I don’t take particularly much effort to dumb it down, but most people should be able to understand this as is.

Digestion & metabolism

Digestion is the act of processing for absorption. Absorption brings food into the body. Metabolism is the process of processing this absorbed food in the body.

It can be viewed as crossing 4 important digestive organs:

1. Mouth
2. Stomach
3. Small intestine
4. Large intestine

Mouth

The mouth is used to mechanically crush food, making it easier for the intestines to absorb foods. Were we not to chew, the enzymes and acids in digestion would not be able to break down, for example, a whole carrot.

In addition, the mouth contains enzymes that superficially break down starches. It contains the enzyme amylase, which breaks down starches into more simple carbohydrate structures like sugars.

Stomach

The stomach is not the place where most foods are absorbed. Its main function is to use acidity and the enzyme pepsin to break proteins down into their constituent amino acids.

The stomach does absorb some fat soluble substances like alcohol and some drug types. This is usually however in small amounts.

Small intestine

This is where most of the magic happens. Here a cascade of enzymes and bile break down and solve macronutrients and micronutrients for absorption.

Large intestine

Most digestion here is done by bacteria. They are responsible for producing vital vitamins like vitamin K and some forms of vitamin B. Also, the last water and electrolytes (like NaCl salt) are absorbed here.

Metabolism

After passing the intestines the processed substances pass the liver. This happens before the substances reach the overall blood circulation.

The liver is a filter that processes absorbed for before it reaches the blood.

After having passed the liver the absorbed substances circulate in the blood where they await absorption and processing by whatever body part uses them.

Understand carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are a macronutrient class that most people associate with bread, potato, rice and sweet things. They are however present in most foods.

Chemical profile

Carbohydrates (carbs) are substances consisting of:

• Carbon (C atoms)
• Hydrogen (H atoms)
• Oxygen (O atoms)

The name carbohydrate stems from the ratio of H to O usually being 2:1. That means that for example glucose (C6 with H12 and O6) can be seen as C6 and 6(H2O), H2O being water.

Classifying carbs

Most carbohydrates that humans eat consist out of ring structures. For example, glucose & fructose are rings of 6 carbons (Note that most circular monosaccharides can also exist as straight unringed forms).

Carbohydrates are classified based on their length, e.g. how many rings are linked together.

Amylose is an example of a starch, it is a long chain of glucose rings.

While the most commonly known sugar is glucose, there are many more substances classifying as sugars:

Sucrose is also known as table sugar.

Carbohydrate digestion

Longer carb chains like starches and oligosaccharides are not absorbed into the body as such. They are first broken down to their constituent sugars. The majority of carbohydrates is broken down to and absorbed in the form of:

1. Galactose
2. Glucose
3. Fructose

All of the above are single rings or monosaccharides. Their metabolism happens in the following order:

1. Amylase enzyme in the mouth breaking long starches into shorter ones
2. Amylase in the small intestine to break them down further
3. Brush border enzymes (dextrinase, glucoamylase, lactase, maltase, sucrase) in the small intestines to break them down to basic sugars
4. Absorption of basic sugars (cotransport with sodium ions)

Sugar metabolism

The body does not use sugars as energy directly. It first uses them to create ATP (adenosine tri phosphate) which is the energy currency of human cells.

Glucose and fructose are metabolised in different areas. As a rule fructose can only be converted into ATP by the liver. Glucose on the other hand can be metabolised throughout the entire body.

Glucose metabolism

When glucose hits the bloodstream, the body produces insulin to stimulate its absorption by cells all over the body.

Glucose itself is not good at entering cells

Glucose when it goes up triggers the release of insulin.

Insulin is a signalling molecule that tells cells all over the body to open their doors for glucose. If these doors would always be open blood sugar could get dangerously low, and if they do not open at all, well, you have diabetes.

This glucose door is a class of transport proteins called the GLUT transporters, of which GLUT–4 is the most relevant with insulin. Basically, what happens is:

1. Glucose levels in the blood are high
2. The pancreas senses this and produces insulin
3. Insulin triggers the connection of GLUT–4 to the cell membrane
4. GLUT–4 transports glucose to the inside of the cell

Once inside the cell glucose is metabolised and broken down:

1. Through glycolysis glucose is converted to pyruvate
2. Pyruvate is processed to acetyl-CoA
3. The (krebs) citric acid cycle in mitochondria use acetyl-CoA to produce energy
4. Oxydative phosporylation from the citric acid cycle used to produce more energy

The overall efficiency of the above aerobic system is about 66%. In anaerobic conditions (not enough oxygen) the body relies on other systems that are far less efficient.

Understand Proteins

The protein macronutrient class is usually associated with meats, cheese, fish and other calorie dense foods.

Chemical profile

Proteins are chains of amino acids linked together. An amino acid has:

• An amine group (-NH2)
• A carbolic acid group (-COOH)
• A side chain (R) differing per amino acid

When two amino acids link, we call the result a peptide. There are 22 amino acids that make up protein/peptide chains. 20 of those are coded in our DNA code, the remaining two are not used directly by our DNA code.

Classifying proteins

So when does a polypeptide become a protein? Technically all proteins are polypeptides. There is no clear boundary, but as a rule of thumb polypeptides that fold into a set structure are often called proteins.

The chain of amino acids will give rise to a specific structure. While the details can get quite complex the basic essence is that amino acids have electromagnetic charges that make parts of a protein chain attract and repel each other.

It’s kind of like taking a shoe string and rolling it between your hands to create a ball. Depending on the length and consistency of the shoestring you’ll get a tangled ball of a certain type.

Protein digestion

The digestion of a protein breaks it down into the amino acids it consists out of. Remember, a protein is a chain. Each of the links is an amino acid.

The basic digestion steps are:

1. Proteins are cut into smaller peptides (this is called cleaving) by pepsin in the stomach
2. Trypsin and chymotrypsin continue the cleaving of proteins into smaller peptides in the small intestine
3. Peptides of a length of 4 and smaller are absorbed in the small intestine
4. Inside the cells of the intestine most peptides are broken down into their base amino acids

Amino acid metabolism

Amino acids are the building blocks of many functional structures in the human body. They are used to construct proteins that have functions in the body, but can also be used to create energy like carbohydrates do (though through a different mechanism).

Examples of proteins built by the body are:
* Muscle fibers
* Immune system receptors
* Bone

Pretty much all organs in the body use proteins to some extent.

Essential amino acids are amino acids the body cannot produce itself and thus needs to extract from food. There are 9 essential and thus 13 non-essential amino acids.

Essential amino acids are not more important than the non-essential.

The post The “no kid gloves” science of carbs & proteins appeared first on Skill Collector.

Evolution of the human body

The human body is the product of adaptation to its environment. Please remember that neanderthals first emerged 500,000 years ago, and anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago. See Timeline of Human Evolution on WikiPedia.

Now imagine the surrounding our ancestors developed in generation after generation

The point here is that the human body evolved to deal with a number of very harsh conditions. For example:

• Food not being available every day
• Sweet foods (fruits) being rare outside a few summer months
• Different foods different times of year

This has resulted in an amazing biochemical machine that is capable of:

• Going without food for 3 weeks (yes, a healthy human can do that)
• Digest a wide array of plants and animals

It also has some downside from our modern perspective because we:

• Feel attracted to sweet things (used to be a rare treat)
• Are prone to eating more than we need (food used to just disappear)

But we adapted right?

