How to: relax and motivate

There exist several methods,  to reach  a deep state of relaxation for body and mind.  Yoga  and Autogenic Training for instance teach such methods.

But quite some training is needed, to master these methods and many people are not patient enough  to train these methods.

A very efficient and easy to use method is a combination of brainwave entrainment, hypnosis and visualization method, which is called

        audio / visual brainwave entrainment

Many explanations about this method are given on the website:

       http://www.transparentcorp.com/products/np/index.php

They offer a software program, with which this method can be applied. A headphone is recommendable for its use.

A free trial verions can be used for 2 weeks

The software  is called Neuro Programmer 3, the regular version costs 60 US and the Ultimate Editon 90 US.

This is a very good price for this excellent tool, to relax and reprogram oneself.

After one has experienced, how a state of deep relaxation feels, it should be also much easier, to reach it, using Yoga or Autogenic Training.

To relax once per day or more oftenly is an excellent method to counteract stress and avoid the burn out syndrom. Using these methods,   the motivation gets stronger and therefore  it  is  much easier to study or master some difficulty skills.

It is also possible, to experience altered states of mind, like they are experienced after many years of training of meditation, using a special collection of soundtracks ( 3 hours sound ), which is called "Beyond Being".     It costs 50 US.


This one I did not yet check myself,   but I use the other methods and can confirm, that they really work very well.

Use the trial version and check yourself, if these methods help you.

How to: solve the sales man problem

The sales man problem is a famous problem in applied mathematics.

The task is easy to define:
A salesman shall visit all the customers in his territory, using the shortest travel path.

With only a few customers, this is not such a big problem, but with more than 30, it gets already difficulty and with much more, it may  not be solvable with the most powerful computers.

But for practical applications, one can use the following simple method, to find an acceptable solution:

• Look at your territory and mark the center of the distribution of your customers
• Around this center draw circles with radiuses, which increase.
• Divide all circles in 6 sections.
• Start in the center and cover all customers in one section, when you reach the customer  at the last circle,  go to the next section and then go backwards to the center.
• Repeat this procedure for all sections.

That procedure will not give the shortest possible travel path, but a reasonable short one.

The same method can be applied to similar problems, at which some points have to be connected, using the shortest connection path like:

• electrical cabling
• location of production facilities or distibution centers
• emergency centers

Team-Based Lateral Organizational Structure

Advantages of this company structure include:

• improved communication:   more direct communication reduces mistakes due to a misunderstanding.
• employee empowerment:   produces more innovative ideas and higher quality work.
• effective decision making:   a decision is based on considering several possible scenarios and a team-based organizational structure can provide multiple opinions and insights

How to: use a team, to solve problems

Teams can outperform individuals, to solve problems, because of exchange of :

• informations
• interpretations
• critical thinking

Prepare the team:

• inform the team, which problem shall be solved in what time
• keep the group small; 4 members are most successful
• the task for the team should be complex and require a range of skills and insights
•  each team member should have the needed background and skills, to solve the problem
• document the contribution of each team member and explain this at the beginning to the team.
• if there occurs an unresolvable conflict in the team , use either an outside mediator or modify the structure of the team.

Important guidelines for effecitve team work:

• establish clear expectations of the objectives of the group
• establish clear roles and responsibilities
• plan a regular schedule of meetings

• make sure, that the objectives of each meeting are met
• don´t tolerate individuals, who fail to meet their commitments
• don´t settle for anything less than excellent group production

• prepare meeting notes, structure them and distribute them to all team members

How to: save time in the office: Work with templates

For most business  office  - documents, templates are available in the Internet, which are either free for download or for which one has to pay.
They can be a big time saver. Either one can use the templates as they are or one modifies them a bit.
___________________________________________________________________________________

1. Free templates:
______________________________________________________________________________

• Here is a website with 50 links to other websites, from which free business templates can be downloaded.

       http://bestcourtreportingdegree.com/2009/50-free-sources-for-downloadable-legal-templates-documents/

• Business forms

       http://www.freeformsandtemplates.com/home.html

• Business templates

       http://rfptemplates.technologyevaluation.com/



____________________________________________________________

2. Templates, which cost some money:
___________________________________________________________

• Document generation software:  Bliz Doc ca. 60 US, with about 30 templates for many business acitivities.

       http://blitz-doc.com/

• Word Templates for a large area of business activities, about 10 US each, very large collection.

      http://www.businessnation.com/library/forms/

• Business agreement contracts. About 50 english pounds each http://www.contractstore.com/

• Business forms

        http://www.freeformsandtemplates.com/home.html

• information technology

        http://www.infotech.com/
__________________________________________________________________________________

Even if one has to pay 50 US for a template, it may be cheap, if it is an excellent template, because it will save a lot of  time and money.

I have not checked in detail every of those templates of course; there are just too many  of them.

Therefore I would appreciate, to get some feedback from you, if you have tested some of  them or found some other good sources for them.

