I’ll admit it, I’m a stats junkie. I like to track progress, see numbers, have charts on whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish. I share my blog stats with you on a weekly basis in the weekly reviews.

I track my goals and habits on a daily basis too. For this I use Joe’s Goals, a simple web app designed to do just that. In this post I’m going to share with you how I use Joe’s Goals.

Setting up an account

This is a breeze! No annoying questions, just an email address, a nickname and a password and you’re all setup.

Configuring your goals and habits

Once you setup your account, you can start configuring your goals and habits. There are two types of entries that you can make, Goal or Logbook. Goals have scores, Logbooks are meant for comments.

I use both types. Goals are meant for checking off on habits I have completed successfully for the day or for checking of on activities that lead me closer to accomplishing my goals. The Logbook-type I use for planning purposes and for making notes on things I have done. And I use them in combination too, more on that later.

As you can see in the images, the setup screens for an entries are pretty straightforward. They have a nice set of options, but nothing too fancy.

• Goal name
  Like it says, this is where the name goes. Choose any name you like, you don’t have to worry about sorting, because you can change the sort order later.
• Tags
  You can put tags in here. I don’t use this feature.
• Weight - goal only
  You can give a score to the checks you put in this goal. Values range from 1 to 10. This is something I use to give relative weight to my goals and habits.
• Type - goal only
  You can choose whether you want the goal to be positive and earning you points, or negative making you lose points. All my goals are positive, because I want to reward myself for doing something I like, not punish myself.
• Target Days
  Use this feature to mark on what days you want the goal to be active. My weekly review habit for instance is only active on Sundays.
• Display Stats - goal only
  Here you can select what stats you want to see in the overview screen.
• Notes
  And finally, this is where you put whatever it is you feel you need to write down. This does not show in the overview screen.

Sorting your goals

Goals and habits are initially ordered in the order you create them. But fear not as it’s easy to sort them later on, when you discover one you forgot. Just click in the upper right hand corner on the link to “sort goals”. There you can sort them by Alphabetically, by Goal Type or Weight.

If you’re like me, you want neither of those orders. For people like us, you can create a custom sorting order by simply rearranging the goals in the list. Scroll down and click on the “Save Custom Sort Order” button in the bottom.

The overview screen

When you trusted all your goals, habits and other thoughts to the program, you get a nice overview of all your entries in a table. The entries are listed on the left, and you get a week’s worth of spaces to mark your progress.

The default view places the current date as the last date in the table. But using the arrow in the top right hand corner, you scroll forward into the near future. By clicking the calender icon, you can choose a date further away.

Some of my tricks

• Injecting Planning: This feature, combined with the Logbook item, is a great way to inject some planning into the table. I use this for my renovation project as you can see. There’s not an awful lot of room for text, so you can’t be too verbose. By putting the Logbook for actuals (a) right below the planning (p) I can see instantly how much of my plan got executed (and consequently whether I need to adjust my planning).
• Divide into sections: Another trick I use is to divide my table into sections, by inserting a Logbook item with no active days. This results in a blue bar across the table. Make sure to give it a clickable title though (like the dashes I used). I have one goal dangling on the bottom of the table, where I brilliantly used the spacebar to give it an unclickable name. I still need to send a mail to ‘Joe’ to get that one removed from the database.
• Declining points for ‘old’ habit changes: As you can see I used the weight function a lot. For the habits section, I more or less have a system for that. The habits that I have been doing for quite a while now get a lower score than the ones that I just started. But some of them are multi-clickable, like the “Drink water” habit. Every glass of water results in a checkmark.
• Extra credit for perfect days: When I have a perfect day with all my habits, I allow myself to check the main habits goal as well, scoring me an additional 10 points. This is one I came up with fairly recently, so I have yet to get the pleasure of putting in a checkmark there!

Now get started!

There are more features to be discovered in Joe’s Goals, and I could write a lot more about it. The truth is that I don’t use the rest of the features, so I’m not going to elaborate on them.

The biggest benefit of using Joe’s Goals is the fact that you’re inclined to check in daily, to score your progress. Doing this on a daily basis will help you build your goals and habit changes into your daily routine, increasing the likelihood of success.

The important thing is to get started. So surf on over to Joe’s Goals and start tracking your progress. Use my tips if they suit you, or come up with your own hacks. But ultimately it’s not about the hacks or the tracking software, it’s about getting serious about change and progress. But this sure is a nifty tool to enable you to succeed.

Oh…and in case you’re worried about forgetting to check-in on a regular basis: you will get an e-mail reminder (after a configurable number of days) to get your butt back to the site and hold yourself accountable!

It’s been 5 months since the Early Bird Challenge where I changed from being a night owl to being an early bird. GCM triggered me yesterday to think back on the past months and evaluate this transition.

Benefits of rising early

The first three months were pretty easy. I loved the mornings a lot and I enjoyed the benefits of the new rhythm. I changed the rhythm to be able to spend more time with my wife and son, but that wasn’t the only benefit I gained from adopting this new habit.

