I've been thinking about the ideas in the book “168 Hours”, which strongly recommends personal outsourcing as a way of freeing up time that you could spend on goals or core competencies.

On one hand, I agree with it: delegation can help a lot. On the other hand, there's something here I need to explore further. I'm not sold on the idea that maximizing life is the way to go, or that this is the best fit for us.

It helps that I can compare the experiences. I grew up with maids and a cook. Laundry was whisked away, ironed and folded. There was a hot buffet at lunch in the company dining room, and dinner was sometimes business, sometimes family-style. My mom cooked a bit, and she taught us how to wash dishes.

In the Philippines, having household staff isn't that big a deal, and it really helped my parents with their business. In Canada, W- and I do all the work of maintaining the house. It's not that bad, actually. Fifteen minutes of exercise bringing the laundry down and sorting it; half an hour to fold the laundry, which is really social time + movie time; a good weekend afternoon's work preparing a month of lunches and a week of dinners, also social time; half an hour of tidying up each day and more organization during the weekends, which is really a working meditation.

We could trim our “preparation time” further by ordering groceries and household goods online instead of heading out, I suppose, or hiring out laundry or cooking. I'll try keeping a more detailed time diary to see if I can identify big chunks of time that I can recover.

What would I spend the extra time on? Writing and coding, probably. Spending more time with W-. Learning how to drive, draw, or play the piano. Sewing, so I can learn how to make things. Cooking. (Yes, I return to that; it's fun.)

But it's not a straightforward money-for-time swap. It's not just a matter of paying ~$25/hour to reclaim time for personal use. It's really a time-for-time swap, because money is time, too. I'd be trading time now for time later, considering after-tax expenses now versus the compounding growth of investments that might enable early retirement or more opportunities.

The things I'd want to do with that time – writing, for example – mature with age and experience. Squeezing out more discretionary time to work on writing might result in improvements, but a lot of it is really just a matter of living more and learning more so that I can share more.

Doing things ourselves isn't drudgework, either. We can save, learn, exercise, and build our relationship, all at the same time. If I ever run into tasks I truly despise, I might outsource those, but W- and I are easy-going and have so far managed well. (In fact, cooking all that food leaves me with a warm glow of accomplishment and productivity, and I learn a lot along the way.) I don't feel starved for time. I feel that there's enough time to do the things I want to do – perhaps not all of them, but that teaches me to prioritize and be efficient.

And of course, there's my resistance to lifestyle inflation. ;) The longer I can live a simple life, the more I can resist the hedonic treadmill and sock away savings I won't even miss.

I might dust off my experiments with virtual assistance and try out cooking and cleaning services. Some frugal bloggers I read have said wonderful things about housekeeping. We might see if it's a good fit.

Shifting time around to have more discretionary time would be nice, but am I close to the point of diminishing returns considering the other factors, or are there other things I might discover if I keep at the experiment? Hmm….

Have you experimented with this? What have you done with your newly-freed-up time? Or how have you made household work even more productive?

2010-12-31 Fri 08:26

I promised to put together tips for networking at conferences. While sketching out my ideas, I realized that my conference experiences have probably been very different from other people's. I had a blog before I started going to conferences, and it was perfectly natural for me to use that blog to share my conference notes. I've also spoken at most conferences I've attended, which really makes it easier to connect with other conference attendees. All the other tips I can share (custom nametags, easy-to-spot outfits, business cards, notebooks, etc.) are icing on the cake. If I can get people to make the big change to writing or speaking (or both!), that will do far more for the value they get from conferences than any little tip I can share about where to wear the nametag. (On your upper right, if possible, near your shoulder, so that people can see it when shaking hands; barring that, close to your neck, even if it looks a little weird, so that people can see it in their peripheral vision instead of having to obviously glance down.)

Blogging and speaking are probably the two most intimidating things I can ask people to do in this context. Speaking seems like the harder one. There are only so many slots, and people have such hang-ups around public speaking. But we've also terrified most people out of posting on the Internet because of all this fuss about personal branding and the infinite memory of search engines. I'm very annoyed about this, because I think so many “social media experts” have done us all a disservice by telling people they have to present a perfect image.

But this is what I have to work with. People might like a few connecting tips (conference conversation openers: don't go for the dead-end “what do you do?” that requires creativity or coincidence to get the conversation going; instead, use conversations as a chance to learn about other sessions and other people's experiences, and create excuses to follow up by promising to share notes or follow up on ideas). How do I get people to the point where they can make more radical changes, such as starting a blog – even if it's only for conference-related things?

