The Practical Nerd

What’s Going On?

The Practical Nerd — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:45:03 +0000

The past few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind.

As some of you may know, I’ve been pushing for the last year to get my copywriting business back up and running. By the hand of the good Lord, I’m starting to pick up steam again. As writing projects have poured in, however, my time has shrunk as I balance projects, a little bit of free time, wedding planning, and 40 hours a week working nights in an office. It’s been quite hectic!

Amidst all of this, I’ve been discovering more and more problems with The Nerd. I started this site from day one to build it into something great, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was a “Me Too” blogger. My site used a free theme, and formatting problems abounded. I was never quite happy with the design. It came time to make some changes here, as I’ve felt a little lost on here. So here’s my game plan moving forward:

A new tagline (again).

Yeah, I had changed it to “Redefining nerdiness since 2009″, but a very smart fellow told me that you need to know what the tagline means. I boiled down what I felt this site was about by changing it to “Try something new today”. This site isn’t always about being a nerd in the traditional sense. It’s about beating your own path and carving out your own life – how you want it. And to do that, you need to try new things: new activities, new attitudes, new approaches to life.

A new, premium design.

For the first time ever, I’ve purchased a WordPress theme. This is the “Headway” theme, which allows me to change the design as I see fit without using a bit of code. I’m still ironing out the kinks, so you’ll see the site change and evolve as the next week or so moves on. But now, I can have the clean, sharp design that I’ve wanted without sacrificing formatting or anything else!

More Twitter involvement.

If you’re not following me on Twitter, get going. I share tons of links almost every day from my Google Reader, and I try to add value wherever I can. Plus, you’ll see tweets in the sidebar of this site, too, as always.

My picture (hey, that’s me up there!).

You can see that the header image at the top of the page includes what is a 6-year old picture of me. It’s the best I can do right now until I have head shots taken or something down the line. It’s just a simple reminder that this site is written by a human being. I’m not afraid to put myself out there.

Better content.

I’m going to push myself to do the very best writing I can do again. I want to tell stories, I want to help people. I want to include screenshots. I want to get back into podcasting. I want The Practical Nerd to be the quality resource that I envisioned it to be from the beginning. That means more work on my end, but hopefully, a better experience for all of you.

More surprises.

I don’t know how/when/where I’m going to pull the trigger on some of this stuff, but I have some ideas up my sleeve. Stay tuned!

If you have any feedback, let me know by firing me an email or leaving a comment on this post. I’m always happy to hear from any of you, and thanks for sticking around while I feel some of this stuff out!

The Status Quo Sucks. Be Different.

The Practical Nerd — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:11:32 +0000

It’s amazing to me sometimes how crippling fear of change can be. You start at an early age: when you do something different from the other kids, they make fun of you (well, they did to me, at least). If all the kids get average grades and you get better grades, they target you. If they are all average at sports and you are terrible at them, they laugh at you. If they all watch a certain show on TV and you don’t, you are an outcast. When that happened to me as a child, I started pulling back on everything and spent a good number of years refusing to be myself out of embarrassment.

This fear clings to you and forces you into doing stupid things when you grow up. The iPhone has become a status symbol, despite its limitations and overblown pricing. Besides that, people are spending ridiculous amounts of money for a phone that plays apps that you’ll never need to use. But you buy one because they’re “cool”. Newlyweds rush out to get themselves into a mortgage that they can’t afford with no down payment because they think it’s the adult thing to do. Music has gone from a form of expression to just another reminder that human beings have sex and like money. We do these things just to keep up – because we think we should.

And what do we have to show for this? Well, let’s see. In the United States alone, some scary statistics have been released. In 2009, a study was conducted on consumer debt (like credit cards, loans, etc.). Here was its findings: “This data… tells us that Americans carried approximately $886 billion in credit card debt and that number is expected to grow to a projected $1,177 billion by the year 2010. This works out to over $5,100 in credit card debt per cardholder (not household) and that number is expected to increase to over $6,500 by 2010.”

Status quo = broke.

