5 Ways To Get More Work Done At Home

When you work in an office you generally get paid for your time.

If you work at home either you’re working for yourself, or you’re working on some venture of your own outside work hours.

So if you dick around and don’t get anything done, you achieve nothing.  Not even a paycheck.

Most homes are full of distractions.  Most people like distractions more than work.

Another hard day at the office

This is why most people don’t achieve much at home.

Follow the 5 simple methods below and you will achieve more.

Stick To An Hourly Schedule

Work for 1 hour on 1 task, then move onto something different, even if it’s a related task.  This gives you impetus to do as much as you can in an hour and minimises time wasting.

Turn The Internet Connection Off

Stops you mindlessly surfing the web and disguising it as research.  Do what you can without the web, then hit the net after.

Buy A Plain Pad & Pencil

Plot out bigger picture ideas away from the computer.  A plain pad and pencil will help to free your mind and get creative.

Take A Break

It’s easy to get tunnel vision at home.  Take 5 minutes every hour or so to get some fresh air, cup of tea or brief change of scenery.

Get Rid Of The Remote Control

Without this you are far less likely to turn on the TV.  Not that you should even consider turning the TV on.  Unless there’s football showing of course ;-)

Go From Hater To Good Vibes Creator In 5 Minutes

Why do we get so attached to being pissed with people? So pleased that something is going to jar us for the rest of our days?

How often have you heard people say…

‘I won’t ever speak to him again’.

Go From Hater To Good Vibes Creator In 5 Minutes
Laters haters

‘I can’t even think about her without wanting to tear my hair out’.

‘I think about that idiot every day, I’ll never get over what he did to me’.

Ultimately, no matter how badly we’ve been insulted, offended or mistreated, taking solace in the fact will just prolong the misery.

But there can be a strange pleasure in holding a grudge – somehow it gives us a feeling that they we are fighting back, not taking things lying down.

Fine, but what do we actually stand to gain from it?

If we’re strong enough, thick skinned enough or got other cool stuff of our own going on to not let it bother us, we let it go, move on and perhaps even get some benefit from the situation.

Like handing in a crucial report or finishing a big presentation, letting go of past angers or festering ill takes a weight off your mind, leaving you free to focus and concentrate on getting the positive stuff done.

Plus you never burn your bridges – the idiot who offended you yesterday maybe the guy who offers you a major opportunity tomorrow…so long as you’re still speaking to him.

Quality Quinoa Recipes – Super Food, Super Fast

Don’t you love the predictably of food marketing?

Find a healthy, plentiful and relatively untapped food like Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) and there’s only ever going to be one label for it – ‘super food’.

What exactly qualifies entry into the now bulging super food category is anyone’s guess, so whether quinoa is in fact a super food, a wonder crop or the master grain, is a question we’ll leave for another day.

Instead, we’re going to focus on:

What quinoa is and where it comes from
Why it’s nutritionally beneficial for us
How to create quality quinoa recipes that will taste great, impress your friends  and won’t cause you stress in the kitchen.
Then the introductions are over and get onto the main event - how to cook and eat the stuff.

What is quinoa?

Quinoa is a grain like crop that has been eaten the Andean region of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador in South America for over 5000 years.

Alongside its more commonly known compadres, maize and potatoes, it was an essential part of the Inca diet.  So much so, that the Incas believed quinoa was a gift from the Gods and called it ‘the mother grain’.

quinoa recipes
Raw white quinoa seeds

Quinoa seeds are the most commonly eaten part of the plant and come in 3 colours – brown, red and white (more on that later).

They look like cous cous and are cooked in a similar way, by boiling or steaming for between 8-20 minutes, depending on the colour.

You can also eat the leaves, but it’s rare to find them outside the Andes.

A gift from the Gods eh, that’s some recommendation! How does this heavenly gift taste?
If you follow the recipes below, then quinoa is amazing.  If you don’t, it’s disgusting.

