Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Here's why the news papers didn't think of the "News Timeline" and Google did

Published on September 23, 2009 in Quick Rants. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I came upon an interesting article in the Guardian about Google’s News Timeline.

The article questioned why Google came up with such a great news innovation whereas the News industry companies have failed to innovate.

The article does not give an answer leaving the question in the air.

However I think someone has answered that question and answered it long ago.

Thomas Kuhn
His book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn proposed that an outsider to an industry would see things in a different way, “outside of the box” (as the cliche goes).
The insiders of an industry are to in-grained in a certain line of reasoning/thinking and cannot (or do not want to) see how things could be different.
In general it seems to me that often people do not like and fear change.

Why I am already planning 2010, and how.

Published on September 21, 2009 in scheduling. 0 Comments

In 2008 after much experimentation I was able to create a calendar system that was just right for me.

Of course like anything in life I knew that it would remain a work in progress and so I have continued to tweak it, arriving at its present form.

Cycle brainstorming sheets

The calendar system comprises of five calendar sheets for brainstorming weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually.

Since it is part of my “Tenacious Life System” (TLS), I’ll call it the TLS calendar. Or maybe the TaiyoJohnson Calendar. What do you think?

Here is the link to download the taiyojohnson calendar sheets(Google docs version. click here for pdf) These are also part of my cyclical time management theory

Now a bit about the methodology of it.

Here is where I prove myself either a genius or lunatic in your eyes. My bet is I will be labeled the latter and maybe (posthumously) attain to the former.

My Calendar system has 13 months

In mid-to-late 2008 I was pondering my planning system and time divisions and cycles. And I realised something important that I had not thought of before.

52 weeks, divided into perfect 4 week months equals 13 months (with 28 days each), so why not a 13 month calendar?

So starting with the first Monday of 2009 I divided my 2009 calendar into 4 week, 28 day, months. There have been many advantages of this system over a regular calendar, one of them being the boost my nerd ego (as I am on a completely different and far nerdier calendar than the masses). :-)

Another possible benefit I am looking forward to come December 7th of this year: the 13th month.

For me, the 13th month is a bonus month. A month of inward reflection and alignment with goals, principles, values and virtues.

It is a fast from the busyness and distractions of the other months.

It starts with the mission statement

Prior to planning anything or playing with any of the brainstorming forms, you need to create a personal mission statement. Here is my personal mission statement.

We do this because who we want to be is more important than what we think we have to do. Doing is not as important as being.

A phenomenal book for charting your course toward accomplishing the important things in life, and writing a mission statement, is Stephen Covey’s First Things First.

Big Picture: First the year

I have seven points on my mission statement.

From each of those points I come up with goals that I want to accomplish related to them that year.

I brainstorm what I think will be involved in accomplishing them and I map it out in my notebook.

I pour my heart and soul into it. I think about my passions (which I have on the same page as my mission statement) and whether or not I feel passionate about the goals I am formulating.

Once I have some thoughts in mind I begin entering them onto the “annual” sheet of the taiyojohnson calendar sheets.

Then the Breakdown

From there I break down those goals into pieces and decide what pieces to focus on during the 1st half of the year.

That goes on the “semi-annual” sheet.

Then I plan the 1st quarter, 1st month, and finally the 1st week.

Plan as you go

Plan as you move along the weeks, months and quarters. These I call the cycles. When you reach the end of one cycle plan the next. For example when you reach the end of one month plan the next.

I have a theory that time management should be cyclical. So identify the things you do once a week every week, things you do once a month, once a quarter, etc.

Try to systematise these things as much as possible.

Coming from a business background I was/am impressed by the way businesses plan their lives out in so much detail. Whereas people seem to seldom plan their lives out at all…

There are few corporations without 5 year plans, but few people with them.

(The same can be said for business/personal financial planning, but that is another story.)

I am planning 2010 now so that I am ready and aligned with what is important when it arrives.

