DON’T COPY

There’s a formula for failure, though. The problem with this sort of copying is it skips understanding — and understanding is how you grow.

DECOMMODITIZE YOUR PRODUCT

If  you’re successful, people will try to copy what you do. It’s just a fact of life. But there’s a great way to protect yourself from copycats: Make you part of your product or service. Inject what’s unique about the way you think into what you sell. Decommoditize your product. Make it something no one else can offer.

Zappos.com – Customer Satisfaction

Polyface – sell clean meat to families

PICK A FIGHT

Dunkin’ Donuts vs. Starbucks

Audi vs. Traditional luxury car brands

Apple vs. Microsoft (&PC)

7UP vs. Coca Cola

Having an enemy gives you a great story to tell customers, too.

UNDERDO YOUR COMPEITION

This sort of one-upping, Cold War mentality is a dead end.

Flip does not have big screen, no photo-taking ability, no lots of stuff

Don’t shy away from the fact that your product or service does less. Highlight it. Be proud of it. Sell it as aggressively as competitors sell their extensive feature lists.

FOCUS ON YOU INSTEAD OF THEY – WHO CARES WHAT THEY’RE DOING?

Focus on competitors too much and you wind up diluting your own vision.

Reasons to quit:

It’s easy to put your head down and just work on what you think needs to be done. It’s a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why.

Workflow:

• Why are you doing this?
• What problem are you solving?
• Is this actually useful?
• Are you adding value?
• Too much ketchup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance.
• Will this change behavior?
• Don’t add something unless it has a real impact on how people use your product.
• Is there an easier way?
• Problems are usually pretty simple. We just imagine that they require hard solutions.
• What could you be doing instead?
• What can’t you do because you’re doing this? For small team with constraints: if you do A, can you still do B and C before April? If not, would you rather have B or C instead of A?
• Is it really worth it?
• Is this meeting worth pulling six people off their work for an hour?

Good enough is fine

Find a judo solution, one that delivers maximum efficiency with minimum effort.

When good enough gets the job done, go for it.

Quick wins:

Momentum fuels motivation.

The longer something takes, the less likely it is that you’re going to finish it.

Excitement comes from doing something and then letting customers have at it.

Try to break work down to small pieces… You want a steady stream of good news.

When there’s something new to announce every two weeks, you energize your team and give your customers something to be excited about.

Go to sleep

If it becomes a constant, the costs start to mount:

• Stubbornness
• Lack of creativity
• Diminished morale:
  You lose motivation to attack the big problems
• Irritability:
  Your ability to remain patient and tolerant is severely reduced when you’re tired.

Your estimates suck

Keep breaking your time frames down into smaller chunks. Instead of one twelve-week project, structure it as twelve one-week projects. Instead of guesstimating at tasks that take thirty hours or more, break them down into more realistic six-to-ten-hour chunks. Then go one step at a time.

Long lists don’t get done

There’s a better way. Break that long list down into a bunch of smaller lists. For example, break a single list of a hundred items into ten lists of ten items.

Yes, you still have the same amount of stuff left to do. But now you can look at the small picture and find satisfaction, motivation and progress.

Make tiny decisions

Once ego and pride are on the line, you can’t change your mind without looking bad. The desire to save face trumps the desire to make the right call. And then there’s inertia too: The more steam you put into going in one direction, the harder it is to change course.

Embrace Constraints

Constraints are advantages in disguise.

 Shakespeare – limitations of sonnets

Ernest Hemingway & Reymond Carver use simple, clear language to deliver maximum impact.

Southwest – Flies only Boeing 737s -> Every employee can work any flight. All plane parts fit all of its planes.

Even when you have more resources and people, you should still force constraints – only one or two people working on a product at a time. Keep features to a minimum.

Build a half product, not a half-ass product

You can turn a bunch of great ideas into a crappy product real fast by trying to do them all at once. You just can’t do everything you want to do and do it well. You have limited time, resources, ability, and focus. It’s hard enough to do one thing right. Trying to do ten things well at the same time? Forget about it.

Start at the epicenter

There’s stuff:

• you could do
• you want to do
• you have to do (Start point)

 *Notes:

What are the stuff we have to do?

So figure out your epicenter. Which part of your equation can’t be removed?

 *Notes:

Cook4You:

• What are the stuff we have to do?
• Variety of food (a menu of 10 dishes that we can switch around) Do we have that already?
• How much should we price each item?
• How do we insure food quality is still there after a week? 如何保证新鲜?
• How do we market ourselves? How do we get people to trust our product?

 Tripatchers:

•  Profile – What are the asterisk(*) items?
• Maybe it’s a good idea to start with constraints: Location + Serivce Catalog
• Location: New York City – Shanghai
• SC: Photography? Simple show around the city type of service

*/notes

Ignore the details early on:

Details make the difference. But getting infatuated with details too early leads to disagreement, meetings, and delays. You get lost in things that don’t really matter. You waste time on decisions that are going to change anyway. So ignore the details – for a while. Nail the basics first and worry about the specifics later.

  Sharpie vs. Ballpoint pen

Making the call is making progress

You don’t have to live with a decision forever. If you make a mistake, you can correct it later.

Be a curator

You don’t make a great museum by putting all the art in the world into a single room. That’s a warehouse. What makes a museum great is the stuff that’s not on the walls.

It’s the stuff you leave out that matters. Constantly look for the things to remove, simplify, and streamline. Be a curator. Stick to what’s truly essential. Pare things down until you’re left with only the most important stuff. Then do it again. You can always add stuff back in later if you need to.

Throw less at the problem

Watch chef Gorden Ramsay’s Ktichen Nightmares and you’ll see a pattern. The menus at failing restaurants offer too many dishes. The owners think making every dish under the sun will broaden the appeal of the restaurant. Instead it makes for crappy food (and creates inventory headaches).

That’s why Ramsay’s first step is nearly always to trim the menu, usually from thrity-plus dishes to around ten. Think about that. Improving the current menu doesn’t come first. Trimming it down comes first. Then he polishes what’s left.

Focus on what won’t change

The core of your business should bebuilt around things that won’t change.

*Notes

Cook4You: Healthy, Cost Saving, Easy to manage (heat, eat and toss)

Tripatcher: Patch your trip

*/Notes

Industry Examples:

Amazon – Fast/Free Shipping, Great Selection, Friendly Return Policies, and afforadable prices.

37Signals – Speed, Simplicity, ease of use and clarity.

Japanese Automakers – Reliability, affordability, and practicality.

Fashion fades away. When you focus on /permanent/ features, you’re in bed with things that never go out of style.

Tone is in your fingers

Use whatever you’ve got already or can afford cheaply. Then go.

Sell your by-products

Everything has a by-product.

Lumber industry uses sawdust, chips, and shredded wood for synthetic fireplace logs, concrete, ice strengtheners, mulch, particleboard, fuel, and more.

Launch now

launch before everything’s perfect; this approach just recognizes that the best way to get there is through iterations.

Get the chisel out and start making something real. Anything else is just a distraction.

To do great work, you need to feel that you’re making a difference.

You want your customers to say, “This makes my life better.” You want to feel that if you stopped doing what you do , people would notice.

Don’t think it takes a huge team to make that difference either.

Craigslist

Drudge Report

Scratch your own itch (organic ideas)

Build something that you want to use.

• James Dyson – Dyson
• Vic Firth – The Perfect Pair (Drumsticks)
• Bill Bowerman – Nike
• Mary Kay Wagner – Mary Kay Cosmetics

When you build what you need, you can also assess the quality of what you make quickly and directly, instead of by proxy.

Start making something

 

Stanley Kubrick: “Get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.”

Ideas are cheap and plentiful. The original pitch idea is such a small part of a business that it’s almost negligible. The real question is how well you execute.

No time is no excuse

When you want something bad enough, you make the time – regardless of your other obligations. The truth is most people just don’t want it bad enough. Then they protect their ego with the excuse of time.

Draw a line in the sand

Great business have a point of view, not just a product or service.

A strong stand is how you attract superfans.

Whole foods

Vinnie’s Sub Shop

 

Mission Statement Impossible

Truly stand for what you vow for: live it or leave it

Outside money is plan Z

We’re in a service economy now. Service businesses don’t require much to get going. If you’re running a business like that, avoid outside funding.

Spending other’s money has a noose attached:

• You give up control
• “Cashing out” begins to trump building a quality business
• Spending other people’s money is addictive
• It’s usually a bad deal
• Customers move down the totem pole
• Raising money is incredibly distracting

Start a business, not a startup

The problem with this magical place is it’s a fairy tale. The truth is every business, new or old, is goverened by the same set of market forces and economic rules. Revenue in, expenses out. Turn a profit or wind up gone.

 You need a commitment strategy, not an exit strategy

A business without a path to profit isn’t a business, it’s a hobby.

