One of the biggest fear for anyone attending a job interview is the fear of not knowing the answer to a question. I’ve been there and I can safely say that nobody is exempted from it. If you think about it, it’s a perfectly normal thing. There is no way a person can know everything there is to know about a topic.

However, don’t you think you will have undergone a perfect interview session if you know the answer to every single question? Don’t you think that will make you memorable and in the end hired?

Now would you believe me if I tell you that there is actually a trick to accomplish exactly that?

The Trick

The trick to actually know the answer to every questions in an interview is to give your interviewer a list of questions to ask you (Not literally of course). Allow me to elaborate.

Let say you are an expert in gearbox maintenance and you are attending an interview for an engineering position. Be sure to drop some hint in your answers that you are directly involved in gearbox maintenance. The interview conversation below will show you how.

Interviewer : What are your past experience?

You : Bla Bla Bla

/end example

As you can see, by hinting that you are involved in gearbox maintenance, the interviewer will usually make use of the topic as their next question. Of course being an expert you will be able to answer the question effortlessly.

Once you know this, any interview will be a walk in the park. However, you may want to first read a few ground rules of using the trick.

Rule 1 : Be very subtle with the hinting

Do not end every answer with the word “Gearbox”. The interviewer will start noticing the effort and it will not end well. If your first 2 attempts fail, try other topics that you are good at.

Rule 2 : Never show off your expertise

A friend of mine had actually memorized one whole book about Machinery Act and he boasted about it in the interview. As a result, the interviewer asked him question from other books and he failed.

Rule 3 : Do not give all the details

If for example, the interviewer asked you about “Gearbox”, don’t explain to him from A to Z. Be smart with your explanation and leave out interesting topics hanging for him to ask. A person who can answer every question asked is more memorable than a person who can answer only one question in the interview.

Rule 4 : Prepare a few real life stories

Everyone loves a story and if you play your cards right, the interviewer will want to hear more from you. They will then start asking the related question about it. That’s an extra point for you.

Rule 5 : Ask questions

Try to shoot some questions to the interviewer related to your expertise. You may know the answer but still ask away. It will convert the whole process from an interview to a mini discussion. Believe me, it will help reduce the stress and more importantly you will be memorable to the interviewer.

The best topic to be discussed is the topic you know best.

- I wonder –
Any other tips to subtly highlight your strength in an interview?

———- Personal Note ————
I just came back from my first semester of Palm Oil Milling Diploma in MPOB. There are 23 lectures compressed in 7 days. To make things even more interesting, the examination for this first semester will be held on 11th May. Wish me luck!

Photo Credit – DIDEO

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Summary – Picture a black dot in your mind. Nobody notices the white background.

How many of you would have agreed with me that positive thinking is just one of the most difficult thing to do?

There are tons of books on positive thinking. Each and every one of them is describing the benefits of positive thinking with great details. Some even come with real life examples. No worries, I’m not going to relist the benefits here. If you are interested, feel free though to read about my other thoughts on positive thinking here.

• Understanding Positive Thinking Once & For All
• The Ultimate Secrets of Positive Thinking

Despite the wonderful benefits of thinking positively, why are we still find it hard to apply it in our life? If for example, you are retrenched from your job, and your girlfriend broke up with you, all at the same time. Will you be able to smile and still think positively? You can do it but it will require your strongest willpower just to create that glimpse of smile.

My Theory On Why It’s That Difficult

I personally believe that we have been trained to make positive thinking difficult since we were children.

Remember when we first learnt the ABCs? We were first taught the 26 alphabets and when we were able to read, we were asked to focus on the 26 alphabets on the books and nothing else. We were never encouraged to describe the white color of the page, and we were usually scolded if we use the book for things other than reading. Do you know that books can be used as cartoon animator? or an emergency fan?

For the record, I have no objection with the methodology of teaching. Children at that age can easily be distracted and allowing them to play with books without any serious attempt to make them read can lead to a sudden jump in illiteracy worldwide.

Unfortunately, the methodoly had indirectly make us more close minded. A book will always be a book to us.

An Accident Is NOT Just An Accident

This is how it affect us now. Take a car accident for example. For most of us, a car accident is just a car accident. While in fact it is so much more than that.

