May

6

Cognitive Surplus

Filed Under regular reads, things to ponder about, things to remind myself, time management, winds of change | Leave a Comment

If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, .. I’d say it was the sitcom. Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened–rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before–free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

We did that for decades. We watched I Love Lucy. We watched Gilligan’s Island. We watch Malcolm in the Middle. We watch Desperate Housewives. Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat.

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Feb

24

Spending alone time, battling my vices

Filed Under execution, failure, self improvement, things to remind myself, time management | Leave a Comment

It’s just after noon on Sunday. I woke up early today (I’ve began for the past few weeks now to not sleep in on weekends) because I have a lot of things to do. Some of the things I have to do, I don’t feel like doing, but I know I have to do. However, I catch myself slacking of a bit, not fully focusing on the task that requires my to concentrate deeply (like writing this blog now!) Gahh!!! And I know this is a self-defeating behavior. Which is why I am putting this up here.

This is my blog, and when I first began writing, I wrote that among other things, I wanted this to be a place for me to collect my thoughts and help me think. Sometimes something as simple writing things down help me focus and collect my thoughts, viewing things from a different perspective better.

Writing forces me to concentrate on what I am thinking about, in one consecutive single-user thought process (no round-robin time quantas need to be assigned). The positive byproduct of this is that I focus more on the topic I am thinking about, and during the writing process, I may discover something flawed about what I had originally intended to write and correct my course before proceeding. Likewise, I may also discover something that I did not originally think about (perhaps an important subtopic to expand upon).

I’ve spent all morning, and haven’t been as productive as I have wanted to. I’m moving, but I’m just not moving frickin fast enough. I realize that distraction, my self-induced ADD, my inability to focus, my tendency for procrastination (because I don’t want to do this!), is a major impediment to my success in everything I do, and will be in anything I do, if I don’t manage this. I am battling this vice of mine, and I know I will win.

I am reminded of what Dave Lorenzo, a business coach, wrote:

We have all heard the expression, “It don’t come easy” in reference to success. This is the truth. Although success may appear to happen in an effortless fashion, someone somewhere worked very diligently behind the scenes to ensure optimal results. You must prepare your mind for the difficult tasks that lay ahead of you as you drive your way toward success. Just as a world-class athlete spends years training his body to take the punishment of intense competition, you must train your mind for the battles you will face on the road to making your goals a reality. Your mental training regime involves challenging yourself with completing increasingly difficult tasks that require you to be alone.

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Dec

16

The invisible skill

Filed Under career, regular reads, self improvement, things to remind myself, time management | Leave a Comment

Interesting thing I read today: Much like how a sculptor’s work is the result of what is taken away, self-control can also be described in the same manner.

Self-control manifests largely in the absence of more obvious emotional fireworks. Signs include being unfazed under stress or handling a hostile person without lashing out in return. Another mundane example is time management: Keeping ourselves on a daily schedule demands self-control, if only to resist seemingly urgent but actually trivial demands, or the lure of time-wasting pleasures or distractions.

From the book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

That sounds to me like people who constantly repeat self-destructive (but addictive) behavior, such as gambling, drinking, .. <insert vice here>. Although it doesn’t even need to be that severe. These days, addiction to TV and mindlessly surfing the wonderful internet aimlessly, squandering precious time is also an indicator of lack of self-control.

It was a painful decision at that time, but I did give up TV. I haven’t replaced the remote’s battery and have been TV-free for more than half a year now. Do I miss it? Only if I start again I will. Have I missed out on the world? Not at all. I’ve also come to accept *not* completely finish reading all my RSS feeds. Even with my carefully culled list of RSS feeds, there’s just way too much information out there, more than I can consume, more than I have the time to separate wheat from chaff. Surfing the web for the pleasure of surfing, I have kept to a bare minimal.

