13rd Jan 2021

Been wanting to blog since Sept 2020 (Wanted to do a BD summary post of the year), but kept putting it off.

And then I thought maybe I’ll do a end of the year post. It’s been one hell of a year after all. And then that didn’t happen.

And then I thought, ok, let’s do a new year post. As we can see, that didn’t quite happen too. Procrastinating because there’s too much on my mind, too much to write down. And so I ended up not writing. Makes sense?

Anyway… 2020 was interesting. A year of growth, definitely. Mostly trapped in my house, mostly due to 2 months of CB. After that was because wearing mask is really a pain. Having to sanitize everything I bring out with me after I reach home is just too much work.

So I ended up working from home mostly. It’s not too bad, I kinda build up a routine and I’ve been sticking to it. So here goes a recap of 2020.

Target to read 26 non fiction books a year. That would be from Oct 1 to Sept 30 of the following year. Managed to reach target. It’s been a crazy busy year….

1 : Hacking Life
2 : The Person You Mean To Be
3 : The Upside of Irrationality
4 : Utopia for Realists
5 : The Truth About Dishonesty
6 : When to Rob a Bank
7 : Around the World in 60 Seconds
8 : Ikigai
9 : Worry-Free Money
10 : Humans Need Not Apply
11 : Game Changers
12 : Smarter Next Year
13 : The Telomere Effect
14 : The Joy of Movement
15 : Thinking in Bets
16 : Anything You Want
17 : Show Your Work!
18 : The Social Leap
19 : Japonisme
20 : The 48 Laws of Power
21 : A Field Guide to Lies
22 : Uberworked and Underpaid
23 : Start.
24 : Worth it
25 : Stop Acting Rich
26 : The 30-Minute Millionaire

Japanese language study is still ongoing. My Japanese still CMI, but my vocabulary is increasing. And nope, probably still can’t have a decent conversation in Japanese even if my life depended on it.

Business is not as good in 2020. Reduced sales, no thanks to Covid. There’s demand, but I wasn’t able to get the supply. Still I’m glad to be still in business. Here’s to a better year in 2021.

Reduced caffeine intake and limiting it to before noon for caffeinated coffee. I’m sleeping so much better now. It takes a lot of work to ensure 7hours of sleep. Limiting caffeine intake is only part of the puzzle.

I cooked almost every weekday. My diet is more paleo than keto right now. Keto requires low carb, which rules out too much fruits and vegetables. Loving all my rainbow colored vegetables and fruits :9

Exercise 2-5x a week. Mostly focusing on lifting. Making good progress 😉

I started to invest in the US market, and boy was that a game changer. Investing in growth stocks is a game changer. I also learnt about options and I started to use options to supercharge my portfolio. Seriously. Woah! Why did I not look seriously into the US market earlier?! Conservatively, target to double my portfolio in 2021.

Other than all those things, there’s also the endless decluttering, endless housework.

What can I say? Overall it’s been a challenging year cos I’m really missing travel. And it’s no fun being stuck at home 24/7 with my mum (It’s complicated).

But I’m truly grateful that Singapore is relatively safe from Covid, and I’m glad to be in Singapore during this crisis.

2nd Oct 2019

30 Sept marks the end of financial year for my business. Sept is also my birthday month. As such, I started this goal setting / recap the year thing on the last day of Sept last year.

So, target to read 26 non fiction books a year. That would be from Oct 1 to Sept 30 of the following year. I managed to read 41!

#1 : Building Wealth Through REITS
#2 : Your Money or Your Life
#3 : Rich Dad’s Increase Your Financial IQ
#4 : The Richest Man in Babylon
#5 : The Upside of Stress
#6 : Invested
#7 : Rich Dad’s Who Took My Money
#8 : The Millionaire Next Door
#9 : Nonsense
#10 : The Automatic Millionaire
#11 : The Battle For The Soul of Capitalism
#12 : The Little Book of Stock Market Cycles
#13 : Everybody Lies
#14 : Sapiens
#15 : To Sell is Human
#16 : Homo Deus
#17 : Life Unscripted
#18 : The Rational Optimist
#19 : Rich Dad’s Prophecy
#20 : Switch
#21 : Predictably Irrational
#22 : Better Than Before
#23: 55, Underemployed and Faking Normal
#24 : Atomic Habits : Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results
#25 : Modern Civility
#26 : Daily Rituals
#27 : Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich
#28 : Eat That Frog!
#29 : Retire Young Retire Rich
#30 : Why “A” Students Work for “C” Students and Why “B” Students Work for the Government
#31 : The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
#32 : The Willpower Instinct
#33 : Hacking The Code Of Life
#34 : Swiped
#35 : International REITS
#36 : The 100-Year Life
#37 : Personal Investing
#38 : Designing Your Life
#39 : A Guidebook For Today’s Asian Investor
#40 : Farsighted
#41 : The Uninhabitable Earth