Less mass

Mass is increased by:

• Long-term contracts
• Excess Staff
• Permanent decisions
• Meetings
• Thick process
• Inventory(Physical or mental)
• Hardware, software and technology lock-ins
• Long-term road maps
• Office politics

Rework is a extremely fast and good read. Part of it is Jason’s writing style is easy enough for you to skim through. Finished the entire book on my flight to China.

Notes extracted from my kindle(I’ll post notes one chapters per day):

Learning from mistakes is overated 

Contrast learning from mistakes with learning from your successes. Success gives you real ammunition.

Planning is guessing

Sometimes you need to say, “we’re going in a new direction because that’s what makes sense today.”

It’s OK to wing it . Just get on the plane and go. You can pick up a nicer shirt, shaving cream, and a toothbrush once you get there.

Workaholism

If all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what’s worth extra effort and what’s not.

Enough with “entrepreneurs”

Let’s retire the term “entrepreneur”. It’s outdated and loaded with baggage. It smells like members-only club. Everyone should be encouraged to start his own business, not just some rare breed that self-identifies as entrepreneurs.

So let’s replace the fancy-sounding word with something a bit more down-to-earth. Instead of entrepreneurs, let’s just call them starters. Anyone who creates a new business is a starter. You don’t need an MBA, a certificate, a fancy suit, a briefcase, or an above-average tolerance for risk. You just need an idea, a touch of confidence, and a push to get started.

WOW! Such a great book. Plain and simple. Yet so many good points that this post has almost 5000 words.

Overall, it’s a great read. On the surface it seems to apply to Web App Developers only. The methodology, advice on skill sets (i.e. writing) actually applies to everyone.

The book has a free html version that can be read here.

Stay Lean

Less Mass

The leaner you are, the easier it is to change

Lower Your Cost of Change

Change is your best friend. The more expensive it is to make a change, the less liketly you’ll make it.

When it comes to web technology, change must be easy and cheap. If you can’t change on the fly, you’ll lose ground to someone who can. That’s why you need to shoot for less mass.

The Three Musketeers

Use a team of three for version 1.0

For the first version of your app, start with only three people. That’s the magic number that will give you enough manpower yet allow you to stay streamlined and agile. Start with a developer, a designer, and a sweeper (someone who can roam between both worlds).

Embrace Constraints

Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage.

Constraints are often advantages in disguise. Forget about venture capital, long release cycles, and quick hires. Instead, work with what you have.

Be Yourself

Small companies enjoy fewer formalities, less bureaucracy, and more freedom. Smaller companies are closer to the customer by default.

What’s the Big Idea?

Explicitly define the one-point vision for your app

What does your app stand for? What’s it really all about? Before you start designing or coding anything you need to know the purpose of your product — the vision. Think big. Why does it exist? What makes it different than other similar products?

It’s a Problem When It’s a Problem

Don’t waste time on problems you don’t have yet

Hire the Right Customers

• Find the core market for your application and focus solely on them
• If you try to please everyone, you won’t please anyone

Make Opinionated Software

Your app should take sides

The best software has a vision. When someone uses software, they’re not just looking for features, they’re looking for an approach. They’re looking for a vision. Decide what your vision is and run with it.

And remember, if they don’t like your vision there are plenty of other visions out there for people. Don’t go chasing people you’ll never make happy.

Feature Selection

Half, Not Half-Assed

Build half a product, not a half-ass product

Good ideas can be tabled. Take whatever you think your product should be and cut it in half.

Make features work hard to be implemented

Each time you say yes to a feature, you’re adopting a child.

Don’t be a yes-man

You should only consider features if they’re willing to stand on the porch for three days waiting to be let in.

“We Don’t Want a Thousand Features”

 Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, “Does it do [x]?”, “Do you plan to add [y]?”. Finally Jobs said, “Wait wait — put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don’t want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”

Hidden Costs

Expose the price of new features

Even if a feature makes it past the “no” stage, you still need to expose its hidden costs.

For every new feature you need to…

1. Say no.
2. Force the feature to prove its value.
3. If “no” again, end here. If “yes,” continue…
4. Sketch the screen(s)/ui.
5. Design the screen(s)/ui.
6. Code it.
7-15 Test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak…
16. Check to see if help text needs to be modified.
17. Update the product tour (if necessary).
18. Update the marketing copy (if necessary).
19. Update the terms of service (if necessary).
20. Check to see if any promises were broken.
21. Check to see if pricing structure is affected.
22. Launch.
23. Hold breath.

Can You Handle It?

Build something you can manage

Hold the Mayo

Ask people what they don’t want

What about the other side of the coin? Why not ask people what they don’t want? “If you could remove one feature, what would it be?” “What don’t you use?” “What gets in your way the most?”

More isn’t the answer. Sometimes the biggest favor you can do for customers is to leave something out.

Process

Race to Running Software

Get something real up and running quickly

Running software is the best way to build momentum, rally your team, and flush out ideas that don’t work. It should be your number one priority from day one.

With real, running software everyone gets closer to true understanding and agreement. You avoid heated arguments over sketches and paragraphs that wind up turning out not to matter anyway. You realize that parts you thought were trivial are actually quite crucial.

Real things lead to real reactions. And that’s how you get to the truth.

Rinse and Repeat

Work in iterations

Don’t expect to get it right the first time. Let the app grow and speak to you. The result is real feedback and real guidance on what requires your attention.

From Idea to Implementation

Brainstorm

This stage is not about nitty gritty details. This is about big questions. What does the app need to do? How will we know when it’s useful? What exactly are we going to make? This is about high level ideas, not pixel-level discussions. At this stage, those kinds of details just aren’t meaningful.

Paper sketches

Sketches are quick, dirty, and cheap and that’s exactly how you want to start out. Draw stuff. Scrawl stuff. Boxes, circles, lines. Get your ideas out of your head and onto paper. The goal at this point should be to convert concepts into rough interface designs. This step is all about experimentation. There are no wrong answers.

Create HTML screens

Make an html version of that feature (or section or flow, if it’s more appropriate). Get something real posted so everyone can see what it looks like on screen.

For Basecamp, we first did the “post a message” screen, then the “edit a message” screen, and it went on from there.

Don’t write any programming code yet. Just build a mock-up in html and css. Implementation comes later.

Code it

When the mock-up looks good and demonstrates enough of the necessary functionality, go ahead and plug in the programming code.

During this whole process remember to stay flexible and expect multiple iterations. You should feel free to throw away the deliverable of any particular step and start again if it turns out crappy. It’s natural to go through this cycle multiple times.

Avoid Preferences

Decide the little details so your customers don’t have to

Preferences are a way to avoid making tough decisions

Instead of using your expertise to choose the best path, you’re leaving it in the hands of customers.

Preferences are also evil because they create more software. More options require more code.

Make the call

Yes, you might make a bad call. But so what. If you do, people will complain and tell you about it. As always, you can adjust.

“Done!”

Decisions are temporary so make the call and move on

Test in the Wild

Test your app via real world usage

There’s no substitute for real people using your app in real ways. Get real data. Get real feedback. Then improve based on that info.

Formal usability testing is too stiff. Lab settings don’t reflect reality.

Further, don’t have a release version and a beta version. They should always be the same thing. A separate beta version will only get a superficial walk through. The real version, with some beta features sprinkled in, will get the full workout.

Shrink Your Time

shrink your time. Keep breaking down time frames into smaller chunks. Instead of a 12 week project, think of it as 12 week long projects. Instead of guesstimating at tasks that take 30+ hours, break them down into more realistic 6-10 hour chunks. Then proceed one step at a time.

The Organization

Unity

Don’t split into silos

Even better, hire people with multiple talents who can wear different hats during development. The end result will be a more harmonious product.

Alone Time

People need uninterrupted time to get things done

When you have a long stretch when you aren’t bothered, you can get in the zone. The zone is when you are most productive.

Getting in the zone takes time. And that’s why interruption is your enemy.

Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From 10am-2pm, no one can talk to one another (except during lunch). Or make the first or the last half of the day the alone time period. Just make sure this period is contiguous in order to avoid productivity-killing interruptions.

A successful alone time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messenging, phone calls, and meetings. Avoid any email thread that’s going to require an immediate response. Just shut up and get to work.

Seek and Celebrate Small Victories

Release something today

The most important thing in software development is motivation.

If you let lengthy release cycles quash quick wins, you kill the motivation. And that can kill your product.

Ask yourself “What can we do and release in 4 hours?” And then do it. It could be…

• A new simple feature
• A small enhancement to an existing feature
• Rewriting some help text to reduce the support burden
• Removing some form fields that you really don’t need

Staffing

Add slow to go fast

There’s no need to get big early — or later.

Is the work that’s burdening you really necessary? What if you just don’t do it? Can you solve the problem with a slice of software or a change of practice instead?

If there’s no other way, then consider a hire. But you should know exactly who to get, how to introduce them to the work, and the exact pain you expect them to relieve.

