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Why is it some days action flows naturally while others we feel like we weigh a ton? What exactly is that weight, and how to drop it so you can carry on?

There isn’t one clear-cut reason. There are several possibilities, and chances are they are all at play to some extent. We’ll see that while there is always a way to drop the weight, it isn’t necessarily productive to do so. Sometimes it is there for good reasons.

Understand the slump, then work with the positive aspects to speed them up. Bypass the negative ones: those that are costing you time and energy without the benefit.

Whatever the cause, Z Planner and my productivity tool recommendations can make the difference. Moreover, as always, understanding the problem is the best first step to take to find the solution.

 

The slump can be positive.

 

My aunt is a psychologist. I had a very interesting conversation with her years ago when she said something that stuck with me ever since.

“Even when you are doing nothing, you are creating.”

It will come to no surprise to you that much of your work is done, or at least prepared, at a subconscious level. This is only true for things that you strive to accomplish. I am talking about goals that are your own. Those are the ones that implicate you, mind body and soul.

It is much less applicable to things you do because you are told to, or were led to believe that you had to. Those tasks may indeed need to be done (not getting fired, divorced, written off a will…), but will only implicate you at a subconscious level if you are dedicated to seeing it through.

You subconsciously sort out the best way to achieve a goal, given a goal is set that you want to achieve. If that goal is technically difficult to achieve, you will feel stuck as long as it takes for your subconscious mind to have set the course, and brought that plan to your conscious mind.

Rushing it will lead to a less than perfect plan. Waiting it out will probably lead to eternal procrastination. There has to be a compromise.

 

Your options, depending on the situation.

 

Option one: going with what you’ve got, and letting your subconscious know it.

I find it extremely effective to tell myself: I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I have a good enough plan to get started.

Count on yourself to find the missing pieces as you go along.

By doing this, you are communicating with your subconscious, telling it you think it has done its job and that you want to take the lead. It will continue working with you as you go along. More importantly, it will stop blocking you on the (sometimes) false pretense that you first need to find a better way.

Your first steps will determine if you really did need further preparation (option 2), or if things are going well enough to see things through all the way.

Option two: help your subconscious work it out faster.

Although lack of preparation can be an illusion, it can also be very real. If you aren’t ready, then you can decide to stay in the preparatory phase, and help yourself out.

Once again, the key is being aware that you are subconsciously working out a plan. Option two is simply deciding that that plan needs some work, and that you can act to get that work done faster.

Task breakdown is an incredibly effective way to do this. Create a Z Planner project. Use the task breakdown feature to work out a plan. Then create the same project again, with a different name. Make another task tree.

If things come out differently, then you may want to give yourself more time. Move on to something else, and give that particular goal some more time for processing. Rest assured, by running the task breakdown, you’ve sped things along and made progress. The next time around may be the right time for actual production.

 

Perfectionism.

 

It is very fashionable to call oneself a perfectionist. Most people consider it a positive trait. It is the best excuse for procrastination that was ever invented.

Your subconscious may block you because it hasn’t figured things out, and doesn’t want to go into the unknown (the fear, always the fear). Once this becomes a habit, a common manifestation of this habit is to blame it on perfectionism. Convince others of this if you like, but do not allow yourself to believe it. Your project may need further preparation and thinking before actual production can take place, but be sure you honestly ask yourself if it is really the case.

 

Laziness.

 

I honestly believe laziness does not exist. Fear, lack of purpose, or just a positive productivity slump that you can cure mostly by identifying it as such accounts for all cases of laziness from my point of view.

Do not let yourself believe that you are lazy. Laziness is a self-demeaning diagnosis that works like calling oneself a perfectionist. At least the latter doesn’t add guilt to the equation.

Just like perfectionist, it is OK to let others believe you are lazy. Just don’t believe it yourself. Look for a goal, kill the fear, figure out a good way (good should be good enough). Let your subconscious do much of the work, just give it a nudge from time to time and then decide to get started. Use all the tools you can find that work and will help you.

Repeat the process until all of your goals are achieved.

