Summary - The Basic of Meditation

Have you ever tried meditation? Do you even know what is meditation? Well there are a lot of advance meditation technique out there. They even have book on it. So when there’s a book specifically about meditation, it usually must be important.

In fact, it is important. Let me get this straight first, you will not be able to fly with meditation, and you will not be able to communicate with spiritual being. The whole meditation is actually just a way for you to restart your day, without having to go to sleep.

Imagine you are waking up early in the morning, you are supposed to be refresh then right? That’s exactly what we want to achieve by meditating, that refreshing feeling. So now you know what to expect from meditation.

Ok, so what’s the rule? is it hard to do? I can guarantee you that it is one of the easiest thing to do. Let me show you the basic of meditation. Believe me, all the advance ones are based on this.

1) Close your eyes
You need to close your eyes to meditate. About 80% of our interaction with our surrounding originates from sight. So by closing the eyes, we should have 80% more success to focus on our meditation

So please… do not meditate while you’re driving kay

2) Breathe
This is it.. the big secret. Meditation is all about breathing. You focus just on your breathing. Feel the air you inhale, try to pause for while then exhale it back and pause a while before you start the cycle

Hear the air going in and out, nothing else. It will help if you don’t speak too

3) When swayed, hear again the breathing
This step is so important, I’m putting it as step 3. Your mind will wander when you meditate. What’s to blog? How long have you been meditating? etc.

Just remember, when your mind wanders, slowly come back to hearing those in and out breathing. No need to get frustrated. That’s just how our mind works.

So how long are you supposed to do this.. Take as long as you want. You will be surprised at the effect afterward

- I wonder -
How do you practise meditation? or calm yourself? Any other tips?

———— Personal Note —————
I know that most of you may already be familiar with meditation. Well, I just started learning about meditation a few years back, and it had done wonders to me. So this article is meant specifically to those who are not familiar with it.

Personally, meditation is a great way to start typing an entry. Things usually will be so much easier and ideas keep flowing from point to point. That’s how meditatin has helped me.

Care to share how it helped you?

Photo Credit - 3amfromkyoto

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Summary - Follow Up

One thing I heard from my manager that I will never forget is the word - “Follow Up”. Not because it is any important but because he almost always scream the word to me.

However that word really is one of the most important word in management. You want to be a manager, you have to practise the word. You start a project, you will need to do follow up even though your project had been 2 years completed. Check through if there are any complication, arising issue, hidden problem etc.

And once you’ve done that, plan your immediate action to address the problem and finetune the whole operation.

Lastly.. can you guess what’s the next thing to do? You guess it right.. Follow up again.

It is with great pleasure however, for me to announce that the above description is actually just an introduction to today’s post.

I actually want to ask you this question. How’s that 2008 Resolution going?

Some had resolve to lose some weight, some may want to start a new hobby. Mathematically speaking, we should actually be 1/12 successful with the resolution by February 1st. So what about you guys? If you can put a percentage on your resolution achievement, what percentage would that be?

A working example - your 2008’s resolution is to save $6000 as your emergency fund. And after checking on February 1st, the amount saved is $400. You can now say that your resolution is now 6.7% achieved. Congratulation!

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this one. The most important step is NOT the percentage of achievement. It can be 0% or 10%. The most important step is actually “FOLLOW UP”. We need to check back every now and then on the progress of our resolution.

The progress can be positive or negative, no matter. But when we follow up we will know our status and hopefully after that we can structure our plan to get back on track.

- I wonder -
What’s your resolution’s achievement percentage?

————- Personal Note ———–
It’s sad, but I have to say that my percentage is almost zero. It’s not a total zero, since some of the resolution involves this blog progress. And I’m quite happy with that now.

So this post will serve as a reminder for me. Warning Letter #1.

