Productivity - Antonello Vona

Parkinson’s Law

Posted on November 15, 2021November 15, 2021 by antonellovona

Parkinson’s law is one of those things that you have been applying over and over again in your life without knowing that it had a fancy name.

Before I go into its nitty gritty, I like to start with some real-life examples.

So, story time: a few years ago I was studying at Uni and it was that dreadful moment when students have to do their dissertation. It is everything but unexpected, in fact it is one of those things that you know is approaching and you tend to prepare or think about it well in advance, even before it is formally communicated that you need to start preparing one. At first the deadline seems to be so far away and you think that it is more than enough to complete it, even though you are aware that there is a lot of work to be done.

Weeks and months, precisely six months, went by and I have gradually got to a fairly satisfying point with it after what I thought it was a lot of work and effort been put into it.

Ten days prior to the submission deadline, my laptop decided to instantly die and that event announced the beginning of a period that could probably justify my receding hairline and my myopia. Long story short: I had no back-up of my work (smart as*); I had to send the laptop off to repair that would have taken up to one month to get it back; asked for an extension of the deadline but the mitigating circumstances form to do that did not have the relevant box to tick saying “due to my dumbas* skills of ruining six months worth of work” – the other available options were “illness”, or “death of a close relative”, both unjustifiable and unethical in my case; I did not want to accept a lower mark for a late submission.

After a quick realization that I had just put myself in a ridiculous situation, I needed to think of a plan straightaway! A late submission was not an option and I was actually wasting more time complaining and self-pitying than taking actions. So I went to the University library and started writing my dissertation again on the public computer. You can only imagine what an emotional trauma it was when opening Microsoft Word and start typing on a blank page is. The first thing I did though is to go on Apple.com and purchased a MacBook Pro with all the best parameters that I could select as well as buying a 1T external memory. That was expensive!! But it also gave me the possibility to work from home. At that point I only had one week to finish my dissertation. I set all the non-important stuff apart and concentrated all my energies in it.

Well, spoiler alert: I just made it in time. And I was very surprised to find out that it received a top mark with a great feedback.

This left me with a double feeling: a boost of self-esteem and being proud of myself for being so productive and disciplined to complete this task in time, and the realization that I had wrongly spent the time I allocated to complete that task with less relevant and time-consuming activities.

This is an extreme example, but I can talk about hundreds of other instances where setting up a deadline for a task led to its completion within that time. And I am sure you can think about some examples too.

Well, this is Parkinson’s law, which states that

A given task will swell to fill the time allocated to it.

It simply means that if you give yourself a month to complete a two hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that month. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.

So, for example, if you decide that you have to moan the loan (usually a one-hour job) within the next 3 days, chances are that you will spend the first two days procrastinating, leaving the task on the last available day, or even on the last available hour.

Likewise, if you give yourself one week to write a blog post with the publishing day being on Monday, chances are that you haven’t done anything the whole week, it is Sunday night and you are sat on the sofa writing it – just like me now.

Parkinson’s law helps you manage your time more efficiently in order to be more productive and it will work if there is a perceived importance assigned to that task.

When reading “Mastery” by Robert Greene, I came across an interesting concept when he said :

Edison deliberately talked to the press about an idea before it was ready. This would create some publicity and excitement in the public. If he dropped the ball or let too much time pass, his reputation would suffer. So his mind would spark into high gear and make it happen.

Parkinson’s law might be seen as procrastination, and you might think “Can’t be bothered with this task now, Parkinson’s Law will save my as* as always.” Instead, it has to be seen as a powerful time-management tool to be totally focused in what you do.

So, here are my top 7 tips to implement Parkinson’s Law at your advantage effectively:

Always assign a deadline

Having a list of things to tick off on your list is good, but if you want to take your productivity habit to the next level, start to assign a deadline to each task. Also, sort them by their importance, with the most important ones being on top of the list and the least important being placed at the bottom.

Challenge your time limits

If you know that with no distractions you can clean your house in three hours, try to narrow this deadline down to two hours or less. Try to train your brain to function within clear and set deadline. If you assign a three hours space to clean your house your brain will automatically spread the tasks evenly to fill these three hours, like wise when you shrink it down to two hours the brain will apply the same mechanism.

Be realistic

By now you might think that Parkinson’s Law is pure magic, and that you can be more productive than you have every been my completing 100 tasks a day assigning 5 minutes to each of them.

The truth is that you still have to be realistic when assigning a task. You can’t build a skyscraper in one day, nor cooking Lasagna in 5 minutes. The more you consciously apply Parkinson’s Law, the more you become aware of the realistic time that certain tasks will take, and this will help you to budget your time more efficiently and realistically in the future.

Make it measurable

How do you know when something is done and can be ticked off your list? Well, it is difficult to tell if the task is too vague. For example, if there is a huge difference between “work on web development” and “work on the responsiveness of the website”. The former one is too vague and it is difficult to tell when I would be done with it; the latter instead, allows me to tick the task off once I know that I have made the website responsive and it also helps me to assign a more realistic time frame to it.

What’s next?

Don’t fall into this trap. Once you reach the last task on your list, always set a task to do next.

Even though you have set your last task to take ten minutes, it is very likely that one hour goes by and you still haven’t finished the last task. This is because your brain starts to think that there is nothing else coming next, and that the last task, as simple as it can be, it has no time limit.

Break down big tasks.

If you are at Uni and you are assigned a coursework to be delivered in three months, try to break down this big task in multiple little tasks and assign a deadline to each of them.

