Step 1 – Treat everything on your server and your WordPress installation as a liability and delete it!

So maybe not everything, but chances are there is a lot of junk sitting around on your website that you simply do not need. For me, this included a number of plugins, themes, and files that were sitting there doing nothing, and had to be removed. Ultimately I removed 2 old themes, 3 plugins, and 3 files off of my server. This alone did not have a direct performance impact but helped to secure my site and declutter it. Note, the three files I remover were: Readme.html, license.txt, and wp-config-sample.php. If you have these files, delete them! They’re easy way for hackers to track down your site, and they do nothing except take up space.

Step 2 – Install a caching plugin

This one is probably the most straightforward, so I’m not going to do a deep dive into all of the settings (perhaps in a late post?). I ended up installing W3 Total Cache which seems to be the de facto WordPress plugin for this sort of thing. There are a number of options out there, and had it not been for #5 on this list I might’ve gone with something “simpler”. Even still, if you’re a power use this is definitely the plugin for you.

Step 3 – Setup Cloudflare

Cloudflare is like a pseudo CDN service, that speeds up the delivery of your website and can help to protect it from bots and hackers. They offer both paid and free versions, but for the sake of this article I signed up for the free version. I use this on all of my websites and prefer it to just about anything else. Setup was a cinch for me because I use A Small Orange hosting and in my cPanel there is an option to add Cloudflare to my domains. If you don’t use ASO (you probably should), you can set it up through W3 Total Cache, or just do it manually. Either way it doesn’t take long and the effects are rather pronounced.

Step 4 – Optimize Images

Chances are, images are hurting your page load time more than just about anything else. They tend to be large, and if you don’t optimize them you’re going to be paying a pretty continuous price. Luckily there is an easy way to combat this problem and I actually got the idea from SDavisMedia. The idea is simple, first download ImageOptim (free), then go to your wp-content/uploads folder, and go through each subfolder, download the images, put them into ImageOptim, once compressed upload them again (name will never change), and voila, you’ve got compressed images! I don’t have a ton of images on PeterFoti.com…yet, but if I did it would’ve taken a little while longer. Even still, the speed benefits make it all worth it.

Step 5 – Setup MaxCDN

The final piece the puzzle is the only one that costs money right off the bat, and it is MaxCDN. This service allows you to setup “pull zones”, which can then serve your CSS, JS, and other files from servers around the world depending on what is closest to your incoming visitor. The service is easy to setup through W3 Total Cache, and costs $9 per month for the cheapest plan. Unfortunately I am in a bit of a dispute with them right now, I use a coupon code when signing up for the year, my price in cart was $67.50, but after checkout I was greeted with a $90 invoice. Thus far they’ve not shown even a shred of customer care, and so far the only thing they’ve told me to do is cancel and sign up for a single month at $7, then $9 thereafter (gee thanks). So there customer service might not be great, but the service is, although if they do not refund me properly I may be forced to cancel. Will update with more as it comes in.

Step 6 – Get a new theme (optional)

I realize this isn’t really an option for everyone, but at PeterFoti.com I was fine with it, and I think it played a pretty big role in my page speed going up. Most themes are poorly coded and/or they include a ton of fluff that you simply do not need. If your goal is speed, go with something minimalist, there are plenty of themes that fit this build available for free.

So what did all of this get me? Well as of right now my Google page speed score is……

I think it was all worth it. What do you think? What steps have you taken to increase your page speed? Let me know in the comments, I’m always looking to improve and would love to hear from you!

The post 5 Steps to Speeding up Your WordPress Website appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

Time > Money

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a Fancy Hands fanatic, and I can’t help myself but to spread the good word of the virtual assistant service whenever I see an opening in conversation. For those of you who’re not yet familiar with the service the elevator pitch is Assistants for Everyone. Do what you love. We’ll do the rest. And in my experience thats pretty much exactly what goes down. I have been a Fancy Hands subscriber since August of 2013, and in that time i’ve submitted 80 requests using the service, and by their calculations they’ve made 181 phone calls, scheduled 3 events, sent 2 emails, and overall saved me 1.3 days. 1.3 days! Thats over 30 hours of time that I didn’t have to spend doing stuff over the phone or online. Pretty cool right?