Other than reading, it’s mostly business work, language studies, cooking, housework, decluttering.

Might not look like a lot, but it’s enough to make me crazy busy.

Business work generally is about 4 hours a week. Unfortunately when crap happens, I gotta spend the time to rectify the problem. And no, it’s usually due to another party’s fault. Prep company, supplier, etc. If only I trusted someone else to run this business for me. Then I could outsource it.

About 3 months since starting my Japanese study. About 3 hours a day in total.

1 hour of grammar, basically learning 1 new grammar point a day, and then revising the grammar I’ve learn so far.

1 hour of vocab, where I hammer my brain with Anki. It’s a flashcard system. Hammering the vocabs into my brain is not an exaggeration. My daily limit is roughly an hour of this kind of abuse.

1 hour of article reading daily. I started with reading random simple article from NHK easy news. Now I’m reading articles that actually interest me, from various websites like lifehacker. Topics varies from financial, early retirement, investing, minimalism, healthy eating, etc.

Now, when I say read, I meant painfully reading with the help of Rikaikun (This chrome extension is awesome). Of course I will try my best to read. But most of the time, there are words I do not understand. That’s when I mouse over and Rikaikun will display the dictionary entry. I will then enter that new word/phase into my excel for tracking. Next, I will input all these new words/ phase that I pick up into Anki for further learning.

Other than Rikaikun, I use online dictionaries like Jim Breen or Jisho.org, as well as google translate. If all else fails, I will try to google for more specific usage.

Painful doesn’t even begin to describe it. The same article in English, I might spend 5 min to finish reading it, with full comprehension. The same article in Japanese, takes me hours and hours to read. Without ever fully comprehending the article.

After about 3mths of grinding, which also includes watching anime. Specifically Dragonball. So… 151 episodes of Dragonball, 291 episodes of Dragonball Z, 131 Episodes of Dragonball Super, 51 episodes of Dragonball GT…

I think my Japanese has improved by alot. Don’t get me wrong, my Japanese still cmi. But my vocab has expanded alot, and I no longer want to bang wall when I watch Japanese shows without subtitle. But I still can’t have a decent conversation to save my life. And that sums up my 3 mths of Japanese learning.

Cooking, housework, decluttering is forever ongoing. I don’t think it will ever ever end.

You know you can go ahead and dirty up the place, cos the maid will clean it up for you. That’s how it is currently. I could use a new maid. Mainly because the current one is me.

Let’s just leave it as that

3rd June 2019

Can’t believe this is the first blog of the year, probably the longest I’ve gone without blogging. Lol.

Been very eventful since I last blogged.

I scaled down my business using the 80/20 rules, keeping only the top 20 percent products, which are making me 80% profits. This effectively cut my working hours to only 15 hours max every month. Giving me a lot of free time.

I used to pull anywhere from 30hours to over 150hours a month before I 80/20 the heck out of my business, somewhere in Oct/Nov 2018.

I took the opportunity to rest, to slack, to do my favourite thing, read!

But the thing is, even though I love to have free time, once I have it, I started to feel like I’m wasting life.

And then I will start looking for new projects. Zzz.

So I got interested in headhunting. I went for my CEI course, took the exam, got myself certified, and got myself a new job. Course in Nov, Exam in Dec, started my new job in Jan 2019.

I was full time from Jan to Mar, then switched over to just a freelancer so I can work from home. Pure 100% commission base, no basic pay if you don’t close.

Which was why I don’t see the point in working full time. Working in the office was really to learn from everyone around me, how they work.

Interesting, but tough job. Well, it’s alot about handling people after all! Dealing with candidates and also dealing with HR/client.