Yes and no. Yes we adapt to our surroundings, otherwise you could argue we would all overeat and consume only sugar. FYI 39% of the world’s adults is overweight, of which 13% obese. See WHO data, updated June 2016.

Humans have the advantage that our brains and minds are relatively developed, meaning we can rationally override our base urges. That is why we are capable of handling our primal heritage.

We can retrain the brain very well, but our body far less

Evolution is about sex before dying

Evolution is about survival of the fittest. The ‘fittest’ is determined by the amount of offspring that survives. Survival of the one who passes along his/her genes most.

Those who have more kids pass along their genes.

Let’s say you and me are the only ones alive, and we can spontaneously reproduce ourselves. I make 20 copies of myself, you make one.

In the next generation most people have my genes

Those who can deal with their surroundings survive

We are animals that are food for a bigger animal. I have claws and you do not. I have 10 kids with claws, and you have 10 kids without claws.

The predator hunts us, my kids defend themselves, yours get eaten. The next generation again has more of my genes

Genes win if you reproduce a lot

We are humans. I have fast running genes so don’t get eaten by lions. You walk slow and have in incredible sex drive. By age 30 you die having had 15 kids, by age 70 I die having had one kid.

The next generation has more of your genes

So have we adapted to eating the things we do now over how our body machinery evolved?

• Does type II diabetes from chronic sugar overconsumption kill you before you have kids? No.
• Does cardiovascular disease from chronic unhealthy lifestyle kill you before having kids? No.
• Does a compromised immune system from malnutrition kill you before having kids? No.

In fact, most abuse you can throw at the human body does not kill you before you can reproduce. Upside: our bodies are absolutely amazing. Downside: our genes have not changed a lot over the generations to adapt to our food.

Common deficiencies

This part is a little bit scary in my opinion.

• Vitamin D deficiencies are common (80% Ecuador kids according to FACEB on vitamin D in Ecuadorian children, 87.1% of 45+ UK adults in winter according to this PubMed entry for Hypovitaminosis D in British adults at age 45)
• Loads of people get too little magnesium (68% of US adults consume below the RDA. See thisPubMed entry for Dietary magnesium and C-reactive protein levels)
• B12 deficiency is not uncommon, especially in elderly ( over 20% according to this CMAJ study on vitamin B12 deficiency in elderly patients or around 15% according to this AJP study on Vitamin B12 Deficiency and Depression in Physically Disabled Older Women)

We currently do not have good nationwide data on vitamin blood levels as they are not screened regularly. But everytime I read a study, the numbers frighten me.

Basically most people are likely to be deficient in something

Question to you: have you ever tested yourself for vitamin D? It’s cheap or even free in most countries.

Recommended daily amounts

The goal of recommended amounts is simply to keep you from falling ill. Please note that it is not to keep you in optimum health.

Insufficient vitamin C will give you scurvy, as happened in the days where ships took months to sail to destinations.

Is the function of vitamin C to prevent scurvy?

I would argue not. In fact it is essential in the immune system, skin flexibility.

Most RDA systems stem from old data and old science. Take the US, where the requirements were set around 1968 see WikiPedia on RDA.

I am not saying these guidelines are useless, but I do think they paint an incomplete picture.

You are what you eat

This saying it quite literal. Your body builds itself from the things that you ingest. And it makes total sense.

If you ingest collagen, it makes sense your that body will use it to build the extracellular matrix that makes your skin flexible. Which seems to indeed be the case. See this Springer article: A new view concerning the effects of collagen hydrolysate intake on skin properties.

The human system in incredibly complex and science does not fully understand what all foods do to the body. But the principle is simple:

Eating bad food gives your body bad building blocks and vica versa.

If you want a well functioning body, give it the right materials. You wouldn’t expect a diesel car to do well on regular gasoline/benzine either.

The problem of mass production

What happens when the market demands cheap foods?

“ … the dominant effort is for higher yields. Emerging evidence suggests that when you select for yield, crops grow bigger and faster, but they don’t necessarily have the ability to make or uptake nutrients at the same, faster rate.” See University of Texas: Study suggests nutrient decline in garden crops over past 50 years

Industrialism gave us cheap food, but also lower quality.

The nutrients in plants come from the soil and their metabolism of it, which takes time. Most consumers want cheap food, which is grown fast, harvested early and exhausts soil as much as possible. It’s simple economics.

A comparison of the mineral content of 20 fruits and 20 vegetables grown in the 1930s and the 1980s … significant reductions in the levels of Ca, Mg, Cu and Na in vegetables and Mg, Fe, Cu and K in fruit … water content increased significantly and dry matter decreased significantly in fruit … a nutritional problem associated with the quality of food has developed over those 50 years. See British Food Journal Historical changes in the mineral content of fruits and vegetables

The nutrients in animals come from their food and their metabolism of it. Most meat comes from animals fed cheap foods (corn, soy) as opposed to what they naturally eat (grass). That impacts the nutrients in the meat. Grass fed beef has more omega 3 fatty acids. See A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef for example.

This is no tinfoilhat conspiracy. It’s science and plain reason.

The post Evolution is About Sex Before Dying & why the world is obese and malnourished appeared first on Skill Collector.

This article uses expanding headings. Click anything with an arrow to expand it.

Click me to expand me!

I disregard a lot of ‘best practices’

Most articles out there will give you advice like ‘define a target group’ and ‘set goals for how much traffic you want’ etc etc. I do not take this approach.

In practice that means I break a lot of the blogosphere ‘rules’. For example:

• I do not write on a set schedule
• I do not have a clearly defined target group
• I do not have website traffic goals
• I do not keep active social media channels

This walkthrough summarizes what I learned in my personal approach. It may or may not work for you, though I think you’ll find these points helpful.

Start now, especially if you don’t need an audience

Many people think either one of two things:

1. They have nothing worthwhile to say
2. They don’t need an audience

To the first I say:

To the second:

This post will seem simple, and it is

Especially the checklist might seem to some like “duh, what did you expect”. The thing is that most guides make blogging to complex, and it is not. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of optimization you can do (for example search engine optimization) but for starting a blog these are needlessly complicated.

Step 1: Your infrastructure

Your blog will run on a number of technical platforms. They are pretty easy to use. You will need:

• A domain name (for example youramazingblog.com)
• A webhost (the company that manages the computer your blog runs on)
• A blogging platform (e.g. WordPress)

Choosing a domain

Buying domains and hosting

Installing WordPress on Namecheap

What to avoid

The die hard webhosting option

Step 2: Setting up your blog

Pick a theme

Out of the box wordpress looks pretty ugly. It is however capable of importing designs made by other people. Read this manual page that covers how.

To find good themes you can browse Themeforest. Personally I make my own themes, but I do not recommend you do this unless you do it as a fun programming project.

Generally I tend to find around $60 a decent price tag for a theme. Remember, you are saving yourself a $2000 developer by picking a theme instead of hiring a webdesigner.

How to install a theme

WordPress plugins you should use

Plugins are little snippets of functionality you can install to WordPress using the below menu item:

Read this page if you are unsure how to do this.

• Akismet to prevent comment spam
• UpdraftPlus Backups to make automated backups of your blog
• Table of Contents Plus to generate table of contents like you see in this article
• Easy lightbox WordPress to make clicking images pop up
• Social Warfare or a free alternative to give your blog social sharing options
• Yoast SEO to do basic optimization for search engines

Step 3: Giving people a reason to sign up for emails

The single most important thing for the long term success of a blog is a healthy email list. In my experience sending out email newsletters if incredibly valuable, and if done well people love it.