Joking of course.  Quinoa is great to cook with – it has a distinctive light, nutty taste, a fluffy texture and a nice al dente bite to it.  Plus it soaks up flavours easily, so it’s great to mix with other foods and dressings.

The white seeds are lighter in flavour and take less time to cook, the brown are nuttier and the black the nuttiest still.  The difference in taste between the 3 is quite subtle, but it’s there.

Crudely speaking, quinoa is similar to cous cous, but for me it’s a more flavoursome, tasty and versatile option than the cous cous available in my local stores.

Sounds good, what makes it a healthy choice?
Firstly it’s both high in protein and it’s a complete protein – which is unusual amongst plantfoods.  Grains like rice or wheat don’t contain the amino acid lysine, but quinoa does, making it complete.

It’s also high in magnesium, phosphorous, calcium and manganese, very low in sodium and cholesterol and is a complex carbohydrate.

Plus it’s gluten free and usually good for people with food allergies

For full nutritional information,  check out this info which comes from the USDA’s National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, so you can trust it (we hope)!

Where can I buy it and do I have to take out a bank load to afford it?

You’ll find it in any decent health food store and also in an increasing number of supermarkets.

It’s not particularly expensive, though does cost a little more than white rice or cous cous.

If it’s so great why don’t more people eat it?

Good question, my guess would be that it’s just not that well known.

It’s never really been cultivated in the U.S., there’s a small amount grown in Canada, but most comes from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.  I think as a result it’s never received the marketing attention that other grains or cereals have.

Its popularity is growing and in my experience of cooking it for family and friends, it’s one of those foods that as soon as people try it, they love and start cooking with it.

Those food marketers need to get more creative with their product lines as well as their slogans…

Here’s a great, 30-minute quinoa, kale and spinach salad recipe to get you started on the quinoa trail.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll post a series of delicious, fast and simple-to-make quinoa creations.

And before you know it, you’ll be convinced that quinoa really is God’s gift…

The Lemon Detox Day 8 – Flying High

Woke up this morning feeling on top of the world.  Headache’s vanished, got loads of energy and ready to take on the world.

The last two days of toxic release seem to be a thing of the past.  So now I’m clean, and free, flying like a bird in the sky…

And clearly delirious from lack of food, so lets get serious.

Let’s talk about some things that it’s NOT a good idea to do on the fast.

1.  Don’t watch, listen or read about cooking or food.

Sounds obvious, but if you’re anything like me and love your food, you will inevitably spend some time each doing exactly this.

You may not notice that you do in the normal course of events – I know I didn’t – but once you can’t eat anything, you become very aware as soon as any sort of food crosses your radar, even if it’s only virtual.  And it doesn’t help the fast.

2.  Don’t go food shopping, into restaurants or get into conversations with family and friends about what they ate last night.

Again, obvious, but again you’d be surprised how hard it is to avoid all three of the above. And if someone starts blabbing about a meal you’re particularly partial to, or you go into your local Deli which has that cheese/bread/wine you would kill for on special offer, it can be tough.

The guy in the flat two doors down my corridor cooks a mean curry, and the smell brightens up the whole corridor.  Unless your fasting, in which case it makes the corridor very dangerous.

3.  Don’t fantasise about food and what you’ll eat when you finish.

It’s a waste of time and just adds fuel to the fire of your cravings.  If you are hungry and craving some food, try to analyse why it is you’re craving that food.

Are you really hungry or is just an emotional reaction – is it because you’re bored, stressed or want a break from your work or a reward?

Or is it because your regular routine demands that you usually eat at that time?

Whatever it is, by dissecting your thoughts and the reasons behind them you’re a lot less likely to be ruled by them in the future.

I’m sure there are loads more things you shouldn’t do, like getting hammered or visiting brothels, but let’s not focus too heavily on the shouldn’t do’s.

Tomorrow we’ll look at some things that you should do, get the positivity back on the penultimate day.  Which shouldn’t be too hard now should it…

Don’t miss out on Day 9 – What’s The Point Of All This?, where you will learn the secret formula of detox success!