Here is a list of conference-related blog post ideas:

Before the conference:

• What sessions are you planning to attend? Why? What do you hope to learn? Post titles, session descriptions, speakers, and your thoughts.
• Who are the speakers? Have they shared any presentations or blog posts related to what you want to learn? Post links and what you've learned. This might prompt you to revise your plans.
• Can you find other attendees? Link to their plans and connect with them beforehand.
• How can you share your thoughts after the session? Share any plans for post-conference presentations or conference reports.
• Is there a backchannel for connecting with other conference attendees, like a Twitter hashtag you can search for and use? What are the best ways of discussing what's going on?

During the conference:

• What have you learned from the sessions you've attended? What were the key points, and what are your next actions? You can do a few bullet points or paragraphs per session, and organize your posts by day. If you have detailed notes, you might post one entry per session. You don't have to take notes on everything, but write down what inspired you or made you think, what questions you want to explore, and what you want to do based on what you learned.
• What have you learned from the conversations you've been having? What are the other sessions you want to look into later? What experiences have other attendees shared? What actions have you promised for following up?
• Who else has shared their conference notes? Link to them and share what you're learning from them.
• What's working well for this conference? What could make it even better?

After the conference:

• Overall, what did you learn from the conference? What were the most important insights and actions you took away?
• What value did you get from the conference? Was it worth the time and effort you invested into it? If your conference attendance was sponsored by an organization, what value did that organization receive? (This is a good thing to include in your post-conference report so that you can increase your chances of attending future conferences. ;) )
• What actions are you planning to take based on what you've learned?
• Who else has shared conference-related resources? Link to them and share what you're learning.
• How did your post-conference sharing go? Share your consolidated report or your presentation notes.
• What new sessions would you like to attend at the next conference? What would it take for you to learn and present those sessions yourself?
• What were the results of the insights and actions you had because of the conference? What new things did you learn when you put them into practice?
• Now that you've acted on what you've learned from the conference, what new value has your conference attendance given you and your organization?
• What are you learning from your ongoing conversations with the people you met at the conference?
• What worked well for you? How would you make your next conference attendance even more worthwhile?

See, there are tons of things to write about that don't involve trivial things.

I can't think of anything that's a better fit than a blog. Twitter and tumblelogs are a start, but they're not going to cut it. Too short, too dispersed. Facebook updates are too protected. You want these notes to be picked up by search engines so that you can connect with attendees, speakers, organizers, people from your organization, people who are interested in the topic, and so on. A blog is an excellent way to do this, and it's easy to start one on a site like WordPress.com.

You might have two sets of notes: a fuller set of notes for personal or internal use, and a set of notes without confidential information that you can share on your blog.

Bonus: If you share your notes through blog posts, you've got an instant excuse for following up with anyone you met at the conference. Something like “Hi! Just a quick note to say that it was great to see you at CONFERENCE NAME. In case you find these useful, here are my notes from the conference: LINK.”

And if they like what you've written and they want to keep in touch, you don't have to rely on the fragility of e-mail communications that can stop if one person forgets or doesn't reply. People can subscribe to your blog and keep up with your future updates, even if the next post is only when you share your plans for attending another conference.

See? Blogging and conferences make perfect sense.

But I still have to figure out how to get people past that instant reaction of “Oh, I could never do that, I'm not a blogger, I'm not a public sort of person, I don't have the time to do this,” and it's hard because I've never had to get over that hump myself. Yes, there was a point in my life when I wasn't a blogger, and I'm still not a very extroverted sort of person. But because conferences are a weird combination of energizing and draining for me, and because I can't bear to waste all that time listening without doing and learning and sharing, and because I hate imposing on conference contacts by trying to build the relationship through personalized e-mails instead of just starting it off with a gift of notes and a low-key way to stay in touch if they want to… I can't help blogging and sharing.

I've promised to put together this collection of tips on connecting at conferences. I'm going to keep trying to figure out how to explain this blogging thing, because I want people to learn a lot from conferences and make great connections. Onward!

This wasn't how I thought I'd spend the holidays. I planned to write, draw, and reorganize the house and my digital life. Instead, I found myself deep in washing machine parts, disassembling the LG WM2140CW so that the 27" washer could fit through our 26" staircase. It was the first time I’d disassembled anything brand-new, much less a major appliance. Here’s what I learned.

