the contemporary shopping lifestyle

There are few certainties in life, but along with death and taxes you can be sure that problems will also play a key role. They will be the cause of your greatest pain and your crowning achievements. How you deal with them defines your worldview, and how other people perceive you. People who excel at problem solving tend to see the world as rational and (ultimately) understandable. They may view their lives as goal driven and self-directed and are often seen by others as proactive, dependable and able to get things done. People who are not so good at problem solving tend to think the world is irrational, mysterious and may often view their lives as a product of capricious fate, or chance. It’s tempting to make the right and left-brain distinction here, however this is mistaken as good problem solving often involves both analytical and synthetic approaches that make use of both sides of the brain. It is also important to note that no-one is completely devoid of either characteristics and that many people are good at solving some kinds of problems but not so good at solving others. However, there are always things we can do to improve our ability to solve problems and below are 10 general tips that will help anyone hone this ability within themselves.

1. The Truth is out there. Perhaps the first and most important thing you can do to improve your problem solving skills is to come to the understanding that problems can be solved - by you! One of the most inspiring (and perhaps astonishing) aspects of this universe we live in is that it appears to be understandable by us. It needn’t have been this way! We could have been born into a chaotic and inexplicable universe, where anything can happen and where reasons and explanations have no utility. But as our long journey has a species on this planet has shown, we have the ability to examine the world and figure out what’s going on. Things cause other things to happen and we are able to gain access to those causes. It’s a truly amazing aspect of ourselves and our universe, but it’s a fact that given time and focus we are able to understand the world we find ourselves in.

2. The Devil is in the Details. Once you have the solid conviction that the problems you find yourself facing are amenable to conscious investigation, the next step is to get your hands dirty and deal with the intricacies of the issue. Just because we can solve problems, doesn’t mean it is easy! Our world might be understandable in the broad sense, but it sure isn’t simple to do so. Having a willingness to delve into the details of your problem is crucial and is often what separates the great from the average.

3. Cherche La Femme. This old saying from the detective novels of Raymond Chandler translates to ‘Follow the Woman’. It represents the understanding that many crimes are committed by men under the influence of lust, jealousy or love. Despite its sexist overtones it reflects the need in problem solving (as well as detective work) to focus in on key areas of the problem. Before you delve into the details you need to know where to start looking. Taking a broad, high-level overview of where you should start to focus your energies is key to good problem solving.

4. One Man’s Rubbish. Just because others have already examined something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be re-examined. A willingness to cover old ground for that one key insight that others may have missed is the sign of a good problem solver. Get in the habit of testing out other people’s experience and conclusions. Verifying other people’s data, traditional knowledge and accepted wisdom is crucial if you are going to solve new and difficult problems.

5. Tried and Tested. You’re not the first to solve problems. Others have trodden this path before you. Along the way have been developed and documented many methodologies for formally approaching problem solving. Adopting one of these systems can give you a coherent and high-leverage toe hold in areas where you don’t have much experience.

6. The Answer is in The Network. Similar to adopting tried and tested methodologies, often someone somewhere has solved the exact same kind of problem you are dealing with now and your quickest route to success is to find them and ask then how they did it. Don’t forget to develop and exploit your network. All true seasoned problem solvers have extensive contacts in their field of expertise they can draw on. Develop and use yours to avoid re-inventing the wheel.

7. The Frame Problem. Don’t be afraid to step back from the problem when you feel you are getting nowhere. Re-examining your initial assumptions and exploring other areas of your high-level map of the problem can often yield insights that get you going again. Maybe it’s not cherche la Femme, but Cherche le Money!

8. It’s Over Here, Stupid. Similarly, don’t get too attached to your hypotheses about the problem. Your teacher is how things really are, and it’s easy to overlay your own expectations onto your problem and lose sight of what the problem is trying to tell you. Be prepared to drop your assumptions and start again. Pay close attention unexpected results and use them to question your position.

9. It’s Like… We are primarily visual creatures, and our mind works wonderfully with metaphors and images. Try to analogise the problem to something you already know a lot about. See if where the analogy works and where it breaks down. This can often give you insights into the problem and where your blind spots are.

10. Give it a Rest. If you get really stuck and don’t know what to do next, drop the problem! Do something completely unrelated and let your subconscious mind reboot and relax. It’s surprising how many of our best insights come when we are doing something completely different.

