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We have been here on earth for thousands of years. (A very cliche introduction, nevertheless..) And we still haven’t figure out a lot of questions. One of which is how to get things done.

We have come up with a lot of theories and practical tips to get things done. In this blog alone, I’ve highlighted a lot of tools to help. Some worth mentioning here are :

• 80/20 Rules of Pareto
• 2 + 2 – 1 = 3 Formula
• Living Life 2 Things At A Time
• 2 Steps To Realizing Your Dream
• The Secret to Washing Dishes

Still with all these tools, we find ourselves not really able to complete our task, or our life is still chaotic. Are the tools not effective? or the tasks are just too many and too hard to complete? Why is it, even with all the tools and tips, we still cannot be organized and finish all tasks assigned?

I seriously think that I have an answer for those questions. The fact is – all those tools were created by people, 80/20 Rules were created by Pareto, Haiku Production were introduced by Leo (If I’m not mistaken). They are of course prove to be very effective for them.. not necessarily for us.

Wait a minute, I’m not saying that we should abandon all those tools. I’m just saying that we should actually develop our own system based on these esteemed tools.

Adapt those system into our life. Make it personal by reanalyzing back the tools and make our own conclusion and formula.

Example 1 : 80/20 rules stated that we should identify the 20% vital task to do first and focus on that one. No flaw to that theory. But maybe some of us are stuck with task that all 100% of them are of equal importance. How then can we choose the 20%?

Maybe for these guys, 80/20 rules must be adjusted to include delegation of work. Delegate some of the tasks to your colleague or subordinate. Maybe improve the system by incorporating other tools like the snowballing effect (Finish the small task first and when it’s done, use the allocated resource to finish the bigger ones)

Simpler example 2 : You know you are supposed to jog daily for one whole month for it to become a natural habit. But you notice that there will always be time that you will not jog.. Even though you keep reminding yourself of the formula.

For you, I would suggest you to come up with a formula on how to restart your habit, instead of formula to force sticking to one. Make it so that if you didn’t jog today, there is a system you already established that will motivate you restart jogging tomorrow. It is so much better than you become frustrated for not being able to form a habit even though one year has passed.

Conclusion – Tools are tools. What make them work is actually you. Nobody else. And for them to work exactly like you want it, you must be able to manipulate or redesign the tools specifically for you.

– I wonder –
Do you agree?

——— Personal Note ———
I am actually in the procecss to form the habit of waking up early. Earlier at least 🙂 But somehow it is very frustrating when sometimes you just wake up late. These frustration for me is quite dangerous, because in time, I may be giving up the whole idea just to avoid being frustrated.

I then choose to construct my own system to restart the habit. How I do that is quite complex to be written here, but suffice to say that it work. Everytime I woke up late, I will just smile and say to myself “Tomorrow then” 🙂 No frustration at all…

Photo credit : D’Arcy Norman