Unclutter your feed reader: How to read 150 posts in 3 hours?

by Christy John Posted on 3 May, 2012

Yes, How to read around 150 posts in under 3 hours? Is it doable? YES! I did it, so can you. Yesterday I was searching for some blogs catering to writing and I ended up subscribing to about 15 new blogs. And that means I had about 146 new posts to be read it my feed reader. I could have given everything a miss and could have decided to read only the new posts from now. But today evening I found some free time and I felt enthusiastic to try the impossible; read all of them. And I succeeded. Here is how I did it. [Hint: Don't think I read the whole 150000 words of it. It is a hack and if you are interested go read on.]

1) Read the headlines
The headlines clearly gives the notion whether the post is interesting to you or not. Unless and until it is gripping your enthusiasm, leave it for safe. You are not going to miss anything. I am sure you can easily get rid of at least 20% by this method. Most of the posts also have sub headings that is in bold, so you can even use this technique through the content of the posts which you find worthy of your time.

2) Some posts are from lists.
This is the problem with continuations and sequels. You won’t get to know the full story until you read the earlier posts. I never see a sequel of a movie until I make sure I see the earlier parts. I assume you are also similar. Then why should you read the 5th part of a list before you read the other four? K.M. Weiland’s The Secrets of Story Structure was a similar kind of series that came into my feed reader.  I was so interested to read, that I skipped it for the time. I have bookmarked part 1 and decided to read the whole parts together at a later time. This caused me atleast skip three posts from the list.

3) Some posts are advertisements
Some posts are advertisements of the blog author’s new book or workshop. Sometime there will be a series of them. You can safely skip them for the time being. Since you are subscribed you will get later referenced to this info and you can decide at that time whether you want to buy that service.

4) Some posts are repetition
If you read 10 blogs from same niche, there is a large probability that topics get repeated. Can you imagine how many posts in the 146 I was reading had emphasis on social media, advantages of guest blogging and importance of giveaways? I will say, at least 20. You can easily get the idea from one and skip the remaining.

5) Speed reading
Okay, this is one of my speciality, which I have acquired through years of practice. But I believe even if you don’t have my speed you also can do it nevertheless. It has been established that we can read words given that the beginning and end are correct. I suggest that it is same with sentences. You read the first few words and skip to the last, you will get the idea. My theory is that you can scale this skill to even paragraphs. You get the first sentence and the last of a paragraph you get the idea vaguely. And had you skimmed through the paragraph, you can easily understand the full idea. My technique is to read diagonally. I will take two paragraphs at a time and start from the top left of the first to the bottom right of it and from top right of the second to the bottom left of it. My eyeballs will be going zig zag.

Of course you cannot apply this to all literature. Technical books like engineering texts and thesis reports needs to be read thoroughly word by word (Offcourse depends on whether you want to pass in that exam or need to apply that algorithm perfectly in your application). Similarly sometimes you come to a blog where you find the matter to be too apealing that you cannot resort to this kind of speed reading. I found most of Larry Brooks‘ post to be of that kind. Either I had to read the full blog post or dedicate this blog a separate time of it own. I decided to read the best three that caught my eye and left the rest for another dedicated time.

6) And finally weed out
Sometime when you go through the first two or three posts itself you will get an idea whether you like the material and the author’s style of narration. She may not sound as appealing as you might have thought at first. So it is not a crime to unsubscribe or push the ‘Mark all as read’ button. But I will suggest not to unsubscribe and do the latter. Have some patience. Sometimes the posts were good and you were exhausted or may be the author was in a bad patch of time and will come up with better posts.

Extra: I am not sure of this one because I didn’t use this method during my experiment. May be you can super quickly scan the whole 150 posts in under half an hour and make a note of what is important and interesting and dedicate more time for it. This is atechnology we use while writing exams. We scan for easy question or the once which take more time and partition our time accordingly. I haven’t found it easy in my approch here while reading blog posts. But if you find it helpful you can try that too.

And finally if you find my posts interesting I invite you to subscribe to feed and give valuable feedback through comments.