Lemon Detox Day 5 – Listen to Obi Wan Kenobi

May the force be with you.  One of the classic philosophical statements of the 20th century, or just some tosh from Star Wars that Obi Wan said?

Well as many of history’s greatest scholars and sages have been at pains to point out, there is a universal life force that runs through everything.

Call it Chi, call it the Universal Consciousness, call it The Force, call it whatever you like, but getting in touch with it is generally considered to be a good thing.  Just ask Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad or David Icke.

By Day 5 of the lemon detox I feel like I’m more in tune with this life force than usual.

My mind is sharper, colours seem  brighter and bolder.

Everything feels crisper, more alive somehow.  Sounds weird but it’s true.

If you’ve ever had anything like a near death experience, you’ll know the feeling of ultra sensation that immediately follows.  That’s how I feel right about now.

Why is this?  Who knows.

Does everyone feel like this on the detox?  You’d have to ask them.

For me it’s certainly real and I put it down to being physically internally cleaner than I could ever usually imagine, plus being  mentally free of the usual routines and structures that eating inevitably brings.

The usual stop start pattern of work/eat, effort/reward disappears.  And for me this is unintentionally liberating.

Some may say I’m just delirious and talking shit because I haven’t eaten any solid food in 5 days.

If that’s what you’re thinking, I’ve got one thing to say to you -  the force is strong in this one.

Now go and get your light sabre so we can settle this the spiritual way.

Quinoa, Kale & Spinach Salad

This simple, tasty dish combines the nutty taste and texture of quinoa with deep, vibrant vegetables and a tangy citrus edge.

Ingredients

Naturally, the vegetables should all be fresh and bursting with life.

The olive oil, white wine vinegar and any other condiments should be good quality – you’ll get out of the dish what you put into it!

1/2 red onion – finely diced
2 ripe medium sized good quality tomato – diced
5 kale leaves, stalks cut off at the bottom – very finely chopped
1 large handful of baby spinach leaves – finely chopped
Squeeze of limejuice
1 tablespoon good quality white wine vinegar
Salt & pepper

Dressing

1 tablespoon good quality white wine vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon or lime
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Maldon sea salt & freshly ground pepper to taste – approx 1/4 teaspoon salt, few good grinds pepper

Quinoa

1 cup red or black quinoa
1 tablespoon good quality extra virgin olive oil
Maldon sea salt & freshly ground pepper to taste – approx 1/2 teaspoon salt, few good grinds pepper

Instructions

First cook the quinoa.  In a medium saucepan mix the quinoa with 2 cups of water, and then heat on a medium flame until the water starts to boil.  Turn the heat down very low, stir, put the lid on the pan and cook for 15-20 minutes (depending on your cooker and pot, start checking and tasting after 15 minutes).
Now the quinoa is cooking, make the dressing.  Just put all the ingredients in a jam jar with a lid and shake it well.  Leave it to settle.
Once the quinoa is cooked it should be firm – or al dente – to the taste, with white sprouts now protruding from the slightly fluffy grain.  Have a look at it, taste it and when you’re happy it’s done, take the pan off the heat and add the olive oil and salt & pepper, stirring well.
quinoa salad

This is how the cooked quinoa should look...

You need the quinoa to cool for a while – until it’s lukewarm – before you mix it with the vegetables – spread it out onto a plate so it cools more quickly if need be.
Now take the red onions and put them in a large-ish salad bowl (this the bowl you’ll be serving it in, so make it a nice one!) and mix in the lime juice, white wine vinegar, salt & pepper and mix well.
A couple of minutes later add the tomatoes and mix well.
Then wait a couple more minutes before adding the quinoa and mixing well (I’d suggest using your hands).
Now add the dressing, and again, mix well.
If you have time, you can leave the flavours to develop for 10 minutes or so, but if not it doesn’t matter.
Then add kale & spinach, mix well and serve.

How To Argue Less – Volume One

I like to think of myself as a kind hearted and sharing person.  It’s a nice cosy image and one that I’m rather fond of.

