June 2009, age 28. The month I got excited about a garden. In my defence, it was my garden. The former gravel pit surrounded by blue concrete walls began its transformation into an urban oasis. To me growing up, caring about a garden was a symbol of the dullness that was the lives of the old and boring. It meant cardigans, classial music and copies of The Daily Telegraph. That was not somewhere I could see myself going. And then one fine day I caught myself thinking happy thoughts about a garden. I was dimly aware of an invisible line not so much crossed as trampled underfoot several miles back.

Until recently my peer group did most of the same things at the same times. School. University. Getting a job after graduation. Leaving home. But now that those highly structured years are behind us we’re free to go our own ways more than ever before. We’re all doing different things in different combinations and at different speeds. Careers. Relationships. Living arrangements. Planning for the future. Taking each day as it comes. In all respects, changing and adapting to others’ changes. We’re meeting new incarnations of each other; none of us is any longer the student we once were, or even the person we were last year.

The things that bring me enjoyment are changing and starting to include stuff that I and others might think painfully uncool. It’s a gradual evolution. I still like some things the high school, university, and early twenties versions of me liked, while others fall out of favour. Video games are largely forgotten but I like to think air guitar will be with me always.

So what’s the point? I see a tendency to regard identity as largely fixed, with any changes taking the person further away from their previous self. This can be threatening to the person concerned and those around them. If the person you first got to know is wholly or partially gone, it can feel like a betrayal. “Hey, you’re not the person I once knew! I liked that person!”. Entirely possible.

Part of the art of living is managing your relationships with yourself and others. Demand respect for who you are and who you become. Extend the same to others. We’re engaged in an ever-changing dance of identity, sometimes making subtle, measured gestures, sometimes busting out some serious moves, and all the time influenced by the others on the dancefloor. So get out there and throw some shapes.

photo credit: Esther_G

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Procrastination.  Now I know you don’t indulge, but you know people who do.  Putting off what you’ve told yourself you ought to be doing or have done.  That doesn’t mean putting things off is always procrastination.  It’s easy to tell.  When you tell yourself you’re going to put whatever it is off (again), do you feel guilty?  If yes, you’re procrastinating.  If no, you’re likely making a sensible decision about allocation of your finite resources.  This gut test is very reliable - it’s much harder to rationalise procrastination to your subconscious self than to your conscious self.  That’s the way we’re wired.

So we normally know when we’re procrastinating.  Does that stop us?  Not always.  Not hardly.  Not often.  Not ever.  Pick whichever of those four applies to you.  One of them almost certainly does.

I’ve written before about the power of positive engagement as a procrastination-busting strategy.  Briefly, the more you care about an outcome -  the more connected you are with why you’ve told yourself to do what you’re putting off - the more engaged you become and the easier it is to get down to it.  It’s good stuff, try it.

Recently though I came across another strategy in a book called The Mind Gym*.

A Conversation with Yourself

The idea is to think about You Today as distinct from You Tomorrow.  When your tell-tale gut alerts you to procrastination in progress, imagine this conversation.  You Today doesn’t want to do whatever it is.  You Today is tired/too busy/doesn’t feel like it/can’t stand the thought of it, and so tells You Tomorrow that he or she will have to pick up the slack.  Except instead of meekly acquiescing, You Tomorrow doesn’t take this lying down.  You Tomorrow points out that he or she is busy too/is also tired/doesn’t like the task either.  Why should You Tomorrow get dumped on?  Try explaining to You Tomorrow why it is that they are better placed to do Unpalatable Task A.  If they fight back, reconsider whether you really ought to be a good citizen and do your fair share rather than slacking off and relying on ‘others’ to cover you.

You might be a veteran procrastinator.  You might find it too easy to put You Tomorrow in a headlock and tell him or her they damn well will do this task because You Today says so.  In which case, it’s time for level two.  Imagine You Tomorrow is not simply a future version of you, perhaps easily dumped on, but a relevant colleague, friend or partner.  Explain to this person why it is that they must deal with said Unpalatable Task so that you can slack off.  You might find that a tougher conversation.\

California woo-woo?

