sacha chua living an awesome life

I like analyzing my decisions. Writing about the alternatives I consider helps me think about them more deeply. Reviewing my decisions helps me learn even more. Sharing the decisions and the thought processes behind them helps me help other people.

How can I get even better at tracking and sharing my decisions? I want to get even better at remembering my reasons for decisions (useful during moments of doubt), revisiting my assumptions, and writing down additional benefits or costs.

I’ve posted the occasional decision review, but I think I’d benefit from something more structured than my blog. Maybe it’s time to resurrect some kind of a personal wiki system.

I’d like to have a system for logging and regularly reviewing decisions. I might prototype this using an Org-mode large outline text file. I already use it to write about the decisions I want to make or the decisions I’ve recently made. I can go back and write about other decisions I’ve made, and I can start structuring the file. Using Org Mode will make it easy to organize decision notes into an outline, integrate it with my task and calendar reminders, view table-based summaries, and publish snippets to my blog. If I get into the habit of scheduling reviews and thinking of questions that I might ask myself during a decision review, then I can learn even more from the decisions I make.

Decision: Write about decisions with more structure in Org and with regular reviews

Expected costs: Writing time (the software is free), occasional social risks of publishing decision notes

Expected benefits: Even more confidence in decision-making, ability to help more people with similar decisions, interesting records, fewer moments of doubt (very few already, but just in case!), deeper analysis

Alternatives considered:

• Don’t write about decisions: Right.
• Write only about major decisions: Small decisions are useful, too!
• Keep decision notes just as blog posts: Hard to review over time.

Next review: In three months ( 2011-12-11 Sun)

• How many decisions have I written about?
• How many decisions have I reviewed?
• How many notes have I published?
• How have I used my notes to help improve my decision-making?

From Sept. 5: We had fun at the Ontario Science Centre. I like science centres. I have lots of great memories of going to science centres and playing around with exhibits. We’ve decided not to buy a family membership for now, though – we’ll just buy tickets as we go. Here’s what I’ve been thinking:

Cost of family membership: $120/year Break-even point: at least two visits per year

Exhibits I liked today:

• Stereoscopic photographs: I always like these. I think depth perception is fascinating.
• Reptiles (special exhibition): The snake-necked turtle (Chelodina mccordi) was really cool. I also liked the exhibit showing how the fangs of snakes hinge when they close their jaws.
• Scents: Of the five scents they had (leather, laundry, flowers, earth, vanilla), it turns out that I like the smell of clean laundry the most. So domestic!
• Oil pumps: Mechanics and hydraulics, yay
• The globe: I hadn’t realized China was so mountainous. I enjoyed seeing the continental shelves and looking at the underwater contours, too.
• Paper airplanes: The paper supplies were all gone, so I picked up other people’s planes and refolded them or just threw them. I liked how they had hoops and a target if you wanted to try stunt or precision flying.

A number of new exhibits joined most of the old stalwarts. I was looking for some of the exhibits I remembered, but I couldn’t find them. That’s okay! =)

Advantages?

• Equipment and exhibits make it easier to explore scientific principles (ex: pumps, levers, sound, etc.)
• Multisensory experience / scale helps in understanding (ex: anatomy, geology, and so on)
• Special exhibits provide additional reasons to return
• Volunteers share their interest in science
• Exhibits prompt you to explore things you might not have sought out by yourself (ham radio, etc.)
• Exhibits validate interest (paper airplanes can be cool!)
• Can use exhibits to support classroom learning: http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/school/curriculum/chart.asp#g4to8

Disadvantages?

• Busy-ness and noise can be overwhelming
• Tends to encourage shallow explorations/entertainment instead of deeper engagement. Hard to slow down and get deeper into something because of background noise, consideration for other people, and distractions from other exhibits
• Pricey

Alternatives:

• Discussing J-’s science lessons
• Using our microscope
• Planning and conducting small experiments
• Checking out resources like http://www.thevirtuallab.org/curriculum/grade-8-science

J-’s grade 8 curriculum topics:

• Understanding Life Systems: Cells
  • Microscopes, diagrams, flashcards, discussions
• Understanding Structures and Mechanisms: Systems in Action
  • LEGO, physical structures
• Understanding Matter and Energy: Fluids
  • http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/ApMech_p039.shtml
• Understanding Earth and Space Systems: Water Systems

Events that might be interesting:

• Robots Rule – Nov 12-13: http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/calendar/default.asp?eventid=1017&ddmmyyyy=01112011
• Leonardo da Vinci’s Workshop – Oct 13 to March 18: http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/calendar/default.asp?eventid=1111&ddmmyyyy=01102011

Back to the decision. We’ll probably not pay for a family membership immediately. We’ll reconsider this if we find ourselves going again within a year, and if we foresee a third trip within the year. If we end up going twice in a year, then our total cost is roughly the same with or without a membership – no loss there. If we go three times, then we’ll end up paying more in total, but that’s okay because the membership will cover additional months during which we might make a fourth visit.