The demon I am fighting today is waking up early. I’m more of a night owl, not really a morning person. But I have taken measures, including external accountability (with friendly bets with friends on how early I will wake up the next day, which if I fail to do, I buy them lunch). Sleep is a waste of time, I am trying to keep that to a minimum. I hate myself for indulging in it.
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Dec

8

Focusing on things you don’t like to do

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IMG_2242

I’m a busy person. One of the resolutions I made during my solo euro-backpack trip two months ago was that I would diversify my reading–that I would read the things I wouldn’t normally read. I am a voracious reader and read only business and tech. Everything else, .. mmmh .. I can’t really find the time for.

One of the things I do to cope with information overload is skim reading my emails, separating the wheat from the chaff. I usually discard long rambling pointless emails. It’s become a habit of mine that was really born out of necessity. However, this morning as I try to read this book by Ayn Rand, a good story book recommended by our previous fed chief Alan Greenspan, I just simply could not focus.
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Dec

1

Self-discipline and getting a grip on growing to-do list

Filed Under execution, goal setting, perseverance, regular reads, self improvement, things to remind myself, time management | Leave a Comment

As I was taking a break from studying at a coffee shop today, I was *productively* wasting time by burning through the pile of magazines that I subscribed to when I found this gem from Entrepreneur magazine written by Romanus Wolter. He listed 4 points that hit me hard on all four counts.

1. Establish an affirmative mind-set by giving yourself a reason to become more disciplined. Just as everyone has different muscular strength, we all possess different levels of self-discipline. State three positive outcomes associated with becoming more disciplined, and give your subconscious direction by integrating your business goals into your daily routine. Having an overall view of your objectives and progress keeps you motivated to take action even when there are distractions.

I fight distractions a lot, and self-discipline is a challenge as well. This past week I did pretty well, digging myself out of bed early to go jog (to get blood pumping into my brain) and then going to work early to get a head start. I recently asked for feedback on myself from a certain few people and one of the criticisms I got was that I was too “corporate”. I think Romanus brought up a good point here; that integrating some business goals into your daily routine helps keep you more focused on your personal end goal. If the end goal is something large, this will obviously require some effort and consist of more than just a few steps. Some “corporate” grown-up-ness helps in reminding me of what I am working towards and not losing sight of my goal even if it’s distant.

In fact, just this past week I tried something new that worked well. I called a good friend Monday night, told him my entire to-do list (my desired objectives that I wanted to hit) for the next day, and told him that if I fail to achieve even one, I would buy him lunch. The list ranged from “not pressing the snooze button at 6 am more than once” (first thing when I wake up) to “studying for my test” (last thing before I go to bed). And I hit it all! Had it not been for this, I think I would have hit the snooze button more than once.
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Aug

25

Inbox Zero

Filed Under execution, geeky, goal setting, google, hacks, time management | Leave a Comment

Merlin Mann of 43folders fame presented a talk at Google titled Inbox Zero, a productivity hack/treatment for people who live out of their inboxes. The talk is about an hour long, so I’ve written up here some of the points I feel are important and works for me.

Disclaimer: This is _obvious_ stuff, but sometimes we forget, and a reminder is always nice.

Respect yourself, spend time and attention wisely

For knowledge workers like myself, we don’t create value by the number of bricks we can carry with our arms. We process knowledge/information, and that’s how we create value for our companies. The two things that knowledge workers must understand and appreciate is time and attention. Both of which we only have a finite amount of, and both of which are our constraints to our productivity. The goal is to separate the wheat from the chaff, saying NO to the low value work so that we can say YES to the high value work. Procrastination and frittering time away in email, surfing the web and flipping TV channels aimlessly would be “low value” work (more like almost no value work).

Email is a communication medium, just like the telephone. Don’t focus on email itself, focus on the information in the email and process it. Hitting the send/receive button all day is “busy work”, made to think that you are doing work, but you’re not actually doing any real work.

