Before anything I do recommend you to watch even a few episodes of “My Name is Earl” despite that I often advice friends to quit TV as the boob tube is among the top time-suckers of all time.

For many reason I love the show: I love the humor, the dumb characters, the hot women and really love references to old school themes. Besides, I often relate well to the ne’er-do-well characters of Jason Lee from the 90s cult classic Mall Rats, his love of comic books, slacking and the overall grunge, generationX which he and comedy represent.

As for productivity and time-management, Brian Tracy should be one of your references if you are a total newbie to self-productivity craze. I often go back to him as he articulates succinctly a lot of fundamentals and principles on the broad subject which on the other hand many of his younger predecessors have diluted and over analyzed. I won’t stretch the relation too much but you would clearly see how the “My Name is Earl” intersects with Brian Tracy’s works and other productivity concepts:

Eat Your Frogs

In the season finale episode, Earl takes the blame for his ex-wife who stole a truck and he goes to prison for it. He chose this because he knows his ex-wife’s family would be broken up if she went behind bars instead.

Earl always voluntarily goes through the most uncomfortable situations and painful acts because he knows he just has to and secondly it always pays off. Doing the unselfish but various self-flagellating tasks redeems himself from his many misdeeds in his past and he gains additional rewards usually in the form of new friends.

Brian Tracy calls this Eating Your Frogs First Thing in the Morning, a personal development concept he is very fond of and for which he entitled one of his books “Eat that Frog!”. In short, if you face up and do first the most fearful, uncomfortable or even embarrassing thing you really need to do (usually they are the same things), everything else for the rest of the day would be so easy. The normal unproductive person avoids or more often just delays such things.

This is a more colorful and much more cool metaphor for “delayed gratification” or “first thing’s first”.

Write it Down
Central to the story of the show is his “List” which is many tasks he has to cross out in his folded piece of yellow pad. His list is very crude in light of numerous new methods of doing “to-do” lists. Earl often picks the tasks arbitrarily, no 80/20 Pareto Principle to eliminate majority of the items, and no prioritizing whatsoever. But it does the job quite well because of course they are written down irrevocably on paper for easy reference and each one is specific enough that he is sure when to cross it out.

Take heed PDA fanatics, going digital is overrated. Paper trumps any digital organizer for reasons that paper limits the number of items, it is easily retrieved, and takes more effort to delete.

Single Handling
This is the most important lesson from “My Name is Earl” and you will see it in every episode when he does everything to cross out only one item at a time. I share the opinion with Brian Tracy that this is perhaps the most powerful time-management concept among the rest.

Single-handling in recent times has gained more and more proponents in the time-management field (I suspect the culprit is the trendy influence of Zen teachings applied to contemporary western world). Single-handling is simply single-mindedly focusing all efforts to complete a single specific task without veering away from it until it is 100% done.

This is the antithesis of multi-tasking, now an old and stupid concept in comparison. It kills procrastination. It stops you from making mountains out of molehills and relates well to Parkinson’s Law - “A task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”

Contrary to intuition but can be validated by practice, doing everything to complete only one thing will save loads of time by abandoning distractions, eliminating unnecessary evaluation and even over-planning assuming that the final desired outcome is clear and measurable (refer to Peter Drucker).

In our work and careers today, because of all the advancements, it is obvious that we have more roles,” slashes” and positions than simply being a salesman, lawyer, writer or whatnot. Hence we are always juggling so many projects. Unfortunately, our education and our parents have taught us that the only solution is to multi-task. Has it been working for you? I’m sure it has not and has only produced many loose ends or little monsters gnawing in the back of your head. Experiment on doing the complete opposite: just do one thing at a time…

Hey, I finished this post in one sitting when usually I do posts by sections or when I feel like it… No wonder we are so late in updates…

And the nature of your brain, like a perfect computer, is to always come up with its own answers almost automatically given enough focus on the questions - no matter if they are good or bad questions in the first place. So thoughts are questions. In so many words other authors of the subject and even Zen masters would probably agree that thoughts (which we have established are questions) give rise to emotions and emotions give rise to decisions and decision to actions which sum up your life.

