If you are reading this, I’m very sure that you and I have the same common goal. We want to achieve more in our life. There’s only one problem though.

There are so many goals to achieve, better career, relationship, attitude, etc that sometimes they are very hard to keep track. Most of the time, we will end up spending more time on only a few areas like career and hobbies while totally neglecting other area like relationship etc.

Trying to maintain a balance between all our goals is really a headache. Planning them is known to even cause nausea and migraine. That is why I come up with this – The most productive one hour in your life.

Basically, it is a one hour schedule where you will set the things to do which will cover all the important aspect of our life. There is only one rule to this tool – You must do every single thing listed. Every single thing.

Let’s start shall we?

Preparation

• Switch off your handphone.
• Switch on your computer and connect to the internet
• Grab today’s newspaper and a timer

The Super One Hour starts now.

1) Knowledge – Read headline of newspaper (5 min)
Read the newspaper. For some this may already be a routine, but for another it is very hard to really sit down and read. For the latter, try reading the headline only. It will save you time. Make sure you know everything that is happening in your country, and ultimately in the world.

Extra mini things you can do :

• Read English newspaper to improve your English.
• Start with the half of the comic page and end with another half. Hopefully it will start your day with a smile and the news will be less depressing.
• Try to give out comments while you read. It will make remembering the details easier. For example “Ah, Malaysia has a chance at a Gold Medal. What’s his name again?”

2) Relationship – Give your loved ones a call (5 min)
Pick up the phone and call your spouse. Even if she is at work, call her. Ask her about her day and try to give a message to her that you appreciate her. You don’t need to be direct and say “I appreciate you”. Nobody says it like that. Say it without actually say it. Maybe you can say “Looks like you are busy, I’ll help later with the dishes.” After you’re done, swith off the phone. there should not be any distraction for the remaining task in this Super One Hour.

Extra mini things you can do :

• Spark the fire. Try to figure out what actually about you that she finds attractive. Use that considerably. If she finds you funnily charming. Be funnily charming.
• Help her with her stress. Don’t add to it.
• A classic snail mail once in a while is always romantic. Try it, she will like it.

3) Finance – Count how much money you actually have now (5 min)
Go get your bank account book, all of them, and start adding up all your savings and cash. Now ask yourself, “is that enough to cover your lifestyle for 6 months if you are suddenly fired from your job?”. This exercise will in a way make us realize our level of financial security.

If you say no to the question (which is usually the case), immediately write on a piece of paper how much more you need and paste it on the wall. From now on, everytime you deposit some money, deduct it from the amount you just wrote. Make it so that you can see how you progress to save that money.

Extra mini things you can do :

• Educate your family that financial planning is everybody’s responsibility (with an extra staring at the one who spends the most)
• Set up a contest to see who can save the most. The winner will win a month of no housechore. That will be irresistable even for me.

4) Social – Email a friend (5 min)
Login to your email account, and choose one friend that you haven’t email for some time. Send him an email saying hi. You can also send out messages to him/her by other means such as facebook, IM and so on.

Extra mini things you can do :

• Schedule to meet your friends at a coffee shop. Never meet your friend with an ulterior motive. One friend had invited me for a drink one day, and I happily went. Apparently he was trying to sell me an insurance policy. Spoilt my evening.
• Set up a text file containing all the details of your friend. You don’t want to be asking the same friend what he’s doing for a living 5 times, do you?

5) Declutter – Cut everything by 10% (5 min)
Choose one item today. It can be anything from your wardrobe or RSS Feed or email. If for example you choose your wardrobe, go through all your clothes, and if you have a total of 100 clothes, decide immediately which 10 are you going to give away. Maybe you can give the clothes to your brothers/sisters.

The idea of decluttering is to reduce or eliminate those that you don’t really need. If you have 3 chairs in your room and you only need one. why not move the 2 chairs to another room.

