The Now Habit
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.
1 commentLinked
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.
No commentsIdeas Hubs
Want to spread your good idea? It could be easier than you think if you use the right HUBS… Check the video bellow (Warning… it is in spanish)
Cab drivers? Hairdressers? What other professional do you think could be considered an idea hub?
No commentsWork like you Sleep
Ok, I’m not going to tell you to work like you sleep in the sense of how much work you get done out of your sleep time. Actually, there is a much more interesting perspective to that relation.
After watching this TEDx Middlewest talk, I just confirmed what I always believed to be true but in a very well explained manner: Interrupting work is just like interrupting your sleep. With a 4 months old baby boy, I just realized how bad it is to your attempt to get some rest when you are interrupted 3 or 4 times throughout your night of sleep. Now think of how many times you get interrupted throughout your day of work, and you’ll figure why it wasn’t so productive. Really worth watching.
Now, just try and work like you sleep 
Google Summer of Code 2011
As you may already know, Umit Project is in as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code 2011, and it happens that we just got through the selection process, and earlier today Google announced the winning students!
This year, Umit received 42 proposals, from 40 talented students from almost all continents in the world! We were absolutely astonished with so many talented students willing to work with us this season. So many proposals took us a long while to evaluate, and all of them involved a long process interacting with the student and assessing their capabilities, time commitments, etc.
Personally, I loved to interact with all of them, and just figured that they’re all very talented and probably a good fit for helping us out at Umit, but our resources aren’t infinite and we had to make a choice!
We were extremely happy to figure that Google has granted us 8 slots this year, and we’re very excited with how much we can do with that. Thank you Google!
Please, join us welcoming the students that will code with us this season at Google Summer of Code 2011!
- Zubair Nabi is from Pakistan, and is going to help us change the world in the coolest summer project of his life, developing the Internet Connectivity Monitor mobile agent for Android devices. He had a very tough decision to make when he figured that all three organizations he applied for have accepted him (Apache, Umit and Globus Alliance), and we were astonished to figure that he chose us to stick with for this Summer! Luis Bastião is going to mentor Zubair this Summer.
- Diogo Pinheiro is from Portugal, and worked with us in the past, during GSoC 2010, providing several improvements to our Network Scanner. This time, he is aiming at making a dent in the world in the coolest summer project of his life, developing the Internet Connectivity Monitor Aggregator, that will provide people with real time information about any connectivity issues in their regions. Adriano Marques will mentor Diogo this Summer.
- Zhongjie Wang (Alan) is from China, and challenged us with new concepts and ideas on how to better implement the Internet Connectivity Monitor Agent in the coolest summer project of his life. Alan told us about his great desire to develop a challenging project like this, and hey… you got it! Adriano Marques will mentor Alan this Summer.
- Dragoş Dena is from Romania, and he is going to implement the Next Generation of our Network Inventory, making it more useful for large networks. During summer, he helped us in one of our hackathons to deliver a new release, and showed a great talent and desire to help our community. Kudos for Dragoş! Guilherme Polo will mentor Dragoş this Summer.
- Gaurav Ranjan is from India, and he wants to bring our Network Scanner to the next level, by adding ipv6 support and several other nifty features, aiming for a 2.0 release by the end of this Summer! Gaurav showed a great desire to participate, technical knowledge and was capable to debate and adjust his proposal to comply with Network Scanner’s goals. Hey Gaurav, take good care of our beloved Network Scanner! Bartosz Skowron will mentor Gaurav this Summer.
- Guilherme Rezende is from Brazil, and the second Guilherme in our team. I Bet this is a good sign He wants to alleviate the pain out of debugging VoIP networks by implementing auditing tools for the SIP protocols to be integrated in our Packet Manipulator, using our Audits Framework. Guilherme has worked for telecoms for a while, and he surely knows the pain it is to audit and keep a large network running. Francesco Piccino will mentor Guilherme this Summer.
- Angad Singh is from Singapore, and he proposed us a very solid approach on how to port our Network Scanner to Android devices. He fought for his idea, and we bought his vision. Now, by the end of this summer, network scanner will also give you nice scanning results while in your mobile. João Medeiros is going to mentor Angad this Summer.
- Piotrek Wasilewski is from Poland, and the third Polish to join own team (yeah… bet it is a good sign also) and his goal for this summer is to deliver a full featured real cloud based Network Scanner, that will allow for easily storing and searching though results, scheduling scans, receiving results by email and much more. Rodolfo Carvalho will mentor Piotrek this Summer.