Questions being so important, here’s a short list of possibly life-changing questions I gathered from a couple of books from Tony Robbins, Shafin De Zane and many others. Most of them you may surely have heard of before but try to suspend judging them as glib or trite self-development mumbo jumbo. Do try to seriously answer them at the right time, when you are relaxed, focused and have blocked a time to really contemplate on them. Oh yeah, right down your answers somewhere safe and private…

1. What will I do if I know it would be impossible to fail?
2. If I had 50 billion dollars, what will I do with my free time? (Assume you will take a year or two for all the expected activities of travelling the world, buying everything you’ve ever wanted, making sure all your family and friends are financially secure, what then? Credit must be given to Shafin de Zane for this from his awesome ebook course “Redefine Your Reality.)
3. How can I do what I do with less work, more fun and could benefit more people in a more affordable way? (I see this is as the most important business/entrepreneurial question. I probably got this from Robert Kiyosaki)
4. What is the proudest moment of my life? What or who do I love in my life right now? (There tons of variations to these questions but guaranteed asking them can get you out of depression or brick wall in a second.)
5. What is the worst case scenario if I pursue what I truly want to do? (While may seem like a negative question, asking this can overcome major fears or hangups. I took this from Tim Ferriss)

Just to have a cool ending to to this short post, here’s the classic quote from Hellen Keller:
“Life either a daring adventure or nothing.”

In college, they encouraged you to get into computer, engineering or management courses. They might have nervously smiled if you took history, writing or art related courses. Now that you are working, they ask if you have your insurances covered and they tell you they have saved up for your MBA. Sometimes they ask you to check their email. Particularly your father, once in awhile, gives you “jewels of wisdom” when you ask for career advice but it seems he is on autopilot and resumes to read the newspaper.

You have to understand that your parents’ world and the times they grew up in are very, very, very different from ours. They grew up with the themes of security, simplicity, hope and progress. On the other hand, we started our careers in the world of Internet, Google, Friendster, outsourcing and call centers, DVDs, MP3s, and cellphones all of which were non-existent in their time.

I was blown away when Anthony Robbins in one of his lectures, succinctly characterizes our time - the 21st century - as the age of “fast and discontinuous change.” Of course there has always been change, but not as fast now and it was not discontinuous for change then did not eliminate and create jobs, processes, industries, and products overnight. Discontinuous means you cannot logically predict what will come next.

What’s more is that this fast and discontinuous change is not temporary or an adjustment that will soon plateau; it will be the norm.

The source for this discontinuous change is mainly, of course, new technology and the intertwined factors are the competitive world economy, media, migration, and new mindsets.

So why not listen to your parents, especially when they talk about work and career? Despite their best intentions, a lot of their opinions, experiences, “truths” and logic are most likely to be based 0n certain assumptions that may no longer hold solidly today:

• Good education, especially a post graduate degree assures a good position in a company.
• Better known and large companies are the best places for a long term career.
• Focus on your job and stick to your company and after some years you will be its CEO.
• Creating a business or becoming an entrepreneur is expensive and risky.
• Study programming since computers are in.
• Work abroad to save and come back here to invest.
• Work hard, multi-task and be efficient… and many more.

On the other hand, most (not all) of our parents will find it hard to accept certain new trends that will become norms and patterns that are happening in most developed countries and will soon catch up here:

• Telecommuting.
• Work-at-home or online jobs that are actually not scams.
• Freelancing and part-time jobs.
• Jumping from one company to another in less than a year.
• Entrepreneurship and small businesses by very young people.
• Online transactions and E-commerce.
• The need for multiple specializations and skills of an individual.
• Products and services may only be sellable for a few months.
• Constant reevaluation if your position and job can be replaced by technology tomorrow
• Having more than a month of vacation and frequent traveling.
• Multiple investments and trading locally and abroad.
• Streamlining your work process, becoming more effective rather than just efficient… and many more.