The reason you need an email list is simple:

I’ve used my email list for a number of things like:

• Getting help promoting a research project
• Asking for opinions on products I’m making
• Getting help spreading the word on a project/product

How to choose a freebie

People are happy giving you their email if you offer something of value. In my experience:

• Newsletter signups work if you have incredible content that people love, most people do not sign up for these
• Free eBooks work very well in my experience. This blog for example gives away Scott Young’s free eBook on Holistic Learning
• Reminders work well in my case, every one of my posts has a reminder/pdf signup box

In choosing a catch I suggest asking yourself what you would like to get for free, and then work from there. Maybe you’d love a pdf with amazing cake recipes/ Maybe you would enjoy a document explaining how to grow your own tomatoes. Perhaps a guide to choosing the best coffee? Take your pick.

Once you have decided, either create the pdf or ask someone who already created one if you can spread it for free.

How to implement a freebie

There are two big ways to offer your free product/catch. Each of them have benefits and drawbacks:

• Signup boxes unobtrusive but people use them less
• Popup forms work very well but some people hate them (note: most don’t mind the popup so long as the offer is valuable to them, useless popups suck)

I solve this dilemma by simply implementing both. Note though that my popups are only shows once per user to prevent the ‘in your face’ factor.

How to manage email lists

Popups and boxes in WordPress

Step 4: Write posts

As mentioned before, I write things for people like me. It’s a way to get things off my chest, and usually at least some people enjoy reading it. There are a number of important principles to keep in mind.

Write some posts before you go live

Before you start promoting your blog to the world, make sure it at least has some articles on there. The you only get one first impression, so make it count. Don’t worry too much about it though, this is not a make or break moment for your blog. There are plenty of blogs who flew under the radar for a long time. Not using the initial momentum would be a shame though.

Write long evergreen articles

I have a preference for long and in depth articles. The reasons for that are simple:

• People appreciate in depth articles
• The posts are usually relevant for years
• The content is more likely to be useful

You can write really nice short posts, and they can be helpful for sure, but my personal experience is that long articles do far better.

Quality over frequency

Many bloggers recommend that you post once a week or even once a day. While that is a valid strategy, in my experience writing good things gets you a far better audience that writing more frequently.

There are stretches of months where I do not write articles. Sometimes because I’m too busy, sometimes because I feel I do not have enough in depth or quality knowledge to write about something.

Start publishing

While it sounds conflicting to the above, I urge you to start publishing things as soon as you can. I’m not saying to publish crappy material, but don’t turn perfectionist.

Only once you start publishing will you get feedback from your readers.

Step 5: Tell people about your blog

It sounds so simple, but to many people it is now. It takes a lot of courage to create something and then tell the world that you did.

Many beginning bloggers (and programmers, designers etc) promote their blog anonymously because they fear their friends and/or family would not approve.

In most cases the fear is unfounded though. Telling people about my blog (which in the beginning was quite, ehm, amateuristic) led to the best feedback and encouragement.

Once you shared your stuff on your own channels try sharing it on other social media. There is no ‘best’ channel. Try them all and see which works best for you. In my base that is Reddit and my personal accounts.

Next steps and advanced tricks

Once you have the basics up and running there are a number of things you can do to grow beyond what you are now.

Guest blogging is a great way to get visitors

In the beginning you will not get a lot of visitors. If you want to attract them the best way in my experience is to write an article for a far bigger blog, and to link to your own blog in that article.

When I started blogging I wrote a post for Hack the System, which singlehandedly sent me thousands and thousands of visitors.

When doing guest blogging:

• Pick blogs with an audience that you like
• Blogs that ‘sound big’ are not often useful (e.g. the blogs of magazines)
• Be sure that your guest post are the best content you created

If you are considering guest blogging, read this article.

Search engine optimization

In the past people tried to trick search engines like Google into showing their websites. More and more though Google is getting far better at filtering articles. My experience over the past years has been:

The post You Should Start a Blog, Here’s How (Full Guide) appeared first on Skill Collector.

So why do I feel like I get to talk about finance? Well, either the universe set up a couple of very unlikely coincidences, or I learned some things many people never do. Maybe both. Over the past years I have:

• Gotten advice from a billionaire’s personal financial advisor
• Made a 5000% return on some investments (student at the time, not set for life just yet)
• Read a handful of powerful books on finance, see summary of one here

Me? I’m not a pro. I do however listen to the pros. Here’s what I learned.

This post is also available as a podcast and as a 15 lesson free online course.

Four realizations I had that woke me up

‘The rich get richer’ is good for me

Let’s say you are standing in front of a mountain. If you manage to climb the mountain you will instantly become so wealthy, you never have to work again. There are two guides at the bottom of the mountain who offer you their services:

1. One guide tells you: ‘With me the beginning is easy, but it gets harder later on’
2. The other says: ‘With me the longer we climb the easier it gets!’

Personally I would take the second guy any day. I mean, it’s like a marathon where the running only gets easier! What a lovely world that would be…

When people say ‘the rich get richer’ often this is said in a negative tone. To me it simply indicates that apparently if I find the right guide, I can make my financial wealth grow faster the more I earn, hell yes!

The thing is, there are many people on this planet who make plenty of money but don’t automatically grow richer. What matters is not just the money you have, but what you do with it.

A proper budget makes you feel free, not restricted

My first serious considerations about finance started when I was a student living on a government loan. When money is tight, you realize how limiting money can be. After paying for rent, food and tuition I had very little money left. However, I am too stubborn to ask my parents for financial help. Ok, maybe I did ask my mom for some food money in my second month…

I started trying budgeting apps and realized that to my utter surprise, using them made me feel more financially free! Suddenly I had zero anxiety about whether or not I had money for food, fun or expenses. Defining up front what I wanted to spend didn’t make me feel limited at all.

It’s kind of like having a healthy diet. Some people think a healthy diet makes you feel restricted as if you are punishing yourself. The truth is that it makes you feel a lot better, and soon enough you stop craving bad foods. And even if you do a splurge once in a while is perfectly fine. Finance is the same.

Finance and investing is not complicated, people just make it seem so

As I researched financial best practices, something very confusing happened: all the role models (actually rich, not deep in debt) I was looking at used the same or very similar strategies. And the strategies were dead simple! I thought for a long while I must be missing something, but after reading ‘Money: Master the game’ I came to the conclusion that indeed finance doesn’t have to be complicated.

The one thing that pushed this for me is that during a summer program called Draper University, the financial manager of billionaire Tim Draper came over and for an hour told us how he managed Mr. Draper’s money. Guess what, that was the same as the stuff I read later on it books. Should have known…

Money is your employee

If you consider every euro/dollar/rupee/whatever to be an employee of yours, a number of things change drastically.

Just imagine having 1000 employees and have them sit still in a room for a year, that would make no sense! However, that was what I was doing, leaving my money on an account with an interest rate barely equal to inflation…

Likewise, now having a budget is like running a company and not giving your employees jobs to do. They will end of messing around and being unproductive. But that is what you do when you do not have a budget.

‘Money for life’ is not that much

This part is very important, and actually not as overwhelming as it seems. Most people when thinking about retirement think of a pile of money they will slowly consume until they die. That however is an unproductive view, instead you should strive to love off of the interest of your investments.

For example, I know that at a historically conservative 5% market ROI €400,000 will net me €400,000 * 5% = €20,000 income on a yearly basis.

