Ernesto Gonzales, MSDA

Category: Blogging

  • Prioritizing Purpose: An Antidote for Overwhelm

    Prioritizing Purpose: An Antidote for Overwhelm

    When overwhelmed, ask your self:

    “If I choose to worry on this, is it taking me closer to my goal? Does it bring me closer to my mission, my calling?”

    If the answer is no, remember that you are likely to have a goal in mind. A mission in life to fulfill. A calling that you know are meant to do.

    Do something around any of them. Any effort while minimal at first, it’s one step closer towards them.

    Sometimes we forget that there are things we can do to better ourselves and meet our goals.

    Lately, my default has been distracting myself with everything and anything but the things that matter to me.

    It is a subtle build up.

    Then, those acts of avoidance turn into a momentary habit. There is the feeling of unease that turns into negative feelings.

    Then I ask myself why I feel like that at times. Funny how that works as I write this.

    Getting a small win is better than being idle in overwhelm.

    While quiet time and relaxation is important to reset, having too much unstructured “free time” without intention can be overwhelming. Almost counter-intuitive.

    When I plan to relax without a plan or set intention for what that entails, chaos starts knocking my door.

    When this happens, I try to be the observer for one second.

    I recall my purpose, my goals, my mission. Remembering them gives me hope, drive, and something to focus on.

    I write this to remind myself that I do have time for the tasks and steps towards my why. If I gave myself permission and do it.

    I need to write a plan of action first for a few minutes. For structure but that’s a personal approach.

    Writing an outline and act on it. It is not exhaustive, the goal is to keep me on task and in sequence.

    My goals are many, one of them is to write more and better. I want to materialize my thinking and connect my thoughts.

    I used to write constantly until I did not. For me it provided many benefits.

    I think the more I started focusing on other endeavors, the less I wrote.

    I focused that energy in other pursuits that likely took me away from my why.

    If you have free time and feel overwhelmed, do a single task towards your why. That can be the best thing you and I did today.

    Embrace the moment and start doing it.

    There’s is no perfect time or setting. You make the time and create the setting that facilitates the thing that drives you.

    Don’t let that “waiting for that perfect time” or “I don’t have time” to do what really matters stop you.

    If you cannot devote 10 minutes to yourself, time management is not the issue. You know what to do.

    On productivity,

    Ernesto

  • Completing My Master’s and Far from The Goal

    Completing My Master’s and Far from The Goal

    On reaching the finish line with my master’s degree and knowing it is just the beginning.

    I have completed all my classes for my Master’s Degree in Data Analytics. It took me one year to finish instead of two. I did not expect to finish it at such pace, and I’m thankful it happened that way.

    All I have left is to pass my last two assignments that are going to be graded soon. One is an ARIMA model for a time series analysis. In this project I got to create revenue forecasts and it was great experience to create the model.

    The second project consisted in creating a Neural Network using a Long Short-Term Memory (or LSTM for short ) model. This is a type of Recurring Neural Network (RNN).

    I hope to create a second model that I can share with you soon. I found the topic very interesting.

    One goal that I have for this website is to start incorporating my GitHub projects in here. The first project is going to be a Random Forest Regression Model I made using Mobile Food Delivery data.

    A second project I will share is going to be a K-Means Clustering Unsupervised Machine Learning Algorithm. This particular project was fun to do and one of my favorites so far. The idea that there are hidden relationships within a dataset and find such clusters or groups was exciting to see.

    In retrospect, it was a challenging program that required me to explore unfamiliar topics. I had to read several articles and videos to understand the topics at a high level.

    I had to become familiar with Python and its different libraries. I used to use R programming and now it seems that I am more comfortable coding in Python than R.

    It made me happy to know that I enjoy coding. Perhaps because to me it feels like a mix of creative writing and problem solving. I am excited on learning development at a later stage.

    I also got to work again with Tableau, my first business intelligence tool. It is intuitive and fast, but Power BI still has its place in my heart.

    Finishing my Master’s Degree was a dream of mine of many years. Doing it made me realize that there is so much to learn and explore.

    This Master’s taught me a baseline, and is up to me to explore what is next. My next goal is to find my niche in the world of data.

    So far I am enjoying a lot from Machine Learning and Neural Networks. I am excited to see what is in the horizon.

    Until next time,

    Ernesto

  • Hi World, this is Ernesto

    Hi World, this is Ernesto

    An introduction on the why behind this website.

    This website is an idea I had in mind for a while. All it was missing was taking the first step. Action.

    What you see today, might not be the same the next time you visit. This website is going to be an ever changing labor of love.

    I will blend a mix of blog posts and projects about business intelligence and data analytics that I will learn a long the way.

    It is going to be a journal about fulfilling a dream of growing into a data professional.

    This is the first post, saying Hi.