The 2-minute addiction

It first started out as a strategy I learnt from reading books on productivity and Getting Things Done. Th strategy is encompassed in a simple rule. For tasks that can be completed under 2 minutes, do them immediately. For tasks that take longer, classify them into folders for execution later. It worked wonderfully! Using my email inbox as a testing ground, I frequently managed to keep to the zero-item-in-inbox target.

However, I realise that this strategy does have its perverse effects! I'm starting to procrastinate on the tasks that take longer to complete, drawing comfort from the act of filing them into well-organised folders (which SHOULD not be a substitute for executing the task!) while pursuing the satisfaction that I get from completing 2 minute tasks.

At this rate, I'll reach my deathbed being the dude who has achived millions of 2 minute tasks but nothing big. Haha.

I think I'll have to change my strategy so that I devote more time to thinking longer and deeper on things that matter. These things may have outcomes that take longer to realise, but I guess I'll just have to get my instant kicks from other sources instead :)

Chasing Lions

Read this off an article this morning.
This is a quote from the Bible for background -

“Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.” - II Samuel 23:20

Taking Mark Batteron's quote, which is REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY inspiring. Especially when one is sitting underneath the cold from the lifeless air-con and feeling trapped by all the white-washed office walls around me.

“Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don’t let what’s wrong with you keep you from worshipping what’s right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don’t try to be who you’re not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!”

Wow.....

The "Yes" attitude

People often speak of the "lenses" with which we view our life, the world we live in. Using different lenses often bring out new perspectives, insights, and learnings.

One very useful lens that I've adopted is to see my work as a form of service. To excel in my job, I would strive to provide the best service available, by value-adding and delivering with the best attitude. Taking this perspective, my customers would then be the people I come into contact with everyday, and in particular, my bosses.

Just read this post by Seth Godin today. I think the post came at about the right time. I think I've begun to cultivate quite a bit of negativity in my attempt to reduce the amount of work that gets laid on my desk. I've started saying "no" to many things.

While that may be a good thing for me in the short term, I think that in the long term, I will only succeed in driving my customers nuts. I should change my perspective to: "yes, let's see how we can work something out". In particular, I should do this more for my more valued customers - people who are indeed honest and keen on helping me or making things better.

Thought for the day!

Microtrends by Mark J. Penn with E. Kinney Zalesne

Many books that I've read focuses on the big things that drive our world and society today. These are things that we can see happening to us everyday, and things that hardly escape the media's attention. I like this book - Microtrends - because it draws our attention to the myriad of things that happen below the radar. Penn calls these things microtrends if they are adopted by 1% of the population, which he calls the "magic number".

The proliferation of Microtrends is a reflection of the increasing access we have to self-expression. It is also a product of the flat world. Information and knowledge is now widely available to almost everyone, and with more selection, people have much more themes to chose from and incorporate into their lives. It is also much easier now to find commonality and brethrens amongst the world populace that one can identify with. This allows critical masses to form, which in turn switches on the virtuous cycle (or vicious cycle for negative trends such as terrorism) for more people to be brought into the trend.

I like that Penn focused alot of his book on the implications of these Microtrends, particularly what it means in terms of impact to society and businesses. Someone with a keen sense can pick out Microtrends early (before they explode) and quickly capitalise on the business opportunity in serving this group of trenders. But to do so would mean that I'd have to be actively plugged into all the trends that's going on around the world. Or that I'd need to have alot of luck to be at the right place at the right time to get hit by the right idea. I think the certainty of the former makes it a more attractive option.

Overall, what does it mean for me? On a personal note, I'm certainly glad that I live in an era where I can see all the colours and richness of the world for what it is ... it is more exciting to be immersed in a sea of multi-coloured strands of ideas than to be swimming in an orderly school of fishes. (This IS a very bad analogy, but it is getting late. Hahah.) As for my business aspirations, this means that there is potentially alot more opportunities out there ... but to spot these trends early and accurately, I would have to be sufficiently exposed to a wide range of ideas. I think the key to this is to talk to people. Taxi drivers, security ppl in guardhouses (xm would know why i said this!), people in the coffeeshop, friends who work in banks, law firms, IT companies, etc. And the other is to read widely. All in all, this coincides with what I believe is the crucial success factor in the knowledge economy today - knowledge (duh! hahaha), or more specifically, the accumulation and speedy access to quality knowledge.

What do you do ....

When your friends share different principles from you, those that are moral in nature?