How to: save and structure informations

Nowadays we almost are overwhelmed by the amount of available informations, because it is relatively easy to find informations, using the internet.

But we should save these informations, so that we easily find it again and also can restructure it.

A good piece of software for that purpose is Whizfolders Organizer.

Originally it was only a two pane organizer. But over the years its developers added more and more useful features to it.

Now one can use it like an outliner, but also prepare reports with it, use hyperlinks, powerful search functions and the basic formatting features of a text program.

It is possible to install it on an USB-stick and also a Whizfolders Viewer is available, so that one can share the informations with others.

I use this program for many years now and it is one of my favorite programs.

The Whizfolder Pro version costs 25 US and the Whizfolder Deluxe Version 50 US

The license is for one user, but he can use it on two computers.

Have a look at their website:

http://whizfolders.com/

How to: structure a partnership agreement

1.     Give the business partnership a name and  let register  it.

2      State each partner’s required contribution to or investment in the partnership, and each partner’s percentage of ownership.

     Contributions may include

•    capital
•    assets
•    time or services

3      State each partner’s ability to control the partnership in terms of authority and decision-making power.

4     Create guidelines , that establish  the  roles for each partner.

5.    State the procedure for admitting new partners.

6    Write a section,  that provides details about handling disputes between or among the partners.

7   Write the rules,  that apply,  when a partner withdraws from the partnership in a buy-out plan.

How to: write a business report

Use graphs and charts to give your reports  a visual appeal, because a  good design of  routine business documents helps readers to easily

• access
• navigate
• remember

the information, given in the report.


Objectives

• What information do you want to communicate ?
• What decisions are needed ?

Research

• facts must be based on reliable information sources.
• Include information sources in detail

Format

Use a generally accepted format for the report like:

• title page
• executive summary
• methodology  (how conclusions were reached)
• introduction
• main text
• conclusions

recommendations and references

• use headings in the main text of the report

Outline and Draft

• Use a mind mapping program, to develop a clear Outline
• write all text in the mind mapping software ( in the notes )
• transfer the mind map to a text program
• add diagrams, tables and photos to the report and format it
• use a spell checker and a grammar checker
• carefully read the report twice
• use a text to voice program, to hear your text
• discuss your report with others

final design of the report

• Leave plenty of white space, with one-inch margins all around.
• leave space around visuals
• break up the report with headings, charts, graphs and photos

How to: make optimal decisions

An optimal decision is characterized by following points:

• decision is done at the right time
• decision improves the situation
• only a reasonable amounts of resources are  needed, to prepare and realize the decision.

In larger companies or organizations, the decision process is not done by one person only, but by a team and the final decision has to get approved by several levels in the hierarchical organization.

That process is not only time consuming, but also in danger, that important information gets lost or is not well understood by all involved people.

Therefore it is very important, to describe the goals and the path to reach them, in clear terms.

At the beginning of the decision process, one faces as a typical situation:

• the team and the involved decision makers are poorly organized
• the goals are ambiguously defined
• there can be even conflicting goals
• the problem itself is not well defined and oftenly poorly structured

To overcome these starting conditions, following procedure should be used:

• form a core team of 3 to 5 people. This team structures and finally defines the problem
• The team should have members with diverse skills, if a technical problem must be solved:
• 
  
  domain expertise,
• 
  
  scientific expertise
• 
  
  applied science
• 
  
  engineering skills.

This core team defines possible goals and concepts, how to realize them and writes a report, which covers:

• goals and objectives
• alternatives
• Identification of key variables
• relationships among variables

The core team works together with an advisory team. The advisory team should have senior engineers and commercially minded people as members.

The advisory team discusses this report in detail with the core team and makes proposals, how to clarify some points further and how to prepare a decision about the final goal.

After the core team has done the suggested corrections and the advisory team has reviewed the final report, it is given to the next level in the hierarchy for approval.

This process may need some further reviews, before a general meeting with all involved people in the decision process can be made, in which hopefully it is also decided, what shall be done and what resources will be available and what the time schedule shall be, to realize the goals.

How to reduce stress and avoid burnt out syndrom

If one observes, how some people can be very busy over many years, without suffering from too much stress or even suffering from burnt out syndrom, then one finds, that they enjoy their work very much and that they have found a balance between work und time to relax.


One example is Steve Jobs frorm Apple:

Steve Job gives following recommendations, how to live:

• No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.
• And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent.
• It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

• Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
• Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.
• And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

It may not  be easy for everybody, to follow those advices,   if  he is employed. But  frustration in work can get balanced by activities in leisure time. And one can also try to find a more satisfying work or get self employed.

Logical and sceptical thinking

Scepticism is a good thinking method, to defend oneself against mistakes.

Typical chain of reasoning could be, that we should base our thinking always on scientifically proven facts and if we then use logical thinking, we can either prove or disprove each hypothesis and therefore always will get a valid result.

But the term " scientifically proven facts" is not precisely defined and we can also not be sure, that logical thinking could not lead us to contradictions.