That’s okay, though. Remember the old expression: “At least you have your health.” Well, not according to these statistics released by the U.S. Center for Disease Control: 39.8 million American adults; more than 57% of American adults are overweight, and there are 300,000 premature deaths associated with obesity annually.”

Status quo = fat and dying.

I wonder what could cause this. Is it our focus on television? The Bureau of Labor Statistics sheds some light on our viewing habits: “Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.8 hours per day), accounting for about half of leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over. Socializing, such as visiting with friends or attending or hosting social events, was the next most common leisure activity, accounting for nearly three-quarters of an hour per day.”

Status quo = lazy.

Well, the good news is we’re happy, right? That’s all that matters! Ask anybody and they’ll say, “Hey, whatever makes them happy!” Oh, wait: the U.S. was ranked #16 in happiness in 2008 of any country in the world. So, regardless of the fact that we have the freedom to worship how we want, say virtually anything we want, and decide to do whatever we want, we are still unhappy.

Status quo = miserable.

This isn’t going to be one of those kinds of posts though. What I want to say is once I bucked the status quo and started doing things a little differently than others, I started to see drastic changes in my life that ultimately added to my happiness. If you are cruising along, happy with being average but ready to complain about it at the drop of a hat, it’s time to grow up and take control. Start being different and ditch the fear:

First, recognize that you are the one doing this, nobody else. There’s not going to be someone to walk up to you and tell you how to act or what to do. Nobody is helping you. You’re not going to be different once you get the chance. You are going to do it. Now. No excuses. Time to start getting it done.

Then, be prepared for a backlash. Just like when you were a kid, somebody is going to tell you you’re being stupid. Better yet, they might even call you a “nerd”. But hey, that’s a compliment, right? That’s what I say. When you start doing things differently, people will think you’re weird. Screw ‘em.

Have a plan of action. This could be written out or just an idea, but make sure you are being deliberate about your actions and their short-term and long-term consequences. There’s a difference between being different and taking stupid risks. Risk is a wonderful thing if you have a plan for it. It’s a terrible thing if you don’t prepare yourself for the worst.

Not sure where to get started? Find some people who are already doing what you want to do. Search the music blogs for some cool new stuff to listen to, or use a music recommendation service. Hunt around for some blogs on people who are already losing weight, simplifying their life, building a business, or just generally being awesome. Follow them around on their blogs and on Twitter or Facebook. If you want to be successful, you need to study successful people.

And if you want to start being different, but aren’t sure what to do, here are some ideas to get your brain juices flowing:

Start finding real singers and songwriters in different genres of music
Turn that interest of yours into a viable business idea and start building it
Overhaul your diet and find new ways to incorporate healthy foods
Start cooking simple dishes
Get creative on ways to save money
Cut up your credit cards and force yourself to stop using them
Figure out what you can do to make yourself happy (i.e., winning the lottery doesn’t count)
Take a room of your house and start de-cluttering it
Cut your cable, or get rid of your TV
Downgrade your cell phone when your contract is up, instead of upgrading

A lot of times, you may have to force yourself to do something. But once you start reaping its benefits, you may never go back. Let’s help each other out: What do you do to be different?

How To Pull Yourself Together

The Practical Nerd — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:32:00 +0000

Two of the blogs I follow recently had some very interesting posts about opportunity in your life and how to take advantage of them, even if you don’t see them. The Art Of Manliness recently posted a “Manvotional” with a passage from the writings of Edward Rowland Sill, where a man is at war, complaining about his sword, throwing it down and leaving. Then the prince comes by, picks up the same sword, and took down the enemy with it. It’s a beautiful passage that speaks to one man blaming his tools and another making the most of what he has. Last month, The Simple Dollar posted a great piece looking at doing better than where you are now in spite of “karma” and “bad luck”. (Side note: seriously people, there is some great stuff out there on the Web, stop watching YouTube videos and reading about the cast of Jersey Shore and start inspiring yourself a little bit!)

