The usage of “Happy Hormone” to boost our discipline

A few month ago I read a writing from one of my friend’s blog regarding Podomoro technique who already well known to improve our discipline at its peak. At its primitive, this technique actually push us to do our work at a specified amount of time and then take a rest after finish it and continue it after the time for resting already up. Or to sum it up it was like this.

25 minutes works – rest 5 minutes – 25 minutes works – rest 5 minutes and so on..

After I think it further, this activity kindly remind me the time i spent when i was still in school  where after studying from 07.00 until 10.00, we are given time to take a rest from 10.00 to 10.30 and continue to study again and rest again and so on.

After quite long time, I stumbled upon this video talking about How to handle  procrastination. If you watch it carefully, the video talks basically why we procrastinate in the past and why we WILL DO IT again in the future with no doubtfulness. As the video explain, we tend to avoid do some activity due to we realize it won’t give us any “Current benefit” (the dophamine hormone) for us after we do it. We see it as not precious as we playing games, hang out with friends and any other activities which give us good feeling because it can help us produce dophamine hormone. In the end, we will reject to do “the hard, hateful yet beneficially for us” things and would prefer to do “easily done, happy and less beneficiary for us” things which in the end will lead us procrastination.

As the video goes one, we can see a simple solution for this. As we tend to work towards reward due to our primitive instinct, we must try to reward ourselves after we spent some times working, learning or doing any “good” activity by let our mind and body took a rest or do something fun (playing, eating or surfing the internet) for a limited amount of time. After we finish took a rest, we continue our work and do the same cycle again for the next repetition. This method could help you boost our discipline and also hinder us from procrastinating any important activities. If you ever think to improve our productivity, you can try by increasing your work time WITHOUT cutting our leisure time. For further explanation you can see it in this videos

P.S.: those link are not my video (I wish hahaha). Thanks for ASAP SCIENCE who provide such useful vid for us.

Akademisi dan Pengusaha (Pola Pikir)

Baru-baru ini sempat kepikiran perbedaan pola pikir yang dipakai akademisi dan pengusaha. Secara substansial, saya berasumsi akademisi sangat menginginkan semua persoalan dijawab dengan metode yang paling tepat guna dan paling sesuai dengan teori yang disetujui kalangan ahli sebagai teori yang sahih. Oleh karena itu dunia akademisi-sekali lagi menurut saya-identik dengan dua kata utama

Benar dan Salah

kedua kata ini gak bisa dicampur adukkan, artinya benar itu memang benar dan selain itu dianggap salah (atau bisa dianggap kurang tepat). Ini mengapa dunia akademisi sangat erat kaitannya dengan kata Nilai/Point. Ketika seseorang menjawab atau membuktikan solusi dari sebuah masalah dengan cara yang mendekati kebenaran maka nilainya akan menjadi semakin tinggi dan begitu juga sebaliknya

Sedang pola pikir pengusaha lebih ke arah “Solutif dan efisien/untung tinggi”. Pola pikir pengusaha sangat berorientasi kepada hasil dan untung. Secara substansial, pola pikir pengusaha erat dengan kata ini

Kemajuan proses (progress) dan Untung

Oleh karena itu dunia pengusaha sangat erat kaitannya dengan kalimat Untung dan persentase kemajuan. Untuk dapat membedakannya bisa dilihat dari illustrasi dibawah ini.

Pada sebuah ruas batang pipa pengalur minyak dideteksi sebuah kebocoran yang mengakibatkan minyak yang mengalir merembes keluar. Daerah kebocoran cukup jauh dari pemukiman penduduk dan dapat dipastikan penduduk tidak menyadari kebocoran tersebut. Untuk mengatasi masalah ini ada 2 solusi yang ditawarkan yaitu:

  1. Menutup lubang kebocoran pipa minyak tersebut menggunakan logam yang sama yang menyusun pipa tersebut dan menyolder sambungan dengan bahan khusus untuk memastikan tidak ada kebocoran dalam kurun waktu 10-15 tahun kedepan
  2. Menutup lubang kebocoran pipa minyak tersebut dengan menggunakan plester khusus yang jauh lebih murah dan sudah teruji namun hanya dapat bertahan 7-9 tahun saja

Menurut penalaran saya, umumnya akademisi akan memilih solusi pertama namun pengusaha akan-secara serempak-memilih solusi kedua. Bagaimana menurut anda?

