Non-practice

Slowing down the pace might help with managing emotions better.

Do listen to this song:

(STEPAN PROJECT & PAUL GRIGORIU – Cât de mult te-am iubit… – YouTube)

It’s about loving a person. But it’s also about talking in a slow, friendly, calm voice, which gets to your mind.

Or this one, in English:

(Diamonds And Rust – YouTube)

Speaking slower might help you become calmer.

You don’t need to do so each time you speak, but a bit of an exercise like talking like the person in the video can do miracles.

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Emotions (or e-motions) determine behavior.

They matter so much!

I know a lot of people in the IT industry focusing on developing technical skills, and completely ignoring the so-called „soft skills”.

The thing is, „soft skills” can be rather difficult/hard to acquire.

And, for work efficiency, for good results, for creativity – it may matter more if you can balance hard/soft skills than if you’re not at 93% level in PHP, but at 97%.

Sure, you can’t work in IT without at least average knowledge.

But, after a while, it may be more relevant to focus on the soft, than improve the hard skills.

I tried to apply this in my life.

Meeting people, doing theater acting, going to conferences.

Even culture – reading, watching movies, and all-in-all immersing in online culture, might help.

„But fiction has at least three advantages. We have access to the character’s interior world in a way we normally do not with journalism, and we are more likely to willingly suspend disbelief without questioning the veracity of what people are saying. Finally, novels allow us to do something that is hard to do in our own lives, which is to view a character’s life over many years.” – Does reading fiction make us better people? – BBC Future

Emotions help with the visible part of life – they keep the motion going.

Other than this, I’ll say this again – the most important thing for working efficiently is passion. It’s not the physical part, but the inner-thinking and passion.

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„Parafrazînd o aserţiune augustiniană, pot spune doar atît: citeşte şi fă ce vrei…” – Ioan F. Pop – „Citește și fă ce vrei”

On reading / readers: „Iată de ce Humanitas a fost – și este – încercarea de-o viață de a da răspuns acelei întrebări de tinerețe, strădania de a  face să intre în lume trupul de carne al spiritului, cartea,  pesemne singurul trup al spiritului care există.” – Gabriel Liiceanu – Cum pătrunde spiritul în lume? (La o aniversară)

It might look that the best thing you can do for self-development is to read. Want to become better? Read. Want to do something good? Read.

Some objections to this logic:

• I know people who read a lot and do other forms of cultural activities (like watching movies and being absorbed in culture) and don’t work too much. It’s their choice to decide „I prefer to read, not to work”, but I don’t this is an ideal state of living. It’s nothing bad with reading, but when the reading stops you from doing something with your life, that’s not so great.
• You might know people (some of them are famous) who read (or used to read) a lot, and they can do bad deeds. It’s just not true – „read and do whatever you please”. You can read and, still, generally, be an evil person.
• Finally, there are many ways in which a person’s formation gets shaped. I find it difficult to think that a person reading 10 hours a day knows more about life than a person who reads much less but is engaged in other activities. It’s great if you can read a lot, but it’s not the only way to have a formation. There are so many things to watch, listen to, and do, there’s places to visit – and, in the end, it’s the (perhaps-boring) work. If you work a lot, things tend to happen to you.

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

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I think I’m a rather unconventional person.

But there are many aspects for a person – how does that person live, what does he say, how does he think.

Even in these there are particularities – doing is divided by actions, saying is divided into types of speech, and thinking into groups of thought.

And so on.

So, even if I consider myself unconventional, I’m rather conventional in a lot of things.

I might be daring in thoughts, but scared in actions. I might have the courage to launch things, but not the focus to continue. True, I might launch a lot of things, but only keep on doing a few. Sure, I might read a lot but remember only a little.

I write all these thinking of „unconventional” people. To me, they’re rather conventional.

So, if I consider myself unconventional, others might not think the same of me.

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It might look simple – you work, you get results.

I think I did well in school, I consider I did rather OK as a professional.

But there’s always someone better, both in school and in professional life.

