Current situation

My situation right now is this, I am:

• Debt-free.
• Someone who has saved a significant sum of money.
• Someone who started a few businesses three years ago to gain experience in business.
• Just twenty-one years old (on the day of writing, the day of publishing is my 22nd birthday).

Plans after college

While I was at my internship, during the breaks I would think about what I wanted to be doing after graduating. I ended up with the following items:

• Building my YouTube channel.
• Blogging.
• Finishing my royhonders.com website.
• Making more money freelancing.
• Working on soundshare.net.
• Traveling
• Teaching
• Reading books that are used for a university degree.
• Learning more Russian.
• Improving my German.
• Improving my French.

A change of plans occured.

I was contacted by a few people offering me jobs and recruiters wanting to find me a job. My thoughts about this were, what do I have to lose? I might be able to network and learn more about what companies around me are working on. Also I might find a cool job in the process.

Not knowing how much time this would have cost me, I went into it quite naively. My initial plans and personal projects kind of slacked off into the distance, but I was still working on a few of them.

This all wasn’t a bad thing though. I did end up learning a lot about myself and ended up finding a really cool job that fits my character. They are specifically looking for empathetic and entrepreneurial software engineers that are geared towards gaining lots of knowledge in their field.

Taking on this job means that in the future I will have less time available to work on my own projects.

For now, I am still confident that I will have plenty of time to work on my own projects when I start my job. I am also confident in the fact that taking on this job will give me growth in return than I will get learning things on my own and taking on loads of client work.

P.S. I am still taking on a small amount of client work through:

Retro IT

Retiring at 21, just for a few months was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This summer is different. I have just graduated college and I am working hard on the startup that I co-founded three years ago. Since that hasn’t generated too much traction yet, I am also looking for a job for when the summer is over. In between all these activities there is not much time left. This leaves the following question for me:

Why would I spend my time reading complete books?

I could also spend my time reading summaries of all the books that I still have listed to read, but this doesn’t make sense for me for some reason. Because the take-aways from the summary will be really subjective to the writer of that summary. Usually a book has a lot of examples and you cannot trust someone else to find the bits and pieces that will stick out to you.

So always read whole books for yourself and instead skip parts that do not interest you. You might be surprised what the serendipity could bring you! Let me know your take-aways of the next book that you will be reading.

If you like my blog posts, make sure to follow my publication and find me on my social media channels!

Why would you sit down for hours to read a book these days? was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This topic has to be made solution oriënted since it is a goal to get to a place where I am not all over the place. By just stating the problem in the title it would feel like I am complaining, which I am not. I am looking for a good solution.

Basically I want to go away from a place where I don’t complete projects:

To this:

I need to become more strict with my time and attention so I can finish my todo lists, or at least make some progress. Sometimes I need to say no to starting a certain project, because it’s not the right time to build it.
This happens a lot to me when I ask other people to help me on a project and it’s respectable.
Recently I had to do it only once in the past two months, because I just couldn’t dedicate the time to their cause. It was a project with a vague starting plan and without any traction. It would feel right to spend my time helping plan the project and figuring out it’s direction while I have so much other stuff to do.

The problem with starting new projects

I think an average person can only focus his best work on one project at a time. It’s okay if other projects with similar goals and needs are being planned in the background and being worked on in your free time, but when it feels overwhelming you should focus on the most important work in your life.

At my internship I found myself having a lot of thoughts about other projects and the future of the project that I was currently working on. I fixed this by writing them down on a piece of paper in a small A5 sized notebook. This helped a lot to keep the focus at the work at hand without losing a good creative idea.

Why bother finishing projects?

This book helped me a lot, answering that question:

https://www.bol.com/nl/p/50-succesmodellen/9200000078874478/

It’s a small book that has useful digestable information in it. It answers the most basic questions people have about their lives and helps them to make the correct decisions.

On page 16 and 17 it says something about “how to keep a good overview of everything that you do”.
I’d have to say that in my life there recently was a point where I could not introduce myself and all the things that I was doing to someone I just met. This is probably an indicator that you lack focus in the work that you do.

The end quote is really important:

Always complete your projects, even unsuccesful ones.

You could complete them to a different level than the level you expected to finish it on, but you always have to finish them in some way to learn from it.

How I plan to stop quitting projects and actually finish them. was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I asked myself this question when I wanted to try mediation. How long do ten minutes actually take? Well…

…I found that when you do nothing at all and you just sit there with your eyes closed, time will pass by really slowly. It feels like it is taking forever, but trust me, the timer actually works.
So when you try it, just keep waiting for it to go off (and make sure to test the timer to be sure).

