Ryu's Blog

I probably spent a bit more time reading Penelope Trunk’s blog than I should, but I’ll forgive myself as it’s the first time I came across it. It’s easy to get carry away when reading advice/tips giving blogs like this, as they are generally easy and fun to read and contain many links to other advice/tips/interesting articles.  I find it useful to set a time limit for blog reading so I’d have time to do other things I value. Below are some interesting posts.

Never say you’re busy:

Let’s abolish the word busy. When you ask someone, “How have you been?” and they say, “Busy,” it doesn’t mean anything. I’m sick of it. We all have the same 24 hours to fill. Everyone’s are filled with something.

The difference is that the “busy” people feel frenetic during those hours. Those of you who walk around telling everyone how busy you are, get a grip. Make some tough choices and calm down. There’s a big difference between a busy day and a full day. The former is so frantic that you aren’t effective.

I agree with what she said, but I can think two reasons why someone might want to say he/she is busy: 1) it’s a way to decline requests/distractions/invitations without having to be rude (alternative to saying “I don’t think talking with you is worth my time”), 2) to appear busy can be a useful signal that you’re ambitious and productive, though I guess the best way to signal you’re busy is by not saying it directly.

On information overload:

So focus on meeting your goals rather than saving time. Information is not something you have time for or don’t have time for. Information is either helping you meet your goals or not.

On looks and career (read her argument for plastic surgery):

Her predictions:

So my prediction is that soon we will all capitulate to the undeniable evidence that we have more opportunity in life if we are better looking, and it’s relatively easy to buy good looks. So we will. It will be something everyone does as they graduate from college, and not just the most rich and privileged kids. Plastic surgery will be for the go-getters and career-minded. Just you wait and see.

On decision making:

Stop obsessing over your choices and just decide. Most people overestimate the regret they’ll experience after making an emotionally charged choice, according to research from the University College London. In fact, Karim Kassam, a psychologist working at Harvard, shows that we figure out how to justify most of our big decisions, no matter how good or bad they were. He calls it our “psychological immune system.”

The Harvard Business Review also reveals that we are not good at making decisions with a lot of data points involved. Which means that frequently, the longer you spend on a decision, the less productive you are. This research, maybe, gives you the temerity to take a leap, knowing that your decision won’t get smarter or easier to live with if you take longer.

Being an optimizer, I’m not a decisive person. But luckily I’ve outsourced most of the non-critical decisions to my trustworthy CFO.

Here are her posts on (not needing to) do what you love, what you don’t need a perfect job (I’m also a Dan Gilbert fan), job hunting, time management, and the new gender gap.

Recession can lead to more romance.  And it can change our way of living.

Lots of good podcast from my Alma mater. Clay Shirky on social organization, Danny Quah on China, Aghion on growth, and earlier Ed Glaeser on cities. The Q&A session might be more interesting for those who already familiar with the topics. Danny Quah remains one of my favorite professors. I wish I’d taken more courses with him back then. 

David Leonhardt on time inconsistency here and here.

Charlie Rose with Gopnik and Updike. I admire good writers and find them mysterious, partly because I don’t write well. I should read more fictions. 

I now know why I never feel ‘hot’.

Obama’s Inaugural Address. The Japanese uses it to study English.

Want to avoid impulse shopping? Don’t touch the item. 

Happy Chinese New Year to all.

A long article on what does knowing your personal genome mean.  I would be interested in, but not obsessive about, knowing mine, partly out of curiosity, partly to learn something about myself. Reading this article makes me want to watch Gattaca again.

Think economics is boring, check this out. The "You might be an economist if…" section makes sense to me. Perhaps that’s why I’m often the subject of jokes.

Two interesting guys talking about interesting topics.

Just discover that Vox has an audio podcast section. More interesting things to listen to.