clips of logic

After being disconnected from the internet for a week, I have hundreds of unread emails and RSS feed items waiting for me. Some of you might even have thousands of them.

While working my way through it, I can’t help to think if there’s a simpler way. A way to tell if an email or article is something you must read or something you can ignore.

A lot of things can happen in the span of a week. But most of them are really just things that are nice-to-know. These are things that you feel you should know but it don’t really matter if you don’t.

What you should focus on are the must-knows. The biggest thing that happened that week. Obviously, this will vary for different people so we need to categorize them.

How do you reduce the information clutter in your life? What kind of tools or filtering strategies that you apply to keep things more manageable?

All of us have habits of some sort. Some like to jog every morning while some can’t sleep till it’s passed midnight. And we are all aware that there are good and bad habits.

When I decided to start blogging, it felt like a part time job. My goal was 3 to 5 posts a week and I was struggling to meet the quota.

But after a month or so, blogging became part of my daily routine and I’m now starting to be able to schedule posts into the future. Blogging is now a habit and doesn’t seem as hard.

If there is something you want to do often, turn it into a habit. Once it’s a habit, it takes a lot less effort to do it. You will feel as if you’ve been doing it all along. Just make sure to get rid of the bad ones.

Ever wondered what if there’s no price tag on things we buy. How will it affect our buying decisions? Will we end up just getting the best or will the removal of price also removes the need to have different choices and we all end up buying the same thing?

Some things are free, which means by definition they don’t have a price. If you were to choose between a bunch of freebies what would you do? If price is no longer the differentiating factor or guide, will we be able to make better decision?

Price is important because our notion of value is based upon it. Without a price, we will have to judge products solely based on their specifications. Something we are supposed to do but apparently not many can due to the lack of domain knowledge.

So if the target of your product is the mainstream (e.g. clueless), should you use price as the guide to educate users on the value of your product in relation to your competitors? And if you are aiming for the early adopters, will being free makes it easier for them to see the true value of your product?

For those who want to watch all the Chinese New Year films in the cinema, check out Showtimes.my for the movie listings. We designed it to show you what you need (showtimes) in the fastest and simplest way so you won’t be late for the show.

Gong Xi Fatt Chai to all of you and to those who are going to gamble, beware of the probability monster.

Derek Sivers gave a talk at TED about how movement is created. He observed that the most important element in a movement isn’t the leader but the first follower. The first follower is the one that tells the world that the leader isn’t crazy and show us that it’s okay to join in.