I was cleaning my house yesterday. Well it has been left for quite some time so there’s a lot to clean. And it is very hard to keep that motivation up when there’s so much to do.

What I do is this..

I started with my bedroom. As always there will be things that I need to move from my room to another room. Maybe a travelling bag which was supposed to be in the store. Or my MP3 cds that were supposed to be kept in the car.

Here is where I learn something about sustaining motivation. I noticed that I can easily lose motivation if I immediately bring the items to its place. For example, if I found the MP3 cds in my room, and immediately brought them to the car, I will usually be more tired and often decide to postpone the whole cleaning to another time.

So I come up with a new system. When I clean the bedroom, I will just leave all the items to be removed from the room just outside the door. I just pile it up there. And when I finished with the room, I will start clean the next room and move the items to another room while putting a few of the items in its rightful place through out the process.

By the end of the day, I have cleaned the entire house, and all the items are put in place 🙂 (My proudest moment)

Conclusion – So this is my theory. When you are working on something, put all other works outside the door. Just a few cm outside. It can pile up to be a mountain of stuff but that shouldn’t bother you because you are working on this side of the door.

If you entertain every additional work or those minor minor things that comes up while you’re working, you are already losing your motivation.

Our attention and concentration is not infinite. Just like money, if we spend it, we will be left with less money. Period. There’s no way a person who does 100 jobs in 24 hours will have better quality that a person who does 50 jobs in 24 hours.

– I wonder –
How do you keep your motivation sustained?

———– Personal Note ———–
As requested by Fairuzniza, I attached two very recent photos of Zafirah 🙂 My new motivation in life

This is taken on 1st of June, She still had some level of Jaundice. But I just love this one

I think that should be her first smile ever in her life 🙂

Photo Credit – Tifotter

It’s been a while since I last answer questions from readers . A new friend of mine, Evan was discussing with me on an interesting topic, which is on how to stay motivated.

Basically Evan knows what he want and he wants to take control of his life, trying to get back in shape, get better grades and be more organized. However, the problem is after a while of working on that, he will lose motivation and everything’s back to square one. To start back the whole routine is very tiring. Where did he go wrong?

I’m not going to list down motivational tools. Instead I’m planning to go into an area not popularly approached but nevertheless equally important, which are the rules of staying motivated. Yes, there are rules.

How many of us actually read motivational books and blogs, or go to seminar and feeling all fired up to start gaining control of our life, when suddenly after a few weeks, we return back to our original condition, unmotivated and lazy.

I know I have.

This is what I think happened. There are two hidden rules in all motivation. Allow me to explain.

Rule 1 : You must want to feel motivated

All motivation require us to actually want to change. But what happen when we don’t actually like the feeling of motivated itself. Everything is already a failure even before we start.

You must first want to feel motivated. Not to change but to be motivated. Believe me, everything will change once you have that desire to feel motivated.

My personal suggestion is for you to have a mantra set in your mind. “I want to feel motivated” or “I love being motivated” should do the trick.

Rule 2 : Never Use Motivational Tools When You Are Not Complying Rule 1.

This is quite complex. But let me give you an example. Has any doctors ever told you that when you were prescribed with antibiotics, you should finish all of the medicine even though you are cured. Why? Because, by not finishing your antibiotics, the virus/germ will only be weaken and not completely killed. If they survived, they will become more immuned to the medicine. And that’s why sometimes you will need a stronger dosage of medicine.

The same goes to motivation. This is our medicine. However, if you really don’t want to feel motivated yet you still read those motivation stories for example, you will definitely not be motivated afterward since you just don’t want it.

In the end, slowly you will feel that these stories no longer work to motivate you. And you will start looking for other means to motivate you.

My personal suggestion is to only read motivational stories when you really want to be inspired. Don’t read them and then just procrastinate things. Do this : Whenever you read any motivational stories, get up immediately and do something about it. Don’t be immunized by not taking action immediately.