Looking back at both my life and some people I closely know, I think I identified some patterns:

• It matters a lot to do well in school, but it matters even more that you learn from school a persistence in keep doing the right things;
• If you study and then start doing something else in your work life, you’ll get an inherent disadvantage;
• Some people use some rare things really well – I know people working on wind turbines, on tankers, on International NGOs;
• If you do a startup it does matter to have a bright idea, but managing a team is the most important and difficult thing;
• You need to want to make money – this might look obvious, but I do know people who are faced to choose between A and B, and they choose an option that doesn’t bring money; if you don’t want money, it’s not as easy to earn them.

Other than this, I’ll say this again – the most important thing for working efficiently is passion.

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Sometimes, I have something to write on the blog.

And it’s not like it’s „Oh, I can write this today or two years after”.

Most of the time, if I don’t write about that idea within a short timeframe, it’s completely gone.

And, what’s even more surprising is the fact that ideas keep popping up.

I burn ideas, and they come back from the ashes.

The desire to write is high.

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„I don’t have any time for easy and repetitive tasks” I once told while living in student hostels a friend of mine.

He replied that I’d better become someone really important, to really prove that I don’t have any time.

I thought, back then, that if I skip easy and repetitive tasks, that this proves I’m paying attention to my time.

Sometimes in the past one or two months, I’ve read a thought – „If you want to give someone a task, choose someone who’s really important and busy, it’s more likely that the person will do it”.

And I think this is the real thing.

I previously wrote that the most important thing for working efficiently is passion.

The same logic applies to time management – it’s not that important if you have 6 hours of work in a day or 10 hours, for a lot of creative and non-repetitive tasks.

A busy person is more likely to have accomplished lots of things and to know the value of a job done correctly.

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Some jokes can be annoying.

Some people like hearing jokes.

What’s the middle path?

There isn’t one. You can make very soft jokes, not offending anyone, you can be smiling, you can be serene, but the real jokes, the ones that make people laugh, are offensive – to some degree.

It’s part of the job description.

„I will not annoy anyone, so I will never tell a joke” is not a solution.

Choose your battles, learn when to joke and when not to, learn some people who enjoy the jokes, find out what hurts people.

But don’t stop joking because some people don’t like the jokes.

As much as some people would prefer to stop, there are some people who would prefer to continue.

„Do no evil”. Yes, that’s true.

Don’t make over-the-board jokes, don’t attack people, don’t use curse words.

But, within some limits, there are actually no boundaries.

Within some walls, there is liberty.

Get it, and accept the fact that some people would like some stricter laws and more enclosed walls.

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In „Chris Voss Teaches The Art of Negotiation”, the speaker sometimes refers to „calibrated question” – these help put things into context.

I have this problem – it’s difficult for me, sometimes, to give the general context.

I tend to focus on the small detail, on the little aspect, on the minor things.

Seeing the overall story is difficult.

Even when I think of future plans, it’s hard for me to say an overall conclusion. I tend to say „If all goes well, then …”.

It’s rare of me to say „we’ll do so-and-so”, because you can’t be 100% sure, and I don’t feel like making a promise I can’t keep.

How can I solve this?

• One option is to state my emotions. „I feel about X situation so-and-so”.
• Another option is to try and summarize things.
• Also, from time to time, to make promises without having 100% certainty of a situation. 90% might just be good enough.

Coming back to the phrase which opened this article, I once asked a person „So, what’s up with that?”. It was a long-thought question, I prepared for it. It helped defuse a situation, and it took both me and the receiver by surprise.

A question to help equalize the things is surely helpful.

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The word “passion” comes from suffering.

So, passion for work implies suffering.

What’s, to me, the most important criteria in evaluating work?

The passion.

It takes passion, willingness to sacrifice, and ability to focus on the long-term, persistence in order to be successful in work.

If you have passion, you’ll be able to:

• Focus on developing yourself;
• Check for errors;
• Motivate yourself to work;
• Even find pleasure in the results of your work.

No passion – no results, quite simple.

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