Andrew May in the Media

Business Essentials - Beating Burnout

2008-09-08T23:10:00.001-07:00

Andrew May is interviewed by Bob Kearsley for Business Essentials

Andrew May on 2UE - Elite Athletes

2008-08-26T20:54:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks to Steve Price about the Olympics and Elite Athletes

Andrew May on 2UE - Who runs the fastest at the Olympics

2008-08-19T21:24:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks to Steve Price in 2UE about why Jamaicans run faster

Andrew May on 2UE - Breaking World Records

2008-08-19T16:56:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks about world records at the olympics. Are the athletes really getting faster?

How to avoid burnout

2008-08-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

BNET Australia blogger Robert Gerrish speaks to performance and productivity expert Andrew May about how to function at your peak in the workplace.

Andrew May on 2UE - Drug Cheats & City Surf Week 4

2008-08-10T18:37:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks to Steve Price about Drug cheats at the Olympics and Week 4 preparation for the city to surf

Recharge 100

2008-08-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

As published in Recharge Lounge

Our modern way of living teaches us that faster is better. Speed is the new king and our lives are measured in bits and bytes, dissected into milliseconds and micro-detail. Is it any wonder our health, relationships, sex lives and performance begin to suffer?

We are not designed to go flat out, around the clock. Life is meant to be a series of sprints interspersed with periods of rest and recovery. It is impossible to be ‘on’ 24/7. While we regularly need to boost the throttle into turbo drive and plough through those To Do lists, it is equally – and vitally – important to spend time in cruise mode, or time going slow. The challenge is our culture has conditioned us to think that slow is evil; slow is seen to be the enemy of achievement. Slow is perceived as weak, passive, soft. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Slow Movement

As humans are becoming more and more disconnected from the things that really matter, the slow movement offers a return to a connected lifestyle. The slow movement? Yes, really. It’s a loosely connected international movement that’s aimed at providing an alternative to today’s fractured, fast-paced, and increasingly unhappy, overworked and burnt out world. It’s all about slowing down life’s pace, and taking time to enjoy the things that give us pleasure. It’s about reconnecting with food, with people, with place, with life: these are the things that offer us meaning.
Hapa Hapa

Hapa Hapa is Swahili for ‘slowly, slowly’, and this concept is much more part of the African culture. When I was a middle distance runner, every summer the Kenyans would come out and train with us for a few months. Looking back, I failed to heed the lessons they were teaching us. Train hard and recover hard. The Kenyans use to do 3 things – run, eat and sleep! In contrast, whenever I felt really tired I’d keep ploughing ahead (as do so many athletes) thinking that all I needed was to get some more miles in the bank and then everything would come good. In retrospect, I really do believe I would have run much faster if I had taken more notice of the Kenyans and rested more when I felt tired. In other words, adding some Hapa Hapa and going SLOW in order to go FAST.

Recovery in Sport

My good friend, David Misson, introduced a recovery system with the Sydney Swans a few years back where players accumulate 100 points each week to ensure they are recovering properly for the upcoming game. An elite AFL player can cover more than 20 km in a game, and the majority of this at high intensity. With so much energy being expended on game day, the primary focus in between games is managing injuries and getting the players ready to peak again, ready to perform. Each week the players tally their recovery activities, different tasks are weighted according to their ability to facilitate recovery for the upcoming game. An ice bath or a massage might be twenty points, yoga scores twenty-five points, an easy stretch ten points and so on. During the pointy end of the season, Misso gets the players to double their weekly targets and aims for 200 recovery points each week.

The Recovery Toolbox

The Recovery Toolbox is based on a format similar to Misso’s point system. In the business world we try and play a five-day test match every week, a Grand Slam every fortnight, and an AFL Grand Final every day. Is it any wonder we are continually tired?

The Recovery Toolbox combines both indoor and outdoor activities, with the total goal being 100 points a week. Add Indoor activities plus outdoor activities for the previous week and tally your score. How did you go?

Cross-recovering

So rather than getting 100 points by dancing four times a week (or choosing any of the other activities where you score 25 points four times a week!), I’d like you to accumulate points from a range of activities. You’ll notice these activities are predominantly ‘slow’ tasks. Fitness enthusiasts often feel ripped off when they first see this scale. Fitness junkies do everything hard and fast – but the simple fact is that going to the gym and belting out a Pump Class, or riding your bike up a mountain for four hours, while great for strength and cardiovascular fitness, doesn’t really help you recover and press the ‘re’ button.

30 weeks of 100 recovery points

Why don’t you give it a go? Set yourself a four week period and see how your scores add up.
For thirty weeks of the year I want you to flip the switch and make sure you focus on recovering properly. Think back to the Recovery Toolbox. Each week your goal is to get 100 recovery points. Why not buy a notebook and fill out your recovery points every week so you ensure that you make it up to your goal of 100 points, thirty weeks a year?

And what about the other twenty-two weeks of the year? You’re not entirely off the hook. The remainder of the time, your goal is to get a minimum of 70 points each week. So aim to get 100 points when you can, and when it’s just not possible, make it a 70-point week.

Happy recovering!

Andrew May is is considered Australia's leading expert on performance and productivity and is the author of the bestselling book, Flip the Switch. Andrew speaks at conferences across the globe, mentors CEO's and senior managers. He is published throughout national and international media, with regular segments on 2UE radio, Mix 106.5 Body and Soul and Channel Nine's TODAY show.

Andrew May on 2UE - City to Surf Week 3

2008-08-03T16:18:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks to Steve Price at 2UE about preparing for the City to Surf. Week 3 of a 4 part series

Andrew May on 2UE - City to Surf Week 2

2008-07-28T20:50:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks to Steve Price about training for the City to Surf - 3 weeks before the race

Andrew May on 2UE - City to Surf Week 1

2008-07-15T18:47:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks to Steve Price about preparing for the city to surf

Andrew May on 2UE - Paradox of Choice

2008-07-02T20:15:00.001-07:00

Andrew May speaks to Steve Price about the Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice

The shelves of supermarkets and shops are bulging with new choices, new brands and new products. But does the smorgasbord of options make us happy or is it turning us into a society paralysed by indecision?

Drinking milk as a kid
Remember when you went to the shops as a kid to buy some milk? My very first memories of buying milk – there was only one type – full cream. Then the milkman started delivering milk with two different coloured caps – red for full cream and yellow for low fat, very fancy. Fast-track a few years and we then had the choice of Skim or Lite White at the local corner store. Even that seemed pretty chic at the time. Last week I took a notepad to the supermarket (yeah I know, I probably should get some more interesting hobbies) and counted all of the different varieties of milk available at the supermarket. 41 different types of milk!

Vanilla to 212 types of ice-cream
Not finished with my counting experiments in the dairy section, I moved onto the really good stuff – the ice-cream. Now I can clearly remember as a kid when mum first bought a tub of Neapolitan home. Wow! We couldn’t believe our luck, three ice-creams in one. I love strawberry, my sister loves vanilla, dad loves chocolate and my brother loves all three. We were in ice-cream heaven. Back in the supermarket, after a quick count in the ice-cream section there are an unbelievable 212 different flavours, blends and combinations. If you think choosing ice cream is hard, then try sifting through 114 different options of breakfast cereal. There were even 10 different varieties of apples, so many choices just to keep the doctor away!

Disconcerted by denim
I was recently in New York and decided to wander into Abercrombie and Fitch to buy myself a new pair of denim jeans. ‘Would you like stone-wash, acid-wash, dirty-denim, distressed-denim or classic-denim?’ the super-attractive assistant named Claire asked above the background noise of disco music. ‘What type of fit are you after - relaxed fit, slim fit, baggy fit or extra baggy fit?’ And were you after straight leg, square cut, boot cut, cuffed jeans or classic cut?’ I must have looked totally lost as I just stared at Claire to try and make sense of the date-deluge I had just been sprayed with. ‘Don’t forget you can also choose between button-fly or zipper fly!’ she piped up gregariously.

