So, something is troubling you ?

Everyone has something troubling them all the time, you might come across some people who might seem like every thing’s working for them, but eventually something almost always goes wrong.

Troubles are waiting for us in each step of our lifes, even when you’ll be really rich, healthy and have a girlfriend – Something will trouble you.

From my experience with self help, I have found that the following tips greatly help in dealing with trouble-sum issues:

1. Learn about it, think about it – try to learn what’s really the root of your problem / issue and when or where does it most trouble you!

For example:  For months I had pain in my right eye – I went to more then 4 doctors and an advanced eye mapping procedure to try to find out what’s wrong with my right eye.
After thinking about the problem through and looking at when and where the troubling occurrences happen (and not wasting time complaining and looking at the 100th result page on google for “eye pain”) I have found out that most of the the time, the pain starts when I’m sitting in my office  in the afternoon (which is when the air conditioning begins working). I then found out that all this time the air conditioner was directly pointing (from a distance) to my right eye, I modified it’s position – Problem / Trouble Eliminated.

2. Act on it, make actions -
After looking into the roots of the problem try to build a new daily schedule that helps you deal with the problem, this might mean taking time off from work every couple of monthes to reduce jon pressure from your lifestyle or even take a bath everyday at night if you feel like it helps you sleep better.

Example: 5 years ago I had a job which involved a lot of running and sports, and it was really painfull – after a while everyone who worked with me knew that when this job is done, they will never run again. When I finished the job I found that it’s so much fun not to run and do sports all the time, I actually stopped doing sports for 2 years…
5 Weeks ago, after visiting my doctor, I have found out that keeping my lifestyle as it is – isn’t going to leave me a lot of lifestyle time. I had an extreme level of triglycerides and a really low level  of good HDL cholesterol while a huge amount of bad ones, this might have been caused by the huge amount of fast food I consumed in the past 2 years, and the fact that I didn’t do sports at all.

Now? I had to completely change my way of life, but this time it’s not like I’m going to have a stressful job that requires me to run all the time – I’m going to try doing it in a way which I like:

• In the past month I have been going for 2 hours sport sessions twice / 3 times per week, and went from a phase where I could only run 600 meters to running 2300 meters (without falling on my face).
• I take extra care of what I eat, a lot less junk, less saturated fat, a whole lot of nothing of Trans fat – which I used to eat a bunch – these stuff really kill you, and it’s everywhere!
• I take daily dosage of Omega 3 capsules and multi vitamin with at least 75 MG of each of the B vitamins.
• Healthy and yummy meals, fish, tuna, Salmon, eggs – 3 vegetables or fruits every day.
• Sleep at least 9 hours a day (Well… OK I have done that before too).
• And it’s great! I still haven’t done a new set of testing at my doctor but i really think things will look better – I’ll be sure to update the results here.

These 2 issues have been the highlight of my troubles in the past month, there are many more but I am dealing with each one at a time – and it feels great. I sure hope you enjoyed reading this and that my exprience might have helped you in dealing with the troubling issues in your life.

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Creating content for the web

Most of the time I find myself doing things which were not planned or thought of in advance and that do not create general value for me or others.

As one whose main occupation is the creation process – I must define and understand the word “value” and it’s meaning to me, what gets left by me to this world – what is my creation?

I have found that there are 3 main patterns or levels of creating value which represents the overall usefulness of my creations to either my clients or to me – but more importantly – my clients.

The first level -

Value extraction:

In this level you mainly focus on procedures being made within your projects to create better resource usage on your systems or procedures.

This might involve creating computer algorithms that use less of the resources or even fire unskilful employees to reduce the company’s spend.

The second level -

Value copying / duplicating:

You have visited a competitor and noticed he has introduces a new feature or a service you do not offer, you then recreate and copy it to your company – this is value duplication.

The third level -

Value creation:

You focus on your clients requests and demands and create new features or services based on your clients. The value originated in this process is usually original.

Each level of value creation mentioned above creates value for your company or service but it has been shown that the amount of value created by the third level is the most useful and because it has direct client orientation – it will help you to disconnect from the never ending competition and create new features your competitors haven’t even started thinking of.

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Cracked Wall

Getting informed about risks :

  (The cracked wall)

You might have built a steady and growing business now, maybe you’ve reached the break even point or maybe you are generating a revenue of over 30,000 dollars per month – and you surely have some free time for your self.
After being in some positions in my life when a hard work pays off and you can enjoy your earned free time – I found my self eventually not aware to some of the risks that might arise if too much of that free time is not used to manage business risks.

Most of the times this happens because we want to award ourselves for succeeding and accomplishing the goals which were set and after we accomplish them, we usually forget to set the necessary conditions for our work to last.

I call this “the cracked wall” phenomenon, once building such a wall – without maintenance, it will eventually break. Some walls do last thousands of years, some of these solid walls are still standing. You want your solutions and business to be as strong as these walls, to do that you must be aware of the risks that might crack your wall – or end your business.

Easy steps to accomplish this mission :

1. List them – Try all ends of your business as a customer and think of all the possible ways one can stop your success, now put your thoughts on a list, ask other people for known risks they might think of regarding your business.

2. Prioritize – Grant a score from 1 to 3 to each risk, 3 being the biggest threat to your success.

3. Think of solutions – Go over the items you have listed from the most risky to the least and write possible solutions as if this risk has just happened, try thinking about it and imaging as if this is the current situation and you need to deal with it. after you’ll gather lists of solutions to each of the risks you’ll have a complete risk management solution you can use, if any risk does ever come true in the future.

Risk Preventing Tools :

I really like using a spreadsheet applications for such tasks as listing risks – preferably open office, but any app will do.

