Archive for 2010

GOAL : 56 hours sleep for February 2010

ACTUAL: 57 hours sleep for February 2010

You remember all that stuff I said about January being the hardest month (the last week especially)? Well, throw that out the window; February is by far the worst Dymaxion Sleep month I’ve ever had. And again, all the thanks goes to one thing, my social life.

February was filled with showcases, performances, and classes to teach. At first my whole flexible schedule thing worked out, and I finally thought I was able to have a social life and sleep two hours day (ain’t I stupid). I guess my social life has a thing against my sleep habits; I had back to back shows, back to back classes, back to back meetings, and anything else back to back.

I found myself sometimes not skipping one nap but two! If you ever practised polyphasic sleeping, especially Uberman or Dymaxion like me, then you’ll understand the importance of what I just said. Continue Reading →

I read about 21 books per week.

Continue Reading →

Do you know what will make you happy for the next ten years? How ’bout five? four? three?!

If you’re anything like me, then you’ll truthfully answer no (if you’re not, then you’ll lie and say yes). None of us can predict what will make us happy in the years ahead of us. How could we?! We live in a constantly changing world where we experience new and fascinating things every single day. Look at the divorce rate, a lot of people thought they would be happy forever right? Look at the economy, a lot of people thought they were financially set for life right? In fact, look at yourself right now, did you know yesterday that you would be sitting there reading this? No matter how hard we try to foresee the future, at the end of the day we’re all ‘just human’. Continue Reading →

I am a skeptic.

I am a skeptic in the fact that I don’t believe what a lot of people say until I have tested it out for myself. It’s not their fault, it’s just how I am.

And so far, this has done wonders for me. I’ve been able to do things like sleep two hours per day; live an ubervegan lifestyle and not consume white potatoes, white rice, and sugar for example; go on for two years without watching television (still going), and  recently I’ve turned my attention on the issue of being extremely productive.

If you go out looking for ways to be productive you’ll generally find the same information repeated everywhere:

1- Never check email in the morning.
2- Batch similar tasks together.
3- Stop checking Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn every five minutes.
4- Set a specific end period for a task.
5- Etc., etc., etc..

Now I don’t have an issue with the general message that people are conveying; the message of self improvement and general productivity. However, I don’t (and never will) think that anything worth doing, like self improvement, is easily accomplished by following a few ‘simple’ steps.

Simplicity is one of the most complicated things you’ll ever pursue in life.

But through ‘self-experimentation’ I’ve found a thought provoking idea that’s worth thinking about.

Saving Attention, Not Time

Calmness and productivity are not achieved by how much “time-saving” techniques you apply; they’re better achieved through how many “attention-saving” techniques you practice.

Continue Reading →

This whole Google Buzz thing has had me thinking about privacy, again. Mainly how it relates to our current, past, and future societies. Through it all, I’ve come up with one conclusion; we don’t want privacy. Jonathan Franzen said it best:

“Americans care about privacy mainly in the abstract.”

Yup, ladies and gentleman, if you say you want privacy you’re bullshitting yourself, and only yourself. So, back up, put down your “privacy or death” signs, and do something more productive with your time. Continue Reading →

Bloggers are better than teachers.

And you know what? I mean it. I truly believe bloggers are better than teachers. Just think about it. Bloggers continually teach others through their blog posts for free. We don’t ask them to do it, we don’t pay them to do it, they just do.

Bloggers can’t go around holding a strike here and there whenever they think they’re not getting paid enough (what’s below $0.00/hour?… joking), they can’t go whining to their spouse that someone is not matching their 401(k) or 403(b), they don’t have compensation plans, or health plans. They continue to provide new information for free out of pure passion. Something a lot of teachers are missing. Continue Reading →

A while back, I was speaking with a friend who asked me how I keep track of so many things, blog on a constant basis, and generally live such a productive life, especially when others my age are playing video games and watching TV. He unknowingly unleashed one of my non-comprehensible rants on patience and not watching TV, but pretty soon the conversation turned to the applications I use on my computer and phone to stay productive (he’s a tech junkie, so it was expected).

I can’t explain to you just how happy he is after trying a few of these applications out. He’s constantly telling me how much free time he has now, how less frantic he is, how more organized he is, yada, yada, yada. Seeing how happy and productive these applications made him, and wanting to spread joy around the world (Santa complex?), I’ve decided to list my top ten productivity increasing apps.

Let’s dive into the list: Continue Reading →

Today’s post is extra special. Today’s post is the last Ubervegan post. Yup, the last one. I’m not quitting, or changing my diet, it’s just that I have nothing more to really add every month other than “I ate the odd food here or there”. And, I’m not going to turn this ‘series’ into a “How to cook and eat vegan” type of series, there are enough of those online.

For the last ubervegan post, I thought it fitting if I answered some of the main questions I get from people. So I conducted a self-interview: Continue Reading →

Did you know that where you work can affect how you think?

It’s true. Your location can affect you mentally, physically, and emotionally.

For instance, if you write in a room with a low ceiling, that’s generally confined, you will find yourself more focused and more introverted.

You will find yourself mainly focused on one aspect of one topic. If you write in a room with a high ceiling you will find yourself more open and imaginative, but still confined to one general topic. You will have more thoughts about a larger number of aspects of that one particular idea, but generally find it hard to escape that one topic.

Now, if you find yourself writing in a large open area, like a park, you’ll find your thoughts to be quiet fleeting.

Continue Reading →

Brief intro

It’s been a while hasn’t it. I haven’t updated Dymaxion sleep posts in two-three weeks now. All on purpose though.

As you may have noticed, this is not my main focus on dancePROOF. I’d much rather write something to do with personal development, or love, or society, or something else thought provoking. Something that has to do with me helping people out (and not talking about myself). Thus I decided that I will write an update on my Dymaxion sleeping habits every first Monday of every month.

I also have a confession to make. I haven’t been so anal-retentive about the whole “keeping perfect track of everything I do”. You can’t blame me though, I’ve been busy. Performances to perform, schools to teach, family to take care of, business to handle, and the oh so familiar “money issues” to take care of. As you can probably see I haven’t updated my Flickr photos or my Twitter updates in about two-three weeks as well. To all those that continued to check in on them, disappointed daily due to my lack of posting, I apologize. January was a hectic month.

So here’s to February. Here’s to me finally making a “flexible” schedule so that I don’t fuck up again, and let people down. And here’s to me actually talking about what you came here for, Dymaxion sleep.

Continue Reading →