We’re going to put off getting a membership until we determine what frequency we’d like to go. We’ve had a family membership to the Ontario Science Centre in the past, and we made excellent use of it including trips to museums with reciprocal agreements. With lots of things changing this year, we’re going to hold off on that commitment to avoid the “I’m going to pay for the gym so that I get encouraged to use it” effect. We like science, and there are many, many ways to explore it.

Also – Is it odd that I recognize Ontario Science Centre exhibits described in other museums? I was reading Andy in Oman’s blog post about the OSC donations and I vividly remembered most of the exhibits mentioned. Including that land-like-a-cat one, which I tried many times. (Cat-related! ;) ) I had hoped to try it today with my Vibram toe shoes, but it’s probably abroad. What can I say? I like science centres. =)

Some of my favourite exhibits from other science centres:

• The giant soap bubble exhibit from the Exploratorium
• Tactile Dome (Exploratorium)
• Catenary arch building blocks
• Foucault’s pendulum traced with sand
• Newton’s cradle
• Kinetic sculptures
• Rock polishing and panning for gold at Science North (ah, the stories)

I think one of the things I loved about growing up with the science museum in Manila was that there were often few visitors there. Looking back, I can wish now that it was better patronized, but I remember really appreciating the freedom. I got to spend all the time I wanted building catenary arches, playing with the magnets and iron filings, clapping into that big echo tunnel, or confusing my mind with perspective tricks. Most of the science museums I’ve been to have been crowded, which is a great thing, but which can be overwhelming. Maybe going on a weekday will help. Winter, perhaps? We’ll see.

I felt today’s trip was worth the time, money, and opportunity cost. It might have been even better if we slowed down, got deeper into a few exhibits, and maybe tried more of the timed shows. I tend to like mechanical exhibits more than exhibits that focus on screen display or video.

And yes, I still want to spend at least a week in the Smithsonian. ;)

I finally sat down and transcribed the interview on discovering yourself through blogging, where Holly Tse puts up with my firehose braindump of things I’ve learned. It’s an hour of audio, more than 53,500 letters, and about 9,500 actual words. The words per minute measurement uses a standard of five characters per “word”. This means I clocked in at more than 180 wpm.

I like reading much more than I like listening, and a transcript makes it much easier for me to search and review what I said. After considering the options, I ended up transcribing the interview myself. I even built my own foot pedal. ;) So, here’s what I’ve learned.

I started off by trying to use ExpressScribe and Dragon NaturallySpeaking for automatic transcription. It looks like I’ll need to do a lot of training to get this ready for transcription. The fully-automated transcript was useless. I tried slowing down the recording down and speaking it into Dragon NaturallySpeaking (somewhat like simultaneous translation?). This was marginally better, but still required a lot of editing.

I gave up on dictation (temporarily) and typed the text into Emacs, using keyboard shortcuts to control rewind/stop/play in ExpressScribe.

I took a second look at the outsourced transcription options. CastingWords had raised prices since I last checked it. Now there wasn’t much of a gap between CastingWords and TranscriptDivas, another transcription company I’d considered. With TranscriptDivas, transcribing an hour of audio would have cost around CAD 83 + tax, but I’d get it in three days.

Before I signed up for the service, though, I thought I’d give transcription another try – particularly as I was curious about my DIY foot pedal.

I told myself I’d do another 15 audio minutes so that I could see what it’s like to transcribe with my foot pedal. I ended up doing the whole thing. I used ExpressScribe to play back the audio at 50% speed, and I set the following global shortcuts for my foot pedal: center-press was rewind, left was stop, and right was play. I ended up using rewind more than anything else, so it worked out wonderfully.

Discovery: Listening to myself at 50% makes it unfamiliar enough to not make me twitchy, although it can’t do anything about me being sing-song and too “like, really“. That might be improved through practice.

90wpm input was pretty okay. Faster, and I found myself pressing rewind more often so that I could re-hear speech while catching up.