But I’m glad to say that I finally have my first close since I started! Candidate just started work today! Soon my company will bill the client, and I will finally get paid. Not sure when, but I’m guessing this month or the next. For the record, I started working on this case in Feb… It’s now June.

Personally, I’m glad this job is more of an interest, rather than a matter of survival. It takes way too long to close and get paid…

Other than this new “project”, I also started other “projects”, such as learning Japanese seriously. By seriously, I meant daily studying by myself, weekend studying when out with BF. He studies Korean though 😛

Also, staying healthy and keto by cooking for myself daily, sticking to an exercise regime, taking time to read daily and also optimising my life for miles.

Been very much into the miles hacking thing. I get all my groceries online now, since can earn 4mpd for online transactions. Other than groceries, most of my dining expenses are charged to grabpay, which also gives me 4mpd.

I also tend to visit places where I can use “Chope” to make reservation, effectively increasing the amount of miles I can earn per visit, on top of the amount I spend using Grabpay/Favepay.

Mileslife was really good before they died. I was happily earning 8mpd on some of my dining when paying with Mileslife. This is on top of what I earn using Chope.

Recently just redeemed a 111K SQ, one way Business Class Awards ticket 😀 That took me like 2-3 years of saving up miles to get there though. That was the days before I know all these ways to optimise my miles earning 😦

My next target is a one way SQ Suites, Singapore to London. That’s gonna cost me 125K miles, 3 years to get enough miles for it!

I think I have pretty decent miles hacking skills already.

And I think my Japanese language skills aren’t too bad either.

I wished my aptitude for learning is transferrable for learning investment and trading… Still not confident of picking stocks for investing. That’s the next project I need to continue working on.

Current status, still feeling restless. Pondering another adventure, with the possibility of adding another 4 new countries to my list of countries visited 😉

5th Oct 2018

Back from country #26, Laos.

People are generally nice in Laos, there are lots of cats and dogs walking around. Most of the street food, not really to my liking. The restaurant and cafe food are pretty ok though.

Cost wise, varies. But generally quite reasonable. Cab from Luang Prabang Airport cost 50,000 Kip per cab. About 8SGD. Fixed price, you buy your ticket at the counter. You can get a 1.5l bottle of water for 5,000 Kip, about 80cents SGD. A tom yum soup at restaurant cost about 30,000 to 35,000 Kip. A coffee at a cafe cost about 20,000 to 25,000 Kip, depending on where, and what you are drinking. A cup of local Laos coffee cost 5,000Kip in a local coffeeshop 😉 All payments by credit card is subjected to 3% surcharge, applicable in the entire city of Luang Prabang (or maybe entire Laos) can’t recall.

Money changers are everywhere, so no rush to change at airport. But interestingly, rates of everything seems the same. You can walk the entire night market, asking for the price of the same thing, and it’s all the same price no matter which stall you go. LOL.

Same for stuff like bottled water, money changer exchange rate, etc. At least, based on my random observation. LOL.

We went during the low season, apparently. Not many ppl, which is good.

You will also see plenty of chinese words everywhere, on signboards, etc. We heard from one of the restaurant manager (From belgium), he mentioned a lot of China Chinese are buying lands and properties in Laos because of the Laos-China Railway project.

Nice country, but not somewhere I would like to retire in. Mainly because the only mode of public transport is tuk-tuk. Most ppl ride bikes, scooters, bicycles or drive. None of those which I can do -.-”

Might be back in the future, but will not be soon. One thing I really love about asian countries are the yummy local food. And this is lacking in Laos, unfortunately. I do however love that it’s not crowded, haha.

Great trip, celebrated my BD in a new country, crossing off Laos on my list.

Now it’s back to reality…

Already did my goal review in Sept. It’s now Oct, time to take action.

Business goals wise. I’ve been feeling frustrated and tired with Amazon business. Maybe it’s telling me I need a VA so I don’t have to feel this way?

Though I guess I need to streamline my work processes first. Which falls under 80/20 everything. But even with a VA, there will still be tasks I need to attend to myself.

Finally completed my reading goal. New reading goal of another 26 books starts Oct 1, 2018.

Originally the goal is to finish 26 books by Dec 31, hence Book #25 is also Book #1 of the next year’s goal as I decided to do my goal reviews in Sept instead of Dec. Given that I completed 25 books by Oct, I will take it as goal accomplished.

