So I wake up to twitter with picture of North Korea's new ICBM, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Does this knowledge help me or hurt me? There's little I can do about this, maybe build a bomb shelter. But how does this knowledge help me in any way?
I'm on day 4 of the ExcelDiet.com. My spreadsheet is at work, so I'm not sure where I stand. Some stats for me:
Weight - 169.2
Blood Pressure - 132/80
Heart rate - 66
Blood Sugar - 111
Today is Tax Day, April 15th, but the taxes aren't due until April 17th. I owe $7,000. That sucks. My wife received money from work and they didn't take out taxes. I've always hated tax day.
Listened to Sam Harris Podcast last night from ..... but fell asleep. I want to listen to it again and take some notes.
My library books are due today. 8 weeks and I haven't read them.
Taking vitamins and working standing up for 1 hour between 6 - 7 am or maybe while I do this blog post.
Lutein
Vit. D
Magnesium
Multi-Vitamin
Vit. K2
CoQ10
Fish Oil
Reverstrol
Choline
My to-do list:
Vacuum
Clean dog poop
Do some work
Listen to Sam Harris podcast
Take notes
Create new tasks
Work on my Health
Walk the dog
Go to gym
Return/Read Library books
Have a low protein day
Stand every other hour that I work
Clean garage
Think about tests to do
Health Research
Metformin
Stand-up desk
Dr. Braverman
Reading
I'm currently reading or want to read a few books
Derren Brown's book
Steve Scott's 23 Anti-procrastination Habits
Impossible to Ignore
Self-Hypnosis for Dummies
Counterparty Credit Risk
Health Problems
My health problems are mounting and I'm not sure what to do if anything. I'm feel like everything is failing. Some of my issues are:
High Blood Sugar - Prediabetes
Overweight - based on BMI
Hip pain - left side
Poor eyesight
High Blood pressure
Enlarged Prostate with PSA 3.5
Left Foot pain on top
Heel pain - Left foot
Osteoporosis
High Albumin (not sure if this is right word)
Itchy arse
Health
My big focus is to lose 10 lbs. in 10
Work
I continue to be very busy at work. I've been at my new position for about 6 months.
Database Code
I've been working on Excel VBA code to run database queries. This past week I got the code to run 2 queries on 2 different databases and then combine the results.
Other
I've been trying to stand up more at work and have used a timer app on my phone that warns me every 50 minutes to stand for 10 minutes. I tried to get a stand-up desk but was told I need a reason. So until I get a doctor's note I've been taking my laptop to a cabinet and working there for 10 minutes. I've created a short list of tasks that I can do while standing. I was due for some training which I can't stand to do. Recently I had to get trained on the ADA (American's with Disabilities Act) which seems like very foolish overburdensome regulations and Fair Lending.
I've also made a list of topics and plan to write 1 page summaries on them. To see how knowledgeable I am and to fill in the gaps. The first randomly selected item was MPOR which stands for the Margin Period of Risk.
Oh my God so f'n boring. So I tried to take the class and the assessment in 10 minutes which should take much longer. Instead of reading the content I press next as fast as possible and then take the assessment. I have to get > 80% to pass the test. I passed both tests and noticed two things.
All of the above, is usually the correct answer
If there are 3 similar answers and 1 different one, then the different one is the answer
A new person is starting soon. Seems like a nice guy. I always worry on how much I should help him. He will kind of be reporting to me. If I help him so much I might not be needed at work and get fired. But then I think there's no way he could do what I do. I have 40 years of programming experience and almost 10 years in this department.
I've been getting annoyed by Excel 2013. I was just upgraded at work from 2007. It's seems much slower than the old version. I tweeted to +Microsoft about this but no response.
This is a reminder to buy things when the demand is low as you’ll get a
better deal. Anything that’s seasonal could have this effect.
Making Money
Book vs. Software – Which is the best method to make money? Books
seem to be better as people don’t want to pay for software currently
(2016). Most software products make money via advertising model.
Trading
See the Red paper clip story to learn an example of great trading. Sales is trading cash for something you’re
selling.
In the stock market, buy low sell high. Set stop losses. Don’t get caught
in yo-yo trades. This is where you buy a stock and it goes down so you
sell it. It then goes back up so you buy it. Then it goes back down.
