The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Research

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the fourth part of the series here, the third part here, the second part here, and the first part here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the research path involves doing lots of research (obviously), gathering a large amount of data, and analysing said data before making big decisions. 'Knowledge is power' is foremost in their minds: they believe the more research they do, the more likely they are to succeed at their goal.

To an extent they are right. If they are setting the right goals, finding out a lot about them will certainly help 99% of researchers. However, most researchers must stick with goals that other people have done. They aren't good at blazing their own trail, due to the nature of their style.

Growth:

Similar to progressives. A researcher will want to focus on areas that are easily defined and researchable. Health, productivity, work and building skills are all good. If there are plenty of how-to articles out there, it's a good bet. Anything that's difficult to write about or to understand without personally experiencing it is a weak point for a researcher.

Any researcher, however, will have some subtype. It's impossible to rely entirely on other people's facts. There's a reason they call it PERSONAL growth. It's unique to you. A researcher, therefore, may have trouble setting their own goals.

Subtypes:

Research / Progressive (R/P): The most common form of researcher. This researcher will research easy-to-define goals to find other people who have made the transition, and will find out about it. An example would be me while researching polyphasic sleep. I knew what I wanted to do so I let my progressive side take a back seat. When I researched polyphasic sleep I found out a number of things that will prove incredibly helpful when I'm in the right circumstances to attempt this again (which will be in a little over 2 months).

Research / Intuitive (R/I): This isn't as bizarre a pairing as you might think. The two actually complement each other quite well. Intuition as a secondary style is usually used to define goals. An R/I will generally know where they want to go, thus fixing the major weakness of researchers, while finding out a lot about the path ahead, a major weakness of intuitives. Together they make for a good all-round growth style.

Research / Self-Trust (R/S): This is fairly similar to R/I, except that rather than define goals, an R/S is a much more pure researcher. An R/S uses their gut feeling as another research tool. Once they feel good about what they're researching they can research the hell out of it. Their only trouble is choosing goals, but self-trust helps that a bit by acting as a barometer for what areas to focus on. R/S's are notoriously prone to analysis paralysis, more so than other researchers.

Shifting:

If there's not enough information on your chosen topic, you feel weary of sifting through data, or you simply want to make a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in various degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

You're running into unforeseen problems.

Usually, the answer here isn't more research as your gut reaction might be. Most likely there's a problem outside the task at hand: part of you is blocking it, or this simply isn't something you should be doing at all, and you should focus on another goal. You need to switch to Intuition. When you do this, try to use your intuition to figure out why you're being blocked. Once you figure out what you really should be doing, you can go right back to researching.

You can't pick a goal.

This is a common problem with many researchers. Especially with the internet, you have a world of data at your fingertips. So what do you research? You need to become Progressive. A progressionist will be able to use logic to figure out where the greatest gains can be achieved in the least time, and then you can research that. A key thing to remember with research is that it complements everything quite well. After going through your problem, you can go right back to it.

You don't feel confident.

All the research in the world doesn't make you feel confident. You're worried you might not succeed, you feel insecure. Knowledge doesn't seem too powerful anymore. You need to shift to Self-Trust. If your gut feeling tells you no, then there's always a good reason why. Research is good, but it has a tendency to fall off the path. Use your feelings as a guide to get back to the right goals, and then go with it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, research is a lot like salt. It goes well with almost anything, but generally isn't too good on it's own. You need a path to complement it so you know you're heading in the right direction, or you'll spend lots of time researching the wrong thing and having to start over. Research is also a great secondary style, too.

Until next time, may the 20 blogs and 15 self-help articles you trawl through hold the keys you need for success:)

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Intuition

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the third part of the series here, the second part of the series here, and the first part of the series here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the intuitive path involves shunning long-term plans and goals, and putting trust in one's intuition. It's a fairly rare path, and certainly not for most beginners. However, if the intuitive's intuition is well-developed it can lead to excellent results. Unlike other paths, which must use some intuition, people who embrace the intuitive path trust their intuition implicitly to help them grow. Other than following their intuition, they have no or very few plans or goals.

Generally the only real way to know that the intuitive path is working is to look back after being on the path for a while, and seeing where it has taken you. Truly it is the most esoteric of the paths I intend to discuss, but I'll do my best to do it justice.

