Work, relative vs the absolute benefit

Hello and happy new year to everyone! 

In the next few months I will put some more material to this blog. It is mostly the material before in Finnish.

It is all about the ratio of effort put to the work and the benefit obtained from it. The benefit is most commonly measured in money. Consider other things, such as meaningfulness. It is difficult to measure because it is individual. In most cases, you will reap the greatest benefit by employing yourself. When working for others, most of your time is spent producing the greatest benefit for some intermediary or to the owners. You have to produce more than your employer pays in wages and side costs of employment. If this is not the case, you must at least convince your employer of your contribution.

A small number of employees produce the greatest benefit. Make yourself invaluable if you want to keep your job in an uncertain economic situation. It might be hard for you to understand it. It could result in losing your job. Employers can also choose the wrong employees to leave. Don't be lulled into your own irreplaceability. Your excellence may be a concept that others do not recognize.

One way to improve the relative benefit is to reduce the time spent on work through working remotely. It improves your relative income through two mechanisms. The first is the reduction of time spent commuting. The second is an opportunity to increase efficiency. The longer the commute takes and the more it costs, the more the relative income rises. Travel expenses often don't matter much because you can deduct them on taxes. Employers rarely compensate for the time you lose commuting, so reducing it is an essential part of the benefits of remote work.

Increasing remote work is a good opportunity for knowledge workers. They can often do their work without arriving at the workplace. Some employers take advantage of this opportunity. Remote work is often a matter of negotiation. Getting an agreement from an employer may require a trial period. Use it effectively, because employers may not believe in its benefits. Practice doing remote work many times before the test time so that you can produce good results. Also, remember to tell your boss that he can end the probationary period at any time if he wants to. Make sure that you can minimize reasons for your boss to refuse a probationary period.

Don't leave room for failure, because you may have to wait a long time for the second test period. You are in a better negotiating position well after the results, when you start discussing the continuation of remote work. Carry out your remote work without interruption. Manage the necessary things efficiently. Your employer must benefit from remote work more than your normal job.

The benefits of remote work in terms of productivity are best seen as the opportunity to focus on the most important tasks without interruptions. They can produce a mandatory refocusing in tasks that require precision, which can last as long as 45 minutes. This is due to the reprogramming of your brain, which does not happen immediately. The duration depends on the difficulty and differences of the tasks and the quality of the interruption. Find a place where there will be no interruptions. For the majority, working at home is not the best idea.

Focus on the most important tasks when working remotely. According to some studies, unnecessary interruptions can take up to a quarter of the working day. Eliminating interruptions can cut up to two hours from your work day. Find yourself a place where there will be no interruptions. This is not a home for most people because there are self-inflicted distractions.

Another mechanism that improves the efficiency of remote work is the ability to choose one's work tasks, doing them at the best possible time. You can eliminate unnecessary work when you decide for yourself. You can more easily avoid pointless meetings when working remotely. When you work remotely, you don't have to focus on less useful tasks that others offer when you're at your most efficient. This is especially true for those who take orders from others.

The third mechanism is that you can choose how and where you do your work. Many workplaces have established ways that have been used for ages, even though they are ineffective. Not all working methods are suitable for everyone. In remote work, you get to choose your own way of working. It doesn't matter where you do your work. You too have your own place where your work goes best. Try many places and draw your own conclusions.

The biggest disadvantage of telecommuting can be greater responsibility. It might not be right for you. Working remotely requires more from yourself. Not everyone is able to take responsibility for their work for long periods of time. In addition, telecommuting can reduce the influence of external factors, which is beneficial in creative fields. On the other hand, the free time increased by remote work improves the opportunities to seek them elsewhere.

For an entrepreneur, the relative benefit is a different matter, because he pays the same amount of his profits in proportion as the profits increase. The entrepreneur also has to take into account the cost of the employees. Everyone should generate more income than they consume the company's resources. In Finland, the amount of money is about twice the salary. The threshold for hiring is higher than in many other countries.

Although the majority of employees should produce added value compared to their costs, this is not the case. A small number of employees produce the greatest added value. Make sure your employer knows the added value you bring. Don't expect fame and glory. Make sure others see your value. As an entrepreneur, you have to think about whether the customers bring more income than what they waste your resources. According to the principle of less is more, a small number of customers generate the biggest profits and losses. This also applies to individual products and services. For example, Apple's iPhones generate more than half of the turnover and an even larger part of the profits.

