One person/ multiple careers. Slash isn’t just a fancy word, but something we can incorporate in careers. Understanding the meaning of Slash Slash When we think about slash, what may first come up with might be the punctuation — “/”. But if we use the word “slash” to describe a person, the meaning of it extends to people with multiple occupational identities — an UI designer/ blogger, consultant/ career coach, or editor/ teacher.  Slash Career This also brings up a popular phrase — “slash career”, which means people make multiple income streams simultaneously. Having a slash career was initially popular among those creative workers, such as illustrators, but this became more mainstream especially with millennials and people in other traditional fields as well.  Benefits of slash career Many people might be skeptical about having a slash career. On the one hand, performing different jobs is considered a way to bring greater diversity and satisfaction in career life. On the other hand, it may also mean the lack of depth in one field and thus less chance to climb to the top. Personally, I think the benefits of having multiple careers simultaneously outweigh its demerits because it helps achieve fulfillment in

Understanding Mindfulness What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness simply means being in the present moment. It tells you to feel the flow of time by only paying attention to where you are, what you are doing, what is in your mind, and how you feel at this present moment. By channeling your concentration entirely towards your bodily sensations and inner experiences, it gets easier to calm yourself down and be closer to your inner selves. There are two key elements of mindfulness: awareness and acceptance. Awareness is to intentionally identify what is around you and what is inside you: i.e. wind blowing over your face, birds’ voices above the square, or random thoughts floating in your mind. Try to feel all of them with focused and alert consciousness. Acceptance is to let them be what they are, which means fully accepting everything you’ve noticed and felt at this moment without any judgements or avoidance.  A mindful living can then be considered as a moment-to-moment state of mind that helps gain control back over life and achieve greater happiness. It focuses your attention to the present, instead of looking backwards to the past or anticipating too much about the future. Mindfulness & Meditation

A couple of months ago, I saw a TV series called Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, where a Japanese lady Konmari visited families to help them tidy their homes. The tiding process normally starts from clothes, books to sentimental items. A rule she’s given is only keeping what’s necessary and discarding those that don’t spark joy anymore. The basic concept embedded in the Konmari method is actually similar to minimalism. Minimalism is about living with less. This not only means getting rid of extra material possessions, like what they did in that TV series, but also includes reducing mental burdens, and decluttering other aspects of life, e.g. digital life. It’s a less-is-more mindset that gets you to reflect on the current state of your life and identify what is truly valuable. With a minimalist lifestyle, people can sort their life well to enjoy more peace and freedom. Getting rid of excessive material possessions Among all aspects of minimal living, what we could easily start with is probably the personal belongings. I know this may still sound like a big project, but here’s what I did: Observing The first thing I did was to examine how much stuff I actually own,

 ticktick.com What is OKRs? Drown in the jargon river where so many abbreviations represent different business management methods, the OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) framework stands out due to its popularity among some household names, e.g.Google and Linkedin. Moving through Andy Grove, who first introduced Management by Objectives to Intel in the 1970s to now John Doerr, whose book – Measure What Matters – probes greater depth of OKRs in the workplace. How to embed the company’s purpose and values into everyday goal-setting and outcomes throughout the company’s workforce, is where OKRs come into play. The basic process of implementing the OKRs is: The company sets a goal (normally for the coming quarter), and lists some metrics that can be used to measure whether this goal is met. With the same practice, this process further goes to different teams and then down to individuals. Here’s an OKRs example displayed under Kanban View at TickTick: From the example above, we can clearly see Q3 OKRs are displayed and sub-divided in three levels: Company’s OKRs > Marketing Team’s OKRs > Jack’s OKRs in Marketing Team. *Key Result 1 of the company is the Objective of Marketing team, and KR1 of Marketing team is

You might instantly recall the Lego blocks that we used to build a house when we were kids. Similarly, if we split 24 hours/1440 minutes of a day into blocks, how we spend the time is how we pile up these blocks in order the house to be built.   What is Time Blocking  Time Blocking is a time management method that helps us get more done in the finite time by cutting a day into many chunks and each chunk is dedicated to a certain task. Some of the world’s most productive people, from Elon Musk to Bill Gates to Cal Newport (Author of Deep Work) have combined their to-do lists with this important method: Time Blocking. A Russian entomologist Alexander Aleksandrovich Lyubishchev, kept recording the expenditure of his time, for 56 years in a row, in order to stay in control of his time. This comes with higher necessity in today’s society since 24-hour-a-day remains unchanged, while daily information explodes in the modern workplace. How Time Blocking works From the face value, this technique seems just a walk in the park. In what way can it really benefit us? * It reduces context switching and mental energy loss

The Best Method You Can Learn from Theologian Moffatt When we hear people saying “Have a break”, what naturally comes to mind is doing nothing, perhaps just lying down and taking a nap. Indeed, sleeping is a good way to eliminate fatigue and help recharge ourselves. However, it’s not the only way to give your brain a break. What we’ll introduce today is another interesting method that may also help maintain the balance between work and rest. Let’s just call it “Moffatt’s Method” because it was the idea originally developed from him. What is Moffatt’s Method? Moffatt is a Scottish Theologian who produced one of the best-known translations of the Bible. According to Gossip (1944), in Moffatt’s study, there were three tables. Each was gathered articles and books of different subjects. For example, one was work-related, e.g. the translation of the New Testament; one was his paper draft and another was a detective novel. He would work for hours with adsorbed concentration; and when weary rises, stretch himself and stroll to the next table. After refreshing his mind with some hours of hard toil on the new topic there, perhaps then move to the third! Why does Moffatt’s Method work?

Don’t Let the Excessive Self-Discipline Hurt You   What has caused the Excessive Self-Discipline? Bombarded with numbers of books and courses aimed at helping us develop self-discipline, together with numerous praises from people around us or on the internet, it seems quite obvious that self-discipline is such a highly-valued quality in today’s society. This however, may overstate the significance of being self-disciplined to some extent and may thus pressure us in a way that we easily feel anxious and left-behind if we fail to climb over the “self-restraint mountain” built by so many fabulous examples. People with such anxiety tend to push themselves harder and harder, just in order to keep pace with those successful examples in this life race. Once their energy is burned out or the willpower collapses, some will fall into an extremely down momentum, thinking they just inertly lack the “self-discipline genes” or completely discrediting being self-discipline itself. This might explain why even just thinking of self-discipline brings us headaches already. It has been pre-linked with so many negative feelings: toughness, pain, huge effort, discomfort, and shame. So, is being self-disciplined really a nightmare, or is it just our own misunderstandings or even stereotypes which makes