Kick the Tires

Work with prospective employees on a test-basis first

It’s one thing to look at a portfolio, résumé, code example, or previous work. It’s another thing to actually work with someone. Whenever possible, take potential new team members out for a “test drive.”

Actions, Not Words

Judge potential tech hires on open source contributions

Open source is a gift to those who need to hire technical people. With open source, you can track someone’s work and contributions — good and bad — over a lengthy period of time.

You can make a decision based on the things that really matter:

• Quality of work
  Many programmers can talk the talk but trip when it comes time to walk the walk. With open source, you get the nitty gritty specifics of a person’s programming skills and practices.
• Cultural perspective
  Programing is all about decisions. Lots and lots of them. Decisions are guided by your cultural vantage point, values, and ideals. Look at the specific decisions made by a candidate in coding, testing, and community arguments to see whether you’ve got a cultural match. If there’s no fit here, each decision will be a struggle.
• Level of passion
  By definition, involvement in open source requires at least some passion. Otherwise why would this person spend free time sitting in front of a screen? The amount of open source involvement often shows how much a candidate truly cares about programming.
• Completion percentage
  All the smarts, proper cultural leanings, and passion don’t amount to valuable software if a person can’t get stuff done. Unfortunately, lots of programmers can’t. So look for that zeal to ship. Hire someone who needs to get it out the door and is willing to make the pragmatic trade-offs this may require.
• Social match
  Working with someone over a long period of time, during both stress/relaxation and highs/lows, will show you their real personality. If someone’s lacking in manners or social skills, filter them out.

Get Well Rounded Individuals

Go for quick learning generalists over ingrained specialists

Small teams need people who can wear different hats. You need designers who can write. You need programmers who understand design. Everyone should have an idea about how to architect information (whatever that may mean). Everyone needs to have an organized mind. Everyone needs to be able to communicate with customers.

And everyone needs to be willing and able to shift gears down the road. Keep in mind that small teams often need to change direction and do it quickly. You want someone who can adjust and learn and flow as opposed to a stick-in-the-mud who can do only one thing.

You Can’t Fake Enthusiasm

Go for happy and average over frustrated and great

Find someone who’s enthusiastic. Someone you can trust to get things done when left alone.

Wordsmiths

Hire good writers

Good writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit. They think clearly. And those are the qualities you need.

Interface Design

Interface First

Design the interface before you start programming

Design is relatively light. A paper sketch is cheap and easy to change. html designs are still relatively simple to modify (or throw out).

It’s constantly being revised throughout the process. Does it make sense? Is it easy to use? Does it solve the problem at hand?

Epicenter Design

Start from the core of the page and build outward

Ignore the extremities: the navigation/tabs, footer, colors, sidebar, logo, etc. Instead, you start at the epicenter and design the most important piece of content first.

Only when that unit is complete would you begin to think about the second most critical element on the page. Then after the second most critical element, you’d move on to the third, and so on. That’s epicenter design.

Epicenter design flips the traditional “let’s build the frame then drop the content in” model and allows you to focus on what really matters on day one. The result is a more friendly, focused, usable screen for customers. Plus, it allows you to start the dialogue between designer and developer right away instead of waiting for all aspects of the page to fall in line first.

Three State Solution

Design for regular, blank, and error states

For each screen, you need to consider three possible states:

• Regular
  The screen people see when everything’s working fine and your app is flush with data.
• Blank
  The scrpeen peole see when using the app for the first time, before data is entered.
• Error
  The screen people see when something goes wrong.

The regular state is a no-brainer. This is the screen where you’ll spend most of your time. But don’t forget to invest time on the other states too (see the following essays for more on this).

The Blank Slate

Set expectations with a thoughtful first-run experience

What should you include in a helpful blank slate?

• Use it as an opportunity to insert quick tutorials and help blurbs.
• Give a sample screenshot of the page populated with data so people know what to expect (and why they should stick around).
• Explain how to get started, what the screen will eventually look like, etc.
• Answer key questions that first-time viewers will ask: What is this page? What do I do now? How will this screen look once it’s full?
• Set expectations and help reduce frustration, intimidation, and overall confusion.

First impressions are crucial. If you fail to design a thoughtful blank slate, you’ll create a negative (and false) impression of your application or service.

Get Defensive

Design for when things go wrong

Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.

We could fill a separate book with all the things we have to say about defensive design. In fact, we already have. “Defensive Design for the Web” is the title and it’s a great resource for anyone who wants to learn how to improve error screens and other crisis points.

Context Over Consistency

What makes sense here may not make sense there

It’s ok to be inconsistent if your design makes more sense that way. Give people just what matters. Give them what they need when they need it and get rid of what they don’t. It’s better to be right than to be consistent.

Copywriting is Interface Design

Every letter matters

You need to speak the same language as your audience too.

Don’t use acronyms or words that most people don’t understand. Don’t use internal lingo.

Good writing is good design.

One Interface

Incorporate admin functions into the public interface

If you have to maintain two separate interfaces (i.e. one for regular folks and one for admins), both will suffer.

Code

Less Software

Keep your code as simple as possible

each time you increase the amount of code, your software grows exponentially more complicated.

• Less software is easier to manage.
• Less software reduces your codebase and that means
• less maintenance busywork (and a happier staff).
• Less software lowers your cost of change so you can adapt quickly. You can change your mind

without having to change boatloads of code.

• Less software results in fewer bugs.
• Less software means less support.

Encourage programmers to make counteroffers.

You want to hear: “The way you suggested will take 12 hours. But there’s a way I can do it that will only take one hour. It won’t do x but it will do y.” Let the software push back. Tell programmers to fight for what they think is the best way.

For every feature that makes it into your app, ask yourself: Is there a way this can be added that won’t require as much software? Write just the code you need and no more. Your app will be leaner and healthier as a result.

Optimize for Happiness

Choose tools that keep your team excited and motivated

Happiness has a cascading effect. Happy programmers do the right thing. They write simple, readable code. They take clean, expressive, readable, elegant approaches. They have fun.

Choose the fuse that gets people excited. You’ll generate excitement and motivation and a better product as a result.

Code Speaks

Is a new feature requiring weeks of time and thousands of lines of code? That’s your code telling you there’s probably a better way. Is there a simple way to code something in one hour instead of a complicated way that will take ten hours? Again, that’s your code guiding you. Listen.

Your code can guide you to fixes that are cheap and light. Pay attention when an easy path emerges. Sure, the feature that’s easy to make might not be exactly the same as the feature you originally had in mind but so what? If it works well enough and gives you more time to work on something else, it’s a keeper.

Manage Debt

Pay off your code and design “bills”

The same way you should regularly put aside some of your income for taxes, regularly put aside some time to pay off your code and design debt.

Open Doors

Get data out into the world via RSS, APIs, etc.

Don’t try to lock-in your customers. Let them get their information when they want it and how they want it.

Words

There’s Nothing Functional about a Functional Spec

Don’t write a functional specifications document

These blueprint docs usually wind up having almost nothing to do with the finished product. Here’s why:

• Functional specs are fantasies
• Functional specs are about appeasement
• Functional specs only lead to an illusion of agreement
  • Everyone may be reading the same thing but they’re thinking something different.
• Functional specs force you to make the most important decisions when you have the least information
• Functional specs lead to feature overload
• Functional specs don’t let you evolve, change,and reassess

Instead, write a one page story about what the app needs to do. Use plain language and make it quick. If it takes more than a page to explain it, then it’s too complex. This process shouldn’t take more than one day.

Then begin building the interface.

Confusion disappears when everyone starts using the same screens. Get yourself in front of the customer experience as much as possible.

Forget about locked-in specs. They force you to make big, key decisions too early in the process. Bypass the spec phase and you’ll keep change cheap and stay flexible.

Don’t Do Dead Documents

Eliminate unnecessary paperwork

Avoiding functional specs is a good start but don’t stop there; Prevent excess paperwork everywhere. Unless a document is actually going to morph into something real, don’t produce it.

Tell Me a Quick Story

Write stories, not details

Do it in a human way, like you would in normal conversation.

Just give the flow of what happens.

Stick to the experience instead of getting hung up on the details. Think strategy, not tactics.

Use Real Words

Insert actual text instead of lorem ipsum

• You need real copy to know how long certain fields should be.
• You need real copy to see how tables will expand or contract.
• You need real copy to know what your app truly looks like.

Sure, it’s easier to just run down the forms and fill the fields with garbage (“asdsadklja” “123usadfjasld” “snaxn2q9e7″) in order to plow through them quickly. But that’s not real. That’s not what your customers are going to do. Is it really smart to take a shortcut when customers are forced to take the long road? When you just enter fake copy in rapid-fire fashion, you don’t know what it really feels like to fill out that form.

Personify Your Product

What is your product’s personality type?