Below you will see the timer that I use for my meditation sessions.

This experience did make me wonder, why do some activities feel like they take longer to complete than others, even though they are the same length?

This reminded me of a book called “flow” that I read last summer. Here you can see the author talking about it in this video:

This book reminds us that in order to be happy and let time go by quickly, you have to be really engaged in an activity. This will allow you to enter a state of flow where time just seems to disappear and you will be able to finish your tasks quickly.

The experience of time really depends on the activity that you are currently carrying out.

Going back to my current experience with mediation so far, I do really enjoy it. Whenever you have a lot of stuff to do it helps you to get some mental rest, regain some energy.
But also to realize that there is a lot you could do in as little time as ten minutes since it feels like a long time.
And that's what I do now whenever I want to do a lot of things in my days, I just take ten minutes to help my mind calm down and focus on the things I need to do after those ten minutes.

I hope that you got some value out of this story and if you'd like to see more blogs about lifestyle or software development, you should follow me.

How fast do ten minutes go by? was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Day ten (15-03-2018)

On thursday I went to college listening to an audio book. When I arrived, I followed a lesson about React routing. He was giving an extensive demo in which he explained everything and answered all the questions that we had. After class I went to the train station, while listening to an audio book. I was on my way to the library to give my second language lesson.

For me teaching other people things that are new to them and seeing them smile while you are explaining things to do them and they get that “Aha gotcha” moment, it’s the best thing ever.
It’s really relaxing, since I don’t have to put in too much effort to answer the questions. It also helps me reflect on my own learning progress and helps me see the value of good education.

After the lesson was over, I talked to one of the students a little bit more. Then I went home while listening to an audiobook. On my way home, I remembered that google play books also has a read-out-loud functionality, which I decided to try out for a while. It’s pretty amazing to use for when my Audible trial is over.

I spent my time watching some YouTube in the afternoon. Then I had dinner and watched some more YouTube. I decided to write some more for my daily blog and spent the rest of the night playing a game with my friend.

Day eleven (16-03-2018)

On friday I woke up quite slowly. Then I packed my stuff for the gym and went to there while listening an audiobook on Audible.
That’s where I also wanted to complete my challenge to talk to a stranger. So I asked someone if one machine was free and they just looked at me like whuutt, and just said yeah. So that kinda proved my point on the Dutch society, people are really not used to strangers talking them even in the slightest way. For instance when you ask them something or when you’d compliment them about something.
You really have to go out of your way in order to keep up a conversation with people, otherwise they will shut you down after doing a request or talking about something like the weather or how shitty politics is these days. I actually had someone talk to me too, but I was like, I’m here in the gym to work out, not to talk and make friends. So I am actually guilty too to this behaviour.
In general the people here aren’t talkative, but I think I could talk to a stranger for a couple of hours if I really wanted to. The thing is that the gym isn’t the best place to try it out.

After my workout and taking a shower, I had to rush back home because I didn’t want to miss my class and making the test that I had that day. So everything was fine and I listened to the audiobook again while traveling.

At college I actually was a little early, so I worked on a task for soundshare and completed it. When my teacher arrived, he had the results of the previous test. So I went to see how I did and I actually found that he made an error in my grading, which upped my grade by 0,3 points. (out of ten)

After that I made the test, and talked with my classmates about several technologies and programming paradigms. After that I went home while listening to the audiobook again. Then I had dinner with my father and my brother. After that I completed half of the 34th lesson of my Russian course. Then I noted some things for my blog, so I wouldn’t forget what I did when writing. After that I just watched some YouTube and went to sleep.

Day twelve (17–03–2017)

On saturday I woke up and watched some YouTube. Then I opened up my laptop to work for soundshare for a bit. After that I texted with my friend about going to the gym together, he was doing better than last week and could move around without vomitting now.

After going to the gym I had my lunch and then decided to go for a powernap. After that I read/listened (simultaniously) to a google play book. Then I relaxed some more, watching YouTube and reading more of my book. In this book, “The four hour workweek” by Tim Ferris, I discovered a browser extension, which is supposed to help you block out websites for certain times, so they don’t distract you. I decided to implement this.
After that I had dinner, worked for soundshare, played a game and updated my to-do-list so I knew which stuff to work on the next day. Then I went to sleep, sweet dreams. :)

The end of my blog and my first challenge

On Sunday, I decided to quit my challenge. It just doesn’t feel like the right thing to do anymore, at least not in the same way as I’m doing now. I feel like writing about my progress and experiences everyday gets annoying. I’d rather talk to people about the things that I experience, than that I’d write about them. So that’s what I’m gonna do from now on.