Hopefully this will weaken the virus inside 🙂

– I wonder –
What are your personal tips to stay motivated

——— Personal Note ———-
I always like to use the sand in a cup of water approach. Sand will always settle down at the bottom of the cup. We have no choice but to regularly stir the water to get the sand occupying the water volume evenly. The same goes to motivation and other things in life. It’s one of those thing that we must keep doing. The sand doesn’t stay float forever.

Oh ya, to everyone reading, feel free to contact me should you have any questions. I’m not claiming I will have the answers, but I will definitely offer my best insight on them 🙂

We all have been there. The life in which all you should do is actually study study study. It a strange new world where every problem seems to be the most critical problem on earth. And every seconds seem like torture but when you think about it, it was the best time of your life.

However in this life (student life), you will faced some of the most challenging task in life. Hopefully these words will help you cope with the situation.

Listed below are 10 of the most common situation faced by students. And of course its corresponding responses. Just say it out loud when you are stuck in that situation.

When you are feeling lazy to study

• If I don’t study now, I will have to do it later. At least now.. I will have more time and can study with minimum concentration

When you are doing something else besides studying

• This isn’t helping

When you fail an exam

• Wow.. failure sucks. Now where exactly can I improve

When you succeed

• I will definitely remember this feeling. Now where exactly did I do right?

When you are shy to ask questions in the classroom

• Years from now, I most probably won’t meet these people again my entire life. What they think won’t matter then, and should not matter now.

When you have that butterfly in your stomach just before the exam

• I’ve done what I can, and I shall fail or succeed entirely up to my preparation. Nothing else. So get off me you silly butterfly

When you are so busy with your study, it overwhelm you.

• Stop right there.. Breathe. Let me do this one at a time. In the end, everything will be done.

When you have so much free time

• This is not supposed to happen. Either I am extremely efficient or I’m missing 2 or 3 classes

When you think you just can’t study anymore.

• I better rest. There is no such thing as information overload, it’s just that I’m tired. My brain is better than this.

When you have so many problems, you think your head is going to explode

• Millions of galaxy, each with millions of stars, each possibly with a series of planet orbitting, and assuming one of the planet may have millions of people like earth, that will total up to almost infinite amount of people, each with their very own problem. How can my problem be any bigger than this.

/end list

– I wonder –
Any other situation I might miss?

——— Personal Note ———-
I think you would agree that distraction work at its most efficiency during studying time. Suddenly there’s your favorite songs playing in the radio, or friends coming to chat. I’m not sure why, maybe because deep down we always prefer to do other things besides studying.

During my time, my only distraction is Internet Relay Chat (IRC). I actually almost fail one of my subject due to this. Anyway I learnt my lesson the hard way 🙂

People always complain that somehow their workload seems to be endless and not decreasing in number. There are always files or documents to do on the work table, and even though we spend a lot of time to finish the work, the files and documents doesn’t seem to be reducing in number, instead they are increasing.

I’m not going to venture about prioritizing or the Pareto application. Instead I am more interested in the how to motivate ourselves to clear our desk by the end of the day.

This is what I do for motivation

The secret to the motivation actually lies in this mathematical formula

This is the formula that describe why our work will always pile up. Simply, we have 2 works, and 2 more works were given, but we just finish 1. So logically tomorrow we will start the day with 3 works.

Yes, this is very logical. Everybody knows this. But the logical truth is, if we don’t finish up more work than the amount of extra work given, it will definitely pile up each day. No other secrets

We can learn everything there is to know about getting things done or GTD, but all those theory will not reduce that mountain of work if we do not finish more work than the amount of work added.

So if later, you are not interested to finish up your work, or maybe that procrastination gene kicks in, remember the formula given.

I leave the other two formulas for you to decipher

– I wonder –
How do you motivate yourself to finish the work?

——— Personal Note ———-
I spent most of the working time in the mill, however I know that back in the office, my mountain of paper work are there waiting and smiling. I’m still working on a more efficient system on how to finish the work. Currently I dedicate my 4pm especially to do the paperwork.