This post could be considered part two of yesterday's post. But it's what I originally planned for yesterday. The beauty of this blog is that there's no firm agenda, really. So if I go off on a tangent and get a full post's length out of that tangent, it's my right to make my post about that. And that's what happened yesterday. Anyway, here we go.
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I bought a nice personal planner. I've been feeling a strong need recently to always know what's going on in my life, know what's coming up, and be able to cross-check events I'm told about with other events I've planned to attend.
The reason I splurged on a $50 planner? Well, there are 2 reasons:
1. Nothing beats pen & paper.
In the past few years I've had this obsession with trying to digitize everything in my life. And what I came to discover is that, while there is a mobile app or tablet app for most everything, apps for personal organization have not yet come close to the level of convenience of writing things on a paper monthly calendar. I've also tried to digitize or find digital versions of some documents at work, like product catalogs and reference material. But if you don't know the exact page you're going to in that PDF, it's not easy to find what you are looking for. We are accustomed to "flipping through" a book to find the right page; we've been doing it all our lives. Ever try flipping through a PDF on a PC? Well, it's much worse on a phone or tablet; you'll be tired of swiping your finger from right to left, right to left, right to left, etc. looong before you reach the page you want.
2. People take better care of things that cost more.
I could go out and spend $3-5 on a pocket-sized monthly calendar, and I could start writing things in it. Would I stick with it? Possibly. But the smaller size - despite the perceived convenience due to its portability - would actually make it more difficult to find if I would misplace it. It would be easier to lose, and like my cheap sunglasses from yesterday's post, I may give up looking for it because "I can just buy another one".
One of the benefits of paying more for something is the fact that the product is of much higher quality. The planner is leather, and it's ring-bound with removable pages so that once 2013 ends, all I have to do is buy new pages for 2014. The planner is about 9" x 7" and fairly thick, so it's not something I'd typically have to search hard for. Plus I would not want to lose it because if I do, I'm out $50.
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The way I've functioned up to now - admittedly not the best way - is to assume I have nothing going on, tell someone I can make it to their event, then (if necessary) apologize to them and tell them I cannot make it after all. In the past, the odds worked out in my favor because (frankly) I didn't do a whole lot.
But times change. These days I consider myself busy. And it takes time to break old habits, so I need a place to write things that are going on so I can tell other people "no".
I bought my planner 5 days ago, and since then it has gone everywhere with me. I bring it to work, I keep it near me at home, I bring it to dinner dates (ask my girlfriend). And already I'm seeing the benefits. The "I think" that I silently say to myself when telling someone I can make an event is no longer there. Plus I have started writing phone numbers in it, so if something happens to my phone I can still stay in touch with important people.
June 19, 2013
June 18, 2013
An Argument For Splurging
In a previous post titled Organizing My Life, I mentioned two things I bought, one organizational item for work, and one organizational item for home/personal use. This post concerns my personal purchase.
If you recall, I had bought myself a personal planner. Not some $5 piece of junk, either. A real cadillac of personal planners.
In my justifying purchasing high-end things - practical high-end things, not luxury items - I often recall a dilemma from 5 years ago. In a recreational league I had participated in during the fall of 2008, I left my sunglasses at the field one week. I didn't realize I had done this until I got home. The sunglasses were a $20 purchase from Macy's that I picked up while I was buying other things. $20 wasn't worth going back for; I just went and got another $10-$20 pair of sunglasses and went on with life. I used to lose a lot of sunglasses back then.
But in this particular instance, stores at a new shopping center called The Meadows were opening right next door to my (now former) place of employment, which included a Sunglass Hut. I had a need: new sunglasses, so I decided I'd window shop for a new, nicer pair. I ended up finding a pair of Oakleys that I really liked, enough to fork over $125 for.
But I truly cared for these sunglasses. And to this day I still wear them. I have a bit of an emotional attachment to them too; a few months ago I went to look for a new pair of sunglasses to replace them, only to decide that there was nothing wrong with the sunglasses I have now.