About the Author

Steve Munroe works as a technology consultant at IBM, He lives in the UK, runs, plays guitar and once, long ago did a PhD in computer science.

Steve is the author of the Blog: Work-Life Innovation, which explores ways of working smarter and living fuller. The blog focuses on working creatively in order to find the space both temporally and psychologically to be able to enjoy the really important things in life, which for Steve are: family, learning, travel, excitement, health and creativity.

What if I told you that you could sleep less without feeling more tired? Not only sleep a little less, but a lot less - up to five hours less a day by taking short naps every few hours. Imagine what you could do with that time! Start a new hobby, work an extra job, spend more time with your family, etc. At this point I probably sound like a late-night infomercial, but that is the basic premise behind polyphasic sleep. I would say that it’s a highly controversial subject, but the medical community seems to ignore and dismiss it (you can’t really have controversy if one side doesn’t see an issue). For something so potentially beneficial and so (relatively) simple to test, it’s shocking that there has been no widespread studies and the majority of “data” out there is anecdotal evidence presented by those who have tried it.

What is Polyphasic Sleep

Polyphasic sleep is the practice of breaking up your sleep into more than one session in any 24 hour period. In contrast, the standard “8 hours” is considered “monophasic” sleep because you only sleep once per 24 hours. In general, when people mention polyphasic sleep it usually refers to more than two sleep sessions - sleeping twice in any 24 hour period is usually referred to “biphasic”.

Breaking up your sleep is sometimes considered OK by the medical community, as long as you still achieve the same amount of total sleep. According to the Wikipedia article on Polyphasic Sleep, the military uses polyphasic sleep to help soldiers get enough sleep around their demanding schedule:

An Air Force report states: “Each individual nap should be long enough to provide at least 45 continuous minutes of sleep, although longer naps (2 hours) are better. In general, the shorter each individual nap is, the more frequent the naps should be (the objective remains to acquire a daily total of 8 hours of sleep).”

Now, the controversy comes in when people try to adapt something called Uberman sleep, an extreme form of polyphasic sleeping where you nap approximately 20 minutes every four hours (when you say “polyphasic sleep” most people immediately think of Uberman). The idea behind Uberman is that you “trick” yourself into falling directly into Stage 5 REM sleep, the most beneficial sleep, reducing your sleep cycle from 100 minutes to 20 and therefore reducing the time you sleep in a day from around 500 minutes down to as low as 120 minutes. Adding to the folklore and mystique of Uberman is that it is reported that several famous historical figures like Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and Winston Churchill have slept on Uberman-like sleep schedules (although proof of this is scant at best).

Potential Benefits

Aside to the obvious benefit of increased free time, the following benefits have been reported:

• More energy
• Reduced drowsiness
• Ability to remember your dreams
• Ability to wake up automatically
• More endurance during heavy physical work

Potential Risks

Most sleep experts still look at polyphasic sleep as a sleep disorder:

It used to be thought by scientists that REM is the main reason we sleep and that REM is largely responsible for the mental rejuvenation effects. Scientists no longer believe this. Humans typically (normal pattern) get their daily sleep in one long stetch (go to bed at night; get up in the morning), while other mammals are usually practice polyphasic sleep patterns. This pattern may have evolved in an attempt to remain vigilant against predators.

There is not much scientific evidence to support the polyphasic sleep theory. Sleep researchers do not work in this field, and the medical establishment, including sleep specialists, do not recommend this technique.

However, different people vary widely in their sleep needs, and there are anecdotes of geniuses such as Leonardo Da Vince and Thomas Edison sleeping in a polyphasic pattern. This has led to some people thinking they can increase their productivity by employing polyphasic sleep.

In a recent issue of Men’s Health Magazine, a writer attempted (unsuccessfully) to adapt to the Uberman sleep schedule. Despite trying, he was unable to find any doctors who would really vouch for polyphasic sleep. Christopher Winter, M.D., a board-certified sleep-medicine specialist and the medical director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, had the following to say:

All kinds of things could happen to individuals who are sleep deprived. Changes in blood pressure, heart rate, hormones, glucose metabolism, temperature regulation, and appetite can be seen quite quickly. The sleepless individual is probably cold [due to increased energy expenditure], so hypothermia could be an eventual cause of death. So could catabolism — that is, an increased metabolic rate and protein breakdown — and susceptibility to disease from a weakened immune system.