Study one stock and learn how it moves. I did this with WD40 (WDFC) and quadrupled my initial investment. Only use money you can afford to lose.
Momentum
The stock market runs on momentum up and down. 200 day moving average
indicators can show you the momentum of a market.
In playing hockey using momentum works well. Skate hard for loose
pucks that you can get to. Try not to stop.
If you have a long goal or difficult task doing something no matter how
small can give you momentum. Use an egg timer to do something for 5
minutes to get some momentum. Get small early victories as this creates
momentum. Get momentum moving towards your goals. Break a bad habit or create a new good habit and gain momentum with conquering
your bad and good habits
Buyers/Sellers Remorse
You want what you can't get. If you get it you don't want it any more.
You want what you don’t have. I recently bought a new car. The salesperson offered me a price I counter-offered and she accepted my offer. I knew right away that I offered too much. I was remorseful that I bought the car.
The same can happen to anything you want badly.
Pay your bills on time
If you don’t pay your bills on time then you will incur service charges
and interest charges. This can be very high for some credit cards. This can also lower your credit rating. If and when you go to buy a house you could pay thousand's more. If your interest rate is higher based on bad credit rating over the course of a 30 year mortgage the extra amount will cost you.
Pay Full Amount on your Credit Cards
Each month when you bill comes around don't just pay the minimum amount, pay the full amount due. The reason to do this is that most credit cards charge exorbitant interest rates from 12% to 30%. That $500 purchase with all the interest charges is now a $5000 purchase.
Have Overdraft Protection
For your checking accounts you should set up Overdraft Protection. If you exceed your balance you won't get a high service charge just a loan at a high rate. Just make sure you pay this off as soon as possible.
Have Money in the Bank
I've worked since I was 13 years old at various jobs. I started as a paperboy, delivering the New York Post in Co-op City New York. I made around $30 a week and saved most of the money. I always had money in the bank.
Work
I'm made well over a million dollars in my career. I didn't keep it all as Uncle Sam likes to take his share. But making $100,000 over 10 years is a million. There's no faster way to accumulate wealth than to have a good paying job and the one way to ensure that is to ...
Have a Skill That's in Demand
If you have a skill that people need and no one else can do, you have the ability to make money. Currently the STEM fields (Science, Tech, Engineering and Math) currently have the greatest opportunity when it comes to jobs.
Pay Uncle Sam On Time
When April 15th, rolls around it's Tax day. Make sure you prepare and pay you taxes on time. The IRS is happy to charge you higher interest rates than credit cards until you pay your bill. Go to your Outlook or Google calendar and put a reminder there right now.
If you make money from a business, make sure to make your estimated tax payments.
Losing Money in the Stock Market
I've done this. It's much easier to lose money in the stock market than to gain. Especially when bubbles and greed take over.
In the bull market of the late 1990's the internet bubble was in place. I purchased many stocks in the biotech and internet sector. Many of them were touted by Investor's Business Daily.
It didn't turn out good for me. I lost a lot of money in the market. It was basically gambling and I lost.
Losing Money in Real Estate
I've lost money in real estate also. There's no guarantee that what you bought will appreciate in value. I bought a co-op in Scarsdale, NY in 1984 for $65,300 and sold it 13 years later for $60,000. At one point the co-op was worth $130,000.
I'm not saying to not invest in real-estate, I'm just saying it's not always a slam dunk.
To get more tips check out my latest work in progress Wisdom of a Dad and please leave any feedback you have.
This post assumes you know about Microsoft Excel and VBA.
I've used the following routine to help separate one list of 100 items into two lists of 50 items each. Each column is for the top 50 and the bottom 50.
