Green Fleet Bicycle Shop

     Less than one week until school begins for this fall semester. Because I am continuing to work a midnight shift at the hospital, this semester is going to be difficult. I'd love to load up a full 12+ hours and burn through the remaining courses I need to move forward, however, I would then have zero hours to sleep during the day before having to work a full night. Resilience and motivation to build myself further is what will be getting me through the end of this year. That and the strong woman I have been with for over a year.

     The past year, Megan has been talking about getting bicycles on which to ride the town. When she was still living on West End and Blakemore there were so many awesome places to where we could have biked. Our rides to cool places from our new location will just be a bit longer with faster traffic.

     Yesterday, we finally got the chance to find the perfect bike. We went to a really cool bicycle shop in Music Row called Green Fleet Bicycle Shop. It is located on Edgehill Avenue between 16th Ave and Villa Place. Austin Bauman, the owner, greeted us and was very helpful in helping Megan and me choose a really awesome bike. He asked the right questions to guide us towards the perfect fit and style.

Megan ended up with a cool white Jamis Commuter 1 Step-Over

I bought navy Jamis Commuter 1.

Seems the Jamis build is exactly what we need: a good old American made bike!

     Green Fleet provides bike rentals, new builds, tunes, repairs, and adjustments to commuters and racing bikes. They do two bike tours of Nashville several times a week. The Signature City Tour is about two and a half hours and rides through Germantown, Marathon Village and The Gulch. The Downtown Highlights Tour is an hour and a half and cruises through the cool and historic sites of downtown Nashville. From their site: highlights include the Symphony Center, the Ryman, Public Square, Fort Nashboro, a smelly alley (or two - trust us they are historic), and all of our advice on the best restaurants and music venues.

We've got a great fall ahead of us with cool weather and great brand new bikes to ride through all the red, orange and yellow fall leaves.

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Productivity: What are the best day-to-day time-saving hacks? Answer 1

Marius Ursache

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I've been testing and adjusting various productivity techniques for the past five years, read lots of books (most of them repeating) and here's some of my findings:

It's not about time. It's about energy.

We try to squeeze as many hours in one work day, to be "productive", but in the end everything depends less on time, and more on your focus, motivation and overall well-being (all of them linked directly with energy levels).

I've recently talked about my productivity techniques obsessions in an internal presentation at Grapefruit, and the resulting presentation is on Slideshare:

slideshare.net

Productivity porn

Some of the key findings:

1. Decide what's important because in 5 years, 80% of what you do today will not turn into anything. It's just busywork, no useful outcome.
2. Sleep, food and exercise can help you triple your outcome, because they increase focus, motivation and energy levels.
3. The 2-minute rule: if you can do something (like replying to an email, or a house chore) in 2 minutes, do it now. Planning it for later, remembering it, doing it in the future will take 5 minutes or more.
4. The 5-minute rule: the biggest cure against procrastination is to set your goal not to finish a scary big hairy task, but to just work 5 minutes on it. You'll find out that most times it continues well beyond the 5 minutes, as you enter a flow state.
5. Seinfeld's productivity chain: if you want to be good at something, do it every day. Including on Christmas, Easter and Judgement Day. No exceptions.
6. Tiny habits (Tiny Habits w/ Dr. BJ Fogg), highly linked with the 5-minute rule, helps you create good habits quickly. It works, I tested it.
7. Your memory sucks. Get everything out of your head, even if you're a genius. Write it down in a notebook, put it in your todo-list app, on your phone, talk to Siri, I don't care.
8. As few tools as possible. I've tested most of the todo managers and finally stayed with Cultured Code's Things app and Google Calendar (iCal is ok, but Google Calendar integrates well with Gmail, my default client). It doesn't matter what you use (pen & paper are fine) if you understand the next rule.
9. Routine beats tools. You need discipline, and this means for me two things: I plan my day first thing in the morning, and I write a short daily log every day. This helps me stay sane, prioritize well, scrap useless tasks, and do what matters. This saves me hours.
10. Pomodoros. That's timeboxing—for 30 minutes do only the task at hand. Nothing else: no phones, email, talking to people, Facebook, running out of the building in case of fire. Nothing else.
11. Always wear your headphones. You don't have to listen to music, but it will discourage people to approach you.
12. Email scheduling and inbox zero. Don't read your email first thing in the day, don't read it in the evening (it ruined many evenings for me), and try to do it only 3 times a day: at 11am, 2pm and 5pm. And your email inbox is not a todo list. Clear it: every message should be an actionable task (link it from the todo app), a reference document (send to Evernote or archive), or should be deleted now.
13. Same thing for phone calls. Don't be always available. I always keep my phone on silent, and return calls in batches.
14. Batch small tasks. Like mail, phones, Facebook etc. 
15. MI3. Most important three tasks (or the alternative 1 must - 3 should - 5 could). Start with the most important first thing in the morning.
16. Willpower is limited. Don't think that willpower will help you when you get in trouble. Make important decisions in the morning and automate everything possible (delegate, batch etc.). US presidents don't have to choose their menu or suit color everyday—otherwise their willpower will be depleted at that late hour when they should push (or not push) the red button).
17. The most powerful thing. Always ask yourself what is the most powerful thing you can do right now. Then apply rule #4.
18. Ship often. Don't polish it too much—as they say in the startup world, "if you're not ashamed of your product, you've launched too late'!
19. Pressure can do wonders. Use rewards or social commitment. We've recently done this with the new Grapefruit website. The previous one took 2.5 years to launch. The new one took 2.5 days and we did it over one hackathon weekend (+Monday).
20. Scheduled procrastination. Your brain needs some rest, and sometimes that new episode from Arrow can do wonders that the smartest TED talk won't.
21. Delete. Say No. Ignore. Don't commit to schedules. I love the last one, it's from Marc Andreessen, because it allows him to meet whomever he wants on the spot. A lot of people will hate you for this, but you'll have time to do relevant stuff. Do you think you'll regret that in 20 years, or doing something for someone you don't really care about, just to be superficially appreciated.
22. Fake incompetence. It's a diplomatic way to apply the previous rule.

