I am thinking of starting an experiment today. An experiment that if done correctly, we will achieve more in one day compared to what we achieve in one whole week. It’s very easy and I’m sure we can all benefit from it. Ready?

Task 1 : Family
Take note of the time and set your alarm in your phone to 1 hour from now. Answer this question – What two things we can do now (not later, not tomorrow, but NOW) to show to our family how much we love them?

Quickly figure out the answer to that question. To kickstart the experiment, here are some examples of answers :

• I should call my mother over the phone and really talk to her, asking her this and that
• I will write a very short letter addressed to all my family members and put it in writing of how much I love them

There are only 3 rules to the experiment

• We can only do 2 things for each questions, so it is very important to choose action that will have the best impact.
• The answers must be in term of action, not something vague like “I want to be nicer to my parent” or “I will make them happy”. It is also very important that the action is an action we can do immediately. For example, if you’re on a plane, write a thank you card maybe
• You have only 1 hour to finish your task. When the alarm goes off, do the next task. Of course if you finish the first task in 5 minutes, you can choose between straight away do the next task, or wait for your alarm.

Interested? Here are your next task

Task 2 : Spouse / Loved One
What 2 things you can do now to appreciate your spouse?

Task 3 : Career
What 2 things you can do now that will help you be promoted?

Task 4 : Knowledge
What 2 things you can research on the internet now and remember for the rest of your life?

Task 5 : Health
What 2 things you can do now to sweat?

That’s already 10 things done in 5 hours. Not bad! Of course there are more topics to cover and I’m sure you can help me there.

Most of the time, the best way to get things done, is to just plain do something about it. Imagine we spend every hour in our life, doing something that really matters like your answers above (Of course among other things).. That person must be very successful 🙂

– I wonder –
Do you have any other suggestion of questions to be answered and practised?

———— Personal Note ————
Just come back from the mill. There’s a contractor installing gearbox and its corresponding motor. However they left the work unfinished, the alignment is all out. So I have to call up my foreman and work together with him to correct the situation. It’s 1 am and I’m very hungry and tired. Good night everyone

I have countlessly stress that learning is the best way to grow. You should be able to learn new thing your entire life. Take the computer for example, the minute you buy one, you will see newer and better product in the market the next hour 🙂

However I must admit, I too have had quite a rough time during my study. I experimented with a lot of methods to make studying as effective as possible.

I think it would be best for me to share a method I created and I can guarantee you that it is one of the most effective method to study. At least one student would agree with me – My previous self

I didn’t actually have a name for this method. But if I have to name it, I will call it 3 Size Decreasing Method.

Step 1: A4 Sized Notes
The same as every method of studying. It revolves around reading notes. First you will have to copy everything there is to know about the subject on your A4 papers. Let’s take blogging for examples

By now you should have 20 A4 papers of everything there is to know about blogging. Bear with me, It starts from planning, name, hosting, free or paid, registration, first post, theme, widget, about page, traffic, network, advertisement, money making, and many other details.

If you can memorize all that, that would be cool. And this method will no longer be needed to help. However, if you can’t remember every details. Try step 2.

Step 2: Half of A4 Sized Notes
Fold your paper into two and tear them into half. You should have 20 half sized A4 paper by now. Great! all you need to do now is to summarize the whole 20 pages into these 20 half page.

The only rule is your handwriting should remain the same size.

You can do however you want, you can categorize the notes, or put it into note form, or just by drawing pictures. It’s all up to you. But no cheating. The objective is to summarize one page of information into half page of information.

The next step is important. Now you must read the entire new notes and with every page you read, try to connect the summary to the original notes on your full sized A4 papers.

Step 3: Quarter of A4 sized Notes
You know the drill. This time summarize all the information from your half sized paper into these new quarter sized papers.

Remember, maintain normal handwriting font size. using the same example – blogging, I would by now have these as my points

• Concept Planning & Goal
• Technical Planning
• Writing Techniques
• Appearance
• Accesories
• Networking Strategies
• SEO
• Traffic Optimization
• Miscellaneous

I guess I just need 1 piece of quarter sized A4 paper.

Conclusion – The overall idea is to connect between summaries and the details. By collapsing the datas into summaries, we can expand them at will. And with some practice, all you will need is just to remember the summary and you can elaborate on the expanded ideas effortlessly

I’m not sure if this method is already being used or published by other people. But I can very well say that this is the best method I developed personally and used to study. You are welcomed to try

– I wonder –
You must have special methods to study. Care to share?

——— Personal Note ————
There are a lot of funny methods I see my friends practising. Once when I was in Form 5 (that’s about the age of 17), there was a friend of mine who actually studied at the grave. You see, my school is located very near to this royal grave. And that grave is very well lighted with fans and all.

The most common problem with us is that we believe with all our heart that the key to living is to live in the present. I’m not against the idea since I too believe that is the only way to live. But the problem starts when we were so occupied with the present, we prefer to think that the future always stay in the future and we shouldn’t be bothered with it.

WRONG! The future will become a present to us sooner or later. And the only way we can realize that is by checking the present, which is the future of our past. Confused? Don’t be.. There’s more

1) How much cash do you have now?
Take out all your cash in your wallet and start counting. Check also all the balance in your banks. If you have a piggy bank, count those too. In short, if it is cash, count it and put the number on a piece of paper.

2) How much do you have in term of things?
Do you have a house? a car? a stereo? This is going to be more tedious than counting those coins. You will now have to estimate how much your assets worth at present. Forget about the depreciation or appreciation. Just calculate how much cash will you receive if you sell your assets now.

3) Double up everything
If the total cash you have now is about $50K, and you are now 30 years old, simple maths will tell you that by 60 years old you should have $100K.

Yes, I know that there are a lot of other factors should be considered, such as increment in salary, dividend or interest received etc. If you want to work it out, by all means please proceed. You know your finance better than I do. But logic says that unless something change, that should be the minimum you will get if there are no change in the way you manage your finance now.

Now assuming you will live until you are 80 years old. With $100K in saving, you can only survive if you spend $416 per month. I’m not sure what we can even get with $416 in 50 to 60 years time. Pay the rent maybe?

My point is this, irregardless of the inaccuracy of the calculation, we need to save for the future. And that will not happen if we did not check on our current expenditure and lifestyle. We need to change for things to change.

A good way to start is by working backward. Let’s assume we want to retire with $3000 per month. Simple maths will show that we need to have at least $720K to maintain that monthly expenditure. Now figure out how can we get that $720K

– I wonder –
How much would you like to be given monthly after you retire?

———– Personal Note ————-
I still remember my first piggy bank. At the time it was in the shape of an elephant. I had saved quite a lot of money then. It was about $40. How I knew? I knew because one day I accidentally broke a helmet screen. It belong to my father’s friend. So my father ask me to pay him with my own money.

Last night was scary. I was tweaking the blog when suddenly everything’s gone. The blog is unreachable. Knowing I can’t do anything, I emailed my hosting support and they restored the blog from their backup. Damage? Hm the most recent 2 posts were lost. So I have to repost the entries from my own backup. Comments made by azuwachan and DaPocket were not recoverable

A very good lesson for me… to always backup 🙂

Anyway, today is Sunday. And here in LessonInLife.com, we take it easy on Sunday.. So presented to you are a continuation of creative ads. I just received them via email.

Credit to DaPocket