Sub OnCtrlShiftRightArrowKeyPress() s = ActiveCell addr = ActiveCell.Address c = ActiveCell.Column + 1 r = FindLastRow((c)) + 1 Cells(r, c) = s Range(addr).Select If Not ActiveCell.Font.Strikethrough Then DeleteCell End If
End Sub In the Worksheet you can add the following
Private Sub Workbook_Activate() Application.OnKey "^+{RIGHT}", "ThisWorkbook.OnCtrlShiftRightArrowKeyPress" Application.OnKey "^+{LEFT}", "ThisWorkbook.OnCtrlShiftLeftArrowKeyPress" '"ThisWorkbook.OnCtrlLeftArrowKeyPress" End Sub In a module include the following Sub DeleteCell() ' ' DeleteCell Macro ' ' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+M ' sCurSheet = ActiveSheet.Name sCurCell = ActiveCell.Address sCurVal = ActiveCell bScreenUpdating = Application.ScreenUpdating Application.ScreenUpdating = False Logit "@deleted '" & sCurVal & "' from " & sCurCell Range("Backup_data") = sCurVal Selection.Delete Shift:=xlUp ' 1004 Cannot use that command on overlapping selections. Application.ScreenUpdating = bScreenUpdating
In this blog post I address a number of topics that will help you succeed in life.
This will help you.
Three most important Questions
There are three questions that I've been trying to answer:
What to do now?
Where to store information?
How did I spend my time?
What to do now?
Is the difference between wealthy and poor people, successful and unsuccessful, happy and sad that the wealthy, successful and happy, correctly answer this question and take action on the answer?
Where to store information?
There is so much information I need to retain. Especially how I've solved a problem or an answer to a question. Google is great for data on the internet but what if the answer isn't on Google? Then there are all the blogs, podcasts, books that have great information.
How did I spend my time?
This question can answer the question "What did I do yesterday, last week, month or year?" Tracking how time is spent is very difficult. It's been something that I've been working on for year in one form or another.
If you want to be super productive you have to know the answer to this question. Recently I've been tracking this and I'm amazed at how much time I don't spend on my computer at work.
Monthly Goals
As March comes to an end I'm thinking about my monthly goals. I halfheartedly went after my goal of deciding what to focus on. I have come up with a list of > 100 items and have split the list into 2 groups the top half and the bottom half. I used some Excel code I have to make it easier.
I've also started rating the top 1/2 on 3 criteria
$ecurity
Longevity
Fun
This got a little boring after 25 items so I started blogging again.
I've created a list but I am having fun just blogging.
For April 2016 I want to focus on I2$ (Idea to Money). How to go from an idea to making money on it or moving on to next idea.
Do you have monthly goals you're working towards?
Lost Wallet
I was on train and had my headphones on due to a noisy person. As I was leaving someone pointed to the floor and there my wallet was sitting.
Holy shit, I was lucky this guy was nice. I always try to get a persons stuff back to them if I see they dropped or left something behind. It makes me think of a new habit to create.
Check if I have my phone, wallet and keys before leaving anywhere. I have gotten into the habit of looking after I get up.
Haircut
I have an unusual skill. I can cut my own hair. I often get compliments on my haircut. But recently Evan at work didn't believe that I could do this. I've been doing this for almost 20 years. I use to hate getting a haircut. It never came out good.
You need a good location. I use my small bathroom, You need a good pair of scissors, electric beard trimmer, brush and mirror.
The steps are:
Take a shower
Don't dry your hair
Remove all things from bathroom that you don't want to get hair on
Taking hair in brush or in hand cut it short sections at a time
Brush hair in back straight down
Using hand held mirror and a wall mirror cut across the back
Using hand grasp hair and cut evenly around head
Using beard/hair trimmer,remove hairs that are sloppy
Use a hair dryer to dry and style your hair
Using a broom and dust pan clean up the stray hairs
Clean up and you're done
Now if I screwed this up I can always go to a barber and get it fixed. My main rule here is if the risk is low and it can be fixed if you screw up then take a shot.
Blogging
I've started blogging and I like it. The main suggestion came from Jeffery Gitomer who wrote the Red book of Sales. He states that the number one thing that's helped him in his career is writing.
Music
The song "Need your Love' by Cheap Trick came up at work and a few other of their songs Auf Weidersen and I Want you to Want Me. They're a great group and their older albums are better. Some other of my favorites are at Alec Berg's Favorite Songs
Productivity tip
You can use auto-correct in Microsoft Word to type faster and fix common mistakes you might make. For example I've been typing the word MicroStrategy and added an auto-correct of "ms". Use this for words or even phrase that you use.
