A Conscious Effort

As mentioned in yesterday post, I had decided to put in a conscious effort in writing more frequently. This also means posting more frequently on this particular blog. I am also thinking of having a blog with a specific theme or topic in time to come. In order to do that, I will need to understand myself better and the topic or theme that is suitable for me. Of course, since I am not an experienced writer, starting out will definitely be difficult. However, as long as, I am willing to fork out my time and effort, I believe that I will improve with time and effort.

Now, I believe that everyone has their own working habits. Some prefer to work at night, while others prefer to work in the day. As for me, I am a ‘day-worker’. Basically, I focus better during the morning and I get increasingly more restless as time past. To me, the best time to work is before lunch. Of course, given the current society that we are in, we do not have much autonomy in our working hours. They are pretty standard across the job market, depending on the industry you are in. 

Currently, I am collaborating with a market research company and we have been corresponding emails quite a bit. The team I am working with has a different preference in their working hours. Based on the timing of their replies, I can see that they always sent me their responses after my working hours. Well, that makes a delay in our correspondence and resulting in lesser work done during the day. I was wondering if there is any way around this, if only they could sent me the documents that require additional attention in the day, I could have responded on the same day. When we work with different parties, we need to adapt to their work habits. If the differences resulted in a decline in productivity, perhaps it is time to have a good talk and negotiate a solution in which both parties are able to accept. Well, I wonder if I will be ending up doing that soon. 

Have you ever wondered if breakfast affect your performance at work? (Does this even matter?)

Based on my own experience, I feel that I will be able to focus better if I had breakfast before work. However, the funny thing is it is a complete opposite for lunch. Maybe this is influenced by my colleagues and my thinking. Are there even scientific evidence behind this? I guess I just want to live a simple life without pondering too deeply into things that are not important for me. 

Recently, I feel that almost every minute and second is precious to me at work. I need all the time I have to complete the work I was assigned with. Hence, I started going into office earlier and shortening my lunch break. It may seem stupid to veteran employees of my company. Why work extra when the pay remains unchanged? It is one question that I often ponder about myself. Is it because I want to do my job well? Or is it because I fear of having my work incomplete by the deadline? There are plenty of questions in my head that I could not understand fully. Perhaps, if I keep thinking, experiencing and analysing I will come to know the reason myself. However, when will that be? I hope to know myself better soon. Spending time pondering these questions is not always fun. 

There are always so many different aspects of work which sparks discussions through various mediums. It is only natural as work often takes up more than one third of a day for any full-time working adults. We spent on average almost 10 hours in our office a day, and depending on the location of your home, it may take you around 2 hours to travel to and fro from your workplace. Easily half a day spent. However, when we are asked on how much we value our work, it is not as much as our family, relatives, friends. To some of us who are stuck with doing the work which we don’t enjoy, we don’t value work as much as our hobbies, interest and passion. Right, we often hear people giving motivational talks about ditching the work that we have no interest in and find something that we are truly passionate about. How practical is that in reality? For me, I don’t find it practical at all. (Probably because I have a background in Economics.)  I think in terms of demand and supply and that is how the labour market works. The interest, passion, hobbies we may have does not necessarily coincides with the skill sets the market demands. Moreover, I believe that the things that we are passionate about may not necessarily be the things that we are good at. I find that there are too many sound arguments made by different parties which make sense. However, it is difficult to find a right answer to every question. There may be better answers but no single answer is a complete and right one. 

I guess I will stop right here for today, enough ranting…It’s Monday and we’re all tired. Dying to rest and relax after a long day of work or school. Don’t you think so? 

Been quite some time since I last posted...Slightly lost..

Well, the reason for this post is simple: To remind myself to rebuild my habit of writing and thinking about things that happened within me and around me.

I had lost the habit of writing regularly. It might be because I had been losing focus and sight of what I had planned out to do. It may be because I had chuck this in some hidden corner of my brain. I had not conscious awareness on writing a post for the blog until now. It is scary when I had told myself to write often just a couple of months ago.

It will be Monday tomorrow. Yes, the start of the work week. There is nothing I will complain about. However, there are things which I had to prepare to ensure my work goes smoothly for the upcoming events and meetings. I need to improve my organisational skills. There are a number of things on my lists of things to improve. I will probably do up that thing soon and post it here to remind myself. So, are you looking forward to your work week? (Probably not right) I had just finished reading an article about how 90% of the people do not like the work their do, and the environment they are in. There are many reasons stated by different groups of individuals. Some believe that passion can be build and develop over time, others believe that it is impossible for individuals to be happy with a job they do not enjoy doing. Well, for me, I think that a job which provide a learning environment where I can learn, experience, make mistakes and improve myself. It is definitely a place I will enjoy working. However, there are also other factors like location, pay, salary, working hours and other benefits. It all depends on one's preferences and balancing out the pros and cons. Isn't this sound so complicated that you wish you can just use your gut feeling and make the choice? (That was what I did, and I did not regret my choice.)

It seems like there are several political issues that are of concern in my neighbourhood. One is the upcoming election in my country. It will be the first time I cast my votes. As an economic graduate, I guess I should gain sufficient information for me to make an informed decision. However, I realise that gaining this information is not easy. I am not sure about the biases behind every article and I did not witness the full speech each candidates are giving. All in all, I do not feel that I have what it takes to make an informed decision. If I feel this way, what about others who are casting their votes? What is the deciding factor for them to come to a decision on the political party to support? How can they tell who is the better politician just based on rally and speeches? Well, I have no idea. There are a ton of questions in my head that I want to ask. However, there is no one for me to ask them. My mother probably vote the existing party as she still requires their help on certain issues she faced. Voting them and hoping that the issues will be resolved. She did the same in the past. I hope she gets her desired outcome. As for me, I pretty much do not have a clue. I have been going through the news and reading articles about the rallies, but I have no idea what is going on at all. Perhaps, I have no real connection to the issues that are being discussed. It does not relate to me closely. Well, we still have around 12 days to go. I will soon be able to find an answer...Right?

Swimming..It seems like people do not really like to swim these days. The swimming pools used to be a lot more crowded in the past (even though the population count was significantly lesser). I guess the interest of the majority had shifted. To? I have no idea but according to recent news article and some observations, I see increasing number of people who jogs and cycles. (Perhaps, there might be increasing number people who quits exercising due to the lack in time. This is something I can understand as I had been in such situation not long ago where the working hours I had just made it impossible for me to engage in exercising. I know it is just too tired to do so.) I feel pretty privileged now as my workplace is pretty close to a sport centre where I can go for some exercise after work. Swimming is the exercise I chose. It actively decrease your stress level and, of course, it helps to maintain your weight. It is beneficial for office worker like me who spend more than half a day sitting in the office. You should probably try it too.

Now, it is time to end this post as I should be prepared to go to bed. Hope you had enjoy this short weekend. Tomorrow will be a good day for of us. With a positive attitude, everyday can be a good day.