Author Archives: paultheffner

Top 5 funniest things on the internet

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Here are my top 5 funniest things on the internet in case you missed any of them.  Some of them never get old no matter how many times I see them.

#1 Ironic Photos

truck fire

ironicnfun-wcth01 24hour ironicnfun-wcth09 knock

See more here ironic photos here 

#2 Funny Text Messages – there are so many but this is my all time favorite

mom text

See more funny text messages here 

#3 Internet fails / You had 1 job

you-had-one-job13__605you-had-one-job24__605 stop

See more you had one job fails here 

#4 Worlds toughest job – with a twist at the end

#5 Messing with People when they post ads

cat

I like the 10 formal complaints and working out with Jeff ones as well but the cat one is by far the most popular.  See the full page here 

And bonus #6: Elephant ‘takes selfie’ with dropped mobile phone – I mostly like this one because of the British humor in the article.

_75181089_rpy_elephant_selfie_01_2

Read the full story here

 

 

reduce stress

Life is easy but responsibility is hard – 5 ways to reduce stress

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I just finished an amazing / stress free vacation weekend up in the mountains of Colorado and came back to a stressful Sunday night.  We had issues with our child care provider for the next week and my wife and I both had to do at least an hour of work after we put our daughter to bed and all of this before the week even started.

Here are 5 things to help you deal with stress and also be more successful in life:

  1. Decide if it is worth it

Movie stars, professional athletes, and CEOs live incredible lives but also have a lot of stress and make a lot of sacrifices.  I am sure all of them have wanted less stressful lives at some point but ultimately they decide that they have a goal / purpose in life and that is more important than sleep, spending time with friends, family, etc.  If the job or project that is causing you stress is not going to help you achieve a goal that is important to you then make it easy – find another job, career, boss, etc.  If it is worth it then read on.

  1. Be Proactive / Responsible

Now that you are finished feeling sorry for how tough your life is you can think of how great your life will be when you succeed in your goal and get to work.  When things are stressing you out and you don’t want to quit then the only way to relieve the stress is to take care business.  The 1st habit of Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is Be Proactive – Take initiative in life by realizing that your decisions are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow and you will discover that the best course of action is to work as hard as you can to prepare for or complete the task that is stressing you out.

Stop Procrastinating and wishing it would go away .  Abraham Lincoln said it very well –

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

  1. Make a to do list and prioritize the most import things

If you don’t make a list of everything that needs to get done then you will forget something.  I find it best to create lists 1st thing in the morning or during boring meetings.  Some people do it before they go to bed but it can stress you out and make it hard to sleep.

The next part is to prioritize things on the list.  Set dates / goals to finish tasks because there is something amazing that happens when a deadline approaches and you find extra focus.  You should be working on the highest priority / most critical tasks first.  I am not sure why but a lot of people tend to always pick the easy tasks or most fun tasks first, which sets people up for failure and lots of stress on the most important deadlines.  Don’t check your email when you first come into work but instead cross off one important task first and when you do read email only skim for important emails from your boss or emails related to your high priority tasks / projects.  There is some misconception that when you get an important email you need to respond right away – but in reality whoever sent it probably won’t check their email for a few hours.

Make choices to do certain things at certain times of the day. depending on if you are a morning person or night owl.  Do intense work when you are most productive and mundane tasks when you are tired.  Staff meetings, admin work, and emails are things that I schedule when I am tired so that I can work on more important tasks when I am at my best.

Before I learned how to prioritize work I used to always dream of all of the stuff I would do if I had an extra hour each day.  I could sleep, work out, relax, or do anything I wanted.  After prioritizing and doing the other things on this blog I feel that I have plenty of time.  One thing that I do for fun now is take an hour at the end of the day to cross off as many admin / other tasks as I can.

