On Procastination...And How to Destroy it

I think Procrastination has never been such a common, until Internet came to be...The fact that at most jobs people is almost all day long in a computer makes it very easy to fall in the temptation of procrastination.

Procrastination is pretty simple, your inner zombie dominates you and you straw away from your daily to-do tasks and lists. It happens when you start to work on something, and after having started go ahead and do something else that is not related with any of the tasks you have to complete. Regular procrastination includes 9Gag, Texting, Facebook, Video Gaming (I'm a fan of video games but I do recognize it can affect your work if you don't control it) and many others.

Where does that impulse of procrastination come from? Well, when you start doing something (a homework, a task) your brain unconsciously tells you that this task is boring, or it generates inner pain so you quite doing that activity and start doing a different, more appealing and full of pleasure than the other one. Normally this happens just after having started your work, so let's say that the first 5 minutes of a task are the "Critical Zombiesize Time". When you start procrastinating, you fell better, you fell well, because there is a short term inner stimulus that tells you, this is fun, this is relaxing, but in the long term, this can seriously affect your life and make you feel awful for wasting so much time, it can cause trouble in your home, in your job or even in relationships.

Want to tackle Procrastination? Here's a very good technique to start taking care of that Zombie:

THE ALL MIGHTY POMODORO TECHNIQUE!!!

The Pomdoro Technique consists in setting up a timer to 25 minutes. Start working those 25 minutes in deep focused mode, turning off anything that could make you procrastinate and go out of focus mode. Once the timer goes off you can give yourself a little reward so you can feel that Pomodoros deserve the 25 minutes.

Please check this link to learn more, is awesome: http://pomodorotechnique.com/get-started/

Here are some tips on what you can do in your 5 MINUTES REWARD:

1. Try some simple desk exercises, like the ones listed in this article, “5 Desk Exercises for Your Busy Office Life.” They’re quick, effective, and don’t even require leaving your office, if you’re not in the mood to walk around.
2. Do a quick organizational chore. Not one that you dread, or find to be cumbersome. Just something small, like emptying out your backpack, purse, or briefcase, and reorganizing it, or cleaning up your desk area and tossing unnecessary documents. Or if you work from home, you could get a load of laundry started, or wash the dishes. Little household or administrative tasks like these can feel oddly satisfying and mind freeing when breaking up your Pomodoros.
3. Do a simple hand or neck massage to release tension. There are several video tutorials online that can teach you how.
4. Similarly, some “office yoga” or breathing exercises can go a long way in five minutes to center your mind and body.
5. Or even keep it as simple as getting up to get a glass of water.

Taken from http://pomodorotechnique.com/pomodoro-technique-short-break/ 

Hope this helps you tackle your Procrastination!

Good Luck!

Understanding Your Learning Process and Procastination

Let's start by saying that any ability you acquire in your life is a Chunk, or is made up of Chunks, understanding this concept, is key if you want to learn anything better and more consciously. People usually learn stuff in their lives but don't get to a level of consciousness that allows them to understand how they learn, and apply that same method to other fields of knowledge. That is why is important to Understand Chunking.

Can you remember when you where trying to learn how to ride a bike? Can you remember all this long and tough process? Cuts, bruises, crashes, falls to the ground, biting the dust all day long? That is what usually happens when you try to learn anything, be it physical or mental, you have to build up a set of neural patterns (call them thoughts) that will allow you to master any activity.

This example is used so you understand what Chunking is. By definition Chunking is the summary of bits of information with an understanding that makes those bits glue together.

As we already got to know, in working memory there are four slots of chunks available, so when you are learning a new set of skills or you are trying to chunk, those four slots will be used, thus won't be available for another activity. So, when you a kid is learning to ride a bike, or when you are learning how to drive, your ability to other different things than focus on riding a bike or driving a car will be impaired until you chunk that ability, like in this image.

 Once you learn how to ride a bike all the different slots that were busy with each of the tasks that imply learning how to ride a bike will be come available, because "Riding a Bike" will become one single Chunk, thus as you chunk your learning becomes more efficient and effective.

When you are learning a new set of knowledge make sure to be patient while you chunk all the information, remember all the strengthening and consolidation of new knowledge happens in diffuse mode, so give yourself time so you can master a new topic. If you want some tips in order to chunk, these are the steps needed to chunk any knowledge (say thanks to Dr. Barbara Oakley).

1. Focused Attention: When you are learning something new, you have to use the focused mode to start learning the new set of skills, pay hard attention when the moment arrives of learning. Once you have learned, give some time in diffuse mode.
2. Understanding: Make sure you understand what you are learning, this will help you glue together all the bits of information and give you a picture of what you are doing.
3. Build Context Through Practice: Make sure you have a big image of what you are learning so you know how everything fits in the "big picture", this is always acquired through practice.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Happy chunking!!!

PS: Procrastination coming up in the next entry!! I was procrastinating so I did not have time! Gosh!

