I promised I wouldn’t write plans on minimal changes. I would only share lessons from my personal breakthroughs.This is my first for 2013. Let me start with this..

Willpower, positive thinking and the mind over matter stuff is overrated.

For almost two years I’ve been battling depression. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while or know me personally you might have a clue on what the reason is.

Since then, I’ve been reading mind over matter books, the Bible, Stoic philosophy, Norman Vincent Peal’s The Power of Positive Thinking, which led me to read the Bible more.

I recite Tyler Durden’s line when he was giving advice to Edward Norton when he lost everything in Fight Club.

You know man, it could be worse. A woman can cut off your penis while you’re sleeping and toss it at the window of a moving car.

I tell myself I have to do so and so then I get an “I don’t feel like it” response from my mind then my head gets flooded with depressing thoughts. Everyday went by with me dragging myself forward. It it weren’t for my inability to cry I would be crying everyday. I did cry mostly in my dreams though. I remember waking up several times remembering a dream that all I did was cry.

The best laid plans ended in self sabotage and the small glitches in my life were left to rot and eventually the damage was irreparable. I was physically pushing a car instead of driving it.

I do wherever I can to keep myself sane. I go on vacations, road trips and sleepovers with friends in their homes to shift my mind and environment constantly. I’m forever grateful to my friends both old and new. My favorites were the girl who only went to restaurant that had healthy food and mostly avoided sweets. I learned to eat less rice because of her. She also taught me to control my spending impulse since we weren’t spending much despite going out a lot. Then there was this girl who was the exact opposite and let me stayed at her place and made me dinner. She got me more curious about cooking because she forced me away from the kitchen area and didn’t let me watch her prepare the food. I ended up writing my best posts on my different blogs while waiting for the food to cook at her apartment. Then there was this girl who’s boyfriend had left her. We hanged out trying different restaurants and tea places. We shared good stories of date ideas and fun times with past partners. I felt like shifting my environment consistently and having a large variety of people to go out with had helped me cope but whenever I returned to my usual locations the depression returned. I added more people to the mix to distract myself.

In the last half of 2012 I was reading the Four Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss. I was thinking that to attract the kind of girl I liked I needed to be attractive and smart girls are attracted by skills and good conversations. Interesting enough, I’m immediately repelled by party girls with short attention spans.

I got hooked on accelerated learning and since then I’ve been trying out the skills in the book. I made stove top Rosemary Pistachio White Chocolate Chip Cookies and I was able to recreate the Thai Style mixed seafood dish from my favorite Thai restaurant. I was also revisiting the skills I gave up on like learning to play the guitar and speaking German.

At the end of 2012, my dad took us to Eastwood to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We stayed at an all you can eat buffet restaurant. I ate something like eight plates of oysters, shrimp, ox tongue, roast beef, ribs, deep fried pork and many more. I decided that it would be good motivation to restart my slow carb diet since I feel pretty suck after what I ate.

As I was writing my shopping list, I revisited my copy of The Four Hour Body and reread some of the pointers of the slow carb diet. While browsing the book, I read a case study about Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, often referred to as the second brain, that is found in the gut and have studies about it related to depression, stress and anxiety. The study had a conclusion that probiotics especially lactobacillus shirota strain is particularly good at maintaining healthy serotonin levels. I thought to myself that if this helps my diet and my depression it would be awesome. I decided to start an experiment and bought Yakult, a local probiotic drink that advertised had Lactobacillus Shirota Strain. I took Yakult for a week and shifted toward a capsule form (Gastro Flora, which has Lactobacillus Cassei spores) since other people in the house were attacking my stash in the fridge. I asked my friends who worked in the medical industry and they confirmed that serotonin is related to the studies I mentioned. As I write this, it is the fourth week of my probiotic experiment and since the start of week two, no negative thought stayed in my head longer than three seconds. I still do get hit by negative thoughts but it doesn’t flood my head with anger or negative thoughts nor renders me unable to move.

I came to the conclusion that if you want to feel better take better care of body. I have been neglecting my body and as a result it had broken down.

Extended bouts of depression and lack of discipline or drive is a result of poor eating and sleeping habits.

My past belief was that the mind and fighting spirit can go through anything. What I failed to add to the equation was that my body is part of the mind and that having a healthy body will allow me to work on whatever I want to create in this reality.

I’m starting week four of my probiotic experiment and my slow carb diet. I feel a lot better about everything.

I no longer wrestle with myself to move forward. Hate doesn’t fill me. I put my positive thinking books back in the shelf. I only read the Bible now. My head no longer finds the awesome advice repulsive. I also notice that I am more candid with others with my interaction and I am more compassionate. Logic has returned.

I’m no longer pushing a car to work everyday but driving it. All is well.

I’m interested in other effects of probiotics. If you are also experimenting on this let me know your stories.

Thank you for reading.

Note: This post is inspired after reading the Four Hour Chef and re-reading the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. Check out Tim’s blog here.

I’m going on an indefinite hiatus. At the moment I felt I’ve said everything I wanted to say on minimal changes. I already live with less than 100 things, live a frugal lifestyle, have free time and that’s all I want for now.

At the moment I’m also resolving personal issues like fear, direction and forgiveness. I’m also trying to resolve some personal issues I’m not ready to share yet.

I’ll let you know how it goes when I get back.

It might be a long time until I return here so I’m going to miss you. I hope to come back a better person.

What will I be doing for now?

I started another blog called Call Center Training Tips as a project to help shy people get hired in a call center. I’ll be writing some tips there. If you’re interested in that feel free to visit Call Center Training Tips through this link.

That’s it for me at the moment.

I hope to see you soon.

Stay in touch with me. Send me an email at minimalchanges@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Kevin Olega

I was obsessed about things happening a certain way. The truth is in life 90% of the things that we get are blessings and 10% are learning experiences that make us a better person.

With that in mind, I want you to look at all the things you have right now. Isn’t it true that at one point in your life you felt that it was your most awesome moment?

I said that when I got my laptop, when I got my iPod touch, when someone special traveled many miles to meet me and celebrate my birthday, when my mom helped me set up my party and my friends came to make it extra special. Despite all those awesome moments, after a time (usually a few days) we forget to be grateful.

We believe that we deserve the most awesome shit in the world. We do get them already but since our perception is clouded by insecurities (because we compare with others) we are ungrateful. We blame the Creator, the people around us and ourselves.

We don’t accept reality. Life is awesome. We are blessed. We are loved.

Don’t be a dick.

Let me explain things more clearly.

In our mind we have an image of how we want our day to go by. Sometimes these are goal. Sometimes things are within our control. Some things are not.

Then when things don’t go our way, despite getting most of the things that we want we choose to be a brat and bitch about our situation.

How happy you are depends on how well you respond to things that are out of your control.

Practice being grateful.

Practice being thankful.

Practice responding in love.

I don’t want to impose this belief. I just want you to be aware and consider the possibility that…

Things don’t need to go according to plan for things to be awesome.

When we buy things that we don’t really need we respond in fear.

When we run faster up the upgrade cycle we respond in envy.

I propose responding in love. Things may not go according to plan but it’s still awesome and I’m cool with that.

I’m choosing not to buy and let’s just cross the bridge when we get there. I’m not too sure about the upgrade but I love what I’m using so I’ll put it off til a few years from now.

Budget’s a bit tight but I’m choosing to be generous.

Responding with love is a little harder but I find it to be awesome.

Confronting your fear doesn’t require money.

If you confront your fear you don’t need to spend as much.

You don’t need to spend as much on things you use to pad yourself against your fear.

Chances are you have what you need to start right now.

If fear is crippling you then chances are its telling you to buy something.

Don’t. You’re awesome. Now be awesome.

Your wallet is not the answer to your problems. Facing your fear is.

Here’s a question you can ask yourself to determine the value of what you’re doing. If it takes me a really long time to complete this work will I still continue? If you’re still game then chances are its important.

If not then maybe you can put it down for a while and work on what matters. Chances are you can always come back to it.

Most great work requires a time to grow and if you’re not prepared for that you might lose patience.

Just get the work done. Deliver value. Keep doing the work.

I just met a writer who wrote an entire book by hand.

I saw the end product which had the length of a small notebook. When I browsed through it I was amazed to find that there were no corrections.

When I asked him why he said it was the final product already. He said he had a separate notebook for ideas and a separate one for chapters. When he is satisfied he manually copies it into the final notebook.

There’s no distraction and he can do it anywhere because nobody will try to steal your notebook.

And here I was troubling myself between using Evernote, Simplenote and plain text via Dropbox.

Being tech savvy doesn’t always mean more productive. There are other noise activities. Ones that don’t lead to the work.

Technology assisted doesn’t always mean you are assisted by technology. Sometimes it’s the other way around. You are assisting the technology.

Consider this before your next upgrade.

What are your thoughts? I’m curious. Consider letting me know in the comments below.

If you don’t like Apple products then you’ll want to set aside money for an awesome smartphone, a tablet and a laptop.

These days people seem to be updating every time the new model or update comes out. There’s always the latest version that’s revolutionizing how you (whatever)

I was born in 1985 and I grew up without that much gadgets. Sure we had a TV and not much else.

Here’s the thing. As technology got more advanced and cheaper..

My Mom and Uncle bought a Betamax Player and they would rent movies that our family watched together.

My dad got me a Nintendo entertainment system. (the one where you had two controllers and just had two buttons A and B plus the directional pad).

A few years after we got a SEGA Genesis which was more colorful and I could play Mortal Kombat.

I was at fourth grade when We eventually got a landline and I would call my mom and uncle in the office. Awesome technology. I called my crush and I talked about the Predator, Hellraiser and Mortal Kombat and other gory and morbid games and movies.

At sixth grade we had Cable TV and for the first time we were hooked on Cartoon Network, HBO and Star Movies. Life was awesome. For the first time I followed a complete season of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn on HBO. My mom also got a phone then a Nokia 2110. It was worth the same amount that the iPhone 5 is being sold back then. You had a four line screen instead of two and you could text.

We also bought our first personal PC it had the latest 64mb ram and a 4GB hard drive that comes with Windows 97. I stayed up all night playing Heavy Gear, Mechwarrior and X-Wing vs TIE Fighter. My uncle got me a CD with all the info on the Star Wars vehicles. We also got ourselves a dial up Internet connection. The one where you connect your modem to your landline to go online. I went to Spawn.com to download wallpapers and startwars.com to read up on Darth Vader.

When I was a high school freshman I got my first mobile phone a 5110 with the game snake. My teacher took it when I was caught trying to beat my sister’s high score. My dad didn’t give it back until I was in third year I think.

My dad gave me another computer that had more space and we played Starcraft and Diablo 2. My sister installed the Sims designed houses and became an interior designer.

I also lost a few phones along the way. Some got stolen and some got water damage because of my carelessness. I also got a Palm Tungsten T and T3 which is very much the iPod touch back then with a stylus and a 128mb memory.

So over the years we acquired phone lines. CableTV. Movie players. Music players. Mobile phones. Tablets. Laptops. Internet and mobile Internet.

What I’m getting at is if we’re always broke then where does the budget for these come from?

I mean there’s a lot of these and I’m sure we can get away with a few of these things but all of them put together seems to be a bit steep.

Consider this on your next hardware upgrade. They’re awesome but we might not need all of them. A few years ago we didn’t have all these technologies and life went well.

Before unlimited TV we played in the streets. Before mobile phones we went to each others houses. If we wanted to play video games with our friends we went to each others houses and not just remotely logged in to a server.

Today we spend more time in the virtual world than experiencing life in the real world. We also pull in our resources to make this possible.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to live life instead of recording and sharing it?

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you were present to the people you care about?

Wouldn’t it be more awesome of you had spare cash and budget rather than it all going to your hardware upgrades?

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you considered this before your next hardware upgrade?

How many people tell you to keep your money?

I had a conversation with a rich guy he told me not to think of buying a house or a car until I had the cash in the bank to pay it. I had one with another rich guy who told me to keep my money because it flows out like water. These guys who could buy a car every week told me not to buy things while financial experts told me I should spend it. Figures huh.

I’m friends with an executive of a multinational company on Facebook and his wife is a doctor. He posted on his status message that he doesn’t have the budget to buy an iPhone five yet. It makes me tell myself I should be as smart as him when it comes to money. I know people who Earn slightly above minimum wage but are in debt an monthly financial obligations because they have an iPhone and a Mac. If its not a gift from parents then perhaps they went broke just to buy it or will possibly be broke in the future unless they changed.

I went out with a really smart girl. She told me money will not buy me happiness. I shouldn’t think of buying as much.

My dad scolded me for wanting a MacBook a few years ago. He pointed out my gadget envy and my desire to show of. I just thought a Mac would be awesome to use. He didn’t bother to ask me why. But he was right. He knew the effect the marketing had on me. My friend at work is a son of a tycoon who entered the corporate wold because he was bored. Every time we discussed Apple products and I pointed out how awesome so and so feature is he told me Apple has awesome marketing and they got me to believe what they wanted me to believe.

Financial coaches are selling seminars they want your money too. We should listen to the experts so all will be well.

For some reason people I know with a bazillion times more money than me told me to keep my cash and not to buy into the bullshit. Is everyone bullshitting you into buying something or are there a few people bullshitting you into not buying something?

Who will you believe?

When I started blogging, I had a crazy case of gadget envy. I wanted a laptop (Macbook Air) to type my blog posts in. I wanted to write posts on an iPhone on the fly. Despite that I still began minimal changes. I wrote the posts by hand then type them to post from a computer shop or during lunch time at work. That’s how I’ve been working from the start.

When I didn’t have a laptop I brought everything notebooks papers, printouts reference materials and stuff. I bought a whole bunch. When I became a minimalist I digitized most of my paper which have me a huge amount of free physical space. I also forced myself to carry less.

Eventually I’ve been able to get a laptop and I saved everything there. I totally forgot about my 8 gig data limit and became a digital hoarder. Having a laptop allowed me to carry my music, movies, etc. I have a platform to write my post, draw comics, bring a music and movie player, surf the web and carry my photo albums with me. I am super thankful for it.

Having a laptop however, hadn’t moved my blog forward. I carry it around everyday and end up being too tired to write a post. I did so for several months imagining that I’d be working from coffee shops and internet hotspots.

I was wrong then I lusted for an Iphone or an Ipad so it’ll be lighter. Suddenly, I told myself to stop.

I wrote down these rules on my small notebook:
Leave the laptop if:
Not watching movies where you’re bringing it.
Not transferring large urgent files
Not needing to upload stuff you can’t do at home.
Not showing off your music or picture collection.
You just wanted to show it off and nobody asked you to bring it.

Return to writing for your blog and do most of your writing on your notebook (you know the paper based notebook)

Bringing my laptop is heavy and stressful. I’ve left my laptop at home for a few weeks and I realized that doing so allows me to:

Move freely - even an ultra portable laptop is heavy (3lbs) especially if you bring it around everyday and commute.
Work when I work – I have a day job and I blog. I can’t blog at work or focus on my blog between breaks or during some of my errands after work. I decided to just write on my laptop at home in the morning or before going to bed and just use a notebook for writing on the fly.
Present Where I am- I only do one thing at a time and became really efficient at it. I removed personal files at work and just worked on what I was doing. My productivity soared through the roof.

Do you have other reasons to leave the laptop at home? Consider sharing in the comments below.

I stayed up till three am to listen to Apple’s keynote about the new iPhone 5 and surprisingly a new iPod touch is also announced. This time it has the iPhone 4S ‘ A5 chip and a five mega pixel camera. I think it’s awesome. I can take better pictures and play the newer and I’m expecting more awesome games and I’ll be using the new iPhone 5′s four inch screen to type better.

Then I paused and held my iPod touch. It was a memento from someone very special and had the same effect on me as someone holding on to a past loved one’s item as if it was their hand. Cheesy as it sounds this had grown on me.

Then logic kicked in. Whatever the heck I can do with the new upgrade I can already do well with my current iPod touch.

I’ve typed a good number of the posts from the iPod touch to almost all of my sites.

I’ve taken awesome pictures.

I use it to manage my money.

I use it to take notes and write blogposts.

I use it to browse the web, read and go on my social networks.

It replaced my laptop for the quick stuff I do on a computer.

A camera, screen and speed upgrade doesn’t seem to be worth shelling out $300 since I do most of the tasks I do on it already.

Earlier today, before I realized that the official Apple announcement was today, I asked myself the question…

What is the highest possible item I can get and is it worth it?

I was playing a game in that context. I was thinking of armor for a character that doesn’t fight directly.

I realized that I didn’t need it. I have strengths that make my character function without the use of the upgrades. Doing so would be taxing that it would impede the growth of strengths I already had.

The new armor is shiny. But I would have to allocate resources just to be able to use it. As a result I could spread myself too thin. I also realize that by not buying the armor I made more money in that game than I did in the past ten years of playing the game but I’m starting to go off topic already. This could be a lesson for not buying as well but I’ll leave that for a different time.

After the excitement from the Apple event had subsided, I realized that I had played

I still find the new iPod touch awesome. But instead of shouting in my ear and the beating of my heart that voice is just a whisper now. Just as this iPod touch I’m typing on had helped me with my iPhone envy.

I’ll continue to use what I have and do what I can as I face even more exciting things in the future.

Are you upgrading or not? Why? Consider sharing in the comments below.

Imagine the time between now and when you achieve your goal increasing. Imagine it doubling. Imagine it tripling.

Notice the flood of thoughts. Notice how those thoughts are not so nice. Did you feel the hate building up?

I experience this whenever I get delays. I notice that delays bring out my worst traits.

I notice that the worst traits that come out as a result of my impatience screwed me over by making me rush things.

