Convert Sleep to Inspiration & Problem Solving

Time for a wonderful, relaxing nap.. or is it?

Basically, today, I would like to talk about how sleep can be utilized for more than just its common purpose.

The Body Sleeps | The Mind Travels

Seriously, if you are the type of person who has vivid dreams like me, this will hit home with you.

First off, let’s begin with the concept that during our ZzZzZ time it is possible for our brain processing to continue. I’ve experienced it myself at multiple occasions in various ways. So if you are asking for proof, well, it’s standing right.. at the other side of your laptop.

Holding Onto The Thought

So lets get to the point.

Lets say there’s some form of computing or creative challenge going on in our minds. Normally, all sorts of such thoughts, including worrying which deserves another chapter on its own, tend to keep as awake; it’s the only way we can keep processing them lucidly. At worst, they won’t let our minds relax in order to get lost in that dream world.. or momentary abyss.

Holding onto the thought is one thing.. a good one. We focus. The more we do this the more we program ourselves, from the highest to the lowest level all working as one for one goal, optimizing all efforts for that unfolding truth.

Relaxing, however, is another.. and these two seem to counteract each other..

Set Your Subconscious Free

A repeating thought can always turn into some form of second nature. In techy terms this can actually take the form of something like a background process to which we become accustomed.. like breathing. We breath to keep on living.. We think to keep on solving..

As the thought enters the layer of our subconscious it is easier for the mind to release and relax while still this thought or process is quite active. This eventually will lead to sleep while still processing this thought.. and that is when.. or should I say where.. the magic happens!

Faster (Experience)

In just a few words, searching for some form of a solution to a computing or creative challenge can be executed faster in the realm of sleep since our brain does not process things in the serial manner it normally does – the so called trail of thought.. It’s not the first time you just woke up and can’t quite place the events you just “witnessed” in order, now can you?

Eye-Opening (Experience)

What about examining or conceiving an idea via a new perspective, a new way of thinking.. or discussing it with or simply having it being dictated by otherworldly entities..

Who knows.. It could happen..

Problem solving – there you go.

Inspiration – there you go.

Epiphany

“OMG! I just woke up and it somehow came to me – I I I * stutters for a moment * can connect the dots.. I I I * stutters for a moment * It’s possible..”

Sounds familiar? If not, maybe it’s time for some Zs..

Hashtag: #PowerNap

A Small Step For..

So, a couple of minutes later you may find yourself thinking that you are back to square one.. Or are you? You know, even if you try 1000 different ways to achieve something there’s always you can learn from it – and that is that those 1000 ways don’t work so they are routes you won’t be taking again or you may be readjusting on your next thought.. trail.. Oh my God – see what I did just there? Way / Route / Thought Trail?..

Ehem..

Cutting to the chase: It may seem you are where you started but in fact you are moving forward. Your thoughts mature, not only at the conscious level but also at the subconscious one.

Hungry For More?

Of-course? Eat it!

More @

http://www.nosleeplessnights.com/sleep-problem-solving/

Bonus thought for the advanced: Sleeping with books you’d like to read around you..

Less is MORE

First of all, don’t get me wrong – if I could work 24/7.. I would. There’s just physical limitations.. such as death.

Today I’ll be simply throwing out the main idea of why what I am about to say actually works and then let an interesting article I’ve found do the talking.

“If only I had more time”

In a world where Time seems to be the most valuable.. “asset”, nobody can argue that “if we only had more time” has been said.. and is still being said.. one to many.. times. (See what I did just there? Times.. Oh well..)

I’ll just cut to the chase.

“It’s not Time.. It’s you.”

No, I kid.. sort of. That sounded like a breakup’s last words. Let’s have another take:

“It’s not time, it’s how we use that time.”

You are probably thinking that right now I’m about to go under a meticulous and sophisticated explanation on how you can use your time to get things done. Well, I kind of will, but not as you imagine..

“I have X time and I need to do Y things”

If you are still thinking, “I have X time and I need to do Y things” you are still inside the box. No, really. The box is everything how your life is setup and you are just trying to do as much of “Y” in “X”. Where is the improvement? The box will keep you inside itself. It won’t let you question the box. That’s how things are setup.

“Thinking outside the box”

Review what “X time” is and what “Y things” are. And when I say review, I really mean go by the rule “Less is MORE”.

“Pushing the Limits”

Imagine if you should do all those “Y things” in LESS time. Is it possible? “Impossible, I say. This man is mad.. mad I tell you!”. Goodbye.. and good kittens.