Extra mini things you can do :

• Look at your room. What is the one eye sore that can be removed. Remove that item for the day.
• Set up a specific place for everything. Place keys at a designated place. So whenever you are in a hurry and you want to look for your keys, you will know exactly where to find it.

6) Career – Sit down and plan your career. (5 min)
One thing about our career or work, is that after a while, everything will look like a routine thing. You wake up in the morning, and suddenly you are in your robot mode. Working that routine without ever thinking on how to advance in your career.

In this Super One Hour, sit down and plan your career. Think what can you do now that will result in a promotion or a raise. Personally for me, if I want to get promoted and noticed by the top management, I will have to pass First Grade Steam Engineer Certificate. Now that I know this, I should plan what exactly I’m going to do to pass that certificate.

Extra mini things you can do :

• Try looking for another job. Go for interview, even if you are not really planning to change your career. At least your interview skill will improve.
• Be more visible to the top management. If you don’t know how to sell yourself, people may not notice all your effort even if you are the best worker ever.

7) Health – Jog (25 min)
Put on your jogging shoes and start jogging for 20 minutes. I once read that in order for the body to start burning fat, you must be running at least 20 minutes. Any shorter than that, you are just warming up. Spend the last 5 minutes to cool down.

Jogging / exercising is also known to have a destressing effect. After all the work you have done before, you will definitely going to need this.

Extra mini thing you can do :

• Try to remember the news you read just now
• Plan your next Super One Hour while running. Which of your friend will you email next, or which life goals are you going to work on.

8] Spiriuality – Meditate (5 min)
You should by now all sweaty and tired. Sit down and meditate for 5 minutes. Just do the most basic meditation. Sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing in and out and think of nothing else. Forget everything you have done before, and try to taste the inhaling and exhaling breath you take.

Extra mini things you can do :

• There shouldn’t be anything else you should do in a meditation.

/end list

Conclusion – You can use my version of Super One Hour. But I recommend that you come up with your own version. One that has your sets of goals and things to do. Maybe you prefer swimming to jogging, or yoga to meditation.

The idea can also be expanded to maybe Super One Day or Super One Week. The possibilities are endless. Enjoy!

– I Wonder –
What other things you would advise one to put in the Super One Hour

Photo Credit – Fabiola Medeiros

Summary – 10 important message to all students

If you can go back in time to meet your past self, What year will you go? And what will you say to him/her. Will you go to the day you get married and stop yourself from marrying? Or will you go to yesterday, and tell your past self what happen today?

Imaginative, yes. But it is still an interesting question to ask yourself occasionally. We have grown wiser over the years and sometimes there is this urge to share what you have learnt to someone else who may very well repeat all your mistakes.

Personally, I will go back to the first day I became a college student. And I will pass these 10 messages to my past self.

1) Backup all your notes in your hard disk.
I graduated from my college with almost no notes from my study. Somehow I lost almost all of them. It’s as if I had never been to one. What a waste. Some of them might not be very useful and relevant but still, I paid for the course, and I had to work hard to pass all of them. They are my asset and I lost half of them.

Word of advice – Scan your paper based note, or maybe snap some pictures of the notes with your digital camera. Don’t forget to organize them properly. You may forget which goes to which if you procrastinate.

2) Choose wisely which textbook to buy
This is another mistake I made when I first started college. I bought every textbook recommended by the lecturers. It turned out, some of them were not being used at all. That money can be put to better use.

Word of advice – Check with your seniors on what books to buy. Some may prove more useful than another. For the less useful ones, maybe you can share with a couple of friends to buy it. More money saved for you.

3) Money to be spent is money left at the end of the month.
I learnt this the hard way. Whenever I get my allowance early in the month, I will usually spend it immediately. I went ice skating (it was a new thing back then) or go to internet cafe. And I was living neck to neck from month to month financially.

Word of advice – Money received early of the month should be used in life and death situation ONLY. For example, you don’t eat, you die. So then it’s OK to eat. You should only use the extra money saved at the end of the month for leisure.