Many things I have rushed gave me worse consequences than not completing something.

Speed is a benefit of learning to master keeping your cool with the slowness.

As I write this, I remind myself to slow down. To breathe and take my goals slowly. Rushed work is never good. As we both go back to reality I encourage you to be conscious. To enjoy and take things one at a time.

I hope you enjoyed this exercise in patience. Thank you for reading.

Sometimes we get stuck or stopped in our tracks. Many recommend that we push past pain and break through.

I realize I’ve been doing this a few days ago and I’m not really moving forward. All my ideas are now just one sentence quotes and my plans are just plans and I don’t feel like taking action despite keeping things secret.

What now?

I’m going the other way and taking a break.

When I take a break I can come back stronger, faster, smarter, and have more endurance.

This strategy worked for me in different situations. If you need rest then maybe you should take a break. Nothing long term or life changing. Just rest and continue that next weekend.

Don’t worry too much about missing opportunities. If you take a break, a stronger and smarter you will be available to grab bigger opportunities.

Isn’t it stressful to force yourself to work when you’re exhausted? How about no longer excited?

Just take a quick break.

The message last Sunday at church was about how desensitized we were about the situation of our nation. At the moment we only think of ourselves and our families.

Whenever we see calamities or unfortunate events it’s just business as usual in the Philippines and at the end we can take action. We start with prayer and from there God will move (mostly through us).

It all starts with us. When we acknowledge that we’re part of the problem we can also be part of the solution.

The message ended. Since then I was bothered as I moved around the metro for my errands. What I previously did my best to shut my eyes to had been revealed to me.

I saw a kid helping his friend walk. I had to look down and see that his friend had a deformed foot possibly crushed from an accident or deformed from birth.

I had three plates of sushi for dinner. The family had a celebration. I went to bed full and had a nightmare.

I was in a city I was not familiar with and there were a lot of street kids. I had a companion with special eyes who could peer into the persons background (don’t ask me how it’s a dream). Cute chubby kid played with me and my companion told me that the kid had ten months to live. I hugged the kid praying for him and promising him I’ll take care of him.

In my mind I was telling myself shit I had a financial setback and I have no idea how I’ll fund this crazy charity. I carried the kid and asked him where his parents were. As we were walking toward his house I woke up.

The dream felt so real. My heart felt broken. Somewhat somewhere I have no idea where a four year old kid in the street has only ten months to live or maybe less.

We are more powerful than we think. We are blessed to bless others. There are no accidents. These are not just empowering quoted to be thrown around as your Facebook status.

Here’s what we can do.

Pray. Do you have no idea what to pray for? Start with what you see. Acknowledge that God will move and will use you to channel his blessings. The extra money you have this month isn’t there for no reason. Ask for wisdom in what to do next.

Feed someone. It’s not much but one meal or one snack can help someone. Whenever you leave your house bring some food with you. Give it to someone who you noticed who hasn’t eaten. You probably have a list in your head of places that offer cheap but filling meals. I have a public collection of places thar offer cheap and filling meals at Philippine Island Living. That’s no accident. Buy a meal from there and give it to a street kid.

I have 3000 readers on my all my blogs and I’ll post this on each one. If each of us does this then we have 3000 kids that will be fed that day. That’s not a lot but that’s a start. When I worked for Nu Skin they proudly announced to their distributors that they accomplished giving out one million meals. They are a big organization. Let’s start with a few hundred.

Google children’s hour, KIVA, KMBI, Real Life Foundation or whatever group you wanted to support but been putting off.

I don’t have a lot of spare cash but I figure 20-50 pesos a day to but a meal can make a difference for someone.

I have some other ideas but I’ll just talk about what we can do for now.

I like Tim Ferris’s idea about supporting charities that empower instead of just giving help. Everyone has to eat first and immediate needs first need to be met before we change the world.

You have a skill that’s useful or access to opportunities. Give it to others for free. If you’re in IT teach someone how to make money from what you do. You can teach them to get a job in your industry. I started that with call center training tips to help shy people get hired in a call center and with minimal changes to help average income earning people have spare cash, free time and a clear head by not buying stuff they don’t need. You can do something like that as well. Teach others your skills. If you own a business help someone start a similar venture and share the market. If you’re afraid help someone become your supplier and pay them properly. If you’re an entrepreneur you probably have several business ideas that you won’t implement because you don’t have the time or don’t need the money or both. Give it to others. Don’t just let it sit there. Share your business ideas.

During the last election Manny Villar set up the best tasting noodle and fried rice Siomai stall called Panda Mein. I interviewed the cute staff manning the store is not an employee but a student and it turns out that Manny Villar is sponsoring this business to his scholars. He had my thumbs up then. That idea was awesome. He had my thumbs up then.

I found out that he spent a billion pesos campaigning. I also found out the guy who won and became president of the Philippines used as much money for advertising.

These days I don’t see an open Panda Mein booth and I’ve been craving for their hoisin sauce on rice.

Here’s a campaign idea. If you have a billion peso campaign budget and you used that to help others instead of posters and tv ads and so on on the condition that it will be a secret how would you think that would affect your campaign. Think with me here.

It doesn’t have to end here. Promise me that you will take action. If you know a businessman or a politician can you pass this message to him or her? You don’t have to use me as reference. I’ll let you have the credit. When you do I’ll refer to you as a champion who vanquished nightmares. Do it for the cute chubby street kid who has ten months to live and his family. Do it to make the country a better place. I know you hate to see them live this way as much as I do.

There are probably more. Please share in the comments bellow.

Photo credit.
Photo credit.
Photo credit.
Photo credit.

In 2010 I decided to clean my desk, Reduce my belongings, free up my time and have less expenses and start a blog. I was scared to do it. Despite that I named my blog minimal changes and I started doing small and unnoticeable changes. A few months into it I decided I wanted to become a minimalist. I wanted to live with less than 100 things. I wanted to cut down my overhead expenses to a minimum. I wanted to be content and happy with my life. I realized that I was tired from the get rich first before you can live a happy life and just learn to live in the present.

A couple of weeks ago, I paid for the hosting and renewed the domain for minimal changes. Here are some lessons that I find interesting.

1. The same people who discouraged you from going after success will discourage you from living with less. I know right. It’s the same people. A few years back I talked to my dad about how I plan to be ultra successful selling skin care (Nu Skin) and I got blasted with feedback. In 2011 we got to talk again and I told him that I was pretty content with my life and I’m trying to live with less and be content but still trying to improve a bit and I got a similar reaction, only this time it was about me throwing away my ambition.

2. Life is easier with less stuff (physical items). It’s true. Before I started, I could fill an SUV up to the roof with my stuff. I had so much clutter lying around you’d be embarrassed you know me. Now, I can pack all my stuff in less than 5minutes. I can put all my clothes in two back packs (I can get one large bag but I’m making it a point not to buy new stuff) and my shoes in a paper bag and I’m good to go. I also know where all the items are because there’s not much to track.

3. Letting go of unnecessary expenses opened up the possibility for bigger expenses I wanted to spend on that I previously couldn’t afford to do so. I couldn’t pay for a $200 debt because I had no money left at the end of the month. I didn’t have a savings account. I had no budget for dates and going out. When I started to write my expenses down, I saw where all the money went and made adjustments regularly. After a few months, I was able to pay for my debt, start a savings account, pay for dates, massages, road trips and whatever I previously only wanted to spend on. In fact, right now I only spend half of what I make. That’s for another story though. I’ll tell you about it later.

4. Shopping should be a pleasurable activity and not a troublesome one. I like shopping. I like nice clothes and gadgets and home stuff as much as the average guy or maybe a little bit more. I’m also an impulsive buyer. When I became a minimalist, I started questioning every intention to purchase, I always think in terms of permanent before I buy anything. That way I have I’m able to keep my eye open for good deals.

For example: Is this the bag I’d want to use permanently? If this is the last bag I’m buying in this lifetime would I be happy with it? What bag do I have am I willing to give up for this bag? How many hours of work do I need to spend to pay for this bag?

Doesn’t that make it more stressful? Not at all. I get to look at more stuff and find better value for my money. Sometimes I get stuff for free or close to free.

5. Knowing you have money and not spending it is a lot better than having a lot of stuff to impress other people. It’s true. I know people who have good stuff (cars, gadgets, clothes, etc) but are pretty broke all the time. I guess appearing cool has it’s perks but having money has better perks.

Another thing, window shopping feels a lot better when you have extra money rather than shopping knowing that you’re spending your last money and should you need money later you’ll have to pull from your savings or borrow from someone you know.

Things really are limited at one point. I’m not questioning your ability to make more money but let’s just use how much you made last month as an example. For example, $2,000 or whatever your income you made last month has a limit and it’s a number. It’s limited to that number for that point in time. Knowing that your income is limited would you put it where it delivers value or where it doesn’t. Pick your battles carefully.

6. Being limited sets you to be creative. Instead of relying on technology, I used some techniques to get things done. I don’t have Siri to transcribe dictated text so I created a work flow where I write most of the stuff I want to write on a bus. I encode and publish with an iPod Touch or a laptop. Previously I only used Google docs or simplenote to be able to write from anywhere then publish. I wanted a Macbook Air and an iPhone but that can wait. My current tools will suffice.

7. Your current tools are enough. I used to just write things on paper and encode things online through a computer rental place or by borrowing a housemate’s laptop or during break time at work. I eventually got myself a USB thumb drive, then a laptop of my own, a home internet connection, then an iPod touch. I always wanted an upgrade. I also realized that I”ve been doing fine without these things. The Macbook Air I’m lusting for has roughly the same specs as my current laptop. 2 GB ram. 70 GB hard drive. I’m using a Fujitsu LifeBook ultra portable laptop (you know those netbook sized laptops?). The Macbook Air is so slim and light I can bring it anywhere. That’s the only thing I like about it and the cost is about $1,000. I can write from anywhere with my current laptop. My work recently provided me with a larger laptop with similar specifications and I had to bring it with me all the time.

8. You are enough. Self improvement and productivity junkies spread the mantra be positive and get better. Subtly it says, you have to be positive no matter what and you have to change because your current self is pretty worthless. For several years I got stuck to that mindset. I hate all of them now. Hanging around with them made me feel inadequate and the words seem to have done more harm than good. It made me treat non-positive people badly. It turned me into a liar. I pretend bad things don’t happen and just focus on my goals. Clinging to their words are all bullshit. Here’s an alternative mindset. You’re already perfect. Nothing in you needs to change. You don’t have to. If there’s anything that needs to change in you you’ll be the first one to know. If you’re interested in learning some stuff you’re free to do so. I would recommend that you don’t let others nag you. Your goals are adequate, your current state is adequate. You are enough.

9. With that said I don’t think I should add more. The last lesson is at eight. I wish I could do more but this is all I have at the moment. I hope you enjoyed this post. I hope you enjoyed joining me on this minimalist journey. I wanted to become a minimalist because I wanted to be free and to have more control. As I learned to live with less I realized that I also needed to give this up. The less I feel I needed to be in control, the more opportunities for me to love, be grateful and enjoy the moment. Perhaps, that’s another lesson. Perhaps, I should rewrite this paragraph. But that’s all what I wanted to say. As I type this, I imagine I’m talking to you. I picture both scenarios, you’re here in my room reading what I just typed or me, wherever you are, waiting for you to finish reading, smiling at your reaction and excited about your comment.

10. I’m sorry there’s no number ten. I ran out of what to say. You’re welcome to reread number nine though.

Thank you for reading.

Did you also go after a minimalist lifestyle? What was your experience?

I was on my way to some work related errands on a Saturday.

I brought my cousin with me because we planned to hang out after. It was raining hard and while we were on the bus, I realized that the service road was flooded like a swimming pool. It was crazy. We got off at the nearest bus stop and took shelter in a mall across the bus stop. We decided to eat there and have a few bouts of DOTA (an online game). At four pm there was a mall-wide announcement that they were closing shop for the day. Its unusual because the mall we went to was known for midnight sales and not closing on holidays. I also worked in a mall for a few months. I had never experienced it closing in an afternoon for any reason. This was a first. We went to a department store because we needed an umbrella. The ones we brought with us had been torn apart by the wind.

We couldn’t find a ride home so we took a detour through the suburbs. When we arrived at the house, I noticed that the floor was wet. The news was on. A lot of people weren’t so lucky. My mom told me that the place got flooded. It was a couple inches inside and knee high at the back of our house.

My uncle from Marikina had his car and the rest of his belongings got trashed by the flood. Floodwater filled the entire ground floor of his apartment. I grieved for the fourth generation iPod touch left inside the car.

On TV, low areas were flooded up to the second to the third floor. A local celebrity had to be rescued using a jet ski. It was a crazy day. I lost a stack of papers to the flood and the watch my dad gave me.

When I got to work the next Monday, more people were telling me the same story. My workmate had to ride a boat to get to the office. My business partner told me that his client’s whole house got submerged, his four cars and home theater was (I don’t know a good word to use because if that happened to me I’d be out of words too). His client was abroad that day, crying to him over the phone.

Okay so I lost a few papers and a watch. I felt like I was very fortunate. A few weeks before that, I started reading lifehacker, Zen Habits and mnmlist.com. As a result, I decided to clean my desk then my room. I also reduced my stuff to 300 things. Yes this was the number of items I kept before I got to less than 100 things.

It was a slow start for me to become a minimalist. Mostly because I thought they were lazy bums and losers for choosing not owning as much as they can. The flood gave me a different view of the situation.

Here are ten things I thought to myself that day that led me to work on living like a minimalist:

1. The less items I have the less I had to worry about them

Storage, safety, cleaning, storing and organizing. These activities take time and sometimes money. I also don’t enjoy doing all that so when I actually compared at the upside and downside of owning things instead of mindlessly accepting ownership then it made more sense for me to own less.

2. The less items I need the less I have to replace when I lose them.

Back when I mindlessly owned a lot of things, by default, I replaced what I lost. Today when I lost something, I consider the possibility that I don’t need it anyway and prolong replacing the item I lost. Sometimes I see the loss as an opportunity to let go and put my hands to better use.

3. I would rather keep my cash than buy lots of things.

I used to own a lot of things and valued cash less. I’d rather have a full collection and part with my cash than do the opposite. After seeing expensive collections drowning in the flood, I saw that it’s more likely to happen anytime soon. By this time I picked up a minimalist person’s crazy thinking and told myself you can drown my cash in flooded water and it won’t lose value or get ruined. Haha take that excess personal belongings.

4. If I were a minimalist I won’t have to worry about a flood or a fire because I can throw my things in a bag and pull it out of the house.

Back when I was a kid, a neighbor’s house got caught on fire. Ever since that day I’ve been thinking about how I’ll be able to save my stuff from fire in case one happens. We live at the ground floor of a house that has lots of big windows. If a fire occurs I practically have an exit in every direction. The problem is I feared for my stuff more than my life. If I had a lot of items I needed to rescue then it would be a disaster. If I had a few it would be bearable and it’s easier to buy replacements for a few items.

5. Since I don’t buy and keep a lot of stuff, I’ll have spare cash to buy new what I want.

I always had a fear of losing things. My teenage drama is I lost 90% of my toy collection when I lived with a relative and later on lost 90% of my stuff when we lost a house before I started working. Since then I’ve been worried about it happening again. Since then, I’ve been stressing myself with prevention and expected a breakdown if it does actually happen. Yoda said “let go of what you’re afraid to lose.” It’s a smart move. Buddha talked about “letting go of desires.” Jesus commanded us to leave it all behind to follow him. Maybe it is the first step.

6. I don’t need to clean up as much.

I hate cleaning up and organizing as much as the next guy. I know. I know. I’m a slob like most guys but I enjoy staying in a clean place. Having a few items around prevents myself from piling up clutter. Not because I’m an obsessive compulsive neat freak but because I physically can’t.

7. Being a minimalist can also be the first step to become location independent.

I later read about the location independent Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle. He writes about how he runs his business from his laptop and moves to a new country every four months, a lifestyle I previously believed to require a few million dollars in assets to achieve.

8. Or being financially independent (because I have zero overhead)

Here’s the interesting thing. The less you have to spend the more you can allocate for your goals. Think about it. Can you identify additional costs of keeping things you no longer use in terms ot time, attention and money? Be honest and do an assessment. If you found out that the dream life you want costs cheaper than you think what are you willing to let go?

9.It will make my room bigger.

You can pay an insane amount of cash to rent or buy extra space or cut your possessions in half to double your space. Instead of buying organizers to save space, wouldn’t it be better to eliminate what you don’t use?

10. Looking at it minimalism looks like it will help me be freer.

How can you not be freer with the last 9 benefits that I talked about? This is an alternative that doesn’t cost a bazillion dollars to implement. Just a bit of honesty and questioning your consumerist tendencies.

Shortly after I worked on purging my things further.
1. I kept digitizing paper and deleting files I don’t use.
2. I made a study of my expenses and avoided unnecessary expenses for spare cash.
3. I put all my other projects on hold so I’ll have free time.
4. I tossed out my souvenirs and pared down my possessions.

Everything became different after.

It’s the second half of 2012 and I haven’t bought anything big. So far so good. This minimalist lifestyle is finally paying off. Despite multiple financial setbacks I have stayed afloat and I compared to past setbacks didn’t get as crippled.

To keep up this pace I am creating a rule of not buying anything new for myself so impulsive buying doesn’t eat a good chunk of my resources.

This is a list of things I won’t buy for 2012 to prevent me from overspending as I have done so in my past eight years of working.

This is a list of things I believe I am likely impulsively buy. I would also like to keep my things under 100 as to not have as much mental clutter.