Growth:

Unlike most paths, intuitives are equally suited for all areas of growth depending on what intuition tells them. They are neither strong, nor weak in any area, and can use this to their advantage by instinctively focusing on whatever area needs work and working on it at full strength. An intuitive may not even define what field they are working on. It requires being comfortable with ambiguity.

Subtypes:

Intuitive / Progressive (I/P): An I/P is by necessity different from a regular intuitive. Intuition is all about not making plans, whereas progression is all about making precise plans. Generally an I/P will instinctively know what goals to set for. Rather than logically working it out, they will simply trust their subconscious to set a goal, then bring it into the conscious by defining it through writing or typing the requirements.

Intuitive / Research (I/R): An I/R is exactly what you'd think. Despite using their intuition to grow, they aren't going to be caught unprepared. After figuring out what they want to achieve, they will arm themselves with information on the topic in order to achieve maximum effectiveness with it. If an I/R wanted to get fitter, you can bet they'd research a lot about it.

Intuitive / Self-Trust (I/S) An I/S is as close to a pure intuitive as you're likely to get. Intuition and self-trust are very similar: indeed, to the untrained eye they may seem the same. However intuition comes from a force outside yourself, whereas self-trust is very internal. With practice, an I/S learns to seperate these cues and make them work together to know exactly what they have to do for certain almost every time.

Shifting:

If your intuition is weak, you feel cut off from it, or you simply want to make a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in varying degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

You're not getting results.

Your intuition probably isn't developed enough to make the path work effectively. Progression is what you need, especially since your next goal is clear. If you want to go back to intuition, you need to increase it's strength. There are several ways to do this, including meditation, changing your diet to be closer to nature, and progressive training: i.e, giving your intuition simpler tasks than taking over all your growth at once.

All these can be easily defined. If you don't want to go back to intuition, simply go over what your weakest area is, and set goals to work on that.

You know what to do, but you're failing.

You know you need to do X, but obstacles keep popping up. You need to become a Researcher temporarily. Most likely the problems you're facing have already been solved by people, and a favourite tactic of bloggers is to teach people to solve problems they've already solved (believe me, I know). Most likely you can find the answer if you go deep enough. There's more to everything than meets the eye.

However, if all your research is going nowhere, perhaps you aren't taking intuition far enough. Maybe you're on the wrong path. But only do this if research fails: and give it a couple of weeks of dedicated research. Give it a chance.

You don't feel secure.

You feel like you're giving too much control of your life to outside forces, but at the same time, you don't know how to take control. You need to turn to Self-Trust. Self-Trust is similar to intuition, but it's internal so you have complete control. If necessary, work your way up to trusting yourself more. If you already trust yourself, translate that trust into a dominant force.

Conclusion

The intuition path has it's pros and cons, but in the hands of a skilled intuitive is an excellent path to take. It's not easy to master, but the rewards are certainly worth it. If you want to become an intuitive but don't yet have the skill for it, try progressive training of your intuition. The more you trust it, the better it will work for you.

Until next time, may you know what you must do.

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Progression

Welcome back to my series on the 4 styles of personal growth. For those who have missed part of it, you can find the second part of the series here and the first part here.

Summing Up:

To recap, the progressionist path of personal growth is a very logical, methodical path in which a practicer will set measurable goals (such as a 30-day trial to do X) and then achieve them. A stranger, looking at the practicer's accomplishments, will be able to state with precise certainty if a progressionist has achieved their goal or not. That's how clear and precise their goals are.

I personally am a progressionist, as evident by my 30-day trials. My goals are quite measurable. Other people may have goals like 'Be more loving' 'Help more people' and 'Do better at X'. A progressionist doesn't really get that. If you can't measure your goals, what's the point? Note: there IS a point, in that it gets you moving. Just by examining the other styles, I'm able to see with their eyes.

Growth:

A progressionist's main growth efforts will generally be directed at fields with a lot of numbers. Health, productivity, and finance are examples. It's hard to make an undefinable goal in terms of finances, and very easy to make a strictly measurable one.

The fields they will have the most trouble in are fluid, subjective fields like socialising. How can you measure if you're better at socialising than you were a month ago? It can be done, but it's not easy.