 

Other causes for productivity block.

 

There are other causes for being stuck, but when you analyse them, you will find they are often tied to the subconscious trying to build a perfect plan.

 

Lack of purpose.

 

The only exception I can see, because in this case the subconscious has nothing to work on, and no unknown to fear going into.

Yet even this isn’t fully an exception. It is a mirror image of the perfect plan syndrome. Nothing is safer than having no goal. It is by far the surest way to not have to step into the dark. It is the surest way to forget to live.

The first is stalling. Lack of purpose is refusing the very idea of movement.

It is also caused by fear.  Everyone has dreams. Many choose to forget them.

 

Being worn out.

 

There’s nothing like pushing too hard, wanting to finish, getting close to a deadline without making progress to wear you out. If the task at hand is important to you, ask yourself if fighting the positive slump described above isn’t the cause of lost energy.

If it isn’t, then we can explore the motivation equation again. Lack of desire? Lack of energy? Too much fear? Whatever the case, there is a binaural track that can help.

 

Indecision.

 

There may be two or three paths that lead to the desired result. Sometimes it simply boils down to things that can be done in different orders. Perhaps the problem requires a little more processing time (the positive slump again), but chances are you just need to do one of the tasks and stop worrying about the immediate consequences of chosing one over the other.

 

Technical problems.

 

All of your attention is drawn to one particular grain of sand that you think will cripple the entire plan (sometimes rightly so).

Or perhaps, once again, your subconscious mind is drawn to this problem and still busy trying to figure it out. If the problem requires a technical solution you do not know yet, you may need to apply some problem solving (ASIT!), or get help getting past the hurdle (friends, colleagues, outsourcing, consulting specialized forums, books…). I find that getting the tasks you know you need done will give you time to find a way past the perceived obstacle.

 

Perception of time.

 

I get this very often. To me, knowing the following helped a lot.

Oftentimes, you have just 20-30 minutes that you can dedicate to your project. It is very easy to let yourself believe it isn’t enough time to get started, build momentum and do something worthwhile.

It isn’t true. Your mind is playing tricks on you that cost you dozens of hours a month of preciously productive time. It can take 45 minutes to get into gear in normal circumstances, so the shorter time frames are viewed as useless, and ultimately lost. Yet each of these little time slots can contain a completed task. Or, simply 1/10th of a completed task.

If you’ve made a list of short tasks with Z Planner, and you are using binaurals for  immediate motivation, then focus, you can easily take advantage of those micro time frames that can add up to hours each day, and dozens of hours per month. They are one of the keys to achieving a personal goal on a limited “time budget”. 

Granted, Z Planner only has 1 hour time frames. If you’ve planned 1 hour a day, you may need to spread it over early in the morning, lunch break, and late at night. You may also need to make little arrangements, like leaving your computer on all day so everything is ready when you get back. Or you can carry your laptop around with you in sleep mode (that’s what those things are for!) Look for solutions, resist the excuses, and you can take advantage of the 20-30 minute breaks to get ahead on your goals.

I do not put off projects to when I have 4 straight hours available. I would rather use those 4 straight hours to relax and sacrifice the 20-30 minute breaks that do not relax me anyways.

 

Conclusion

 

Don’t underestimate the extra productivity tools. Immediate motivation and focus (binaurals) have been an invaluable help for me, adding thousands of 20-30 minute time frames for personal work (plus getting up much earlier when big projects are under development).

I am just starting to discover the effects of the creativity track, having focused my usage on motivation, focus and occasional training. Try it when you think you are slumped because still processing unconsciously. Do this in conjunction with Z Planner. You can’t imagine that feeling, and I cannot put it in words!

Occasionally, setting up timers with AM has helped me take full advantage of 2-3 hour time frames, so I could have time to unwind and still be satisfied of my day’s work on a day off.

And the systematic creativity course is just thrilling, especially when asymetrical thinking (for example) helps you solve a real life problem and get a project going again.

Don’t give up on Z Planner too easily. It really does take some time to uncover its full potential. Once you have, the combination of all these tools changes you forever: project after project.

