Persistence Unlimited Personal Productivity Tips

Productivity Boosting Shoes? Finn Comfort Review - 2 Weeks In

A reader named Brandon emailed me wondering why I hadn’t followed up on my Finn Comfort shoe reviews from a few weeks ago.  He is debating getting a pair for himself and because of the price, he’s still undecided.

Well, I didn’t post because I didn’t want to bore anyone and I also didn’t realize some of you were waiting to see what happened after they broke in.  Sorry - my fault.

So here is the latest…

The shoes have broken in very well as of a few days ago. They are very comfortable for the feel. I still notice some of the pressure points pushing into parts of my foot that I am not used to.  But they aren’t painful or irritating, just a new feeling I am still adjusting to.

Brandon asked me if they were worth the $300 price tag. Well, me being from from meager heritage, I’ve inherited much frugality. So I would feel bad recommending them if they weren’t all they claim to be.

Whether they are worth it is an individual opinion.  If you, like me, have foot, leg or knee pain from ill fitting shoes, how much is it worth to get rid of the pain?  If you take OTC pain medication because of it, that expense adds up over time.  But it would take at least 40 bottles of Tylenol to pay for a pair of Finn Comforts.  And me not being a podiatrist, I can’t really say if they will in fact help you.

I am only speaking as someone who had moderate pain every day as a result of walking in the shoes I used to wear. 

Since I last blogged about them, I’ve put some miles on the Finns…yes MILES.  Last weekend, my son volunteered to help a local animal rescue by walking a cute little dog in a parade.  Unexpectedly, the organizers asked me to accompany the walkers to help look after the smaller kids riding on the float. This troubled me some because I had slipped on the Finns before going to the parade. I had only been wearing the Finns for 5 days… Probably not long enough for a full break in.

I dreaded the possibility of limping in agony and hating the shoes by the end of the parade.  But we had battled traffic, parking and parade organizers  to get where we were.  And the Finns were the only shoes I had.   I didn’t have much of a choice.

So, my family walked the entire parade route… I am guessing 2.5 - 3.0 miles.

At the end of the parade, we stood around and chatted with potential adoptee families and viewed some of the other parade exhibits.

By the end, I had completely forgotten about the shoes until Kim mentioned how much her feet hurt from all that walking. I immediately zeroed in on how my feet were feeling. All I noticed was a slight irritation in my right big toe from my socks rubbing around inside the shoes. This was likely because I didn’t have them tied tight enough.

I have never been one to tie my shoes tightly because It always feels like I am cutting off the circulation to half my foot. Not so in the Finns, when I tie them tightly they feel just fine. And having them snug stops the rubbing around inside the shoe.

So, after a parade, the shoes were feeling wonderful. I would have never been able to walk a parade in Doc Marteens or Birkenstocks.  I would have opted for some running shoes for that distance.  Yet, even with running shoes, I’d expect at least some pain.

Restless Leg Syndrome

Another early benefit appears to be when I am not wearing the shoes. More frequently than I’d like to admit, I get foot cramps and leg restlessness at bedtime. It is very irritating and at times has kept me awake through most of the night. I don’t know if it is restless leg syndrome since I haven’t talked with a doctor about it.  But to me, it’s irritating as hell leg jumpiness syndrome. 

Since starting the Finns, I haven’t had this restless leg (or whatever it is) one time.

Yes, the jury is still out, but I hope it continues.  If these shoes stave off having to take some prescription pill or buy some specialized chair, then they would save money over time.

Less Expensive Alternative?

Now for price, are they worth the price? Here’s what I told Brandon. If there is a pair of shoes you like the style of but they don’t feel that great, consider purchasing the shoes and a quality Orthotic. Quality orthotics run between $20 and $50.  And are best fitted by an expert.  Otherwise, they can slide around or try to fix the wrong problem - thus resulting in not fixing your pain and perhaps creating new pain - definitely not recommended.    

Anyway, I told him to add the price of new shoes plus orthotic. Is the price near the cost of Finn Comforts or much less? If there isn’t much of a difference, the Finns are the way to go. If the prices aren’t even close, you can try the less expensive way. Unfortunately the consideration that you may be losing some of the insole quality and benefit by “rolling your own” might weigh on you.  But that’s possibly worth the risk if you are saving over $100. For me, I did the math and it just didn’t seem to be a good deal.  Plus, curiosity got me too - were they really that good?  So far, I’ll say they are. 

So that’s my 2 week update. I’ll let you know another update when I hit the next milestone.