So the reason I’m writing about them today, is that earlier today I was doing my Sunday  review and one of my tasks was to “Have Fancy Hands call current subscriptions and ask for a discount”. This task was inspired by the July 2014 LifeHacker.com article “Have a Bill Haggle Day”. In the piece author Eric Ravenscraft advocates for taking a day, listing out all of your current bills and subscriptions, and calling them individually asking for a discount of some kind.

Enter FancyHands.

3 hours ago I submitted the following request to FancyHands:

Afternoon, I would like for you to please call DirecTV and see if there is anything they can do for me in the way of a discount moving forward. I do not watch a lot of TV (I’m sure they’d be able to see a record of that), and am with them for the Sunday Ticket only. At $100 a month in the “offseason” I am considering canceling my service and foregoing the Sunday Ticket next year.

If there is anything they can do in order to help me stay that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
PJF

I type at just around 100 words a minute, so at 95 words total (not including the salutation which is a TextExpander snippet), this took me about 1 minute to type up and press send. Pressing the “Send Request” button on Fancy Hands is a very liberating feeling. I do hope you’ll try it someday.

18 minutes ago, I got the following email from Fancy Hands:

Hello Peter,
I called DirecTV and explained your concerns, they were able to apply a $15 credit for 6 months to your account, beginning on your next bill.
If you need further assistance please let me know.
Sincerely, Tia G.

Tia G to the rescue!

To recap:

1. I submitted a request to Fancy Hands asking them to see if they could get me a discount on my DirecTV service which took about ~1 minute to do
2. Fancy Hands promptly took the request and kicked ass
3. I get to save $90 over the next 6 months thanks to Tia G.
4. ??????

For the skeptics, this is not an anomaly, Fancy Hands has repeatedly saved me copious about of time and money since I started using them and I suspect they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I may or may not write a more detailed post (with video?) in the future about what other types of tasks I use Fancy Hands for on a monthly basis, if thats something you’d like to see be sure to let me know. And as always, if you have any questions or comments about this reach out! I love talking about Fancy Hands (if you couldn’t already tell)

Convinced?

Want to give Fancy Hands a try and see how much time, money, and effort it can save you? Good news, you can get your first month half off! By Clicking Here you can sign up and get 50% off your first months bill, oh and Fancy Hands will give me $15 off my next months bill.

To recap (again):

1. Click Here to sign up and save 50% off your first month
2. I receive $15 from Fancy Hands for referring you
3. We become best friends and productivity soul mates

The post How Fancy Hands Saved me $90 in 5 Minutes appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

Before we get into specifics, lets talk quickly about the process of creating a recipe with IFTTT. The first thing that you’re going to have to do is specify a trigger. The trigger is the jumping off point for the recipe. Its what lets IFTTT know that you want something to happen. Examples include: new RSS feed item, new favorite tweet, calendar event starts, time and date, etc. Once you’ve settled on when you want something to happen you have to specify the action to take. Actions could be things like: sending you an email, creating a note in Evernote, saving data to a spreadsheet, or sending yourself a text message. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of different triggers and actions. Today we’re only going to touch on a few, but hopefully we can get your createive juices flowing and you’ll be able to envision exactly how you might want to utilize this service in your own life. Lets get started.

