Lloyd Leung

I find myself in a midst of buying for the sake of buying. Do you remember buying something because you needed it? What ever happened to make due with what you have?

There’s a fine line, of being a consumer hound, being consumer savvy or even frugal.

I found myself in a local computer store, thinking I needed one or two new hard drives (to put them in an mirror raid solution). Then I realized, why am I storing old information that I’ll never look at again. I should just delete it. It’s not like they’re life time worthy moments like photos, or work that I’ve done. It was meaningless data, that had no future worth.

Delete, delete, delete…

I now have enough storage to last me a lot longer.

Trying to be smarter with my money… just because you have it, doesn’t mean you need to spend it.

Adrian made a comment about public speaking… i’m not sure how i would react if i was speaking in front of people I’ve never met, as opposed to the telephone conference call I had with these same people I’ve never met.

When I was up in montreal, I think I had a good meeting with peers then. Being able to read and react to people is huge with me. I could tailor my presentation a little more… allow for q&a through out the presentation, or just at the end. See if i’m loosing people, or if they’re bored… reading an audience is huge… while not having any metrics on the audience is very difficult. I wonder how radio hosts do it…

oh well, it’s over… at least I’ve shown the architecture committee what else is out there.

Work has given us some what 10% days… like Google’s 20% days, but more work focused endeavours. So, today, I spent most of my time, trying to show off the virtues of Symfony Framework for certain parts of a work product, over using Zend.

My analogy is this, you have to paint a big wall, and you are given a single paint brush (Zend framework). Why use a paint brush when a paint roller or a spray gun (Symfony) would be a much better alternative. I’m not saying you can’t use the paint brush at all. Use the paint brush for the corners. Get the bulk of it done with the paint roller. Alternatively, tape the walls, floor, and ceiling, and spray everything. The choice should be use the best tools for the job.

In the end, people looking at the wall will not care how the wall is painted. However, if you’re a customer looking at paying someone to paint it… the customer will care. Said customer is looking at the quality of the workmanship, how much it will cost / the bottom line, and how long will it take? All of which leads to the choice of using better tools.

title says it all. What’s going on?!? Why facebook do you limit my creative freedom to express myself in multiple outlets?!?

okay… so this all got started from another website… www.botchedcode.com it’s super geek. I know it, but it keeps me entertained, and hopefully other programmers/nerds/geeks whatever. It’s completely computer programming related, but that’s my career.

Inbox zero is when you have zero messages in your inbox.

You setup a bunch of verbs that you can ever do with emails.

• Delete
• Delegate
• Respond
• Defer
• Do

Pretty simple.
To help with this process…

Mark all your stuff that you filter into folders, as read. If you don’t read it often, unsubscribe to those lists. These lists have search functions, use it.

Why am I keeping a list of emails that are anceint? Archieve it. If it’s absolutely useless, delete it. If I’ve responded to it, archieve it.
Check out this link: http://www.43folders.com/2007/07/25/merlins-inbox-zero-talk/

A good analogy is, if you’re a subway sandwich artist, when you get an order, you don’t sit down, and wait for more orders, you handle them as they come in. Not collect them, and when you feel like it, do them.

Inbox zero requires discipline. Watch the video in the above link, and get a feel for how to handle your inbox disaster.

Seems like everything I do these on the computer requires only the following:

• Open Office .org - for writing documents/spreadsheets etc…
• Thunderbird - for email
• Firefox - web browsing

For IRC, I’m using MIRC, as that works under wine.

I also now have discovered bluefish. Which is a graphical text editor with syntax highlighting. Excellent application in my opionion.

Eagle layout program is a good PCB design application, however, it’s crashing on me recently… who knows why. I’ll compare version numbers, and upgrade if need be.

I’m trying out the 43 folders system. Plenty of websites out there that show you how to use this system.

Along with this other system, which prioritizes tasks into priorities.

1. Important and Urgent.
2. Urgent
3. Important
4. Other Tasks

definition of Important

• of great significance or value; “important people”; “the important questions of the day”
• significant: important in effect or meaning; “a significant change in tax laws”; “a significant change in the Constitution”; “a significant contribution”; “significant details”; “statistically significant”
• crucial: of extreme importance; vital to the resolution of a crisis; “a crucial moment in his career”; “a crucial election”; “a crucial issue for women”

definition of Urgent

• pressing: compelling immediate action; “too pressing to permit of longer delay”; “the urgent words `Hurry! Hurry!’”; “bridges in urgent need of repair”

I define the above to terms to show the difference. Important is of value and significance. Urgency has a time associated with the given task. Think of this as a two by two matrix.

Immediate and Urgent
- Stuff that must get gone ASAP, such as bills, immediate projects, etc.
- If you don’t get it done by the given time, there’s negative consequences.

Urgent
- Tasks that needs to get done by a given time.

Important
- Stuff that needs to get done, but with no time line or time due is in the future.

Other Tasks
- Tasks that are neither important or urgent.

You must prioritize tasks.

Something else I’m trying out.
- Write out 5 tasks that I must to get done for that day.
- Keep at those tasks till I’m done them. If I complete them all early for the day, create 5 more. If I do not get these new tasks done for the same day, no worries.
- Repeat.

Tips to accomplish this.
Keep that list with you at all times… have it in front of you… it must be a constant reminder.

Don’t go making a super long list, and trying to get them all done, it just doesn’t happen. I would group errands together like post office, banking and grocery shopping all in one go.