• It is a reminder for you to be more careful next time.
• It is a chance for you to finally learn how to claim for insurance.
• It is a boost in confidence in driving if you manage to avoid the accident.
• It is an experience that you can boast to your grandchildren.
• It’s your chance to practice your emergency response skills like evasive driving.
• You may have saved someone’s life.
• You can finally learn the true value of life.

In short, we just need to learn how to see a book as something else besides for reading. Isn’t that what positive thinking really is? Looking at things from a different and positive view.

- I Wonder -
What else can you do with your books?

———— Summary ———–
It was night time and I was at a boarding school. My friend and I was beginning to get bored with our studying. There he was, another friend who was actually sleeping on the table. Being bored, my friend and I started to stack up books on his chest. It must be around 10 books altogether when he woke up and started mumbling at us.

He must be very sleepy since he believed that we were doing an experiment to determine the maximum force needed to be applied on the chest before a sleeping man wakes up. At least that’s what we told him. Good times.

Photo Credit – JustReenie

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This Is Me A Few Years Ago

My name is Banji and I am an information addict. (This is the part where you say – “Hi Banji!”)

I used to read every words in the book and tried to get as much wisdom from it as possible. I would then take notes and sometime try my best to memorize what I just read.

In the past, I even took note from watching the Discovery Channel so I can quote them later.

Why Doing Everything Twice Can Be A Problem

Clearly this is NOT the way to go. If I continue taking note from the books I read, I will spend half of my life rewriting all the books I read. It is very likely that I will never even read the notes. It’s just like buying a DVD with the intention of rewatching it when you have free time, in the end, the DVD is just collecting dust somewhere in your room.

In short, some people (myself included) really like to do everything twice or thrice. If we read a book, we will reread it a couple more time to make sure we don’t miss anything. If we like a movie, we will rewatch it again and again just to enjoy it. However this is not a very productive habit.

You may now ask “So what’s the problem?”.

If you think about it, there shouldn’t be any problem. You will be able to memorize a whole novel or an encyclopaedia (Who reads encyclopaedia anyway?) or you will be able to enjoy your favorite movies instead of all the rubbish on other channels,

The truth is, you are actually depleting your most valuable resource pointlessly – Time.

An average human is estimated to live up to 70 years. Just imagine spending 70 years rereading the same 10 books or watching the same 10 movies Don’t you think it is a waste of your time? In that 70 years you should be able to finish at least 1200 books (if you read 2 books monthly since age 20).

Why can’t we do everything just one time and still get the benefit of people redoing it a thousand times?

The following tips may help you to do just that.

1) Remember the 10

When you read a book, make it a point to list down 10 lessons you can extract from it. For example, if you read this article, just try to remember the 3 points listed here. After you finish reading it, repeat that 3 points in your mind and you don’t need to reread this article ever again.

Of course if you are reading a motivational book, try to memorize 10 points from what you have just read. If you found your 10 points but you are still on page 20, stop reading for the day. Continue reading tomorrow for another 10 points.

Another example is when you are reading a novel. Try to visualize all the key events in the story. Once you reached that 10 points, you can stop reading for the day. Repeat the story in your mind based on the 10 key events and continue reading the novel tomorrow.

You get the picture.

2) Forbid yourself from redoing what’s done

This is usually the hardest part. It’s very hard to keep your hand off from rereading what you have read yesterday. Just remember that you don’t have the time to redo everything in your life. Be slightly firm with this.

Even if you forget the story or the 10 points from yesterday, just continue reading. Believe me, the memory will resurface and when it does, it will be even harder to forget it later.

3) Have faith in your mind

Do you know that our brain is one of the most amazing things in the world. Studies have been done on the mind for thousands of years and we still barely scratch the surface of its true potential.

There’s a case featured on Discovery Channel not long ago about a woman who fall down a cliff and broke her knee. She was alone in the forest and she should not be able to survive without any help. Somehow, her subconcious mind realized that if she was in pain, there’s no way she would be able to get help, so the brain had stopped the pain neural system from sending pain messages to the brain. She didn’t feel any pain at all. In the end, she manage to walk for miles and get help even with her broken knee. Amazing!

I’m sorry I can’t put a reference link to the story, but it really is a true story.

In short, what ever you want, your mind will make it happen. Never underestimate what it capable of doing. Once you have memorize the 10 points, it will be stored permanently in your brain. Believe in this. You just need to know how to retrieve it effectively. I will elaborate on this in the future.