1. Trigger – New event gets added to my Google calendar Action – Create a new note in Evernote

This is one of my favorite recipes because it allows me to streamline the note taking process for all of my meetings that get put on my calendar. As a software engineer my meetings consist of things like: standups, sprint planning, retrospectives, client kickoffs, and code reviews. Before I had this process I would take notes on whatever app was open at the time: Sublime text, stickies, text edit, sometimes Evernote, or simply not take notes at all. With that system I was able to take notes (for the most part) but I rarely had all of the the context necessary to make them as useful as possible. Things like: start/end times, other attendes, original description, etc. So what does this recipe do? Well as the title implies, everytime I accept a calendar invite, IFTTT creates a note for me in Evernote that includes all of the basics, as well as a place for all of my notes. No longer do I have to worry about taking notes in my text editor, and putting them in Evernote. Now whenever I have a meeting, I open up Evernote and boom, there’s a meeting note waiting for me that I can work off of. As an added benefit I can use these notes as part of my timeline to see what I was doing on a given day.

2. Trigger – New Foursquare checking – Action – Create a new note in Evernote

I went over my lifelogging process in detail here, but heres the long and the short of it. I use Swarm (formerly Foursquare) to check in everywhere i go. From Best Buy to Peter Luegers and everywhere in between, if i’m there, I check in. Once I do that I have IFTTT automatically create a note that contains all of that check in information. This is great for looking back at where you’ve been and what you’ve done. I also double down on this recipe and have IFTTT create a new calendar event in my Google calendar for each checkin. This allows me to more easily look back at where i’ve been when perusing my calendar.

3. Trigger – New “How I Work” post – Action – Email me

I LOVE the Lifehacker.com “How I Work” series where they take people from all industries and ask them to bare all with regards to how they do what they do. If you’ve never checked it out before I highly recommend reading some of the past posts. You’re all but guaranteed to pickup something from each one you read. Given my love for these articles this recipe should come as no great surprise. I have IFTTT monitor the Lifehacker RSS feed and whenever an article is posted that includes the words “How I Work”, IFTTT emails me to let me know that a new one has been published. This lets me get right into the content without having to constantly check their site to look for the latest in the series.

4. Trigger – New Automatic trip data – Action – New row in Google spreadsheet

As a proponent of the quantified self movement I am a big fan of the Automatic. Automatic is a devices that plugs into your cars onboard computer system and monitors your trips and alerts you when you’re driving in a way that is not gas efficient. With this recipe everytime I complete a trip IFTTT creates a new row in the Google Drive spreadsheet that I have for my Automatic. This allows me to more easily go back to look at trips, and is especially helpful for longer distances so that I can see how much it cost me to drive from A to B. Automatic is constantly improving their product and if you haven’t tried it yet I strongly recommend picking one up.

5. Trigger – Fitbit Daily Summary – Action – New note in Evernote

In case you haven’t noticed, I love Evernote and I try to put as much stuff in there as possible, this recipe is an extension of that. I currently wear a Fitbit flex and with IFTTT I am able to take the data that it collects and put it into my Evernote at the end of each day. This serves to give me even more context when I look back at notes for a given period in time.

So now that we’ve gone over some of my top uses for IFTTT, what about you? Is it something you use? What are some of your favorite recipes? Let me know on Twitter, in the comments, or email me!

The post 5 Time Saving IFTTT Recipes appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

To get started you’re going to need three things: IFTTT account, Swarm account, Evernote account, and a Google account (optional). Once you’ve got those things we can dive into the process of documenting your life.

Step 1 – Funnel Swarm Checkins to Evernote Automatically

The first step in this process is to head over to IFTTT and setup a recipe for taking your Swarm (formerly FourSquare) checkins and turning them into Evernote notes. Doing this is simple. First click on the “Create” button in the top right hand corner of IFTTT. Once you’re on the create a recipe page you want to first select the trigger which in this case is a FourSquare checkin (they haven’t changed it to Swarm, but it still works, I promise.) Once you’ve got that selected its time to create an action. For this I choose to make an Evernote note that goes into a “Timeline” notebook. The note includes everything that IFTTT puts in there automaticlally with the checkin. At this point you’re pretty much ready to rock and roll.

If you want, you can also elect to create another recipe for storing these checkins as events on your Google calendar. If you’re someone like me who has their Sunrise calendar app open all day, it can be nice to see where you’ve been, at a glance.

