As you can see I have updated the site with a new design. Hopefully you will agree with me that it is a nice improvement over the old design. I have tried to make it more fresh and inspiring while retaining the same structure and readability as before. Ease of use is my number 1 priority but good looks are always nice to have.

Have you noticed your breathing lately? When you read that question you probably just became quite aware of your breathing. Perhaps it can now even be a bit difficult for you to refrain from watching each breath you take. The same effect can be experienced when you walk down the street in deep thoughts and suddenly you wonder how your walk looks to others. The result of your thoughts is a conscious focus on putting one foot in front of another that makes it quite difficult to walk naturally. This may lead you to believe that breathing is something that is not to be messed with and will perform best when you simply ignore it. If you hold such a belief you are really missing out on a big opportunity to improve the quality of your life.

With the limited amount of time we are given on this earth, the individual moments become important in the quest for maximizing the quality of your life. There are as many opinions on what constitutes a quality life as there are people but even if you have a firm idea of how you want to live your life, it is still important that you get the execution right. Through time management, one tries to spend the individual moments that life is made of in the best possible way, so skills in the area of time management is an important life-skill.

You are faced with risk in every thing you do and at every moment in time. There is nothing you can do about it but try to manage it. Taking a stand and consciously deciding to improve your life through personal development is a case where you stop living entirely in reaction to your circumstances and use your actions to try and control those circumstances. This will reduce the randomness of your circumstances and in a sense this is a kind of risk management. When you decide that you will only eat healthy food and actually implement this idea, you reduce the risk of attracting a lot of diseases and health problems - and similarly in the areas of finances, spirituality and relationships a focus on personal development can simultaneously reduce the amount of risk in your life.

After having acquired the makers of the 3D modeling software SketchUp, last month Google released the free version called Google SketchUp. Even though it has less features than the full version called SketchUp Pro, it has all the features you will need for most simpler (and some not so simple) 3D modeling projects.

I have previously been employed in the game development industry, so I have some experience with the usual modeling packages like 3D Studio Max and Lightwave, but the beauty of SketchUp is that it is not like the “usual” modeling tool, it is much simpler! Even if you are a complete novice in 3D modeling the simplicity of SketchUp makes it possible to learn very quickly by following the helpful tutorials available on the website. Dedicate an hour to learn the different basic features of the program and you are ready to starte experimenting.

From a personal development point of view frugality as a lifestyle is flawed. It is not flawed in the sense that it does not work, but it is flawed because it makes you aim your focus at the wrong things.

One of my hobbies is cars. I like both new and old ones but mostly those with a sports car feel to them so I can experience the thrill of tight corners in a well-balanced car. Since I like cars so much I have a hard time resisting to buy them and because I am not rich (yet) I usually end up with an older beat up car in need of some tender loving care. Normally I fix my car myself when it breaks down so I have a bit of car-wrenching experience. Some times (especially with old cars) the nuts and bolts are so rusted that they are practically fused to the car and will not budge simply by putting a wrench to them. Which brings me to my point - you can often get the nut/bolt off if you extend the wrench with a metal pipe and use your force at the end of this extension. A nut or bolt that was previously impossible to budge can often become a piece of cake; either that or something breaks! Given a long enough extension something will budge.

All my life I have suffered from the consequences of lack of patience. I want my projects to be finished yesterday and get stressed when I am in a situation where I am unable to work on the projects that I find important, even if the situation is just short and temporary. It also means that when I loose my patience, I risk loosing my motivation as well - it can seem like there is no point in continued efforts if the project will not be finished anytime soon - but that mode of thinking is exactly what causes impatience to decrease your likelihood of success in life. In this article I will explain what I consider to be the anti-impatience mantra : “success comes in chunks”.

There are good days and there are bad days. A bad day might be your own fault or it might not but either way there is no shame in having a bad day. If you have a positive outlook on life the ratio of what you consider bad days versus your good days will be better than if you feel depressed; so your own judgement can transform a bad day into a good day and vice versa but even if you have a habit of transforming what could objectively be called a good day into what you subjectively think is a bad day, there is still no shame in having a bad day.

I often wonder about the different ways people live their life and how it affects their life story. What kind of story would be written about your life when you are gone? I know you have many years still ahead of you but given the life path you are currently on, what would be the story written about you by your spouse? by your children? by your friends? By choosing your path today you are choosing the content of your life story. You may want your story to be written like a James Bond novel, like the biography of a great statesman, or perhaps you would rather be known for your loyal and loving role as a father/mother. In any case your ability to leave a legacy will be determined by the actions you take today.