Book #1 : Unlimited Power
Book #2 : Head Strong
Book #3 : Grain Brain
Book #4 : Originals
Book #5 : Smarter Faster Better
Book #6 : Thinking, Fast and Slow
Book #7 : Scrum
Book #8 : Mind Hacking
Book #9 : Nudge
Book #10 : Extreme Productivity
Book #11 : The 10X Rule
Book #12 : The Productivity Project
Book #13 : Four Seconds
Book #14 : Stress-proof
Book #15 : Getting Things Done
Book #16 : The Power of When
Book #17 : The Organized Mind
Book #18 : Design Your Day
Book #19: Blink
Book #20 : The 80/20 Principle
Book #21: Work Clean
Book #22 : Solving the Procrastination Puzzle
Book #23 : Humans 3.0
Book #24 : The Little Book of Value Investing
Book #25 (or Book #1) : Building Wealth through REITS

Next, learning Language is ongoing, even when I was in Laos. Haha. But instead of learning Korean like I originally planned, I switched to Italian. I’m having some confusion with Korean and Japanese. Figured, it’s probably not a good idea to learn them together.

Looking for more dividend stocks to add to my portfolio is also on my list of things to do. Gotta figure out a way to generate a truly passive income somehow… Keep wishing I had saved more when I was young. And if only I had kept those first few Singtel stocks I bought in 2002/2003. And if only I had kept those stocks I bought after the market crash in 2008. Oh well. LOL.

13rd Sept 2018

So goal setting time. Another upcoming birthday, another “new year” 😉

To keep things manageable, only 3 personal goals, 4 business goals to accomplish.

Plus 1 stretch goal for personal and 2 stretch goals for business if I can find the time to squeeze in anything else. LOL.

Personal Goals

1. Read another 26 non-fiction books.

Afterall, it went so well the past 9 months 😀

2. Continue with my language learning.

The top 3 languages I wanted to learn are Japanese, Korean, and Italian. I only managed to get as far as Japanese, and somehow life got too busy. Still I did spent most of 2005 to 2008 studying Japanese… I cleared my JLPT N4 and N3, but never made it through N2. I cleared my JLPTN3 in Dec 2008.

I was stuck at N2 for a long time. I recalled attending lessons, but finding it too hard, and didn’t really put much effort into it, I think.

In addition, I was also taking my part-time degree from 2006 to 2008. Not sure how I managed to study so many things, but I guess it’s a matter how badly you want to do something? Haha.

So… Japanese. Based on my dropbox logs, the last time I accessed my JLPT N2 study materials was in 2012.

Now I’m taking a more relaxed 80/20 approach. Vocab first, grammar later.

Basically, that means tackling the core vocabulary and just learn grammar on the go. For Japanese, I think there are 6000 core vocab. Currently, I’m using Duolingo as a vocab and grammar refresher, Drops to refresh my vocab, and core vocab lists as my learning material.

Putting aside 30min a day at night every night to study my Japanese before bedtime. And randomly using Duolingo and Drops throughout the day whenever I have time. It’s really not hard since I somehow miraculously retained what I learn previously!

Other than that, mornings are for learning Korean. Haha.

Currently, I’m still at the stage of learning to recognise and read Hangul. Drops is a good apps for learning new vocab. Duolingo is a good app for both Grammar and Vocab. And my all time favourite is youtube 😉 I spend around 30min to 1 hr every weekday mornings to study, before I start work.

I honestly feel that Korean is the hardest language I’ve had to learn. Definitely harder than Japanese!

3. Establishing a Routine of some sort for weekdays. 

So, the thing is,  with so many things to do, there is a need to account for time, as well as a need to set up some kind of structure to my day. But if I forced myself to stick to a strict routine, accounting for every hour from the get go, it would be a recipe for failure.

So… I give myself free rein to do anything before 9am in the morning. Generally, that means reading a book, or studying Korean. And housework and laundry on Fridays. Lol.

9am to 9.30am is where I wrap up whatever I was doing, make my Bulletproof coffee, have a light breakfast and then start work at 9.30am.

In between, mainly it’s work, plus lunch, dinner, workout on Mon and Fri.

10pm is where I study my Japanese. 10.30pm is where I read my book. After that, bedtime.