Coming up on 5 years with the same pair of sunglasses, I know I made a good decision. One of the best reasons for "splurging" on a purchase is when the higher level of quality in that purchase will better stand the test of time.
In these purchases (again, non-luxury), it's all about seeing a need, and finding the best way to satisfy that need in the most cost-effective way. Businesses do it all the time.
Zooming out on the problem, my need was to shade my eyes from the sun. Wearing a hat might have helped a little bit, but I've never been a hat person because of "hat hair" problems. So the only socially-acceptable solution was sunglasses.
But how much to spend? As it stood, I was going through sunglasses at two or three pairs a year. Let's go with two pairs a year, and split the price difference and say the sunglasses were $15 each, average. That's a recurring $30 a year.
Spread that out to 5 years, and you have $150 as the cost to protect my eyes from the sun.
When I bought my Oakleys, it was $125 fixed cost up front, and they have lasted me 5 years (so, $125 total). Include on top of that, that Oakley sunglasses generally look nicer than cheap sunglasses, and after 5 years, my Oakleys look almost as new as the day I bought them, so I could get a few more years out of them.
So it was clearly a smart buy. And this story teaches a lesson of human nature:
People take better care of things that cost more.
This is why I spent so much on a personal planner.
(Note: I understand this post comes to an abrupt end. I intended to elaborate on how I intend to use my personal planner, but I had way too much to say about my sunglasses. Next time.)
If you recall, I had bought myself a personal planner. Not some $5 piece of junk, either. A real cadillac of personal planners.
In my justifying purchasing high-end things - practical high-end things, not luxury items - I often recall a dilemma from 5 years ago. In a recreational league I had participated in during the fall of 2008, I left my sunglasses at the field one week. I didn't realize I had done this until I got home. The sunglasses were a $20 purchase from Macy's that I picked up while I was buying other things. $20 wasn't worth going back for; I just went and got another $10-$20 pair of sunglasses and went on with life. I used to lose a lot of sunglasses back then.
But in this particular instance, stores at a new shopping center called The Meadows were opening right next door to my (now former) place of employment, which included a Sunglass Hut. I had a need: new sunglasses, so I decided I'd window shop for a new, nicer pair. I ended up finding a pair of Oakleys that I really liked, enough to fork over $125 for.
But I truly cared for these sunglasses. And to this day I still wear them. I have a bit of an emotional attachment to them too; a few months ago I went to look for a new pair of sunglasses to replace them, only to decide that there was nothing wrong with the sunglasses I have now.
Coming up on 5 years with the same pair of sunglasses, I know I made a good decision. One of the best reasons for "splurging" on a purchase is when the higher level of quality in that purchase will better stand the test of time.
In these purchases (again, non-luxury), it's all about seeing a need, and finding the best way to satisfy that need in the most cost-effective way. Businesses do it all the time.
Zooming out on the problem, my need was to shade my eyes from the sun. Wearing a hat might have helped a little bit, but I've never been a hat person because of "hat hair" problems. So the only socially-acceptable solution was sunglasses.
But how much to spend? As it stood, I was going through sunglasses at two or three pairs a year. Let's go with two pairs a year, and split the price difference and say the sunglasses were $15 each, average. That's a recurring $30 a year.
Spread that out to 5 years, and you have $150 as the cost to protect my eyes from the sun.
When I bought my Oakleys, it was $125 fixed cost up front, and they have lasted me 5 years (so, $125 total). Include on top of that, that Oakley sunglasses generally look nicer than cheap sunglasses, and after 5 years, my Oakleys look almost as new as the day I bought them, so I could get a few more years out of them.
So it was clearly a smart buy. And this story teaches a lesson of human nature:
People take better care of things that cost more.
This is why I spent so much on a personal planner.
(Note: I understand this post comes to an abrupt end. I intended to elaborate on how I intend to use my personal planner, but I had way too much to say about my sunglasses. Next time.)