1. No New Notebooks

Our house is filled with notebooks. A lot of them are slightly used. I think we have close to forty. That’s a lot and I buy notebooks that catches my eye as I write a lot of things on a daily basis. I feel it’s smarter to use what I have.

2. No New Gadgets

I experience a lot of gadget envy. In fact as I was using my cousin’s iPad 2 I thought about buying the new iPad with retina display. My cousin doesn’t use his iPad as much during schooldays so he sometimes lets me use it and leaves it in my room. The iPad has all the apps I commonly use so I get to use it as often as I want. The iPad sits in his room and sometimes my room unused in the box. I still prefer writing on my laptop and my iPod touch. Despite that I still want to buy one for myself. I feel that one day I’ll go crazy and use all my money and finally buy one. I’m also thinking of getting a new phone.
3. No New Exercise Equipment

I want to take a few weights home whenever I see one at the store. This forces me to be consistent with my workout.

4. No New Bags

I’m a bag guy. Its the first thing I check out when I’m at the mall or at thrift stores. A bag Isn’t expensive if you’re smart but I already want the bag I want to use for the meantime and our living room floor is cluttered by a pile of bags we no longer use.

5. No New Apps

I was on app shopper everyday waiting for new apps that are now free. But it turns out the apps I use are the same apps I’ve used since I got the iPod touch from Ish. I use Nexus Money, iDoneThis, Simplenote, Dropbox, Kindle, Bible Reader, The built in apps and Social Media Apps. That’s it. I avoid games because I get super addicted to them.

6. No New Writing Software

I got myself scrivener and evernote last year and I don’t use them as much. I prefer using simplenote and textfiles in Dropbox.

7. No New Movies

I’m not looking forward to a new movie in particular and I don’t feel like spending on one.

8. No New Index Cards

I buy lots of them on a regular basis and now I have a pile of unused notes in index cards. I think the better options is to just use the forty or so notebooks at home and leave my remaining for business use.

9. No New Websites

I now have seven websites that I manage. It’s starting to take more time than I like. I’ll just continue to maintain what I have and do my best with them.

10. No New Social Networks

I don’t have Pinterest, stumble upon and I don’t have a separate social media profile for each of my seven sites. I think adding a new one would kill me. I’ll consolidate everything on my personal account and that’s it for now.

11. No New Books

I like reading books. I have a lot of backlog reading on my kindle app. I spend a lot of money of my books.

There you go this is my not to buy list. What’s on your not to buy list?

Ever since I started working my goals were simple. Get a job. Get my own place. Go out occasionally and enjoy life.

Later on I got myself a girlfriend and I wanted to spend more time with her, the family a side project, help out at church or whatever but the problem is I realized that I don’t have enough time to do what I want. I then subscribed to the mindset of getting rich and having tons of passive income so I have enough free time to do what matters.

Makes sense right? But later in life I realized that this was simply an excuse on my part. This is the brute approach to solving problems. This basically says that I’m too lazy to think of a way to make time I’m going to work harder to make money and throw money at the problem.

In 2010, when I started Minimal Changes, I realized that there are alternatives and I gave a long hard look at the problem and thought about alternatives to having more free time.

I don’t suggest you try all my suggestions at the same time. I do however suggest for you give what applies to you an honest try and see what happens.

Here are 10 ways to have free time without needing a billion dollars in the bank or a large passive income:

Stop…

1. Watching TV

Without realizing, I was spending a lot of time on TV. If you have a daily 30 minute TV show then your days have 30 minutes less in your 16 hour days. If you sacrifice sleep then you mess up your efficiency. For me, TV is addictive so when our TV broke down. I made sure it never got repaired. If you can’t do this. I suggest you move your TV outside your room like outside your house so it would be easily stolen. Kidding. Put it somewhere inconvenient for you to leave turned on all the time.

2. Paying Attention to the News

I also mean on TV, Radio, Newspaper or other Media. This does not add value to your life. There’s nothing you can do about the news anyway. A common excuse for a lot of people including myself was how do I stay updated? It’s an excuse for myself to ask people what’s happening. If something was really important you would know. Also if you can’t resist not knowing, pass by a news stand and scan the front page headlines to keep you informed.

3. Going out with friends who feed your addictions

I have friends who are excellent at encouraging my bad habits. Some of my friends feed specific addictions I have like drinking, smoking, girls, workaholism, games and what not. I have friends who drink and go out to parties all the time. When I’m with them I feel like I can keep doing to myself what’s in reality bad for me. I labeled myself as a social drinker or a social smoker or whatever. This is an excuse for the lack of courage to admit that I’m hooked on these bad habits. Not only are they using up my resources or destroying my body (or morals) they are also using up my time and being addictive in nature this is more time than I want. I made a decision to just stop going out with them.

4. Smoking

A stick cigarette typically takes 3-5minutes to consume. I smoked ten to twenty sticks a day. I was so addicted to it I learned to get my cigarettes for free by hangning out with other smokers. A smoking session can easily turn into a hangout. On a regular basis I spent about two to three hours a day smoking and talking to smokers. Mostly in five to fifteen minute sessions. I did what I had to do and let go.

Avoid…

5. Drinking

I usually got myself a bottle or two after work and drank it before going to bed. Sometimes I go out with friends. If I drink alone it might take me an hour to finish the two bottles. If I drink with my friends it’s going to be the entire night. My next day is also so messed up I couldn’t get work done or if it’s a weekend, what I really want done because of the hang over and the lack of sleep. Also
Let’s be honest about drinking.

6. Extra Work Hours

I used to believe that success in life is determined by the number of hours spent at the workplace. Later, I realized that I was wrong because I can turn a thirty minute task into a 16 hour task. I’m a changed man now and my suggestion is to try to complete your task in less time. My goal at work is to complete all my important tasks before lunch so I can slack of or work on something awesome the rest of the day. Some studies say that slacking off is somehow good for you and it’s not a sin kill time.

7. People who don’t add value

I used to spend hours firefighting for people who have problems. In fact I was doing person to person consulting, phone, text, email and chat support for my friends in the topics of love, career and financial advice. I’m not really a professional but the amount of time spent on these activities might qualify me. I just spent a lot of time with them and later I decided to put up this blog as a FAQ for people who ask me for advice all the time. I later applied managing the problems by absence and since I made myself unavailable to emergencies the emergencies somehow seemed to be resolved by them selves.

Limit…

8. Social Networks, Email and Web Browsing.

This is a big one these days. Whenever I’m on facebook, twitter or browsing the web it’s as if I’m trapped in a black hole I couldn’t escape from. I’ve never experienced taking heroin but if I were to imagine an addiction you couldn’t pry yourself away from then that would be facebook or twitter or whatever social media you’re on. Social media and email is the new form of communication so not having an account makes you less accessible. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. I suggest you limit it to say once a day thirty minutes or less? I want to eventually login once a week only. What do you think?

9. Your Possessions

Each item in your possession takes up both physical space and mental ram. You have to maintain, clean, take care of, guard, organize and pack each one. These activities take time and attention. These days attention span is very limited and we need to guard it well. Where our attention goes, time (and usually money) goes. Each item we own requires attention and the more stuff we have the more distracted we are. Go for lighter living. An experiment I recommend is the 100 Things Challenge. This is by the way not limited to physical objects. Check out digital possessions as well. Do you have a ton of movies, music and photos? Feel free to delete some to free up your disk space and mental space. Delete games you already completed. Movies you’ve seen a thousand times. That’s where your time is going. How many hours do you need for a project? A movie is worth two to three hours and so on. Do the math.

10. Doing everything by yourself

There’s only one you. After eliminating, avoiding or limiting certain tasks then you can automate or delegate some to free up your time further. If you have the opportunity and (only) if it makes sense for you to do so, outsource some tasks to technology and other people. That way you’ll be able to use both your hands on what’s important to you.

Are your hands full? What are you going to let go of to have free time? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Original title How to never have to clean your room agin.

The reality is, I hate to clean my room. This is the worst thing for me that you can ask me to do at home. I’m so lazy about it, I’m looking for other options. When I started minimal changes these are things that I worked on but didn’t get to write about.

I figure this could help you out if you’re interested in learning about it.

I have a best friend who drives me anywhere. His car is an AUV which is much like a slightly smaller SUV. What I’m trying to say is that it’s a big car. When he helped me move from my Grandmas house to a room I’ll be Renting in the city, we were able to fill his car to the roof with him and myself holding on to a several items in our laps as he drove me to my new place.

When I found a better place to stay in the city (a block away from the previous one) Ish agreed to help out. It was crazy. In the end Ish made me throw out at least ten (plastic and paper) bags of trash. I managed to move my stuff in twenty large bags.

This was my past. Embarrassing as it is to admit. I kept too many things that should have gone to the trash bin. In the Philippines if you’re working people expect someone to establish something ( may naipundar in tagalog) which means that I should have been able to buy a house, a car, have sent my sibling to school etc. Being insecure that I am, I interpreted that as simply buying more stuff. Which was totally wrong. Every time I brought something nice or acquired something nice I kept everything. I kept the box the receipts the wrapper, the paper bag, bus tickets, instruction manuals, piles of paper, collectibles and lots and lots of clutter. I also kept clothes from school. Its so disgusting i want to Its so disgusting you’ll never want to enter my room ever. I feel like I’m shrinking in shame as I type this.

What happened to me was I got to read some minimalist lifestyle blogs. I was reading Leo Babauta of Zen Habits and minimalist. I was reding Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle and Ev Bogue of Far Beyond the Stars. I also read about Dave Bruno’s 100 things challenge. I digested it and eventually applied it. It wasn’t easy. After realizing how inconvenient it is to hold on to and maintain a lot of stuff you’ll want to give minimalism a change.

I’m a totally different person now and here are some tips to never have to clean your room again.

Don’t be a hoarder. Everything I said above was how you described a hoarder. Don’t be one. Do the opposite if you have to.

Letting go of things. The process was more about letting go of things. Letting go of things and saying goodbye to the things I held on to. So I let go of the paperbags. I let go of the souvenir. I let go of a lot of things. Boxes papers and the like.

Reduce a few things bit by bit. I did things bit by bit. If I had a hundred bits of paper I’d take two I don’t need and toss it into the trash bin. So bit by bit and bit by bit I felt the weight come off. This is the part I soon learned to enjoy.

80/20 rule. I use 20% of my stuff more than 80% of the time. What’s the 20% and how do I eliminate or at the very least remove the 80% of the Items I don’t need.

No you won’t need that later as much as you think. I kept a lot of things. Like a boy scout. Always be prepared. Later on I realized that I don’t have to be. I keep too much stuff. Most of the things that I think I need in the future can easily be brought from the store or (preferably) I could borrow from someone I’d toss it away. Whenever I can, I’ll give it to someone. If I did need it then I’ll see if I could borrow it from them.

Someday pile. Somehow there are items I’m pretty sure I won’t need but hesitated on tossing out. For that I kept a someday pile. The someday pile is a place for me to keep the items I don’t use now so I can evaluate them later.

Leave it out of the room. To build a someday pile. I suggest that you take all your items out of the room and carefully select what you’ll be using (the 20%) and put it back in your room. Which of my trash do I want to put back in my room.

How many do you really need? My answer is one for the most part and not a lot for others (like clothes, socks, underwear maybe 10 to two weeks worth)

Proper place. Everything should be in a proper place. I assigned one for all my items. I’m not allowed to leave my computer inside my room. Phones are away from my bed unless I’m texting Ish. Or whatever.

Less things equals less cleanup. The less things I have the less cleanup I need to do. . If I had an empty room with just my bed and my laptop and clothes and my laptop everything is pretty easy to clean. The fewer things I had the fewer things I need to pay attention to. And I won’t loose things.

100 things challenge. I’m a fan of Colin Wright of exile lifestyle and Leo Babauta’s zen habits and minimalist. They participated in the 100 things challenge and eventually I did too. I reduced my stuff bit by bit until one day I realized that I had about 250 items which felt great. I then realized that I can let go of things weighing me down and I proceeded to 230 to 210 to 190 to 180 to 170 till 120. Each time I let go of something I had a hard time doing so. I also learned that I had duplicates like multiple nail cutters (same size), keychains, and things I can go without. Now I own an average of 70-90 items.

Make it super easy to clean. If you do bit by bit any of the above you’ll be able to do it. Take some time to think about how to make things easier for you.

I hole you enjoyed my post. Hit me up for more questions.

In 2009 I was working for a recruitment company. On the side I was doing freelance projects and sales related work. When you work in sales you talk about goal setting for commissions and I was targeting earning six figure income or more.

I was looking at my lifestyle and I got to know some people who had slightly higher than minimum wage income but are doing pretty well. They can buy nice things (although not everything) but still remarkable things. They can also travel while making ends meet and magically, they had some savings and a few investments which isn’t bad at all for someone with that level of income.

My income isn’t so bad either. I’m not making six figures a month but I can say that my pay’s pretty good but how come people who make less than me, enjoy things I only hoped for?

If my income was good enough, then why am I not getting anywhere or at the very least, enjoying it?

My previous mindset was that you needed to have six figure income a month to enjoy this lifestyle. The truth is that you don’t. It’s a big eye opener that the life I want costs a lot less than I think.

Enter the minimalist lifestyle.

A minimalist lifestyle is about paring down (whatever) to just the essentials so you have spare resources (time, attention, money) to apply on what matters to you.

My first considerations was an analogy about food. Say you have two options.

Option one. You can have a fastfood value meal for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner everyday.
Option two. You cook your own food Monday to Saturday but on Sundays you eat in a high class fancy restaurant or budget your dates.

I picked option two.

It’s about rerouting resources in your lifestyle from something that you spend on that’s recently unimportant to something that is important.

I applied principles of minimalism to every aspect of my life I could apply it to. I did it for finances, time, stuff/items, etc.

When I started questioning what I needed, I found that I waste too much resources on trivial things.

I realized that in a lot of cases…

I bought clothes, I no longer wore.
I ate out too much.
I went out drinking with friends a lot.
I bought several bags I no longer used.
Souvenirs and magazines and collections and trinkets.

I make good income but…

I never got to travel to where I wanted to go
I never got to buy the gadgets I wanted
I never had the budget nor the time for my personal goals

I asked myself the question “why” a lot.

Today I have…

Conquered impulsive buying.
Lived with less than 100 things.
More free time.
Cash to spare for things that matter.

How did I get to do this?

I let go of as much things I can let go of and I focused my resources on what mattered.

Less (unimportant) means more (of the important).

Why would you want to live a minimalist lifestyle?

The story goes like I was recently promoted then and my boss gave my a nice desk, new responsibilities and paper work. After a week, I had a few piles of papers. Second week and my desk was a mess. I have a large enough pile that kept me away from work. I was distracted and often thinking of other things aside from work.

I needed to learn how to organize and my favorite resources were lifehacker and zenhabits. This regular reading started my curiosity about minimalism and later on it’s application in my life and other things I added like blogging and the use of tech to organize. I’m sure there are a lot of ideas with cleaning your desk out there but here are a few that had helped me clean my desk.

1. Have an idea what you use regularly – I keep several things in my desk that I feel I’m going to use later. Depending on how soon or how often I’ll use it, it is a good idea to know what to keep and what’s within arm’s reach.
2. Clear your desk – a clear desk is refreshing to see. Creative ideas flow in an empty space for me. If you haven’t experienced this yet maybe you could give it a shot and experience it for yourself.
3. Place everything in one pile – This is my first step. I scout for what I’m keeping and leaving out by placing things in a pile.
4. Go through each item and sort them – Decide the future of each item.
5. Eliminate what you won’t use and discard what you don’t need – Some items are destined for the bin and that’s okay. Keeping them will only distract you from your purpose.
6. Have a not sure pile – If you’re not sure keep it in a not sure pile. This will help you keep going through the items.
7. When your done place each item in your drawers – It’s not a good idea to leave things in the open. Out of sight may mean out of mind and less things in view means less distractions.
8. Use as few drawers as possible - Parkinsons law states that Storage requirements will increase to meet storage capacity. This seemed to apply with drawer space as well. Try to limit allowed space whenever you can and you’ll realize how happy you’ll be with less.
9. If you are willing toss out the souvenirs then you’ve won half the battle. If you’re not then consider taking a picture to keep as the souvenir and let go of the physical one.
10. Enjoy your clean desk. – This is the best part. You don’t have distractions and your work is completed and you have time to spare. Have the space you need in different areas like time, attention, spare cash and more.

That’s it on how to clean my desk. How do you clean your desk?

I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and Secrets of The Millionaire Mind and I want to be ultra successful.

The idea is to build up large amounts of assets and passive income so I’m free to travel, marry Ish, slack off and help people become successful.

I believe that will power and never giving up is a key factor in success. That’s why I’m willing to learn the skills to be financially successful. After all when I get all the money I need I’ll be okay right?

I started work at 18 to learn business skills because we didn’t have funding to continue school and I was taught that they don’t teach you how to be a successful business owner in school.

I figure that my strategy is pretty okay. I learned it from books and seminars and successful people. Dad was right however they won’t teach you everything and unless you’re super sharp, you might would miss the important points.

Let’s discuss the goal. Be rich, make lots of money, buy lot’s of nice stuff stuff and help lots of people. Sounds like a good plan. My question is why do you want to use that plan?

I’ll be honest here. My issue is insecurity.

• I wanted Ish to be proud of me.
• I wanted dad to be proud of me.
• I wanted to help my mom. (Which of course, is because I wanted her to be proud of me.)
• I wanted everyone to be proud of me.

I wanted to show off to people so I’ll hear them say I’m a successful person. That I’m worth something. That I’m worthy of love.