So, this is the key philosophy:

If you force yourself in a tighter frame of RESOURCES to achieve the same thing it will force you to view things differently and explore new ways of doing something faster and even better because usually it will be SIMPLER. Yes, it will take sacrifices, even changing contexts (such as a non-progressive or unsupportive workplace or community) and of-course some more.. time.. but that is your LEGACY. This is what I loved in the good old development days when RAM size and CPU power was limited; it really pushed us developers to utilize what we had in awesome ways. Sorry, I’m drifting.. Maybe I should.. Bye..

“Invest your time Wisely”

After talking about all the above, I really need not explain why it matters how you invest your time; and by how I mean WISELY. Invest time to make more time.

Isn’t after all, even afterlife.. thinking outside this box and an investment?

That article you mentioned at the beginning..

Not convinced? Others are on to this path.

Quoting last paragraph:

Someday, when we’re a bigger company, we’ll be able to start people at $80,000 to $100,000–and still let them walk out the door at 1 p.m. When that day comes, we’ll be snatching all the best talent from every company in town. That’s what I’m betting, anyway–after all, this experiment is only a year old, and it doesn’t stop here.

Enjoy!

https://www.fastcompany.com/3063262/what-happened-when-i-moved-my-company-to-a-5-hour-workday

don’t talk about it; Just Do It!

You’ve heard it all before

But maybe not in this way. How many times have you looked back and said: “Hey, if I actually did this instead of thinking, discussing or even arguing about it, wouldn’t I already have done it or some part of it by now!?”. Don’t get me wrong! Thinking is Planning, Discussing is Feedback and Arguing is Syncing. Yet, I am referring to that moment after all those first passes have been completed and you find yourself still being technically meticulous.. talking about it; as if you are seeking some form of validation or approval.. again..

Waste of Energy

In simple terms, that right there, that repetition or loop, is simply waste of energy. All this energy along with the excitement and the force should now be poured into Doing. This will lead to testing the grounds and failing or encountering any issues early, which is better than late after all your resources have been exhausted, gaining that inevitable knowledge and experience and finally even pivoting. This will be far more beneficial. Use your resources wisely.

Stop trying “Convincing Others” happen

As I said, going through again and again the process of thinking, discussing and even arguing about what you are planning to do may become counterproductive instead of motivating. Some things glue instantly and naturally without much effort and with today’s technology and the interneT you can virtually query the world for people and resources who share and / or have faith in the same vision or essence; not just yet another template of work.

Know Thyself

If one has not set a vision or path in his or her life and has not prepared the appropriate foundation to realize that, it’s easy to be diverted by external forces because he or she is missing the fundamentals of remaining or getting back on track whenever a sandstorm strikes. To know yourself means to not let anything or anyone else decide for you who you are but discover and sculpt yourself to fulfill your purpose.. or dare I say.. destiny.

Source: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/563020390894426709/

Prove Yourself.. to Yourself

Instead of wasting energy in convincing others, or even yourself, you can simply utilize all that to prove yourself.. to yourself; a fundamental confidence boost as part of knowing yourself. Really. Think about it. We’ve heard one too many times the good old “I could be..” or “You could be..”. In reality what we are hearing or saying is “I am still not..” or “You are still not..”. We could all start thinking “I am..” cause it’s just a matter of time of making it happen.

..

Oh, you are still here? Still, thinking or arguing about it? Listen..

JUST DO IT!

The more you do it..

You’ve probably heard it before – I know I have.. and probably not in a software development context. Of-course, this is a very general rule which again applies to many aspects of life. Since by essence this is quite a broad notion, today I’m going to be composing more of a life coach post instead of software development. But it’s easy to project it to that context afterwards.

Getting Started

We constantly find ourselves being consumed by our daily lives and obligations that it becomes literally a battle against time to make ends meet. This of-course undermines insidiously the more spiritual aspect of life – motivation, creativity, inspiration, innovation, meditation, virtues. Surviving at all cost becomes the center of life and the spiritual part becomes a.. luxury. I won’t go into a rant post, so I’m just going to say it should be the other way around, having as center the more spiritual aspect of life, because that is the actual source of energy for the physical to manifest and function properly.

Beyond the drama, mamma, it’s not that we don’t really practice spirituality in our daily lives – we would probably go nuts if we didn’t – it’s just that the stagnant loop and system feeds itself and protests at and tries to squash any effort of non-conformity – and, sadly, this is contagious leading to further resistance by our circles and environment.

“Demetris, whatever does this have to do with ‘the more you do it’ thingy?”

Exactly – it’s all about mentality – a more spiritual aspect. The ground needs to be prepared first. It will take effort to break the loop, and you need to be prepared for it. You need to sacrifice that little time (from all unproductive and energy draining activities) once in a while to make that extra mile that gets you out of your false comfort zone and do whatever it is that you feel the need to do to fulfill your purpose or destiny – it’s there: you feel it, you know it. Oh, and by “once in a while” I certainly mean daily, because the gravity of the matter pulls you back to that.. (pause for dramatization).. fallen and static state.