Once you decide, always keep those personality traits in mind as the product is built. Use them to guide the copywriting, the interface, and the feature set. Whenever you make a change, ask yourself if that change fits your app’s personality.

Your product has a voice — and it’s talking to your customers 24 hours a day.

Pricing and Sign Up

Free Samples

Give something away for free

It’s a noisy world out there. In order to get people to notice you amid the din, give something away for free.

Easy On, Easy Off

Make signup and cancellation a painless process

Make it as easy as possible to get in — and get out — of your app.

Keep the signup form as short as possible. Don’t ask for stuff you don’t need and don’t throw a long daunting form at people.

The same principles hold true for the cancellation process.

This is crucial because giving people control over their information builds trust. You’re giving them a bridge to their data island. You’re allowing them to leave without penalty if they find a better offer. It’s the right thing to do and it builds goodwill.

Silly Rabbit, Tricks are for Kids

Avoid long-term contracts, sign-up fees, etc.

A Softer Bullet

Soften the blow of bad news with advance notice and grandfather clauses

Need to deliver bad news like a price increase? Make it as painless as possible by giving folks plenty of advance notice. Also, consider a grandfather period that exempts existing customers for a certain period of time. These folks are your bread and butter and you want to make them feel valued, not gouged.

Promotion

Hollywood Launch

Go from teaser to preview to launch

Teaser

A few months ahead of time, start dropping hints. Let people know what you’re working on. Post a logo. Post to your blog about the development. Stay vague but plant the seed.

Preview

A few weeks ahead of launch, start previewing features. Give people behind-the-scenes access. Describe the theme of the product.

Launch

It’s release time. Now people can actually go to the “theater” and see your app. Get emails out to those who signed up.

Ride the blog wave

Blogging can be more effective than advertising (and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper)

When you don’t have the time or money to go the traditional advertising route, consider the promote-via-blog route instead.

Solicit Early

Get some sort of site up and start collecting emails as soon as possible. Pick your domain name and put up a logo and maybe a sentence or two that describes, or at least hints at, what your app will do. Then let people give you their email address. Now you’re on your way to having a foundation of folks ready and waiting to be notified of your launch.

Track Your Logs

You need to know who’s talking about you. Check your logs and find out where the buzz is coming from.

Leave comments at those blogs. Collect positive praise and create a “buzz” page at your site. Testimonials are a great way to promote your app since third-party praise is more trustworthy to most people.

If the comments are negative, still pay attention. Show you’re listening. It’s amazing how much a thoughtful comment on a blog can diffuse naysayers and even turn complainers into evangelists.

Support

Feel the Pain

Tear down the walls between support and development

Don’t outsource customer support to a call center or third party.

Zero Training

Use inline help and FAQs so your product doesn’t require a manual or training. How do you achieve that? Keep things simple.

Answer Quick

Customers light up when you answer their questions quickly.

Even if you don’t have a perfect answer, say something.

Customers appreciate directness and will often shift from angry to polite if you respond quickly and in a straight-shooting manner.

Tough Love

Be willing to say no to your customers. Not everything everyone suggests is the right answer.

Publicize Your Screwups

Get bad news out there and out of the way

If something goes wrong, tell people. Even if they never saw it in the first place.

A side note about delivering news, bad and good: When bad news comes, get it all out in the open at once. Good news, on the other hand, should be trickled out slowly. If you can prolong the good vibes, do it.

Post Launch

Issue a major update 30 days after launch

A quick update shows momentum.

Once it’s out there you can start getting customer feedback and you’ll know which areas require attention next.

Keep the Posts Coming

Show your product is alive by keeping an ongoing product development blog post-launch

Things to include:

• Faq
• How-tos
• Tips & tricks
• New features, updates, & fixes
• Buzz/press

Better, Not beta

Don’t wait for your product to reach perfection. It’s not gonna happen. Take responsibility for what you’re releasing. Put it out and call it a release. Otherwise, you’re just making excuses.

All Bugs Are Not Created Equal

Prioritize your bugs (and even ignore some of them)

Ride Out the Storm

Resist the urge to panic or rapidly change things in response. Passions flare in the beginning. Also, remember that negative reactions are almost always louder and more passionate than positive ones.

Keep Up With the Joneses

Subscribe to news feeds about your competitors

Use services like PubSub, Technorati, Feedster, and others to stay up to date (for keywords, use company names and product names).

Beware the Bloat Monster

More mature doesn’t have to mean more complicated

You don’t have to become an outer space pen that writes upside down. Sometimes it’s ok to just be a pencil. You don’t need to be a swiss-army knife. You can just be a screwdriver. You don’t need to build a diving watch that’s safe at 5,000 meters if your customers are land-lovers who just want to know what the time is.

Go With the Flow

Be open to new paths and changes in direction.

Look at Flickr. It began as a multiplayer online game called The Game Neverending. Its creators soon realized the photo-sharing aspect of the game was a more plausible product than the game itself (which was eventually shelved). Be willing to admit mistakes and change course.

Be a surfer. Watch the ocean. Figure out where the big waves are breaking and adjust accordingly.

Start Your Engines

Execution

The difference between you and everyone else will be how well you execute. Success is all about great execution.

The key is balance. If you tilt too far in one direction, you’re headed for failure. Constantly seek out your weak links and focus on them until they’re up to par.

People

You need people who are passionate about what they do. People who care about their craft — and actually think of it as a craft.

Here are my notes:

For young college grads, poor communication skills => #1 career stopper

Research shows, years of e-communications (email, twitter, facebook) lead to losing ability to recognize facial cues.

Don’t be too nice, don’t be too aggressive. Find a middle ground.

Go for it

ask yourself this everyday: What are you doing today to change your circumstances so they are aligned with what you want to be?

Biggest complain from employers about young grads nowadays: Poor work ethics.

Can work ethics be taught? It’s more important to have clear expectations and several year objectives.

Best tools for managing up:

Create a Friday memo for your boss, including:

• What you’ve accomplished
• Challenge
• Goals for next week

The 4-Hour Body – by Tim Ferriss

ISBN: 030746363X
READ: 2010-12-18
RATING: 8/10

Go to Amazon

Amazing book for anyone wanting to improve their body. Core concept is the “minimum effective dose”: the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome. Anything beyond that is wasteful. This documents Tim’s years-long pursuit of the minimum effective dose of everything, from weight loss to muscle-building. Related subjects include orgasm, sleep, and medical tourism.

my notes

The yeoman work in any science is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.

The minimum effective dose (MED) is defined simply: the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome.
Anything beyond the MED is wasteful.
To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled. Higher temperatures will not make it more boiled.
If you need 15 minutes in the sun to trigger a melanin response, 15 minutes is your MED for tanning. More than 15 minutes is redundant and will just result in burning and a forced break from the beach.

Two fundamental MEDs to keep in mind:
1. To remove stored fat, do the least necessary to trigger a fat-loss cascade of specific hormones.
2. To add muscle, do the least necessary to trigger local (specific muscles) and systemic (hormonal) growth mechanisms.

Besides whole foods, anything you put in your mouth or your bloodstream that has an effect is a drug. Treat them all as such.

It’s not what you put in your mouth that matters, it’s what makes it to your bloodstream. If it passes through, it doesn’t count.

The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.

Exercise in our context, however, is the application of measurable stimuli to decrease fat, increase muscle, or increase performance. Recreation is for fun. Exercise is for producing changes. Don’t confuse the two.

Ask when faced with advice or sales pitches is: “If this [method/product/diet/etc.] didn’t work as advertised, what might their other incentives be for selling it?”

Aerobics classes?
The reason you’re sold: aerobics is more effective than alternative X.
The real reason it’s promoted: there’s no equipment investment and the gym can maximize students per square foot per class.
Many “new and improved” recommendations are based on calculating profit first and then working backward to justify it.
To earn a fortune in the diet and exercise industries, there is a dictum: complicate to profit.
The artificial separation of aerobic and anaerobic (without oxygen) metabolism might be useful for selling aerobics, a marketing term popularized by Dr. Kenneth Cooper in 1968, but it’s not a reflection of reality.

“I just want to be healthy” is not actionable.

Swaraj is vitally connected with the capacity for dispassionate self-assessment, ceaseless self-purification and growing self-reliance.… It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves. – Mahatma

Put together an exact meal plan for just ONE week, buy all the ingredients, stick to it religiously. From that point on, I didn’t have to do the hard work anymore. I became aware after just one week of roughly how many calories were in a portion of different types of food and just guessed.

Chad: Recumbent bike while working. Got a heart rate monitor (HRM) and started using it for EVERYTHING.

Estimate your bodyfat (BF%)
Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), which costs $50–100 per session, ended up my favorite, as it is repeatable and offers valuable information besides bodyfat percentage.
BodyMetrix is a hand-held ultrasound device that tells you the exact thickness of fat (in millimeters) wherever you place it.

