Think your day in Advance!

July 28th, 2007 July 28th, 2007
Posted in Books, Life Coaching Entries
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Did you ever watch your colleagues at work about how they start their day? People watching has always been an entertainment for me (..mind you, it’s a great form of amusement especially when coworkers play pretend early in the morning..) and I get a good kick for the laughs that they give me.

I remember this colleague of mine who’s very quirky and gets to be so OC (Organized Chaos, not Obsessive Complusive) in the early stages of the morning. you’d find him rushing sometimes at the start of the day setting up his laptop in his desk, and in a minute he’ll be going through all the files in his desk and as if he found the file that he needed, he’ll leave them where he picked them up and then go to the pantry to get his coffee… When he goes back to his chair, he’ll pick-up the newspaper and starts reading the “entertainment” section. After which, he’d open his internet explorer and browses through his Friendster account, hotmail, yahoo mail…and then opens up his MS Outlook, browsing through his emails… and then finally gets his planner and then writes down his To Do List… and by the time he starts his first task for the day, its almost Lunch Break… And I think to myself “WOW!” What a way to be Organized and Productive!! NOT!! (I’m sure you’d think I wasn’t productive as well coz I just watched the whole morning.. well that was part of my plan for the day… I planned to have fun …)

But you see it is such a waste of time, not only for the person doing it but you are robbing the company of time and production as well! (I’m a Manager, I’m concerned about the company, Not!!! Well I’m concerned about the figures and the pressure to deliver them on time.. that’s for the company too…)

So this guy is supposedly a support for our team and clearly he supports me on getting my laughs everyday. But then again, seriously speaking, the goals of the company will not be met with this kind of time management. Tendencies will be the deliverables will not be given on time. I’m sure you’ve witnessed a lot of people in your work area who pretend that they are busy to seem that they are working hard. But looking at it objectively they didn’t do squat.

What I normally do when a day comes is that, I visualize my TO Dos the night before. What clothes to wear for the next day, what tasks to accomplish and achieve for the next day. What would be very effective is before you close your eyes and doze off to sleep is to write down your To Do List and rank them in terms of priorities; targeting the most difficult task first thing in the morning so that everything else will be peanuts for you for the rest of the day.

And as you do this, you will notice that your day becomes smooth and easy. We’d be more productive and efficient that it gives us more fulfillment and happiness for the day.

But don’t get me wrong I PRETEND as well, usually nearing the end of the day where I flip through my files pretending to read them, but actually just having fun putting them from one place to another and just return them to where they previously are. Or pretend to call for a meeting but just gossiping and talking about each other’s life. You see I have the luxury to do this because my major tasks for the day have been accomplished already…

So think in advance… gather your thoughts, organize your actions in your head for the next day and as you wake up and prepare for the day, you are already programmed to accomplish what you want …

The 18/ 40/ 60 Rule:

July 22nd, 2007 July 22nd, 2007
Posted in Life Coaching Entries
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Have you ever heard of this rule? Well again, stumbled into another chapter of a book (that I’ll be recommending soon once I’m done with it…) and it gives me a laugh because I find it funny at the same time so painfully true…

It goes something like; when we were 18 we worry too much about what other people thinks of us, and so we do the dumbest things (or not do what we like) just to fit in and appear to be cool; and when we reach 40, we don’t give a damn what anybody will think of us; then we reach 60, where we find out and realize that nobody’s been thinking about us at all. tragic…

Funny isn’t it? I think I might have been in that kind of crap when I was younger and, ok ok, most of the time, frankly because I wanted to please my boss, my company, my family, my friends and maintain a reputable status in society. We become very self-conscious, very restricting and watch ourselves all the time coz we don’t want the people around us to think otherwise and destroy the reputation that we’ve built.

(say it with me) its becoming so tiring already and sometimes we just want to scream and shout, dance the silly chicken dance, and laugh out loud and not to give a damn about what other people will think!! And just be who we really think we are, the way we should be…

But this might come as a surprise for you, people around us doesn’t really think of other people that much because they are also busy worrying about what other people will think about them…

Of course we pass on judgments, we build impressions toward people the way we see them.. and these people also build judgments and impressions towards us that we don’t like.. and we in turn pass again judgments and impressions towards people that we don’t like.. and people that we don’t like pass judgments and impressions towards us…. and if they are really thinking about you at all..they are wondering what you are thinking about them… Ya dah..ya dah..ya dah.. see its a freakin vicious cycle and we are all caught up in it…

So why do we keep allowing ourselves get tangled up in that dumb cycle, where if we look at the results, it is not even giving us any good results. It is really a big waste of time.. and it is not helping us achieve the goals that we intend…

I have been adopting a very simple saying, a motto if you will, and I am gonna write it down in my slum book, together with my crushes, favorite color, favorite food, what do I want to be when I grow up, etc.. etc… and it goes something like:

“WHAT OTHERS THINK ABOUT ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS..”

Let’s think about it, we waste time worrying what other people think about us and jeopardizing what we really want, sacrificing our happiness, disregarding what really matters in our lives… where we can make ourselves busy by thinking about how do we achieve our goals, how do we hit that target, how else we can attain a bigger sale, how we can be able to get that guitar lessons, how we can add our skill set.. and basically how do we become successful doing what we really like…

Besides trying to please and patronizing other people is way so NOT cool anymore and in this new generation, people wants REAL people… that’s why reality TV is such a HIT.. get it?