Quotes of the day

How do I keep high efficiency:

“Your time is $1000/hour, and you need to act accordingly.”

“Set up a work routine and stick to it. Your body will adapt.”

“Work iteratively. Expectations to do things perfectly are stifling.”

“Only ever work on the thing that will have the biggest impact.”

“Break tasks into hour increments. Long tasks are hard to get into, feels like it all needs to get down.”

“Set deadlines for everything. Don’t let tasks go on indefinitely.”

“Set end dates for intense or stressful activities. Everything ends at some point.”

“Always take notes.”

“Write down anything that distracts you – google searches, random thoughts, new ideas, whatever. The point is, if you write them down, they will stop bubbling up when you’re in the zone.”

—Mark Zuckerberg

HOUSEWIFE: DAY 1

Home prices in southern california

Home prices in Southern California have long been higher than most other states. In May, the median price was $650,000, surpassing its bubble-era peak reached in 2007.

The high demand and a market shortage drive the price up. For many, California is a desirable place to live. The housing demand is growing faster than the number of new homes because of rising employment. However, new home construction in California is facing a handful obstacle: the state has stringent regulations on construction quality, while the costs of labor and undeveloped land are both extremely high.

Foreign investment also plays a significant role on home prices. China is by far the biggest foreign buyer of southern California property. Last year, 80% of a new community in Irvine was sold to Chinese buyers, with about 75% of them paid full cash. Foreign buyers on average are paying a lot more than local buyers. With a lack of supply in the market, this clearly moves up the price.

The very low interest rates, fixed mortgage rate affect the home prices, too.

Feeling Blue…

It is an unproductive day. I do not get much done. The problem is perfectionism: it paralyzes your progress.

You should set the goal straight: this is a side dish, and your job is to get it done, as soon as possible. You cannot waste more time on triviality.

Get it done. Move on. Do what truly matters.

the strength, the marrow of Nature

“My temple is the swamp… When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most impenetrable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum… I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place… far away from human society. What’s the need of visiting far-off mountains and bogs, if a half-hour’s walk will carry me into such wildness and novelty.” – Thoreau

For Thoreau, the swamp is “the strength, the marrow of Nature.” Even at the worst of times, a swamp cure could also be prescribed:

When life looks sandy and barren, is reduced to its lowest terms, we have no appetite, and it has no flavor, then let me visit such a swamp as this, deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step, with its open water where swallows skim and twitter…