• Better rested
  I was surprised to notice that I was better rested in general by changing my rhythm. On average I slept an equal amount of hours, but it was more consistent. No longer did I alternate 3 or 4 hour nights with 7 or 8 hour nights, it changed to a very consistent 6 hours every night (give or take 30 minutes).
• Productivity improved
  The morning hours turned out to be more productive hours than the evening hours. One of the reasons for this is because the morning has the aura of starting, whereas the evening and night have the aura of slowing down. And besides that, there are far less distractions in the early morning hours, there’s absolutely nothing interesting on television at that time for instance.
• Decreased ‘bad evening habits’
  Working late at night was accompanied by some glasses of wine (or a beer or two) and midnight snacks too. Not every night of course, but this happened regularly nevertheless. This decreased dramatically when I changed my rhythm. Less time awake at night decreases the opportunity to consume empty calories (like alcohol) or bad calories at bad times. Even if you work late, your body and metabolism slow down towards the night.
• Increased ‘good morning habits’
  Besides eating and drinking healthier in the morning as opposed to the evening, I also added time to do workouts in the morning. And workouts are a great way to boost energy too! I noticed the benefits throughout the day.

Disrupted rhythm

The past two months have been harder for several reasons. I have been having trouble maintaining the rhythm of rising early. It started when I had the flu and needed a lot more sleep. I was still going to bed early, but the 6 hour nights turned into 9 hour nights for quite some time.

Then when I was getting better, our son went into a new phase and woke up crying a lot at night. This broke our nights to the extent that I did not start rising early anymore, simply to get 6 hours of sleep during a 9 hour night. And broken nights are exhausting!

Meanwhile the days were getting a lot shorter with regard to daylight too. And the reduction of daylight does have an effect on my energy levels. Now I wouldn’t say I suffer from winter depression or anything, but I do notice a change.

Reclaiming the rhythm

I had another round of flu and currently we’re in another phase of midnight crying of my son, due to his molars surfacing. The rhythm of rising early has been disrupted so much that I haven’t been able to get back into it yet.

But I’ve found that waking early is still relatively easy to do. When I set my alarm to 5 or 6 am it’s not that hard to get out of bed. Even when it’s cold and dark! That surprised me to some extent, but mostly it encourages me a lot.

I don’t regret listening to my body when it said to sleep more. I needed the sleep to recover from flu and to survive the broken nights. But I really want to get back into the rhythm, because I found that rhythm very beneficial for me on so many levels that I cherish it.

The main thing is that it gives me energy, mental and physical energy. I’ve found myself with low energy levels lately, and I can name all the reasons for those low energy levels to justify the fact that I feel that way. But it wouldn’t do me any good, now would it? So I won’t do it. Getting back into the rhythm will solve it.

I had already started to get back into the rhythm, but writing this update has given me another boost of motivation. Amazing what writing can do. Thanks for inspiring me to write this article GCM!

Yes, it’s that time of year again. New Year’s Resolutions!

Essentially new year’s resolutions are simply goals or habit changes, but they are used by more people because they are somewhat of a tradition. The problem with new year’s resolutions is that they fail so often. The intention is right, but most people fail to adopt the right strategies. All in all, you do want them to work all year long (and preferably after that too!).

Steve calls on us to start planning ahead, instead of waiting for the last minute. Over at Change Your Thoughts, you can download a guide to make your New Year’s Revolutions, and a 21 minute talk about it too. Need more inspiration?

One of the popular resolutions is to lose weight. It made it to the top 5 list of WebMD, both for men and women. Aaron over at Today is that day, points out very well that you may need to shed some (mental) baggage, before you can make it work this time.

For business you can check IttyBiz for a series of marketing tips for small companies, to get more business (Naomi did some mind reading for you there). And how to make your business resolutions stick is another great article, that happens to be very applicable for personal goals also.

Bloggers (or writers actually) can find inspiration for resolutions at the Publishing Spot. And if you happen to be in personal development, Ian stated his resolutions on his blog as well, although there are a lot of self-sabotaging words in that list.

And finally, you can check 7 highly effective resolutions at the Ririan Project. Still not enough, check out the ToDoList-blog for tips to find resolutions. List parties! Yeah

photo by CoffeeGeek

I enjoy drinking several cups of coffee a day, but I never really knew whether I should or should not drink this stuff. Is it bad for me, or is it good for me? Does it really have an effect, or do I think it has an effect? I know the latter can be true, as one of my former colleagues once said to feel much more awake after drinking a decaf (without knowing).

So to put an end to ignorance, I did some research. And it contradicts a little. So for your enjoyment, 5 reasons to drink coffee, and 5 to don’t drink it.

5 reasons to drink coffee

1. It heightens your senses
   Coffee has several effects on your awareness, your senses and your mental capabilities. Albeit on a short term only, there are no lasting effects. Coffee contains caffeine, but is also known to stimulate the production of cortisone and adrenaline. These are hormones that prepare your body for a fight or flight response.

   They make you very aware! But you can feel a little stressed out as well…

2. It protects against diabetes
   Drinking coffee reduces the risk of getting diabetes mellitus type 2. This is the type where body tissues become resistant to insulin. Obesity, among a lot of other factors, is currently a major cause for diabetes type 2.
   Click to continue »

Sometimes I turn to past and present teachers to learn and to be inspired. This time I’m talking with them about action. And boy, do they have a lot to say about it!

Ambition is not what a man would do, but what a man does, for ambition without action is fantasy.

- Bryant H. McGill

Action is the secret ingredient of success. Or better, the silent ingredient of success, because it’s hardly a secret as many of the quotes in this article will show. Yet action most often is the difference between successful and unsuccessful people.

Successful people take action!

You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.

- Tony Robbins

Successful people take action, unsuccessful people don’t. It is by taking action that we change reality and it is by taking action that we get results. They may not always be the results we are looking for, but they are results nonetheless. They provide us with feedback we can use to take another action, that has a better chance of producing the results we desire.

But actions do even more than just produce results and feedback. Let’s take a second and listen to what Aristotle has to say to us: Click to continue »