“Do you know what people did in the old days when they had secrets they didn’t want to share? They’d climb a mountain, find a tree, carve a hole in it, whisper the secret into the hole and cover it up with mud. That way, nobody else would ever learn the secret”

Whispering a secret into a tree

I’m normally not a secretive person, but there was something in my heart I wanted to let go, and during my visit up north, i visited a place that I felt most comfortable in the world and whispered my secret into the tree. It felt like a confession, something I had done or felt that no one could ever find out. We all possess at least one secret within us, some of them light and not worth keeping whilst some of them are embedded in their hearts as deep as the ocean itself. Whatever they are, consider letting it go to a good old reliable tree. You’ll feel so much better, trust me.

The added bonus of this secret was that I actually wrote a secret inside the tree, hoping that someone would one day read it. They would have no idea what it meant, or have no idea who I am, what I look like, or why I wrote that secret. Having that feeling behind the back of your head was pretty neat.

Video Update: 8 October 2008

Thought I’d update and bump this baby up because I managed to find a video of the scene in “In the mood for love”. Hopefully it will give you an idea of how I felt when I actually did the thing, probably with less sad string music. Enjoy the video!

Hope this post was inspiring for you and will encourage you to do something silly today.
Set your mind free!
(cheesy I know, but it was that or an anticlimax).

They’ve recently moved into their new place, it was their temporary stay until they found a place to start buying. The location was near to where Rachel worked / studied. It felt like yesterday that we were sitting on some steps in a shopping centre eating greggs bloomer sandwiches for lunch at college (food at college has horrific). Now they’ve found a place to stay and will eventually get into the whole mortgaging business, oh how we’ve grown.

…well for them anyway. I feel like I’m still stuck in a time bubble where I’m still at college, just that work is actually work in a company, and we don’t do games/p.e. (boo I like running). I think I need to begin the plan of moving out and starting a life of my own, though this will inevitably take time and money to execute. I suppose I can live with the salary I make, but it would be ideal if I can save up as well for that move in the property ladder. No point in renting and forever stuck in a “renting” state.

So what’s the goal? What’s the plan? Well I don’t intend on moving out this year, and maybe not the next either. I don’t think I’m in a comfortable position to move, both for financial and personal reasons. I think for the next two years I’m going to first get out of any existing debts I’m in (hopefully random juicy bonuses will help!) and then review whether the situation changes and that I’m comfortable in moving.

I’ve already begun saving up via a savings account. I just need to continue that momentum and build up a momentum of constantly saving up, ignoring expensive gadgets and games and focusing on more long term things. Having this goal down in writing gives me the clarity I need and takes me out of the zone where I feel like I’m simply procrastinating in life. I’ve been moving forward pretty rapidly and I don’t want that to stop.

So where do I see myself in 2 years? Well hopefully I’ll be living in my own place in London, with a more senior role in the company. I will be in a more comfortable position to review my status in getting my own place but at that time, I have a place I’m renting and saving. A place that reminds me of where Jason and Rachel are living right now, where everything is customised to perfection (subjectively) and taste. It would be a place I feel comfortable living in as well a place that’s actually near work (I’m losing 2 hours of my life per weekday just sitting down waiting for transport C to take me to destination B)

The goal is pretty standard for anyone, suppose it’s the milestones and timing that make them my goal. You definitely need to be in a place where you can stop and review on what’s going on in your life, so a lovely reminder from 43things will do just that.

That’s it for now, I’ve recently got a raise from work and hopefully I can prove my worth in the company. Things will only get better, you just need to have clear goals and an ass that won’t quit.

Man it’s been a long time since I’ve touched a keyboard! The keys are all dusty and my fingers are twitching to play some random chords and arpeggios. After doing some random jams, I started to look into playing the Phantom of the Opera overture. Turns out it’s A LOT harder than I had imagine it’d be. There are so many bits to play on both hands! Things you’ll not notice on a naked listen, I managed to download a midi of the track and slowly worked out the notes from that (I can’t read music, and there isn’t music for the overture (that isn’t watermarked before you ask)) so yeah, it’s back to good old listening to it and playing it by ear and memory. That’s how I learn pieces anyway. It’s surprising how many songs I have hidden inside my head. Sometimes it requires a jog of my memory but I’ve never relied on written music to play a piece, it’s the best way but I’m simply not capable of reading it for now, not to mention I’m impatient to learn (maybe this could be another todo?) So yeah. The piece is pretty hard, but that doesn’t stop me from learning it slowly. When you want to learn something so hard, you just charge onto it head first and do your best, practice does indeed make perfectomundo.

