The more you pay gratitude, the more you have

Hola! Dear colleagues, mates, seniors and juniors! How was your Eid? One of the best? Or may be the busiest one. I hope you people spent a wonderful Eid with your families. Today I am going to share one of the habit of ultra-successful people, a habit that is practiced by most of the successful businessmen in the world whether he is Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz, Larry Page, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or whoever he is, a habit that everyone must need to develop and I am hardly working on it and I cannot do this without sharing with you people.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotion that you can practice in your everyday life. But unfortunately, we are quite unaware of the benefits of paying gratitude. We are so taking everything for granted that we have almost totally forgotten to accept what things we actually have. The biggest dilemma is that we keep on crying on the things that we don’t have rather than thanking and showing gratitude to the things we have.

I have been studying about habits of ultra-successful people for few weeks and from many habits, what I found the most common habit among all these people is the habit of showing Gratitude. Showing gratitude is no rocket science. It is so simple as walking in the park, but the urge to show is what matters the most.

Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow - Melody Beattie

We live our life at our fullest, I still remember when I first started my job here at CMPak, and one of my very close and old friend who knows me from childhood, asked a wonderful question which brought tears to my eyes. His question was “How it feels like to see your wallet full?” and I replied him with a beautiful smile. Because when I recall, I didn’t have wallet even and now I hardly see it empty ALHAMDULILLAH. In our everyday life, we have uncountable things to pay gratitude.

Let me recall and remind the things which we are taking for granted from years,

• -          We open our wardrobe and see it full of clothes, even at times we get ourselves confused what to wear
• -          We have sincere friends whom we discuss and share our personals
• -          We wear everything branded (Clothes, shoes, perfumes)
• -          We maintain clothes like formal wear, semi-formal wear, casual wear
• -          We maintain shoes like, for running, for formal wear, for hiking, for sports, casual, semi-casual
• -          We open our refrigerator and find so many things to eat and sometimes few of them goes wasted even
• -          We breathe, we walk, we play, we see, and we have all the senses gifted by ALLAH without even asking
• -          We have electricity, gas, and air to live with
• -          We have fresh clean water to drink, cleanse & wash
• -          We are educated, knows good people, works in a good company
• -          We have flow of cash, we earn, spend, save, invest
• -          We have beautiful relations like (siblings, friends, parents, spouse, children)
• -          We live in big houses, sleep on comfortable beds, eat hygienic breakfast, lunch and dinner, play sports
• -          We own cars in which we travel and go to places whenever & wherever we want to
• -          We have the internet to learn so many things and stay connected to the world
• -          We hangout, we spend on luxuries, we spend on tourism
• -          We see our wallet empty, we go to atm machine and fill it up

I mean I could have made this list as long as I could but it would then be too long for one to read. Observe yourself, and your surroundings and you will feel all the amazing things which we are taking granted for years. We not only have necessities, but we have a rich lifestyle.

How to pay gratitude?

As I told you, every successful person has a habit of paying gratitude daily, some do it by simply reminding themselves, some do it by keeping a journal, some do it by daily spending 5 minutes to think on for what they are grateful today and writing on a notepad. There are also multiple apps available which remind you of daily to write for which you’re grateful. But after reading from different blogs, articles, and other sources, I have developed my own way of paying gratitude. One of its kind. I call it WALL OF GRATITUDE. It is as simple as a wall covered in white paper.

Cover one of your bedroom wall with a white paper fully. And on daily basis, whenever you spare few minutes, write 2 – 3 points for what you are grateful for. This way, every time when you look at your wall, you will have a sense of humility, thankfulness, and you will feel more grateful towards your life. Researchers at Princeton University and UCLA found that those people who write in longhand appear to learn better, retain information longer, and more readily grasp new ideas, according to experiments by other researchers who also compared note-taking techniques. The process of taking hand written notes encoded the information more deeply in memory, experts said. Keeping in mind the research I have developed this way of showing gratitude. Others reason of showing gratitude on WALL OF GRATITUDE is once you write on the wall, it will remain in front of you all the times and will keep you reminding of the things on the daily basis that you have and keep you more focused and energetic. And the lastly, it will be a great addition to your room decor as well. J

Why should you pay gratitude is the question now?