1. A great relationship transforms hard work into lots of fun. W- and I worked on disassembling and reassembling that washing machine all afternoon and into quite a bit of the evening. Because I was there, he didn’t have to do it alone. Because he was there, I not only discovered more of W-’s amazing skills, but developed my own. We worked more efficiently together than he could have on his own: another pair of hands to keep things steady or pass a screwdriver, another set of eyes to spot the spring holding the gasket in place, another person to find a free online copy service manual for our exact model (you wouldn’t believe how many ad-spam and link-spam sites there are for service manuals)…

W- and I joked that even if our gamble failed and the washing machine didn’t turn back on, it would’ve been worth it as the tuition for skills and the prevention of future couples’ therapy costs. ;)

So it was exercise AND social time AND preparation time, and now I need to find a better time-tracking system that takes into account perfect days like that when everything comes together. Not multitasking, but combination.

Even if you don’t have a significant other who can turn things like this into wonderful bonding moments, you might be able to share your hard work with friends. For example, I once held an IKEA assembly party, which was lots of fun and which resulted in a kitted-out apartment. =)

2. Before you move large things, look for anything that might scratch it, and disassemble more than you think you need. Orient it based on risky areas, too. We forgot to take off the door holder (part 1), and it scraped and dented the front part of the washer instead of the back (part 2). Learning from our mistake, we disassembled it and took the dryer through without any problems. W- hammered the dent out. The scratches can be touched up with paint (yay white washers, no colour-matching like the red ones would’ve required), but it would’ve been nice to avoid that in the first place.

3. Don’t be afraid of taking things apart. Particularly when you’re working with an electrical engineer who gained experience by taking apart the previous washing machine, and when you’ve got enough of an emergency fund so that messing up is annoying but not catastrophic. I now know way more about washing machines than I learned from How It’s Made or from the exploded parts diagrams.

4. Service manuals rock. I can understand why they’re not just part of the package (after all, most consumers won’t need them). I’m glad we found them, though. Although we were willing to pay a little extra for the features of the Samsung washer, we found the LG service manual for free, and that decided it for us. ‘Course, now that I’ve done some more digging, I’ve found a Maytag Technical Institute service manual for a Samsung washing machine we could probably have used, but ah well. =) I like the LG service manual a bit more because it uses clear diagrams, although the photos in the other one are good for general orientation.

Retailers or sales representatives who sell appliances could keep a copy of the service manual so that they can answer questions from people about how far the machines can be disassembled in order to get it through a narrow opening, although I suppose that’s a very niche thing. ;)

The service manual’s disassembly guide pointed out screws we might’ve taken a long time to find, the spring holding the bellows closed, and the sequence in which to take off the panels. It didn’t go as far as removing the drum, but we figured that part out easily.

5. Watch out for sharp bits on the interiors of machines. Yes, the washing machine was all rounded corners and smiles on the outside, but boy, there were some sharp edges on the inside. Move carefully.

6. Keep track of your screws by screwing them into the empty places. Make rebuilding easier by returning screws to the proper location after detaching whatever needs to be detached. It’s hard to label everything correctly or to remember where each type of screws go. Let the machine remember for you. If you don’t rattle things around too much and the screws are fairly secure, you probably won’t lose any screws when you move the machine.

7. Use magnetic screw-holders to keep your other screws together. If you can’t leave the screw in, you can keep it in a magnetic screw-holder. This is generally a good idea, and almost a necessity if you have cats who like chasing loose things around. I’m looking at you, Luke.

8. Keep screws from old projects. If you have left-over screws from other projects (say, reassembled items that mysteriously had more screws than you started with, or optional parts you didn’t use), keep them organized. You never know when you’ll need to replace a screw after searching under the couch and all the other usual Bermuda triangles for cat toys.

9. Resist the urge to snap the plastic bits. If connectors appear to be stuck together, it could be some kind of latch you can find and open instead of snapping various plastic bits until the connectors can be eased apart. ;) Patience.

10. Celebrate. If you can’t celebrate successfully rebuilding a washing machine and hearing the sweet, sweet sounds of it turning on without any leaks or explosions, what can you celebrate? Even though we had lots of food in the fridge (such as a turkey we’ve been chipping away at since Friday), we headed out to Pho Hung for some delicious bowls of pho. Perfect wrap-up for a perfect day.

See pictures on Picasa

There's this odd little holiday called Boxing Day right after Christmas. In Canada, it seems to be primarily celebrated through sales. It's a mad rush I've managed to avoid for the past few years, but this time, we ventured forth. Our washing machine needed fixing, and we thought we'd replace it on our terms instead of waiting for it to give.

W- spent yesterday afternoon taking apart the old washing machine. The bearings were shot and the shaft was pitted, so most of the drum assembly would need to be replaced. After checking for parts online, we calculated that it would cost more to repair the old Frigidaire than to buy a new washer. The dryer had been making weird noises, too, so we figured we'd check out the Boxing Day sales.