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What is stopping you from taking that leap of faith?

by Christy John Posted on 30 April, 2012

A little knowledge is often a handicap than a gain. I know most of you who are reading this might be shrugging their shoulders while their minds teasing me ‘Oh, thank you Mr. Obvious. thanks for enlightening with something we already knew’. I will explain. I know all of us had wise grandparents who taught us about the perils of being Mr.Knowlittle and being unaware of the fact. Sometimes the knowledge we acquire can be a hindrance from achieving greatness. So sometimes we have to let go of what we know and be acceptable to a greater truth.

Today I would like to give a very good anecdote catering to the matter. First of all let me take bail and tell you that this is not one of my stories but one I heard from some one else. It was the April of 2010 and I was listening to a very interesting talk by motivational speaker and corporate trainer Priya Kumar at the Great Indian Developer Conference. This is her story and goes like this.

Once upon a time there was a baby eagle who was old enough to start his flying lessons. So his mother tooking to the ledge of a big rock and gave him all the motivational prep up talk and encouraged him to try flying. She showed him a demo and came back to him. But our poor fellow was a bit educated and had attended his Physics classes at school. So he started going about Newtons laws of motion, gravitation and all the mechanical gaga. He said ‘Mom! I will be in pieces if I ever will try something like that. Haven’t you heard of Newton? He was a wise guy and can’t be wrong’.
Poor little mama, she never knew enabling her kid to attend school will have these kind of ramifications. She said ‘Hey Son! I don’t know who this guy you are talking about and what these forces you are fearing about. I never had a trouble in flying. All you have to do is take a big leap and flap your wings with all your might. You should try it’. And she took the leap and began flying.
Now our dear little fellow got interested. ‘Ok, if mama could do that, so should I be’. He leaned over the rock and looked down. ‘Wow, It’s too deep, I am not gonna do that’. He backed up when suddenly the mother came from behind him and pushed him of the ledge.

At this Priya stopped and asked us ‘Can anyone tell what happened next?’
Someone from the front shoutted ‘ And the little eagle hit the floor and died’.
What occured next was a facepalm by Priya and a roar of laughter among us audience.’Have you ever seen a dead baby eagle on the floor ever? Wow! that must have been news ‘BABY EAGLE COMMITTED SUICIDE! Offcourse he flew’. She continued to suggest often we too are hindered by the FUD generated by our little knowledge from attaining the bigger success.

Sometimes all that we need is the leap of faith. We need to put aside our fear induced by the incomplete learning and take a leap of faith. And we may end up scaling the heights soaring through the clouds. So what are we waiting for. Let’s take that leap of faith.

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How Valve survives with a seemingly dangerous development process?

by Christy John Posted on 27 April, 2012

Thanks to Seth Godin for pointing me to this. If you haven’t yet, I urge you to read the ‘Handbook for new Employees‘ by Valve. In it the company describes how the company is run internally. I assume that you have read it before continuing with this blog because the things I write here are thoughts on some of their processes.

When I read about the hierarchy-less system and people joining the projects by the rule of foot, the first thing which went through my mind was ‘Will it work?’. I even discussed it with a couple of my colleagues. They too were of the opinion that it would surely end up in mess. Yes, if we implemented that system in our current firm, I am sure it will crumble down like a house of cards in few days. However Valve has been following this for the last two decades and has been shipping some awesome products. Counter strike is still one of my favourite games. Though I diliked the ugly creatures in Halflife, I used to play it for many hours non stop, even through some nights. Before checking how this process works let’s see some of the advantages of it.

1) Employees will be more productive
Since they are working on the things that they like, they will be putting in their most. There is no lag due to drudgery of working on boring things.
2) People will be proactive
Since the system is lose, it is the duty of each person to seek around for opportunities and deliver. Otherwise they will be termed slackers which no one wants.

But is you see there are also lot of cons to this approach like neglecting some boring work for ever, total choas as no one is there to structure the system and set guidelines etc. Then how is Valve surviving these obvious faults? The answer is in the handbook itself. The saviour is the hiring process. The valve team is a clan. Do you want entry? Prove your worth. Unless and until you prove that you are their equal or above you can’t get in. If the group is a mixture of highly brilliant members, who can fill in for any kind of responsibility, from you can get a new gem of knowledge at any moment and moreover who believes in this culture then there is no issues of chaos. Moreover though Valve doesn’t have managers, they have team leaders who are formed temporarily within a group whose job is to take account of the whole process as a single resource so that others can later check upon.

If you still haven’t read this handbook, I urge you to do so. It is an awesome read and is only less than 50 pages. One day I would like to really visit Valve and see how this work in real, but don’t know when.