Process information in email
Don’t read the email and do nothing! Do something about it. Process it when you check it. Mine the gold from your inbox, and throw away the empty husk.

Processing actions:

  • Delete (consume) or archive it (save for historical records)
  • Delegate or forward it to someone else (stuff that don’t apply to you, or better handled by someone else)
  • Respond now, or do that work now!
  • Defer (perhaps replying requires more time, or requires some work first)

Having a productivity system in place is important (and so is sticking to it)

We are what we frequently do
– Aristotle

Don’t leave email open the entire time, with distracting pop-up notifications. Check once every hour or few hours, live outside of email. *This doesn’t apply to customer service reps

Use a tool/system that just stops short of being fun to use, so that you don’t end up fiddling with it. Remember that the tool/system has to be good at capturing information, and recalling information.

Jul

29

See the world, but never forget the drops of oil on the spoon

Filed Under goal setting, quotes, strategy, things to ponder about, things to remind myself, time management | Leave a Comment

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”.

Yeah, me too. Never forget the what?

I got this quote from Wikipedia’s entry on the book titled “The Alchemist”. First of all, I’m pretty much a straight up technology nerd/geek/whatever-they-call-it-these-days. I don’t pretend to be a domain expert on chemistry or biology. Sure, I took some classes in college, but it never really interested me as much as all things technology did, or even math. Matter of fact, I hated math when I was a kid. My parents and high school math teachers will testify how much I failed at the subject, hated the subject, and faked liking the subject (I sort of faked liking school too, but that’s a different story altogether to tell another time). I’ll bet that my teachers then will be shocked to hear today, that not only did I get a minor in math, published an original research paper in math, but actually like and appreciate math.

That being said, during my geeky nerd years doing my B.S. (ha-ha) in C.S., I pretty much thought of chemistry and biology as an “overhead cost” to getting my degree. It just wasn’t that much related to tech or math (sure I understand that CPU’s need electrons for the transistors and logic gates, but outside of that .. ?), and it was pretty much required if I wanted to graduate, so I knew that this isn’t something I could walk around and forget. When I graduated, a good friend of mine who graduated with me gave me a graduation/parting gift. It was a book titled “The Alchemist”. Now that you know my love-hate relationship with all-things chemistry at that time, I naturally thought to myself, “uhh .. what on earth were you thinking?” Nevertheless, I accepted the gift with a smile, thanked her for it, and well .. chucked it a side.

Just to put things in perspective, back then, I only read stuff like Slashdot, Onlamp and O’Reilly. Back then, there was no Digg or Reddit, but if there was, I would be reading that. I hung on on mailing lists, like for FreeBSD. I wouldn’t even touch business. Today, I read lots of business. So back then, if it wasn’t tech, I pretty much didn’t care. Ok, I read a little bit of national news. A little international news too, but 95% was tech, tech, and tech.

Many times when ridding my garage of bloat, I thought of ridding myself of a book that I knew I would never read, but it reminded me of the moments I had with Amira in the computer science lab, hacking away at programming assignments, logic problems, the late nights studying in the library (with coffee we quietly snuck past the pesky librarians), cramming for a test and stressing out over math and physics homework assignments. To date, I still have the book with me. Recently, I read the book mentioned somewhere and decided that well, I will at least devote enough time to read the summary of the book — which is when I looked up it’s Wikipedia entry and got that quote.

So anyway, following this trail led me to another interesting discovery. (Be warned, this is going to be a long blog post)

I googled for that exact quote and the first result was this blog post, by someone from Kerala, India. Here’s the story behind that quote, it’s worth the read I promise.

A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for 40 days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.

Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.

The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.

“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something”, said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill”.

The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

“Well”, asked the wise man, “Did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world”, said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house”.

Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.

“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?” asked the wise man. Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you”, said the wisest of wise men. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”.