Subtypes:

Progressive / Intuitive (P/I): A P/I is difficult to define: more information can be found here. To sum it up, a P/I will generally use their intuition not for setting goals, but for choosing fields. A P/I might not use their intuition to decide "I want to make $5k a month'. Rather, they would feel like they wanted to be richer, then create an exact goal, and follow through logically.

Progressive / Research (P/R): My personal style, these two go hand in hand. A P/R will take logic to it's extreme, by deciding on a goal, then finding out as much info as possible on the subject, then assimilating that information, picking an exact goal, and moving forward. This is the way a scientist would be likely to approach personal growth.

Progressive / Self-Trust (P/S): Unlike other progressives, a P/S usually doesn't follow their goals in a logical manner: rather, they will pick the goals that feel right, and use their feelings as a barometer. Of course, they'll still make exact goals. P/S's use their gut feelings as radar signals, interpreting them scientifically and adjusting course accordingly.

Shifting:

If you feel that progression isn't going to help you in your next goal, you've plumbed the depths of it, or you simply want a change, this section is for you. Personal growth is malleable, and a good growth expert will be able to call upon all paths in varying degrees of expertise. Here's what you may need to do if:

You're uncertain.

You have a goal, but you're worried about it. You know what you want to do, but you're scared of taking the next step. You want to become a Researcher temporarily. This is an easy shift: your mind should easily play along with getting lots of information. You can then make your decision as to whether to do the goal or not.

You're moving in to an unfamiliar field.

A progressionist trying to do better at socialising won't do too well. It's not measurable, and it's very difficult to know if you've made significant progress. To do well here, you'll need to move into Self-Trust. Focus on the small things in life: even the most anal of progressionists don't plan every little thing. Start moving into not planning larger areas until you're confident taking on projects with just feelings to guide you, then make the shift.

Things are shifting too fast.

You can't keep up with the rapid pace. Goals you make become obsolete in a week, and you can't analyse the changes properly. You need to move into Intuition. Under normal circumstances this shift is hard, but if you have this problem, you're halfway there. As soon as you fully accept you can't control this, and you're just along for the ride, you can let go and let your intuition guide you.

Conclusion

The progression path has it's pros and cons, but is especially strong in the more scientific areas of growth. As long as you have lots of room to grow in formulaic areas, the progressionist path will serve you well. In order to supplement this path, you should learn to trust yourself more so that you can take on less measurable challenges and grow holistically.

Until next time, may you get from A to B within X days following Route Y:)

The 4 Styles of Personal Growth: Relationships Between The Styles

This is a followup post to Choose Your Own Path: The 4 Different Styles of Personal Growth. The post has resonated surprisingly well, so I decided to write a follow-up series. A link to the original article can be found here.

While the 4 styles are all different, some of them are closer together than others. Progressionists and researchers are left-brained, whereas intuitive and self-centered people are primarily right-brained in their approach. Thus, progressionists are also likely to be researchers, and vice-versa, whereas intuitives are likely to also be self-trusting. (and vice versa)

One thing that might be hard for some readers to understand is intuition vs. self-trust. (astute readers will note that I changed 'self-centered' to 'self-trust'. This is because I believe it's both clearer, and executes the point better.) Intuition involves doing what you feel you should do: using your feelings as a roadmap, effectively. You don't make plans (unless, like many, you're not purely intuitive) and you let your subconscious guide you along.

In contrast, the self-trust path involves making plans, and setting goals, but listening to your gut during the planning stage. If something feels right, the self-truster will then make a plan for it, but if it seems wrong, they will simply not do it, even if they think it's the right thing. If they think it's the right think, they may work through the feelings to find the true issue, but rarely will they go against them directly.

Finally, the hardest thing to understand is a progression / intuitive person. How could this be possible? While rare, what this involves is generally, for a progressive / intuitive, using one's subconscious, rather than logic, to determine what goals to actually set, and for an intuitive / progressive, their intuition will usually lead them to take clearly defined steps which they can later look back on.

From this point on in the series, I shall refer to the four paths as such:

P = Progressive

I = Intuitive

R = Researcher

S = Self-Trust

As an example of the difference between P/I and I/P, let's take vegetarianism. Both people wish to do it.

