Thursday, January 27, 2011

My hero!!!!!!!! :(

Roger Federer is out of the Aussie Open!! BOOOOOOOOOO! :(:(:(

BOO.

Sigh. I was hoping it was going to be his year again given Nadal got out. The Nadal vs. Ferrer match was actually a bit sad - Nadal looked like a sad, confused puppy. I felt for him even though I'm not his greatest fan.

Now the Fed Express is going home too! :(

BOO.

I've kind of lost interest now in the remainder of the men's tennis.

Na Li all the way for Saturday's women's finals!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Unhealthy obsessions.

I believe I have a few of those.

I'll speak of one that is perhaps less controversial.

Roger Federer. He's got to win the Australian Open. If he doesn't win, Rafa had better not win. Reason is - Roger is the man! I was so excited that I got to see him live again, It was a brilliant game, and it was the almost historical defeat of Roger Federer in a second round of a grand slam... which apparently has not happened since 2003/4-ish... but he was the Fed Express and pulled through! Great game, and the loss of voice the following day was completely worth it. Good luck Mr Fed in your semifinal!!!

Speaking of tennis, Na Li has been on fire as well. Go Na, make China proud!! She's quite a funny one actually, I like her interviews. And Fed's as well, he's awesome.

Certainly an unhealthy obsession I have with the man, however, it is only a couple of times a year.

Better stick to the less controversial unhealthy obessions.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Jan 22, 2011

Take out the knots in my back.
Remove the pebbles in my head.

Make me interested.
Make me respectful.

To stop being irritated.
To relax and take things less seriously.
To be a more pleasant person.

To stop the anxiety and replaying scenes.

For a better week ahead.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Focus on the learnings.

There is a heavy emphasis at work to focus on the key learnings from situations - whether the situations are positive or negative.

If something goes well, especially if it goes surprisingly well, the question to ask is "Why"? What are the key takeaways such that this can happen again. If something goes wrong, e.g. a process upset, a safety incident, an equipment breakdown, etc, while the response in the first instance is to fix the immediate problem, the thought process after the immediate problem is resolved is to ask the questions of why this occured, what are the key learnings, and how to avoid a repeat incident. The thinking is that no mistake should ever happen twice.

I'm going to try and make that a focus for 2011 - work and non-work. At work, it will be easier to do, as we have systems and procedures out of every incident to make sure learnings are captured and acted on. For non-work items, I will need to make an effort such that where possible, every time something goes wrong, try to direct the thinking to, "Why did this happen? What can I learn from this? What actions will I take to prevent a repeat incident?" It may seem like a bit of a mundane task, or perhaps even a bit excessive, but from what I have seen, it really is very valuable and ultimately can save a lot of additional work and heartache.

On a slight tangent, I feel like I'm learning a lot of really good skills from work which can be extended to everyday living - the focus on safety, the emphasis on meeting commitments, learning from incidents.

At the end of the day, it's to make things easier for everyone. There's enough uncontrollabes in the world. Might as well make what can be controlled easier, especially for the things that don't take too much effort.

No repeat mistakes in 2011.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Too much information.

This is really in the information age. I don't know if I've posted this before, but I heard of a statistic from a training course I went to a few weeks ago that the amount of information in a typical metropolitan weekend newspaper (e.g. The Age) contains more info than someone in the 1900's would've been exposed to in their life.

I'm finding myself constantly filtering because I cannot take in and remember so much information. This comes in the form of learning a way to only hear the relevant/important parts of conversations, scanning emails only for points of interest, reading emails only when I am about to reply them, etc.

I'm finding it very difficult to read even a chapter of a book from first sentence to last because it is much easier to scan/skip around.

Then of course, there's the sort of information you really prefer not to hear but it's generally you're not able to stop it in time. This usually happens in online conversations where there is the time delay such that you can't block your ears (in this case, eyes) in time and the information is out there.

Thanks, but I didn't really need to know.