Does this involve a fair degree of talking to yourself?  Yes, though not out loud unless that helps.  If you’re put off by that, remember that you talk to yourself all the time, you probably just don’t notice.  Is this Californian woo-woo visualisation stuff?  A little.  But if top athletes use visualisation to improve their performance it surely isn’t just self-help fluff.

Just remember, You Tomorrow is a reasonable person but doesn’t like constantly cleaning up after messy predecessors.  He or she has things to do too, so make sure You Today pulls their weight.

Will this eliminate procrastination entirely?  Unlikely.  Will it give you another weapon to deploy in pursuit of increased productivity in the real world?  Sure.  That’s got to be worth a try.

*Not an affiliate link. I’m not here to make money.

photo credit: Violets and Handshakes

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I’ve been playing with a concept I call tactical mediocrity.  My definition:

A conscious decision not to develop your level of accomplishment or explore your potential in a given field.

You don’t want to be the best, or even great, because of all the crap that comes with it: pressure, scrutiny, attention, responsibility.  You just want to tool along in the shallows, stick to the small time.

You can apply this to as many or as few areas of your life as you wish.  Apply it to you whole life, though, and I might have to come up with a definition for strategic mediocrity…

A critical element here is that any use of tactical mediocrity is a conscious decision.  You have considered the pros and cons of developing yourself in a given field and decided that there are good reasons not to, either now or ever.  This is not an irreversible decision but one you can re-evaluate as frequently as you wish.

You’d love to be a great amateur photographer and conquer the interestingness pages on Flickr.  You really ought to improve your cooking skills on your way to becoming a domestic god or goddess.  You should learn how to get more out of your computer as you’ve seen others doing cool or useful things.  But for some reason, you’ve taken a conscious decision not to progress beyond your present mediocrity, at least for now.

There are various circumstances when this might be a useful approach:

• You want to focus on other priorities: you could become great at cooking, but that would require more time and effort than you’re prepared to give it.
• You don’t want to risk losing the fun from an activity: photography as a hobby might be fun but devoting the time and energy to be great might take the joy out of it.
• You don’t want your advanced skills to make you a magnet for extra work or responsibility in that area: “Gee, Henderson is a whiz with spreadsheets, get him to overhaul the budget projections for my meeting on Friday.”

So you can see how this might be useful.  But as with any slippery mental concept there are risks.

• Procrastination: if you’ve made a commitment to yourself or somebody else to do something, using any of the reasons above to put it off is cheating.
• Unrealised awesomeness: you miss the chance to become truly great in the field in question and enjoy all that success, however defined, brings with it.
• Missed opportunities: you don’t do the thing, so the life-changing experience that would have been yours stays on the shelf.
• Unpushed envelope: don’t make tactical mediocrity your default response unless you never want to risk getting outside your comfort zone.  It can be scary, but it’s only then that you develop yourself to get more from life than you currently do.

These risks are why any time you put something in a drawer on the grounds of tactical mediocrity you should set an appropriate future date to review your decision.  Maybe three months, maybe a year.  But make sure you do because the world changes, bless it, and you’d hate to be working off outdated judgments.

I found it useful to consider where I might usefully deploy tactical mediocrity in my life.  I also thought about where I’ve unconsciously settled for mediocrity and took this opportunity to re-evaluate those decisions.  Perhaps you would too.

photo credit: szczel

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Like many other people in recent weeks, I’ve seen and heard a lot about Twitter, the highly flexible micro-blogging platform that has a real feel of open-sourcery about it in the ways that its users have taken it, turned it and created conventions for its use.

I’ve had a Twitter account since March 2007 (check out my impeccable geek credentials here).  Back then I didn’t really understand what I was supposed to be doing or achieving, it was a little too free-form for me.  I like to know what the goal is and set about achieving it.  I tried it for a while and eventually got bored, much as I suspect many of the new converts will.  But the hype has brought me back to Twitter and this time, a little older and wiser, I’m experimenting with making it work for me.