90 minutes later I must have tried on more than 20 different types of jeans and I couldn’t decide which one I wanted. I ended up walking out of the shop empty handed and thought about finding a nearby pharmacy to grab some headache tablets.

The Paradox of Choice
No wonder we are getting more and more confused. With so many alternatives how can we possibly know what to choose? Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, talks about ‘choice overload’. Anyone who has sifted through hundreds of cable TV options, 29 different types of mobile phone plans, trying to decide on a health-care plan, or trying to buy a pair of jeans knows exactly what this means.

A bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume that more options will make us happier, but Schwartz argues the opposite is true, explaining that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.

Choice and happiness
Researchers all over the world have been trying to measure happiness for decades, with the most widely used format called the ‘Satisfaction with Life Scale’. What has become increasingly obvious from these studies is that once a society’s level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence (about $20,000 AUS per person per year), further increases in national wealth has almost no effect on happiness. There are as many happy people in Poland as Japan – even though the average Japanese is 10 times richer than the average Pole! Being connected to others is much more important to subjective wellbeing than being rich or having abundance of choice.

Cutting down options makes it easier
Sheen Iyengar, a psychologist from Columbia University conducted a well known experiment a few years back. She set up a tasting booth of exotic gourmet jams near a fashionable grocery store in California. Some days 24 different types of jams were on display. Conventional wisdom tells us that the more choices available, the more people are likely to find something they like and therefore buy. Iyengar actually found the opposite to be true.
‘33% of those who stopped by the 6 choice booth ended up buying some jam, while only 3 percent of those who stopped by the 24 choice booth bought anything’.

Malcolm Gladwell points out ‘if you are given too many choices, if you are forced to consider much more than your unconscious is comfortable with, you get paralysed’.

Solutions for making it easier to choose
1. write a list of what you want and stick to it
2. set a timeline so you don’t get stuck shopping all day
3. ask family and friends for their shopping tips
4. buy items that compliment each other
5. remember the most expensive brands are not always the best

Reference sources
The Paradox of Choice, Why more is less. Barry Schwartz
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Spoilt for Choice, David Dale, Sydney Morning Herald, July, 2005.

Andrew May on The Today Show - De-stress your life

2008-06-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

Click here to see the De-stress your life segment on the Today Show

Australians are among the most stressed out people on the planet. Nearly 80 percent of Aussies say they feel stress on a regular basis.

TODAY Show life coach Andrew May explains the symptoms of stress and shares his top five tips for managing stress.

”We are definitely facing different catalysts of stress these days and stress is on the rise as a consequence,” explains Mr May.

Traditionally stress was mainly caused by environmental problems such as drought, fire and floods however today lifestyle factors and work are causing us to stress out.

”Stress has always excited however in the past it came and went, today it’s constant,” he says.

Mr May believes people feel controlled by work, debt, technology, time and other people's demands which leads to feeling overwhelmed and as though we can’t switch off.

”Although different people respond to stress in different ways there are common physical and emotional signs to look out for,” he says.

Manifestations of stress generally fall into four categories: physical, mental, emotional and behavioural processes.

Physical symptoms include: fatigue, headache, insomnia, muscle aches/stiffness (especially neck, shoulders and low back), heart palpitations, chest pains, abdominal cramps, nausea, trembling, cold extremities, flushing or sweating and frequent colds.

Stress can impact our mental processes and lead to decreases in concentration and memory, indecisiveness, mind racing and confusion.

”Another common symptom of stress is the loss of sense of humour,” May explains.

On an emotional level stress can lead to feelings of anxiety, nervousness, depression, anger, frustration, worry, fear, irritability and impatience.

”Stress will also impact on behaviour,” he explains. “Common characteristics of stress include pacing, fidgeting, increased eating, smoking, drinking, crying, yelling, swearing, blaming others and in severe cases people can become violent.”

Mr May believes in many people stress builds up because people do not take time out to de-stress and unwind.

”Managing stress is an essential skill to thrive in today's frantically paced world,” he says. “There are several simple ways to decrease your stress levels which will make an unbelievable difference on your quality of life.”

Mr May’s top five ways for managing include relaxation, taking time out to recharge, asking for help, improving your personal skills and putting things into context.

”A great exercise to reduce stress is to make a list of all the things that make you feel stressed,” says Mr May. “Once identified, try and relax in these situations and where possible tackle the source of the stress.”

Other stress busting tips include avoiding multi-tasking and doing jobs in order of importance.

”Regular exercise is also great for relaxation,” says May. “Cycling, jogging, swimming and working out in the gym are ideal ways of reducing tension caused by stress.”

Mr May’s top five tips to manage stress

* Hit the relaxation response: learn techniques like meditation and yoga or try listening to music.
* Improve skills: stronger communication, organisational and time management skills will all help effectively deal with stressful situations.
* Big picture thinking: try and put your stress into context and don’t sweat it over the little things.
* Recharge: take mental physical breaks. Find ways to escape in your spare time and build in regular holidays and breaks.
* Ask for help: stick your hand up and ask for help and support.

Click here to see the segment on the Today Show

Andrew May on 2UE - Junk Sleep

2008-06-11T20:58:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks about Junk Sleep on 2UE

Andrew May on 106.5 Body & Soul talking Nomophobia

2008-06-09T20:49:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks about our addictions to Mobile Phones

Remember the ‘monster mobiles’ we used in the late 80’s and early 90’s? I remember back in high school when Mum and Dad were having a cuppa and sponge cake, proudly looking over the finished plans that had been dropped in by Macka the builder. ‘What’s he like?’ I asked, taking a huge bite. ‘Really successful,’ replied Mum. ‘He’s got a mobile phone’.

Today’s mobile phone is faster, lighter, stronger and more convergent than ever before. Not only do we use them to talk and text, they are a digital camera, movie camera, diary, phone book, GPS, radio, MP3 player, web browser, data storage device, encyclopedia, alarm clock, Dictaphone, personal organizer, flash light and a whole lot more.

Now don’t get me wrong, mobiles used wisely are a great productivity tool. But more and more people from teenagers to the twilight years are showing signs and symptoms of mobile addiction.

Are you a mobile addict?
1. Do you get anxious if you don’t get an instant response to an SMS?
2. Does the thought of turning your mobile off send you into a shiver?
3. When you go out to dinner, do you sit the mobile on the table in front of you?
4. Do you feel unloved if your phone doesn’t ring, ding or zing for a few hours?
5. When you hop off a plane or finish a movie, is the first thing you do to check your phone?

If you answered YES to any of the above – you may just suffer from mobile mania.

Mobiles in Australia
Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) led a study on mobile phone addiction. They found the average Australian spends an hour a day making calls and sending text messages. 22% of respondents were classified as ‘heavy’ or ‘very heavy’ users spending up to 4 hours or more a day on their mobiles. Interestingly, only 11% of phone time measured in the survey was related to business.

Mobiles around the world
• 2 billion people worldwide are now hooked on to a mobile phone
• Half the people in the world are expected to have mobiles in the next 2 years
• 4 out of 10 young adults in Spain are considered mobile phone addicts
• 48% of Spaniards between 18 and 25 spend more than 4 hours a day talking and texting
• In South Korea, where 40.2M people from a total population of 49M have mobiles, the government is considering a ‘curfew’ limiting the amount of time teenagers spend on their phones
• Orange Tree Theatre in London has a zero tolerance policy to mobiles going off during productions and has a bonus waiting for the first actor to lead the entire cast off stage until the offender has been ejected from the theatre
• A Scandinavian chauffeur booked himself into a clinic for SMS addiction after his habit left him sending more than 300 text messages a day
• Psychologists are predicting mobile addiction will become one of the biggest issues over the next 5 years

Symptoms of mobile addiction
While the 5 questions were a bit of fun, hard core mobile addicts will tend to neglect obligations and even important activities like work or study, can drift apart from family and friends, send and answer messages throughout the night and the thought of switching off their phone can even cause anxiety. They also tend to suffer more from sleep disorders and sleeplessness. The majority of mobile phone addicts have low self esteem and feel the urge to be constantly in contact with other people via their metallic mobile devices.