4) Save money for your job hunt
After I graduated, I just realized that I have no money to job hunt. No money to buy newspaper, or to go for interview, or to buy stamps or print resume. I had to work as a gift wrapper at a mall just to pay for my job hunt.

Word of advice – Spending money is fun. I know, I’ve been there. But you will need some money to get you started after college. Start saving some every month. You will not regret it. I wonder how many job interview I had to turn down just because I don’t have enough money to go to the interview.

5) Listen to the lectures the first time
Believe me when I tell you this. For a college student, there are only about 10 hours per day. You are busy going to class, doing assignments and projects, maintaining student organization, sports. And if that’s not all, you are dating a few girls at the same time. Seriously where will you find the time to restudy.

Word of advice – Listen to your lectures the first time. Listen carefully and try to understand them IN CLASS. You will never need to study them again. Imagine the time you saved.

6) Identify your destructive addiction
I was addicted to chatting over IRC back then. I almost failed a few subject just because I couldn’t find the time to do them. That’s me. You may find another form of addiction.

Word of advice – Identify your addiction. It’s actually easy to do. If you notice you are not doing your assignment, you miss deadline, that’s the signs that you are addicted to something. It can be blogging, IM or even stumbling interesting sites. Deal with that immediately. If not, it may be too late when you realized what has happened to you.

7) Enjoy your long holiday
I think I can say this on behalf of everyone that is currently working. Please enjoy your holiday. When you are working, there are no more long holiday for you. The boss will be smiling disapprovingly if you apply for leave longer than 4 days.

Word of advice – Enjoying holiday doesn’t mean that you need to be in your bed the whole time. Do everything you want to. Go travelling. See the world.

8] Try to know as many people possible.
Now that I am working, I found a lot of my college batch. I don’t even know the name of some of them but they know my name and instantaneously we become friends. Imagine if I made the effort to know more of my college batch. I will then have a bigger network of friends which will help each other out in any situation. For example, I can ask them if they are any vacancy in their company, etc.

Word of advice – You don’t need to be best friend to everyone. You just need to be able to say hi occasionally to everyone. At least after college, they will know that you used to study in the same college when you bump into each other.

9) Be in contact with your lecturers.
Your lecturers are basically your real live wikipedia. Whenever you have a problem later in your work, you can always give them a call asking for help. It’s like free lifetime consultation. It’s a priviledge given to you since you are their student. Term and condition apply of course. The TACs are that you must keep in touch with all the lecturers, and more importantly you must be nice to them during your college years.

Word of advice – lecturers are not enemies. They are not going all out to get you. They are actually really good people wanting to teach you all they know. And when you appreciate this, they will appreciate you even more.

10) Enjoy your student life
Word of advice – This is my last message to my past self. It can be stressful, depressing sometimes. You may feel like running to another country sometime from all the boredom. Still, college life is one of the best time in your life. Enjoy.

– I wonder –
What will your message to your past self be?

Photo Credit – Foundphotoslj

About Safety Valves

Allow me to introduce you to the three most important equipments in my mill : The safety valves. Bear with me for a while as I explain them.

There is a boiler in my mill, which generally produces power to run the mill. During operation, the pressure inside the boiler will go up as high as 30 Bar (that is equivalent to 30 times atmospheric pressure). In short, if the boiler pressure continues to rise there is a chance that the boiler will explode. I’m afraid that if that happened Lesson In Life will most probably no longer be updated.

Luckily we have the three safety valves. If at anytime the pressure inside the boiler go up to 32 Bar, the first valve will be opened automatically, releasing the pressure. And if that didn’t reduce the pressure, the remaining two will take over.

Why am I telling you this? I believe that we too need to install some of these safety valves to our heart. It may prove useful someday especially when our negative emotion has reached its critical point.

