April is Over. May Is Coming.

April is over. One month filled with the duty to work out every day, or spend at least one hour outside is over. And I'm really glad about it.

I don't know what to say. I did not like to work out. I avoided it where it was possible. Instead of doing pushups, I pushed my wheelbarrow filled with mud. Instead of doing situps, I leveled the surfaces in my garden. Instead of running, I walked. Instead of some hard stuff, I chose other stuff.

I procrastinated. I even chose yesterday conciously not to workout at all. I had good excuses thorough: On some days I was sick, not feeling able to work out. Yesterday it was late, and I knew I had to rise early. I had absolutely no interest in losing half an hour of precious sleep just to fulfill this stupid commitment.

On the other hand: The only really hard choice was to work out now. Now.
I really liked to feel energized so much, that I could not hold it and starting running during my walking exercise. Now, back from an one-hour long walk outside in the dark in the middle of nowhere in Lower Saxony, (I walked today one hour, because I walked zero minutes yesterday, to compensate the mild feelings of guilt ^^), I feel tired, exhausted from this energy-draining day, but.. happy.

I also liked what happened to my self esteem. There were days, where I felt alpha-like. I enjoyed my improved posture, I enjoyed walking chin up. I felt great.

I had great stress this month. I hated it to go outside and walk for half an hour. It felt like a waste of time. But in retrospective, I'm not so sure anymore. I think I got more out walking outside than sitting in front of the computer all day.
I think, actually, intellectually, I know that half an hour of movement each day is good for me. But still I do not like it. Especially I do not like movement that seems pointless and boring. Push-ups are incredibly boring. Running on a treadmill is even more boring. I need distraction, I need diversion, I need some darn relief from the current pain. Not real pain, just boredom and discomfort. So running outside is way better for me than on a treadmill. And running outside is better for me than doing push-ups. Okay, maybe not really strictly better, but easier. And an fitness app helped me to motivate myself to run faster. (Gosh, I am easily manipulated.)

So what's the conclusion of this month?

It was, after January, in which I skipped dinner, a real challenge. I failed hard. But I still feel great. Why? Because my failure was so much better than not trying at all.

What's next? In ten minutes from now, I won't be allowed to drink caffeine during May. No coffee, no latte, no tea. No Cola, No vodka energy.
I believe, it will suck. (Writing last sentence, I went into the kitchen and filled my glass with an not particurlaly well tasting energy drink, just for the caffeine. Sounds a little bit like an addict. Ish.)

Additionally I will continue to either work physically for one hour or work out for half an hour each day.
Additionally I will drink at least two liters of water each day.

Let's roll!

March without alcohol and April's workout / being outside

Hi everybody,

the month called March is behind us, April Fools is also history, for the most parts.
So, I've drank absolutely no alcohol last month. Well, that's not really true. I drank some of that:
One sip of beer shortly after midnight on February 1st, just because I forgot that it was already after midnight.
And I had a sip of whiskey because I took a sip of coke, which my cousin place at my table. But because it was his coke, he drank it his way: refined with some classy whiskey.

So I did not drink alcohol because I wanted to drink alcohol. And although I expected at least some sort of detox effects, there weren't any. I had no cravings, I did not think "Oh boy, I wish, I could drink alcohol.". So it was really easy.

Benefits of refraining from alcohol:

• You don't become drunk and make bad decisions

Downsides:

• None
• Really, no real downsides. You can go party and have a great time without. Really.

What wasn't easy was drinking only water and avoiding soft drinks:
Making two expections per month didn't work for me: From "most days" I went pretty quickly to "some days" to "every now an then". That's an aspect of me I didn't know too well before.

So what I've learnt so far about me (and probably everyone else, too):

TL;DR:
It's easy to keep performing an action for a limited time, based only on willpower. It's nearly impossible to do that forever. Forcing a permanent change in one own's behavior, but rely solely on willpower is a losing strategy.

This month, I will on each day either work out for at least half an hour or work outside for one hour.
Today, I was outside, preparing stuff for my garden. It was not that easy, but I did not expect it to be.

So, have a great April!

Drinking in February And Not Drinking in March

Last month I drank at least two liters of water each day.

As far a I remember, not a single day was really easy: There was always some pressure on me. Sometimes I felt like I procrastinated drinking water, so that I rushed drinking all that water I needed to drink for that day in one take. Certainly not the best way to handle things.

Surprisingly, I did not miss drinking juices or softdrinks. I just did not need it. That part was really easy.

Upside

A benefit is, that digestion works better when you have enough water for it.