For instance many scientists are convinced, that animals have a much lower intelligence than humans.  But that is wrong, because we apply a human measure to no- humans.

And if we investigate, why this mistake is made, then we come back to the old testimony, where there is told by God to Adam, that he shall be the master of all animals. Apparently many scientists are strongly influenced by their Christian or monotheistic background and therefore make wrong conclusions.

When we apply the findings of information theory and cybernetics, then we could try to define a more general term of intelligence, which is applicable to all living beings and free from any prejudices and which can also get measured.

For instance the chain of reasoning could be as follows:

• A living being gets information from its environment and uses it, to adjust its response to the environment.
• If the response is made in a way, so that the living being increases its chances to survive, then we could judge this as an intelligent behaviour. ( many human beings, like smokers and alcoholics, are then not intelligent)
• A horse for instance will not increase its chance to survive in the wilderness, if it masters mathematics. Therefore to use mathematical tests to measure its intelligence would be nonsense.

The same applies to language:

•  Animals cannot speak like humans, because their anatomy is not suitable for it.
• But we don´t know, what other methods of exchanging information are used by animals. Dolphins use high frequency sounds and therefore they have a much larger bandwidth to exchange information. But up to now we are still too stupid, to understand their communication.

Based on some kind of a more general definition of intelligence it could be, that we find out in the future, that there exist animals, which are more intelligent than we.

• Would we be honest enough to accept that ? I am sure, that we would not do it.

There are plenty of examples, where men did not accept, that other men are intelligent and at least as much worth as they themselves:

• Look at, how the aboriginals were treated in Australia. The small children were taken by force from their parents and brought to white people, where they grew up in quite another environment. That was a kind of genocide. One could call it a soft genocide, because the children were not murdered, but the effect was the same:  to extinguish a tribe. ( in Canada similar things were made).
• Why  could such cruel things be done, which are against the most basic human values ? ( and that in democracies, which both are based on Christian values, like love your next )

Because the white people were convinced, that only their kind of living was right and that the aboriginals did not know, how to treat correctly their own children. They treated the aboriginals like criminals, who mistreat their children. ( totally neglecting the fact, that the aboriginals lived for at least 50 000 years in Australia and did not destroy their environment, like the stupid white people managed to do in some hundred years only)

Are the aboriginals less intelligent than white people ?

• This question is already wrong, because we would apply a term, which is not applicable to both. When we apply the more general term of intelligent behaviour, then the white people are much less intelligent, if they would have to live in the Australian desert, having only the tools of the aboriginals available.

What conclusions can we draw from these examples ?

• That we have to check, if we use correct definitions and terms, or if they inherently contain also a prejudgment. And we should not trust too much logical thinking, when we investigate more complex systems, like in sociology and politics.
• Even when we use the correct facts and logical thinking, we can come to wrong conclusions and therefore make the wrong decisions. The complexity of reality cannot be reduced so much, that logical reasoning alone can be applied, to get the correct results.

Our thinking is formed by the civilization, in which we grow up and by our natural language and therefore we must always be aware, that our judgements can be totally wrong, especially, when we apply them to other civilizations or other living beings.

For some years now we try to come into contact with extraterrestial civilizations.

• And we make a typical mistake: We assume, that these civilizations would send information, which we can understand, like mathematical relationships for instance.

What is, if for these civilizations some kind of music would be of highest value and that they have encoded it in a way, which we cannot decode, as long as we don´t assume, that music is sent to us ?

• As long as we even cannot decode the communication of dolphins, we cannot expect, to decode signals from extraterrestial civilizations:

Why not begin here on earth:

• Assume that wales and dolphins have some kind of higher intelligence, which might be different from ours, but which eventually permits them, to communicate with us, if we would try to understand, what they could consider to be important to send to us.

I assume, that they would try to inform us, that we should respect them and their environment, not poison the sea and not produce such a lot of noise with our ships and all the ultrasonic devices and bombs.

Health: Career burnout syndrom

Ongoing stress for longer periods of time can develop to a burnout syndrom, which  oftenly can happen to people, who work too much in their professional life, like managers, doctors, politicians.

Career burnout develops slowly over months and years, but then can suddenly cause a breakdown. Don`t wait so long, but take early counter action.


Common characteristics are:

• exhaustion,
• cynicism
• inefficacy at work and in one's personal life

Common warning signs of career burnout are:

• Feeling depressed all the time
• Lacking energy
• lacking desire to achieve
• Decreasing productivity
• Being bored

• Feeling anger and resentment in the workplace
• Abusing alcohol and drugs, like cocaine, the drug of managers
• Experiencing sleeping problems
• Decreased ability to relax

If you experience some of those signals, then take direct action. Restructure your life.

• Take more time to relax.
• Cut down all activities, which are not really needed.
• Take longer holidays ( 3 weeks at least ).
• Take professional advice from a good psychologist or if you are already drug dependent,   from  a  Psychiatrist