A few months ago, I have started a web search about some new things I wanted to learn and I discovered the world of MOOCs. After a chat over coffee with my colleague Joaquin Morcate Jarillo, He pointed me to some Courses on the Coursera platform and also to the web site of John Sonmez of Simple Programmer. Since then, John has been a source of inspiration for me, not because he has taught me the things I wanted to learn but because he has given me a way to organize my idea and to organize a part of my time to reach my objective (which is not this blog by the way, this is only a mean to an end) . So, why this blog is part of it. John has a free email course about building one’s own blog site. In my opinion, a blog site is a great way to get started with an idea. In the course you will see how to host a web site, how to install the blogging platform, but there it comes the most important aspect of it all (until now and in my opinion, I am not finished yet with the course), and that is how to plan the contents of your site. This is an activity that you need to do whatever your idea is, be it a blog, a book, an article in a magazine, setting up a business, etc.
What John does in his posts and in his course is simply to give you tools and a possible way to use them. It is not mandatory to use the specific tools that he suggests, but I think that it is really a good idea to stick to the process that he proposes, and for good measure I have to say that also the tools John is suggesting are prime choice, it does not make sense, at least in the beginning, to make anything different, even if you are tech savy and even if you have already done it (as I have already done it). Well I took one or two licenses here and there but really the substance does not change.
I believe that the same goes for any other idea, and that the key point is to develop a schema of what you whant to do, break it down in pieces, then for every piece make sure that it is manageable, it not break it up again and so on. I have found that this process is very much easier and comes naturally by using Mind Mapping software, there are a few very good, multi-platform and open source examples out on the web: One of them is Freemind and the other is Freeplane, a spin of the first. Please feel free to comment if you think that are better ones out there to try. My favorite is Freeplane but I am open minded and I like to try and compare new tools.
You can use other methods, but if you want to make your dream project a reality, please do something about it. My posts in this blog may be initially too simple, have not enough technical background, but I am building that along the way and they will become more and more detailed and their quality shall increase.
I have already used mind mapping software for planning activities like a work trip for intance, every branch represented a task, something like Administration, Organization, Tools, Schedules, Contact lists etc (depending on the type of trip of course). Then every one of these is broken down further, like Organization: Airport Shuttles, Plane tickets, Hotel reservation, Car rental. Every one of these were broken down further until every single piece of the puzzle is fully covered, every detail in its place. I only needed John and his blogging course (actually even before I started to blog following his course) to realize I could apply my method also to this blog and more importantly to the process of learning what I want to learn in the field of Data Science/Data Mining.
For those interested, Lifehacker.com has an interesting review of mind mapping software, well written, too bad that my favourite is not there.
The next and last suggestion that I want to give is to schedule. Schedule, schedule and stick to the schedule. If you do something “when I will have time” that means never. That means it is not your dream, not your objective, it means that you are not serious about it. Sure, there are priorities in life, like health or family. But if you do not stick to your plan, say to watch a favourite TV show, or your favourite football team game and then you do not catch up with your plan, well you know what I think (and I believe also John Sonmez would think): Your dream will not become reality under those conditions.
