What I Learned From Using An Old Computer For Work

Life is full of surprises!

So I just got this laptop back after a month. It cost me a lot just for the repairs. But the results were ironically pleasant.

It was not that I was so happy my Mac is back, but because of the experience. It was inevitable to use my old desktop. Who would have thought I get things done with an old dual core, Windows 7,  2 gigabytes of RAM computer bought four years ago.

But for me using an old desktop and feeling miserable is not the point. Actually, a lot of surprises and blessings just kept on coming ever since that minor fallback. In just three weeks I improved my professionalism (in a great extent), my pay, my jobs, and even how I manage time.

I just thought of sharing this to anyone who experienced a misfortune before. If you are interested to tag along, then ere are the things that I learned from using an old computer for work.

It made me time conscious

Now with all my productivity apps gone, like Promodoro timers, I tried to adapt on the desktop. And you know what? I actually discovered something better than what I’ve been using.

I always thought I had the best program for that since I always consider I’m on a better OS (I know that's a stupid way of thinking). But this specific program for Promodoro is ten times better.

If you’re wondering what Promodoro timer is, it’s basically a productivity timer that promotes 25 minutes of focus and 5 minutes interval and somehow a longer break after four or segments.

I have been using this ever since I worked online. But I just used simple timers before and do the intervals manually. I just didn’t notice that a lot of apps have been developed for it. Now, instead of just manually adding my list of targets from an excel file, I just type in everything in the program enabling me to check those I’ve done. It's simple, automatic, and sleek.

This simple discovery allowed me to see “the big picture” on where my day is headed. It’s a perfect way to meet goals and sleep better at night -- knowing I had a productive day.

I don’t sleep with work anymore

Now, I no longer sleep with my laptop. I usually do (or so I think I do) some last minute work in bed, which usually ends up instead with browsing, reading manga, or watching a movie. 

But now that I find it impossible to bring the desktop upstairs, I make sure I finish all my work before deciding to go to my room. This means that the only activity I do in bed is sleep, with some exceptions if I decide to read a book or have some late night phone calls with a chick (in my dreams LoL).

It gave me more ways to earn

I ended up having excess time than usual -- even with doing a full-time online job. It started when I became I lot more focused on my tasks at hand. Since I can’t open numerous programs and tabs on the browser, I tend to finish tasks in time. It’s a relatively small realization, but its benefits are tenfold. I’m even applying this principle even though I’m with my laptop now.

I never understood the beauty of clarity and a de-cluttered workspace on the computer not until now.

Furthermore, in one of my reads, I discovered that time is money, and money is time. In short, if one appreciates their own time and focus on productive tasks, then money will come along. Hopefully, I’m on the right track.

It made me see the beauty of versatility

I could say that I could work on both OS efficiently now. It’s easy to change function keys.

I read one research that changing the way you do things may help in developing both sides of the brain. So I try to change mouse scrolls, which I do differently depending on the OS. Also, the keys are naturally different. 

Of course, this concept of developing the brain is not only limited to using a computer. I heard from Bernard Marquez from one Truly Rich Club Mentor talk, that you could even learn juggling for you to develop your brain and creativity. You never know you might see me juggling on the streets.

With all these experiences, it made me see the beauty of versatility, of trying out new things, of not being afraid of changes and so on. It’s amazing!

I found beauty in everything

The most important lesson I learned is probably the appreciation of things that we have already thrown or neglected. I realized that everything we have right now was at some point “brand new.” This also means that there were once a time when we were so glad to have them.

Stepping back and appreciating these old things made me realize that I got so much more. And I don’t really need fancy things to live or to earn. I just need what’s necessary.

I guess this holds true to all as well. We don’t need the fancy looking car, the latest smartphones, and the cool gadgets. We just need the simple and basic things to appreciate life.

One step forward, two steps back.