Downside

One downside of this process, is that it sometimes felt weird. I felt weird, when I walked in into the McDonalds, ordered a menu, but instead of cola, to take water. Another downside is, that my stomach makes slightly embarrasing sounds when filled with fluids only.

Despite all the negative aspects, I will keep it up, drinking two liters of water each day. No juices, no softdrinks. But I will allow myself two cheat days every month, where I can drink as much cola as I want, and do not have to drink any water.

March: No alcohol.

I expect this to be fairly easy. Alcohol is not much of a problem for me, so that should be no really a problem.

And yeah, thank you for all the support so far! It's a great self-challenge journey so far!

Let's bring it on.

One Month Without Dinner and February's Two Liter Challenge

My new year's resolution started with skipping dinner in January. It was sometimes really easy, sometimes hard, but in general, it was not that though. Was I successful, you might ask. Yes, I was, at least in my terms of success. There was one time I took calories after 5:30 pm. But it was not intentional. There might have been an evening or two, where I did not look at the clock and hence ate calories at 5:32 pm (but I'm pretty sure that didn't happen). Here's what I have experiences and learned:

The neutral aspect:

• Coke Zero actually has calories. This was my one-time where I did eat calories after 5:30 pm. I was tired, had to drive home for a long distance, so I was glad about some caffeine, a friends offered me in the form of "Coke Zero". Believing the ads, which said, that there is no sugar in this stuff, I concluded, that it did not contain calories, as well. As I later found out, I was wrong. Coke Zero contains 0.25 kcal per 100 ml. Not that much, but it contained calories. But now I know.

The positive aspects:

• I sleep better. When eating dinner, and laying down to sleep, I get heartburn. This stopped this month.
• It's easier to wake up early. When your last meal was at 5:30 pm, or even  4:30 pm, your body will crave for food in the morning. Hence it will be easier to wake early. For me, I rarely stood up before 8:00 am. But skipping dinner makes waking up at 7:00 am fun. I get more that early.
• I've lost about 1.5 kilos of weight. It was not my intention to lose weight. But being "skinny fat", It's a quite nice side effect.
• I drank way less alcohol. My drinking time for alcohol is usually the evening: Having a beer after work, or drinking a glass of wine with my wife. This month I drank wine with friends at lunch. And one time with my wife, at lunch. And funny thing is: The wine tasted better than usually.

The negative aspects:

• Sometimes, I had a great appetite in the evening. Sometimes I wished, I wouldn't have to do this. The next morning the cravings were gone, and I just moved on with my normal life.
• The worst feeling about not being allowed to eat in the evening, was when it's socially expected of you. For me, it was when having friends visit us. It just sucks, being hungry (or having at least lot of appetite), sitting with wonderful people at the table, ... and watching them eat the tasty pizza my wife created. These were the hardest moments this month.
• Going to the cinema, and not buying tons of cola and nachos or popcorn, also felt weird. The smell of popcorn was very tempting, to give in. But on the other hand, I usually eat all nachos even before the movie starts, so I realized, I don't really need this, I'm just used to it.

Having experienced this all, I think I will set dinner skipping as my default. The benefits outweigh the negative aspects by far. But I will allow myself to eat dinner with friends. This is what I missed most.

And one meta-thing: Thank you guys for your support! All of the people, who read this, talked to me about this: Thank you! You're awesome. It helped me a lot to talk with you about my plans.

In February

I will drink at least two liters of fresh water each day. Coffee, Tea, Juices, Cola, Whatever, does not count. And additionally, I will not drink sweet, cold stuff, like cola or fruit juices (but I will put some sugar in my coffee). I hope it will be good for my health.

Let's bring it on!

How to Code an Elegant Breadcrumb Navigation Menu With Arrows (using only CSS)

So, you want a great-looking, flat-design, arrow-like breadcrumb navigation? Something withoput images? Look no further!

This is what it will look like

Let's dive into:

Let's start with a simple navigation item, with links inside. We will need some extra HTML. Hence, we will insert three <span>s into each <a> element. One for the upper half of the link, one for the lower half, and one for the actual content.