My first job was to throw out assumptions about what I should be doing, including answering the question Twitter actually poses (”What are you doing?”), approaching it as a Facebook-style ‘must get lots of followers to prove my self-worth and interestingness’, trying to have conversations with people or use it as a social research tool, and worrying about doing it ‘right’.

I’m sure others have been faster to catch on, but there is no ‘right’.  Do what you like.  In the same way as regular blogging, there is space for those who send updates on their new kitten’s bowel movements, companies to ‘engage’ with their market, and private individuals who just want to see what they can do inside a 140 character constraint.

It’s this last grouping that I’ve plunked for.  My blogging isn’t about trying to make tons of money or create a personal brand.  Rather, it’s a way for me to enjoy and develop my writing with a modicum of exposure to outside criticism, just to keep me honest.  The creative constraint is the long-form, prose format.  The same is true of Twitter, except the creative constraint is the 140 character limit.  The fact that a few other people might see what I do, in the same way as the blogging and when you tell everyone you’re going to give up smoking or lose weight, creates some external accountability that makes it not ok for me to degenerate into posting kitty pictures.

So I’m doing an update about once a day.  I’m effectively writing a micro-blog post, an erudite thought in 140 characters or less.  It’s a fantastic format, enforcing a real clarity of expression in pursuit of ultimate brevity.  Like a French sauce, when you’ve finished boiling the thing down you’re left with a highly concentrated product that combines the elements of all the ingredients in a very few drops.  Or else you have a meaningless, contextless mess.

While I might not blog all that frequently, I refuse to accept that I cannot create 140 characters of content on a daily basis.  Particularly when I have the excellent prompts from Plinky available to spark my imagination.

If any of the above has made you desperate to follow my pithy updates on Twitter, you’ll find me hanging out here.  And for any other Twitter users, go ahead and leave a comment on how you’re riding the Twitter wave of awesome.

photo credit: action datsun

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Ever had trouble motivating yourself for something?

Ever done battle with procrastination?

Ever struggled even to get out of bed in the morning?

Yeah, me too.  Honestly I don’t think anyone can beat those ogres all the time.  We’re human.  We’re fallible.  Big deal.

So I’m going to look at something that will get you moving most of the time: positive engagement.  No, not sparkly rings and in-law headaches.  I’m talking about the state of being positively engaged with what you’re doing.  The purest expression of this is when you’re in the zone, the state of flow where you lose yourself in your task and the world around you melts away.  That’s the sweet spot.

But flow is something I find happens at the level of individual tasks.  The engagement I’m talking about occurs at a higher level of altitude, to borrow a GTDism - maybe a role, a job, or a hobby.  The difference between ‘write sales strategy’ and ‘I am a salesman’.  The more engaged you are at that second level, the more likely you are to hit flow at the first level.

There are some things you’ll likely never get positively engaged with.  For such things, such as tax returns, you need negative motivators instead.  The incentive to get the thing done is not having it hanging over you anymore or not suffering a penalty of some kind.  Those are ok, but suffer too many and you’ll feel ground down.  Positive  motivators however, those that draw you to them with the promise of fun or satisfaction, are far more powerful.

The big question that arises: how do I get more positive motivators in my life and therefore create more positive engagement?  The answer doesn’t come down to a pithy phrase or a bulleted list I hashed out in five minutes in my dressing gown.  The hard stuff never does.  It comes down to genuinely caring about the outcomes you’re pursuing.

So all is lost?  Not at all.   I have one suggestion that can help.  You’ll have noticed you have some things to do that don’t stick around too long.  They’re often things you like doing, the parts of your work, either professional or personal, that hold inherent pleasure for you.  Those things come with built-in positive engagement for you (they might not for somebody else who doesn’t like that particular activity).

Those things aren’t the problem.  It’s the monthly project risk update.  It’s the cleaning out the garage.  The things that are not fun to do.  Those tasks that do not draw you to them will not engage you, at least not to start with.  Once you get going you might find it’s not so bad and bash on through until it’s done.  But that’s a stubborn, resentful kind of engagement, the ‘I’ve started so I might as stick at it till I can say it’s finished once and for all’ mentality.  Negative rather than positive.