New Habit
Document things in one place so you'll find the answer when you're looking for some information. I currently have a problem in that I document information I need in too many places that makes it hard to find. I currently store this information in:
Wiki
Word documents
Memory
I have a "How Too" sheet with my to-do list in Excel and I'm tracking:
date
Subject
Question
Answer
So if I need to find and answer I've solved I'll look here.
Pain in the ass shoulder
I need to do some research into prolotherapy. This was introduced to me by +Tim Ferriss and reinforced from a co-worker Robert. He said that he had wrist pain for a while but it went away after getting prolotherapy.
The other day I also had an excruciating pain on my nose from my glasses. It was so bad I spent a lot of time concocting methods to keep the glasses from resting on my nose. Eventually the pain went away.
Time Tracking
I continue to make progress with my time tracking software. I've cleaned up a few problems and the latest issue is the code is pausing and not tracking the window I'm using. Some issues are already coming to surface with the time I'm not at my computer or not using it for > 30 seconds. It surprising to me how much time I don't spend on the computer. I need to track this to get a better handle on it. .
I also came up with an idea on how to better track questions and answers. While working I often run into questions that I've already answered but didn't document the answer. I'm thinking about a way to better tell system that I have a question and tracking how long it takes, what I did and what lessons can I learn from the solution.
I want to better track how much time I'm spending with this blog post and see if I can get the time down because it's taking more than the Tim Ferriss suggested 5 minutes
Car Salesperson Asks for a 10
I just bought a car and the Salesperson's biggest concern was to give her a 10 on a questionnaire I'm supposed to receive. She said that anything under a 10 is considered a failing grade. Three years when I leased my previous Honda the salesperson gave me a similar request.
Should I Ask for Recognition?
Today I helped a person in London with a problem she was having with some software I worked on. I couldn't tell from her description in the email what the problem was so we did a screen share. If your company is a Microsoft customer their Communicator product is very good seeing someone's screen and diagnosing the problem. You could talk to me for hours and I might not understand what your problem is but show me and I'll get it in 5 minutes.
There are other companies that support this type of functionality:
Microsoft Windows - Remote Desktop
Join.me
Webex.com
GotoMyPc.com
All allow you to view someone else's desktop. So I quickly resolved the woman's problem. The software is pretty interesting system that uses Python, Excel/VBA and JIRA to create an Agile dashboard to manage scrums and the backlog.
The user was very thankful for the help. At my company we have an internal website that allows you to give someone an award for helping you. I was very temped to ask her to give me one. It basically thanks you and sends your boss a copy. But I chickened out.
I had a thought that I should include a link in my signature.
"If my service was above your expectations please feel free to thank me via xxx.company.com"
What's your thought on this issue?
Why the Need to be Clean?
"Cleanliness is next to godliness"
Why do I and others have this need to declutter and be clean and neat. People run that gamut from clean freaks to complete slobs.
One thing about cleanliness is it doesn't fit into my 3 goal categories of Longevity, $uccess and Fun.
I feel good when things are clean and bad when they're messy.
Yet I have a brother who is a complete slob. He must throw his garbage on the floor instead of a garbage pail. Maybe it's related to Longevity as clutter can bring:
Mold
Bugs
Mice
Smells
It may also be related to Fun as why do people want to keep their new car clean and shiny? To send a message that you have resources.
Diversity at Work
At work, all they talk about is diversity. If anything at my office there aren't enough Americans. They're either Indian, Chinese or Russian. It seems we should always be hiring based on merit and never on age, sexual orientation, etc. If diversity means to get all opinions, then I'm for that.
There are obviously fewer women in technology than men, but I wouldn't want to hire one over a more qualified man. There are fewer blacks than whites but let's hire based qualifications and not on disversifications.
Don't Quit
I played chess yesterday with my oldest son. I use to be pretty pretty pretty good at it. I was best player on my public school's chess team.
My son is very smart and has been playing and practicing much more than I.
We played and very early on I lost my Queen for a Rook. I was thinking of quitting but played on. I wound up winning the game. The lesson I got is once again, "Don't Quit!"
Neighbor's son Kicks my Son
My 19 year old son was outside talking to my neighbors 5 year old and I see the boy kick at my son. This angered me as a few days prior he was trying to kick my dog.