This makes sense to me. I know and realize that I sometimes am like that boy. I focus all my energy on the day-to-day important stuff, but I miss the long term important stuff. This is a great example of the phrase “penny wise, pound foolish”. I sweat the stuff that is urgently needed within the next 24 hours and strive the hardest to hit my mark, which I do — but I miss my mark in meeting my long term, broader 5 year goal. I attribute this to not aligning my daily goals to my 5 year goals — something I MUST remedy soon.

A perfect example of this is my not taking a vacation off ever since I began working right after college. Today, I’m what you corporate folks diagnose as “bleeding vacation time”, that is, my vacation time accrues, but is capped off at a certain amount. Short term: there’s _always_ something important and/or urgent at work, such that I just cannot afford to not go to work. Long term: I lose my sanity and burn out from working so hard. I’m only human after all.

Before the end of this year, I will go for a vacation. I have nothing solid planned, but I know I must take a vacation if I am to become a better employee. It’s really better for my company anyway. I never thought I’d say that, but I am now. By the end of this year, if I still haven’t taken a vacation, I will be truly SORRY and DISAPPOINTED with myself. My ex-girlfriend actually predicted that I’m the “bleeding vacation time” type of person. And she predicted that when I was still in college. Multiple part time jobs while getting a degree, why would she ever say something like that? :/ I remember thinking to myself, “that’s because you Europeans take it too damn easy”. Which in my defense, is true. American workers put in more hours than their European counterparts, last I remember from reading a world labor stats report. Thus, I shrugged off her comments as irrelevant and inherently biased, based upon unreasonable metrics.

My fear is that I’m driving on the road in high gear, in pitch black darkness with my headlights shining no farther than 30 feet. I can easily avoid small objects lying on the road and remain on the path, but I may not see the brick wall standing 31 feet in front of me. Or stop in time before it’s too late.

I have since lost touch with Amira since she moved back to Bosnia and Herzegovina after graduation (little over 3 years now at time of writing). Nevertheless, in the age of the wonderful internets, with search engines, e-mail, instant messengers, social-networks, and the good old telephone, there really is no excuse for not staying in touch. I hope she will drop me an e-mail if she reads this. I know (and she knows), and now you know, what a heartless prick I can be sometimes (see “what the hell were you thinking?” above). I’m sorry :(

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Jun

17

The world is full of dreamers and thinkers, but the doers are the ones who succeed

Filed Under execution, quotes, time management | Leave a Comment

Readers will notice that I’m on a blog post roll today! 3 posts in a day? Yes, it’s because I’m taking my own advice on building momentum, and my war against all forms of procrastination in my life today! So without further ado, here’s my quickly cobbled together blog post, I don’t care if you like it, because I do! :p

Just wanted to share a related post I read a little while back from CenterNetworks:

You’re in the game to win, so play like it. Bust your butt to get your work done, even if it means skipping out on the finer things in life for a while. The world is full of dreamers and thinkers, but the doers are the ones who succeed. Even if you have to force yourself to work, do it.

I’ve met countless software and web developers with big dreams. When I ask these people what steps they’ve taken to achieve their goals and dreams, often times I hear a sob story, or a “someone elses fault” story. That proverbial “some day” is today. If you don’t have the motivation to move on an idea now, then you probably never will and this lifestyle may not be for you.

Jun

13

It’s the uncomfortable that you really need to get done

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Tim Ferriss in a guest lecture at Princeton says, “If there’s something uncomfortable, that’s usually what you need to get done.”

And I know that’s true for me. It’s that things that you’re delaying on, procrastinating on, that is the one that you really need to get done. Subconsciously you’re delaying on it because of some kind of fear, and you just need to get up, wobble, fall over, whatever, but pick yourself back up and forge ahead. It’s the GTD-attitude mindset.