My friends say I have child like (I hope they mean genuine) courage, dedication, faith and commitment. I also realized I have the need for acknowledgment and the angst of a teenager.

I’ll go to war for you simply because you said nice things about me. (But that’s for another story).

This is why I wanted to get rich.

Here’s the problem. Making a profit takes time. Learning to make a profit took me longer.

I had the idea that successful people have nice houses, cars, gadgets and stuff.

To compensate and to “appear successful” I bought more stuff. This is embarrassing but I had magazine collections, book collections, toy collections, weapon collections, jacket collections, collection of clothes, skin care products, supplements. To take things further I collected notes, boxes, bottles, pictures, souvenir, tags, recipts, letters, et cetera. I was a hoarder.

I saw having things was an accomplishment so I “had things.”

This mindset didn’t manifest in my physical possessions but in how I spent my time and how I spent my money.

I started with a really low salary and my pay got higher but the thing was I spent it on unnecessary things.

I did projects that were unprofitable and stuck on even if I didn’t enjoy them anymore or no longer was benefiting from it. I did a couple of small business ventures and the only reason why I signed in was to be able to call myself an entrepreneur.

I asked myself. “What if everything I’m believing is wrong?”

What if everything I’m learning is not for me?

What if I just teach myself instead of learning from others. This could be more fun anyway.

I decided to rewrite my lessons. It started with this blog minimal changes.

At the top of my head here are a few lessons I learned:

Grow a spine. You don’t need to care about what other people think. It’s your happiness and not theirs. Making sacrifices to look good will make you feel like an idiot later in life.

Appreciate the words less and simple. These words get a bad reputation for being lazy, poor and it gives us the idea of lack. I had a wealth of stuff and an abundance of trash. After I grew a spine, just as I believe non supportive people’s opinions don’t matter I also believe that having more stuff isn’t what matters. In the past if you offered to fill my room with anything I want to put in it I would jump up and down because of excitement. Now if you made a similar offer I’d ask you if it would be nice enough to help me remove some other stuff from my room instead. I’m happy with my less than 100 things. Thank you very much. There are other things I want but that’s not too urgent. I’m working on increasing my income but I’m also working hard on reducing my unnecessary spending. A lot of these things aren’t beneficial anyway. Not wanting something is usually better than possessing it. For some reason this mindset makes sense for me.

Your resources are limited. Psalm 90:12 says teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Forget the abundance and the you can have everything bullshit “The Secret ” fed you and let’s be honest here. If you were to do the math. Your money is limited. Your time is limited. Your attention is limited. Be wise with how you spend it. We all have answers the question, what if you only had one day to live. That’s because you know that it won’t happen soon. Ask yourself the question what if you only had this much income for the rest of your life? How would you play your cards? Limits are what make life beautiful. Just as Achieles said mortals are beautiful because life here is temporary and Batman said you can’t be courageous when you’re indestructible (referring to Superman) it’s these limitations are what will make you think of better solutions for your life. Its not about doing it all. I fucked up my life trying to do that. It’s doing what matters really well.

Write your own instructions. With the exception of the Bible, I stopped reading inspirational books, motivational books, business books, self help books how to get rich books etc. Reading made me feel incomplete. Reading them made me feel unreliable and unworthy. I wanted to be them and not me. My life became one where I imitated these people I looked up to.

In the end people mean more than stuff. All these cheesy things like faith, hope and love bring more joy than anything I think money can buy for me.

This post is not about going broke or trying to grow broke. I wrote this because at the start of minimal changes I asked myself why I needed the things I think I needed. This is to remind me to keep asking myself this question. I hope it encourages you too.

What did you look like to before you started reading minimal changes?

I started Minimal Changes because I wanted to deal with overwhelming forces in my life. I had a lot of clutter. I had no time. I spent too much and had no savings. I was in debt. I was super unhealthy and unproductive. Everything for me required too much effort and I gave effort to it. Despite that I saw nothing significant that I’ve done.

Everything I did overwhelmed me. I was thinking a thousand thoughts a second and is always spaced out. I hated cleaning up and I had too much.

I started a telemarketing job for a local recruitment company where I was doing lead generation for corporate clients. After a few weeks my boss told me that since I already understand how the transactions happen I’m now also the sales person in place of the CEO for presentations for clients. As I started forming partnerships, I also became the account manager.

In the past I only did the first part mostly. I was given a nice desk and lots of files. This was something I wasn’t used to. Since it was a small company, they aren’t giving me an assistant to do all these things.

That week I was at Morong, Rizal with Ish, looking at a book called minimalist design as we were looking for ideas about our future home. I liked minimalist houses. They looked so clean. It’s the exact opposite of my living setup and looking through pictures of minimalist houses had a relaxing effect on me.

That same week I started accumulating lots of paper and files. My office started looking like my room where I live. I wanted a clean desk and I was googling two things. How to clean my desk and minimalist design. I ran in to Merlin Mann’s blog. I ran in to LifeHacker. I ran into Leo Babauta’s blogs mnmlist.com and Zen Habits. I ran into some forums about a minimalist lifestyle.

I found it disgusting. My mindset then firmly believed that minimalists are lazy. After all, why do less? Instead of less shouldn’t you work hard for more? That’s how we grow right? These bastards, like the Christians are lazy, only working for enough and missing out on life’s pleasures because they are lazy.

I was naive back then because I didn’t understand. Leo’s post on pocket’s like air hit home. My pockets were always full. I went to work with two full bags when I felt lazy. Ish told me more than once I was like a cartoon character who had lot’s of items in my pockets.

I didn’t see anything wrong with it then.  I was thinking “what if I needed something?” I wanna be armed to the tooth.

This mindset had an impact on everything. The reality is that I was tired. Somehow, effort and will power wasn’t an issue then. I feel like I was too inefficient and disorganized and I’m looking for answers.

Leo’s posts kept me reading. I hate minimalism but I felt that I could pick up useful things by reading about it.

Ish seemed to enjoy reading my notes when I attended business trainings. I thought to myself, what if I write something original. All these guys were writing about clean up so I decided to write privately and showed them to Ish. She said she liked it and if I started she’ll be my first reader. I started writing during the long commutes to Morong.

At night, I woke up and felt the urge to write. I wanted to put my thoughts to paper. I was thinking of names. Leo had the feel of a zen monk and he talked about habits. I guessed that’s why he’s Zen Habits guy. I was ambitious and aggressive. I was thinking if he’s a monk then I’m a ninja.

Here are some topics and titles I thought of:

Habit Ninja – I wanted to form new habits and I want to do it really well. Like a ninja. Duh.

Minimal Manila – I want to write about how I’m exploring minimalism. I still hate it but what if you apply it in Manila? How would it be like? If Leo tried minimalism in Guam, what if I applied it where I am?

Change Ninja – I’m going to make some changes. Hopefully I wanted to inspire some changes. Friends always asked me for advice. I figure, what if I put up the blog so I can ask them to just read what I wrote instead of explaining?

I asked Ish which one. She said she’ll support me no matter what I picked. I was broke those days. I only had budget for one site. I feel wanting to contribute all topics at once. I came up with Minimal Changes because somehow, every significant change in my life happens slowly and since I wanted to hold off from buying, I coined the term: Use what you have. Do what you can.

I got the name registered and started the blog. I wrote long posts about things I wanted to change and things I’m considering. Feel free to go back in time to check it out.

I’ll write more for you soon. This journey started with curiosity, pictures from a book, a messy desk, unsatisfied goals and someone special I wanted to write for.

Thanks to how we now consume information on the Internet, people today have shorter attention spans. Doing more is now counterproductive because we are all avoiding information overload. In the past I tried to write a comprehensive guide to what I want to teach.

Now I’m changing because it’s not too sustainable. My only challenge now is having a list of my posts like an archive that’s easy to navigate but I’ll worry about that later.

For the month of April I’ll write exclusively from my Google+ stream. I’d like to find out if my writing is more beneficial here than on my blogs.

I would appreciate feedback and feel free to send requests either through email or on the comments.

A few years back, I was having trouble saving money because my spending habits were automatic.

Remember the old financial advice? Save before you spend? Sounds simple right? It was really hard to implement for me. The solution was a separate bank account. I initially transferred money automatically. The task became a challenge because it was easy to transfer money into my account and it was also easy to transfer the money out of my account. I ended having little or zero savings at the time.

When I switched employers last September, I told myself that I need to change something.

I’m a lazy person. I value things that took a lot of effort to get done. Whatever extra steps usually are a pain for me so with that in mind, here’s what I did:

I have two bank accounts. One account is where I receive my pay and the other one is a spare one. Every payday. I set aside a certain amount and manually deposit it in my other bank account.
I have to physically go to the bank to make the deposit.
I have to fill up a deposit slip.
I have to line up and wait for my turn.
I have to walk back to the office.

Guess what? After a few months I was able to maintain saving in the account I assigned for savings. I felt good putting money in my account and I’m sure you will too. I hope this trick was able to help.

What moves have you taught yourself to save consistently?

I won’t like it if you…
Think you won’t succeed or be happy if you don’t follow my advice.
Copy exactly how I live my life.
Idolize me.
Be stressed because you haven’t been able to copy my advice to the letter.

The advice is just here no rush to change. I know you can eventually. Keep going. Buy me a drink after a few wins.

When you work, you do a task that fulfills a certain objective and you follow certain rules to complete it and there is usually a reward if you win and a consequence if you lose. When you play you also have an objective, follow certain rules and complete certain tasks to win. You try to learn to improve your work and you try to learn to improve your game.

When you play there are consequences when you lose. You lose a life or you die it start over or whatever. Whatever it is the consequence is not fatal. When you work, several of the consequence is similar but we take it more seriously. When we play we’re excited. When we work, we’re stressed.

We also got advice that you shouldn’t mix work with play.

When a top notch business consultant was mentoring me he accidentally blurted out that business is really hard at first but once he understood it it felt just like play.

I look at my life and how every down moment I had in my career. I felt like I was just working myself to death.

When I achieved certain levels of success that I am proud of, I was actually just playing.

Trying to remember the feeling, I was just gliding through it. When I’m playing, I realized that my interest was up. At my peak.

Some bosses might not want you to play at work because they’re afraid you’d be a hundred times more effective and surpass them. You know, more creativity and enjoyment could bring in more results. But that’s just me.

Think about it. If you’re just playing, you’d want to get better and win and you’d do it smiling too. When you play it feels like you can go on all day.

Several influential business authorities compare and contrast leadership, coaching, teamwork, performance, preparation and other aspects of business with leaders in sports like Michael Jordan, Michael Schumacher, Tiger Woods and Manny Pacquao. A well known quote with these people is they play for the love of the game. They hit harder, move faster, have results and fun with it every step of the way. Their smile is so genuine you’d think they’re masochists.

You realize that when you go forward without (paying attention to) fear its because at the master class level work the attitude is actually play.

Here are a few tips from my experience of mixing work and play:
Understand that setbacks are temporary so make calculated risks and experiment often.
You can play as many times as you want and defeat is what you tell yourself when you decide to quit. If you’re tired and down, stop playing and continue later.
Instead of focusing on winning or losing have an attitude of wanting to see the story unfold.
Enjoy new skills and possibly some items.
Take note of bosses you defeat.
Pickup another game as soon as you’re done with that one.

How’s your experience when you put work instead of play?

I used the spam strategy early on. Using the brute force of large numbers seemed to makes sense when you’re starting out. It’s like the only effective way I tell myself. As I get successful, I level up and play in a bigger league , spamming seems to be less effective. I started to notice when I realized that I’m annoyed that people are spamming me.

I know you have a message to get across, people don’t mind someone telling them about something they can buy. Spamming feels the same as getting a megaphone in the ear.

I wouldn’t want that so I stopped. Cold turkey. Just like how I quit facebook.

Spamming happens because we’re afraid of rejection, of failure. We deliver large numbers so we don’t hear the “no’s” and as a result we’d rather be ignored.

There’s always a better way. I know there are more but here are a few that I use and recommend:
Listen – sometimes your best ideas aren’t brought out because you’re spamming your current one.
Be specific – getting what you want achieved is the goal and not pleasing everybody. There are a few important people who want and need to hear your message. Get it across by speaking their language. They have to get it and not everybody.
Get the no’s as a no and see if you can do better when you try something else. I use the spam strategy when I don’t want to feel the no’s. Getting rejected doesn’t feel painful in reality it’s just my fear that’s making things painful. Come on, say it! “I’m rejected and it feels very painful!” Afterwards I go yeah right. See what I mean? It’s harmless.

What’s your strategy to go beyond spamming?

During tough times I tell myself that I encounter extra large problems because God created me with with extra abilities and He knows I can handle it and if not He will be more than willing to tag in and back me up.

As you achieve more, always remember that although they may act tough, others feel pain too. Don’t be cruel.

It’s hard to admit the cause of the mistake when we know that it’s something easily avoidable.

I let myself put more value on my expectations more than our relationship.

Or simply put, I got impatient.

Feels good doesn’t it. Like you don’t need to hold your breath anymore. Now that you’ve had this epiphany doesn’t that make you feel that people who got impatient at you should apologize for doing so like you’re doing right now?

Keep dreaming. Like that will ever happen. I wrote this for myself and for you. We’re both going to encounter this situation a lot. Knowing we get impatient and holding back whatever impulsive thing we’re about to do puts us at the advantage by taking back our control after we seem to have lost it.

My normal reaction is to think of a few hundred plans and stress myself over how things are okay in the past and should be right now. I look at cause and effect. I look at what I can change next time. I think about time machines. As a result I’m both stressed and confused.

Nothing I do can fix this. The stress is totally unnecessary. Now what?

Whatever the situation is, it should be perfect. Thinking about this as I look at myself in the mirror my worry started to fade away. A new plan shows up. Stop pretending like you’re in control of everything. Just enjoy the next few days and continue experimenting with solutions. Take life as it comes.

I wonder what it would be like to see a blog done by my mom or dad that’s full of tips and advice as I face life’s challenges.

Imagine your future kid or kids receiving that message from you in case life gets in the way and be able to say whatever you really meant to.

Imagine more people showing the world what they can do. I wish, I could stop imagining and start seeing.

I won’t pretend that I can imagine how awesome your creations can get.

I hope to see what you can do soon.

Go ahead and create, know that I’m excited to see it.

Art is not beautiful because it passes a standard or it impresses critics. Art is beautiful because you created it.

I sincerely believe that.

You can start a thermonuclear war with your next choice of words or find a way to turn a no into a yes.

Often the other side isn’t paying attention because he or she is busy looking at something else so timing may also be a key. In any case I suggest that you pause before you launch your first strike or to retaliate with everything you got. This is an impulse by your fight or flee response which is pretty natural and what happens us your choice.

Take it easy so you can see better options.

Aside for copying what everybody else does, there are two alternate paths to getting what you want. The most commonly sought is the shortcut, it’s fast, practical and sadly short term. My issue with the short cut is that the benefits are often short term.

The other option is looking for a better way. Looking for a better way is scary because you reach into what you don’t know. There’s a chance of failure and it happens often. But when you fail at least one of two things happen, you learn what to change and you move closer to getting what you want.

When choosing between the shortcut and the better way, it’s always attractive to pick the shortcut. In fact, my early work is based on building shortcuts. A shortcut in my experience is not always a better way and a better way isn’t often a shortcut.

Whether you choose to look for a shortcut or a better way you’re going to encounter frustrations. The frustration when looking for a better way happens a lot at the beginning. The frustration with shortcuts happens much later and often after you put in the effort and the time.

Look for a better way not a shortcut.

In my experience a lot of my purchases that resulted in disappointment is because the product I purchased is a solution to a temporary need or I find better alternatives after I have made a purchase or in some situations the product breaks or performs poorly.

Enter the puppy dog close and the if you compute the return of investment in five years or ten years imagine how big the savings.

We also get crappy no return or no exchange policies.

We buy permanent solutions to temporary problems. I recall buying several items I thought I’d use regularly but ended up sitting in the storage.

Here are some alternatives to ownership:

1. Going without – ask yourself if what you intend to buy is really necessary. If the answer is no just go without it. I take this a step further by asking myself what the worst consequence of not buying and then evaluate option two and three.
2. Using what you have – chances are you have what you need to deal with your situation.
3. Renting – while a lot of people will argue that owning saves you more money than renting, the answer depends on what your priorities are and what your situation is. Here are some scenarios where it makes more sense to rent than to buy.
Car- if you can work from anywhere you won’t need one for a daily travel to work would you still need it?
House – if you work from anywhere and travel the world, would you buy big or just pay as you go?
Entertainment system – if you have great work and have a close bond with your important relationships chances are you wouldn’t want to spend much time here.

Do you have other alternatives to buying?

I’ve been fairly good at getting rid of stuff as time went by. My other challenge was preventing myself from buying additional stuff that I don’t really need.

One of my challenges was that if it makes sense for me to buy something or if I really want the product I’ll buy it. Since marketers are pretty good at explaining how it makes sense to buy their product or making you want something I figure I need a different approach on deciding what to buy and what not to buy.

I don’t like hassles or additional cost so one of the things I do was to consider the total cost of the product I’m purchasing.

Here are some factors to consider as additional cost in terms of time, attention and money before purchasing an item.

Transportation going to the store.
Purchase of the product.
Transportation to bring the product at your house.
Learning to use the new product.
Storage space while in use.
Long term return of investment.
Storage space while not in use.
Maintenance and repair.
Cost to operate.
Disposal and recycling.

We often make our buying decisions based on benefits we receive and the sticker price but if you consider all the other factors you’ll have a more accurate view of what you’re getting in to.