So, now that we have.. aligned our thoughts, let’s get started!

Start Sloppy, End Professionally

“I’ll start tomorrow”

“Just after I finish this”

Oh, really? Goodbye.

I kid. I understand. It’s the system. I won’t repeat what I’ve already mentioned in the previous section. Instead, I’ll teach you how to fight. And this is how you do it: you press “Start”. Pressing that “Start” button means accepting the fact that right now you’ll make a little sacrifice to do what you have to do.

“It won’t be as good as it would be if I had the right time”

“I am tired from all the other stuff going on”

NO!

I don't want to hear any goddamn excuses

First of all, unless you press “Start” you are not going anywhere.

Period.

Now, “anything” is better than “nothing”. I am not fond off sloppy work, at all, especially if I have the option to have something done with perfection, but in comparison to “doing nothing”, “anything” is infinitely more. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes it’s better to do nothing.. by letting a professional do it for you – the right professional, that is.

The shade..

On every effort, on every pass, you WILL get better because you’ll strengthen yourself. You’ll find it easier to re-start (resume), easier to perform, easier to continue and easier to repeat. This constant betterment will eventually result in nothing less than a professional.

Use Resistance as Validation

So, we’ve began our journey to finally.. doing it!

But, if you find yourself inexplicably procrastinating or feeling disheartened it means you may be onto something. If you find your circles or environment delaying you, or even worse, preventing you, again, you may be onto something.

So, instead of losing energy from all sorts of resistance, from internal to external, you may utilize it to your advantage and feed from it; use it as a form of validation. Your.. “gut feeling”.. will help you through to discriminate between what is just plain worrying, what is actually going wrong and what is actually going right. You want to be doing the right thing, the right way and dealing with any wrongs that come in your way.. the right way.

Way.

Getting Better

Doing something again and again is like in one word: training. Becoming better and good at something almost comes naturally, as if we are gradually programming ourselves. But it doesn’t end there. When we do something again and again, once we’ve achieved a skillful level, we start to process it to an even deeper level; even at the level of our subconscious, which is remarkable. We may start calculating new ways through which we can execute that something even better. And that may in fact be the point at which not only improvement occurs but actual breakthrough.

Positive Feedback

The process of starting, at first, may feel like a.. drag. And that is exactly why it is important to overcome this initial obstacle. Because once that is out of the way the process begins to feed it self. The first pass disciplines for a second pass and the second pass motivates for a third pass and the third pass inspires for a fourth pass and a fourth pass empowers for a firth pass and so on.. This positive feedback, or loop, multiplies our efforts’ effectiveness every time we perform and that improves not only quantity but also quality.

Living for It

Whatever it is that you’ve been putting aside for so long now becomes one of the core ingredients of your life. It keeps you active in the aspects you’ve been neglecting and that, not only paints the monochrome scenery but also, brings about a feeling of fulfillment.

And that’s not all – doing means going forward – not via time but via actions. Past is no longer determined by time but by our actions. You want for something to really belong in the past? Don’t wait for the future – build one. Doing means Healing. Healing means Life. Too soon? This is a whole new post to discuss. Maybe later..

And since we’ve talked about positive feedback and multiplying, life is based on actual multiplying. No, really. Living organisms multiply their cells for growth and regeneration.

Just Do It

There’s not much to say about this after everything that’s been said.

Oh, you are still here? Go get to WERK!

If you had the time to read up to this point, you’ve already made your first sacrifice. Thank you.

foreach (Opportunity) { I.Operate(Anything); }

I want to do Everything.. yet I end up doing Nothing!

Excited Jumping Person
I’m so-y Excited! I’m gonna do Everything!..

Confess. Confess now! OK, sorry, I think I came a little bit too hard on you.

How many times have you told yourself: “I want to do so many things, I have so many things in my mind, I am so excited!” and you ended up doing none of those things? If never, then this article is not for you, either because you’ve figured this all out or you are simply boring.. Nah, kidding ;P So, let’s see how we can overcome this (awful-no good-horrible-very bad) pattern 😀

I want to be simple so I’ll just provide headlines, for now.. You can subscribe for updates! So, let’s see…

  • Relax
  • Get Organized
  • Keep it Simple
  • Be to the Point
  • Plan
  • Act NOW! Not later..
  • Eliminate Distractions

That’s all – All done! Happy Productivity! Peace 😛

Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com is licensed by CC BY 3.0

Immerse in our Creation – a Recovery

Plenty of us create on a daily basis. On some days we are happy and passionate with what we are doing and on others we lose interest, the whole process begins to feel like an obligation or a chore and at its worst we become sloppy in our creativity and creation methods, not to mention hopeless.

