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Nick Thacker
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Homepage: http://www.lifehack.org
Posts by Nick Thacker
7 Ways to Leverage Your Time to Increase Your Productivity
Apr 30th
We’re all busy people. Some people, though, are busier than we’d ever imagine, yet are somehow are able to stay on top of things so well they seem to go about their life in a lackadaisical manner, while we struggle to produce good work and maintain a household.
What’s their secret? Why do they seem to have everything figured out; always unstressed and ready to go?
Leverage.
Sure, tactics like maintaining “to-do” lists (or “done” lists), setting goals, and decreasing the amount and time of meetings can all help. But really, these are all tactics that fall into a strategical category of leveraging our time.
Leverage is an awesome force–it allows us to multiply our abilities by applying a little pressure to something.
In life, we can leverage our time, and here are seven ways to do just that:
- Get it out of your head. If it’s in your head, chances are it’s taking up valuable storage space that you can be using to get things done. Every time you think of a task, to-do item, or idea, write it down. Getting it out of your head not only lets you focus energy elsewhere, rather than trying to remember things, it also helps you clear your mind so you’ll be more effective when you do try to tackle that massive list of chores.
- Organize your day. Do you go to work and just “jump in” to all the work that’s in front of you? Try this instead: organize your day into chunks of time–10-15 minutes for emails, an hour for that large project due at the end of the month, etc. Focus on knocking out the most important things on the list, earlier in the day to increase your productivity. As your day draws to a close, the easier or shorter items on the list will require less effort, allowing you to de-stress at the same time.
- Use other people’s time. One of my favorite entrepreneurial tactics is leveraging other people. This doesn’t mean using other people–no one likes that. Leveraging other people means empowering and allowing coworkers and employees, or even outsourced help, to help you with some of your routine tasks throughout the day. If you run a website, consider hiring someone to maintain the server, site, comments, and emails.
- Focus on the prize, but work in “chunks.” Don’t let the looming pressures of finishing that massive report get you down. Focus on how awesome it will be, but actively seek to “chunk” it into manageable parts that you can work on steadily. Give yourself a small reward every time you finish a chunk, and yes–give yourself a large reward when you finish the final project!
- Allow time for yourself. One of the most overlooked aspects of the American working life, leading to stressful people who are spread too thin, is giving time to yourself. Plan and write down a segment of each day that you can take 10-15 minutes (at least) to just unwind and do nothing. Don’t think, don’t check email, don’t call your friend. Just sit, relax, and let your mind recharge. You’ll come back refreshed and more able to leverage the time you have. In addition, take a breather for one day a week or every other week if possible to increase your productivity. Do some easier tasks or the “fun” parts of your work, but don’t let yourself get carried away turning Sunday afternoon into another workday.
- Use technology. Technology is an evil temptress for productivity–it can suck us in with promises of simple task management, planning, and keeping us in the loop. But we can easily get caught in the vortex of more, more, more tech. Use a simple task manager if it suits your work style, but give yourself limits on social networking sites, checking email, and even text messaging (if that’s your thing). Ironically, there are really cool apps and software packages that help increase your productivity, so be careful and mindful of how you’re leveraging their help.
- Keep learning. The day you stop learning is the day you stop producing good stuff. Keep reading, trying new things, and implementing them. To leverage your ability to read, start listening to audiobooks in the car to and from work, and during workouts. Don’t let your RSS feed reader bog you down during the day, but make sure you keep tabs on your favorite blogs and news sites a few times a week, if for no other reason than inspiration.
Leverage is only useful to us if we’re using it in the right direction: if we let the pressures of our lives get to us so much that we feel like we’re drowning, leverage is to blame. But it’s leverage in the wrong direction.
Use leverage the right way and you can free yourself from the mundane things that you never want to do, allowing yourself the ability to create the things that motivate you, inspire you, and keep you pushing toward the weekend.
Or a better tomorrow!
What about you? What are some other ways you’ve been able to leverage your time at work, at home, or elsewhere in your life to give you more “you” time?
(Photo credit: Close Up of Newton’s Cradle via Shutterstock)
Nick Thacker is a writer from Texas, and he's interested in hacking life to make it better. His posts are helpful for writers, bloggers, and pretty much anyone who wants to hack their life! Check him out on his website, www.nickthacker.com.
The Productivity Strategy for Writing I Guarantee You WON’T Try
Apr 2nd
With a bold headline like that, you might think it would be easy to “cop out” and give you a ridiculous strategy that would be stupid to try. Instead, I’m going to give you a strategy will do three things to your writing:
- It will make it part of the top 1% of the best writing online
- It will make people sit up and listen to you
- It will generate more action than any other writing you’ve done
What’s this fancy new secret, you ask?
