As I mentioned in my previous article, learning to think outside the box is the main thing I got from working on a start-up. Now, you don’t have to do it like me and go through a grueling but fun ride that takes 9 months long before you see the results, but I strongly encourage you to exercise thinking like that.

For example, let’s say you want to work on a start-up and you want that one great idea that will make you rich. For starters, you can take a look at the tasks you don’t enjoy doing every day and how they could be done faster. Or, take a look at the things you would like doing but you just don’t have the time/ don’t enjoy doing/ don’t know how to do.

I’ll give an example here. I personally would love to organize a competition on one of my blogs, but the problem that I have is all the hassle of buying the prizes, wrapping them, sending them out to another country. For me, this is not a pleasant thing, so I’ve postponed it a lot of times.

How you can make a start-up out of this? Easy. You make a site geared towards bloggers and webmasters, that takes care of all the hassle of buying the prizes and sending them to the lucky winners. The blogger picks the prize, pays for it including shipping, and the start-up takes care of the rest. All the blogger needs to do is log back in when the competition is over and put the name and address of the winner so he can get his prize. You can expand on this a lot, like creating widgets for the competition to be used on blogs or inside posts. For example, why not create a plugin for Wordpress or give the blogger a code to insert in a post, and through that you allow those that take part in the contest to register, while monitoring that they don’t register multiple times. Then use some code to randomly pick a winner out of those registered or allow the blogger to pick one or to nominate 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. This website could also list all the competitions in progress through them, and give those that want a freebie a chance to become a subscriber of the blog/ forum/ whatever by seeing in one place all the competitions.

Of course, for a service like that you would need to have access to relatively low prices for a wider range of products from which the bloggers can pick from, but it’s doable. If there is a service like that they obviously don’t market to bloggers, because I haven’t seen anyone use it.

This is just an example of reaching an idea for a start-up by taking something you don’t enjoy doing and seeing how you could make it easier or better for others.

Open a text file, start brainstorming and write down every task you don’t enjoy doing or that you depend on and see how you can get a start-up out of it. Try to mix what a service like Feedburner offers with features from Digg, MySpace or any other online or offline service. You never know what great idea you might get.

Is there a big enough market for the idea I’ve written above (probably, since there are millions of blogs and who knows how many websites)? Can it make you a good profit? I don’t know, because I haven’t given it too much thought. It can’t be done from my country because I don’t have access to cheap enough items (a MAC in my country costs 50% more then in the US because of taxes) and the shipping costs to a mostly american blogosfere would be higher.

The thing is, ideas are worth less then the paper they’re written on. It’s what you do with them that matters. If I get a couple of Red Bulls and I spend couple of hours I can write down at least 2-3 ideas that would seem destined to be successful at first glance, picked from 10 or 20 others. As long as I don’t implement them (because I already work on another project), they’re not worth anything. There is no such thing as a million dollar idea. There are only million dollar start-ups. So get a friend that knows design or programming, or hire somebody (Digg was started with less then $2000 I think and he hired a programmer to code it), and get started in your free time and work on it. You don’t need funding for that. Just make sure you have money to pay your hosting.

If you fail, it means you at least tried. Learn from it and try again.

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Did you know that a 17 hour period of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05%? Or that 1 in 6 fatal road accidents are estimated to be caused by fatigue? Did you know that when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada and people get one hour of extra sleep, that coincides with a fall in the number of road accidents? That after five nights of partial sleep depravation three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six drinks would have? Or that its generally believed that women require one extra hour of sleep compared to men, and not getting it might be the cause for their higher risk of depression?

Sleep is important and far too many people don’t get a good sleep at night. There are a lot of possible causes for this, and below you will find a number of ways on how to improve your sleep.

