Archive for December, 2008

I had originally planned to stay in Miyakojima for at least a year before traveling again. However, I had the chance to visit my family and friends for Christmas and decided to jump on it. I have now made this international flight from Tokyo to California several times. The first couple were absolutely painful. For the first week I would be dog tired and be sleeping at all the wrong times of the day. Flying from the US to Asia isn’t too bad. You have a really long day and get a great nights rest. The other way around however is much more difficult. You fly through the night. And if you don’t sleep, then you arrive in the morning having to face a full day. Here are the techniques I use to get over jet lag quickly.

Sleep on the plane- With uncomfortable seats, crying kids, and constant interruptions from flight attendants, this can be quite difficult. However, sleeping on the plane will allow you to arrive in the morning refreshed and ready to go. I have found that the first day is one of the most important and if you can time it right you can adapt quickly. If you are unable to sleep you can try taking your favorite sedatives.

Fight the urge to sleep the first day- If you are arriving in the morning and didn’t sleep on the plane you will most likely be absolutely exhausted. Fighting the urge to sleep the first day will help you sleep better through he first night and wake up more on schedule the next day.

Use daylight- Try to get outside in the light as much as possible during the day. This will help your body reset it’s schedule and adapt easier. You body is most likely used to sleeping during the dark and being awake during the light hours. It will reset to match the new ones.

Do physical activities- This may not always be the easiest thing to do when you visit a new area, but exercising your muscles and tiring out your body will help you sleep better at night.

Stay hydrated and well fed- With all the regulations limiting what you can take on board it has gotten harder to keep liquids close in reach. Try to drink as much as possible while on the plane and also once you get off. Also keep snacks handy.

Don’t worry- The first time I traveled back to the US and woke up way to early and was unable to get good sleep it freaked me out. It will eventually go away so don’t worry about it too much. I am not much of a morning person, so it’s a chance for me to watch the sun come up, read a book in absolute quite, or have time to exercise.

Lately, I have started to use places like e-lance to outsource simple tasks. So far it has worked out great. I can pay someone to do tasks that would give me less return than the other ones I am focused on. You can also use it to outsource projects that you don’t like to do or tasks that you don’t know how to. Outsourcing also helps you gain management skills and learn to more efficient. Two skills that are considered extremely important in today’s world for getting ahead, yet the school system discourages it.

Now I am not saying that kids should be paying, bribing, or bullying someone else to do their homework. I think that a well rounded education is important. Especially at a younger age. making sure the student completes their project by themself teaches them hard work and helps them learn more by making sure they read the material. But what about when they get older. What about students in high school and college?

They are supposed to be learning things to prepare them to be successful in society and in the workplace, yet most of the skills that will really matter aren’t taught in school. Students are taught about comparative advantage, but they never get a chance to put it to the test. Instead they are forced to be average and well rounded.

The problem is that schools focus on theories and the real world focuses on results. The real world only cares that the final product is the best one. No one cares that one person did the research and one person wrote the papers. Especially if that meant it took less time and produced a better product. While this would be seen as cheating in school, this would be considered a great way to work in the real world.

In the work place it’s good to have to have a lot of talents, but it’s even better to have something you are excellent at. Something that you do better than everyone else. This is rarely, encouraged in schools, and even less so if it is not related to one of the major subjects (math, English, or science).

This is even worse in college. These are students who are planning to have more complex, higher paying jobs. So why isn’t a business student actually taught to manage, or a science student taught to outsource their research. This type of experience would surely help more than losing hours of sleep searching through books. Learning to manage and outsource your work would help you the rest of your life. Learning to manipulate the system to write good papers (in the teachers eye) and take good tests is not quite easy to do once you understand the system. It also doesn’t transfer very well into the workplace.

Finally, I leave you with this video by Sir Ken Robinson on Education.