Blogging

Yes, I hear you cheerleaders in the audience stroking my ego, telling me how I am oh so popular and loved and shouldn’t feel bad. Enough of that! I’m done with denial, ready to walk into a group meeting, and loudly declare the truth.

“Hi, My name is Deaux (hi deaux!) and I
suck at Web-Two-Point-Oh.”

I mean well enough, you know. With the best of intentions (and some nagging from a tech-addict friend) I’ll jump on the bandwagon and sign up for the latest, greatest social service. I connect to a few friends, make contacts with a few people I don’t know, and swallow my allotted bit of spam, dutifully expanding my network. I work hard at commenting, twittering, stumbling, digging, commenting, linking, friending or whatever the in ing-thing is. [click to continue...]

This is Part Four of the Brain Rules for Bloggers series, based on
John Medina’s Brain Rules. More links at the bottom of the post
(Assuming you aren’t asleep by then, of course!

Brain Rule #7: Sleep Well, Think Well (and blog better)

You there… Yes, you with the Starbucks Grande in your hand, and the dark circles under your eyes. Go take a nap, will ya?

Yes, I know there is so MUCH to blog about. I know about all the social media demanding your attention, the blog design that needs tweaking, the emails you need to answer. I know that the internet is open 24/7, that there is never, ever enough time, and that something has to give — but that “something” shouldn’t be your sleep.

On the surface, sleep may seem like a waste of productive time - but to your brain, snore-time is crucially important.

Denied downtime, your brain begins to falter, affecting mood, attention, working memory, and many other functions. Loss of just one night’s sleep can cause a 30% drop in cognitive function. Lose two nights, and the drop is 60%. More worrisome? The effects of sleep loss is cumulative, according to Brain Rules: “When sleep is restricted to six hours or less for just five nights… cognitive performance matched that of a person suffering 48 hours of continual sleep deprivation”

Ouch. But sleep is more than just a mental restorative to the brain - it’s time spent processing, replaying, sorting, and learning from the days events.

[click to continue...]

Mine Do! *strut*

This self indulgent moment brought to you by the WP-Premiums showcase, currently featuring the brain-blogging theme design of none other than, yepp, MindTweaks!

Feel free to wander on over there, leave a comment and/or rate my design. I’m not exactly sure what rating does, but… It’s got to be good, right? (Maybe it’s got something to do with awarding SuperDelegates?)

Seriously, thank you to PJ at WP-Premiums for the recognition, and to Chris Pearson of DIYThemes, for the Thesis Theme this site is built on. Chris is responsible for 98% of the coolness of this design.

MindTweak: “There are two things people want more than sex and money… recognition and praise.” - Mary Kay Ash

Inspired by John Medina’s 12 Brain Rules, I’ve taken it upon myself to shamelessly steal borrow and adapt all 12 rules to the unique-and-special-snowflake needs of bloggers. Want to build a better blog? Start by building a better brain!

Brain Rule #1: Exercise Boosts Brain Power
(even in bloggers!)

Your brain needs exercise. No, not just the mental sort you get from researching for hours on end, practicing creative writing techniques, or mucking around with CSS code, I’m talking about real life old-fashioned get-your-heart-moving physical workouts. Getting the blood pumping increases the amount of oxygen and glucose available to the brain, making it work better *now*. Not only that, but 30 minutes of aerobic exercise just 2 times a week can cut your risk of dementia in half. (We won’t mention the added benefit of reducing blogger-butt-bloat) [click to continue...]

That’s right… MindTweaks is now sporting the latest in fashionable blog themes, a Deaux-tweaked version of Thesis, from Chris Pearson. You may know Chris as the designer of Copyblogger’s Wordpress theme, among others. He’s got a lot of lovely free themes available - just scroll down the page a bit.

Once upon a time, I swore I’d never pay for a Wordpress theme, there’s so many lovely free ones out there. But Thesis has some sweet features I couldn’t have created on my own, like the gorgeous completely resizable typography. (Go on, adjust the font size in your browser, I dare you!)

But like any upgrade, there are a few issues I still need to take care of, so things may look a bit funky while I finish the updates to sidebars, some of the post content, and so on.

Please let me know what you think? See any breakage or oddness in your browser? It’s nearly impossible to debug alone these days!

