Tag: Efficiency

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How to: Syncronise data on all your devices

We all know that. If we have more than one end device, in my case a laptop and a computer, files are missing on one side that has been used on the other. That can be time-consuming as hell. This problem can be solved with “Syncthing” a peer to peer network and a small Windows task. It is open source and decentralized. Your data is yours. Syncthing takes over the data synchronization and the Windows task set up to start the service in the background. Thus all devices are always up to date.
This is no sponsored post, I just love this program and use it frequently at home.

Setting up Syncthing

First download Syncthing, unzip and run it.
The IP Adress http://127.0.0.1:8384/ will open in your Browser. At the top right corner is a gear with “Action” next to it. Click “Show ID”. You will find a QR Code and a number. This is the number you need for connecting to each other. Any PC which runs Syncthing will get its own number.

This number is needed for the next step. Do this step on all devices you want to connect. That’s the Device ID.

Sync a folder on two devices (or more)

Remote devices

The first thing you wanna do is to connect the two devices. For that you click on “add Remote Device” in the right lower corner. You now can play with the “General” and “Sharing” Settings.

General: The “Device ID” is the number of your computer you want to connect with. “Device Name” is a local name you set for your own tidiness if there are many devices.

Sharing: Personally I check the checkbox “Introducer” and check all devices I want to connect with. You maybe won’t see anything under “Share Folders With Device”, because we didn’t create a folder yet. Now we click “Safe” and create a Folder we want to share.

Folders

We now can create our first folder. Anything in this will be synced. For this we click “Add folder”. Folder Label is just for your device local. The important thing is the “Folder path”. Here you set the parent folder which will be synchronized. Tip: This folder path can be different on any device and is set on each device separately. After choosing a path, set the checkbox on all devices you want to connect, click save and you are ready to go!

Task Scheduler for no manual start anymore (Windows)

Start Task Scheduler. You can just search and start it. What’s the goal: We want a task which will be started when the PC is running, without starting it manually.

First things first. Click on “Action” menu the “Create Task…”. Now we see different Tabs. On the General Tab, we just Name the task (for example ‘Syncthing’) and press the Button “Run whether user is logged on or not”.

Next, we are setting up a Trigger, which will – of course – trigger the task. Here we click “New…”, then set the “Begin the task” to “At Startup”,  make sure Enabled is checked and press “Ok”.

On the Actions Tab, we click “New…”, the Action is set as “Start a program” and finally we need to enter the path to syncthing.exe which we can easily find through “Browse”.

We skip the conditions and get right into the settings. In this Tab, I set anything you see in the picture below. Then type in your password, that the Task will get the right permissions.

Tip: Restart your PC and check if you can get access to your Syncthing IP Adress without starting Syncthing (in my case it’s http://127.0.0.1:8384/). That’s the proof your task is running 🙂

Finally, you have set up your connection yourself. All you need is Syncthing and a little Windows Task to set anything running.

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The power of motivating yourself – Now and forever

After reading this, you may will be motivated as I am after finishing it. I’ve collected some of my favorite motivational tips I use in my life to get things done. Be it for school in the past, inside the job or for a side project. Without motivation to actually do it, it will be just a dream.

Create a big vision – a brief look back

Back in 2010, I was 15 and on the way to get my A-Level in three years. I was playing many games and wasting my time on it. I knew it was a kind of waste, but there was no other option to get so much fun. These games gave me a goal to reach in my spare time beside my sports. In one game, a farming browser game, I had to place crops, wait till they grew, harvested them and repeated this process. Soon I started to have more than one account, to play while the other account had to wait. I didn’t know something about programming, but my dad did. I asked him to write a program for me, which can do the login and farming thing for me, that I can do the other things in the game, which are way more fun. He replied he will help me doing it, but I had to do it by myself. He will help me with any questions I got and show me the basics of programming, but I had to do it on my own. My vision was created. I want to learn to programme to be the best player on the server. It was cheating ingame, but who cares.
I started to invest my time in programming and growing my farm accounts. Awesome! I was just a kid without any programming knowledge but thought I can do it, and finally did.

Think about who you like to be, your goals and write down or figure the steps out which are needed. Then simply start with it.

Basketball – think outside the box

As a kid, I played basketball as a hobby in my school. Sometimes, my trainer told me to dribble with my left hand, so the enemy can’t forecast how I will attack. I could only reply “no I can’t dribble with the other hand”. My Trainer: “of course you can, you just don’t try. To fear it won’t work as well as with the other hand is what you are doing.”
We all know this fear when it comes to trying something new, to developing a new habit in order to become more efficient. A new habit may seem a little strange at first, but if we don’t try it in the first place, we will never be able to use even the slightest success. And this way of thinking motivates me to try new things as often as I can. Only challenges will test us and make us better. 