I recall going into a deal and was considering factors like transportation cost an operational expenses. The person offering me the deal told me that considering those factors and computing for them wasn’t necessary and all I had to consider was the investment and the income from the investment. And other long term factors. Turns out I was right. My deal with them pushed through but the result didn’t go too well for me because I failed to count the cost.

The problem sometimes is we assume long term use for a product when we have a temporary need.

Do you consider these things before you buy anything?

There will be no pictures for posts on minimal changes.

I’m also ditching my usual notebook and writing exclusively on notecards, scrivener, and the built in note app of the iPod touch.

I’ll tell you later how this turns out.

What are you experimenting on for March?

Photo credit

There are days when it feels like the last episode of the last season of your TV show. You fought the good fight and defeated the lead villain only to find out that more powerful monsters are coming.

Exactly a year ago, I believe I’ve had it made. I’m with the girl of my dreams, I just started work that paid about twice as much as my previous pay and looking forward, the future I see is me finally being able to save up for my wedding and start a family.

Like any well written series, plot twists come when you least expect them. I lost my best friend and the person I wanted to marry both at the same day. Work didn’t turn out well no matter how much effort I put in to trying to perform. I was swinging for the fences yet ended up hitting air.

Exactly a year after, I’m in a situation where I don’t feel like I have a chance of ever winning again. But somehow my body moves on its own and I realized that I’m cursed with a heart that doesn’t give up. I somehow imagine myself continuing on long after the battle is lost. Outliving all that had fallen. My body moves forward whether I want it or not.

I want to cry because I want my best friend back. Flashbacks of how I excited I am to tell her every bit of what happened to my day hit me like a round house shin kick to the head. Nothing happens. Nothing I say or do reaches her.

I hear more monsters approaching. My arms relax, anticipating the next encounter. I expect my legs to dash forward any second. I hear mighty wings flapping. This could be the end of this part of the story but the next part will go on. I’d like to slay the dragon.

Post inspired by Not Fade Away (see ending number 6)

I tire easily when I do things over and over again. I’ve been thinking a lot about how a change of scene can make a positive impact in my life. I recall that successful companies I worked for pay a lot of money to get a great venue for annual planning and team building events. When my old bosses sets meetings, we usually pick the finest venue we could afford. The location somehow has an influence on future results. I used to think about it as an ego thing but not that I think about it, a pleasant or fine ambiance makes me want to move forward.

Certain places have influences on what we do and how we think. I enjoy writing while traveling alone on a bus or anywhere because of the spontaneity of the thoughts I get while traveling and a sort of time limit I get because of the travel time. I write in a coffee shop when I want to draw out fresh Ideas.

During the times I felt stuck I noticed that I stayed in the same place for a long time and the past few weeks made me realize that constant change of scene had gotten me wanting to move forward and explore what I can do further. If I don’t like the flashbacks I get at where I am, then the solution was to create new memories not tied with loss.

With that said, here are some things I did in the past few weeks to create a change of scene:
1. Go out and treat a new friend to coffee or tea or dinner preferably in a new place.
2. Visit a new far away place.
3. Hang out with old acquaintances or make new friends.
4. Visit a friend’s house.
5. Commute to a new route, preferably one you’re unfamiliar with.

The result led me wanting to do new things and I got a flow of fresh ideas I’ll be sharing soon.

Have you tried going for a change of scene? What was your experience?

Lessons from the iPod Touch

I got an iPod Touch as sort of a gift for my birthday last year. Since then, I haven’t let go of it. When I broke my laptop’s keyboard and touch pad, I was blogging mostly from my iPod touch and it has been my main computer even after my laptop has been reincarnated. I was uploading a few pictures to facebook and I realized a few lessons I learned from the iPod touch.

1. You don’t need a lot to make things happen. When I got the iPod touch, I was downloading apps left and right. You’ll notice in the archives that I didn’t post a lot last October that was because I was working as a software tester. I downloaded a few hundred apps and tested it out. Now I only have and use a few apps. As a result, I’m able take pictures, write, publish and connect with ease and almost from anywhere. Did I mention I didn’t have to carry around my laptop anymore?Portability is better than power.
2. Bring out your best in bright happy places and avoid dark gloomy areas. The iPod touch’s camera works perfectly in bright settings and is almost useless in the dark. It does it’s job well of capturing moments that I’d like to capture. Somehow, its limitations tell me what it does best. I think about how I’ve been down the past few months and realize that I’ve done well in a bright positive environment and had sucked in dark toxic environments. I’m making this change now and I invite you to do the same. I don’t know exactly where this will take us but I’m pretty sure it will be a lot better than sulking in the dark.
3. If you can’t do what you want, it means you aren’t letting go of something you’re too attached to. I realized that I filled up 8gig pretty quickly with songs, videos and games. The culprit are movies I still want to watch, and games I already finished but was holding on to because of the high score. In my case I chained myself to a lot of memories and doing so hinders me from freely moving forward. Untether, delete, let go. In my case it was something as simple as unsubscribe and not looking at a certain facebook profile.
4. You can move freely with less moves. I tested out a lot of apps. There are a lot of beautiful apps. Some work better than the other. Now I’m sticking with simplenote and the regular camera app and the regular social network apps. I use Nexus money to track my spendings and WordPress to publish my posts. No viber or Nimbuzz for me. I also use instagram and tumblr. In real life tasks that require too much steps also end up not being completed which brings us to the next learning.
5. Relying on multitasking is bullshit. Everytime I had several running apps in the background one of two things happen, one is that i don’t get anything done because I’m thinking about all the open apps at the same time, all while thinking which one to do first or two is that the big app crashes and forces me to restart it. I notice how the same thing happens when I’m working with powerful apps. Too much steps result in too many things to think about or play with. The apps I’m using allows me to just write, edit, take pictures and post. That’s it. My small success come from doing just one small thing and adding a couple more after completion. Imagine this, we’re talking about a really sensitive issue but I’m thinkin about business elsewhere. Sounds familliar right? Moving on…
6.Limitations are good for you. While the iPod Touch is not full featured like the iPhone because it doesn’t have the bigger camera and the ability to text and call, using it as my main device forces me to be creative. I use apps that work well with or without wifi, I delete apps and files I don’ use regularly, and I take pictures at daylight or in a bright setting. The best part is I don’t need to pay a huge price to get what I want for it. I’m thinking something doesn’t need to have everything to be perfect. It just needs to be available and useful for you.

If you’re wondering about the other pictures I’m posting them here for you to enjoy.

I realize that I’m going off topic with my recent posts in the last month and I feel that I have to stop. I created a tumblog to place links, pictures, quotes, stories, rants and my favorite daily bible messages.

Starting today you’ll see only original writing on minimal changes.

I hope this move will let you enjoy my site better.

If you’d still like to read my daily bible messages, head on over to my tumblog.

Thank you,

Kevin

P.S. I’ll still write every day. Well maybe not on Sundays but we’ll see. Thanks for reading my blog.

Not a lot of things last forever. Everything on this planet is temporary. I’m glad God’s love will last forever. Whatever my situation is, it won’t last. Whatever God promised, He is always faithful to accomplish. It makes me think about my teamwork with God. I imagine what it would be like but for now, we need to guard and tame my heart first. With the amount of encouragement I’m receiving now, I don’t have an excuse not to move forward but that’s for another story.

Yesterday was a slow and exhausting day for me. Slow because nothing was happening an exhausting because I seem to put in more effort today than I should. I’ve cleaned up my routine to the point where I’m able to get the important things done, effortlessly. Yesterday didn’t go as great as I normally would. I’m now writing a post on minimal changes everyday and at least in each of my other blogs. I wasn’t able to do that much and I feel even more sluggish as I attempt to be more productive.

I started the day incorrectly. I started with email, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, reading, and mom’s watching the news, which led me I listen to an even more depressing political video. That’s when I felt like not working.

I realized that I was putting the wrong things first.

I write this post to remind myself that going online on facebook or reading articles or email. first thing in the morning makes my day crappy.

Here’s what I’ve enjoyed doing and should be focusing on doing in this order:
1. Pray and read the Bible
2. Write posts for my blogs.
3. Edit or Delete Previous Writing to create better posts.

I’m working on helping some friends find work in a call center. I’m also considering doing it part-time while I’m on vacation. Feel free to check out Call Center Training Tips for more info.

Did I mention God doesn’t leave us? Happy Saturday.

I’d throw myself in front of a speeding train but it’s not a time machine.

When things are going bad we tend to think how things can be different and ask the question, “what if?”. If only things were different then we could be happy right?

Fiction authors usually think in terms of how history occurring slightly differently, and as a result, the story now has a new setting and they are free to write their story as they’d like. Authors who rely heavily on this style are called alternate history authors.

I think about what if I stayed with my dad longer when I was young and I could have been a mini tycoon.

I think about how I could have completed my college and didn’t have to self study or undergo trial and error in almost everything.

I think about how I could have done differently at any point in my work and reach more success in employment.

I think about a hundred things to change with my previous relationship with Ish and that things may have turned differently.

I think about how I could be braver or smarter when I made my decisions in the past and perhaps enjoyed the results of my wise decisions earlier.

I would love to get Ish back, be more successful at my work, or projects or have avoided failure.

I wish that was all true and things have turned out differently.

I wish…

I get hurt at the thought of people calling me a failure or leaving me because I sometimes think I am one.

Now back to reality.

I’m going to face failure in life and people who become more successful seem to have faced it more often than everyone else. Failure was never final in my experience. My perception of time is limited so when things go bad, it looks really bad but it’s not always the truth. When I look at things at a different point of view things could be worse but I made I through. They say every new day I wake up is a gift from God, I believe that too and realize I should act accordingly. I think about times that I should have been destroyed, figuratively and literally. It did not happen.

I’m thinking that I’m thinking about all these great things and solutions for my past but the reality is, I don’t have a time machine. Now that I think about it, I’m not too confident my past self will believe wisdom from the future or maybe my future self could figure out ways to convince my past self but that’s all irrelevant.

I’m thinking about this consulting session I had in the past with an expert who called me a failure. I admired his advice because he was wealthy and influential but now that I think about it he wasn’t doing too well with his health or his relationships either.

I think of the word failure and what it really means for me. Failure is an opportunity to do better.

I can continue fantasizing about an alternate history and now I realize, I can start writing my new history. Sure, I lost things in the past. I receive a thousand opportunities a day, maybe I could get those things back or maybe I could do better. At this point I realize, I’d like to enjoy the story as it unfolds and not spoil the surprise.

Are you also thinking about alternate history? What would you do now that we realize that changing the past requires a time machine?

I also worry. This is another reminder to stop worrying. This is also a reminder to be thankful. I received a lot of hardships recently and I’m receiving an even greater amount of blessings. Far beyond the hardships. I’ll talk to you again later.

In my observation, people who call on God always get their needs met. It doesn’t matter how sometimes it feels lacking or some are getting more than the others. The needs are met. Counting your blessing has nothing to do with settling by being thankful. Our sarcastic selves will say, how come there are rich and how come there are poor, I say if you genuinely care put your money where your mouth is and share your blessings. I was in the province when I read this. I noticed how despite the lack I jobs and maybe education in a fishing village in Batangas, the place didn’t seem to have people who are hungry. In fact these guys without much cash can throw bigger parties than wealthy people I know.

These guys wouldn’t care about a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari because they got all they need. Are you looking for an excuse not to be thankful because of your greed?

Needs are met and that’s all that matters.

What are you thankful for?

Taken from the message translation. I’ve recently been thinking about how when you take a few wrong turns then its the end of the road for you and you’ll be stuck in a dead end forever as a result. I was pondering it as I look at my situation and where I was headed. I was proven wrong. When I got this message I realized that whenever I felt like trash I should pick myself back up. God would. I shouldn’t do differently. Often we can be cruel if we don’t see value. Key word there is “don’t see”. We don’t see everything all the time. My Chinese mentor told me before that the answer is always there you just haven’t found it yet. We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves when things go bad. If this is how God treats trash then I guess cruelty to myself and others should be out of my system as well. I’ll untether from it.

How about you?

Daily meeting notes

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you probably are seeing Bible Messages with comments. I’ve been reading a lot recently and I figured that since I’m writing for myself and that my audience are people who are like me and I’ve been pretty inspired with what I was reading maybe it would inspire you too.

I do recommend that you get your own Bible and read it on your own as well. The experience is even better. If you’re interested in that, here’s the story of how I got started:

During my last few training months with Carlo, he taught me how to read the Bible. We didn’t start with the Bible exactly. We started with the book ”As A Man Thinketh” which was based on one of the Psalms from the Bible. The instruction was, to go through just one chapter every week and pick the verse that “speaks to me or about my situation” and I’m only allowed to pick one. After, selecting one verse, I’m supposed to write it down, memorize it and ponder why I find it relevant or why I could relate to it and how it can help with my situation. After a few days Carlo suggested that it’s also the same method he does when he reads the Bible and in his experience it’s good practice.

A couple of months ago, I started getting bored and didn’t read regularly. It’s as if I couldn’t digest the message even if what I was reading was making sense. That’s when I remembered writing it down only this time I decided to make the experience more fun and personal.

I get to enjoy creating art from my daily messages by writing it down with big fonts, using it as a wallpaper, using Instagram to modify the picture
and sharing it here to keep myself accountable to reading everyday.

Since I use minimal changes as a place of inspiration, I figure I’d post it here too for personal use. If you’re interested you could check it out in the previous posts. If not, then you could just skip to the next post.

Would you be willing to tell me about your experience?

When I was younger, I pretended to be fearless. As I was growing up old fears are replaced by new fear. I’m now learning about a fear that enables me to be almost fearless or at the very least, not worry about my worst fears.

I recently encountered my worst fears and the reality is that it isn’t as bad as it sounded as I was imagining it. I’d like this to be the only fear I have.

Who knows, maybe several years from now we can go back to this post and be amazed that it happened.

Let’s stay in touch. Till next time.

There are times when I let things get to my head. Victories sometimes make me believe that it was me winning. That’s not entirely true. I do my part then suddenly everything else goes in my favor. I have no idea how to explain that. I just know that there are better hands than mine taking control of everything else.

1. I’m inconsistent.
2. I have a lot of crappy ideas and only a few great ones.
3. I don’t work well with keeping a schedule.
4. When depression hits me it knocks me dead and I can’t do any work.
5. I’m pretty lazy and I enjoy procrastinating.
6. The results I want won’t happen if it stays in my head.

Which means I need to implement my experiment before anything happens.

That’s the reason why I decided to show up on the web everyday. I already do on twitter and Facebook so I thought why not just show up everyday here. This is a platform I own anyway so I better be here more often.

My fear starts another conversation and says but what if your work isn’t perfect yet. I have a feeling you get that conversation in your head too.

Well, the goal is progress and not perfection. That’s why I’m pushing publish as soon as I can. My work will get better as I show up everyday. Head over to the archives and checkout my older posts and see how I’ve changed. There’s a reason why I put that there.

Looking at the archives I learned that all my current strengths are last years major frustrations so with that in mind I figured that even if I don’t stress myself, goals will be accomplished and my situation will be better and the only faster way I know to improve is to show up so that’s what I’m doing.

Why makes you show up?

I remember from a while ago whole talking to my dad we discussed how much of an influence I was on my little brother. He cited the example that a few years back, from the first couple of years that I started working, my little brother was copying how I always wore formal coats all the time. I got myself a black, semi trench formal coat from merger.

I’ve always wanted to wear coats when I was younger. Most of the bosses that I admired had one. I live in the Philippines, a warm and humid country, and wearing a formal coat is limited to air conditioned office areas and cars. I commuted and thought it may not be suitable, I always wore one. I maintained the look for a few more years. In fact, I got myself formal jackets o different sizes.

Since my brother got the look from me, the question you might have is that where did I copy wearing coats from?

I was too scared to admit this to my dad but I got the idea from movies, tv, and comic books.

There’s Neo from the Matrix, Blade the vampire hunter, Dwight McCarthy from Sin City and my favorite, Angel from Buffy the vampire slayer who got his own tv show.

Wearing a coat makes me feel totally badass, like I can do anything back then.

Of course things are different now and I now rely on the imaginary magical powers of the items I use a lot less now. Hehehehe.

I learned from the experience that what’s totally cool in the past might be totally silly in the future is that it’s okay. We learn, grow and mature as we move forward. We may not have a perfect record but I believe that things can get better over time as we start changing bit by bit. That’s why I chose minimal changes as a name for my website.

When I’m in job interviews I have a habit of sharing the story of how I suck in the past. I usually don’t complete the story because my interviewer interrupts me and says that I’m sure you’ve learned and improved from that, let me know what you can do now because that’s why we’ll hire you.

Past is past and although some people might continue judging you for that, there’s a lot more who’s interested in who you are now and what’s next for you.

I’d like to know who you are and what’s next for you. Introduce yourself in the comments below or by sending me an email.

Most people I talk to believe that their blessings will come from moving to a new job or country.

I always disagreed. I’m having a hard time imagining me telling myself that I didn’t get blessed because I live or work in this area. Sometimes there are exceptions but it can’t be for everyone right?

I moved around a lot ever since I started working. The grass always looked greener on the other side. The thing is whenever I let go of something like a job or a place I lived in, I get to appreciate it more for what it is. It looks greener when I’m looking at it from a different side. I see opportunities I never saw before and find better ways to do things. You can probably move a bit and check out your situation from a different view and see if you can get a similar experience.

In my experience, most blind spots are pretty close to us. Check out what you have from high ground or from far away and count your blessings. Maybe your desert is actually good location and things just aren’t what they seem right now.

Would you be willing to give your location another shot?