So I started looking at life in general and how you can put these ideas into action. People often think that opportunity has to be obvious and “knocking” like that cartoon guy in those car commercials. But there comes a time where you need to start creating your own opportunities. Those that accomplished things in life are the ones that grabbed life by the… ahem, horns… and made it into something great. Here are some tips that you can use to implement greatness in your life and pull yourself out of whatever gutter you are wallowing in at this very moment:

Ditch the “victim mentality” right now. Like, right now. We have been programmed in the last 50 years to point fingers. You can’t get ahead at work because your boss hates you. You can’t lose weight because you don’t have time. You don’t have any money because the credit card companies charge so much interest you’ll never get out of it. In the movie Network, a news broadcaster stands up on air and yells, “I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!” Okay, now it’s your turn. Stand up and declare to yourself that you won’t take this crappy life anymore. You are going to take control and take all the blame. The reason people hang onto the victim mentality is because then they don’t have to feel bad for lousy parts of their lives. They get to let go of that guilt and push it onto something else. Take responsibility for your life and all the risks that come with it.

Don’t be afraid to fail a few times. In a presentation given at the TED conference a few years ago, Ken Robinson discussed how our school system stigmatizes failure. It’s true: we push failure as the worst thing in the world when you are in school, and you are a lousy student if you fail a lot. But schools should be teaching that failure is an opportunity to learn something. In the real world, failure does not mean you suck at life. It means you were trying something new. Take the knowledge of that failure and alter your game plan.

I ran a successful business – or what considered to be “successful” at the time – for almost 2 years. But after it failed and subsequent attempts to revive it quickly did absolutely nothing, I was forced to take a long, hard look at why it failed. That’s the key: when you fail, you need to answer the question, “Why did it fail?” If you can answer that question and fix that problem, you have a much better shot of making it work successfully the next time. That’s why businesses put out prototypes of products. They are expecting it to fail so that they can learn from it. The same goes for beta versions of software. Failure teaches you something. I sat down and put together a game plan that responds directly to my past business failures, and now I am on the verge of being back in business full-time soon, with a foundation that is ten times stronger than the one I lived on before. I would not have had that if I hadn’t failed once already.

Educate yourself and learn from others. Pride is a strange thing. It will keep us from listening to those who have already made the mistakes we are about to make. Stop refusing to listen to other people. They are trying to warn you or advise you for a reason. Take their advice to heart. This also means reading blogs related to your problems – personal finance blogs, health/fitness blogs, blogs about business building. There is more free advice out there than you can imagine, and a lot of it can help you directly.

Starting today, you will not worry yourself about what other people are doing. If you are at work and someone else is getting rewarded, even though they are being lazy at work, don’t bother. The only thing you can do is work harder yourself and prove your worth. Just because somebody else is successful doesn’t mean you can’t be. It amuses me when broke people make comments like, “The only people making money today are the people that have money.” I couldn’t disagree more. The people making money today are the ones who are focusing on their own actions and not concerning themselves with other people. If you are spending your time and brain energy resenting people who have had success, you will never get ahead. Take that to heart: stop keeping up with the Joneses. It’s your life, no one else’s.

Consider an approach that is against the norm. For years, I’ve been told that, to build a business, I need a formal business plan, funding from a venture capitalist, and blah blah blah. They also said that a college degree will ensure that you will get a good job. What happened to that? If you have an idea that flies in the face of what people are comfortable with, do it. But only do it if you can show yourself how it will work, and show yourself objectively. This leads to…

Hold yourself accountable to the facts, and answer to no one else but yourself. When analyzing your actions, don’t give yourself a sales pitch. Look at the hard numbers. For example, when analyzing my business now, I have a spreadsheet that tells me exactly how much money I make per week and per month, how many leads I have, how many clients I have, and how the money is spread out among the clients. This snapshot gives me a quick reference to see how stable my income is, how I can respond if I lose a client, and I can see the trends in my business to analyze risk. This way, when I pull the trigger, I can do it based on facts. Without it, I would be going on assumptions of how much work I’m getting, and assumptions will get you in trouble every time.

Stop reading and start doing. You can read all day, but nothing will change until you start taking action. Get off your butt and work on your life already!

5 Better Alternatives To Watching TV

The Practical Nerd — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 04:51:48 +0000

You just got home from a long day at work, and you feel fried. Your brain is running on fumes, and your body just wants to collapse on the couch. You want mindless entertainment, and fortunately, you’ve got hundreds of channels to choose from. You sit down, and from about 6:00pm until 11:00pm, the TV is on. Sound healthy to you?

