These five functions, understanding, deciding, recalling, memorizing, and inhibiting, make up the majority of conscious thought.

If you can read only one book on productivity in your lifetime, then I would say this is the book you should read. The author covers all the scenarios that we information overloaded workers fase everyday and show us how just small changes in our thinking can make us 10X more productive.

Here are the main points I highlighted in the book which will help you in your everyday work life.

Key Points

Chapter 1: Problems and Decisions

• These five functions, understanding, memorizing, recalling, deciding, and inhibiting, make up the majority of conscious thought.
• There’s a limit to how much information can be held in mind and manipulated at any one time.
• Prioritize first, before any other attention-rich activity such as emailing. That’s because prioritizing is one of the brain’s most energy-hungry processes.
• One technique is to break work up into blocks of time based on type of brain use, rather than topics
• Your ability to make great decisions is a limited resource. Conserve this resource at every opportunity.
• Use the brain to interact with information rather than trying to store information, by creating visuals for complex ideas and by listing projects.

Chapter 2: A Project That Hurts to Think About

• There’s a limit to how much information can be held in mind and manipulated at any one time.
• If you have a decision to make, the most efficient number of variables is likely to be two: Should I turn left or right?
• The size of a chunk roughly relates to the time it takes you to say each item to yourself.
• Becoming an expert in any field seems to involve creating large numbers of chunks,
• Simplify information by approximating and focusing on an idea’s salient elements.
• Group information into chunks whenever you have too much information.
• Practice getting your most important actors onstage first, not just the ones that are easiest.

I’m sure most of you have started a blog at one time or another and posted to it once or twice and then stopped. I know it’s difficult to keep a consistent schedule and come up with interesting things to write about, so this time I’m taking a different approach to blogging.

I’m going to follow this motto:

“Write as much as you read”

Or

“Create as much as you consume”

So what I’m going to do is simple.

• When I read an article which I like, I’m going to post my comments about it and link to the original article,
• and for every chapter of a book I read I’m going to summarize it and post it here.

Hopefully this simpler blogging strategy will keep me motivated enough to build up a habit and help come up with some original ideas to write about.

Go to WordPress.com and start your own blog today — it’s free!

A gadget that inspires you to live healthy…

I’ve been wearing this wristband 24/7 for the last 3 days and wanted to share with you what I like, don’t like about this gadget.

Measuring your wrist size on the box.

Jawbone UP is a wristband that you wear which helps you stay motivated to do more exercise, eat well and sleep better by tracking your movement and sleep activity. The thing is, the simple act of paying attention to something will cause you to be more conscious about that activity and over time you’ll improve those areas – almost without any extra effort.

Studies show that even without changing your lifestyle, if all you do is just track your activities then over time you become more conscious about your health choices and start making better decisions. So using this gadget over time you’ll be able to see the patterns of choices you make and maybe improve them.

This wristband works with the companion iPhone app. It has PRECISION MOTION SENSOR which accurately tracks your movement and sleep activity. Then you download the data onto your iPhone and view it.

Sync with iPhone

Track Activity

Tracks your steps, activity level. Here you set a goal for yourself like 5,000 steps in a day and then measure yourself to that goal. I’ve noticed that even a moderate goal of 5,000 steps is sometimes difficult if you have a desk job, like me

Activity Alert

This is one of my favorite thing. If you are sitting for a long time without any activity then the bracelet buzzes you to get up and move around. I feel it like a Zen Bracelet which reminds to stay in the present moment.

Track Sleep

Track your sleep length and quality. This feature I find really helpful since I can relate my days activity and food to the quality of sleep I have.

Smart Alarm

This is my second favorite feature. It vibrates on your wrist and intelligently wakes you up at the ideal moment in your natural sleep cycle just before your desired wake time.

Track Diet

Keeping a visual food journal has been shown to make us more conscious of what we eat. Just pausing for a second before you gobble down you meal makes you think. And it’s kind of embarrassing to take a photo of a big bag of chips which you are about to eat

Here’s a NY Times article on the benefits of clicking before eating.

Challenges and Social Features

From the app you can participate in challenges and if you know other people who own this then you can track each others progress and motivate each other.

I have not yet tried this thing.

What I Like

• Setting a goal for daily no. of steps and wanting to meet that goal.
• Smart alarm which wakes me up at the right time at my lightest sleep cycle.
• Activity alert which reminds me to stand up and walk around. I feel this like a Zen gong which reminds you to stay present.
• Visual Food Journal, which has been shown to make us more conscious of what we eat.

What I Don’t Like

• Some people might not like wearing this bracelet 24/7.
• The iPhone app is a good start, but needs more feature and ease of use.

You can pick this up online or at an Apple store or other big retailers.

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