Things To Do on a Commute

If you have a full time job (or even part time), chances are you'll find a lot of your time being spent travelling to and from work. I find myself on public transport a lot, so here are some ways I enjoy using that time:

• Read ebooks on Kindle (You can find some old classics on the Kindle Store or Project Gutenburg)
• Learn a language
• Radio Lingua (Coffee Break ____ series)
• Duolingo
• Run to or from the train station (if your workplace has showers)
• Ride to work (if you can't ride the whole way, start by riding to a train station)
• Read the Bible
• Relax
• Bring your laptop on the train and write

Environment

Have you ever tried to get something done but just couldn't? It didn't even really feel that hard to do, it's just you ended up procrastinating or doing other stuff instead.

Let's say that your goal is to go for a run each day. Maybe you do it for the first one or two days but then eventually circumstances get the better of you and you miss a day or two. Then you break the habit and never seem to get time for it.

So how can you stop this from happening? Try changing your "environment". Manipulate your surroundings to make it as straightforward as possible to do what you want to do.

In the example, you could put your running clothes on top of your pillow. Having them there will serve as a constant reminder to you to go for a run on that day. If you get to the end of the day without running, they will still be there as a last minute reminder when you head to bed.

Other examples:

• Trying to lose weight? Remove all unhealthy food from your fridge and cupboard
• Cutting down on distractions? Uninstall facebook from your phone. Add an app that blocks youtube from your browser.
• Writing a book? Keep the document open on your computer, or keep the paper on your desk
• Learning an instrument? Keep it in your room, out of its case and plugged in
• Want to pay more attention in meetings? Always take a notepad with you and write notes
• Studying? Take everything off your desk except your study materials
• Want to get to bed earlier? Shower and get into your pyjamas an hour before you actually plan to go to bed.

Doing stuff is hard. Make doing stuff as easy as possible.

80-20 Rule

So there's this idea that's going around now days, that 80% of the sum total of something is the result of 20% of the sources. This is often exemplified from such examples as 80% of the worlds income belonging to 20% of people. 80% of your uni grades comes from 20% of your study (I may or may not have taken advantage of this while getting my 80% average at uni!)

Far from being an exact formula, it's more of a rule of thumb used as an alternate way of thinking about things.

Something that is interesting to think about is that it can more or less be applied to skills as well. 80% of a skill comes from 20% of the practice & learning. And the final 80-20 heuristic I'll be touting is this: 80% of the perceived skill comes from 20% of the techniques. So you can seem like you are 80% good at something when you really only know/can do 20% of it.

Desk

As I've mentioned before, I'm always looking for ways to clean out my room.

A while back I decided to clear out my desk. I simply asked myself “what do I need?”

My answer:

• Keyboard
• Mouse & Mouse pad
• Laptop
• Laptop fan
• USB Hub (TARDIS design optional!)
• Phone charger
• Headphones
• Water bottle & coaster
• Tissue box

Write down everything that you need for an average day of work. If you remove everything else, you’ll have a much cleaner desk with less distractions. And less distractions means more productivity.

Cleaning the Cupboards

I'm always on the look out for ways to clean up my room. I have a daily task on the todo list on my phone (Astrid) to throw/give away at least one item of my possessions. So that way even if I go for ages without cleaning up I'm still progressing, even if it's just one thing at a time.

In any case today and yesterday were more of the direct approach. I went crazy on my cupboards giving away clothes that I don't need and sorting out the various other things in my cupboards. You can see the before/after shots here:

It feels great to have a clean cupboard and although there's a few things still in there that don't need to be, it's great progress! I highly recommend cleaning your cupboard!

The Return?

One would have thought that all those years ago, getting my own laptop would have given me more opportunity to blog, but alas 3 laptops and 5 years later I have not touched my personal blog. In that time, I've enrolled in and completed a degree, and acquired full time employment. Yeah that's about all I did so now consider yourself caught up!

So with an updated design and an updated mindset, I've decided to start posting again!

PS. Many blogs on the internet are filled with "Oh I haven't updated in a while..." and "I promise to post more often" and no actual content. Don't worry this isn't going to become one of those, but c'mon. First post after 5 years deserves a bit of a write up? No? Fine, proper posts begin tomorrow!

My laptop

Last wendsday, I bought a new laptop. It's a Acer Aspire 5315. It has a huge 15.4 inch screen ( Well, maybe it's just big, not huge ) and an awesome graphics card that can play Halo, Lego Star Wars II and Trackmania Nations, which are my favourite games. Michael gave me two 512s of RAM, to replace my one 512, so it has 1GB. The screen is 16:10 so it was rather nice to watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on it yesterday. ( I took it out of our mobile library )

Just two quick notes: I've added a twitter gadget on the side, so you see exactly what I've been up to. And Plain Jeans is still updating these days. It's almost come to the end of the season, so you haven't got much time to read the archive. ( 42 comics )

Doctor Who re-runs

They are playing re-runs of the old '60s Doctor Who again! Well, not really. They are playing series 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the new episodes. It's on ABC2 ( The digital channel ), but it's on Friday 8:30 so I am out at Imprint. ( Young adult "program" of church ) Luckily it's their camp this week so I'll be able to watch it! I mean, "It's a pity Imprint is not on, but atleast I will be able to watch Doctor Who instead".

I went with the remains of our family to my brother, Daniel's house for his birthday. Micheal and I played with Daniel on his X-Box for a while. We had an awesome game of Halo 3.

In other news, I never did get around to updating Plain Jeans. My phone is rapidly filling up with ideas that I can't get around to making into comics. I've got so much other stuff that I want and need to do! Hopefully I'll be able to do them in the far--I mean near--future.

PS. I nearly forgot to mention that I got braces a few weeks ago. They make it rather difficult to eat, as they prevent me from actually closing my mouth. Also, they hurt for the first few weeks. They are teal at the moment as I just got them changed/tightened. They were silver last month.

PPS. I've started my Kalgoorlie trip wrap up now. Only got about half a day into it, though.

Noblogitis

I can't believe I haven't blogged about the Kalgoorlie trip yet. And already Lauren is going to go down to Kalgoorlie herself... I hope she doesn't manage to blog about it before I do.

Yesterday I had to get an injection that I was supposed to have when I was 12. I hope 3 years late is okay. I'm not exactly sure why we forgot to do it, but it may have something to do with the fact I don't go to the doctor's to often, and I'm homeschooled. Anyway, the actual needle was a lot less painful than I remember, but my arms got rather sore late yesterday afternoon. Thankgoodness they are okay now.

This would be fine. Just lounge around the whole day, right? No I have to do paperound, and it's boiling hot. Mum decided that I should do it at night instead, when it's cooler. So that's what I was doing 10pm at night. With a sore arm.

Plain Jeans will be continuing later this week. I've got plenty of ideas for comic strips in my phone's notepad, I just am having making them in flash.

Kalgoorlie!

I arrived in kalgoorlie yesterday afternoon after a long, 5-hour train trip. We had to get up early so we could get into the train station by 6:45. The train only left at about 7:15 and it took until 2:00 that afternoon to arrive. Well now we are at my sister's house, which was the whole purpose of the trip. Oh and by "we" I mean my older sister, Melissa and her husband (who own the house), and my younger sister, Caitlin.

This post was brought to you by a Dell Axim, and Melissa's Wi-fi internet. My hand is tired from this artificial keyboard, so I'll have to explain more when I get home on another 5-hour train ride.

Oh and by the way, happy New Year everyone, and happy birthday to my older sister, Lauren!