I hear people at the office talk about Bachelor Pad and other pieces of garbage like that. I hear them spend 10 minutes talking about Twilight and what the celebrities are up to. In my mind, all I can think is this question: “Isn’t there something better we can do with our time?” I’m a self-admitted TV addict, but my TV watching has tapered off in recent years. And with the average cable bill running $75-$100 a month, I think it’s time we staged a revolution. Too often, we have let networks tell us what to talk about, what to buy, what to eat, and how to live. I say we turn off the TVs and start doing something. Here are some great alternatives that will make your life more fulfilling and, let’s be honest, healthier:

Have a conversation

Let’s start with the easiest one of the bunch. If you live with somebody else, and you spend your evenings watching TV, try hitting the “power” button and turning to that person. Then start talking. “How’s life been lately?” is a great starter. Since you live with that person, your relationship with him or her is obviously very important to you. Talk about anything: your hopes, your dreams, what you like, what you don’t like, etc. Yes, guys, even you. You don’t have to get all weepy or touchy-feely. If you need to, grab a beer so that you feel a little manlier. If the other person is up for it, go have a cigar. Just start talking and see what happens. That bonding time is important.

Yoga/Pushups/Situps/Gym/Running/Walking/Get Off Your Lazy Butt

I’m not a big advocate of the gym, but to each his own – whatever gets you off the couch. Do it for fun, and for your health. If you want to, track what you’re doing to show some accomplishment. The beauty of this, as an adult, is that you don’t have to necessarily answer to anybody. Set your own goals. If your goal is to run a mile within six weeks, go for it. Anything is better than nothing. And with cool apps on just about any smartphone that will track your progress for you and share it if you want, there’s really no reason not to try it out. The added benefits will include pretty much any benefit that you get from doing exercise. You know the drill: better sleep, better sex, more energy, lose weight, yada yada yada. Pick one benefit that you like and use that for the reason why you do it. Just do it.

Expand that brain of yours

The biggest problem with the education of today’s youth is that it makes education something that is miserable. From about grade 3 to college, classes are generally designed to make you sit, listen, and say what the teacher wants you to say. Education is seen as a challenge, which is fine – to a point. Now that you are an adult, many of you will sit and say, “I would never go back to school! I don’t miss THAT!” I know I say that all the time. But let’s use our brain power in a different way. For example, while putzing around online, listen to or watch a brilliant talk on TED.com. Some of my favorites include the critique of the current educational system, chef Jamie Oliver talking about how lousy our food is, and author Malcolm Gladwell talking about ketchup and happiness. TED is a great spot for educational, thought-provoking, and very entertaining presentations and speeches.

Other ways to expand your brain can be reading some great blogs (like this one). Your brain is not a static thing: it is a living organism that adapts and changes. If you don’t give it a workout occasionally, it starts to regress. Take some time to properly exercise it. If you think you are getting a brain workout at work, ask yourself this: how many of those 8 hours a day are spent daydreaming? Chatting with coworkers? Complaining about work? Eating? Surfing the Web? In boring meetings? Yeah, your brain isn’t tired yet. You’re just out of shape.

Don’t want to learn? Here’s a quick exercise to help you out: get out a sheet of paper or open a document on your computer. Write or type 5 of your favorite things. Even the laziest of interests can morph into educational pursuits. Video games? Google around or grab a book on the history of video game development, or what goes into the design and making of a video game. You can learn about how marketing campaigns are developed or how technology has advanced over the years. Television or movies? Bone up on your history of Hollywood. There are fascinating stories about old movie studios and how movies have evolved over time as well. Food? Great! Look up cooking techniques and recipes. Get started in cooking and you’ll get even healthier!

Start a side business

“More work!” you say. Well, the problem with most jobs is that they’re work. This is your chance to start something that you think is fun. Something you are passionate about. Something that gets you excited. For me, it’s the chance to be a writer and work from home. For you, it could be to develop that awesome idea you’ve had, or to work with animals, or who knows? Start Googling around. Maybe your interest lends itself to freelance work, like photography or web design. There are dozens of different ways you can do it.