So, instead of having “Finish your coursework” on your list with the deadline being in three months, try to write down:

“Research Topic and write down resources – Deadline 3 days”

“Write Introduction Draft- Deadline: 1 Week”

“Write Main Body Draft – Deadline – 3 weeks”

And you can even break it down even further, so for example “write 300 words of the body – Deadline: 30 minutes”.

This will make sure you will be always on it, working with manageable bite sizes mini tasks.

Short time is not equal to less quality.

Sometimes we wrongly think that the shorter the time we have to complete a task the lesser the quality will be. We think that the longer it takes to complete something the more perfect the end result will be. This is not true because if we have more time than we actually need, we will probably fill that extra time with non-related activities, unnecessary anxiety, and unnecessary extra effort.

Tim Ferris in his book “the 4-hour work week” states:

The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to a greater focus.

7 Tips To Be More Productive

Posted on March 15, 2021November 16, 2021 by antonellovona

Being productive is a skill that requires a lot of experimenting and practicing. It is about demolishing your bad habits that make you waste a lot of time and energy, as well as fine tuning the ones that make you prone to be more efficient with less time and energy.

Over the years I have always tried to experiment habits that would help me to be more productive, as most of the times I was finding myself with an endless list of things to do, but at the end of the day very few of them were completed.

These are my top 7 proven tips that I have tested over the years in order to be more productive.

Be Productive, Not Busy.

The number one point I want to get across is a reformulation of your vocabulary. I fall into this trap very often and it took me a while to actually realize that most of the times I was busy but not productive at all. This is because I used to be very disorganized, jumping from one task to the other without completing it, not concentrating on the major tasks I had to complete first.

Being productive means to be smartly busy, this leads to more fulfilment and having more tasks done.

Make A Sensible List

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash

Making a list is crucial when it comes to be more productive. Try to generate a list of clear and specific tasks to get them done.

One of the fundamental skills of productivity is time-management. This means that every task needs to have a specific time-to-complete attribute, as we will discuss later on in this article. So, be as specific as you can, otherwise it is difficult to tell if you have actually completed the task and it will also be challenging to allocate a specific time to it.

For example, if I were to write down “Work on new project”, you can tell that it is highly generic and vague, making it extremely difficult to allocate a time-to-complete attribute to it. This will mess up all the other tasks and the prioritization process too. Instead, try to reformulate it to a much simpler sub-task, like “Write down proposal” or “Set objectives of the project”. Likewise, the generic task of “Sort Out Life Admin” can be reformulated as “organize receipts for tax return” or similar related tasks.

Keep your list nice and short, it should not have more than two major tasks and no more than 5 total tasks in it. If you finish your list before you can always add tasks in there, but the more there are the more overwhelming it gets.

Parkinson’s Law

Photo by Aron Visuals / Unsplash

Parkinson’s law states that a given task takes the time that you allocate to it. I am not going into great details on how it works and how to use it in this article. If you are interested to read more about it, you can find the detailed article here.

Long story short, assign the time that you think it will take you in order to complete that task. Try to challenge this time, make it shorter. You will be amazed on what your brain can achieve under strict deadlines.

Prioritize

Now that you have generated a list and you know approximately how much time you need for each task, it is now time to prioritize the tasks listed in it. My personal trick is to set a quick and easy task at the very top. Usually it is a task that doesn’t usually take more than 5-8 minutes to complete and it can be something like “Reply to Dr X about patient Y” or “Update calendar with confirmed meetings”. This will give me the chance to quickly tick something off my list and it will fuel my brain with motivation for having already completed a task. Also, it will give you the chance to switch to “work mode”.

After your “warm-up” task, place one of the major tasks after that. Ideally try to cram the major tasks before your lunch break placing the ones that require more time to complete on the top of the list and the ones that require less time to complete at the bottom.

Learn To Rest

Photo by Elizabeth Tsung / Unsplash

It is a very common misconception that productive people do not rest and that they work with no break all they long. It is actually counterproductive and shifts the equation from productive to just busy.

Take short, regular coffee/walk breaks in between tasks, this will help to reset the brain and get ready for the next task.

2 Minutes Rule

Some tasks take more time than others, and you might be tempted to write them all down, regardless of how much time they will take. As I have said above, you ideally want to aim for a short and concise list without flooding it with non-related, easy tasks that take up too much space.

Try to allocate a slot of 20 minutes for all the tasks that take 2 minutes or less in order to complete them, like washing your cup of coffee, or brushing your teeth, or tidy up your desk.

In other scenarios and if you are not working with a list, try to complete there and then those small tasks that take 2 minutes or less, instead of procrastinating.

Work Smart

Photo by Austin Distel / Unsplash

Productivity is all about working smart and optimization, and this also mean foreseeing and avoiding repetitive, and time consuming activities.

The first example that comes into my mind is when writing/replying to emails. Email conversation can be quite time-consuming, especially when your first email is not self-explanatory and does not have an algorithm with a clear plan of action. Let’s consider these scenarios when writing an email for a business meeting.

Scenario 1

Me: Dear X, can we please have a catch-up meeting? When would that best suits you? Kind Regards, A.

X: Dear A, thank you for your email. Sounds good, should we do this week? Kind Regards, X.

Me: Dear X, thank you for you reply. Sure. I am free Wednesday afternoon? Would that suits you? Kind Regards. A

X: Dear A, Wednesday afternoon I am free from 5-7. Kind Regards X.

Me: Dear X, I have another personal meeting around that time, could we do earlier? Kind Regards, A.

X: Hey A, how about 13:00? Kind Regards, A.

Me: Could we make 14:00 just to be sure I can make it on time? KR A.

X: In that case it is better if we move it to Thursday, would 14:00 be OK? X.

