Book review: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People + The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness

From principles of personal development to the true fulfilment

• Author: Stephen R. Covey
• Ranking: I think the whole menkind should read this

It is a long time since I read a book that would have had such a great impact on me. I literally think that everybody should read both of the books. And mainly - people should start living according to the principles suggested in these books. I believe people would be more happy with their lifes.
The first boot (7 Habits) introduces some basic principles. Something like decalogue, if you will. While everybody might find these principles of life the correct ones, only a bunch of people around me actually live them. The book is full of deep experience and practical cases. I did not find any dull or boring parts and read it really quick. Stephen Covey (the author, 1932-2012) did a great pre-search of literature on this topic and do not hesitate to introduce even an opposite opinion.
The second book (8th Habit) concentrates on how to get to another level of effectiveness and happy living - to the greatness and on spreading this to your surrounding. The author admits that he was wrong when he believed the 7 habits are enough. The 8th Habit actually is not a single habit but a more complex approach on how to build trust and be the one who is worth following by others.
I did not read this book that quick as the first one and found some parts not that cool but it is also a recommended reading for everybody by me.
The next on my reading list by Stephen Covey is: Principle-Centered Leadership

3G module similar to ESP8266

Anybody here who dares to create something like a small 3G module similar to ESP8266?
I think I do not need to introduce ESP8266 chip to you. In short, it is a small and powerful all-in-one WiFi chip. One can upload their own code to it, use several GPIO pins, it has low power consumption, and you can get it for under $4. This is ideal to start developing IoT appliances. But! Do you have WiFi signal everywhere? I don't.
So the next logical Google search would be for a cheap 3G module with similar abilities. You can find something like this for around $47. Wow, that is not a friendly deal.
On the other hand, you can buy an USB 3G modem in China for $10. It even has more stuff in it than I would need. I do not care about the plastic case and the USB/UART converter inside.
I would need a similar all-in-one chip with UART interface that would behave like a 3G modem. I would just connect a memory chip, external antenna, and a nano SIM card. The chip could have some more free GPIO ports which would support SPI and I2C. All for around $5-$8.
Am I asking too much? Isn't there anybody who would be able to design and develop anything like that? I am open to suggestions and wishing to support such a development!

Passion for life

I am not that kind of person that just quietly sits and waits for what is coming. I do not believe in faith, I rather have a control over things that are in the zone of my direct influence. Especially when it comes to the question how to make this world a better place to live. For that reason one might say that I have a Nose for trouble.
However, I still have the inner desire that makes me constantly go forward, the will to do something special. Not because of self-conceit but I still see many imperfections around me that need to be fixed. I cannot do everything so I am constantly thinking whether I follow the right direction.
This leads me to the fact that I have a very close example of what a man's life could be. From its very beginning till the end. Moreover, this is a way I would like to explain why the relation I have with my grandfather was so special to me.

Also, I am not going to summarize the sad facts about the end of the life. Mark Little did that very well some time ago. I would rather pick up the things I have learnt from this great example I had in my close family. Plus I want some of these things to be remembered.

My grandfather was born on October 18th 1925. The first world war was over, the second did not start yet but nobody knew. Many things were very different, there were no personal computers, no antibiotics (first commercially available in 1932)...
The economy situation in the former Czechoslovakia was not that bad and there was a promise of a great era coming. This did not come true and the Second world war started. My grandfather was 13 and he joined a guerilla (partisan) group fighting against Nazis. Once my grandfather stole a Mauser C96 from a German officer. An immediate death sentence would be clear when he had been caught. He used to say: "I could have been dead like thousand times.". This demonstrates courage to me and that you have to be brave and take risks if you are following the right path and you are living with your core principles. It is of course important to carefully select those principles (I might write about mine later).
There wasn't any long lasting happy era when the war was over as you might expect. The communists took over the rule in Czechoslovakia and they were not fun guys to play with. I would recommend everybody to read some basic facts about the 1953 Monetary Reform to get an idea.
So starting from ground zero, living in very bad conditions in a part of a warehouse (storage), my grandfather did not loose faith and simply went forward. When he was on his mandatory army service for two years, he was an army photographer. He created his own mixtures for developing photos and demonstrated a real passion for this "modern" art. My aunt was born around 1954, my father followed her in 1957.
The sixties were little better, there was again a glare of a light at the end of the tunnel. The atmosphere was more loose, people were able to travel abroad more, it was possible to play English songs on radio, the freedom of speech looked almost possible. Until the Soviets said no in the night between August 20th and 21st in 1968. The screws were tightened for another 20 years.

