Hacking Your Hotel, Part 2

Introduction

Like many of you I need to travel for various reasons and many times that means stay in hotels. Even the nicest hotels can have issues that can hinder your performance. Dave Asprey has several great tips for staying in a hotel, but I have  few of my own.

Tip #2: Clean Out Your Coffee Maker

You would be surprised to see what comes out of a those cheap hotel room coffee makers when you just run water through it so spending some of your precious alpine or aquifer water to perform a "dry" run or two without coffee grounds is quite warranted.

I am even willing to sacrifice a cotton swab to get the hard to reach places.

With your coffee maker clean and ready for morning, you are ready to get a good night's sleep.

Stay well engineered,

Devon

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These statements or products referenced are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Hacking Introversion

I cannot find my Meyers Brigg's test results from years ago, but I am fairly certain that I fell in the introverted spectrum along with at least one third of the population on this spectrum, you would think that introverts would not get such grief like Susan Cain did during summer camp.

Introverts are not antisocial, they simply have less social "juice" in their cup. Put another way, Introverts have less social energy while Extroverts simply have more. The Introvert will typically deplete their social energy in two to three hours, but varies person to person.

Once depleted, Introverts must return to their place of refuge to recharge, which takes considerably longer. This leads to fewer social interactions and longer spans between interactions, which is often mistaken for antisocial behavior. Thankfully, there are some hacks for this.

Schedule Your Social Time

Obviously, the first step in hacking introversion is to plan your activities. If an event lasts longer than your personal tolerance, arrive fashionably late. This avoids the chance that you might be encouraged to stay the duration of the event. Even so, it helps to have another activity planned immediately after to ensure you are not tempted to stay for the after party.

Warm Up With Friends

The next tip is to spend time with people you are comfortable with before heading out to be social. When you are around friends, your defenses are down; in other words, you are relaxed. Often, friends will greet you with a handshake or a hug. Physical contact releases Oxytocin, the bonding hormone that is more likely to get you in a relaxed, social mood.

Practice Often

Lastly, as with anything, being social gets easier with practice. So, plan to practice and plan accordingly.

With these new tools at your disposal, you will be able to be more social, on your terms.

Stay well engineered,

Devon

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These statements or products referenced are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Hacking Your Hotel, Part 1

Like many of you, I need to travel for various reasons and many times that means staying in hotels. Even the nicest hotels can have issues that can hinder your performance. Dave Asprey has several great tips for staying in a hotel, but I have  few of my own.

Tip #1: Check the Corners

I come from a state that has few insects that are very dangerous, but other states and countries have everything from bed bugs to spiders and scorpions. I even found a scorpion in my parent's spare bedroom once. That is why one of the first things I do when I enter a hotel room is pull out my 12 LED UV flashlight, turn off the lights and check the corners of the room and the mattress.

Many arthropods (insects, spiders, etc.) appear to glow under UV light making them easy to spot. 

A tip regarding battery powered devices is that I will often cut out a section of a plastic water bottle or something and use that between the cap and the battery or battery compartment. This ensures that the flashlight does not get accidentally turned on en route.

So, next time you stay in a hotel room, make sure to check the corners. You will sleep easier knowing your room is clean, and clear of critters.

Stay well engineered,

Devon

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These statements or products referenced are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

100% Coconut MCT Oil

In case you have not heard, Bulletproof XCT (C8 & C10 MCT Oil) and Brain Octane (100% C8 MCT Oil) is now 100% Coconut sourced. This means no more palm oil, which is the cause of much deforestation according to Orangutan Foundation International.

Why is Bulletproof XCT and Brain Octane superior to coconut oil or other brands of MCT (Medium Chain Triglyceride) oil? It comes down to the number of carbons in the fatty acid chain. The more carbons, the more solid it is at room temperature and the harder it is to digest. MCT oil is liquid at room temperature, which makes it perfect for cooking or mixing into a beverage, like Bulletproof Coffee. If you would like to know more about MCT Oil you can check out this article on Paleo Leap.

If you would like to try Bulletproof XCT or Brain Octane, they are 10% off for a limited time.

When you do order from Bulletproof, I would appreciate it if you used my referral link so I can continue on my journey of health and wellness.

Stay well engineered,

Devon

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These statements or products referenced are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Hack Your Junkmail

I have been redirecting email from outside my organization to an "external" folder for several months now. It allowed me to focus on only emails from from within my organization, sister and parent organizations and priority vendors only.

However, this required me to pick through the "external" email folder for important emails to salvage and delete the rest. Most of the emails that were being filtered out were basically junk mail, but I did not necessarily want to unsubscribe from all the emails (https://unroll.me/) because there would occasionally be an article, webinar or vendor that I wanted to hear from. Recently, I thought better of it:

Move all "external" email to the Deleted Items folder.

So I created a Microsoft Outlook Rule that moved all emails with the "@" symbol (all emails that I am aware of) to the Deleted Items folder, except the specific email addresses and domains (like within my organization) .

If I find that I am salvaging too many emails from a particular vendor or domain, I can move them once, update the rule, and never have to worry about that source again. Just another step closer to achieving true Inbox Zero at work.

Stay well engineered,

Devon

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These statements or products referenced are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.