Me: On Thursday I can only do 10 am. Would that work. A.

X: 10 am it is. Should I prepare any particular document? X.

Me: If you could present spreadsheet Z would be great, as we need to discuss XYZ. A

X: All set. Will see you there. A.

This conversation would actually take at least 20 to 30 minutes, which is way too time consuming and there is a better way to to that. See Scenario 2.

Scenario 2

Me: Dear X, hope this email finds you well. I was wondering if we could have a 20 minutes catch-up meeting to discuss XYZ. To do that I need you to have spreadsheet Z ready.

If you want to have the meeting this week I am available at the following times: Wednesday at 14:00, Thursday at 7:30 or 10:00. If those times are not suitable for you next week I am available on Monday at 13:00 and Friday at 20:00. If those times are still not good for you, please get in touch with co-worker P (CCed in this email) and arrange a meeting with him, he will then write and forward to me a summary of the meeting with the outcomes.

Let me know if any of those times are good, if not get in touch directly with co-worker P.

Kind Regards

As you can see this is clear, concise, self-explanatory, with a clear algorithm of steps to follow and it only takes 2 minutes to write. This principle can be applied to pretty much every aspects of your life, and it is a huge time saver.

Caffeine & Productivity

Posted on January 30, 2021November 15, 2021 by antonellovona

C8H10N4O2 , or also known as caffeine, is a bitter, white crystalline purine, a methylxanthine alkaloid, and is chemically related to the adenine and guanine bases of our double-stranded genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and single-stranded genetic material ribonucleic acid (RNA).

OK, enough with the biochemical mouthfuls needed for proper introduction. Now let’s talk about some interesting staff.

Caffeine is psychoactive drug that stimulates the Central Nervous System (CNS). In fact, it is the most common psychoactive drug consumed in the world as it is legal and unregulated, unlike other psychoactive substances. It is found in the seeds, leaves, or nuts of a number of plants native to Africa, South America and East Asia, but the well known source of caffeine is in the coffee bean, seed of Coffea plant.

It has a number of uses in the medical world to help treat and prevent a number of medical conditions, but we all know it for its energy boost that it gives us when we drink beverages containing it.

Fun Legend

Legend has it that, in the 19th century, a goat herder called Kaldi found out that his goats were hyperactive and behaving weirdly after eating some berries from a tree. Kaldi was eager to find out what was making his goats so energetic, and he decided to eat some of those berries. His heart started to beat faster, he felt more energized and he could not sleep at night. He then decided to tell the abbot of the local monastery about this, and the abbot came up with an idea: drying and boiling the berries to make a beverage. He soon found out that drinking that beverage kept him and his monks awake, and this was particularly useful when they had to pray at night. Those berries are what today we know as coffee beans.

How Does it Work

The longer we are awake the more a substance called “Adenosine” accumulates in our brain. Adenosine is the waste product of the breakdown of the energy molecules called ATP (Adenosine-Tri-Phosphate).

Adenosine then binds to the adenosine receptors and slows down our brain activity. This will make us feel more tired as we go through the day as more adenosine will accumulate the longer we stay awake.

Caffeine shares a similar molecular structure with adenosine, and this will help caffeine fit perfectly in the adenosine receptor, hence preventing the adenosine to slow down brain activity. It also prevents the reabsorption of a neurotransmitter called dopamine, and this makes you feel happy. This is probably why coffee can be so addictive, just like cocaine (but to a lesser degree).

Caffeine stimulates the production of adrenaline, which plays an important role in the fight or flight response. This will result in an increased heart rate, boost in energy, as well as opening up your airways, dilating your blood vessels, increasing your blood pressure.

The more you are exposed to caffeine the more adenosine receptors your body will create over time, meaning that you will need more caffeine to have the same results. Likewise, if you would abstain from caffeine for a few weeks, the adenosine receptors in excess will disappear.

The Timeline

Once ingested, 99% of the caffeine will be absorbed in your small intestine within 45 minutes entering your blood stream. Peak plasma concentration is reached within 1-2 hours.

In medicine we use the term “half-life” to indicate the time that the body takes to reduce by half the amount of an ingested drug. In case of caffeine, its half-life is approximately 5 hours – so, if you were to ingest 150mg of caffeine, it would take 5 hours for your body to eliminate 75mg of caffeine, and after 5 hours it will eliminate 50% of 75mg, which is 37.5mg, and so on and so forth.

Know the difference

For those of you looking to cut down or cut off their caffeine intake, it is very convenient to go for decaffeinated drinks thinking that they contain no caffeine at all, right? Wrong. Decaffeination process removes around 97% of the caffeine leaving that 3% the chance to still take an effect on your body. This is not really convenient if, like me, you like an after-dinner coffee, and you go for the decaf thinking that it has no caffeine to keep you awake. So, we blame our partner snoring like a tractor if we can’t fall asleep. Whenever you see on the label “decaf“, remember that it still contains caffeine and it carries its potential to knock out the adenosine molecules in your brain If you want to be certain that it does not contain caffeine, then you have to look for “caffeine-free” on the label of the beverage.

Can a caffeine overdose kill you?

Theoretically, the lethal dose of caffeine is 150mg/kg, which means that for an individual weighing 80kg it would take 12000mg of caffeine to kill him/her. A cup of coffee contains approximately 150mg of caffeine, which means that someone would have to drink at least 80 cups of coffee all at once for it to be lethal. It is impossible, because the stomach does not have the capacity to contain 80 cups of coffee, and you would experience delirium and hallucination way before it can kill you. So, the short answer to this question is: No!