P.S.  If you decide to buy a pair of Finn Comforts, please consider using my Amazon links above.  Amazon sends me a gift card every month for my referrals.  I’d like to use the next one to get my wife a pair too. :)

links for 2008-05-23

Using Twitter and Blogging to Motivate Yourself Towards Personal Finance and Other Personal Goals
Interestinc concept on using your blog and twitter for money making motivation.
(tags: money twitter blogging)

25 Ways to Help a Fellow Human Being Today
“So strike back against the selfishness and greed of our modern world, and help out a fellow human being today. [...]

A New Emotionally-Based Way Of Prioritizing Your Task list

James over at Organize IT is talking about a new way he is prioritizing his tasks.   He makes some good arguments for ditching the high, medium and low task priorities most of us are used to for a new 3 step priority method.

The traditional approach of prioritizing, where you assign a task a high, medium or low priority (or maybe even something more meaningless than that) is outdated and largely ineffectual in today’s workplace. In fact David Allen of Getting Things Done fame actively downplays the importance of prioritizing, claiming that each task is equally important otherwise you wouldn’t be doing them in the first place. However, this implies a “need to do-don’t need to do” attitude which, as I’ve discussed before, can be a surefire way to end up burnt out as you continuously feel compelled to do something.

He has his 3 priorities laid out thusly:

Photo by geri-jean

• Need to do
• Should do
• Want to do

Of course the highest priority in this chain is Need to do.  These are things like putting gas in your car, turning in work on schedule and subscribing to my RSS feed ;) .  These are the tasks that if you don’t do them, you’ll be punished either directly or by the universe.  Not putting gas in your car punishes you by you breaking down at the side of the road and having to walk 3 miles to a gas station.  Not turning in your work in time results in getting in trouble at work.  I don’t even want to get into the horrors you’ll experience if you haven’t subscribed to my updates yet. :lol:

His next is Should do’s.  It’s my understanding the should do’s are things like writing thank you notes and turning in your work early.  There’s no consequences for not doing a should do - at least for now.  But you’ve committed to doing it so you might as well do it.

Finally there is the category Want to do.  Probably all of these tasks will get done because you want to do them. They are things like going out to eat or watching a movie.

As I use the old style ABC 123 priorities on my daily task list, I am not sure how well I’d adjust to this method.  It seems to me there would be some confusion in not knowing what comes first, second and third. 

Example:

• A1  Put Money in bank
• A2 Write checks for bills
• A3 Mail bills

In an ABC 123 prioritized list you know the first step, second and so on…

Where if you had one category Need to do and put the same tasks in there, depending on the order, you might have something that looks like this:

Need to do:

• Mail bills
• Write checks
• Put money into bank

Where do you start?  Logic dictates you’ll figure it out of course.  But I like the first method because you have a start and an end. 

That’s not to say James’ method isn’t sound.  I think he’s onto something.  Since many are motivated by pure emotion, perhaps knowing “I need to do this, this and that.” is enough.  But I’d like to see more of how to actually work the tasks in the list.

By the way, the first thing I think of when you put things on the Want to do list is that they are probably the least important to do.  They likely bring in the least profit, cost the most expense and lost time.  So after a week or two of implementing the method, a productivity maniac might consider just throwing out the want to do’s. 

What are your thoughts on James’ method?  Would you be better motivated by having a 3 category list of Need, should and want to dos?  Or do you like another method?  Please tell us in the comments.

An Ethical Bribe for Your Comments…

As you remember, I had some bad issues with the blog a few weeks ago.  Since then, I’ve rebuilt it and restored all of the prior posts and comments.  One of the things I’ve actually enjoyed about the process is trying some new Wordpress plug-ins. 
Of them, the one I think I like the most [...]

Why Buy a Used Car and 1 Silly Link

Bill O’Reilly’s Producer
Laughter is the best medicine - Did you catch Bill O’Reilly’s tirade last week on You Tube? Here’s the same clip where you get tp see it from the Producer’s perspective. ;)
(tags: funny humor TV video)

Go Green — Buy a Used Car. It’s Better Than a Hybrid
Who would have thunk it?

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link: 35 New Wordpress Plugins for Blogging

35 (New) WordPress Plugins for an Effective Blogging Experience
Since rebuilding the site, I’ve been looking at the latest Plugins. Here’s a list of 35 that you might find helpful too.
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Video: Famous Failures Who Will Inspire You to Stick With Your Goals

Feeling like you’ll never get where you want to be?
It happens to us all.  This short video shows just what can happen if you endure the slings and arrows, but continue moving forward anyway. 
Pretty inspiring if you ask me.
Your thoughts?
 
Technorati Tags: motivation,productivity,goal setting,inspiration