Step 2 – Checkin everywhere you go

This is pretty self explanatory but if you don’t do it then you won’t get very much out of what we did in step 1. The point here is that no matter where you go, how long you’re there for, or what you’re doing, you should be checking in using Swarm. I checkin if im buying a light bulb from Lowe’s, just as I do if im having a graudation celebration dinner wth my family. It all goes back into my notebook.

One important thing that I like to do when checking in is to provide plenty of context. In Swarm you’re able to add a description, do it. Write down who you’re with, what you’re doing, what is the occasion? Doing this will make step 3 a lot more enjoyable.

Step 3 – Review the data every so often

This last step isn’t really much of a science, its more of a personal preference. Every so often its nice to look back and see where you’ve been, or what you’ve done. I dont have a set schedule for looking over this stuff, but id say that about once a month ill do a review of the past 30 days or so. basically a step by step introduction to how I go about logging all of the events that take place in my life. How do you do it? Is their something I forgot? Let me know!

The post Lifelogging with IFTTT, Evernote, and Swarm appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

At this point you’re either already a Buffer user interested in learning how I use it effectively, or someone whos just heard about it for the first time. For those of you in the latter camp, go ahead and sign up, then come back, and we will continue.

My 3 Pronged Approach For Using Buffer Effectively

1. Find great content that is worth sharing
If the stuff that you’re sharing with your followers is largely worthless, then you’re not going to reap any benefits from having shared it. How can you tell if something is worth sharing? Well, much like porn, you know it when you see it. Did you learn something when you read it? Is it something that hasn’t been talked about a million times before? Will its voice resonate with your audience? Is it in a similar niche? These are all questions that you need to ask yourself before deciding what to share.

2. Researching the author, and constructing the share
Step 2 is where, in my opinion, 90% of people fail. They’ve got a got piece of content (or so they think), and so they drop the link into Buffer without ever giving it a second thought. While you could make the argument that doing this is better than doing nothing at all, its still very poor execution. At this point what I do, is lookup the author in Google to find their Twitter handle. Ill then construct a custom message to go along with the link, that includes a hashtag or two, and a mention of the author.

The number of replies, favorites, and retweets that I receive when I do it this way as oppposed to simply clicking “Add to Buffer” and doing nothing else, is astounding.

3. Schedule the share at the most opportune time
At this point you’ve got a great piece of content that your followers are sure to love, and you’re constructed a top of the line share that is going to garner more favorites and retweets than a vanilla share. The only thing that is left to do is to make sure that you put that content in front of your audience…..when they’re actually online. If you’re sharing your best stuff at 4am on Sunday then chances are no one is going to see it. What you need to do is use a service such as SocialBro that can run a report and tell you when your followers are most active. Then tune your Buffer schedule to match those times.

My Tweet Times

Recap
Find great content, put some effort into the way it is presented, and share it at an optimal time. If you do this, I promise that your results will be better than if you did not.

Any questions? Leave a comment, or send me an email (I always reply.)

The post How I Buffer Effectively appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

Alright, so now that you’ve got the app downloaded and installed its time to poke around and learn the basics of Alfred. For users of Spotlight you’ll feel right at home in terms of how it presents itself, but the comparisons between the two largely stop there. Alfred is not on
ly faster (much faster) than Spotlight, but it also has a plethora of features that Spotlight does not, nor will it ever, and we’ll cover those a bit later. Anyway, once you’ve got Alfred up and running the first thing you need to do is pick a hot key that you’ll use to bring up Alfred. The most natural seems to be the CMD+Space combination, and thats what I use. One thing to note is that Spotlight uses that combination by default so you’re going to have to turn that off. To make that happen head over to your System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Uncheck the box next to “Spotlight menu keyboard shortcut:”. Doing that will allow Alfred to take over that hotkey. Something you’ll notice after doing that however is that the Spotlight icon is still present in your menu bar. If you’re like me and prefer to keep that as tidy as possible then you’ll want to remove it. In order to make that happen you’ll need to open up your Terminal from /Applications/Utilities and paste in the following: sudo chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search press return, then paste the following and hit return as well killall SystemUIServer. If you decide at some later date that you’d like to get the icon back you can simply run the following two commands: sudo chmod 600 /System/Library/CoreServices/Search.bundle/Contents/MacOS/Search return, and then killall SystemUIServer return.