“I don’t have any money/time to start a business!” Call it a “project”, then. It’s something you can spend an hour or two every night poking at. It might turn into something amazing. As for money, if it’s a service business, you can start it with remarkably little: often just a computer and an internet connection. For example, I gave my writing business a reboot and just started sending out some emails. Within a matter of about two weeks, I now have 10-12 leads, 3-4 paying clients, and I’ve booked nearly $2,000 in work this month. All it took was sending out some emails, which I did for free. Starting a business is a rewarding experience, even through failure.

And if you need startup capital to put together your business, start running the numbers: if the average monthly cable bill is $75, how many months without cable would you need to go to get that money? Six months is $450, which is plenty of money to get a small business up and running. Spend that six months planning, and you could be well on your way to something pretty cool.

Read a book, or twelve

Grab some friends and start a book club, or join an online book club like the ones at GoodReads. Go to the library. Trade books with PaperbackSwap. Grab a Kindle and start getting ebooks. You can read about whatever you want, whenever you want. It’s your life now, not some teacher’s. Put together your own reading list.

These are just a few. What are your favorite non-TV activities?

Replace Your Address Book With Google Contacts

The Practical Nerd — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:25:13 +0000

(pictured: a protective snapshot of my Contacts list)

When I was but a lad, my mom had this address book that we used to hold all the contact information of our family and friends. It was, I’m sure, a very slick, clean address book at one point. But, years of people moving, dying, and otherwise caused this book to become a scribbly mess. Do you have an address book like this? Then it’s time to replace it.

Google Contacts is yet another Google service that I patronize, but it may be the most useful of any that I have. Sure, my Gmail is my main command center for all contact with personal and business folk, and Google Reader supplies so much of my ongoing education and fun reading. But Google Contacts is how I keep track of the people in my life, and for a few very good reasons.

It is backed-up

First, let’s start with the “backed-up” part of that. If we had ever had a house fire growing up (and I thank God we never did), that address book would have been lost forever, and we would have been stuck calling around and asking for everybody’s addresses and phone numbers and, well, you get the idea. Having an online service manage your address book makes it impervious to natural disasters. This includes storing contacts on your mobile phones (if you’ll see in the next sections): think about that the next time you are invited to a Facebook group called, “HEY I LOST MY PHONE PLEASE SEND ME UR NUMBER AGAIN THX!!!!!!!!!”

It is independent

What do I mean by that? Most mobile phone services come with some form of online backup solution. For example, my Blackberry Curve can sync up with an online Blackberry account to hang on to all my contacts. But what happens when I switch phones? And more importantly, what happens if I switch phones because something happened to my Blackberry? Let’s say I drop my phone in the toilet and it doesn’t work anymore. Now I want to upgrade to a Droid phone. How big of a pain in the butt will it be to access my contact list from my Blackberry account and get it on to my Droid phone?

Google Contacts comes with a fantastic feature called “Google Sync”, where you can sync your phone with your Google Contacts. I have it installed on my Blackberry, and I can bring up anyone’s name and address through my phone’s address book. This is handy when filling out applications where you need references. Plus, if I get a new phone, I just fire up Google Sync on that phone and all my contacts will be imported to it. And if I make any changes in my Google Contacts list or on my phone’s address book, it all gets synced up together. It’s a beautiful thing, and it makes it painless to manage.

It is searchable

You remember the old address books, right? They had these tabs on the side that said “AB”, “CD”, all the way to “WXYZ” because apparently nobody knew that many people with last names with those letters. You had to find your way to their last name, then find it among the mess of addresses, and it might be at the end now because they moved. Ugh. Just like anything Google, Contacts is searchable. Just click the search box and start typing. It won’t even let you finish typing before it starts giving you results. Quick. Simple.

I’m sure there are other reasons, but these are some of my favorites. Do you use Google Contacts? Do you manage your address book with a different service? Share in the comments!

