There are good health reasons to cut down on caffeine. But the most important is not to be a slave of “Big Caffeine”. These heartless corporations will put their stores up in every location. They will use subliminal advertising to make you think that caffeine binges are cool. A culture will be created where caffeine teetotallers are social outcasts.

I overcame these hurdles and my sleep problems solved, except for the random nights of exam stress and/or audit stress (should I use pink files or blue files?) Unfortunately, the result was that I developed ridiculous caffeine insensitivity. Even, de-caffeinated coffee will keep me awake.

Yet, I still love/worship Starbucks. How do you reconcile that with a caffeine intolerance? By buying Starbucks shares and drinking caffeine free Diet Coke.

The least-manly drink ever.

But what about the small, seemingly insignificant things that you do/are that wouldn’t usually get talked about? I came up with this idea four years ago. My original list was:

1. I hold doors for people
2. I remember names
3. I remember birthdays

I’m revisiting this idea because I want to examine how I have changed. I’ve also run out of other interesting things to talk about on this blog. So, do I still do these things?

I hold doors for people
Probably less so these days. It’s due to the crazed rush I usually in. I’m more likely to shove you out of the way onto the tube. Old ladies, you have been warned.

I remember names
Less again. This idea stemmed from reading “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. I used to religiously write down new peoples’ names in my diary. I once mentioned to a friend that we had met three months ago to this day and showed her name in the diary. She wasn’t impressed. It’d be a useful habit to pick up again. It’d be easier if I didn’t work in a firm of 1000+ employees.

I remember birthdays
Interesting. I used to have store friend’s birthday’s on my phone with handy reminder. This worked well until my phone was stolen and I realised that paper backups still have their uses. Now I have a separate birthday calendar on Google Calendar. It’s saved forever (in Google’s servers I trust), except I never bother to check it. Don’t expect any happy birthday text messages soon.

Three Little Things 2009

1. I don’t sit down on the fold-down seats on the Underground during rush hour. On every carriage on the Underground, there are 8 fold-down seats that strictly shouldn’t be used when the train is packed full of passengers. I don’t blame those who have choose to sit down. The tube journeys on a summer’s day are horrible and a seat is a welcome respite. I admit, I do get jealous. But I choose to make the journey a little more bearable by standing up instead of sitting down. Of course, I can never sit down again after making this statement
2. If you injure your ankle, arm, eyeball or liver, I’ll ask if it was the left or right side. It seems like the obvious thing to ask.
3. I remember the simple events in your life, and ask how they turned out. Something like, “remember you mentioned a year ago that you wanted to buy a blue tortoise, how did that turn out”.

I’ve had enough of setting myself up to fail. Please add the “Three Little Things That Define You”. It doesn’t have to be an action. It can be a fun fact, object you own, personality quirk, interesting crimes – anything, as long as it is small.

These were the tactics that I used to beat Graham:

• Brutal consistency – wherever I was, whatever the time, and no matter how much audit work I had done, I ran. However, I did discover that I develop a rain allergy while I ran. Brutal consistency became a quiet cowardice.
• Nike New Balance Trainers – I like the big “N”.
• Graham’s two knee injuries – perhaps the most successful tactic. I claim full credit.
• Counting - the mad rush to catch the bus/train/DLR/audit work papers was counted as a mile run. This made up 99% of the distance covered.

The highlight
Running through Bath on a cool spring evening after a hard day of audit. Admiring how the historic houses looked so much better than my purple apartment. Eating the room service that awaited at the hotel.

The lows
Running up the hill in Greenwich park. I stopped 4 times on my first attempt. 4 minutes of hell that only ended when I reached the canine waste bin. My fastest time was when it rained really hard. Apparently, Lord Sebastian Coe used to use the same hill for training. It was no consolation.

But the running challenge was a pyrrhic victory as the graphs were produced using Graham’s superior Excel skills. I tried to recreate the graphs myself and gave up after two hours. I missed a planned session because of it. This morning, I came up with the genius idea of using Graham’s perfectly good graph and just apply the cosmetic changes myself, which was to change the cell colours from white to transparent.

And what of the £50 prize money? I decided it was unfair to accept this after (causing) Graham’s knee injuries.

• Deptford’s undeserved bad reputation
• the fridge that only gets cleaned every six months
• guests having to feed themselves because of said fridge
• my refusal to stock any coffee because of the expense
• refusing to talk about anything other than accounting rules and convention

Then I realised that it was because no-one knows how to get here.