What I like to conclude from my challenge is that I really need to just relax and do things the best way that I can. Like working really hard, but also appreciating the rewards that I can give myself, doing the things that I like. Also I don’t want to have everything instantaneously. I just need to put in the effort everyday and wait a couple of years to achieve greatness. All these thoughts reminded me of the famous song by Bobby McFerrin:

Don’t worry, be happy

And that is what I’m going to do. I’m not gonna stress myself too much about being the best version I can possibly can be. I’m just gonna be happy.

I hoped you guys enjoyed this blog series though and maybe you will see more of me in the future. :)

Part four (finale) of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle. was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Day seven (12–03–2018)

On monday, I had a lesson where I’d prepare my homework and do some other work. I didn’t read or listen to any books, because I wanted to make a planning for the week. After the lesson I instantly went to the hairdresser for a new haircut. While going there I was of course listening to the audiobook.
After that, I went to do some work and prepared for my tests the next day. I also brought my bicycle to the repair shop again and got it fixed this time, I was kinda mad at them at first but now it’s okay. In the evening I had a shooting training. Before going to bed I played some games with my friend.

Day eight (13-03-2018)

On tuesday, I had two tests planned. That’s pretty much all I did during the day, while also absorbing some knowledge in the lessons. In the lunch break I decided to go outside for a walk. I didn’t listen to an audiobook there, because I wanted to get some mental rest in between the two tests. I met some classmates from my previous semester while walking in the park next to my college.

After college, I went home and finished the audiobook on my way home. I also downloaded audible on my way home. I wanted to try if it’s something for me, but the business model makes it too expensive for me right now. (since I’d buy books worth like $100 every month at my reading speed)
When I got home I did some work for soundshare and went to bed.

Day nine (14-03-2018)

On wednesday I slept really long and well. I listened to audible on my way to college. I followed an interesting class about HTTP and REST. After that I did some work for soundshare, read some books on my way home. At home I continued my work and went to bed.

Things that I learned

I have learned that it’s really important to focus on work. To quote Tim Ferris:

Be productive instead of busy

It’s not that I don’t have time to do the things I love. I take a big deal of time to just relax and do almost nothing at all, which I really like. Reading books and stuff like that. But when I do my work, no one can distract me and I just fully immerse into it.

Read the next part here:

Part four (finale) of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle.

Part three of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle. was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Day four (09–03–2018)

On this friday, my challenge went pretty bad, but this day was overall quite a good day. After I woke up, I decided to watch some YouTube before going to college. At college I first had an appointment with my teacher to talk about my previous semester.

Before I had my class I worked on soundshare. I implemented the ability to upload files to amazon S3, our filestorage. In class I followed a lesson about MongoDB, which was pretty okay. After that I went home.

I was pretty excited for the evening, because I planned to go out with a couple of friends. Unfortunately they couldn’t come, because they had to travel pretty far and the weather was kinda bad in the evening. I didn’t expect it because the weather in the afternoon was really nice.

So I decided I’d do some work, watch a tv show called “Dream school”, which is about kids who didn’t do very well in school before and are now offered a second chance. They get lessons from exceptionally good teachers, but their old values clash with this amazing opportunity. So it’s a pretty cool show to watch, since there is a lot to be learned from all the people in that show. After that I watched some YouTube video’s and then decided to complete my work in the middle of the night.

While working I discovered a couple of cool music livestreams. Because I said that I couldn’t listen to my own music, I can still listen to music that other people pick for me. I actually discovered them through Medium. The streams are freecodecamp and chill your mind. Those have some really cool and chill music for working on something, for instance the blog that I’m writing right now.

Day five (10–03–2018)

On saturday I woke up and chilled out for a bit, watching some YouTube videos. After a while at like 9 AM in the morning, I took out my laptop and decided to do some work for college. My friend was sick that day, so he couldn’t go with me to the gym, which we normally do on saturdays. So I went there alone.

When I came home a package had arrived for me. It was a new wireless mouse that I had ordered on friday. After getting lunch I unboxed the package and used the mouse for my laptop to work for college and after that for soundshare. After a while I got tired since I woke up at like 6 AM, so I decided to go for a nap.

After my nap, I read a book and watched some YouTube before having dinner.
Then I finished a preparation for my re-exam that I would have the next tuesday. Next I watched some YouTube for inspirational videos, I wrote the first part of this blog series, I read some more books and then decided it was time to go to bed.

Day six (11–03–2018)

On sunday I went to the gym again after sleeping for a long time. I met the person who I do the language lessons with at the volunteering job. That’s where I realised where she knew my face from.
After going to the gym, my bicycle had a flat tire again, so it wasn’t repaired correctly. After coming home I had lunch with my parents and brother and finished just five minutes before I had a meeting.