Here it is: write everything at least three times.
I can almost hear the groaning and complaining. You thought I was going to hand you a “magic bullet” of blogging and productivity strategy; one that will immediately–and without an once of real work–shoot your efforts to the moon.
You might wonder how super-producers like Danny Iny can craft such compelling, thorough content, literally churning it out at inhuman speeds. Chances are he’s gotten to that point by practicing: literally writing, rewriting, and rewriting some more.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic bullet. However, this strategy does need to be examined just a bit more.
First, let me give you the “three-step” process I’m talking about:
- Write. As in “free-writing.” Unhindered, brainstorming-like, free-flowing thought. No editing allowed.
- Write again. This time around, work on taking out words like “very,” “really,” and many instances of the words “that” and “so.” Chop 10% off of the total word count.
- Write one more time. Think your work’s ready to be sent out the door? Think again. I rewrote my first novel about four times, and that was easy–it was all made-up. If you’re writing a blog post, article, or anything worthy of anyone else’s eyes, give them the benefit of your best work.
You may not like the idea of writing everything thrice (I knew I’d use the word thrice some day in a blog post!), but let me assure you:
Your writing will improve drastically, and quickly.
And that is the secret of this technique: While the initial process is time-intensive, counter-productive, and sometimes downright hard, you’ll notice that the more you implement these steps, the quicker your writing will improve.
Eventually, you won’t need to follow the formula every time. The words will flow, your thoughts will magically orient themselves into an organized stream of outline-worthy notes, and the overall feel of your style and clarity will shine through.
Until then, though, give us all the benefit of working through your copy at least three times before you publish it!
One final strategy.
Lastly, if it’s really bothering you to chop up your content that many times, “trick” yourself into it by using this writing/productivity method:
- Write first in a minimalistic editor, like OmmWriter, or Byword.
- Then, copy/paste the text into a second editor–something like Evernote–that lets you add in links and additional notes.
- Finally, paste the content into a “real” text editor, like Microsoft Word or Pages, for final editing/publishing.
I know most of you won’t try this–that’s why I wrote a headline like that. Many people will continue pushing “Submit” on half-finished content, eventually burning out from a lack of an audience. But to me, that’s good news.
The fewer people there are truly striving for the best writing they can produce, the less competition there is for guys like me!
(Photo credit: Fountain Pen and Notebook via Shutterstock)
Nick Thacker is a writer from Texas, and he's interested in hacking life to make it better. His posts are helpful for writers, bloggers, and pretty much anyone who wants to hack their life! Check him out on his website, www.nickthacker.com.
How to Maintain a Blog AND a Full-Time Job
Mar 22nd
If you’re like me, you can’t spend every waking moment of every day writing, editing, polishing, Tweeting, and enjoying the fruits of your hard labor.
You have a life.
For me, that looks like a steady 9-5 job, during which I work on other stuff–my blog, writing, and life must take a back seat if I want to take home a paycheck.
So how can you maintain both? Losing sanity, to me, is not acceptable–I don’t want to pull my hair out trying to get everything done at once. And I really don’t want to lose any sleep–I’m a sleepaholic.
I’ve found that the best way to maintain an active lifestyle and steady job, while still consistently push out great content, is to plan better.
Specifically, planning the parts of the day that most people forget about.
Instead of:
- Wake up at 6.
- Go to work at 8.
- Work until lunch. Take a one-hour break.
- Work until 5.
- Come home, watch TV, go to bed.
This is what a “normal” day could look like for me:
- Wake up at 6. Try to get two or three blog posts finished.
- Go to work at 8.
- Work until lunch. Try to write 1,000 words (on anything: blogs, books, etc.)
- Work until 5. On the way home, brainstorm and plan the evening’s writing goals.
- Write until 8 or 9 pm (I like to do this in Starbucks, because everyone loves to make fun of writers in Starbucks).
- Go to bed.
You can see from the above list that I’ve blocked out the “major” chunks of my time, and filled them with some of the goals for my writing. But upon actual analysis of this method, it turns out that it’s still not an efficient-enough strategy if I expect to get a lot of writing done.
But by taking the above schedule and popping it into my favorite task-management software (Wunderlist is mine, but of course this can work with anything), I can “check in” to my progress throughout the day.
- During the “brainstorming and planning” blocks, I plug in different tasks to my to-do list, like “write X post,” or “finish novel outline”
- When I wake up in the morning, I try to get a few blog posts written–I don’t worry as much about doing “structured” writing here–my brain is usually mush anyway until about 11:30.
- During lunch, I focus on knocking off as many items as possible from the ongoing list. I use the Pomodoro Technique for this.