Work alone

Currently, as an new Network Monitor guy, i was assigned i quite remote place (Banjarmasin). Actually is not that remote (the first time I arrive here, it reminds me of Medan city). The town is small (not as big as Jakarta) and most of the people here for work (but not to the extreme like in Balikpapan).

I understand the reason why I was sent to such an remote place like this is and actually thankful for it. First of all, the office branch I stay in right now is an new built branch (previously this branch office never exist) and the network built in this city is quite new. So I can learn new many things start from roll out a new network until maintain the performance to the max (quite good eh…). Second of all, i think it is the phase where I can learn to work and give result without being monitored by my own supervisor (which is in Jakarta). I think this is important for me since my type of work is “I will call you when I need it” not “Please teach me all and accompany me till the end”. 

Third reason is, I can learn by my own self and not afraid making any mistake (remember that it is a new network). I can learn where is my mistake and which part should be perfected. In the end, I realize that a hunger for come back at home is so immense that at some point it made me how precious it is to mingle around with your best friend and family. Please support me so I can learn a lot for the next upcoming month. Thank you.

Complaining (in office) too much

There was a time when I have to stay in the same place with an expatriate during my work in Balikpapan. After conversing a little with him, I was struck by his opinion towards local engineer and employee he has been working so far.

Basically, he feels that as an employee, local guy are a bit too much showing and complaining about the problem they face in the working field rather than showing result. Rather than finding solution, we only put our problem in the table and hope that somebody will help to solve our problem. Several months working in this company also made me feel such impression toward my local colleague worker (including me). Rather than trying to deliver our problem to somebody who supposed to solve the issue, we are only complaining too much regarding the blocking we facing with out any active attitude to find the right party to solve the issue.

Maybe, in some cases the problem is too enormous and too complex that even trying deliver it to the responsible party (also include monitoring it) will made our works disturbed (and i mean heavily) complaining is a right way to make sure we will supported by our superior as needed. But if this complaint come from the small cases that we think can be solved or at least delivered to whom they are responsible for, we should toned down it a bit and try to be a bit solutive

Ah..the pain…

Sometimes we were given a chance to improve our selves or show our performance in the time we are not ready yet (or as I usually refer it as the “peek-a-boo” game). Most of the time, this kind of “game” followed by the pain that we feel as “super enormous pain” and we would like to get away from it soon as possible.

But my friend told me if you have already your own goal and the team to whom you share your pain with, it will get lighter and even at some point you won’t feel it at all. So, whatever problem you face these days or what ever severe situation you’re tangled into right now, don’t be too sad. Look up to your finish line and bring up your A game along with your friend. Have a nice day 🙂

Stay close to him/her

One movie has me informed that people usually find a new friend/colleagues every 7 years which means we will have different close friends in all phase of our lives (assumed each phase last for 7 years). This perhaps caused by the new modern way of live that allow us to be a ”nomads” living being who can’t stay at one job, one location, on condition for a long time.

This also imply that perhaps every 7 years we find new guy that we thought as great mentor from whom we should we learn from or maybe we will loose him/her after 7 years being together. This means that the chance we had with our friends/colleague whom we thought we should learn from is only 7 years (or less). This struck me and make me realize that we must stay close to him when we are given the chance and learn, interact with him as many as possible.

So, by undrstanding we only given a limited amount of time we must stay as close as possible and learn as many as possible from our colleagues. And also have fun with them. :).

Take a leap of faith

Someone has said ”get involved in something so deep and in the end just see how much you have been developed”. Sometimes we need to take a new step, open a new page in our life by involving our self into something if you want to be a ”new” you.

In the end, if we want a ”new kind” of us, we have to take a ‘new’ thing. even if we don’t know at all about this, we must take a leap of faith and so do I.

So let’s take a leap of faith, do our best and let God do the rest.

