Quote: Do what others want, not what you want for them

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“Do what others want, not what you want for them.” -someone smarter than me

It is tempting to think that we know what is best for others, our loved ones, or strangers. That may be true sometimes, but think inwards – how would you feel when someone does something for you on their terms, not how you want things to be done.

When considering a birthday gift, for example, ask the person what they really want, and don’t suppose that they will like what you give them.

Purchasing Decision Making Triangle

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Making a large purchase decision – or even a small one – is not an easy task. Various metrics can be used, such as, ROI (return on investment), payback time calculations, etc.

Another simple idea is to consider this fact: you can only pick two out of these three, Quality, Price, or Support.

A purchase cannot be made that will check all three boxes. We want great quality and great support, but are not willing to pay the premium price. That may be fine for some purchases, so long as we are aware that we compromise either quality or support.

Book Review – Managing Oneself

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Key takeaways:

  1. Know your strengths. Know your weaknesses. Track your activities to find out what these are. Following this discovery, spend more time on what you are good at – the 80-20 rule. Analysis like this will show what you need to learn to get to where you want to go.
  2. Don’t take pride in the things you don’t know, that is a defeatist mentality.
  3. Listeners vs Readers: identify which you are and know your strengths and weaknesses.
  4. How do you learn? Sketching, listening, graphs and tables, reading, etc. Identify what works and stick to it.
  5. Do you work as a decision maker or as an adviser?
  6. What are your values? The “Why?” question. Answer this first before you embark on a new task.
  7. Know where you belong and do yourself a favor and step out of a position you are not meant to be at.
  8. Have the courage and discipline to say, “NO, I cannot do the task this way, but I can do it this other way”. Make sure your management understands how you work. If they don’t, then communicate this to them directly.
  9. Making predictions for the next 1.5yrs is reasonable; beyond that is not. It is important to measure and track your progress towards your goals.
  10. Working with others: understand their personality type and how they work, then adjust yourself accordingly. Be clear with your communications, spell things out.

These are the major points I took away from this book.

You can find this book wherever you get your books from.

Book Review – Getting Things Done

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Key takeaways:

  1. Batching: work at designated times only, e.g., check emails and respond to them during a blocked time session – do not exceed this time block. Parkinson’s principle: work will dilate as to fill the time allocated to it.
  2. Buckets: categorize tasks in buckets and tackle them together. This is more efficient than switching between task categories.
  3. Park it: during the day as thoughts and to-do tasks come up, write them down in categorized task lists. Once it is written down, it is out of your headspace, which frees your mind for more creative things.
  4. Some day tasks: list tasks that are unimportant together and check them off during blocked time sessions.
  5. Periodic reviews: review your process at set times, e.g., weekly. Write an SOP (standard operating procedure) for yourself and systematize your process. During periodic reviews, edit and optimize your SOP’s.

Tools that I use to help accomplish this: OneNote, Google Tasks, Google Keep, Insightly CRM (for project management), and my favourite, an old-fashioned notebook/pencil.

These are the major points I took away from this book.

You can get this book here: anywhere you get your books from.

Exchange for my time

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I recently met a guy who was playing with his toddler on swings, as I was too. We started talking and I learnt he was a first year medical student – I thought it was interesting because he was the same age as I was. He continued with his story: coming to the US as a student, he graduated from University with a bachelor’s degree, went to work for the navy as a medic assistant for three years, upon completing his term, he was naturalized as a US citizen, then decided to go back to school for a master’s degree, return to the navy as a medic, and finally decided that it was time to start medical school to become a doctor. I was curious how he was paying for medical school, which costs over $100,000 per year. He answered, “Money is not hard to find, you just have to give up your time in exchange.” Because of his time in service, his medical education was paid for, and what little was left, he funded himself with scholarships.

Money is never going to be an excuse for not doing something you believe in. You just have to put in your time in exchange. And of course, the purpose of this time exchange must make sense.

Bad Mood

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When you are in a bad mood, because of something that you did, something that someone said/did, etc., you are losing twice – once for being in a bad mood, twice for not fulfilling your potential. Don’t be sad, angry, upset, or cranky at yourself or others, but instead focus on fixing your system so that this does not happen in future. If this bad mood comes from someone, don’t be around this person. If you are the cause, change your habits. Think in terms of systems that can be implemented to steer away from these bad mood causing events. This is easier to do than you think. The good news is, this system needs to be created once.

Help calm yourself down by using deep breathing techniques. Think of gentle cool breeze brushing our face while you lay on a warm beach sipping cool drinks from fancy glasses with tiny umbrellas.

New PC for Gaming/Mining

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Recently built this PC for the primary purposes of being my control center. A PC is superior than a laptop because of the fact that it is not mobile. Of course, still use a laptop, but a workstation PC allows activities to be centralized. Back in the day, I was a gamer, and having a PC allows me to fulfill that – time permitting – and secondly, this PC will be ready for mining, should I chose to graze those green pastures.

Here is a configuration:
-AMD Ryzen 5600G with built in graphics (this allows me to delay GPU purchase)
-Asus B550M-A AC motherboard
-Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB RAM
-EVGA Power supply
-Cooler Master MasterBox MB311L Case
-monitor/hard-drive/keyboard/mouse (taken from my old PC)

Total cost: ~$600 (monitor/hard-drive/keyboard/mouse not included in price)

Bought on Newegg and Amazon.

Book Review – Think Like A Freak

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Key takeaways:

1. Herd mentality wins: most people make decisions based on what others are doing
2. Think like a freak, think like a kid: outside the box thinking comes naturally to kids
3. Identify the problem: take a step back and identify the root cause
4. I don’t know’ – the hardest 3 words in the English language: most people will not admit their ignorance and persevere in their wrong ways
5. Shift framework: look from the other person’s perspective
6. Let the garden weed itself: most problems go away with time, or the person who asked for help figures out out
7. Beware of false positives:
8. Stories stick: most people remember stories instead of facts
9. Fail fast, fail cheap: make mistakes early on and don’t be afraid of trying

You can get the book here: THINK LIKE A FREAK