Kolz Blog

In my previous article on Dumb Little Man, Finding a Healthier Lifestyle - Committing to Change, I discussed how to find the problem factors in your current lifestyle and how to become self-motivated during your lifestyle changes. In the second part of Dumb Little Man’s Finding a Healthier Lifestyle series I’m going to introduce some simple habit changes that will result in significant improvements in your overall health and physical condition in the long run. Lifestyles do not change over night. Lifestyle change is a continuous process of trial and error. The first reaction many people have when they discover the need to change lifestyles is to drop all of their normal habits in favor of radical diet and routine modifications. Your body and your morale will not adjust well to such radical changes and you will likely lose interest after a month. Instead of radically changing your bad habits you should slowly improve them into good habits. The basic rule of thumb for weight loss is:

"calories burned must be greater than calories consumed."

In order to adhere to this principle you are going to need to determine your average daily calorie intake and determine your average daily calorie output. [Read more]

One of the things I hear from people all of the time is that they are so yanked around by ...

Making a positive impression on someone you met through a networking event or online need not be a difficult or use much of your time or resources. The following 15 quick ways to make a positive impression are designed to be easy to implement and most only take a few minutes to do, depending on where you are at. The list is geared toward network-savvy professionals, especially those who are actively involved in expanding their business or ideas. Most of these 15 ways do not require having an in depth knowledge of the areas of interest of the person you want to impress. It is simple enough to ask for more information where you aren’t sure. These things should come from a genuine area of interest and there should be no expectation of getting something back if you do one or more of these things for someone. Think of the impression you have of those who do these sorts of things for you from time to time – likely a positive one. 1. Forward relevant articles. Forwarding one or two articles or links is all that you should do here unless you get feedback asking for more of them. Don’t annoy someone by sending tons of stuff forever. One or two well chosen articles should do nicely. Audio and video clips are included in this. 2. Mention the person in a blog post or article you are writing. It is a good idea to run it by the person first although not always necessary if you are mentioning something that is already in the public domain. A positive brief mention will likely go over nicely. 3. Give them a marketing tip they can use for their business. It should be specific to something they do. Maybe you noticed something on the website or see someplace where some brief feedback could be helpful. 4. Write a helpful article for a publication or blog. Maybe you are in a position to feature the person in a publication or blog you regularly write for. Rather than just a brief mention as per item 2 above, this would be more of a feature that might involve you interviewing the person for your piece. Including the person in a speech you are giving also fits in here. 5. Introduce them to a prospective alliance partner. This can be a prospective client or someone the person can work with in some capacity. This is a common and traditional way to help someone. [Read more]

At times managing a team project via the internet can be difficult. What kinds of things do you focus on and what do you sacrifice? These five tips to managing a group of people working on a project could put you on the right path. [Read more]

Just by simply spending some effort and time, staying positive every day can be easily achieved. All that is required is a fraction of your time, 10-15 minutes a day to cultivate the positive you! But first, what is really positive thinking? Do you have to be in an upbeat, cheerful and enthusiastic mood all day to be positive minded? No. Positive thinking simply means the absence of negative thoughts and emotions - in other words, inner peace! When you are truly at peace within yourself, you are naturally thinking positively. You don’t have to fight off negative thoughts, or search desperately for more positive thoughts; it just happens on its own.And here are 2 positive thinking tips to empower you: Positive Thinking Tip #1 - Meditation A powerful, simple yet rarely used technique is meditation. Meditation doesn’t have to take the form of static body posture. It can be as simple as sitting in a comfortable chair listening to soothing music. Or performing relaxation techniques such as deep breathing exercises. Meditation is all about letting go of stressful or worrisome thoughts. That’s it! If you spend just a few minutes per day feeling relaxed and peaceful, you automatically shift your mind into a more positive place. When you FEEL more relaxed, you naturally THINK more positively! Start with a short period of time, like 5 or 10 minutes a day. You can meditate first thing in the morning, during your lunch break, right before you go to bed at night, or any time. The most important thing is to consciously let go of unproductive thoughts and feelings. Just let them go for those few minutes, and you may decide not to pick them back up again at all! Positive Thinking Tip #2 – The Power of Daily Affirmations Positive affirmations can be used throughout the day anywhere and at anytime you need them, the more you use them the easier positive thoughts will take over negative ones and you will see benefits happening in your life. What are affirmations? Affirmations are statements that are used in a positive present tense language. For example, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better, better and better” is a popular affirmation used by the late Norman Vincent Peale.So how does one go about using positive affirmations in everyday life? Let’s look at some guidelines to follow when reciting your daily affirmations. 1. Use first person pronouns in your message (I) 2. Use present tense (I have) 3. Use positive messages (I am happy) 4. Repeat your affirmations on a consistent basis Affirmations have to be said with conviction and consistency. Start your day by saying your affirmations out loud. It wouldn’t take more than 5 minutes to repeat your affirmations yet when done consistently, these positive affirmations will seep into the subconscious mind to cultivate the new positive you. Here’s an example of a “success affirmation” you can use on a daily basis:

I am successful in everything I do. Every venture I get into returns wealth to me. I am constantly productive. I always perform to the full potential I have and have respect for my abilities. My work is always given positive recognition. I augment my income constantly. I always have adequate money for everything I require. I spend my money prudently always. My work is always rewarded.

Remember, affirmations work on the basis of conviction and consistency. Do yourself a favor and make a commitment to see this through. Begin practicing these positive thinking tips right now. And I wish you continued empowerment and growth on your positive thinking journey. George Tee is an expert author in Positive Thinking and the Subconscious Mind. Read more tips at the Mind Hacks Blog. Bookmark or Share this with a friend!

I'm very happy to see an increasing amount of SharePoint specific content targeted at information workers (i.e. end users) being posted on Office Online at the SharePoint Server 2007 Help and How-to center and in voice guided training courses. We will also release a SharePoint End User Training Kit later this year that companies can deploy onto their SharePoint environment -- more details will be forthcoming. Lastly, we will soon launch the end user focused "Get the 'Point" blog at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint as the primary channel for the SharePoint product group to engage the information worker community in an interactive dialogue about how SharePoint enables collaboration, business productivity, planning, compliance, and community building to be easy and customizable to suit diverse business needs. [Read more]

Good buddy Leo Babauta of ZenHabits has a great post fusing GTD and blogging, specifically for us bloggers who suffer from not using our time productively. Between reading, writing, commenting, responding to emails, advertising, and many other tasks, it can get a little hairy for someone without a trusty system. Fortunately GTD plays perfectly into a blogger’s workflow, as Leo goes on to illustrate. While the post is full of tasty examples for bloggers, I especially loved this part of the post:

One of the problems with the way people implement GTD is that they spend too much time fiddling with the system and their tools. You’re a busy person — you don’t have time to do all that. Pick a tool, and stick with it. Now spend your time [Read more]

If you're a die-hard Indianapolis Colts fan living in Boston, there's no better way to catch Peyton Manning gesticulating wildly before each snap of the ball than with DIRECTV's NFL Sunday Ticket. Some..

Sony Ericsson’s gaming guru Peter Ahnegard has hinted that the possibility of a PlayStation-branded mobile phone, a hybrid similar to the iPhone or defunct N-gage is possible and may be in the works. [Read more]

Feng Shui is an interesting concept, particularly for a work environment. This list of 50 practical tips for implementing Feng Shui in your home office could also be applied to other workplaces and cubicles.

Incorporating the color blue into your home office helps include an association with the element “water.” Blue is a soothing color and is best used in the East and Southeast areas of the room. According to Feng Shui expert Rodika Tchi, [Read more]

Priscilla Palmer has put together this massive list of personal development websites. As usual you can check the comments for more. The list isn’t categorized, which is a shame, and mentions Lifehack.org as a collaborative site. It would be nice to have a list that divides sites into focus. For instance General, GTD, etc. In any case, great list! [Read more]

Ihateyourjob.com has 3 simple reasons why doing your following week’s planning on the Friday afternoon works best.