- I wonder -
How many of us reread a book more than twice?

———— Personal Note ————
I have in my collection about 100 VCDs and DVDs of movies. My real intention when I first bought them is to rewatch the movies whenever I have nothing to do. It has been a few years after I bought my first VCD – “Hollow Man”, and I can safely say that I rewatch only about 1% of them.

When I think about it, I have bought a lot of things based on the intention to reuse it over and over but I usually will only use it once.

Photo Credit – Demi Brooke

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However do you know that To-Do list can be further improved to maximize productivity? Here are 7 tricks I personally implement that you might find useful.

1) Write this sentence at the top of your To-Do list

“It is never about how many left, it is about how many accomplished”

How many times have you been so happy that you have completed a lot of the tasks listed, but by the time you are about to celebrate, another set of tasks occupy the list. If your focus everyday is to clear that list, you will be frustrated everyday.

That is why it is always better to focus on the number of tasks completed instead of number of tasks left on the list. Believe me, it will make a lot of difference in our motivation level once our perception on the concept of a To-Do list changed.

2) Keep a record (The Done List)

Based on the same philosophy, I would recommend you to keep a record of the tasks completed. Make another list if you can – The Done list. Any tasks you have written off from your To-Do list, put them in this list. This list will serve as a reminder to you that you can be productive if you want. It will also help boost that declining motivation almost immediately.

If motivation is not a problem to you, at least take pride in your work. You deserve it.

3) Set points and its corresponding rewards

This tip is actually one of my favorites. I put points to all my tasks on the To-Do list. The most urgent tasks will be given 10 points, while the less important ones will be given 5 points. The tasks which are not important are given 0 points. Yes, Zero. I will tell you why shortly.

I will then set a target and its corresponding rewards. For example, if I ever reached 5000 points, I will treat myself with a one day leave. Of course you can make this more interesting by allowing further accumulation of the points. It’s your rule.

The reason I give the least important task a zero is because I have experimented before by giving it 1 points. I end up avoiding doing all the urgent tasks and just focus on these trivia tasks. That itself is an example of a To-Do list went wrong.

4) Make it ugly

I have a friend who actually decorate her To-Do list. She actually writes with such beautiful handwriting on a beautiful piece of paper. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the kind of paper I used to write love letter on. But that’s another story. In the end, her To-Do list is not getting any shorter and she is more stressful than ever.

I have nothing against beautifully written work. But for a To-Do list, I would recommend you to write with your worst handwriting ever (Of course it must be readable too). The whole purpose of a To-Do list is to cross the items off. By making it ugly, you are subconciously pushing yourself to finish the tasks as soon as possible. Who would want to have an ugly written list unchanged for a year?

5) Use paper with lines

I once used a whiteboard as my To-Do list. It was a bad idea. Since there was no lines to separate the tasks, I often just squeezed the new task in between the existing tasks. By the end of the day, the whiteboard was filled with incomprehensible words.

Use paper with lines for your To-Do list. Nothing is more frustrating that a board full of tasks but you can’t read it.

6) Make the list short

Now that you are using paper with lines, why not limit your To-Do list further by having only 10 tasks on each paper. It is very tempting to have a very long list. But the truth is, a short list is better in term of efficiency and simplicity. Here are a few additional reasons why a short list is always better.

• Easy to scan through anytime.

• Highlight the most important task immediately.

• More satisfying when you write off a task.

• Having completed one paper of tasks will give you an extra boost of motivation.

• You are always eager to free up some space on your paper by completing the task.

A suggestion, go through your To-Do list and find tasks that can be delegated. Write that off. Now find other tasks that can just be eliminated. You should by now have reduced the length of your To-Do list by half. Congratulation!

7) Take three tasks out (Literally)

Remember your To-Do list with ten tasks? Now tear the top three tasks and immediately complete the tasks. Instead of crossing off tasks after you complete it, you are now doing it the other way around. If three tasks is too much, you can always choose just the one. It will help if the tasks torn are your most important tasks of the day.

There is only one rule to this technique. You must complete the task by all means. Once you allow yourself to procrastinate or rewrite the tasks again tomorrow, it will immediately become a habit. You don’t want that.