With three cats and weekly laundry loads, we knew we wanted a front-loading washing machine that could handle duvets. For front-loading washers with more than 3.5 cubic feet capacity, the washing machine industry had standardized on widths of 27″. Problem: the basement stairs offered 26″ of space – and that was after W- removed the door and knocked all the trim off.

We seriously contemplated removing drywall, but it would only get us a little bit more space. Still not enough. Then we looked at real estate listings. Briefly. (For want of a nail…)

Then we went back to looking at washing machines and figuring out which ones we might be able to disassemble enough to get them downstairs.

It came down to a choice between a Samsung and an LG one. The Samsung washing machine had better features, but we didn't know if we could disassemble it far enough. We found a service manual for a similar LG washing machine with part diagrams and troubleshooting guides, so we ended up choosing that instead.

Future Shop didn't have the machines in store and we wanted to get the washing machine before their delivery date of January 8, so we decided to pick up the machines at the delivery center in Caledon.

The machines wouldn't fit in the Subaru. We looked into renting a van from the nearby Home Depot, but the service clerk gave W- a hard time about renting the van for the plywood he bought as a pretext. So we rented a cargo van from U-Haul, picked up the washer and dryer, and brought them home.

We weren't sure if we could muscle the machines into the house on our own, so I had baked some thank-you brownies just in case. With a dolly and J-‘s help, though, we managed it. The front door of the washing machine got dinged in the process because we forgot to take the door catch off (and to orient it for possible scratching), but it's okay. It's just stuff.

Now we're disassembling it to see if we can get it to fit down the narrow staircase. I cut myself on one of those razor-sharp internal edges (who knew!), but W- patched me up with a Band-aid. I found the service manual for our model (including disassembly instructions!) so that should help us find out about the screws that are hiding.

This isn't how I saw myself using the Christmas break (I was thinking about organizing and drawing), but it's good work, and this is a better time to do it than a hectic weekend. I can always draw after work. Laundry, however, is laundry.

Here's to hoping that everything will still work when we put it back together again!

2010-12-27 Mon 06:21

One of the challenges of testing views or custom Drupal code is generating the right kind of data. Devel can generate hundreds of random nodes, but you might need more custom data than that. For example, on our project, we need to have test users, their content profiles, and nodes that follow a certain node reference structure. By creating a class that extends DrupalWebTestCase and provides convenience functions on top of drupalCreateNode, we can easily create test data as part of our test cases. Copying the code from drupalCreateUser and making our own version that uses roles and content profiles helps us set up the right users, too.

We wanted our tests and changes to use the same database tables used by the web interface, so we overrode the setUp methods to use the actual database. This not only makes the tests faster, it also makes them more useful for the web testing and demos.

Many of our test cases create the data they need. However, some test cases need even more complex structures that are similar from one test to another. Instead of creating and recreating them on each test, I've written another test case for populating the data. For example, PopulateTestUsers sets up about 30 users with different characteristics. I can then write other tests that assume PopulateTestUsers has been run and the sample users and nodes are available.

How do we generate the users and nodes without getting tangled in lots of PHP? Here's a technique I picked up from Stuart Robertson, an IT architect with lots of good ideas. He fills in a spreadsheet with the values he wants test data to have. He then uses other columns to generate PHP that set the individual fields, and another column that generates PHP based on the generated PHP. For example, a formula to set a CCK value might look like this:

=IF(B3<>"",CONCATENATE("'field_widget_doohickey' => array(array('value' => '",B3,"')),"),"")

which turns a value of “foo” in B3 to

'field_widget_doohickey' => array(array('value' => 'foo'))

which is then something you can pass to the node creation function. To figure out the syntax for other node attributes, use var_dump or your favourite debugging tool to look at a node that has the information you want.

You might have the final generation like this:

=CONCATENATE("$this->createWidget('",A3,"',array(",E3,"));")

where createWidget is a function you've defined to make things more readable. It would be a wrapper around drupalCreateNode that sets the type and does other things.

This spreadsheet makes it so much easier for us to work with our test data because we can refer to it to find test data matching criteria when designing our tests or trying things out using the web interface. Adding new test items is easy: just fill in the rows, copy the equations, and then copy the generated code and paste it into the test case.

Naming tip: Using a different naming convention makes it easy for me to use our custom-coded Drush testre command (run tests matching a regular expression) to run just the tests that populate data, or just the tests that assume data is there. Likewise, test cases that use SimpleTest's web client ($this->get, etc.) have a different naming convention so that I can avoid running these slower tests when I just want to do a quick check.