June 16, 2013
Improvement
My hurling league came to an end yesterday. It was a fun season (the game's always fun). The team underachieved, and finished with a record of 3-7. I'm not an elite player in the club, by any stretch. My presence has very little bearing on my team's ability to win their games; on top of not being all that good, the game's played with 11 or 12 people on the pitch at a time, so I'm just a small piece of the total product. But in things like this, I make a personal goal to improve. I'm not going to be an elite player until I'm in much better shape, physically. But I saw myself improve over the course of the season, game to game, and that's good enough for me, for now.
In this game, in sports in general, and even in life itself, I see some people who make no effort to do this. They may start doing something, realize they're pretty good at it, then keep doing their thing. They don't put that little bit of extra effort forward to make themselves better.
I hear stories in my game of people who don't go to practices for our travelling team, then expect to travel to tournaments and dominate - and thus justify their not going to those practices. In professional sports (I'll use the National Football League as an example), you hear of athletes holding out of training camp. Usually they do this to try to get something like a contract extension, more money, or whatever. But they're missing out on an opportunity to get better.
And you know it couldn't have always been this way. As it stands, players can whine to the people who pay their paychecks, saying "I'm not coming to practice until I get what I want!". In business terms (because professional sports IS a business, after all), an employee says to his boss and the company owners that "I'm not coming in to work until I get more compensation."
"Well, if you're not coming in to work, we're not paying you. Oh, and you're fired."
In sports particularly, but also in life, there's too much emphasis on being "good", and not enough emphasis on becoming "better".
Those hot shot athletes in sports and hot shot employees in business tend to emphasize being good, now. Which is fine; I'm not belittling being good at what you do, because track records and ability to get results is vital. But take a look at other people that oversee these people: coaches and trainers in sports, supervisors, managers, executives in business. Think anyone of them are okay with just being "good"? No. They're pushing everyone to constantly improve. As employees improve, the company improves proportionally. As athletes improve, the team improves proportionally.
People in positions of power and authority know that, for their organization, to fail to constantly improve is to slowly fall behind the competition. The group that always strives to improve will eventually pass those groups that prefer to rest on their laurels. And this is as true for individuals as it is for organizations and teams.
I can relate this to my education. I went through my high school career with the intelligence to get excellent grades, and get in to a decent college. But I rarely studied in high school. And since I hardly ever studied, and never put an emphasis on improving my capacity to learn, this killed me in the earlier part of my college career. Suddenly all the material was advanced, and studying was imperative. It took me a year or so to adapt to this change, and with a bit of help from a counselor in my school's engineering department I was able to adopt effective study habits. From there, the rest of my college career was fairly smooth sailing.
But what if I hadn't identified the problem soon enough? In all likelihood, I would have lost my scholarships, and I could've had to drop out.
In short, if you're not good at something, practice and work hard to improve.
If you are good at something, keep practicing and working hard to improve.
And if you're paid millions of dollars per year because you're just that good, that should not be an excuse. Go to practice sessions, push yourself, and always, always work hard to improve.
June 15, 2013
Read Books!
“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, author, A Game of Thrones
I went out of town this week, which means I spent a large chunk of my Monday and a few hours of my Thursday playing "Musical Airports". I was to fly in to Atlanta, and connect on a flight to Augusta, Georgia, to visit a manufacturer nearby that my company works with. And man, did I put a dent in my book list. Refer back to my post from a couple weeks ago titled "Books and Booksmarts" and you'll see where I was a while back. This is the progress in the books I said I was reading back then. A majority of the progress came at the airports, and onboard the plane.
FYI: that is how I roll on airplanes. I'm not constantly moving around, or being distracting. I just sit in my seat and read. From past experience, a person like this is very easy to sit next to. I'm very easy to sit next to.
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work - FINISHED (previously 20%)
Dante's Inferno 69% (previously 46%)
Inferno: A Novel - 0% (will not start until I finish Dante's Inferno)
Brain Rules - FINISHED (previously 75%)
Lean Six Sigma Demystified - 14%
The Speed of Trust - 21% (I started this book over from the beginning)
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - FINISHED (previously 59%)
Think Better - 130 of about 230 pages (previously 14 pages in)
The 8th Habit - 0% (will start after reading "Speed of Trust")
Books I'd like to read but don't own:
Good to Great (Jim Collins)
The Ultimate Sales Machine (Chet Holmes)
In a previous post, I stated a personal challenge to read a book a week. Well, this week I finished three books. Not bad!
