Category: Life

There is a magical feeling from taking an idea you have in your head, then spending time on it to make it happen. The above is how I decorated my desk over Christmas 2010. Used waste A3, A4 paper and some sticky tape.

When was the last time you created something? (instagr.am don’t count)

A few tips on how to get started:

1. It will be cool – No matter what it is, be it a doodle, a paper folding thingy, a song, a pot, a sculpture, a website, a scrapbook, a dish, as long as you do it, it will be cool. You do it for yourself, not anyone else.
2. See it through – If its not completed, its nothing. If its done half way, its nothing. So don’t worry about what other’s think or give up half way, just keep at it till the end. If you are drawing or painting, draw more, colour more, fill up the canvas.
3. Create with others – Have fun and create something together with others. Just take an idea and run. Its meant to be fun and not a project that have a client and budget constrains.
4. No expectations – Don’t pressurise yourself and set a super high expectation. Just go with it and see what happens.
5. Don’t stop – Once you’ve created something, don’t stop. Keep at it, start a second thingy and a third and a fourth and…

I think there is something with making things using our bare hands that gives us a special satisfaction.

Go create something. Do it this week and you will be amazed by what you can come up with.

Parents, Siblings, Spouse, Children, Friends, Colleagues, Associates… The list goes on. Many of us have a decent normal family relationship, it’s just everyone else is weird.

Things start to change when we get married. We start to have to accept another family as our own and our understanding of a normal family starts to change. We then start to create a new normal within our own immediate family.

Relationships between people differ a lot and that’s why we have lots of associates or friends but very little close friends. There is a natural I-want-to-hang-out-with-these-people attitude for some and this can happen with any individual or groups of people in our lives. It can happen between siblings, cousins, school mates and even colleagues. Unfortunately, we have limited time and we are selective, hence there are very few people that we really hang out with.

Life is short and we only have that much time on this earth. How are we spending our time with people that matter to us? How are we sharing our lives and how are we impacting lives around us?

When we finally get to spend time together, why throw it away by twiddling with our mobiles.

Colleagues

We spend roughly about 8 hours every workday with colleagues to do stuff together. Some stuff are amazingly fun to do, motivating and we get to learn loads from the work and also from one another. Some work however are really dumb, but unfortunately someone needs to take out the trash.

Can colleagues be / become friends?

I’ve worked together as a team with many people and we worked really hard together, I believe they know who they are.

There was a situation once where I forgot to think about spam issues on a web project and when the work was submitted for QC, the developer asked me what are we going to do with spam. I panicked and its was a very facepalm feeling. The developer smiled and told me, no worries man, i’ve added a captcha to it and have also added it to the documentation. OMG! I was like, thanks man, you da man! We have since evolved from colleagues to friends.

This is just one example, there are countless examples I can think of where colleagues have stepped out of their job scope / comfort zone and did more than they officially should for the sake of others within the team and its really heart warming. Of cause it’s always a 2-way street and nobody is trying to backstab anyone and no one is trying to slack on their job. Its time like these you know who you can count on.

I’m thankful for the relationships I have at home and also those I have in the office. I’m glad that  I’ve come to know many wonderful people in my life and I cherish the wonderful relationships we have and will continue to have.

Singapore is a warm tropical country and having the air-conditioner on all the time really sucks. The natural thing to do is to get Fans. But the problem is the mainstream fans sold in stores really suck.

From a product design perspective, is it because its a difficult item to design with all its electrical-motor-motion-safety-bits, hence there are not a lot of good stuff out there? Ok, I did some research and found a few nice ones. But still… “Fans” are hardly a normal category found in most product design websites.

If you have anyone of the following, pls let me know where you got them and how much. Thanks.

If you have nicer fans to recommend, pls add links to them in my comments, thanks.