4. Stretch Goal : Harp Practice once a week. 

So… my beloved. This is a stretch goal because I have consistently failed to consistently practise. Lack of time? Lack of motivation? Maybe.

To ensure I have better odds of accomplishing it this round, I will set it to only once a week.

Trust me, my plate is very very full…

Business Goals

1. Basically 80/20 the hell out of everything. 

Evaluating my profitability for all of my products and optimising my bottomline.

Dropping those items that are not worth the trouble to sell.

Items that move too slowly, low profit, etc.

Sure, I may lose some sales overall, but items with low ROI or items that move too slowly are rarely worth the trouble. There are overall cost in terms of time and effort that cannot be justified.

For example, even if I only sell few units of an item a month, I will still need to spend the effort to optimise the listing, reprice the item, restock the item, etc. So, let’s say I make $5 off each sale, and I sell maybe 5 of them a month, it’s only $25 total, but it’s a lot of work to track so many SKUs. I have a total of almost 600 SKUS now.

Yes, it’s leaving money on the table, but it’s only a small percentage of my profit. And I will gain back valuable time to work on other more profitable task.

2. Ten PL Product Types for US

My ongoing goal to find 10 products types (1 product type could have multiple variations) to increase my sales and profits. Depending on the profit margin and price of the product, I will need each product type to sell around 3-4 combined units a day.

For US, profits after cost & fees per product type should nett me around $500 per month. Rinse and repeat until I find 10 of these product lines. And that’s an extra $5K profit a month on top of my current profit 😉

3-4 units a day is actually very achievable. Currently, I have already found 1 product type that is promising. And I have already brainstormed ideas to increase it’s variations. If it goes well, this product type might achieve double of what I targetted 😉 Best part? It’s all from US, no need import or high MOQ!

5 more product types pending testings, either already on the way to Amazon, in my prep company, or on the way to US.

3 more product types pending further negotiation with suppliers.

3. Ten PL Product Types for UK.

For UK, it’s the same thing, 10 PL products, each netting me extra £500 profit per month 😉

Currently, 1 product type already live in UK. 1 more pending my prep company.

Progress for UK is slower than US. It seems harder to find profitable items for UK…

In addition, need to cont to source for more wholesalers with profitable items for reselling. Target for sales figures to be on par with US, except it will be in GBP!

4. Hire a VA once I have accomplished the first 3 goals. 

Once I’m done with the product launches, I believe it’s time for me to take a well deserved break. Plus I need time to prepare training videos before I can proceed to hire.

Ultimately, the first 3 goals aim to increase productivity, increase profitability, and reduce my working hours (once the initial product research stage is over).

It will reduce further upon hiring a VA. (At least, that’s how it should be -.-)

5. Stretch Goal : Dropshipping on my own shopify store. Launch Ebook & Merch

Set up my own shopify store. Gonna set aside a sum of money to test this out.

6. Stretch Goal : Ebook on Kindle & Merch by Amazon

Hire ghostwriter for ebook and designer for merch.

Haha, these two are my stretch goal. I shall reward myself if I accomplished these two as well!

 

12nd Sept 2018

It’s Sept again, two events of importance to me. Getting older, yet again. And also my company’s financial year ends on the 30th Sept.

Birthday trip to Laos, Hello Country #26 😉

After this however, there probably won’t be any new countries for a while. More likely to be revisiting countries I’ve previously visited.

I’ve decided that instead of setting goals and targets at end/start of the year like everyone else, I shall do my self reflection, stock take of the year, goal setting, etc etc in Sept instead.

Reflecting on the past 9 months. These goals were set in Jan.

Personal goals

Exercise routine’s been on and off. But it’s still there, sort of.

Keto WOE is going well. I’m keto most of the time, except when travelling. I’ve stopped counting carbs and Macros and just eat. It’s pretty effortless now that there is no longer any need to count macros. I’ve started incorporating some sweet potatoes into my diet, even though it’s not keto. My goal is to keep my diet Low Carb/Keto/Paleo-ish.

Bedtime routine is still a hit and miss. I don’t always get to bed early. But generally I do wear light blocking glasses and I do read before bed. Sleep quality wise, generally, I get less than 7hours of sleep daily. And it’s all I can sleep; I don’t use any alarm clock and wakes up naturally.