If I thought I had any regular readers, I'd challenge you, imaginary person reading this, to do a book a week as well. If you think a book a week is too easy, do two books! You don't have to read business books if it's not your thing - but I personally want to read books that will teach me something, or give me new, applicable prospectives on my career and my life. If you prefer reading action/suspense books (you'll see that Inferno: A Novel is on my list above), or love stories, or whatever, that's fine too. I see it as better to read fiction than nothing at all.
And one more thing: find people who write things you like reading, and read! I love Malcolm Gladwell's writings; they're interesting, factual, and connect things everyday people see in fun and interesting ways. I love Dan Brown's novels; they're suspenseful, and contain plenty of historical fact while telling a story I cannot stop reading. I love Stephen Covey's books; his books offer systems for being the best person you can be, and I try to apply his teachings to my life.
These are my three favorite authors. Could you name yours? If not, go read some stuff and come back. Let me know.
June 14, 2013
Organizing my Life
Today was payday: that day everyone spends the whole week, 2 weeks, half-month, or whatever period of time, looking forward to.
But this time around was special, because I discovered that raises went into effect. Now, most people would prefer to keep their financial details private, and I'm no exception. But periodic raises are a part of nearly every job, so for me to say I got one shouldn't come as a shock to anyone in the workforce. Of course, I will not go into detail about my raise; be it how much it is, what percent it is, or what I made before or now.
But this time around, I did something special with a small bit of that money. I decided to buy a couple things to help me: one small thing to help me at the office, and one small thing to help me in my personal life.
The item I purchased for the office is something that I didn't think I needed until recently - mainly because I didn't know it existed. I also don't want to go into detail about problems at the office, but suffice it to say that things have had a tendency to get lost recently. There are things (we'll call them X) that I routinely send to other people, trusting that, in time, they'll send a related thing (Y) back to me (no, it's not money). But I send so many Xs that sometimes it becomes difficult to keep track of them all. And when I don't get a Y for every X, there are problems.
So I bought a special notepad. Not a traditional notepad, but a bigger notepad, well-bound, that displays the 12 months of the year and the numbers 1 through 31, allowing you to circle a month and a day, declaring the specific date associated with this notepad page. It probably resembles a typical notepad otherwise, but it's intended for making lists - and not for writing in your daily schedule (as so many similar products are). So I will use this to track the Xs I send every day. And after a certain number of days I'll refer back to this date and see which Ys I have, and which ones I don't have. This will allow me to check up on and make sure I receive all those Ys, which will save me a lot of headaches.
For my personal life, which also needs some organizing, I bought a nice, leather personal planner. The reason I bought a planner and not some silly app for my phone or tablet is because those apps - helpful as they are for some - won't work for my specific purposes. There are some cases where I believe you just can't substitute technology for pen and paper, and this is one of them.
The planner is one of those higher-end ones, made by FranklinCovey - a company which specializes in organization and productivity, and which I read a story about their merger in a book I'm presently reading called The Speed of Trust, written by Stephen M. R. Covey.
The planner itself, as I mentioned, has a nice leather cover on the outside, some pockets on the inside for putting various things, a calendar for 2013 with plenty of space for writing events on, space for phone numbers (which believe it or not I'm using, because you never know when you'll need phone numbers and not have them), and a daily planner section, which devotes 2 pages to every day. Whether or not I use the daily planner section remains to be seen, but regardless, this is a great organizational tool, and I hope to eventually bring it with me everywhere I go.
But this time around was special, because I discovered that raises went into effect. Now, most people would prefer to keep their financial details private, and I'm no exception. But periodic raises are a part of nearly every job, so for me to say I got one shouldn't come as a shock to anyone in the workforce. Of course, I will not go into detail about my raise; be it how much it is, what percent it is, or what I made before or now.