Immediately upon waking, drink 1.5 liters (about 50 fluid ounces) of cold water – ensure that water temperature is the same day to day – and wait 30 minutes. Urinate and then test bodyfat using bio-impedance. Do not eat or drink anything else before testing.

Starting a body recomposition program without measurements is like planning a trip without a start address. I guarantee you will regret it later.

Making yourself injury-proof requires, above all, correcting left-right imbalances.

Get a simple tape measure and measure four locations:
1. both upper arms (mid-bicep)
2. waist (horizontal at navel)
3. hips (at widest point below waist)
4. both legs (mid-thigh)
Total these numbers to arrive at your Total Inches (TI).

Four principles of failure-proofing behavior. Think of them as insurance against the weaknesses of human nature – your weaknesses, my weaknesses, our weaknesses:
1. Make it conscious
2. Make it a game
3. Make it competitive
4. Make it small and temporary

Photograph all meals or snacks prior to eating.
Subjects who use food diaries lose three times as much weight as those who don’t.

Take digital photos of yourself from the front, back, and side. Wear either underwear or a bathing suit.
Put the least flattering “before” photo somewhere you will see it often.
Those who experienced the most dramatic changes credited the “before” photographs with adherence to the program.

Measurement = motivation. Seeing progress in changing numbers makes the repetitive fascinating and creates a positive feedback loop.
Need to find someone to keep you accountable? To encourage or harass you when needed?
BodySpace (www.bodybuilding.com/superhuman) or DailyBurn (www.dailyburn.com/superhuman)

Example at www.fourhourbody.com/phil. Just input your starting weight and desired ending weight, and you can duplicate his experiment.

We are what we do repeatedly.

Set a meager goal of two pages of writing per day.

If you want to walk an hour a day, don’t start with one hour. Choosing one hour is automatically building in the excuse of not having enough time. Commit to a fail-proof five minutes instead.

RULE #1: AVOID WHITE CARBOHYDRATES
All bread, rice (including brown), cereal, potatoes, pasta, tortillas, and fried food with breading.

RULE #2: EAT THE SAME FEW MEALS OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Proteins
*Egg whites with 1–2 whole eggs for flavor (or, if organic, 2–5 whole eggs, including yolks)
*Chicken breast or thigh
*Beef (preferably grass-fed)
*Fish Pork Legumes
*Lentils (also called “dal” or “daal”)
*Black beans Pinto beans Red beans Soybeans Vegetables
*Spinach
*Mixed vegetables (including broccoli, cauliflower, or any other cruciferous vegetables)
*Sauerkraut, kimchee (full explanation of these later in “Damage Control”) Asparagus Peas Broccoli Green beans Eat as much as you like of the above food items, but keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them.

Eating more frequent meals also appears to have no enhancing effect on resting metabolic rate, despite claims to the contrary.

Make sure to have your first meal within an hour of waking. Meals are approximately four hours apart.

RULE #3: DON’T DRINK CALORIES
Do not drink milk (including soy milk), normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. Limit diet soft drinks to no more than 16 ounces per day if you can, as the aspartame can stimulate weight gain.

RULE #4: DON’T EAT FRUIT
The only exceptions to the no-fruit rule are tomatoes and avocadoes. Say no to fruit and its principal sugar, fructose, which is converted to glycerol phosphate more efficiently than almost all other carbohydrates. Glycerol phosphate → triglycerides (via the liver) → fat storage.

RULE #5: TAKE ONE DAY OFF PER WEEK.
Dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat-loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function and conversion of T4 to T3, etc.) doesn’t downshift from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat.

SHOULD I TAKE ANY SUPPLEMENTS? I suggest potassium, magnesium, and calcium. 500 milligrams of magnesium taken prior to bed will also improve sleep.

Removing even a little dairy can dramatically accelerate fat-loss.

Weigh yourself before your first meal on cheat day and ignore the short-term fluctuations, which do not reflect fat-loss or gain.

Macadamia oil is the new and improved olive oil.

There should be no need, or real physical urge, to eat snacks. If you are hungry, you’re not eating enough protein and legumes at each meal.

DO I REALLY HAVE TO BINGE ONCE A WEEK?
It is important to spike caloric intake once per week. This causes a host of hormonal changes that improve fat-loss, from increasing cAMP and GMP to improving conversion of the T4 thyroid hormone to the more active T3. Everyone binges eventually on a diet, and it’s better to schedule it ahead of time to limit the damage.

Spinach is incredible for body recomposition.

Almost all of my vegetables are either frozen (80%) or canned (20%).

CAN I EAT WHOLE GRAINS OR STEEL-CUT OATS? No.

I discourage consuming any refined soy products, including all soy milk and isolated soy protein supplements.

CAN I EAT FRIED FOODS? Stir-fry is ideal for this diet, as are most cuisines (like Thai) that depend on it.

If you’re airport-hopping and cannot find a Mexican restaurant or grill, grab a bag of raw almonds or walnuts at a kiosk and commit to consuming no starch.

Most airports also have chicken salads (omit dressings besides olive oil or vinegar) that you can combine with the nuts. If it comes down to it, choose mild hunger instead of deviation.

Having followed this diet in 30+ countries, I can state without exception that travel is not a legitimate excuse for breaking the rules.

MISTAKE #1: NOT EATING WITHIN ONE HOUR OF WAKING, PREFERABLY WITHIN 30 MINUTES

MISTAKE #2: NOT EATING ENOUGH PROTEIN Get at least 20 grams of protein per meal.

This is absolutely most critical at breakfast. Eating at least 40% of your breakfast calories as protein will decrease carb impulses and promote a negative fat balance. Even 20% protein – more than most people consume – doesn’t cut it. First choice: down two to three whole eggs at breakfast.

Related problem: not eating enough food. Do NOT try to restrict portions or calories. Eat until you are full, and eat as much as you like of the approved foods. If you don’t, you will either downshift your metabolism or cheat between meals with banned-food snacks.

Get plenty of legumes.

MISTAKE #6: OVEREATING “DOMINO FOODS”: NUTS, CHICKPEAS (GARBANZO BEANS), HUMMUS, PEANUTS, MACADAMIAS
There are certain foods that, while technically fine to eat on the diet, are prone to portion abuse. I call these “domino foods,” as eating one portion often creates a domino effect of oversnacking. My fat-loss has plateaued three times due to almonds, which are easy to consume by the handful and simple to excuse as nutritious. Unfortunately, they also contain 824 calories per cup, 146 calories more than a Whopper from Burger King (678 kilocalories). A few almonds is just fine (5–10), but no one eats just a few almonds.

Unsustainable overtraining and related “reward” eating:

Doing too much will not only not help, it will reverse your progress, as it also leads to overeating, sports drinks, and other assorted self- sabotage. Remember the MED. Less is more.

Have as much of the crap ingested either go into muscle tissue or out of the body unabsorbed. I do this by focusing on three principles:

PRINCIPLE #1: MINIMIZE THE RELEASE OF INSULIN, A STORAGE HORMONE
Insulin release is minimized by blunting sharp jumps in blood sugar:
1. Ensure that your first meal of the day is not a binge meal. Make it high in protein (at least 30 grams) and insoluble fiber (legumes will handle this). The protein will decrease your appetite for the remainder of the binge and prevent total self-destruction.
2. Consume a small quantity of fructose, fruit sugar, in grapefruit juice before the second meal, which is the first crap meal. Even small fructose dosing has an impressive near-flat-lining effect on blood glucose.
3. Use supplements that increase insulin sensitivity: AGG (part of PAGG) and PAGG
4. Consume citric juices, whether lime juice squeezed into water, lemon juice on food,

PRINCIPLE #2: INCREASE THE SPEED OF GASTRIC EMPTYING, OR HOW QUICKLY FOOD EXITS THE STOMACH
Bingeing is a rare circumstance where I want the food (or some of it) to pass through my gastrointestinal tract so quickly that its constituent parts aren’t absorbed well. I accomplish this primarily through caffeine and yerba mate tea, which includes the additional stimulants theobromine (found in dark chocolate) and theophylline (found in green tea). I consume 100–200 milligrams of caffeine, or 16 ounces of cooled yerba mate, at the most crap-laden meals.

PRINCIPLE #3: ENGAGE IN BRIEF MUSCULAR CONTRACTION THROUGHOUT THE BINGE
For muscular contractions, my default options are air squats, wall presses (tricep extensions against a wall), and chest pulls with an elastic band,

Why the hell would you want to do 60–90 seconds of funny exercises a few minutes before you eat and, ideally, again about 90 minutes afterward?
Because it brings glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT-4) to the surface of muscle cells, opening more gates for the calories to flow into.

Cissus quadrangularis (CQ) is an indigenous medicinal plant of India.
CQ preserved my abs. I saw measurable fat-loss and anabolic effects once I reached 2.4 grams (2,400 milligrams), three times per day 30 minutes prior to meals, for a total of 7.2 grams per day.
Super Cissus Rx (www.fourhourbody.com/cq) This is the brand of CQ I used during the experimentation.