It’s not my place to say how we should deal with this discontinuous change but I’m very sure we all have to start dealing with it somehow as the new working environment will and is affecting all of us and all aspects of our lives beyond work. It affects how we spend our free time with our loved ones. It affects how we order our Frapuccinos and perhaps consider eliminating dairy from our diet. It affects our decision to take up Pilates and study Chinese business. It affects why we bought marketing and lifehacking books to read.

So what happened from the time our parents said we can be anything we want and the important thing is to be happy? It was certainly their ideal and hope for us but their actual experiences in their work life in their time proved to them that they must be practical and first be secure to follow their dreams may it be too late eventually.

Mainly, our parents grew up with the psychology that dreams may be possible if we follow the rules first. On the other hand we are currently experiencing the world as having changing rules, too many options and that each of us must create his or her own directions. Often this environment influences us to think there is no purpose and meaning. For the few courageous and perhaps arrogant ones, they see this new ambiguous and formless world as clay to be molded to their liking. They think like Richard Branson.

We all just have to ready ourselves for change, use our existing resources, especially our creativity in new ways to be able to adapt to fast, frequent and unpredictable changes. Tony Robbins says the solution is “regeneration” that is companies and individuals must reinvent themselves, decide and act on the changes, assure themselves adapting the change is the key, train themselves and continuously revitalize their energy and creativity.

For our world now, despite the perceived or real chaos, superficiality, and consumerism, it is truly more possible than ever to do what you really want and still survive. You can be a writer, musician, artist, traveler, photographer, pre-school teacher, businessperson, video gamer, athlete and sometimes still work for a company if those roles don’t pay the bills.

Just don’t forget, spending too much time reading them would actually be counter-productive… Focus on not more than three that really relate well with your lifestyle and character. Whatever the tips you find useful, don’t try them all in one go. Also remember to always differentiate between tricks and principles.

I just have to share this. The beautiful picture above is Victoria Falls in Zambia.

My desktop wallpaper is plain black with a few white text of power notes such as “Focus”, “What is your desired outcome?”, and “Are you inventing things to keep you busy instead of completing your goals for today?”

My screen saver is another matter. I point it to a special folder of inspiring images mainly consisting of places I plan to travel. After a few Google searches, I found a Japanese travel site to fill this folder. The great thing is the travel shots are mostly from the places I find fascinating: Africa, Syria and Tibet to name a few. Hope you check it out; the photos are fantastic and very large so they’re great for wallpapers and screen savers.

Following Tim Ferriss’ post some time ago about contacting high profile personalities, I came up with my own list of international and local people I will try to contact this 2008:

Local:
Vivienne Tan - entrepreneur
Gloc9 - Rapper
Isabel Roces - model
Aileen Apolo - Filipino Google Executive
Henry Sy - ‘Nuff said

International:
Ken Wilber - Intellectual giant, author of “Brief History of Everything”,
Tony Robbins - often called as the best speaker the world
Deepak Chopra - Well-being guru of celebrities
Robert Pirsig - My favorite among beatnik authors. Writer of “Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
Robert Kiyosaki - Author “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” series

Yeah a bit ambitious but why not… Last year I was been able to correspond with some famous people in their own niche, one of them is Steve Pavlina . He emailed me a few personal lines of encouragement after Christmas but it was good enough for me. I admire him for turning around his life and helping others through his inspiring and popular blog.

The tips I got from Tim Ferriss are to come up with very specific questions to ask and have a ready script. Be unique and keep it short. It may also help to talk to them from the point of view of a sober fan (not a creepy one) rather than a nosy journalist.

Go for it after doing some virtual leg work to research their personal email or that of their assistant. In a way, it can be more difficult to contact local celebrities. For one, you really have to muster the courage to personally call or even meet them face to face because why would you just settle for email correspondence when they’re just here?

Also, check out John Chow’s recent post on dealing with Internet celebrities.

That’s my list. So who do you want to meet this year?