If everything worked out for us the way that it was supposed to after that last paragraph, you should now: 1. Have Alfred installed and running 2. Be able to call it by pressing CMD+Space 3. Not have to see or deal with Spotlight anymore. All good? Alright, lets move on to how we can use Alfred to help us be more productive.

Opening Applications
The main usage point for Alfred is as an application launcher. What does that mean? It means that instead of dragging your mouse to an applications icon, you can now press CMD+Space and type in the name of the app, press enter, and have it launched for you right away. Even for those of you who’re not able to type at a blistering rate, you will be faster using this method. Go ahead and give it a try, how does it feel? Another thing that you can do is use Alfred to switch between applications on your machine. I personally stick to using one desktop and then rely on a combination of Alfred and Alt+Tab to switch between everything. As you can imagine, I’m running 10+ programs simultaneously more often than not so Alt+Tab tends to get pretty cumbersome pretty quickly. For that reason, if I want to access Spotify (which is already open) and Safari is my top most window, I can Alfred into Spotify without having to cycle through all of the other apps that may be open at that time.

Custom Web Searches
I am not sure the last time I went to Google.com to type in a search, or even typed in a search in Safari. When I want to search Google for something, all I need to do is pull up Alfred and type in whatever it is I want to search for. So long as the thing that I’m searching for isn’t also the name of an application on my machine, this is a great way to efficiently search the web. Alfred lets you do more though, they’re called custom web searches and they’re pretty awesome. Basically you can take any website that has a search functionality, and integrate it with Alfred. When you download Alfred it comes with a number of these searches built in, and honestly I haven’t had to add very many. The ones I use most often? Amazon {query}, gmail {query}, youtube {query}. What am I doing there? Well, pull up alfred and type in amazon (space) and then the name of something you’d like to search for in Amazon, press enter, and see what happens. Wasn’t that cool? What kinds of websites do you frequent that you’d like to mimic that behavior with? There is a lot more that we can do with web searches, but for now I think that this is enough to get your feet wet.

Calculator/System Commands/And more
The last of the major (basic) features that I want to touch on are the calculator/system commands/ and a few other minor switches. The calculator is something I use at least once per day, I’m not sure it’ll work for those of you doing calculus but for quick calculations theres no way to get to a calculator faster. Moreover, you can actually copy the result of your equation by pressing enter. This is incredibly helpful for relaying the result of your problem to whomever it is you need to relay it to. For system commands, you can say things like: lock, empty trash, shutdown, sleep, etc. Theres no reason to reach for your mouse when you want to accomplish these sorts of things, and with Alfred you don’t have to. Lastly you can run terminal/shell commands if you’re a 1337 h4cker and thats your thing. You can also find contacts, and use the built in dictionary to check spelling or grab definitions.

We’ve come a long way in 1,100 words. At the beginning you were a mouse wielding human, and now you’re a keyboard mashing super human. Nice! There is plenty more that you can do with Alfred once you’ve got the power pack, things like workflows can save you exponential amounts of time. You can also directly integrate with iTunes, 1Password, Recent Documents, and even sync your settings via Dropbox. Would you like to see a post from me detailing the use of the power pack? Let me know in the comments below, or email me and ill be sure to make it happen.