My friend, Mau told me I’m a shopaholic. I replied “Guilty as charged”

I feel good buying things that I like. These can be clothes, gadgets, shoes, bags etc. the thing is I don’t spend a lot on them and I don’t buy that often. Impulsive buying caused me to become broke at the peaks of my income earning times.

I developed habits to prevent myself from overspending and I feel like I’ve developed a balance for being happy for buying what I want without excess.

If you’re interested in learning what I do you’re free to read on. This post will be very short. If not, feel free to go over the archives. The next post will come out sooner than you think.

Whenever I’m in a buying mood I ask myself:

Can I buy this in cash?

How often will I use this?

How long do I expect to use this?

Am I buying this because I really like it it is or because it’s the cheaper option?

Will I buy it brand new even if there are cheaper options?

What one or two items do I own will it be replacing?

Before or after the questions, I formed the following habits to prevent myself from overspending:

I canvas a lot

I buy after 60 days from the first day I decided to buy something

I procrastinate some more

I look for what I have or what I can get for free as an alternative for what I want to buy

I ask Ish -I won’t get to do this as often now.

I ask other friends

I look for an excuse not to buy

I take a picture and sleep over it

Obviously, I try to avoid buying as much as I can and see if I could stick to just using what I have. In my experience there are only a few things that we can buy that will enhance our experience. In most cases our experiences are pretty overwhelming or pretty great as is.

Would you be willing to spend less to have more for yourself?

Sometimes I believe that I deserve more. The reality is that we deserve more bad things for what we do. No matter how bad the situation is, it seems as if the worst is always held back. I also get a lot of good things that I don’t deserve. Most of it is something I didn’t really work for. I’m learning the concept of grace and as I look around I see how much I have of it in my life and I also feel wanting to give it to others.

From something as simple as keeping my cool when someone makes a mistake or to letting people off from what they owe me.

What comes to mind when you ponder about what you deserve? How do you reciprocate?

Goals change.

Heres a breakdown of how my goals have changed in the last 7 years. It’s by no means comprehensive. It’s just a summary I wrote from the top of my head to make myself realize that things change.

College days.
I wanted to get the best job I can that also allows me to be a mixed martial arts fighter and I want to start a martial arts gym.
Target income: Php 10,000 per month.
Actual income: none. I’m a student.
Result: Learned to prepare for fights but never actually used what I learned in a real cage fight.

Job application days.
Rent my own condo.
Buy a second hand car. Go out for dinner or drinks in a nice place once a week or every other week.
Target income: Php 20,000 per month.
Actual income: none. Still looking for work.
Result: Older brother suggested a mall based sales job to learn to speak to people.

Mall based sales job.
Learn to sell so I can make money and meet girls.
Target income: Php 15,000 per month.
Actual income: Php 6,000 to Php 9,000 per month.
Result: met Ish. Learned to explain well. Learned to make friends from random encounters.

Met Ish and Real Estate Sales Days.
Keep making six figures and save up enough to relax because working seven days a week is pretty stressful.
Target income: Php 200,000 per month.
Actual income: 60,000-120,000 per month.
Result: spent everything on road trips, dates, clothes and trinkets.

Financial Planning days.
Sell insurance to have enough savings so I can cover my and Ish’ future needs. Family orientation seemed to start at this point. Interest in savings and investments started.
Target income: Php 60,000 per month.
Actual income: Php 20,000 total.
Result: couldn’t sell insurance just had a couple of transactions. Learned to build a website and use SEO instead and got more commissions from my sales made by my boss through the website.

Call Center Training Days.
Help older brother. Enjoy helping others find work. Apply leanings from previous companies best practices. Learn to teach. Enjoy time with Ish.
Target income: Php 50,000 per month.
Actual income: Php 26,000 per month.
Result: learned that I enjoyed teaching people and helping people look for work. Didn’t make a lot of money but was pretty comfortable. Learned to get results by not always following instructions and experimenting.

Nu Skin Days.
Build an asset that provides passive six figure income. Learn to make friends really fast. Had really big goals. Buy a car. Buy a house buy Apple products. Travel.
Target income: Php 120,000 per month part time.
Actual income: Php 3,000 to Php7,000 per month part time.
Result: picked up a lot of skills but couldn’t really translate it to big money. Became aware and picked up some good mindsets like never giving up and being positive and explaining things better and dealing with difficult people. Was also reintroduced to learning from church here by the leaders.

Recruitment Company days.
Help my boss grow their business. Start saving. Research opportunities for sales
Target income: Php 25,000 per month
Actual income: Php 25,000 per month
Result: learned that IT sales pays well. Started saving despite having a smaller paycheck. Learned to be a minimalist. Began letting go of lofty goals, bad habits, clutter and non earning projects. started blogging as a hobby.

IT Products and Service days.
Make good income working five days a week.
Target income: Php 50,000 per month
Actual income: Php 40,000 per month
Result: Earned really well. Unfortunately the company I was on board with closed down. Upped my savings a bit at this point.

Worked for dad days.
Help out dad and enjoy my remaining time with him. Lost Ish and the remainder of my huge goals at this point.
Target income: variable
Actual income: variable
Result: my preparation wasn’t enough to cover the requirements. Better start getting back to working on working on my own terms again.

At this point I’m pretty flexible. I don’t exactly know what’s next but I’ll be working on working on my own terms from now on. I also needed a vacation. I haven’t had one in a while. I also need some time to let go of a few things I recently lost.

How has your goals changed in the past few years?

In the past few days, I felt that I traded a lot of things to follow God. I realized what I was getting in return and I realized more things that I keep getting that I don’t see. This message reminds me to be thankful and to be patient that whatever I else I want will come to me without me having to strive for it. Everything I lost will be restored but it will surely be a surprise for me so it probably also won’t arrive the way I expect it.

What’s worth trading anything for?

In a past life, saturday was learning day for me. Entrepreneurship training the whole day and bible study at night. During entrepreneur class they taught me that challenges are a key part to being a successful entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs are ones who solves problems for profit or pay. So the take away was that problems are opportunities.

Bible study. Pruning. Blessing. Problem.

I prayed Lord please hit me with everything you have to prepare me and grow me into the person you want me to be. I’m sure that’ll be the most kick ass version of my self and in the end I’m sure I wouldn’t mind being hit by you as hard as you can.

I remember kickboxing class. I was training with three fourth grade kids and two high school girls. I was fourteen then. Before my first session started the instructor asked me if I’d like to receive the usual training or the kind Mixed Martial Art Fighters receive.

Usual, I thought to myself means training designed for girls and kids, and told my instructor fighters training please. After doing drills for four hours and the grade school boys and the high school girls are about to go home. I sort of had an eye on one of them who looked pretty cute. I figured it’d be cool to walk with her in the way home. My instructor asked me where I was going and that my training was just about to start. I then spent another couple of hours allowing my instructor to beat the shit out of me and despite my best efforts, I wasn’t putting up much of a fight. That went on for several months. I learned how to remedy bruises, sprains and cramps really fast because I need to be fully healed for the next day. I didn’t learn to be an efficient fighter. I learned to recover from getting beat up efficiently. Some time later after being pushed into a corner I was able to land a well timed hit and knocked him down at the end of the round. I never landed a hit in the next rounds.

Months later I sparred with a professional level fighter. He toyed with me of course. I blasted away as hard as I can landing only a few hits that didn’t seem to hurt.

I haven’t been in a fight in a while. But from these experience sometimes we face challenges that are way above our level. In real life, most of these challenges are not fatal. These failure are not final. We win some and we lose some. Most failures I experienced, have lessons that helped me out in other challenges I faced.

Keep hanging in there. You can win your next fights just learn from your losses.

Imagine having a friend who always has your back. I’m thankful that God has me covered in pretty much everything. Even if I don’t always reciprocate, He is faithful. Today, I’m reminding myself that I am never alone and that God will never abandon me.

I continued reading shortly after selecting the first one. What are the chances that my situation can be found where I’m currently reading? I don’t have an answer but I trust all will be well. Things change slowly but they do change. We won’t notice it by the day but given enough time we always see results. The passage ended with You have taken my companions and loved ones from me and darkness is my closest friend. I do feel that too but I know that although hope is hidden it is there. God does not leave me. When I don’t see Him move somehow I know that He is standing at my blind spot. I’m waiting for Him to make a move. My restlessness and impatience within me is on a rampage. I struggle to be still and wait. There’s a reason why this episode is important to the plot of our series and we’ll both find soon enough.

I asked for a random message today. Hence the second message. Things have improved in other areas of my life but I somehow am still tormenting myself with depression over something I had lost and couldn’t let go of. This is so unlike me. Please pray that this will pass soon. Thanks friend.

When pain, trouble and other hurts hits us its easy to forget how blessed we are. It’s also easy to forget how powerful God is. Everything goes down the drain at one point. Some call this testing of faith. I called mine experiencing the book of Job but let’s not pay attention there.

Do you remember your first blessing? Do you remember the first few answered prayers? Do you remember the surprises that made you shout for joy? Do you remember when everyone said impossible and it happened? Do you remember the support you got when everyone else gave up on you? Do you remember how it pushed through while everyone else had given up or fallen off?

Guess what? This pain you’re feeling won’t end the flow of these blessings. Like all things this too is temporary. Stay in faith. Keep believing. Work on what your hand can reach and God prepares things in advance for you to meet you at your faith. You are greatly loved.

Always remember.

fifteen minutes and I learned how to make three paper hearts and I was smiling the entire night.

I don’t want luxury I want mobility

I wrote this essay a couple of months ago and it got lost in the notes that I forgot to schedule. I hope that despite how some of my situation has changed this would still be valuable for you.

I used to have a goal of making a few million dollars in my lifetime by building a financial empire that rivals the local business tycoons.

That was a few years ago. Most of the people I interacted with back then were surprised that my priorities have changed.

I’m no longer obsessed with being a millionaire.
I’m not in a rush to buy a house or a car or gadgets.
I generally delay a purchase for sixty days or more.
Living life first class all the way is no longer a priority.

What changed? No. I did not turn into a monk. My priorities changed.

Before I started working I was pretty happy where I was. Until I made my own money and advertising hit me full blast. I didn’t really need an iPhone back then or a car and a house. I was okay with what I had. I didn’t envy my extended family for living in luxury because I knew I could enjoy those things from time to time.

My story as my career progressed it had been keeping up with my dad’s success or my clan’s success or just keeping up with the tip of my circles. It’s tiring. Like a race without an end where my goal is to be the first or have the highest possible score. I realized that if I didn’t become aware of my intentions and my direction I would have continued this until I died.

Over time this approach became too much of a burden. You know the saying working jobs you hate to buy shit you don’t need to impress people that you hate? That was the story of my life. I believe in working smart so my goal was financial and time freedom. My initial image of it was that was a few dozen of thousands of dollars of passive income per month without doing anything. Doing so is more of a hassle than I expected, especially because I was trying to rush things.

My next question was that how can I enjoy life now without having to wait for several years or try to work myself to death?

I only enjoy a few things:
Writing.
Good food.
Hugs from Ish. (currently not available)
Good conversations.
Learning.

All these things don’t cost a lot of money.

What can I say? I’m a pretty lazy guy. That’s what makes me happy. I realize that I don’t need a lot of cash to enjoy those. I noticed a new luxury that attracted me more than the prospect of fame and fortune or even power. Mobility. It’s the ability to be anywhere at any time. I want to be where my partner needs to be and to support her and my future family. In terms of travel? I don’t think I need to see the world by sleeping in a first class suite. I just want to see the place, taste the food and hold Ish’s hand. I heard I can do that a lot for a lot less if I ditch the first class lodging.

From several thousands of dollars to a thousand dollar goal maybe aiming too low for productivity junkies. The thing is, I believe that if you’re pretty happy with what you do and you’re doing great work, the money will follow.

Would you want a life of luxury or mobility?

One of the last articles Ish an I read together from Leo of Zen Habits is about ditching goals and expectation. Applying the lessons from the post made me pretty flexible and adaptive to most things. Reading the Bible also pointed against being anxious, impatient or believing in a fixed future.

Applying it to myself, I can say that I can do it to most things. For really important things like waiting for relationships to get patched up, I’m often stressed or depressed at the very thought of it. I know that God is in control and the best situations for our preparation will always have a match. My question is when. I’m both scared and excited about what’s to come.

Today I got another reminder that it’s not up to me. The Bible has been talking back more often these days.

As nervous as I am right now, I’ll have to chill an enjoy the ride.

What do you feel the need to let go of?

Try to focus so you can be more productive.

Start your day right from the night before.

Sleep early.

Wake up early.

Have Breakfast.

Read.

Write.

Finish One Important thing today.

Finish another one.

Don’t Check your email yet.

Finish a couple more.

And now you you feel like you can do anything.

Blast away.

Rest.

Repeat.

As one chapter ends, we end up facing another one. Every lesson we learned from the past will be used for our next challenges. Old allies part ways and some stay together. Talking like Optimus Prime won’t bring out what I wanted to say so I’ll stop right here.

Faith is a big part of what we do. If we don’t have faith, everything goes to hell. Facing challenges bigger than what we previously faced can make us think we’ll be driven crazy but it won’t. Sometimes fire and flood sweep over us but in the end we are somehow victorious. I have no idea why but I know I that support always arrives in ways I don’t expect so I’m sometimes careless as I face challenges. I blog here to encourage myself and you if any of these inspires you.

I’d love to hear from you so feel free to contact me.

I had a nightmare last night. One involved fighting an armed robber at our Sucat house. Protecting mom and te damsels in distress. The other one involved me being being reunited with Ish after a super huge challenge and me proposing while on an escalator that led to the top of a mountain beside a building that looks like Trinoma. I was thinking it was a different girl but as much as feel that my hope should end I still saw her. Last Saturday, Bible study leader discussed God places the desires in our hearts.

Last night I tweeted that if a potential partner has no accountability to God, what makes me think that he/she will have accountability to me.

It somehow expressed how I feel about my situation. Here’s the thing. It’s not all the time I woke up singing. Here’s what I was singing:

Open the blind eyes
Unlock the deaf ears
Come to Your people
As we draw near
Hear us from heaven
Touch our generation
We are Your people
Crying out in desperation

Bridge:
Hear Us From Heaven,
Hear Us From Heaven,
Hear Us From Heaven (4x)

I don’t know what it means but I trust God has something really great for me. If its my eyes or ears or someone else that need opening.

Let’s see what the future brings.

We have received the ability to do good. Let’s not waste it by doing nasty things to others.

Today’s other lesson is that failure happens when we let our eyes and emotions set our destiny for us. Let’s continue making the right choices.

What have you learned today?

The first verse that spoke to me was from verse 11 which says “they say God has forsaken him, pursue him and seize him for no one will rescue him. ”

I definitely felt that way. Then I realized that many times the reality is far from what it looks or how it feels.

How many times have you hoped for something and people said you were crazy? How many times have you been in a situation where what you hoped for happened anyway?

When miracles happen in our life it is God that moves. Sometimes He makes us move with Him. Let’s not forget where miracles come from and that although many miracles manifest in us and through us it is God that controls all things.

What are you hoping for?

It hurts to let go of opportunities as they pass me by. At the moment I’m letting go of most things I find to be too troublesome and keeping what matters. That’s why I became a minimalist. To make space for the important. The past seven years of work had a picture of me burying myself with my work, plans and ambitions which didn’t end too well. Last year I decided to go in the opposite direction and see where it will take me. There was no big goal but to have a little less of everything. Things started to pick up. I had opportunities to pick up and let go of certain opportunities. I also realized that money wasn’t the problem for me but my appetite to consume far more than I need. At this point, I’d like to confess that I feel like I got about ninety percent of the important things from my goals last year. I didn’t strive for it. I just took action. A little here and there went a long way. Up to now I have no other explanation other than God moved. I talk about how every skill we pick up can be put to good use later on however in this case I am in situations where almost all of my skills are useless. Today I’m operating in situations where everything is painful, temporary, uncertain and unpredictable. Despite that I believe that things will turn out well.

I usually say its too early to tell. Good thing well have this post to see how the future turns out.

How about you?

There are only a few things within our control and may things are out of our control. I’m glad I’m not in charge of everything because honestly, I don’t believe I would be able to manage that much. Imagine being in charge of the water cycle or my own digestive system or the end to end process of everything else. That would be too troublesome and I don’t think I’m qualified or competent for all that an I’m glad the One who is has it in His hands so I have no right to complain or worry. When you are in an environment filled with distrust I guarantee it would be very stressful. Trust opens up opportunities of freedom an a relaxed life for me. Guess Who I’m trusting?

Today seems to be the happiest I’ve been in the past few months. Why? Because God answers prayers. I don’t think I can get into a lot of details yet but I can guarantee that He does. After my long talk with Alih at Faye’s party my depression hit me harder than ever. I spent my Sunday stuck at the house looking for encouragement. I had the Bible of course but I prayed to be able to talk to real people for a change and none of my usual friends. I’ve been calling people up to cheer myself up but to no avail. I can’t ask my 500+ shy or busy readers at minimal changes to speak to be because that would be too embarrassing. A few hours later an old acquaintance contacted me and we became fast friends and I’m pretty comfortable sharing some stuff about my life and it’s all good. I have no idea if I should ask for more people but I’m pretty good the way things are.

What prayer of yours got answered recently?

I encountered this Message a year ago. It eventually became a place I wanted to be. In my experience this was not where I was all the time.

I’ve been waiting for quite a while now and it seems that today, God is answering my prayers.

No I will not get a reduction in my daily challenges but at this point I feel my backup has arrived. It’s too early to tell so I better keep my mouth shut as I watch things unfold.

Stay tuned for the stories.