Cycles for Investors / Sijoittajan Syklit

My  book Cycles for Investors will be published in about a year for free at investorscycles.blogspot.com

Kirjani "Sijoittajan Syklit" julkaistaan seuraavan vuoden aikana ilmaiseksi osoitteessa sijoittajansyklit.blogspot.com

-Tommi T

New book, Cycles for Investor published in Amazon

My new English book Cycles for Investors is published in Amazon. You can also purchase it in Finnish. It does not promise you superior investment returns, magic formulas to achieve them or help you make exact forecasts about the markets. Instead, it gives you tools to increase your odds to avoid greatest insanity in the markets like buying during bubbles on margin, or selling close to the markets bottoms. It helps you to better understand intermediate and long term cycles related to the financial markets.

About the content of the book

The main parts of the content are the deeper anatomy of the cycles, the cycles related to the national economies, the cycles related to the financial markets and the life cycles of companies. It also addresses the intersection of three important economic cycles and the real estate and commodity cycles. The deeper anatomy of the cycles deals with their psychological profile as well as the factors that shape extremes. National economic cycles include e.g. the cycle of economic development and the cycle of a leading economic country. Financial market cycles include e.g. long debt cycles and stock market cycles. Life cycles related to companies include e.g. technology adoption cycle and industry life cycle. Real estate and commodity cycles have been treated only superficially due to the author’s lack of understanding.

In addition, it explains how an investor can identify the conditions of booms and bubbles prior to collapses. Efforts have been made to present cycles by multiplying their course by cause-and-effect relationships, mostly without numbers. More important than numbers is to understand the course of the cycles and the factors that interact to drive the cycles consistently. The book has focused at least on medium cycles. In perceiving them, numbers can be more misleading if cause-and-effect relationships or the course of cycles are not properly understood.

In today’s world, everything affects everything, so the cycles in the book are more or less related. In particular, the cycles of the national economies and the financial markets are often highly interdependent. Business cycles are also dependent on national economies and financial markets. The latter do not decide the fate of individual companies. It can be said that some companies are not affected.

The book deals with the anatomy of cycles and the following cycles and life cycles:

• Long psychological / socioeconomic cycle

• Economic development cycle

• Leading economy cycle

• Reserve currency cycle

• Long and short debt cycles

• Stock market cycles

• Technology life cycle

• Industry life cycle

• Business life cycle

• Real estate cycle

The main purpose of the book is to improve the reader’s chances of increasing investment returns by better understanding the cycles related to economics and investments. Improving revenue is most likely to happen by reducing the number of stupid decisions made by readers than by providing magical insights. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have often mentioned that they are not particularly wise, but avoid stupidity better than others. This makes sense for the sake of mathematical facts alone. As most people know, a 50% decrease requires a 100% increase, and so on.

The focus is on the extremes and extremes of the cycles, i.e. mainly bubbles, peaks, bottoms, possible crashes, beginnings, and endings. Other parts are less important. One reason for emphasizing the extremes is that, in my view, many long-term cycles are at or near the end or just past them. The ends and the beginnings refer to those cycles without peaks and bottoms. This is the case, for example, with a long psychological / socio-economic cycle. Extremes are also the moments when the biggest differences are made in investment returns.

In my experience, the book’s publishing platform doesn’t produce clear graphs, so I’ve left them out. I have reduced the time and effort of the reader by keeping the book short. The book is supposed to follow the principle: “the price is what you pay and the value is what you get” In my experience, the number of pages does not match the benefits of non-fiction books.

The book is not for novice investors. It does not explain everything in detail. The reader needs to know what the basic concepts like P / E ratio, Return on Equity and Earnings Per Share mean. A broader understanding of the economy is desirable but not essential. An open mind is also important because the book calls into question many things that at least economists consider true. Independent thinking is also essential. No book offers absolute truth about the economy because it cannot be found. The world is too complex for today’s computing power. This book does not offer it either, as the author knows his limitations.

The book contains a few investment ideas. If they are found, they are vague in the style of "substances used for intoxication can be a good investment in Awakening." (An explanation of the former can be found later.) The book does not contain exact predictions of what is to come, but it gives a broad explanation of what may happen or what is the most likely option for the future. It does not predict when anything will happen.

