sacha chua :: social intranet consultant and geek

One week on the ground–that’s all I have in between flights. We got back from a two-week vacation in the Philippines. I was glad to see that I’d tied everything up neatly before I left and things had gone on in my absence. Between catching up and getting ready for my next set of flights, my week was just packed (but in a very good way). Here’s what happened:

• I made my first photobook. Well, I didn’t bother with captions or anything… Just dumped all the pictures into Picasa, did a little photo correction, uploaded them to Shutterfly, and organized them into roughly logical groups. We’ll see how well that worked when the photobooks arrive.
• The jetlag-assisted early start was terrific for my productivity. Unfortunately, it didn’t last all week. A few late evenings set me back to my pre-trip schedule. At least I’ve tasted the productivity of an early-morning schedule. If I can get away with following that schedule during the next few weeks’ conferences, I think that would be awesome. If late-night networking means I can’t get up at 3:30 or 4:00 without zombie-ing out during the conferences sessions, I’ll stick with the usual day schedule, and I’ll try going back to an early schedule after this month of conferences.
• Most of my week was spent doing internal work for my team, preparing for the various conferences that are coming up. I managed to do a little client work, too. I feel reasonably happy with my preparation for the next few conferences.
• I finished my article on personal finance with Ledger and Gnuplot for the Linux Journal. Hooray!

Next week, I’m flying to IBM Palisades in New York for the Best Practices Conference, and then to Florida for the Technical Leadership Exchange. If I can survive both conferences with plenty of networking opportunities and without falling flat on my face during my presentations, I think I’ll count that as a win.

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Tags: weekly by Sacha Chua
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• Yesterday, I got up early and made garlic fried rice, longganisa, and scrambled eggs. The high-protein breakfast worked! I didn’t get hungry until about lunchtime, which meant that I didn’t dig into my emergency stash of peanut butter cookies. This is good. I’m going to make garlic rice, breakfast sausages, and scrambled eggs today. I should pick up some buttermilk so that I can make pancakes.
• I still need to figure out what to do about my short-run business cards, as no card-printing business will take runs of 50, much less do them in less than a week. I’m leaning towards printing on card stock and doing the cutting myself. I’m going to see if I can use the Xacto knives we already have. If not, time to spring for one of those big rotary cutters…
• Yesterday’s mentoring chat with David Singer was a lot of fun. I enjoyed being able to talk about some of the things I was excited about, such as the conferences I’m attending next week. He gave me a useful way to think about what I like to do, too: I’m a pollinator. Interesting…
• Despite going to bed at 10 last night, I was up at 3:30 again this morning. A little sleepier than the previous four days, but I wanted to keep my schedule more than I wanted a few more hours of sleep. I exercised again this morning. This is good. =)
• I like this. Working at the office from 8 to 4-ish means that I don’t have to squeeze into the subway and I can take advantage of the quiet times at the office.
• I’m still looking for a better blog editor under Linux. Something that can handle posting dates and multiple blogs would be nice.
• Work continues on my Ledger article. I wrote 771 words in one hour yesterday, and that’s just all about the envelope budgeting. I’m going to finish that section and start on regular budgeting today. It’s kinda funny how I write backwards. I started working on the second-to-the-last chapter of my book, and I’m moving towards earlier chapters. I started at the second-to-the-last part of this article, and I’m moving towards the beginning. Maybe it’s because that allows me to think about where I want people to be after they finish reading my article, and then work backwards until I get them there. It intimidates me less than starting from the beginning and figuring out where I want to take people.
• I’ve brainstormed a list of topics for my work blog, and hope to write enough of them to schedule posting over the two weeks that I’ll be away. It’s like dipping a toe into the problogging life. If I plan the topics well, then I’ll get to learn and write about things I wanted to learn anyway. Also, I’m still looking for a terrific outline program for the Palm. Hmm…
• Life is great. =)

Tags: morning-pages by Sacha Chua
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Flying to the other side of the world means almost a full day in transit. Here are three tips to help you get through your next long flight:

• Drink plenty of water. It’s easy to forget to drink water on a plane. I usually ask the flight attendants for two glasses of water. This has the side effect of also making you stand up and exercise once in a while, which is good for avoiding deep-vein thrombosis.