At 2 PM in the afternoon, I had a 2-weekly sprint meeting with my colleagues. We talked about the progress we made in those two weeks and they were all happy with my results. After the meeting I cleaned my room and relaxed for a bit. Next I studied for college and had dinner.

After that I decided to pick up on some work for soundshare again and built the music player for the website, which is pretty amazing to do in one evening. While doing that I listened to the YouTube music livestreams again. After making a video with my phone showing my colleagues what I made and asking them for forgiveness (joke) not posting the meeting notes yet, I went to bed.

Things that I learned

I learned that my schedule can become quite busy during a week, especially when I need to prepare for multiple tests, working and doing some other stuff for myself. But in the end it’s all worth it, because it feels so damn fulfilling. I have a good quote for that, although I don’t remember from who I heard that quote:

Focus on the journey, not the destination

For me, this means that I need to find my happiness in all the hard work that I put into building stuff and learning stuff, not just enjoy the results and rewards that they bring. And I think that’s a good thing to thrive by.

I also noticed this week that not having a girlfriend like my ex, really gives me a lot more time to get things done. When I was with her, I really enjoyed talking to her and it made me feel relaxed, but just sometimes I didn’t really have the time to talk, but I really liked it more than the tasks I had to complete.
The problem there was that she really didn’t motivate me to get the best out of myself and she wanted to talk to me basically everyday. I didn’t realise just how toxic this actually was to my daily lifestyle.
I learned that what I seek in a partner is someone who really wants to have my back, wants the best for my personal development and isn’t really bothered by me doing other stuff than her.

Unfortunately these girls are rare, but I will find someone in the end.
For now I will just continue focussing on working hard and building my own future. I hope you all can also learn something from my stories and make the best out of your own lives.

Part three of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle.

Part two of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Day one (06–03–2018)

I noticed that my classmates in college couldn’t keep up with my productivity. I had more energy overall and enjoyed fulfilling the tasks that I had planned.

It wasn’t all fun and games though because I missed watching YouTube video’s to chill out after a day of hard working, but instead I decided to read a book.

I also noticed that not watching television is nearly impossible since my parents watch it in the evening and I also like to be downstairs sometimes.

Things that I did on that day from my list:

• Going to the gym.
• Doing homework and following a class.
• Completing a lesson from my Russian course.
• Reading a book
• Listening to two parts of an audio book while traveling.

Day two (07–03–2018)

On wednesday in the morning, I decided to just relax in my bed when I was awake. I took my phone and opened the google play books app and started reading.
After getting ready I walked to the local shopping center to get my bicycle fixed at the repair shop. After that I went to the train station to catch my train to college. While travelling I was listening to the audio book called “The Righteous Mind” by Jonathan Haidt. It’s a pretty interesting book about moral psychology. I actually discovered this book in a list on another medium post and decided to pick it up.

After arriving in college I followed a class, which was pretty easy. Then on my way home I read another book on my phone again called “Who gets what — and why” by Alin E. Roth. This book is about market design. I discovered it on a talk about artificial intelligence, where a business used it as an inspiration for designing the current job market in the Netherlands. I thought it would be interesting to learn how markets work and what kind of markets exist everywhere you go.

When I got home I started on doing my homework. While doing that I got the urge to watch the video from Yes Theory where they challenge Will Smith to do heli bungee jumping. I saw that the challenge got accepted on their instagram. (yes social media was excluded from my challenge) So I resisted the urge because I really wanted to stick to my challenge.

After I finished my homework for college I decided to work on my Russian lesson and turn it in to my teacher.

When laying in bed I remembered that I had the volunteering planned the next day. I was stoked to do that and also just a little nervous on how it would turn out. But I have had done more discomforting things before, so I would be fine.

Day three (08–03–2018)

This thursday I planned not to go to college, since I had already turned in my assignments and fully understood what needed to be done. Besides that, I needed to prepare for my re-exam, which is about a completely different topic. So I did some preparations for that. After that I started the 33th lesson of my Russian course.

After doing some chores in the house it was time to go to the local library for the volunteering work. When I arrived, I was a little early so I decided to look at some psychology books. I found a good one about being confident in yourself in 365 days and read all the headlines of the tips that were given in about 15 minutes.