  1. Make extra time

If you have a big project that is stressing you out then reserve time to get stuff done outside of normal work hours.  Wake Up Early, Stay up late, or work weekends – whatever works for you and your family’s schedule.  The key in my mind for any long term success is the rest of your family is asleep or working at the time you chose.  There are tons of articles on the benefits of staying up late or waking up early.  I tend to agree with the wake up early crowd – there is something calming about being more in tune with being awake when the sun is out and Ben Franklin had this famous quote –

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”

Be more efficient when you are outside of work.  When you have a lot going on it is amazing how much time you can get by cutting out non important things like Facebook and TV.  As a former consultant I always find ways to save 2-5 minutes on mundane tasks that I do every day.  Here are a few suggestions –

Morning Tips – Shave every other day, only rinse once in shower, never use the snooze button, eat during your commute, work during your commute if possible, know which traffic lanes are the quickest at different times of the day and alternate routes if there is traffic

Meetings – delegate meetings that are not essential for you to attend, accomplish other tasks like email, updating your priority list or eating lunch during other meetings, which you are not an active participant

Lunch / Dinner – make extra dinner so that you can have leftovers

  1. Balance Work and Life

One of the most important ways to deal with stress is to choose the time to work hard and chose time to balance life based on what is most important at the time.

If you are close to a promotion / have a big project or test then chose work.  Once you hit the major milestone then take a vacation and recharge.

If you have a major life event like a wedding / baby coming or a big vacation coming then chose life and say no to new projects for a few months.  When you are on vacation then do your best to forget about work.

2048 Strategy and Help Avoiding Common Mistakes

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2048 is more a game about avoiding trouble and being flexible and less about strategy. There are common mistakes that people make that I will show you how to avoid and I will also share some 2048 strategy secrets too.

1. How to avoid moving all blocks down

This assumes your strategy is to get 2048 in the top row but you could also try to get 2048 on the bottom and reverse all of this advice.  The number one reason people have to move the blocks down is that for some reason they move the blocks up whenever they can. Constantly moving the blocks up in the beginning is an ok strategy but towards the middle and end of the game you should be focused on moving everything left or right and then consolidating up. Once you change your strategy slightly you will be amazed because you will no longer have to move the blocks down.

There are only the 2 cases when you will have to move down so do your best not to fill in the 2nd or 3rd row entirely. As long as you are focused on moving everything left for example then you should be able to leave the right side open so that you can move right when you get in trouble.
2048 pic

And finally if for some reason you do have to move the blocks down your very next move should be to move the blocks back up and focus on building the 2 up to a number you can use. One round the 2 popped up above my 1024 so I moved it over and then I had 2 blocks on the top and then it just went out of control from there. Here is a quick video on how to attack a 2 on the top row.

2. No colored blocks in bottom 2 rows

When you have 2’s and 4’s on the bottom it is easy to combine them and move them up, but if you end up with a 64 in the 3rd row it is a little harder to move it up so typically once I get an 8 in the 3rd row or an 8 all the way to the left in the 2nd row (assuming I am moving everything right) then I focus all of my attention to combine the 8 with something else. The video above shows an example of dealing with a 64 in the 3rd row about half way through.

3. Stop making mistakes when tired

Take a break after you get to a good stopping point.  A typical game can last 30 min so why not take a break. If your spouse or kid is talking to you then put the game on hold for a few min and come back to it later. There is no shame in spreading the game out over a few sessions instead of playing distracted or tired.

4. Think 2 or 3 moves ahead

This matters most if you are on the bottom row or have an 8 in the 3rd row or are trying to work yourself out of some other situation.  In most cases you can move 3 directions (assuming you don’t want to move down). When things get tight you may only have 2 directions or you may be forced to move in only 1 direction. The key is to avoid situations by following the steps above but once you are in them the best thing to do is to concentrate on how the 4’s will collapse into 8’s and the 8’s into 16’s. I typically have them all move up the far left or the far right side. Every move should be towards some goal to either fix a problem situation or to move towards a 512, 1028, or 2048.

5. 2048 Strategy

I think most blogs or people come up with the 2048 Strategy to build a chain – Have a 1024 in the corner next to a 512, 256 and 128 and build into the 128 and collapse them all.  The key 2048 strategy and help avoiding common mistakes is to be flexible and focus all of your attention on fixing problem areas.  This will give you more room for error when you need it. The other piece of advice covered above and demonstrated in the video below is to constantly move to the right and then consolidate up. This will prevent you from filing in the 2nd and 3rd row and having to move the blocks down.

Happy playing – if you have other good 2048 strategies, tips or common problems then please post them below.