1. Bring closure to the week.

2. You can relax all the way through Sunday evening.

3. Avoid getting behind on Monday.

Read the post to get a breakdown of each idea. 3 Reasons to Plan Your Week On Friday Afternoon - [IHateYourJob] Some ideas: One thing that you may find is a negative to this line of thinking is that you begin thinking [and possibly worrying] about the next week whilst trying to unwind on your weekend. This may happen, but a much more positive spin on that idea is you can develop your week’s plan during that time. Form your plan, and then casually improve on it during your down time. It also fits in well with the GTD side of things. Using this time to review the past week will strengthen your plan for the following one. [Read more]

A commenter on my blog sent me this little morsel:

A project manager was running a piece of work with a geographically dispersed team. The team leader was tasked with communicating some bad news to the team members in another city, so he phoned them all and had a conversation with them. A couple of weeks later, during a tele-conference with the whole team, this piece of bad news was raised. There were gasps of surprise and protest from the remote team. Apparently, this bad news was news to them! The PM asked the team leader why he hadn’t communicated the news in advance. He insisted that he had and cited all the phone calls. So the PM asked each team member in turn whether they had received the information. One by one, the said they hadn’t, frequently being interrupted by the team leader, who insisted over and over that he had delivered the information. [Read more]

Without a doubt, revision is the most tedious, irritating, necessary task involved in writing well. The act of taking a finished piece of work, tearing it apart, and rebuilding it is a process that some writers think waste too much time to be worth the process. Nevertheless, writing a piece perfectly on the first try is an extremely rare occasion. Rather than worrying about whether or not revision is necessary, it makes more sense to focusing on making revision as painless and as useful as possible. Here are a few tips for you to keep in mind while writing. Try to get what you’ve written on paper. Scanning a piece on a computer makes revision extremely difficult, even though it may seem like the more sensible process. By printing out your computer work, you’re able to get more hands-on with your writing process. For most people, it’s also much easier to look at what you’ve written on paper rather than on a screen. Things you might not be able to see on your computer can show up when you’re marking your piece up with paper and pencil. Start from the beginning. Many people skip around while they’re editing, going after passages they knew were bad when they were writing. In terms of improving your work, however, it makes far more sense to start at the top and going through your piece line by line. Things you thought were brilliant when you started writing might be too overblown, or might not fit in with the rest of your piece. You can’t tell what you might find in your drafts until you read them over. Why risk skipping anything? Save all your drafts. Not every revision is going to be perfect. Often, you’ll find you get rid of bits and pieces you need later on, or you’ll realize that something you wrote earlier on is better than you expected. In that case, you’ll find that it’s easier to look back if you actually have your old work, rather than if you’re forced to write from memory. If you’re printing out your old drafts already, keeping them together with a paper clip (or, if you revise a lot, a binder clip) is a small step that could save you lots of time later on. The software you are writing on can help with this immensely. Google Docs and Spreadsheets, for instance, immediately saves all old drafts of your work, which can make revision a far faster process than it usually is. [Read more]

The last time I wrote about losing weight was right after I had a baby and my agent told me that I would kill my career if I went on speaking engagements. “You look terrible” is what she told me. And I lost forty pounds in two months. This time, things were not so dramatic. If nothing else, I am tall enough that no one would notice ten pounds up or down on my body. But still, ten pounds is ten pounds. And I lost it by changing how I do my job. Here are three changes I made in how I work that, in turn, changed how much I weigh: 1. I stopped letting work slip until the last minute. I know people think they are creative under pressure. But in fact, time pressure stifles creativity. One of the joys of being creative is going up paths that surprise us. But when you are under a tight deadline, the risk of going down an unsure path is too risky because it might not work and then you’ll miss the deadline. I became acutely aware of this when I started blogging. The immediate feedback one gets from blog traffic made me understand that there was a direct relationship to how much pressure I felt while I was writing and how successful the post was. I also noticed that when I felt pressure to write quickly I ate to cope with the pressure. Once I stopped writing late at night under intense pressure I ate much less at night. 2. I stopped checking email when I was with my kids. For the most part, I maintain a schedule where I work seven days a week 8am to 2pm. Then I am with my kids from 2pm to 8pm. And I usually work after they go to bed. Almost everyone is very nice about respecting the schedule. But still, I was checking email all day. Sometimes because I really needed to, but mostly it was a way to take a break from being with the kids. The kids are hard. Email is easy. Please, don’t send me emails about how I should take the kids to the park. I’m not saying I don’t love my kids. I’m saying that it’s more fun to play email lottery to see if something great came in than to watch kids chasing each other up and down slides. The worst part about checking email when I am with the kids is that I feel bad ignoring them. But the second worst part is that I sort of check out when I check email and once I check out then my junk-food guard is down, and I find myself watching kids and checking email and eating Cheetos all at the same time. [Read more]

