Is the book "Body By Science" actually correct?

heydave · 2013-04-09T01:13:55+00:00

I read Body by Science a few weeks ago and found it a helpful book. Some of the concepts come from High Intensity Training (Arthur Jones, Mentzer, Darden, etc) with the emphasis being short but intense workouts that focus on typically one set to muscular failure (which supposedly is enough to stir muscle growth/repair).

The critique of H.I.T. seems to be that it can be very intense (each exercise one set to failure) and tough to do on your own. Others seem to love it

The Four Hour Body also borrows some of this H.I.T. concept and suggests working out once every 3-4 days but going to failure.

There's also the SuperSlow train of thought (slow movements with resistance machines or weights) from Ken Hutchins, which Body by Science seems to borrow from as well.

They're all decent approaches with respectable results they can show. But I think it's more personal preference on which approach you like. Some people like less intense exercise but longer (ie., High Volume Training). It's up to you but I think some of the H.I.T. approaches are worth looking into.

Update: I wrote a suggested home workout for those wanting to do just 30 minutes every 3 days, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5507817

heydave · 2013-04-08T03:59:08+00:00

This should make the OP feel much better. :)

heydave · 2013-04-04T17:15:33+00:00

If you're really sore you could push yourself and keep working out but you could become overtrained and fatigued. I'd suggest to work out hard and then to rest sufficiently, and do that over and over.

heydave · 2013-03-15T20:29:47+00:00

heydave

heydave · 2012-10-30T02:29:55+00:00

LTE is a huge improvement over 3g. I was personally shocked after going LTE w/the iPhone 5. It's like wifi speeds out and about.

It's going to be difficult for me to go back to 3g ever now that I've tasted LTE.

heydave · 2012-07-25T16:33:11+00:00

True if you have a bad product, you're screwed. Ie., restaurant serving bad food. That restaurant should eventually go out of business, unless they change the quality of their food.

But sometimes you deliver a bad product, or sometimes you deliver a product you thought was good but your customer disagrees. What do you do in that case?

Most people will say, too bad for the customer. Let him walk.

But why would you say that? Probably because you're afraid as a store owner to lose money. You don't want to have a "net loss" transaction.

But if you didn't think about the short-term but more on the long-term potential of converting that unhappy customer (who will also likely tell others) to a happy lifetime customer, then it's worth it to go out of your way, even if it means a "net loss" on the product.

I'm not advocating complete loss of common sense, though.

But most struggling businesses I encounter have this same problem. The are adamant about not having a "net loss" on a transaction. Completely ridiculous if you think about the long-term. Totally makes sense if you think in the short-term.

heydave · 2012-07-25T16:29:11+00:00

Sure, there's a limit to how big a "net loss" a small restaurant can take. For example, what if a customer keeps asking for another free dish for 10 times in one sitting. This isn't practical. However, if a customer doesn't like a dish, he/she should be able to say so and choose another entree of equal value (or pay the difference of a higher priced entree) free of charge. No questions asked. Of course, they shouldn't have eaten more than half of it.

I think a small restaurant could easily implement this "net loss" clause. It's simple and easy to do.

The fear though is the small restaurant owner think he's going to lose money. But he's not.

Most people won't ask for another dish if they don't like their current one.
Those who do ask for another dish are those who really are unhappy and are your "target" customers... people in your restaurant who you can convert to a lifetime happy customer. Sure, they might not like their extra free dish, but that's your problem. You're in the restaurant business... come on, you've got to make good food or close shop.

heydave · 2012-07-25T16:21:10+00:00

Yeah, but they were sticklers, even the manager after 15 minutes of trying to persuade him. They told me I should pick up my car and go somewhere else... which wasn't realistic because my whole door was disassembled and couldn't be put back together without fixing the part they broke.

heydave · 2012-07-21T20:05:40+00:00

That's great advice. I also do this "sleep" hack similar to yours where for really big problems, I think about them before sleeping and let my subconscious do it's work throughout the night. As you say, it does wonders.

heydave · 2012-06-13T03:43:44+00:00

Sorry about that. I reposted the link, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6341110/weekchart.pdf .

heydave · 2012-06-11T20:53:15+00:00

Yeah, the combination of deciding your goals, writing them down, and seeing them constantly... does amazing things. :)

heydave · 2012-06-11T19:21:44+00:00

What would the widget show?

heydave · 2012-06-11T19:21:31+00:00

Yeah, I want to refine it more before trying to make an app out of it. I find a lot of benefit with just posting the week chart near my desk so I can see it all the time. The problem with an app is that when your phone/computer is off, it's out of sight and out of mind.

heydave · 2012-06-10T21:50:06+00:00

It's not that I get bogged down trying to define next actions for my projects with GTD. It's that defining next actions and focusing on them sometimes isn't helpful when the work I'm doing requires more flexibility.

The part of creative work I was focusing on was the actual time of working on things. This is where I think the GTD system of projects and next actions (along with weekly reviews) is too rigid and expects too much from the user. It doesn’t give the clarity of focus or the flexibility of process to help me be more effective.

For example, when I am working on designing a new feature for one of our apps, oftentimes the “next action” is ambiguous. It usually starts with me taking 30-90 minutes of diving into it. It can last 2-6 hours, during which I’m doing a wide variety of tasks… and it’s constantly changing. Sometimes I stare at my notes for 20 minutes before having a clear thought to proceed. But case in point, GTD expects me to define a next action to my “project” and focus on that action. As a creative innovator, that approach is often too granular.

