I’m an idea person and believe me; it’s marvelous! Without fail I can come out with a lot of ideas, every single times. A lot of them are plainly stupid, some of them are good, and one or two might be really great.
Few people envy me, some think I’m lucky and a lot of them think:
“I got better ideas than you”
As much as I’m grateful with this gift, it’s also my biggest weaknesses.
Having a lot of ideas tend to make me lost focus and sidetracked before I could even say, DUPLICATE!
Every time I come out with new interesting idea, I will, without fail, sabotage it by thinking too far ahead. I will easily come up with ideas on how this project will evolve, how many features I can put in, amazing integration with existing projects and a lot of future upgrades.
I even think of solutions to problem that I might be facing in future. Can you imagine that? I barely started the project yet I’ve spent so much energy into solving problems that not even existed yet, heck, it might not even be a problem at all.
Before I know it, the project bloated with features and I’ll be overwhelmed with a lot of task. I will make an easy quit and just let the project fails.
So for JomRead Project, I’m doing a very systematic way to get things done. It’s a simple yet duplicable system.
I have one big goal in mind for JomRead, but in order to achieve it, I’ll break it down to smaller goals and missions. So every day I just do one small simple thing for JomRead. Most of the missions can be done within an hour. Everyday I’ll achieve small goals.
And by tasting success everyday, I get motivated everyday too! Everything seem a lot simpler when you do it one step at a time.
For example, we started with Facebook Page first then only decide; hey, wouldn’t it be better if we have our own domain name?
Or, we decided to ignore the potential problem of not having enough books because for now we don’t even have any members. Having one book at this time can be considered as a surplus, therefore there’s no such problem as not having enough books.
That’s the best thing about setting small goals and missions. If I make a mistake or fail to achieve a goal, the impact will be less threatening to the project as a whole. And like I said continuous successes no mater how small, will continually motivate people.
So there you go, simple system that I hope can be duplicated throughout the entire development of JomRead Project.
You know how you sometimes think “I’d like to pick up a good book and sit in and read this Sunday”, but never seem to because you didn’t have time to look for one, or because shelling out RM80 for a book you might end up reading only once seems too wasteful?
Remember one of your friends who not only loves reading books, but loves spreading the knowledge too? The one who will go out of the way just to lend you a great book? All you have to do is just meet up with that particular friend and bring home something to read. Easy, isn’t it?
We are not here to replace you generous friend. But we sure would like to be one of yours. That’s why we would love to lend you one book at a time for you to read, once you’ve finished it, we’ll send you another one.
Productivity devil holds hostage of time – your ultimate resources. And wasting time on emails is the devil’s way.
So here’s a simple duplicable trick to better manage your email.
Before that; let’s talk about rules – there’s only one rule when it comes to email productivity.
Always keep your inbox empty.
Okay, maybe there’s another rule – don’t let email control your life.
Email is a passive communication, therefore it can wait. There’s no point checking your email every 30 seconds, or set annoying popup to tell you “You Got Mail” every time your buddy forward some useless joke about Obama or Clinton.
It’s all a distraction. Unless you’re a tech support, chances are, you only need to check your mail every few hours.
So here’s a duplicable system for more productivity when it comes to email. Do it step-by-step.
Delete
Do not be afraid to delete thing off your life. If it doesn’t seem important on first look, chances are – it is not important at all. Just delete it. This is the same concept when you meet new girl/guy. First impression counts.
Delegate
If somebody else can do it, just quickly forward it to that person. Don’t be a HERO.
Reply
Certain mails just need an acknowledgement from. Just quickly reply – Noted. If you must use more than one word, make sure it’s within 5 to 10 words. Enough. Don’t overdo it.
Do it
If it’s something that you can quickly do within few minutes, then go ahead, leave for mails for few minutes and come back when you got it done. Then proceed. Simple.
Mark as to-do
Now if it’s something that can’t be done quickly, mark it in your to-do list. Word of caution - This to-do list tends to accumulate pretty fast. So, before you tag it as another to-do, check again if it’s really necessary to delay it. Can it be deleted, delegated, quickly replied, done in few minutes? If all fail, then only mark it.
That’s it. Simple duplicable way to make your live easier and more productive
As always, there’s nothing without flaws. The problem with using dream to drive you is – sometimes you don’t even know what your dream is. Or maybe you do know but it’s so vague, with little details.
Conclusion: If you don’t even have a clear and vivid picture of your dream, how can it be strong enough to drive you?
Solution: I heard this a lot.
Picture your dream vividly and believe in it until it all seems real.
Yeah, right. Another abstract advice. Easier said than done.
This is where the book comes in handy.
“It started slowly, with me taking a little more time for myself each week. I Stopped treating myself to ‘things’ as compensation for hard working, and instead started treating myself by doing what I wanted to do. For example, I made sure I spent at least one hour everyday doing something I really liked. Sometimes it was reading a novel I was excited about, other days it was going for a long walk or playing sports.”