Lastly, I realized that a fallback is not entirely a failure. Yes I may have worried at first on where to find thirty thousand pesos to pay for the repairs. I managed to borrow a credit card from my dad, which pretty much gave me a month deadline. Also, I never wanted to use any of my savings.

Now, I’m glad to have come up with the money (basically jobs and sidelines that allow me to pay) in just two weeks. It’s crazy! But once you see that fallbacks are just there to tell you that you can do more, you just discovered a cookie jar or some sort. You know. It’s just an ugly mask of beautiful things.

I’d like to say that I have better perspectives these past few days. I think I can face life with most kinds of failure. I tend to worry less and fear less. I figured out there’s nothing really stopping you from doing something if you truly just go for it. And God or the universe will provide the path to you.

In relevance to my programming projects, I can see that any device is fine. It’s the core work that matters. Also, we’re never going to be ready, we just have to keep on moving forward and we’ll figure it all out, in a way, once we’re out there hustling.

I do know that this is quite a subjective post. I just thought of sharing how grateful I am for the fallbacks in life. This old computer among others has brought me wisdom in some way.

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The Only Secret You Need In Life - Stephen Covey's Quadrants

Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People is one of the most influential books in my life. In this book, you will learn about forming habits, leadership, and getting to know what you really want. However, the concept I’m going to share today is what many people consider as the meat of the book.

It’s the four quadrants.

I heard of his quadrants even before I read the book. I got to be honest with you, I just finished the book just recently and I’m glad to say that I have a better understanding of the concept now. 

I’ve been trying to apply this in my life, and I could see the potential of what Ill be getting if I uphold it. Yet, this treasure cove is not just for me, it’s for everybody.

I might be wrong, but this is an important aspect that could change your life.

Before anything else, there’s a gold in the quadrant. Try to figure it out as you read along.

Quadrants Explained

Quadrant is defined as each of for quarters of a circle. In this quadrant, we will have to pay attention to the X-axis and Y-axis. The X- axis (horizontal) has the value of “urgency” while the y-axis (vertical) has the value of “importance.”

Basically, you set the quadrants on those values. (1) The first quadrant relating to urgent and important things. (2) The second for non-urgent yet important things. (3) The third relates to urgent activities but are not important, and (4) the last quadrant for non-pressing and trivial things. 

Check the graph below.

Let’s try a 2-minute activity.

Point out things in your life that you think falls more or less likely in each quadrant. If you haven’t done this in activity yet, then now is the right time. I highly encourage you to really write it down in a piece of paper.

Done? Now look at your answer as a whole.

Here’s the catch, if you participated and filled the quadrants, you might have learned a thing or two about yourself.

Some people who wrote this down may notice that they can easily jot down things belonging to either quadrant 1, 3 and 4.

Quadrant 2 is usually left behind.

If you think your list looks like that, then here’s a shocker: there’s a possibility that you are sleepwalking through life! It’s likely that you fail to dream anymore or postponing things that you really want in life.  

But writing a lot under quadrant 2 does not mean you’re safe. It’s also possible that you know what you want but you’re not doing something about it.

Before we go deeper, let me cite some insights and examples on each quadrant.

See, quadrant 1 activities are those that you do to survive. Fundamentals are food, clothes, and shelter, which is why you work for them. Therefore, your direct income or anything that you use for your consumption and survival falls under this.

Let’s skip quadrant 2 and go to quadrant 3.

Quadrant 3 activities demand immediate attention, which make them seem important. Yet, it’s not. Text messaging or chatting requires a response. Most things with end dates and alarms, like a phone ringing, company meetings, paying bills, and so on are all under this quadrant.

It’s best to tackle quadrant as efficient as you can. But here’s the thing, you don’t have to be the person doing it. (I’m not talking about kage bunshin no-jutsu either!)

This is where delegating comes in. You can usually delegate quadrant 3 activities. Yes, it may come with a cost for it’s a favor but it’s a form of investment in sparing more time. 

