For the last two years I have been refining  a system of improving your time management. I came to realise that there we have demands coming at us from too many directions, both external and internal.

People often start with to-do lists. These have some wonderful benefits such as the ability to enter things as they come to mind, the satisfaction of ticking things of etc. Another common tool is reminders and alarms, which give you peace of mind at the time of setting them and in reality tend to go-off when you don’t have time to respond! The average person uses 13 different methods to organise their time, and what we need is a single point of organisation that’s wuick and convenient. 

I have created a planning system which will help you to organise your days to be more effective, and to achieve much more in the long run. I run a series of preview webinars, you can find the current dates at http://time.mrvitality.co.uk.

 After the Time & eMotion you will feel more vitality as you flow through every day and enjoy your life more. 

Register on a preview webinar now to see if the system is for you.

I have had an Olympus VN-240PV Digital Voice Recorder for a few years now, and it never leaves my pocket. I find it an incredible time management tool.

I use the three folders, A B C, as follows…

A: Listened to every evening when planning my following day, and contains things that must be done tomorrow.

B: Listened to every Sunday evening when planning my week, and simply contains items that can wait till next week.

C: I listen to this once a month, when planning my next month. Yup, you’ve got it, this is for things that can wait until next month.

Simply hey, and works a treat. The key is the unit is small, light an reliable enough to just keep in your pocket all the time. This is a real “success habbit” once you get into it.

If you would like a LOT more tips on how to keep your Time & eMotion in balance, then why not sign-up for one of my webinars, current dates below…

Firstly, this isn’t really a versus, rather brief comparison between the X-Box 360 and the PS3 from someone who has owned both machines for a while.

Some people ask me which I’d rather have if I had to choose one or the other. To me it’s a bit like asking which leg you’d rather have chopped off!

Both machines are truly next-generation, and very impressive in their own rights. I’m going to be brief, and focus only on the current unique positives of each machine…

XBox 360

• X-Box Live is a fantastically fast-evolving, intuitive and slick system.
• Movie rentals are available in the UK now.
• There’s a fantastic system for comparing your games with friends, etc.
• You can buy a cool little keyboard for texting mates online.
• There are a few 360-only killer games, such as Halo 3.
• The controller fits in my hand nicely, has vibration, and you can buy a cool little keyboard for texting mates online.
• You can do voice chatting with friends in and out of games out of the box.
• You can chat to friends logged into MSN Messenger from your sofa.

PS3

• Streams video, photos and music directly from my DLNA compliant Buffalo LinkStation Live with no tricky setup, firmware upgrades to the LinkStation, and without Twonky or TVersity running on my PC.
• Has lots of control over video output quality, leading to beautiful pictures. See my other post here for how to best setup with a Sony KDL-40V3000 TV.
• Can play Bluray, and the quality is astounding. According to this site, Bu-Ray seems to be winning the battle recently.
• Renders (not the same as outputs) some games at higher resolutions, for example the excellent Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.
• Has a web browser which works pretty well.
• Has some very cool photo browsing modes.

Summary

For gaming only I think the exclusive titles swing it. For media streaming, I much prefer the PS3. For HD and SD DVD playback, I also prefer the PS3.

I’ll post more on this comparison, and answer questions if the post gets enough views.

I hope this little snippet has been helpful.

Since November 2007 I have been involved with JuicePlus+ as a distributor. I was initially attracted to the product by it’s whole food philosophy, having personally felt the benefits of a diet high in fruit and veg contents.

As with any business I get involved with, I have invested considerable time in due-diligence on the company. This is an ongoing process, and to-date the hard evidence that I have seen has been nothing but positive.

Working backwards in time from the product arriving at your door…

Delivery

In the UK JuicePlus+ is currently delivered by Parcel Force. As a distributor you are able to track deliveries of each customers’ order, and I have found that Parcel Force are generally reliable and provide excellent tracking information on their website.

Pre-delivery support

Me and my distributors aim to keep in close contact with their customers prior to delivery of the product, and to under promise the time-scale at about two weeks.  Furthermore, the customer is at liberty to call the very helpful call centre in Milan, where sit a team of happy, friendly and professional staff with a wonderful view over the Swiss alps.

The sales process

Being a direct sales business, sales are usually made by word of mouth to people who you know. We simply share the vision of taking a small amount of a wide variety of fruit and veg on a daily basis. We invite people to try the product themselves, to see if they find it beneficial.  I am very careful to ensure that myself and my team only make claims that can be substantiated by hard evidence.

Encapsulation

My recent visit to the encapsulation plant in Switzerland has been incredibly inspiring. From the moment the fruit, veg and vitamin powders arrive at the NAIE plant in Lugano they are treated like royalty. The plant meets strict GMP manufacturing standards, and is meticulously clean. The powders are treated with respect, kept cool, and huge care is taken to ensure the product is exactly what it says on the tin.

I have absolutely no doubt that the the stated contents are exactly what is in the capsules, no more and no less. Furthermore, I have seen the lab testing process and am completely confident that the product consistently meets the stated nutritional vales on the label as well as quality standards regarding physical stability.

