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- #55: The delectable dirty tap water.
#55: The delectable dirty tap water.
Shem Opolot
January 19, 2024
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
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I have over ten years of work experience in healthcare, program management, and data analytics on two continents. So, I know a little about helping you work smarter
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I’ll occasionally make you laugh
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Happy Friday 🎉 I’m back in D.C. on the doctorate hamster wheel, and of course, it’s just my luck that we’re experiencing the worst winter EVER. It’s so cold that I lay in bed the other night and thought about giving up and returning home. And not home to my children. Home to my mother.
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
AD
Can we date?
Dating is hard. And visiting the same places and doing the same things traps you in a cycle of situationships that shrink Kampala into a small mixed boarding school.
But…the lovely ladies of Can We Talk have carved out a cute corner of Kampala to bring you The First Speed Dating Event in Kampala!
When? February 10
Where? Milk and Maar
Time? 6 PM
The event promises good vibes, good fun, and, quite possibly, good love. But hurry! Slots are vanishing faster than you’ll say, “I do.”
This is a special message for the gentlemen: There’s an oversupply of beautiful ladies, so the odds are in your favor.
LIFE.
The delectable dirty tap water.
I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.
When water returns after an outage, the first tap water is usually dirty, so you must let the water run til you get clean water.
That’s how creativity works as well.
When I want to write the anecdote for the week, I open the Notes app, ignore the intimidating blinking cursor, and just type. I type anything that comes to mind.
Sometimes, I know what I want to write, but I can’t figure out how to make it pop, so I write multiple, mostly rubbish drafts until I get to the good stuff.
But to get to the good stuff, you must open the tap.
You see, a rubbish first draft is one of the most powerful things in the world—a scribble in a scrapbook, a doodle on a desk, an idea on your iPhone.
And don’t edit.
Editing comes later when you know what you’re doing. Editing and overthinking create friction.
So…
—Don’t try to make the first sketch perfect.
—Don’t try to make the first draft of your proposal perfect.
—Don’t try to make your business idea perfect.
Limit friction by focusing on getting all your ideas out first. Even the bad ideas. Especially the bad ones.
Friction is the enemy of creativity.
Now open that dirty tap and let the dirty water flow.
SHAMELESS PLUG
Someone said the news was dead, and millennials don’t read. We’re in the business of making miracles.
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THINGS.
A quote
Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
The Good Library
Read a book this weekend.
A picture
Before I returned to school, Evelyn and I went on a date at a fancy place that looked like it was plucked out of a boujee tea party in The Gilded Age (a must-watch if you love period dramas—think Downton Abbey, but America). This picture was taken later at the Ralph Lauren Coffee House in New York as we milked the time away from the kids to gallivant. The Coffee House was quintessential consumerism. Imagine walking into a luxuriant store where they try to convince you to buy a complete outfit from head to toe, as well as bedding, curtains, couches, and utensils for your dining room. And if you want, all those things can match.
WORK.
Quick combine
Have you ever had identical data in two different sheets, and you wanted to combine it easily?
Introducing…the HSTACK function!
Here’s your data:
Assume the dataset #1 and #2 are in different sheets
1. Pick the sheet where you want to consolidate the data (I picked the sheet with dataset #1), and use the HSTACK function to attach dataset #2 to dataset #1 using its range:
=HSTACK(F3:H7) in this case.
We now have a new dataset #3 that combines #1 and #2
2. Don’t delete dataset #2 from its original location, lest you lose your new dataset #3.
The data disappears because HSTACK references the range you got dataset #2 from. Deleting the data in that range means we lose the data to reference
3. Therefore, you first select the newly added rows in dataset #3, copy them, and paste them (as values) in the same place using Ctrl + Shift + V on a PC or ⌘ + Shift + V on a Mac.
Make sure you paste in the first cell of dataset #2 (The cell containing “Kawhi Leonard”)
4. You can delete the original dataset #2
Done.
If you want to learn how to use Excel, this is a good place to start.
FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
On a 12-hour digital clock, what is the smallest interval between two times that are palindromic (can be read forward and backward as the same number)?
Answer below
Shem’s picks
✔️ Practice typing by typing up famous novels
✔️ The right way to chop every vegetable
✔️ How to look good in photos
Brain teaser answer
Answer: The interval is two minutes, between 9:59 and 10:01.
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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