But this time around, I did something special with a small bit of that money. I decided to buy a couple things to help me: one small thing to help me at the office, and one small thing to help me in my personal life.
The item I purchased for the office is something that I didn't think I needed until recently - mainly because I didn't know it existed. I also don't want to go into detail about problems at the office, but suffice it to say that things have had a tendency to get lost recently. There are things (we'll call them X) that I routinely send to other people, trusting that, in time, they'll send a related thing (Y) back to me (no, it's not money). But I send so many Xs that sometimes it becomes difficult to keep track of them all. And when I don't get a Y for every X, there are problems.
So I bought a special notepad. Not a traditional notepad, but a bigger notepad, well-bound, that displays the 12 months of the year and the numbers 1 through 31, allowing you to circle a month and a day, declaring the specific date associated with this notepad page. It probably resembles a typical notepad otherwise, but it's intended for making lists - and not for writing in your daily schedule (as so many similar products are). So I will use this to track the Xs I send every day. And after a certain number of days I'll refer back to this date and see which Ys I have, and which ones I don't have. This will allow me to check up on and make sure I receive all those Ys, which will save me a lot of headaches.
For my personal life, which also needs some organizing, I bought a nice, leather personal planner. The reason I bought a planner and not some silly app for my phone or tablet is because those apps - helpful as they are for some - won't work for my specific purposes. There are some cases where I believe you just can't substitute technology for pen and paper, and this is one of them.
The planner is one of those higher-end ones, made by FranklinCovey - a company which specializes in organization and productivity, and which I read a story about their merger in a book I'm presently reading called The Speed of Trust, written by Stephen M. R. Covey.
The planner itself, as I mentioned, has a nice leather cover on the outside, some pockets on the inside for putting various things, a calendar for 2013 with plenty of space for writing events on, space for phone numbers (which believe it or not I'm using, because you never know when you'll need phone numbers and not have them), and a daily planner section, which devotes 2 pages to every day. Whether or not I use the daily planner section remains to be seen, but regardless, this is a great organizational tool, and I hope to eventually bring it with me everywhere I go.
June 12, 2013
Sharpening my Saw
I've had a lot of time to read this week. I'll see about giving an update on my reading in my next post.
One book I was able to finish recently - today, actually - is Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I particularly found one of the last sections of the book (Habit 7 -Sharpen the Saw) to be a particularly powerful section for anyone to read.
Obviously,each "habit" builds on the previous ones, and I admit there are many places in this section that reference other sections, but the general message is: there are 4 dimensions of every person's nature, and he/she should spend their lives maintaining and strengthening those dimensions.
(this isn't an excerpt from the book: these are my own definitions for the 4 dimensions)
By strengthening physically, I gain a better self-image and better health.
By strengthening spiritually, I gain inner peace and and willingness to serve others.
By strengthening mentally, I gain knowledge and more capacity for lifelong learning.
By strengthening socially/emotionally, I gain empathy and effectiveness in working with people to find the best solution.
So I have defined my 4 dimensions, and have outlined ways I can maintain and strengthen them.
Physical:
Exercise/play sports 5 times a week.
No junk food or unnecessary food.
Lose 2 pounds a week.
Spiritual:
Blog at least 2 times a week.
Attend church weekly.
Mental:
Read 1 book per week.
Use Lumosity.com 3-4 times per week.
Social/Emotional:
Contact or see Mom & Dad at least once a week.
I've made these items easy to follow, and easy to track on a weekly basis. Every item - except the "junk food" one above - is quantifiable. The junk food item will have to be a judgmental "pass/fail".
I could make full blog posts about how I perceive my life at this time in each of these 4 dimensions. But I'll save that for a rainy day.
One book I was able to finish recently - today, actually - is Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I particularly found one of the last sections of the book (Habit 7 -Sharpen the Saw) to be a particularly powerful section for anyone to read.
Obviously,each "habit" builds on the previous ones, and I admit there are many places in this section that reference other sections, but the general message is: there are 4 dimensions of every person's nature, and he/she should spend their lives maintaining and strengthening those dimensions.