The importance of risk management :

In a case when a  high profile risk becomes real, you’ll most of the time become greatly stressed and won’t be able to think about the best solution to beat that risk in a short time, getting the chance to deal and catalog these risks before they happen can greatly help you prepare for any situation and you can also share these risks with other people from the same line of work and maybe find what’s their solutions to these cases.

Thats about  it, risk management can be the most important stone in your business wall.

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Piles of paper

Many times I feel overstressed in the morning while sitting on my work computer, I seem to have found the no’ 1 reason why this happens, and how to solve it.

Sometimes I come to my office and the first thing I see in the morning are 5-6 piles of papers and billing notices waiting to be handled.

One of the piles has been left this way for over 3 months! This happens when we don’t have a mechanism or a procedure to handle new action items correctly in our office.

If you know what I’m talking about, you also know that sometimes this piled up work just makes you feel like you’re overloaded - and if the piles stay there for longer periods they even make you feel overstressed.

Recently I have done extreme efforts to handle this issue before it really gets out of control, the first thing I did was to take all the piles of paper and create one big pile of papers / tasks, then I went to the local office supplies store and bought about 10 folders. now what I did was to actually break these papers / tasks into folders – 1 paper at a time. This actually took me more than 1 week. but seeing everything placed neatly together really helps me now, because my desk is clean and empty with a lot of desk space I can use to work on the actual item which is currently being worked on.

This might sound too simple but now, you’ll have to put all these folders into a closet you can reach and do not put them into some back closet 20 feet away from you! I went and bought a small 2 drawer closet which sits on the floor on my right side and it takes 2 seconds to get a folder from it. This closet is closed most of the time so I don’t actually get to see all the 1000 items which i have already managed – This really takes the used to be visible stress away from the office.

When new items arrive be sure to have some time everyday to take these items and put them on the right folder. If you can’t find one from them create a new folder, don’t just leave it piling up somewhere, the paper will stay there forever – We have already seen that happening.

Having a clean workspace will free much of that work stress you might have when arriving to your office and also might get your thoughts right when working on something – since the chances of you leaving the current task and skipping between tasks has decreased because the other tasks are now neatly arranged in your closet.

the great advantage here is that when people / your boss or someone else comes to your desk he will also like the way you are arranged and aware to your workspace.

Great Ebooks and Resources:

DeClutter Fast – The bible of getting everything in your business, home or anywhere else organized.

To sum things up:

These days, work is piling up on every one’s desks, people are getting fired from their work thus more work gets to you and companies take more tasks on themselves while having to employ less people. Having a clean and ordered workspace will greatly help you in the mission of a non stressful, on the time managed tasks of a lifestyle we all seek for.

Too lazy to start now? check out my former article about job laziness and how to get things done, even when we hate to do them.

Tzvi.

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I find myself these days with a weak creative mind and generally with less activity power – That mindset makes me delay many tasks, some of which are of high importance. This has happened for me before and after looking  for a solution to these hard times which many of us just don’t have the will or power to act or do anything – I have built a simple list which once act upon can get you back into your work, fast.

Guidelines to preventing the delay of tasks or work:

1. Put easy listening music that you like now, in the background – Mine are beutifull 80′s / 90′s ballads like sting, lionel richie etc…

2. Write about it in your blog, if you don’t have a blog - open one,  I’m just doing it in this post.

3. Instead of thinking about getting things “done” / “finished” think about getting things “started” – Sometimes we have too much work and actually thinking about finishing the work makes us feel exuasted – Think about starting the work, maybe the first task out of a big project  - just start doing something related to it,  most of the time it’s ok not to finish the work on the same day.

4. Choose to do your work,  create a  tasks listing and choose what to do by sorting the tasks with importance / urgency in mind – Stop using words like “must” if you have a task list and you have just chosen this task – it’s not a task you are forced / must do, but a task you chose to do after looking at all of your tasks – this will add motivation to the flow of your work.

5. The global picture – Do you have a calender set up? whats the time frame for the current project? If you don’t have a time frame this might get you spending time on other things and you’ll probably have difficulty in ever finishing / starting the project because you’ll never feel the urgency to do so – Knowing where are you going and when will help you mind is giving you the correct mindset to start / finish a job.

6. social life – I really have a problem with this one, but try to have a social life and even get it listed on your calendar – because I have a rough time with this one I even have a “food time” alert on a daily basis on my phone because sometimes I just don’t stop doing something and actually forget to eat!

Social life when scheduled and on a daily / weekly basis can really free your mind for the times you start your work and have lots more of that good feeling and motivation that comes after a good social interaction.

7. sport – This must seem unrelated, but having to sit in front of the computer almost all the time in the past 2 years – I have found that sport is a necessity, and I’m not going to tell you like everybody to go to the gym 3 times a week and have a 2 hour session each time. Basically everyone tells you that sport is a must in your life,  I agree with that – But you choose how to add it to your life. Just get yourself every day / two and have a run around the block – then get back and do some push ups or whatever sport activity you like. don’t force yourself to join a routine that will put on your life on a must do 2 hours of sport everyday, just feel the need to go out for a run / walk and have fun with it, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend on it or how much KM/Miles you are running or walking. Your heart needs you to have aerobic activity – And your body will really help you feel better when you do have some sport in your life.

TOP TIP - I don’t even put a sport session in my calendar anymore, I used to force myself to run 4 KM 3 times a week and do about 5 hour of muscle training each week, one day I just got sick of it and stopped doing sports for about 8 months, this has happened because I forced myself and when we force ourself we can rarely continue doing something without stopping – Doing sports for fun and just getting outside and running / walking without metering yourself will get you the healthy feeling that sports brings to one’s life but will keep away the whole “you have to do it” syndrome.

Yours,

Tzvi.

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