Quadrant 4 is the danger zone. When I wrote this the first time, it was relatively easy to fill this up. If you love to spend your day watching TV series or hang out with friends, drinking, then you place a significant amount of time under quadrant 4. The list doesn’t end there, we also have the Internet, Facebook, and even worrying are all time wasters.

You might be wondering, what is this quadrant 2 that we should consider it holy?

It’s hard to list the non-urgent but important things in our life. It’s because Quadrant 2 are the things procrastinators procrastinate about.

Failing to attend to this list is the reason why we feel guilty.

It is where our ideal self resides. Our dreams, our passion, our investing goals, our travels, and everything else that run in that creative mind of yours.

But why do we always put quadrant 2 for later? Perhaps, because it’s not urgent, we tend to forget about them?

You might not realized this yet, but majority of people never get to cultivate these things, to the point of bringing these ideals to their grave.

You see, quadrant 2 should be the main focus of our lives – more so, of our limited time. It’s looking at the big picture. It’s looking forward for growth and self-development, it’s about reaching our ideal self and making a difference.

But hey guys! Don’t worry. There’s a way around it. As you know, I’ve read the book, so I won’t leave you hanging (in fact, let’s not leave anyone hanging).

The technique?

Try to finish your quadrant 1 as fast as you can since you have no choice with them. Next, is to go ahead and don’t be ashamed to delegate quadrant 3, as much as possible. Pay someone to pay for your bills or deliver stuff for you, let someone do the cleaning, etc. Of course, try to ditch quadrant 4 (easier said than done, so start small).

Now you’re left with “enough” spare time to focus on quadrant 2 --- those things that matter. Spend the rest of the day doing it.

You want a secret?

Actually, there is a secret. Most successful people follow this secret either consciously or inadvertently.

So what is it? It’s combining quadrant 1 and 2.

This is what some people call, “Let your passion be your source of living. “

More often than not, the things that are important to you can be a start of something big. You may start a business out of it. If you want to teach, then be a guru or write a book. It doesn’t matter if it sells or not, since you actually love what you’re doing. And love can bring you to greater heights than money.

However, the time will come that you are so good at what you are doing that people can’t help but see that. They will perceive you as of value, as a source of inspiration, and someone who they can trust. As you know, business and marketing is all about trust these days. But let’s not complicate things.

What matter is, do what you love to do and truly reach your ideals. That’s the whole point on why we should focus on quadrant 2. The reward is not a question. It is almost guaranteed.

To sum up:

1. Write your quadrants!

2. Finish quadrant 1, delegate quadrant 3, stop doing quadrant 4, and spend the rest of your time with quadrant 2.

3. Eventually, build a quadrant 1 that is based from quadrant 2 if you are not doing it yet.

4. Watch beautiful things unfold.

I hope you learn a thing or two. Share this to your friends who you think can benefit a lot from this. Don’t forget to like our Facebook page for daily dose of “looking the big picture” straight to your feed (you know, just so you feel a bit better while Facebooking haha).

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How To Find An Online Job (Part 1)

I have been working online for about three years now. It’s on and off, yet it’s fascinating to consider that majority of my income comes from this unique stream. Looking back, I recognized that I reached a long way in this interesting career. I remembered my first time, with no idea where to start. This is why I’d like to share my experience on finding an online job. You might be surprised that landing a job online is easy as long as you persist and know the basics.

This topic is longer than I thought, so I went ahead and divided it into three sections. First is about the skills to have for you to land a job. Second, is about the websites to look for online jobs and how to create a profile. And third, is about some tips that you could use to really land a job. Let’s go straight ahead on the first one.

For you to get a job, you should have the skills that employers are seeking for. However, you might be shocked to know that you already have one if not most of the skills. Let’s take a closer look.

What skills do you need?

You need not to be a seasoned programmer or an SEO expert to land an online job. There are thousands of jobs out there that only requires basic skills and offer a decent salary already. So what are these basic skills that I'm talking about?

