Waking up early (Sharma)

I've just watched another excellent video by my favourite, Robin Sharma on "How to Wake Up Early" and where he makes a lot of mention of the "5am Club". Here are some points I took from the session:

• Get over "the battle of the bed" / "mind over mattress"
• He who sweats more in training, bleeds less at war
• Waking up early allows you to train, practice & prepare
• Prepare your heart, your character and your spirit
• 5-8am is "prime time" when you have the most willpower, mental focus, energy
• Take full advantage of these 3 golden hours
• Waking up early while the rest of the world sleeps is already a psychological win.
• You'll feel less like a victim and more like a leader!
• Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle, but gorgeous in the end!
• Use the 20/20/20 Rule for your Morning Ritual
  20 mins for exercise
  20 mins for reviewing your plan / daily schedule / goals > gives you focus
  20 mins for learning
• Education is inoculation against disruption
• The world belongs to learners
• As you know more, you achieve more
• Watch inspirational / training videos
• When you write things down, you deepen your commitment (re: a schedule)
• Writing creates precision of thought
• The things that schedule lead to thing that get done
• To wake up early, get a deeper nights sleep 
• Re: sleep, quality is more important that quantity (no. of hours)
• Remember not to use a computer in bed before you go to sleep
• Put your alarm clock away from the bed / other side of the room / a different room
• Jump out of bed as soon as you get up!

I'm used to being ridiculed for my early morning rituals. I actually wake up between 04:00 and 04:15, which gives me enough time to get to the gym. I gym till about 05:30 and then make a point to spend about an hour or so reading and journaling (usually in my Gratitude Journal). By 06:00, I'm in the shower and ready to leave home by 07:00.

Early morning has always been my best time of the day. I feel like I can take on the world. That's why when I bounce into work with energy, I get quite a few side glances! Doesn't phase me much. Because when most people are still waking up, I've already done quite a bit in my day. Cheers to the 5am Club...or in my case, the 4am Club ;)

Be a Quick Learner with the Location Method

I absolutely love one of the memory techniques that Kwik shares which links association with location.

First of all, here's a list of the top 10 musts to be a "quick learner":

1. Good diet
2. Killing ANTS (automatic negative thoughts)
3. Physical exercise
4. Brain Nutrients
5. Positive Peers
6. Clean Environment
7. Sleep
8. Brain Protection
9. New Learning
10. Stress Management

Are you able to memorize a list like this at first glance? Yes? Sure you can! The trick is to associate each point with a different location. I'll use the example Kwik shares of his office. He asks that you close your eyes as he walks you through his office. This way, you have little to no distractions and you're able to conjure up your own image of the office. 

So you arrive at the office. Your first point will be the parking lot and as you move from the first point to the office, number each point/location like this:

1. Parking lot
2. Bridge
3. Elevator
4. Hallway
5. Closet
6. Receptionist
7. Fish Tank
8. Door
9. Whiteboard
10. Bonsai Trees

Now all you have to do is associate each point from the first list to a location / point from the second list. Like this:

1. Arrive in the parking lot and imagine a delicious buffet spread out there
   (Good diet)
2. Walk over the bridge that leads to the main building and imagine tramping on and killing ants
   (Kill Ants - automatic negative thoughts)
3. Step into the elevator and imagine doing exercise in there. Stretches / yoga / Pilates
   (Physical exercise)
4. Step out of the elevator into the hallway and imagine huge bottles of some kind of liquid
   (Brain nutrients)
5. To the left, there's a closet...and in there you will find your friends/colleagues
   (Positive Peers)
6. You then come across the receptionist and imagine she's cleaning her desk with detergents
   (Clean environment)
7. Behind the receptionist is a fish tank, but imagine that all the fish are asleep!
   (Sleep)
8. Now you arrive at a closed door which you need to open (maybe with a headbutt) so you may need a helmet (Brain Protection)
9. When the door has opened, you see a whiteboard with a teacher standing there, ready to teach!
   (New Learning)
10. Lined on the side of the room are bonsai trees. Imagine these relieve stress!
    (Stress management)

Remember: Being a quick learner will lead you to being a faster earner. When we read slowly, we lose time. When we lose time, we lose opportunities, and possibly our careers and yes, even our health.

I'm really excited to try this Location Method with my students. 

Let's learn FAST!

ONE of the main benefits of being on holiday is that I have been catching up. I know... I should be switching off completely instead of merely changing gears, but at last, I have have the time to catch up on e-mails and some online training videos that I have been putting off.

One video that I watched this morning is by the awesome Jim Kwik of Kwik Learning. I was introduced to Kwik's tips by my uncle just over a year ago.

So this morning I learned about how we can learn faster.

We live in a world where information is spewed out within seconds - right at our fingertips. What's interesting is that while the speed of information has increased, the speed in which many of us take in this info has remained the same. So, as Jim says, this gap needs to be bridged. I'm quite excited to get back to work on Monday and incorporate this technique in a workshop with my students.

Let's explore the whole notion of learning FAST - which we can actually use as an acronym.

F : Forget - Set aside everything else that you're thinking about.

A : Active - After being used to passive learning, we need to speed up!
S : State - All learning is state dependent. Control the way you sit & breathe when learning/reading.
T : Take Notes - Everything is a learning curve, so make notes!

I liked Jim's idea of taking notes eg:

CAPTURE (Take notes)

CREATE (Make notes)

In the first column, you jot down what you hear / observe while on the other side, you make notes of questions you'd like to ask or simply, notes to yourself.

Remember:

If Knowledge is power, then Learning is the Ultimate SUPER POWER!
Knowledge is Profit!