Category: Blog

It was November 1955, and a British naval historian by the name of Cyril Northcote Parkinson had just published a comical article in the Economist, poking fun at the way government bureaucracies behave. In his short, satirical essay—which eventually lead to an entire book on the subject—Parkinson investigated the inner-workings of bureaucracies, arguing through keen observations that they are inherently positioned to swell up and expand.

Fast forward 50 years, and the essence of Parkinson’s witty and cynical argument, known as Parkinson’s Law, is still just as true. The first sentence of his original essay says it all:

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Bureaucracies inevitably expand because there is no time crunch for government growth. During Parkinson’s time in the British Civil Services, he saw the inefficiencies of expansion firsthand and realized that progress wasn’t necessarily about working hard. It was about defining goals and working efficiently and optimally—one of the core elements of lifestyle design.

For individuals, this proverb is an incredibly useful tool. If you give yourself a month to complete a project that might only take a few days of work, the project will invariably become more difficult so as to fill the entire month. While your work load may not increase, time is wasted with unnecessary psychological pressures—the fear and stress of getting the project done. If you take a step back and allocate an appropriate amount of time for projects, for assignments, for daily tasks, etc. then you’ll see that the work becomes much less complex than it needs to be. You might even find that you’re able to accomplish more in the same amount of time. For whatever reason, it took me a long time to figure this out.

PhotoBunga and Interview140

I love coming up with ideas. Businesses, book scripts, blog posts, the best songs to sing in the shower (cough cough)…you name it. It wasn’t until after reading about Parkinson’s Law, though, that I realized how inefficient I have been in pursuing some of them. Below are two case-studies that help explain how to apply Parkinson’s Law to side projects and business ideas.

Case 1: PhotoBunga

The idea—a travel photography/social network/e-commerce site, where images are geographically tagged to a large, interactive world map. Profile pages are set up for each photographer.

Over time, contests and an advanced rating/commenting system would make it easier for PhotoBunga users to search for quality, featured images. PhotoBunga would jump behind these high-end, amateur photographers and market their photos to various forms of print media. Companies like Fodor’s Travel (owned by Random House) are constantly in need of travel photographers, and PhotoBunga would be a cheaper yet just as professional alternative to using freelance photographers.

Why PhotoBunga never got off the ground—my time line was too loose. I dove too quickly into working with an outsourced web developer and did not spend enough time mapping out the shell of the site. I didn’t have milestones, I didn’t have short-term goals, I didn’t really have any kind of grand vision.

How Parkinson’s Law applies—I was working hard, not smart. If I had set distinct dates and milestones, I would have been able to move much more efficiently. My work was “expanding” to no end. I would have spent less money, less time, and less psychological energy wrapping my head around the idea. Luckily, it only took me a few months to package up my work and put PhotoBunga on hold, but I could have reached that point much quicker.

Case 2: Interview140

The idea—Interview interesting people via Twitter and post/categorize the interviews into a blog called Interview140. Eventually, I was hoping to build enough content and credibility to interview celebrities via their Twitter account.

How Parkinson’s Law applies—I went about this side-project completely differently. Influenced by a conversation with my friend Alex (check out his start-up, WebNotes), I decided to only take 30 days to get the ball rolling. I drafted a Microsoft Word document with 4-5 mini-milestones and sent it to Alex under the condition that, if I hadn’t finished my work by September 1st, I would owe him $1 for each day that it took me to get it done. I worked my way through most of the goals while I was traveling throughout Africa and the Middle East.

While I decided to put the project on hold to focus on a few other things (namely, organizing my life :)), I spent a minimal amount of time setting up the shell of the site, and not once was I stressed about getting my work done. In fact, I finished each one of my milestones ahead of schedule, often by 2-3 days. By allotting a short, manageable amount of time for completion, my work only expanded to the 30-day window I had set up.

Summary

Next time you’re working on a project, consider Parkinson’s Law and give yourself only the minimal amount of time needed to complete it. It’s much easier. Trust me. Are there projects, ideas or goals that you have failed to complete? Does Parkinson’s Law apply?

Photo credit: laffy4k

Greetings from Djibouti, Djibouti! Since most businesses are closed from 12p-4:30p, I’m taking the afternoon to play Internet catchup. Coming up, images from Addis Ababa! For now, enjoy this amusing forum post I rediscovered, What You Should Know Before Going to America. Great travel humor from a U.S. expat currently living in Japan.

I’m going back to the US for Christmas tomorrow! Yay!