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Intent is not always everything

by Christy John Posted on 26 April, 2012

I read Mitch Joel’s ‘Intent is Everything‘. While I agree to his citing of the sale of parenting books and his notion that intent is the powerful and the most essential aspect in success, I like to disagree on some terms (or actually add in a few thoughts). Intent is the most important thing; I agree. But without actions, the intent is only a thought and not a tangible concept. I assume Mitch wasn’t arguing the other way, but I would like to add a few things to his thought.

Many have no consumption plan.
I agree to this. Coming from a software development industry I know of people who aren’t aware of the latest news of the world. I even know of people who aren’t even knowledgeable about the existance of websites like Slashdot or Reddit for programming or Hacker News etc. There are people who don’t even know of IRC. I am not telling that because I know these and I think I am better than them. There may be zillion other websites catering to same interest which I may not know. But I believe you got the point. Also I am not talking about fresh gards who have recently joined the industry, but of the people who like me who are in this for some substantial amount of  time. Anyway everyone knows Stack Overflow (Thanks to Google for that). This is really a great lack of intent. And that is bad. But what about people with intent and no course of action. I won’t go anywhere else. Me myself is an example. I have been toying with an idea of a web application for the last 2 years, but haven’t written a single line of code till now (which I believe will happen tomorrow, if only I can finalize the technology to depend on). That is the kind of trouble I wan’t to address. Having the intent made me realize and be knowleadgeable about all the latest innovation and news from the world of start ups and so.Yeah, I know of the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook and all, but that has done nothing to help me ship my product. So intent alone is not always what  that is needed. If you need to ship, you need to haul the cargo yourselves (or find someone who could). Until the cargo is on the port you are never going to ship.

To write better without reading you need a awesome writer to talk to.
As many people (as Mitch himself says) I too wonder how he could come up with so many awesome posts without reading a lot. My main assumption is that he hears it directly from the horse’s mouth. I believe he have so many insider friends in the community who he constantly communicates with and thus he doesn’t need to read their blogs to get the latest info. But for people like me who is a beginner and still an outsider I should be feed with enough info diet before I can talk about something. I need to be reading a lot, practise a lot and improve a lot before I can be good at what I am. Unless and until I am Mr Robert Scoble I need to do this. It is same as writing code. Keep updating, practing and improving.

About the parenting example.
Why do we need no parenting books to be a better parent? Because we were raised by good parents. This is like any other soft skill which you cannot acquire by reading books but watching and trying (or imitating) someone good at it. We may not remember what we were like toddlers, but the good (or bad) treatment we got as a toddler is somehow imprinted in our minds. It comes out when we become parents. In case of bad experience, our urge to counter it brings the best of us out. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we win. That’s why we need no books to be a good parent or connoisseur of good music (we acquire it in the long run).

Don’t be hard on yourselves.
I agree to this. Even though our intent is too high and our effort is up to mark, sometimes we can’t keep up with the pace of information. Don’t feel bad and keep on moving.

[NB: This post is in no way a corollory or disagreement to Mitch's thought, but a small addendum to it. I believe what he really conveyed is also this. Anf yeah, Intent is powerful and you need it to be good.]

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How to be a better writer in 6 months?

by Christy John Posted on 18 April, 2012

As an aspirant writer and blogger, it is my ambition to improve myself in this regard. Since I am a practising software engineer I have already outlined a plan for the year 2012 for becoming a better programmer. This is a post similar to that and outlines a few things I should be, and will be doing in the coming months to attain this goal. I hope that other aspiring bloggers and writers among you may find it helpful.

1) Write more often
One of the first and the obvious thing to do is ‘write more often’. I too, like all other writers suffer from the inertia that sometimes petnamed ‘the writer’s block’. But more than a block or lack of skill it is only inertia or the fear of not being able to produce a masterpiece that is blocking us from writing. The truth is we are not supposed to deliver a masterpiece every time. Expecting that is actually foolishness. I have found this block exist only until we start writing or typing. Words do churn out easily. It may not be polished. But that is why a process called ‘editing’ exists. We can later proof read and polish whatever we wrote. Only stumbling block that really exist is the issue of finding the topic to write about. Once we get that just open the notepad and start pounding on the keyboard. Let the contents flow. Pruning and cleaning can be done once everything from our mind is available on the notepad.