The P/I will ask themselves 'What do I do next' and will receive some sort of sign to eliminate meat from their diet. They set a goal to do so for 30 days, and succeed. They then ask themselves whether or not to shift back, and receive a confirmation from the universe not to. Goal succeeded.

The I/P will ask themselves 'What do I do next' and will receive some sort of sign to eliminate meat from their diet. They do so, feeling no resistance from their intuition, and after a few weeks, they look back, and can see the benefits of being vegetarian. Both halves agree to continue. Goal succeeded.

While the two are similar, they do differ in some ways. This is very similar to the difference between R/S and S/R.

A note: For this series, I cannot avoid generalisations. It may be that you cannot actually be categorised under this system at all, or act differently than your profile states you will. That's fine. Everyone has their own path.

Over the next few days, I'll be writing four posts, exploring each profile in depth, including each secondary path, as well as tips on where to grow, and how to shift alignment when necessary.

Until next time, may you see the interconnectedness of all things.

Choose Your Own Path: 4 Different Styles of Personal Growth

Throughout this blog, I've talked a lot about personal growth, and the way I approach it. But I've left out a very important piece of knowledge. Namely: you're free to disregard everything I say, and grow as you see fit.

In my mind, the only wrong path is refusing to grow and change at all. It's fine if you read 50 of my posts, then go out and ignore all of them. The point is to get moving, whichever path you take. There are many alternate paths, which by lack of experience, I haven't spoken of in-depth: but in order to set you off towards further research and experimentation, I shall describe them briefly. Note that I can't possibly describe all the paths, since they are limitless, but I'll try to speak about most of the major ones.

1. Progression

This is my path: I thought I'd start with what I know most. Progression is about measurable, attainable advances over specific periods of time. It's a very logical way of looking at things: if progress is measurable, it's easy to see you've attained it. As an extension of this progression, progressionists often set meta-goals, like my three-month areas of focus.

2. Intuition

This is the other extreme: I wouldn't recommend it to beginners. Even progressionists must use some intuition: otherwise how do you know what to aim your goals for? But dedicate intuitive growers rarely, if ever, actually set written goals: rather, they allow their own intuition and the universe to teach them as they see fit. This is a very creative, flowing way of looking at things: good for those who don't like restrictions.

3. Research

This personal growth enthusiast will dive into a topic, looking deeply and gaining as much knowledge as possible about a topic, before moving into a progression type goal of setting a measurable outcome. If knowledge is power, researchers hold all the cards. Good for knowing what you're up against.

4. Self-Trust

This circle often follows their own feelings and emotions as to what to do. If something feels "right", it's the way to go. If something feels wrong, it's not even considered. A lot of people, once they reach a certain level of consciousness, will adopt this motif, although they may use another primary method. Good for those who have high levels of self trust.

In my opinion, a conscious person will be able to draw from all four of these paths, but most people lean towards a specific one. Try doing a 30-day trial of switching to a different path. If you're very intuitive, try researching everything. Or ignore your feelings, and do what your brain says is correct. I don't suggest making this permanent, but if you have a rudimentary understanding of the other paths (as I must, because I have to write about them) you'll be able to harness them.

As a question: I'd like to know from all my readers, what path are you on? Most people will have a primary, and a secondary: I'm a progression / research person. I researched a LOT for polyphasic sleep, but mostly I stick to measurable goals. Either I attain it, or I do not.

Until next time, may you see from the other side of the coin.

101 in 1001 Update

I have three achievements that I have made toward the list in the last few days, which I shall list before moving on to the bulk of this post which will be about my geocaching adventure today.

1: I purged a good part of my room. I'd say 30-50% of the purging is now done, but I've obviously still got a while to go. I've tossed out most of my books: next comes my clothes.

2: I reached 300 unique visitors. I'm still getting a result of about 3.2 new visitors per post: I'd like to up that to about 10 in the next few months.

3: I found, with Rowland, 2 geocaches. That makes it up to 4/10. We'll have to start going further afield, after we find the cache that has eluded us thrice already. That'll also complete one of Rowland's list items. You should check out his blog here.

Today was a pretty big day in terms of physical exercise: it's probably the longest I've travelled under my own power in one day. Ever.