Side-Effects of Caffeine

Consuming caffeine within moderate and recommended ranges is good for your productivity and general health. However, as per any other drug, excessive consumption can lead to some side effects:

Insomnia: One of the main reasons of taking caffeine is because it helps us to stay awake and alert when we need to be productive and focused. But too much caffeine can lead to insomnia, which is difficulty in getting enough restorative sleep. This can result in an increased time to fall asleep, disturbed sleep, and either waking up early angry and sleepy, or waking up late angry and sleepy.

Anxiety: The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) includes caffeine-induced anxiety as one of the four caffeine-induced syndromes. In fact, continuous and elevated doses of caffeine can make you feel nervous or jittery and it can well lead to anxiety.

Digestive problems: Some people find their morning coffee a blessing because of its indirect effect to promote bowel movement. This laxative effect might be due to the release of the hormone “gastrin”, which is secreted by the stomach to speed up activity in the colon. High doses of caffeine though can lead to an excessive peristalsis (the bowel motion that permits the ingested food to move along the digestive tract), that could result in loose stools or diarrhea. Also, it can worsen a condition called gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). It is also important to know that drinking caffeine on a empty stomach is a bad idea as it stimulates the acid productions (which are usually used to digest food) which are too aggressive for the gastric mucosa (internal lining of the stomach).

Addiction: As stated before, caffeine prevents the reabsorption of dopamine, which makes you feel happy – this also happens with cocaine and amphetamines too. This is why caffeine can cause a degree of psychological and physical addiction, but not like the other recreational drugs do.

Hypertension: Albeit temporary, caffeine does have an effect on blood pressure due to its effects on the nervous system. This results in a temporary rise of the blood pressure, which is not really ideal in people who suffer from high blood pressure, and are at risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Tachycardia: One of the many effects of caffeine is to make your heart beat faster. Again, in high doses this can lead to a condition called tachycardia and, as a study shows, it is linked to atrial fibrillation in young individual consuming energy drinks with high doses of caffeine. This effect does not occur in everyone, some people can be exposed to high doses of caffeine with no effect on the heart.

Fatigue: This is quite a paradox since we use caffeine to beat fatigue and boost our energy. However, excessive doses of caffeine can create a rebound fatigue effect that can make you feel more tired than usual the following day.

How to use caffeine to boost productivity

Caffeine can be a great friend when you need a boost of energy to be productive during the day. However, if you don’t know what you are doing and plan your caffeine consumption wrongly, it can be your worst enemy at night, preventing your sleep and affecting your productivity the following day.

So, my advice is: be strategic and do your math.

Try to delay your first caffeinated drink first thing in the morning. High cortisol levels and a good night sleep should make caffein obsolete as soon as you wake up, even though you feel like no one should dare to talk to you before you have finished your coffee. Instead, start your day with a full glass of water to re-hydrate yourself, as well as eating a well-balanced breakfast to start activating your metabolism, this already will give you enough energy to cope with people.

Try not to have high doses of caffeine past 3pm. Remember, your body will get rid of half of the amount ingested in 5 hours, and the last thing you want to happen is caffeine to interfere with the quality of your sleep. You can always choose decaffeinated or small doses of caffeine to maintain the levels of alertness, in this case green tea is a great option. Three cups of green tea replaces one cup of coffee in terms of quantity of caffeine.

You also need to identify when you need to be productive the most. I know that after lunch my energy levels drop drastically and I crave for a nap, but at the same time lunch time is a peak-time for my full-time job and I need all my energies and focus to in order to function. For this reason I try to have a cup of coffee between 11:00am and 1:00pm to keep my energy levels and productivity up for the rest of the afternoon.

How much caffeine is considered “moderate”?

If you made it to this point you have come across some statements like “moderate consumption of caffeine is good for you”, or “moderate consumption of caffeine is not associated with side effects”, and you might righteously starts to wonder “what the heck is moderate?”, “how much is it?”.

Well, the Food and Drug Administrator (FDA), the European Food Safety Authority, and Health Canada reached the unanimous consensus that 400mg/day of caffeine is considered as a moderate consumption, which is not associated with side effects in healthy adults. You can get this amount of caffeine with 4 cups of coffee.

Caffeine containing drinks

Here is a list of some drinks and their caffeine value. The first value in round brackets indicates the serving size, the second value in square brackets indicates the amount of caffeine expressed in mg.

                                            For example: Caffeinated products (ml) [mg]

Starbucks Coffee, Blonde Roast – Grande (470) [360]

Americano – Grande (470) [225]

Mocha – Grande (470) [175]

Espresso (25) [75]

Chai Latte – Grande (470) [95]

Green Tea (236) [35]

Herbal Tea (236) [0]

Pepsi Zero Sugar (590) [115]

Diet Coke (590) [76]

Red Bull (236) [80]

Conclusion

As for everything in life, moderation is the key, and caffeine consumption is not an exception to it. Know how to use it and it can be your greatest friend to help you out, abuse it and it will be your greatest enemy.

Just Start: Anti-Procrastination Guide

Posted on November 10, 2020November 16, 2021 by antonellovona

Let’s admit it, procrastination is a real thing and it is something that everyone will fall into at some point in their lives.

I love writing these articles, and it is such a great and satisfying moment when I get to hit the “Publish” button or when I receive DMs from people appreciating my work. But sometimes I also really struggle to break through my procrastinating state, sit down and start to write.

I also love taking care of my skin, but getting up from the sofa at bed time thinking that I need to go through my multi-steps skincare routine is very daunting, especially when the only thing you want to do is to get in your bed and sleep.

It is totally normal and natural, we are not machines. Our motivation and drive to do stuff is the bio-product of different concentrations of hormones like Dopamine and Serotonine.