What about teenagers?
Mobile addiction is becoming more and more of a problem for teenagers. Discovering whether or not your child is a mobile addict is not an easy task. It’s much easier to see if someone is sitting at their computer for 8 hours a day. Reasonable use of mobiles can be positive for social development, yet too much can lead to withdrawal and decreased face to face contact. It is a good idea for parents to be proactive and monitor their child’s mobile usage.

Mobile mantra
1. Practice turning your mobile off when at movies or sporting events – you don’t need it on 24/7
2. When you do need to concentrate or finish a project quickly – turn your mobile off to avoid interruptions
3. Go out to dinner with your loved ones, family, or friends – not your mobile. Turn it onto silent and put it in your pocket, not on the table!
4. Set some mobile hours – learn to turn it off at night
5. Don’t sleep with your message alert on – this can wake you up throughout the night and cause disrupted sleep patterns
6. If you do need to have your mobile on keep the ring tone on a quiet setting – the whole world doesn’t need to know that your phone is ringing!
7. Try going mobile free for a day or two – you might even enjoy the peace and silence.

Andrew May
Main sources:
Queensland University of Technology Mobile Survey; Sydney Morning Herald – Mobile phones becoming a major addiction; Global Technology Forum – Addicted to the phone; Science News

Andrew May talks Calorie Counting on 2UE

2008-06-04T17:28:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks Calorie Counting on 2UE with Steve Price

Andrew May on Mix 106.5 - Flip the Switch

2008-04-22T23:30:00.001-07:00

Andrew May on Mix 106.5 Body & Soul Program talks Flip the Switch

Andrew May on Today - Flip the Switch

2008-04-22T23:10:00.001-07:00

Andrew May on Today_Flip the Switch

Andrew may on 2UE - Back to Work Blues

2008-04-22T22:15:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks with Steve Price about the back to work blues

While everyone has different needs and requirements, try the following suggestions to help you wrangle the post holiday blues and get some bounce back in your step.

1. Get organised
A major reason many people feel down when they get back into work is the fact they are disorganised and spend the majority of the working day casing their tales. Use the first few weeks back at work as a genuine opportunity to get organised and set yourself up for a successful year ahead. Think about your own personal development for the year ahead. What skills will make you more productive? How about learning a new language or a musical instrument to stimulate different parts of the brain?

2. Plan your recovery
Holidays are an essential tool to help recover, refresh and recharge. Grab your diary and plan the year ahead. Lock in your next break and this will give you something to look forward to on the harder days. Also try and lock in 2 or 3 mini-breaks throughout the year. You have a much greater likelihood of this happening if you enter it in your diary.

3. 2 to 3 week window
Don’t make major life decisions in the first 2 or 3 weeks back from the summer break. Accept that your brain might still be on holidays for the first few weeks and go easy on yourself. Where possible, try and ease back into the working mould. Working a couple of weeks at a 50% load with reduces hours or working for 3 days a week can really help (just make sure you have pre-arranged this with your employer!) This is a great alternative for the first few weeks after an exciting summer break.

4. Boost energy levels
Make a pact to keep looking after yourself now you are back to work. Don’t go from one extreme to another. Make yourself accountable and walk or swim with a work colleague 2 mornings a week, eat healthy foods that help you think and concentrate throughout the day, get plenty of sleep. And build some FUN into your life. Just because you’re back in the office doesn’t mean the Fun Police have to hit you hard for the rest of the year!

5. Seek help if needed
While it’s not unusual to feel a little down in the first few weeks back at work, if this continues for more than a few weeks and you constantly feel down, sad or depressed please speak to your GP, a health professional or a psychologist/counsellor.

Andrew May on 2UE - Sleep

2008-04-21T17:12:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks with Steve Price about the importance of Sleep

Andrew May on 2UE - Overcoming Adversity

2008-04-21T17:05:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks with Steve Price and Simon Katich from the Australia Cricket Team about overcoming adverstiy

Andrew May on 2UE - Mobile Mania

2008-04-21T16:44:00.001-07:00

Andrew May speaks with Steve Price on 2UE about Mobile Phone Addiction

Remember the ‘monster mobiles’ we used in the late 80’s and early 90’s? Today’s mobile phone is faster, lighter, stronger and more convergent than ever before. Not only do we use them to talk and text, they are a digital camera, movie camera, diary, phone book, GPS, radio, MP3 player, web browser, data storage device, encyclopaedia, alarm clock, Dictaphone, personal organizer, flash light and a whole lot more.

Now don’t get me wrong, mobiles used wisely are a great productivity tool. But more and more people from teenagers to the twilight years are showing signs and symptoms of mobile addiction.

are you a mobile addict?
1. Do you get anxious if you don’t get an instant response to an SMS?
2. Does the thought of turning your mobile off send you into a shiver?
3. When you go out to dinner, do you sit the mobile on the table in front of you?
4. Do you feel unloved if your phone doesn’t ring, ding or zing for a few hours?
5. When you hop off a plane or finish a movie, is the first thing you do to check your
phone?

If you answered YES to any of the above – you may just suffer from mobile mania.

nomophobia
Getting married, starting a new job or going to the dentist have long been recognised as sources of great stress. But it seems they are now matched by a new, 21st century affliction – the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. A recent report reveals millions of people apparently suffer from ‘no mobile phobia’ which has been coined ‘nomophobia’. Mobile users have become so dependent on their mobile that discovering it is out of charge or misplaced sends stress levels soaring. A new British survey has revealed more than 13 million Britons fear being out of mobile phone contact. The researchers estimate nomophobia could affect up to 53 per cent of mobile phone users.

mobiles in australia
Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) led a study on mobile phone addiction. They found the average Australian spends an hour a day making calls and sending text messages. 22% of respondents were classified as ‘heavy’ or ‘very heavy’ users spending up to 4 hours or more a day on their mobiles. Interestingly, only 11% of phone time measured in the survey was related to business.

mobiles around the world
• 2 billion people worldwide are now hooked on to a mobile phone
• Half the people in the world are expected to have mobiles in the next 2 years
• 4 out of 10 young adults in Spain are considered mobile phone addicts
• 48% of Spaniards between 18 and 25 spend more than 4 hours a day talking and texting
• In South Korea, where 40.2M people from a total population of 49M have mobiles, the government is considering a ‘curfew’ limiting the amount of time teenagers spend on their phones
• Orange Tree Theatre in London has a zero tolerance policy to mobiles going off during productions and has a bonus waiting for the first actor to lead the entire cast off stage until the offender has been ejected from the theatre
• A Scandinavian chauffeur booked himself into a clinic for SMS addiction after his habit left him sending more than 300 text messages a day
• Psychologists are predicting mobile addiction will become one of the biggest issues over the next 5 years

symptoms of mobile addiction
While the 5 questions were a bit of fun, hard core mobile addicts will tend to neglect obligations and even important activities like work or study, can drift apart from family and friends, send and answer messages throughout the night and the thought of switching off their phone can even cause anxiety. They also tend to suffer more from sleep disorders and sleeplessness. The majority of mobile phone addicts have low self esteem and feel the urge to be constantly in contact with other people via their metallic mobile devices.

what about teenagers?
Mobile addiction is becoming more and more of a problem for teenagers. Discovering whether or not your child is a mobile addict is not an easy task. It’s much easier to see if someone is sitting at their computer for 8 hours a day. Reasonable use of mobiles can be positive for social development, yet too much can lead to withdrawal and decreased face to face contact. It is a good idea for parents to be proactive and monitor their child’s mobile usage.

mobile mantra
1. Practice turning your mobile off when at movies or sporting events – you don’t need it on 24/7
2. When you do need to concentrate or finish a project quickly – turn your mobile off to avoid interruptions
3. Go out to dinner with your loved ones, family, or friends – not your mobile. Turn it onto silent and put it in your pocket, not on the table!
4. Set some mobile hours – learn to turn it off at night
5. Don’t sleep with your message alert on – this can wake you up throughout the night and cause disrupted sleep patterns
6. If you do need to have your mobile on keep the ring tone on a quiet setting – the whole world doesn’t need to know that your phone is ringing!
7. Try going mobile free for a day or two – you might even enjoy the peace and silence.