 

Z Planner has a 20 to 30 minute learning curve. (MS project’s learning curve is 3-4 weeks). To get as many people past this learning curve as quickly as possible, I think the best solution is a quick online tutorial. This way I can respond to any questions (comments), and update it without having to publish the whole application again.

Take 20 min to learn how to use Z Planner and you will be planning ambitious projects, and getting them done!

The most important part: Why is Z Planner more effective than regular planning tools? The task breakdown feature is an excellent brainstorming tool, because you can write out the list of tasks without interruption.

- You can write all the subtasks on the fly. Each time you hit ENTER, you can write the next one straight away.
- If you decide you want to make a task a final task with notes and duration, simply hit TAB once and it focuses on the final task checkbox. Hit SPACE and TAB and you can enter notes. TAB, then number of hours. TAB again, then the number of minutes. Then TAB and ENTER to validate.
- No fiddling with the mouse. No loading time.
- Then you can reorder tasks, break some down further (those that weren’t final tasks), and you have a step by step project automatically fitted in the time frames you specified, viewable in your schedule.

Let’s start at the end:  If you need to uninstall Z Planner, make sure it isn’t running (it runs in the background by default so that reminders can pop up at the specified date/time).  All reported problems related to unistalling were due to the application running as the uninstall was executed.

To close the application: File >> Exit (or CTRL + E).
To prevent Auto Start (autostart only works on XP) simply uncheck enable autostart when the application launches (unchecked by default).

Note that enabling autostart is the most reliable choice. This way Z Planner is always running, which is necessary for pop-ups to appear when the time comes for a reminder. Unfortunately Vista security madness prevents autostart from working (it also hides popups in the background).

To uninstall once the application is closed, START >> PROGRAMS >> zPlanner >> Uninstall.

There have been several complaints from users about these two issues so I hope this takes care of everything.

 

The Core Functionality.

 

 

Z Planner’s core functionality is to turn an idea (short, medium or long term project) into a list of simple tasks and put them in your calendar. The above video is a quick walk-through:

1. Creating a user (there can be several).
2. Starting a project (name, start, end).
3. Editing project (double click on the name, apply changes to end date, name, click EDIT).
4. Project color (if it is left white is remains invisible).
5. FRAMES – Project time frames.
6. TASK – Task breakdown (from project name to a task tree.)
7. Schedule (output only) to see the final tasks scheduled in the time frames you selected for each project, taking duration into account. Listed with project color and notes.

 

Not in the video:

 

- Reminders : a reminder with notes. First select if it will be single, recur weekly, monthly or annually. For daily reminders, check each day of the week on weekly reminders (this allows easy planning of tasks that recur on weekdays).

 

Extra tip:

 
You can also use it to plan your “small things to do” by creating a small things to do project.

List each as final tasks that you can get done in a one hour time frame. Re-order the tasks by geographic location (things that are done on the computer, then house chores, then…). This follows David Allen’s context principle.

Those aren’t part of a project persay, but including them in a global “Things to do project” with a one hour time frame per day gets all the small stuff out of the way quickly.

 

Same process with more details:

 

Create a user: pretty self-explanatory, can be done for multiple users in a household / office that share a workstation.

 

Create the project:

 

Write a goal there, big or small (there can be as many as you like).

     – Select a start and end date.
     – ENTER or OK. The project appears in the project list.
     – Select it in the list and:
         – Affect a color code: it will be associated to this color in the schedule. This can be changed by repeating the operation and selecting a new color. Each project should have a distinct color code.

 

Select time frames:

 

FRAMES – This opens a form in which you can affect time frames to your project. These time frames are full hour blocks, but reminders (see below) can be used for minute precision. Time frames can occur once (single) or weekly until the project’s due date.

        - Select single or weekly.
        – Click on the block that corresponds to the day and time you want to start.
        – Hold down ALT key and select the block that corresponds to the time you wish to end.
         – Click on VALIDATE to confirm the opperation and dedicate those time slots to your project.
         – To delete a block, select one of the hour blocks and click DELETE next to VALIDATE.
         – Create as many time frames as needed until you have enough “time available” for project completion. You can come back later and add or delete time frames if they do not correspond with “Time needed”.