/end list

Conclusion

There are so many ways you can improve your To-Do list, but it will not work if you don’t understand the fundamental of a To-Do list. A To-Do list is meant to help you prioritize which tasks are more important. The list will also be useless if you avoid completing all the tasks.

- I Wonder -
Any other tricks you might want to share with the rest of the readers?

———– Personal Note ————-
My first computer got infected by virus almost monthly. I could put up with a virus that shows funny message once in a while, but this virus slowed my computer to a near halt. As a result, I formatted my computer every month. Fortunately, I had prepared a To-Do list on the steps to be taken immediately after a computer format. The list contained what softwares to install, what were the settings etc. Ah the good times.

Photo Credit – Purpleslog

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Summary – The 3 Elements of Personal Development

I’ve actually known someone who doesn’t believe in personal development. According to him, we should just live and enjoy our life as it is. I obviously don’t agree with him. If not, this blog will not even exist.

Personal development for me is one of the most important thing in life. If not, we might as well spend our days lying naked and crying all day long to be fed. However, I must admit that the word “personal development” itself is a heavy word. It is considered one of the many serious and difficult topics throughout literature.

Personal Development Is Actually Simple

The truth is, we are practising personal development almost every second of our life without even knowing it. Yes, it’s true. Take being thirsty for an example. We will immediately know that we need water. The whole process of recognizing the need of water, the walk to the fridge and the drinking is personal development. We are now no longer thirsty and that is the goal.

Just look around you. Everything you do will consist of the 3 elements of personal development. You identify what you want, you figure out how to get it and you go get it. Don’t you think the word “personal development” now feels a lot lighter a topic?

Just like a man lost in the jungle. He will be just fine if he has a destination in mind, a map to guide him and the will to walk. These are the 3 basic elements of personal development:

1) Goals – Know what you want to achieve.
2) Methodology – Know exactly how to achieve it.
3) Do it – The action without which everything else is just daydreaming.

Just memorize these 3 elements and nothing will be impossible to you. Listed below are the top 4 of my favorite techniques to help your personal development quest. Good luck!

1) Goals

• Die next year – This is one of my favorite techniques when it comes to sorting out priorities. Just imagine that you will die next year. List down all the things you want to achieve. Now look over your list, and decide which items if achieved will make your life complete.

• Other people’s success – Some will argue that this is a bad advice, but I truly think that other’s success in life can be a very good goal in our life. If you define success as having a million dollars, research your local millionaire and find out how exactly he succeeded.

• 5 years plan – Just answer the following question as detailed as possible. What will you achieve in 5 years time? This is actually a cool tool since you will know whether you are on the right track towards your goals.

• SMART Goals – SMART is an abbreviation of the key characteristics of a goal. A goal should always be:
  - Specific
  • “I want to be successful” – No
  • “I want to become a doctor” – Yes

  - Measurable

  • “I want to be rich” – No
  • “I want to have a million dollars” – Yes

  - Attainable

  • “I want to be forever young” – No
  • “I want to be healthy” – Yes

  - Realistic

  • “I want to be a superman” – No
  • “I want to run a marathon” – Yes

  - Time-framed

  • “I want to save $10000″ – No
  • “I want to save $10000 by the end of this year” – Yes

2) Methodology

• Know your current status – Before you even start anything, you should really know where you are now in term of your goals. For example, if you want to run for marathon, you should check your current health first. You might not be healthy enough to pursue this goal.

• Detail your steps – If you want to become a doctor, you must first enroll yourself in a medical school. It will be a step further from your goals if you enroll in an engineering school.

• One habit at a time – This idea is made popular by a friend of mine, Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. Just by sticking to one habit at a time, Leo had managed to quit smoking, ran for marathon, wrote a book, become a problogger etc. Truly inspirational.

• Read – Unfortunately, there’s no other way to achieving your goals if not via knowledge. You will need to read a lot of books or personal development blogs to learn from the best. As a start, you can go through these 80 How-To Sites enlisted by Lifehack.

3) Do It

• Motivation – Yes, my friend. This is where it need to start and usually where it will end. You will need motivation for you to do anything. You can read all the internet’s article on motivation but to tell you the truth, it really boils down to you. Find your own way to motivate yourself. That’s it.

• X Mark - Create your own special calendar. It should be as big as possible. Everytime you miss working on your goals, mark the calendar with a big red X. Convince yourself that a big red X is something you don’t want to see on your beautiful calendar. Simple but it really works.