(this isn't an excerpt from the book: these are my own definitions for the 4 dimensions)
By strengthening physically, I gain a better self-image and better health.
By strengthening spiritually, I gain inner peace and and willingness to serve others.
By strengthening mentally, I gain knowledge and more capacity for lifelong learning.
By strengthening socially/emotionally, I gain empathy and effectiveness in working with people to find the best solution.
So I have defined my 4 dimensions, and have outlined ways I can maintain and strengthen them.
Physical:
Exercise/play sports 5 times a week.
No junk food or unnecessary food.
Lose 2 pounds a week.
Spiritual:
Blog at least 2 times a week.
Attend church weekly.
Mental:
Read 1 book per week.
Use Lumosity.com 3-4 times per week.
Social/Emotional:
Contact or see Mom & Dad at least once a week.
I've made these items easy to follow, and easy to track on a weekly basis. Every item - except the "junk food" one above - is quantifiable. The junk food item will have to be a judgmental "pass/fail".
I could make full blog posts about how I perceive my life at this time in each of these 4 dimensions. But I'll save that for a rainy day.
June 7, 2013
Flashes of Brilliance (Sound Body)
It was last Saturday, the 1st. And I knew I had a very difficult task at hand. Due to a previous rainout, my spring hurling league* had to compress the rest of the season by making up games, which meant all teams had one week of two matches, same-day. For my team, representing downtown St. Louis' Tigin Irish Pub, that week was this one, and that day was today.
Making matters worse, this match day was one in which half of our team was to be unavailable, and we would be forced to play without subs.
A lot of people don't like subbing out of games; I do. The ability to sub out of a game allows me to push myself at 100%, and if I get exhausted I can go take a breather for a couple minutes, then come back in, push myself, take a breather, etc.
On this day, I'd have to play the full 60 minutes. Twice. It seemed impossible, given my physical condition (I admit I'm probably near the worst physical shape of my life, though I've been working out lately). But somehow I did it. Those games were probably my best two games of the season, performance-wise.
And this has provided a morale boost to me, in my effort to get in shape.
Many avid golfers will tell you that during a typical round they make so many bad shots, that they sometimes get angry to the point of contemplating why they play the game. But with every round comes flashes of brilliance: great shots they wish they could make more often. And that brings them back to the course, time after time.
When you're in as poor of shape as I am, and when you're playing a sport that is so physically demanding, those flashes of brilliance are few and far between.
But I had one this past Saturday, and I want to play like that (or preferably, even better than that) every week.
So it's set: every week I must work out, 6 days a week. It'd be 7 days, but the fact is: sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day around all my commitments. And that's not an excuse: sometimes my commitments stretch from 6:00 a.m. to 11 p.m.
At this point I'm not being super-strict about watching what I eat, though I am watching my portions.
I plan to lose 15 pounds in the next 30 days. One month from today I will be leaving on vacation to Ireland, and I intend to be in decent shape for it. Wish me luck.
* - "spring hurling league" - hurling, one of Ireland's national sports. Briefly mentioned in a previous post. I'll go in to detail about these sports in a future post.
Making matters worse, this match day was one in which half of our team was to be unavailable, and we would be forced to play without subs.
A lot of people don't like subbing out of games; I do. The ability to sub out of a game allows me to push myself at 100%, and if I get exhausted I can go take a breather for a couple minutes, then come back in, push myself, take a breather, etc.
On this day, I'd have to play the full 60 minutes. Twice. It seemed impossible, given my physical condition (I admit I'm probably near the worst physical shape of my life, though I've been working out lately). But somehow I did it. Those games were probably my best two games of the season, performance-wise.
And this has provided a morale boost to me, in my effort to get in shape.
Many avid golfers will tell you that during a typical round they make so many bad shots, that they sometimes get angry to the point of contemplating why they play the game. But with every round comes flashes of brilliance: great shots they wish they could make more often. And that brings them back to the course, time after time.
When you're in as poor of shape as I am, and when you're playing a sport that is so physically demanding, those flashes of brilliance are few and far between.
