Ramadan Kareem, everyone! It’s been a long time since I wrote any posts here. I almost forgot how to do this. I’ve only made like four posts in the entirety of 2022 and this is my very first post in 2023 !! but I’m planning to be more productive this year (in what’s left of it). It’s crazy that this blog is 3 months away from being 2 years old, hopefully I’ll relate to this video some time in the future.
In life, we all have limited resources - whether it’s time, money, or energy. However, it’s not always about having more resources, but using the ones we have effectively. Learning how to make the most of your available resources can help you achieve your goals and live a more fulfilling life.
Since I could remember I was always obsessed with learning new things I wanted to learn everything I came across I wanted to be everything at the same time I wanted to master every track of my field I wanted to be a web developer, graphic designer, data scientist, machine learning engineer, … etc. I wanted to be a “jack of all trades” this in turn led me to spend so much time collecting resources for each of these and spend relatively less time actually learning and improving. If you recognize this pattern or relate to it in some way then you too has suffered from what I like to call scarcity of abundance.
Scarcity is defined as the lack of something but it’s not always generated by the absence of it as I mention in earlier hoarding courses and materials only made my learning outcomes very scarce. But how can one scape this?
One of the most effective ways to make the most of your available resources is to prioritize your goals. By setting clear goals and prioritizing them, you can focus your time, energy, and resources on what matters most.
When you have a clear goal in mind, you can evaluate the importance of each task that requires resources to achieve it. Once you have a clear understanding of the importance of each task, you can make sure your resources are used effectively.
What if prioritizing your goals is also something you don’t know how to do? I’m sorry in that case because that means no one can help you currently as the saying goes “No winds are favorable for a ship without a destination.
Holding on to one thing is hard because of how appealing starting over is, we tend to do this all the time. This is because at the start things are relatively easier but as we get deeper at certain topic naturally it require more effort so get tempted by the easiness of approaching a different thing and starting over. I think the ability to fight these temptations off are one of the biggest factors on personal success of an individual. This reminds me of one of my favorite Rick and Morty clip
Just an advice if you really don’t what your goals are or what you want to be then you can litrally choose at random just pick up anything and be good at it just like Abraham Lincoln said “whatever you are, be a good one”. What I’ve realized so far is people rarely realize what they really want or even when they do life doesn’t always allow them to fulfil them, you should prioritize your goals yes but also be flexible when life forces you to follow a different order.
Being resourceful means finding creative ways to achieve your goals using the resources you have. This could mean finding free resources or using resources in new ways.
From a personal experience this has helped me a lot in learning Spanish language I never thought it’s possible to get to the level I got without going a class or having a real instructors. I started my journey with Duolingo it help me with the basics but after that I started adding Spanish content to my content diet I started listinting to spanish songs, spanish movies and series and spanish Youtube channels ( and spanish memes pages ). I was already listning to music and watching youtube but I repurposed it to help learning a new language and proud of the level I got to (nearly B2 ).
My hate for social media combined with my inability to escape it always makes me feel a bit miserable all the time. We’ve been hacked and hooked by this platforms they changed the neuroplasticity of our brains and made tasks like focusing and paying attention kind of impossible to most people. when was the last time you were able to stay focused for like several hours or even finish a several hours movie in one setting (if your answer is yes then I really congrats you, you are ahead of so many people).
This is the clearest examples of scarcity of abundance we’re drowning in oceans of entertainment yet we are incredibly easily bored, we’re surrounded with people and “friends” and “followers” and yet we feel incredibly lonely, sometimes it makes you think the Unabomber had some sense (This is just a joke FBI).
Your brain will try to fight against this but if you blocked these sources of free dopamine; getting things done will get way easier (and even more fun!) remember when the goverment shut down the internet for weeks and then suddenly every one is finishing up books, movies, courses they had ? most people would tell you that it was their most productive time it kind of following the idea of the region beta
Seeking help when you need it is another way to make the most of your available resources. Sometimes, we may feel like we have to do everything on our own sense there is a huge of learning resources available online, but this is not always the case.
In fact, I’d like to argue that we can only learn things from others. I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing as “self-learning” Whenever I hear that term, I cringe. Whether you learned from YouTube, by reading books or blogs, or through other means, knowledge and experience have been passed down to you one way or another, even if it’s not in a conventional way. In this age of individualism, where one’s value is directly measured by personal achievements, seeking help may make us look vulnerable or inferior, but it’s actually the normal flow of knowledge.
Having a mentor is one of the best ways to level up in whatever skill you want. If you destroy your ego and break down the barriers, for example, you can reach out to people on LinkedIn and ask for help (yeah, not everything about social media is bad. Why are you looking at me like that?). One thing all competent people have in common is their desire to share knowledge and make it easier for others than it was for them. So, if you ever come across someone who tries to gatekeep knowledge, just know that they’re insecure (rightfully so) about their competence and you’re better off without them.
You know who can also be your mentor ? ChatGPT we really live in that time of human history which is INSANE. I’m going to write a post about this soon.
Another way to make the most of your available resources is by automating your tasks. Automating your routine tasks can help you save time and energy that you can use on other important things. There are many tools and apps available that can help you automate your tasks, such as scheduling software, email filters, and social media management tools.
Automating things can help you remove the clutter also by reducing the time you need to interact with different social media and mail services
Collaborating with others is another way to make the most of your available resources. By working with others, you can combine your resources and achieve your goals more efficiently.
Joining forces with other people doesn’t only save you a lot of time it also makes you benchmark you and validate skills levels more accurately it’s easy to think that we’re left behind or do not have enough skills but when your working with someone and you know how good they are and you see them google the most basic things it kind of sparks some sort of confidence in you that one is expected to know everything all the time and I think in the age ChatGPT and all of these LLMs it’s becoming more and more important to learn how and what to ask .
It’s not always about having more resources, but using the ones you have effectively.
Few months ago I made this channel to keep track of books that I found interesting and now I think it has 350+ books and few useful links I only got to read like handful of them but I’m sharing it with you so hopefully you can benefit from it more here
“A jack of all trades is a master of none but still (almost) always better than a master of one”