Below are some of the skills that I had, including the ones I developed, that allowed me to land a job 80 to 90 percent of the time in the past three years.  

Writing

A lot of online employers are looking for people who could create content for their websites. Content is crucial for any website so that it stays indexed by Google on its famous search engine. Web owners want traffic for their site so that they can sell their products or get more clicks on their ads.

Most beginners think that they need to have a degree to write or at least have a long experience in writing or publishing. Well, there are employers who look for these qualities. However, there are also many employers who are satisfied with writers as long as you can create decent, readable content. Sometimes, it is even more important to meet quotas and be prompt with the tasks. An acceptable grammar that is readable is all you need.  

I remembered my writing level when I first started. It was awful. I tell you. I’m no writer and it’s funny to recall that I made money out of the crappy output I created. Of course, I continued to study and keep an open mind, which eventually improved my skill. Yet even today, I don’t see myself as a great writer, I just write. Luckily it is enough to help me land jobs here and there.

Web Developing

Another basic skill that you might already have is web developing. If you know HTML and CSS, then landing a job is easy. You might have encountered web creation from school, where you created simple html tags and a simple web page. You should know that you’re just a step away from getting a decent online job with the help of a few tutorials.  

Sites like W3schools are great for taking basic lessons. If you prefer videos, then you can find hundreds of them on YouTube offering free tutorials. But really, if you just do a quick search on Google you will find thousands of useful resources.

Programming skills are always in demand. Yes. The real money goes to advanced programmers who know PHP, Java, object-oriented programming, and the many other complex languages. However, the amazing part is you can also get to where they are even without a curriculum! You just need to have awesome programming skills (which you can learn online, for free!) and an enticing portfolio. So just continue moving forward if ever you pursue this career. There are many successful self-taught programmers out there. If they can do it, you can do it. But back to landing a job, yes CSS and HTML5 are basically all you need.

SEO

This is a seemingly intimidating skill or term just by hearing the name. But in reality, it is very easy! SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. As the name implies, it is a set of skills or techniques focused on helping websites rank high on Google or any other search engine.  As you know, a site with high ranking has high traffic, which means higher chance of getting sales, promoting brands, and many more.

SEO is not a definite science or profession. Employers who look for SEO specialist may use varied techniques to rank in Google. But essentially, all you have to do is learn a few things about how SEO works and you can already apply for a job asking for an “SEO Expert.”

Being a good content writer is a perfect preliminary skill for SEO (as to my case). Once you are knowledgeable of how writing keyword-targeted posts work, then you get a better idea on SEO.

Once again, there are many tutorials online since everything is already online (laugh). To sum up SEO, it’s a bit of mixture of everything, which includes linking articles, guest posting, commenting on relevant sites, let others links to your site, also, using various SEO tools that your employer uses, which by the way are easy to learn. The point here is that SEO is a skill anyone can develop. You just have to study a bit about it, learn the fundamental concepts, and you’re ready to go.

So the next time you find SEO job postings go ahead and apply. Your first jobs will teach you a lot of things, just be honest to your prospect employers that you are a beginner but interested to learn. Oh I forgot. Honesty is a crucial aspect in finding and maintaining an online job (more on this on the upcoming posts).

Other skills

There are many other skills that could employ you. Are you into audio mixing or editing? Some recording engineers outsource this task. Are you a photography junkie? There are jobs for photo manipulation and enhancements. Do you like making videos or presentations or perhaps creating logos, graphic designs, or drawing? There are jobs for you too. The opportunities are almost limitless.

I bet you have one or two of these skills. This means you are entitled for a job out there. It’s now up to you to grab the opportunity.

Working online gives you a lot of freedom. And it’s also a great way to come up with money, fast. Most importantly, anyone can try it.

Next topic will be about the websites to look for these online job postings.

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