Assuming sending it out to a transcription company would have cost CAD 95/audio hour and transcribing the entire thing myself would have taken 3 hours (including breaks), doing it myself results in a decent CAD 30/work hour of after-tax savings. Not bad, even though doing it myself meant I procrastinated it for two weeks. It might be cheaper if I hire a transcriptionist through oDesk or similar services. With a infrequent transcription needs, though, I’d probably spend more than two hours on screening, hiring, and delegating.

Hacking together an Arduino foot pedal was definitely a win. Transcribing with it was okay, but not my favourite activity. I might send work to a transcription company if there’s enough value in a shorter turnaround, because it took me two weeks to get around to doing this one. Good to know!

2011-08-31 Wed 21:45

I like reading much more than I like listening to someone talk, and much, much more than listening to myself talk. Text can be quickly read and shared. Audio isn’t very searchable. Besides, I still need to work on breathing between sentences and avoiding the temptation to let a sentence run on and on because another cool idea has occurred to me. Perhaps that’s what I’d focus on next, if I ever resume Toastmasters; my prepared speeches can be nice and tight, but my ad-libbed ones wander. More pausing needed.

So. Transcription. I could do it myself. I type quickly. Unfortunately, I speak quite a bit faster than I type, so I usually need to slow it down to 50% and rewind occasionally. ExpressScribe keyboard shortcuts are handy. I’ve remapped rewind to Ctrl-H so that I don’t need to take my fingers off the home row. But there’s still the there’s the argh factor of listening to myself. This is useful for reminding me to breathe, yes, but it only takes five minutes for me to get that point. ;) The other night, it took me an hour to get through fifteen minutes, which is slower than I expected. An hour-long podcast interview should take about four hours of work, then.

I could use transcription as an excuse to train Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11, the dictation software I’d bought but for this very purpose but haven’t used as much as I thought I would. It recognizes many words, but I have a lot of training to do before I get it up to speed, and I still need to edit. This would be a time investment for uncertain rewards. I still need to time how long it takes me to dictate and edit a segment.

Foot pedals would be neat, particularly if I could reprogram them for other convenient shortcuts. Three-button pedals cost from $50-$130, not including shipping. In addition to using it to stop, play, and rewind recordings, I’d love to use it for scrolling webpages or pressing modifier keys. I often work with two laptops, so it’s tempting. (And then there’s the idea of learning how to build my own human interface device using the Arduino… ) – UPDATE: I’ve built one using the Arduino! I can’t wait to try it out.

In terms of trading money for time, I’ve been thinking about trying Casting Words, which is an Amazon Mechanical Turk-based business that slices up submitted files into short chunks. Freelancers work on transcribing these chunks, which are then reassembled and edited. The budget option costs USD 0.75 per audio minute, which means an hour-long interview will cost about USD 45 to transcribe. That option doesn’t have a guaranteed turnaround, though, so I could be waiting for weeks. In addition, I tend to talk quickly, so that might trigger a “Difficult Audio” surcharge of another USD 0.75 per minute, or about USD 90 per audio hour.

For better quality at a higher price, I could work with other transcription companies. For example, Transcript Divas will transcribe audio for CAD 1.39/minute, and they guarantee a 3-day turnaround (total for 1 hour: CAD 83.40). Production Transcripts charges USD 2.05/minute for phone interviews.

I could hire a contractor through oDesk or similar services. One of the benefits of hiring someone is that he or she can become familiar with my voice and way of speaking. Pricing is based on effort instead of a flat rate per audio minute, and it can vary quite a bit. One of my virtual assistants took 14 hours to transcribe three recordings that came to 162 minutes total. At $5.56 per work hour, that came to $0.48 per audio minute, or $28 per audio hour. oDesk contractors are usually okay with an as-needed basis, which is good because I’ve scaled down my talks a lot. (I enjoy writing more!)

So here are the options:

• Type it myself: 4 hours of discretionary time
• Dictation: Unknown hours of discretionary time, possible training improvements for Dragon NaturallySpeaking
• Foot pedals: Probably down to 3.5 hours / audio hour, but requires a little money; hackability
• Casting Words: USD 90 per audio hour, unknown timeframe
• Transcript Divas: CAD 84 per audio hour, 3-day turnaround
• Contractor: Can be around USD 30 per audio hour, depending on contractor

I’m going to go with dictating into Dragon NaturallySpeaking because I need to train it before I can get a sense of how good it is. It takes advantage of something I already own and am underusing. Who knows, if I can get the hang of this, I might use it to control more functionality. We’ll see!

