systems like Getting Thing Done. Focus on the essential and eliminating distractions are the key elements. Like Leo sums it up:
1. Set limitations
2. Choose the essential
3. Simplify
4. Focus
5. Create Habits
6. Start Small

I liked the book very much. It is very easy to read and motivating; you want to start implementing the tips immediately!

The Power of Less at Amazon

Hi,

I am studying for the LPI Level II certificate. I have just passed the exam LPI 201 last Friday and I have created a Freemind mindmap, to help me remind of the topics of the next exam, LPI 202. I based this mindmap on the topics of April 2009 (beware: only for the 202 exam). I used the great tool text-to-freemind for this.

I thought it would be nice to share it with you. You can download the mindmap here. (Right-click and choose ’save target as’.)

Last Sunday, at the Holland Festival, I attended (although not participated) a dance masterclass of the famous dancer Damian Woetzel. He explained some interesting things about what he found that was ‘great’ about dance and ballet performers.

Damian ended his masterclass by showing us this little film:

Maybe you know it, since it was published in 2008, but to me this film shows that there are people all over the world who just want to have fun. It moved me and brought a big smile to my face.

Where the hell is matt?

After reading the first part of the article of Tim Ferriss about the letter of Seneca to Paulinus entitled “On the Shortness of Life”, I decided to read the entire Seneca text. At a quiet Sunday morning, I sat in the garden and started to read the English translation. I had some trouble with the old school English, so I turned to the Dutch translation, since this is my native language.

The short summary of the letter from Seneca is: do not waste your time. Seneca in this text does not explain extensively which activities would not constitute time-wasting. In stead, he devotes a large number of paragraphs to explain why he thinks a great number of people are spending too much time on chasing money, power, fame or easy sensual pleasure.

I have to make an income, so I work. Would Seneca consider this a senseless activity? To me, it is a necessity.

Seneca argues that if you do not give in to distractions, your life seems longer. I agree with this completely. It is what my zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls: “Achieving more by doing less”. For me, this means: do not waste too much time with zapping the television or chatting (as I did) with a number of people on the Internet. What I find remarkable is that if you are zapping TV channels or senselessly surfing the Internet, time seems to fly by and at the end of the evening, I used to ask myself: “where did the time go?”

Picture courtesy of Uwe Eischens

Once you stop with things like that, other, more meaningful opportunities open.

It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.

In the letter of Seneca, the author stresses that you should not let others claim your time too much. The example that Tim Ferriss gives is that if somebody would ask you to give him $ 100,-, you would kindly decline, but when somebody invites you to a 2 hour meeting that has no interest to you personally, you would be much more reluctant to decline.

This is definitely something I can relate to. As a young IT specialist, I was known within my family and friends as the guy they could call if they had some problem with their computer. This has cost me a lot of time back then, and I also found out that people would take my help largely for granted. Then one day, I decided that I would stop playing the free help desk, helping nobody anymore, save a few close relatives. I also like the T-shirt that says: “No, I will not fix your computer!” and I think that if you are a physician, people would also ask you medical details during birthday parties or receptions and you would also have to maintain the “no help-policy” for your own protection.

But what, according to Seneca, constitutes the beneficial ways to spend your time? I know from Googling about his work, that this would be a life in reflection, practicing philosophy and reading books of wisdom. This is what I miss in this letter, because here, Seneca does not write much about why these activities are good for you.

As a practicing Buddhist, I believe in mindfulness (being attentive to what you do), concentration (focus on one thing) and insight (that comes when you practice mindfulness and concentration). Focus on the essentials, daily meditation and keeping your balance give a feeling of calmness and having more patience with others. I do not know if this has any resemblance to the ideal activities in Seneca’s mind, though!

This summer, I have read the book Happiness of Matthieu Ricard.

The book starts with examining the nature of happiness. What is the definition?

By hapiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being.

Ricard has studied a lot of material about happiness which he quotes and comments on throughout the book. One central theme is that achieving happiness is a skill that can be learned; happiness does not come to us automatically.

Ricard elaborates on the subject of happiness by analyzing what makes us happy and what not. His reasoning is very logical and almost scientific. It is in no way esoteric or religiously biased. He states that scientific research has shown that rich people are not more happy, although people need a basic level of material well-being. The author also makes clear that our happiness does not depend on outer circumstances at all.

Being a Tibetan monk, Ricard uses sources from the buddhist tradition, like non-self, the roots of suffering, the difference between emotions and feelings. He also analyses disturbing emotions like desire, hatred and envy. These chapters reminded me of the book Destructive Emotions, a report about a dialogue between The Dalai Lama and Western scientists, whereby Matthieu Ricard was the translator for His Holiness.

I have enjoyed reading this book very much, while I was staying with my family in Hungary in August. It is eloquently written, well grounded in science and philosophy and can resist criticism from the more rational readers.

Recognize suffering,
Eliminate its source,
End it
By practicing the path

Photo courtisy of Nicolas Valentin

Tina Su from the blog Think Simple Now has written a great post about how to organise a day of – what I would call mindfulness to regain focus and spend quality time with yourself. By scheduling a clarity day like Tina suggests, you can ‘reconnect with your inner self’.

I’ve always been attracted to the idea of a Spiritual Day or a Clarity Day, in which you spend the whole day disconnected from the information world and the many distractions of modern life, and start to connect within yourself.

If this sounds too mystical, don’t get caught up with the words, they are just linguistic symbols to communicate ideas. When you really get into such a day, it can become a source of great bliss and understanding of one’s self. During these times, we can experience tremendous personal growth, peace, and satisfaction.

Find clarity in one day