Planning

If we got the plan who we want to be, we have to plan the steps for how we get there. Are there others who did it in a similar way? Is there a book which can get us a hint how to do it? When you plan your path, the purpose and intention should be written down and fixed. Planning an hour saves three hours of useless testing because you follow a strict path. In the beginning, it’s not about making everything perfect. It’s about finding a way for yourself that’s efficient and good for you. Well planned ways will motivate you more and more the further you go. Just try it!

Distraction

While I’m writing or creating something, I always search for a quiet place. Hearing music that sets my mind on a powerful level and covers me from distractions like other people talking or my mobile phone. With this music, your chemicals in your body will change and you feel good and happy. A very nice way to spend a few hours. Motivation and Energy will flow through your body. If you found a funny side of your work, your motivation is boundless… We sing because we are happy, so search for your favorite song and sing it!
As a kid, I was allowed to watch TV from 6:00 pm. The day ended for me from that time, because for years I did nothing else than watch TV in the evening. And my friends were fine. Appointment went a maximum of 5:30 pm because we all had to watch our favorite shows and movies.
Kill the television if you know you are watching too much. I assume you won’t because you are reading this, but if you haven’t, try it. You will have so much time in the afternoon, just for not turning on the TV.

Start with little steps

As I started with my whiteboard animations, my first video was just 10 seconds drawing something. But I finished it. Start in baby steps to actually start it. If can’t convince you to start walking, just convince yourself to take on your sports shoes … and the rest will follow. That’s the reason why so many games reward daily logging in. They know the player will stay once they get there. To start this little step is easy. You are more likely to start, and therefore it gets finished.

Run away from your friends

Leaving all your friends behind may be a little extreme. What I mean by that is find new friends to support your goals and build you up once you’re in a deep. When you’re friends are pessimists, your opportunities fly away and disappear. So look for friends who have the same or similar goal. Example: Steve Jobs would not have come this far without his partner Steve Wozniak who had the same goal.

Be happy first

Many of us think they will be happy when they reach a specific goal in the future. We think happiness is out there and will come to us. The problem here is that it may never happen. Find ways to fill your life with things that bring you joy. Fill your entire life with joy, not only with the goal of having it, in the end. You can bring yourself happiness. You alone 🙂

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Why your whole life can be a big game – reach your goals more easily

Imagine you are climbing a mountain with a friend, but you slide down at one point and fall into the depths. You are now lying in a dark crevice, your friend can no longer hear you and cuts the rope to you because he thinks you have been killed. You’re alone and your leg’s not doing too well either. This is how the climber Joe Simpson, who made a game out of this situation in order to save himself. This post is based on the book Barking up the wrong tree by Eric Barker, I’ve read this weekend. Here’s my summary for you.

Below are the four basic parts of each game that he used to survive:

Reachable

The goals must be attainable for yourself. As a rule of thumb, the author mentions here at least 20% of the time that is devoted to the task you should believe yourself that you can do it. Otherwise, the target is set too high. In the case of the climber, he dragged himself from visible hill to hill, up to the camp from which they set out. When he reached a small goal, he celebrated himself. If he didn’t, he reflected why not and put in a new one. So he crawled until he could see the camp and call for help to be rescued by his friend.
These small “levels” have kept him on the big goal, until success.

If you set yourself a goal, make it a challenge, but an achievable one.

New challenges

Monotony paralyzes us. Something becomes increasingly boring the more often we have to do the same job. In computer games the same mechanics are often used. The levels look different and other ways to reach the goal are needed. So it remains interesting.
A way to use it in a relaxed life: Set your own time limits. The “level” becomes more difficult because it has to be completed in less time. For example, I give myself a time limit for animating my videos. Instead of 4h for one part, I give myself only 3h and see if I can finish animating it. When I made it, I saved an hour. If I don’t make it, however, the increased pressure will make me realize where the potential for improvement has now been uncovered. In this context, the 80/20 rule can be very advantageous. Also: “Better done than perfect!”

New challenges motivate and can be created in all situations.

Clear goals

The goal has been achieved, or not. Black or white. Is the article ready to be published or not? Once it’s released, there’s no turning back. For our climber: has he reached the hill or not. SMART targets can help here:

Simple: what is achieved and who achieves it.
Measurable:  How much of something, for example, to create the animation in a given time. The clock has run out or not.
Achievable: The goals must be achievable for you as a person. If possible in a small window of time, so as not to lose the desire too quickly.
Realistic: Being three times faster than setting goals is not really realistic. It has to be a challenge and nothing that is completely impossible. Even if it’s only impossible at this point in time.
Time limited: Our climber set himself 20 minutes for each additional goal to precisely measure his progress and define small packages that could be reached.