Make a list for yourself where you calculate how much you need to:

1. Survive
2. Live well
3. Live your dream

For me, assuming 5% market performance:

• I can survive my current living standards on rent + food, which equals about €1000 a month, which is €12,000 a year. For that I need only €240,000 which is totally achievable.
• I can live well on €1500 a month, which requires €360,000
• I can live, travel and buy any toys I want for €3000 a month which requires €720,000

Am I aiming to grow far beyond that? Yes, but it is nice to know that if I save well and reach €240,000 I would basically stop working and live like a king in a nice south American country. Of course this assumes 5% ROI which right now seems low but historically is pretty reasonable. Think long term…

Section 1: Managing money day to day

I started as a broke student. Now I make more than most people my age and quite a few above. The only reason though that I manage to build up money is that I started as a broke student, so I learned to use a financial structure when I felt like I didn’t need one, or didn’t have enough money for it to matter.

Lesson: start now. Doesn’t matter whether you have €100 or €100,000.

Have at least three bank accounts

Managing money for me is about compartmentalizing. While I was a student I created the following structure and have stuck by it:

1. A central account where income and expenses are managed from
2. An account I call ‘guilt free’ which I can spend on whatever
3. A savings account

I later added investment accounts, we’ll consider those later. The rules for the accounts are simple:

1. Central: only income and automated expenses like rent. Never holds more than €10,000. Never carry this card on you.
2. Guilt free: for food and fun. Never holds more than €100-€300. This is the card you carry around.
3. Savings: holds the financial buffer that represents 6 months of expenses and non invested savings. This account should be rarely/never accessed.

Automate everything possible

If you need to think about money, you failed. Your finances should run themselves as much as possible. For me that means:

1. An automated transfer for rent (center account)
2. An automated transfer for utilities (center account)
3. An automated transfer for food (from center to guilt free card)
4. Automated transfers to my low risk investment accounts

Make this as fool proof as possible. This is one of the uses of the guilt free card. It makes sure that the big important transactions happen in isolation while small inconsequential transfers happen on a small flexible account.

Cut out harmful financial habits

Let’s do some math on habits that seem very small. Some fun ones would be smoking, having coffee out and eating lunch out. On a 50 week basis (year minus holidays):

• Smoking expenses will range from €5 to €30+ depending on habits. Let’s take €10 a week, which is €500 / year
• Coffee (€3) 5 times a week means 3*5*50 = €750 / year
• Lunch (€15) 5 times a week means 15*5*50 = €3750 / year

Now you can argue these numbers to be higher or lower, but the fact is that these expenses add up even more.

As we will discuss later, over the course of 40 years if well invested (assume 5% ROI) the savings of not doing these habits could grow to:

• Smoking: € 63,919,88
• Coffee: € 95,879.82
• Lunch: € 479,399.11

Please, read that again.

Ok, now read that again. AND AGAIN.

That would be the miracle of compound interest, something we will cover in the investment section. The above numbers are why I laugh really hard at people who smoke and eat or drink out because of social convention.

Have your cigarettes and coffee, I’ll take my millions thank you very much.

This is the code used for these calculations (javascript):

Balance cost and pleasure

Yes, I could live a lot more frugal than I do. But I still drink good wines, Matcha tea and spend well on food and holidays. The question you need to ask yourself is:

If I do not do X, will I feel good about it tomorrow?

Fill you feel good about it tomorrow if you make coffee at home instead of buying it overpriced? Will you feel good about not smoking? Probably.

Will I personally feel good about it if I spend no money on a holiday? Or on good and healthy foods? No. So I spend on those things.

Nobody can make these decisions for you, you need to take out your mental scales and with every expense ask yourself: will my future self thank me for this?

Make a budget and enjoy it

Budgeting is about fun and freedom. I love doing my monthly budget. Since I put myself on the right track making a budget makes me feel:

• Excited about seeing how long I can love about working
• Graceful for what my last month’s self managed to save for current me
• Good about myself for budgeting in freedom for my future self

I smile making a budget, and I have done so ever since my broke student self. It taught me that not having enough money means I need to reconsider my income sources and spending, and that being nice to my future self is very fulfilling.

I highly recommend using a piece of software called YNAB (You Need a Budget). I’ve been using and loving it for years.

Section two: The principles of investing

Again let me remind you: this is only what I do, it is not financial advice for you specifically. Do your own research. I never tell friends what to invest in, I do however liberally share the things I do when people ask.

Understand the magic of compound interest

Remember those numbers at the cutting out habit section? They seem a tab high to most people. For the sake of fun ask yourself how much money the below things will grow to.

• 500 over 40 years at 5% interest
• 5000 over 40 years at 5% interest
• 5000 over 40 years at 7% interest

Here we go:

• €3,519.99
• € 35,199.94
• € 74,872.28

If those numbers seem high to you, that makes total sense. Einstein basically called compound interest a force of magic. Humans are simply not equipped with the minds to handle compound thinking.

What happens in compound interest is the following: the interest you get is not only over your initial money, but also over the interest of last time. Basically the longer you grow the faster you grow. That’s the whole ‘rich grow richer’ thing.

Fees also compound!

When getting investment accounts of products pay very very close attention to your fees. See how a few percent can grow to a massive amount of money? A 5% fee will also grow to a huge amount. Always use low cost financial products!

Diversification is important

Diversification basically means not putting all your eggs in one basket. You could for example pour all of your life savings in stocks of a specific company. Thing is that if that one company fails you are royally in trouble.

Diversification means that you put your money in different type of investments so that if one of them fails or does less well than you hoped you are still doing well. One way of diversifying is using index funds (see below).

Use cost averaging

This protects you from being disadvantaged by temporary swings in the price of investments. In essence it is diversifying over time.

In practice this means you should invest multiple times a year (I do monthly automatic investing) instead of buying a big bulk once a year.

Bonds and index funds are important & easy to understand

These are the two most important financial products I use. They are super simple!

As a general rule bonds are less profitable but more stable and index finds more high risk but higher yield. Note though that these are just rules of thumb and conventional wisdom.

Bonds

A bond is an organization (usually a government) saying: “give me €100 now and next year I will give you €105”. A 5-year government bond for example is basically saying: “give me €100 now and in 5 years I will give you €110”.

The value of a bond also depends a little on how much people trust a government to actually pay. I’ll for example gladly choose German bonds, not so much for Greek ones…

Index funds

An index fund basically buys stocks of companies that are market leaders and often very dependable. Basically this is betting on the horses that have won most often. It’s not very exciting, but relatively dependable.

An index fund tracking the US market for example might buy stocks in the 500 most successful companies. An emerging market index fund might buy stocks of the leading companies in emerging economies.

When people talk about how ‘the market’ is doing, often they are talking about index funds. These funds reflect how well the market is doing as a whole.

Index funds of bonds

Yes, these are a thing. Basically this is one fund that represents a combination of the most reliable bonds in a region.

The ‘EU Bonds index fund’ covers the most trustworthy EU bonds whereas the ‘World bond index fund’ covers the most trustworthy countries on the world.

Note on mutual funds

So mutual funds are basically funds that actively trade and make investment decisions. These people are professional stock brokers and call themselves financial experts. If you still believe in that I have three pieces of advice:

1. Consider that last time I checked more than 95% of mutual funds do not beat the market (index funds) over time. They just have a good year once in a while and advertise the hell out of it.
2. Watch ‘The Wolf of Wall street’ and consider that is based on an actual person
3. Watch ‘The Big Short’ and consider that the people in the business have NOT changed since then

Think long term

Personally I learned this lesson in the Bitcoin bubble while I was a student. Unexperienced stock traders do irrational things.