Andrew May

Main sources: Queensland University of Technology Mobile Survey; Sydney Morning Herald – Mobile phones becoming a major addiction; Global Technology Forum – Addicted to the phone; Science News

Andrew May on 106.5 Body & Soul - Cappucinno Cowboys

2008-04-21T16:25:00.001-07:00

Andrew May on Body & Soul

Andrew May on 2UE - Hurry Up and Go Slow

2008-04-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on 2UE talking with Steve Price - Hurry Up and Go Slow

MP3 File

Andrew May on 2UE - Child Obesity

2008-03-18T20:24:00.001-07:00

Andrew May talks Child Obesity on 2UE

Andrew May on 2UE - Energy Personalities

2008-03-16T16:33:00.001-07:00

Andrew May on 2UE discussing Energy Personalities

Andrew May on 2UE - Road Runner Syndrome

2008-03-12T18:13:00.001-07:00

Andrew May - Cappuccino Cowboys

2008-02-20T20:23:00.001-08:00

Do you drink too much coffee?? Andrew May talks about Cappuccino Cowboys and the effect coffee has on your performance.

Just say the word ‘caffeine’ and you’ll see people’s eyes light up. It’s the world’s favourite drug. Present naturally in foods and drinks such as chocolate, coffee and tea, it’s also added to energy drinks and colas to provide a stimulant effect. And although you wouldn’t expect it, you’ll also find caffeine in over-the-counter medications, including some painkillers and cold and flu remedies, where it’s used to enhance the workings of the active ingredient.

caffeine facts
• Caffeine is the world’s most popular psychoactive drug
• Coffee shops starting proliferating in Europe during the early 1820’s
• Every working day, Starbucks opens 4 new outlets somewhere on the planet and hires 200 new employees
• In Finland, the average adult drinks 10 cups of coffee a day!
• The Americans, Germans and the French reportedly consume nearly 70% of the
world's total coffee consumption
• Caffeine addiction (or caffeinism) is thought to affect 1 in 10 people

caffeine addiction quiz
To determine if you suffer from caffeine addiction, ask yourself the following questions.
1. Do you have to drink coffee to kick start every day?
2. Do you regularly rely on coffee/caffeinated drinks to boost energy throughout the day?
3. When you miss your daily caffeine intake, do you develop a headache?
4. Do you get anxiety, mood swings and irritable when you drink too much or too
little caffeine?
5. Do you drink more than 300mg (2 to 3 cups) of coffee a day?
6. Do all the employees at your local coffee shop know your name and everything
about you?
If you answered YES to three or more of the above questions, you may be addicted to caffeine.

how caffeine affects the body
You can feel the effects of caffeine in your system within a few minutes of ingesting it, and it stays in your system for many hours—it has a half-life of four to six hours in your body. While in your body, caffeine affects the following hormones:

Adenosine - Can inhibit absorption of adenosine, which calms the body, which can make you feel alert in the short run, but can cause sleep problems later.
Adrenaline - Caffeine injects adrenaline into your system, giving you a temporary boost, but possibly making you fatigued and depressed later. If you take more caffeine to counteract these effects, you end up spending the day in an agitated state, and might find yourself jumpy and edgy by night.
Cortisol - Can increase the body’s levels of ‘stress hormones’ which can lead to other health consequences ranging from weight gain and moodiness to heart disease and diabetes.
Dopamine - Caffeine increases dopamine levels in your system, acting in a way similar to amphetamines, which can make you feel good after taking it, but after it wears off you can feel ‘low’. It can also lead to a physical dependence because of dopamine manipulation.

caffeine quotient
"Caffeinism" is a state of chronic toxicity resulting from excess caffeine consumption. Caffeinism usually combines physical addiction with a wide range of debilitating effects—most notably anxiety, irritability, mood swings, sleep disturbance, depression and fatigue.
• If your caffeine quotient is less than 100 to 200mg per day, it is highly unlikely that you are a caffeine addict.
• If your total is 300 to 600 mg per day, you are undoubtedly experiencing some degree of mental and physical addiction to caffeine. Research shows an almost 200% increase of risk for ulcers. Disruption of sleep patterns begins at this level, and certain heart disease risk factors may be increased.
• Intake of 600 to 900 mg per day indicates almost certain addiction. Mood and energy levels are severely affected. Research suggests that your risk of heart attack may be twice that of non-caffeine users. If you are a pre-menopausal woman, your chance of maintaining optimal iron levels is slim. Click here for an easy to follow two week plan to quit caffeine.
• At 900 mg or more per day, you're a coffee addict, hook, line and sinker. At this level of dependency, all heart disease risk factors are significantly increased, as are the risks for stroke, psychological disorders and gastrointestinal disease. You may need medical help to kick the habit.

percolate on these ...
1. Tea substitute and Peppermint perk-up after 2pm
If you know that caffeine sends you on an energy rollercoaster, try black or green tea. With around half the caffeine, it can pep you up without the side-effects. They also contain L-theanine, a natural amino acid that lets you stay relaxed yet alert.
Caffeine has a half life of 5 to 6 hours, so a strong cup at 6pm can still have a strong presence in your body at 11pm when you’re wanting to slow down and switch off for the night. Substitute the afternoon coffee for a refreshing peppermint tea. There is no caffeine and peppermint is a natural energy booster.
2. Stay below 300mg a day
Follow the caffeine consumption guidelines and try to stick below 300mg a day
3. Juice first thing
Try and get into the habit of adding juice or fresh water to your digestive system first thing in the morning, then add some caffeine
4. Energy drinks don’t always give you wings!
Don’t be fooled - energy drinks aren't sports drinks and they’re not designed to keep up your hydration when you're active. They are often packed with unnecessary sugar and cause dehydration.
5. Keep it personal
Finally, caffeine tolerance levels tend to vary individual to individual. Some people can drink 3 pots of coffee at 11pm and still sleep like a log while others only need to smell a fresh brew of coffee and they’ll toss and turn all night. You are advised to work out what suits you, your tastes and your body.

Andrew May

Main Sources: Flip the Switch, Andrew May; Caffeine Blues, Stephen Cherniske; Caffeine, Stress and Your Health: Is Caffeine Your Friend or Your Foe? Elizabeth Scott, M.S; Caffeine Society, National Geographic, T R Reid

Goal Setting

2008-02-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

Andrew May on Radio 2UE, Sydney

MP3 File
Download information sheet

Alcohol

2008-01-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

Andrew May on Radio 2UE, Sydney

MP3 File
Download information sheet

For many people alcohol is synonymous with friendly catch ups and fun times, especially around the festive season. Why we even have beer ads selling dolls of our favourite cricket heroes including Warnie, Beefy and Boony. Like caffeine, alcohol is fine in moderation. But how much is too much? And when does alcohol consumption become a problem to our health, our relationships and our lives?

standard drinks
Different types of alcoholic drinks contain different concentrations of pure alcohol. A standard drink is defined as one that contains 10 grams of pure alcohol. A standard drink is a unit of measurement. In the same way you measure how many kilometres traveled on a road trip, one standard drink measures the amount of alcohol consumed.