Target to read 26 non-fiction books is going well. Currently, finished book #22, somewhere in book #23 and #24 and it’s only mid Sept. Yup, I’m reading 2 books at one go, different formats for different situation. Audio book for when I’m doing housework, commuting, etc. Ebook for when I’m truly free to read.

Decluttering is still an ongoing battle. But I think I’m winning. Have trashed many things that I don’t need or use. Sure, there are new things coming in, but only things that I need.

The Harp is still standing there and gathering dust, unfortunately. Been trying to set up a regular practice and failing.

Business Goals

Sales have increased, that’s for sure. But I’ve yet to reach my target sales level. Also, I’ve yet to determine if my ROI had gone up.

Cutting working hours is a fail. I’m working more and more. Spending way too much time on product research.

Hiring a VA had yet to happen. For some reason, I keep having this nagging thought that it’s not possible to hire a trustworthy/capable VA. Despite this nagging thought, I’m putting together some training videos and still gonna try to hire one.

I have launched 8 products so far this year. Still a little short of the 10 I intially aimed for. This is just counting by product type, not the num of SKU. Not all of them have made it to Amazon as of now. So still waiting to see if there are any homeruns. There were quite a few more I wanted to launch, but either MOQ or cost was too high. Currently, I’m mulling over 3 more products which is low MOQ. Will probably source for more after Q4…

Have been busy working on the UK side of business as well. Have launched 2 of my PL there as well. Currently at about 3000GBP sales per month. It’s not a lot by any stretch, but at least it’s not dead like it used to!

Alternate source of income is not going so well. Haven really found anything. Recently looking at dropshipping again, hopefully there will be something doable.

Now to think about my new goals for the coming year!

25 July 2018

Time really flies, it’s already end of July! Been so crazy busy…

It’s endless research, sourcing new products, optimising listing, keywords, etc. Amazon is a constantly changing game… This item may be your top seller this month, and then sales can die in the next few months. It’s frankly exhausting to keep up.

Other than that, business is doing ok, but it’s needs to do even better. Hence all the research and optimising. I’ve just made 1 PL order on Mon for US and UK. And another PL order is on the way to be finalised today. Also for both US and UK. Finally I start my import into UK. Scaling in progress 😉

I’m sleeping lesser and lesser. Not entirely sure why. I’m lucky to clock 6hours of sleep, and I don’t use an alarm. So it’s about my body refusing to sleep any longer. Not sure how I feel about that -.- Strangely though, if I get up and meditate for 10min, I will become so sleepy and had to crawl back into bed and nap for a few hours -.-

However, if I were to meditate at night, it just makes me more awake. Bloody hell.

It’s always been my goal to sleep early, and wake up early. Ideally. I would say I have too much things I need and want to get done, which makes me refuse to go to bed. It’s call sleep procrastination (Yes, it’s a thing). But sometimes, it’s simply insomnia.

So I would say it’s a mixture of sleep procrastination, insomnia and too busy?

Sucks being a Dolphin though. The insomniacs of the world. Especially so if you live together with a wolf and a lion. Bears make up 50% of the world population and yet I had to get the other two. Gee, lucky me.

Other than sleep, I’ve discovered I’m more sensitive to caffeine than I previously thought. I know I tend to get slight headache if I drink more than one cup of coffee in a day. Always thought it’s dehydration…

Few months back, there was a particular Saturday where I had 2 coffee an hour apart and my heart started racing and I got the worst headache. My resting heart rate is usually 60+. That day it reached 119 highest and remain at above 110 for a very Long time. While I was sitting down and trying not to die from the pounding in my chest and the massive headache.

My heart wouldn’t slow down no matter what I do. We ended up cutting short our Sat and head home. It got a lot better only after I lie down. Definitely an incident I’m not going to repeat.

After “compiling” my experiences with coffee over the past few months, I believe I have a personal caffeine threshold of less than a cup of Starbucks tall. Based on my recollection, I could drink a cup of coffee at most cafes with no issue. If they serve it in normal size Mug/cup. I think it’s about 250ml size?

Starbucks use a larger Mug. There was once I recall getting a headache after drinking the entire Mug within an hour.