So what did I think of it? It’s not bad at all. It does base most of it’s stuff on manual tools such as the retro pen and paper and loads of folders for filing. I fortunately am in a position where work is digitally stored and categorised. The hard work is literally done, leaving me with my inbox to sort out. This (and remember the milk) are the areas I will working GTD on. Though you can see the difficulties of implementing stuff that’s mainly done via pen and paper hard on the PC.

The processes it teaches are quite similar to what I originally had. i worked at a zero inbox methodology where I treat each email as something to action, they are filled into appropriate sections once I’m finished with them so a zero inbox would literally mean I have done all my tasks and have nothing to do.

The book teaches you to store things under sections such as “next action” for those tasks that need to be completed asap, “waiting for” for tasks that require following up by someone and “tickler/someday” for things that can be done… someday. I was particularly keen on the “someday” folder as it was something missing from my system, work out of the ordinary were collected into the system and stored somewhere where I knew I could access and start work on if I felt it was time. Everything begins to feel more logical when you start implementing it though. It’s hard to persuade someone to implement this since people tend to be resistant on their current methods and systems. Bringing a new system introduces the idea of “when it’s not broken, don’t fix it” so I’m quite stuck in telling people what they should do. But I suppose I can give my feedback on how the book has changed the way I work.

I’ve not implemented the task full yet (so I’m not counting that as complete) but soon I will.

Nonetheless I bit the bullet and ordered myself a copy of the book. I was pretty amazed after reading a few chapters of it. The fact that we use our brains to do constantly remind and remember “stuff” that needs doing makes you suddenly realise how inconsistent we are as humans. Things really make sense in the book so my goal is to be able to follow this book and implement it at my work area. I probably won’t need to do the manual stuff purely because I work pretty much online and on the computer meaning there isn’t any paperwork to file at my end. This will be interesting.

So yeah, if you’re interested I recommend you grab a copy of David Allen’s “Getting things done”. It’s the perfect read for those who constantly have things on their mind.

Main reasons for wanting one is so I can use that as a way to get me back into music, I have protools but I don’t really use it due to the sluggishness that is my computer. I feel a macbook pro would be the right step in getting me back into making music, especially on the fly when I’m out and about.

Not only will it be useful for my music, it will also be nice to nice for photoshopping and other creative apps that pretty much run natively on the mac. Web industry itself are pretty keen on using mac, heck even Otacon from metal gear solid uses a mac pro. So we know it’s the stuff, so it’s time to make some actions and get this badboy some time.

The plan now is to slowly save up some money to purchase this. I don’t want to go overdraft or anything over the mac book pro so I need to make sure I actually have money to buy one. The problem right now is I don’t want to have the current mac book pro’s as my laptop, they are in dire need of a redesign ever since they’ve announced the next intel platform. Once the new platform is out and the case is redesigned to make use of the multitouch feature as well. I will pretty much splurge into the world of the mac book pro. But for now, it’s just not the right time. I will aim to have saved up half the money needed for it within 6 months (there’s a 6 month reminder on this bad boy) and when the new iteration of the mac book pro is out. I will buy one.

Oh and I’ve deleted the to do page. I’m mainly using my 43 things account for inspiring to do items and long term goals / plans.

So yeah, new goal!

See more progress on: learn to play phantom of the opera overture

I would advise you all to do the same since it does do a little good for the planet, plus people can see what epic films you are getting :p. I’ll think of some more environmental friendly projects to do since I do get a nicer feeling everytime I say no to shopping bags.

But yeah, already I’ve managed to preorder final fantasy 7 crisis core via play.com with quidco so woo!