In sum: you’ll have a very hard time finding anyone in the medical community who will even listen to the argument that an Uberman sleep schedule can be healthy.

Who Has Tried It?

The information available is almost all personal case-studies, the most famous (and most successful) being personal productivity blogger Steve Pavlina’s almost 6 months of practicing an Uberman sleep schedule. He eventually stopped not for health reasons or stress, but because the rest of the world sleeps on a monophasic schedule:

The #1 reason I decided to call it quits is simply that the rest of the world is monophasic. If most of the world was polyphasic, I probably would have stuck with it. Obviously when you go polyphasic, you fall out of sync with the way other people live. You’re awake most of the night while everyone is asleep. If you sleep like most people, then the hours you’ll gain from polyphasic sleep will come in the middle of the night. And as I gradually learned, nighttime hours are not the same as daytime hours when you live in a monophasic world.

Tastefully Driven Forum user “Timmy” posted about his failed attempt to adapt to a Uberman sleep schedule, which ultimately is what gave me the idea for this article. If you Google polyphasic sleep you’ll find hundreds of others who have tried with minimal success to adapt to some form of a polyphasic sleep schedule.

So is there ANYONE in the medical community who supports polyphasic sleep? It’s scarce, but there are a few. Most notably, sleep researcher Sara Mednick, Ph.D., has posted about Uberman on her blog:

This practice rests upon one important hypothesis that our biological rhythms are adaptable. This means that we can train our internal mechanisms not only when to sleep and wake, but also when to get hungry, have energy for exercise, perform mental activities. Inferred in this hypothesis is that we have the power to regulate our mood, metabolism, core body temperature, endocrine and stress response, basically everything inside this container of flesh we call home. Truly an Uberman feat!

There is evidence in favor of this hypothesis from studies of humans and other animals. During the summer season in the northern latitudes, millions of people every year acclimate to long lit days without any sign of deterioration to the aforementioned internal mechanisms. During periods of migration, birds will travel for days apparently without the need for sleep. Our 24/7 culture has hospital staff, plant workers, and drivers of goods toiling into the wee hours. These members of society are in fact not living as long, more often infirm, and getting into more accidents than their 9-to-5 working counterparts. But the fact is that they ARE doing it.

Should You Try It

Should you try polyphasic sleep? If you are a new mother or work odd hours, getting your ~8 hours in several different sessions might be the best way to ensure you don’t deprive yourself of sleep. Should you try an Uberman’s sleep schedule? At this point in time, all I can say is proceed at your own risk. No one really knows or understands the long term detriments that such a sleep schedule can cause, so proceed with caution. Even those who have tried it admit that they are unsure if they are doing serious long term damage or not.

The other factor in all of this is whether or not your lifestyle will allow for polyphasic sleep.  Your life and your job need to be extremely flexible to allow for sleep every four hours.  For most, this factor alone will eliminate them from contention.  IF you do attempt an Uberman schedule, you might want to try easing yourself into it with a slightly reduced biphasic sleep schedule similar to the one Devin Reams reportedly does.

We Need More From the Medical Community

The big question I have is why hasn’t the medical community studied polyphasic sleep more?  Think of all of the wacky drugs and crazy diets that get funding for studies at all of the labs and universities around the world, yet no one can do a large scale study on Uberman?  To truly test Uberman there needs to be a third party monitoring the exact amount of sleep, what stage of sleep (can you really “trick” your brain into REM sleep?), and the impact of Uberman on cognitive functioning, metabolism, stress, blood pressure, happiness, and anything else critical to a long and healthy life.  Until that happens it’s impossible to say whether or not extreme polyphasic sleep schedules like Uberman are healthy.

With “web 2.0″ making the transition from targeting the tech savvy to the mainstream, there are an increasing number of tools available online that are not only free, but are often times more intuitive and feature-filled than their offline counterparts. With the economy struggling, everyone is looking for ways to cut costs without sacrificing their current lifestyle. Below are five of my favorite free tools. The only requirements: an email account and a high speed internet connection. Each also adds a bit of freedom by giving you the advantage of being able to access your account online from any computer in the world.