1. If you don’t fall asleep in 15 minutes don’t get up. People that usually have a good sleep take 10 to 15 minutes to fall asleep. Falling asleep in less then 5 minutes means that your body suffers from sleep depravation. Take another 15 minutes and if in half an hour you’re still awake, then get up and do something relaxing for a while, like reading a book.
2. Join the Dark side. Light signals your brain to wake up and can get you out of bed even before the alarm clock starts. Turn off the lights when you go to bed and pull the curtains. Day or night, a dark room is the best way to go if you want to sleep.
3. The Bedroom is for sleep only, not for work or fun. Keep the TV in another room, don’t surf the Internet or bring work into your bedroom. Your brain should automatically assume you want to sleep when you enter that room and lie down.
4. Create a sleep conducive environment. Keep the room dark as said in tip #2, keep it clean and free of clutter, ventilate it so the air is fresh and try to keep the temperature between 60 and 65 degrees.
5. Pick an hour to get to sleep every day. Try and maintain a schedule when it comes to your bedtime hour. Your body needs to get used to a sleep schedule so don’t fight it. Pick an hour that allows you to get enough sleep to feel rested in the morning and stick with it even in the weekends.
6. Don’t drink any coffee in the afternoon. The effect of the coffee lasts much more then one hour. Try not do drink any coffee 10 to 12 hours before going to bed and limit it in the morning to 1 or 2 cups. Also avoid chocolate, cola drinks or non-herbal tee at night.
7. A nightcap before bedtime is fine but don’t over do it. Alcohol may get you to sleep faster but it will also wake you up during the night to urinate and sometimes will provoke nightmares.
8. Don’t smoke right before you go to bed. Nicotine is a stimulant and should be avoided before bedtime or if you wake up during the night.
9. Exercise in the afternoon, not before bedtime. Exercise makes you more likely to get to sleep without problems, but it shouldn’t be done at night. Do it at least 3-4 hours before your bedtime hour because it produces stimulants that stop the brain from relaxing quickly.
10. Watch what and when you eat. Try to keep a few hours between your last dinner and your bedtime hour. Also try and keep the last meal of the day small. Try to avoid foods that contain too many proteins and choose those with carbohydrates instead. Also, milk or other dairy products and turkey, that contain L-tryptophan can help you sleep. If you do need to eat something get a snack but don’t over do it.
11. Do not nap during the day. Get a good sleep during the night and avoid naps during the day. If you must nap, then do a 15 minute one. After 20 minutes you will enter the deep sleep phase and you will feel worse after waking up.
12. Keep your body warm. Don’t take cold showers before bedtime. Instead use warm water, take a hot bath and use a blanket during the night so you don’t get up if it gets colder.
13. Go to bed relaxed. You can ask your spouse to give you a massage, take a warm bath, put some relaxing music, meditate, do some simple breathing exercises. Take your mind off your problems.

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Well, a game to be exact, and one that can be played with just a browser to top it off. Since I’m not a programmer, I was lucky to have friends capable of doing all the things I was imagining for my perfect game. You might say that a game is hardly something that would fit as personal development, and you might be right, but sometimes you just want to have some fun and test your skills against others. If you consider that this game is also a business, and not done just for fun, then you might understand that I’m working on my future.

We started with no clue on what a game might mean and how we should approach it, so we just dived right into it, writing down our ideas and giving them to the programmers as we thought of them. A lot of mistakes were done this way, and many can be linked to real life and personal development. I’ll try to list both the good parts, and the mistakes we made along the way. There are no bad parts, because it is a fun experience and I learned a lot from it. It’s been 9 months since we started working on the game, and there are still 3 months until we finish it, so the learning process hasn’t stopped yet.

The Best Parts

• Team Work. Even as we worked mostly over the Internet, working together on a project like this builds a special bond between those involved. I’ve made two new friends this way and I expect to make many more once the game is finished.
• Knowing that it’s all done by your hands and molded from your ideas makes for a rewarding experience as you see it grow and slowly crawling towards being finished.
• The things you learn. This is my first start-up and I’ve learned a lot by researching and thinking outside the box. As I prepare for the official launch of the game, I’m learning about web marketing, client support, advertising, hosting, domains, promoting online and offline, writing press releases, learning to use the power of social bookmarking, search engine optimization for forums, link building, monetization, and the list continues. I learn something new every day and I’m a much better person now then I was a year ago thanks to this game.
• Learning to think outside the box. Perhaps the best thing that I’ve learned from this project is to think outside the box, innovate, taking every single bit and analyzing it, trying new and better ways to do it. What most don’t realize, is that in a game, like in life, there is always one other way to skin a cat (you know what I mean). Every single action in a game can lead to other actions or it can influence the strategy of the game in some way. Thinking of every possible scenario and analyzing the consequences makes you drop some ideas, modify them or simply reaching something better as you think of it. It’s the same in our every day life. The way you usually do things isn’t always the best way.
• Ask others for opinions. More then once I’ve had an idea that I thought was perfect for our game but turned out that it would’ve been bad if implemented. By talking with my friends I saw the parts that weren’t so ok about it or how it would open the game for tactics that weren’t fair. You can’t always think on the best course of action. Having someone that you can talk about it makes it much more easier to come up with great results. Just remember, don’t just take everything others say and assume it’s best. They too can make mistakes, so analyze what they say and compare it with your ideas. You can choose the best course of action based on a more complete picture this way.
• Self Confidence. Learning to think outside the box and evolving every day, learning new things and seeing that I’m capable of planning a very complex game, learning to take decisions and to analyze a course of action, all these brought a big boost to my self confidence. I know now that I can do anything I set myself to do. Another boost was the fact that I was capable of writing down 3 pages full of ideas on how we can promote the game once it’s launched. Do things that you’ve never done before, learn new things, reach your goals, and self confidence will follow.
• Discipline. I’m not 100% there yet, but compared with the past I’m much more disciplined and capable to finish something once I start it. Working with people that depended on what I did to continue working on the game helped me a lot in this area. Getting over my laziness and doing what needed to be done is something that I’m much more capable of doing now then before.
• Learning that not all best things in life are free. Initially we were going to make our own graphics, and the result wasn’t exactly perfect since we didn’t have a dedicated designer. Taking the decision to spend some money and hire someone to do a perfect job with this was pretty easy once I discovered a game that made me sign-up just because I loved their design. Yeah, I liked it that much! Sometimes you just need to spend a buck to get the job done right. Being cheap and doing it yourself when you’re not up to it and you don’t have the time to learn how to do it, can really damage the end result and make you loose more money in the end.