“Eventually, the one hour became two, and that progressed to three, and before I knew it, I was totally focused on doing things I wanted to do, things that fulfilled my answer to ‘why am I here’”
But before that, here’s a disclaimer. I don’t know why you want to lie. I don’t advocate lying. But maybe there’s a day where you will have to lie. It could be for business, could be to save life, and could be thousand of valid reasons. I hope when that day comes, you are fully prepared.
Like I said, it’s all about perspective.
It’s not a lie if you truly believe in it.
That’s the most important thing. You got to really believe in you lie. Or even better, you got to realize that you are not telling a lie – you are telling the truth.
Or rather, the altered truth.
For example, you’re having a blast partying last night and ended hooking up with a girl. Yeah, I’m sure it’s great, except that you got a girlfriend and now she demands the truth.
Just stay calm; first you got to remember what really happen last night. Then repeat the event in your head and add/delete details as you like.
Repeat it multiple times; it may helps a lot if you do this before you make contact with your girlfriend, really.
So now, you are telling her what you remember from the event last night. You might have forgotten or exaggerated few things but hey, that’s how you remember it. Can’t blame you.
You will have to really believe in it, that even if you are drunk you’ll tell the same story. It’s not a lie. It’s simply an altered truth. Our mind forgets things. Even most of the times, our mind fills in the blank for us. Now you don’t have to worry so sick about memorizing the lie just in case you slip up one day, because as far as you are concerned, you are simply telling the truth the way you remember it.
Mike and Devan, a cool bunch I met on Facebook Developers’ Garage Night are looking for code monkeys who can speak PHP. They’ve secured funding from Technopreneur Pre-Seed Programme, and now working on a cool project for social entrepreneur called – Big Satellite.
What does that really mean, I have no idea. I have yet to sit down and hear their ideas. But here’s an excerpt from their site, bigsatellite.com:
Big Satellite is essentially a software-as-a-service for social entrepreneurs to create ideas and then invite friends to add projects to support that idea.
So if you want to work on fresh new project, give them a buzz
Contact:
Mike Tee
miketee@bigsatellite.com
Warning – Corporate Zombies and Robot Programmers need not apply.
Here’s a quick write up about Facebook Developers’ Garage Live Blogging. It was great! My first live blogging and guess what? I actually enjoy it! Maybe next time I’ll blog live for entrepreneur night out. I do realize there are a lot of thing to learn, to make it fun and informative at the same time.
I’m sorry bout the picture. What picture you said? That’s the thing. I ran down with a problem with my cam, hence no picture during the live blog. My bad.
For those who were there, specially the panelist, please update me if I got any fact wrong.
And thanks to Daniel for actually suggesting the live blog, would have never thought of doing it even after reading a lot of live blog event, especially during Steve Jobs keynotes.
Again, thanks for the support from everyone, and big thanks to the organizers and sponsors. Here’s the link to event’s fb page. Pretty sure someone will upload pictures there.
By the way, for those who asked about my so-called fb app, here’s the link to WutPeeMot. Now don’t sweat it, just little abandoned app made less than a week with true purpose of learning fb API and Rails at the same time. (shameless plug alert ;-))
807 PM Okay it’s on! I’m a bit late but the event still hasn’t started. Ran into problem connecting to Starbuck wireless, and that set me back a few minutes.
Our line up for tonight:
Chris Tan Chur Pim from Chur Associates.
Ganesh Kumar Bangah from MOL AccessPortal Berhad.
Jonathan Teoh from The Truly Loving Company
815 PM More line up
Kamal Faris from RSB
Ung Liu Lin From Shoes Shoes Shoes
Bikesh Lakhmichand from iTrain
817 PM Still waiting for the event to start. We are at Starbuck Bangsar Village 2, so if you are reading please come here
818 PM We are starting, all sort of people are here, those without knowledge of fb, avid fb users, beginners. Our MC is Bikesh from iTrain. Bikesh’s teacher is here!
819 PM Technite is about networking, like offline fb. Everybody invited to network. This is your platform for showing off what you got.
820 PM First speaker - Ganesh from MOL, youngest CEO of public listed company in Malaysia
821 PM Ganesh take the stage. Mic problem. Lol. “I have been entrepreneur all my life”. “First internet business while working in cyber cafe”. “In year 2000 there’s First Tuesday event for venture capital and developer.” “It’s easy to get fund from venture capitalist.
823 PM Web 1.0 cost a lot to build internet business. No revenue model. No Google back then. Not much ads revenue. “Tan Sri Vincent was angel investor for my venture”
825 PM “2003 company goes public listed” Suddenly Google come along, and Internet is hot again. Google help people create money from just their content.
Comparison: Web 1.0 – Business create content. Web 2.0 – User generated content.
Cost less to generate content and easier to make money. Plus Web 2.0 is a lot more realistic compared to Web 1.0.
828 PM Okay, now about fb. Talking about Mark Zuckerburg turned down 1 billion dollar offer. People think he is stupid. Then Microsoft buys part of share for a large amount. fb is unique although not the first community site. fb was the first to open itself up for people to create application. At no charge.
Not going to discuss about this book in details, but I found amazing duplicable routine that I want to share with you.