Why Do We Need Safety Valves At Our Heart

Our emotion is a very powerful element. It can bring both the best and the worst in us, Emotion like anger, hate, frustration can usually build up inside from time to time. And when it reach its critical state and explode, there is a chance that our nearest friend, who may very well be innocent, will be at the receiving end.

How will you feel if your best friend suddenly yell at you in public, cursing and humiliating you? Even if he apologize later, will that make everything better?

The whole objective of installing these safety valves to our heart is to set up a safe place or ways to channel all our feeling. A place that is far from friends and family. A way that whenever you unleash all those emotion, nobody gets hurt.

How to do this? Unfortunately you will have to figure your unique way yourself. When involving emotion, everybody will have to create their own manual. However, if you are still clueless about what to do, here’s a few example to get you started.

Recommended Personal Safety Valves To Try.

• Chat with a stranger on instant messenger. Let it all out. Try to choose one that is on idle. When he get back from toilet, he will have an earfull 🙂

• Create a secret blog. Change the character’s name and tell the world your story. Whether you want to promote the blog or not, it’s totally up to you.

• Yell to the sea. This is classic. If there is no sea, a tree will do. Try not to punch the tree. We are trying to let the pain heals, not creating new pain.

• Do one selfless act. Help a blind crossing the road, or offer to paint the house. If you still not feeling better, do another. Selfless act never fail to make you feel better.

• Run your heart out. Go to a jogging track and run like you never run before. The more intense your emotion build up, the faster you should run. Never run in a busy street though. You might get hit by a car. Even though that may solve one’s problem, don’t.

• Reciting your list of life’s priority. When you do this repeatedly, you will be reminded that what you’re feeling right now is nothing important. There are more important things in life.

• Write to your newspaper. They may reject the letter, but somebody is definitely reading 🙂

Conclusion – It is very important to know how to react when you are overwhelmed by those negative emotion (anger, hate, frustration, etc). Know it by heart so that the moment you are feeling angry, you know exactly what to do. It is also equally important for you to try out that safety valve of yours from time to time.

– I wonder –
What’s your personal safety valve?

——– Personal Note ———
Today, there’s an engineer from the Department of Safety & Health coming for a visit to the mill. He asked me to test out the existing safety valves, making sure that they are working fine.

Somehow personally, I am never worried about machine causing an accident. That very rarely happens. Accidents usually happen due to people working dangerously.

I wrote two articles today, 5 Personal Tips To Improve Shopping List and this personal rant.

For the past few weeks, I have been posting my personal rant on the nature of my slow internet speed and along the way, I was introduced to Wimax as an alternative to the current ISP.

A dear friend of mine had emailed me enquiring more about wimax. In fact the actual question he asked me is what is this wimax I’m talking about.

I realized then that I have never actually introduce and explain what is wimax. No worry, this will be a short post dedicated especially for my friend who may still be confused as to what is this wimax about..

Have you ever been to Starbuck and you see some people actually surf the internet using their laptop? They actually are connected to the internet connection provided by Starbuck. A proper name for it is wifi.

What’s the difference between wifi and your current modem connection?

• Wifi is wireless. There’s no need for any phone line to connect to internet. Basically you can surf the net walking if you want to.
• Wifi is operating at a much higher speed (11 – 54Mb/s) than wired broadband.

Now, why am I descibing wifi when I’m supposed to be describing wimax?

The reason is because wimax is generally similar to wifi. It has about the same super speed BUT the range can be up to 50km instead of wifi’s 0.1km. You can basically go to any town within Malaysia and still get connected to the net at very fast speed (theoretically speaking).

And that’s not the best part. According to this website, the monthly subscription cost for wimax is expected to be below RM100 (USD30).

Another good news from the website is that by 2012, 65% of Malaysia will be covered by Wimax. I bet we are going to see a lot of new bloggers then 🙂

p.s. The explanation is intentionally written generally to allow better understanding of what Wimax is. More information on the company providing the service, Packet One at their website – P1W1Max.com