So, how do we recover? How do we get back on track?.. baby?

I’m gonna place on top of all points my today’s thought which ignited this post.

  • Immerse in our Creation

Ooh, sounds deep and intellectual.. and I’m trying to sound like that actually, so yeah – there you go. OK, what do I really mean by this?

Basically, during the process of doing creative work we might lose our focus to the technical aspect of it instead of its essence. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as we do have to get technical to a certain extend, depending on what we are creating, but we might be endangering the outcome. We could become unmotivated in the process. We could also simply get off the course and end up with a “it-seemed-so-different-and-better-in-my-head”.

So to keep focused and effective we can remove all distractions orbiting around the purpose and realign with the essence via immersion in our creation. We can reflect, meditate and finally immerse in our creation to actually live what we are creating so that we can act in the most effective manner. It may require to acquire additional knowledge to accomplish this or get in touch with a different side of ourselves, for example emotionally.

For now, I am leaving this up to here as food for thought and as reminder to myself on how useful this piece of information can become in those times where our initial love for something creative is tiringly fading away; and we know it shouldn’t.

Keep up the good spirit! x

Keep Less, Do More

OK, so today I’ve been struck by this urge to share my thoughts on how less can help me do more. The ignition of this urge originates from my thirst for productivity, optimization yet simplicity and minimalism.

So, what does Less mean?

  • Less means carrying only the necessary with me.

I try NOT to carry what I MAY need. This improves mobility. Lighter equipment. Less to handle.

  • Less means having less to keep track off and manage.

This actually improves management as you have less to deal with and reduces stress as you have less to worry about too.

So, how do we ACTUALLY keep less?

  • Replace many with one.

Ugh, if there is one thing I hate is duplicates. Don’t get me wrong – I love spares (and twins..) but I don’t like having stuff of one purpose scattered around in many places nor do I like having the same thing multiple times in different forms. I like to keep as few as possible of the best of something.

  • Group common.

If we can’t replace many items with one we can at least group them. Organization methodology which deals with how we group stuff in order to optimize performance is another subject which we can elaborate later.

  • Lite and simplistic alternatives.

If a task can be done with lighter and more simplistic tools then that’s the ones I’ll be choosing. If I only need a screwdriver I won’t be carrying the whole toolbox but I’ll definitely note I got one thing out of its place to return it back as soon as I’m done with it. This also wipes out the possibility of opening new pending task.. and no, I’m not referring to the screwdriver, it’s a metaphor.

  • Start first, End first.

Order. I can’t stand it when I start doing something and something else interrupts me assigning me yet another task in the middle leaving the first one pending and incomplete. So I try as much as possible to close a pending issue as soon as I start dealing with it and I log my progress to not get lost in the process.

  • Log.

First of all, I like to keep one log. It’s how you tag your log that will help you filter afterwards upon need and this goes right along with “Replace many with one” & “Group common” 🙂 Now, logging will get you out of worrying of what is pending and what is not and keep you informed about past events and info you may forget as well as provide the possibility of statistics, if done properly.

That’s all for now. Enjoy your less heavy and more simplistic, lighter life!

Love & Peace, Demetris

The Importance of Drafting

Drafting; Why should I bother?

First of all, let’s take on a definition of drafting. According to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_drawing:

Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline of composing drawings that visually communicate how something functions or is to be constructed.

Now, let’s take on how drafting can actually assist in the creative process.

The term “cost” refers to the consumption of resources which, beyond money, includes time, patience, energy & health.

  • Drafting means Preview

By projecting our creation and how it will operate before it is built we can focus on the idea rather on technical parts and see how it provides a solution to the targeted problem.

  • Drafting means Revision

By going through the drafted solution again and again we can apply improvements without the actual cost it would take to apply them on the final product.

  • Drafting means Freedom

By releasing ourselves from the responsibility of implementation we are free to explore and experiment without worrying about any costs of actually building, modifying and destroying.

  • Drafting means Abstraction

By abstracting away the how-to of implementation we can focus on the what-is and how-to of solution towards the problem.

  • Drafting means Mobile

By taking a pen (or a pencil) and a (cool covered inspiring) notebook we can practically go draft just about everywhere.

  • Drafting means No Technological Dependencies

By taking a pen (or a pencil) and a (cool covered inspiring) notebook we are good to go. No electricity dependencies, no device dependencies, nothing; just us and our draft. (And yes, eventually you may have to render the final result on some form of digital medium, for creating, storing or simply logging.)

I’m planning on updating this post at regular intervals until it is perfected. Until then, this post shall remain online available even though it is a draft. Do comment nevertheless because feedback is also part of this process.