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Quality of Life

Short non-fiction books to read

By Bobby Voicu

Some books are long, some books are short. And, if they’re non-fiction books, the shorter, the better. At least for me.

I’ve never thought of books in terms of pages, but it kinda makes sense.

Fergus McCullough started to make a list of the best non-fiction books with less than 250 pages.

  • Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (170)
  • Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking (122)
  • Caplan, Open Borders (248)
  • Carse, Finite and Infinite Games (162)
  • Collier, The Bottom Billion (244)
  • Cowen, Stubborn Attachments (161); The Great Stagnation (60)
  • De Solla Price, Science Since Babylon (240)
  • Gibbons, Partition: How and Why Ireland Was Divided (220; h/t Tyler Cowen)
  • Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (72)
  • Jünger, The Forest Passage (120)
  • Karatani, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy (176)
  • Knight, Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction (158)
  • Krugman, The Age of Diminished Expectations (244); Pop Internationalism (240)
  • Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (128)
  • Machiavelli, The Prince (144)
  • Schmitt, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (184)
  • Smil, Oil (219); Energy (210)
  • Thiel, Zero to One (210)
  • Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization (239)
  • Weil, Gravity and Grace (183)
  • Wilde, The Critic as Artist (124)

The original article is not online anymore, so I got the full list from archive.org.

Of all these books, the only one I’ve read is Thiel’s Zero to One, so it’s a good list to start with.

Oh, and apparently there’s a reason why some books are bigger than they should: having a bigger spine allows them to stand out in a bookshop. Or that was the thing in 2006.

via Tyler Cowen

What is the hardest thing you ever worked at?

By Bobby Voicu

What is the hardest things you ever worked at?

It’s such an interesting question, right? When I thought about it, I immediately thought: “MavenHut”! I’ve never felt as tired as I felt while building that company, so that was my first answer.

But was that the hardest thing I’ve ever worked at? I mean, yeah, it was hard WHILE doing it, but I didn’t specifically work hard to create that opportunity.

Then I thought of a big campaign I’ve been a part of creating and running while I was blogging: Rediscover Romania (Redescopera Romania). That was hard as well, but again, it was hard while doing it, not working AT it.

And I think I worked the hardest at my relationships: with my family (didn’t really have a great relationship with my mom), with my fiancée (it was really difficult for both of us during my hardest MavenHut years).

What is the hardest things you ever worked at?

It’s an interesting because I always thought the hardest I worked at something was my businesses, my career. But if I look at it, it never seemed as hard as it was working on building and maintaining relationships with the people that matter to me.

It’s an interesting question because it asks you how much you WANTED something, how much effort you put into something happening. And that’s a lot different than the effort you put into something while it happens.

Oh, and I got the question while listening to the Building Bridges podcast episode with Toni Cowan-Brown from Idee Fixe newsletter.

Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash>

Daylight Saving Time: Can We Just Decide on One?

By Bobby Voicu

I woke up at 5:30am today. I usually wake up at 7:30-8, so this was weird.

Then I remember we just changed to Summer Time. While one hour shouldn’t make a difference, it kinda messed my sleep.

Apparently it’s quite common, as seen below. I genuinely wish we would make the change to just one time (Winter time, if possible) sooner rather than later.

Most noticeably, Daylight Saving can throw off sleep cycles. Your circadian rhythm is your body’s natural 24-hour cycle. A disruption in this rhythm, like Daylight Saving, is typically environmental, not genetic. Therefore, individuals can easily adjust behaviors that may cause issues, such as a poor sleep schedule. The rule of thumb is that for each hour of time change, it takes a day to adjust. So, if you get seven to eight hours of sleep and go to bed a little early the night before, you should wake feeling refreshed. However, if you already lack sleep and perhaps consume some caffeine or alcohol the night before, you might wake feeling sleep-deprived. Time to reset your internal clock!

From here: How Daylight Saving Affects Your Life | Northwestern Medicine.

Space for Disorganization: The organized chaos we all need

By Bobby Voicu

There was a joke in communist Romania:

“At an exam for policemen, they are given a ball and a cube and a board with two holes: one round and one square. The task: fit the cube and ball through the board in front.

The conclusion of the exam:
5% of the policemen are quite smart, 95% are really strong.”

While I’m not a policeman in communist Romania, that’s me. That’s you, I bet, as well: you try to clean and organize your office. Your room. Your email account. Whatever. And you find things you don’t really know what to do with. And you try to push them into a set of categories you already established for your stuff, but it doesn’t really work.

I feel it’s the same thing when you’re trying to organize your life/space in any way. We’re really, really strong: we’re trying to fit stuff in categories it doesn’t fit and it’s never completely as it should be.

The solution: a Space for Disorganization. A space where you dump things you don’t know where to put yet. Or you don’t have the time right then and there. As Janet and Isaac Asimov say:

It also helps to have one – and only one – Space For Disorganization, a shelf or drawer where things can be dumped until you have time to be neat, methodical, and are able to make decisions about where things should go. When you think you’ve lost something, it will probably be in the space for disorganization.