Rowland was our Mega-Ultra Navigator Supreme, if you asked him, and did a fairly decent job if you ask me. We went to North Richmond first, about 4 km away, and then proceeded to grab some very tasty chips for lunch. We then went about 2 km up hills to reach the first cache.

The GPS was pointing to it being around a big tree: but it happened to be on private property. Me and Rowland hewed and hawed for about 10 minutes about whether or not to actually go in and try to find it. I was adamant, however, that it wasn't on private property, and as I moved back about 20 metres to try to get a better fix, Rowland managed to spy it: it was very, very well camouflaged in my opinion. Elated with our success, we signed the book and moved on.

Both the GPS and Rowland were wrong about which direction to take after we reached the end of Grose River Road (as Rowland pointed out, Grose River Road should take you to the ACTUAL RIVER) but it was a fun time anyway, as after trudging up the hills with our bikes, we found a dead-end, and proceeded to coast back down. I did one at full speed, and all Rowland heard was: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

However, we then went back and took the other way, and finally managed to find it (Rowland collapsed on the beach in joy when we did) and started our search. The GPS quickly pointed us to a vast field of long grass, and it took us about 10-15 minutes to find it. The GPS kept cutting out, so I'd try and coax it into turning on (low battery at this point) and when it did, I RAN in the direction the GPS said until it cut out. Then I'd continue that way for a minute, then try again. Eventually we narrowed it down, and once again, Rowland spotted it. It had a mini Rubik's cube in it, and luckily I wanted a Rubik's cube, so I took that, and left a Chess computer game there as a trade (Chessmaster 8000, I have the 10th edition).

We then proceeded to go across the river, but I wasn't prepared for how deep or cold it would be. Despite wearing my shorts like an old man, I still got the bottoms of them soaked. It was BLOODY cold, my feet were ice-burnt by the end of it (or at least it felt that way) but after a break, and application of a towel, we headed back to Richmond.

All in all, twas a great, great day. We'll have to bike to Windsor next week...

Area of Focus: August - October

A few months ago, I outlined my method of personal growth over a longer period of time, but since I can't find it, I'll restate it briefly.

Rather than focus on a bunch of different goals in personal growth, I pick an area of my life I want to build up, and allocate about 75% of my growth to that area, for three months at a time. For the last three months, my focus has been health. I've improved my sleeping habits, my diet, and my exercise. I've gained a lot in the three months, and now it's time to lock in what I've gained, and move forward in another area.

For the next three months, the area I choose is Productivity. Starting August I'll kick it off with a few 30-day trials, and using research and experimentation, work to become a more productive person. I've been laying groundwork already.

I don't know what I'll do three months after this, but at the rate I'm growing, I'll be at a greater level of discipline and awareness three months from now than I am now, so a decision I make now may not be as good as one I can make in a few months. At the moment I'm thinking of social being the area, but I'll see how I feel about it when this area of focus is coming to a close.

I've missed blogging about personal growth, and the field of productivity has a LOT of good writing material available in it. I'm looking forward to writing some productivity-based posts that should hopefully help a lot of people take action. I've managed to get 300 unique visitors to this blog now: if only 5% were to benefit from this site at all, I've already helped more than a dozen people, and that's a very conservative estimate.

However, I'm certainly not stopping here, so if you have troubles with procrastination, deadlines, and managing projects, stay tuned. As soon as I work out the answers to my own procrastination problems I'll be happy to tell you:)

Until next time, may you see your target, and hunt it down.

No Post Tomorrow

There will be no blog post tomorrow, on account of my trip to Sussex Inlet. I doubt I'll have access to the Internet there.

101 in 1001 Update

It's been far too long since I posted one of these updates: I felt too tired on a polyphasic schedule! However, a fair bit has happened lately, so I'm documenting it all here.

Firstly: I have completed Task 6: Sort out your Magic card collection. I did this by going through all my cards, and tossing out every single one that I didn't want to keep. My collection is now about 10% of it's previous size, but retains 90% of the value.

I've changed Task 90, Learn to click your fingers, to another gaming challenge: Finish the Unholy War on Hard difficulty (both sides). I simply think learning to click my fingers is neither fun, nor significant.

