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.

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.

Finished with listening to this audiobook last week, but only had the chance to write my final review now. I did a previous post about one thing I learned while listening to it, and thought I should conclude with a review.

This book doesn’t teach with straightforward techniques to fight procrastination. Rather, it tries to help you fight the root causes of it with psychiatric techniques through positive thinking and atitudes. I liked this book, though I think that it alone won’t help anyone to overcome procrastination.

It is a good reading, because it clarifies on the root causes of procrastination, and how you may be triggering this behavior in yourself and in people that surrounds you.

I’m not even in the middle of this audiobook, but I just learned a comparison the author made that I really wanted to share before I finish with it.

Imagine you’re given the task of crossing a board about 30 feet long, 4 inches thick and 1 foot wide placed on the ground. Would you dare? Of course everybody would, and it actually seems a pretty easy and risk less task to undertake.

Take that same board, and place it connecting 2 buildings at 60 feet height. Now, would you dare?

Crossing the board represents tasks that we’re given to accomplish, but that often our minds tricks us putting that board on top of a building encouraging us to procrastinate because of the possibility of not performing perfectly the task. Isn’t that how you face, for example, filling in the annual income tax declaration? So hard to get it right, that you think you can’t do it?

Leave the board where it is, and now imagine that the building at the end you’re at is on fire. Would you dare to cross it now? I tell you what I would do: I would get a grip on the edges of that board and would slither across it and meet the other end in 30 seconds. The fire, is the quickly approaching deadline to accomplisg the task that we only realize after a long procrastination, making us rush and forget about perfectionism and do whatever it takes to accomplish the task.

What if at the other end, you see your little child crying for help? Sometimes, we’re also driven by emotional feelings besides deadlines.

And now, think that 3 feet bellow the board there is a strong net placed to safeguard your crossing. You sure would like to cross it and would even make fun if you fell and bounce on the net. In reality, this is just what it is for most of the tasks we procrastinate: we don’t need to wait until near the deadline to rush rubbing yourself over the board to the other end, nor we need to be teased emotionally. You placed that board on top of that building, and falling isn’t going to kill you. Often, you’ll find a net to hold and bounce you back when you fail.

Never forget this: successful people are those who fail and learn from their mistakes. While people that never try, never fail… but also never learns.

I’m pretty sure that perfectionism isn’t the only cause for procrastination. But if you feel that this is your problem, then just remember that the board is on the ground.

Just finished with listening to this audiobook, and it was so amazing that I wanted to share it here in my blog.

Drawn by my interest on Networks (no, I don’t mean the computer networks here) and the science behind it, just decided to give a this book a try, and I was amazed on all the sorts of networks mentioned in this book and how they relate to each other. From holywood networks, going through the Internet, Social Networks and Gene and Protein Networks and closing up the book with Terrorists Networks, this book is a must read for whoever cares about how things relate to each other, what’s the science behind it, what is a network hub, how to build or destroy (if possible) a network and how to recognize one.

You’ll end up figuring that networks are more present in our lives than we think, and how to take benefit of the natural manner in which things relates to each other.

PS: Interesting detail at the end of the book, when the author mentions that al-Qaeda its a scale-free network, and that there are no main hubs that if killed could dismantle the organization. He even mentions Osama Bin Laden, in a hypothetical analysis of what would happen if he were killed… Yes, you guessed it: Nothing. al-Qaeda would just continue with their terror business through their network of ever growing terrorist jihadists.