Learning from the best + Blood, Sweat and Tears

The best in their fields are rarely products of the system for everybody. They mostly go through their own paths. No system can develop an individual better than taking personal needs into account in the best possible way. Often they want to share their path with others or someone else wants to know the secret to their success. With this, you can get better too. This can happen in many different ways. Learn from the opportunity if you get one. Today, the easiest option is to take advantage of videos, interviews, or books.

If you want to get to the top then you can’t gather advice from mediocre people. Not even good individuals can help you with that. Focus only on the information provided by top individuals. Absolute best is often difficult to measure. It can be considered a matter of taste. A good gauge e.g. the arts have sales volumes and sums of money from individual works. Don’t copy one hit wonders but the ones that have been at the top for a long time. Without long-term success, it can only be about happiness. Explore talent from many different fields. Often, many things unite many things. The clearest examples are a passion for an object of interest and following one’s own path. In addition to them, there are many other commonalities, but they are the most important.

It is easy for you to follow the development paths of the champions in your field today. You can find a lot of their interviews on the internet. They have shared their life through biographies as well. Autobiographies are the best options. Two of the best I have read are ”Open” from Andre Agassi and ”On Writing” by Stephen King On Writing. They tell about how their thoughts on their lives and professions have been thrown from one emotional state to another. The failures that are necessary for everyone are best highlighted in autobiographies. They are widely available from libraries or at low prices online.

Blood, sweat and tears

Staying put is not your problem if you are happy with your situation and are able to arrange it so that you do not have any problems. Today, this is not easy. Escape from your comfort zone often enough if you want to move forward. This may not require extra work from you but new ways of doing things. Without resistance, there will be no development. It occurs in many forms and can be divided into external and internal resistance. Development often happens by hitting your head on the wall over and over again until you succeed.

Your ego is your biggest problem when you stay put. Going to areas of discomfort is your biggest hurdle. It makes you believe you don’t need a change. You are often the victim of your habits. Routines wire your brain without you noticing. You’ll have a hard time getting up if you’ve been staying on your couch for a long time. You need to transcend yourself and endure a certain amount of pain in order to develop into excellence. Top athletes have to put everything and a little extra into the game. Few are willing to go far enough. However, development requires crossing your borders in one way or another. It requires a head-on struggle. It is not a question of quantity but of power. Increasing the amount of exercise above a certain point does not help because the limits of development come into play.

Your battle inside your head can also be due to pressure from your environment and friends. It can also be called external pressure, but you decide how you feel about it. The most important way to reduce external pressure is to find out the reasons for the opposition. If your changes don’t suit everyone then reduce their company. External pressures can also become unknown. For some, this pressure is easier to deal with, but it is unique. You need to understand that you cannot live up to the expectations of others if you want to get the most out of your life. In the world of pioneers, the resistance is tougher because no one has done the same things before. By pioneers I mean e.g. top scientists and record-breaking athletes.

Understand that development is not just an uphill but it includes downhills and long journeys on a flat. Many times running towards the wall often makes the mind quit as well. Sometimes you should go around the wall or try a completely different route. Failure in one battle does not mean losing the war. Setbacks are necessary because without them you may never try in the most sensible way. They can hurt, but still don’t give up. That is the surest way to fail. You can prepare for setbacks mentally, physically, and financially. The masters and pioneers in their field have always been a little crazy and have suffered from it.

The lives of the mediocre people can be much easier and recommended for many. The crazy often do more and going to the frontiers of nonsense can produce disasters. However, don’t underestimate them because they are moving the world forward. You learn well from failures, so don’t be afraid of them. They will be for everyone. How you react to them will determine your future success.

