Like lots of people, especially developers, I have a long list of potential business/app ideas that sit around and gather dust. Some of them are just impractical, some I don't have the skills to do but the biggest constraint is time and the battle with all the other commitments life throws at you.

Somethings in life are time sensitive and some are not. A business opportunity may be time sensitive in that it will only be a success when certain things are aligned or maybe new technologies are available.

Many years ago when I ran an engineering team for a consultancy we would get calls almost every day from recruitment agencies trying to pitch their services to us.

A colleague just spent the day at a WeWork and commented on how badly named it was.

It's official, WeWorks are so hard to work in. Ironic really.

In the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho there is a quote “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” This ties in nicely with an observation from Gino Wickman in a podcast with Lewis Howes (School of Greatness) recently. He observed that in a lot of cases the fear of failure is really a fear of judgement.

When I feel I am no longer learning I know it is likely time for me to either look at how my current role can change or time to look for a new role.

In the David Perell podcast with Daniel Gross they also talked about forcing functions. They started by discussing why Israel seems to be so strong in the tech industry and whether their unique circumstances may be the cause. They talked about how they approach problems as they are forced to deal with the consequences if they don’t - compared to other nations that try to solve problems as they may be impacted by them at some point in the future.

I have been interested in the use of gamification to achieve things for a while. Given my son’s love of the Xbox I have also wondered if it could be used in some way to help him study.