Do you ever find yourself longing for some time for yourself? Many of us are so busy with work, school, and home life that often there is no time left over to do something that you enjoy. What follows are some ways to carve out that essential time you need to slow down, enjoy life, and rejuvenate yourself. Scheduling Time with Yourself 1. Evenings with Yourself. Try to save certain weeknights just for you. If others ask you to do things those nights, just tell them you have plans. Use the time for gardening, reading, exercise, thinking, or the ultimate luxury of doing nothing! 2. Monthly Treat. Schedule a treat for yourself once a month. It could be on your lunch break, a weekend, or it could be leaving work early. Maybe you get a spa treatment, go see a movie, a haircut, play golf, or whatever treat you’re always thinking about but rarely get to. Schedule it in and it will happen! 3. Buy Tickets in Advance. Sports, theater, concerts, or any other event you would enjoy. Schedule the plans with a friend later. Having the tickets already in hand will force you to make it happen! 4. Leave Work on Time. Huh? Yes, many of us stay at work late on a regular basis. If this is you, make it a point to leave work exactly on time at least once a week, if not more. And then enjoy that time! Leave work at work. 5. Join a Group. Here are some ideas of groups that can allow you some time away from work and home: singing group, gardening group, astronomy society, book club, quilting (or any other craft) circle, biking/walking/running/etc clubs, ski club, etc. What are you interested in? Strike while the iron is hot. Look up a club in your area today and join! If you can’t find a club, consider starting one yourself! [Read more]

If you want to connect — I mean, really connect — with an audience, you have to hit ‘em square in their emotions. Movie makers know this, and exploit it to the fullest, making us laugh, cry, punch the air in triumph, jump out of our seats in terror, and even swell with love for all humanity — almost on demand. A lot of times this is pretty cheap, and leaves us feeling manipulated and used. This is because the movie (or novel, or TV show, or commercial, or whatever) seems to play on our emotions for no other reason than because they can. The emotional response is triggered without satisfying any real need. But the emotions roused by the greatest works of art — whether in film, paint, words, or stone — do satisfy a need, and it is for that reason that we return films like Casablanca or paintings like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring after decades and even centuries.

Enlightened Self-Interest

Chip and Dan Heath refer to Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” to explain why some emotional appeals fall flat, and others not only succeed but can even change lives. Abraham Maslow, a mid-20th century psychologist, theorized that human behavior is driven by a number of innate needs. What’s more, these needs are hierarchical; that is, the most basic needs (food, water, sleep, sex, etc.) had to be met before higher needs (friendship, family, self-esteem, and ultimately “self-actualization”, where we turn our attentions to the needs of our society and its members). Maslow represented his idea with a pyramid (itself a pretty sticky idea) placing the basic needs at the bottom and the higher levels built on top of them. Although few psychologists today still hold to the hierarchical nature of needs — recognizing, for instance, that seeing to the common good is often necessary to assure that more “basic” needs are met — Maslow’s schema is still useful as a rubric to measure our ideas and their presentation against. [Read more]

This is brilliant, from SnagIt to TypePad in a click! Versions for WordPress, Live Journal, Movable Type and TypePad at: [Read more]

Brian Friedlander, of the Assistive Technology Blog, just completed a great post on the TechSmith’s SnagIt Output update for MindManager 7. [Read more]

A common Internet abbreviation is RTFM. If you aren’t in the tech field you may not have heard it. It stands for Read The Freaking Manual. Actually, the F- word is more offensive, but I am trying to run a family show here. Anyway, RTFM is posted as a response following a question about a gadget, software or computer in a forum or blog post. It implies that the person asking the question is so dumb they didn’t think to read the manual that came with said gadget. [Read more]

There’s an odd stigma attached to ’self-improvement’. Usually associated with quick-fixes and Tony Robbins. However, the fundamental basics of self-improvement - improving one’s self - is something that I think does a lot of good for people. One thing that I think should become common knowledge is how ’self-help’ can work in different ways for different people. No one thing works the same for everybody, so you must get used to taking in a lot of information and filtering what would actually benefit your life. That said, The Positivity Blog has written about 5 things you may not know about self-improvement; mostly focused around the idea that it isn’t easy and won’t fix anything quickly. [Read more]

Want to try a few new things at work that’ll make for a happier and more productive day? Take a look at these 25 tips to doing just that.

