日本語のudang

Types of writing prawn : 海老/蝦/エビ/えび

Specifically...
海老(えび)＝shrimp
車海老（くるまえび)＝prawn
伊勢蝦(いせえび)＝lobster

But according to Google translate,
海老 can mean shrimp or prawn, and
蝦 can mean shrimp, prawn or lobster.

Decisions to make

And follow through:

• My values (Passionate Honor, Audacious Fervor, Relentless Belief, Contagious Belief)
• My personal values (Industriousness, Cleanliness, Vigilance)
  
• My intention
  
• My conduct & speech (Respectfulness, Integrity with prudence, and Assertiveness on situations)
  
• My opinion
• My actions
• My livelihood
• My concentration/focus areas
• My family
• My family (if viable)
  
• My finance
  
• My retirement
  

Like with Like

Categories:

• Singapore Dance Theater (SDT) (Brochures, Write up)
  
• Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) (Updates, significant correspondence, Bills, Sectors to assist)
• Vitae (Done/Doing/To Do/Long term Goals)
  
• Spirit man (Done/Doing/To Do/Long term Goals)
• Fitness (Done/Doing/To Do/Long term Goals)
• Books List (Read/Reading/To Read/Write-ups/Reviews)
• Things to Return/Exchange (i.e. DVDs, books, discount cards)
• 
  

Paperwork

Usually when I come home, there would always be a new stack of envelopes waiting for me to open.
Boy, it's not anticipated; not only is it a hassle to rip them out, but also the archiving or tasks that needs to be done.

To clear the chunk(on top of accumulating envelopes for the past weeks!), I learned to separate them into roughly 3 piles (divide & conquer):

1. Trash (with bin & shredder)
   
2. Archival (with Punch holder, page protectors & filing pigeon hole)
   
3. Action/Tasks (via phone, PC, or manual-pen&paper, with time observation)
   

Guidelines to sort stuff to the piles:

1. Trash: envelopes, advertisements that come with bills, fliers for events you're not interested in, coupons for products you don't use or stores you don't frequent, duplicates, old or outdated materials, numbers or notes you no longer need, manuals, receipts, or warranties from products you no longer own, etc.
2. Archival: Group like with like i.e. receipts and records associated with taxes, warranties and owners manuals, significant correspondence, appraisals, cv or resume, product information, account information, financial records, insurance policies, benefit information, dental, health, and immunization records, things associated with particular hobby, etc.
3. Action/Tasks: names, numbers, and addresses to input; accounts to reconcile; calls to make; correspondence (rsvps, thank you notes, job applications, birthday cards, recommentations, invitations) to write; numbers to check; questions to ask; decisions to make; products to register; policies to review; things to return or exchange; taxes or claims to file; new files to make, etc. Just remember to keep this list of items low, i.e 12!
   

Questions to ask

Q: What does it take to stay organized?
A: Lifestyle change

Q: How to make my time really count?
A: Set time checks. Choose to be purposeful.
Decisions to make. Time needed to follow through.

Safety net

Or better named as the Starter kit, consists of: Version control, Unit testing and Project automation. It is an infrastructure in software development to address the needs, namely Design Time with Freedom to experiment, Ability to backtrack to a stable state, Reproduce any work product as of any time, Ability to demonstrate progress, for an exploratory environment.

Version control stores every version of every file you work with. Whether you're writing source code, articles, songs, poetry, version control acts as a giant Undo button for your work.
Newer distributed version control systems such as Git or Mercurial are well suited to support private experimentation.

Unit testing provides you with a fine-grained set of regression tests. You can use unit test results to compare alternatives, and you can use them as a solid indication of progress. In any endeavor, you need objective feedback to measure progress.

Automation ties it all together and ensures that the trivial mechanics are taken care of in a reliable, repeatable manner.

With the above 3 steps, you can learn efficiently and safely: explore even if you're not sure where you're headed, invent and apply what you've learned.

Expensive Lessons Learnt

What was I doing?!!!
May 2010
Sometimes when signing up for credit card, it comes in a bundle of many things, i.e. for HSBC, it came with a Ready Credit account which required something like an annual fee?
Some misconception - paid $70 (part of the annual fee) but, in the midst of it, slipped my mind to retrieve back the payment cos on the same day a few minutes after I paid, after their staff's explanation of this account type's "loan shark" nature, I terminated the account.