Before I jump into the steps that you need to take to break through procrastination and getting things done, we should understand how a mind of a procrastinator works. There is an awesome TED talk by Tim Urban that actually explains extremely well. It is called “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator“, I will link the video down below. In a nutshell, he explains how in our brain there is this instant-gratification monkey that will distract us from getting stuff done and it glues us in the procrastination limbo. The only thing that this monkey is scared of is the Panic Monster, which usually kicks in the day before a deadline, and it makes the instant-gratification monkey run away, leaving the critical-thinking part of us taking control and getting things done.

So here are my top tips to JUST START:

Stand up, let’s do it

As simple as it sounds, just standing up and saying “OK, let’s do it” will break that procrastination cycle you are chained to. It will ignite the intention of actually doing something productive and will switch your brain to work mode.

5 minutes rule

There are times when it is extremely hard to find the motivation to get things done. And it is totally OK to be in those moments. In those moments there is one technique that really works for me: I tell myself that I am going to do this task for only 5 minutes and sometimes I even set the alarm clock. I also tell my self that at the end of these 5 minutes I can also go back to my procrastination mode, but I never do. The reality is that, once I start, I actually end up liking what I am doing and these 5 minutes become 20 minutes, 1 hour or more. I actually end up wishing I had more time for it and that I started earlier instead of procrastinating. If you don’t feel like continuing after these 5 minutes it is totally OK, at least you had 5 minutes worth of work done.

Pomodoro technique

Photo by T. Q. / Unsplash

This technique was created in the 1980s by the Italian entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo. This is a time-management principle that tries to break down your work day in a 25 minutes slot referred to as pomodoro – from the Italian “tomato” – which refers to nothing else but a tomato shaped kitchen timer that Francesco Cirillo used to keep track of these 25 minutes.

The algorithm of this principle goes as it follows:

Decide on the task to be done
Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).
Work on the task.
End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes) and then return to step 2 otherwise continue to step 6.
After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.

Break big tasks into small tasks

Photo by Estée Janssens / Unsplash

I can’t stress enough how important and beneficial this practice is. If you have been reading my previous articles about productivity and time management you will actually notice that this is a recurrent topic and a technique that I actually like to use for many different reasons. Breaking big tasks into small tasks will trick our monkey brain to see it as something that won’t take too much time. Also, it makes your tasks more measurable so that you can keep track of your progress.

Build accountability

Photo by Smartworks Coworking / Unsplash

When I first started to write this blog I was afraid that I couldn’t keep up with that, not wanting to have the commitment to write one article every single week. But, once I started to publish the articles and having positive feedbacks for this blog, I feel like there are people that every Monday they will refresh my blog page expecting a new article to read. Also, during the week I do have people asking me what my next article will be about and I roughly tell them a general topic even though I have no idea what I am going to write about. This creates a sense of accountability that motivates me to sit down and write these articles.

Thomas Edison used to announce to the press about his projects he was working on, when in reality he didn’t even started. This used to motivate him to go home and work hard to meet the expectations that he created himself.

This sounds a bit like a self-inflicted commitment and punishment, but when I really want to do something and I know that I am going to procrastinate once I am at home, I try to talk to as many people as I can to build this accountability. I also often set some deadlines asking people to watch out for that day to see my final project I am building this momentum on. This sets up some external expectationsadding that extra healthy pressure that will motivate you do get things done. This also creates a reputation that you will need to live up to.

Think about your reward

Photo by Hayes Potter / Unsplash

Rewarding yourself for your work is important and it doesn’t have to be anything special. For me is to call my family whilst having a nice cup of coffee when I deep clean the house every Sunday, or having a nice ice-cream for working 3 hours straight on a coding project, or a glass of wine after seeing 30 patients in one day.

Now stop reading and move your a*s

Now that I have given you all the tools, tips and tricks to get started, pick one or more of the above, get you a*s off the sofa and start!

Overcoming Failure

Posted on June 28, 2020November 14, 2021 by antonellovona

Ok let’s face it, failing is unpleasant! It makes us feel as we will never reach our goal, it will convince us that we are not good enough, or not as good as you believed, or not as good as other people believe.

We weigh failure in different ways and this depends upon many factors – the fear of disappointing ourselves, the fear of wasting the time, the fear to disappoint the ones we love, lowering the high expectations that our friends and family have from us, and fear of being criticized by others – just to mention a few.

Society has always made us believe that failing is bad, and that you will be defined by your failures when in reality it is part of the learning process and that’s what makes us climb faster on the learning curve. In a few words, failure helps us to thrive.

The only thing that there is between your failure and your goal is how you process and use failure at your advantage.

So when we fail we have two options: we can either be passive, starting to blame everyone, convincing ourselves that we are not good at it, and fueling the negative mindset that will lead you to fail in the future maybe with a different goal; or we can be proactive, process the failure in a healthy way, and be paradoxically positive about it because you have some material to work on and improve, realizing you are one step closer to success. So, here’s a list of what you can do do overcome failure and to make the best out of it.

Start with this very simple life lesson: failure does not exist.

The literal meaning of failure is “lack of success”. It’s not just a part of the learning process, but it is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the learning process. How did we actually learn to walk? by smashing our ass out countless times on the ground until we finally did it. Same thing when learning to cycle, or skate, or learning our mother-tongue, or learning a different language. The common denominator of our successes is the continuous failure from which we have learned.

Think of Thomas Edison – the guy thanks to whom we have light in hour houses – he was working on some models of light bulbs and he had to go through 10000 versions that failed before inventing the right one. During a press conference a journalist asked Edison “how did you feel about failing for 10000 times”, and he replied “I didn’t fail at all, I have only discovered 9999 ways of how not to build a light bulb”.