There are actually 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells: 100 trillion of them to 10 trillion of you. For the most part, these bugs help us, improving our immune system, providing vitamins, and preventing other harmful bacteria from infecting us.

Lean people have more Bacteroidetes and fewer Firmicutes; obese people have more Firmicutes and fewer Bacteroidetes.

12 traditional diets of near-disease-free indigenous communities spread around the globe. He found that the one common element was fermented foods, which were consumed daily. Cultural mainstays varied but included cheese, Japanese natto, kefir, kimchi (also spelled “kimchee”), sauerkraut, and fermented fish. Unsweetened plain yogurt and fermented kombucha tea are two additional choices. Fermented foods contain high levels of healthy bacteria and should be viewed as a mandatory piece of your dietary puzzle.

Consider probiotics and prebiotics. Probiotics are bacteria. I’ve used Sedona Labs iFlora probiotics.

I prefer inulin, which I get through the Athletic Greens. Inulin is about 10% the sweetness of sugar, but unlike fructose, it’s not insulinemic. In the whole-foods realm, garlic, leeks, and chicory are all high in inulin

Athletic Greens (www.athleticgreens.com) This is my all-in-one greens insurance policy. It contains 76 ingredients, including inulin for improving bacterial balance.
Thera-Bands (www.fourhourbody.com/thera) I started doing standing chest pulls with Thera-Bands
Mini-bands (www.fourhourbody.com/minibands) I now use these for standing band pulls.

PAGG. Policosanol: 20–25 mg Alpha-lipoic acid: 100–300 mg (I take 300 mg with each meal, but some people experience acid reflux symptoms with more than 100 mg) Green tea flavanols (decaffeinated with at least 325 mg EGCG): 325 mg Garlic extract: 200 mg Daily PAGG intake is timed before meals and bed, which produces a schedule like this: Prior to breakfast: AGG Prior to lunch: AGG Prior to dinner: AGG Prior to bed: PAGG AGG is simply PAGG minus policosanol. This dosing schedule is followed six days a week. Take one day off each week and one week off every two months. This week off is critical.

ALA helps you store the carbohydrates you eat in muscle or in your liver as opposed to in fat.

Decaffeinated green tea extract pills

I suggest using an aged-garlic extract (AGE) with high allicin potential that includes all constituent parts, including S-Allyl cysteine.

Vitamin Shoppe – Allicin 6000 Garlic, 650 mg, 100 caplets (www.fourhourbody.com/garlic) Mega Green Tea Extract (decaffeinated), 725 mg, 100 capsules (www.fourhourbody.com/greentea) Vitamin Shoppe – Alpha-Lipoic Acid, 300 mg, 60 capsules (www.fourhourbody.com/ala) Nature’s Life – Policosanol, 60 tablets (www.fourhourbody.com/policosanol)

You can burn almost four times more fat than usual with two hours of cold exposure

I placed an ice pack on the back of my neck and upper trapezius area for 30 minutes, generally in the evening, when my insulin sensitivity is lower than in the morning.

Not all fat is equal. There are at least two distinct types: white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT). WAT is what we usually think of as fat, like the marbling on a steak. A WAT cell – an adipocyte – is composed of a single large fat droplet with a single nucleus. BAT, in contrast, is sometimes referred to as “fat-burning fat” and appears to be derived from the same stem cells as muscle tissue.

Cold stimulates BAT to burn fat and glucose as heat.

1. Place an ice pack on the back of the neck or upper trapezius area for 20–30 minutes, preferably in the evening, when insulin sensitivity is lowest.
2. Consume at least 500 milliliters of ice water on an empty stomach immediately upon waking.
3. Take 5–10-minute cold showers before breakfast and/or before bed.

Take 20-minute baths that induce shivering.

Cold water improves immunity. Acute cold exposure has immunostimulating effects, and preheating with physical exercise or a warm shower can enhance this response.

ColPaC Gel Wrap (www.fourhourbody.com/colpac)

The more a food causes blood sugar to jump, in general, the fatter you will get.

Food and liquids took much, much longer to get to my bloodstream than one would expect. In most cases, I peaked one and a half to two and a half hours after food consumption.

Cinnamon can be used to reduce the glycemic index of a meal up to 29%.
1. Get freshly ground cinnamon or grind it yourself.
Saigon cinnamon (Cinnamomum loureiroi, also known as Vietnamese cinnamon).
Four grams of cinnamon = 4 divided by 2.8, or just about one and a half teaspoons. Don’t consume more per day.

The easiest thing you can do to decrease glucose spikes is slow down. I had to methodically finish my plate in thirds and train myself to wait five minutes between thirds, usually with the help of iced tea and slices of lemon. It also helps to drink more water to dilute digestion

DexCom Seven Plus (www.dexcom.com)
The DexCom Seven Plus is the continuous glucose monitor I used and abused. It is an implant that gives you the approximate data of 288 fingertip blood samples per day. I found it invaluable, even as a non-diabetic. WaveSense Jazz Glucometer (www.fourhourbody.com/jazz) This is, by orders of magnitude, the best glucometer I found. It’s small, simple to use, and incredibly consistent, as it accounts and corrects for environmental factors.

One of these meals has to be eaten every three hours while you’re awake, and you must eat within one hour of waking and one hour of bed.

Option 1:
50 grams of whey protein isolate + half a cup of nuts or two tablespoons of peanut butter

Option 2:
eight ounces of cooked, white, nonfatty fish (no salmon, mackerel, etc.) + half a cup of nuts or two tablespoons of peanut butter. Acceptable fish include, but are not limited to, lean tuna, white fish, bass, catfish, pike, whiting, and flounder.

Option 3:
eight ounces of cooked turkey or chicken + half a cup of nuts or two tablespoons of peanut butter

Option 4:
eight ounces of cooked fattier protein: red meat (à la flank), ground beef, fatty fish, or dark poultry + one tablespoon of olive oil or macadamia oil

Option 5:
five whole eggs (easiest if hard-boiled)

Unlimited quantities of the following are allowed at each meal: Spinach Asparagus Brussels sprouts Kale Collard greens Broccoli rabe Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables

Kettlebells (www.fourhourbody.com/kettlebells)
Most men should start with a 20-kg (44 lb) or 24-kg (53 lb) kettlebell
I did nothing more than one set of 75 swings one hour after a light, protein-rich breakfast, twice a week on Mondays and Fridays.

The king of exercises – the two-arm kettlebell swing – is all you need for dramatic changes.
• Stand with your feet 6–12 inches outside of shoulder width on either side, each foot pointed outward about 30 degrees. If toes pointed straight ahead were 12:00 on a clock face, your left foot would point at 10:00 or 11:00, and your right would point at 1:00 or 2:00.
• Keep your shoulders pulled back (retracted) and down to avoid rounding your back.
• The lowering movement (backswing) is a sitting-back-on-a-chair movement, not a squatting-down movement.
• Do not let your shoulders go in front of your knees at any point.
• Imagine pinching a penny between your butt cheeks when you pop your hips forward. This should be a forceful pop, and it should be impossible to contract your ass more.

Setting the expectation that things will be easy results in disappointment and quitting at the smallest hiccup. If you prepare yourself for massive challenges and no such challenges crop up, it will be a pleasant surprise.

See the www.fourhourbody.com/exercises for photos of all The Kiwi’s exercises.

The only reason I’ll never be fat again is because I start each meal with a base of vegetables that taste good. Then I add my protein.

If you have to choose one exercise, choose this one:

Using a BOSU or Swiss ball, ensure your ass is close to the floor, usually no more than 6″ off the ground.
Then follow these steps:
1. Start with arms stretched overhead as high as possible (I overlap my extended hands as if in a diving position). Keep your arms behind or next to your ears for the entire exercise.
2. Lower under control for 4 seconds until your fingers touch the floor, the entire time attempting to extend your hands further away from the ball.
3. Pause at the bottom for 2 seconds, aiming for maximum elongation (picture 3).
4. Rise under control and pause in the upper, fully contracted position for 2 seconds. The arms should not pass perpendicular with the ground.
5. Repeat for a total of 10 repetitions. Once you can complete 10 repetitions, add weight to your hands.

The Cat Vomit Exercise
1. Get on all fours and keep your gaze focused either directly under your head or slightly in front of you. Don’t arch your back or strain your neck.
2. Forcefully exhale from your mouth until all air is fully expelled. Your abs should be contracted from this forceful exhale. Full exhalation is necessary to contract the transverse abdominals, and you’ll use gravity to provide resistance.
3. Hold your breath and pull your belly button upward toward your spine as hard as you can for a target of 8–12 seconds.
4. Inhale fully through the nose after the 8–12 second hold.
5. Take one breath cycle of rest (exhale slowly out the mouth, inhale slowly through the nose), then repeat the above for a total of 10 repetitions.

