photo credit: Veyis Polat

Who is Larry Wall? Many of you may not know who he is.

He is the father of Perl, a programming language that is more popular among system administrators. He created Perl in mid-1980s. You may never hear his work, but there is something we can learn from his life as a programmer and innovator.

Today I want to share the three attributes of innovators, inspired by Larry Wall as he is mentioned and described in the book Learning Perl, by Randal L. Schwartz, Tom Phoenix, & brian d foy (I don’t have any idea why the last name is written in lower case). Continue Reading →

photo credit: kevindooley

Do you know what surprised me recently? It’s the number of my RSS subscribers. I couldn’t believe it that in two weeks after I re-launched the new theme, the subscribers number goes from below 200 to 253 the day I wrote this article.

I’ve secretly made a goal of reaching 200 subscribers by the end of last year. But as you know, I didn’t make it. The number is fluctuating around 180-190. It’s hardly increased, and new subscribers are almost always accompanied by other unsubscribed readers. So it’s indeed really surprised me that the number jumped so high. I even thought that it might have been some technical glitch, or changes in how Feedburner counts the subscribers.

What else surprised me? It’s the ‘churning’. I mentioned ‘churning’ during the theme re-launch a few weeks ago. It’s how I wanted to reduce the ‘quality’ to increase quantity and creativity. It really works.

I posted my recent articles earlier than usual. I’ve already scheduled the post one to two days earlier. It has never happened before. I’ve always rushed to finish my article on the day I’m publishing my article. This time I really made some difference. I’m less stressed and not rushed for the deadline. Instead of a burden, I found blogging as opportunity. Each post is an opportunity. What opportunity? Continue Reading →

photo credit: MaZzuk

Last weekend, my room taught me a number of lessons. It all started with my old wardrobe, a fabric wardrobe (the first picture in the gallery below). Over 5 years of usage, it has degraded. The fabric is torn here and there, it is not zipped properly, slanted and it cannot stand properly. I’ve been hesitating to replace it until now. As I just renewed my room rental contract, I thought this is a good time to get me new furniture and rearrange my room. And more than a new room, the experience taught me a number of lessons. I’ll share three of them in this post.
Continue Reading →

photo credit: Crystl

There is one event I was invited, a farewell for a minister in a campus organization I was actively involved before. I am not sure if I will come to the farewell party, as I do not know him very well. So I went to the Facebook event where I’m asked to RSVP. And I’m the first person who put it neither “Attending” nor “Not Attending”. I put my answer as “Maybe Attending”.

Maybe? That sounds like a lame response. It’s so uncertain, so irresponsible, so uncommitted. People say that it’s not good to say I try, you better say I will or I won’t. If earlier I was reading that consistency is overrated, today I also want to say certainty is overrated.

Why is that okay for you to say “Maybe”? Continue Reading →

photo credit: lepiaf.geo

Why only three? Okay, it seems to be much fewer than many list of productivity in the blogosphere. I can always come out with more but a list article has not always been my favorite. And more than that it’s exactly relevant to the first point I want to share.

1. Less quality

Or in a better word, change your perspective of the quality standard that you need.

I’m taking an example of how I wrote this article. Who said that only a list with a lot of points is a better article? Fewer points per article can help me to generate more articles. It is churning as what Scott H Young called it.

If your quality threshold is too high, you’ll kill many great solutions before they have time to incubate. Sometimes an idea takes time to develop, before it can become an adequate solution. Churning allows those ideas to grow for a time before they are prematurely stopped.
~Scott H Young (How to Increase Your Creative Output)

More than that, Toastmasters International has taught me to stay with a maximum of 3 points per message I deliver. Why? With the limited time that it gives (approximately 5-7 minutes for most speech), it’s the number of points you can deliver effectively. And more importantly, your audience must be able to grab the message, to digest them, and even better, to persuade/inspire them to make actions.

2. Less quantity

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been missing last month, I’m practicing an idea that Leo Babauta shared in his book The Power of Less (review). It’s called the 3 projects rule. List 3 of your most important projects and do them. Don’t add any more projects before you finish ALL of them.

Why only 3 projects? Again it’s the power of less quantity; the idea helps you to focus. Taking on too many projects will be useless if you end up starting but not finishing most of them. Leo also emphasized on finishing all three projects before you can take up another one. You can take any exception, and the best, you can’t keep on procrastinating the project that you dislike.

In my case, that project was my Java certification that I’ve been procrastinating for almost a year. Once I made the step to seriously working on them, focusing my time on them, I can actually complete them in only two weeks. Even more I can take the next step in the certification.

When you have no choice but doing them, you’ll be amazed that things that what you’ve been procrastinating for can actually be completed in less time than you’ve always thought of.

3. Less brainy

If this is really the brain of Homer Simpson, no wonder he makes so much action. Often, they are silly and stupid, but the point is that he’s doing it.

I was presenting on GTD (Getting Things Done) last weekend. My purpose was to introduce and persuade my audience to practice GTD. You can watch it here. Warning: Reading the next paragraph may spoil the fun of watching.

The message did not come across pretty well, the power point was not clear enough and the worst, I was nervous. I lost confidence in my message as I thought that my audience was thinking that GTD is too complicated. I was getting too brainy in thinking that my subject is too brainy for my audience.

Thankfully, I included the last step, the “Just Do It” step. I jumped and caught the attention of my audience more than the other. And at the end, I got the best prepared speech speaker award for the evening.

I don’t despise GTD. It’s been very helpful to me, especially GTD inbox for Gmail that I’ve been using. My problem is the paralysis of analysis. Often there comes a time to be confident with the decision you picked earlier and just do it. Even if sometimes it may make you look stupid like Homer Simpson.

Concluding thought

Here they are, the three “less” for more productivity:  less-quality to generate more, less-quantity to focus on things that matter more, and less-brainy to do what you have decided to do. Again, it’s turning limitation into advantages. Less is not always less, less has its power, and often, less is more!

For more things about the power of less… read The Power of Less by Leo Babauta (review).

Less-ing for more,
Robert