You can create positive engagement by shifting your perspective to a higher goal or outcome.  So writing the report is dull, hard and unrewarding.  But do you like your role as a risk manager?  If so, focus on that.  With that perspective you can see this lone report as one tiny piece of the jigsaw that makes you a great risk manager.  Not enamoured with risk management as a professional endeavour?  Shift your perspective up again: do you see yourself as an effective and professional worker?  If so, this report is a contribution to maintaining and expanding that self-characterisation.  Are you so disillusioned with work in general that you no longer take any pride in what you do?  Shift up once more - why do you work at all?  To provide a safe and happy environment for your family perhaps.  A worthy goal indeed.

Now if you’re getting this high up in terms of perspective, be warned.  You can easily tip over into finding negative motivators to do things.  ‘If I don’t write the report I might get sacked and then I won’t be able to pay the mortgage’.  To quote the film Thank You for Smoking, 99% of all bad things are done to pay a mortgage.  Try instead to look at your continuing employment as a way of bettering your personal circumstances, financially and in other ways such as developing yourself.

As you go through this process, remember that everything you do makes sense at some level, and probably on many levels.  At some of those levels, it might only make sense in a negative, ‘my boss will be angry if I don’t do it’ way.  But there is almost certain to be a level at which it makes positive sense.  Once you can see that you’re doing it in pursuit of something good, you have a great chance of engaging positively.  If you can do that, things will begin to flow.

photo credit: Jim Blob Blann

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Examples:

• Taxes are going up - so politicians can line their pockets, fund their little wars
• Trains are always late - even though punctuality is close to an all time high with most operators achieving 90% punctuality
• The nation is overrun with foreign benefit toursits - even though unemployment among immigrants in Britain is lower than among British nationals.
• Anything new - is bad because it’s new and different and might not be perfect from day one.

There’s some truth in all of these gripes which is why they endure, but it’s not everywhere all the time.

So cynicism is easy. And even a little satisfying. But does it make you happy? No. I’m not advocating gullibility, but where do you draw the line?

Being optimistic and generally positive has none of this appeal. To start with you feel a little silly trying to be relentlessly optimistic. People look at you as if you’re mad if you start looking on the bright side of everything. They think you’ve been reading too much self-help literature, which of course they’re cynical about. You can see their little thought bubble that reads “he thinks taxes are just the price you pay for living in a civilised society? What a naive idealist, I thought he was smarter than that”.

But looking optimistically on life, I’ve discovered, is incredibly energising. Having a positive attitude is tremendously powerful. Now you may not represent quite the extreme of cynicism I’ve sketched out above, but why not give being consciously optimistic a try, if only for a day, and see if it makes a difference to your attitude?

“But how?”, you say. Why, like this:

Be conscious: remind yourself that you are making an effort to be optimistic by placing little reminders in your environment - notes on the fridge, on your monitor, by your car keys, anywhere you’re likely to look.

Suspend disbelief: whenever the voice in your head tells you this is all terribly silly, silence it by focusing immediately on something positive - a recent success, somebody you love, a favourite story.

Be grateful: think of something good that happended to you today and be thankful for it. If nothing comes immediately, don’t throw up your hands and storm off. Try again, and this time replay your day so far in your head to find the things you can be grateful for. It might only be the goodbye kiss on the doorstep or the fact the traffic lights went in your favour when you were running late. Little stuff like that makes all the difference.

Take a time out: things getting you down today? Everyone seemingly scheming to ensure your downfall? They’re all against you! Nah. Take five minutes to walk around, smell the air, stretch your muscles and look forward to a happy event, even if it’s only the end of this day.

Learn from others: do you know anybody who’s seemingly always in a good mood? Watch how they behave, and importantly how they react to both good and bad news. You’ll see clues to how you can react positively to events. On the proactive side, see if you can figure out (even ask them) what’s put them in their ‘good mood’. Chances are it’s not conscious but innate. That means you can learn from them and implement the same patterns in your behaviour. Over time hopefully you won’t have to work at it consciously.