This mindset helps you to consider the lack of success as invaluable hints and opportunity to get better, and not as failures.

Identify why do you feel bad about failing.

Feeling bad when we fail is normal, but this should be due to the fact that we are not quite there with the results we were hoping for, and this phase is usually followed by an analytical phase where we try to understand what we have learned from it, and what could we have done better.

But if there is something else that makes you feel bad when you fail that goes beyond what we have discussed above, try to pin point what it is. Ask yourself what you feel the way you feel, write it down if necessary.

Do you feel bad because you have let yourself down? because you think that all your effort came down to nothing? because you think you have disappointed people who believe in you? because you think that you have lowered the other people’s expectations?

Whatever your question is there is only one answer: you are not a machine and failing is normal.

Whatever it is try to get at the root of it, and address it first. Try to scrape-off from yourself the fear of being criticized and do what you do for yourself and for no-one else. Failing is normal, embrace it before it destroys you.

Fail Fast

The philosophy of “fail fast” is very well known, especially in the start up context. If “failing” is a synonym of “learning” (as it should be), the phrase “fail fast” can be translated into “learn fast”. The more you develop your tolerance for failure, the faster you can get over the initial emotional part, the faster you can learn, and the faster you can succeed.

Change

Whatever your strategy, method, or plan was, it led you to fail… it sounds harsh, but that’s what it is. There is no point in repeating what you did because you already know where it will lead you, so change your plan. Try to objectively analyze what you did and spot some flaws. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedbacks to whoever you think can help you, step out of your comfort zone and try new strategies.

Don’t compare yourself to anyone else

Everybody is different and everybody has their own strategies and their own methods. What works for them won’t necessarily work for you. Take a moment to think about it, how does comparing your weakness with someone else’s strengths going to help you? Do you really think they will size up? Comparing yourself to others takes up energy that you could use to actually improve yourself.

The only person you should try to be better than is who you were yesterday.

6 Habits of Successful People

Posted on June 20, 2020November 14, 2021 by antonellovona

Although when we think of successful people we start to think at fame, wealth, and high social status, in its most simplistic form, success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. This is something that we have to keep in mind when we talk about success because we tend to wrongly label successful people by the numbers of figures in their bank account or Instagram followers. And yes, all the big names out there (Tesla, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc…) have both money and followers, the underlying common denominators that took them where they are are passion, hard work, sacrifice, time and patience.

We all see successful people as beautiful, tasty cakes, a product of a recipe that shaped them as such, and we want to follow the same recipe that made them successful. That’s why we get hooked up when we see “The 5 habits of Successful People”, because we hope that by literally and religiously following those steps we will become as successful in life as they are.

But the reality is, we can be successful in our own ways, without the freezing cold showers first thing in the morning, or waking up at 4:50am everyday, as we read and watch everywhere on the web.

Don’t Wake Up at stupid o’clock in the morning.

Why? Because if you are 28 years old and you have been having the same routine for the last 10 years waking up at 8:30 in the morning, it is highly unlikely that you will find the motivation to implement this in your routine for years on end. It might last from less than a week to 10 days and than it will start to fade off.

We have all read articles and watched inspiring Youtube videos where the first thing they mention is to wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning (or similar times) in order to be a successful person in life.

I have tried several times over the years to implement this habit inside my routine, and I have systematically failed every single time because I am not a 5:00 am kind of person. If anything it led me to believe that I wasn’t made to be successful because of my failure to wake up at 5:00 am.

If you are a morning person and you naturally wake up early, well… good for you. If you are more of a late-morning person than guess what… it is totally fine and you won’t be less successful than the early bird.

There is an amazing book, which I highly recommend you to read/listen, called “Why We Sleep” by Dr Matthew Walker, a scientist and professor of neuroscience and psychology. In his book, he states that there are two kinds of people: the early birds, people who naturally wake up early in the morning, and the night owls, people who go to bed late at night and wake up later in the morning. This reveals that our sleep schedule is not just a personal preference but there is an innate, biological predisposition that also has a genetic component. Early riser find their productivity peak in the morning whereas night owls find their productivity peak in the early afternoon and evenings. It is hard to be a night owl in a society that wants you to be an early riser, because they have to fight against their innate sleep timing in order to fit in, and this can heavily affect how you sleep, how you eat, your mood and health.

In summary, it is not waking up stupidly early that will make you successful, but what you will do from the time you open up your eyes and get out of bed.

Start with the end

Whatever is the project you are working on, try to start with the end. Having in mind what you want your final product to be like gives you the possibility to be a lot more efficient when you actually work to make it. This is because having your eyes fixed on your final product will help you to determine what tools and techniques you will need in order to achieve it. It also gives you the right positive mindset to start and work on it, because in that case we become goal oriented, and it will make less frustrating working on the tedious staff that we need to work on in order to achieve our goal.

Look forward to fail

To me this sentence is equal to “to look forward to learn”. Failing is unpleasant, and no one wants to. It gives a feeling of not being able to achieve something, and that we worked hard for nothing. The truth is that failing is a crucial part of the learning process, we get better and better each time we fail. The most vicious loop you can fall into is failing and do the same things that brought you to fail all over again. We have to be mindful every time we fail, process and acknowledge the failure and retrospectively look at our work spotting potential flaws and reflecting what we could have done better or differently. So, in essence, you either succeed or learn, you never truly fail.

Plan your day the night before

Planning your day the night before is an effective time-management skill that allows you to be more organized during the day.