My last piano lesson is on Thursday, so I’m thinking about whether or not to sign up for more lessons, take lessons elsewhere, or do something else.

Benefits from the past three lessons:

• Motivated to practise daily because of accountability and because I was paying for lessons
• Picked up new exercises (two-octave scales, triads)
• Paid more attention to dynamics, timing, and staccato
• Got through pieces at a faster rate than I might have on my own
• Worked on to playing staccato with one hand and legato with the other – shifted to listening to the music and imagining what I want it to be
• Dealt with some more nervousness

Costs:

• CAD 20-25 per 30-minute lesson
• Time for actual session (30 minutes + 20 minutes of walking total)
• Practice time (30-60 minutes each day, or 3-6 hours)

Considerations:

• I’m only interested in playing casually, so I don’t mind not doing dynamics or a lot of other things. I just want enough music to relax my brain and nudge my imagination.
• I might focus on learning chords and favourite songs instead. The things I’ve been learning in class didn’t really get me closer to playing Still Alive, but I can learn that by patience and careful practice.
• I’m actually not that keen on my goal to finish all the exercises in this piano book. It would probably feel good, but I don’t mind putting this on hold and focusing on other interests such as writing and drawing

Options:

A. Finish this set of lessons, then switch to learning on my own. I can find Youtube videos of the pieces in my piano book, which will help me with timing. I may also try different pieces. I might continue my experiment with regular practice times and see how far that gets me.

B. Give the lessons another month. Possibly talk to the teacher to see if I can refocus the lesson on the parts that motivate me more.

C. Shop around – try different teachers. Can do this, but I’m less inclined to do so.

D. Dial down piano and dial up a different interest. Writing. Drawing. Latin. Volunteering. There’s a lot I can do with time and a little money set aside for learning.

I’m leaning towards D with a touch of A, maybe practising every other day and working on other interests the rest of the time. Blogging it here to remember my reasons for decisions. =)

2011-08-09 Tue 20:25

Over the past two weeks, I had been planning to go see Hugh Jackman’s concert with some friends. Apparently, he can sing quite well.

I found myself hesitating even as I juggled coupon codes and RSVPs. With a week to go and seats selling out, I ended up deciding not to go. I realized that I’d rather spend a quiet evening with W- or by myself than watch a concert.

One of my friends really wanted to go. He asked me if there was anything stopping W- from watching with us. I replied that it wasn’t really W-’s kind of thing. Come to think of it, concerts aren’t particularly my kind of thing either.

That made me think about what activities I might share with friends, and about introversion and friendship.

It’s easy to reflect on this because J- provides good contrast. She’s on her summer break. At 13 years old, she’s independent enough to choose her own activities, such as sketching at home or walking over to friends’ houses. She’s comfortable spending time on her own, but she lights up when she hangs out with friends. Not a day goes by without a get-together.

I remember being a bit like that: enjoying lunch with friends at school, inviting people to our house for snacks, suggesting things to do and movies to watch. But I’m also really comfortable by myself or with W- and J-, so it takes effort to organize or go to get-togethers.

Time to break out a tool that I sometimes use to help J- think of ideas: the list. If I think about activities I can share with other people, then it might be easier to get out there and do it, and it might make it easier for other people to share activities with me.

Some ideas:

• Concerts and symphony performances: Probably not. They tend to be more expensive, too.
• Musicals: Very rarely. I enjoyed “Evil Dead” and “Wicked” greatly, and sprung for the awesomest tickets I could get. Other musicals tend to be .
• Opera: I like opera. Watching opera makes the music come alive for me. I prefer community opera by the Toronto Opera Repertory over the Canadian Opera Company. Maybe it’s the memories (the particularly awesome date with W- that kicked all of this off). Maybe it’s knowing that the singers are doing this on top of their other lives.
• Movies: Hmm. I watch some movies in theatres because I want to vote for them with my dollars or because I think the theatre experience will be worth it (usually great effects or decent 3D). Watching a movie is a fairly passive sort of experience, though.
• Movies at home: I much prefer watching movies at home, actually – a cat or two on my lap, subtitles, the ability to pause it whenever, a comfortable couch, maybe laundry to fold… The library is awesome.
• Exercise: Biking. Walking around. I’d be up for that, even if biking involves relatively little conversation unless there’s some sort of picnic.
• Cooking: Definitely. I wish more of my friends organized potlucks, or were up to coming over for one. In the meantime, I host tea parties as an excuse to prepare interesting recipes. I enjoy the process of cooking, particularly when I’m sharing it with other people, and I like sharing the results.
• Writing/reading/drawing/sewing: I think it would be really cool to share more of my learning activities with friends. I might be up for a book club, for example. Or a writing group with exercises. Or drawing lessons. Or sewing lessons, although I’m more keen on writing, reading, and drawing. =) I’d much rather develop skills than consume experiences.