Don’t give up: find yourself reacting cynically to events out of habit? Find yourself in a bad mood because you’re always in a bad mood on Mondays? It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Being conscious of the fact is the first step to improvement. Acknowledge it and go on with your day, trying to apply the tips in this article to improve matters.

Look on the bright side. It’s not always easy and the pay-off isn’t always apparent. But emotionally you’ll be better off. Besides, what have you got to lose by giving it a try?

photo credit: Alex Cheek 

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It’s a sure thing that living in fear will seriously harm your quality of life.  But fear is a base human emotion, ever-ready to come charging over the hill to storm your fort.  Many writers have stressed the importance of living without fear (or indeed feeling it and doing it anyway).

But a little fear can be good for you if it leads you to take sensible precautions.  Riding a motorbike without a helmet because you feel no fear won’t stop your skull bursting like a pinata if you fall off.  That’s basic safety, and it’s common sense.  Another area of life in which fear leads you to take sensible precautions is security.  You lock your doors when you go out so opportunistic bad guys can’t just waltz into your home and eat your lunch.

So much for all of that.  Let’s get an update on the price of fish

It’s funny how people we think we know very well, in this instance me, react to certain events that befall them.  Last week I had my bicycle stolen.  I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say I didn’t have an opportunity to confront the doubtless bolt cutter-wielding hoodies who made off with it in a heroic stand for honour and common decency.

But I did take action.  I replaced the medium-strength lock they defeated with one heavy-duty lock, one medium-strength lock of a different type and a tertiary lock for securing my saddle.  Overkill?  Stable door and bolted horses?  I haven’t even replaced the bike yet.

Somehow it made me feel better.  And it prompted me to examine the security arrangements in other areas of my life, particularly online.

Identity theft and fraud are on the increase, or so we’re told.  I have some basic security measures for my online presences: I don’t use the same password for everything, I use an algorithm that keeps them all different but memorable.  There are plenty of tips out there on this, you don’t need me.

But now I’m thinking I should upgrade to something like 1Password.  The chances of identity theft striking me are still statistically small, and my passwords are probably stronger than most.  But part of me says, why take the risk?  Why not protect access to my bank accounts as well as I can?

I’m thinking about it.  The main reason I haven’t is it ties you to one computer.

Psychological effects

What does this way of thinking do to your psyche?  Is it healthy?  As in so many aspects of life, it’s about knowing where to strike a balance.

“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security” - Benjamin Franklin

That’s a strong statement which reminds us that placing too much emphasis on security can restrict our liberty.  You can go into crazy lockdown mode and have security take over your life, which will make you a prisoner of your own paranoia.

My solution is this: find the average level of security in a given context, then go just above it.  To use my bicycle example again, if most people have a single lock, get two.  This makes you more of a hassle to attack than most others, but doesn’t have you so locked down it restricts you.  Plus, too much security and you’ll get people interested in finding out what you have to protect that’s so valuable.

Find the mean, then beat it.

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

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In the current economic climate, with each day bringing new portents of doom, the arguments in favour of being frugal and saving yourself a little cash are more persuasive than ever.

People often hit the quick wins first: eat out less, drive less, postpone major purchases.  And that’s wise.  But in a week when I repaired a shirt (cost: 10 pence for materials) and a pair of shoes (cost: one squirt of superglue) I’m reminded of a claim that’s been levelled at me many times: that I’m cheap.  I’ve observed that some people shun frugality for fear of being labelled cheap.  So what’s the difference between the two?  And why do many people avoid even the suspicion of appearing cheap?

Cheapness and frugality are points along the same spectrum.  You can think of cheapness as extreme frugality.  It’s taking a good money saving idea and running so far with it you end up losing a little dignity.  And it can actually create false economies.

I define frugality as taking sensible, reasonable and proportionate steps to save money.  Or not spending money when you don’t have to.  I’ll illustrate with some examples:

Sensible: looking out for special offers on groceries you need.  Not sensible: buying the cheapest processed meat you can find, saving money but risking your health.