Let’s say an index fund is doing well. People see rainbows and sunshine and buy more of it. Then the market crashes and they sell their funds at a huge loss. The thing with index funds is that they indeed fluctuate over the months and years, but over the course of decades there is a very clear trend.

Here are the graphs of some of the index funds I use. Note the bumps caused by crises etc and how they impact the graph very much short term, but not so much the trend.

Smallcap index fund:

World government and corporate bond index fund:

If you look at your stocks daily, they will seem to fluctuate wildly. When I was reading about this I has a memory flash to the session we had from billionaire Tim Draper’s financial manager. He drew us exactly these graphs, saying we should ignore the news and ignore day traders. Over the long term these things grow.

Important note here: the past doesn’t reflect the future. There is no guarantee these products continue to make sense. In my mind though the failing of index finds means a failing of the market, which means the world is screwed anyway.

Buffer emotion using a plan

Know thyself. Personally I like optimizing things, if I would look at my investments daily or even weekly I would make bad impulse decisions that seem to make sense at the time.

Buffer your emotional nature by making a plan beforehand. For me it’s simple: put whatever money I can into my traditional low risk long term investment accounts.

I get to play and go crazy with a small portion of money, just for the fun of it. The bulk of my income goes to low risk, high yield investments.

Section 3: How I actually invest

The below techniques are a blend of the books I have read and the advice I received from people I trust. That is not to say I recommend you copy paste this to your own finances. I never give financial advice, I am not responsible for your financial success or failure. You are however welcome to grab from my investment style what makes sense for you and discard the rest.

Four investment buckets

Like with my spending I compartmentalize my investments into categories:

1. Temporary account to ‘park’ money on (low risk)
2. Traditional regular risk
3. Traditional high risk
4. Risky investments

In these accounts I use the following investment accounts:

1. Parking money: this is 100% bonds. I put money in here that would otherwise be on a low-yield savings account. Things like the money I plan to pay off my study debt.
2. Traditional (regular): about my age in bond index funds and the rest in low cost world index funds. Currently that thus means I keep 30% of that account in low cost bond indexes and 70% in a low cost world index fund
3. Traditional (risk): 100% index fund of small-cap companies (smaller companies, but still established). I’m considering adding an emerging market index find but need to do some more research.
4. Risk: These cover things that most people don’t understand. Things like crypto currencies and other high tech and high risk opportunities. Personally I love projects like Ethereum, which netted me a 5000% return on investment.

Personally the majority of my investments is in the ‘traditional regular risk’ and a smaller amount on the ‘traditional high risk’. The super risky investments like Ethereum I start with money I have on ‘parked’ accounts and then leave in there over a longer term.

Companies I invest with

In general, I’m a fan of financial products by Vanguard. They offer great low cost index funds for many regions. You often can’t buy from Vanguard directly, to buy their products you need to become a customer at a financial institution that offers their products. Beware of the fees they charge!

Personally I use a Dutch company called Brand New Day, which supports monthly automatic investments. For the states I know Wealthfront is a popular choice.

The post Grow Rich by Handling Your Money & Investments appeared first on Skill Collector.

I guess doing a masters, maintaining a company and launching a number of products all over the span of 9 months does sound a little overkill. But to be fair it seemed like a good idea at the time.

This article covers my favorite considerations, techniques and tools to get things done.

• This post is available as a free course, click here to view it
• There is a podcast of this post, click here to listen to it

The tools – hardware (body), software (mind) and motivation

Productivity hinges on you functioning at a high level, both physically and mentally. Resources like focus, motivation and creativity are deeply dependent on how you are functioning. This post covers basic principles to get you going.

Principle one: your body is hardware, give it what it needs

Imagine trying to drive to a destination when driving a diesel car filled with regular gasoline… (sputter sputter sputter)

Imagine trying to make an emergency phone call with a phone with a dead battery… (frantic tapping on a black screen)

Imagine trying to make a crappy computer run heavy duty software faster… (the urge to throw the damn thing against a wall)

Just like a car your body runs well on certain fuels and not so well on others. Not only that, unlike cars human bodies change themselves based on the fuel you give them (you are literally what you eat).

Your body’s fuel is food. And it determines your short term energy as well as your long term body composition.

Some good rules of thumb for short term optimization are:

• Stay away from synthetic sugars
• Eat colorful plants
• Eat relatively little during the day

Good rules of thumb for the long term are:

• Eat fatty fish multiple times a week (sardines are super easy)
• Eat quantities that keep you at a healthy BMI (yes, BMI is an incomplete measure but it is a start)
• Increase your vegetable intake

Principle two: your mind is software, so keep it updated

Ever heard of the world championships in memorizing? Yes, they are a thing. Imagine a room with people wearing noise blocking headphones, and even headsets that block out all sound and light. What a sight…

Most interestingly, the participants are not genetic freaks. Rather they use memory techniques anyone can learn.

Your mind is software, meaning that you can learn new techniques that act like software upgrades. Good areas to explore are:

• Mnemonics (memory techniques)
• Holistic learning (learning approach)

More importantly, you should add a weekly calendar item where you plan in 2 hours to learn something new. I personally use Tuesday mornings to pick up new skills.

Principle three: motivation doesn’t just come and go

Can you imagine that one friend of yours that looks at you and complain “I just don’t feel motivated today”… Many people talk about motivation as if it is something that comes and goes without your consent or control. This is not the case.

Just like emotions motivation can be cultivated and channeled. If you feel sad, you can improve your mood with by proper application of music, friends, books, movies and a variety of techniques. Note I’m not talking about clinical depression here, though that can be buffered a little as well.

To discuss how to get motivated, consider what you feel when you feel motivated, for me that is:

• Feeling a desire to do a certain activity/outcome
• Feeling this activity/outcome is within your power to achieve
• Knowing how to get started

Both for long and short term plans make sure that:

• You have a positive emotional charge associated with the goal, keep it somewhere that reminds you (I have postits and mindmaps hanging in my room)
• Make sure you have the skills to get to your outcome, or the means to get them
• Make a game plan, no details needed (this course was planned at 11 bulletpoints)

Have you ever heard what happens when a rabbit sees car headlights? They freeze. In the wild this makes sense, if you don’t know what to do, freezing is a great way not to get eaten.

The same happens with motivation, if there is no clear path most people will simply freeze and do ‘safe’ activities like roaming around on social media. Make sure you have a drive, and a vague idea of what to do. Whenever you freeze, make a better plan.

The what – how president Eisenhower will save your life

Imagine a mother bathing a baby when the phone rings, she quickly runs to the other room to grab the phone, only to realize that the baby might be drowning… Imagine the dread… (FYI babies hold their breath under water, baby survived)

This is a classic example of an Eisenhower problem:

• One task was very important (keeping an eye on baby)
• One task was very urgent (picking up ringing phone)

This quote says it all:

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” – Dwight Eisenhower

This gave rise to the Eisenhower matrix, a categorization system for tasks based on urgency and importance.

1. Important + urgent: do this ASAP (deadlines, problems, crises)
2. Important + urgent: plan this in (relationships, planning, recreation)
3. Important + urgent: delegate this (interruptions, useless meetings)
4. Important + urgent: don’t do these (trivial matters, time wasting)

Personally I categorize my tasks during the day and do them based on Eisenhower’s prioritization.

