Upcoming work

I have a few days to ramp up my Japanese skills. This coming Wednesday and Thursday I will be doing Japanese-English interpreting for about 7 hours each day. I was told it was for a corporate get-together at a local hotel rather than an official conference or meeting, so that should be easier. However, I still have to do some reading and listening in Japanese over the next couple of days to freshen up, so to speak. The money I will get paid will be worth the time at least.
At nearly $50-60 dollars US per hour this may be the best paying short-term job I have ever gotten. But I suppose there are not many Japanese speaking native English speakers who have interpreting experience in business affairs living around Beijing.
But it comes at a good time, because I need the money! I will probably be looking for a new place to live soon, I need to pay for a trip to Hong Kong and a new visa. And if I am serious about taking the CFA exams this year, I have to pay for test registration and the exam itself. The books are paid for as of now.
My study has been hampered by several factors: laziness, messing around, poor math skills, other business, wasting time, and occasional apathy. The key to success, more than anything, is overcoming my own bad habits and studying diligently.
I have family and friends whose inspirational stories make me feel like I can do it. It's just a matter of making myself do it. finding the drive deep down inside. I also easily get sidetracked by a number of other interesting things I want to do.
I always have things I want to do, that has never been a problem for me. It's focus. How do you get yourself to focus on one thing when there are a thousand other interesting things to do and I want to do all of them.
One thing is maybe to look at the ROI. ROI is a finance term short for Return on Investment. Of all the things you can do, how do you choose what to do? If you look at the returns you get for investment of your resources such as time and energy, then you may be able to make the choice that maximizes the return for your efforts and time. That return could be a big payoff in money, or it could be joy and happiness.
However, as I have learned from my experience in finance. The potential returns are counterweighted by the risks you take and costs. There is opportunity cost as well as risks that your efforts may go unrewarded or won't pay off as you hoped.
That idea makes life exciting to me. Making choices is fun and exciting if you have tools to make good decisions with and you are getting rewarded for making good decisions. If you are making decisions like a crap shoot in Las Vegas, and don't know what you are doing, and bad decisions lead to more and more troubles, then you probably start trying to avoid making decisions.
One reason I have studied logic and philosophy and a number of self-help books, as well as finance, is to help me be a good decision maker. I wonder if I was paying any attention while I was reading all that material? We'll see...