I also like to think that marriage is about being understanding, sharing and not letting petty material issues intrude into one of life’s longest and most precious bonds.

Which is all well and good, until I notice that my wife has taken ‘my’ glass from its rightful place in the kitchen into the bedroom.

This glass is exactly, one hundred per cent the same as all the other glasses in the cupboard, but today it’s mine.  No one else should touch, move it, let alone drink from it, because now it is mine.

Why should I care if my wife drinks from the same glass as me?  We’ve been together for over twelve years, regularly sharing bodily fluids of multiple descriptions and I haven’t keeled over and died from any of them yet.

I know why – because that glass is mine.

Glasses...my precious

So when she does have the nerve, the downright disrespect to pick up this glass – which is essentially exactly the same as all the others – and move it into another room, a distance of some five meters or so, what happens to me (the kind hearted, sharing, non materialistic person I described so beautifully earlier)?

I think ‘where the f*^k is my glass, I bet she’s taken it again’.  Irritated, agitated and deeply opinionated, I stomp into the bedroom.

When I locate the glass in the adjoining bathroom (wasting at least 20 seconds looking for it in the bedroom) there’s two things that are fighting for dominance in my understanding, sharing and non-petty mind

Firstly, there’s the agitation, only this time it’s more acute – ‘she’s put it in the f^%king bathroom again!  She’s already got two of her own f&$king glasses here already’

Secondly, there’s a strange feeling of satisfaction, of being secretly pleased with myself that I was right – ‘I knew it, every time says she won’t do it again, but she always does.  I never do that, I have one glass, my glass and stick to that’.

Now, if she happens to be out, I will stew in my own self imposed vexation for a while.

I’m annoyed that I had to walk all the way to the bathroom and more annoyed that she took ‘my’ glass.

I will then make a mental note to bring it up with her, gently and subtly of course, later on.

At the same time, a few millimetres under the surface of my mind I’m playing out the true nature of the reprimand, imagining the small print of the condescending lecture…

‘I told you you’d do it again, it’s not the point that there more glasses in the cupboard, if you leave it there it’ll get smashed one day, I never do things like etc etc’.

If, on the other hand, she is in the house, then the lectures and admonishment will start right away.

How will she react to these criticisms, so worthy and relevant to me, though completely unexpected, unwarranted and unwanted to her?  Will she accept the dubious legitimacy of my claims, feeling forever sorry to have committed such a heinous crime?

The bookmakers would favour a response filled with some cross words and criticisms of her own.  When backed into a corner she, like most people, will fight.  She will fight fire with fire, hitting back at me for something I do that she doesn’t like, or something that I don’t do that she would like.

And then a perfectly futile and needless argument will follow.

Eventually this will subside and I will go back to doing whatever it was I was doing in the first place, but feeling a lot worse for my troubles.  How much worse will depend on the scale of the argument that followed the initial glass taking misdemeanour.

I will also have the pleasure of knowing that I’ve made my wife feel a lot worse than before too – for, let us remember, no apparent reason.

Plus I will be no further down the road of the task that I was meant to be getting on with.

So by loving my glass I will have achieved 3 things…

Made my day less enjoyable
Made my wife’s day less enjoyable
Made my day less productive

And the mad thing is, I will probably blame my wife for all three of them.

Now let’s see, is my vision blurred, impaired or corrupted?

Then maybe I do need my glasses – the kind that will make me see clearly, not the kind to drink out of ;-)

The Lemon Detox Day 11 – Daily Weigh In Results

Welcome to the detox heavyweight championship of the world – in the yellow corner, weighing in at 76 kilos, we have the Accidental Health Nut…

The weight loss aspect is an important part of the detox for most people, myself included.

If you hope to lose weight on the detox, you want to know how effective it is at shifting the pounds.  If you don’t need to lose weight, you want to know that you aren’t going to waste away on the program.

So in the name of scientific research, I weighed myself everyday during the program – and then for another 10 days after I got back from Vipassana meditation, to check out what had happened to any weight that was lost or gained.