That’s it for now. In future I will trace the process right back to the soil, ensuring that the powder production meets the same high quality that I have seen in the rest of the business and production process.

Ben Tristem
www.onjuiceplus.com

Once you’ve got your spanking new TV (LCD or plasma) how do you get the best picture? The ideal settings for home are often very different to the manufacturers’ defaults, which are often adjusted for the harsh lighting of a showroom. By setting the picture correctly, you may well save both your money, and the planet by consuming less energy. Read on…

Start by writing-down the default settings. Beware that with some TVs (certainly with my Sony KDL-40V3000) there is the option to adjust picture settings either for the channel you are watching, or for every channel in one go. I suggest that you adjust for each source separately (TV, XBox, PS3, etc)

1) Set brightness (black level)

Brightness is a little misleading, and it may be clearer to think of this as black level. Use a scene from a film or game with plenty of shadow areas, and set black level (brightness) until you can just see all the shadow detail without making the blacks turn white.

2) Set contrast (white level)

Secondly, find a bright scene and adjust the contrast (white level) until the picture is comfortably bright enough without the picture being ‘washed out’.

Return to the dark scene and recheck. If necessary, re-adjust this, before returning to the bright scene to check this again. After a couple of tries you should find a satisfactory balance.

With an LCD, and depending on the model, you may find it difficult to get good black levels without ‘washing out’ picture or vice-versa, and you may have to compromise. How high you set your white and black levels simultaneously is related to the contrast ratio of your TV.

3) Set colour (saturation)

A good picture to use would be someone’s face, in a scene shot in natural light. Adjust the colour so that skin tones look natural. Sometimes a TV offers various colour temperature settings (e.g. cool, warm, neutral). Cool may produce a blue caste, with warm producing a red cast. Neutral is often be the correct setting.

As for all the other picture enhancing features, my motto is that “you can’t polish a turd”. Charming though it is, it’s grounded in good science. The panel its self has a certain capability, and it’s rare that clever settings actually improve the picture. Start with them off, and see if any improve the picture.

In my experience settings regarding the basics like colour, brightness and contrast tend to be less useful than things like MPEG noise removal, etc. Suck it and see.

Use a calibration DVD?

If you want to be more scientific about it, I suggest using a proper calibration DVD. I have used The AVIA Guide to Home Theater for many years, and find it to be very quick and easy. It even comes with funky little colour filters to look through at the test patterns, when setting colour.

This DVD is avilalbe from Amazon here

The Sony KDL-40V3000 is available from Amazon here. 

Hope this has been helpful?

People tell me I’m full of energy and vitality. I have decided to share what I know with as many people as I can in order to help them to access this childhood vitality that is within all of us.

The challenge is recognising what I actually do. Many of my physical and mental patterns are deeply ingrained and automatic habits and it will take me some time to discover them all, so bear with me!

This is some of what I know I know regarding food…

What you put in your mouth?

First of all, I should say I’m talking about food & drink here! There are other websites that will give you guidance on everything from musical instruments and SCUBA gear to bubble gum and whatever else you can imagine.

In pure physical terms, ALL of your available energy comes from the food you eat. Thankfully, very few people reading this blog will have a problem with eating enough food. If you’re overweight it’s because, over the last few months or years, you have on average consumed more energy than you have used, full-stop.

The whole game of diet for fat management centers around psychology, and I’ve never been overweight so I wouldn’t be congruent talking about this, save to say “eat less and move more!

In my simple model, weight management is mainly about how much you eat whereas health and vitality is as much about what you eat. You can be thin living off McDonalds and chocolate, just not healthy.So, let’s kick-off with five simple fundamentals of healthy heating…

1. Eat plenty of raw food. Humans are the only animals that cook their food, and it doesn’t look like we’ve been doing it long. Eating cooked food is a little unknown from an evolutionary standpoint, and it makes sense to eat plenty of raw food. I’m not, however, advocating 100% raw at this stage as I haven’t tried and and am not convinced that the modern food sources are up to it.
2. Minimise that amount of ‘crap’ you eat. Please excuse the technical term, but you know what I mean. Just displace rubbish like deep-fried Mars Bars, or Brie on Hob Nobs (an old favorite of mine) with stuff you may never have tried like raw chocolate, roasted vegetables, fresh fruit & veg smoothies etc etc. If you’d like more healthy eating ideas, please comment on this blog asking.
3. Wait 15 mins before saying “yes” to more. You know how over eating feels. Also, it doesn’t help you stay a healthy weight. It takes at least 12 minutes for your brain to get the idea that your stomach is full. Therefore, I feel there is a real danger zone between one course and the next. Just have the self discipline to wait a bit before accepting more food.
4. Eat water rich foods. People spend a lot of time talking about how much water to drink, so I won’t. All I will say is do drink when you’re thirsty. Another, often overlooked, source of water is through food. Salads, veggies, fruits etc are all “wet” foods and are full of water. Eat plenty of these as another way to keep hydrated.
5. Listen to your body. It’s constantly giving you feedback, get in the habit of listening to it. If certain types or combinations of food consistently give you sever wind, then (unless you love farting for the fun of it) try new combinations. If you feel bad after a meal, consider whether it was worth it.

