Some while ago a friend made me a proposal to write a post about what I consider a Life Changing Meme. First of all, I had to lookup the actual definition of Meme because, as it was presented, it seemed like a fancy name for a blog version of a chain letter… I hate those things!
According to the good old(?) wikipedia, the term Meme refers to an idea or behavior that is transmitted for one person to another, and it was used (by Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene) in order to extend the evolutionary principles to the field of ideas, making ideas evolve by natural selection in similar ways to that of biological evolution proposed by Darwin.
Looking at the subject, a Life Changing Meme should refer to ideas capable of changing the way you live your life or that have direct impact on your life philosofy. Here are some introspections about what could change my life style (in a good way):
- Improve the way I manage my time
Time can’t be controlled by anybody, but it can be managed. A better management of the time I spend working or with the family would do me wonders. After some thought, the time spend with my dearest ones is quite small considering the time spent at work. If less time was spent working, a lot more time would be available for the things that deserve far more attention that they are getting now.
The main problem is that I usually get deeply involved with work and forget the surrounding environment. This is something that I need to change. The first step is to define priorities and stick with them.
- Spend more time with my family
Following with the last topic… They are my priority!
- Decrease the multi-tasking activities
I really enjoy doing different things at the same time, but I need to moderate the number of parallel tasks I’m performing at any given time. The number of stuff to be done starts to overwhelm me.
- Be less pessimistic
To those who know me, I’m a pessimistic by nature and it gets worse when stress starts to increase. This doesn’t mean that the goals are not achieved, but simply that I prefer: to get to a meeting 10 minutes before it starts than 10 minutes after; or, to work more 30 minutes today than having to arrive 30 minutes earlier tomorrow; or, to test the final version twice the time that was expected instead of ‘hopeing’ that everything turns out OK.
Sometimes this pessimism influences the people around me, and it is something that I really need to be careful about.
- Improve personal management of expectations
Managing personal expectations is something that I find quite difficult, specially because the expectation levels are usually set to a very high standard. If expectations were more adapted to the reality, things would be more easy!
- Improve personal organisation (ongoing…)
Some steps have been taken in the last year months in order to improve personal organisation. Some improvements have already been seen but there is still some work to be done. I find a little paper scrapbook and/or e-tasklist (like Basket) to be very important.
- Select one hobbie
I need to have one… just one! Choose one, and stick with it… Blogging seems to the the one!
These are just some of the ideas that could change my life for the better… but there are a lot more things to do to improve life quality!
Tomorrow is school day, again. This does not mean that I’ll be starting to attend the SEE program at Stantford University, it just means that my days has a PhD student are about to start.
Two years of working as a software engineer made me realize that experience is very important, and that I have a lot to learn and do before I can call myself a experienced software engineer. I’m working on that issues, trying to read about new methodologies and techniques by myself and learning to apply them in the everyday job.
But there is also some other fields I’d like to improve, a lot more close to research new knowledge than to applied engineering. This is one thing that is seems to be missing from the current job. Let’s see if the ‘part-time’ PhD provides some new insights on other fields of knowledge.
… and I can’t sleep!
I just got up from bed, after a really quick sleep, because I can’t stop thinking about work. This is one of those nights when every time the mind starts to wander it always goes to something work related.
I was supposed to get a few days of vacations starting tomorrow, but that isn’t going to happen. The release has been delayed, and my free had to be sacrificed with it, again. I just hope the delivery gets done soon, in order to have a full stop in the current activities and so creating some time to re-group my thoughts from the future.
Things change. Sometimes without anyone taking notice of it… and the last thing I noticed that changed was Capri-Sonne. Yes, I mean the well known juice that comes in those puffy packages different from any other juice packages. It’s not a metal can, it’s not tetra pak carton, it’s Capri-Sonne!
Capri-Sonne was elected to be my latest vacation official drink. During a late afternoon, the beach brought to my attention the ‘new’ fact.
The orange straw, that comes firmly attached to the back of the package, no longer falls inside. The package design has been remade to avoid that. I don’t exactly what changed, but the fact is that my first grade school trips horror is no longer possible!
Whenever the straw didn’t fall into the package, it was just because the straw pierced the package front-to-back. That is also very unlikely because the new design includes a very soft membrane very easy to pierce.