The post Getting Started with Alfred appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

Culture
While it takes a little bit for it to get going, the end of the book is all about the culture of Zappos, how it was formed, what it means and why its important. For me, working as a sole proprietor at a desk by myself with no physical employees to speak of the term “culture” never really meant much to me, although it had been something that i’d heard in the past. Anyone who has ever order a product from Zappos or called their customer service can tell pretty quickly that this is not your typical company. In fact, if every company embodied the values set forth by the Zappos culture the business world (and entire world for that matter) would be a better place. Unlike most companies, Zappos doesn’t time their phone conversations nor do they give their customer service agents any kind of script to work with. They want you to talk to a customer like you’re talking to a friend as you help them resolve whatever issue it is that they’re having. The book goes into great detail about what the culture of Zappos is all about, and for me it all boiled down to making your customers, employees, vendors, buyers, etc. all as happy as possible. Whether its a surprise upgrade to free overnight shipping, paying more severance than is required after a round of layoffs, or paying for dinner with the likes of Steve Madden, its all apart of what Zappos such a great company to work for and deal with. I could go on for days (and so could Tony) about how important the culture is to Zappos, what it means and how it was created, but I won’t. Rather, if it sounds like something that is of interest to you (and it should be) I would advise you to read the book.

Risk Taking
A short while after graduating from college, Tony was employed at Oracle, a job that most of his peers would’ve killed for. What he realized however that sitting at a desk all day running tests as an engineer didn’t really interest him, and so he left, taking the first major risk of his life to start a company with a co-worker and former college roommate. The company, “LinkExchange” would be a primate startup by todays standards, but after working tirelessly on their product they were eventually bought out by Yahoo for $165 million dollars. For most people that is the end game, never again would you need to work to live happily and its time to pack up your things and start traveling the world. For Tony however that wasn’t the end game, and while the book goes into more detail the long and the short of it is that he and a friend launched a venture capital firm “Venture Frogs” and began investing in startup companies in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Then one day a man approached him with an idea for an online shoe store that he’d started; he had a website to take orders, and was selling shoes out of his home. He knew that it was the next big thing and ultimately Tony did as well. It didn’t take long for Tony to fund the startup and become the CEO. What then happened however was a resistance from Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms in terms of investment. Over time this amounted to Tony eventually selling all of his worldly possessions and putting (literally) every dollar he had into what became Zappos. Their were times wherein he and the company almost went broke, but he believed in what he was doing and we obviously know how it turned out. The moral of this story is simple, don’t be afraid to think big and take bigger risks. For more information in regards to the story of Zappos you should of course read the book.

Happiness
Towards the end of the book Tony talks quite a bit about what it means to be happy. Theirs a pretty interesting chart that talks about the three biggest things that people want to achieve in life. They include; growing a company, getting a great job, finding the perfect soulmate, and being healthy. In the chart it goes through a condensed version of what each leads to for instance if you grow a company you’ll get to retire early, spending more time with the family and it ultimately leads to happiness. If you are healthy, and can run faster and then ultimately run a marathon whats it all for? So that you can be happy. If you get a great job, and make a lot of money and someday buy a home whats its all for? So that you can be happy. I think you get the idea. He then talks about how happiness is really about perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness, and vision/meaning. The end result of all this is to help you realize that if you want to be happy you really need to do something that has a higher purpose beyond just money, profits or being number one in a market. Tony talks about some of his happiest moments in his life and surprisingly none of them revolved around money, for instance he talks about climbing to the summit of Mount Kilamanjaro and just being overcome with emotion and thats just one of the many things he delves in to.

Beyond those three things I highlighted a few passages from the book that I thought were pretty educational and interesting.

“I walked away from that experience with the lesson that sometimes the truth alone isn’t enough, and that presentation of the truth was just as important as the truth”. Full story on page 19.

“I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.” Full story on page 53

“Never outsource your core competency.” Full story on page 130.

Conclusion
While the book might sound like a hip hip hooray type of journey, its actually super informative and takes you inside the mind and thought process of one of the worlds best entrepreneurs. I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who wants to run their own company, as you’re sure to walk away from it with a greater understanding of what it means to have a good company culture, what it means to be happy and why takings calculated risks is sometimes worth it.

To purchase this book and read it for yourself, simply click here

Next weeks book is Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow and Nathan Whitaker. Im only 4 chapters into this one and I can already tell that its going to be a great book from start to finish.