My travel agent has, thoughtfully, seen fit to provide me with a pamphlet of helpful tips to make my overseas travel less of an anxiety-filled social minefield riddled with white people and guns. I got such a kick out of these that I wanted to share. (I picked most of the fun ones. There are a lot of boring tips too.)

* The yen is very strong against the dollar right now. This will make goods in America seem very cheap — an excellent opportunity for shopping! However, remember to be polite in your use of money — America is in the middle of economic malaise right now, and Japanese people with wads of money in their hand might be looked on with envy. Besides, if you are obviously wealthy in an American city, you may be robbed.

* For our valued customers who work in the automotive industry [#1 employer where I live], we advise discretion. If you must say where you work, the preferred phrasing is [English] “I work at the car company”.

* Most Americans are very polite, particularly outside of the big cities. However, outside of the big cities, everyone owns guns. Inside the big cities, almost everyone owns guns. Let’s be polite together!

* If you go shopping at an American department store, they will ask you if you want to open a credit card account. They are *not* asking whether you want to use a credit card. This may seem strange but it is an American custom to offer customers a credit card, in order to make them spend more money. We suggest politely declining offers of credit cards. You may have to politely decline several times. Don’t think of this as rude, the Americans have to do it too.

* Most Americans think we look like Chinese or Koreans. Try not to be too offended.

* Most Americans will think that a Japanese person standing on the street is an American, unless they are holding a camera. If you are not comfortable speaking English, you might try bringing along a camera to say “I am a tourist, please don’t expect me to speak English.” Except, don’t try this in the big cities — tourists get mugged in big cities.

* Americans have a social institution called a “gratuity”. Basically, the price on the menu at any place which serves food is not the real price. The real price is 20% higher. You have to calculate 20%, write it under the subtotal, and sum to arrive at the real price. Taxis work the same way. It is considered very rude not to pay the “gratuity”.

* In general, Americans consider it impolite to discuss politics. However, this January Obama will become the new president, and many people are excited! If they ask you what you think of him, a safe answer is [English] “Obama is really cool.” or [English] “Obama speaks so well. Not like me. Hehe.” Be very careful when pronouncing his name. O BA MA, just like Obama City. [Ask me later. Hilarity abounds.]

* Most big cities have Japanese food available. You may have to look hard, though — ask your hotel for some place to eat tempura. Restaurants which say they serve sushi probably only serve makizushi, like California rolls. (Americans think California rolls are [English] “sushi”.) If a restaurant says [English] “Asian” they really mean Chinese. They are probably not really Chinese, either.

* Ladies: if you shop for clothes, ask for where to find [English] “petite”. It means normal sized. Ladies who are petite may have difficulty finding clothes which fit in America, except at specialty shops.

* McDonalds: Has no teriyaki burger in America. Portions are bigger and food is cheaper. Sometimes the person taking the order does not speak English. Please relax! They probably understand the set menu, although it is called [English] “combo”, and you can hold up the number with your hands as shown. [Snip of chart for how Americans count on their fingers, which is actually different than how Japanese people count on their fingers, hence the need for a chart.]

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish work and start packing. Toothbrush, shirts, camera, bullet-proof vest, wad of monopoly money, you know, the bare necessities.

Note: Read time 5-10 minutes.

It has been just over 6 months since I outlined my goals for 2009. Let’s review my progress:

1. Run 5 miles in 35 minutes

My running style drastically changed when  I bought the Vibram FiveFingers shoes.

Designed to restore the foot to a more primal state, these shoes (“Classic” model pictured above) strengthen the foot and lower leg muscles and reposition the spine to a more posture-friendly state. They take a while to get used to, but now that my legs have adapted, my runs are euphoric.

Regarding the goal, I can hold pace for 3+ miles, but still find myself struggling to keep up the speed. Every Thanksgiving morning, I run in a 5 mile race back home in Nashville, TN, so I’m hoping to complete this goal then.

2. Reach conversational level in Spanish

Yikes, I need to get on this. I will write a post outlining my tactics in the next few weeks.

3. Read and take notes on 3 out of 77 books on the Personal MBA reading list.

Complete! A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I have also read two more books on the list and will write reviews shortly. I am putting together a page that explains more about why chose this goal…stay tuned.

4. Compose a photo-journal coffee table book of my abroad experience in Nepal.

While I finally finished my photography site, nepalprints.com, I haven’t made any progress with this particular goal. Below is what I had written on April 1st.

