fantominous

Do you mean something like Kiva or Zidisha? They're quite popular, but there's a very real chance that the borrower can default on your investment. Not a huge deal though, because if you're micro-lending then this is expected. I don't think the interest rates are good either.

Doing it for charitable reasons is fine, but it's not a great way to make money IMO.

GiveWell [1] does a lot of research to come up with their list of recommended charities - ones that will have the highest amount of impact for each dollar donated to them.

A couple times every year I look at their top charity and drop a few hundred dollars on them. IMO if you want to maximize the impact of your donation, you can't go wrong with this approach.

[1] http://www.givewell.org/

> I'm still in school and work full time

That sounds incredibly stressful. Out of curiosity, how many hours do you typically put in at school (attending classes, studying, working on assignments, etc.)? What sort of work do you do?

I've thought about studying for a Master's degree while I work here - always wanted to experience a 'real' education since my undergrad was really disappointing as far as academics were concerned. A top school from a developing country still doesn't come close to an average school in North America or Europe unfortunately :(

I feel this sort of thing depends from person to person - I enjoy programming and would probably enjoy it even more if I were doing it for myself, but I still can't imagine putting in 80-100 hours a week Elon Musk style.

I guess my stamina is just lower than yours.

> I highly recommend Cal Newport's blog as he writes phenomenal content on "deep work", the importance of focus, and how to maximize your "deep work" output. --> http://calnewport.com/blog/about/

I used to read his blog quite regularly in college - perhaps I should go back and reread some of his stuff again.

I found his piece on deliberate practice also worth a read: http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-do...

> Separate out "deep work" (design, coding, problem solving) from "shallow work" (email, social media). Do as much deep work as possible every day, but then fill in the rest with shallow but necessary work.

That's an interesting thought - in general I've noticed writing email and attending meetings tend to require far less mental strain than focused work.

I usually keep one tab with Facebook open, but I simply ignore any messages or notifications during the work period and check them during the 5 minute rest period.

Wow, what sort of job to you work in that's so laid back? :P

I've only seen these sorts of hours in government jobs.