Apr

19

“Next Action”: Identifying the next step

Filed Under goal setting, project management, time management | Leave a Comment

If you work on multiple projects at work, you will realize that it’s pretty similar to juggling balls in the air with your two hands. You might be thrown a new ball in addition to what you already have in the air (new project), you might be trying to place a ball on the ground without dropping the other balls currently in the air (tying up any open ends left on a mostly finished project), and perhaps you might also have your eyes peeled for the next ball you want to juggle (perhaps you have a semi-vivid vision of a project that will positively impact your team/dept/company’s bottom line).

If the above sounds familiar to you, then perhaps the phrase “analysis paralysis” would also ring a bell. Analysis paralysis is described in Wikipedia as an informal phrase applied to when the opportunity cost of decision analysis exceeds the benefits. In other words, too much planning or a discussion that goes nowhere, and no execution. Also known as “all talk and no bite”. I really hate that.

I’m a fan of David Allen’s GTD book and it has helped me manage my work flow better. In it, he talks about the “next action”, and I have come to realize how much important it is just being able to identify what to do next, without actually doing it yet. I’m trying to emphasize the value of planning without executing immediately which I have discovered by experience, speaking as a guy who likes to execute immediately after planning, and doesn’t really care about planning right away, after executing.

When multi-tasking and switching between tasks so often, it is easy to lose track of the end goal of each individual project. This is especially true when operating in an R&D environment where you are pushing the limits — so by definition, your end-goal cannot be rigidly specific. I found that planning the current project’s next step before temporarily halting it to work on another project to be a huge load off my shoulders. Allow me to illustrate.

My work queue would look similar to an old-skool single core processor (with no hyper-threading) such that at any given time, I am focused on a single project. Each project (because they are large), are broken up into smaller bite-size chunks.

Time t1=0 t2=t1+n t3=t2+m t4=t3+x t5=t4+y
Project A
(step 1) 		Project B
(step 1) 		Project C
(step 1) 		Project A
(step 2) 		Project B
(step 2)

After step 1 in project A and before step 1 in project B, I first identify the next step (as step 2) for project A, with the understanding that I’m just merely identifying the next step towards project A’s goal, but I will not actually do it yet. Then, I move on to execute step 1 of project B. Likewise with the end of project A, after step 1 of project B, I quickly determine project B’s step 2 before moving on to step 1 of project C.

What’s nice about this is that after I am done with step 1 of project C, when going into step 2 of project A, I no longer have to dig up my recollection of where I last left project A. I don’t have to ask myself, “alright, where did I last leave this project?”, and “Okay, now what was that next incremental step that I had meant to take again?”. I had already thought out the “next actions”, as Dave Allen would call it, and I can jump right into execution mode!

On the flip side, what I did before was that I would jump into execution right after planning a next action, resulting in me spending too much time on a single project, and neglecting other projects. In operating systems theory, that would be the equivalent of thread starvation because another thread is hogging all of the CPU. Also, from a psychological perspective, the longer you have neglected a project, the harder it is for you to jump back in it. Why? Because so much has happened since then, and now it’s way more difficult to remember where you last left it.

In addition, while working on my current project, my mind will often worry and think about that other neglected project — which is really unnecessary and just eats up memory and brain power, causing severe inability to focus on the current issues at hand.

I’m an advocate of action and don’t like worrying, so I prefer to act on a worry, than to worry. Acting on a worry gives me a peace of mind.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
– Mark Twain


Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Jan

21

Cingular’s Blackjack

Filed Under time management | Leave a Comment

One of my new year’s resolution is to better optimize the use of my time. I’ve been reading up on Cingular’s Blackjack, and it appears attractive relative to the other PDA/Smartphones on the market. I scoured forums and noticed that there were many happy Blackjack owners. It’s not a coincidence that I picked a phone that’s running the Windows-based operating system, arguably the most insecure mobile OS out there. Yes, I do plan on hacking, err .. researching and studying it.