- Throughout the day, I’ll have Wunderlist open (part of the reason I love it so much is that it’s literally on every device) and I’ll drop in new tasks and post ideas to work on sometime later.
- At home (or at the coffee shop), I’ll knock out two or three more tasks.
This whole plan may seem dauntingly obvious, but here’s the catch: I try to keep everything out of my head and in a tracking tool–pen and paper, Evernote, Wunderlist, whatever my preference happens to be that week. But I try to catch and “dump” every single task and item into a tool. Sure, the little things start to stack up after awhile, but there’s not much that motivates me more than knocking off a little item here and there.
So the plan is to block out major sections of time throughout your day first, then focus on writing everything down. When your “chunk” of time that you’ve allotted toward blogging comes up, you’ll have a nice, organized list of things to do. You won’t be worried with checking email, Facebook, or wasting time coming up with post ideas–your entire to-do list will be right in front of you, just waiting to be checked off as “complete.”
What do you think? What are some other ways of maintaining a successful work-life-blog balance?
Photo credit: Sami Keinänen (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Nick Thacker is a writer from Texas, and he's interested in hacking life to make it better. His posts are helpful for writers, bloggers, and pretty much anyone who wants to hack their life! Check him out on his website, www.nickthacker.com.
3 Food Hacks Your Mom Didn’t Teach You
Feb 20th
In continuing with the great posts on food, I thought I’d include a few kitchen hacks I’ve come across. I’ll be the first to admit: I’m no chef. I love to cook; to whip up something new or different–but the way it tastes is, unfortunately, not always what I intend. That said, I have found a few ways to make some of the most common foods my wife and I eat actually taste good. While you won’t be able to use these techniques for everything, you can start right now, in your own kitchen! Here are a few hacks to implement before dinner tonight:
The Grilled-Cheese Sandwich Hack
Ah, the comfort food of modern American youth. While my family dips the grilled cheese in tomato soup, my wife likes hers plain–just the good ‘ol wheat bread with a slice of American cheese in-between. Growing up, my mom–who ran a home daycare, and didn’t have time to cook often–used to whip these up for the kids, and they were always good. Use this method to cook your own home-made grilled cheese in minutes, better than you’ve ever tasted.
Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything (a perfect starter cookbook) mentions a few things that have helped my grilled-cheese cooking:
- You won’t need a special panini press, or Foreman-style grill. Just use a flat-bottomed large pan or skillet, heated on medium-high. Throw in some butter to melt.
- Prepare the sandwiches by placing a slice of cheese between two slices of bread. Place the sandwiches, two at a time, on the heated pan.
- And here’s the awesome hack: Place a smaller pot, or heavy object, on top of the cooking sandwich(es). Yes, I mean to say: place another, smaller, object directly on the sandwiches, acting as a sort of “press” to flatten the sandwiches.
- Cook until desired doneness.
You’ll find that not only are the sandwiches amazing, they’re also dead-simple to clean up after: just wash the pan and any utensils used!
The Chicken Hack
Okay, here’s one that’s less specific: Whenever you plan cook chicken (breasts, thighs, quarters, whatever), you can make your chicken restaurant-quality by doing one simple thing:
Brining.
Brining is the process of submerging your protein in a water bath of saltwater for about thirty minutes. It helps the meat retain moisture, so when it’s cooked it won’t release it’s inner juices into the pan. Actually, brining can help you retain up to 80% more liquid in the meat–making for a much juicer cut–than not brining.
To brine your chicken (or turkey, for that matter), you just need to defrost the chicken and place it in a bowl of saltwater, completely covered. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for at least twenty or thirty minutes, and no longer than an hour. I usually shoot for 45 minutes, but do what works best. When you’re done, drain the chicken and dry it thoroughly, then season/prepare it as normal.
Trust me, it’s different in a really good way.
The Steak Hack
I’ve talked and blogged immensely about how to cook the perfect steak recipe–just check out my site for that–but there’s one thing that really sets my steaks apart from the average weekend BBQer:
Salting the steak.
Again, salting a steak is such a simple process, it’s a wonder not many other people I know of do it. The goal is to dry out your steak (I know, it sounds counterintuitive0 as much as possible before seasoning, marinating, and cooking. You’re literally taking a defrosted, patted-dry steak cut (any cut will work, but the best ones are aged, thick ribeye and top sirloin) on a plate and pouring salt on it. I like sea salt, as its crystals are larger than table salt. Let it sit for awhile–sometimes 30 minutes will do the trick. You’ll start to see bubbles of moisture mixing with the salt–that’s the salt literally pulling the moisture from the inside of the meat.
Rinse it off in cold water, pat it dry, and do it again if you want. When it seems dry enough, you can continue your recipe as desired, and be amazed at the results!
