Plan – Reflect – Adjust – Plan

We all have dream/s. Dream to do something, do be someone, be somewhere and to get someplace. One think that helps is to have a plan to make that dream come true. To fulfil most dreams, it takes more than to just go to a website, get your credit card and book the airlines and the hotel. It takes vision and time.

Colours

When you are following your long term plans, it is important to reflect on your journey every now and then, adjust your strategy and plan to make it a reality. Above all it is important to dream and keep on sharpening that dream.

In Peter Thiel’s indirect words – Mapping out a life.

A good intermediate lesson in chess is that even a bad plan is better than no plan at all. Having no plan is chaotic. And yet people default to no plan. When I taught at the law school last year, I’d ask law students what they wanted to do with their life. Most had no idea. Few wanted to become law firm partners. Even fewer thought that they would actually become partner if they tried. Most were going to go work at law firms for a few years and “figure it out.”

That’s basically chaos. You should either like what you’re doing, believe it’s a direct plan to something else, or believe it’s an indirect plan to something else. Just adding a resume lines every two years thinking it will buy you options is bad. If you’re climbing a hill, you should take a step back and look at the hill every once in awhile. If you just keep marching and never evaluating, you may get old and finally realize that it was a really low hill.

One reason people may default to not thinking about the future is that they’re uncomfortable being different. It is unfashionable to plan things out and to believe that you have an edge you can use to make things happen.

 

Criticism is cheap

I am guilty of this as much as any other person. Criticism is both cheap and most of the time free.

Commentator

If one knows anything about a “subject” or not – that should not stop them from criticising and proving their points if they have any. One does not need to be a subject matter expert to have the license to criticise. Yes, it is called sharing  opinions. Just check on Techmeme. Ah, well almost all  sharing their “opinions” have never ran a business let alone a corporation.

Ah, did I just criticise myself?

image credit: Play among friends Paf.

Being used

Social Media Information Overload
I wrote the following in 2011:

Computers and gadgets are for you to use. You can do as little or as much as you want with them. You can be productive or spend all the time searching through other people’s lives.

Information Overload

Still stand by this. Information overload is stressing people now and keeping up has become an issue if not managed well. So is the information overload using you and your time or are you managing to wisely use the information to your benefit? I hope the balance is leaning towards  you.

Savings as an expense

An average person struggles with saving money but does not struggle too much to spend on expenses both for personal needs and wants.

Piggy savings bank
So how about seeing savings as a “definitely required” expense? This way people may be able to save more. Saving money should not seem like a painful exercise.

image credits: Thanks to Alan

A VC: Online Learning and Higher Ed

There is no question that putting all of these lectures and knowledge online is going to change things. But I am also a big fan of what happens when a teacher and a small group of students get together in a classroom and real personal interaction happens.

via A VC: Online Learning and Higher Ed.

A challenge to solve would be to increase collaboration and connectivity between participants taking a course and make it as frictionless as possible. The mature age learners could learn more from the smart interactions and collaborations which crosses cultural and physical barriers.

Needing Validations

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Yes, validations are necessary and important but more so when one is producing, creating, innovating stuff. Don’t spend all the time just getting validations (and likes) on the things that don’t matter.