Today I wrote two entries – “Do Not Throw Away That Cluttering Mindset, Here’s Why” and this personal rant.

A friend of mine just forwarded me this youtube clip of Wimax. It was supposed to be aired on TV for Aidilfitri, but I don’t think it was aired. Since it is still Aidilfitri mood here in Malaysia, do enjoy the clip.

Spoiler (Only read this when you finished watching and do not get the message)

It is a story of a guy who left his hometown to go work in the city. He kept in touch with his folks via video calls etc. However due to the unstable internet connection, he missed the last message from his mother. He was supposed to return to “Muar” (His other hometown) this year. After all the macho pose, he was informed by the neighbour next door that he had returned to the wrong hometown. Funny.. 🙂

Summary – Cluttering mindset is the foundation of ideas
Yes, you heard it right. This is not an article to encourage decluttering. Instead it is meant to encourage exactly the opposite – to clutter. For the record, I am still a fan of decluttering. This is just to show how the act of cluttering can be beneficial if done correctly.

Introduction to Decluttering / Cluttering

For the benefit of readers who are clueless as to what is decluttering, it is when you clear your computer table leaving only three things; keyboard, mouse and the monitor. Everything else is just clutter and can be placed elsewhere.

If you practise the concept of decluttering religiously, you will start to create this mindset that everything need to be decluttered, from your kitchen to your wardrobe. This article will illustrate why you still need to have a cluttering mindset.

To understand cluttering, try to do the opposite of clearing your computer table. Put everything in your room on the computer table. Even though you organize everything into alphabetical order, it is still considered as clutter.

Why Clutter Is Just As Important As Declutter

Now that the introduction of the idea is out of the way, allow me to explain why we should not cast away that cluttering mindset just yet.

Cluttering mindset is the foundation of ideas

I’m sure you are familiar with the word “Brainstorming”. It is when you set a segment of your meeting to throw every ideas that come to mind even though it is illogical. They are not to be debated, at least not yet. If you’re interested, I actually had written a sketch script that describe accurately how a brainstorming session should be run.

The problem with decluttering is that we tend to throw everything out the minute they are put on the table. Brainstorming doesn’t work that way. Every single ideas are important even though it doesn’t make any sense.

For example, if a team of rocket scientist brainstorm, one idea that may come up is to go to outerspace by building a 20km high building and provide an elevator to go up. This may sound silly, but the idea can actually be further refined. I recently saw a documentary in History Channel that research is being done to develop the strongest fibre to be the foundation of space elevator. This very idea if worked may be refined from that silly tall building idea.

Once you have put everything on the table, I mean every single idea you can squeeze out, then only you refine everything and try to make use of the illogical ideas to maybe spark another new ideas. That’s my friend is how all the professional thinkers are doing it.

Conclusion – A has 2 ideas, B has 100 ideas. Let say 50% of all ideas are useless. A will only have 1 useful ideas but B will have 50 useful ideas. You do the math. (Wait, that is the math)

– I wonder –
What are your most illogical ideas in your life? (This should be interesting)

———– Personal Note ————-
When I was a child, I was obsessed with Transformers (The cartoon). My first dream was to collect enough money for me to construct my own robot with aluminium foil etc. The idea was obviously illogical, but from that idea my brothers and I started cutting paper and build our own paper transformers and toy vehicle. I think DaPocket managed to sell his for 20 cents 🙂

There! a story of how brainstorming can actually makes money 🙂

Photo Credit – Jacob Botter

Summary – Cats Meow & Dogs Bark

The Problem

Have you ever had that day where you just don’t know what to do, despite the mountains of things you can do? It worsen when you actually know what you are supposed to do but you just don’t want to do it. Am I making any sense here?

For example, you know you have a blog entry to write, the ideas are pouring but when you switch on your laptop, you just end up spending your day browsing through millions of other blogs or socializing via twitter instead. At the end of the day, no entries were written. And there goes another day of your life.

This is NOT another case of procrastination. It’s more like doing everything else except for the one thing you need to do. It happens to me all the time and I’m sure it happens to you too. Can I ask? How do you overcome it?

Ths Solution

This is how I overcome the problem everytime I encounter it.

I am often overwhelmed with a thousand things to do, like researching, visitting others’ blogs, stumbling interesting articles etc, when all I really should do is write an article here in Lesson In Life. What I will then do is to rediscover what my immediate role at the time.

There is only one rule to this technique – There should only be one role to play at any time.

If I am a blogger, I should be blogging.. Period. Something is definitely wrong if I declare myself a blogger when I’m not even blogging. Realizing this immediately gives me more focus and clarity to write. Try it, you will be amazed that something so simple can do wonders.

The same goes to your career. Something is definitely wrong if you are a fireman but you like to show off how brave you are by creating fire.

Or if you are an assistant manager but the manager has more work on his table than you.

Conclusion – if you are a blogger, you blog. Everything else should take second place. Apply this to everything in your life, and your life will be so much simpler.

– I wonder –
If you can pick any one role to accomplish something today, what will you be? A blogger? A kitchen slave? A student? or others?

——— Personal Note ———–
What I usually do when I am supposed to be writing

• Stumble new interesting entries (Befriend me)
• Check out what’s top stories on Digg (Befriend me)
• Explore Facebook (Befriend me)
• Reading Twitter (Follow me)
• Replying emails (Shoot me an email)
• Read forums
• Visit others’ blogs
• Analyzing the blog’s statistic
• Reading my RSS Feed
• Tweaking the blog

Photo Credit – Striatic

Summary – Your conscience

Imagine you are jungle trekking with a little boy. This boy is holding the compass and only he knows where the north is. You are supposed to go north all the way.

After a few minutes walking, you ask the boy, “Where is the north?”

The boy shows you the direction, “This way sir.”

You see that there is a mountain in front of you. You then suggest to the boy, “We are going around this mountain.”

The boy starts wondering, “Maybe the direction is not important, it’s the destination.”

After another hour, you ask the boy for the direction. And when he showed you the direction, “It’s a 12 o’clock sir”.

Feeling a bit bored with all the trekking, you decide to have some fun. You said, “Instead of 12 o’clock, why not we walk in the 11 o’clock direction. What harm could that slight deviation do?”

From your answer, the boy conclude that a slight change of direction is acceptable as long as you know where you’re going.

Now guys, imagine keep dismissing his answer everytime he answers the whole trip. What will he become?

• He will no longer believe that he is right or that his opinion matters

• He doesn’t even bother to look at the compass when asked for direction

• He may make up his own direction just to have fun

Now imagine that the little boy is actually our conscience. Wouldn’t it be a disaster?

It often start with the smallest thing like a white lie. Also it is usually done with very good intention. We tell lies to protect our loved ones from getting hurt for example. We then tell more lies to cover the previous lies we told. After a while, lying to someone become as natural as everything else in our life. And we are starting to feel that lying is never wrong.

When it reached that level, it’s as if the little boy has totally given up on us.

Now if you would excuse me, I would like to go check on my compass boy and maybe have a look at the compass before going to bed. Hopefully they are repairable.

– I wonder –
Tell any white lies lately? 🙂

———– Personal Note ———–
I just came back from my long Aidilfitri holiday. And as usual, I never feel excited about working after a long holiday. It’s been a long day and drive so I will leave you with an Aidilfitri photograph of the family (Me, the mrs and Zafirah)

Have a happy Aidilfitri 🙂

Compass Photo Credit – Matti Mattila