And if you wait long enough you’ll find that more of its contents can be just thrown out, and the process of doing so can serve as a Constructive Activity to Raise Self-esteem.

I found this quote in How to Enjoy Writing by Janet and Isaac Asimov.

And I’m actually doing something akin those lines, even if I never defined it. Especially now, when I’m putting together my home office in the new house.

Here it is, my Box of Disorganization, in the photo below. It’s filled with cables, gadgets, batteries, device manuals, I even see a Halloween decoration piece on top there.

I also have a similar space in Evernote, which is my tool of choice to get things from around the web that I “might” need at some point. Including the links you read in the weekly newsletter I send.

The “Space for Disorganization” in Evernote is a notebook called _Inbox. That’s where I drop everything that’s not specifically targeted for something. And every 2-3 months I go through the notebook and see if what I saved has a more specific place. If not, it just goes to another notebook, called Reference, where I might find it in the future using the search function of the app.

The advantage, for me, for the existance of a “Space for Disorganization”?

It doesn’t generate “paralysis by analysis”.

If I don’t think of a specific place for some thing or for some information, it goes straight to the Space. Also, as you know, small decision sap your energy. Because there’s no effort to think too much about what I need to do with something, I lose less energy on these small decisions, of where to put what. This allows for more energy to organize my space and keep it clean. Physical space or online space.

Keep in mind, though, it needs to be only ONE Space for Disorganization. If you have more than one, you just made a really good system of being disorganized.

Do YOU have a Space for Disorganization? As you can see, even a box from IKEA works.

Living in Portugal: Lost in Translation or Cultural Differences?

By Bobby Voicu

You can also find book recommendations on migration at the end of this blog post.

At the end of 2018 I moved from Romania, where I lived pretty much my whole life, to Portugal. They’re pretty similar cultures:

  • Both generally European (Portugal “more European” than Romania)
  • Both had a dictatorship that finished in the last 50 years
  • Both have problems with corruption (less in Portugal)
  • Both have a lot of bureaucracy
  • Latin language.

You’d think there would be no problems adapting to the Portuguese culture. And it’s true, in many ways we had no issues. I can actually speak enough Portuguese right now so I can ask for directions and mostly understand the answer. And my fiancée spoke the language quite well already.

But there are some issues I’ve never thought of. Case in point:

I say: I want central heating in the house.

They say: the house has central heating.

I mean: I want electric central heating with radiators in every room of the house and 24 degrees Celsius everywhere in the house.

They mean: We have central heating with fireplace and wood, with heating recuperator, MAYBE radiators, and 17-19 degrees in the entire house because it’s never that cold outside.

We say the same thing. We mean almost the same thing. Yet, it’s really different.

I was thinking of a completely automated heating system and being able to wear shorts and t-shirt in a house. They meant that there is a system to be used, even if not automatic, and it’s not as cold as it is outside. And yes, you might need to add another layer of clothes, but “the winter in Portugal is just 2 months and it’s not that cold anyway”.

It took me some time to understand the difference in perception.

We were using the same words, but our understanding of them was different enough to generate confusion.

The solution?

  • Ask for DETAILED information on everything. Sometimes people will look at you thinking you’re crazy, but keep in mind it’s your money at stake if you make a mistake
  • Ask often “What do you mean by X?”
  • Find someone from your country that has been living in the new country for a longer time (years, if possible) to “translate” the cultural differences. And to translate the language.
  • If the above is not available, find someone native that also speaks your language (or English). They might be capable of explaining the differences
  • Ask A LOT of questions about your chosen country. Ask everybody you meet, frankly, especially in the first year or so.

Well, this is not the perfect solution, but it is A solution. Changing countries is a difficult endeavor in itself, but the small things add quickly to the pressure and lack of comfort.

On the other hand, we were walking the dog around the neighborhood yesterday. One neighbor stopped us and invited us into his yard to give us some oranges and tangerines right from the tree. About 5kgs worth of them. The difference to Romania? If something similar happened, we would’ve left with 5kgs of apples. A little nuance in cultures, for sure, but I would’ve been happy with the apples as well.

Oh, and the photo on the top is not the view from my home, unfortunately. It’s a view from Foz do Arelho, across the Obidos Lagoon, to the Atlantic Ocean. An amazing place to visit. Just sayin’…

The perfect sunglasses: rubbery, light weight Polaroids

By Bobby Voicu

Guy wearing Polaroid P7334 sunglasses in Lagos, Portugal

I loathe sun. Not the sun itself, actually, because I love warmth, but I hate the blinding light it emanates most of the time. I know, right? Stupid, shitty sun…

I started using computers when I was 6, so I was “blessed” with light sensitivity. My eye sight is really sharp, I don’t need glasses or anything, but really bright lights make me want to live in a cave for most of my life.

All of the above means that I wear sunglasses when I go out. All the time, even when it’s cloudy. That white, milky light on a cloudy day is even worse than bright light in a really sunny day, at 2pm.

Because of all this I was looking for the perfect pair of sunglasses my whole life. And, to keep going on the quality of life improvements series I started on this blog with the rollerblade wheels of the office chair, read on to see if I found the sunglasses. Spoiler: I did.

