Trying new things for 30 days: Matt Cutts' TED2011 presentation

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Photo of Matt Cutts at TED2011. Credit: TED

I enjoyed Google engineer Matt Cutts' presentation at TED2011 about his series of "30 Day Challenges." In May of 2009, Matt decided to walk at least 10,000 steps a day for 30 days. He was happy with the results, so he followed that exercise by giving up television for 30 days.

He now tries something new every 30 days. The challenges so far have included biking to work, not using Microsoft software, not using Twitter, not using an iPhone, not responding to any external e-mail (that is, e-mail outside of Google), not having caffeine, not having sugar, meditating 15 minutes a day, reading the Bible, reading 15 books (he only made it 12), using only cloud-based software, taking one photo a day, writing a novel, getting his finances in order, and learning a new word every day.

In his talk Matt said that some of the main benefits of doing these 30 day challenges is that time slows down and life becomes more interesting. I want to give this a try!

Matt has a blog where you can follow his 30 day challenges.