I love the library

Published on September 21, 2009 in Quick Rants. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

In the wise words of Mark Twain, “Don\’t let school get in the way of your education.”

I am a big believer in self education as the only education there is. (A reason why I am a loyal fan of personalmba.com)

The best education money need not buy is available free of charge at your local or one of many online libraries(link to thefreelibrary.com)

Speaking of Mark Twain, here is a link to his book “innocents abroad” a semi-autobiographical book about his travels in Europe and the Holy Land.

I am currently reading through it as an exercise for my website LocationFreeIncome.com

Nipponster.com 1.0, LAMP, and a friendster article

Published on September 19, 2009 in Quick Rants. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In 2005 I was in Japan, Facebook was in its infancy and unknown to me. MySpace was as lame and teenie-bopper ridden as ever and the model for a decent social networking website was Friendster.

At the time I had the idea to create what would now probably be described as the facebook of Japan. I called it Nipponster.com.

I built it on phpizabi a powerful social networking site CMS.
The phpizabi open source community was growing daily and in the forums there was the general feeling that the CMS was something special indeed.

Unfortunately my promotion of Nipponster was not effective enough and my timing was off.
It is one of my most painful failures as I KNOW it could have been very big and even with all of the bad deployment and poor promotion the signups and the positive feedback and user engagement was impressive. The momentum just wasn\’t there and my personal life (as I was graduating and overworked) didn\’t allow the time for it.

Anyway,
At the time I read articles on friendster and this one about friendster scaling their website using the open source LAMP was a good one.

Happily NIpponster has had several reincarnations since then and sparked the “Japan-related web” movement, a decentralised movement of Japan-related bloggers and webmasters. I am very proud of my contributions to that community.

Consumption vs Production and TDO Mini Forms is awesome!

Published on September 19, 2009 in Quick Rants. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Production vs Consumption is one of the main concepts I feel that every person who wants to have a major impact must understand.
It seems to me that we live in a “consumer society.” We have been indoctrinated from our youth with a buy this, consume that mentality. Consume TV, buy products, watch movies, and on and on.

People who want to have an impact on the world or just the little world around them NEED to move from a consumption mentality to a production mentality.
Instead of watching media they need to produce media. Instead of consuming products they need to produce products.
Instead of reading books they need to write them. And instead of reading posts they need to post.
Consumption is important as it gives us ideas and inspiration for our own productions. But at some point we have to turn down the “in” and turn on the “out.” If we want to be among the savvy we need to produce more and consume less.

I have a bad habit of obsessively consuming new books and ideas of others. I have learnt a great deal from their thoughts and I highly recommend taking in intelligent inputs.
However I feel the need more and more to turn down the amount I take in and instead pump out more of my own.
I need to leave the consuming to someone else.

As part of that I have decided that I need to make posting to my websites/blogs as easy as possible. And to do so I am using TDO mini forms.

TDO mini forms is an awesome wordpress plugin that allows you to create forms that submit content as post or pages.

With it you can (for one example) allow your users, readers, etc. to add to a list. The possibilities are near limitless for TDO mini form use.

I am using it on my sites for my on “quick rants.” Whenever I find something new, whenever I have a burning idea, I can publish easily without hassle.

So instead of saving some info or link as a to do in RememberTheMilk.com I now post it to the blog and talk about how it is useful.

Thus I am producing content about the things I come into contact with.

Ok. Now I am just rambling.
But I hope you will think about production vs. consumption.
I think it is key.

6 years of debt

Published on September 14, 2009 in general. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

I purchased a Hyundai Accent GS hatchback ”3 door” (they call the hatchback a 3rd door…) with the bank’s money :-(

The cheapest new make/model available. Still I hate to have this debt.

buying a hyundai

 

carbuyingtips.com is an excellent source of info on buying cars. I created a checklist for dealing with the dealer based on their tips. I plan to post it here soon. (If it is not posted yet and you want a copy, email me)