My grandfather became a Manager of the division for foreign automobile spare parts in Mototechna (the only company selling cars in Czechoslovakia, source only in Czech). Many people tried to destroy him on his career path but by sustaining high moral values and not following any dirty rules, they had only a little chances. Once it helped him that there was a Minister of agriculture with the same family name. My grandfather was openly picking holes in the company's management and a rumor started that he is so brave because his relative is a minister (which was not true). But as long as he was right there was only a little to object.
Many people were coming to him to ask him for a favour - they usually needed some spare part for their western cars that was not available on the market. They were also offering bribes immediately. My grandfather just did his job right. He tried hard until he managed to get that part. He did not take the bribe so he made many friends and acquaintances. This helped the whole family when we needed a good doctor for example.

My grand-grandfather was a rifle manufacturer. He also had a printer around the beginning of the 20th century. The Germans took them everything as both of these abilities were dangerous to them. So this rose another passions of my grandfather - guns and books. He was a professional hunter - like the one that feeds animals the whole year in the wood and then shoots them. He said that they would proliferate too much but I never bought that idea. However, he collected and read books related to anything he was doing: photography, weaponry, hunting, economy, customer care, traveling (see the Czechoslovakia adventurers Hanzelka and Zikmund), playing chess (I never won over him), fiction from all the world famous authors...
Before he started doing anything, he first studied a literature on the subject. While not having a university degree he had a great overview on almost any subject. Now there is a library in his flat. I developed him an application to create an index of all these books and spent the summer holidays in 2000 with him creating it. There are around 7000 books. Even in the wardrobes and closets where you would expect clothes, there are books!

My grandfather never stopped learning new things and kept himself aligned with the state-of-art in technology and computer science. This created a strong contrast between him and other grandfathers I saw around. Old people usually keep telling that everything was great 40 years ago and young people are all spoilt. I never heard that from my grandfather and I do not think this is true. I can see why it is easier and comfortable to simply stop where I am. Fortunately, I never saw this as an option for me.

When I demonstrated interest for electronics when I was a kid, my grandfather gave me a lot of books on that topic. I did not think about anything bigger at that age and I dreamt of a career of a repairman of electronic devices. I was always curious how things work, so when my grandfather bought a first computer Didaktik M (which was a Czechoslovakia clone of ZX Spectrum) I immediately started investigating how it works. The games were boring and I was discovering Basic programming. But how come my programs were not that fast as the original games?

In early 90's, my grandfather bought Commodore 64 in Vienna. This one was much cooler but even harder to understand as there was nobody around to teach me and manuals were in German. Also no books were available around. I already did not have this computer when I realized that there was an underlying assembly language that allowed better efficiency of the programs than Basic v2.
All in all, it was my grandfather who showed me the bigger picture and brought me to the computers.

He managed to learn working with a PC when he was 68 years old. In the environment where I grew up this was a typical no-go. People in their fifties were all scared: "I do not want to touch it, I am afraid I would break it!". He needed it for his work - he was an administrator and a bookkeeper for several properties owned by his friends. He did that until all his clients died some time around 2000. So he did not retire actually.

Short after 2000 he bough a digital camera and a color inkjet printer. He was able to take a picture of his friends visiting him and immediately print it. You should see those ladies admiring him. My grandmother died in 1993 so we encouraged him to have a look around. But he always said that he did not wanted to have a crush on an old hag. His theory was that the woman's age should be half the age of the man plus seven ;-)
Sadly almost all of his friends died many years ago.

After a very long adventurous life he was perfectly ready to die. Until the last summer he was able to completely take care of himself. Unfortunately because of a bad hearth condition he had to permanently move to a retirement house/hospital.
During my last conversation with him, he told me: "I did not expect the dying to be so hard, I just thought I would die and that's it. I do not like it this way, I hope to die soon. I am sorry but I cannot make it to your wedding the next year".