Most people are afraid of missing out on a few weeks, or maybe even a day of “being in the loop”. Life is so fast nowadays, you get left behind so easily, etc. etc. There are many reasons to keep yourself in the daily grind. Some people just manage to take themselves completely out of that loop and explore what the rest of the world is like. And guess what? They more often than not come back with a better perspective on life, with a better appreciation of the everyday things they do than the ones who are constantly in it.

One amazing site about people who have successfully had a gap year is The Lost Girls blog,  composed of three twentysomething New Yorkers (the center of the world, right?) all working in the media industry (where you have to be up-to-date every minute!). They all quit their jobs and toured the world for a year. Interestingly, they stayed out of most of the expensive countries and cities, but were still able to go to four continents and had a blast in each one. More importantly, by taking a gap year instead of a two-week vacation, they didn’t have a hurried tour around each country, which can feel as stressful as work itself and can seriously burn you out on your vacation.

I haven’t taken a gap year yet. My wife and I though are keen on having an opportunity to do this within the next couple of years.  We’ve identified a milestone where we can drop everything and wave “see you next year!” to everyone, though. If and when that happens, we’ll tell you about it.

And as an added disclaimer, I do not hate the call center industry at all. I recognize its value from providing opportunities to thousands, improving the economy, and fully opening the Philippines to the global market. I would even say that any entrepreneur would benefit from cold and warm calling skills that you would definitely learn in a call center. I would just advice workers here not to stay too long as a night-shift agent or manager.

College All Over Again
A strange thing I found out when I was working as a deputy director for start-up call center is that a majority of the employees from my former company kept working despite low pay, disputes with management and other negative factors simply because of their co-worker friends. In relation, another thing I saw with my own eyes is that most of them stayed because of a competent, and well-liked supervisor or team leader. This social aspect of the call center, while I generalize, cannot be discounted. The call center atmosphere is almost always fun, laid-back and basically feels like college all over again with many drinking sprees and out of town trips.

Health Issues
But what are the costs to staying in a night-shift work, particularly in a call center. In terms of health, even without looking at studies linking night shift work to breast cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses, everyone I know who has worked for years in a call center is generally unhealthy. It may be any of these indicators - paleness, overweight, hand spasms, frequent fever and colds, underweight, smoking, drinking too much, eye bags, stomach problems and most common is lack of energy. Again, I am generalizing from my experience and from knowing at least a hundred call center workers that I have met and have been friends with.

Unfortunately, the common age bracket of the call center worker is early 20s to 30s. This is the time our bodies should be at our prime and punishing it at this stage rather than stabilizing its strength for the rest of our lives is very destructive.

Career Paths Remain Hidden
Career-wise, a call center agent is neither in luck from what I have seen. You may be put in a better campaign, better Australian shift, become a trainer, team leader and whatnot but as long as the improvement is not major and you are still using the basic set of skills, you are probably in a dead end. An agent must understand, that more than most other industries today, the call center and BPO industry is founded on cost saving. Hence, it is always cheaper to hire new people, fresh graduates then to promote a current employee.

Even if you are excelling in the call center it is also not much different from other careers in the corporate world - it takes years to get to the top. And for this reason, you must focus on a general career direction you can sustain for a long time.

My rule of thumb has always been that if in a year there is no MAJOR improvement at least in terms of position and pay, you should change jobs. This rule of thumb, take note, has been applicable only in recent years with our fast changing world. Companies can crumble, merge, restructure in any given day. New technologies and new economics can obliterate an industry in weeks.

Or another rule of thumb is if you are comfortable, better do something new.

Take more lightly the advice of your parents and elders to get a secure and stable job - there is none. The only security is investing wisely, developing your talents, and business skills while you’re working in any company.

Do not just look at your monthly salary and savings. Whether you are an office worker or self-employed, it is crucial to look at your relative income (that is your income divided by the time you spend working or simply hourly rate) and where you’re putting your money.

The worst thing you can do is spend years in a career that is not your calling just to save money and build your resume. “It’s like saving sex for old age,” according to Warren Buffet.

