10 Tips To Wake Up On Time, Every Time

Having trouble waking up on time? If your boss is on the verge of firing you, or you're about to flunk out of a class for being good at being late, these 10 easy tips should help you get out of the bed on time.

1. Make sure you are getting enough sleep. I don't care if you're Superman. If you try to sleep for only 2 hours each night it just is not going to work. I've tried a couple different sleeping arrangements but the most effective will always fall between 5-8 hours of sleep a night. Remember, sleep is vital for muscle growth, fat loss, overall health, mood, and much more. Get those ZzzzZZZ's just don't over or under do it.

2. Invest in a quality alarm clock that will wake your neighbors up if you had to. If you think you're in control of that internal clock, think again. Get an alarm clock with a nice large display so that you can tell what time it is when it rings.

3. Before you go to sleep make the conscious choice to wake up at "x" time. This way when you get your wet dreams interrupted by your ridiculously loud alarm clock, you will see the time and force yourself to get up.

4. Avoid the Snooze Function of Death. They made the snooze function for one reason and one reason alone. For you to be too lazy to wake up. Never use that function.

5. When your alarm goes off. Wake up and STAY UP!. Do not go crawling back to your bed. Your bed is anchored in your mind as your sleeping haven. The second you place your groggy hand back on that bed you'll fall asleep faster than a Jennifer Lopez movie.

6. Place that alarm clock as far away from you as possible. There is no use placing the alarm clock next to your bed, you might as well unplug it and cuddle with it while you sleep. Put the little sucker in a place where it will still scream at you in the morning, but make you work to shut it up. I preferably like it next to my sink and shower so I can wake up and be there to shower or brush my teeth.

7. Move On! the second you wake up, move on to your next daily habit. Brush your teeth, take a shower, drink some coffee...

8. Turn some music on when you wake up. I'm not talking that little dinky music on your alarm that makes Rap sound like Polka. Jump on the computer and turn on a jam with a beat. Music controls emotions and body rhythms, use this tool to energize you in the morning.

9. Let the light in. The importance of the sun cannot be explained to a mere mortal like you. The sun regulates serotonin levels deciding if you're either happy or like them poor Alaskans, plagued with S.A.D.'s syndrome (depressed). The sun also regulates your circadian cycle (your natural alarm clock) which makes it easier for your grumpy ass to wake up.

10. Try to make your days as fun and non-stressful as possible. It's a lot easier to wake up looking forward to what is ahead of you then to wake up and want to stay in bed to hide from your troubles. Be a man and do what needs to be done!

If worse comes to worse, click the email me button on the top of this page, send me your name, number, and address, and I will personally come down with a club to wake you up (don't ask me what the club is for).

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How Reading Fast Like Superman Saved The Day

Ever find yourself with a test tomorrow and you haven't studied a single thing? Do you have to give a report on a company's profile that stacks from your desk to the ceiling? If you answered yes, then you know where I was yesterday. I believe the correct term is "screwed". If you guys didn't know this time of year is the wonderful time of finals for us students. All is fun and games until you find out you have a final in 2 hours, and the last time you've seen the required text is when you were too cheap to buy it because $150.00 can feed a family of 20 in Tanzania. Read on to see how my life was saved.

The story dates back to when this blog was created. I created this blog to document my choice to actively play the game of life. I made the choice to make myself as strong(lifewise) as I can possibly be to succeed at life. About this same time I also came to the conclusion that I need to be able to absorb information faster and more effectively to test it out and apply it. I remembered buying a book a couple of years ago by Evelyn Wood called The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program, which was an ok book(there are a lot better speed reading tutorial books out there). The problem I encountered with that book was that it was not written in a language that could be easily understood and applied.

I found myself in a dilemma. I needed to learn how to read fast but I didn't know what was real and what was fake out there. I did what I do for all my information, went to google and typed in "speed reading forum". Surprisingly I was unable to find a lot of quality information about speed reading. I did come across a ridiculous amount of products that claimed almost impossible things(I haven't been able to try the read a book in an hour products but I'm willing to give them a shot and post you guys a review, I will do a post and individually review all of these products in seperate posts). The good thing is that I came across a couple that really helped me. In a month I got my reading speed from 234 words per minute with 80% comprehension to 789 words per minute with 90% comprehension (now you know my secret on being able to post about anything and everything, I read everything there is available because I'm cool like that ; p).

Fast foward to yesterday. I am walking down the street ready to go to the gym when my phone alarm goes off (I have a treo so my microsoft outlook synchronizes the calendar with it). In bright big letters of death my phone screams to me final 7pm(like the over dramatization huh?). I almost have a major panic attack, but instead I pick up my phone and call my friend and he sends me 5 weeks worth of notes. The notes end up being 40 full pages. I look at the time, it is almost 5pm, I have 2 hours to study. I run to the Starbucks on campus where all the tables are full. I use my charm to coerce a girl into letting me share her little 3 foot in diameter table with me. I speed read all of the notes and do a little exercise called mind mapping which the speed reading courses teach to really pound the information into the memory.