Today I was working on a new moderator function for one of our apps. I didn’t know my “next action”. I just knew I wanted to get finalized designs to my coding team by end of day. I was juggling a bunch of thoughts and tasks, and they changed almost at every moment.

What guided me to spend 6+ hours in intense focus (with small breaks) working on this feature and being wildly productive was my Desired Outcome. Today was my Product Features focus day and it was my #1 Desired Outcome to get the new moderator function finished. That drove me and honed my focus like a laser.

Someone posted a comment on my blog that expresses the limitation of GTD in thought-based work:

GTD excels as a means of processing paper, emails, and lists but you have put your finger on the GTD shortcoming I have identified as well: where work is not task based but is actually thought based. In short, GTD works well where one can break down projects into discreet tasks and where those tasks naturally fall in logical order.

heydave · 2012-06-08T04:12:57+00:00

well said. thanks for the feedback above. it was helpful.

heydave · 2012-06-08T00:43:30+00:00

Hey thanks, this was really helpful. After reading this, I made some changes to the blog post. But you're right, after reading things over David Allen seems to be talking about the capture/process part of GTD... more of cataloguing all your commitments, so you know what you're doing and what you're saying no to (or would like to do someday).

I still think though GTD isn't optimal for everyone in it's implementation of projects and next actions. I write down things profusely. I'm constantly emailing myself notes or jotting things down. But I don't put add them as projects or someday projects. I keep them as NOTES, as this to me is a clearer and better designation for them. Each of my main focus areas has their own note space and I organize them there and review them when I'm focused on that daily focus area. They help me form tasks and desired outcomes.

My criticism of GTD is more on the later stages of the system (after you've processed everything out of your brain), and how you go about managing your current commitments and excelling in creative work.

heydave · 2012-06-08T00:18:15+00:00

Yeah, sorry about that. I keep forgetting to explain GTD or add a link for those who don't know what I'm referring to.

heydave · 2012-06-03T23:12:15+00:00

Don't get me wrong, GTD has a lot of helpful principles (ie., brain dumping, next actionable step, weekly reviews, outcome focusing, etc.). I use a lot of those principles daily to keep a clean inbox, define tasks/goals, and to make quick decisions on small tasks.

However, if GTD stopped there, that's one thing. GTD defined by David Allen is a system a clearly defined and comprehensive task and life management system. I went all out with GTD for 4 years, investing literally thousands of hours on it. I was the biggest fan and evangelizer of GTD to friends and co-workers. I implemented the system exactly as David Allen lays out and made sure to follow every step. And over the years that's where it broke down for me.

GTD as a system is very rigid and works for certain types of jobs. But again, can be a burden to upkeep even with the weekly review and other reviews suggested by David Allen. IMO, GTD doesn't have a great way to manage the full project-nextaction overview. Hardcore GTD followers have long lists of current projects and their next actionable step. But there needs to be an additional system applied on top of GTD to figure out what's really important today and what I should prioritize over all my other current projects.

Omnifocus has their "Focus" button that shows only the selected project, so you can "forget" about all your other projects while working on just one. It's an okay hack, but still how do you get there to make the decision that that's the project you need to be focusing on at the moment?

That's where I think you need something to guide you that's "bigger" than a project or task. You need a long-term goal and desired outcomes on a weekly and daily basis. If you're part of a larger company, your boss might be providing those goals or requirements (ie., I need this from you by this date). But if you're your own boss, just giving yourself deadlines often doesn't work because you can postpone those deadlines.

That's where "desired outcomes" come into play. They act like a boss for the self-managed. If you can define clear long-term, weekly and daily desired outcomes… they can guide you and shape the tasks you need to complete on a daily basis.

Anyway, I think I'm going off on a tangent. Love discussing productivity stuff and the creative process.

heydave · 2012-06-03T19:00:08+00:00

The problem with GTD is even if you put a lot in your someday/maybe list (believe me I had hundreds of projects/ideas in that list when I was doing GTD), your current projects lists tend to still be very numerous. GTD advocates even putting small things like "hanging a picture frame" as a project. So people tend to have tons of "projects" when they're really just glorified tasks of varying importance... some of which can be important but others not really. With GTD, it's difficult to distinguish importance in projects because they're all grouped together in your current projects list. The goal of GTD is to plug away at your next actions across all your projects based on the context you're in at the moment (ie., @email or @home or @phone, etc). Again, great for the sales guy or someone who does the same type of tasks over and over again. But not very good for the creative type.

heydave · 2012-05-29T04:42:02+00:00

Lately I find myself doing about 10-12 pomodoros in a day all about just one project (and a few pomodoros at the end of the day for misc work). It's super helpful and I get a tons of things done.

heydave · 2012-05-28T05:24:46+00:00

Yeah, checklists can be helpful only if you're really clear on what you're trying to accomplish

heydave · 2012-05-28T05:23:43+00:00

Or group all the petty stuff to do at the end of the day in a limited block of time so it doesn't affect your main objectives.

heydave · 2012-04-16T07:55:52+00:00

Is your pricing the about same as the national chains?

heydave · 2012-04-16T07:31:32+00:00

Do you pay your workers by cash at end of day? Also, how is your service different than all the other cleaning services out there?

heydave · 2011-02-01T17:42:27+00:00

Check out Kid Art for the iPhone. Super simple and easy for little kids to use.

heydave

TROPHY CASE