The what – the Pareto principle is productive laziness

Imagine Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, telling you the following: “I love hiring lazy people”. He smiles at you and seems totally serious… Actually Bill really said that. Specifically, he said that lazy people find the lowest effort way of completing a task, which is the most efficient one.

The above ties into the Pareto principle which can be phrased as:

80% of outcome is generated by 20% of input

Being busy is not the same as being effective. Being productive means doing things fast. Being effective means choosing the tasks you do well. Your job is to find what is effective. Consider the possibility that:

• 80% of conversations can be had with 20% of words in a language
• 80% of profit in a company comes from 20% of customers
• 80% of your happiness comes from 20% of your relationships
• 80% of your value as an employee comes from 20% of your time

Take a look at your life. What things bring you the outcome you desire? What activities take up your time but produce no output?

Note that output is not just money, it can be anything from health to happiness.

The when – Parkinson’s law

Imagine two kinds of days you’ve probably had. On the one you have a short to do list, on the other you are entirely swamped. On both days you spend a full working day finishing your tasks, even though they both have the same number of hours in them.

This phenomenon is referred to as Parkinson’s law (nothing to do with the disease):

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

In other words, make sure you budget the minimum realistic time for a task. You will find that suddenly you can do far more in a day.

What is important here is that you allot a minimal amount of time to a task, but keep it within reason. Know thyself.

The when – time boxing techniques named after tomatoes

Imagine you are working in a space with multiple people. You get started and get in a nice flow doing your task. Every 5 minutes however something grabs your attention. Maybe someone asks you a question or perhaps you feel the need to check social media channels.

Human being cannot multitask very well. What we actually do is switch between tasks very quickly. Here is the caveat: it takes 5 to 10 minutes to get in a full productive flow. Meaning that every distraction actually cost you 10 minutes of top productivity.

One way of combating this is the Pomodoro technique, named after those kitchen timers in the shape of a tomato. The principle is simple:

• Work in blocks of fully focused 20 minutes
• Take a 5 minute break between blocks
• Take a longer break every full hour

Isolate yourself during your 20 minutes. Tell those around you not to bother you, put in headphones and switch off all notifications.

The how – choose a workflow

Remember the story of an animal freezing when they are not sure what to do? Humans do the same on a productivity level. If it is not clear what you need to do, you will find yourself doing nothing (or at least nothing effective).

The workflow you choose is not the most important factor. What matters is that you choose a workflow you can stick to. There are many such workflow systems, a notable one being the GTD system (Getting Things Done). What matters is that the system:

1. Prioritizes tasks (for example using the Eisenhower matrix)
2. Has a set protocol for new tasks
3. Makes you get things done on time

Me personally, I stick to the following strategy:

1. New tasks are put in an Eisenhower matrix
2. I use the matrix to determine what needs to happen now and later
3. Planning in tasks is done with Google inbox reminders and Google calendar

That means that emails that come in that require action for example are first transferred to the Eisenhower matrix (unless replying takes shorter than a few minutes).

The how – tools to make productivity easier

The single most important thing to note is that a ‘good’ tool is a tool that helps you to get things done. If physical notebooks is that for you, then that is ok. Note however that you should give new tools a chance, just in case they will revolutionize your work.

Tools I use to manage tasks

Eisenhower Assistant is a tool I made myself to track my tasks. It is a basic interface to help prioritize tasks based on the Eisenhower matrix.

Google Calendar is a great tool to track appointments and invite others to the events.

Google Inbox views all your emails as tasks. It allows you to mark them as ‘done’ or lets you snooze them to a later date.

Google Now is the voice assistant that you can download for Android. Specifically, I use it to plan tasks, for example “Ok Google, remind me to finish my mindmap when I get home”

Physical Notebooks are tools I like using on conferences or other places where I don’t want to be using my phone.

Tools I use to manage planning

Evernote is my favorite note taking app. I use it to jot down ideas, generate checklists and generally plan projects.

Xmind is my favorite mindmapping tool, it’s simple and powerful. I use it to plan structures, summarize information or to do brainstorms.

Postits are a very nice way to turn your walls into planning and brainstorming tools. I have a permanent collection on my closet.

The how – habits you should implement

Imagine you want to gain strength, and decide to do pushups. You could choose a super heavy regime, and for 2 weeks do really well. Ultimately though like so many people you fail to continue after those weeks. Contrast that to doing 5 or even 2 pushups before brushing your teeth every day. A small little habit that would over the years accumulate to a massive amount of progress.

Habits are infinitely more powerful tools than software or hardware can ever be. When it comes to productivity I find the following most useful:

• Take the first half hour of your day your day to plan. I have a cup of tea and do this before even showering.
• Define your three most important todo items for this day (MITs, Most Important Todos)
• Reduce the amount of times you read your email to max 3 times a day
• Work out twice a week, this has a great impact on your capacity to focus
• Stretch every hour when sitting down (bonus point for doing some pushups too

You can add many more of course. For me the best way to implement new habits is:

• Make a list of things I want
• Define when on the day/week I want to do them
• Plan them in in a place I see them (Google Calendar, postits, etc)

The post Productivity Course: “How I Survive Multiple Full Time Engagements” appeared first on Skill Collector.

Well, I have a bunch of those. These are my recommendations.

Gear & Technology

Rha MA750i Earphones

These are in-ear earphones with memory foam. When wearing them I hear less than with noise cancelling headphones. The sound is great and the cable has a nice protector so it doesn’t break as easily.

Sony SBH20 Bluetooth Headset

This is a little bluetooth square where I can plug in any headphones. They give you shitty/basic earplugs with the device, but I plug the Rha’s in there. I use this combo to:

• Make calls wirelessly
• Watch tv series on a big screen when there are more people in the room (laptop is 5 paces away)
• Listen to podcasts with my phone in my bag while biking

Bluelounge Eco Friendly Backpack

A solid, high quality, versatile and nice looking backpack. I love it very deeply. I use it:

• For work (laptop, food, cables, tools, notebook & sports gear all at the same time)
• For weekend trips
• For week trips (yes it can fit a week worth of guy wardrobe)

I’m convinced I could live out of this bag for a month. It’s also adjustable so I can resize it on days I don’t need to drag around a bunch of stuff.

Sugru

This stuff is basically clay that dries up as waterproof and durable rubber

I use it to:

• Protect my cables (like laptop charger) at that annoying spot that always breaks
• Make the bottom of my laptop anti-slip (great for in the train)
• Stick a lego block onto my door (so I can stick my keychain with a lego block to it)

Macbook Pro 13 inch

I switched from windows to mac. Why? My brand new Dell XPS 15 died after a few days. It was a convenience thing (Apple store was open on sunday, dell was not reachable). And I’m not going back.

• Battery lasts a whole day, but like 6-12 hours depending on usage
• I could get a 16GB RAM version
• The terminal is basically Linux (programmer brain happy)

Alpine Party plugs and Sleeping plugs

I mentioned these before. They come with a little keychain capsule so I always have little near-invisible earplugs for loud places. I use them for:

• Parties & performances
• Noisy public transport
• Working in public places

Keysmart keychain

Looks like a swiss army knife, but contains my keys. It’s portable, it’s cool, it doesn’t take up any bulk in my back pocket. Props to girlfriend for finding this birthday gift.

Rubytec microfiber towel

I like going to the gym/sauna in the morning, but dragging around a fluffy wet towel all day is impractical and annoying. I use a microfiber towel that rolls up to be the size of my fist, but is big enough to lie down on as a full-length towel.

