Rudy Godoy :: an act of subversive playful cleverness

Often I happen to come with some pretty crazy ideas about anything in life. That’s me. Some of them may work, that’s why I adventure to share them with the world.

Working with computers, software in particular, for almost 12 years have brought interesting views regarding life. For the past 3 years I’ve progressively improved the human being am I, and also the improvement process. The other day I was heading to the uni and I’ve just noted that some practices of my profession can also be applied to my personal improvement. So, here I’m sharing some of them. Hope you find them useful.

1. Spot your bugs and kill ‘em. While it’s important to want to improve yourself. It’s more relevant to the fact of real improvement that you spot your personal “bugs”. This is a crucial part of it all. Once you are aware of you personal “bugs” you’ll be able to take action on them. So, when you do, just kill them and don’t let stink until you are not able to manage it at all and all your “code” taints and breaks.
2. Let process run on the background. Life has a limitation, which is time. Time is a scarce resource. You must be aware of it, really. While we might want to do many different things life presents to us, is not really responsible to engage on all. However, we can hack this. Here technology is our ally. There are many different ways to be able to do some things in the background while on the foreground you focus on what really matters to you at the time.
3. Outsource services that are not key for you. Delegation and distributed architecture come to mind. Professions and specialization are an evolution of humanity. Please take advantage of it. You don’t need to know or do  everything. Karen Sthepenson’s connectivism axiom is illustrative:  ‘I store my knowledge in my friends’.
4. Focus on what matters. This is somehow like the unix tradition of doing one thing and doing it well. Identify what makes you unique, special and relevant on your ecosystem. What value you can offer to others, and work on that direction. Hard work pays.
5. Release early and release often. Once you have spot bugs and managed to fix them, release a new version of yourself!. Tell the world by showing an improved version of yourself. Make this incremental and iterative, just like a software development framework. For instance I currently run a 3.1 version of myself. Just released a point version last week :)

So far I can name 2008 as the year of discoveries. By reviewing the year that just passed I can tell that it has been a great year to learn and discover myself. I think moving from my parent’s was the best decision I could have ever made with no regrets. This has allowed me to be more me and to explore things my way without much disturbance. I’ve also been able to dedicate more time and focus on uni and my business, on which I have learned tons.

However, for what it takes the most amazing thing I’m grateful for is to be able to go further on building the foundations on most areas on my life. When I started my business I had the goal of just building a strong foundation, so it could hold and sustain the things we build on top, just like a building. It was not the same situation on personal affairs as of 2006. I’ve been misleading and lying myself thinking that I’m fine that way, which honestly I weren’t.

By the end of 2008 I have to say with no fear that I have a clear path, goals and achievements to be proud of. Every day commitment and small goals have played a key role here. When I started to develop on my life I began setting big amazing goals and expectations, which I still hold. But as time goes and things weren’t working as I wanted to sometimes I got a lot stressed by the idea that I’m trashing out the whole goal and my expectations, thus my future. Life is savvy and also teaches you ways for change and keep moving on. I recalled a friend of mine who was close to alcoholic circles and he told me that they commit just to be sobber the next day, and do it every day. Finally they achieve to control their disease. So, I said: let’s try it out! By the upcoming days I split my big goals on small chunks of pretty easy goals. Say, get 4-5/5 right answers on uni lab tests, get the project done on time, make the girl comfortable with me and just that. Application and achievements were so amazing that I also gained more confidence. Not to say that one can scale this and someday you end-up achieving one of your big goals. It also has to do with the law of attraction, on which you can find plenty literature online, small goals bring easiness on achievements, and they attract more. By now I can get anything I want, word.

Properly splitting time and separating activities also worked fine. I no longer work past 7pm, nor weekends on business projects. I dedicate that time to me, to my others interests and to develop myself as a human bean. This has proven to be more effective than trying to mix things like day job and studies for instance. The most wonderful thing I’ve gained from doing that is to discover that I can go much further on areas that I’ve let stagnate and I have potential to develop on.

Finally I had the chance to discover more about people I do admire and respect by close interaction with them. I’m always curious and interested on meeting people but, as Amaya describes cats, I’m also that complicated. Despite that, this year I had the chance to discover and learn more of my friends and relatives, also meet new interesting people, they are my balance between isolation and socialization.

2k9 will be the year of the first tangible results on what I’ve been building and working on. I’m so excited about that and yes, this also posses for me a time on which achieving many of the milestones and some of my big goals is getting closer. Expectations and goals are still big, process demands daily commitment on small chunks. I hope you can also have such year and be of help by sharing my experience here.