But I had one this past Saturday, and I want to play like that (or preferably, even better than that) every week.
So it's set: every week I must work out, 6 days a week. It'd be 7 days, but the fact is: sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day around all my commitments. And that's not an excuse: sometimes my commitments stretch from 6:00 a.m. to 11 p.m.
At this point I'm not being super-strict about watching what I eat, though I am watching my portions.
I plan to lose 15 pounds in the next 30 days. One month from today I will be leaving on vacation to Ireland, and I intend to be in decent shape for it. Wish me luck.
* - "spring hurling league" - hurling, one of Ireland's national sports. Briefly mentioned in a previous post. I'll go in to detail about these sports in a future post.
June 5, 2013
Lumosity (Sound Mind)
I realize I mentioned the website Lumosity.com in a previous post without saying a whole heck of a lot about it.
The website is structured and promoted as an online training program to improve 5 areas of cognitive function: speed, attention, memory, flexibility and problem solving.
The training consists of a series of online exercises (really they're games) that test your mental abilities, and it tracks your progress as time goes by so you can track your improvement.
This is how I'm doing in those 5 areas, from strongest to weakest on a percentile basis:
1. Problem Solving (best)
2. Flexibility
3. Memory
4. Speed
5. Attention (worst)
Engineers typically have problem solving skills as a strength, so that does not come as a surprise.
Flexibility - or the ability of your brain to shift back and forth between different tasks without getting confused - is also a strength.
I score better in memory than I expected to, but there are only one or two exercises that test memory beyond 5-15 seconds. I feel my true weakness in memory is more middle-term - from one day to the next -than it is in the super-short term.
Speed and attention are weaknesses, and I feel to some extent like the two are similar. It's exercises where I'm forced to focus (attention) quickly (speed) - that I tend to underachieve at.
The website allows you to order the five areas of cognitive function, to emphasize certain areas over others. Attention and Speed are #1 and #2 on that list.
I've used Lumosity.com 4 times in the past 8 days, so it appears to be something I can commit to. I regard this brain training as beneficial to my brain in the same way the gym and sports is to my body.
I'll report back to this space with any new developments. There's always room for improvement.
June 4, 2013
Graduating and Making a Killing
We're in the season where college students are graduating from high school, college, etc. New phases of their lives are starting. High school graduates are getting ready for college, and college graduates are getting ready to dive in to the workforce.
I read a great article from Forbes, promoting the electric power industry and IEEE's Power and Energy Society (PES), of which I am a member. Read it here.
If you have a kid who is good at math and has a strong interest in technology, you may already be thinking about some form of engineering for him/her. But specifically have your kid consider being an electrical engineer in the power industry. I've got 3 great reasons why it'll be a rewarding industry now and in the foreseeable future, with plenty of room for advancement:
1. - It's secure.
It's a fact. As long as your house needs power, as long as your business needs power, as long as all these things you use every day need constant power, the electric power industry will be there. The industry sells a product that isn't going away in my lifetime, your lifetime, and even your kid's lifetime. Notice that in all our technological advances, we're not trying to get rid of the need for power. We may be changing the way it's produced, but we're certainly not trying to do away with it.
2. - It's in demand.
Many electrical engineers are being drawn to the more flashy, cutting edge stuff: microchips, computers, communications. But electric utilities are looking for young blood. Go to your local municipal utility or electric cooperative and look around. It's likely you'll see a lot of the administrators are getting up there in years, and some may be within a few years of retirement. It's an old industry, and the average age of a worker in the industry (according to a 2011 study) is 46.1 years. In fact, only 20% of the industry is under 32 years of age (same 2011 study). Yes, there's a lot of industry experience that's getting ready to check out of utilities all over America, mostly due to retirement, and someone's got to step up to fill in those gaps.
3. - It's real.
Electrical power engineers work with people's electricity (obviously). And that's an area in which most everyone can relate. I can relate general things I do on the job to my girlfriend (a nurse by profession), with little trouble - it's a few little nuances to the job that are the reasons why just anyone couldn't do what we do. And the disastrous stuff that happens on the job - and by that I mean thunderstorms, tornadoes, ice storms, etc., that destroy things, put cities out of power for days, injure and kill people, often yield stories that are interesting to everyday people. A lot of other types of engineers don't have such stories.