Thanks to my trusty Wii Fit, this was very easy – and it also measured  my Body Mass Index (BMI), which takes into account your height and weight to places you in one of 5 categories form severely underweight to obese.

The results are below – as I said in the first day’s post, I was a few kilos over my fighting weight when I started, so it’s interesting to see the results…

Day 1 – 81.5 KG | 25.70 BMI overweight

Day 2 – 80.3 KG |25.34 BMI ideal

Day 3 – 77.5 KG | 24.26 BMI ideal

Day 4 – 77.4 KG | 24.43 BMI ideal

Day 5 – 78.4 KG | 24.74 BMI ideal

Day 6 – 77.1 KG | 24.33 BMI ideal

Day 7 – 76.6 KG | 24.18 BMI ideal

Day 8 – 77.2 KG | 24.36 BMI ideal

Day 9 – 77.6KG | 24.49 BMI ideal

Day 10 – 76.2 KG | 24.05 BMI ideal

So after the 10 day program, I’d lost 5.3 KG – which is a quite a bit for me – but then again my ‘ideal weight’ should definitely be closer to 76KG than 82KG…

Day 21 – 77.4 KG | 24.43 BMI ideal

Day 22 – 76.6 KG |24.18 BMI ideal

Day 23 – 75.2 KG | 23.73 BMI ideal

Day 24 – 75.9 KG | 23.96 BMI ideal

Day 25 – 76 KG | 23.99 BMI ideal

So 2 weeks after the detox I was still roughly the same weight.

Great, I shifted some weight, in particular some fat, and it stayed off.

It’s worth noting that:

1/ For 10 days after the detox I sat the Vipassana Meditation course (so I couldn’t weight in), where I was eating healthily twice per day and not exercising at all.

2/ For the 5 days after that – Days 21 – 25 – I was back home, eating normally and doing 90 mins of Bikram Yoga each day, which is around the same amount of exercise I do most days with yoga and running combined.

And that’s that for this lemon detox experience.

Now I’m onto part 3 of ‘The 30 Day Detox Program’ – 10 days of Bikram Yoga.

Check out The 22 Post MasterClass menu if you’ve missed any of the posts on the lemon detox.

And BTW – I feel superb after 10 days lemon detox followed by 10 days Vipassana meditation!

Lemon Detox Day 3 – Mind Over Fatter

Day 3 and I’ve lost a whopping 3.5 kilos.  Perhaps that tells you I was packing some timber before I started…

Or maybe it’s just that all the accumulated toxins and shit from my colon have finally fulfilled their long awaited appointment with Mr Armitage Shanks.

Feeling quite perky today.  Up at 4.45 am, which could be a legacy of my jetlag, but I prefer to think it’s because now every day I feel like jumping out of bed as if the sun were shining and my life was one long picnic.

In actual fact the weather here is Sydney is decidedly patchy and my life would be better described as munching a quick sandwich in Pret-A-Manger in my lunch hour, rather than a leisurely picnic.

But Pret-A-Manger isn’t half bad -  it’s better than my life being like a half eaten kebab or rat ‘chicken’ burger from KFC.

Did another 60 minute run round the park and back again today.  The runs are getting tougher by the day in terms of energy in the legs, though mentally they seem to be getting easier.  I could easily have run for ages today, but cast my mind back to my Ibiza swimming experience and thought better of it.

It probably doesn’t make much sense, but by Day 3 of the cleanse I’m beginning to feel very clear mentally, so much so that I find that problems or uncomfortable sensations don’t bother me in the they may do usually.

Apart the uncomfortable sensation of being hungry, which like a sailor in a brothel, comes and goes…

Check out Day 4 – Salt No Pepper for the unique lemon detox take on seasoning techniques.

Or go back to The 20 Post MasterClass menu.

And let us know if you think I that my weight loss was down to me eating all the pie-ellas in Ibiza, or the miraculous properties of the detox…

Lemon Detox Day 7 – Nothing Is Forever

Yesterday was a tough day, call it a hump if you like.  I was feeling hungry for the lots of the day, then a headache kicked in and I wasn’t feeling on top of the world.

