I Don’t Know is Never the Answer

17May09

I’m an idealist: I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on my way.
-Carl Sandberg

Jonathan Mead wrote a great article on Zen Habits about these three words that could be messing up things your life: I don’t know. I’ve definitely used this excuse in the past to stop me from doing things and regretted it later. Saying “I don’t know” is the easiest way to prevent yourself from starting something new or taking on a challenge.

Jonathan writes that, instead of using those three words when you’re answering a question, you should stop the “I don’t know” auto-response and dwell on the question for a bit. Come up with an answer, even if it’s not the perfect answer, and start from there.

My approach is a little different and works well for me (and maybe for you too). I like to take “I don’t know” and turn it into “Let me find out”. While “I don’t know” is very closed and leaves no room for more action, “Let me find out” leaves you wide open with possibility.

Just in the past year, lots of interesting opportunities crossed my path related to stuff I didn’t know. Instead of stopping there, I re-framed “I don’t know” into “Let me find out” and picked up this stuff:

• How to run a sound mixing board for a band
• How to negotiate (with a supplier in my case)
• How to bake breads, calzones, pizza from scratch
• How to start a nonprofit organization
• How to write and maintain a blog (now I run three!)
• How to write applications for the web
• How to home brew beer

Some things were difficult; others just took a little research and the willingness to go out on a limb. There were definitely mistakes and screw-ups, but that’s all part of the fun. Sure you can never fail if you say “I don’t know” and don’t try anything, but you can never succeed either.

I encourage you to take something you currently don’t know how to do but want to, re-frame it into a “Let me find out”, and share your new goal with other readers in the comments.

Filed under: Goals   |  1 Comment

Quote of the Moment

29Apr09

On not panicking:

“More people are killed by deer than sharks, but you don’t see park rangers running around like nutcases.”

– Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog

Filed under: 5584   |  Closed

Time or Money, Which Matters More?

19Apr09

I wanted to do post of the week about this article by J.D. at Get Rich Slowly called Finding Balance Between Time and Money. As I started writing, I just felt like I couldn’t do it justice, so I’ve decided to post some personal thoughts after reading the article. So go read it now and come back. No, it’s cool, I’ll wait…

Now you’re back, onto my own experiences.

When I started at my current job I was fresh out of college, living in a new city, and I didn’t know anyone except a retired great-aunt. After about six months I switched departments and went from working 9-6 to working 9-8 without a lunch break most days. I got raises and a couple promotions, but I was spending so much time trying to get ahead of the game that all I would do afterward most nights was go home, watch some TV, go to bed, and then get up to do it all over again. I did this routine pretty steadily for about a year. I was making good money (and knocking out lots of debt), but didn’t have a lot of time to do stuff and enjoy life.

After my wife finished school and moved down here, my time suddenly became a lot more valuable. I slowly started backing off the extra hours, and it turns out that everything was still there the next day, the world didn’t end, and I wasn’t seen as some kind of slacker for not working an extra three hours a day.

I won’t lie and say I would have done things much differently, as putting in that “investment” of time got me to a place where I was able to eliminate debt much more quickly and move into a job I mostly enjoy. I will say that I should have made that time investment in spurts instead of continuously. Trading all my time to make more money really burned me out to the point that I often dreaded going to work.

I eventually found my balance between time and money, and I couldn’t be happier with it. Being able to spend evenings going on walks and watching movies with my wife, playing games with friends, building my nonprofit and volunteering at my church bring so much more happiness than having expensive gadgets or a brand new car.

Do you struggle to keep time and money in balance, or have you figured out a method that works for you? Share your experiences or tips in the comments.

Filed under: Development, Personal Finance   |  2 Comments

Just UNION It In

12Apr09

I was watching an episode of The Office on Hulu last night where Charles Miner told Jim to make a “rundown” of his clients and fax it to “the distribution list”. Jim spent all day agonizing over what those two things meant and had no idea what he was supposed to do. The show reminded me of a post from All Things Workplace about the paradox of know-it-all. It’s a phenomenon where the better you understand something, the harder it can be to explain it. You know exactly what you’re talking about (even if no one else does), so you throw in lingo and acronyms that confuse the person you’re trying to teach.