So that's my plug for my industry. I'd suggest doing your part to promote your industry, it'll really help you appreciate it more. I appreciate my industry every day I go to work.
I read a great article from Forbes, promoting the electric power industry and IEEE's Power and Energy Society (PES), of which I am a member. Read it here.
If you have a kid who is good at math and has a strong interest in technology, you may already be thinking about some form of engineering for him/her. But specifically have your kid consider being an electrical engineer in the power industry. I've got 3 great reasons why it'll be a rewarding industry now and in the foreseeable future, with plenty of room for advancement:
1. - It's secure.
It's a fact. As long as your house needs power, as long as your business needs power, as long as all these things you use every day need constant power, the electric power industry will be there. The industry sells a product that isn't going away in my lifetime, your lifetime, and even your kid's lifetime. Notice that in all our technological advances, we're not trying to get rid of the need for power. We may be changing the way it's produced, but we're certainly not trying to do away with it.
2. - It's in demand.
Many electrical engineers are being drawn to the more flashy, cutting edge stuff: microchips, computers, communications. But electric utilities are looking for young blood. Go to your local municipal utility or electric cooperative and look around. It's likely you'll see a lot of the administrators are getting up there in years, and some may be within a few years of retirement. It's an old industry, and the average age of a worker in the industry (according to a 2011 study) is 46.1 years. In fact, only 20% of the industry is under 32 years of age (same 2011 study). Yes, there's a lot of industry experience that's getting ready to check out of utilities all over America, mostly due to retirement, and someone's got to step up to fill in those gaps.
3. - It's real.
Electrical power engineers work with people's electricity (obviously). And that's an area in which most everyone can relate. I can relate general things I do on the job to my girlfriend (a nurse by profession), with little trouble - it's a few little nuances to the job that are the reasons why just anyone couldn't do what we do. And the disastrous stuff that happens on the job - and by that I mean thunderstorms, tornadoes, ice storms, etc., that destroy things, put cities out of power for days, injure and kill people, often yield stories that are interesting to everyday people. A lot of other types of engineers don't have such stories.
So that's my plug for my industry. I'd suggest doing your part to promote your industry, it'll really help you appreciate it more. I appreciate my industry every day I go to work.
May 29, 2013
To-Dos
This evening, similar (but not exactly) to my post titled Routines from last week, I have put together a to-do list for this evening.
It's a list of things, not necessariliy of things I absolutely must do, but of things I really should do. It includes things like reading for an hour, blogging (which I'm fulfilling right now), working out, and even shaving, but it's a list of things I oughtta do tonight.
It's possible I don't need to plan my evening, item by item in a particular sequence. But each evening should contain a list of things I "should" do, and I can do as much as I can. Of course, I have to have a reward, so if I finish all the items I wrote down for the evening, when it's all over I'm going to have a drink. But not just any drink: a bottle of hard pear cider I bought for Memorial Day festivities and never touched.
Since one of my daily to-dos will be working out, I don't want to nullify my workout - so that's why it's a drink. That and I'm not big in to drinking like stupid, young me used to be.
Cheers!
It's a list of things, not necessariliy of things I absolutely must do, but of things I really should do. It includes things like reading for an hour, blogging (which I'm fulfilling right now), working out, and even shaving, but it's a list of things I oughtta do tonight.
It's possible I don't need to plan my evening, item by item in a particular sequence. But each evening should contain a list of things I "should" do, and I can do as much as I can. Of course, I have to have a reward, so if I finish all the items I wrote down for the evening, when it's all over I'm going to have a drink. But not just any drink: a bottle of hard pear cider I bought for Memorial Day festivities and never touched.
Since one of my daily to-dos will be working out, I don't want to nullify my workout - so that's why it's a drink. That and I'm not big in to drinking like stupid, young me used to be.
Cheers!
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