Ralf Westphal's Experiments

Dental care with Xylitol

Created by Ralf Westphal Mar 18, 2011 | Category Health/Medicine

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Overview Will brush my teeth with pure Xylitol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol) 2 to 3 times a day. See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal Brush teeth with half a tea spoon of Xylitol (should be fine grained like regular sugar). Then rinse and keep another half tea spoon in mouth until it all has dissolved into saliva. Rinse. Do not swallow.

Mar 20, 2011

Comment

Ralf Westphal Going thru this procedure 2-3 a day is actually fun :-) Tastes like sugar - but without the bad feeling, since you´re doing good to your body.

Mar 20, 2011

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Make my office paperless Completed

Created by Ralf Westphal Nov 05, 2010 | Category Work

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Overview I will scan all paper I receive (receipts, forms etc.) and manage it in my computer. The paper will be thrown away after scanning or just stored in a simple chronological manner in an archive box (e.g. because maybe the IRS wants to see the original someday).

I will use the ScanSnap S1500, See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal A pile of receipts grew on my desk and I just made it to scan it after a couple of days. I procrastinated because I thought I had to work on the receipts (filing them in my computer and adding them to my monthly IRS statement). But that´s wrong! Scanning and processing need not happen at the same time. That feels relieving. I just need to remember there are unprocessed ... See more

Jan 11, 2011

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Matthew Cornell "Scanning and processing need not happen at the same time" - YES! That's a key concept in a good personal time management system, e.g., GTD. As you point out, you need a list of the unprocessed items to take care of later.

Jan 11, 2011

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Establish Germany´s Premier Story Teller Platform on the Internet

Created by Ralf Westphal Sep 20, 2010 | Category Other

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Overview With partners I will found a platform for story telling on the internet.

There seems to be no such platform where people can go and watch/listen to stories told by professionals (or hobbyists). The stories can range from fairy tail or ghost stories to crime or erotic stories.

Comedians have a lot of... See experiment

Comment

Matthew Cornell Yes, writing to know what you're thinking works for me too. It helps to experiment - go for breadth - until I see a direction or get a good feeling about what the message is. Also, to avoid perfection, I try to pick *some* message, even if it's not perfect, then have a way to test it. How would you go about this in your project?

Nov 16, 2010

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Ralf Westphal "Pick *some* message" is a good idea - as long as it´s not too far off ;-) And then try explaining that message and see if it works. That´s what we´re doing.

Nov 16, 2010

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Walk from Munich to Nuremberg in 6 Days Completed

Created by Ralf Westphal Oct 15, 2010 | Category Other

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Overview With a friend I will walk from Munich to Nuremberg (some 180 km/105 miles) from Oct 13 to Oct 18. This is a personal exercise as well as a marketing event for a software developer conference.

See here for a map of our route: http://bit.ly/97vCcU See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal Lesson learned: Don´t start out with a too high speed. 5 km/h for a whole day at max. Add 2 h of pausing in total.

But in the end we resolved to do it differently next time: instead of walking a distance we want to try walking a circle :-) Start from a hotel, walk for 2-4 hours, come back - and then change the mode. Then do something. create something from wh... See more

Nov 05, 2010

Comment

Matthew Cornell The circle's a great idea. It essentially adds a level of safety, and reduces the risk. My thought is that this in turn makes it easier to experiment. Lowers a barrier, if you will.

Nov 16, 2010

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Go on a New Media Diet Completed

Created by Ralf Westphal Oct 15, 2010 | Category Other

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Overview I will cut down on the (new) media I´m consuming. I will cancel 2 magazine subscriptions, will not check Twitter (although I might myself write a tweet), and I will not read any of the 90 news feed I´m subscribed to. (I´m not doing anything with Facebook.) See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal I now finish the experiment. Occaissonally reading Twitter felt fine. Not reading RSS-feeds was easy. I´ll now discontinue a computer magazine. Two other mags I´ll simply not read when they come in by mail and I don´t feel like it. No action taken right now.

Nov 05, 2010

Comment

Matthew Cornell Good work, Ralf!

Nov 07, 2010

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Brushing teeth with left hand Completed

Created by Ralf Westphal Sep 01, 2010 | Category Other

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Overview I will brush my teeth with my left hand instead of my right hand. I´m a righty.

Why am I doing this? It´s a small thing to do to get me out of my comfort zone. But also this might exercise other brain areas which, well, is just a good thing for staying alert, conscious, and mentally fit, isn´t it? ;-) See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal I´m calling this complete now. My left hand teeth brushing improved, but it´s still far from the ease of my right hand.

What did I learn? The teeth brushing part is negligble :-) Most importantly I learned to observe myself and intercept habitual actions. This is the base for change, I´d say. And this is along the lines of Frederick Matthias Alexander, the i... See more

Sep 17, 2010

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Matthew Cornell Hey Ralf - I'm a huge Alexander Technique fan. http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amatthewcornell.org+%22alexander+technique%22 . Great stuff - changed profoundly the way I look at the world. In fact my teacher Missy wrote an excellent book on it: http://www.amazon.com/How-You-Stand-Move-Live/dp/1600940064/

Sep 20, 2010

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Live a happy marriage Completed

Created by Ralf Westphal Aug 25, 2010 | Category Other

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Overview For at least week I will live as if my marriage was still happy.

Background: For the past couple of months my marriage has not been doing well. My wife and I have tried this an that to find a way "back to normal" - but it hasn´t worked out. Now, as a kind of last resort, we´re going to try "doin... See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal Thx for asking, Matthew: I´d say the experiment was a success. It helped us to "pretend". It gave us room to be as we are. And it helped to realize what´s important to us. I, for example, realized that I do not want to live in a marriage where either partner is dependent on the other. If I could not envision myself living alone, there is little chance of havin... See more

Sep 17, 2010

Comment

Brock Tice Congrats, sounds like you learned a lot!

Sep 17, 2010

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Doing continous bookkeeping Completed

Created by Ralf Westphal Aug 22, 2010 | Category Other

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Overview I will do my bookkeeping chores whenever there is a new receipt. Every day I will enter any receipts into my Excel table. See experiment

Comment

Ralf Westphal I have to admit I had started this experiment a couple of weeks before I entered it here at Edison. I did not want to cheat by doing that, though. It just seemed a topic appropriate for an experiment. And had I known Edison back then, I´d have started with it right away.

Since I have done my bookkeeping in the described way for some time now, I call the exper... See more

Aug 31, 2010

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Matthew Cornell Congratulations, Ralf! And no, it's not cheating to create an experiment after it's done. It allows us to learn from your work. Thanks for being here on edison.

Aug 31, 2010

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Ralf Westphal

  • Member Since
  • 08/22/10
  • About Freelance consultant, author, trainer on .NET software architectural topics and lean software development.
  • Web http://www.ralfw.de
  • Experiments 8
  • Observations 51
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