Navigating Self

My attempt to have a writing habit. Writing forces me to have clarity with how I'm living my life.

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On reading books

Read one book at a time.

While reading, highlight and take notes ideas that come up to your mind.

At the end of the book meticulously edit your notes to make each idea self-contained for future lookup.

Add the self-contained idea to your Anki flash cards.

Move on to the next book after you have finished editing your notes and published it.

Shelve your book and you can move on to the next.

 

What should I read next?

  1. Area I want to improve on, inline with my stretch goals – check learning path mindmap
  2. Something that induce a terrifying longing. Making me drop everything else to pursue it.

Getting better at vim will give me nothing. It will not get me closer to any goal I have now.

So this is my simple observation: When deciding to embrace a self-motivated ambition, choose a definition of success that your aunt in Peoria would understand and find impressive. This is not about succumbing to the status quo, but instead setting yourself up to receive the brutal but useful feedback needed to eventually start producing things too good to be ignored. – Pursue Metrics that Matter, Cal Newport

I’ve been thinking of making my workflow vim-centric again, just because.

Then this got me thinking:

Getting better at vim will give me nothing. It will not get me closer to any goal I have now.

PhpStorm works perfectly fine. It’s heavy, yeah. But so what? My machine can handle it pretty good.

Ewan ko ba bakit na attract ako sa idea na of “get better” at vim. It does not provide value. What I mean is, the effort I will put in it does not convert to something of valuable.

Pursue metrics that matter. Getting better at vim does not matter. Getting better at coding does. Better yet, getting better at achieving goals that improves my life is the thing that truly matters.

Focus on getting better at creating things instead.

Debugging

I enjoy understanding how other people code.

I’m not the type who bash at other programmers just because our “way” of thinking doesn’t align (most of the time).

Reading other’s people code and doing something about it is like stepping in someone else’s shoes. I asks all the why’s. Why did he do this, why did he do that. I try to think like the person who coded the thing.

Best practices are there for specific scenarios. There are no universal best practice. Early bird does not apply on going on a field of landmines.

The more “way” I know the better I get at choosing what’s the best for the situation.

This is why I’m getting paid by the premium. It’s because of the different “ways” I tried before and the lessons I learned from them and knowing which is the best for this specific situation.

Well-adjusted

Adjusting is normal, expected, and encouraged. It means you’re setting a plan, then adjusting that plan as new information arrives. — You Need a Budget: Rule One

This is from a budgeting methodology. However, this also applies to planning in general.

Things rarely go according to plan. But that doesn’t mean planning is useless. Planning gives you enough insight to know what to anticipate. What was planned isn’t absolute. It can and should be adjusted as events unfolds.

Am I focusing on the right things?

I’ve been reading @iamdevloper tweets. I’m surprised that I can relate to most of the stuff posted there. Just a reminder that what I’m experiencing is not unique to me. Somebody else has already gone through it.

I especially liked tweets that reminds me to question myself if I’m giving attention to the right things. I’m prone spend too much time looking for the best solution to things that may not add much value. In the end, time spent on it is disproportionate to gained value.

Every 100ms of latency costs Amazon 1{5fcd3cbc9de14e1587c4b983f08e4837fa7ae8985dc66bae235a2c5aa0d68677} of profit, every 100ms of latency you save on your shitty web app cos-No one cares.

— I Am Devloper (@iamdevloper) May 27, 2015

“How My Users Cared When I Switched From Grunt to Gulp”Error: 404 (Not found)

— I Am Devloper (@iamdevloper) May 15, 2015

“I’m really glad that this person took the time and paid the money to set up their own personalised short URL system” – no-one ever.

— I Am Devloper (@iamdevloper) May 13, 2015

Maybe I’m Wrong

Whenever I’m being too sure, naiisip ko na baka ang sarado ng utak ko para hindi i-consider and iba pang bagay.

May nag-sabi sa akin na I lack conviction daw. Dahil yata lagi akong may duda. Siguro nga, pero ok lang.

Kailangan ko kasi ng insecurities para meron akong something to improve on.

Pag dumating na ako sa point na sobrang sigurado na ako, sign na yun ng stagnation.

When you’re green daw you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.

Ewan ko lang.

Written in May 1, 2012

Nakakabobo Magalit

Mabilis ako magalit. Mabilis din naman mawala. For a long time I considered it helpless. Ganun talaga ako e.

But we are born blank-slate daw. Meaning, I wasn’t born short-tempered. Therefore it’s still possible to change.

That made me look back on occasions I got really mad. Naalala ko there’s always regret whenever I burst out and say/do the most stupid things.

I recognized the pattern: Galit › Stupidness › Regret.

Kaya tuwing nagagalit ako inaalala ko na nagiging bobo ako. Tuwing hindi ako galit inaalala ko na nakakabobo magalit.

Written in March 28, 2012

Exactly knowing where to tap

There is a very old story, often told to fill time during training courses, involving a man trying to fix his broken boiler. Despite his best efforts over many months, he simply can’t mend it. Eventually, he gives up and decides to call in an expert. The engineer arrives, gives one gentle tap on the side of the boiler, and stands back as it springs to life. The engineer presents the man with a bill, and the man argues that he should pay only a small fee as the job took the engineer only a few moments. The engineer quietly explains that the man is not paying for the time he took to tap the boiler but rather the years of experience involved in knowing exactly where to tap. — Excerpt From: Richard Wiseman. “59 Seconds”

2020 © Jerico Aragon