ExamineHealth

You all must think I'm crazy with all my talk about oatmeal. It's just that every morning when I sit down at my bowl of oatmeal I'm completely blown away at how delicious and nutritious it is! And it keeps getting better!

That's the amazing thing about it. I was passionate about my oatmeal back when it was rolled oats and banana! Since then I've learned much about food, nutrition, oats, and superfoods that those days seem like light-years ago. I've been holding off telling you about my findings because I didn't want to bombard you with oat-stories! However, this morning I just have to write, as I just made another discovery!

One of the things that the cleanse did for me was blow open my previous conceptions of cooking. Now I've always been, what I would probably call, your average cook. I could cook 10 or 15 meals really well. They were my specialties. I had perfected them to the point that I was proud of them. I also was stuck in a rut with them. However, having to follow the rules of the cleanse, and opening myself up to a new style of cooking (vegetarian) and several new cookbooks, provided a welcome variation to my standard meals. Many of the meals that we made during the cleanse, we're still making today. In fact, I'd argue a vast majority of them.

However, one aspect of this cooking style that we had a challenge getting used to, was the preparation of the ingredients. Primarily, beans and grains. Many of the recipes called for beans or grains. In fact, they opened my eyes to a whole new world of preparing beans and grains. The problem is that they take FOREVER to prepare and cook. Beans need to be soaked overnight, then cooked for 4 hours. Grains are better after being cooked for 6 hours. Now obviously you're not constantly tending them during the periods of time, but it certainly requires some careful planning. We had to get into the habit of shopping for meals that were two nights out, in case we needed to soak something overnight. It really takes the spontaneity out of cooking.

Luckily, I found the ultimate solution to this problem! Once I stumbled across this piece of equipment, it changed my whole world. We now use it every day, and it's by far the most important item in the kitchen.

It's often assumed that big changes originate from big moves. That in order to make a greater difference, one needs to make a greater effort. I have found that this is not always true, in life, but especially when it relates to your health. The human body is an example of a system that responds very well to gradual change and consistent effort.

There are many, many examples of this. Taking vitamins or herbal supplements is a great one. Taking a single multivitamin for one day, or even better yet, taking a massive dose of vitamins in a single sitting, is not going to have much of a sustained effect on your general health. This is primarily because your body can only absorb a limited amount of the vitamins at one time. Therefore, in order to truly realize the benefits of taking vitamins, or another supplement, you need to take maintenance doses over a period of time. This will eventually saturate your blood with the vitamins that you're taking and allow your body to maintain a constant level within the body.

A lot of us manage our work via email. Knowledge workers, as they've been come to be known, often live and die by email. This is where the work comes in, and this is where the work gets delivered when it's finished. Outlook can become this huge dashboard portal for your entire work life. It can schedule your appointments, track your to-do list, store reference documents, manage incoming requests, and send out the resulting deliverables. So it makes sense to learn to optimize your email system the best way possible.

Lots of people get overwhelmed by the amount of email that they get. The inbox can become overrun with items that aren't relevant, need to be filed, need to be done, or need to be deleted. Once this happens, it can be difficult to crawl out of the hole and get back to a homeostasis that you can feel comfortable with.

There are a lot of email management systems out there, some simple, and some complex. A lot of them can be very good once you get them all set up (which can be daunting in the first place), and if you rigorously stick to them (which can be as stressful as having an unmanaged inbox).

In this article, I'm not going to try to provide you with a complete email management system, that would take much longer than the scope of this single article. However, I can provide you with my single favorite tip, the method that I provide to anyone who expresses email frustrations to me. I think you'll find that it will make a huge difference in your email management, as well as your general productivity and accountability.