The following are equal to approximately one standard drink:
• middy of beer (285ml)
• nip (30ml) of spirits
• small glass (100ml) of wine
• small glass (60ml) of fortified wine (like sherry or port)

pace yourself
Drinking alcohol should be spread over several hours. Men, for example, should not consume more than two standard drinks in the first hour, and no more than one standard drink per hour thereafter. Women should not consume more than one standard drink per hour.
These guidelines assume that the person drinking alcohol:
• is not on medication
• is not pregnant
• will not be driving
• will not be operating machinery.

women and alcohol
A lower amount of alcohol is recommended for women because alcohol tends to have a greater affect on women for the following reasons:
• Women tend to have a smaller physical build than men, so alcohol is distributed (throughout the body’s water) over a smaller volume. Women also tend to have more body fat than men, and alcohol is not taken up by body fat.
• On average, women have smaller livers than men, and the ability to break down alcohol is limited by the size of the liver.
• The level of hormones in a woman’s body can possibly increase the effects of alcohol.
• If a woman is taking the contraceptive pill, her body’s ability to break down alcohol may be reduced.

tips to avoid getting tanked
• Many hotels and bars don’t serve standard drinks – they might be bigger. Large wine glasses can hold two standard drinks – or even more!
• Drinks served at home often contain more alcohol than a standard drink
• Cocktails can contain as many as five or six standard drinks, depending on the recipe
• The standard drink of wine is based on 12 per cent alcohol. Watch out for those high-alcohol Aussie wines, which can often come in around 14.5 per cent or even more
• Start with a soft drink or water: You will drink much faster if you are thirsty, so have a non-alcoholic drink to quench your thirst before you start drinking alcohol.
• Eat before or while you are drinking: Eating slows your drinking pace and fills you up. If you have a full stomach, alcohol will be absorbed more slowly
• Avoid salty snacks: Salty food like chips or nuts make you thirsty, so you drink more
• Avoid ‘shouts’: Don’t get involved in ‘shouts’, or rounds. Drink at your own pace- not someone else’s. If you do get stuck in a shout, buy a non-alcoholic drink for yourself when it’s your turn.
• Pace yourself: Try having a ‘spacer’, a non-alcoholic drink every second or third drink.
• Try the low-alcohol alternative: A wide range of light beers are available. Low-alcohol or non-alcoholic wines are also becoming more available. Most places that serve cocktails also serve non-alcoholic versions.

alcohol facts
• The cost to the Australian community for alcohol-related social problems is estimated to be $7.6 billion
• On a per person basis, Australia is the 9th largest consumer of beer in the world
• Approx 10% of the population consume alcohol at levels considered to cause risk to their health in the long-term (National drug Survey 2001)
• Alcohol is involved in 62% of all police attendances, 73% of assaults, 77% of stress offences, 40% of domestic violence incidents and 90% of late night calls
• Alcohol costs Australian workforces more than $1.9 billion each year due to absenteeism, reduced productivity, work injuries and deaths (Collins and Lapsley 2002)

how do i know if i am drinking too much?
You've left it too late if you find out that you have been drinking too much when your doctor tells you that you have irreversible damage to your body from alcohol. It is much better to do something about your drinking long before getting to that stage.

You are drinking more alcohol than you should if: your doctor warns you to cut down; your partner and others close to you express concern or even argue with you about alcohol; you realise that you have lost control of your drinking; you have been caught drink-driving more than once or with a high breath alcohol; you find yourself telling lies, being deceitful and covering up about how much you drink; you hide alcohol or re-arrange your schedule so that you can drink alcohol throughout the day; you find yourself drinking your first alcohol for the day earlier and earlier; you often wake up with no appetite, nausea, vomiting, dry retching, tremor of the fingers, or sweats; you have been involved in fights when drunk; you often cannot remember what happened during your last drinking session.

what should I do if I think I am drinking too much?
These days, there is plenty of help available. Each state or territory in Australia now has a telephone help line to provide advice, referral contacts and information or offer counselling. If you seek additional information, there is now also a web site at www.adin.com.au.

Your family GP is always a good place to start and may prefer to refer you to a counsellor or another doctor with a special interest in this problem. The first step involves an assessment of how much you drink and the nature and extent of specific health, social and economic problems that you have experienced as a result of alcohol. Your doctor may give you some feedback about the risks of health, social and economic problems you are likely to experience if you continue drinking at your current level. Then it's time for you to decide whether you want to stop drinking completely or cut down.

People who are over 40 years or have moderate to severe alcohol dependence often find it easier to stop completely than cut down their drinking, while people who are younger or only have mild alcohol dependence often prefer to cut down and find it easier to cut down than to stop. It's easier working through this with someone rather than doing all this on your own. If you decide to cut down, you need to set very specific targets for yourself. Which days of the week are you going to allow yourself to drink? What beverage will you drink? How many standard drinks of that beverage are you going to allow yourself to drink on each drinking day? When is this contract going to start and when will it finish? Experienced counsellors can provide you with a lot of useful tips that make it a little easier to keep your drinking under control.

further help and support
Alcoholics Anonymous www.aa.org.au
DrinkWise Australia www.drinkwise.com.au
Centrecare www.centrecare.com.au

Andrew May

Main Sources: Australian Drug Foundation, Alex Wodak, DrinkWise, Australian Alcohol Guidelines

Recharge 100

2007-08-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

go slow
Our modern way of living teaches us that faster is better. Speed is the new king and our lives are measured in bits and bytes, dissected into milliseconds and micro-detail. Is it any wonder our health, relationships, sex lives and performance begin to suffer?

We are not designed to go flat out, around the clock. Life is meant to be a series of sprints interspersed with periods of rest and recovery. It is impossible to be ‘on’ 24/7. While we regularly need to boost the throttle into turbo drive and plough through those To Do lists, it is equally – and vitally – important to spend time in cruise mode, or time going slow. The challenge is our culture has conditioned us to think that slow is evil; slow is seen to be the enemy of achievement. Slow is perceived as weak, passive, soft. Nothing could be further from the truth.

the slow movement
As humans are becoming more and more disconnected from the things that really matter, the slow movement offers a return to a connected lifestyle. The slow movement? Yes, really. It’s a loosely connected international movement that’s aimed at providing an alternative to today’s fractured, fast-paced, and increasingly unhappy, overworked and burnt out world. It’s all about slowing down life’s pace, and taking time to enjoy the things that give us pleasure. It’s about reconnecting with food, with people, with place, with life: these are the things that offer us meaning.

hapa hapa
Hapa Hapa is Swahili for ‘slowly, slowly’, and this concept is much more part of the African culture. When I was a middle distance runner, every summer the Kenyans would come out and train with us for a few months. Looking back, I failed to heed the lessons they were teaching us. Train hard and recover hard. The Kenyans use to do 3 things – run, eat and sleep! In contrast, whenever I felt really tired I’d keep ploughing ahead (as do so many athletes) thinking that all I needed was to get some more miles in the bank and then everything would come good. In retrospect, I really do believe I would have run much faster if I had taken more notice of the Kenyans and rested more when I felt tired. In other words, adding some Hapa Hapa and going SLOW in order to go FAST.

recovery in sport
My good friend, David Misson, introduced a recovery system with the Sydney Swans a few years back where players accumulate 100 points each week to ensure they are recovering properly for the upcoming game. An elite AFL player can cover more than 20 km in a game, and the majority of this at high intensity. With so much energy being expended on game day, the primary focus in between games is managing injuries and getting the players ready to peak again, ready to perform. Each week the players tally their recovery activities, different tasks are weighted according to their ability to facilitate recovery for the upcoming game. An ice bath or a massage might be twenty points, yoga scores twenty-five points, an easy stretch ten points and so on. During the pointy end of the season, Misso gets the players to double their weekly targets and aims for 200 recovery points each week.

the recovery toolbox
The Recovery Toolbox is based on a format similar to Misso’s point system. In the business world we try and play a five-day test match every week, a Grand Slam every fortnight, and an AFL Grand Final every day. Is it any wonder we are continually tired?