Everybody has intelligence

Not all people are endowed with the same intellectual gifts. You may not be aware of your strengths but focus on things you don’t benefit from. Utilizing ingenuity is easier than ever. You can make yourself more easily known to the public, e.g. Via Youtube. This means e.g. an easier and more lucrative path for the best musicians and other performers. The flip side of the coin is the increase in the number of competitors. The following sections are intended to explain to you how strength ranges or intelligences can be broken down. The division makes them easier to understand. Intelligence can be divided in many different ways. In the book, I use seven different types of intelligence from Harward Professor Howard Gardner. They give a clear picture of people’s intelligence. You can be smart in many ways. Different intelligences are not mutually exclusive. Gardner's intelligences are:

• Logical-mathematical

• Linguistic

• Musical

• Bodily-kinesthetic

• Spatial

• Interpersonal

• Intrapersonal

Logically-mathematically intelligent people analyze problems logically, know how to use math, and study things scientifically. Such intelligence is most favored at the expense of others. Unfortunately, many of the gifted in this area are put to solve problems for which they do not have enough intelligence.

Linguistic intelligence describes the ability to understand and produce both spoken and written language fluently. Learning foreign languages is also easier. Lawyers, speakers, writers, and poets are linguistically average. Such genius is emphasized in education in Finland. The Finnish way of teaching foreign languages ​​through grammar may not be right, because the most important thing abroad, i.e. speaking a foreign language, is forgotten.

Musical intelligence means being able to perform music either by playing or singing and understanding how well someone else practices their musicality. Gardner believes this is the most questionable area of intelligence because he says musicality is close to linguistic genius.

Physically intelligent people have the ability to use a body or part of it to solve problems. Physically gifted are certain top athletes, such as gymnasts. Good builders, surgeons, and mechanics are also physically gifted.

Spatially intelligent refers to the ability to detect and manipulate large or smaller spaces. The rulers of large spaces are e.g. pilots and air traffic controllers. Rulers of smaller forms can be found e.g. sculptors, chess players and architects.

Intrapersonally intelligent people are able to understand the intentions, motivations, desires of others and are good at working with other people. The best examples are good salesmen, teachers, nurses, politicians and Actors. Their role in society is often underestimated, even though you are helpless without social skills. My personal opinion of Finns is that we are not socially talented. This may be due in part to teaching us to believe in it.

Interpersonally intelligent people feel good about themselves are able to understand themselves, create the behaviors that are best for them, understand their desires, fears and abilities. They take advantage of the above to regulate their lives for the best they see fit. I consider this skill to be the most important.

Defining the seven intelligences is not the only right way. More important than considering the accuracy of the classification is to evaluate how different forms of intelligence describe you. If you are a complete failure in some intelligence then you should learn how to improve it. It doesn’t become your strength even with hard training. It will make your life a lot easier as your biggest problems will diminish. Only the things you are really talented can get the most out of with the least amount of input. Of course, the smart ones have to practice. Becoming good requires less practice from them. Invest in things where you are the smartest. You get the most out of them. No one is intelligent in everything. Do not strive for the best in all things. It reduces your overall benefits and you do unnecessary work. It makes sense to move from a full-length to a mediocre one, because then you get great benefits with less investment.

You should always invest in self-knowledge. Without understanding oneself, one does not know one’s areas of strength and punches one’s head in the wall unnecessarily. Examples of this are singers aspiring to compete in Idols, who sound like they are scratching a metal surface with a screwdriver. When one of the judges tells the truth then it is left unbelievable and barked by the professionals. Self-knowledge also helps when you are praised in vain by loved ones. Unnecessary praise can cause great harm. Don’t neglect to develop this skill. You can take it for granted, but it’s not for everyone.

Simplicity also requires prioritization

Simplicity also requires prioritization. You have your passions and order of priorities. The most important things are often overshadowed, because your time is often determined by external factors. Focus on prioritizing the tasks you are left with after elimination. You can’t do many jobs efficiently at the same time, so you’re forced to prioritize. For most, even one job is too much. Remember, prioritization is your responsibility because others don’t know you better. Don't follow the herd. You live in a world of choices. Choosing the right things will improve your chances of getting the most out of yourself. Think about priorities. Things to prioritize have common denominators, although they vary by personality. Think carefully about your priorities. Some are self-explanatory and others are surprising.

Think of yourself first. The most important tasks are the ones that take you forward and that you’ve always wanted to do or try. Figure out things that produce results and more joy. They are based on the less is more principle or those with great potential. Also, things that require your creativity or are considered impossible by others will rank high. The only way to do some things is to prioritize tasks with high value. Prioritize them at the expense of your routine. Eliminating vanities is more important than prioritizing because they have a greater impact on quality of life. Start prioritizing step by step. You will probably fail in everything if you try to do too many things at once. Don’t forget that loneliness can be a virtue. Don’t forget it, even if the desire to change all things right now is great.