If I have yet to convince you to change your career, I beg you to read “Who Moved My Cheese?” and the newest edition of “What Color is Your Parachute?”

***

My old friend, who is one of the first generations of one of the best performing call centers in the Philippines, maybe lucky that she was one of the pioneers and she is enjoying a massive salary and a high position. She’s married, well-respected, and financially secure. But she is still on night-shift and has been for the last 8 years. And one look at her, from a pretty, glowing and energetic girl back in college, she’s now a delicate waif with sullen eyes and balmy skin. Given the chance I would really convince her to quit while she’s ahead and improve her health while its not too late. She must enjoy her new family and maybe just use her savings to invest instead. No career or amount of wealth is worth the irreversible costs on her time and health.

***

So my unsolicited advice if you are working in night shift:

1. Make a definite time line of a year and no more to stay (even if you get promoted to the next rank). Do not get baited with promotion promises.
2. Work extra hard to master cold calling and negotiation skills and any other things you can learn. Make the most of it.
3. Pay attention how management works; study their metrics to know where your performance counts.
4. Eliminate after work drinking sprees. Stop smoking; it’s more dangerous when your body is weakened my abnormal sleeping habits.
5. Contrary to intuition, do not engage in strenuous exercise at all. Risk of heart attack (even at our age) has become common because of a weakened state. Do only light stretching daily.
6. Spend weekends with family and old friends instead of co-workers. While making new friends is always good, time spent with co-workers at the office is truly enough. This would ground you on your original dreams before you were in the rat race.
7. Set aside at least 10 percent of your net income (after tax but before bills) for security and 10 percent for investment.
8. Get a medical insurance separate from your Philhealth.
9. Look into jobs in sales, marketing, PR, customer service and even real estate industries that are day shift and those with realistic chances for fast management positions.
10. Do not revert back to where you once were. Strive above all for consistent, never-ending improvement in your life.
11. Always have a career direction and purpose and act on them. Know what matters to you.

So the idea was to relax, step-back and see the bigger picture, and clear my head for goal setting. For this I needed new environment, and to see new things, new people. The hardest part was leaving my girl behind for awhile but with a good line of communication (only years and effort can develop) I didn’t need to take Tim Ferriss’ advice of “apologize but don’t ask permission” for making big decisions.

Mindanao was my main target, as my favorite couple has been inviting me to visit for years and I have never been in that region before. Something about Mindanao has always been mysterious and attractive to me. Notwithstanding news on patches of never-ending rebel encounters I have always believed anything bad about the Southern region was exaggerated. I was also more partial to articles about Mindanao being the breadbasket of the Philippines, the home of the best unexplored tourists spots and its potential to make Philippines an economic power.

So here are some notes…

Itinerary:

1. Boracay - 1 week
2. Cebu - 3 days
3. Mindanao (Cagayan de Oro and Iligan) - 1 and 1/2 weeks

Preparation:

• Contacted friends who would adopt me for a few days for each place I will be going to.
• Checked flight and boat schedules and their prices (Cebu Pacific Airlines is the best choice for price and convenience)
• Checked my credit card balance to be used for travel fees only.
• Coughed out P15,000 pocket cash which was suprsingly more than enough for three weeks.
• Packed 1 week worth of clothing (did laundry whenever possible), tons of notepads, and two books only.
• Backed up passwords I needed for when I check my multiple email accounts and secure websites of online businesses
• No laptop!

Resisting to make a travel article, I will just say just a few words about the places I visited:

Boracay: Everyone’s been here so not much to say. I spent most time in by-the-beach coffee shops (like Real Coffee) to purge all my ideas into paper so they would leave me in peace for further processing. To save, I often ate at a carenderia behind D’Mall which serves full meals ranging from 30-60 pesos. A small resort owner I know lent me a room so no rental fees!

