Link Roundup #25: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1. Super-Productive People Do 3 Things That Others Don’t, According to This MIT Productivity Test – Inc

Anyone else obsessed with finding productivity tips and hacks? I know I am. I’m fascinated by both (a) the habits of the super-productive (click the link to read about it) and (b) the productivity test itself, taken by almost 20,000 people. You can take it yourself here.

Pozen Productivity Test is a 21-question survey based on seven habits of productivity:

• developing daily routines
• planning your schedule
• coping with messages
• getting a lot done
• running effective meetings
• honing communication skills
• and delegating tasks to others

I took the test, and scored 65 out of 105. To be fair, many of the questions are not applicable to me (I don’t work in a team most of the time, and neither attend regular meetings nor delegate work to subordinates). But it definitely gave me some pointers on areas to improve.

What’s your score?

2. 7 Staggering Facts about Inequality – World Economic Forum

When wealth inequality as a topic comes up, you’ll usually see two extreme viewpoints: “Hoarding money is morally wrong as it comes at the expense of workers” vs “The wealthy has the right to make and keep as much money as they can because they took the biggest risk”

I’m still… learning about this topic. Two excellent videos came up in my Twitter timeline. Sharing them here:

26 billionaires own the same wealth as 3.8 billion people.

📕 Read more: https://t.co/mmXubFkt6A #inequality #economics pic.twitter.com/2bOvuvqr6w

— World Economic Forum (@wef) April 15, 2019

A breathtaking, three-minute takedown of banking fatcat Jamie Dimon. h/t @JonnyGellerpic.twitter.com/B2sbGqzs8N

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) April 13, 2019

3. “What are the best SaaS platforms you’ve used? What was great about them?” Answer by @NikkiElizDeMere – NicholeElizabethDemere.com

SaaS = Software as a Service, in case you’re not familiar with the term.

There are a LOT of SaaS platforms out there, and usually getting one that works for you (and your team) is a trial and error thing.

In this article, Nichole shared 14 SaaS recommendations, ranging from SEO tools to user onboarding checklists to social media management platforms and many more.

It’s a must-read for everyone interested in using tech in business.

Also: 10/10 would recommend following Nichole on Twitter. Follow them here.

4. The Best Skin Care Trick is Being Rich – The Atlantic

OMG YES! If I see another rich person attributing their beauty to just ‘drinking enough water, eating well and getting enough sleep’, I’m going to pull my hair out. This part of the article is 100% true:

The guidance usually comes from the wealthy, who have all the access in the world to the best skin products and treatments, and it tends to overemphasize the importance of lifestyle while sweeping under the rug the actual cost of tinkering with your facial chemistry.

Ah well. I think this is something all of us know, a ‘finally someone said it’ moment. I’m not angry or anything.

Plus it’s hard to be angry at beautiful women. Damn some women are so fiiiiine you’re a work of art I tell you. Keep on rocking sis I’m not about to hate on you and bring another woman down nuh uh.

Just don’t promote or sell hyped-up / dangerous beauty products to your followers though. That’s not cool.

5. ‘Influencer Fraud’ Costs Companies Millions of Dollars. An AI-Powered Tool Can Now Show Who Paid to Boost Their Engagement. – Entrepreneur 

Social media marketing is SO fast-paced it makes my head swim.

One subset of it is influencer marketing, where the industry is still kind of figuring itself out. As we speak, best practices and hacks to beat algorithm changes are being developed and implemented.

Honestly it’s quite fun to see how influencers and companies try to out-smart each other. Companies used to only hire influencers with high followers count. Those can be bought now.

Then companies wisen up and look at engagement too (usually, the followers:likes/comments ratio). And what do you know, influencers can arrange for that too.

And now there are tools designed to uncover influencers who fake their engagement numbers. I wonder what is the next move by influencers.

6. I just cleared out my Gmail using a simple trick that took only a few minutes — here’s how to do it – Business Insider

Simple, step-by-step article to clear out a lot of old junk taking up space in your Gmail account. May this info stretch out the time until you finally have to upgrade and pay for more Gmail storage, Amin.

Protip: if you frequently send large attachments, follow Google’s own tips too to clear A LOT of storage.

7. When You Pitch an Idea, Gestures Matter More Than Words – Harvard Business Review

This opening para summarised it all:

8. What it’s like to work at the most successful hedge fund in the world, where 30% of new employees don’t make it and those who do are considered ‘intellectual Navy SEALs’ – Business Insider

Ray Dalio is the latest ‘personality’ that I’m fascinated with. He’s the founder Bridgewater Associates, the biggest hedge fund in the world and author of Principles: Life & Work which is recommended by people I respect.

In fact, at time of writing, someone in my social circle just mentioned the book again. I really have to get my hands on it soon.

But until then, I’ve been reading this article, and the video (which CBS doesn’t allow me to embed) with lots of interest. Highly recommend if you’d like to see radical transparency in action within the workplace setting.

9. 7 Ways That 2019 Mirrors The Dotcom Bubble – Investopedia

Another doomsday article, lol. But it’s fun (and educational) to see the parallels. The 7 ways are:

• Venture capital investments in tech companies at excessive levels
• A rush of highly-touted tech IPOs coming to market
• Financial crises in emerging market countries
• The Fed paused interest rate hikes in 1998, as they have now
• Tech stocks lead the market in 2019, as they did in 1999
• Almost daily gains in stock prices, with little retreat
• Growth stocks outperforming value stocks

Note that this is a US-focused article. Impact to Malaysia, if when the bubble bursts, is unknown.

10. Ambik Kau was an April Fool’s Prank to Copy Other Sites Content. And it Got Copied Too – Cilisos.my

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on FB or Twitter.

To read past link roundups, please click here.