Clothing and style

Slo Jo Watch

This is an analog 24 hour watch. Nono, not like a regular one. It has one hand, so it turns one circle per 24 hours. It’s more like a progress meter for the day than anything else. Why I love it:

• It reminds me to slow down
• It’s a fun conversation starter
• It’s water proof etc

Vivobarefoot shoes

I love these. Like LOVE them. They are good looking shoes that make it feel like you are walking near barefoot (maybe like thin flipflops). Unlike shoes like vibram fivefingers these look like good shoes. I have pairs of:

• Gobi (I and II)
• Drake
• Offroad

They are perfect for everyday use, but also sports. Simply amazing and comfy.

Xeroshoes

These are sandal like footwear designed to feel close to walking barefoot. I have the amuri cloud and amuri venture ones. I love how lightweight they are while still being suitable for walking, regular life and sports.

Tech Stretch jeans

H&M started making these. I have the habit of ripping pants because I jump around, stretch randomly and sit cross legged on desk chairs. These pants are jeans with extra flexible fibers in them. I wish they made them as non-skinny jeans as well though.

Secrid wallet

I despise cash money. Any establishment that does not take cards is an annoyance. Maybe I’m just too 2016… This slim wallet holds:

• My contactless pay cards in an RFID protected metal case
• My RFID access cards (train etc) in a leather scan-friendly compartment
• Some physical paper money in case of prehistoric emergency

What I love most is the fact that it is small and light while offering protection against unauthorized scanning.

Consumables

Japanese Matcha Tea from Aiya

I’ve written about Matcha tea before. For me the main reasons to drink Matcha are:

• Better focus than coffee (and more relaxed due to L-Theanine)
• Great taste, I love green teas
• High level of other potentially longevity increasing compounds like EGCG

With Matcha tea the quality is very important. Bad Matcha tastes horrible. Good Matcha is heaven.

Canned Sardines

I’d never really thought I liked sardines. Then I started eating them and loved them. Fast forward a few months and I struck a deal with the owner of my favorite brand to buy in bulk at retail prices.

They are perfect for many reasons:

• Great nutritional value
• Super easy food on the go
• Tasty and versatile

Huperzine A Supplement

While originally intended as a memory boosting herbal extract it can be used to buffer nights of little sleep. You should only do this once a month or so, but taking a tablet of Huperzine A lets me get away with a short night without too many repercussions.

This supplement is a acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. It’s also sometimes used by lucid dreamers, though I’ve not had great effects from it on that front.

Software

Copy’em Paste

Amazing clipboard manager for mac. The windows software ‘Ditto’ is similar. Basically it saves everything you copy to your clipboard. It’s amazing. I use it to recover:

• Interesting paragraphs I copies last year, but I only remember one phrase in it
• Piece of code I copied last month I want to reuse
• Five things I copies separately but all want to paste

Callrecorder

This is an android app that records all calls. This is such a lifesaver.

• Customer service lied? Recording
• Business partner twisting words? Recording
• Forgot that important name mentioned on the phone? Recording

Next to that it gives be a lot of emotional relaxation, knowing everything is on record.

A text expander

There are a number of phrases you will find yourself writing a lot. A text expander automates this process. Basically you set a trigger (for example $personalsignature) which the program replaces with your formatted signature.

Me particularly I have shortcuts for:

• My email
• My address
• My bank account IBAN number
• My credit card number
• etc

Basically it saves me typing. I’ve used different software products on different systems:

• TextExpander for Mac/iOS
• PhraseExpress for Windows
• Texpand on android

YNAB (You Need A Budget)

This piece of software single handedly revolutionised my finances. I might just write an article on finances soon, and this software would feature prominently in it. Basically it structures your finances really well, and thus helps you spend no more than you should. My favorite features:

• ‘Every dollar/euro needs a job’ is a great philosophy
• It tracks net worth and spending per category
• It’s very flexible, making sure you don’t lock yourself in

Health and medical

Invisalign braces

My teeth are pretty ok, but not perfectly symmetrics which can become a problem in the long run. Hence I considered some braces. As an adult this is even more complicated than as a teenager. Let’s just say I want my clients to see me as professional, not a teenager.

My housemate recommended invisalign braces. They are basically plastic transparent shells that fit around your teeth. You switch then every 2 weeks, and move your teeth that way. I love them. Nobody notices them, unless they have had them themselves.

Regular blood tests

I never really regularly got my blood tested unless something was wrong. My insurance covers blood tests, so I basically ask my doctor for a spectrum of blood test that seem relevant for longevity and overall performance.

Philips wakeup light

I mentioned this one before. Basically it is an alarm clock that instead of going ‘beep beep’ slowly starts emitting light. I set mine to simulate sunrise with a duration of half an hour. At the end it plays piano sounds in case the light didn’t wake me.

Using this instead of a traditional alarm clock makes me wake up far more relaxed and energised.

Things I want to try

• Mizzen and Main shirts
• Betabrand pants, shirts and suitsy

The post 22 Products I Fell in Love With appeared first on Skill Collector.

Why should you be able to hold your breath?

• Swimming underwater is fun
• More fun when snorkeling
• To challenge yourself
• As a scubadiver this is an extra layer of security

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<p>This infographic was originally published by <a href=”https://www.skillcollector.com”>Skill Collector</a> on <a href=”https://www.skillcollector.com/how-to-hold-your-breath-longer-in-8-steps-infographic/”>How to Hold Your breath Longer in 8 Steps</a>. Please link back to it when sharing this infographic</p><p>Why should you be able to do this?</p><ul><li>Swimming underwater is fun</li><li>More fun when snorkeling</li><li>To challenge yourself</li><li>As a scubadiver this is an extra layer of security</li></ul><p>If you like this Infographic, please share it with your friends :)</p><a href=”https://www.skillcollector.com/how-to-hold-your-breath-longer-in-8-steps-infographic/”><img style=”max-width: 100%;” src=”https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/skillcollector/How-To-Hold-Your-Breath-Longer-Infographic.png” alt=”Infographic – How To Hold your breath Longer” /></a>

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<p>This infographic was originally published by <a href="https://www.skillcollector.com">Skill Collector</a> on <a href="https://www.skillcollector.com/productivity-infographic/">11 Ways to be Hyper Productive infographic</a>. Please link back to it when sharing this infographic</p> <p class="overipad">You are viewing the desktop version of this graphic. <a id="info_mobile" href="https://www.skillcollector.com/productivity-infographic/">Watch the mobile version instead.</a></p> <a href="https://www.skillcollector.com/productivity-infographic/"><img style="max-width: 100%;" src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/skillcollector/Productivity-infographic-mobile.jpg" alt="Infographic – 11 Ways to be productive – Desktop" /></a>

Kudos to LvandenL for helping with some important details.

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The biggest things in my life in 2015/2016 are:

• A fulltime Master’s degree (est spend 50hr/week incl classes)
• A job teaching in a different city (est spend 36h/week incl travel)
• A long distance relationship (est spend as much as possible)

My average ‘busy’ time is about 80 hours per week since the travel time to work often includes  some class prep. Note also that the above doesn’t include side projects like this blog, learning new programming skills etc.

This is the recap of how I’m still alive and mostly smiling.

This article uses expanding headings. Click anything with an arrow to expand it.

Click me to expand me!

DIY Getting started

Habits

Structure is life

Source, wikipedia.

If you have time to spare, you can afford some irregularity. I do not. To stay sane I have to work with the body’s powerful need for a set rhythm.