Ben Tristem aka Mr Vitality

I have just been setting-up a Sony KDL-40V3000 LCD HD television with a Sony PS3 console. After some research on the web, mainly centered around this excellent article. I am after settings for optimum picture quality when playing DVDs and Blu-ray discs (BDs). I thought it woud be helpful to share my findings here, in the hope I can save people some time.

What follows represents the settings in the PS3 settings (system software 2.10)…

Settings > Display Settings > RGB Full Range (HDMI) = Full
(as the KDL-40V3000 does have a 10-bit processor)

Settings > Display Settings > Cross Color Reduction Filter = Off
(as using HDMI and doesn’t apply here)

Settings > Display Settings > Y Pb / Cb Pr / Cr Super-White (HDMI) = On
(will this take effect in RGB mode?)

Settings > BD / DVD Settings > Cinema Conversion = On
(as the KDL-40V3000 definitely supports progressive scan)

Settings > BD / DVD Settings > DVD Upscaler = Double Scale
(as running at 1080p and this setting won’t distort the image)

Settings > BD / DVD Settings > BD/DVD Video Output Format = Automatic
(and see what it chooses!)

Settings > BD / DVD Settings > BD 1080p 24 Hz Output (HDMI) = On
(as the KDL-40V3000 supports this)

That’s the theory, now to test each one from this setting, one at a time. If I find anything that can be improved upon, I’ll write again.
At the time of writing, you can get help regarding this on Sony’s site here.

I will be looking at sound settings at a future date, probably in Q2 2008. Why not subscribe to my RSS feed to keep posted?

I have decided to blog the progress of my JuicePlus+ business for two reasons. Firstly, it is a fantastic way for me to share what I am doing with my team, and secondly it gives me the opportunity to say GRACE regularly. GRACE is simply a set of great questions to ask yourself at least once a week.

G for Gratitude

I’m hugely grateful for my sponsor, David’s support. He always answers my many questions quickly and diligently. I am also thankful for Wim who invited me to Mallorca overnight, and helped me to understand the size of the opportunity we have and the business models that are possible.

R for Realisation (or learning)

One of the wonderful things about business, is how much it helps you to grow. I’ve realised how important the mathematics of a marketing plan are in how the team(s) are motivated. This NSA plan is both equitable and fair. I’ve realised that being critically optimistic is a powerful mindset in general. Finally I’ve realised that JuicePlus Complete has a wonderfully naturally set of ingredients, and tastes ‘clean’ and pleasant.

A for Achievement

I’ve been promoted to Direct Distributor already (for getting my first 5 customers). I have also signed a further five customers in the last few days. Best of all, I have two new distributors both of whom are well connected and enthusiastic about the product. I will enjoy helping them to grow and become successful.

C for Contribution

I feel I have contributed on many levels this week. Firstly, I have raised many peoples’ awareness of good nutrition by encouraging them to eat more fruit and veg as I meet them at BNI network meetings, etc. I have also given two people the opportunity to grow their income in their part time from a business focused on long-term health.

E for Enjoyed

Last, and certainly not least, I have enjoyed playing BioShock on the XBox 360 with Lizzie. I have enjoyed doing my due-diligence on the research carried-out on JuicePlus, by reading the scientific papers as well as the sceptics’ views on the Internet. This process is ongoing for me, and I love the emotional and intellectual challenge.

Smells like a lovely healthy lunch is ready (not raw I’m afraid, hence the smell, but it is winter) so I’m signing out for now.”Be the change you seek in the world” – Ghandi

Preamble
At the start of 2007 one of my goals was to raise £1000 for charity.  At the time I did not know how I was going to raise the money.  With goals is seems that if you put them to back of your mind, and focus on following your passions, they come in ways you don’t expect.

To the point
The way I did it was by getting small crowds to sponsor me for managing to walk down a flight of stairs on my hands.  In three events, I raised the required money and had it sent to various local charities.

The best example was about 60 stairs out the back of reception at Tony Robbins’ Namale Resort  in Fiji recently. Unfortunately I don’t have a video of this one, the only video I have right now is of a very simple job in a far less attractive setting: here.

I wonder what the world record is for this, now that would be something to aim for!

Until the next time I share something random

Ben Tristem
www.tristem.net

Well, my first week promoting JuicePlus+ has come to an end, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I have spent my time catching-up with old friends, and sharing what I’m passionate about… and some people call this work!

I have hit my first month’s target of customers already, and am aiming for 16 more before Christmas. Not all on the fruit and veg blend tablets, one on JuicePlus Gummies (for kids) and one on Complete (a plant protein shake). I want to see as many people protecting themselves against the oxidative stress of Christmas as possible.

Off for a day in the beautiful Cambridge sunshine, walking, talking and eating… bliss.