About Learning How To Learn

In this World we Live In, we are always learning new stuff, getting new knowledge, learning new skills and almost everyone studies to develop a career.

Recently, I've been doing an Online Course (MOOC) in Coursera (check the link) that is helping me a lot on my recently started 3D Studies.

I will briefly summ up what I have learn't from this awesome course:

1. The Brain has two main Learning (or problem Solving) Methods:
• The Focused Mode: Uses neural patterns (or pathways ) from previously acquired knowledge to solve a problem or create something. 
• When you are sitting studying,
• When you are sitting playing video games
• When you are sitting working
• When you are trying to solve an IT issue (like the guy below)
• Easily affected by procastination (check below on an awesome technique provided by the awesome Dr. Barbara Oakley on how to tackle procastination).
  
  
• The Diffuse Mode: The diffuse mode is a relaxed mental state where the brain keeps working to solve problems. Examples:

• When you are sleeping,
• When you are chilling out in the beach,
• When you are going for a walk,
• When you are riding a bus back to your home,
• When you are cycling around the city,
• The diffuse mode is needed for new neural patterns to build strong foundations and to get embedded in the brain so they can be used in the focused mode. 
2.  The Brain has two types of memory: 
• Long Term Memory: The long term memory is where your regular neural pathways are stored, it can be associated with a gian warehouse where you keep everything you need, and where you go to pick it when you are going to use it. Think of it also as the Kitchen pantry where you grba ingredients to cook something specifically.
• Short Therm Memory: The short term memory, or Working Memory is the one used as the working tool, think of as the ingredients you just got from the pantry and you are using correctly, these are the ones you need and thus the only ones you are using.
• Uses pre-frontal cortex
• Holds 4 memory chunks at the same time
• Is what you are immediately working on.
• Both types are correlated, let's say the Working Memory is the tool used to handle Long Term Memory.  
• Sleeping: According to research Sleeping lets your brain wash away the toxins generated in daily activity and also helps build new and more strong neural structures.

Stay Tunned for more information to come!

Make sure you get good sleep and get some rest after some hard study!

Hello Guys,

Good day to everyone!

This one is about how the diffuse mode has helped me!

Barb has said in the videos that another way of learning is Broadening your passions, instead of following your passions, I'm going to set an example here of another way of learning I'm doing now, which is developing the skills you need to follow your biggest passion, which is not as broadening your passions, but it is broadening your skills so you can work on that which you love the most. Let's say its a mixture between following your passions and broadening your passiones (same passion+new skills).

All my life I've been a very hardcore gamer for my country standards, I've also been a scale modeler and I paint wargaming miniatures.Nevertheless my professional road, or the path I choose when I was 18, entering University was to study International Business, after doing an Internship in the USA and working some year and a half in an imports company I decided I wasn't happy with my career, I just felt like a fly in jam jar. So I decided to quit and start a new career, I didn't know in what. By that time I started a Life Coaching Training, called Ingeniería de lo Imposible, which I think helped me a lot connect with my own self.

Connection with my self, (which I think I accomplished while being in diffuse mode) helped me visualize what was I needing! It was facing the fact that I wanted to work in the entertaiment industry, but I didn't have the skills! With all the input I got from the course I said! Come on, I can do it! Let's start practicing! So I started.

Summing up on this thoughts about what I used to decide this:

Diffuse Mode: After some chilling and relaxing, and thinking a lot in focused mode about what to do, I suddenly woke up one day and tought, "I should try this".

New Neural Patterns and The Memory Octopus: I'm currently enrrolled in a course to learn AutoDesk Maya, at first it seems like an impossible task, but as I start to learn I have been conscious on how the chunking process helps me build new neural patterns so my Memory Octopus can grab more with less effort, leaving more working memory slots empty.

Practice Makes Permanent: I'm currently focusing very hard on learning the new subjects I need to learn, I'm doing spcaed repetition with the tools I want to learn and this is helping me a lot. I'm working hard Monday thru Friday, leaving two days (weekend) for the new neural patterns to get saved in my brain.

In a next entry please find my explanation to the concepts....

Short Catching Up and New Ways of Learning

It's been a whole while since last time wrote in this blog. I was living in Arizona in that last post, doing my internship, it was a nice experience, I was there the entire 2011, and came back to Medellín (my hometown) in December.

I did my last Bachelor's Degreee Semester in 2012, up until June, I then graduated and started working. I've been working in different companies since that time and recently, about two months ago, I quit my job to open to new horizons. My specialty field was logistics, but I didn't like it as much so I'm reorienting my professional perspectives, I like Human Resources and Customer Service, but I'm also looking to open and start my own personal business so I can build up some K.

Now let's get to the matter, the following posts are going to be related to a Course I'm currently going through in Coursera, the name of the course is "Learning How To Learn" and is about how people can learn a new technique to better develop new neuronal pathways so new knowledge can be leaned more effectively and efficiently. If you want to know more about the course please click on this link (takes you to coursera) or stay tuned for more posts.

Best regards!

Sebastian Posada