My day has very clear structure:

Let's take Monday as an example:

Fasting is fuel, and so is food

Source: Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting: Two potential diets for successful brain aging (2006)

Intermittent fasting (not eating for 16 hours a day) allows me to focus very well in the first block of the day. But when I do start eating, the food has to be high quality to fuel my body and mind.

I don't eat for a long time because:

When I do not eat, I drink:

When I do eat, I eat:

Guard two resources: Time and Mental power

Source: “When the going gets tough, who keeps going?” Depletion sensitivity moderates the ego-depletion effect (2014)

Guard them both like a mother does its pups.

Manage your time and mental juice:

Example: will this task have impact on the future you?

Example: don't decide what you will eat

Your body is your hardware: use it well

I see my body as the hardware I run on. People have a lot  of physical habits that are equivalent to  leaving the hand break on while driving.

Give your body what it needs:

Examples of what I do:

Your mind is software, do maintenance

Know that feeling? Gazillion open tabs?

Good hardware means nothing without good software (programs) and maintenance.

What does mind maintenance mean?

How to keep your mind running smooth:

Techniques

Use mind mapping for digesting knowledge

Credit: Rebecca Radcliff

The human mind does not think linearly, it thinks in networks and patterns. Use that.

Why use mindmaps?

Mindmap example

This is a mindmap I made for a psychology chapter on memory and attention:

Made using Xmind

Collaborate, always collaborate

Dropbox works well because most people have it

Team up with people, don’t do alone what you could do together.

Always share and always profit

Examples of where I applied this:

5 Minutes is the minimum productivity block

Got 5 minutes waiting for a train? Open your laptop and work. Less that 5 minutes? Chill.

Make vague tasks very concrete

The mind is a funny thing. It doesn’t like the unknown, probably something evolutionary. Vague tasks are unknown, thus you will often not feel motivated.

Make tasks concrete:

Examples 0f vague and concrete tasks

No motivation? Start with 5 minutes

The mind has a starting threshold. Often when you start a task with the idea “I’ll do it for 5 minutes and then I’ll stop” ends up with a productive session of an hour or so.

If you feel demotivated, just start and allow yourself to stop if it really isn’t working after 5 minutes.

Explain things to imaginary people

This is called the Feynman Technique. Scott Young does a great breakdown in this pdf.

How to use the Feynman technique

2 Ways I use it:

Productively procrastinate

You will get distracted, period. When that happens, you need a ‘default activity’ that is not entirely useless.

Sometimes you will do useless things anyway, but if you can capitalize on 70% of procrastination time that’s an epic win.

How I productively procrastinate

Have effective ‘mindless’ tasks

Sometimes you are in a meeting/lecture that is not effective. You want to pay 50% attention, but want to do something other than stare at a wall with the other 50%.

Mindless task examples

Tools

A laptop with good battery life

A laptop is not an expense, it is a valuable investment. It sounds basic, but less than 5 hours battery is a liability.

It will gain you time

What is gains me

A phone with a large data limit

Without internet the above laptop loses effectiveness while on the move. You need to tether your phone.

What's tethering?

A high capacity battery pack

Tethering and other productive phone uses drain the battery, you need to be able to recharge it on the go. I recommend the Outdoortech kodiak Plus 10k.

A good backpack

I used to underestimate this, a good backpack saves you frustration, time and effort. I’m currently reviewing Bluelounge’s eco friendly backpack.

Wakeup Light Alarmclock

Credit: Phillips

This alarm clock slowly increases light in your room and ends with a nice alarm sound.

The human body responds to light

How I use it

Wear sunglasses at night

Your brain responds to light, I wear sunglasses (inside the house) after 20:30.

Why do this?

Instructions

Wear earplugs when going to sleep

I live in a house with two other working guys, but their rhythm is later.

Why this matters

What plugs to use and when

Use the right software

I could probably write a whole article about this, so we’ll just run through some of my favorites quickly.

The basics

For workflow

Phone apps

Supplements

Note: I take these because they have beneficial effects to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps in 5 years science finds otherwise. Until then, I do what seems best.

Fish Oil

Good for the brain, mental performance and the eyes.

Dosage/usage

Magnesium

Mineral used in brain, immune system and pretty much everything else. Also known as ‘relaxation mineral’, depletes faster under stress.

Dosage/usage

Vitamin D

One of the biggest deficiency in the world probably. Works on mood, immune system, bones etc. It’s a steroid hormone.

Dosage/usage

Creatine

Usually taken for muscle performance, but also has effect on mental performance.

Dosage/usage

Multivitamin

Nutritional insurance policy. This is additional to a proper diet.

Choosing a multivitamin

Note on breaks and chilling out

Nobody can run full speed 24/7, and that is not the point anyway. All the above I do when I’m in ‘work like a machine mode’. Give yourself time and space to relax and calm down as well. I like:

• Having tea breaks where I just stare into space
• Standing in the sunshine listening to music
• Playing computergames before class (Borderlands!)

These times should be boxed though and not undefined. Once in a while say to yourself ‘the coming 30 minutes I’m just chilling’.

The post 25 Things I Use Every Day to be Hyper Productive appeared first on Skill Collector.

Check out the Slow Watch website here.

The Slow Watch is an analog 24 hour watch

As you will have noticed, the watch has only 1 hand, and 24 hours on the dial. The idea behind this is to slow down, and indeed it does have a calming effect in my experience.

Personally I use the watch as a “progress bar” for the day. When it comes to timing the train/metro I use my phone.

I got the Silver color with leather strap

The team was kind enough to send along a Milano Mesh strap when I asked as well. I’ve tested the leather strap for a casual look, and the mesh for a more formal look. Currently I’m using the mesh.

This is the product image for the leather version (number 17):

This is the product photo for the Mesh version (number 21):

Note that I only have 1 watch with 2 straps, so my dial is slightly cream colored, like in the leather version.

The most accurate slot is 15 minutes

Every hour on the dial is divided into 4 slots, each 15 minutes. The hand is a bit above the dial, so your perspective on time will change a bit depending on how you look at the watch (hehe, time is relative…).

The time you will tell from the watch will be along the lines of “It’s about quarter to”. It is a nice way to look at time though.

Compatibility with a hectic schedule depends

You’ve probably read about my productivity routine for this year. While the watch doesn’t do very specific time, I found that is adds to my life rather than being in the way.

It helps me slow down in my daily flow, at least mentally, which helps.

The Watch is well-built and nice to look at

The watch is a very nice piece of engineering. The creators indicate:

• Waterproof up to 100 meters deep
• Swiss GMT quartz mechanics
• 38mm stainless steel

I can confirm the engineering feels very solid. Personally I like how the smooth angular design works with the solid feel.

It’s More a Progress Bar than a Timekeeping Tool

As mentioned before, you will not get this watch for precise time keeping. It’s a great watch though if you are ok with seeing it as a general progress bar rather than a precise measurement tool.

Points of improvement

While the overall experience was great, there were some minor things that could be improved.

Resetting the watch is a bit tricky

If you want to change the time on the watch, you will have to do so on a full hour or quarter hour. This is quite fine really.

I did however notice that the hand dragged behind a little when I adjusted the time. E.g. to make it run correctly I had to set it to 13:05 at 13:00. I’m guessing it takes the watch a couple of minutes to sync the insides with the hand.

While resistant, the glass can scratch

The glass is pretty good, bit I managed to accidentally scratch it while bumping it into a stationary metal object. If you are used to wearing a watch you’ll probably not have this as much.

The post Slow Watch Review – The Slow Jo 17 and 21 appeared first on Skill Collector.