But I also realised that caffeine might be the reason why I’m able to concentrate better and get in the zone when I’m working at Starbucks. Always thought it’s working outside that lets me concentrate. Now that I think about it. Maybe… Not.

Now, I use caffeine sparingly. Usually in the morning, in synergy with Theanine. My first cup of coffee is usually half dose of coffee, mix with Four sigmatic Cordysceps or Chaga. That’s my version of bulletproof coffee / productivity drug 😉

And I’ve been working from home since… The school holidays started? And it’s been 9-11hours of work on most days. July 2018 might be my most productive month in my entire life. Coffee and Cordysceps are working well for me indeed…

Next trip is already booked, country #26 for my BD trip 😉 Can’t wait!

28th April 2018

This week’s been a really busy week, and April’s been a really really busy month. I’ve been working mostly on the US market, my PL research, tweaking my ads and keywords for my existing listings, improving on my existing listings, brainstorming and creating new bundles.

My first PL is not doing so well, I think I picked the wrong item. My second PL is already in the warehouse, waiting for the printed boxes to be done. Shall see how this one fares.

Sales are picking up, the monthly sales target I had set for this year was a 75% increase over the average monthly last year. I should be able to reach 50% increase for April 😉 Aim to hit target by May!

Also working on improving my UK market, it’s been dead mostly because I simply had no time to work on it. This month I finally found a prep company, ordered stuff from my only supplier and sent them in. Overdue, but I’m getting there. I’ve also found a new supplier, order’s planned and I’m placing the order on Mon.

The sales target I had set at the start of this year was actually £1,000 monthly sales. I think that’s just thinking too small. I have decided I’m going with £5,000 monthly sales instead 😉

Most days I felt like there are so much to do, and I simply do not have enough time to complete them all.

I need to work on my Amazon Business, which is already taking up the bulk of my time. I’m also trying to venture into ebooks. Again. Probably next week.

I also want to read more non-fiction books, target is 26 for this year.

I also want to listen to podcast. I used to listen to Nomad Capitalist Live, Hidden Brain, The Model Health Show, among others. Now I’m totally backlogged -.-

I also want to watch shows just because I want to, like doraemon for example. Or mindlessly binging on all 5 seasons of Fringe or 6 Seasons of Sex and The City, all over again.

I also like researching on health stuff, Keto diet, etc. And actually cooking for myself, and exercising. I’m cooking lesser these days, especially on the days when I’m in a time crunch. I haven work out for at least a few months -_-”

And also thinking and pondering how to make more money, how to invest, and achieving financial independence.

My Harp’s also been sitting there, lonely and gathering dust.

And my room really need another round of declutter.

Felt like I’m not getting enough done, and not very productive. So to increase my productivity, I’ve been heading out to work at Starbucks. Was out from Mon to Thurs this week and I would say it’s been a very productive week!

Planning on sticking to this routine from now on! Maybe I’ll finally get everything I want done!

21st Mar 2018

Just back from Bangkok last night, spent the morning catching up on housework and reading. Business work will come later 😉

Just started book #7 😁 Just another 19 more book to go for the year. Lol… 

Been trying very hard to keep productivity high… But somehow life feels… overwhelmingly busy. 

Motivation and determination are not always in supply. But I’m happy that things are getting done. 

Since Feb, I’ve been clocking more hours than usual, doing product research, sourcing for suppliers. Casting a wide net, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by chance. Been in talks with many suppliers for the past 1-2weeks, looked through many catalogs and quotations. 

Finally I have a small PL order that was dispatched to US just before my trip. 

I am also waiting for samples of from 3 suppliers from Alibaba and Indiamart. Can’t wait to get my hands on the samples 😁😁😁

There’s another product which I have already gotten the quotations for, but I’m still considering. Mainly because I’m not very confident of my research for it, and it’s an extremely competitive product. To do more keyword research on that. 

If all goes well, I can definitely hit my monthly sales target for US from April onwards. 

Then I can finally give UK and Europe my full attention… Can’t wait to set sales target for them 😁😁😁

I missed being on holiday, spending everyday with my Dearest 😊😊😊 But I also missed being home, enjoying my keto coffee in the morning before starting work. 

What can I say? Life is good 😉

9th Mar 2018

Reflecting. A year ago, I was juggling a full time job and my business. I had no time, no life, and in a constant state of burnt out. And obviously very much single 😂😂😂

Things have changed so much now; I’m really glad I took the leap into this business which in turn allowed me to quit my job of more than 13years.

