Building and maintaining a strong social network is a major key to success.

This C2G Challenge aims to rekindle old friendships and strengthen bonds that have been worn down by time and neglect…

Popular Kids

In high school most people wanted to be part of the popular in-crowd. We all wanted to be invited to the right parties, have access to the cool crowds, and know the latest gossip…

As we transition to our adult and professional lives, this craving for social acceptance does not dwindle much. This is for good reason.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of people you know and the amount of opportunities you have a shot at.

Large social networks provide opportunities to jobs, love interests, fun things to do and many more.

Unfortunately, social networks do not flourish with out work and a commitment to activities that grow them. This is the reason behind today’s challenge…

The Challenge

I’ve lost touch with many of my old friends from high school and college. My goal is to reconnect with these people who have made my life great.

My challenge is as follows:

• Everyday, I will  reach out and have two, 5-15 minute, conversations with old friends or contacts from my past. 5 attempts per day.*
• I will make an effort to wish all friends a happy birthday with a phone call or a facebook message.
• I will actively make attempts to connect opportunities with people in my social network.

*If my call goes unanswered, I will leave a pleasant voice mail and a request for a call back.

The goal of each call is to catch up, attempt to match opportunities, and brighten someone’s day.

Start date: September 21st, 2009
End date: October 21st, 2009

This challenge should be relatively easy. The only hindrance will be the potential discomfort of calling someone for no real reason other than to catch up.

I’ll be updating randomly about my progress and thoughts on this challenge. I encourage you to join me in this effort to reconnect with old friends

C2GC: Early Rising Update

It’s been over three weeks of the C2G Early Rising Challenge. I’ve slackened up a bit and over slept a few times, by choice, but I felt it was for best for my overall energy level.

Waking up early has definitely proved its benefits to me and I plan on practicing it past the thirty day mark.

If you have yet to attempt rising early, I recommend giving it a shot. Try it for a week. Consciously attempt to knock out a major action item before you would normally even wake up, it’s pretty enlightening.

C2GC: Ending Information Addiction

The C2GC of Ending Information Addiction is still proving tough. This may be due to my current circumstances of leveraging the web to build my income and plan out some future career steps.

I have however successfully cut down on my TV time. I am watching under an hour of TV programming daily, almost to no time at all. This however may change with the advent of Football season.

Weekend Reading and Links from around the Web

• The U.S. Tax System Explained with Beer
• Pandora - Awesome, free, web radio that finds music based on your preferences.
• Evernote - Allows you to record and remember anything, everywhere. I can jot notes to my phone, clip web media and store files on the web and access them on my phone or by computer. Great organizational tool.
• 8 Ways to Spot Emotional Manipulation
• Consciousness, Qualia, and Self – A discussion about what makes us human and how our interpretation of reality differs from insects and other animals.
• Great Passwork… Anything can be accomplished with outstanding team work!

Enjoy your weekend and push some comfort boundaries!

P.S. Don’t forget to remember what it means to be an American today. Our liberties and freedoms are not granted without sacrifice.

C2GC Update

It has been 2 full weeks of the Early Rising Challenge. I am very happy with my ability to stick to this challenge; I have been getting up with no problems almost everyday and do not have to nap much.

Waking up early almost doubles my productivity hours from my previous schedule of waking up between 10am-12pm. The increase in hours allows me time to work on this blog, exercise, study and prepare a delicious breakfast.

I wish I was having the same success with the C2GC of Ending Information Addiction. My ability to completely cut out internet surf time and non-essential information updates has improved,  but not nearly to the level I was hoping. It is encouraging that I have made forward progress, now I just need to push harder.

The problem lies when I have short spans of time between my next scheduled actions. If I have 15 or 30 minutes to kill before my next action item, it is very easy and gratifying to surf web. My goal is to use those free moments as productivity bursts.

These 15-30 minute productivity bursts will constitute reading a book, cleaning/organizing my living space, making a phone call to a neglected friend or whatever short-task I can find.

Hopefully these productivity bursts will be the key to furthering my recovery from information addiction.

Weekend Reading Suggestions

Here are a few good links I’ve come across on the web. The range of topics is pretty random, it is only limited to what I find interesting and potentially beneficial. Please share if you have some good ones!