Cebu: A blast. The night scene here is so alive and so accessible and so diverse. My friend, who adopted me, had a huge house on top of the mountain with fantastic view. The only problem with that is driving up when you had too many shots of Red Horse (that’s how they drink strong beer here). I missed the flight to CDO because my host and I got too drunk. It was a blessing because the 8-hour ferry trip I took was very relaxing.

Cagayan de Oro and Iligan: The potential for these places to be world class tourist destinations are unbelievable. Right now CDO has its popular white water rafting while Iligan has cold springs and waterfalls. Aside from my wonderful hosts, I met other young, laid-back and down-to-earth entrepreneurs in Iligan - a far cry from the serious kind you often see meeting at Starbucks in Manila.

Lessons:

• Learn the Bisaya dialect (two weeks was enough for me to learn a lot of the basics). It would help a lot next time when I play poker with guys here. Buang!
• Go back to Mindanao as often as possible. Visit Davao and Siargao for surfing (my friend said I may even get to hang out with Jack Johnson).
• Next vacation should be a full-month or even three. Now I fully agree with Ferriss that it does take that amount of time for a real mini-retirement - to open up your mind, get a new perspective, have new ideas, let go of non-productive behaviors and absorb the new environment. Any less time than that and it’s just sight-seeing.
• Indeed, leaving all your businesses for a few weeks is the best test for the systems you have in place. It will undoubtedly show if you own the business or the business owns you.
• Three weeks were not enough for any profound, corny soul-searching or even prioritizing projects but they were just enough to clear my head, spend time with myself and old friends and get revitalized to work.
• Do something crazy once in awhile, more often. Aside from the whole idea of this haphazard trip, I was surprised to be able to whitewater raft, zip line on Narra canopies, and do a 20 foot dive into cold springs.
• Traveling alone, fearful to most, is very fun and much cheaper.
• The world didn’t fall apart when I left everything behind for awhile.

You’ve heard the statistics… around 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first 2 years. Ouch. We hear about miracle stories from entrepreneurs, published in GoNegosyo or Entrepreneur mag. What you don’t hear about are the equally intelligent and talented people who somehow had to close down their business.

So, for the undeterred entrepreneurs out there, how do you increase the chances of making it and being published in the next issue of Entrep magazine?

Stack the deck in your favor. Tilt the odds towards you staying in business. It may involve doing some unglamorous or counter-intuitive things, but you’ll be thankful when you fail to close that deal and still have enough money left in the bank for next salary.

Here are some ways to help yourself stay in business:

• Don’t quit your job first. Yes, seriously. Phil Knight was an accountant when he hired his first salesman to sell imported running shoes under Blue Ribbon Sports, his first company. Only later did he have his own brand in Nike, find Michael Jordan, and become a billionaire.
• Don’t get caught up in spending to become a “professional” company. So, you’re starting a company. You need to rent an office in Makati, hire a receptionist, buy a fancy laptop, and hire five employees. Right? Wrong! Try to do exactly none of these if you can help it. Work from home, answer your calls, give work to freelancers, and make do with whatever equipment you have. When you’ve made enough from project income to buy something for the company, that’s when you do it. Believe me, I’ve been on both ends of this situation.
• Do have a partner whom you can make a great team with. Business is hard enough already, it’s even harder when you do it alone. Having a partner with complementary skills is a great way to share your burdens and make sure you don’t go crazy, especially if you feel that the world is turning against you. At least, there’s always someone in your corner
• Do always prepare for contingencies. Murphy’s law seems especially true in business - contracts don’t get signed, work gets delayed, people get sick at the wrong time, your Internet is down, etc. etc. Most of these can be worked around with a good contingency plan. Having extra cash in the bank, a backup person for the project, or generally another way to do things is always good to have so that you’re not caught with your pants down.
• Do always remember your vision for the company. It doesn’t even have to be in a shiny plaque, or even a written statement at all - when things are going tough, it’s your belief in what you are doing and what your company stands for that will carry things through. For entrepreneurs, it’s not running out of money that’s the fatal blow to their company - it’s the day they stop believing in it that it dies.