I reached 90 blog posts a few days, so that milestone will be added to the list. I've also begun my business management course, and will be finished in 18 weeks.

Task 56: Inspire 10 people to complete 30-day trials successfully, now has a success. Rowland's finished a trial, so that's 1 down, 9 to go!

I've also mentally made the leap to continue being vegetarian: but I think I'll do it for a minimum of three months before labelling it as a permanent change.

Lastly, I've begun purging my room in earnest. It's a huge job, but in a week or two I should have less than half of my possessions, and I should be a lot happier!

So yeah: a lot has happened in the last few days, and hopefully I won' t leave the updates so late next time.

Polyphasic Sleep Update

Unfortunately, due to a few factors, but mainly the environment around me at this time, I won't be able to continue with polyphasic sleep.

In an environment that was conductive of polyphasic sleep, I'm sure I would be able to adapt. However, at the moment, my house is simply not the case. The main reason for this is because we're in the process of building an extension on the house. As you might imagine, building makes a lot of noise, and can often interrupt my naps.

I've made the decision to attempt to optimise my time better on a monophasic sleep schedule before trying to get more time on a polyphasic schedule. However, once my environment is better suited for polyphasic sleep, I'll be able to do it, and I will.

In brighter news, my friend Rowland is still going strong, and he's almost certain to successfully adapt to the Everyman schedule of polyphasic sleep. He'll have a blog up soon, and once it's up, I'll post a link to it.

Until next time, may you retreat: but never surrender.

Polyphasic Sleep - Day 3

The only thing worse than doing something stupid is admitting it to your loyal readers. I thought that the orientation for TAFE was going to last one week. Instead it's lasting one day. What does this mean? It means, in order to attend my classes, I can't do the Uberman.

However, I will continue to do the Everyman that I originally intended. I still intend to adapt to polyphasic sleep no matter what. I'm not going to give up.

Thanks to a bout of oversleeping while on the Uberman, I ended up sleeping 4.5 hours: which is actually only slightly longer than the Everyman core sleep, so it turned out alright in the end. I certainly beat myself up about it, but eventually when it turned out it was for the best, I accepted it as being meant to happen.

In other news, I should really find more convenient times to blog: such as in the afternoon or something. I can't do a good log on polyphasic sleep at 1 am while I'm adapting to it: so I may have to change the times that I blog.

The sleep deprivation on Everyman isn't too bad: it's basically like staying up very late on a monophasic schedule. I just hope I'll be functional at TAFE, but I seem to be so far. Generally I only actually feel tired when I would normally be asleep. Could this mean that I'm only tired because I've trained my body to BE tired at those times? It's certainly possible: and if I stop sleeping monophasically, that habit should go away soon.

In the meantime, I have to work out some more scheduled activities. With the amount of time I'm gaining from polyphasic sleep, I'll end up with about as much spare time as a monophasic person on vacation.

I shall continue regular blogging only after adapting, unfortunately. I don't think my blog posts would be very good at the moment: unless I write in the afternoon (when sleep-deprivation is basically nil). I'll have to start trying that.

See you tomorrow!

Polyphasic Sleep - Day 2

Rather than do the Everyman, I decided to make the shift to full Uberman at around midday today. So I won't be undergoing core sleep tonight. I consider this Day 1 of my Uberman adaptation: most sources on the web say that Day 2 or Day 3 is the hardest day, so hopefully I get over the worst of it soon and am functional in a week's time.

I haven't experienced a dream in a nap yet, but my friend Rowland has. We're both doing well: no problems with oversleeping, and we're taking our naps at the correct times.

It's currently nearly 2 am. I'm about as tired as I would be if I'd stayed up this late on a monophasic schedule, so I definitely think this should work. I'm managing to fall asleep during every nap: my body is getting used to it. I've also given up caffeine again. But this time I'm giving myself the luxury of caffeine-free soft drink, so I don't have to go without soft drink (soda for American readers).

I've been mulling over some ideas over what to do with all my extra time. The first thing I'd like to do is purge my room, which includes sorting my Magic cards (incidentally, completing 2 tasks on my list as well). After that, I'll need to work on it. I'm sure I'll find ways to pass the time, but I'd like to use it effectively, too.