“Just UNION it in” was the catch phrase for my old mentor when we were working on complex database problems. I think it came from a report we were trying to build and just couldn’t get some fields we needed to show up. I’m sure it made sense in his head, but we had no idea what that meant. After throwing his assumptions out the window and clearly explaining himself, he effectively took us through the problem. From then on, the first answer to any of our tougher questions was “just UNION it in”. It became a reminder that he was the expert and we were beginners, and he needed to choose his words carefully.

Here are three great ways to avoid the paradox of know-it-all:

Start small - Don’t try to explain your “unified theory of everything” in one step. Break it down into more digestible pieces, and don’t skip steps!

Avoid jargon - People at my company are notorious for this. Not everyone knows what your three-letter acronyms mean. Think about your audience without assuming they already know the lingo.

Use examples constantly - Using examples and stories is an excellent way to turn an abstract concept into something concrete. When you can frame your idea into something people can relate to, it them reach that a-ha moment much more quickly.

Now that I’m the expert and find myself teaching other folks, I still tell people to “just UNION it in” every once in a while as a reminder not to assume too much.

Filed under: Development   |  2 Comments

How To Be A Jack Of All Trades

08Apr09

Trent at The Simple Dollar writes about how to become a Renaissance man , or its modern equivalent, the jack of all trades. Mastering one or two things is awesome, but it takes a high level of discipline and passion to truly master that one thing. I marvel at people who can create beautiful topiary gardens, play complex flamenco guitar, or perform insanely awesome martial arts stunts. Personally, I haven’t found that one thing yet. So until then, I aspire to be a jack of all trades.

Knowing a little bit about a lot of things can be really useful (it worked for this guy) and makes you a more well-rounded person. If you haven’t tried everything, how do you know what you like? Trent throws out 10 steps to take in order to become a jack of all trades, but I’ll try to condense them down to their core:

1. Pick something you want to learn, and figure out what you need to learn it

Choose something fairly general to start with, like car maintenance. Now narrow that down a bit; maybe you want to learn how to change your own oil. With that, the skills you need are the ability to recognize the oil pan and filter (and which way to turn bolts to unscrew them when you’re lying on your back). You also need some basic research skills to find out what tools are needed, what kind of oil to buy and maybe a video tutorial to do a couple of dry runs.

2. Find someone knowledgeable to show you the way

The best and fastest way to learn something is to get help from someone who already knows it. Check your social network and find someone who has the skill you want to learn. If no one seems to have it, it’s time to start looking for friends of friends and doing some volunteering. Trent mentions offering to volunteer your own skills, or even just some labor. You could be working on a Habitat for Humanity house with strangers, and once you get talking you find out that someone is married to a mechanic. Once you find the person with the knowledge you want, you can offer your own skill at gardening, juggling, carpentry, foreign language, or whatever it is you do. Which reminds me…

3. Share your own skills

Sharing your own skills with other people gives them a chance to grow, strengthens relationships, and can be a nice self-confidence boost. The more you offer up your skills, the more opportunities you have to meet new people and pick up their skills. If you’re good at speeding up computers, help a local museum with their old machines; maybe they’ll get a curator to teach you about art history, or at least give you free museum passes.

4. Just do it

I reiterate this in a lot of my posts, but that’s because it’s the step where many people drop off. It’s nice to read about things, but taking action requires effort and a willingness to get out of your comfort zone. If you really want to learn a new skill you need to practice. So turn off the TV and computer and just do it. I’m a big fan of the 30-day challenge as a strategy to just do it. If you can practice working on your new skill for 30 days in a row, you’ll get over the inertia that keeps you from growing.

Are you a jack of all trades? Do you find yourself bartering your skills to learn new things? Leave a message in the comments.

Filed under: Goals, Projects and DIY   |  2 Comments

Increase Your Productivity With Launchy

22Mar09

Launchy is a free, open source keystroke launcher that will shave all kinds of time from the busy work part of your day. For the unitiated, a keystroke launcher is an application that you load by pressing a couple of keys (Alt+Space is the default), and allows you to do stuff, depending on your level of expertise.

Level 1: I’m Too Young To Die

At its most basic, you can index your Windows Start menu and launch any program there without ever having to touch the mouse and break your workflow. For example, I hit Alt+Space to bring up Launchy, then type ‘Quicken’ to launch that application. Launchy recognizes your patterns and is predictive, so after using it for a couple days I type ‘qu’ and hit Enter and it will pull up Quicken. No more digging around the Start menu, or any other folders that you use often. And don’t even worry about spelling or punctuation; Launchy is forgiving and will overlook most typos. I can just type ‘bgd’ to launch BlogDesk, my offline blogging program.