The Recovery Toolbox combines both indoor and outdoor activities, with the total goal being 100 points a week. Add Indoor activities plus outdoor activities for the previous week and tally your score. How did you go?

cross-recovering
So rather than getting 100 points by dancing four times a week (or choosing any of the other activities where you score 25 points four times a week!), I’d like you to accumulate points from a range of activities. You’ll notice these activities are predominantly ‘slow’ tasks. Fitness enthusiasts often feel ripped off when they first see this scale. Fitness junkies do everything hard and fast – but the simple fact is that going to the gym and belting out a Pump Class, or riding your bike up a mountain for four hours, while great for strength and cardiovascular fitness, doesn’t really help you recover and press the ‘re’ button.
30 weeks of 100 recovery points

Why don’t you give it a go? Set yourself a four week period and see how your scores add up.

For thirty weeks of the year I want you to flip the switch and make sure you focus on recovering properly. Think back to the Recovery Toolbox. Each week your goal is to get 100 recovery points. Why not buy a notebook and fill out your recovery points every week so you ensure that you make it up to your goal of 100 points, thirty weeks a year?

And what about the other twenty-two weeks of the year? You’re not entirely off the hook. The remainder of the time, your goal is to get a minimum of 70 points each week. So aim to get 100 points when you can, and when it’s just not possible, make it a 70-point week.

Happy recovering!

Multitasking: Productivity Boosteror Mother of All Evil?

2007-08-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Where did it all go wrong? I remember sitting in a corporate training workshop nearly 10 years ago and the presenter told us that ‘multitasking was an essential skill to survive in the modern era. If you can’t multi task – you’ll get spat out the back of the pack!’ And it made so much sense at the time too. Of course it would be more efficient to do two or three things at once. And surely this would mean we would then be able to tick off every item on our daily To Do Lists and get home on time, or get to the gym earlier, or take the dog for another walk, or maybe even try out that fishing rod I bought 2 years ago but has been sitting in the garage gathering dust... To add even more ‘down time’ to our hectic lives, we would also have a lot more leisure time considering all of the advancements and improvements technology was going to make in the workplace.

Why wouldn’t I be excited? Improved efficiency from multitasking + added leisure time from more efficient use of technology in the workplace = a world that is more relaxed, balanced and a better place to live in...

But where did it all go wrong? Why does the above equation sound so great in theory but so foreign in reality? We have become slaves to the technology that was supposedly going to free us and multitasking just gives us more half finished projects that are added to an already expanding to do list. Sound familiar?

The gadgets designed to enlighten our loads actually ensnare us. The continually binging, buzzing, alarms and alerts readily disrupt our thoughts, our productivity and definitely disrupts what is left of our private lives.

daily disruptions
The average worker gets 1 interruption every 8 minutes, 7 interruptions an hour or 50-60 per day. This can pile up to almost 50% of the average workday. Is it any wonder employees leave the office feeling like they have been super busy, yet not really sure what they have achieved?

I can vouch for this in my previous job working in corporate health. We had an ‘open office policy’ which really resulted in a more apt ‘non-productive office policy’ because workers were continually interrupting each other throughout the day. Reports that should have taken me 30 minutes to write ended up taking half the day with a constant string of interruptions including impromptu meetings, phone calls, people dropping in for a ‘quick question’ and the list goes on and on and on... (now don’t get me wrong – it is essential to be available for phone calls, meetings and impromptu chats – but in set times. It is impossible to be both productive and in control if you have a sign above your work station saying ‘open all hours 24/7’)

The latest research at an information technology office in California showed that once workers were interrupted, it took a staggering 25 minutes on average to return to the original task. Yet we still hold the mantra that multitasking is good for productivity!

epidemic of attention-deficit traits
Dr Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist in Massachusetts has been witnessing the fallout of multitasking mania: it walks through his doors five days a week. Over the past decade Hallowell has seen a tenfold rise in the number of patients showing symptoms closely related to those of attention-deficit disorder. In a Harvard Business Review article last year, Hallowell coined the term Attention-Deficit Trait, or ADT. ADT takes hold when we get so overloaded with incoming messages and unfinished tasks that we are unable to get clarity or prioritise.

a multitasker’s glossary
Just as the arrival of automobiles ultimately brought us words like rubbernecking, gridlock and road rage, the information age demands new terms for the behaviour it induces. Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell talks about the following new terms:

screen sucking
Wasting time online long after you have finished what you signed on to do. (Example: Still trawling google after you actually found the information you were looking for more than 30 minutes ago).
frazzing
Frantic, ineffective multitasking, typically with the delusion that you are getting a lot done. The quality of the work however is poor. (Example: 3 minute phone call turns into a 15 minute chat – back to writing business plan for 2 minutes – BING! Email alert – you have mail. Respond to email from HR department takes another 5 minutes – then back to business plan – but it takes you 6 or 7 minutes to get back into the thought process again – back writing the plan for 2 minutes and suddenly – BING – RING – DING.....Argggghhhh!)
pizzled
How you feel when someone you’re with pulls out a cell phone or Blackberry and uses it without an explanation or apology. A cross between pissed off and puzzled. (Just read above example over and over)
doomdart
The internal distraction of a forgotten task that pops into your mind when you are doing something else. A side effect of frazzing.

the case for doing one thing at a time
Now for some solutions. I don’t want you getting further and further into this article and feeling deeper and deeper out of control. There is a way out of multitasking mania. And the way out will require a totally different mind set for some people. It involves chunking, energy platforms, prioritising, clear communication and going to email school.

1. chunking
This is not a new term, but for many people it is a new skill. Chunking involves focussing on completing one task at a time, or working on similar tasks together. (Example: Writing all your proposals together, locking out 2 hours to complete a project report, or blocking all your inner city meetings back to back on a Wednesday afternoon. Put a non disturb sign on your office door or work station if you have to).
2. work to your energy platforms
If you are a morning person, block out uninterrupted time in the morning to do proposals, reports, thinking work and high end tasks. The worst thing you can do as a morning person is junk emails first thing you hit the office. And for the bears who blossom later in the day, the morning is probably the best time for you to do emails and lower end thinking tasks – then do the productive activities when your energy levels are high.
3. clear communication
It is essential to explain your new working rules to colleagues and management. Not being available 24/7 is not rude or exclusive – it’s smart! Better still, get your colleagues practising the same method and watch productivity thrive in your organisation.
4. prioritising
Once again this is nothing new. But when we become consumed by the medium it is often very difficult to focus on what needs to be done and what needs to be deleted. Spending 10 to 15 minutes at the start of the working day is a great way to get clarity on the most important tasks that should be completed today. Then control your time as much as possible and focus on your action list.
5. email school
Unfortunately for most workers this never existed! We didn’t learn how to use emails to be productive and efficient. Instead, we have been consumed by the medium and are chained to the Inbox. For a starter, implement the following:
• chunk checking times – only check emails 2 or 3 times throughout the day
• get rid of the ‘you have mail’ alert. This kills thought process and productivity.
• avoid email tennis – any more than 2 emails and you’re still unclear resort to the old fashioned mode of talking on the telephone, or better still – go back to meeting face to face keep email brief and to the point. It’s not a research thesis!
• Stop covering your butt. The cc and bcc is more often than not super unnecessary. Only send emails to relevant people and avoid the email butt covering trail.
• Delete. Get rid of the junk.
• Respond to what’s important. This challenges the values many people were bought up with where we were taught to respond to every phone call, letter etc that comes into your office. Surviving amidst ‘data smog’ requires you to focus on what’s important and leave the rest.

final comment
Some of the suggestions in this article may cause a bit of tension for some readers. That’s fine. This is designed to challenge you to work smarter not harder. To do this some people are going to have to reengineer the way they work. But I guarantee after a few teething problems, if you take on the majority of the recommendations you’ll be amazed at how much control you actually can have over the way you work and the way you spend your time. Gotta fly – have a number of things I have to go and multitask!