My aim in the coming days is to write a substantial amount of posts in this blog. I may not be able to hit the ideal goal of one post per day, but I hope to do atleast three posts a week. In the beginning the topiccs may vary but by the end of the goal period I am sure I will be finding the focus of this blog.
2) Read more often
No one can be a good musician until you listen to your fellow musicians and get inspiration. Similarly, no one can become a good writer until he reads substantial amount of literature from his area of interest. I have checked my Google Reader today and found that I have subscribed to about 30 blogs in it, which comprises both programming blogs and non-tech blogs which talk of social media, writing etc. Since the major chunk of my day is dedicated to programming and associated reading I should become more dedicated in the regard and find some time everyday to read some non programming blogs too. I currently follow Scott Berkun, Chris Brogan, Copy Blogger, Susan Malone, Rachelle Gardner, Micheal Hyatt, Darren Rowse, Tim Ferris etc in this regard.

3) Learn Grammar
I am not saying I don’t know grammar. I said there is space for improvement. It won’t hurt to revise some of those old high school grammer exercises. One thing is for sure. My use of commas and semicolons can have the help of little refining. So it is always good to learn some proper grammar. I find this comic from oatmeal a good example on the use of semi colons. Another good resource is the Online Writing Lab from Purdue university. Also I find this a pretty good primer on the basic punctuation.

4) Heed the feedback
I still never have a substantial amount of followers on this blog but I hope the few that follow may have some words to say and corrections to make. I am receptable to advices. Accepting our faults and heeding advices and rectifying the wrong are the essential things for growth a person.

So these are some of the steps I am going to follow so as to improve myself as a writer. Suggestions are welcome.

EDIT
After I put this up in Reddit, one smart guy had the awesomeness to come and challenge me. That actually helped me. I found two more methods to be a better writer in the next 6 months.
1) Try to get published
I am not talking about publishing your first novel which you were eagerly waiting for. It takes times. Meanwhile try publishing some small stories or poems or some writing in your local magazines (we have lot of them around). You may get lucky. You get published and get your first set of fans. It can also go the other way round. May be it wasn’t up to mark and got rejected, But never get dejected. that means you have to work. And we will work and make that happen
2) Write reviews for published works
This can sometimes be a devil’s (yeah small letter d) work. you may have to criticize your future colleague. So what. Do write what you felt. The replies from the author (which will only be amicable and understanding and explaining) and from fans (which may sometimes be brutal gives you an experience what is in it for you. You are going to be in the same place  later. But never be a prick or a plum just for the fact of being that. Write what you feel. An honest opinio is always the best advise.

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What is pinterest and how to use it?

by Christy John Posted on 7 April, 2012
Red Pinterest logo
Red Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pinterest is the new buzz from the world of social networking with already so many early adopters, most of them being women. Recently one of my friends on Facebook asked what Pinterest is actually about. So I assume there are still many people who are on the same boat as him. I remember when I first joined, even I was not sure of what I was supposed to do. It took me some time clicking here and there before I found out what to do. I am not telling that the user interface is very confusing. Actually it is one of the most aesthetic and user friendly interefaces around. But since most of us (especially guys like me) don’t always read the ‘How to’ page and just like to click around, it might not be the easiest from the start.

So basically what Pinterest is?
According to Pinterest site it is a virtual pinboard which let’s you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on web. It lets you organize the pictures you like from the web. Do you remember downloading pictures of beautiful women, sport stars, musicians etc to our computers and arrage them under various folders? Pinterest is the internet way of doing it. Like Delicious took our bookmarks from browser to their servers, Pinterest takes our folders from our computers to their servers. So you don’t need to worry about taking a backup next time you format your hard drive.

The other important thing about it is the social aura around it. If you see an interesting picture in another Pinterest user’ss board (yes, that is what your folder of picture collection from computer is caled on Pinterest) you can repin it to your board. You can comment and like other people’s pins. You can follow good pinners, their boards etc. Next time when you log in you will see all the new pins from the people you following on your wall (I am not sure if that is what it is called. If wall is particular to that of Facebook, let’s call it showcase or canvas then).

So how to use pinterest?