Honestly, I do not miss the job. I do however missed the friends I’ve made over the years, the 17% CPF contribution from employer, the free broadband and mobile bills though. Lol.

Almost one year since quitting my job, life doesn’t feel less busy though. I usually work for a few hours a day on weekdays. But I also do more cooking, usually breakfast, lunch and dinner if I work from home. And also doing housework more frequently. All these takes up time.

Weekends are for spending with BF now. When I was single, I used to force myself to take Sat off. (If I don’t I will end up working -.-) I will make myself watch tv just to zone out and give my brain a rest. I will still work on Sun if I felt like it. Yes, I’m a workaholic.

Based on my toggl which I use to record the time I work, I can pull up to 8hours of work max, before I burn out. But that’s very rare; usually I do around 2hours of routine work. The rest of the time are usually spent on non routine stuff like product research, information research, someone screwed up so I have to fix the problem, etc.

Generally I’ve been getting by on 16hours week on the average since Nov last yr, lol. Mostly because I was travelling most of Nov and only had time to do the absolute essential, and then food poisoning when I got back. And then I started dating in Dec too. Plus Christmas, so was basically rather slack the whole of Dec as well. LOL.

Recently, it’s starting to get hectic again since I’m researching new products for launching. Need to make sure I hit my sales and profit target for US market. After I stabilise US sales, I can finally work on UK. My sales in UK are so pathetic right now, I would be happy for my sales to hit £1000 a month.

Being this busy with business, I’ve not been sticking to my exercise routine recently, not enough time. Well, there’s probably time if I go on facebook less and watch less tv shows. Dun judge me, we all have our vices, lol.

To save time, I’ve also switch to audiobook instead of traditional books. I can “listen” on the go, when I cook, when I do housework, etc.

I love the convenience of audiobooks. And I especially love the NLB mobile app. Whenever I have an idea or saw a book I wanted to read, I can just check out the audio book at my convenience from the App.

Most of the time, it’s late at night, when I’m lying comfortably in bed, lol.

I’m currently on book #6 of 26 I’ve targetted to read for the year.

Book #1 : Unlimited Power
Book #2 : Head Strong
Book #3 : Grain Brain
Book #4 : Originals, Adam Grant
Book #5 : Smarter Faster Better
Book #6 : Thinking, Fast and Slow

 

 

Keto-ing is going well. So far, mostly sticking to it, but looking at a carb up day a week to add some healthy carbs like butternut squash and sweet potato into my diet. Not all carbs are equal 😉

My bedtime routine is still all over the place. Sometimes I sleep at 11.30pm, sometimes 2am. Honestly, this is mostly a matter of self discipline. With all that’s going on, guess it’s in short supply at the moment.

Decluttering bit by bit, but I seem to be overdoing it on my iherb ordering. Food is overtaking my room. There’s too much food that I need to eat. Damn it.

Harp is still gathering dust. Guess I have to settle US sales target, UK sales target and eBay dropshipping, before I have time for my Harp Darling. Hopefully, it’s this year -.-

Despite been busy and brain being stetched all the time, I have to say life is so awesome right now, it actually feels a little scary. Simply because I’m in such a great place right now and have so much to lose.

Honestly I never had any doubt about my business. I’ve always knew I could build my business to a point where I can quit my job. So no surprise there 😉

But I really didn’t think I would finally meet Mr Right though. I had kinda given up on that… So that was unexpected but definitely a nice surprise 😊😊😊

I could never understand how anyone can know if that person is right for them in the first few months and then jumping in and getting married or something.

It used to completely baffles me.

But now I finally understood what people meant by : You will know if it’s the right person.

In fact, I thk most people experience the opposite. Knowing that person is wrong for them.

Usually, most people already know if their partner is wrong for them in the first few months, but most people just continue with the RS. I know, because I used to be one of those people.

Perhaps under the illusion that you need to “work” at a relationship… or perhaps “love conquers everything”. But mostly because they’ve never met the right guy and have no idea how the heck that feels like.

It’s only now that I realised how “effortless” it feels when it’s the right person. Air quotes because you still put in effort, but you totally dun feel the burden of it.

At least this is my personal experience 😉