Reasonable: buying your brother the wedding gift he wants but getting a great deal on it from an auction site.  Unreasonable: refusing to go to the wedding to save the cost of a wedding present.

Proportionate: driving more smoothly to improve your petrol mileage (and reduce your impact on the environment).  Disproportionate: switching off the engine and coasting downhill to save petrol (and potentially creating a hazard).

Those are just a few examples, and it’s not always so clear cut.  For instance, you might feel pressured into splurging on an expensive night out with friends because everyone else is.  You might not challenge an error in the bill in a snooty restaurant.  You don’t go into the charity shop which has just what you’re after in the window in case somebody sees you.

So cheapness bad, frugality good.  But why are people worried that frugal behaviour will make them appear cheap?  Partly it’s not knowing where the dividing line between the two lies.  But for me there’s a simple answer, and it’s the same answer at the root of so much human behaviour: fear.  Fear of what others will think of them.  They feel threatened by society’s view of frugality and label it cheapness, seen as a BAD THING.  But as we’ve seen, frugality and cheapness are not the same thing.

If you recognise yourself in this description, what can you do about it?  The benefits to overcoming this obstacle are clear: I’ve saved £25 (and that’s the sale price) on a new shirt and £40+ on a new pair of shoes.

There is no handy list of ten tips to add at this point.  It’s even simpler than that.  Just swallow your fear and press ahead.  If you think of a nifty way to save yourself some money, at least try it once.  If you don’t always manage it, don’t worry.  At least you’re conscious of your actions and how they fit with what you’re trying to achieve.  As I’ve previously written here, if you go about your life with self-confidence you’ll find others less likely to make negative comments about you, and those that do come will be water off a duck’s back.

Got any other reasons for avoiding frugality?  Fess up in the comments.

photo credit: tizzie

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I’ve been giving some thought to ubermensch Merlin Mann’s recent manifesto for change on his site 43 Folders (and begun on his personal site).  It’s caused me to re-examine my approach to my own blog, where I have and haven’t been true to my aims.  Clearly this is a more lonely exercise with far smaller consequences than for a mega-blogger such as Merlin, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

He wants his blog to be “a focused resource for people who do work that they love and make things that matter to them”.  So, favourite ways of fiddling with your GTD setup are out it would seem.

He bemoans the spread of productivity blogs offering endless lists of contextless tips and hacks that the author may or may not know to work in reality.  In creating this blog and its now-departed predecessor, being yet another voice in that crowded, windowless room was squarely in my crosshairs.  But I shifted my position to account for two things: I didn’t have too many useful tricks to share, and trying to gloss over that by making them up made me feel deeply uncomfortable.  By the way, it also made me wonder, if I was making it up, what was to stop everyone else?  We’d end up with a closed productivity community gradually eating its own tail.  I think Merlin might think that’s what we’ve already got.

To distinguish between what’s in and what’s out, I love this quote:

So, we’re going to talk about what goes in the notebook; not the fact that it’s pretty and has a little bookmark. Then I want you to leave here.

Wow.  As Merlin might say, inspirado.  How many hours have I spent, however enjoyably, reading posts on how to set up my Moleskine notebook to contain my entire, beloved GTD system?  And what do I have now?  A Moleskine that I actually, you know, use just to write shit down.

Surveying the horizon

My aim for this blog was to inhabit some small fold in the bedcovers between the familiar warm bed of theoretical productivity tips and the harsh reality of a real world that doesn’t care what your favourite blog said about quitting meetings or firing your boss.  A trip to the about page will tell you that.

Yet on occasion I have ventured onto the rocks, lulled by the siren calls of ‘14 ways to put your pants on faster’.  I guess somehow I wanted adulation and the bright lights.  But the majority of posts around here contain more questions than answers, more musings than lists, my own gentle perambulations around the byways of little things that pique my interest.