I have collected and sorted through my field notes and class materials, and have a first-draft introduction written out. The whole book should take 5-10 hours to put together. Have any of you used Blurb.com? Looking at the cost of self-publishing a photojournal, it appears to be more expensive than I was originally intending. Are you familiar with any alternatives?

5. Expand my blogging audience to at least 100 RSS subscribers.

In January, I was wavering between 15 and 17 subscribers. In March/April, it was between 35 and 40. Now, I have at least 75 regular readers. I like where this is going. To all my readers out there, stay connected! It’s been great getting to know all of you, and I really appreciate all of your feedback. To any new readers…hola, welcome, namaste.

Recently I have made a few changes to the site:

• I installed the NoFollow Free and CommentLuv plugins. If you have a blog of your own, this means that you can sync any comment you make with your latest blog post. Now that the “nofollow” attribute is turned off, comments can become backlinks to your site.
• I updated my Images page.
• I created a new page, Countries Visited.
• I installed TweetBoard, a tabbed program that not only pulls my Twitter updates into the blog, but it allows you jump into the conversation. I first saw the TweetBoard on Corbett Barr’s site, Free Pursuits.

I have several things planned for the next few weeks, including an updated Resources page and a few new widgets. If you have any additional suggestions, let me know!

6. Clean up my research paper on vertical farming and send it to Dickson Despommier at Columbia University.

Sent! Here’s my email to Dr. Despommier:

Dr. Despommier –
Greetings from Boston. My name is Alan Perlman, and I have been a big fan of the vertical farming idea since the Popular Science article featured your work back in 2007.
In spring of 2008, I spent two full semesters researching and writing a “capstone” paper for my International Studies major at Washington University in St. Louis. The paper, titled “Vertical Farming: Exploring a Modern Extension of Agricultural Intensification,” looks at both Paris and Hong Kong as two potential sites for vertical farms, drawing on contemporary social, economic and political implications as well as historical models of agricultural intensification.
I offer my thoughts to you and your research team. I attached my paper, as well as a poster I put together for a presentation on my research. Hope you enjoy!
Alan

And here’s his response:

Dear Alan,
Many thanks!
The best,
Dickson

Short and sweet. Good stuff!

7. Complete the Hundred Push Ups challenge

The 100 Push Ups challenge is a six-week program that builds endurance, enough to do 100 consecutive push ups.

I am still stuck at week 4 on this one. A few weeks ago, I took a few days off and did 60 pushups, but I still have a long way to go. Argh. I’ve been working out regularly, and have seen improvements in the gym. I’ll try this challenge again in a few weeks when I leave for Africa.

Next update: July 1, 2009. I definitely have some work to do, but I’m happy with progress thus far.

Welcome to readers from AlmostFearless! I hope you enjoyed my post! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this guest post I wrote called “Traveling the World, One Bag of Popcorn at a Time.“

In a few weeks, I will embark on the wildest trip of my life. Hands down.

I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was waiting on my itinerary to be finalized and flights to be locked in. You ready? Here we go.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

My summer survey kicks off in the heart of Ethiopia, where my colleague Stephanie and I will spend a week gathering prices in Addis Ababa. I’ll be honest – I don’t know much about this side of Africa. The one Ethiopian restaurant I ate at in Boston was tasty, so I’m looking forward to expanding my palette with some new dishes. Other than food, there are plenty of markets and museums to get lost in, and I’m hoping to learn more about the Jewish diaspora in Ethiopia.

Djibouti, Djibouti

From Ethiopia, Stephanie and I fly direct to Djibouti. During a Model UN conference in high school, the Djibouti delegation proposed a resolution to turn the entire country into a world-dance-floor. I’m not really sure what they were thinking, but these days, when I hear Djibouti, that’s what I think of. Let’s hope I can form a new word association.

The weather is supposed to be hot. Real hot. Likr, 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Apparently, there is good snorkeling and scuba diving, so I’m hoping Stephanie and I can get our work done and cool ourselves in the open ocean. Though, I don’t plan on wading too far from shore – Somalia shares a border to the south.

Amman, Jordan

After Djibouti, Stephanie and I part ways. She leaves for Cairo, and, after an overnight stay in Dubai, I leave for Amman, Jordan. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be going here. Interestingly enough, I’ve wanted to visit Jordan since the age of 8 or 9, when I first saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In the film’s final scenes, Harrison Ford and company dip into a crescent canyon where they find a secret temple built into the rock. That temple actually exists, and let me tell you, it looks incredible. Here’s a short documentary:

Like Chernobyl, I’ll be taking lots of pictures.