The most important task

Don’t forget that even the most important tasks have their order. Outline the most important thing for each day and prioritize it. Always put it first. Determine it through maximum benefit. Also assign a purpose to the task, because without good reason, the task is not the most important one. If you can't get the most important task done in one day, divide it into parts. Prioritize smaller parts. Set aside your most efficient hours for the most important task. They vary depending on the personality. Most are most effective 2-4 hours after waking up. They have had time to shed their sleep and their worst fatigue has subsided. You will find your best working hours best by testing, i.e. doing the most important tasks at different times.

In addition to reserving the most efficient working time, minimize potential disruption to the most important tasks. Close email notifications, set the phone to silent, and focus on the most important task. This may be easier said than done. Still, try to minimize interference. This will greatly increase your efficiency. Set a deadline for the most important task. If you book a longer time period for your most important tasks than a day, set aside moments on your calendar for your most important tasks. I do not recommend a vague definition of the most important tasks, such as “I will graduate as an engineer next year”. In this case, the priorities may be unclear and leave too much room for interpretation.

When you define the most important tasks, you must first determine the next physical task and what you want to accomplish. The relevance of the next physical task is to make the most important task easier to do. Example: You have a toothache that interferes with your daily life. In this case, your most important task is to make an appointment and go to the dentist. The first physical task is to look up a dentist's number. In reality, the first physical task is probably to open a browser or computer. Mark the desired result as a hole patch and end of the toothache. Apply this mindset to every major task. Simplify the thing you want to do. Often the most important task is multifaceted. Therefore, clearly define the desired outcome. Determine the desired result before the first physical step.

Simplicity requires elimination

 Simplicity requires elimination. Your amount of stuff, your human contact, and the things you do will increase faster than you reduce them. Elimination of vanities is the most important thing in simplifying life. The figures for individual goods and human contacts are described in more detail in the figures. This chapter tells you more about unnecessary doing. Most of the things you do are useless. They do not add value to you. Your skills are poor on average. The purpose of the book is to reduce the things you do in vain and make you focus on what brings you the most benefit and enjoyment. Just a few things you do every day are really helpful to you. You’ll have a hard time believing this because it means you’re wasting most of your available resources. You don’t have to try to get the few percent productivity gains that the world around you thirsts for. By eliminating vanities, you get an improved quality of life and tens of percent efficiency.

You need to make things unnecessary if you can’t eliminate them. Habits don’t need your focus. More about creating routines, their benefits, and changing them is covered in a chapter that focuses on habits. Unnecessary things depend on the person. Therefore, this chapter focuses more on identifying vanities. You can also eliminate your vanities by delegating them to others. First, try to remove unnecessary things you don’t like. You cannot eliminate all of them. First, remove all possible ones and delegate those vanities to others that you cannot completely avoid. Then focus on the things you are bad at. They produce unpleasant side effects on your life and waste your resources. Failures will produce more failures for you and a rolling snowball will grow. Here are some things to keep in mind that is taken from The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris:

• Things to always suspend. When you are interrupted, you have to re-tune in to do them which takes time out of your brain.

• Answering unnecessary emails and calls.

• Things that have always been done this way. They have not evolved and as a result they have become ineffective.

• Things where your partner is either miserable or unreliable.

• Things that are not completed on schedule and whose completion is not visible.

• Meetings that don’t have a clear purpose, goal, or schedule and where you don’t have a critical role.
  
  

From the list above, you can easily see how much more unnecessary and wasteful things you have to do. You can easily simplify your life by eliminating them. This leads to a better outcome than improving unnecessary things. Elimination can produce unexpected surprises for you. Try it to see the results. Do not bite too large a piece at a time. Focus first on your most harmful habits and actions. Subtract a maximum of two similar things at once. Start with the most harmful and gradually move on to others. In my experience, changing all bad habits at once leads to everyone’s failure and bigger problems than you had before the change.