A Common Sense Approach To Online Privacy

The Practical Nerd — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:12:10 +0000

Identity theft is a growing concern in this country. There are two prevailing attitudes regarding this issue, at least in the people I’ve come across: rampant paranoia and really stupid ignorance. The rampant paranoia people will tell you they don’t do ANYTHING online because their information will be stolen. The stupid ignorant people don’t take any measures to protect their identities and information, and then wind up blaming the world when somebody steals their stuff.

I would make the argument that there is a happy medium. While you do need to protect yourself, there are certain – very simple! – measures you can take to keep yourself protected without having to wear your tin foil hat. Here are some basic, practical principles you can implement quickly in your own online life to save you some hassle.

Your name and address are not really confidential. Neither is your email address. Stop freaking out. I recently received an email at work from a customer who was furious that we referred to her by her full name. Do a Google search and you can find anyone. My name is on the internet just from races I ran in high school cross country. It’s like a phone book, and it doesn’t really matter that much. Nobody can really do anything with your name and address, besides be annoying – and most are turning to email to be annoying, anyway – where spam filters can keep your inbox clean.
Your SS# IS confidential. Unless you KNOW who is asking for it, don’t give it to them. A social security number can give somebody access to a lot of information, and they can cause some damage with it. Try to avoid emailing it, too. Really – protect your social security number.
Much of online protection involves needing stronger passwords. If you use the same password for everything online, you will get hit sooner or later. Most people’s passwords are incredibly easy to hack. The best way to do it is to use a random series of numbers and capital and lowercase letters. “But how am I supposed to remember that?” you ask. Well, there are a number of password management programs where you can securely generate and store your passwords. Then you just come up with a strong password for that account, and you only need to log in to that account to use all your passwords. I use LastPass, for example, and it is great: they have a number of security features built in to keep hackers from accessing your passwords. Strong passwords will eliminate most of the risk of identity theft online.
Embarrassed by those photos on Facebook? No privacy settings will protect those. Here’s something you need to be considerate of: Facebook essentially can publicly display the information you have provided them. That photo of you doing body shots off the pool boy in Cancun? Public. That status update where you tell everyone your boss is a prick? Public. Facebook has redefined what privacy online is, and it goes beyond identity theft. Stop oversharing on Facebook – NOW. Everything you put up there is a liability. Use Facebook for fun stuff, share photos, and crack a few jokes. But leave it at that. Nobody wants to hear horror stories of your divorce proceedings or how much you threw up last night after you got home from the bar.
Most sites are secure. Amazon, big name retailers, and other popular shopping sites are secure. Unless you’ve seen headlines on a big leak or something, you’ll be fine. Just make sure that you are actually on that particular site, and not a bogus one (like fake PayPal pages).
Check your credit report once a year and you’ll be fine. Run to http://www.annualcreditreport.com (NOT FreeCreditReport.com – they will charge you) and get your credit reports from the three big credit reporting agencies. You can get them once a year for free. You don’t need expensive credit monitoring programs. Just check the reports and make sure all your accounts are listed as paid up-to-date. You’re fine.
Identity theft is a pain in the butt more than anything else. Just because someone stole your identity and opened up some fraudulent credit card accounts doesn’t mean you will be stuck working at a seafood restaurant singing crappy jingles (and let’s not get started on the credibility of THOSE commercials!). United States law prevents you from being liable for charges made fraudulently under your name. You’ll have to go through a lot of red tape and file police reports, but they won’t bankrupt you. Calm down. This isn’t The Net.

Pictured: Not you.

Did I miss anything? What do you do to ensure your safety online? Share them in the comments!

Gouge Out The “Slivers” In Your Life

The Practical Nerd — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:25:23 +0000

Have you ever had a sliver stuck in your skin? A sliver is a tiny little speck of wood – often from unsanded or unfinished wood – that gets embedded deep into your skin. Often, you don’t even realize you have one until hours and even days after you get it. But those tiny little slivers can pose a real danger. The same goes for your “tiny little” problems in life.

You may not realize it’s there at first

The annoying part about slivers is that you might not notice one until you are doing something that puts just the right amount of pressure on the sliver itself – sometimes sending a sharp sting into your finger (or wherever). Of course, by then, it’s too late to avoid: the sliver is there, and it’s a problem.