7pm comes I crank out the test in under 30 minutes (we were given 1 hour and 40 minutes). Speed reading had saved the day again. I recommend speed reading to anyone and wish that they taught it in elementary school to kids. Look foward for some posts on the products that helped me the most, and the products that deserver to call the trash home.

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Are you tired of checking your voicemail?

If you're like me, you don't like checking your voicemail. I remember that I would get behind a few days on voicemails, and then I'd have like 20 voicemails to check. Some would be good, some would be not so good. I started to grow a weird fear of checking my voicemail because I knew that there would be a message from my landlord. So what my immediate solution was to disconnect my voicemail. Plus, if you think about it, you can read way faster than you can listen to stuff. Your brain thinks five times faster than the spoken word.

So that leaves a lot of wasted time. This wasn't the best solution, but it worked. At first, I was happy because I didn't have all those voicemails. But other people weren't so happy. When my landlord finally got ahold of me she yelled at me, and I started hearing through the grapevine that she wasn't the only one with problems with my service.

So, I was looking for a solution, and I heard about a company in the UK that was converting voice mail to text, but it wasn't yet available. My good buddy Ben (itsgoodtobehere.blogspot.com) is always up on the latest technology as is my buddy Randy (wewinatlife.com). Well, he just told me a few days ago about a service that does offer voicemail to text, and it is amazing. When he showed it to me, I got really excited. *Note, I have no affiliation with the company and am making no money off this.

Now, here's the cool part, and this is what I am doing. The first month is free, so you can try it out and cancel on the 29th day.

Here's how I have my system setup

1.)Go to https://simulscribe.com/ for your free trial
2.)Ensure that you set it up to send you alerts to the email that you check the most. *For Treo & Blackberry Users, you can have it sent to your phone.
3.)Enjoy and also, if you want to listen to your voicemail. They send you a wav version of your voice mail too.

So enjoy, get your voicemails transcribed for you for free. Win at life, be merry

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10 Tips to Manage That Cash Flow

Managing your money can be a difficult job. We are raised in a society where Television, billboards, and your Local Amway or Tupperware neighbor are trying to tell you to BUY BUY BUY. Although buying is always fun and often time a necessity, it can lay a serious dent in that bank account of yours. Here are 10 tips that will help you manage your money and make it grow.

1. Take the time to examine how you already interact with your money (are you careful, carefree, or just a big baller?).

2. Track where you are at the moment. You can do this preferably with Microsoft Money. If you don't have Microsoft Money or you don't have the money to buy it you can use an excel sheet or just a plain paper journal. The main thing that you want to keep track of is your NET WORTH. This is done by calculating all of the money that you have going out, all of the money that you have coming in, how much you currently owe people or people currently owe you, and how much you have currently in all of your savings, checking, 401k, stocks etc.

3. Since you have a good understanding of where you are currently it is time to plan for the future. Set financial goals for you to reach. Examples would be save x amount for college fund or save x amount per month to buy that plasma you have always wanted.

4. Make those hard choices correctly. When considering if you should buy something take into consideration the want vs. need factor. Are you buying this item because you need it, or because you want it?

5. Never be late on any of your bills. Your credit is your life and if you lower that credit by only a couple points you're looking at a couple hundred dollars a month difference on that new mortgage or 50 dollars difference a month on that new car you want to buy.

6. Use your log Always, as much as you think you're a brainiac you can't remember all those transactions and debts in your head.

7. Don't be too cheap that one day you go all out and splurge. Find yourself a comfortable middle ground between being stingy and being careless.

8. Just say NO, to debts that is. Have as little debts as possible, the only debt you should have is a mortgage that is comfortable (don't buy your dream house that will bankrupt you and will get foreclosed on when it is time for it to adjust, use this awesome tool from CNN to figure out how much house you can afford).

9. Plan your retirement and do it correctly. It is easy to get caught up in the now and think that you can live off pennies later on. Make sure you give yourself some room to breathe in the later years

10. Shop around! When you buy something take the time to shop around. This includes buying your house. Just make sure you are in constant guard of your credit. You should get a good idea after 2-3 places that you've gone too. Anything more than that and your credit will take a big hit. Remember, the more you get your credit pulled, the lower it will go!

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Body Fat: Check Yo' Self

If you are like me in anyway, your bathroom mirror is probably completely defiled by scotch tapings of your weekly body fat chart. What is a weekly body fat chart? a Weekly body fat chart is used to keep track of your weekly body fat, lean mass and optimal weight. This chart (that i made from scratch) will show you if you've been naughty with them Chipotle Burritos or nice with that cardboard excuse for a meal. Download the chart here After you download the file just replace the red numbers on there with your numbers.

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