Simplicity part 1 Simplicity and Complexity

Simple is beautiful and it shows in many things. The modern world is moving towards complex structures. This trend is wrong. Keeping a product simple as it enters the market makes it easier to make more money. Simple products have started to attract more and more recently. Ease of use has risen to a major role in purchasing decisions. The imperceptibility of the role of simplicity is often due to the fact that it is not as intellectually interesting as complexity. The problem with Finnish engineering is that a technically superior solution is not always the best if it is complex. This was one reason why Nokia could not compete with Apple.

Simple is always beautiful. The exception may be someone with an ugly and simple soul. Not hanging on to exceptions. Focus on the beauty of simplicity. The beauty of simplicity is one reason less is more of a principle to work. Simplifying aspects of human life can be helpful. Automatic Monthly Savings in Index Funds can save you large amounts of work exams and bank brokerage fees. Simple, simple and straightforward. Your job is to make complex things simple. This is an ongoing process. It never ends the first time. Don't compromise on it. Always keep in mind that a simple product, thing, message or service is high quality. If you are unable to simplify then strive for elimination. If this does not work, remember the lowest possible minimum dose and make sure that you do not consume more of your resources than necessary.

Life is constantly becoming more complicated. That doesn't have to be the case. Focus only on the things that bring the most benefit and enjoyment to you and your environment. Eliminate every thing unrelated to the above if you can. Unnecessary and important things will always fight for their living space in your headroom. This war is difficult to detect because unnecessary as well as important things fought inside your head. By giving up things that do you little or no harm, you can simplify your life with pleasure and great results. Awesome and excellent things often mean simple results. Reducing complexity leads to a more beautiful end result. If you want to make something big going forward, you need the courage to simplify. Few have the resources to do so. That is why simplicity is so rare and beautiful.

Simplification requires both the elimination and the prioritization of unnecessary issues. These are never fully understood. It is still worth continuing this process at regular intervals. The time interval is up to you. There is no exact rule of thumb. Aim for it at least a couple of times a year. The beauty of simplicity is not easily noticed without experimentation. Take action now and see how your quality of life improves.

Complexity is the scourge of today. Simplification is the best weapon against complexity. This is easier said than done, but it is all the more valuable. Complexity causes greater inefficiency. Remember that simplicity alone is not always effective or interesting. Repeating the same thing from day to day starts to taste like wood before long. Keeping things as simple as possible is the best option. You can also think of it through the MED I mentioned in the second chapter. The purpose of this chapter is to find out how things are simplified and how complexity creates problems.

The world is complex. It is becoming more and more complex. The more complex things become, the more inefficient they go after a certain point. The problems caused by the phenomenon are often not perceived when they are hidden. They are difficult to analyze. Instead of improving things, one should think about whether they work at all, instead of thinking about how they could be improved. This also applies to business in addition to individuals. The increase in complexity can be compared to a snowball descending a slope and growing from protective snow. Costs are accelerating as complexity increases. The growth of the rolling ball accelerates until it stops at an obstacle and disintegrates. The best way to fight is to break up the snowball into smaller pieces and destroy the unnecessary ones before they go downhill. This is not always possible in time and simplification is becoming more difficult.

The more complex the system, the more it needs to be dealt with. A simpler system works better. A simple system works better without supervision. In business, simplification reduces the need for expensive managers and additional costs. Simplicity helps focus on relevant things, such as adding value. Large size does not always mean complexity and cannot be reduced by minimizing size. Rather, it is easier to grow simpler products profitably. Let's even compare Nokia and Apple. Nokia offered many different phone models to its customers. Apple, on the other hand, did not have many different models. Apple also managed to simplify the user experience that facilitated sales. The simpler the product, the easier it was to use. This maximizes the added value experienced by the user, which made it easier to charge a higher price for the product.

Be the loser of your own life

 We only have one life. We are responsible for that ourselves. Adulthood is a milestone, but some individuals need guardianship for longer. More important than this moment is creating rules of the game that you can follow when you decide for yourself. Laws impose their own restrictions on the rules. Despite these, we have the opportunity to create the living conditions we want, especially in Western countries such as Finland. The world is not always a fair place. We can lose even if we create our own rules of the game, as permitted by the restrictions of the law. Today, we cannot blame our society today for our failures, even if it steers individuals in the most favorable direction for the system. The system is often wrong. It does not take into account our individual needs. Then you have a responsibility to take care of your life as well as you can.