What if those are principles, if held by other people, would hv made you pass harsh judgments?

Should the friendship be a line that I should never cross, so that I could only observe the crime but not step up to the witness stand when condemnation is called for?

On the scales of morality, with each pound of friendship that I place upon its pans - should it lighten the weight of the guilty, or should the guilty bear a heavier burden because of the expectations that I hold him to?

There were times when I had chosen to look the other way, painfully conscious of the inconsistency in the intensity which I believe in my morals and how casually I can choose to ignore them. How else are the worth of my values measured, other than by my actions when I see injustice done?

But.

There were also times when I was looked upon and I was watched. As the waves brought me further away from shore, I chose to give up struggling to see where the currents brought me. When I finally came back ashore, I was always welcomed by the few familiar eyes. Eyes brimming with unquestioned understanding - only the slightest tension in their gaze belie the hypocritical restraint that they had to bear. And I was always thankful each time.

Vu jaDe

Heard this concept from one of the talks given my Tom Kelly. Fantastic stuff!
Deja vu = looking at new things and feeling that you've seen them before
Vu jaDe = looking at things you've been seeing your whole life and feeling like you've never seen them before, i.e. the ability to continually discard old perspectives / mental models and develop new insights

Dabbling in Buddhism

Been some time since I read something spiritual. Maybe it was a thirst for something to touch my soul. Or maybe it was a craving for a distraction from the all-consuming dream-chasing pace that I was trying to keep up. (Or maybe I just felt I need answers.) But anyhow, I decided to abandon the book (of the you-know-what genre of "how to become a leader!") and proceeded to soak myself in this book - "How to see yourself as you really are" - by the Dalai Lama.

And I almost drowned myself. Hahaha. It was a great book - I think I came to a better understanding of the key thoughts behind Buddhism after finishing it. Still far from nirvana though. And there are all these frustrating koans and entangling quotes that don't make much sense to my unenlightened brain.

If I may expound the little new-found understanding, it would go something like this. Nothing inherently and independently exists, as everything owes its (or their?) existence to the existence(s) of other things. In the same way, I don't exist (at least not in the inherently and independently way I'm familiar with) except in dependence on everything else, much like the mirage exists as a result of the sun and the patch of water. The essence that awashes everything and imbues light so that I (and everything else around me) can have a semblence of existence is my mind. This is quite mind-boggling, and prolly quite all the more so because my understanding might be flawed! But methinks that this is the gel that holds contradictory statements such as "The mind is the Budhha. The Buddha is not the mind" together. (I might hv made that up.)

It's frustrating though, the gel seems to run through my hands like water whenever I try to grasp it. And I'm left with a senseless sentence construct.

There's a simple thought experiment. Simple to construct but absolutely irritating to solve. It is to find where and what is the "I" that exists. One can hardly find it. It just keeps slipping by you, running in circles. "I" is clearly not my body, since I can systematically remove everything except my mind and I can still pretty much identify myself. If "I" is my mind, then statements like "I have a sound mind" and "I have a brain" would make little sense. (Cos "I" would have to exist independently of my mind, much like me and my car when I say "I have a car".) The only way out is to conclude that "I" exist in dependence upon everything else - my brain and body included - like a mirage does.

Strangely, it makes me feel happier that I'm confused. (Maybe that's how it's really supposed to work. Haha.) This lends another meaning to being blissfully ignorant. Maybe periodical spiritual ponderings where one questions one's existence does help one to feel alive. This is one area in my life that I'm glad to leave in an amorphous and confused state. Until the next time I take a dive again.

Muay Thai and My Time

My series of Muay Thai lessons is now drawing to an end. It feels like the end of a season - one that I artificially created for myself to make sense of the movement of time, or perhaps to give myself some sense of progression. It also feels a lot like walking from one room to the next, closing one door and opening a new one.

Progression - it is interesting that my life so far is defined in chunks. 

I had a really good time putting punches and throwing my shins into those sandbags for these few months. Can't say that I've become one real and mean boxing machine right now, but I think I now know how to look less amateurish if I ever get into a real brawl! (Also managed to persuade two friends to join me in my temporal hobby.)

So what does this chunk of my life mean to me?

A new beginning, a renewed zest, rediscovering myself, "throwing" myself into life. It's too complex an experience to be written down in a couple of lines. Or maybe it's but a transitory phase. A bridge to a new place. 

But have I arrived? I do not know. I wish I do.