Having a list of things to do gives us the opportunity to waste less time in actually thinking what we need to do during the day. There is the temptation to be carried away by the enthusiasm of being productive the day after, and this takes us to write down way too many tasks on our list, probably even big tasks that require a lot of time and energy in order to give us the satisfaction to cross them out. So, there my be the risk that you will be left with way too many unchecked things in your list at the end of the day, and this can give you a feeling of “I haven’t done enough”. So here’s my suggestion, write down only a few tasks that you think are realistically achievable and estimate the right time you think you will need in order to complete them, and most importantly prioritize them. Leave the most challenging ones to the time of the day where you think you have your productivity peak, but off course this will then greatly depend on your work and life schedule.

Make your bed

Although I might sound like your mom now, this is a take-home message I have actually taken from the homonymous book “Make your bed” by William H. McRaven. It might sound like a simple task, and it certainly is, but making your bed as soon as you wake up will actually let you start the day with your first accomplishment, your brain will start to release endorphins because if there is one thing the brain loves is to have that feeling of accomplishment after completing a task this will accoany all the way through the night time when you go back to nicely done bed.

Prefer quality over quantity

This is quite self-explanatory, but preferring quality over quantity is better in the long term. Although preferring quantity can somehow gives a sense of satisfaction as we have a feeling that we achieved more (with little effort) and we have been very productive. But if you think at the meaning of the word productivity: “the effectiveness of productive effort”, you will soon realize that it is better to focus on three tasks and do them well, as opposed to doing ten tasks superficially and with the mindset of “I just want to get rid of this task so I can cross it out from my list”, with the risk of actually having to make them again in the future.

5 Skills To Learn During Lockdown

Posted on June 3, 2020November 14, 2021 by antonellovona

With no doubt 2020 has started in quite a unique and unprecedented way. The Coronavirus pandemic forced us to stay at home, and suddenly our strict and busy schedule turned into an empty agenda, a white canvas that, at the beginning, we could only fill in with grey colors, as the uncertainty of what was truly happening and not being able to see an end to it was overwhelming.

But if for some of us it was a period of uncertainty, financial difficulty, and despair for others it was an opportunity for self-discovery and meditation, starting to question whether you are in the right job, or in the right relationship or in the right mindset to thrive. It was (and still is, as of today) an opportunity to analyze ourselves and find those gaps in our lives that we could fill in to make our life more meaningful, our relationship stronger, ad to be a better version of ourselves.

In other words, it is a great opportunity for change and self-improvement… because this is the mindset of successful people, seeing opportunities where others see a problem.

During this period we started to ask ourselves “How can I fill my time?”, “How can I be more productive during this period?”, “How can I make the most out of this time?”.

If anything now you have more time, more freedom… and no more excuses!

What better time to start a new skill then? So here’s my top 5 skills you can learn during this lockdown.

Learn How to Code

If there is one thing I would highly recommend is to learn how to code. This is an invaluable skill that will become handy in pretty much every single aspect of your life.

Knowing how to code teaches you how to solve your everyday problems more quickly and efficiently. And this is because it will teach you how to look at problems in a different perspective, breaking them down in multiple easy problems.

It also opens up your mind to new business ideas.

Have you ever encountered a problem in you daily life where you said “oh man, I wish there was something to solve this problem” or “I wish there was something that could make this situation easier”. Well, that’s what Mark Zuckerberberg asked himself when he wanted to rate the attractiveness of college students, and he came up with ‘Facemash’ which then developed into the multi-million dollar social platform that we all know as Facebook. Another good example is the story of Jan Koum, a Ukrainian American entrepreneur who asked himself “I wish there was a way to text my American pals from Ukraine with my internet connection without spending a fortune with SMS”, and that’s how he came out with another multi-million dollar app that we use everyday called Whatsapp.

I can’t possibly compare myself to the above-mentioned big names, but I will try anyway… I was looking at a way to travel and at the same time trying to offset the CO2 emissions that my travel choice produced. So I started to build this travel search engine whose profit goes towards tree planting. You can have a look here at O2GO.

This skill also gives you the possibility have a side-hustle job, like a web-developer, data-analyst, programmer or any job where coding skills are required.

So… there are a lot of of programming language out there, and the one you decide to use really depends on the nature of the project you want to work on.

If you are a beginner, a good starting point is the “Holy Triad” – HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which are the building blocks of coding. There are plenty of free resourced out there, and if you are interested I have made a course on how to code. This course will take you from the very beginning of coding and will take you to an intermediate advanced level. By the end of the course you will be left with tons of transferable skills that can be applied on any project you want. My course is on Skillshare.com and you will get a 2 months free Premium subscription if you sign up through this link.

Learn To Cook

Among other restrictions, lockdown for us also meant no more restaurants, no more pubs, no more takeaways (…ish) and learning how to cook has become a primary need.

Cooking is one of those skills that we start by thinking “C’mon, how hard could that be?” until we actually try, mess up, get told off by wife/husband, intoxicate our guests, and realize that it is way harder than we actually thought. How many of us tried at least once during this quarantine to prepare a sourdough bread starter? How many of us failed? well.. I did, at least four times before getting it right (…ish). The point is, cooking is a lot more than just a quick mix and match to satisfy our daily energy need. It is science, chemistry, technique, knowledge, discipline, culture, and art. It needs a lot of practice and patience in order to master it and is one of those skills that you can only get better at.

I personally can’t think of one single reason as to why you shouldn’t learn how to cook. So, here are some reasons why you should learn how to cook:

It is a hobby: As I said above, cooking is science, chemistry, technique, knowledge, discipline, culture, and art.