Detailed benefits of gratitude can be found in the link below, highlights of which are following

1. Gratitude makes us happier

2. Gratitude makes people like us

3. Gratitude makes us healthier

4. Gratitude boosts our career

5. Gratitude strengthens our emotions

6. Gratitude develops our personality

7. Gratitude makes us more optimistic

8. Gratitude reduces materialism

9. Gratitude increases spiritualism

10.Gratitude makes us less self-centered

11.Gratitude increases self-esteem

12. Gratitude improves your sleep

13. Gratitude keeps you away from the doctor

14. Gratitude lets you live longer

15.  Gratitude increases your energy levels

16.  Gratitude makes you more likely to exercise

17.  Gratitude helps us bounce back.

18.  Gratitude makes us feel good. 

19.  Gratitude makes our memories happier. 

20.  Gratitude reduces feelings of envy

21.  Gratitude helps us relax

22.  Gratitude makes you friendlier

23.  Gratitude helps your marriage

24.  Gratitude makes you look good

25.  Gratitude helps you make friends.

26. Gratitude deepens friendships

27.  Gratitude makes you a more effective manager

28.  Gratitude helps you network. 

29. Gratitude increases your goal achievement

30. Gratitude improves your decision making

31. Gratitude increases your productivity. 

Source for 31 benefits: http://happierhuman.com/benefits-of-gratitude/ 

49 best free websites and apps to learn something new

Once upon a time, if you wanted to learn something, you had to a) pay a bunch of money, and b) go to a school or classroom, a place specifically dedicated to learning. Those days are over.

Now, a profusion of apps, websites and institutions offer us a wider variety of (often superior) educational experiences than ever before- and we can access them from anywhere in the world, often for free. The apps and websites on this list can teach you practically anything- from coding and cooking, to surfing and negotiating.

In this day and age, there is simply no excuse to not know something you’d like to know. You can learn anything, for free, at your own pace, anywhere you can access the internet. We’re out of excuses not to educate ourselves- short of downloading knowledge directly into your head, this is as easy as it gets.

This time, I am going to share inspiring apps, websites and tools that you can use to ease your life and take full advantage of without paying a single penny. The era in which we are living is completely digital and full of knowledge that we must keep on learning in order to move forward. So take a look at the list below and don’t forget to share if you find it valuable J

Take free online courses on a variety of subjects

Khan Academy- High-quality free courses on a variety of subjects

Alison- Free online courses from the world’s top publishers.

CourseBuffet- Free online courses created by universities.

Edx.org – Free/Paid online courses from World top universities (Harvard, MIT, UCBerkeley, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia etc)

Udemy- Huge selection of free and premium courses- mostly on technical skills.

Highbrow- Free 10-day courses, divided into 5-minute daily lessons and delivered by email.

Academic Earth- Free online academic education for everyone.

Learnist- Print and video content, crowd sourced and curated by experts.

Degreed- Unlimited learning. Free forever.

Get healthier, be more productive, and learn faster

Memrise- Learn a variety of subjects via digital flashcards and crowd sourced mnemonics.

Greatist- Articles on becoming healthy and happy.

ZenHabits- Minimalist productivity advice, with a focus on psychology.

Anki- Free flashcard software.

Hello Healthy- Short, actionable health weight loss and fitness articles.

Fitocracy- Free workout, fitness tips and fitness tracking.

Learn coding and other technical skills

Codecademy- Learn Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python and more.

Free Code Camp- Learn to code, meet other coders, build projects that help non-profits.

Code.org- Introductory coding lessons, designed for k-12 students.

Data Camp- Free and freemium courses on R, Python and data visualisation.

CodeCombat- Introductory coding lessons, in the form of a fantasy RPG.

Lrn- Phone app with free interactive coding mini-quizzes.

Learn a new language

Duolingo — Learn over 20 different languages, including Klingon for some reason.

Babbel- Free language learning with integrated speech recognition.

Drops- Study a language on your phone for just 5 minutes a day.

Busuu- Community-base language learning. Interact with native speakers.

CoffeeStrap- Practice a new language by voice chatting with native speakers with whom you share common interests.

Lingvist- Learn a language in 200 hours.

Sharpen your social and career skills

Improve Your Social Skills- Free social skills guide from a guy who overcame Asperger’s.

Succeed Socially- Free social skills guide for awkward people.

Job-Hunt.org- Free articles on job hunting, getting promoted, freelancing, personal branding, and other career skills.

Mind Tools- Free tools and videos for improving career, management and communications skills.

Make something

Makezine- Online magazine for makers with guides, projects and news.

Snapguide- Free user-created guides for makers.

ChefSteps- Mix of free and premium cooking classes.

Instructables- User-created guides for making everything from cookies to buildings.

Allrecipes- The web’s largest collection of recipes.

Become a human encyclopedia

InstaNerd- Read a never-ending series of random factoids.

TED-Ed- Curated, high-quality educational videos.

Brain Pump- Watch a random educational video.

Now I Know- Fun facts delivered in a daily email newsletter.

Curiosity- 5 fun new facts, delivered to your phone every day.

Zidbits- Huge collection of articles on fun and unusual (mostly scientific) topics.

Big Think- In-depth videos by experts.

Curious- Sharpen your brain with daily “workouts”

Do something fun

Yousician- Learn your favorite guitar, bass, piano and ukelele songs.

Parkour & Freerunning World- Free Parkour and Freerunning video tutorials. Be careful!