I don’t mean in any way that these things aren’t valuable. When I realized exactly what these things are the obsession to sacrifice everything to pursue them slowly disappeared. I’m not an enlightened monk. Nor am I trying to pretend to be one on the Internet but if for some reason you also get see things as just what it is there might be less drama when things go wrong or less fear of loss when we to encounter them.

What’s your opinion?

The past seven months had bouts of joy and depression. Despite that, nothing catastrophic really happened. Whenever trouble comes I either miss it by an inch or it doesn’t put me permanently down when it hits me. I don’t push my luck and I don’t cower in fear either. Many people compliment or complain about how relaxed I am. As much as I’d like to brag that it’s just how I am the truth is that it’s not. I worry too. My realization that God is in charge of everything and all things and that He loves me and is after my highest good puts me at ease most of the time. When it doesn’t, I receive the same message through reading the Bible, watching Naruto, random encounters with friends and other people that remind me that God is in control, He loves me and doesn’t make mistakes. So there’s pretty much no escaping this line of thinking for me at this point.

I recently lost my precious partner and closest friend. From the experience I learned that when God gives me a no there is nothing I can do to change that. I tried with all my power and all my skill but it didn’t do a thing.

I also learned that when God wants me to be somewhere I’ll be put there no matter how much effort I put to stop it.

I used to believe that when I want something I should simply go for it and blast away with all my power.

Now I wait for God. Now I know that I’ll blast away with all my power with His backup and His will, which has my best interest in mind will happen anyway so there’s no need to worry.

I’ve been asking for a lot of things. I have a hope that doesn’t die so I’m asking for clarity that His plans will be revealed and that I will be moved to take the right action whether I feel like it or not.

The first part had been my favorite from the Bible since I started reading it. I imagined myself like Gaara from Naruto with sand always protecting him. I imagine my version would be God’s hand covering me from harm. with all the trouble, I got myself into, I might have said in the past that God might have withdrawn His wall of protection from me. I encountered this message and as I read it again I realize a few things:
1. Nothing fatal has happened to me. Sure, I get a few rounds of depression every now and then but looking back,, whatever failure, loss or heartbreak doesn’t stay with me as I move forward. It’s not the end of the world and life goes on.
2. I appreciate that God is forever when I realized that everything is temporary. When I started my minimalist journey I prepared myself to let go of my selfish ambition, my lofty goals, my material possessions, and even my finances. The only thing I wanted to keep for myself was Ish. Like in the message in the picture above I was willing to trade all things I have to get her back. It’s a trait I’m trying to imitate from God. I’ll admit it’s not original but I want to copy it and have it in me as well. A year ago God gives and takes away a few things. My finances improved but Ish slowly slipped away and no matter what I did, nothing seemed to get through to her. A few more goals I have are effortlessly achieved as Ish draws far away. I remember how wicked I was at God that despite receiving blessing after blessing I let my pride say that I didn’t need Him and that everything can be achieved by my own effort. Now I can imagine how God feels. Whatever my situation is I believe that God loves me, has a plan and doesn’t make mistakes. This emotional roller coaster ride is probably just a plot twist that God is throwing at me to keep me from being bored. After all, God loves to give surprised. I now understand what “this too shall pass” means.
3. I used to read the first part only about the protection and how God will always be there to save me. As I read on to the second part, I realize that God loves me that much. I know how hard it is to give away something important to you for someone you love and despite that you give it anyway. I realize how the Creator of the universe loves me that much. I realize how I can’t comprehend that. That all I can do is be thankful and there is nothing I can give back that he doesn’t already own. Now that I’m pondering it on the web, I realize that I can go through as many rounds of depression as I want and it will not change the fact that God’s love will stay with me forever and I shouldn’t worry.

Walking by faith does not mean walking blindly. It does look like it to others and it sometimes does for myself. I recently acquired what looks like an abnormal sense of peace with the results I am receiving. I know everything is temporary and God is forever so I’m not too bothered by failure because I know it will pass, I can learn a thing or two and start again later. There is no pressure because I know that at the right time, I will get what God has promised. The past six years is a result of me being in charge of my life and looking at where it got me I am not happy with it right now but I am thankful for the experience because I know that each one can be used later in for my future challenges. I do not worry about a gloomy future because I know that God’s support is more powerful than any human effort.

I don’t underestimate the value of skills after all this is somehow a personal development blog. I work on mine regularly as well. I am not perfect but somehow I am not worried about it as much now because I know that I have the help of someone who is.

the day this photo was taken, I was supposed to be somewhere else with someone I like but wouldn’t see in a while.

Shortly after the drama started I made contact with an old acquaintance from school and we became friends. I learned a while back that when you’re depressed it will subside when you do people favors. I picked this new friend because she was the most accessible because I can walk to her place if I felt like going out for food or tea. I picked up going to Serenitea from her. I took her shopping (for my new clothes) when the first round of depression hit and she became a food buddy and one of our companions in my broke travel adventures. She and her bf became part of my broke travel buddies. What made her stand out was that she gave me advice that was pretty hard to swallow. Unlike Ralph who’s pretty suave at explaining things, her’s was pretty much in your face and straight to the point. I’m not used to being scolded. Seven months pass and I find her in the same boat as I was. Me seeing myself in her situation. Hearing my words come out of her and hearing Ish’s words from the story about the guy who left came as if it were déjà vu. I wanted to give her advice but I can’t since I make it a point to share from experience and my results in the area aren’t something to be proud of. I decided to just give Ish time and wait for her answer. Two days after I got the answer and it looks like I’ll be in the same boat as my new friend. I wish I knew what to say but I don’t know. Trusting God is easier said than done. Despite that the good news is that when God is involved, the miracles does not depend too much on our ability but His. That’s all I hold on to. God loves us. He has a plan. He doesn’t make mistakes.

Your prayers are much appreciated.

I consider two days ago as the saddest day of my life. No matter what I do there’s nothing that could bring back the past. I don’t have a time machine to change things. The future is still unknown for me. My inability to cry or express negative emotions like sadness makes it seem for me that I feel it ten times as much. Its not everyday that I just imagine myself crying because I can’t despite wanting to. I felt like the dumbest person in the world. I’m pretty slow at getting things so I just do what I can even if it means doing things really really slow. I feel tired from imagining myself crying all the time. I can think if all the reasons but that’s not going to help. I realize my dad’s advice last Christmas that “failure is a victory because it gives you an opportunity to try other things.” As I sit back, I remember that too many people still depend on me. People will leave whether I like it or not an it’s not my fault despite wanting it to be. Too many things are out of my control so I better work on what I can right now and let God handle the rest. I’m not a soap opera writer so I should just…

Drop the drama and move forward.

January seems to be a month of blessings, miracles and heartbreak for me. When the blessings and miracles came I was grateful at the moment or maybe throughout the day. When the heartbreak came I prayed to God all the time. I heard at church that pain is God’s megaphone and that it should cause me to listen to Him more. I don’t understand it yet but I’ll continue to trust Him more. I’ll do so a I continue to show up everyday. I hope that in the future I’d be able to look back at this moment and understand. I used to think that what’s (insert sacrifice or pain or what I had to give up) compared to receiving my goal? Right now, as much as I’d like to I can’t because my hope to get Ish back doesn’t seem to die. I hope God changes the situation or changes me soon. Despite all this, I am thankful because this had increase my faith that God is in control. I know He does things with my best interest at heart so as much as I would be hard for me to, I’ll sit back and wait for His next move.

a shinobi’s strength comes out when protecting someone precious to them -Haku

As you’ve seen in the previous post, I lost someone very important. Sometimes I feel like God abandoned me because of the pain. Despite that, His presence is too obvious to deny. Persistence is my favorite word since I was a kid. During my working years it evolved into perseverance which roughly means the same. I’m not too smart nor fast or strong but I know that I can take a lot of punishment and not quit.

I jokingly say that God believes I’m strong so he sends me extra large problems.

I surrender the problem to Him but I never surrender on Him.

The past few months have shown me more miracles than I’ve seen in my lifetime. There’s one big miracle I’d like to get and if it would please Him to make it happen I’d like to have it as soon as possible. For now it doesn’t make sense in terms of timing and if it should happen, it should do so without my intervention. Should God grant it, it would be obvious that it isn’t by my power.

God has never let me down. The plot twists of what He has written for my story has so far kept me at the edge of my seat. As I hold my breath for tomorrows episode, I can’t but feel excitement, wondering about the next story arc or who will be the recurring characters. More importantly, I better get back to thinking about how to get back in sync with His script.

Don’t worry. I won’t be depressed for long. :)

Last night I prayed for an answer. I’ve been depressed for a bit over seven months because I broke up with the princess of far far away because she was asking for time to decide if she wanted to continue our relationship. Exactly five years ago, I was taken from her by a werewolf princess who did one of the nicest things a mortal could do for me. Despite wanting to keep me as her pet and despite me wanting to stay with her she returned me to the princess of far far away because she believed I would live happily ever after with her. The princess of far far away gave me another chance to come back despite knowing I was now part monster. Five years of happiness with the princess of far far away then bang! Prince charming from her childhood slipped in from no where with the support of her grade school friends did something that affected her. It’s as if a curse was cast and she no longer saw me as other than an ogre. I thought true love would break the curse bit it wasn’t enough. I thought effort, determination and willpower will work but it won’t. When we broke up the princess of the land of werewolves returned just to tell me to never lose her again before disappearing completely with her mate. Which reminds me that she sill owes me pizza. I also owe my food buddy a drink at Starbucks because her prediction of my future was right and I didn’t listen to her. And I was like Naruto, never going back on my word and saying you gotta give up believing I’ll ever give up. I just told Kaye that I’ll give up on the princess of far far away as soon as Naruto gives up on wanting to bring Sasuke back.

I handled the situation calmly as she said goodbye. I felt the pain and panic shortly after we parted. The hard part for me was that I made sure no curse could turn me away from her. Now I feel the need to get that remove because honestly, I still feel the same love for her a the day she took me back from before. The truth is, nothing is permanent. Last year, I untethered from a lot of thing this is the hardest one to let go of. I made all my decisions based on what will make our relationship continue. It isn’t enough.

Nothing I say or do is. When she decides it’s usually permanent.

When God breaks something it’s in order to create something new. I don’t know what’s next. I’d love to stay with the princess of far far away, but it looks like I’m about to be uprooted and will be planted elsewhere. Where it will be? I don’t know. My inner darkness asks how I can afford to bleed love when I’ve been stabbed in the back? I don’t know the answer.

Despite all my minimal changes, that’s been the only one that’s consistent with me. What’s this answered prayer? I prayed for God to break me, and to change me, so He can use me. I know that He will take care everything for me just as He strongly supported all, who’s hearts are completely His. I wonder what’s next but I’ll just leave it in God’s hands.

Last night I prayed for an answer and surprisingly enough, I got one.

What of me? It hurts but love takes over and I go on and all the hurt and the pain are set aside. I’ll let you know if anything changes. Till next time princess of far far away who also happens to be my first and favorite reader.

I’m sure I’ll still have access to you, but I’ll miss spending most of my time with you. You’ll probably hear something I usually say but I won’t say it here and I’ll just let you imagine it.

I’d love to hear an answer :)

The message above is the kind of love I’d like to copy. It’s unconditional and at the same time you can’t shake the thought of what if I gave love that way or what if everyone loved that way.

I haven’t fully copied it yet. I consider myself just starting.

The challenge I experience is that some people treat it as a bad thing. Friends will advice against it and that you should leave some love for yourself. Or think of yourself some more. Or they will call you a martyr.

On occasion doing people favors scare them away like lending or in some cases giving them money. I also experienced people disappearing completely after forgiving them for doing something I absolutely hate.

This may happen again and again in my lifetime but I shouldn’t discourage me from loving, giving and forgiving.

In the past there are a lot of cases where I received forgiveness and favor. I also wanted to disappear and not saying thank you. Later on I realized that the least I could do is say thank you, get closer to that person and pay it forward.

Church friends have a term they goes something like getting the gift and ignoring the Giver. We don’t just do that to God. We do it to people too. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying there could be a better way. In a lot of cases people don’t do favors to get something but it would make them really happy if the good given was acknowledged.

What are you thankful for? Who did you receive it from? What happened next?

this will replace my laptop for a while

My laptop broke down. The keyboard an the touchpad stopped working properly. At the moment I’ll be doing all of my writing from the iPod touch.

I’ve been bummed out of what happened to the laptop but I’m kind of excited about how I’ll just work from the iPod touch.

I realized another one of my goals. Portability over power. When I was younger I wanted to be rich and powerful and influential like a typical tycoon.

A couple of years ago I realized that the important things in my life can be covered with an average income. The inner conflict only happens when I compare myself with others or I’m ungrateful for my blessings but other than that it’s all good. When I lost the ability to use the laptop, I lost the ability to watch movies, edit pictures, and that’s pretty much it. Writing and publishing can be done from here. With regard to my goals, I can ditch spending for a car, a house, a large TV and posh furniture and keeping the money to rent a small empty space with not much stuff an do as I please. Power enables. Power also traps. Power requires maintenance and upkeep. Trying to work with just the essentials enable you to work with just the power you have and that’s more sustainable. I have nothing against it. I just don’t think I’d bee able to use a lot of it or spend too much time pursuing it. I prefer to be portable, mobile and free.

A year ago, I found a quote on the web. It says “I’d like to live like a poor man with lots of cash”

I figure that’s what I’d like to be. How about you?

We get used to doing something and sometimes get stuck there even if we learn better ways to work. Habits are known to be powerful and habits change slowly.

When we follow a new set of rules, it’s a good idea to trust that it will work and have faith that it will be carried out. Whatever mistakes or frustrations at the beginning are simply parts of the learning and not just an excuse to give up.

I remember a time when I was a hoarder and a workaholic and I didn’t enjoy the results I had then I followed a new set of rules which started with minimalist practices I learned from Leo of Zen Habits an his other site mnmlist while starting apply what I learned from bible study and I was able to get the results I wanted.

Don’t get me wrong life still has challenges for me despite that, the results and the situations don’t bother me as much as it did back then. There’s also peace as I lose things I’m initially super attached to which I couldn’t explain up to now. I’ll probably do so I’m the future. At this point I realized that not making those changes would make my life miserable but at the time I made my change, I was telling myself that if I make these changes, I’ll make my life miserable. In the end my past self was proven wrong and my new experience is that the new set of rules worked better than my old set of rules.

Here are a few tips for following a new set of rules:
1. Start small vs biting more than you can chew.
2. Know that it will take time to learn and you’ll make mistakes and that’s okay vs beating yourself up every time you make a mistake.
3. Do it but don’t take it too seriously vs not taking action and dwelling about it in your head forever.
4. Make it a game vs scaring yourself to death by imagining life and death situations.
5. Look for ways to enjoy as you learn vs complaining.
6. Keep doing small improvements vs growing exponentially.

Are you also trying out a new set of rules? What’s your experience?

I’m now receiving a new set of challenges and difficulties. After tests and hardships come victories and it’s interesting how perseverance and waiting had brought more results in my life than blasting away with sheer effort. How will it be possible to lose when I know that the One who controls all things has a purpose for my life?

We all want to know when we will get what we’re waiting for. My impatience will always declare heartbreak when things don’t go my way to oppose my belief that God is in charge and His next move will be sufficient, satisfying and is worth waiting for. If we get careless and follow our impatience where do we think that will lead? If we follow logic and just imagine what happens next we’ll see that nothing we like will come out of it save for temporarily pleasure. Moving in faith puts us in the unknown. We know in our hearts it will be good for us but it is often painful and uncertain. Many times we will ask “are we there yet?” many times the answer will be no.

But you know what? Many of these things I waited for are a thousand times more satisfying than what I worked for.

What will you believe? Will you wait or will you act out of impatience?

The sign reminds me of someone I wanted to visit. :)

On my way back, I thought about how I was just enjoying the ride. My workaholic self butted in and said I should maximize the trip. I should write something, listen to something, study something, read something, do something. Anything!

I said chill. It responded with make the most of your situation.

What does it mean by making the most of the situation? Is it the decision and action to cram as much as you can in every little thing or just working with what you got?

I pull out my pen and start writing. All these came naturally. I still don’t know the answer. The thing is I’m just happy where I am and I’m in no rush to know. That’s my experience lately. It may change and I’m in no rush to change it.

Whatever it is I want to achieve, I’ll act anyway and I know that for a fact. So I don’t think its a good idea to get all worked up about it since things will get done. Now I can go back to enjoying my ride.

I may not know what the future holds buy I do know the One who controls the future and we’re pretty close. So I don’t need to worry. -Pastor BJ

It’s been a few years since I first heard this. It took me quite a while to understand. If you knew me personally you might compliment me or complain about how relaxed I am at difficult situations. I feel the picture above should be able to answer that.

Sometimes we don’t like our situation. Looking back this bad experience contributes to what we call blessings.

Guess what? If you just relax and see where these things take you, you’d be surprised at the amount of unseen blessings you’re actually receiving. Take time to be thankful because if you know that 90% of blessings are invisible, then it’s no use getting worked up over situations that you don’t like.

Things I never imagined would happen to me after a year of starting a blog.

One, I have about 400-1,000 people viewing my blog per month. Two, I never imagined myself writing consistently and reaching 110+ posts on Minimal Changes.

I got two calls yesterday. One is from a Vietnamese restaurant who wanted to invite me to the grand opening of their restaurant in Alabang.

I got excited and contacted other friends to join immediately.