Don’t rely on the plain-vanilla crunch. It’s utterly ineffective.

Fast-twitch muscle fibers have the greatest potential for growth, whereas slow-twitch fibers have the least potential.

Do not just drop the weight when you hit failure. Attempt to move it, millimeter by millimeter, and then hold it at the limit for five seconds. Only after that should you slowly (take five to ten seconds) lower the weight. The biggest mistake novice trainees make is underestimating the severity of complete failure. “Failure” is not dropping the weight after your last moderately strenuous rep. It is pushing like you have a gun to your head.

The last repetition, the point of failure, is the rep that matters. The rest of the repetitions are just a warm-up for that moment.

Do not pause at the top or bottom of any movements

Take three minutes of rest between all exercises. Time three minutes exactly

Separate all the emotion and positive feedback that people derive from the training experience – solid biological data indicate that the optimal training frequency for the vast majority of the population is no more than once a week.

Buckwheat Hull Pillows (www.fourhourbody.com/buckwheat)
Bucky manufactures comfy pillows filled with natural buckwheat hulls. Buckwheat hulls are lightweight, durable, and fit the contours of your body without getting flattened like normal pillows. The hulls are hypo-allergenic and allow constant air circulation through the pillow, keeping you cool. Perfect for better sleep and better sex.

Taking 200 milligrams of huperzine-A 30 minutes before bed can increase total REM by 20–30%. Huperzine-A, an extract of Huperzia serrata, slows the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. It is a popular nootropic (smart drug), and I have used it in the past to accelerate learning and increase the incidence of lucid dreaming. I now only use huperzine-A for the first few weeks of language acquisition, and no more than three days per week to avoid side effects.

Two tablespoons of organic almond butter on celery sticks before bed

Make a pre-bed snack part of your nutritional program. One to two tablespoons of flaxseed oil (120–240 calories) can be used in combination with the celery-and-almond-butter to further increase cell repair during sleep and thus decrease fatigue.

Using a single bedsheet at a room temperature between 67°F and 70°F produced the fastest time to sleep.

Consumed within three hours of getting under the sheets, meals of at least 800 milligrams of cholesterol (four or more large whole eggs) and 40 grams of protein produced dramatically faster time-to-sleep scores than meals of lower volume or lower protein and fat.

TAKE A COLD BATH ONE HOUR PRIOR TO BED.

Put two to three bags of ice from a convenience store ($3–6) into a half-full bathtub until the ice is about 80% melted. Beginners should start by immersing the lower body only and progress to spending the second five minutes with the upper torso submerged as well, keeping the hands out of the water.

The Air-O-Swiss Travel Ultrasonic Cool Mist Humidifier

Egoscue (www.egoscue.com) Egoscue is a postural therapy program with 24 clinic locations worldwide. The program is designed to treat musculoskeletal.

There is no radiation risk with MRIs, and I would therefore suggest one or two of them for nagging pains or injuries. Not to mention the preventative value.

Due for a dental cleaning and checkup? Perhaps you want to run comprehensive blood work, which I recommend no less than every six months?

International Medical Travel Journal Medical Tourism Guide (www.imtjonline.com/resources/patient-guide)
The IMTJ’s 10-step guide to medical tourism is a useful starting framework
Bumrungrad Hospital (www.bumrungrad.com) This world-class hospital in Thailand has been featured in the “Top 10 World’s Medical Travel Destinations”

Gray’s fundamental tool for identifying imbalances is his brainchild: the Functional Movement Screen (FMS).

Find a Functional Movement Screen (FMS) Expert (www.fourhourbody.com/fms)

Chop and Lift Video (www.fourhourbody.com/cl)

Turkish Get-Up (www.fourhourbody.com/tgu)
Zach Even-Esh demonstrates the Turkish get-up. Take note of his timing in this sequence. It’s not one continuous motion, but rather a specific set of movements with brief pauses. The slower you can do this, the better your technique is. Do not rush.

Cross-Body One-Arm Single-Leg Deadlift (www.fourhourbody.com/1SDL)
This video demonstrates the proper execution of the 1SDL.

Squat (www.fourhourbody.com/squat)
This is an outstanding tutorial on how to correct the lower back rounding common at the bottom of the squat.

There is a right way to run.

1. Use gravity (via forward lean) for forward motion instead of push-off and muscular effort.
2. Land on the balls of the feet and aim to have the feet land under your center of gravity instead of in front of you.
3. Never fully straighten your legs. Keep a slight bend in your legs at all times to prevent push-off.
4. Pull each foot off the ground and towards your buttocks (rather than pushing off) using the hamstrings as soon as it passes under your center of gravity.
5. Maintain at least a 180 step per minute rate, which means at least 90 steps per minute with each leg. This will use muscle elasticity to your advantage.

1. Focus on at least 90 steps per minute with each leg.
2. Lean, but fall like a tree instead of bending at the hips. There should be no sitting back. Think of falling forward from the pelvis rather than from the head.

Imagine pulling the heel up to your buttocks at a 45-degree forward angle instead of straight up off the ground.

Use minimal arm movement and consider keeping your wrists near your nipples the entire time.

Instructionals and videos of almost all CrossFit exercises, routines (often named after people, like “Cindy”), and unfamiliar exercises can be found at www.fourhourbody.com/crossfit.

For asphalt and other hard surfaces, I suggest the Inov-8 F-Lite 220, but the F-Lite 230 can be used as well. What not to use: I’ve seen more problems with Newton shoes than any other. Avoid them. Don’t fall for the barefoot myth, either.

Four to seven 30-second bursts of all-out (250% VO2 Max) stationary biking, with four minutes of recovery time between bursts. These bursts were performed 3x a week for just two weeks. Total on-bike time for the two weeks was a mere 15 minutes. Endurance capacity for this “sprint” group almost doubled, from 26 to 51 minutes,

Gmap Pedometer (www.gmap-pedometer.com) As nice as fancy gadgets can be for tracking your runs or bike routes, a Google Maps hack gives you the same data with no added equipment.

CrossFit Endurance (http://www.crossfitendurance.com/) Brian MacKenzie’s homebase and house of pain, replete with workouts and forums.

CrossFit Exercises (www.fourhourbody.com/crossfit) Instructional videos of almost every single CrossFit exercise and routine.

Inov-8 F-Lite 220 (www.fourhourbody.com/talon220) Inov-8 F-Lite 230 (www.fourhourbody.com/f-lite230)

As a general guideline, we don’t want time under tension for exercise sets to exceed 10 seconds, as we want to minimize lactic acid production.

Do as little as needed, not as much as possible.

Walk as fast as possible for 15 minutes, three sessions per week.
The walk is seven and a half minutes out and the same time back.
This doesn’t sound difficult, and it isn’t at first.
The challenge is that the athlete must walk further out at each session and still return in the same seven and a half minutes.
“Walk as fast as possible” means that the athlete should strongly and persistently want to jog.

Peak power output and pain tolerance is between 4:00 and 6:00 P.M. in their studies, this corresponds to 8–10 hours after waking.

Keep training times consistent so you can accurately gauge progress.

Use an average, not just the wake time on a scheduled workout day.

SWIMMING
I recommend reading the Total Immersion book after watching the DVD, as the drills are nearly impossible to understand otherwise.
Aqua Sphere Kaiman goggles,
Total Immersion, Freestyle Made Easy, DVD (www.fourhourbody.com/immersion)
Aqua Sphere Kaiman Goggles (www.fourhourbody.com/kaiman)
Total Immersion Swimming Freestyle Demo by Shinji Takeuchi (www.fourhourbody.com/shinji)

Life must be lived forward, but can only be understood backward.

5–10 grams of creatine monohydrate powder per day for two consecutive weeks every two months. If you choose to use this protocol, I suggest tracking and trending hepatic enzymes, BUN, and all the usual blood testing suspects to ensure no kidney problems.

You can mimic, even exceed, the supposed life-extending effects of caloric restriction with intermittent fasting

Fast-5:
Fast for 19 hours beginning at bedtime, followed by five hours of eating as much as necessary to satisfy hunger.
This is popular for moderate weight loss, which typically appears starting in the third week and averages one pound of loss per week thereafter.

ADCR:
Alternate Day Caloric Restriction (ADCR) requires that calories be cut 50–80% every other day. It has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, autoimmune disease, and even asthma after just two weeks.

Iron reduction through phlebotomy (bloodletting) can not only improve insulin sensitivity, but also reduce cancer-specific and all-cause deaths.

1–4 whole blood donations spread two months apart. No leeches required.
If you’d like to increase the removal of pesticides and other environmental toxins normally stored in fat, you can do two things:
schedule to donate a double portion of plasma, and drink a cup of caffeinated coffee about 60 minutes before going to the center.

Most of us have resigned ourselves to a partial completeness, just as Chad Fowler did before losing more than 100 pounds.