Simpletest is a powerful tool. I've used it on every Drupal project I've worked on, even when I was the only one writing tests. Combined with a spreadsheet for generating structured test data, it's a great help for development and demonstration, because we can set up or refresh complicated sets of users and nodes in little time. Well worth investing time to learn and use.

SCHEDULED: 2010-12-23 Thu 08:00

UPDATE: Emacs 24 has not yet been released. Developers can get it from the version control system (git/master, for example). Alpha/nightly builds are available for Windows and Mac OSX. This is still a bleeding-edge version. Expect much breakage, even from popular packages like BBDB.

See C-h n (view-emacs-news) for all the details. Some highlights:

What a year for major life changes!

My cat Neko and I officially moved to Canada this year when I got my permanent residency in January. After wrestling my unhappy and rather pointy cat into the soft-shell carrier, I stowed her under the seat in front of me. Not a single meow or yowl  out of her during the long flight, although there was a moment in airport security when I had a cat on my head.

Neko seems to to be getting along quite fine. She has discovered all the warm spots in the house, and has claimed the top cat position at home even though Luke and Leia are both twice her size.

Me, I think I've figured out the secret to dealing with winter, too. Flannel pajamas, soft and warm sheets, plenty of thermals, and the renaming of winter to "baking season".   Good thing we biked a lot during the warm months.

I got a promotion and a new manager at work. I'm doing a lot of Drupal development again, which is tons of fun. I'm starting to get the hang of this, I think. There are topics that I feel comfortable being "the expert" on in workshops, although really it's more like doing the background research and being ready to brainstorm and ask questions.

J-’s in grade 7. The alternative school she's going to now is interesting because the subjects are integrated, so she's learning about, say, world hunger in mathematics and geography and all her other subjects. She's hitting that growth spurt, too. Her feet are bigger than mine, and she'll grow into them soon enough.

We picked up and deepened a few interests, too. We all learned woodworking this year, building our own Adirondack chairs. (Yes, even J- built one, with our help!) I'm still amazed that I can have a chair that actually fits me, as most lounge chairs are a bit too long.
The chairs were a great vantage point for viewing our garden, which has  yielded lots of ampalaya (bitter melon) for pinakbet, plenty of herbs for pasta sauce, and peas and cherry tomatoes for snacking. We're looking forward to growing even more fruits, vegetables and herbs in next year's garden! 

W- and I got married in Toronto City Hall. To keep things sane and introvert-friendly, we celebrated with just family and a few practically-family friends. Everyone flew in, and it was fantastic having family gathered around the kitchen table. The poor photographer was probably intimidated by all these people with better cameras and tons of photography
experience, but he survived. Tita Gay was a force of nature, practically bringing along a wedding in a suitcase. She surprised us with bubbles and wedding favours. She and my sister Kathy catered the whole thing, and they conspired with Ching and John to spring a wedding
cake on us. We ate pretty much constantly during the week my family spent in Canada, and really good food too. We just finished the very last lumpia from our stash from Tita Gay and are looking forward to making more.

Inspired by how my mom and dad built these great friendships over time and distance, we've been working on being more social: giving home-made kitchen gifts, writing Christmas cards and letters (hi!), and going to and organizing get-togethers. It's surprisingly fun! We're looking forward to learning more about building relationships over time.

What a year!

2011 promises to be amazing. We're looking forward to celebrating Kathy and John's wedding in the Netherlands and the Philippines. We're also looking  forward to learning more about woodworking and getting even more out of our garden. Me, I can’t wait to do more writing, drawing, and programming, and I’m excited about opportunities to develop my communication and consulting skills.

Please help us with our project of building relationships. =) How was your year? What are you looking forward to in the next one? What are your stories? You can find our past yearly updates at https://sachachua.com/blog/category/yearly . Looking forward to hearing from you!

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Updates from last year:

In last year’s learning plan, I said that my key priorities were:

1. Share as much as I can at work and in life. I want to share as much as possible so that other people can build on that foundation. At work, this means creating enablement material, blogging, organizing the shared content, and helping communities and individuals.
2. Learn more about drawing, animation, and video. I want to get even better at thinking things through and communicating what I’m learning. The better I get at sharing, the more I can help people learn.
3. Continue living an awesome life! I can’t wait to explore the experiment opportunities that are sure to come up. I’m looking forward to further building my relationships with W- and J-, family, friends, communities, and the world, too. And I’m definitely looking forward to bringing my cat to Canada as I complete the permanent residency process. I miss her! =)

Although I didn’t get as much into animation and video as I hoped to, I’ve had fun learning about everything else, and I think I’ll continue to focus on writing, drawing, sharing, and connecting in 2011. =)

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Links:

• Yearly: 2009, 2008
• Monthly reviews: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November