In Closing
These are just three of the ways I’ve discovered to “hack” my weeknight meals in a way that makes them special. My wife and family love them, and not in a “we have to” sort of way. Give them a shot the next time you decide to cook one of these, and let me know in the comments section how it turns out!
(Photo credit: Food Ingredients on the Oak via Shutterstock)
Nick Thacker is a writer from Texas, and he's interested in hacking life to make it better. His posts are helpful for writers, bloggers, and pretty much anyone who wants to hack their life! Check him out on his website, www.nickthacker.com.
How to Start Napping…and Why You Should
Feb 17th
Before you read the title and get angry, touting the same ol’ “I’m too busy!” argument, hear me out:
You can save time, energy, and get way more done by taking naps.
I know you’re in denial, but it’s true. I’ve used these techniques myself in the midst of a full-time marketing job, a part-time church job, trying to write a book, run two websites, and get married–and sometimes napping was the only way I would have been able to stay as productive as I was.
But take it from actual research: Jurgen Aschoff was a German physician, biologist, and behavioral physiologist, and he ran a remarkable experiment in the first half of last century. Aschoff placed men and women, individually, into converted World-War II bunkers that blocked out all daylight. The subjects were placed in these isolation rooms for days at a time, without access to any time-keeping devices.
After a 48-hour adjustment period, Aschoff found that all of the subjects had one strange, miraculous thing in common: they each became biphasic, meaning they slept for about six or seven hours at a time, then had a period of wakefulness, then went back to sleep for another “nap,” this time shorter than the first.
They were falling back into the natural state of biphasic sleep cycles, adhered to by much of the animal kingdom.
For those of us with “real lives,” however, we don’t have the luxury of experimentation. Rest assured, though, I’ve done the work for you! Here’s a brief outline of the best things I’ve found about adopting a napping schedule:
- Getting more done.
- Having more motivation.
- Feeling more rested.
- Being able to wake up earlier and fall asleep later.
- Feeling better all the time.
Give it a shot. Before you do, though, know that napping takes practice — it won’t just come to you immediately, but once you figure it out, you’ll be able to almost “nap on command,” allowing yourself the luxury of grabbing a quick (5 to 10 minutes) snooze while at work, at home, or in traffic (just kidding!).
So, how do you do it? How do you get to a state of zen in your daily life by using the power of the nap?
First, you’ll need to figure out when to nap. Dr. Sara Mednick, who wrote the great book Take a Nap: Change Your Life, has this to say about the different sleep cycles we partake in during our sleep hours:
- Stage 1 – This stage is least understood, and we spend the least amount of time in it. Stage 1 sleep is the first few minutes of “pseudo sleep,” where our minds aren’t really awake and our eyelids are pressuring us to give in.
- Stage 2 – Stage 2 is the foundation of sleep—it’s the stage we spend more than half of our sleep time in, and it’s the stage that helps to “reset” our brain to be more alert when we wake up.
- Stage 3 & 4 – We can lump these stages together because they represent what’s known as “slow-wave sleep,” which is the process during which our body and brain “rebuilds” and rejuvenates.
- REM (Rapid Eye Movement) – Perhaps the most popular and well-known sleep phase, REM sleep is the time of sleep that most resembles our waking state. As such, we are most likely to dream those wildly fantastical dreams during REM sleep, and it’s the stage that helps us improve our creativity as well.
The different stages of sleep are also available at different times throughout the day and night — and in differing amounts:
- REM sleep is mostly available to us very early in the day, starting at 4 am and reaching its peak around 8-10 am.
- Slow-Wave sleep depends on when we go to bed and wake up, but generally it can be reached mostly right after we go to bed, and then again a few hours before bed.
- Stage 2 sleep we can enter at any time—it’s most accessible, so it’s there for taking, whenever we fall asleep.
How to use naps to your benefit
You simply need to then piece together your preferred nap: Do you need more energy? Try a late-morning nap or early-evening. Do you want to be more focused for that big project you’ve been working on? Fit in a nap built mostly on Stage 2 sleep, pretty much anytime you want (since you’re automatically in Stage 2 sleep most of the time, anyway). And finally, do you want to boost your creativity? Then try to grab a quick nap shortly after breakfast, when you’re most likely to be able to benefit from REM sleep.
That’s it! Give it a shot, and leave a comment below with your thoughts. Once you try it you’ll realize that it’s not hard to do and you don’t need pills to do it. But it does, of course, take practice.
(Photo credit: Businessman Relaxing via Shutterstock)
Nick Thacker is a writer from Texas, and he's interested in hacking life to make it better. His posts are helpful for writers, bloggers, and pretty much anyone who wants to hack their life! Check him out on his website, www.nickthacker.com.