The perfect sunglasses attributes:

  • be as light weight as possible
  • have the “around the eyes”/”around the head” shape, to cover the extremities of my eyes as well and not fall when I move my head around (including playing sports, if possible)
  • lens category 3 UV protection
  • the small things that “sit” on the nose should be part of the sunglasses, not separate pieces
  • as indestructible as possible
  • not overly expensive. €50 would be the top price

Over the years I found different pairs that had some of the attributes I was looking for, but none were perfect. Until someday, I was accompanying my better half in her pursuit of sunglasses and I entered a shopping mall optics store. And, because I was getting bored, I asked the lady if she had anything with the above qualities. And what do you think? She recommended the perfect sunglasses: the sexy called Polaroid P7334 Rectangular Sunglasses.

guy with Polaroid P7334 Rectangular Sunglasses and hat
Even on the windiest of days, while crossing the Pyrenees, the glasses stay on

The only bad thing, though: they were around €80. I bought a pair, because they were too good to pass. After several weeks of wearing them, I wanted to have another pair in the car, another pair at my parents, another pair in the toilet, one in the kitchen. Well, not really, but you get the point.

So I looked on Amazon. And I found out that the store in the shopping mall had at least a 150% profit margin on them. When I’m writing this, the price on Amazon is exactly where I want it. Less than my top limit, actually.

What makes these sunglasses so great?

  • They’re really, really light.
  • They stretch a lot, so you can sit on them without any issue (which is the way I’ve messed up most of my sunglasses).
  • Sometimes the lens fall and you can put them back immediately.
  • They wrap around the head and they don’t let the sun light reach your eyes.
  • They are made out of a silicone-like rubbery material.

So, here are the links for the sunglasses on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de. You know, to support my reading habit. Or my habit of buying these sunglasses, because right now I have three (one in the car, two around the house) and I’ve had around 5 or 6. I manage to forget them everywhere. With one exception.

If you don’t want to buy a pair, you can try to find one I lost while trying to learn how to standup paddle on one of the rivers of Portugal. This is one con of the sunglasses: they don’t float. Unfortunately.

Smooth and silky office chair ride

By Bobby Voicu

Office chair with silicone rollerblade wheels

I used to hate the office chairs. Not for their comfort, because they can be comfortable, but for their wheels. You know, those shitty caster wheels, that always get stuck and scratch the floor, or the carpet, or whatever. The same wheels that make weird noises, scratchy and annoying.

Since I’m seated on those chairs for hours at an end – as I assume most of the people reading this are – they were the bane of my existence. Well, not really, but I hated them with all my heart.

Until last year, when I found out that you can switch the wheels with silicon type ones, like the ones you see on roller blades. And that it’s not that complicated, actually. You can see below how my chair moves now.

Office chair with silicone rollerblade wheels moving around

These are the steps to follow to replace your old caster wheels with silicone rollerblade wheels:

  1. identify the type of wheels you need. I use a Markus chair from IKEA and they have a 10x22mm stem size. Most of the chairs have this or 11x22mm stem, so look at what you need.
  2. order the set of wheels that’s good for you (based on reviews and so on). I’ve ordered these ones from amazon.de, but you can find similar ones on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.
  3. Remove the old wheels from the chair. It might take a little bit of effort, but they should be easy enough to remove.
  4. Push in the new wheels. Again, it might take a little bit of effort, so don’t be worried (unless you bought the wrong, bigger size).
  5. Enjoy a life free of scratching floors and weird, scratchy noises.

In case you are unsure how to fix them in, here’s the video I followed to replace them:

There is one con, though, for these rollerblade wheels: you might hit the floor once or twice because you’re used to a slow moving chair. You push it back from the desk to sit on it and by the time you act, it’s at the other end of the room. You’ve been warned!

Best Productivity Hack: Enough Sleep

By Bobby Voicu

Cristina, my co-founder at The CEO Library, always praised sleeping. Well, not always, but in the last few years. She used to be a night owl that despised sleep, so it is a relatively recent change in her life, as well.

While I agreed with her on the surface (I mean, yeah, it’s true, more sleep is better, right?), I never actually felt it. I never slept a lot to begin with and I can wake up at any hour, after almost any time sleeping and I can function quite well after several minutes. I don’t need a “wake up”/morning ritual to start the day, I just go to the bathroom, wash myself and that’s it.

Recently, though, I started to feel that even when I sleep enough in terms of hours, if it’s not during the “correct” hours, it’s not good.

When I sleep from around 11pm-12am I always wake up around 7 and I’m really productive. When I sleep the same amount of hours (or even more), but I go to sleep at around 1-2am, the next day is a lot worse. It’s not that I don’t put in the work, but I have problems focusing on the task at hand, it takes longer to start tasks and, worse, I feel sleepy all day.

So, starting next week, I will go to sleep in the coveted 11pm-12am interval. And it’s next week because I’m traveling this one, on a short seaside vacation here, in Portugal, and not because of the “I’m starting on Monday” syndrome. Or maybe it’s the same, who knows.

In case you want to find out more about sleep as a productivity tool, you should read Why We Sleep.