Your spending habits may be out of whack – you’re spending a little more than you’re making, but you don’t realize it. You put on a couple pounds, but it doesn’t catch your attention. Your boss is watching you a little more closely at work, but you have no idea. These “slivers” are gearing up to cause you a lot of pain, and by the time you realize that they’re there, it could be too late to avoid, which leads to…

A little problem turning into a bigger problem

A sliver may look small, but it can cause some serious pain. After all, if your skin is broken, you’ve just sent an open invitation to a large variety of bacteria and germs to come on in and start a party in your body. Your tiny wound can get more sensitive and puffy as a result, and now you have a real problem on your hands.

Those extra couple of bucks that you spent may have been put on a credit card with an astronomical interest rate. Those extra pounds can start to slow you down, causing more extra pounds. Your boss may be gradually reducing your promotion potential. See how a little problem turns into a bigger one really quickly? That’s why you have to…

Endure some pain to fix the problem

There are two ways to pull out a sliver, and neither are particularly pleasant. One way, if possible, is to get a tweezers and grab the end of the sliver that’s sticking out and yank it out. The more drastic way, however, may be necessary if the end of the sliver is beneath the skin. Then you need to sterilize a needle and dig the sliver out. Depending on where the sliver is, this method can be quite painful. But either way, it gets the sliver out, which is absolutely necessary for your health and comfort.

Need to get out of debt? Then you have two options: scale back your lifestyle or earn more money. Or both, honestly. Neither are very pleasant, because this means you are sacrificing things you like to do. If you like to spend money and buy nice things, you need to stop for a while. If you like to just sit around the house after work, you may need to pick up an extra job or start a side business to generate some income. If you want to lose those extra pounds, you need to get up off your butt and exercise, and also start eating healthier. If you want to win back your boss’s good graces, you need to stop slacking off at work and get your nose to the grindstone. Work extra hours and get more done than the next guy to prove yourself all over again. These things are all fairly unpleasant, but you don’t have a choice – they are unavoidable if you want to fix the problem. And, then, finally, after you have fixed the problem and removed the “sliver”…

Ensure that you don’t get any more slivers

If you know where you got the sliver, this part is easy – don’t do that thing anymore. But often, slivers come from seemingly nowhere (just like life’s problems). So now you need to pay attention to what you are doing: avoid working with unfinished wood without protective gear, or watch out where you are running your bare hands or feet.

Keep a budget and closer tabs on your spending. Pay attention to what you are eating and how often you are getting your blood moving. Make sure you know what your boss is noticing. All of these things will ensure that those “slivers” never come back.

Do you have any “slivers” in your life? How do you dig them out?

The Practical Nerd Podcast: Episode #15 – The Benefits of Disconnecting

The Practical Nerd — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:45:00 +0000

(That’s not me in that picture.) Today’s podcast is a short one about disconnecting. We live in a world that is always “on” – TV always has crap to watch at all hours, our phones have our email, there’s Wi-Fi everywhere. There are a lot of benefits to just disconnecting from it all, even for a few minutes. Hit “play” to check it out!

Two More Great Chrome Extensions To Speed Up Your Browsing

The Practical Nerd — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:11:41 +0000

A while back, I posted an article detailing my switch to Google Chrome as my main web browser. Even as I have switched to Ubuntu (and also to the awesome Chromium daily builds – all the latest features of Chrome come to my browser every day), I believe that Chrome is the best browser on the market right now: it’s quick, it has great extensions, and it keeps innovating the web experience. While updating and improving my Chrome setup, I discovered two extensions that give my browsing more speed, and are easy to install and implement.

AdThwart

Pictured at the top of this post, AdThwart is an ad-blocker for Chrome. When I originally tried this extension, it didn’t work that great for me; it only blocked some ads, and it lacked the functionality of Firefox’s excellent AdBlock Plus. However, it has since updated, and it has eliminated my need to set up Privoxy – which was a little screwy with my connections anyway. AdThwart now allows you to tell it what ads it is missing, and with the recent news that ad blocking is about to get even better on Chrome, I’m happy to stick with this little extension.

