I broke one of my own cardinal rules this weekend, and bought a piece of software based on a recommendation, but without looking into it first.

Bad mistake.

Luckily it wasn’t too expensive ($100) and it reminded me that no matter what ANYONE says about a product or service, check it out yourself before buying.

In short, the software pretty much ‘did what it said on the tin’, but the kicker was what it didn’t tell you. It wasn’t open source (by the nature of it, I had assumed it would be open source  – and nothing on the site said it wasn’t – my bad). Pretty much straight away the attitude of support was questionable, there was little documentation, and after a couple of days of major frustration i asked for a refund.

“We don’t do refunds” was the reply. Aha.. Looking deeper there was actually no user agreement or privacy policy, and a few other things that didn’t quite add up. Hmmm, maybe I’m paranoid but encrypted software with unique license key for every website, and with no proper user agreement or privacy policy smells distinctly fishy – I dropped it like a hot potato.

Valuable lesson re-learned. Could I fight for a refund ? Yes I could, but frankly I just haven’t got the time and ultimately it is my fault. I should have checked first.

So it’s cost me $100, but I get a sneaky feeling it may have cost me a lot more had I actually used the software.

So back to the headline.

Do your own research.

Somebody else’s opinion may be valuable as a guide, but it can never replace your own work.

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	joshtrist Do YOur Own Research !!! http://joshtrist.com/7xe
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We are getting so used to having instant answers to everything, that when we can’t find what we need, the frustration levels (actually stress levels) go through the roof.

Sometimes, it is better to just put whatever the issue is to one side and come back to it later.
One of the ways I found a long time ago to keep the stress levels down, is to always have a plan ‘B’ for all the things you’re doing.

I’m a stickler for timekeeping (or is that called being OCD these days…) If I have an appointment for 10AM, I’d rather be an hour early than a minute late. I believe this is respectuful to whoever you are meeting, but I’d say that only 1 in 10 appointments that I have, actually happen at the set time – even when I was interviewing people for jobs!

This used to get me very hot under the collar until I realised that actually all I was doing was making myself more stressed.

This is when I moved to my plan ‘B’ approach -

If something doesn’t happen when I planned it to, I make sure that there are half a dozen other things that I can do while I’m waiting. It makes no odds whether I’m seeing the doctor, or putting up a website. My to-do lists always have at least 2 alternatives things I can do if I can’t get the main thing done.

It really helps me to keep a momentum going and along with being less stressed I end up achieving more in the process.

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	joshtrist RT @prettylink: Plan for less Stress http://joshtrist.com/1ps (via @prettylink)
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