• Report to a person – If you are a blogger, make the announcement in your blog. Tell your visitors what your next goal is. If you want to learn a new language, make a special post everyday about what you have learnt that day. When you feel obligated to report to someone, you will usually get the job done.

• Carrot & Stick – This term is used to describe the process of rewarding and punishing yourself if you succeed or fail respectively. If you succeed, give yourself a mini rewards like buying a new camera. But if you fail your task, you should punish yourself like avoiding television for a week. It may sound harsh, but it will help you push through your quest.

Conclusion

These 3 elements are the basis of all personal development. As long as you incorporate this in your life, you will achieve anything you wish for. It’s just that easy.

- I Wonder -
Any other advices for a beginner in personal development?

————- Personal Note ————
There’s nothing wrong with waking up to a better you. It should be the only reason to wake up in the morning.

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I once heard a saying, that staying committed to something is harder that holding a burning rock. You will most likely to let it go all the time.

Take exercising for example, one day you were watching a documentary on how overweight people exercise their way to fitness and suddenly you got that extra boost of motivation to start exercising. You ran for 1 hour immediately after work. This went on for about a week until one day you started skipping the routine. It is now thrice a week. In a month or so you find yourself not exercising at all. You are then frustrated and blame it all on your weak willpower.

Does this look very familiar to you? No worry, every person on this planet has experienced the same thing. Like I said, staying committed to something is always difficult.

I however have learnt a technique to keep the motivation high everyday. Trust me this technique is very effective and if you practise it today, you will be seeing the effect of your continuously high level of motivation tomorrow.

This is what I do.

Excitement & Embarassment via 25% Technique

Instead of running for 1 hour daily, I run for 15 minutes. Yes, only 15 minutes. Even though I know that my body can withstand running for 1 hour, I stop running after 15 minutes. I will usually end up enjoying every seconds of that 15 minutes and getting excited for the next 15 minutes session tomorrow.

One of the most reliable way to stay motivated is to keep the excitement level high. This is what I do when I run at about 25% of what I am capable of. I know deep down that I can always do more, so everyday I will challenge myself by saying “If I can’t even run for 15 minutes, I will be very embarassed with myself.”

I don’t know about you, but it works for me.

Why This Technique Works?

1) You know you can do it anytime anywhere. It is only about 25% of your limit.

2) You will feel embarassed if you cannot finish it.

3) If for some reason you skip a day, you can redo the two day exercise by exercising at 50% your limit the next day.

4) After a while your body will begin to adapt to the 25% limit you set. You will notice that running for 15 minutes is not making you sweat anymore. This is a sign that you need to change your limit. Maybe start running for 30 minutes.

In other words, you are actually seeing yourself getting stronger. Who wouldn’t want that?

Other application

• Cleaning the house – Even if you can clean the whole house, try only vacuuming the floor every day.

• Blogging – Instead of posting one entry everyday, why not make it once every 4 days. Even if you already prepared 2 entries, publish it only after 4 days.

• Finishing an assignment – You can choose to work on your assignment all day long or you can set 2 hours everyday and finish it within a week.

Important Note

If you were to run only 15 minutes everyday your entire life, it will contradict with the whole idea of self improvement since you are not improving. This technique is meant only to help keep the motivation high every day. Once you are able to turn the exercise into a habit (action that comes naturally to you), you are free to stretch the limits accordingly.

- I Wonder -
How do you sustain your motivation? Any tips?

———- Personal Note ————
It is one of my resolution this year to reduce my weight to about 65 kg. Now that I have made this public, I will have to work even harder to achieve it.

Photo Credit – Eneas

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Have you ever wondered what life will be if we don’t have any unit of measurement. By unit, I’m referring to those such as kilogram, meter, second etc. Just imagine going to the store and try to buy 5000 grains of rice, or describing the time taken to walk from your house to the store by calculating the number of heartbeats to reach there.

It can actually be done but it will be very tedious and the process will be very complex. Take one meter for example, one meter is actually defined as the distance travelled by light in free space in 1/299,792,458 of a second. You can choose to measure all the distance throughout your life by using light and a stopwatch. But don’t you think a ruler is far more convenient?

Now here is where we can apply it in our life. I truly believe that life is very complex in all its definitions. However, there will always be a simpler way to understand and live your life.