  •  Get an invite, create a profile and login.
  •  Create some boards (eg: Dress I wish to buy, Inspirational interior designs etc)
  •  Download the ‘Pin it‘ browser plugin.
  •  While browsing the web, if you see a picture you like press the ‘Pin it’ button and add them to the appropriate board.
  •  Browse through Pinterest to see the boards you like.
  •  Repin the picture you like to your boards.
  •  Like and may be comment on other pinners pins.

Follow boards of other pinners individually or the Pinner itself

So why I like Pinterest?
Apart from the above reason of moving my pictures from computer to net, why am I interested?

One of the peeves I have with Facebook is that it is very tough for you to later search a post you have shared long back. I remember going down the timeline for hours in vain for getting a picture I posted earlier to use as a reference for a communication I was currently having. So mostly the sharing of pictures and posts on Facebook is a current thing and not a thing to refer on to later (even though timeline is supposed to do that). But Pinterest let’s you go back and get at the images so easily.

So what is lacking in Pinterest?
I would truly love to have private boards. Also there is an issue about copyright, which has been detiled in a post by Greekgeek on hubpages, which you can read.

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Be proud to be a monkey

by Christy John Posted on 17 February, 2012

 

Monkey Photographer
Monkey Photographer

This is a picture that has been circulating in Facebook these days. It is mocking all of us guys who own an SLR and is trying to learn the trade. I don’t know who actually took this picture or who made the caption. But one thing is sure. The one who made the caption doesn’t own an SLR and seriously envies all of us who have one. The one who actually took this photo is not a monkey. He is really a good photographer. The picture is really funny and smart.

At first when I saw this post I had a good laugh and agreed to some of it. It is true that all of us who have an SLR have a Facebook photography page (I too have one, though I haven’t uploaded much photos or publicized it yet.). And yeah!  some of us are crappy, but that is not an issue; about which I will explain later. But seeing the same post again and again, that too in different formats (This one is really creative and smart but others are pure boring and dumb.) made me kind of irritated. So I posted this on my facebook post today morning.

These days every Monkey with an SLR think they are a photographer.
But some monkeys graduate to become world class photographers later. So you need to monkey around for a while to become a better Monkey.
So if you own an SLR don’t heed the stupid ridicules from these aspiring SLR owners and continue clicking and sharing.(But also please don’t pose around as if you are Ansel Adams; at least for a while).
Proud to be a Monkey.

I don’t understand from when it became bad to be a beginner. From when is it looked down upon? I don’t remember having came to this world fully able to talk, walk, write or even pee properly. I was given training and slowly only did I became qualified to do it on my own. Same is the case with photography. There is no shame in being a monkey. Every big photographer was once a monkey. They too did all the mistakes we do. I don’t believe they got all the settings on the camera, ie aperture, shutter speed, ISO, so many other minute details and finally the composition also perfect on the first shot. They learned by trial and error.

And about the issue of having a Facebook photography page: I only look upon it as a learning tool. It is a place where I will get maximum exposure for my pictures. I have around 600+ friends on facebook, if I could get atleast 10 of them to like my page I get 20 eyeballs to scrutinize my picture and give me feedback. That page is like my mother who used to help me with my home work after school or  guided me while I learned to walk. And about the little pride we have when one of our photos get appreciated by couple of people. Have any of you seen the face of a kid who had successfully ridden a bicycle without training wheels for the first time? It is the same emotion. We are happy that our hardwork got it’s results. Is being happy and proud about your hardwork a bad thing?

So this is my advice to myself and fellow photography enthusiasts. Let the haters hate. Let us be proud monkeys. Let’s go around clicking, processing and sharing our work. Let’s do this more often. Let’s improve our skills. The naysayers will soon buy an SLR and join our troop. Till then let them envy our cameras.

But let’s not be pricks while doing this. It’s true we are not yet Ansel Adams or Helmut Newton. And there is no guarantee we will one day become one. So please don’t pose like one. Be humble. Listen to what the seniors of our trade have to say. Learn from them. Listen to them. Also be kind to the lesser of us. If any one ask for guidelines and directions, give it to them. And take all the constructive criticisms you get on that facebook photo you posted. Even if it is from a non photographer friend. Being a photographer is never a prerequsite for being a good connoisseur. Also the non photographers have an advantage of not having their own personal styles and usually will be unbiased.

So be a monkey. Be a proud monkey. But behave like a cultured one (NB: I don’t know if there are real cultured monkeys.)

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