I hadn’t had a Capri-Sonne in a long time, but now that I’ve tried it again… it brings memories.
I usually use my own car to travel to work everyday. Unfortunately, the public transportation (the BUS, or as called in the province of this small Portugal, “carreira”) near my home is quite scarce, and I only tend to use them when strictly necessary. On the other side, I some times use the car to travel half the way and them take the train the rest of the way.
The last option has a lot of benefits. The first benefit is related with the smaller carbon footprint os using the train (instead of diesel “tank”*). Secondly, this kind of travelling provides with much more time for reading. And I love reading…
So, with don’t I use the train every single day? Because it takes me almost one hour a day more than when using the car.
* “tank” is the caring name I use to refer to my sweet old car!
One of the factor that affects personal relationships is the level of assertiveness.
Assertiveness is a communication skill that can be defined by:
- the ability to clearly identify and express thoughts and ideias
- the ability to defend ideas by supporting then in valid arguments
- doing the previous while respecting the limits of the self and the others
One should be able to improve their assertiveness by always communicating open and honestly, about every aspects of work or life. This kind of communication is based on a balance between the time you are speaking and the time you are listening.
I’m home! …alone, as the title suggests!
The weather is kind of crappy, with lots of dark clouds in the sky. So, although my wife and daughter decided to visit her mother/grand-mother, I decided to stay home and work on somethings that are pendent from last friday.
Yeah! I brought work home, once again… It’s reaching a point were it’s not even comfortable anymore. To much work to do, and not enough time to do it.
Last weak I tried to stick to office hours. That ‘effort’ lead to only a couple of hours more than a regular work week, but because of that work followed me home! A couple of simple reports, but I’m becoming really tired of bringing work home.
Please notice, this post is not a complaint, just a statement of acceptance.
I’m a weekend blogger. After analyzing the more recent posts, and the dates in which they where added, everything indicates that this a place is managed by a weekend blogger.
Why do I only add new stuff to the blog in the weekend? This question has a simple answer… During the week, the workload amounts to more that 10-11 hours per day, which leaves very little time for anything else.
This doesn’t mean that the blog is completely abandoned during this period. New posts are drafted, design is improved, comments are approved, but the publishing of a new post is an event that needs more attention (and so, more time).
The lack of time also has impact on the amount of research done for each post. According to some blogging tips, the research is important and for me that implies photography time. Today is raining, but usually during the weekend my SLR become my faithful companion.
As my workload doesn’t seem to be lowering anytime soon, my posts will continue to be added during the weekend…
My childhood was not always sad or completely unlucky. In fact, there are set of memories that I wish I could completely erase, but those events will be the focus of some other post on this blog. Also, I had my share of toys and gadgets when I was little, but I tended to destroy or lose them very often. This means that none of them lasted until today and results in some kind of the feeling of not having any toys back then.
The title points to another moment of introspection. One that starts by defining the process by which a psychologic deficiency inspires exaggerated correction, called overcompensation, and one that I must admit I often do.
This is the reason or maybe just an excuse for what I find to be overcompensating for my daughter. She has a lot of toys, and very often I fall the her whims (like last weekend when her room got a new coat of paint… pink!). The overcompensation also extends to school matters, in which the expectations tend to exceed the normal course of learning.
I’ve researched around (using google, of course) and the main feeling is that it’s normal for parents to overcompensate. Nevertheless it’s important to control how must overcompensation is let loose.
I do everything hoping to be a better parent.
Not a lot of hobbies become a habit to me. Most of my hobbies were mere infatuations for a given novelty. These infatuations have a wide scope, ranging from my stamps and marbles collections (currently stored in some box somewhere in the attic) to the several birds and fishes under my care along the years.
The change is a think that excites me, and so, the idea of creating a blog was an thought that didn’t connect as a hobbie. But…
There’s always a but, isn’t there?
But Introspection is becoming one of my favourite hobbies. It didn’t took as a habit yet, but it has very good prospects for the future, specially being so closely connected with my other hobby (or is it a habit?) which is computers and all related stuff.
It doesn’t matter how much hits or visitors read my texts, it’s all about the joy of having somewhere to put down my ideas. Several times a day my thoughts wonder to this or that subject and the way they should developed into the form of a post. Certainly, new material will never become a problem.