That's it for now. My procrastination break is over, I'm going back to work.

Avatar - Last Airbender's 7 Chakras

A reddit user, Madhatter69, typed this out from the guru's teachings. It sums the 7 chakras up really well. Remember, you must open each one in order and if you find one difficult, you must not proceed until you have fully opened it. This means you have work to do within that energy pool.

Chakras are pools of spiraling energy in our bodies. There are seven chakras that go up the body. Each pool of energy has a purpose, and can be blocked by a specific kind of emotional mark. Be warned: opening the chakras is an intense experience, and once you begin this process, you can not stop until all seven are open.

• The first chakra is the Earth chakra, located at the base of the spine. It deals with survival, and is blocked by fear.

What are you most afraid of? Let your fears become clear to you. You are concerned about your survival, but you must surrender those fears. Let your fears flow down the creek.

• Next is the Water chakra. This chakra deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt.

Look at all the guilt that burdens you so. What do you blame yourself for? Now accept the reality that these things happened. But do not let them cloud and poison your energy. If you are to be a positive influence on the world, you need to forgive yourself.

• Third is the Fire chakra, located in the stomach. This chakra deals with willpower, and is blocked byshame.

What are you ashamed of? What are your biggest disappointments in yourself? You will never find balance if you deny this part of your life.

• The fourth chakra is located in the Heart. It deals with love and is blocked by grief.

Lay all your grief out in front of you. Love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us. A love of your lost ones has not left this world, it is still inside of your heart; and it is reborn in a form of new love. Let it flow through you.

• The fifth in the chain is the Sound chakra, located in the throat. It deals with the truth, and is blocked bylies, the ones we tell ourselves.

You can not lie about your own nature. You must accept yourself as you are.

• The sixth pool of energy is the Light chakra, located in the center of the forehead. It deals with insight, and is blocked by illusion.

The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same. We are all one people, but we live as if divided. We are all connected, and everything is connected. Even the separation of the four elements is an illusion. If you open your mind, you will see that all the elements are one; four parts of the same whole. Even metal is just a part of earth that has been purified and refined.

• The final chakra is Thought chakra and is located at the crown of the head. It deals with pure cosmic energy and is blocked by earthly attachment.

Once you open this chakra, you will be able to go in the state of mind where you will have complete control and awareness of all your actions. Meditate on what attaches you to this world. Now, let all of those attachments go, let them flow down the river; forgotten. You must learn to let go, otherwise you won’t be able to let the pure cosmic energy flow in from the Universe.

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Learning A New Language - Python

One of the most frequent topics of advice on challenging your mind is developing new skills. Not only does adding skills to your set create a better resume, it also gives you important value. Learning a programming language is a start to exercising your mind. It is also a great way to set the groundwork for a side venture or even a main venture.

From the list of programming languages that are available on Code Academy, Python stood out to me as it is a "powerful language used by sites like Youtube and Dropbox." I clicked through the content list and found that I would be learning quite a bit! It was going to be a good challenge to push myself through, but being interested in how computers, software, and websites work, I knew I had the motivation and background to make it work.

I  have over 35% of the course completed and am excited to sit and code each day to learn new things like creating string literals, using the keyword 'print'. I created a pig latin translator, a vacation cost calculator, and a tip calculator. I learned how functions work, how I can import math functions, such as square().

In the next few lessons, I am going to be learning to create a simplified version of the game Battleship!

There are several other things to come in the future on Code Academy for me in terms of learning languages. I do not think Python will be the only language I attempt to master.


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Discovering A Passion Through Experimentation

     Before today, I used words like "I need to find..." or "I am trying to figure out..." and "I am just waiting for..." to describe my quest for my passions. The biggest waste of time to finding my passion has been my inaction towards actually discovering them.
     I have made a list of my interests, taken a few college courses outside the regular scope of interests, and scoured on-line blogs and articles devoted to the study of finding passions out of which to create a career.
     Top performers create great examples of the correct, for them, pathways to finding passion and making a career out of it. The best advice one can take for discovering a passion is to TRY EVERYTHING. Our parents were correct in asking how we knew we did not like something without trying it. Damn you broccoli. That question is more of a step in the right direction to finding and creating a career we can be proud of, support our families with, and progress as people.
     This week, I will be looking at the list and the research I have collected since beginning my search for passions to determine which to start with. My list consists of welding, personal training or fitness coaching, writing in order to become published by any publishing house, and programming.
     I began learning the programming language of Python earlier this week as part of the programming passion. Stay tuned on a progress report on Python later this weekend.

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