___________________________________________

MindTweak: “Only great minds can afford a simple style.” ~ Stendhal

First, the important stuff:

The 1-dollar-for-7-days offer from TeachingSells ends in less than 24 hours: Thursday, April 17th, noon Eastern time.

Trust me, just this once: Go sign up *now*

(I’ll explain why when you’re back. And stop worrying, it’s easy to cancel - just do it before the end of your week.)

___________________________________

All signed up now? Good.

Some of you are wondering why I’ve just told you to sign up for an online course about building online courses, when you have no interest in such a thing. I mean, based on the landing page, it’s all about making money online right? (And who the heck is interested in THAT?)

Ignore the marketing of the course towards the make money online crowd.

Here’s why I sent you there: [click to continue...]

My RSS feedreader brought me sad news, today.

“It is with deep regret that the family and friends of Galba Bright wish to inform you of Galba’s untimely passing. Galba Francis Adeyinka Bright, Human Resource Consultant and Author, died at his office on March 31 of natural causes, leaving his wife Sandra, numerous family members, friends, associates, readers and fans.” -              TuneUpYourEQ

Ordinarily, I’d hesitate to use wordplay in a memorial post, but I like to think Galba would laugh at the this post’s title - it was my use of humor which usually triggered our exchanges. He brought a sense of gentle grace, laughter, curiosity and encouragement to all of our interactions. I came to know him as someone who truly loved experiencing life, exploring emotions, bettering himself, offering aid to others, and a deep passion for teaching the concepts behind Emotional Intelligence. When I think of him, my artist’s eyes see brilliant blues, turquoise and cobalt, streaked with magenta and gold - full of depth, and warm, bright illumination.

I’d come to feel close to Galba through this virtual blog world. Perhaps we didn’t communicate directly that often by most standards, but still, we often commented on one another’s blogs, shared emails now and then, and even spoke via Skype once, when he generously offered a free hour of consultation. Knowing he read my posts, and vice versa, well… with little contact, we created a sense of mutual shared presence that is difficult to explain. I shall miss that presence.

My deepest condolences to his wife, Sandra, and a shared moment of Galba-like grace, for all of us who have been touched by his life.

______________________________________________

MindTweak: “…never underestimate the power of interactions and words - every conversation and encounter with someone else has the potential to leave us changed.” - Galba Bright
______________________________________________

(and a thank you to Ellen Weber, whose memorial
hit my newsreader first, gently broke the news
and made me feel a bit less alone.)

For future reference (and your amusement):

When spending hours searching for the cause of Ugliness when your blog is viewed in Internet Explorer, a good place to start would be any bit of code marked something like “MONSTEROUS IE HACK”.

Ahem.

Problem solved. IE Ugliness banished.

Thank you for your indulgence.

You knew it had to happen eventually.

Sooner or later, every blogger grovels to the Google gods, and writes a traffic-bait title with those ever popular keywords, “Make Money Online”. For me, it was later rather than sooner… but I have, indeed, succumbed to the temptation.

But this is different, promise! It’s different because *this* online-marketing thingy has ME excited, which is rare in this world-of-online-marketing-pitch-overload.

Here’s the deal:

Unless you’ve been living under a blogging-rock, you’ve heard about Brian Clark’s new brainchild, TeachingSells. (You know Brian, right? The ever awesome writing/advertising guru at Copyblogger?) Since some of you may, in fact, live under rocks, a brief description is in order.

(Mind you, I don’t object to living under rocks. I can often be found there myself, lounging beneath a moss covered bit of pink granite. )

[click to continue...]

With only a wee bit of delay, I proudly present to you…

~*cue flourish*~

Creative Crunch, the new, snazzier, jazzier blog is intended to deal with all things creative, artsy-fartsy and inspirational. And no worries, it won’t in any shape or form replace MindTweaks, it will merely enable you to get a double dose of my insanity.

I’m sure there are still some glitches with the template, so let me know if you find any issues. I’m likely to set up a similar template here, so if you hate it, speak up now!

Enjoy!

P.S. The reason for the delay is that the launch of The Crunch inspired such a *burst* of inspiration that I rapidly got caught up in other new projects. Amazingly powerful stuff, that Crunch!