The Mistakes We’ve Made

• Not having the full picture before we started. We thought of the initial idea, then when we found our programmers and we just started writing down the game and giving it to them to write the code. What we should’ve done is spend a month thinking and writing down every single aspect of the game. The beginning was chaotic and it’s still far from perfect as some minor parts of the game are just ideas at this point, even as the game is 3 months away from launch. Not having it all on paper, the programmers just assumed some things and did it how they thought it was logic. This led to going back and modifying the code when we saw how they did it, wasting time in the process. Before starting something big that involves a lot of time you need to do some brainstorming with the others, making sure everyone has the full picture before getting started.
• Setting unrealistic goals that led to disappointment. None of us had any idea on what a game implies so we’d initially set a goal of finishing the game in 3-4 months. 9 months have passed since then and we’re still not done. One of the reasons for this is that it’s all done in our free time, which is limited since the programmers have normal jobs. Also, there is a lot of learning involved when you’re doing something new, and that doesn’t just happen overnight.
• Not sticking to the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). Thinking outside the box too much can also be a curse if you don’t know how to pick just the best parts. So many ideas on improving the game and making it better made the game development take longer, and also made it a bit more complex. Hopefully it will still be a nice experience for those with little time to play, while giving the hardcore players something extra to do so they don’t get bored.
• Doing a bad job at explaining some parts of the game to the programmers. The battle system is one example of this. It took us 1 week and 8 printed pages to analyze every scenario and to come up with a battle system that is somewhat realistic and also fair. In the end, we failed to explain better a small portion of the system, and the programmer understood something else. Small error but ended up modifying the entire way the battle worked. It was remedied easily but it was time wasted anyway. Take your time to explain what you need to be done if you’re not the one doing it. It can save you serious time if you make sure the others know exactly as you see it happen.

Good or bad, it was a fun ride and it forced me to improve myself along the way. Take something you’ve never done before and learn how to do it. Something that you now pay for, something that would improve your blog or your life in some way, anything goes.

This post is part of the Middle Zone Musings group writing project What I Learned From…

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You’re probably aware by this point in your life that you’re probably not doing everything you could be doing with your day. You probably had the lazy days, and the days where you didn’t do everything you’d initially set up to do. Below you can find some tips to a better time management, letting you save precious hours that can be used to reach the smaller goals that you have lined up in your to-do list.