He died couple of days later on November 24th 2014 aged 89.

Is there anything he could take away with him? Any of these 7000 books? Any achievement he did? Who did he influence in his life except me? What is then really important in one's life?

The obituary notice below translates the last line of the following verse by Rabindranath Tagore (aka Rabi Thakur).

Traveller, must you go?
The night is still and the darkness swoons upon the forest.
The lamps are bright in our balcony, the flowers all fresh, and the youthful eyes still awake.
Is the time for your parting come?
Traveller, must you go?

We have not bound your feet with our entreating arms.
Your doors are open.  Your horse stands saddled at the gate.
If we have tried to bar your passage it was but with our songs.
Did we ever try to hold you back it was but with our eyes.
Traveller, we are helpless to keep you.  We have only our tears.

Reasonable Wearables

The results of the wearables hype are slowly getting into our homes and everyday lives. My feeling is that many people around are too focused on simply one thing. The watch! How do you understand the term wearables? Does wearable equal to watch?
I have read some interesting reviews and articles about the cool new hardware. For example this one: What The Apple Watch Could Be.
I do not have any wearables at home but so far, I am not so excited on having some. The feedback I was able to observe was rather mixed. Starting with I got too many notifications, it is crucial to configure the notifications properly to I got interrupted still.
Let's try to step out of the box and try to redefine the term wearables by specifying the requirements.

• I want to be able to get notified about important events - an incoming message, phone call, appointment in my calendar, anything around me.
• I want to be able to have this type of notification at hand, without the need to find my phone (yes, that lazy I am).
• I want to be able have a phone call, read a message, lookup any short information.
• I must be able to suppress anything of the above easily when I want to run in a distraction free mode.
• As a bonus, it would be great if it could prevent some dangerous situations for example.
• I must be able to continue my daily routines while doing anything on this list.

What do you think of now? Apple Watch or Google Glass? The later was stopped already. And both of them violate the last requirement.
How about headphones? Many of us wear them already almost all the day. Let me try to explain to you what my most favorite wearables would look like.
First, we need to start with the best hardware inside. The Headphones are able to connect to WiFi, 3G or Bluetooth. The Bluetooth might be soon replaced by something that does not take 3 seconds to get connected.
They are still Headphones, so their main task is to play music or sound. We need a HiFi Digital to Analog converter. Not like all those noisy wireless headphones we have nowadays. The sound must be crystal clear.
The Headphones should be able to operate standalone (without any mobile phone near to them), playing my music stored in the cloud, getting notifications on emails.
The Headphones should be able to connect to my mobile phone to tell me about text messages or incoming calls. The Headphones also have microphone in it so I can make a call. The microphone can be used to filter outside noise while playing music too. Btw. can you imagine having a phone call with your wrist?
I can configure what happens to the music while a notification comes. Either the music keeps playing in the background or it can be paused. I can browse through the emails, messages, agenda using simple voice commands. Everybody is used to people having phone calls on the street so this even does not look weird. The Headphones can also have a couple of buttons in case you wanted to stay quiet. And of course, you can control the Headphones with your mobile phone, smart TV or tablet.
A nice voice of your choice can read out loud subjects of your emails. None of them actually gets marked as read (unless asked) for you to still have to check them.
You can keep walking or driving a car with these Headphones.
For hearing impaired, the Headphones can work as an amplifier. They can be sensitive to ambulance/police siren and selectively amplify that over your playing music (mishearing an ambulance can be dangerous).
When I want to enter the distraction free mode, I can simply take the Headphones off. They can detect it so they stop the notifications, pause your music and remain silent. Of course you can just stop the notifications and keep listening to the music, there is a button for it. This is especially important because I usually do not want to get the notifications all day long. I want to process them in batches.
It would be also possible to configure the Headphones when to tell you about all the notifications that happened since the last check.
The Headphones can easily measure your heart beats and depending on the time of the day and the location, they can fine tune the music style according to your current mood. Or they can control your smart home and dim the lights when you fall asleep at 10pm while listening to the music on your couch at home.
Wouldn't it be great to have such Headphones? So far it looks that I need to start producing them.

