On Being Professional:
Ah yes, our lizard brain. A great book on this is ‘Means Markets & Lizard Brains’ (abit financial/economic centric but still an excellent read on irrational behaviour).

To help get through the daily grind I have notes stuck on my computer monitor. My current favourite being “Feelings ≠ Decisions” (Feelings are not Decisions). It just says it all for me and I made it up myself! In short, I might be feeling crap but that doesn’t mean it’s a decision to not do what I’m feeling crap about – it’s just a feeling. The others on my monitor post-it note are –

• Shenpa: impulse control is freedom.
• Hardest & Highest Priorities 1st.
• Focus = Productivity (not time elapsed).
• Keep Your Word = Be Accountable.
• Thinks Less, Act More.
• Feelings ≠ Decisions.
• Finish what you started.
• Create Change Daily.

I also read a little list of “reminders” each morning when I wake up – very embarassing and Anthony Robbins-ish but hey, it works for me. (Though I do hide it away when the cleaner comes each week so he doesn’t think I’m nuts). I’ve listed it below – minus a few lines which are abit too personal to print –

• I believe – I have faith.
• I will build a bridge to my dreams.
• I have everything I need within me now.
• I trust myself in every moment to make the best judgement.
• I am determined, persistent and fearless in my actions.
• The future is unknown but not uncertain – all barriers are just illusions.
• Imagine it done, reach out & touch that place, then pull yourself forward into the future.
• Remember you haven’t failed until you stop trying.
• I will do whatever it takes. I am unrelenting.
• I will make today great.
• Every day counts.

On Being Grateful:
Each night when I’m in bed I ask myself “what was good about today?”. It’s amazing what you bring up even on bad days. I can always think of at least 2-3 good things that happened that day. I’ve been doing this for years now and it really brightens my life and most importantly brings perspective to those difficult days and troubling periods in life.

It started out when I realised that every night on retiring I would start going through all my worries & problems and all the things that went wrong that day and how I could do them better. This just made me more stressed and made life feel very heavy. Basically, it made my tummy hurt.

So I tried flipping it all upside-down and instead started asking “what was good about today?” and my daily happiness just soared from there.

On Being Backed Up:
I’m a redundancy freak (part of my job description and IT work) so computer backup is my art. I use raided hard drives, multiple machines, monthly backup images, daily offsite backups, etc however the best tip I can offer “civilians” would be the daily online backup I use > http://backup.ironmountain.com/

It costs about $300 a year for 10Gb (so best for data only, not all your media files – photos, videos, etc). However it’s still 75% cheaper than say Telstra or Symantec, etc. Essentially it’s the largest and #1 backup data centre in the US so they can offer the lowest cost per Gb storage than anybody else on the planet (and with higher data integrity & security – they also shred documents and even crush old hard drives).

I’ve been using them daily for 5 years now without a hitch – you simply install the software, select the files to be backed up daily, then it automatically backs them up online and offshore each night without you lifting a finger (including all your email). You can then access these backed up files from anywhere in the world – all you need is a web browser and internet connection and you’re good-to-go. (Great for when travelling or on holidays).

It’s far better than using backup tapes or external hard drives which (a) you have to manually stuff around with hence always forget to do each day and (b) are often kept onsite with the main computer so when Mr Burglar steals your laptop he takes the backup drive too (or when Mr Fire strikes he burns the whole house down taking out all your data).