1st Example : The Immortal Story Of The Boy & The Girl

Let say you like a girl and you really want to introduce yourself to her. But in your mind, you start to think all the ways that she can reject you and how you will react to the rejection. Some deeper people might even try to figure out what the consequences of approaching her would be. In the end, you will just end up with a major headache and becoming more invisible than ever. This is a great example of how we are constantly making our life more complex unnecessarily.

The same situation can be approached in a much simpler way. You like the girl, just go introduce yourself to her. Anything happen then is to be handled then.

2nd Example : My 2 Years of Nonsense Worrying

A personal example to further illustrate how to simplify the complex element in life is my quest for a steam certificate. I am currently working as an engineer for a mill. To make things short, I will need to be acknowledged as an authorized steam engineer for me to be promoted. In order to achieve that I need to apply and pass a series of examination conducted by the national board of engineers. It’s been over 5 years now and I’ve been postponing the application for 2 years already.

I always remind myself of the possibility of failure in the examination and how I am still not feeling ready to sit for it.

A few weeks ago, I took my own advice and see the issue in a simpler form. The board of engineers doesn’t even know that I exist since I haven’t applied yet. And unless I send in my application, all the worrying just don’t make sense. That’s exactly what I did. I sent my application and started preparing myself for the examination. Whether I fail or succeed, I know I’m half way there.

Conclusion

There are always two ways to see your life. A complex way or a simpler way. Believe me the two will always be there for you. Just choose the simpler way.

- I Wonder -
Any other example of a complex life issues that can easily be viewed in a simpler way?

————- Personal Note —————
The examination is due this June. Wish me luck! If I passed, I will buy all of you a drink

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Have you ever read a page turning novel? The kind that after you read a page, you are compelled to read another and another. The one thing that is stopping you from continue reading is your tired eyes.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we have a page turning life? Living everyday and getting even more excited about the next day – A Page Turning Life.

Luckily we can learn a thing or two from the novel author. We can learn how he successfully kept us wanting more in every page. A few tricks that immediately appear to mind are as such:

1) Put the answer on the next page

An author always bring up an interesting question in every page and immediately give hints that the answer to the question is just on another page.

This can be implemented in our everyday’s life. We just need to start asking ourselves the right kind of question. For example, when you are working, start up a social experiment. You can find the one person that hates you at work and be nice to him. Pay for his lunch or send him a card that says you are sorry. Now the whole experiment is the question of the day. Try to see the result to the experiment tomorrow.

Aren’t you excited to see what will happen?

2) Ensure every page is different

Would you read a 1000 pages book that repeat the same story in every page? I will most probably be setting fire to the book after about 3 pages.

The same goes to our everyday’s life. Yes, we have routine job everyday, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do other things differently. Instead of driving via your normal route, try driving via a longer route. Instead of chatting with your friends, find new ones. You don’t even need to ask for their number. Just chat away.

Our job will always demand us to perform it without any change. But it doesn’t mean that we have to live the same way too.

3) The best book is a story book

Do you know the Snow White (*) story? I bet you can tell it to your children without even reading it from the book. It is memorable not because it is popular. It is memorable simply because there’s a story and the story is interconnected that you can memorize it in one go. There’s the princess, the witch, the mirror, the apple, the dwarf and the prince. See, I told you it is memorable and interconnected.

Our days are the most important story in our life. Write your story so that every day is interconnected. The best way to do this is of course to set a goal. For example, set a goal that you wish to be the best father for your children. Record your everyday’s attempt (both success and failure) in achieving this goal.

That itself will be such a beautiful story. Don’t you think so?

- I wonder -
Any other ideas to make our life page-turning?

———– Personal Note ————–
The first thick novel I read was Insomnia by Stephen King. And I personally verify that it is a page-turner, at least for me. It is a story of a person who was losing sleep every day until at one time he began to see auras from people among other strange things. He also started seeing the angel of death himself.

* My special thanks to Anya for pointing out that the story is Snow White and not Cinderella.

Photo Credit – Beige Alert

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If you read financial related blogs, almost every one of them will advise you the same thing – Start your emergency fund. Technically this fund will serve as a safety net should anything happen to you. You never know.

For example, you are sacked from your job. With your emergency fund, you will be able to support your family and still pay all those monthly bills while searching for other jobs. Imagine not having one, you car will be taken from you, maybe even your house. How on earth will you be able to focus on job hunting with all those problems?