 

Move on to task breakdown: 

 

TASK – This form turns a project idea into a list of tasks.
       – Select the parent task on the left, they appear on the right. Enter the subtasks just below the parent task on the right.
       – They appear as a list (below right) that you can re-order by selecting and either entering an order value or moving them up or down using the up and down arrow buttons.
       – Subtasks also appear in the task tree to the left. There they can be selected and become parent tasks themselves and be broken down further. Simply repeat the process until all tasks are as simple as you would like them to be.
       – Final tasks: If a subtask is not to be broken down further, you “tell” this to the program by making it a final task. This allows you to add notes, duration in hours, duration in minutes before confirming (OK). Use TAB for quick and easy navigation.
      - Final tasks show in the schedule, within the time frames that were selected for the project.
      – The total of task durations corresponds to the “Time needed” for the project, which appears on both FRAMES and TASK forms. If Time needed exceeds Time available, you are prompted to either postpone the end date (which works if you have weekly time frames) or by adding single time frames. You can also review durations (make them quicker).

 

Reminders:

 

Pretty self explanatory, select between single, weekly (check days for daily), monthly and annual. Enter the reminder, add notes if needed, then enter the appropriate data (depending on recurrence selection, can be day of the week, day of the month, end date for daily recurrence…).

Note that when a Reminder appears on screen you may chose to have Z Planner “Remind you later“, in which case you select a new date/time for that same reminder.

 

Late tasks:

 

This is a very important feature!

The combination of time frames and final task durations determines what day and time a specific task will be scheduled. If the date is passed and that task hasn’t been ticked “done” in the schedule, it will appear in the LATE TASKS form. If there are several late tasks, they appear in the order they were meant to be done. The tasks’s duration is posted alongside each task.

When a late task is done, you can either tick it off as done there (by double-clicking on “no”) or in the day’s schedule.

 

Schedule:

 

Note that the schedule form outputs data from project FRAMES and TASKS. No data can be entered in that form.

 

Select the date (top left) that corresponds to the week you want shown (default day is current day so this step is usually unnecessary).

Click OK and the selected week is shown, with the color codes revealing scheduled project time frames accross the week.

Double-click on a particular day and the list of tasks appear, along with the color code for the project they correspond to and the time it has been scheduled.
      – the first task is scheduled at the befinning of the first frame. If the duration is 30 minutes, the second time is scheduled 30 minutes later, and so on.
       – A 30 min task can be “cut in two” if it is scheduled 10 minutes from the end of a time block. In this case it is scheduled at that time, and scheduled again at the beginning of the next block. The task that follows will be scheduled there 20 minutes later.
      – When a task is done, you can tick it off as done by double-clicking on “no”. It is replaced by a “YES”. This prevents tasks from appearing in “Late Tasks”.

Binaural Beats play a big role in my personal development: productivity, training, motivation, meditation…

 

I purchased Quality binaural audio recordings that have been incredibly helpful staying focused and motivated on a wide range of challenging personal projects. If you’ve read this website’s introduction, you know just how far I’ve been oustretching myself!

 

How I use them:

 

Stepping out for training sessions after a long day at work can be hard. Sit on the couch while playing the motivation binaural beat for 5-10 minutes and you’re out the door with your sports bag, eager to get started. It works the same to get started coding games, writing blog articles…

Jogging while listening to the aerobic training binaural beat recording focuses your mind on starting the Pasteur Effect, making energy available more quickly.

Lifting weights while listening to the strength exercise enhances energy release for white muscle cells (they require sugar from glycogen, stored in the white muscle cells and liver and are released by a hormone called glucagon).

The intense focus track helps shut out distractions and stay on the job until it is finished.

I spend a large part of my work time just thinking. The creativity track helps with brainstorming, planning, or just imagining content.

