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Thursday, July 23, 2009

# 12 - WORK improvement - Clearing Backlogs

Procrastination In A Evil

Everyone procrastinate! It's a habit that most of us tends to pick up along our way of doing a task, be it at work or at home.

For me, I do procrastinate sometimes. I only realise it when it had turned into a major problem. For example, I delayed sending an invoice to a customer, hence customer took longer time to pay, hence his account showed long overdue, thus his new order will not be processed due to account being blocked!

So, my improvement for today is that I admit this as my biggest stumbling block towards success and I want to change! Today I've managed to clear all the urgent tasks, and try to clear all the backlogs as soon as possible.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

# 11 - SPIRITUAL improvement - Food for The Soul & Mind

MP3 is a very Powerful Tool

All these while if I were to search free MP3 in the net, I would always look for MP3 songs and ringtones. Not once I thought to improve on my search !

What do I mean by improving on my search? It basically means anything we do can be done in better ways, and so does MP3-related activities.

So, my best improvement for today is to upgrade my MP3-Search activity to include info-MP3 which is abundant in the net. There are so many free audios out there which can be used as Learning/Motivation/Guidance towards my Self Growth.

Thus, collecting all these materials in something which I think is a good improvement !

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

# 10 - HEALTH - Importance of Fruits


An Apple A Day.......Keeps The Doctors Away.

How true that saying is, that we MUST eat at least an apple a day. Or maybe some kind of fruits every day?

I remember during my younger days when fruits were considered luxury items. And the goodness of eating fruits has not been taught to me. So I didn't see its benefits and ended up eating more junk food than anyone else on this planet!

Maybe that's the reason why I suffered from all sorts of stomach-related ilnesses when I reached my early 20's. Constipation is one of it. Gastro bla bla is another one. Heart burn etc. Nothing serious but it could have been !

Then I started reading on how to take care of my stomach and learn the importance of fruits in our diet. So since a few years back I've been steadily taking more fruits and vegetables in my diet.

Hence nowadays cleaning my bowels everyday can be considered as 'very smooth affair' - nothing to be ashamed to tell about this because that place,i.e getting rid of stomach waste (toxic) is the source of most diseases.

So, now, my improvement for today is my awareness to inculcate the habits of eating fruits to my young ones. I've been encouraging them to do so since there were little and alhamdulillah so far my kids LIKE fruits very much but I believe there's more room for improvement.

Just that it has been done seldomly and now I want to make it as a routine to ENSURE they eat at least one fruit a day. So, from today I'm going to make sure my kids eat at least one fruit per day....and that will be an improvement for me!


# 9 - WORK improvement - Monitoring System

SIMPLE & CHEAP, YET EFFECTIVE MONITORING SYSTEM







Today I improved on a system which I've used for quite some time.







For the past few years I've been writing and updating my TO DO list on a spreadsheet, consisting of two main columns :







1) the OUT OF OFFICE to do



2) the IN OFFICE to do





































So far this system has been working OK. I would copy yesterday's To Do worksheet into a new worksheet, clear the completed tasks and key-in new tasks. Then at the end of the day I threw the paper away. What a waste!






So whilst thinking on what to improve today, I thought of improving this system. Basically I maintain the layout as above (coz it works OK for now).






What's new is that after I've updated the tasks for today and printed it out, I would.....






1) Fold-in both Left and Right margins (about 2cm each side)



2) Fold into half vertically the whole A4



3) Fold into half again horizontally



4) Hence I have 4 empty spaces to record these 4 EXTRA headings :



i) My Spending for Today



ii) My Journey (for toll&claim&sales report purposes) for Today



iii) My Improvement for Today



iv) My ETC for Today



5) This folded paper then is placed in my shirt's pocket which is easy to reach



6) The To Do Page is ready for filing for future references





Now I wonder, if I were to own a PDA, would I still use this system? Only time will tell.....


UPDATE : 20 Apr 2011

------------------------


Without realising it, I've been using this monitoring system for YEARS now!
I've got a PDA but still using this system (with a few modifications...) because I got so used to it.

Have been improving it bit by bit everyday.


And today I made another improvement - giving each field of to do list a CODE so that I could write the CODE on each To Do paper/document, for easy monitoring and reference later on.


So now it looks like this...









Sunday, July 19, 2009

# 8 - FAMILY improvement - Relationship


Show More Love Towards Thy Wife

This is a simple concept but most people forget about it most of the time.

Today's improvement is that I started to show extra love towards my wife. I know it's very bad of me not to treat her with extra love everyday, but that's what I've done before and I intend to change from today. There are so many things I can do to show I care about her. For example, I should treat her the way I treat my customers, i.e. like Kings.

I should start to be aware about what my wife wants, write it down and try to get it for her whenever I can. I've been neglecting her wants because sometimes I feel that her wants are not as important as my customers' who give me income and profits!

From today I'll treat her better because she is my soulmate, the mother of child, the provider of my needs......so she deserves the best treatment I can give to anybody!

