Thoughts Pad

I’m just about to finish listening to the “Making Ideas Happen” audiobook, and wanted to share my review and a few nice ideas I can highlight from it.

Though the title of this book could suggest that it’s subject is related to procrastination, just like the other two books I reviewed last month (The Now Habit and Eat That Frog), this one is focused on challenges one face while trying to bring an idea to reality, what not always is related to procrastination. Bootstrapping an idea isn’t easy, and this book brings some nice suggestions to motivate and inspire you on how to do so.

Prior and Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance (The 6 Ps) – Just thought of my triathlon challenge, and wondered if I could cross the line without prior and proper preparation. The answer is a clear and bold NO WAY. Nobody can undertake a triathlon without Prior and Proper preparation, and most people who would dare to endeavor in doing so, would fail miserably. If you can’t swim, and don’t get prepared for that, or you’re not used to pedal or running, you’ll fall way too short. During my training to get prepared for my first triathlon, I tried to jog for the first time some mere 2.5 km (1.5 mi) and all I could deliver was 1 km (0.6 mi). Since this is part of my prior preparation for a triathlon, it is ok to fail short. If I didn’t have this before, and went straight to a triathlon would be pretty much my performance there. Same will happen with whatever thing you set to do in life. Prior and Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

Towards the end of the book, learned another concept on how we’re naturally critics and proficient in finding mistakes. One could play the whole String Quartet No. 14 from Beethoven and yet, if in the middle you miss a movement, people will remember it better than your other well performed movements of the 40 minutes quartet. Criticism mitigates our capability of appreciating what is good. At the other hand, compliments improve our capability of recognizing what is good among the bad things and situations, and encourages the receiving party to get more creative. Life is less bitter when we learn to appreciate and recognize what is good, and have good judgement to set apart what is bad that makes good things feel unpleasant.

Though it is an ad for the Star Tours on Disneyland, this is pretty much how it would look like to see Darth Vader at Disneyland:

Looking for a sneak peek on iOS 5 announced yesterday?

Okay… not really what you’ll get out of iOS 5, but still fun to watch

First concept learned from my endeavor of getting prepared for a triathlon: You don’t know the basics.

Everybody knows how to breath, and that is taken for granted because we all do it and we all seem to do it right, since we’re not asphyxiating. Now, breathing right for proper oxygenation and prevention of side cramps or “stitches” is something totally different.

Just came back from my daily walk, and today I tried to sustain proper breathing throughout the exercise. It is amazing how hard it is to get rid of your wrong breathing habits and substitute for a right one. I just ended up figuring that we often take stuffs for granted just because they are natural and we don’t care to improve, while thinking we totally own the technique. Breathing is one of them, and I’m suspicious that walking is another… Gotta figure if I’m doing it right!

Just finished with listening to another audiobook a couple days ago while walking, and wanted to share my review and highlight two important concepts I learned from it.

First concept: If you have two frogs in the pond to eat, which one would you eat first? The ugliest one. Once you’ve done with the ugliest one, you’ll feel like the worst is past and that the next one is going to be a piece of cake.

That’s the same for tasks you have at hand. Solve the hardest one first, and the other will feel like a breeze.

While talking to my wife, we figured that she somehow have this sort of behavior: she tends to eat the less delicious part of the meal in her plate first.

People who tend to deliver the easiest tasks first, will often procrastinate on harder tasks, since easy tasks are always appearing to be solved and they’ll always get a higher priority with this behavior.

Second concept: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If you try to eat it all at once, you’ll fail. That’s just the same for big tasks that demands a lot of time and effort to accomplish. If you fool yourself thinking that you could eat that elephant all at once, you’ll fail miserably.

This book is short and more practical than “The Now Habit“. It is more positive and motivates the reader to adopt changes in his life. This book is no substitute for the other one, but still it is definitely a worth reading one.