Kaizen : On Reading

Slow Reader Die Slower

I was introduced to Kaizen by my friend around 10 years ago. 改善 is the word for improvement (continuous). While doing this every single day greatly contributes to building a habit, I don’t have to complete the whole page/chapter every day; I can complete them at my own pace. In my journey as a slow reader, I use “waiting time” to catch up. The beauty part of Kaizen, IMHO — it’s sharing the same trait with Kanban & AGILE SCRUM. In my day to day technology execution especially in software development and delivery — the element of Kaizen is also there.

It’s kind of self satisfaction to see myself continuously progress from one page to another but reading multiple books produce one big issue to me as I’m bad at marking the page. Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Nook and many more reading devices now looks so convenient but the trade off is — i’ll be losing the ability to physically touch the book, and the smell of the paper ☕️

Speaking about bookmark, the struggle and unnecessary-complexity that I created in my experience dealing with physical books — almost not exist in my digital experience. Recently I tried another bookmark plugin called “Raindrop.io”

Raindrop is a storage unit that internet needs.

“Journey Between Pages” : A short note from 2019

I spent few hours at the Big Bad Wolf Books with my kid that day — he’s currently excited about Wild Kratts so we went there to get his books. Didn’t expect to grab anything for me but i think everyone knows about “the spirit”. It live in books. It will whisper in our ears; “you want me”. It conquer our subconscious and drive our movement. I ended up brought back this with me 😬 As a Reddit fan, I think Alexis clearly demonstrated that he really care about the community he built — by sharing his journey; up and down to create the front page of internet.

Guilty Pleasure

I used to walk to the bookstore near my old office just to read few pages of my favourite book(s) before heading back home. You know there’re certain people in this world award certain books as their favourite books but never bother to buy. I’m one of that ‘certain people’. Back in 90’s when I was still in primary school, I’ll spend around 15 minutes every 2/3 weeks at a bookstore called “Pustaka Swan” to have a quick-read for the latest version of my favourite books. Fast forward after ~20 years, I can’t run away from that habit.

Me ‘enjoying’ my guilty pleasure @ MPH

If I see this from internet world perspective, can I be considered as the one who consume pirated 🏴☠️ copies created by content creators like film, song, book, software and many more digital products?

Page(s) That We (Only) Love

Have you ever bought a book / newspaper / magazine just because you want to read that particular content on that particular page while the rest were not relevant to you? Publishing industry should be more democratic where consumers can FREELY choose to pay for content they want. Just like how we buy stuff(s) that matter to us in supermarket / convenience shop — has anyone told (forced) you buy all items on the shelves? Amazon’s pay per song, Astro’s pay per view, Techinasia’s pay per article and many others aware about consumers’ preference so that’s why they offered the services.

I was in the mission to enable ‘pay per content’ for journalism industry around 5 years ago. The team & I created a platform for readers to purchase & consume content, by completing micro-payment.

We tried to empower publishing industry and readers, and failed.

“Morning Essay, A Retrospective” : another adjusted short note from 2019

I revisited again collection of short essays written by Johan Jaafar this morning. I still remember that I cut my meal budget to buy the book, in ~2010. All essays. in this book, published in Utusan between 1994–1998. I regularly read the newspaper during my university time — especially as one of the fact sources for my debate activity. If anyone ask me today what newspaper that help to change/shape me; i will proudly reply “Utusan”.

Me reading Johan Jaafar in our back room.

We need to admit that this newspaper played important role in our society development, and the content that we consumed successfully educated us in so may area. I hope all those great writers manage to find their new home. ☕️

The good thing about monetisation, it is also enable self publisher / independent author to generate revenue from their content. And as the reader, me / you / us able to read the paid version according to our taste.

Medium and Substack are my go-to platforms for reading, nowadays.

So, iqra’.