Either way, the challenge isn't too difficult as of yet, so hopefully it doesn't get much worse than this.

Polyphasic Sleep - Day 1

Disclaimer: This won't be my best blog post ever. That's because I'm sleep deprived at the time of writing, as is evidenced by the polyphasic sleep challenge itself.

It's 2 am of the first day of polyphasic sleep. I have begun my naps, but didn't sleep at 11 pm. I simply wasn't that tired. This will not be a problem at 4 am, I can tell you that!

I played video games til about 1, when I then proceeded to stop because the more tired I got, the suckier I became. I've been wiling away the last hour talking on Twitter, Facebook, and MSN, and thinking up tasks to do and being too tired to do them. However, I do aim over the next few days to make sure that my room gets tidied. I'm going to set myself a goal every cycle (time until next sleep). This cycle's goal is to tidy off my desk.

If I tried to do this a couple of months ago, I doubt I would have managed it. However, my self-discipline is strong: but I haven't entered the hard part yet. The adaptation period has only just begun.

I'm pretty well prepared for the adaptation. I've done my research, and polyphasic sleep expert PureDoxyk is following and being followed by me. Many before me have succeeded, and if they can do it, so can I.

1 hour and 40 minutes until core sleep.

Polyphasic Sleep Challenge Schedule Explained

Greetings, new and returning readers. As many of you will know, I'm an avid personal growth enthusiast, so my latest challenge is adapting to polyphasic sleep. I've alluded to this challenge in the last two days, but some people may not know what polyphasic sleep is and people won't know what form I've elected to take. So today, just before my last night of monophasic sleep, I shall spell it out. This should also help by serving as a primer for people new to the concept, as well as explaining my polyphasic sleep schedule.

What is polyphasic sleep?

The best way to understand polyphasic sleep is to compare it to monophasic sleep: the standard sleep that most of you undergo each night. Monophasic sleep is typically 7-9 hours of sleep, in a single phase, per day. This allows for 5 or 6 complete 90-minute sleep cycles, which contain NREM, the gateway to REM, and deep sleep. But as humans, we don't need NREM except to prepare us for REM, and we get more deep sleep than we actually need. So therefore, we're literally wasting time every day while we sleep. So how do we remedy this?

The answer is polyphasic sleep. By sleeping in 20-minute increments more-or-less evenly spaced throughout the day, one can force the body to adapt: going into REM immediately, and then transitioning into deep sleep, all within 20 minutes. However, this is tough, because until the body adapts,l you get no REM sleep from the naps: so it feels like you haven't slept at all during them. Of course, just 20 minutes is only one sleep cycle, and we need five or six. So how do we get all the cycles? This is where scheduling comes in.

Polyphasic Sleep types: Everyman and Uberman.

The difference between the Uberman schedule and the Everyman schedule is simple. Everyman includes core sleep: Uberman does not. Core sleep is when, despite adapted to polyphasic sleep, you get at least one full 90-minute sleep cycle daily. For convenience, and for space, I shall only describe the two most common. A link to a polyphasic sleep website that has information on all the different schedules is at the bottom of this page.

The Uberman schedule is simple to read. In the Uberman, you sleep 6 times a day for 20 minutes, getting six sleep cycles. In the Everyman, you sleep for 3 hours per night of core sleep, plus 3 naps throughout the day.

Uberman = 2 hours per day of sleep.

Everyman = 4 hours per day of sleep.

Monophasic = 8 hours per day of sleep.

So 4 hours per day extra is all well and good, but why would anyone pick Everyman over Uberman? Well, as the name might suggest, Uberman isn't remotely easy. The advantages of Everyman over Uberman are:

• Slightly shorter period of adaptation
• Much easier adaptation
• Less sense of 'time dilation'. Uberman followers, once adapted, are forced to deal with the fact that they no longer 'go to sleep for the night' and need to learn a whole new way of living. Everyman followers still go to sleep for the night, just for less time.
• More flexibility. You can stretch an Everyman nap by an hour or two, but you don't want to do that with Uberman too often.

Both Uberman and Everyman are good ideas.