It’s a little weird working on understanding this. J- plans the other way around: she calls people and invites them to hang out, and then they figure out what to do. I feel the influence of my introversion here. I often prefer to spend time writing (look! here I am) than hanging out.

I suspect it’s good to put myself in the way of learning from other people’s lives, though, especially since many people share their lives in conversation and not online. Maybe it’ll come in time. (I’m starting to have parent-y conversations about summer enrichment!)

What activities do you share with other people?

A friend was thinking about splurging on an event that included an 8-course dinner for $95. He wrote, “I’d like to go, but that’s more than I’ve ever paid for a single meal. Thoughts?” He said that he had justified past splurges by telling himself, “Well, I’ve spent money on more frivolous things before.” He didn’t need to see me give him The Look to know that this was not the best way to go forward. I gave him plenty of advice, and here are additional reflections.

I think about spending carefully. If I can spend on the right things, minimize spending on the wrong things, and learn as much as I can from getting it right or wrong, I’ll enjoy better quality of life than I would otherwise. 

One of the techniques I use is something I picked up from Your Money or Your Life (Dominguez and Robin, 1999) – there’s an excellent blog post series on The Simple Dollar for people who want to catch up. I calculate the discretionary value of my time and use that to see if things are worth the time it takes to earn the money for them. One way to do this is by taking your income, subtracting taxes, fixed expenses, and work-related expenses, and dividing it by the number of hours you spend working or preparing to work. I like an even stricter measure. I look at the discretionary part of my bi-weekly savings allocations – that’s after taxes, savings, retirement, and other categories. I divide that by 14 days, so that I can easily get an idea of how much of a typical week, month, or year I might be committing to a purchase. This is actually a small number, because I take so much off the top for savings – less than a dollar per hour, which is why I calculate by day instead. ;) Then I can easily get a sense of how large a part of my year something will take up, and whether I think it will be worth it.

I often write down the options I’m considering and the costs, benefits, and consequences of each. For example, when I was thinking about replacing my laptop battery, I listed the options and estimated the value differences of each. I sometimes do this even for small decisions because I learn so much about my preferences and values along the way. I consider intangibles, too, and I use this technique for non-financial decisions as well. Sometimes I’m looking for a clear winner, and sometimes I’m interested in just writing my thoughts down and seeing what I’m leaning towards.

I also review my decisions to see how things turned out and if I need to tweak things further in the future. For example: clothes from Value Village, yes; compost accelerator, no; watching movie in a theatre by myself, maybe (better if I get together with friends). If something turns out to be really worth it (or really not worth it), then I learn a lot. This also helps me avoid analysis paralysis, because even if I’m not certain about a decision, I’m sure I’ll learn something from it. In fact, the more uncertain I am, the more I’ll learn – a tip I picked up from How to Measure Anything (Hubbard, 2007), which defined a measurement as whatever reduces uncertainty. Your Money or Your Life also encourages people to review their monthly budget and expenses to see which categories they want to increase or decrease depending on what contributes to their life. The practice of reviewing decisions is key to making better ones.

I sometimes nudge myself towards action using the First Circus principle, a family favourite. Not only does this tend to lead to interesting experiences, but this also takes advantage of some psychological biases. We’re more likely to regret things we didn’t do more than ones we did, and we’re also more likely to notice the presence of something (in this case, joy or disappointment) than to figure out the subtler effects of deciding not to do something.

Those are decision-making tactics. Strategy, on the other hand, involves getting a better idea of what I value, enjoy, want to become, want to support, and so on. That’s a great learning adventure, too. The more I learn about what I want in life, the easier it becomes to say no to the things I don’t want and to focus on the things that matter to me (and to the people who matter to me).

It’s all about getting better at making decisions – with money, with work, with love, with life, with everything. You’ll make tons of decisions over time, so developing your decision-making skills pays off tremendously. Money is a good way to practise: a finite resource (particularly if you think of it in terms of time) that you can choose to spend in line with your values.

How do you make spending decisions?