That’s life though, peaks and troughs.

Sometimes they stretch out over long periods, sometimes you have a few in one day, or more likely you’ve got short and long ones going on at the same time.

The key is to accept that they are all transient, they appear in order to disappear.

Sooner or later the worst of  times will get better, just as the best of times will inevitably level off into something less great.

That’s the nature of life, the way of the world.

So today I woke up feeling better, got on and did plenty of work, but felt a headache creeping up on me again.

Perhaps it was due to over exercise, or maybe even drinking too much water – funny as it may sound, you can drink too much water and it can lead to dizziness, nausea, comas and potentially even death!

But more likely down it’s to my body expelling toxins.

So I decided to go for a gentle run to try to clear it and when I got home an hour later, I felt great.

So what does this tell us?  I think it says the headache is mainly due to toxins coming out and when we exercise we expel more toxins through our respiratory system and skin (via sweating), so this helps to alleviate the head pain.

This crackpot theory is backed up by my earlier ‘research’ into running and exercising whilst nursing/trying to escape from a hangover.

Exercise is THE cure for booze overindulgence.

Forget fry ups, Alka Seltzer or Bloody Marys (actually, hair of the dog is always a good one ;-) ), properly sweating it out in the open air is, honest guv, the best thing in the world for a hangover

But note, sweating it out doesn’t mean a 5 minute gentle jog, but running, cycling or playing football hard for at least 3o mins and pushing on through the initial pain barrier!  You will reap what you sow…

Check out the reaping of the detox rewards on Day 8 – Flying High

Lemon Detox Day 4 – Salt No Pepper

After a day’s break from the salt water flush, I thought I’d better get the old plumbing flowing again with some more Epsom Salts.

And let me tell you, they certainly do their job.

If they came with a money back guarantee no one would be asking for their money back.  They’d be too busy stuck in the toilet.

A charming topic to be sure, but it’s worth mentioning as it definitely helps with the cleansing process (which is what the lemon detox is all about) to keep the bowels moving.  Without wanting to put you off your cornflakes, it helps to get all the stuff off the colon wall and out the other end.

Concentration is at a major high level now, I’m getting through more work in a day than I ever would if I was eating.

Up at 5am, some mediation, bit of work for an hour, some chit chat with the Mrs, then solid work from 8am to 3pm, quick siesta till 4, 20 mins swim, 20 mins sauna, then work again from 5pm through till 11pm.

Which is the crazy time the Mrs gets in from work tonight…so it seems she ends up working that hard without being on a lemon detox, not that working till the middle of the night is necessarily a good thing…

And as most of us know, when you work from home you actually get more work done.

But of course bosses generally hate it when you work from home, thinks you’ll do sweet FA.  Better off hitting the office where you can talk rubbish, surf the net and sit in never-ending meetings all day!

Lemon Detox Day 2 – Me Hungry? Oh No, Never…

Just been out for a run, come back and my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.

Currently necking a load of the old Lemon Spice juice, loading it up with maple syrup in a somewhat futile effort to quell the calorie cravings.

I’ve not really felt hungry like this on the Master Cleanse before, but so what, the past can never be counted on to be an accurate indication of the future.

Well, in a broad sense it can, we can guess that things will move in cycles and often predict things that are likely to happen (e.g. autumn will follow winter, Obama will never be able to live up to the expectations placed on him, drink too much and you’ll have a hangover), but the details are never certain.

Which is why life is such fun, we never know what’s going to happen next.

For some people this is exactly what freaks them out about life, and why they won’t try things like this crack pot diet or jumping out of aeroplanes.   Lots of people don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen next.  The trouble with this is we never know what’s going to happen, no matter how hard we try to control it.

Which means we’re best off embracing it.  Welcome the uncertainty, enjoy the endless possibilities and laugh at whatever life throws up for you.  Even if you’re starving hungry whilst you do it.