Level 2: Hey, Not Too Rough
Launchy indexes your browser bookmarks and has built-in web searches for a dozen different sites, with the ability to easily create your own searches. Or if you want to send an email, just type email, then Tab, then the recipient’s email address to have a new mail window open and ready. It also lets you run simple calculations. When I’m writing an email to my board at the Greater Park Circle Film Society and need a quick tally of ticket and concession income, I hit Alt+Space and just start adding. It keeps a running total and there’s no need to open a calculator or spreadsheet. When I’m done, I just hit Escape to make it go away.

Level 3: Hurt Me Plenty
You can use Launchy to open an FTP folder with the username and password already supplied. The Controly plugin allows you to access control panel applications easily. You can use the GCalc plugin to ask Google for tricky calculations. For example, type gcalc, then Tab, then 8 lbs in ounces. You can hit up the Launchy forums as well for user-created plugins to do everything from controlling your music player to opening a new IM window with a contact, to sending updates to your Twitter account.

Level 4: Ultra-Violence
You can send command line switches to applications with this app as well. For instance, I want to de-crap my machine with CCleaner and use the auto-start switch. I type ‘CCL’ till it finds the app, then hit Tab and type ‘/Auto’. It does its thing and shuts down when finished, and I never need to see any of the action. Nice! Sure I could do all the same stuff with Desktop shortcuts, but I like to keep things uncluttered and don’t like searching through a sea of shortcuts to find what I want. Beyond that, you can use the Runny plugin and create your own custom commands. For example, I’m testing communication to a computer and use Runny like this: Alt+Space cmd Tab telnet 127.0.0.1 80. This will load a command prompt and pass in my telnet command; no menu surfing, no mouse, no problem!

Level 5: Nightmare

Launchy has pretty much unlimited extensibility. If you’re hardcore enough, grab the sample plugin code and roll your own features into Launchy!

Are you using Launchy on a daily basis? What tips and tricks do you have to share? Leave a message in the comments.

Filed under: Productivity   |  3 Comments
Tags: open source, software

Start a Career Log

15Mar09

By popular demand (and because people hate hitting Reply to All), I’m moving Post of the Week from email to the blog. Here’s my first attempt at switching formats and your Post of the Week for 3/15.

Keep a Career Log to Motivate and Track Progress
from Wikihow via Lifehacker

How do you remember what significant things you’ve done in your career? Lifehacker suggests keeping a career log and I think it’s a great idea. Currently I just keep certain emails in a separate folder called Congrats to remember achievements and have a record of who knew about them.

Beyond this, I think keeping a full-on career log is a great idea. You can keep it simple or get as fancy as you want. Some ideas:

• Track your day-to-day duties – “Describe your typical day” is always a job interview question. If you feel like you don’t have enough hours in the workday, it’s also a great way to get a holistic view of what you do all day and discover ways to better manage your time.
• Record special projects and achievements – You probably do awesome stuff all the time, but can still forget what you’ve done. Writing down that awesome stuff is key, especially when it comes time for your quarterly or annual review, or if you’re on the hunt for a job.
• Record past positions, salary or bonuses – I’ve had seven different job titles over the last five years at my current employer, and having those written down is a nice self-esteem boost when I’m trying to learn a new skill and get stuck.
• Record kudos/congrats – If you’re using a notebook, just print them out and stick them in.
• And this one from the Tips section really caught my eye – Include hobby and volunteer experience. You may not be able to make a living at your hobby, but what you do when you’re not being paid may tell you where your true talents and interests lie.

Do you keep a career log? How do you keep up with all the “stuff” you do when it comes time for reviews or job interviews? Leave a note in the comments.

Filed under: Productivity   |  Closed

Printing Yourself Free Money, Courtesy Of The U.S. Mint

26Feb09

Bargaineering has a great article about using the US Mint’s dollar coin direct ship program to your advantage. This is a total financial hack and, because of the free shipping, is genius in two situations:

• Rewards cards – If your credit card is not paying you to use it, it’s definitely time to switch to one that does. You can purchase up to $2500 worth of dollar coins using your credit card and, assuming a 1% reward, get $25 worth of rewards on your card. Then you just take the coins to the bank, make a deposit, and pay off the credit card with the deposit. The only time involved is a trip to the bank, and it looks like you can do it multiple times. Can you say “free money”?
• Free balance transfers – If you are trying to consolidate or reduce credit card debt, this is great. First, get a new card with a 0% intro APR; look for a rewards card with a low interest rate. Then buy boxes of coins using the new card. Deposit the coins at the bank and use the deposit to pay off the old card(s). Most credit cards charge 3% on balance transfers, so on a $5000 balance you’re saving $150 with this method and eliminating months of interest.