After I’ve got my mind set on the gizmo, now it’s time to shop. Apparently, Cingular’s data plans varies depending on the type of phone you have. An unlimited data plan for a higher end phone would cost $40 but if you had a cheaper sucky phone, it would cost $20. Pssh. I already am a Cingular customer and my contract has expired, so I’m just going from month to month. I don’t exactly fancy the idea of paying more for the same thing, just cuz my phone is supposedly “higher-tech” than a cheaper phone.

So I looked around for the best deal. I compared how much it would ultimately cost me over 2 years from 3 places.

  1. Online reseller — These guys wanted me to upgrade my voice plan from $40 to $60. The data plan would be $40. Contract: 2 years
  2. Cingular’s official brick and mortar store — These guys didn’t require that I upgrade my voice plan, but the data plan would still be $40. The phone itself would cost $200. Contract: 2 years
  3. A Cingular reseller’s official brick and mortar store — If I were to go with these guys, the phone itself would cost $400, but I wouldn’t need to change anything on my voice plan, and I can get the cheap data plan for $20 a month. Contract: Whatever I have right now, which is none

Being a nerd, I’d like to calculate this expenditure in detail before committing.

blackjack-data

Looks like the brick and mortar reseller cost the least over that period. The upfront cost is high, but it costs just as much or less in only 10 months. And unlike the other options, you don’t get stuck in some contract either.

Just to explore another cost-saving option: the contract to stay with Cingular is 2 years, but you can actually drop the data plan after 6 months. Just for laughs, let’s see which is the best option if I should drop the data plan after 6 months.

blackjack-nodata

Well it looks like the official brick and mortar store is the winner here.

In conclusion, I think I will most probably want to stick with the data plan after 6 months, so I will go with the purchase from the brick and mortar reseller. Now I can tether my laptop and use the phone for internet connectivity. Sweet.

Mar

31

Online window shopping for fast relief!

Filed Under time management | Leave a Comment

It’s not an obscure fact that I don’t get much sun. Alright, so I stay indoors a lot, working on stuff.

Watching TV is too time consuming, plus you eventually get sucked into one show after another - and if you don’t, you just keep flipping the infinitely many channels until you find something. Rinse, wash, and repeat. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t condone wasting time on the web either, but considering my options - window shopping online is a nice way to decompress for a few minutes. Plus, consider this. Leaving your desk to go anywhere for a “breather” does involve some hidden overhead costs. Here’s why:

  1. Walk to the parking lot: ~5 +/-5 mins
  2. Getting your car out and driving somewhere: ~20 +/-5 mins.
  3. If during rush hour traffic add: ~15 +/-5 mins.
  4. Driving back to wherever it is you left: ~20 +/- 5 mins.
  5. Finding your parking spot (which you gave up earlier, ha! didn’t think of that didja): ~5 mins.
  6. Walking back to your desk: ~5 +/-5 mins.
  7. (Factor in cost of gas)

I have been very conservative in my projections above. Plus, don’t forget to tack on how ever many minutes (or hours) you spent goofing off doing something when you get to wherever it is you went to.

Doesn’t seem all that bad after all, does it? Although decompressing this way does have its drawback - you get sucked into buying something nice to have that you don’t need, that you will completely forget about after a few weeks.

For me, the new Intel Core Duo Mac Mini is *just too damn irresistable*. Yes, I can proudly say (biting my tongue) that I didn’t buy one. Why? At the end of the day, it is just another shiny geek toy. I can do my mission critical tasks AND more, on my trusty ThinkPad. There’s nothing I can do with this cute irresistable toy that I can’t do with my ThinkPad. In other words, I can’t justify this expenditure just yet.

:(

I suggest doing this as a quick 10-15 minute to decompress - possibly forgetting any negative feelings someone inflicted on you (or negative feelings you intend to inflict). Acting on emotions is generally bad for business anyway.

So anyway, if you’re new to this, I recommend eDealinfo and Ben’s Bargains.

Disclaimer: This article is not meant for people suffering from a serious condition of impulse-shopping.