Next week will be going to be busy busy busy. I will drive back to Kedah (about 550km from here) and start the preparation for DaPocket’s wedding. I will be official photographer of the event. Need to brush up my skills then

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Summary - Seiton : A place for everything

You are late for work, and to make things worse, you forget where you left your key. You spent about 5 minutes just trying to figure the whereabout. Now that’s 5 minutes a day, in a year you lose about 30 hours just trying to figure out where exactly that damn key.

now imagine you forget other things

There is one tool established by the Japanese that has been used all over the world. People pay hundreds just to learn about it. Seriously, I’ve seen seminars highlighting the tools as their key points. But fear not my friends, I’m going to spill it here for you guys FOC

The tool is called 5S. I’m very sure most of you are already familiar with it. Basically the 5S consists of Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu and Shitsuke. Google them for more info.

But I’m more interested to illustrate how Seiton works. Seiton is roughly translated to Orderliness which basically means “Everything must have its own place”

Look on your table now. There should be a pencil in left side of the table, several pens on the other side. If there is also a cup of evaporated coffee there, you are beyond help (kidding). Anyway, abiding to the principle of Seiton means that you should have a proper place for the pencils and pen. All pens must be put in there, no exception. If you have finished your work, put the pen back there. This way, when you’re looking for a pen, you know exactly where to find it. No other place. That’s Seiton.

Apply that to the important things in your life. You can’t categorize everything, if not, your home will be changed immediately to a warehouse. Just the important things like documents, clothes, small change. and maybe remote control.

Remember there are only two rules to Seiton

• One place for it.. No other place
• Put it back there when you’re done

- I wonder -
Do you have a specific place for your things?

———– Personal Note ————
The reason I come up with this topic is because yesterday, I asked the clerk to find me a document. And guess what they took almost 30 minutes just to locate it.

Previously I had advised them on how to be organized particularly document wise, but I think old habit is very hard to die

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Yesterday was my day off, and I have a whole lot of plans to do, House to clean, bills to pay, Harry Potter to read. I spend almost my whole day doing 2 out of 3. I bet you know which one I ignore. Yes.. House cleaning.

I know no one is going to clean the house if not me. And I know sooner or later, I will be the one who will do it. In the end, I started cleaning my house at around 10.00pm and I’m supposed to go to bed at around 1.00 am. This is a real example of procrastination.

Basically we all know procrastination. It is when we skip one task (which is usually the most important and not fun) to do another task (which is more fun) or not doing any task at all (which is super fun hehe). And it has been illustrated in almost all self-help book on how to overcome it; the whole to-do list, prioritize etc.

I am not going to reinvent the wheel and elaborate on that. I am more interested on how we, the real people, handle it. This is what I did -

• Smaller But Frequent Rewards - After every 5 pages of Harry Potter I read, I will get up and do 2 small things; wash the dishes and take out the garbage.

• Procrastinate Consciously - Sometimes when I really hate the task, and it is not that important. I choose to procrastinate conciously. For example, I have to prepare monthly maintenance report, which is very tedious. My mind go blank already with no mood what so ever to do it. I know for sure that if I force myself doing it, the report will be badly written and I may have to do it again. In that case, I usually decide to procrastinate without any guilt, and play that damn addictive “pikacu” game my wife introduced me. Later, I found out that I am able to do the report effectively for about 15 minutes before I’m out of mood again. At least 15 minutes of work done right?

• Lie to Self - Working under pressure sometimes do give me a bit motivation to overcome procrastinate. Usually I just lie to myself saying that in 2 hours my manager will be coming for tea at my house. I repeatedly convince myself that that will happen. And then you can see I work at 110% efficiency.

I still believe procrastinate is a bad attitude to have. But it will always be there. And sometimes it wins.

So do you guys have any secret way to tackle procrastination? motivate yourself to do things you dont like?

————— Personal Note ————————–
My worst case of procrastination is when I was studying in the university. I need to submit all my reports the next day, and I still had to do 14 weekly reports all in one night. The pressure that night was so overwhelming that I even thought that this might be how people who commit suicide feels like. Not that I have that idea. I finished all the reports in time, but the lecturer failed me. That was one lesson I will remember for the rest of my life.

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