I’m thinking about trying this out, as there really doesn’t seem to be any downside. Have you done it? Share your experiences in the comments.

Filed under: Personal Finance   |  1 Comment
Tags: credit cards

It Never Hurts To Ask

22Jan09

A friend of mine recently switched from his phone carrier’s DSL to cable internet with Comcast, and got a great promotional rate and a free modem. I was a bit jealous so I decided to call them up and see if I could get the same rate. While they couldn’t give me his promotional rate for new customers, they offered to knock $10 off my bill for the next four months.In 10 minutes I just saved 40 bucks. If I hadn’t called and just asked, they wouldn’t have proactively offered me a discount.

In a second example, my company had to take away my Blackberry for budget reasons. After the withdrawal week I no longer missed it, but then I needed a phone. I only used it as a personal phone for emergencies or two-minute conversations, but I still needed a phone. I tried Verizon first, as my wife uses them, and looked for a discounted rate for my extremely low usage. I checked out the website; no luck there. I went into a store to negotiate and was met with a firm no. I tried the phone and they offered me a “loyalty rate” but it actually would be more, as there is a business discount through my company they wouldn’t apply if we used the loyalty plan. About an hour’s worth of total time on my part and no dice. So instead of adding the line for $20 a month, I bought a prepaid phone with T-Mobile that ends up costing me about 12 bucks a month if I amortize the cost of the bottom-of-the-line phone. Next year it goes down to eight bucks a month. I figure an average of $120 a year saved for an hour of my time is well worth it.

The moral of the story is that it never hurts to ask. People do this with credit cards, repair services, and even big box stores all the time. Businesses know their bottom line, and if making a deal means cutting a little into the profit (while still making money) or keeping your loyalty, some of them will give you a break. Others won’t budge so you move on to the next place. The worst that can happen is that someone says no, right?

Filed under: Frugality   |  Closed
Tags: bills, Frugality, internet, phone, savings

It’s National Thrift Week, How Are You Celebrating?

20Jan09

This week is National Thrift Week! With that in mind, I’ve decided to share some of my favorite articles on thrifty living:

Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on the Back of Five Business Cards — The basics of personal finance, put in the simplest terms possible.  It’s not complicated to take control of your finances, but it does take commitment.

The 20 Healthiest Foods for Under $1 — Some of these refer to $1 per serving, but most are for multiple. Our kitchen always has plenty of oats, beans, apples, eggs and frozen broccoli.

Seven Monthly Expenses we Don’t Realize we Don’t Need — With my personal breakdown that saves nearly $250 a month.  Run the numbers for yourself and determine what things are worth the price and what aren’t.

• Reusable bottle instead of bottled water @ $1/bottle * 2bottles/day * 30 days = $60 a month
• Bringing lunch 4 days a week instead of eating out or at the caf @ $8/day * 16 workdays = $128 a month
• Prepaid cellphone at 10 cents a minute instead of a landline or cell plan @ $15-$20 a month
• Hulu and Netflix ($17) instead of Comcast preferred basic cable ($51) @ $34 a month

Saving at the Supermarket: 15 Great Grocery Shopping Tips — The most important tip is the simplest; use a shopping list. Learning to stick to a list took a few months, but our monthly grocery bill for two is now around $300, where it used to hover consistently above $500 when we just went shopping without knowing what we wanted.  It also led to wasted food as things went bad before they could be cooked.

Trimming The Fat: Forty Ways To Reduce Your Monthly Required Spending — The energy section is the bit where I took the most advice.  High def TVs, stereo equipment and cellphone chargers are energy vampires, so put them on a power strip and cut the power when not using them.  Between that, using a thermostat timer and switching to CFLs, our energy bill has dropped by about $20 a month in the winter and almost twice that in the summer.

Filed under: Frugality   |  Closed
Tags: bills, cooking, Frugality