There are a lot of times in our lives when we’ve got an external structure or impetus to stay motivated. When you’re in college, you generally don’t cut your compulsory classes just because you’re feel like goofing off – you don’t want to get penalized, and you don’t want to miss valuable content. When you’ve got a job, you don’t decide to have a long lie-in on Monday mornings. You get yourself... 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ll have noticed how the global recession forced companies to try harder than ever to win your attention and your hard earned cash. While tough economic times make us all very cautious of how we spend our money, it also offers the perfect ground for the bargain hunters amongst us. But is a good deal the only deciding factor when you go shopping? Do you know what lies... 

Are you a shy person? Shyness is simply a feeling of nervousness or awkwardness when around other people. No matter who you are, each of us have our times when we feel shy. For example, when you’re new on your first day at work, when you’re at a party and everyone is a complete stranger, when you’re with someone you are attracted to, when you’re asked to speak in front of a huge audience, etc. When we’re caught... 

Imagine that I had in my possession the ultimate guide to life hacking. Imagine that I offered it to you with but one condition – that you must use it for good, not evil. Would you be interested? Surely you would. Imagine all the wonders you could achieve with it! Then I give you The Art of War, Sun Tzu’s epic and legendary masterpiece. …  Read More →

When I was just a little younger, I had great big goals and objectives and aspirations for every day of my life. These days, my biggest ambition is to get through each day with grace and peace of mind – to be unflappable and to move peacefully from one task to another with focused attention and a quiet, calm energy. Simple right? Ok maybe not. However there are steps we can take to at least increase how often we remain calm. Why be calm?... 

There are three things that remind me of my father’s car: the Beach Boys, ChapStick, and a clock that is intentionally ten minutes fast. My father is one of those people who lives in his own time zone: Jeff Standard Time, sandwiched somewhere between Greenwich Mean and Mountain. I used to tease my father for setting his clocks fast to try (and rarely succeed) at fooling himself into punctuality. Now I find myself doing the same thing. I know... 

Willpower can be defined as having the ability to get yourself to take the necessary actions which will move you closer toward achieving your goals, and having the ability to refrain from taking action which will move you away from your goals. It’s strongly related to the concepts of self-discipline and self-control. Your success in life – and your ability to achieve your life goals – is largely dependent on your ability to... 

I have talked about the importance of monitoring your online reputation and the tools that help you do it effectively. The web 2.0 era demands that you keep a track of what’s being said about you online. It’s a part of what one might call “being informed.” Having said that, I think what’s more important is what you say and do on the web and how you manage your online reputation. Managing online reputation, in my... 

I used to live my whole life without a clear sense of direction. Everything was being paid for by my parents. The threat of getting murdered or ending up homeless couldn’t put a dent in the confidence that my mother and father would always be there to protect me. I was happy and carefree. I assumed that in the end we’d all remain together as one happy family. Then in a blink of an eye, everything changed. My parents separated and... 

I like opening blog posts with something that everyone can agree with me on. I think I learned that technique from some “how to get people to like your blog post” article or book or something. So here we go — job searches suck. With me so far? Okay, let me do it again. Writing a resume sucks . (The author of that article or book or something would be proud of me). So, yes, searching for a job universally sucks, especially when it comes... 

At some point in our lives, most us have had some issues with procrastination. Perhaps it was while we were students, always leaving essays till the last minute. Maybe we struggle in the workplace, putting off reports and other big projects until they’re suddenly urgent. Or we might just find ourselves making little headway in our personal lives – never quite getting around to the things which we’d like to get done…  Read More →

Adobe Integrated Runtime or Adobe AIR , in simple non-technical terms, is something that helps web developers to create the desktop equivalent of internet tools using Adobe Flash, Flex, HTML and other such programming languages or frameworks. So, with the help of Adobe AIR, you could use websites or apps which you visit frequently right from your desktop. There are a huge number of Adobe AIR apps available for different purposes. Since this... 

The positive psychology movement has helped to bring psychology out of the mental wards and into the hands of the average healthy and relatively successful person. For the most part, positive psychologies offer a much more healthy view of humanity than previous models. But we have a problem. A lot of ‘gurus’ in the positive psychology movement these days perpetuate a message that you shouldn’t allow yourself to have fears or... 

So my father and brother-in-law were over this weekend for a barbecue. My fridge was stuffed with appetizers and salads so I was only able to fit a 12-pack of beer. Normally, this would have been enough so I didn’t worry about it. After a couple hours, the stash was depleted; the old man got into a groove and well, so did we. I did have some more beer in the garage but the 90+ degree Chicago heat had rendered it useless for at least an... 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in Wonderland? Or work at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory? Or have an apartment on Sesame Street? Would your life be better? More fun? More exciting? A while back I asked the following question on our Facebook page : Which imaginary place would you most like to visit? The responses were quite varied (my favorite might actually be “my clean house”), but here are a few classics...