Speaking of pictures, have you seen nepalprints.com? It’s where you can find all my best travel shots.

Damascus, Syria

After Jordan, I fly direct to Syria. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus cannot be entered with an Israeli-stamped passport. Good thing I travel with two different passports 🙂 Syria is an incredibly historical crossroads of commerce and culture for many of the world’s major religions. Instead of staying in the Sheraton outside of town, I booked a 17th-century, 9-room boutique hotel within the walled compounds of the Old City. Hopefully I won’t get woken up at 4am by the muezzin’s call to prayer.

If I play my cards right, I should have a few days to get outside of Damascus. I hope to visit Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage oasis in the middle of the Syrian desert. I also hope to talk to as many locals as possible in an effort to separate the people from the politics of the country. Can’t wait to share my experience.

Doha, Qatar

As little as I know about Ethiopia, I know even less about Qatar. While I don’t have much free time in Doha, I’m hoping to get together with a friend I met on Twitter and learn as much as I can. If I can squeeze in a few leisure hours, there are plenty of beach and desert-related activities to keep me happy.

Anchorage, Alaska

I’m super excited to head to Anchorage. Several years ago, I went on a month-long backpacking trip to Alaska, and my group spent a few days in and around Anchorage. I should have a day or so of free time, so I’m hoping to retrace what I can – namely a hike on the Wolverine Peak Trail, and time permitting, heading north to catch a glimpse of Mt. McKinley. Maybe some fishing as well?

What an itinerary, right? Karma is on my side this quarter. I’ll be traveling from July 18th – September 1st, coming home just in time to enjoy what limited decent weather New England has to offer. Stay tuned for more updates!

Case Studies in the 9 to 5 alternative: No. 2

Welcome to a series of profiles on alternative lifestyles. If you think that you (or someone you know) would make for an interesting interview, then drop me a line. Hope you enjoy!

Meet Dave Bouskill and Debra Corbeil, by far the coolest adventure travel couple I’ve ever come across. They have traveled to over 35 countries, with extensive experience in southeast Asia and Africa. Last year, they cycled from Cairo to Cape Town and climbed Mt. Kiliminjaro!

Though as interesting as their experiences are, I am much more impressed with how they have completely transformed their Internet presence over the last few months. From knowing nothing about Google Adsense, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc., Dave and Deb now maintain one of the more popular travel blogs on the web. You’ll hear it from them–that’s not an easy feat.

Read below to learn about how Dave and Deb met, about their recent trip to Africa, and about their strategies for building a successful blog. I look forward to following their upcoming adventures in Central Asia. Apparently they have all kinds of surprises for us.

Let’s hear it. How did Dave and Deb meet?! What are your respective backgrounds?

Dave and I have been together for 18 years. We met in college at the young ages of 20 and 21, and it was love and adventure from that moment on. After graduating, we settled in Toronto, but the wanderlust had already hit us and we packed up to move out west to Vancouver. We lived there for 3 years and that is when we started working in the film business. The industry was booming and it was easy to get a job at the ground level. We worked on such projects as Rumble in the Bronx, Jumanji and The X-Files. We had never been out of North America at that point and had listened to all of the older veterans of the film industry talk about their travels. They would work during the summer and leave for exotic destinations during the winter. It was inspiring and we wanted to have the life that they were leading. We have fulfilled that dream and for the past 10 years have been splitting our time between movies and travel. Dave works as a Rigging Gaffer which is the head of the lighting department and I am a Make-up Artist.

Tell us a bit about your most recent expedition, the Tour d’Afrique?