I attribute this behavior to a lack of discipline from the parents. +Cesar Millan the "dog whisperer" sums it up the best with his "No rules, boundaries or limitations" quote about teaching dogs. Children are the same. I hate it when I'm on the train and a parent lets their kids do whatever they want.
New Neighbor doesn't have Blinds
The house behind mine has been empty for a couple of years. We
just got new neighbors and they don’t have blinds on their windows so I can see
right into their house. It’s annoying for me but at least I have a house to be
annoyed. Thanks Sam Harris for your Waking Up book.
I took a flying lesson and flew a small plane. Flying a plane is fun but the thing that most people don't realize is that when you're flying, it feels like your driving on a road and the turbulence feels like a bumpy road. The plane is very stable when flying and this experience helped my overcome my fear.
Ice Hockey
Last night I may have played ice hockey for the last time. I scored 3 goals and felt good. But since I've been diagnosed with osteoporosis I've been afraid to play. I love playing the sport but the dangers outweigh the fun. It was a very light turnout at Midnight Hockey in Ice works rink where the Islanders use to practice. I guess this goes against my "Don't Quit" advice above.
69Laws.com
I have the website 69Laws.com and thought the tag line should be
69Laws.com because 70 are too many and 68 are too few.
Free Yankee Tickets
My company was giving away free Yankees tickets for games in April. I really didn't want them as I know how cold it can be in April during a baseball game. I also ran into a frustrating time trying to get the tickets. System kept timing out. I couldn't press the final submit button. I think it was because I didn't check the box that I accepted the terms and conditions.
Transcribing a podcast
I've developed some software to help with transcribing a podcast but I realized that it's a poor use of my time to do this. It's much better for me to summarize the podcast with the most important information and then add tasks to my to-do list.
MicroStrategy
MicroStrategy is a company that makess a software product used by business to do reporting applications. I just started with the software and am not crazy about it. It's very un-intuitive. I'm sure in a few weeks it will make perfect sense. My company has a group that supports this software. I'm trying to get up to speed quickly so someone in our support group sends 1500 pages of documents to read through.
Thank you for your help
For some reason I always notice whether people thank me when I help them out. These words aren't optional.
Sorry is also useful to let someone know you made a mistake. I bumped into someone leaving our kitchen at work and we both said "Sorry."
James Altucher Podcast
I just finished listening to James' podcast with Steve Scott who writes Kindle books. Very interesting content. Highly recommended if you're a writer.
Boss makes me change unused code
I'm not sure that any boss wouldn't be annoying but my boss made me do unnecessary work. I was tempted to tell him "NO." I can't think of anything I hate more than wasting my precious time.
New Car
My new car (Honda CRV) is now 4 days old. I have 10,000 mile per year lease and I've used Excel to help manage the mileage. With the following sheet I can enter the miles column and it will show me how I'm doing on my lease. The column to the right is the formula or data in column B.
A
B
2
Date of purchase
3/28/2016
3/28/2016
3
Return
3/28/2019
3/28/2019
4
Days Left
1095
=B3-B2
5
today
4/2/2016 0:00
=INT(NOW())
6
Days elapsed
5
=B5-B2
7
Miles
100
100
8
Avg per day
20.00
=B7/B6
9
Estimated
21,900
=B8*B4
10
Per Year at this rate
7,300.00
=B9/3
11
Miles left
29900
=30000-B7
12
days left
1090
=B4-B6
13
Avg per day
27.43
=B11/B12
Anger
I'm working on reducing my anger. Sam Harris has helped the most. I like his book Waking Up and his self guided meditation is very good.
I get angry about the stupidest things. I was talking to my android phone and the word "comma" kept becoming "China." Once I said to the phone "Tim Ferriss is the Dos Equis Guy" in a tweet and the phone generated "Tim Ferriss does techie guys."
The dirty floor in bathroom, piss on the toilet seat also set me off.
I'm just trying to not get so upset about these insignificant things. Though I'd love to catch the guy that pisses on the toilet seat and then piss on his chair at work when no one is around.
Summary
Set monthly goals
Don't quit
Control anger
Learn/use Excel to save time
Please leave feedback if you liked or didn't like this post. Thanks for reading. I hope this helped you. Connect with me on twitter at @Alecberg