For those of you that have read the Tony Hsieh book, what were your thoughts? Id love to converse a bit about the book, its teachings and whatever else you found interesting. Please feel free to leave a comment below and lets chat!

The post Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh Book Review appeared first on Peter Foti [dot] com.

Week ones’ book was titled, “WillPower” and was written by world renowned psychologists, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. I wanted to kick off my year with this mainly because I had heard such glowing reviews from several people that I respect greatly in my industry. Furthermore, I couldn’t help by realize that reading a book on how to increase your willpower would only be of further benefit to me as I attempt to accomplish some rather lofty goals that i’ve set for myself this year (more to come on those later). For now however lets jump right into the book.

For starters let me just say that the entire book at a very “Freakanomics” feel to it in that he proposed different situations and helped you to understand them in a way that you’ve never thought of before. For instance ill bet you didn’t know that the best time to go for a parole board hearing in Israel is first thing in the morning, or first thing after lunch did you? The reason, is based on a central concept of the book and that is the fact that your brain uses glucose whenever its trying to make a decision. Upon eating you’re body has its highest levels of glucose present and consequently you’re more apt to making a good decision. In the case of the Israeli prisoners, those that saw the judge first thing in the morning (after he ate breakfast) or first thing after lunch were exponentially more likely to receive parole than those who saw him after his glucose had been depleted (later in the day).

The book talks about some main concepts, with glucose depletion being one of them. Another one however that I found rather interesting was the concept of decision fatigue, and the example that is uses is that of Elliot Spitzer. When people are in positions of power (like Spitzer was) their job is to essentially make decisions all day long. Each time you do that of course your glucose level drops a bit and by the end of the day you’re “brain is fried” and thus you’re more apt to making poor decisions just as Elliot did. As a New York state governor (or normal person for that matter) a non fatigued brain would’ve never purchased hookers using a government expense account, but he didn’t think that like when making his poor decisions. The decisions that he had made during the day depleted his willpower at night and allowed him to join the likes of Bill Clinton and countless other politicians that let their secondary desires ruin their careers.

Another primary concept of the book is the idea of ego depletion which was first introduced by Freud many moons ago. Roy Baumesiter however adopted the term and in essence it is the definition for when peoples ability to regulate their thoughts, feelings and actions becomes deteriorated, or its capacity is greatly diminished. Basically if you use energy by exerting your willpower then eventually you’re going to fail. This is a very dense concept one that while discussed at length in the book probably has entire books written about it already. Before this book however I had never heard of ego depletion but the science behind it all made a ton of sense to me. For instance if you are trying to lose weight and someone offers you a cookie early in the day and you decline you’ve just used willpower. Then suppose you have to make the decision at lunch whether to drink a soda or a water, when you choose water you’ve further depleted your willpower. By the end of the day you’re much more likely to make a poor decision if your ego has become depleted.

The last major concept that I wanted to touch on was that of the hot-cold empathy gap which is basically a nice way of saying that everyone is a hero in their own mind. Most people when they’re home and in their cozy confines will tell you that if they were ever in a situation wherein someone was being raped that they’d jump in, assault the rapist and call the authorities immediately. Or they might say that if they were ever walking along on the street and saw someone drop a $100 bill that they’d give it back without thinking twice about it. The book makes the point however that when you’re actually in those situations you’re much more likely to do the opposite of what you see. You might run away from the rapist in fear of being assaulted. You might keep the $100 and justify it by saying that the lady had a $500 Gucci purse so she couldn’t possibly need the money to live and that you’re not hurting anyone. Those are extreme examples and the book uses some more interesting ones, but I won’t ruin them for those who’d like to read it in the future, which by the way, I recommend in a big way.

I have every intention of reading this book again at some point in the future, because while it was only 300 pages it contained a plethora of information that I want to read over again. Its my personal recommendation that if you haven’t already, you purchase this book TODAY. While its titled WillPower, this is not a self help book perse and I think that everyone would benefit in some way shape or form from reading it.

For those interested, next weeks books is Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh.

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