Summary – 100% may not be the best thing

• To be the perfect husband
• Achieving 100% in all test
• Finishing up all works assigned

I’m sure we had all heard some version of those words.. The fact is we had been bombarded with ideas that the perfect way is the only best way. Being a semi-perfectionist (I know there’s no such thing), I am totally agree with this.

But

Life is all about compromise. We get one thing and we will lose other thing. The best way is to find a balance between the two. When you are a perfectionist, you will more than often will get what you want – Perfection. You will get 100% in all your exams, or you can finish all works assigned without fail. This may lead to promotion, better life etc.

But what can you possibly lose? What will you have to sacrifice?

I’m afraid one obvious answer is that you will suffer more stress in your whole life. That’s sort of the price you will have to pay to consistently be the best in what you do.

Wouldn’t it be better to achieve 90% without any stress at all? Or finish 90% of the works assigned with some extra time to play with your children? or a husband who can’t cook but never fail to eat at home every night.

Perfection is really all about achieving 100%. And there’s only one number to get which is 100. However if you aim to achieve over 90% (not perfect), you have a wider number to aim for. 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97,98, 99, 100. Don’t you agree it will be 10 times less stressful than aiming for 100%?

Disclaimer – Aiming for 10% is also not perfect, but what’s the point of aiming if you are aiming for lower goals. I personally think that 90% is the best way to go.

– I wonder –
Is there any perfectionist in the house?

——- Personal Note ——–
I’m not sure about you. But most of the time, when I am not aiming for 100%, I usually will do better than when I aim for perfection. My studies for example, the more stress I am, the more difficult it usually be for me to study. Do you have the same experience?

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Summary – Help me derive the golden rules of trusting people

A quick recap, yesterday I wrote about how I was cheated because I trust people. In short, A guy drove into my car’s rear bumper and damage it. When asked for repair money, he just said that he didn’t have the money. So I just accept that RM100 (USD33) he offered and believe him that he will pay the remainder that evening. He never answered my phone call.

I kept replaying the whole scenario in my mind, and one thing I noticed is that I will most probably be doing the same mistake again. Yes, I will trust him again.

I guess that’s my fatal flaw. Even though I know that trusting people should be exercised with great caution, I still can’t help but giving people the chance to be trusted. I’ve always felt that if trusting each other no longer exist in the world, it will be like sleeping over at your enemy’s house. You just can’t go to sleep. No.. I don’t want that.

Today, I would like to ask you guys a very important question. What’s your golden rule when it comes to trusting people? What’s your criteria to decide whether or not to trust a person.

At the moment, here’s mine :

1) Always trust the family
I’m sure everyone will have different opinion on this. My family however are very very close. And even though we may have different of opinion, in the end, I can always count on them for anything.

2) Never trust anyone when it comes to money
This rule is just established immediately after the incident. Money, unfortunately can cloud our judgment and most of the time brings out the worst of us.

/end

As you can see, it’s not very well developed yet. But I’m hoping your feedback will help. I’d like to know what’s your golden rules on trusting people. Care to share?

Photo credit : Makelessnoise

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Yesterday was quite a day. I was in Kuala Lumpur sending my wife for medical checkup. She is now on her 7th month by the way.. 🙂 So as usual I drove back to my place very early in the morning.

Guess what, when I was at the toll in Senawang, a car rammed into my car’s rear bumper. That car’s driver pleaded to me that he only has RM100 (equivalent of USD$33). A mistake done, I, in the rush of going to work, decided to trust the guy when he said that he will repay the balance of the cost of repair later in the evening. We switched phone number, and as predicted, that guy just won’t answer my call until now.

It was still an exciting morning. Just after the guy drove away, I drove my car for about 2 or 3 minutes when suddenly I saw smoke coming out from my car. The temperature indicator had also shoot out to the maximum. It’s still very early in the morning, 6.30 am to be exact.. I was thinking to myself, “that’s another RM300 – 400 gone”.

To cut things short, I let the engine cool down, and went to the nearest petrol station to fill up my bottles of water. Fill up the dried radiator with water and drove to a car workshop. The foreman checked and found out that my radiator was actually fine. It’s only the hose that was leaking. Fixed that at RM50 only. And off I went to work. I arrived at the mill at about 9.30am.

Lesson Learnt From Yesterday

• You abide with traffic rules doesn’t mean you can’t get into an accident.
• In the case of car accident, try to ask for Identity Card number or name. (I don’t even think the name given to me is real)
• Don’t trust people easily. If you’re not at fault, just go together to a police station.
• Always check water in the radiator before travelling
• The hose leak probably a sign that other part of the radiator will leak too. It has been about 8 years since the last change. Change a complete set. (Preventive maintenance)
• Always have spare bottles of water in the car.
• Try to know where the nearest workshop in places in your travelling path. Fortunately I know, and I can go there fast before any damages done.
• Be active. The workshop actually opened at 8.30 am, I however called the owner and he helped by opening it early at 8am.
• Always be thankful..

– I wonder –
Ever been in  a similar situation

—— Personal Note ——–
Somehow I feel very fortunate that the accident happened. I learnt what to do in the case of accident. The car also overheated at the city area which make it easy to find water and workshop. Imagine I got stranded in the remote area.

When bad things happened to you, all you can do is try to look at it in the more positive way. It helps..

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LessonInLife’s Lucky Draw Update – 5 more days to announce the result. A message to all subscribers via email, you still need to comment on this post to enter. And when you do, you will be automatically given extra 10 entries.

Other participant who wish to have more chance of winning, can do so by subscribing via email. That’s 10 extra entries for you. Good luck! 🙂

Summary – Custom made tools

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

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