My Schedule

With a mere 8 days to adapt, and with little preparation, I have decided to do the Everyman. Tonight will be my last night of monophasic sleep: I shall begin the naps at 11 pm tomorrow, and then continue until I am adapted. My schedule will be:

• Core sleep: 4 am - 7 am
• Nap at 1 pm
• Nap at 6 pm
• Nap at 11 pm

This allows me to do my TAFE courses around the naps. The main issue is Saturdays, where I'll often be out of the house, and busy, from 10 am to 7 pm. For this strategy, I shall core sleep from 6 am - 9 am before the Saturday, then proceed to take an extra 3-hour core sleep when I get home. Within 24 hours, I'll be back on track. It's not ideal, but I enjoy my Saturday activities and am willing to pay the price. (Note: this would be impossible on Uberman)

I may, during the next holidays, upgrade to the Uberman schedule, but I'll need to analyse it's effect on my lifestyle versus having an additional 10-15 hours per week.

My friend Rowland is also doing the Everyman, and apart from Saturdays where he has no such difficulty, we will follow the same schedule. I also intend to do several projects from my list during the adaptation, such as purging my room of clutter, and sorting out my card collection according to the system I have devised (similar to my local card shop's system). The extra time should also make me more productive, as I intend to start a to-do list to be working on during my 20 hours of waking time per day.

Bibliography (a.k.a Further Reading)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep. The Wikipedia article. This is fairly scientific and not all of the data is up to date, but it's the first thing a lot of people will search for.

www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/. This is an article that leads to a series of articles about a popular personal development blogger's adventures into the Uberman schedule of polyphasic sleep, until his return 5 1/2 months later, because of the fact that the rest of the world was monophasic. He had no health problems and even reported increased creativity and alertness. This was also the blog series that first taught me about what polyphasic sleep was.

http://www.puredoxyk.com/index.php/polyphasic-sleep-portal/. This is a list of articles written by PureDoxyk, one of the two people who discovered the Uberman schedule in 2000. It has a lot of info on Everyman (that's where I found Everyman) and PureDoxyk is one of the greatest experts on polyphasic sleep in the world.

Thanks for bearing with me through this unexpectedly long blog. I'll be blogging about my polyphasic experiences starting Monday (Sunday won't be too interesting since I won't have hit the flow of it yet). Remember to follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Salivanth: I'll be Twittering around the clock. If you don't have a Twitter account, you can sign up at www.twitter.com

Until next time, may you take the time to research your goals.

How To Be Sure You're Working Toward Your Goals

When you have goals, and things you want to do in life, it pays to review them every now and then, and make sure you're still working on them. I checked one of mine today: I'm a lightworker. However, I haven't actually been doing much to help other people: I've been rather self-centered as of late. So once I've adapted to polyphasic sleep, I'm going to spend some of my new time helping others.

Here's a method to review your goals with, nice and simple.

Step 1: Write each of your goals down on a piece of paper.

You only need to do this for vague goals. If your goal is to lose weight, just step on the scale and you'll know how well you're doing. For example, I don't need to constantly check on my 101 in 1001 List, since it's obvious how much I've done. Goals like "Improve my blog" "Be a lightworker" etc. require clarification.

The following steps should be repeated for each goal.

Step 2: Ask yourself 'Do I still want to achieve this goal?'

If you don't want to achieve this, be honest. One of my goals was once to be an author: but now, while I'd like to write, it's a hobby, not something I want to make into a career. I'm not as interested in writing novels as I am in writing blog posts.

If the answer is no, move on to the next step.

Step 3: Ask yourself 'What have I done in the past week to help me in this goal?'

If the answer is 'Nothing' than you're probably not on track. Note: use your common sense here. I haven't done any work on moving towards my goal of getting my Web Design Diploma in the last week, but that's because I've already enrolled and classes haven't yet started.

If you are well on track, you can move on to the next goal. If not, move on to the next step.

Step 4: Ask yourself 'What can I do this week to help me in this goal?'

If you think for a few minutes (even seconds) you should be able to come up with some implementable actions to help you with whatever goal you're working on. If you can't think of a single thing, perhaps your goal isn't too implementable right now, and you should pick a different one.

So hopefully this method should help you determine which goals to keep and how to work on the goals you stick with. Steady progress on your goals is an integral part of personal growth.

Until next time, may the goals you have truly matter.