As a blogger it’s easy to have clear goals: n hits.  x subscribers.  Six-figure ad revenue.  Even I, on my own very modest scale, have goals of the first two kinds.  They are yardsticks of success, appealing in that they are quantifiable.  You’re either succeeding or you’re not.  You’re either making progress or your not.

But if you’re a peddler of productivity pr0n your first duty, in my humble view, is to those you seek to guide and advise.  Even if the person you’re really speaking to is yourself.  It doesn’t matter how many comments you get from people trying to promote their own blogs.  And it doesn’t matter that you can’t get Google to draw you a wizzo graph of how successful you’ve been.

So, for now at least, pantsonfaster.com is happy to continue tooling along in the shallows.  If we make it big it should be for the right reasons and, hell, we’ll enjoy the ride.  But that’s not the endgame.  It’s the satisfaction in the creation that matters and keeps me coming back for more.

photo credit: Thomas Hawk

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The advice to businesses is always to diversify like crazy, not to keep all their golden eggs in one slightly fragile-looking basket.  The idea being that if one market you’re in zigs, hopefully the other one will zag to make up for any fall in business.

I believe diversification is important for individuals as well as businesses.  Sure, you don’t have a bottom line to worry about, you won’t have to lay people off if business takes a tumble, but a lack of diversification can affect you in other ways.  I’ve written before about the benefits of thinking of yourself as a business and this idea dovetails nicely with that outlook.

Let’s take a look at the various areas of your life in which it could be useful to diversify and what might happen if you don’t:

Diversify your friend base

Don’t get left bowling alone when your best friend moves away.  Don’t let a new significant other isolate you from your friends - if the romance fades you want to have a social group ready to help you drown your sorrows or plot your next conquest.

Diversify your interests

If you only have one hobby, you might get sick of it.  If you don’t have any hobbies to speak of, perhaps because your work is all-consuming, you might find you become polarised in your outlook and burn out.  So try all sorts of different things, preferably activities that call on different types of skills.

For example you might have active hobbies such as running, creative hobbies such as writing, relaxing hobbies like reading, and manual hobbies such as woodwork or cooking.  This way you should have a go-to activity for whatever mood you’re in and avoid the insidious time waster that is boredom.

Diversify your income

Most people have a single source of income - their job.  It’s wise to plan for the worst, so you might keep an emergency fund of money to see you through a few months if you lose your job.  You can augment this with what have deliciously been termed ‘side hustles‘, or side projects, that generate a little bit of income.  These probably won’t keep the wolf from the door if you do find yourself on the wrong side of a ‘restructuring’, but every little helps.  This could be a second job, some freelance work such as tutoring or writing, or trying to squeeze a little cash out of an interest such as fixing computers or building websites.

Diversify your investments

Don’t invest in just one company, one sector or even one country.  Spread your favours - gains might be less spectacular, but your losses probably won’t break your heart either.  And while you’re at it, grab a broad-based, low-expense index tracker fund such as those offered by Vanguard in the US.  Heck, if index funds are good enough for Warren Buffett, they’re good enough for me and automatically spread your cash across the whole of a market.  As far as I can tell there’s no UK equivalent to Vanguard, but cheap index funds can be found if you know where to look and are especially tax-efficient if wrapped in an ISA or personal pension.

Diversify your reading habits

Do you always read books on just one topic, or in one genre?  Or do you read only in one medium, say online at the expense of the printed page?  If you’re at all like me you might find an author you like and proceed to read all of their books as a marathon.

Reading is a good way to relax and so you might not always want to be challenged.  But reading something completely different exposes you to new ideas and ways of thinking, hopefully making you a more rounded individual.  So perhaps pick up a book you wouldn’t normally consider reading and give it a shot.  You could do this for every fourth book you read.  It needn’t cost you any money - trawl your own or friends’ and family’s bookshelves for ideas, or head to the local library.  At least this way if you decide you’re never going to be interested in particle physics, no matter how much more rounded it might make you, it hasn’t cost you anything.

In what other areas of life could you diversify?  Scribble down your ideas in the comments.

photo credit: bitzcelt

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