Good for your health: Take-aways and fast-foods are known not to be the healthiest choice, but taking them sporadically is OK. When you cook you are in control of what you are feeding your body with, you know the freshness of the ingredients, you can control the quantity of salt, oil and butter in your dish.

Good for your wallet: Well, that’s actually self-explanatory… on average a person spends $40-50 when going out to eat, and sometimes this is only for a basic meal with a starter, a main and (maybe) a glass of cheap wine. What can $40-50 give you if spent in a grocery store? Well, for me that would be a week worth of food.

Impress your family and friends: Nothing gives more satisfaction than to impress your guests with a nice warm meal cooked with your very own hands and taking credits for your effort and creativity.

It helps you to understand more about a culture: Food is strictly related to the culture of a country, and to best know a culture, you have to start from its cuisine.

It is relaxing: I don’t know about you, but when it comes to cooking it is my favorite time of the day. Kitchen, making great foot, listening to good music, sipping a glass of wine… the perfect equation for a bit of me-time and relax.

Ok, I have convinced you to start (hopefully), but you only have a limited budget or you simply don’t want to spend any money on it. Well, don’t be daunted, there is a plethora of resources out there on the web which are free and extremely useful to get you started. Whether you are a complete beginner, or you want to master a certain technique (i.e., speed chopping, slice a fish), or specialize in a cooking niche (i.e., vegetarian, pastry), or a particular cuisine (i.e., Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Indian), this is the right moment to start.

For beginner and intermediate level I recommend you to start with some free resources like Youtube tutorials, cooking blogs, or subscribe to Skillshare – there are a lot of cooking courses there and if you subscribe with my promo-link you will get a free, no obligation, Premium subscription of 2 months. It will probably redirect you to my coding course, but if you are not interested in that, browse to the cooking session after you complete your registration.

If you think you have some advanced cooking skills and don’t mind investing a bit of money towards your cooking passion, I recommend you to sign up to one of those online cooking masterclass held by professional chefs.

Photography

Whether it is for a hobby, or wanting to get better at taking awesome pictures for your son’s birthday or your friend’s wedding, or you’re planning to sell your pictures online, or wanting to create the foundation for a side-hustle career, knowing how to take good pictures is a versatile skill.

A good picture doesn’t come out from the scene you are looking at, but it gets first composed in your mind. That’s the point of photography, capturing the shot that you have in your mind.

It all sounds easy because we get deceived by the simplicity of the action to actually take a picture… pressing a button, and we can get pretty good pictures in the auto mode. But what if we shoot in any other modality other than automatic? “the focus is wrong… delete!”, “too bright… delete!”, “too dark… delete!”, “blurred… delete!”…. Ok whatever… back to Auto mode.

Getting started is not that difficult, it all depends on understanding a few basic principles like ISO, aperture and shutter-speed, having a look at the environment where you are shooting, and adjusting those settings to find a compromise between the environment requirements and what you want to achieve.

Learn a new language

When I happen to talk to a person whose English is his/her first (and only) language, and they find out I am Italian, 99% of times I get told “Oh wow, cool… I wish I could speak Italian”. Ok… let’s face it, the majority of English speakers are lazy when it comes to learn a new language, and this is primarily because they don’t need to. English is the widely used pretty much anywhere in the world. Probably I would be lazy to learn another language too if English wasn’t my first language.

So why should you learn a second language?

It helps you when traveling – Although English is widely spoken pretty much everywhere in the world, you might encounter some situation where knowing a particular language can save you from embarrassing or tricky situation, whether you get lost in the middle of nowhere, or asking for some information to locals. It also shows a sign of minimal effort as a tourist, and this will get hugely appreciated by locals, and it helps you to understand more about a culture.

Training your brain – The area of the brain used to learn new language is also used for concentration and focus when there are distractions around you. So, learning a new language improves your concentration ability. It also promotes the integrity of your white matter as you age, so it strengthens and maintains the connections between your neurons.

Broaden your friendships – Learning a new language can also help you to establish and maintain new friendship that wouldn’t be possible due to language barrier.

Impress family and friends – Show off in front of your friends and family. You’ll never know if they will pay for a holiday for you to be their guide and translator.

There are many free resources out there. My personal recommendation is Duolingo – a free app to learn the language you want from the ground up. It is fun, only takes 5 minutes a day, it is user friendly and super helpful. Give it a try!

Learn to play an instrument

Learning an instrument has the same benefits on the brain as learning a new language (read above) and that’s already a big bonus per se.

Learning to play an instrument is not one of those things that don’t happen overnight or after a week of practice. It requires time, practice, passion and a lot of patience. At the beginning it might be daunting, because you will realize how clumsy you are when you put your hands and the output is everything but a pleasant sound. But with consistency and patience I can guarantee that after a couple of weeks you will be able to notice the difference, and that realization on how good your getting will fuel your future motivation to improve even more.

Musical instruments can be extremely expensiveness, but as a beginner you don’t need a Stradivari violin, or a Steinway and Son grand piano. You can ask to family and friends if they have the instrument you want to learn you can borrow from them, or buy a cheap one to get started. My personal favorite site is Gear4Music, where you can find the instrument that fits your budget.

As for resources, Youtube is flooded with tutorial for any kind of level. But if you are serious about it and willing to invest some money in this passion I would recommend you to pay a private teacher.

So, whether you want to play just for fun, put up some gigs with friends, entertain guests or train your brain, learning to play a musical instrument is definitely a good investment of your time.

If you want to know more about these skills or have any questions (resources suitable for you, more information, etc…) drop me an email that you can find in the About Me section, and I will point you to the right direction.

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