The strong learning track is great for online research or while reading tutorials on coding, learning languages, biology…

The pure energy track is for the occasional morning when you want to be up and working early after a short night.

Combined with using Z Planner to always know what I want done next (staying on course for short and long term projects), I have been able to do more these past six months than I had in the ten years before that!

 

The binaural beats set I purchased for $47 includes:

 

 

Over this past year, this has enabled me to become quite an expert in game development (but there is yet much to be learned!), weight loss biology (60 lbs! I lost 60 lbs!!). This led me to turning my old Z Planner website into a blog that helps people achieve better health, better productivity, learn some programming… It is brand new (as of July 2009) so come back often!

 

 Why Binaural beats work.

 

Binaural beats were first developped with the help of EEGs , then perfected with the more advanced functional MRI. These allow the researcher and the sound engineer to work together to perfectly see the effect, tweak, perfect, test again until he/she finds the sound that has the most influence on brain activity (motivation, creativity, focus, hormone secretion – glucagon, adrenaline…).

 

 

 

Think of the effects being more productive each day has over:

- a week.
- a month.
- a year.
- a lifetime!

It quickly adds up to tons more knowledge and  accomplishments!

Don’t wait another day, get yours now!

Yes, this is an affiliate link!

This means that purchasing through this link earns me a commission. You can see that as a way to thank me for all the cutting edge tools, techniques and information on this site… Not to mention the fun!

 

 

 

Whether you want to take your hobby to the next level, add a string to your bow for your career, or perhaps learn a new language, the way you go about it from the start will make the difference between a real learning experience and a passing whim that yields little or no results.

Method and planning work, but without knowledge, you cannot build or plan.

 

It isn’t about research, but preparation.

 

Of course some research will always be necessary. But it isn’t central. Research can lead to piles of information, and most of the gathered information will be unnecessary.

Study is a more adequate word for the information phase, because studying will lead to understanding. Understanding prepares you for the challenge, while knowledge will better suit shallow conversation than real progress.

Tim Ferriss calls this preparatory study phase deconstruction, and applies it to linguistics. Read his quick post on this and you will see the difference between research (buying vocabulary and grammar books, and digging in for 10 000 hours), and actual preparatory study method. He applies similar principles to sports competition and describes this in his book, The 4-Hour Work Week, telling how he won the Chinese national kickboxing championships with little preparation, and a starting level of expertise that should have made this impossible.

 

Deconstruction applied to weight loss.

 

The weight loss plan (see above menu) is the result of the very same principle: understand first, applied to fat loss biology. I actually ran into Tim’s site for the first time while checking my Google rankings for fat loss, and found his post on this subject in the first three results (Understandfatloss.com was on page 5).

The conclusions are practically the same, and the results: deconstructing and understanding has led us both to our target weights whereas most people (myself included, years before) give up on weight loss because they put too much practice (restriction, workouts) into poorly thought-out methods (eat less and exercise doesn’t work!).

 

Then comes practice and learning, but also luck and opportunity.

 

Once you’ve understood enough on the mechanics to build a method, the gaps to fill in with knowledge have dramatically shrunk, and that is the whole point of the operation.

That doesn’t mean to say that there is no practice and learning involved, just that the requirement has shrunk enough to be much easier to plan and evaluate. And evaluating a project’s cost in time, effort and sometimes financial investment is crucial to determining whether or not it is worth the benefit in comparison with other project ideas.

Dustin Wax puts more emphasis on the actual practice in his recent post on luck, success, and 10 000 hours, but does not forget the preparatory phase which he refers to as absorbing the rules.

A jet fighter pilot will definitely need thousands of hours of flight to integrate essential reflexes that can save his life, deconstruction or not. And this will require luck as well. If he is unlucky he will run into that demanding situation after only 500 hours of flight, and never have the opportunity to put in the 10 000.

Yes, there will be learning, and how good a shortcut you can find will depend on the goal, but also the amount of thought and creativity (creative thinking, problem solving) you put into the deconstruction. A challenging but worthwhile process to master, which requires some deconstruction, learning and practice of its own.

From planning to action – setting timers.

