Frank Contrepois

Category: learning in public

Imagine life as a game

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Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends and spirit - and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends and spirit - are made of glass. Read more...

Small gestures

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Small gestures are small in name and effort, but the result is significant. There is a bonus: the more small gestures you do, the more impact you have and get. Saying hello, to everyone you see, every morning, will not require much energy but will impact positively many. When the morning has been hard, the alarm not working, the train late, the boss upset, the bills in the mail, do we need even a small dose of positive. Read more...

How to measure knowledge

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knowledge = 1/x where x is the amount of info needed to solve a problem in the knowledge topic Which in human terms means that the least information you need to understand an issue the most knowledgeable you are on the topic. Sherlock Holmes is an example of an extraordinary knowledge of deduction. In IT, a standard user (my mum, for example) might say: “Google is not there!”. What I think is not that the well-known company is bankrupt but that my mum has and Internet issue. Read more...

The importance of the non-urgent non-important quadrant

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Most efficiency training I’ve been in will have in some form or another the time management matrix (aka the Eisenhower matrix). The matrix is two by two (as every consulting matrix is). The quadrants are divided by importance and urgency, resulting in: Important & Urgent - firefighting Important & non-Urgent - where to work focusing on the long term non-important & Urgent - mostly interruptions, including social ones non-Important & non-Urgent - watching tv Many efficiency “experts” will tell you that quadrant number 4 is evil. Read more...

Reading again with a Zettlekasten

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Since starting using a Zettlekasten while reading books, I decided that (really good) old books deserve to be read again as their knowledge will not be lost. By leveraging the Zettlekasten I hope to connect new and old ideas and extract new wisdom. The first book I re-read is 7 habits for highly effective people of Stephen R. Covey (the R is important) My current setup for the Zettlekasten is based on Read more...

Stomach as a boss

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There was a statistics showing that Parole Judges in Israel would negate parole to everyone just before lunch (i.e. while hungry) and be more generous after food. This has then been confirmed of applying to everyone, and that includes you and me. So if you need to make an important decision, wait after lunch or dinner, if you cannot, grab a sandwich. PS: I think the book is “Think Fast and Slow”, and amazing book Read more...

An amazing set of business books

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I’ve been lucky This summer, most of the books I read were brilliant. Here is my top 3 The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups great book if you manage people The Trusted Advisor - Fantastic book if you are in the profession of giving advice (I think we all are). Now one of the most important book in my library Creativity, Inc from the president and founder (in the hard days) of Pixar. Read more...