Creating your own rules of the game requires critical thinking. Not everyone's rules of the game are the same. The difference is good because the world would be a boring place for everyone to do the same things in life. Today, our most prestigious life paths are the following: elementary school, high school, college studies, and transitioning from an employee to a large and well-known employer. This is followed by a family, a mortgage, working until retirement age paying taxes and a slow movement towards the inevitable goal. This is a slightly exaggerated and deliberately painted negative outlook for the future, as it is intended to evoke the idea that this is not an inevitable outcome. By creating our own rules of the game, we can have a better chance of enjoying our lives more as an individual and not just as part of the overall machinery. The world is full of opportunities and we should exploit them to improve our quality of life.

There can be hundreds of rules of the game and each situation has its own. Instead of detailed rules of the game, we need to create rules of the game that focus on the big picture. In these texts, we’ll go through how we can create rules of the game for important areas of our lives, such as time, relationships, health, and money. We can reduce our burden in every area with clear rules. We can use Less is more concept. It can be exploited in the rules of the game to improve our quality of life. We can play a different game than 95% of people by creating our rules. Most work like others. It is possible to be a pioneer, but it will not work for many. Shortcuts exist and we can use them. This requires us to walk our own paths. It can feel like you are alone and a loser’s path for a long time.

We must define our own success. Being at work 24/7 and making large sums of money can be a loser´s path if it leads to a collapse in personal life, such as divorce and bitter offspring. Even making small sums of money can be a success. This is not the path most choose. Choosing a path for the general public is not a bad thing if it is a path you really want to follow. These texts are not for this path but for creating your own rules of the game and enforcing them. If things go down the drain, you should leave them unchanged. What is not broken should not be repaired. There is no point in making a small improvement because the input-output ratio is not growing enough.

It makes sense to follow different rules when things don’t go the way you want. We all have our strengths and weaknesses in some jobs. We often do not use them enough to our advantage. By utilizing them, we not only improve our own quality of life, but also benefit our environment. There are many solutions to the problems. The most commonly used are not always the best but almost always imitated by mediocrity. Utilizing them, the results are mediocre at best. This may mean more work, but utilizing your own thinking will yield better results than utilizing generally accepted paths.

Asking the right questions in critical thinking

 The right questions are the most important source of critical thinking. Doing them and/or doing them in the right order is more important than getting the right answers to the wrong questions. Let's take one example of such a pair of questions:

• How can I do this more effectively?

• Does this need to be done at all?
  
  

We don’t have to ask the first question at all if the answer to the second question is no. If the answer to the second question is yes, we should also ask ourselves the first question. The right questions will radically reduce our waste. We only get great answers with great questions. We need to set aside time to ask great questions because their benefits can be invaluable. By getting the right answers to the wrong questions, we are creating an opportunity for a great catastrophe for ourselves. In the long run, a chain reaction could result in a major disaster after asking the wrong questions.

Most of the questions we ask are wrong. They lead to wrong conclusions. The question is almost always more important than the answer. For example, when we do science, we ask questions for which we have no prior knowledge of the answers. Surprising breakthroughs can result. The benefits of the right questions then become irreplaceable. The right questions simplify things. To get the right answers, we need to keep our questions simple because our brain capacity is limited. Here are a couple of question pairs where the first question is wrong and the second is correct:

• Why do I spend so much effort on this client?

• Do I need this customer at all?

• Why do politicians have to raise taxes all the time?

• How can I pay less taxes?
  
  
  

Asking the right questions is difficult, but they bring great benefits. In less is more philosophy, one question transcends all others:

What are some of the critical things we can do to make all of these things either easier or unnecessary?

We need to go through the anatomy of this question carefully:

Point 1. What are some of the critical things we can do. The most important word in this paragraph is can. This is a possible action. We can’t put a word in a conditional form, as we could, we would, we should do. Doing always wins the intention.

Step 2. To make them by doing. This point means doing the purposeful thing. That doesn’t mean we do things for the sake of doing it. Finding purposefulness requires in-depth thinking, because by doing one thing, other things are not done.

Point 3. other things become either easier or unnecessary. This means that our critical issues yield such great benefits that it becomes easier to reach our goals as other things become easier or unnecessary. Most of us don’t realize how much we cannot do to achieve something significant.

Asking the right questions saves time for the most important things and tasks. I hope you find this text useful.

-TT