<nav class="navigation">
    <a href="/start" class="active">
        <span class="upperArrowElement"></span>
        <span class="lowerArrowElement"></span>
        <span class="content">Getting Started</span>
    </a>
    <a href="/start/signup">
        <span class="upperArrowElement"></span>
        <span class="lowerArrowElement"></span>
        <span class="content">Sign Up</span>
    </a>
    <a href="/start/signup/enjoy">
        <span class="upperArrowElement"></span>
        <span class="lowerArrowElement"></span>
        <span class="content">Enjoy</span>
    </a>
</nav>

The magic happens, when we insert the right CSS. I would like first to describe, what actually happens:
We will use some fancy CSS properties to style first and second <span> to look like the arrow. The content will be displayed via span.content . The first element will need some extra style so that is has an straight vertical border.

So, let's start with the CSS:

nav {
    font-size: 13px;
}

.navigation a {
    display: block;
    position: relative;
    float: left;
    height: 32px;
    box-sizing: border-box;
  
    margin-right: 2px;
    margin-bottom: 5px;
  
    text-decoration: none;
    font-family: sans-serif;
    color: #333;
}

We will need to position the children elements by position:absolute. Because we don't want to position the arrows relative to the navigation menu, but relative to each link item, we need to set position: relative; . Another important value, that should be set is (suprprise!): height. If we set height so an uneven value, there might be ugly artifacts in some browsers (I will explain later).

Now let's go to the next point: The real arrow stuff (Hooray!)

.navigation a > .upperArrowElement {
    display: block;
    width: 100%;
    height: 50%;
    position: absolute;
    -webkit-transform: skewX(35deg);
    -ms-transform: skewX(35deg); /* IE 9 */
    transform: skewX(35deg);
    background-color: #E5E6E8;
}

This is the part where the real actions happens. We set the width to 100% and height to 50% and set the position to absolute (Therefore we need to set position of the parent element to relative).  We transform the the upper element by transform: skewX(35deg); This forms the upper part of the arrow. We really should set the height of the parent element to an even pixel number, because Firefox and Internet Explorer will leave some sort of half-pixel transparency on the top and bottom edge of the .upperArrowElement if you use skewX. The lower part, we handle analogously: We transform the bottom part in the opposite direction and position it at the bottom part of the link.

.navigation a > .lowerArrowElement {
  display: block;
  width: 100%;
  height: 50%;
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
  -webkit-transform: skewX(-35deg);
  transform: skewX(-35deg);
  background-color: #E5E6E8;
}

We position also the content:

.navigation a > .content {
  display: block;
  padding: 0.5em 1.3em;
  position: relative;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
}

When we look at the navigation bar, it looks like this:

Without straight vertical line

If you like it, you're done. But if want the vertical line, you need a little bit more CSS. But don't fear, you won't need any additional markup.

.navigation a:first-child > .content {
  left: -2px;
}

We should slightly move the content of the first link. It will look better. Trust me.

.navigation a:first-child::before {
    content: '';
    display: block;
    position: absolute;
    background-color: #E5E6E8;
    height: 100%;
    width: 50%;
    top: 0;
    left: -5px;
    z-index: -1;
}

Some explanation: We add an element to the first a. We position on the a little bit to over the left edge of the parent element and make it below the parent a (oh, yeah this is another reason we need to position the parent a: to make the z-index property work).

Aaaaand we're done! Here's the complete code, including live demo The beauty of this approach is manifold:

• We need no images. Especially for people who don't know Photoshop, GIMP this is a big plus.
• We need no images. Want the arrows a little bit shaper? Just change the angle. Move the ::before block a little bit to the left. Just some keystokes and you're done. Compare that to your Photoshop image replacement.
• This is my favorite part: Hovering on the arrow links is pixel perfect. I haven't found that on the internet yet. Not even on hongkiat.com (which is usually great for such stuff).
• Did is say, we need no images? Design in browser. Be awesome.

If you can undo it, don't bother me.

Yesterday I had a discussion with an usability expert about a web interface.
The interface we were discussing was a dashboard control panel. You could delete some things. And every time you wanted to delete one of those thing, the interface would ask you something like "Are you sure?".

The root so so much evil.

We're all been there once: We click the "Delete" button on some program, and just a fraction of a second after we confimed that annyoing "Are you sure?" question, we realized, that we actually wanted to keep it. We blame yourself for being so stupid or get a nervous breakdown because we just deleted the presentation we worked on for the last three weeks.

But we should not blame ourselves. It's not our fault, it's our software's fault. The software does not respect human nature. Humans are built to learn, to adept. Therefore we develop habits. We can't do anything about it. That's how we are.
Every time we do something repeatedly, we learn. In some cases, we learn to that point, until we don't think about it anymore. This is actually a good thing: Because of this behavior we can be more aware to the new stuff happening around us. This becomes a problem when software expects us to mindfully reflect each thing we do. After clicking 1000 times "Yes", (because in most cases, we indeed are sure, that we want to do this shit.), we don't think about it anymore. Hence someday, almost for sure, we will make an error by clicking "Yes", although we actually meant "Hell, NO!"

