I smoked for many years of my life. It’s a terrible habit but one I just couldn’t kick. It annoyed me that I never had the will power strong enough to give up for good.

I decided to think about what actually drives me currently. It’s a mixture of two things, accomplishing goals and financial reward. They both seem to fit so well with giving up smoking but why hadn’t they worked before ?

I never had a constant reminder before of how much I was saving by not smoking. I also had never written a web app in PHP. Combine the two together and you have my latest creation, Smoke Free.

With Smoke Free it keeps it simple.

How it works

1. Sign up for an account.
2. Add the date you gave up smoking.
3. Add what incentives you would like e.g. A new laptop
4. Check you page frequently to see how you are progressing to reach your goal by kicking the habit!

If you would like to try it out, head on over to Smoke Free and sign up for an account. It’s all completely free. Feedback would be great also.

The sheer amount of decisions we need to make on a daily basis is overwhelming. There are big ones, huge ones and tiny ones. If you don’t make the choice about the decision your just procrastinating. Pro-longing the inevitable and increasing your stress levels. You know your going to have to make the decision at some point.

Recently I’ve found myself asking a lot of questions such as “Should I do this ?”, “Can I do this faster a different way” and “If I do this, how does it benefit me ?”. I’ve tried to work them out solely in my head, but it never really worked.

So I created a new way, a way that works for me. Get a pen and paper. Use the old school method of pro’s and con’s. A great rule is to just write whatever comes into your head, you can clean it up later if you feel some parts are wrong or unwarranted.

If you read it over and over again, you’ll soon release the correct decision for you at that time. You’ll also start thinking of methods of ‘bettering’ how to solve the problems that lead you to the inital question.

I’ve actually gotten to the stage now where I have a post-it note at my desk that simply says

Can I do this another way in 15 minutes.

It helps me a lot, why not try it.

I recently view a TED talk by Ken Robinson on how education is killing creativity. It’s something that’s really got me thinking. Not so much about my own educational stand point at the moment or in the future, but about my children’s education. I don’t have any children yet but if I play my cards right, my girlfriend may allow it one day

Back to the point. The point that Ken made was that education currently is pretty unfocused. It’s been very unchanged really since the industrial revolution. We are placing our kids into education for let’s sat 12 years of public education. You have your 1st class to 6th class and your 1st year to 6th year of public schooling in Ireland.

That’s 12 years. 12 years! In that time I’ve noticed a complete change in my industry. In fact IT is ever changing it’s goal posts within the space of 1-2 years. Even the larger picture, the way the world has changed in the last 10 years is colossal. I don’t think anyone can even predict accurately where the world is going to stand in 5 years.

Yet we have a set structure and we have planned out what we will teach these children over the next 12 years. Amazing. Worryingly amazing.

Ken also goes on to talk about a choreographer called Gillian Lynne. She did Cats the musical, Phantom of the Opera and I’m sure plenty of others. I had never heard of her before, but her story opened my eyes. She was in school in the 30′s. The school had thought she had a learning disorder due to her continued fidgeting in class and lack of attention in her studies. What we would now assume as ADHD.

Gillian is brought home and a doctor is called. Of course ADHD wasn’t invented then so this couldn’t have been the diagnosis. Instead the doctor asked for the mother and him to leave the room to view what Gillian would do. Low and behold, Gillian jumped down of the counter and danced away to the music on the radio.

Two out comes could have happened here. 1. Gillian could have been placed in a dancing school and went on to create some of the most amazing works of art there are today. To go down in history for her work. 2. She could have been stuck on medication and told her to calm down.

Pretty extreme case, but yea, it’s definitely got me thinking…. are we educating our kids properly ?

Yes, yes, it’s finally that time of year. I’m heading back with my wonder girlfriend to Spain for our yearly holiday. This one for some reason seems like it’s been long over due. Totally looking forward to it.

This holiday there’s a few differences I want to undertake. First of all, I love to read when I’m on holidays. Yet I never seem to bring the right books. This year shall be different! I’ve outlined the books I’m bringing that I know I’m going to love below.

I also want to do some traveling this year. The apartment we go to is near Estepona which is located about 20/25 minutes away from Mabella. I’m not a great fan of Marbella, which is very very tourist driven. Not good. I have however been recommended to check out a website, Virtual Tourist. There’s some really great ideas in there of day trips to see different, more hidden treats that the south of Spain has to offer.

The Holiday Bookshelf

Delivering Happiness

Delivering Happiness – A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose - By Tony Hsieh

This is a book written by the founder of zappos.com Tony Hsieh. It’s written through his eyes which is something that I love. It takes you through how he made it as an entrepreneur from starting with small projects to how he finally launched the success that is Zappos today.

There’s a lot of hype on the web about this book and it seems like everyone is recommending it. I’ll write up a review once I’m done. There’s a great synaopsis of the book by Tony himself which you can see here

This book isn’t released in UK/Ireland yet I don’t believe, but if you scour the web you should be able to get yourself a copy pretty easily.

Getting Real – 37 Signals

Getting Real

This will be my second read from the guys at 37signals. I have recently read their other, more recent book, ReWork. It was probably one of the best books I’d bought in a long time. I’d recommend it to anyone. I have more information about that in a previous blog post here “Grab some reworking perspective”

This book is more focused on the software development side of the business in comparison to Rework. I think I would enjoy this one more with my IT background through. I’ve heard lots of recommendations about it.

As with all of the 37 Signals books, if you read/subscribe to their blog, all of the information that’s contain in their books is readily available their. Their blog is called Signal Vs Noise.

4 Hour Work Week

The 4-hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich - By Tim Ferriss

I’ve been following Tim Ferriss for sometime now. I found him through following Kevin Rose online (The founder of digg.com).  I was actually in the Easons book shop in Dundrum hunting around for a holiday read in case my other books didn’t arrive in time and I spotted this.

I’ve never read a book by Tim Ferriss before, but I understand what he’s about. He’s an angel investor who basically developed his own method of life hacking. I’m really looking forward to reading this one.

You can read up more on Tim Ferriss if you wish here.