 

You’ve got your list of tasks for the day.

 

You’ve gotten started. You are focused and ready to be productive.

Then there is the optional third part: working fast. When you work fast you either get more done or do what you need to do in less time, thus freeing time for more enjoyable or self satisfying activities (which can also be planned as described above).

We’ve seen how a pair of headphones can dramatically help you get started (motivation track) and staying focused (focus track).

You can further sharpen your focus by adding a little competitive edge to your workday. Competition against the clock. You’ve determined how much time you need for each task, so now is the time to challenge yourself to getting it done as planned, or faster.

A piece of paper and an electronic wristwatch can do the job. I prefer to use a great little application to set those timers and link them all together (timer2 starts as soon as timer1 is finished). Once set, your day of work is laid out before you, and compressed into however many hours you like (the less, the more remains for better things).

 

This small extra preparation step tickles your sense of competition. In your mind, you are challenging that timer to a race. If you lose, you challenge that clock to a rematch until you win. You get better. That is exactly the point of competition: getting better. That improvement comes from confrontation against someone, or something that will win unless you outdo yourself to prevent it.

Timing your tasks isn’t usual. Do the unusual and you will achieve unusual things!

The Action Machine is one of the few tools I really recommend. It really helps click into competitive mode. The outcome is better, and it comes out faster.

Researching weight loss biology, learning to create games and software (and doing it), writing this blog, other websites, learning languages, researching productivity… and going to work every day.  All of this requires productivity, which absolutely requires two things: Motivation and focus!

What if you could use efficient tools that get you motivated quickly, then stay focused on your work? How much more would you get done over just a few weeks or months? A year or a lifetime? How much more knowledge, experience, revenue, social life? How much time would you save for just fun?

I use these every day, and they’ve been a serious help! I can’t imagine now how much would not have been done without them.

 

Motivation.

 

 
This is the drive behind your actions. Without it, you don’t make progress because you simply do not want it, or fear is in the way, or there is no energy to turn the desire into action.

 

 

 

Focus.

 

You’ve gotten started, but get off track on a regular basis. This is the second big project killer. You know where you want to go, you are motivated to get there, and you know how but you zig-zag and backtrack too much.

 

 

 

 

Motivation and focus are difficult to maintain. A simple distraction and focus is gone. As soon as focus is gone, motivation follows. It can be hours, days, months or simply never before you get back to work on your project. Especially if it is YOUR project, and not something someone is MAKING you do. Those just happen to be the ones that benefit you most!

Motivation and focus are a state of mind.

That makes them hard to influence with just will power. What if there was a way to fuel them, or spark them into existence, by using harmless and drug free methods. Sound too good to be true?

 

Modern medical imagery tells us different!

 

It probably isn’t news to you that MRI imagery reveals the impact of external stimuli on brain activity (functional MRI ). This can measure the effects of something as simple as sound on specific parts of the brain.

 

 

This has enabled science to determine what part of the brain does what. Just measure brain activity when someone is motivated and focused on a task. Then have a different subject listen to a music track and see the effect it has on the brain (using the same technology).

Adapt the sound, and try again until both tests give the same result. You have a music track that stimulates the brain into motivation and focus. Repeat the test 100 times and you have confirmation.

It isn’t music anymore, but it influences brain activity (which generates brainwaves). Encode these into mp3 tracks (doing this without altering them is a sound engineer’s job) and you have an awesome tool for productivity. A motivation track that gets you started, and a focus track you switch to when you’ve been on the job a little while and gained some momentum.

I use this tactic every day I have work to do. Anything, because whatever I do these recordings help me get on the job earlier, and get finished faster. I often get an 8 hr day’s worth done in 3 hrs!

Just think of the effect over a week, a month, a year or a lifetime!

 

I absolutely recommend that you get these same recordings! The effect is absolutely amazing!

 

They were made by an Australian, Paul Kleinmeulman, who put the necessary investment in the technology and equipment to create flawless recordings (with the help of a sound engineer). This is necessary for them to work, because trigerring mind responses is a precision science!