Andrew May

Main source: Staying Sharp, Time Magazine, January, 2006

iWords, geek-speak and automated acronyms

2007-07-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Paradox of Choice

2007-07-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

The Paradox of Choice

The shelves of supermarkets and shops are bulging with new choices, new brands and new products. But does the smorgasbord of options make us happy or is it turning us into a society paralysed by indecision?

Drinking milk as a kid
Remember when you went to the shops as a kid to buy some milk? My very first memories of buying milk – there was only one type – full cream. Then the milkman started delivering milk with two different coloured caps – red for full cream and yellow for low fat, very fancy. Fast-track a few years and we then had the choice of Skim or Lite White at the local corner store. Even that seemed pretty chic at the time. Last week I took a notepad to the supermarket (yeah I know, I probably should get some more interesting hobbies) and counted all of the different varieties of milk available at the supermarket. 41 different types of milk!

Vanilla to 212 types of ice-cream
Not finished with my counting experiments in the dairy section, I moved onto the really good stuff – the ice-cream. Now I can clearly remember as a kid when mum first bought a tub of Neapolitan home. Wow! We couldn’t believe our luck, three ice-creams in one. I love strawberry, my sister loves vanilla, dad loves chocolate and my brother loves all three. We were in ice-cream heaven. Back in the supermarket, after a quick count in the ice-cream section there are an unbelievable 212 different flavours, blends and combinations. If you think choosing ice cream is hard, then try sifting through 114 different options of breakfast cereal. There were even 10 different varieties of apples, so many choices just to keep the doctor away!

Disconcerted by denim
I was recently in New York and decided to wander into Abercrombie and Fitch to buy myself a new pair of denim jeans. ‘Would you like stone-wash, acid-wash, dirty-denim, distressed-denim or classic-denim?’ the super-attractive assistant named Claire asked above the background noise of disco music. ‘What type of fit are you after - relaxed fit, slim fit, baggy fit or extra baggy fit?’ And were you after straight leg, square cut, boot cut, cuffed jeans or classic cut?’ I must have looked totally lost as I just stared at Claire to try and make sense of the date-deluge I had just been sprayed with. ‘Don’t forget you can also choose between button-fly or zipper fly!’ she piped up gregariously.

90 minutes later I must have tried on more than 20 different types of jeans and I couldn’t decide which one I wanted. I ended up walking out of the shop empty handed and thought about finding a nearby pharmacy to grab some headache tablets.

The Paradox of Choice
No wonder we are getting more and more confused. With so many alternatives how can we possibly know what to choose? Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, talks about ‘choice overload’. Anyone who has sifted through hundreds of cable TV options, 29 different types of mobile phone plans, trying to decide on a health-care plan, or trying to buy a pair of jeans knows exactly what this means.

A bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume that more options will make us happier, but Schwartz argues the opposite is true, explaining that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.

Choice and happiness
Researchers all over the world have been trying to measure happiness for decades, with the most widely used format called the ‘Satisfaction with Life Scale’. What has become increasingly obvious from these studies is that once a society’s level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence (about $20,000 AUS per person per year), further increases in national wealth has almost no effect on happiness. There are as many happy people in Poland as Japan – even though the average Japanese is 10 times richer than the average Pole! Being connected to others is much more important to subjective wellbeing than being rich or having abundance of choice.

Cutting down options makes it easier
Sheen Iyengar, a psychologist from Columbia University conducted a well known experiment a few years back. She set up a tasting booth of exotic gourmet jams near a fashionable grocery store in California. Some days 24 different types of jams were on display. Conventional wisdom tells us that the more choices available, the more people are likely to find something they like and therefore buy. Iyengar actually found the opposite to be true.
‘33% of those who stopped by the 6 choice booth ended up buying some jam, while only 3 percent of those who stopped by the 24 choice booth bought anything’.

Malcolm Gladwell points out ‘if you are given too many choices, if you are forced to consider much more than your unconscious is comfortable with, you get paralysed’.

Solutions for making it easier to choose
1. write a list of what you want and stick to it
2. set a timeline so you don’t get stuck shopping all day
3. ask family and friends for their shopping tips
4. buy items that compliment each other
5. remember the most expensive brands are not always the best

Reference sources
The Paradox of Choice, Why more is less. Barry Schwartz
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Spoilt for Choice, David Dale, Sydney Morning Herald, July, 2005.

Mobile Mania

2007-07-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

How to Get Going On Frosty Winter Mornings

2007-07-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9

Energy Personalities

2007-06-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Inboxication - Are You At Risk?

2007-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Remember the days when we actually posted a letter via ‘snail mail’? Those days are long gone and speed of communication is the new king. Sitting in the court of this new kingdom is email. It has revolutionised communication, making it simpler and faster for businesses to communicate.

email facts

The average email user in business spends 2 hours plus a day dealing with email
Worldwide email traffic will triple over the next few years with 331 billion emails predicted to be sent and received per day by 2009 (Radicatti)
Average workers receive 48 to 75 emails per day, with many workers now receiving 200 to 300 (Christine Cavanagh, University of Western Ontario)
70% of senior managers found dealing with daily torrents of email stressful
(Australian Psychological Society study survey)
Costs $25, 000 annually on paying senior managers to read and write emails
(research by Emphasis on UK’s Big Four financial firms)

we need a new set of rules
So clearly we need to find ways of cutting down on email traffic and managing it more efficiently. Read the following 7 Deadly Sins of email to help you control the date deluge and avoid feeling ‘inboxicated’.

sin 1: 24/7 email addiction
always connected and controlled by the medium
Bing! ... the noise alert ‘you have mail’ has to be the greatest killer of productivity and concentration. Get rid of the email alert and focus on one task at a time, especially when it requires thought and innovation. Check your emails at specific times throughout the day to enhance productivity and output. For example, only check emails at the start of your day, just before lunch and at the end of the day.

One in five people fall into the category of ‘email dependant’ and compulsively check email and panic when they can’t get access.

sin 2: email tennis
stuck in a serve volley game of constant returning emails
Ever had one of those asynchronous email conversations that goes on like a Lleyton Hewitt 5th set tie breaker? Get out of the habit of long games of email tennis. Follow the 2 email rule – if you’re still not sure what to do after 2 emails revert to a really old fashioned way of communicating and pick up the phone and call the recipient and work out what needs to be done. Better still, if they work in the cubicle next to you, get out of your chair and go and see them face to face.

sin 3: email emu
sticking your head in the sand trying to avoid confrontation
Don’t use email as a medium to shy away from face to face confrontation. Email is best suited to simple communications, such as scheduling meetings and circulating minutes or updates. It isn’t a substitute for face-to-face or phone communications.
U R Fired :( RadioShack sacked 400 employees in Fort Worth via staff email in 2006. A redundancy is never going to be good news, but receiving notification of it by email just adds insult to injury.

sin 4: writing a thesis
waffling on, and on and on and on and on in emails
Get to the point. Keep it brief. Remember some people already receive hundreds of emails a day. Email tends to be more like conversational speech and falls in a category between a short note and a memo, so it is unnecessary to spend hours composing a message with the formality and rigidity of a PHD thesis (although I can hear my high school English teacher screaming in disgust as I type this!)