Advertisements may make people money, but there’s no need for such intrusive and obnoxious ones (I’m looking at you, ESPN.com).

FlashBlock

Skip intro.

It’s the button that everybody knows and loves. Companies and web sites go to great lengths to put together fancy Flash presentations, but they just bog down web sites and make you click another button to get to where you really want to be. With FlashBlock, all those little Flash boxes are hidden unless you click on them. You can manually allow Flash on certain sites if you want, but without Flash loading on sites, they display much quicker. The internet is anxiously awaiting the full implementation of HTML5*, especially Steve Jobs!, but it’s going to be a while yet. Enjoy the Flash that you like and hide the Flash that you hate with this little extension.

*Note: for the layperson, HTML5 is a new, open-source method of embedding media onto web pages. It’s quicker and lighter, but it hasn’t been adapted across the board yet. It might be years.

So there you go, my fellow Nerds: two more great Google Chrome extensions. Do you have a favorite Chrome extension? Share it in the comments!

You don’t “deserve” a break.

The Practical Nerd — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:38:16 +0000

I don’t feel bad for people who are drowning in debt – and I don’t expect sympathy from people regarding my debt, either. But people who are constantly on edge or stressed out might reward themselves with a vacation because they’ve been so stressed out lately and they’ve been “really good” about not shopping so much. But are those breaks deserved?

Another example: somebody is trying to lose 25 pounds. They work out every day and eat right. After a few weeks, they’ve lost 3 pounds and they “reward” themselves by going out to eat for fast food.

A personal example: I am spending long hours rebuilding my business when I am not at the office. I am sending emails, sales letters, making follow-up calls, and doing everything in my power to get the ball rolling again. Do I deserve a day off?

My argument is no. Why?

You haven’t accomplished your goal.

Rewards are for people who accomplish something. If you haven’t accomplished your goal, you don’t deserve the reward. If you are struggling to get a job, all your energy in all your free time needs to be dedicated to getting a job – pounding the pavement, sending resumes, calling everybody you send resumes to, getting in every interview possible, reading recent books about how to get a job… you get the idea?

Are you tired? Start figuring out ways to work smarter and not harder. Maybe you aren’t maximizing your effectiveness. Or maybe you are just putzing around too much and need to get serious. Eliminating these little rewards and focusing on the goal may give you a kick in the pants to start making real progress instead of “kinda-sorta-doing it”.

The reward pushes you farther away from your goal.

Eating a big unhealthy meal is calories that you have to work off. Taking a day off from the job search or building the business means one more day you have to spend unhappy in your professional life. Splurging on something because you have been paying off debt means slowing down your debt repayment, and keeping you in debt for longer.

You’re not taking solace in a job well done.

There was a time when the joy of hard work was the knowledge that you accomplished something. When I send out a batch of emails after working on them for a couple hours, I can take a second to revel in the fact that I just made contact with a bunch more businesses. I just got another step closer to my goal.

Instead of the need for a “reward”, start taking joy in your work. It’ll be much more fulfilling, and it will really motivate you to keep pushing towards your goal.

You’re letting somebody else reach your goal before you.

When you are running a race, you’ll pass checkpoints: parts of the race that remind you of how far you’ve run. If I’m running a 3-mile race and I reach the 1-mile checkpoint, I can’t stop and get a drink of water. I can’t take a nap because I’m tired. If I do, everybody else will pass you and reach the finish line first.

If you are currently in the middle of a job search, every day that you spend sitting around is a day that somebody else is getting a job. You know why? Because they spent their free time differentiating themselves and aggressively marketing themselves. They got the job while you were sitting around.

Every day that I spend doing nothing is a day when a different freelance copywriter or marketing firm gets the client I wanted. I can’t stop running the race just because I’m a little tired. I might as well not be running the race.

In the end, you do need to take breaks – but make them small ones. Physically and emotionally, you don’t need the whole day off – go take a walk for half an hour and then get back to work. You don’t need a big unhealthy meal – but you can reward yourself with a small piece of cake or something for dessert. The problem lies in getting carried away with your rewards, and turning them into reasons why you’re in your mess to begin with.