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

What it does: office productivity suite
What it replaces: Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and Powerpoint
Where to find it: http://docs.google.com/

While not as feature-rich as its Microsoft counterpart, Google does have several unique offerings in their office suite. Being web based allows for document collaboration (much better than emailing several copies of a file back and forth), the ability to create surveys with spreadsheets, or the option embed YouTube videos within presentations. Advanced users will want the ability to run macros or other features within spreadsheets. Most of the time downloading the free Open Office as a supplement to Google Docs solves these problems without costing you a penny. We’ve been using the Google Docs / Open Office combo as a company for a while now and haven’t had any occurrences arise where we needed Microsoft Office to do something.

Mint

What it does: personal finance management
What it replaces: Quicken
Where to find it: http://www.mint.com/

Mint takes personal finance management to the next level. It securely syncs with all of your bank accounts and credit cards to automatically classify all of your expenses in categories like food, bills, entertainment, etc. It then uses that information to create a budget for you and track spending. You can compare your finances to other people in similar situations, and even have Mint send you text messages or email alerts when you have a low balance in your account or a credit card payment is due.

Pandora

What it does: music player and recommendations
What it replaces: iPod/iTunes
Where to find it: http://www.pandora.com/

If you do most of your music listening from your computer than you will be happy to make the switch to Pandora. Pandora has almost every single song from every single artist classified in a way that matches your music preferences to only the songs that they know you will like. Started in 2000, the Music Genome Project has classified music by more than just genre. They analyze the unique “genes” of each song. From their website “Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony.” To truly be appreciated Pandora is the type of thing that needs to be experienced. I documented my personal experience with Pandora over on my blog with a post entitled Pandora Knows Me Better Than I Do.

Hulu

What it does: television and movies from FOX, NBC, and more
What it replaces: Netflix subscription, DVD sets, DVR
Where to find it: http://www.hulu.com/

There is one caveat to Hulu - the programming is still relatively limited and you’re at their mercy in terms of episode selection. I’d say about 60% of my favorite shows are represented on Hulu. Some shows (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) have nearly all of the episodes online, while others (The Simpsons) only have the most recent episodes. Nonetheless, it has changed my TV viewing habits. No longer do I need to turn on the TV on Sunday @ 8 PM or set my DVR - if I miss an episode of The Simpsons I know I can just catch it the following day on Hulu. The movie selection is still in it’s infancy. You’ll always be able to find a movie to watch, but you aren’t going to find all of your favorites quite yet. Full screen picture quality is very good - not as good as a DVD but better than an analog TV signal from a TV tuner card.

Google Reader

What it does: RSS news reader
What it replaces: newspaper and magazine subscriptions
Where to find it: http://www.google.com/reader

RSS is still not a mainstream technology, but that’s changing rapidly. Nearly every major newspaper, magazine, and blog now offer at least one RSS feed for free. With free and simple software like Google Reader, anyone can cancel their newspaper and magazine subscriptions and not miss a thing. See our RSS Explained: the free technology that will change your life for more information and detailed instructions for how to get started with RSS.

As an e-commerce company some of our most frequently asked questions surround shipping:

• “How much does shipping cost?”
• “Why does shipping cost so much?”
• “Can I get a discount on shipping?”
• “Is there a way to get free shipping?”

And multiple variations of each of those.  With the economy suffering and everyone looking for ways to save, consumers are increasingly pushing back against paying rising shipping costs.  So should you stop buying products online?  Nope.  Actually, we think you should be buying more online.

Consider the following data from the last 1,500 transactions conducted on Detailed Image and Tastefully Driven - Pure Adapt, Inc’s two e-commerce sites.   We ship domestically with FedEx Ground and FedEx Express, and internationally with USPS.

• Average Package Weight - 6.8 lbs (clearly these are not extremely light packages)
• Average Shipping Cost - $ 11.98
• Average Cost of Driving (from CommuterSolutions.org) - $ 1.19 / mile
• Break even - 10.07 miles

This means that if your travel consists of a round trip of more than 10.06 miles you’d be better off from a financial standpoint making the purchase online.  If you include the value of your time it becomes an increasingly good proposal to make more online purchases (I’d estimate you’ll save at least 30 minutes - probably more like an hour - per purchase by buying from your computer and not traveling back and forth to a local store).