177 Bus
The bus to get when running late for church (i.e. every week). It is based on the latest conceptual Swedish design of “tillbaka-tillbaka”, which means that the front of the bus looks like the back, and the back is the back.

The alternative translation of “tillbaka” in the original Hebrew means: lazy-arsed photographer who couldn’t be bothered to cross the road.

453 Bus

Introducing the Mercedes-designed Bendy Bus. Lewis Hamilton would prefer to drive this at the Grand Prix – except he doesn’t have a bus licence.

Could a double-decker version be made of the bendy bus? That would be cool.

53 Bus

Winner of the “Least Objectionable Bus of the Year Award 1973″. Features the latest in anti-finger trap technology on the bell.

The 53 bus has played an important role in the history of English literature. The same red is used on the cover of the GCSE poetry anthology. It was also where Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra had the inspiration, wrote, published and produced the audiobook for Don Quixote. The original bookstore and recording studio can still be found at the back of the bus.

DLR (Docklands-Liechtenstein Railway)

This driver-less train is powered by the latest Lithuanian technology. It’s built from the finest glass from Luton and steel from Luxembourg’s gold mines.

Unfortunately, these driver-less trains cannot be used on the London Underground because it entirely eliminates the gap between the train and the platform.

*Disclaimer

James Huang accepts no responsibility for the factual accuracy of this blog post, nor for any injury suffered (physical or mental) during it’s reading. Any complaints should be directed to Ronaldo on 07777777777. Your statutory rights may or may not be affected. Speak to a lawyer.

The sequel to "Sleep Challenge" was born over the weekend: Sleep Challenge II: The Hundred Mile Challenge. My friend, Graham, and I have started jogging training. The first person to jog 100 miles wins £50. As ever, refer to the link for our progress.

Man-pride and money is at stake, so I expect this challenge to be hard fought. It’ll be useful training for the half-marathon and the day when expense cutbacks mean that we will have to run to the clients instead of using the train.

For the record, I woke up within 30 seconds of the alarm 27 out of 34 times. It was pretty exhausting at the start but it got easier towards the end. Some days I woke up before the alarm. My body clock adjusted to expect 8 (ish) hours of sleep a night.

Evolution of the Sleep Challenge Spreadsheet:
Written by Andrew

Week 1 – Wanting a way to easily streamline the updating and cross-monitoring, we set up this online shared spreadsheet system.
Week 2 – To streamline efforts and increase success chance, we ended up making our new habits identical. Same goals and targets.
Week 3 – To increase motivation, we implemented a scoring system against each other. Winner gets food/money/clean-clothes.
Week 4 – We combined the scoring system to a joint scoring system. We only get a joint point if we BOTH wake up within thirty seconds, but no points at all if either one of us fails to wake up in time. Thus we will put more importance on encouraging the other person to wake up, and also increased motivation from not wanting to make the team fail.

Some pointers

• Nothing like public shame as a motivation.
• Andrew and I changed from a competitive to a co-operative scoring system halfway though. However, this was less of a motivation. Also, there was an incentive to be dishonest so that the other side wasn’t let down.
• Ultimately, we would only deceive ourselves if we cheated on the sleep challenge.
• I immediately went back to the pattern of snoozing when the challenge ended.

Where now?

Some other challenge ideas:

• 3 MITs – complete the three "most important tasks" everyday.
• Zero information diet
• Zero fat diet
• The Batman Challenge – one act of vigilante justice everyday
• 100 Mile Challenge – 100 miles of running a month
• Punctuality Challenge – Don’t be late, ever.

It’s been refined to include the following:

• Totals – now’s it’s more like a team challenge. This encourages mutual motivation.
• A target – something to aim for
• Rewards  – something to look forward to
• Punishment – something to fear

If anyone has any ideas for better punishments, please leave a comment below.

I can look forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. No doubt I will want to have a long lie in after a week of having my sleep cut short.

This is actually a bad habit. I feel tired during the week when I need the energy. On the weekends I waste several hours of my precious free time. How do I change?

I’ve been having conversations about habit change with my friend Andrew. We’ve both been inspired by the "4 Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferris. There was a chapter devoted to habit change. I decided to use those principles to achieve two aims:

Be out of bed 30 seconds after the alarm goes off
Sleep for at least 8 hours and only 8 hours

The principles come from the writer of the Zen Habits website: 13 Things to Avoid When Changing Habits

The main principles were:

Keep it simple
Do it for 30 days
Write it down
Make it public

Andrew and I have decided to try for the only one of the habit changes first. You can go to this link and track our progress over the next 30 days.

So far, we are failing miserably!