Minimalism

I once put down an quotation I found in a book. Albert Einstein was supposed to have said that, unfortunately I could not find a reference to it right now. The quotation reads:

"The explanation of the world and its causes must be simple and elegant in the end. The 'world formula' that is not simple and elegant cannot be true."

There is one more quotation by Albert Einstein that is definitely his and you can verify that online:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."

I really like these as the real minimalism is very close to my hearth. I can demonstrate that on a tool set that I use for my daily work. As an IT engineering manager, I spend a lot of time working on a computer. The biggest bottleneck at my work is the way I make the computer do what I want it to do. There is a desktop environment controlled by a keyboard and a mouse. This did not change for decades now. I am a little bit skeptical about revealing a surprisingly more efficient way anytime soon. So I try to be as efficient on these devices as I can.

For the desktop environment I use Fluxbox. It does its job and it does it fine. Simple lines around the windows, no fancy 3D effects, no shades, no amusement park stuff. I do not have any icons on the desktop itself, just a B&W picture with my friends. I run the most used applications via shortcuts, usually Win key plus some letter. For those not associated with any shortcut I press Alt+F2 and type the name of the application. I use several desktops, each having a dedicated meaning. The second one is for a Web browser for example. This means that I can immediately get (Win+F2) to the application I am looking for. When I see my friends looking for the windows through various desktops on Ubuntu, it looks really cool and is filled with a lot of eye candies. But it takes time. IMHO this is not a well spent time.

You might say that I am just trying to be a weird nerd. I would like to assure you about my only goal which is being efficient.

Btw. I love shortucts! A single key press (well, technically multiple keys at the same time) and bang, the desired action just happens. No need to move from the keyboard to the mouse and back. Mouse is for web browsing, keyboard is for the real work ;-)

Most code developers probably know that from their favorite IDE. It can go beyond that. You can approach that as a great exercise for your brain. Always try to learn a new shortcut. There are also some other good options (hint: lookup the linked series name on youtube).

For the keyboard, there are various options, everybody is likely to find their own way. The key principle is, in my opinion, to make it a thing you do not take care of. You should not think about using it, you should not think about what key to press. Truly keyboard with blank keys helped me to address this problem. The first two weeks were a real nightmare but definitely wort it!

I did not find anything special for the mouse so far. Just and ordinary one, large model that fits my unusually long fingers. I tried trackball, or the mouse allowing you to hold it under a different wrist angle. But these did not work for me. Simply, it is the mouse, intended for the leisure time on the Internet, so not a big deal to me. Reading what I see takes more time than cursor navigation.

As I already mentioned, I incorporated these optimizations to be effective. To spend the appropriate time in the Quadrant no. 2 (see image below) as suggested in the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

Why I am talking about all of this stuff? This is a simple question. My impression is that we are constantly exposed to technology that tries to pull us into Quadrant no. 1. The amount of such distractions is increasing in the form of more interactions on social networks that gets closer and closer to you. What do you do when a phone beeps while you are reading a book? Do you look at the phone? However, I would like to talk about this in more detail the other time.

Now I wonder, is it just me who is obsessive by being efficient? What optimizations did you incorporated in your environment?

My era of commits

I committed myself to commit something every single day. To just improve the world a little piece every day. GitHub is not the only way how to achieve that of course. However, I have multiple projects there that really need some attention and improvements. So this is what I selected for now as a metrics of my goal.
I do not have a defined time for how long I am going to continue with this. So far I find it fun and it looks cool in the statistics. I am likely to stop/pause this while I will be on our honey moon this summer (come on, I can be committed but I am not a workaholic).
So far this resulted in the following benefits:

• I really do something on those projects everyday, even when I am tired and not in a mood for it. Usually this can be overcome easily, it is just sufficient to start.
• The projects move forward in big leaps and there are no periods of radio silence.
• I managed to implement even features I would not think I could do that easily.
• The projects are getting public interest, I managed to attract more students to do their seminar works or internship on them.
• I learned many new things, it is easier for me to stay in touch with recent technology news and watch what is new on the Internet.

What are your commitments to make the world a better place to live?