1. Don’t do every single item on this list. It can drive you insane living like this. Chaos is a part of our lives and it’s ok to have some of it. Do a couple of them, and save yourself that one extra hour every day that you need to do everything you set up to do. Or do most of them for a week if you’re on a really tight schedule. This is not meant to turn you into a robot, just to help you reach your goals. It’s about personal improvement, not turning into the perfect workaholic.
2. Make stocks of items you regularly use. Make a list of all items that you usually run out  of and before you go shopping check if you got enough of each to last you for a while. Printing paper, pens, notepads, envelopes, stamps, coffee, any item that makes you leave the house if you don’t have it, because you need it right then. If you have to spend half an hour of your day to go buy printing paper then that is time wasted. Plan your shopping ahead.
3. Go shopping only once a week. Again, plan ahead and buy all your groceries in the weekend for the next week. No point going every two days to buy milk and waste all that time if you can buy it all in one go.
4. A straight line is the fastest way to go. If you do need to buy something fresh every day, then try to find it on your regular route, while returning home from work. No point in doing a detour and wasting 20 minutes every day if you can find that item in a store along your regular route. The power of habit can be quite strong, but there is no rule that says you need to make all your shopping in a single place, if going somewhere else can save you time.
5. Build yourself a daily routine and stick to it. A daily routine you probably have already, but try to build one that’s more efficient. Instead of jumping on the computer after you wake up to read your emails, do other tasks, like taking a shower, eating, getting dressed, and if time allows check the emails at the end. Essential tasks first, fun ones at the end.
6. Make a to-do list and prioritize. Do the harder, more boring or more important tasks first. The fun ones are the easiest to do, but the boring ones you need to do anyway, so why delay them if they’re more important. If they need to be done, then do them first, in the morning when you have more energy. As the day passes, unexpected events might use up the time you were hoping to use for the important parts of your list.
7. Never assume that you’ll have time to do it later. Time is one thing that you can never be sure that you’ll have it when you need it most. Something can always come up and eat all your afternoon or a good chunk of it. Again, important stuff first, fun later. If you have time to do it in the morning, do it then.
8. Save time in the morning by doing things the night before. Prepare your clothes, pack your lunch, write the to-do list for the next day, write the letter that you want to send out in the morning. Anything that you do in the morning and can be done the night before, do it. Make it part of your routine before bed time.
9. Sleep well. Sleep is an important part of time management. It may seem to you that you’re  saving time if you get up 2 hours earlier, but what you make in time you loose in productivity if you’re not sleeping enough to recharge. A good sleep can keep you going all day long. If you’re tired, a task that takes 20 minutes might take you an hour or more. If you do need to wake up earlier then normal, then go to sleep early as well.
10. Leave the drinking for the weekend. Being hangover isn’t the best way to start a day. It kills your productivity and any mood to work. Go out with your friends, but don’t over do it.
11. Always carry with you something to do while waiting. If you’re going to a coffee shop to meet with a friend, and he/she’s not there yet, then take out a pen and a piece of paper, and do your to-do list for the next day. Or some documents that you need to read. There is plenty of dead time in our life, where we just wait and do nothing. Use it! You’d be surprised how many things you can accomplish like that.
12. Do something light on your TV time. If you’re watching the news or a show on TV, that time can also be used for other things. You can pay your bills, write a letter, do some ironing, make your shopping list and so on. No point on just sitting on the couch.
13. Keep the stuff you need in a regular place. Put all your bills, CD’s, office supplies, receipts, manuals, in a place of their own. If you need to look all over the house for the manual of the VCR, then you’re wasting time. I keep a drawer for any paper I need to hold on to.
14. Organize everything. It’s much easier to find something if you organize everything. Your gas bills can have their own folder, and the same goes for phone bills, or any other papers that fall in the same category. Write on the folder what’s in it, or pick different colors for them to make it easier to find the one you need.
15. Cook for more then one meal. When you cook, make larger quantities, enough to last you for a day or two. Heat it up when you’re hungry and you’re done. Cooking can be very time consuming if you want to eat something new at every meal.
16. Don’t just let your computer to stay idle. If you’re away from the computer, why not give him something to do? Start a virus scan, a disk defragmenter, a download that would make your browsing slower if done while you use the computer, burn a DVD, anything that can be done while you’re away.
17. Clean your house, but don’t be compulsive about it. A clean house is important, but being obsessed with it eats up a lot of time. Yes, that collection of CD’s doesn’t need to be ordered alphabetically right now, it can wait until you finish a more important task.
18. Plan your work, but also your breaks. Split your work time in chunks of half an hour or more, or by tasks completed. When you finish an item on your to-do list, use 10 minutes to relax a bit if you feel the need. Don’t over do the breaks, but don’t burn out either.
19. Make your own coffee. You can save both money and time by making your own coffee at home. You can look for recipes on the Internet if you’re looking for the exact taste you get at Starbucks.
20. Don’t plan all your available time. Leave 20-25% of your time free, to compensate for emergencies and interruptions.
21. Compete with yourself. If a certain task usually takes you 30 minutes to complete, try to do it in 25. If you make it, give yourself a reward, something that will make you try harder.
22. Don’t eat too much at lunch. A big lunch makes you sleepy. Eat light and it will be easier to work during the afternoon.
23. Group together similar tasks if they’re small, split them in chunks if they’re big. Switching tasks can be time consuming. For example, booting up the computer, opening the browser, email client, connecting to the Internet. Any activity you need to do daily can be done in one chunk, so you don’t have to start the computer several times a day. This applies to other tasks as well, not just to the computer. If its a big task, then you can split it in smaller pieces over a few days to make it easier to do.
24. Take a break. Find something you enjoy doing, that let’s you blow some steam. All work and no play affects productivity.
25. Avoid unnecessary meetings. You can ask a friend if he can do you a favor over the phone instead of spending one hour meeting with him at a coffee shop.
26. Find out which time of the day works best for you. Each of us usually has a certain period of the day when we do the most work done. Find out when you do the most work and you can schedule the most important tasks in that time period.
27. Avoid noise. Noise is a distraction for most of us. Make sure you block the background noise that might affect you and you’ll find that you can concentrate better.

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