Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Paypal or rewarding credit cards?

Slackmaster Bren has some Paypal tricks to share, along with the reasons he like to use Paypal. For example, he likes to use Paypal to buy stuff on iTunes.

While I like Paypal, I tend to use it only for eBay purchases. In most other cases, I use credit cards that earn some kind of reward points. I don't carry a balance so I don't mind putting things on a card just so I can earn points or air miles Just as Bren's earned a few things about Paypal, I'd like to share a few observations on the rewards points side of the equation.

Air Miles Cards - Air Miles cards are a great way to earn miles that you can later cash in for "free" airline tickets, upgrades, etc. Some considerations:

  • Bulk up the easy way. These cards can be especially lucrative if you take advantage with the associated airline's "specials." Many airlines will offer bonus miles for things like booking online with the card, dining out at specific restaurants, shopping at certain stores, etc. - if you plan to spend the money anyway, this is an easy way to get more miles.
  • Use the card enough to offset the fee. If you are going to keep the card in your wallet and not spend much on it, these "loyalty" cards may not be a good deal for you since they often have higher annual fees than non-air miles cards. You'll need to earn (and use) the miles to offset the fee.
  • Elites can "waive" goodbye to their fees. Many airline cards will waive your annual fee if you reach one of their elite levels in their mileage program. This is a nice perk - look for it.
  • Airline hoppers may get diminishing returns. If you fly several different airlines (or a different airline for business and leisure) a loyalty card that is tied to a specific airline may be a pain. If, for example, you fly United a lot for business but always go on vacation to a city where United doesn't fly, you may have a tough time using your airmiles to reduce your vacation travel costs. Note: If the two airlines you frequent are partners, you may be able to transfer miles from one to the other, but look before you leap.
  • Beware the mileage cap. Last year, I favored my United Mileage Plus Visa, but I found out I missed out on something like 40,000 air miles because I hit their annual cap on earning miles around September because I was operating under the mistaken assumption that the mileage cap didn't apply to "United 1K 100,000 mile" members. I didn't realize my mistake until end of November. This year, I'm using a Rewards Point card instead.
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Enjoy - that has “joy” in it, right?

"How can I bring laughter into the lives of others facing adversity?"I'm a fan of Raj Setty's blog , and I really like the "Quought" series he's started. A Quought is essentially a thought-provoking question, and he's asked a bunch of people to provide them.

This weekend, I read a Quought that I really liked a lot - provided by Christine Clifford Beckwith:

"How can I bring laughter into the lives of others facing adversity?"

This hit home with me because I think we make a huge difference in others lives when we do things to make them happy. Even little things can make a difference.

On a related note, this reminded me of something I overheard at my kids' school a couple of years ago. One kid in the class was making fun of one of the other kids in the class, and the teacher told him: "<name>, please stop that. At this school, we don't steal other people's joy."

Thanks for sharing your Quoughts, Raj.

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Get to the point

Got a presentation or message to deliver? Get to the point. To get the message to a more "crisp" state, here is a tip that helps me:

If the message, slide deck, or document is running too long, I pretend I have to deliver the message in half the time. I then go through a process that goes something like this:

  1. Decide on 3 to 5 main points you want your audience to remember.
  2. Print out the content (working from hard copy helps for the next step).
  3. Go through the content and highlight key points.
  4. Discard any content that is not essential to delivering and supporting your 3-5 points.
  5. If you find any points that don't directly support the main points, but you feel they are too important to delete:
    • Use the "So what?" test to figure out whether each point warrants an exception, or whether I feel compelled to add another main point.

It pays to be aggressive during this process, particularly when you identify and remove embellishments, non-critical modifiers, and other "fluff" from the message.

You, your message, and your audience will all benefit from this approach..

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Smashed up cars in the snow

We had an unexpected snow storm here in Portland today, and it meant dangerous driving conditions. The big entertainment today amongst our local newscasters is watching a video captured by one of their viewers showing a bunch of cars behaving like bumper cars on the slick, snowy streets.

Check it out here - you'll get a feel for what I saw on my commute today!
[Note - the site is getting lots of traffic so if you don't see it, try again in a little while]
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Daily Report, Jan 13

Last night, I spent some time helping my daughter with her math homework (5th grade stuff). I checked her problems, and she kept getting the answers wrong on four specific multiplication problems. I'd mark them wrong and she'd go into the other room and try again. It was getting frustrating for both of us, so I decided to watch what she was doing.

After only a couple of minutes, I recognized what she was doing - her incorrect answers were rooted a few specific issues:

  • she was getting distracted during the equations and sometimes skipped a step or two;
  • she was writing her "carry" digits in a way that made it difficult to tell where they belonged;
  • she was jumbling some of her numbers together which made it difficult to tell which ones were carry digits and which ones were part of the original equation;
  • she was writing commas throughout the equations to separate the thousands places, and sometimes ended up adding the commas in as 1's when she solved the problem.

To me, as a detached observer, the reasons for the wrong answers were obvious. To her, it was vexing and not getting any better.

I was able to work with her on some changes to how she was writing down the problems, and get her to a place with fewer distractions. I then worked through the first problem with her. After that one came out right, she did the other three on her own pretty quickly.

Coaches can sometimes see what we can't

This morning, it dawned on me that I was acting as a coach in this situation. An incidental coach, perhaps, but still a coach. I was able to watch her "workflow" to determine why she was getting the wrong results, and I could see things in a way that was difficult for her. I was also able to contribute further advice and solutions based on my own experience.

She had the skills necessary to get the work done, but some of her current practices were preventing her from achieving the desired results. And it took someone else's perspective to get her to work in a more productive way.

Therein lies the value of coaching.

In math and life, technique and focus make a difference

The other thing I realized was that the issues confronting her in doing her math problems had a lot in common with the things that keep me from being productive:

  • when I get distracted from the tasks I should be focusing on, I tend to skip a step or two;
  • when I work in a disorganized way, it's hard to figure out where to start or when I'm done;
  • when I'm too close to the work, it's hard to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Most notably, I've certainly found myself in situations where I tried and tried but didn't get the results I intended or expected.

And, I realized I've gotten a lot from coaches (both professional and incidental) over the years.

Getting lousy results? Feeling frustrated and don't know what you're doing wrong? Or, at a loss for how to fix the problems that are vexing you?

Maybe you need a coach, or a trusted advisor who can give you some outside perspective.

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