Saturday, July 18, 2009

# 7 - FAMILY improvement - A House is More Than A Roof Over Your Head


HOME SWEET HOME

We normally take things for granted, until we lose it. For example, the home we are staying in.

If our home is still on mortgage, the house is not ours until the last payment has been made to the bank! And only last week I found out that the bank can auction your house without evicting you out first! So, for all you know, the home you're living in has been sold to someone else.

That's a bit off my topic of self-improvement for today but a bit related in the sense that we normally missed our home only when we have gone away on a long trip. Only then we knew that our home has the best bed, the best food and even the best toilet! And what makes our home the best is what we make of it.

Today my best improvement is to make sure that my home is AS TIDY AS POSSIBLE because all these while my home has been in a mess. The space is small yet my things are a lot. So I have a space issue. This can only be solved by installing more cabinets, something which I intend to do not too distant in future.

So today I used the 5S concept which I've just learned in the Wikipidea and made my home a litttle bit more tidy and nicer to look at!






# 6 - WORK improvement - Opportunity Windows

Grab An Opportunity Once You See It !

I was never much of an opportunist. The term itself was so strange for me. Even when I got to know what it means, I always thought that an opportunist is an evil man.

Now I beg to differ.

Why? Because by being an opportunist you are already one step ahead of your competitor. By being one step ahead means that you are one step closer to win the battle - whatever battle it may be.

For example, I encountered one problem yesterday, related to a colleague of mine. The problem was quite big, but I also saw an opportunity if I can solve the problem.

So I proposed a solution to the affected party and the solution will surely benefit both of us, i.e. a win-win situation! The person agreed to my proposal and hence his problem is solved and I had managed to turn a problem into an opportunity and then into victory!

So my best achievement today is grabbing an opportunity when it was presented to me. I like it and I'll make sure not to let any future opportunities be wasted like it used to be.

Friday, July 17, 2009

# 5 - MINDSET improvement - Be A Learner

LEARN FROM THE BEST

It was only yesterday that I was writing about the need to have a SYSTEM to record my improvements. I even created the THREE MAIN areas of my IMPROVEMENT MASTER PLAN, i.e work & personal

But then it crossed my mind that if I'm thinking about it maybe somone else in this world has thought about it before ! After all Self-Improvement is a global subject. Everyone in this world, disregard of their race,religion,background etc, need to improve !

So I started searching the web, clicking a few sites. And I found that there are vast amount of materials/tools/techniques and resources which can be used to help me improve myself.

I didn't have the time to check all the websites but out of all that I've visited, one site is perfect for me - http://www.selfgrowth.com/

I think it is good for me because the founder has been promoting self improvement since 10 years ago and his website is very comprehensive and seems sincere enough to help people who want to improve !

If you are just like me, always wanting to improve yourself, check out this site and join it too.....

Thursday, July 16, 2009

# 4 - SYSTEM improvement - Be Systematic

No System = CHAOS

Yesterday I told myself to improve an aspect of my work. So today I worked very hard to find one aspect of my work which can be improved. I did find an area of improvement and I did it, i.e learn from defeat = learn from competitor who wins.

That was a good improvement, I don't deny it. It deserves a separate posting by itself, so I will post it another time.

However, for the 15th of July, my most important achievement was for me to accept that I NEED A SYSTEM to record these improvements of mine. I should have a system of recognising problems, not just making improvement for the sake of making an improvement.

First of all, I separate my areas of improvement into 2 MAIN AREAS :
i) WORK area
ii) PERSONAL area

By doing this categorisation, my improvement initiatives will be more structured, hence can be presented in a more meaningful way.

Then each category will be further divided into sub-groups so that each area of improvement will be covered comprehensively (i.e. Total Improvement)

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

# 3 - MINDSET improvement - Being Aware

Being Aware of My Daily Improvement Targets

It's the 3rd day of my Self Improvement voyage and I'm feeling great about it.

This self awareness about needing to achieve great things in life makes me always want to do things better, better than what I've done before.

So for today, this self-realisation of my aspiration in life is the achievement that I believe is the best for the day.

Tomorrow I want to improve an aspect of my work which has been a bit stagnant in the recent years.

It's time to get a little bit creative at work !

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

# 2 - MIND improvement - Conquer Fear

Conquering An Old Feeling (Fear of the Unknown)

Today I visited CCRIS at BNM.

What's the big deal with visiting CCRIS? Well, I have always been afraid of the results I might get at CCRIS. Suffice to say that I'd done a silly mistake in the past and I was never brave enough to face it head on.

But today I did it. I went there, put my MyKad in the card-reader slot and printed out a CCRIS report of my financial health.

Guess what? My name at CCRIS is considered clean!

So, that was really an improvement in my life ! Next stop, CTOS, then FIS.....coz I really want to sort out the mess which I got into last few years and back on track to be a great man I'm destined to be.........