So start your emergency fund, Recommended value should be around 6 – 9 months of your monthly expenditure. Let me repeat, “expenditure” not your salary.

These tips may help in establishing your emergency fund.

1) Eliminate bad habit that cost money

Bad habits that cost money are like smoking, drinking, partying every other night etc. Look into your daily activities and identify which unimportant activities is draining your money. List them down and decide right now whether that habit is good or bad. If it’s bad, put a stop to it.

How to get out of a bad habit? Aha.. That will require an entry of its own.

2) Pretend everything cost $5 extra

If you buy your monthly groceries, and it total up to $120, Take out $125 instead. Pay up for the groceries, but the remainder $5 is to be put into your emergency fund. Do this to every purchases you do. Call it your personal tax if you want.

You will spend less for sure, and you are saving more. What harm can it do?

3) Budget and rebudget

Now you should have cut all the unnecessary expenditure. Make a budget for the month. Here is how you can do that.

Record everything you bought and spent up to the cents. This is the time consuming part, just bear with it for about 3 months. You just want to have a clear picture of how you are spending your money.

Once you have recorded every expenditure of the day, write it down in your Excel file and tally it with your actual balance in hand. If it is tally, that means you are monitoring your finance well. If not, that can only mean that there are some money lost without you knowing it. Figure this out first.

By the end of the month, you should know how much exactly are you spending on food, entertainment, bills etc.

Assuming you are spending $2000 for the whole month. Take 10% out and that would be $200. Now check back your budget. Where can you squeeze out that $200.

Certainly things like phone bills, entertainment, electricity can be cut easily. Remember this is only temporary. Once you have achieved your emergency fund target, you can do what ever you want

4) Snowball saving

Remember the snowball technique? That technique was actually used for eliminating debt fast. However we can adjust the technique so that we can now save faster. Always pay the minimum amount of any bills and just put the extra money to your saving.

It would help to get yourself a piggy bank. When you cannot see your money, you will be more likely to forget about it. Rule of thumb – Never pick up the piggy bank to weight them. You will be tempted to count the money inside.

5) Create multiple bank accounts

I would suggest 3 accounts. One is for rainy days, another is for death or 911 cases and the third one is to be forgotten.

One of the advantages of keeping separate accounts is that you will always see the total amount saved as low. This will hinder any temptation to use it. Imagine you are saving about $80 per month in one account. Will you withdraw that money for your entertainment when you know how hard it is to save that amount of money.

6) Use online banking.

If you can, please use online banking. It is very easy to do and you can transfer all your money to another account without touching the money.

You see when we always have that feeling of a think wallet, we will know subconciously that we have a lot of money. Anything happened, however minor, we will straight away withdraw the money since we know it’s there.

7) Play “Kutu”

“Kutu” is the name of the game played here in Malaysia. It is pronounced as Koo Too. A group of 10 people will sit down and agree to pay $100 per month for 10 months. They will then set up a schedule on when to receive the money. For example, January is for Joe, February is for Tina.

When it is January, one person will collect $100 from everyone and surrender the money to Joe. The next month, they will collect all the money and surrender it to Tina. This will go on until all 10 people have received their share of money.

One thing that must be clear. All the 10 people must be very trustworthy. The system will be a mess if somebody start avoiding payment etc.

8] The Lost Key strategy

This is another favorite of mine. Surrender your ATM card to your spouse. But do not give her the pin number. This way, both of you cannot use the card to withdraw money. The money will be safe.

You just need to explain to your spouse that the reason you didn’t give her the pin number is due to safety reason. Not because you didn’t trust her. You don’t want this saving exercise to ruin your relationship now do you?

9) $1 doesn’t have any value

An item cost about $7, and you pay with $10 bill. Convince yourself that the $3 change (which is in $1 bill) have no value.

But of course do not throw away that $1 bill, just put it into your piggy bank. Believe me, you will achieve your target in no time.

10) Personal loan

This should be used only as your last resort. If you are having trouble committing to your saving habits. Apply for a personal loan with low interest and put all the money in your account as an emergency fund.