Yes this is just one example with limited data.  However, I’d surmise that a larger scale study of online transactions would yield a similar result.   Next time you see a $10 shipping cost appear during your checkout I bet you will think about how much time and money you are saving by making the purchase online.  I’m also guessing that the thought probably wouldn’t have entered your mind prior to reading this article.  Now that’s a change in consumer perception.

Many people believe that humans have a set-point for things like weight and happiness, meaning that no matter how hard one tries they always are pulled back to a pre-determined weight or happiness quotient. Those topics are for another post, but it got me to thinking: do people also have a set-point for how fast they can read and process information? Being able to consume more information in less time would be an advantage to just about anyone, regardless of age or profession.

I’m fairly certain that unlike weight or happiness, most people would agree that - with practice - everyone possesses the potential to read and comprehend faster than they do now. But how much work would it take, and how big could the gains be? No one wants to spend an hour a day so that the can read 8% faster…it’s just not a good use of your time.

But what if you could read remarkably faster (50%, 100%, 150%, maybe more) by spending less than a half hour one time? Such is the claim by renowned efficiency expert Tim Ferriss, who’s book The Four Hour Workweek was a #1 New York Times Bestseller. On his blog, he has done several interesting experiments like How to Learn any Language in 1 Hour, How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days…Without Doing Any Exercise, and (my personal favorite) The 21 Day No-Complaint Experiment. In the book - which is fantastic by the way - the following sidebar appears:

How to Read 200% Faster in 10 Minutes

There will be times when, it’s true, you will have to read. Here are four simple tips that will lessen the damage and increase your speed at least 200% in 10 minutes with no comprehension loss.

1. Two Minutes: Use a pen or finger to trace under each line as you read as fast as possible. Reading is a series of jumping snapshots (called saccades), and using a visual guide prevents regression.

2. Three Minutes: Begin each line focusing on the third word in from the first word, and end each line focusing on the third word in from the last word. This makes use of peripheral vision that is otherwise wasted on margins. For example, even when the highlighted words in the next line are your beginining and ending focal points, the entire sentence is ‘read’, just with less eye movement:

“Once upon a time, an information addict decided to detox.”

Move in from both sides further and further as it gets easier.

3. Two Minutes: Once comfortable indenting three or four words from both sides, attempt to take only two snapshots - also known as fixations - per line on the first and last indented words.

4. Three Minutes: Practice reading too fast for comprehension but with good technique (the above three techniques) for five pages prior to reading at a comfortable speed. This will heighten perception and reset your speed limit, much like how 50 mph normally feels fast but seems like slow motion if you drop from 70 mph on the freeway.

Sounds great, but does it really work? I decided to put myself to the test. I’ve always been told I’m a really fast reader (it’s not uncommon for me to finish a book in a night, and whenever I’m reading along silently with someone they always say ‘wow, how did you finish that so fast?’) so I was a bit skeptical that these exercises could improve something that I thought I was already very good at. I figured that subconsciously I had already mastered the techniques Tim was referring to. I was definitely wrong.

I decided to read for five minutes (control), perform the 10 minutes of exercises above, and then read again for five minutes (test) to see how much I improved. In choosing reading material, I decided to read (different) unread passages from a book I’m currently reading: Thanks: How the new science of gratitude can make you happier, a study by Dr. Robert Emmons on how routinely practicing gratitude exercises can increase almost everyone’s happiness level. I chose this book because it’s relatively easy reading (not a translation from a foreign language or a book written in 1920), but it requires quite a bit of focus and comprehension to follow along with (unlike most fiction, in which you can skip passages and not miss much/any of the story).

In both five-minute exercises I read fast, but I comprehended the passages equally. Before tallying up the results, I was certain that it did not work. The whole time I was reading during the second five minute time period I was saying to myself “what a waste of time, I’m reading at the exact same speed”. Here are the results:

• Control - the first five minutes: 1496 words, or 299.2 wpm (words-per-minute)
• Test - the second five minutes: 2574 words, or 514.8 wpm

The most intriguing part was that I didn’t even realize I was reading any faster, yet alone 72% faster! I’m now completely sold on this set of exercises, and it only took 20 minutes of my time! This was clearly a very unscientific experiment (sample size of one, no comprehension test, etc), so I encourage you to spend the same 20 minutes. Were you able to have similar results?