101 ways to be stress free

How Police Interrogation Works – I strongly recommend reading this.

47 Lifestyle Design Resources – Check out these if you are interested in Lifestyle Design. It will become a prevelant topic here.

16 Things I Wish They Taught Me In School

Tyler Durden’s Words of Wisdom

Enjoy your weekend!

How much time are you spending per week reading the latest news or gossip about your friends? How many times a day do you check email or make yourself available to the world at a moments notice? How often is this information actually instrumental in achieving our goals?

The largest addiction that is afflicting America today is Information Addiction.

The internet is the single biggest waste of my time, followed closely by TV, and I am going to do something about it. This idea was inspired by the book 4 Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris, and the blog 30 sleeps.

This C2G Challenge is aimed at ending the information overload and addiction that is consuming so many hours of my daily life…

Starting: August 24th, 2009
Ending: Septmber 23rd, 2009

I will be putting in to effect my limited information diet. I will live by the following guidelines:

• I will only respond to emails twice a day, unless it is of critical importance. Once in the morning and once in the evening.
• I will only allow 30 minutes of internet surf and chat time. This will take place after I have finished all my action items for the day.
• I will minimize my news reading and watching. To stay current, I will use face to face dialogue.
• No more TV reruns. There is no way you could ever convince me that watching reruns is not a severe waste of time.
• Limit all TV watching to 1 program per day and use DVR to cut out time wasted on advertising.
• I will focus the new time freed up by actively targeting and pursuing my short term and long term goals.

Ironically, this blog is a source of information that feeds the addiction. However, since it is helping me grow as a person and become more effective overall, the time spent  here is acceptable.

I will be updating my progress on this C2G challenge weekly along with my experiences with my Early Rising efforts.

Please share your methods and strategies to limit the time you waste on information consumption in the comments section.

Early Rising Update

Well, after the first week of the Early Rising challenge, I am a little surprised.

Waking up has been easier than I predicted. It may because of the fresh new outlook and motivation or some other unknown, possibly short term, factor.

One thing I have noticed is that waking up is a bit more pleasant when I started using my cell phone as an alarm. The old alarm sound, which has been pissing me off daily for about the past 10 years, may have conditioned me to start the day thoroughly annoyed with the WAH-WAH-WAH sound it makes.

At any rate, as expected my days seem substantially more productive. I can get more done, cook good meals and carry out my day in a less rushed manner.

3 more weeks left until I will allow myself to change the schedule. Maybe I’ll decide to keep it.

Weekend Reading Suggestions

Here are some links from around the web that I find worthwhile and interesting. Please share more in the comments section!

The mouse and the Rectangle – A study on conditioning and thought process

How to Craft a Killer Elevator Pitch

How to Eat optimally for Massive Size and Strength

Common Misconceptions

How to Detect Lies

Keg Mobile

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Enjoy your weekend!

For many people, they wake up to allow just enough time to throw on their work gear and sprint out the door. Some have the luxury of waking up leisurely with their wishes. Others allow their hangover to dominate their wakefulness.

One of the biggest productivity boosters is knocking out your major tasks before  lunch. The bigger the head start on your day, the more you can accomplish.

How much more effective can you be if you accomplish your tasks before some people are crawling out of bed? I will attempt to find out.

My Challenge:

I will wake up and start my day at 6:00am every weekday for 30 days.

Start Date: August 17th, 2009
End Date: September 16th, 2009

To some,  this may seem a pretty low set goal. To me, it will be pushing my comfort zone. At this time I have no obligations or commitments to force me me up in the morning. My rising will be solely dependent on my will to get my personal goals done.

Each week I will document my experience with early rising and the impact it has on my life within these 30 days. The updates will be added to this post.

If you too are a late riser, please join me in this challenge and share your experience…

Even if you already rise early, attempt to get up 30 minutes earlier and do something that takes you one step closer to achieving a goal or building a positive relationship. It could be as simple as writing a nice note to someone you admire, taking a 20 minute jog or making a healthy breakfast.

Little things, done everyday, become great over time. Write that down.

Here is more information on how to become an early riser.