The advantages

• Your emergency fund is ready
• People will harass you daily if you didn’t pay
• You can even make money if you choose carefully

The disadvantages

• You are losing money from paying interest

Conclusion

Emergency fund is a must. If you don’t have one, start working on one. Just make sure it amounts to 6 months of your salary and the saving is fluid (You can take out the money anytime you want)

- I Wonder -
How do you save your money?

————- Personal Note ————-
The lost key strategy is a bit dangerous to be used. You may end up losing your card, or forgetting your pin number or worse both.

Luckily I still remember I have an account there.

Photo Credit – Striatic

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Summary – Remember & Be Super Productive.

Pop quiz

There is a guy who loves productivity tips. He reads every single tips on all productivity blogs and half of the time he is one of the most productive person on the planet.

The question is – What happened to another half of his time?

Procrastination? Nah.. He must have memorized all the tricks to overcome procrastination. Fall sick? Maybe but nobody can be productive when they are sick, so that excuse is acceptable.

The Real Answer

He simply forgets to be productive.

You may not notice it, but forgetfulness is one of the hidden enemy of productivity. Just look at our annual resolution. It’s almost the end of the year now, ask yourself, how many have actually been fulfilled? There will usually be a lot of resolution left unfulfilled. For some they have totally forgotten that they even have one.

Another example to illustrate how forgetfulness is productivity number 1 killer is handling our finance. We have read all there is to know about financial management such as how to save that emergency money, how to avoid impulsive buying etc but usually when we really want something, we will just buy it. This can only happen if we forget the whole idea of financial management. The worse case scenario would be when we deliberately forget all the tips.

How To Be Reminded Of Things & Goals

The only way we can overcome forgetfulness is simply to remind ourselves all the time. Listed below are a few simple ways to actually do that.

1) Make use of screensaver. Why on earth are we displaying piping lines as our screensaver. What good will that do. Put up encouraging words such as “It’s been at least 5 minutes since you do anything, do something now!!”

2) Constantly edit your wallpaper by listing down your priorities. I need to have pictures as my wallpaper. So what I did is to edit the pictures using Gimp to list down my top 5 goals in life (Beautifully written of course)

3) Set alarm for your work. After a while you will need to have a break. What I would recommend you to do is to set an alarm on your computer to ensure you will be able to get back to work promptly.

I suggest an online alarm clock – Kukuklok.com. You can set what kind of alarm noise you want from cockerel, classic clock, electronic and slayer guitar. Make sure you max out the volume of your speaker. That should work. If not, your spouse will threaten you to start working just to make the noise stop.

The simpler way is of course to set up the alarm on your cellphone.

4) Install ReminderFox extension to your Firefox. This is especially for those who use Firefox as their browser. You can install this extension (ReminderFox)and organize how you want to be reminded.

5) Paste reminders on the wall. I remember a scene from the movie – Hollow Man where the scientist had pasted a note reminding him to get back to work on the ceiling. Whenever he is getting sleepy or is lying on the bed, he will immediately see that note. I’m not sure whether he gets back to work after that or just ignore the reminder. But still, it’s one of the most efficient way to remind yourself.

Some other interesting places to paste the note is in your wallet, at the steering wheel of your car or on top of your television. The rule is to place it at the most viewed place throughout the day.

6) Use unwritten reminder. Pasting notes to remind ourselves is a great idea but when you have a few thousand things to remember, your house may not need the new repainting (It will be covered with that small notes pasted on the wall)

What you should try to do is to associate the things you see everyday to your list of things to remember. For example, I will always be reminded to check whether I’m out of gas whenever I come across a gas station while driving.

Try this with everything else. The best things you can do is to associate seeing money with saving. Imagine, seeing money and you immediately save it. You will be rich.

7) Ask a friend to remind you. Ask for help from your friends to remind you of your goals. For example, make it a habit to bring your friend when you go shopping. This friend is assigned to deter you from buying. Maybe by telling you it’s too expensive or it looks ugly on you.

If you have such friends, sticking to your budget or resolution will be easier. If you do have such friends, cherish them well.

- I wonder -
Any other ideas on how to be reminded of things or your goals?

———- Personal Note ———–
When I was 16 years old, I wrote my goals on the inside of my wardrobe. One of the goals include being a master in martial art. Of course, my fellow friends found out about my goals and they made fun of the goals. That in a way had deterred me partially from pursuing my goals.

Lesson learnt – ditch those friends.

Photo Credit – Mhatma

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