The average user's reaction after deleting something accidentaly 

What should you do instead?

Offer a undo mechanism. If a user clicks on that delete button, delete that selected item. But make it recoverable. Instead of asking every time whether the user is sure, just do it and offer a possibility to recover from that one time he mistakenly clicked on that button.

I guess the most know example to this might be Google Mail. I heard, Jolla Phones do that. And it's just great. In most cases, offering an undo mechanism will make you app faster to use and hence more fun. And most importantly, it will reduce the errors users make dramatically.

That's how you do it.

So what are the rules?

Your users' data is sacred.

Know that each user interface shapes habits. You cannot avoid that users create habits.Create a user interface, that makes each error recoverable. So for every error you can foresee: Make it recoverable.

Your users' attention is sacred

Don't annoy the user with the same dialogs over and over again. And make the the dialogs as unobstrusive as possible.

Your users' time is sacred

Don't make the user type or click anything more than absolutely necessary. Confirming the action he's doing is not necessary if you can provide an undo. So don't waste you users' time by making him click.

A Year with Daily Challenges

Inspired by Leo Babauta's "A Year of Living Without", I decided to create a challenge for myself.
Some of Leo's great challenges are just not really applicable for me: Not using the Internet for half a day would bring me in serious job problems. That's not what I want to happen. I want to try new things out, leave things out, get out of my comfort zone (at least a little bit). The worst thing that could happen, that I learn nothing new. The best thing that could happen, is that I change the way I live my everyday life. And I believe, it will make fun. At least in hindsight.

January

No calories after 5:30pm. And no eating after 5:30pm. I tried this from time to time, but failed regularly. This month shall be different. Instead of eating or drink sweetened stuff, I will drink water or unsweetened tea.

February

This month I will drink at least two liters of fresh water each day. This might become hard. But it could be worth it.

March

No alcolhol. I drink not that much. At least I think I don't. In a typical month perhaps six 0.5-liters of cola-beers and one bottle of wine. That month it will be zero.

April

Either working out for at least 30 minutes or being outside for one hour. I have no idea how to make it work. This is one of the most challenging items on this so far to me. The tricky part will be no to cheat on the workout, but to really work out.

May

No coffein. No coffee. No Latte. No Cappuchino. No Cola. I will replace it with apple juice, water and tea.

June

All distances less than 3 km must be done by foot or bike. This will mean to go shopping by foot or bike. Heck, almost everything I can do in my town, I have to do by foot or bike. Exceptions are allowed only if it's too heavy to transport by bike or foot.

July

No video entertainment. I will not watch any movie or play a video game. Not on my computer and not on my phone. Instead, I will read. Or talk to my wife. Or play boards games. (I have severeal board games, which are challenging playing single, in case no one has time to play with me.). July is a great month for not sitting inside and watching TV or movies.

August

Waking up before 5:00am. This one will mean, that I have to go to bed early. It will be challenging, but surely the most fun. August is the month I look forward most, because of this.

September

Maximum half hour usage of private internet a day. As a programmer, I rely on information gathered from the internet very heavily. You always run into some problems, you cannot solve by yourself. It's not about this kind of internet usage. It's about checking your private emails, it's about surfing amazon and updating your wishlist. It's about the sunken time on reddit. I will replace it with time for family and reading book. I got the feeling, I will read more book this year than in the ten years before.

October

At least one hour of quality time with my kids. And by quality time I mean playing, reading and taking a walk with my kids. In my normal life, I seldom take the time to really enjoy life with those loved ones. (That's a shame actually!). And when I take the time, I'm often distracted by other things I want to accomplish: Books and internet articles to read, phone calls to make, things to cook, stuff to clean up -- you name it. This month will be different.

November

Write a blog post something every day. I have no clue how to accomplish this without writing extremely boring stuff like "Today I ate a banana.". <irony>Photos may be helpful.</irony>

December

No Smartphone usage. I am way too fearsome to go completely mobile-less like Leo. But I will use my wife's feature phone this month. It will rely on pen and paper for notes, contact and calendar updates. Yes, most feature phones have a calendar and contacts, but I hate using them. GTD with no smartphone will also be hard. But I will figure it out. I will replace this habit with being alive and watching all the other people whose attentions are drawn to that little device.




2014? Let's bring it on!