Google+ has been focusing on aesthetics far too much. They seem to be going more in the way of Pinterest.

Here’s the thing… Depending on the content you want, pictures, thumbnails, etc could be useless. In my case, it is. Very much so.

I follow a lot of online marketing industry people, companies, etc. Health and fitness people, companies, etc. They share and write information, not pictures.

I want a quick eye scroll through a lot of content. I want to read headlines. Not look at pretty pictures with no real context.

I don’t want…

2, maybe 3 posts viewable (using G+’s current multiple column view):

I also don’t want…

1, maybe 2 posts viewable (using G+’s single column view)–which I prefer over multiple “ADD inducing” columns:

I DO WANT…

19 or so “posts” viewable (like Google Reader’s compact view). They are getting rid of Google Reader by the way…

I have no patience for the new look. I know a lot of people stomp their feet after every Facebook design change. I don’t want to sound like that, but this one, for me, is a real reason not to want to check in throughout the day. Sorry G+.

I’ve been drinking this one (and slight variations) the last few weeks:

• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons flax seeds
• 1 scoop unflavored whey isolate
• 1/2-1 cup blueberries
• 1/2-1 cup strawberry, raspberry, blackberry mix
• 1 cup steeped matcha green tea
• Handful of baby spinach

• Sometimes kale.
• Sometimes a tablespoon coconut oil.
• Sometimes handful of almonds.

Another winter, another season of inactivity. Luckily each winter (of inactivity) I never put everything back on. But… Here we go again.

I’ve updated my “YoYo Graph.”

Re-tweet that a couple of millions of times. 10 seconds after the commercial airs.

Or just wait a minute. Or a day or two or a week. And let the facts and figures come out:
Go Daddy Posts Biggest Sales Day in History After Super Bowl Ads Run

Still, people are calling the ad a failure. Why? They didn’t like the ad? Didn’t agree with the tactics? Doesn’t fit their own neat little marketing ideas?

And yet said experts are ironically still extending the conversation about GoDaddy.

My second 10 day challenge was to drink 60 oz of water a day. I think I succeeded.

First. Why 60 oz? Rule of thumb says 64oz a day. I have a 20oz (3x) bottle, and I rounded off.

But… I found 60 oz way too much. I haven’t been exercising (weather not permitting). So I halved it after the first 4-5 days. I didn’t feel thirsty or dehydrated. And I wasn’t running to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Plus I drink a lot of tea, which I didn’t count (some say pure water only, some say tea counts as water consumption).

Over-analyzing much? Yeah. I think I succeeded and have carried the new habit on throughout the last few days. Like I said in the last post, I can’t believe staying hydrated is a habit I needed to develop.

The goal is to have these 10 days challenges create momentum for permanent change. I kind of relapsed on eating well, but got that back on track. My excuse was that I had to “feed the cold” I got. Lame, I know. But I can’t be too hard on myself… What I was eating was not too too bad (just a little overboard on carbs–not sugar though). But it did take some effort to steer me back in the right direction.

So now I have two challenges checked off, my 3rd is to go to bed and wake up in a disciplined time frame. I would love to simply say “to bed by 11pm, up by 6:30 am,” but having a 2 month old and soon to be 5 year old makes that impossible. This is also tackling 2 habits at once, but I need to get some traction here. I am going to wake at 6:30 no matter what (no snooze, no delaying getting out of bed). And I am going to be all ready for bed at 11. So if the baby goes down, great. If not, at least I don’t waste extra time after he finally goes down. Lately I’ve been up to 12:30-1am, but I could have cut a lot of time if I had gotten ready for bed beforehand. From 11pm on, no TV, phone, computer, etc. All brushed, flossed, etc.

I wanted to have my next challenge be to meditate for 5 minutes a day. This is something I had on my to do/try list for a long time. Not for a real religious or zen experience, but to have it help with my focus. I need to find the time, carve it out, and do it. Without the discipline of getting to bed and waking up, squeezing this in would be too difficult. This will be my next challenge, hopefully.

My second 10 day challenge would be kind of embarrassing if I hadn’t seen so many others have trouble with and try to overcome the same (through resolutions or challenges, etc.). It’s… Get this… Drink more water!!!

I can’t believe I  need to be more mindful of this. On an average day, I don’t drink enough water. I don’t know what it is. I know proper hydration is beneficial for so many things. Overall health, weight loss, brain function, athletic performance, etc.

So, today is day 1 of drinking at least 60oz of water a day!

Here is a handy guide to steeping times and temperatures.

I don’t know what genius at Google decided to reverse the positive/negative dialog you get when performing actions on Android. For all 20+ years of my computer usage, the left is “yes” the right is “no.”

I can’t count how many times I accidentally uninstalled a program, deleted a file, etc. because of this idiotic change. WTF!

CHANGE IT BACK GOOGLE! The arrogance kills me.

I’m not going to waste time being a beta tester for Google. The thing has so much wrong with it that it’s too time consuming for me to list.

Bottom line: Convenience-inconvenience=value. Right now, for me, it has negative value.

It didn’t give me anything that was really worthwhile. And the notifications and alerts on traffic conditions to places I wasn’t going to were becoming a nuisance. Plus, it cut the battery life in half.

The location and web search history tracking and the specific details of them are really creepy. And with no value in return, what’s the point.

What do you think of this one? Often pursuits can be fruitless without well defined goals. Also uncertainty, fear, doubt, confusion can often muddle vision.