• Bring noise-isolating earphones. An eye-mask is also helpful. You can usually plug the earphones into airline seats, giving you better audio than the earphones provided by the airline.
• Bring a variety of things to do. A pen, a pad of paper, and an MP3 player will keep you busy throughout the flight.

How do you fly over the ocean?

Tags: Uncategorized by Sacha Chua
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• Kathryn Everest has the most vivid figures of speech I know. Yesterday, she described social media adoption as “You can hear the rickets of the rollercoaster.” Beautiful.

• I woke up at 3:30 today. Did 53 jumping jacks, 23 semi-pushups, 23 crunches, 8 dips, and 34 leg raises - all one up from yesterday. I keep having to rest during the leg raises, maybe because they’re at the end of the exercise and I’m tired. Or at least my muscles want a break - the rest of me is up and raring to write.
• I finally ordered personalized business cards yesterday. They won’t make it in time for my first two conferences, but they’ll be pretty handy during the rest of the conferences. I like using business cards and index cards as handouts during presentations, so I still want a color inkjet printer so that I can make my short-run cards. Shipping would get pretty expensive if I keep ordering custom business cards for each presentation. The Canon Pixma ip3000 looks ideal, but FutureShop only stocks the ip4500. Wish it did duplex index cards, though. Is any printer actually capable of doing so? Please tell me before I head to FutureShop tomorrow. =)
• Those high-protein breakfasts we had in the Philippines might be a good idea after all. Oatmeal at 5 in the morning vanishes by 9. I finished both the carrot sticks and the peanut butter cookies way before lunch. Today I’ll try cooking garlic rice and longganisa, of which many varieties are available at the T&T Supermarket. Yay!
• I’m thinking of setting aside some money every month for shared experiences - you know, go out and do something with people. Pottery lessons? A photography walk? A weekend getaway? Fortunately, there are now all sorts of experience sellers: Xperience Days, Virgin Experience Days, Cloud 9 Living… There’s also Perfect Day Gifts here in Toronto. Hmm…

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Maybe there’s some truth to the advice, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Thanks to jetlag, I’ve been up uncharacteristically early. I like the new rhythm my day has taken.

Before this jetlag-assisted early start, I used to stumble out of bed, scarf down a quick breakfast, and head to the office. Waking up was a gradual process, and it took me about an hour or so to warm up for more creative work. After I returned from the office, I tried to squeeze in some personal creative time in the evenings. I found it difficult to write when my brain was tired from work. Finding the time to exercise was low on my list, as it took me away from other things I would rather be doing.

Yesterday, I simply couldn’t stay in bed past 3:30 in the morning. That gave me plenty of time to exercise, plan my day and my week, and write a thousand words for my book. I arrived at the office at 8 o’ clock and worked on my most important tasks. Because I had breakfast earlier, I got hungry earlier, too. Fortunately, I had brought brownies from the Philippines, and that helped me last until lunch time. I felt myself winding down in the afternoon, so I worked on some more routine tasks. When I got home, I spent some time tidying up and chatting with other people. This was a good way to relax and get ready to sleep. I was asleep by 8.

Today I’ll find out if I can repeat that rhythm. This morning, I woke up at 4:30. I prepared oatmeal, then exercised while the oatmeal simmered. Exercising first thing in the morning meant that I woke up quickly and with lots of energy. I even found the time to bake peanut butter cookies. The only hiccup was that I had some filesystem problems with my laptop, so I didn’t get around to writing as much as I wanted. I spent some time sketching instead.

Tonight, I’ll see if preparing breakfast and lunch in the evening is a good way to use my downtime to free up some of my personal creative time. Tomorrow, I’ll set my alarm clock for even earlier. I’d also like to move my morning writing session earlier, perhaps even before breakfast. Kaizen: relentless improvement.

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Tags: kaizen, self-improvement by Sacha Chua
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