Better still, use bullet points to illustrate main topics

sin 5: bcc (butt covering child)
CC’ing everyone to show how busy you’ve been
Needlessly long distribution lists are a major cause of email log jam. It may seem convenient for circulating a document to glean input from multiple people, but it can spark off an email frenzy that you will find hard to cope with. There’s nothing like ‘email noise’ to raise your stress levels. Ten messages from ten recipients in ten minutes, with ten conflicting views. Aaaaaaahhhhh!

sin 6: quick draw McGraw
not thinking before you send
Because email is quick and viewed as a less formal medium than letters or memos, people can be careless in their eagerness to reply. We’ve all seen this deadly sin in action. When a friend or colleague writes something about someone or something and accidentally copies in the entire distribution list. At the very least this will provide embarrassment; and at the worst jeopardise your career. As a simple rule, if you are going to send an emotional or ‘angry email’, write it, store it in your draft folder, read it again a few hours later and then re evaluate how you feel. Email may be convenient, but it’s also easy to misinterpret, lacking the visual clues or changes in tonality of face-to-face communication.

sin 7: junk emails
spam, chain emails, and general junk
That email you received from the Nigerian farmer about needing help to bring money out of the country probably doesn’t have much truth to it; and what about the endless parade of emails that ‘promise to bring you luck and abundance after you forward to 50 family members and friends’; and we’ve all had a friend who suddenly got connected and started sending endless jokes, stories and pictures of all sorts. Get rid of the spam and junk. Use filters. And regularly use Mail Box Clean up, with this tool, you can find types of items to delete or move, empty the deleted items folder or you can have Outlook transfer items to an archive file. Be ruthless and only keep emails you really need.

final comment
There’s no doubt that email can be a scourge on productivity and an added source of stress. Used inappropriately, it can even cause embarrassment and elicit unintended responses. But follow a few simple rules and apply a bit of self-discipline, and email can live up to its promise of being a fast and efficient communications tool. That’s it for now – gotta go – more emails to send!!

Andrew May

Reference sources: Uni SA Technology Services; Steven Robbins, Leadership Robert Ashton, Accountancy Age, September 2005 Decisionworks; Julia Baird, How Elvis got Back in the Building, 2004

Surviving the First Day at Work

2007-05-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Starting a new job is a lot like your first day at school – there are fresh faces, unfamiliar places and plenty of new things to learn. You also need to learn who’s who in the zoo - where the toilets are, what time the ‘tuck shop’ opens and what is the principal really like?

Your first day in any new role will be a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand you will feel nervous, self-aware and out of your comfort zone. On the other hand there are new and exciting opportunities, new skills and new challenges ahead of you. Understanding and following some basic workplace rules will help you sail through your first day. Before discussing what to do; let’s have a quick look at what not to do.

blundering plumber burns down £5M mansion
The first day can be a nerve racking experience prone to professional mishaps. Where even the most experienced worker can expect to feel a bit of heat. But if you’ve ever had a bad first day – think about the poor 17 year old rookie plumber who burnt down a £5 million ($12 million) waterside mansion in southwest England.

Taking it on himself to do some soldering in the roof of a historic mansion in Devon that was undergoing a major renovation – the plumber started the fire after polystyrene insulation caught alight from the flame of a blow torch.

The message? Stay away from the blowtorch on day one.

5 things to avoid on your first day
While there are definite things you should do, there is also a list of things you should avoid:

1. don’t go too hard too soon - Remember the school 400m race? Every year there was some kid who stayed up all night watching videos of Michael Johnson winning the Olympic 400m race. The next day the gun fires, the first 200m is flat out, at the 250m mark the legs feel a little heavy, then the last 100m you get totally swamped and everyone flies past. Pace yourself at work and ease into the new environment.
2. don’t get into office politics – avoid the water cooler discussion bitching about the boss, or the HR manager, or about the new girl in accounts
3. don’t eat garlic, onions or a spicy curry the night before – I’ll let you work this one out for yourself
4. don’t tell colleagues everything that’s wrong – while a set of fresh eyes can be invaluable for creative input and adding new ideas. Be careful of entering a new workplace and pointing out everything that’s wrong
5. don’t bring your medals on the first day – I remember my father took in my state running medals to show Mr MacQueen, my new Sports Master after we had moved from Glen Innes to Yass when I was in Year 7 (dad to his credit was so proud of his kids). While Mr MacQueen was impressed – 2 weeks later when the football captain said ‘where are your medals today, new-boy?’ in front of everyone at school assembly. I didn’t think bringing the medals in was such a good idea anymore...

5 things to do
There are 5 ‘must do’s’ that will help you get off to a great start and they all start with the letter P.

1. punctual – make sure you arrive early. Taking a new route to work in the car, on the bus, on your bike or walking can take more time than you first expected. Plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early to avoid any last minute traffic mishaps.
2. plan – think about what are you going to wear. If everyone else is wearing a suit and tie – wear a suit and tie. If the standard uniform is Hard Yakka work wear, a suit and tie might look a little out of place!
3. professional – be courteous and polite, err on the side of caution if you’re not sure about the grammar or syntax to use. Walking up to the CEO and giving him a ‘high 5’ might be funny to your new colleagues, but could be a CLM – career limiting move
4. procedures – every company has standard policies and procedures. Make sure you find out what they are. Learn the evacuation policy, first-aid guidelines, where stationary is kept, workplace health and safety, internet policy,
5. performance – at the end of the day you are employed to do a job and perform. Most companies will have a 12-week trial period followed by a formal performance review. Make sure you are crystal clear on how you will be measured. Is it sales volume, customer satisfaction, staff morale/communication or materials produced?

don’t be too hard on yourself
Remember you are new and it is perfectly normal to take up to 3 months to settle into a new role and ‘learn the ropes’. Don’t be too hard on yourself – we all make mistakes and this is part of the learning process. And please ask lots of questions and keep a note book – you are much better to ask what might seem like a silly question than make a $12 million mistake!

enjoy the challenge
Starting a new job can be fun, challenging and rewarding. Acknowledge that you will have mixed emotions along the way and focus more of your time and energy on the new and exciting aspects rather than on the things you don’t know or can’t control. Follow the 5 to-do tips and enjoy your exciting new career.

Andrew May

Road Runner Syndrome

2007-05-17T00:00:00.001-07:00

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney

Ever had that overwhelming feeling that no matter how much faster you go, you’re still falling further and further behind?

Meep meep – broooooo! Welcome to the world of Road Runner Syndrome.

This phenomenon was first discovered back in 1959 by Friedman and Rosenman, two cardiologists researching personality types who defined the very well-publicised 'Type A’ personality. They coined it ‘hurry sickness’, I call it ‘Road Runner Syndrome’. With the rapid increase in speed in modern society, more and more people have a ‘harrying sense of time urgency.’

road runner reality
The reality of modern society is that most people have varying degrees of Road Runner Syndrome. I do, and I spend a large part of my life teaching other people about it. What we need to do is learn to live with it, and more importantly control it so speed doesn’t take over. By all means when you have to go hard, work fast – and get as much done as you can. You just need to remember to also take time out. If you get totally addicted to a high-speed pace and avoid spending time going slow, you’re a prime candidate for burnout.

what can we do about it?
One thing I learnt working with elite sporting teams, is that the worlds best athletes don’t just focus on performance – in many respects they put as much time and effort into recovering as well.

Hard core Road Runners need to re-learn how to go SLOW. This will feel counterintuitive for many people who have been taught that to get more done you have to work more or work faster. In many instances, I see people and companies dramatically improve their output by building in periods of rest and recovery.

5 tips to keep road runner at bay
1. have an annual off season – take a proper 2 or 3 week holiday once a year
2. try and squeeze in a mini-break every 12 weeks
3. use the OFF button – learn to press OFF on your mobile, computer, PDA and other electronic devices
4. avoid Noddy Syndrome and learn to say NO – try and delete some of the things you are currently involved in
5. go SLOW – build in some ‘me time’ where you focus on recovering, recharging and renewing yourself

They key is to be ON when you have to; and OFF when you can... Good luck!

Andrew May