“What’s the fastest way for someone to improve their inner game? Improve your outer game.” – Richard Branson
If you want to be more confident or effective, rather than relying on easily-defeated positive thinking and mental gymnastics, learn to run faster, lift more than your peers, or lose those last ten pounds. It’s measurable, it’s clear, you can’t lie to yourself. It therefore works.
Recall Richard Branson’s answer to the question “How do you become more productive?”: work out.

A Dow Joneser: someone whose self-worth is dependent on things largely outside of their control.

SpectraCell Nutrient Testing (www.fourhourbody.com/spectracell): $364 This test is used to pinpoint vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies.
Of the blood tests, SpectraCell was, across the board, the most immediately impactful.
Use www.fourhourbody.com/bloodtests to look up unfamiliar blood test terms, or to get a better understanding of your own results.

Food allergy experiments and polling:
most problems are caused by gluten, which you shouldn’t be eating much of in the first place; and you can create food allergies if you eat the same foods and same protein sources all the time.
The fix: Follow the Slow-Carb Diet, and change your main protein sources and staple meals every month or so.

The Quantified Self (www.quantifiedself.com)
Curated by Wired cofounding editor Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf, a managing editor of Wired, this is the perfect home for all self-experimenters. The resources section alone is worth a trip to this site, which provides the most comprehensive list of data-tracking tools and services on the web (www.fourhourbody.com/quantified).

Daytum (www.daytum.com) Conceived by Ryan Case and Nicholas Felton, Daytum is an elegant and intuitive service for examining and visualizing your everyday habits and routines.

Observational studies cannot control or even document all of the variables involved. Observational studies can only show correlation: A and B both exist at the same time in one group. They cannot show cause and effect.

List of Cognitive Biases: (www.fourhourbody.com/biases)

Brazil nuts have been shown in clinical studies to be more effective than supplementation for increasing selenium, so 400 micrograms is approximately eight nuts per day (49 micrograms each).

Testing a primarily plant-based diet (what I’ll refer to as “PPBD”),
Step 1. Remove starches (rice, bread, grains) and add legumes. Dense products, like black bean burgers without buns, are encouraged.
Step 2. Ensure that all of your meat is pasture-raised, grass-fed, or sourced within 50 miles of your home. Step 3. Eat meat only after 6:00 P.M. (what Mark Bittman and others refer to as the “vegan till 6” plan) or eat meat only on the weekends or on cheat days. Step 4. Remove all meat except fish (pescatarian) and/or eggs and dairy (lacto-ovo vegetarian).
Step 5. Eat a 100% plant-based vegan diet.

The most consistently recommended protein powders among vegan athletes are: Sun Warrior Chocolate Brown Rice Protein (rice protein) Pure Advantage Pea Protein Isolate (pea protein) Nitro Fusion Plant Fusion (rice, pea, and artichoke protein) I have also confirmed each of these as non-vomit-inducing when blended with 1–2 tablespoons of almond butter and either ice water, almond milk, or coconut milk.

Choose mild hunger over breaking your rules.

5 grams of creatine daily for 6 weeks, and the researchers concluded that “Creatine supplementation had a significant positive effect (p<0.0001) on both working memory (backward digit span) and intelligence (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices).” 2 grams per day did not replicate these results in separate studies.

Currently my main source of isolated protein is pea and rice protein powders, my favorite being Plant Fusion by Nitro Fusion.

Presoaked almonds (soak the almonds in water 3–4 hours or overnight)

Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.

Eighty to 90 models have helped Charles Munger develop, in Warren Buffett’s words, “the best 30-second mind in the world. He goes from A to Z in one move. He sees the essence of everything before you even finish the sentence.” Charles Munger likes to quote Charles Darwin: Even people who aren’t geniuses can outthink the rest of mankind if they develop certain thinking habits.

######### QUOTES:
“Everything popular is wrong.” – Oscar Wilde
We seem to have confused comfort with happiness. – Dean Karnazes
The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. – Mark Twain
It is vain to do with more what can be done with less. – William of Occam
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is uniquely your own.” – Bruce Lee

######### URLS and their redirect:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/superhuman

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/tim-ferriss-superhuman.htm?mcid=superhuman

http://www.dailyburn.com/superhuman

http://dailyburn.com/superhuman

http://www.fourhourbody.com/phil

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Phil-Libin-Fat-Loss-Glide-Path.xls

http://www.fourhourbody.com/cq

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/usp/super.html&cjsku=10087

http://www.athleticgreens.com

http://www.fourhourbody.com/thera

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GBOMNE

http://www.fourhourbody.com/minibands

http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?cid=138

http://www.fourhourbody.com/garlic

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/nw/gar.html&cjsku=6881

http://www.fourhourbody.com/greentea

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/le/megagreenteaextract.html&cjsku=11699

http://www.fourhourbody.com/ala

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/now/ala.html&cjsku=NOW584

http://www.fourhourbody.com/policosanol

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/now/poli.html&cjsku=9293

http://www.fourhourbody.com/colpac

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EAPNCQ

http://www.dexcom.com

http://www.fourhourbody.com/jazz

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0031ERL7W

http://www.fourhourbody.com/exercises

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/exercises/

http://www.fourhourbody.com/kettlebells

http://www.kettlebellkettlebells.com?apid=index&abid=cee541d4

http://www.fourhourbody.com/buckwheat

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006HVVFK

http://www.egoscue.com

http://www.imtjonline.com/resources/patient-guide

http://www.bumrungrad.com

http://www.fourhourbody.com/fms

http://www.functionalmovement.com/SITE/functionalmovementscreen/locatefmstrainer.php

http://www.fourhourbody.com/cl

http://www.fourhourbody.com/tgu

http://www.fourhourbody.com/1SDL

http://www.fourhourbody.com/squat

http://www.fourhourbody.com/crossfit

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com

http://www.crossfitendurance.com/

http://www.fourhourbody.com/crossfit

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html

http://www.fourhourbody.com/talon220

http://www.inov-8.com/Products-Detail.asp?PG=PG1&L=27&P=5050973118

http://www.fourhourbody.com/f-lite230

http://www.inov-8.com/Products-Detail.asp?PG=PG1&L=27&P=5050973021

http://www.fourhourbody.com/immersion

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FDK78W

http://www.fourhourbody.com/kaiman

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000DN89Q6

http://www.fourhourbody.com/shinji

http://www.fourhourbody.com/bloodtests

http://www.labtestsonline.org

http://www.fourhourbody.com/spectracell

http://www.spectracell.com/

http://www.quantifiedself.com

http://quantifiedself.com/

http://www.fourhourbody.com/quantified

http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/qs-resource-links.php

http://www.daytum.com

http://www.fourhourbody.com/biases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

中央公园的露天小剧场座落在起伏小丘的中央，坐拥在高大的树林的掩映之中，舞台后侧是一个小湖，但从剧场的观众席望去，小湖也是被浓荫环抱着，只能依稀看到湖面上静静的绿萍。大约可以容纳两三千观众的剧场如古罗马露天剧场的格局建造的，高高的观众席有极好的视野。夏天纽约的夜，晚上8点天还没有暗下来，7：15分开始进场了，7：30开场。但观众还在陆陆续续进场。有人提醒其实戏已经开始了，舞台上空着戏服的演员已经在走去，谈话，搬动桌椅，最有意思的是右侧铁架上挂着一排巨大的算盘，一个人举着一要竹竿时不时拨动一下算盘珠，看了半天终于明白：那时在显示股票行情。8：10天终天慢慢暗下来，当几个演员走到台口说话的时候，大家才明白戏开始了。

《威尼斯商人》的此次改编，一直引起极大的争议，主要集中在犹太商人夏洛克身上。世人熟知的老故事，以及莎士比亚的反犹主义，其实已经没有什么意思可说的了，所以我想此次热怕是100%冲着艾尔帕西诺而来，毕竟夏洛克的银幕形象是他塑造的。我以为改编不太成功，剧情设计是安东尼奥还不上那三千金币，但他的朋友们愿意用九千金币换他的一磅肉，但夏洛克还是要割他一磅肉。难为了编剧，逻辑上是一定要把夏洛克打倒不可的意思，但就没有意思了。如果说我不太满意这种改编的话，却对艾尔的演出大为欣赏。他不再是《教父》中的威严形象，也失去了《疤面刹星》中野气，《女人香味》中的凌然，我们看到了一个计较、钻钱眼的、一根筋的、充满怨气、绝望的老头。他的一腔苦恼谁去说？苍凉，孤独，人生真不易。好象多少年来，钱总是与人作对，但谁都又离不开钱。

舞台设计真是绝对的一流水平，什么叫世界级，这就是。三道移动的铁架，几张桌椅，演员又是舞台人员，边演边搬动道具，你分不清他是在重新布景，还是在剧情中演出。

当深夜降临后，阵阵微风吹过，非常凉爽。

If you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.

life = risk.