Hari-hari awal di Kalimantan

Hey guys, I’m back…

Setelah lama gak menulis satu topik pun di blog ini (entah nyampah, curhat atau wejangan) akhirnya dapat kesempatan untuk kembali menulis di blog ini. Sesuai dengan judul di atas, kali ini saya sedang berada di Kalimantan. Dikirim (atau lebih tepatnya di”tempatkan”) di sana untuk mengisi posisi RNP yang sedang kosong disana.

Awalnya perasaan senang dan bangga memenuhi hati dan pikiran saya mengetahui saya diberi kesempatan yang lebih besar untuk berkembang. Yah, memang kecil sih scope of work nya, akan tetapi, tetap saja ini adalah hal yang baru dan juga tantangan yang baru dan berarti ini kesempatan yang baru untuk mengembangkan diri. Namun, setelah selang beberapa lama tiba disini (sekitar 1 minggu) perasaan bangga itu tiba-tiba tergantikan dengan perasaan kesal dan panik yang amat sangat luar biasa. Gak ada yang bimbing men…

Namun ada beberapa hal yang saya pelajari setelah bekerja selama satu minggu disini yaitu:

  1. Takdir kita, baik di bidang pekerjaan, rumah tangga dan lain-lain kebanyakan tidak ditentukan oleh nasib melainkan oleh pilihan kita dan sikap kita sendiri terhadap perilaku itu. Artinya ketika kita memilih sesuatu, kemungkinan besar itu yang akan menentukan takdirmu ke depan. Lalu sikapmu dan tindakanmu terhadap pilihanmu, itu yang akan menentukan “bagaimana kira-kira jalannya kamu kedepan nanti”. Illustrasi simpel, ketika kita memilih bekerja di satu bidang keteknikan, maka kedepannya kemungkinan besar kita akan terus berkutat di bidang tersebut. Lalu, bagaimana kira-kira masa depan kita nanti kedepannya di bidang yang kita pilih nanti? Hal ini ditentukan oleh sikap (attitude) kita terhadap pilihan kita tadi. Jikalau kita bersikap “cari aman” atau “asal bisa makan” maka bisa ditebak hasilnya, tidak berkembang. Namun jika kita berani bertindak aktif dan mau terlibat, bukan hal yang mustahil kita akan dicari-cari dan terus dikenang orang lain.
  2. Sikap (attitude) dan karakter lebih banyak ambil peranan dalam dunia pekerjaan dibanding tingkat pengetahuan kita. Contoh  yang paling mudah ditemui adalah ketika seseorang merasa pintar atau “cukup ilmu” mereka justru tidak berkembang sebagaimana perkiraan orang-orang awam. Mengapa ini terjadi? Ini biasanya dikarenakan sikap mereka yang suka “menganggap rendah” banyak hal sehingga usaha yang diberikan sangat kurang (tidak bekerja keras) atau takut dianggap bodoh sehingga tidak berani berbuat karena takut salah.  Ini semua bermula dari sikap atau karakter yang mereka tanam dan pelihara sampai memasuki dunia kerja. Lalu, bagaimana merubahnya? Cukup dengan bersikap berlawanan dari karakter tersebut. Dari mulanya takut salah terus berlatih untuk mengambil resiko sehinggapada akhirnya terbiasa dengan hasil yang salah. Dari semula yang tinggi hati berubah dengan mau turun ke level terendah dan mau “bergulat” dengan hal tersebut.
  3. Perasaan senang dalam pekerjaan bukan lingkungan yang menciptakan namun kita yang menciptakan. Saya percaya manusia akan lebih produktif ketika dia merasa nyaman dengan pekerjaannya baik dari segi jaminan, upah, hingga lingkungan kerja dimana dia berada. Dari ketiga hal tersebut, hanya lingkungan kerja saja yang mampu kita kendalikan. Lalu, bagaimana cara kita membuat kita nyaman dengan lingkungan kerja kita? Kalau dari saya sih ada baiknya kita memulai dengan perasaan memiliki satu sama lain dan akhirnya merasa memiliki terhadap hal yang kita kerjakan. Perasaan memiliki ini umumnya menjadi landasan motivasi yang paling kuat dalam bekerja.

Pada akhirnya, ini hanya menjadi catatan pribadi saya yang ingin saya bagikan. Terus semangat dan tetap doakan saya ya. GBU