Turn off Your Computer. “What?!” you say. “Everything is done on my computer!” Well is it really? What percentage truly is? Plan to have your computer on only for that amount of time each day. Plan out blocks of time for different computer tasks and work from a checklist to keep you focused. Giving [Read more]

This is a great blog post on "Ten Ideas for Productive Lists", created recently by Chris Garrett of the Codswallop blog. Check out the blog link to read a full description of each list Chris indentifies here:

1. "To-Do Lists"
2. “Did-Do List”
3. “Not-To-Do List”
4. Ranking, Prioritizing and ordering
5. Recording Ideas [Read more]

One of the best accessories for SnagIt is the “MindManager Output”. Sadly this was broken when I upgraded to MindManager 7. Yesterday I attended the Revit Tech Conference and today I was transcribing my hand notes, OK scrawl, to MindManager. As there were many application based tips I also had Revit running to grab relevant screen captures, annotate them, then add to my notes. Missing the MindManager output, I visited the SnagIt site and found it’s been updated and now works fine with MindManager 7. [Read more]

Use PSTSync to perform Outlook synchronizations, helping you synchronize every Outlook folder, even custom created ones. PSTSync provides bi-directional folder synchronization as well as a number of other tools to help you manage your pst files with ease, PSTSync offers SmartMove and SmartCopy functionality as well as Encryption, Password Protection, Online Backup as well as the popular built in PST file viewer. It takes into consideration the time and date in calendar according to GMT, not just your local time ( a PSTSync exclusive)Version 2.6.0

By Ryan Healy - For the past six months I have been maintaining my blog, Employee Evolution. At this point I realize that the decision to start a blog is hard, but writing regularly is harder. So here is a list of tactics I’ve used to maintain a full-time, corporate job along side a full-time blog. Be Realistic Before I started Employee Evolution, I did a little research and realized four posts was a minimum. I also realized there was no way in hell I could maintain a 45-hour-a-week job and create a successful blog without completely stressing out. One night during one of many career conversation with my good friend Ryan Paugh, I had one of those “ah ha” moments. I asked if he wanted to create a joint blog, and he immediately agreed. Now I can write four posts a week, but two is sufficient if it’s a busy week at work. Being realistic before starting has allowed my blog to continue growing six months later. And I am stress free, kind of. Know when you are the most creative Coming up with ideas for blog posts takes a good amount of creativity. I have my creative moments, but I would never be mistaken for a creative genius. This lack of creativity has caused me to pinpoint the times when, for whatever reason, I am able to tap into my right brain. I usually have great ideas in the shower. I’m not sure if it’s the water waking me up or the clear head from a good night sleep, but some of the best ideas seem to come in the shower. The shower is great, but nothing beats a long run to get my creative juices flowing. The time from when I stop running to when I walk into my apartment is like a one-man brainstorming session. I realized this about two months ago, and ever since I have increased the length of my runs so I can stop about a mile from my apartment. Often I forget half of everything by the time I stop sweating and grab a pen and paper, but half of those interesting ideas are always better than none. [Read more]

This is a guest post by Ian McKenzie of Ian’s Messy Desk David Allen says, regardless of task size, the human brain goes through what he calls a Natural Planning Model. These are five phases our brain works through when accomplishing tasks. He goes on to say that we should use this natural model when planning projects. (more…) [Read more]

Many Affiliate Marketers & Internet Entrepreneurs have ideas flying around like hotcakes, but rarely the resources to execute. You may end up having 5-10 projects on the go all at once if you’ve got severe ADD like me. When you’re working on projects alone, the smallest of tasks can end up exhausting all of your resources & decreasing your productivity. [Read more]

Smashing Magazine has put together a list of 45 excellent blog designs from various different publishing platforms like WordPress, Expression Engine, Movable Type and others. What really caught my eye is that our intrepid designer over at Design Disease made the list. [Read more]

Have an XHTML/CSS based design that you think would make a great WordPress theme, but only have $10 to your name? Well, ThemesPress is looking at filling that void with their service.

ThemesPress is a service that allows you to automatically convert your HTML and CSS based design into a WordPress blog theme, allowing you to take full control of the look of your blog without having to know or bother with PHP. Get your design powered by WordPress in minutes! All generated themes are Widget ready! [Read more]

I’ve just published an article over at LifeRemix with 24 Tips to Becoming An Early Riser.