Chesscademy- Learn chess from the masters, and solve chess puzzles.

Pianu- Learn to play piano online.

Surfedukators- Free surfing videos, tips and tutorials

Flowkey- Free piano training app.

Source:- medium.com

Sanity – To Keep You From Going Insane

It is all about the smart phone today. You might or might not have food to eat but you definitely have a smart phone, and why should you not? A smartphone is increasingly becoming the solution to every problem. The survival skills classes have been modified in schools and camps to incorporate a smart phone in the list of essential things, including water and food. And the stronger internet connection you have, the better.

Internet is the fuel that enhances the smartness of a smart phone, without which it is not that smart. This is because apps make a smart phone smart. And most of the apps that connect us to the world run on the internet. This keeps us well connected all the time.

However, connection with the world sometimes tends to become stronger that we would want it to be. This is because of the mighty web crawlers. Through the internet, these web crawlers keep such a strong tab on our online activity to understand our general behaviour and our preferences, mostly to annoy us with silly marketing calls that the internet becomes quite a nuisance for us. But like everything, the internet comes with its own set of good and bad.

Fortunately, like poison, the internet is its own cure. So, to combat this particular problem what we need is sanity which can be achieved by an app called Sanity – to keep you from going insane.

Sanity makes your phone calls better, easier and healthy. It is your personal assistant to:

– audio record your phone calls in mpeg4, 3gpp or amr format (also automatically)

– announce caller and SMS: speak the caller’s name when receiving a call or a message using the synthesised voice (text to speech)

– block unwanted calls and SMS: automatically refuse incoming calls and SMS filtering out the phone number (include or exclude anonymous and/or unknown numbers, favourites, contacts and groups; enable the block by choosing date and time); advanced: choose between different block methods to confuse the caller!

– auto answer: automatically answer the call when phone is ringing by choosing phone numbers, date and time and if respond only when using headphones.

– urgent calls: choose what phone numbers your phone will ring or vibrate also when it’s in silent mode

– automatic speakerphone: automatically turn on/off the handsfree when the phone is far/close to your ear

– outgoing anonymous calls: make private calls by hiding your caller ID (also automatically by filtering the phone numbers to call)

– reduce electromagnetic waves: automatically turn on/off wifi, bluetooth, GPS and mobile data (2G/3G) when you speak at your phone

– choose different volume levels during calls: one for normal calling, loud handsfree, wired headsets volume and bluetooth headsets volume

– automatic bluetooth headsets: automatically enable bluetooth for a limited time when the call starts

– timeouts for restoring silent mode and airplane mode: just enable the silent/airplane mode (in any way) and Sanity will ask you how much time to stay in that mode

– vibrate the phone when the call begins and when the call ends.

– fast SMS: displays the received SMS allowing you to respond immediately.

Sanity uses proximity sensor for turning on/off automatically the antennas and the handsfree when the phone is close to your ear. In this way, Sanity can make your calls healthier by lowering the electromagnetic fields. It can be also useful while you’re driving car: through automatic handsfree, the headsets are no longer needed.

Most of Sanity features are configurable through the most advanced phone number filter: choose whether to activate a function for all numbers or for anonymous numbers, unknown numbers, contacts (all or some), favorite contacts, contact groups and also filter by prefix number. Sanity is light, small and very fast. Sanity is a free software, open source, released under GNU Public License version 3.

Thus, you might be fed up of random calls when you are at work in an important meeting, at home relaxing or in the loo. Sanity will prove to be the solution to an ‘unnecessary calls free’ living.

Source: Drippler

Back Up All Your Android's Files to Google Drive Automatically

Google makes backing up your contacts, messages, and Wi-Fi passwords extremely easy, but leaves you out in the cold when it comes the data on your internal storage. With most Android devices now lacking SD card support, when you unlock your bootloader or do a factory reset, you're stuck having to back up everything to your computer beforehand.

While that isn't particularly difficult, it can definitely take up a bunch of time, especially if you have gigs of data to back up. GDriveSync will help to expedite the process by syncing preset folders on your internal storage to Google Drive. So as long as you have a Google Drive account with enough space to fit those folders, you'll never need to worry about backing up specific data again.

Step 1: Install GDriveSync

GDriveSync from developer Evan He, can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store. 

Step 2: Set Up Sync Folders

The sync process is one-way, meaning that files will be uploaded from your phone to Google Drive, but not the other way around. This is the ideal situation for backups since you won't lose any files if you delete them off the Google Drive folder on your computer.

To add a folder to sync, tap the + icon on the bottom left and select the Sourceand Destination folder. The source is the folder you want to sync, and the destination is the folder you want to sync to on your Google Drive account.

Step 3: Enable Auto Sync

If you're like me and forget to back up folders on a regular basis, then you should definitely enable Auto Sync. The sync interval can be set to times, and if you are looking to save data, be sure to enable the Wifi Only option.