Feedback

In games, we get feedback about achievements and experience points. With every little bit, we get closer to our goal. We notice directly whether we are approaching our goal or moving away from it. That’s why it’s good to set yourself small goals and maybe even mark them in your calendar.
The internet is the perfect place to get feedback, which is why I also publish here. Only with feedback from others can one’s own work become better.

Summary in one sentence

If you need the motivation to go a little further, turn the activity into a game and the motivation will come.

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Why you should learn to invest – your time and money

This blog post is about the environment which is shaping us, the damn time eaters and investing as a key to financal freedom.
Thanks for your time!

 

Disclaimer: I made this text for my first whiteboard animation video in german. If you are familiar with this language, I would reccomend to watch this video.
For all the others, welcome to my first blog post about personal groth and finance.

Our environment is shaping us

Many researchers prove that we become the average of the five people with whom we spend most of our time. Sounds strange? Then let me illustrate it to you.
In the beginning there are almost only parents, siblings and grandparents in our lives. It is therefore not too surprising that we copy and adopt their behaviour and habits. It’s all we know.
As we get older, our friends form us. In and after school we spend most of our time with our friends. If our friends sit and playing a lot on the PC, we’ll probably do the same.

Now it’s about learning from the rich and using their tips and tricks for you. Unfortunately, most of us have no millionaires as parents or in our circle of friends. And that’s where the books come in. Think about it, a successful person writes his whole life in a book, and you can read it in 10 hours. It is no coincidence that greats like Bill Gaze regularly read books in order to further their education in all possible subject areas.

Use your time wisely

Say you want to learn how to invest, get really good at it. But sentences like “I have no time for it” or “Where am I only supposed to take the time for it” stop you. With time management, much more can be achieved during the day. When we plan our time and make it effective, we not only create more, but are also happier with ourselves.

The first step is to eliminate time wasters. Things like Facebook, Yodel or Twitter can take up an incredible amount of time without us really achieving anything. 9gag, for example, was one of my biggest time-eaters. Therefore here to step two: find a big time-eater and exchange it by e.g. listening to a non-fiction book. Make it a daily routine by listening to it at the same time. For example, before going to bed. You will be amazed at how much time you suddenly spent on further education at the end of a week.

Investing is key to financal freedom

Learning to invest before investing. “But studying is stupid, school is stupid” Well, you’re watching this video, aren’t you? You study voluntarily because you chose to do it yourself.

We all know the Bitcoin phenomenon, many don’t know what it’s really about, and yet it was bought like wild at the end of 2017. Many of my friends sensed the quick money and wanted their share of the cake. So you bought, speculating that it would rise and promptly lose money when the price fell by 5%. Lost because they sold it at a loss instead of keeping it and waiting for the price to rise again and then sell it at a profit. They were afraid of losing everything, and that’s the mistake. You were speculating.
It doesn’t take higher mathematics to learn to invest, just the experiences and tips we get from others who already know how it works and have successfully implemented it.

Lose in order to win

As I said before, my friends were afraid of losing everything. They played with money they couldn’t or wouldn’t lose. Basically, investing is like training, you learn while you gain experience. Without losses no experience and without experience no long-term profits. Start small, maybe at 50€ to gain experience as early as possible, and know what it’s like to lose money.

In the book “Rich dad poor dad” there is a story of Paul, whose son would like to have a car. He wanted to give it to his son for his birthday and had saved 3000€. But instead of buying the car directly, he did something much smarter. He gave his son the €3,000, on condition that he invested it in investments such as shares. When they reach the value of 5000€, he should take the money and buy a car of his choice.

At the beginning the price fell by 1000€. But instead of giving up, the son began to deal with the matter and leave books. Quickly he was above the initial value, and when the 5000€ were reached, he kept it and did not buy a car for the time being. He invested further and became better and better ?
The son had understood one thing:

The difference between assets and liabilities.

Liabilities are things that are bought and fall in value. They constantly cost money, so they lose value over time. Examples are cars, TVs or a Playstation. A new car loses 20% of its value the first time you drive it off the road.
Assets are things that increase in value over time, such as gold or shares. They are subject to an increase in value and/or bring in current income. Ideally, more money is in your pocket at the end of the day instead of less. Of course, stocks fluctuate in value, so the investment horizon, i.e. the period until they are sold again, should be as large as possible.
The book „rich dad poor dad“ says, that every Euro is a worker who works 24 hours 7 days a week to become even more money, who then works for you again. The art is to divide your money so that it growth and thrives as a whole.

But the biggest asset is you. Educate yourself, because you are the only person who can help you in the long term!

If you’ve read this far, congratulations. You are on a good way to use your time more efficiently and are willing to change something. Let’s go this way together.