When I found the class that was given, there was only one student and the teacher. So we just talked for a while and waited on the others to come. There were three students who would get their lessons in the Dutch language. The first is a woman who comes from Suriname, a country with close relations to the Netherlands. Her ability to speak Dutch wasn’t that bad at all, since she was living here for a couple of years. She just liked to keep up with the language and learn something new every week. The second woman was from Peru, she’s been here for a couple of months and could speak the language quite well, but her vocabulary still needed a lot of work. The third person is a man from Gambia. He’s been here only for 3,5 months, so it’s shocking how well he can understand you. He knows all the basics of the language, but needs a lot of work on certain sounds and his writing ability.

The lesson went pretty well, and I enjoyed hanging out with them in the library. We saw the gratitude they expressed for getting this opportunity basically for free. So I would really like to continue doing this work for a couple of more weeks. When the lesson was over I said goodbye and they hoped that I’d return next week. So we will see if I can do that.
After I came home I talked to my mom and finished my Russian lesson.

I’ve noticed that it is especially hard not to watch any television or internet videos. Yesterday I saw on my instagram that the Yes Theory challenge to will smith was accepted, so I was dying to watch it. I actually did that, but I made a promise to myself that that would be the only video I’d watch that day.
In the evening I was pretty tired. When I reflected about the things that happened to me this week so far, I noticed that the challenge was really taking a toll on my energy.

Things that I learned

I was thinking about the fact that there needs to be a balance between the amount of time you spend productively and the amount of time that you relax and give yourself a reward for what you are doing. You could really say it like this:

Work hard. Play hard.

And with those words I want to conclude this episode of my challenge. I have learned a lot about myself and my ability to be productive and I want to pass that knowledge on in the coming days to improve my lifestyle.

Want to read the next part?

Part two of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle

Part one of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

So I was also listening to music at that time and I remembered that my 3 month subscription of spotify premium was about to end. At that time I had long decided that I didn’t think it would be worth it to keep that subscription.

Lately I’ve been watching the channel called “Yes Theory” on YouTube. They have been resonating with me quite well. Since I started my own business I wanted to do things that I’ve never been doing before and to get out of my comfort zone. They describe that pretty well with their motto: “Seek discomfort”. So they indirectly inspired me to do something different.

So I got up and got my notebook and wrote a couple of things down that I could change in my life, just to try how it would fit me. Like a new routine, or a new lifestyle. It ended up being the following list:

Crazy challenge # 1 (for me it was a kinda crazy challenge) from March 06 until March 21

Not doing:

• Listening to my own music. (Spotify)
• Reading any news.
• Watching television.
• Watching online video’s. (especially YouTube)
• Typing on Whatsapp and Telegram. (start using voice more often)
• Playing video games.
• Watching movies or TV series.

I was wondering whether or not I should include “Checking social media” or not. The problem with that is that I’d have to choose what categorises social media and with this challenge I actually wanted to keep up with my friends, family and new people that I meet.

Doing:

• Homework for college and following classes.
• Following lessons from my Russian course, and maybe even completing it in those two weeks.
• Completing every task of my part-time work for my own company.
• Doing volunteer work.
• Playing chess.
• Going out.
• Reading books and listening to audio books.
• Going to the gym.

Some of these things I obviously have already been doing, like going to college seems a logical thing to do for a student. Also going to the gym is something I have been doing for about half a year now, so that’s already a habit of mine.

I’ve never done volunteer work. I am going to do it in the local library, where they give Dutch lessons to people who do not speak the language very well yet. The group I will be teaching has the language level “A2”, which means that they can only speak and read basic sentences.

Usually I never go out. That’s why I will use this two week challenge to meet up with a couple of friends and go outside the house more often than I did before. Because usually I’d meet friends online while playing a game or something like that.

Reading books is a thing I’ve been doing in the train for a while now. They were mostly eBooks on my phone. But now I want to change things up and use the time that I have while walking and riding my bicycle by listening to audio books.

Challenges:

• Talk to a stranger in public.
• Make a bit of money.

I wanted to set a couple of challenges for myself to come out of my comfort zone. Those two suited me best, although I don’t know if the second one is easy to achieve. I want to talk to a stranger to get out of my comfort zone, because it’s not a common thing to do in the place where I live. Also I’d like to make (a little bit) of money. Why? Because I have to do things that I normally don’t in order to achieve that. Maybe help someone out with a problem they have been facing. At least I’d have to get into contact with people who have something I can do for them and doing that is also a step outside of my comfort zone.

I hope that you all liked me sharing this challenge and maybe I can be of an inspiration to you guys and girls. I’m planning on reporting on my challenge daily in the form of a 3-day blog, so it’s easier to read up on my progress and my struggles.

Find part one here:

Part one of my challenge to adapt to a new lifestyle

How a 20 year old changed his lifestyle, while being a software developer and entrepreneur. was originally published in royhonders on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.