We took on the Tour d’Afrique with the intention of turning our part-time travels into a business. It is a 12,000km cycling expedition from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa. We entered as racers with the hopes of raising our profile as adventurers. We had always been very adventurous, the rest of the world just didn’t know it. We are avid snowboarders, skiers, rock climbers and mountain bikers. We can paddle and navigate canoe routes and we love camping and the outdoors. Whenever we travel, we always make it an adventure. From Paragliding in Peru, climbing South East Asia’s highest peak; Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, or swimming with sharks in Belize, we love to add elements of adrenaline to our itinerary. People really seemed to enjoy the idea of a couple racing down a continent together and we gained a lot of publicity. We ended up having a great finish as well. I was women’s champion and Dave came 5th in the men’s race. Our intent before leaving was to pitch a travel adventure television series when we returned. Between our newspaper articles, television and radio interviews and our fabulous finish, production companies were willing to meet with us. It was much easier to pitch an adventure show when you had already received a lot of publicity as adventurers. It was a really brutal tour. We rode through the desert in Sudan, rocky mountain roads in Ethiopia, We had mud and rain in Tanzania and long mileage in Botswana. We would cycle for 6 days in a row and then have a rest day. This lasted for 120 days. Being on a bicycle for 5 to 8 hours a day was difficult, but since finishing, we feel that we can accomplish anything. There was civil unrest in Kenya while we were in Africa, so unfortunately we had to bypass that country. Our support trucks drove through without us as we flew ahead to Tanzania. We had 2 weeks to wait for them, so we decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro while we were there. It was an incredible experience, and another one of those moments that make you feel that you can achieve anything in your life. It also was important to us to add another adventure to our repertoire.

When did you decide to take blogging more seriously? To transform your Internet presence?

We started seriously blogging again about 2 months ago. We had been blogging while in Africa but stopped when we returned home. We felt that since our trip was over, we didn’t have anything more to say. It was while we were doing research on travel writing for our next trip that we stumbled upon some articles about blogging for a living. It never occurred to us to run our travel blog as a travel website that we can share information with people wanting to travel like we do. We realized that we had a lot of experience under our belt, and that we had a lot to say. We felt that we could reach a wide audience with posts on our favorite places, information on destinations and advice columns. When we saw other people actually making a living out of it, we decided to concentrate on having our blog up and running and making money by the time we leave at the end of this year.

What strategies did you use to revamp your blog and connect with new readers?

This has been a challenge. We didn’t know anything about SEO (search engine optimization) or monetizing our blog. We didn’t know about keywords or tagging. So we have had to go back through all of our posts and basically start from scratch. Our first order of business was changing our theme. Our theme was originally set up as more of a personal blog and we needed to make it look more like a website. We had to submit our site to search engines like Google, we joined travel forums like the Travel Blog Exchange and social networks like Twitter. We applied to Google Adsense and Commission Junction and others and put some ads on our site. And as time went on we refined our choices to fit our content. We learned how to connect with our community. We have found this to be invaluable. Speaking to and learning from other travel bloggers has been a huge help and we are building friendships that we feel will last for years to come. The support system out there is incredible, but you have to work at it. You can’t just expect people to help you out if you aren’t active in the blogging community. We have really enjoyed reaching out to other travelers. We didn’t know the first thing about Twittering, networking in forums and had never heard of StumbleUpon or Digg. It has been a lot of fun watching our community grow as we learn how to utilize these tools. The learning curve has been pretty fast because we have put in a lot of time. Almost every spare moment is spent at the computer, but we still have a lot to learn. Each day we find new ways to gain viewers. We just discovered Reddit and have found that our numbers have risen dramatically.

Have you run into any problems?

Yes, not having any Internet background whatsoever has been difficult. Editing HTML to change the website is a slow process for us. It has all been trial and error. We think that we have found the perfect set up one minute and then we discover that it could be better and need to change it again. Learning and understanding SEO is a big challenge as well. We have to rethink how to write our articles to optimize them for search engines and we are learning how to tag our posts properly. We are still not sure if we are doing everything optimally yet, but at least we have the general idea as to what we are doing and heading in the right direction.

What can we expect from theplanetd in the future?

You can expect to see a lot of us. We are taking this as far as we can and have no plans on giving up. We will be leaving on a journey at the end of this year for an indefinite amount of time. We will be traveling through Central Asia, Europe and Northern Africa writing about our adventures as we go. We have big plans on how we are going to travel, but you will have to wait and read about it once we are there. Expect a lot of adventures that are unique to each country along the way. Our travel show is still in the works and we have signed with a production company. They are still working on development and distribution at the moment. These things take time and we don’t need to be here for that so we can go off and keep the adventure alive until the first episode starts filming. We are jumping in with both feet and not turning back. We believe that if you give yourself an ultimatum and set a definite goal, with enough hard work and persistence things will work out in the end.

You can follow Dave and Deb’s adventures on their personal website, theplanetd.com, as they paddle, hike, climb, scuba dive and trek their way around the globe. You can also follow their micro updates and say hello at twitter.com/theplanetd. All images in this post come from their personal stash 🙂

*Update: Check out John’s interview at Jet Set Citizen to learn more!