The other call is what got me more excited. I made a new friend who happened to enjoy reading my blog. While on the phone she read through some of the items she found on my archive. Doing so gave me the chance to go back and see how much I’ve changed since I started Minimal Changes. My first posts were long and had a lot of topics and examples and couldn’t stay on point. As my friend got excited she started reading the items aloud and kept saying she liked it. She even posted some on her facebook feed.

Looking at the thoughts I wrote from experience and the opinions I formed, I’m pretty grateful things got this far. Imagine having yourself and your best friend as your only reader? She’s my number one fan and I didn’t care that she was my only reader. I still wrote on. Then I got a comment from anothed friend saying my post was inspirational. Then more came. A lot of times my comments were silent but my traffic was growing. There’s no feedback aside from the stats save from the occasional tweets from new readers. I got my feedback mostly from my best friend and one reader. I wonder what she’s doing right now?

The reason I wrote this is because I’m also excited about what you’re starting right now. Is it crazy right now and you can’t think of a way to make it?

Guess what? I did too. Nobody became successful overnight. These things take time. Hold on. Hold my hand if you have to but stay on and stay in touch. I’ll do my best to be your support. It took me a bit over a year part time to get to this point. I’m excited about the next few years.

What are you working on right now?

Today I deleted a game I’m addicted to. It felt bad before I did and it felt great after. I was spending way too much time there do it had to go. Just like I did with Facebook. I may not know the ending or get to see the end of my progress but it feels great that I’m now able to write this. This is the reason why I got this iOS device. So I can write for you.

My favorite lesson and my hardest struggle from Tim Ferris’ Four Hour Workweek is the art of non finishing. This simply means stop doing the unimportant because they use up your time, energy, attention and other really important resources and cripple you from doing what matters.

I like a lot of things. I then realized I’m addicted to a lot of things. I feel the need to let go of some of these things so I can move forward with what I need to keep doing. Let go Kevin. It’s just a game. I tell myself. You can have those powers in real life if you’re willing to do something about it. People are waiting for your uploads. Fine fine. I tell myself. Let’s eliminate a few more distractions.

We don’t need to finish everything. Putting things down helps so you can use both hands for what you want to work on.

What addiction would you like to kill?

I used to want a TV Station. I sort of run an indie publishing gig online but actually having a full fledged media house maybe too much for me.

Ever since I started scribbling thoughts into a small notebook, typing them into an iPod touch or on my small laptop and blogging, I’ve been interested in blogging about a range of different topics. Ralph told me I might end up like Gawker Media.

Gawker media has multiple blogs that covers different topics. Gawker’s blogs include:
Gawker – a gossip column.
Lifehacker – productivity tips and downloads.
Gizmodo – tech and gadgets.
Jalopnik – cars
Io9 – scifi and fantasy.
Kotaku – games and anime.

I wanted to do the same thing and I’d like to start writing about it.

Here’s the direction I’ll be going in so far:
I still don’t have plans to monetize my blogs and everything you see right here is fully funded by me for my personal enjoyment and I’m just leaving it open for sharing. You can drop in and out anytime you like.

On Minimal Changes:
I’ll continue to write tips, stories and inspirational stuff about how I change, try to change, and want to change. I’m practicing a minimalist approach because it makes sense for me and I value other things over stuff. So ways new? I figure I’m writing mostly about what I did (past) and the changes that I want (future) and it contains the kind of voice of who I’d like to become in the future. In the past few days, I’ve been thinking of where to blog anonymously, random thoughts, questions, inspiration I got from the Bible and many more. I feel like what I’m doing to minimal changes is writing about solutions for friends so I don’t have to explain in person. I feel the need to be who I am more in my blog and I’d like to observe the changes more as time goes by so whether you like it or not I’d be publishing more of the personal stuff I write here on minimal changes.

On Philippine Island Living:

You’ll find stories about travel, food, experiences and opportunities in the Philippines. I’ll be writing more there as well.

I’m also building a site with call center training tips to help some friends get hire in a call center. It is my first topic specific blog so please bear with me.

Then again things may change but for now this is the plan so far. I hope you enjoy this change I’m making.

What are you up to?

Seen this photo before? I am learning to be thankful.

A year ago I had…

Owned lots of things I didn’t want to keep (mostly clutter)
Done everything all at the same time.
Lots of clutter.
Procrastinated everything.
Hated working.
Hated not doing something.
Been super inefficient.
A job that didn’t pay well.
Lots of projects that didn’t make any profit.
Spent mindlessly.
Credit Card Debt.
No savings.
No way to save.
Only dreams of losing weight.
A couple of empty blogs nobody reads.
No contact with my dad.
No friends near the house.
A lot of hate over people who owe me money.
Only dreams of traveling to Baguio.
Only wanted this lamp.
No laptop. (Everything’s saved on a USB, Emailed to myself or uploaded to Dropbox)
No nice notebook. (I wrote on paperclip bound index cards or scratch paper)
No iPod Touch.
A hard time uploading photos.
No internet connection.
No good relationships with my family.
Not met any blogger friends.
No unique wordpress theme.
Only wanted to learn to not need to organize my things.
Only read about tech and minimalism.
Only wished to participate so I can enjoy the benefit myself.
Three twitter followers.
No Google Plus.
Been super addicted to facebook.
No Your Name dot com website.

None of the links of the accomplishments are intended to brag. I only want to show you that its possible for you too. At the start of last year I was only wishing about these things. If you noticed some of the post a lot of them is me talking to myself wishing to have the changes now. I have a lot of them now.

Julien Smith said in “The Flinch” We all change slowly. Rest assured we do change. I was feeling crappy a few days ago and when I started to make a list of how things changed, how my situation have changed and how I have changed, I realized that I got everything I wanted from last year and more.

2012 should be a year of contentment for me as I take on new challenges and learn new things. Whether you set goals or not, I believe that whatever it is that you’re working on, you’ll get what you want and more too. Pray. Trust God. Enjoy what’s in front of you. Use what you have. Do what you can.

If for any reason I was unable to explain properly how I did it. Hit me up on twitter or email me and I’ll do my best to share how I did it.

How was your year? And what are you hoping for for next year?

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The Archives.

In case anything happens that causes me to be unable to continue I want to give this to you.

Author’s note: I worked on this Manifesto twice. Once when I stayed at Sean’s place for dinner and the other one was at my Dad’s place during Christmas Vacation. Next to my Call Center Training Tip’s Guide This is my favorite writing work. I don’t know why. I wrote this on a jeep going to the Bartolina (Sean’s apartment) and have not stopped working on it since I got there. I then procrastinated and left this work for a few months then picking it back up and working in finishing this.

What is the Lightbulb Flicker Explosion Strategy?

The Lightbulb, Flicker, Explosion Strategy. (sounds better yeah? It’s originally called Ding, Woosh, Bang after how the main character in ninja and samurai films think up his next move, zooms across the battlefield and obliterates all opposition )

The light bulb signifies the idea. – It’s something that you want to do and usually makes sense at the moment. “Ding”
The flicker represents the movement. A flash. Like watching a ninja or samurai movie and you see the hero moving quickly as if teleporting and delivering flashing blows “Woosh”
The Explosion represents the action (like a killing blow) delivered without hesitation. “Bang”

You’re not supposed to plan your next move or think about what’s next get up and move now!
-my mom (when waking me up to prepare for work)

My life had been composed of wins and losses I have projects, jobs and experiments that resulted in success or failure.

I recently did a few experiments where I got results that I liked and it happened enough times that an unstoppable momentum had built up and I was always in the zone or “on fire” every time I did those activities. It never felt so good.

I looked at my wins and I was able to remember that this unstoppable momentum happened many times and while pondering if I can control it or at the very least do it more often.

I was able to find out that there are only a few things that I did that resulted in great results.

In the past I was able to:
Quit smoking
Get out of debt.
Start Saving.
Become a trainer.
Overcome shyness
Persuade the girl of my dreams to choose me has her partner
Became a pick up artist
Lost 7lbs in 2 weeks.
Did a marketing site that ranked number one in Google, Yahoo and a whole bunch of other search engines
Became a minimalist.
Became super efficient at work.
Made money from my mobile phone and a bag of skin care
Made a six figure income selling real estate
Helped Grow a couple of small businesses
Became a mixed martial artist
Learned to play the guitar
Became a writer.
And a whole bunch of other things

So What?

I don’t claim to be great. I don’t consider my results to be exceptional. It’s not at the “best in the world” level. I am however proud of the fact that I was able to give it a shot and ended up with the benefit of being satisfied at the results. I’m no expert or pretend to be one on the web. What I’m sharing is from my experience.

Each of those endeavors yielded exactly the results I wanted. I realized that they had only a few things in common and although I believe that situations are different, I also believe that sharing this strategy I discovered with you is worth a shot. It’ll be useful for you if you’re planning to work on something new.

I love you and I wrote this for you. Yes you. I’ve had you in mind for a while now and should I never be with you again I’d like to leave this as my best work offered to you.

The short explanation: I have an idea about something I want to do, I get on it immediately. Ding “lightbulb” woosh “flicker-me going at it” Bang! The sound of the accomplishment delivered.

Here it is the rationale.

If you have a good idea, start immediately. Rush in the first chance you get and do the first smallest thing you needed to do to attack your project right away.

Majority of our challenges are internal and attacking while our inner demon’s guards are down gives us an opportunity to gain a foot hold.

Do it five times or for five days doing the two most important things and you’ll have the results to keep going. It takes me about five attempts or five days straight to get me excited and hooked to keep going to the point that I don’t feel like stopping.
I felt lazy writing this and lazier typing this Sean is calling me to eat already and I’m now ignoring her to finish this.

Okay I couldn’t resist now I’m back to ignoring them again after my meal.

Stop at set times and never work yourself to the point of exhaustion but exhaust yourself to the point of enjoyment.

While working, work as if you are already the person you want to be and have fun doing it.

The art I’m creating is more important than any of the tangible results so I hack away like a madman. If this fails there’s always another project for me anyway.

This strategy is really effective for new projects.

What happens if I lose track of old projects?

Drop it.

You probably lost your passion already.

Too much defeat results in even more defeat for your troops (mainly you)

Retreat and accept defeat after a while to fight another day.

Pick the project back up when you’re ready.

Learn to say: “I’m sorry I’m not too excited about this anymore and It would be worse if I continue.

I used to be a fan of writing every bit of idea and seeing tons of unused useful ideas.

All my ideas will never be implemented and all my work will never be complete and that’s okay. I make it a point to miss some of my ideas regularly to make way for other ideas.

The really big ones, the ones that matter, I implement them, then I get results.

Ding! Woosh then Bang!

If you had a “that seems like a good idea moment, without assessing how you feel about it or weighing the pro’s and con’s, just rush in and start. Doing something does not always have to be logically or emotionally evaluated and there shouldn’t be much to think about.

I remembered that while watching discovery channel a study was made on brains of criminals and it turns out that the frontal love of their brain (the area where self control comes from) has something different about it where when they have an idea they act on it immediately (usually on impulse without a conscience or thought) Hello robbery, master escape artist and killer instincts.

I was thinking to myself that good people need that for connecting with the one they like, experimenting on different projects and doing great work. You know to the ability to do good things without any resistance from our self doubt or laziness.

Now What?

Ding! that seems nice. Pull out what you need to pull out then start.

How do you get awesome things done without needing discipline or motivation?

Don’t ask yourself.

Don’t compare.

Don’t measure.

Don’t check difficulty or if you have enough.

Don’t measure your results or intentions against the Bible. You’re not planning to kill, steal, hurt rape or destroy people right?

Sometimes my laziness, self doubt pretends to be my conscience to talk my way out of doing. It happens when I have to clean up and do the laundry and happens more often when I have to do something.

Let’s go now.`

My goal is to have less than 100 Things and since I started doing it, I experienced the following benefits:

1. It’s easier to pack my stuff.
2. I clean and organize a lot less because there’s not a lot of stuff.
3. I worry less and feel relaxed with the amount of stuff
4. I know where everything is because there aren’t a lot of things I need to track.
5. I think long and hard before spending to buy stuff.
6. I don’t use up a lot of space.
7. I have an inventory of everything I own.
8. I have a detailed log of how my stuff changes.
9. I became location independent.
10. I can live out of a bag.
11. I’m more conscious on what I spend on. (when it comes to stuff)
12. I lose less things.
13. I don’t need to focus on my possessions
14. I look at my list and I feel pretty blessed and content with them.

It’s been a few months since my last take on the challenge.  I generally just keep a list. At times, I add pictures. Let’s see how things have changed.

Total Number of Items: 76

Should you decide to give it a shot here are some tips I recommend:

1. Start getting rid of what you don’t use a lot.
2. Start with the small things.
3. Have a someday pile and put everything you won’t be using this month in that box and come back to it later and choose what you won’t use and (sell it, toss it, give it away or donate it)
4. Start with the stuff you own that you don’t like.
5. Start with the stuff that feels like a hassle to keep (in terms of space, cost, effort, etc)
6. See if you can live with a picture or a digital copy instead (I took pictures of, souvenirs, notes, memorabilia, stuff with sentimental value, pictures, favorite clothes and got rid of them)
7. Destroy a few of those items.
8. Give stuff to someone who wants or needs them.
9. Enjoy how light things are after removing the clutter.

Do you have a similar experience? I’d love to hear from you. Hit my contact page to share a story or leave one in the comments below.

You might also like:

All 55 Things I Own | Exile Lifestyle

100 Thing Challenge | A Guy Named Dave

50 things :mnmlist

My minimalist suitcase & 100 things challenge | – Minimal Student

Photo from http://unhai.deviantart.com

Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series. – Rosemarie Urquico, Date A Girl Who Reads

Kevin: I’m not sure I can. What if I fail? When I pretend that I can do it by imitating what you guys do it feels like I’m lying to myself that I can even if I feel that I can’t.
Dennis: Have you tried and failed or did you just thought about it?
Kevin: No. I just thought about it.
Dennis: Then you’re lying. How can you say that you can’t do it if you haven’t tried a considerable number of times. I would understand if you failed after X number of attempts and you’ve done everything you can do to improve but to base your belief in yourself and your abilities on something that you told yourself when you felt fear? What do you call that? Isn’t that lying as well?
-conversation during the time I got a mentor for an entrepreneurial experiment.

How did I get where I am today? I believe that no success is self made. There is always help for an outside source. It can be from people, it can be from circumstances. Ultimately I believe it’s from God, who in the past few years had shown proof of His existence through an insanely great amount of support I’m receiving. In the past 7 years I started doing freelance sales gigs, handled some parts of operations, moved to corporate sales, tried entrepreneurial experiments and so on.
I’m not severely financially successful yet nor is it bigger than some people you know. I do however get questions on how to improve their situation. I can’t say exactly what to do for your situation because I don’t know and have no experience in your situation. Doing so would be me bullshitting you. I can however give you some of the things I did as I attempted to improve my situation at work.

Here they are:

• Continue learning through reading and self study – I only had one year in college. We hit a financial low and I had to keep myself afloat on my own to prevent myself from “sinking financially.” My dad told me early on that I’ll be competing with graduates from top schools and most of them have genius level intellect. I even misspell words and that frightened me. With that in mind, my first goal was that if you were to put me up against a graduate from the top school and you match my experience and theirs, they would be at a disadvantage. I tried reading books, learning form people more successful than me, attending seminars and eventually I learn mostly online. I didn’t graduate so I can’t stop learning and reading. Sadly a lot of my friends who graduated had no love for learning something new. I’m weird to them because I’m the only one interested in reading long books. They read mostly magazines now. Sadly , I also noticed that my high income friends read a lot and my low income friends read only celebrity magazines. You might have better educational background than me but would you rather compete armed with a diploma and all you learned in school or armed with everything you learned after school. Also apply what you’ve learned. There’s a difference between the results of knowing a thousand effective solutions and using a few effective solutions.
• Show up – Most people stop at reading. They know but don’t act. Most doesn’t mean everyone. Most means most people who asked me for advice and didn’t get anywhere with it. Every success I had is from God. My part was simply showing up. While it’s true that I do my best to make the most out of my situation, knowing an opportunity from a distractions comes from showing up and seeing things for myself.
• Keep note of best and bad business practices – There are ways to conduct business. There are ethical, unethical etc. There are effective strategies of doing business doing the wrong thing and ineffective business strategies doing the right thing. Keep note of what works and what doesn’t work. If your boss is doing well financially and they’re doing the right thing learn from every opportunity. If not, learn what “not to do” and learn how to do what’s effective while doing the right thing. There are a lot of examples. I would suggest taking note of how your company handles people, how they pay their people, do they keep their promises, are they profitable, etc.
• Volunteer for tasks and projects – If you’re starting out they’ll probably give you a title you don’t like but will ask you for tasks of your dream job. If not, you’re in the wrong team. Where I come from, people have a specific title and they end up doing working extra tasks and projects. That’s a good thing. Volunteer for more until you’re asked to help out at the important ones and more importantly what’s interesting to you. When you do you’ll eventually be prepared for what you’re planning for next. What you have right now is an opportunity for the next one so learn to do it well. When you’re ready your preparation will meet the next opportunity.
• Ask for a fancy title whenever possible – To a certain point I even suggest my own titles. That’s just me. I have a thing for the fanciest I can get so after I handled certain tasks I try to find out what’s the fanciest title I could get for the tasks I recently did and asked for it. It’s not that important but I enjoy a good title. It’s not always helpful because the expectation might be greater and it goes against my under promise and over deliver strategy. It does give me an opportunity to see if I can grow into my ambition within that time period. This strategy is a double edged sword and as the description implies it helps about half the time and hurts half the time so if you’re going to try this I would suggest doing as little as possible. (See above quote)

These are my most common answers when asked for career advice. What else can I help you with?

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How I Brand Myself for Employment
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