Happy Sunday Friends!

Welcome to another Sunday Friends! I’m glad you’re here. Here is your Sunday Musings, a quick dose of what I’m exploring and thinking about. Please feel free to forward this along to friends.

This Week’s Recommendation

The Pomodoro Technique

Picture this: You are working on a task and your deadline quickly approaching. Finishing the task on time seems impossible: the more time you work on it, the more complex it seems. You suddenly need to do other things - updating your Twitter status, working on a different project, I think the laundry needs to be changed - Is that a yellow warbler out the window?

We’ve all been there. So has Francesco Cirillo, so he created the Pomodoro Technique.

What's the Pomodoro Technique?

The technique was ‘invented’ in the late 1980s by Francesco Cirillo while at university.

I couldn't keep my mind focused on my book. I was constantly getting distracted. I made a humble bet with myself: 'Can you stay focused for two minutes without distraction?'

He went to the kitchen, grabbed a red timer shaped like a Pomodoro (tomato in Enlish). He set it for two minutes and started studying. When the timer rang, he had won his bet. Surprised, I began to ask myself why it had worked. He tested various times and found “the ideal unit of work was 25 minutes followed by a 2-5 minute break.”

In essence, it is a cyclical system based around working in short bursts with intermittent 5-minute breaks, which can help to improve motivation, creativity, and efficiency.

How I Use It

I use the Pomodoro Technique back when I need to have a long study or research session. After using it a while, I now tend to warm up after the first session and enter a state of “flow” during my second session. In traditional version of the Pomodoro Technique, I'd break my flow state. The idea is to regulate your focus and breaks; If you're having the same issue a good thing to do is to switch intervals to something that works for you, like 45/15 minutes where you do the work for 45 minutes and after that, you take a 15-minute break. When I do take a break, I fill them withshort bursts of exercise. Research from Psycnet.apa.org and nature medicine shows that it improves on-task attention and learning.

You can use just a kitchen timer or your phone timer, if you want an app there are tons! I use Focus To-Do (Apple Store, Google Play Store).

Technology I’m Looking At

Flipper Zero (https://flipperzero.one)

It’s essentially a multi-tool for pentesters and technologists who want to interact more deeply with technology surrounding them. It’s packaged nicely and has a Tamagotchi-like dolphin character to help drive the attraction. Basically, you can explore RFID and radio protocols, as well as debug hardware using GPIO pins all in a body that fits in your pocket.

What can you do with it?

You can use this little guy to read, copy, and emulate NFC/RFID/IR remotes and sub-GHz wireless signals pretty easily. You can do some hardware exploration, even some iButton stuff. With some additional components and firmware flashing, you can get into wifi hacking (don’t break into things that aren’t yours… its bad ladies and gents). You can also really get into some Bad USB fun.

Can it do the ATM, Car, Gas Station hacks we see on TikTok?

Short answer is no. Rolling signal and modern technology kills that. Now for the car thing you’re seeing (outside of Tesla’s charging door, lol) it’s pretty much a sham. People can do this by taking the fob out of range of the vehicle, pressing the unlock and storing it with the flipper, then using it. But it’s a one-time thing; not really practical, if you have access to do that with the fob, then just take the fob.

Bottom Line

It’s great fun, a good start, and a more approachable (and cheaper) than other routes.

Got one? Shoot me a line and tell me what you’ve been doing with it!

Quote I’m Musing

“If you wish to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

-Epictetus

This fear of being thought foolish is central to a common, and historical, problem we have. We put too much value on what others think. Compound that with another common malady in leaders, Imposter Syndrome, and I’ve found myself frozen in my decision-making and performance processes many times.

I think we can all agree that we know we shouldn’t care too much about what others think of us at any given moment. Yet, how many times were we too uncomfortable to not ask that clarifying question in class? Who hasn’t decided to not raise their hand at a meeting when the group was discussing something, and it didn’t make sense to you? Is it something that I should already know?

This was (and still is) something I deal with as I work on our startup (more on that next week, we’ve got traction!) and this newsletter. But if I think about it, the main fear is this fear of being thought foolish. It's the fear of 'what will my peers think of me if they find out I'm doing this'.

So, how do we overcome that fear?

Noone is rooting for you to fail.

In fact, odds are people aren’t thinking about you at all. We have a tendency to overestimate how much people think about us. How many mistakes did that last speaker you saw make? None? Unlikely. People are far too busy worrying about their own lives and what everyone else is thinking about them to actually pick up on what we’re doing. This is a good thing! It means you can chase your dreams with little worry that most will even notice, let alone form an opinion.

If we realize how seldom people think about us, we will worry less about what they think of us.

Be content to be thought foolish.

Here’s one of the great secrets to confidence! If you don’t ask that “dumb” question, you’ll never know what you don’t know. Be willing to be bad at things, be mediocre at things at the beginning, because that’s how you get to where you want to be in life. Divesting our sense of self-worth from what others might think of us, following our passions and desires for knowledge and improvement is key.

Our only real failure is not taking action.

Theodore Roosevelt reminds us that courage is a virtue in his speech, Citizenship In a Republic:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

How long will you put off what you’re capable of just to do what you’re comfortable doing? Failure isn’t certain, don’t make it certain by not starting. We all have our feelings of fear, vulnerability, and uncertainty. Often, unfortunately, we let them dictate our actions.

The distinction between you and most people is simply taking action. You don’t have to be greatest at something (odds are you won’t), but you just need to be the one who actually does it.

I would love your feedback!

Which musing is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.
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Have a wonderful week, I’ll see you Sunday.
​-e