848) Do you Dare to Dream?!

This week I wanna share with you a video that can help you in understanding why many people -including you perhaps- are reacting the way they do, and sticking to their comfort zone.


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Now after watching it, you should be doing the following:
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1. Establish how your time is spent:
Look back through your diary or log-sheet to work out how you spend your time. If you have not done so, log your activities for a period of a month to see where your time is going. 

2. Determine your problem areas:
What is making you use your life inefficiently? Externally, and Internally.

3. Be clear on your objectives and priorities:
Agree your precise role, objectives and targets in your work and life so that everyone knows what is expected of you, and put this in writing.

4. Tackle the enemy within you:
By Planning your strategies, Prioritizing your actions, Delegating stuff that aren't that important anymore, Reviewing and evaluating yourself, and always allocating enough time to explore and play.

So do you dare to go to the Magic Zone?

M.O.H.@.L.Y

776) Labour Day ... Labour Year !

Egypt is celebrating today its first labour day after Mubarak who turned this day from a symbol for hard work and production for prosperity to a day for "ass kissing" for him and his gang. This year's celebration comes within a world-class revolution that amazed everyone, but it can't keep amazing everyone if it doesn't turn out to be an ignition for a powerful production and dedication from all the working force in Egypt. This is not only needed for the sake of the success of the revolution, but it is needed to make a real difference in Egypt that everyone can feel & experience.

This country won't develop by words, intentions, or even prayers. It needs hard work every day to compensate the enormous time wasted during the past years. In my opinion everyone of us should:
- Focus on his/her work or study, and don't waste a minute in playing, office politics, procrastination ...etc.
- Read more and be more specialized in your field. The world is moving and developing very fast, and in order to catch it, we need to move even faster. (etlobo el 3elm walao fel Seen).
- Use time off in some public work, and helping others who was misfortunate in their education, to be better and more productive.
- Don't lose faith and hope, and be sure that hard work will never fail you and always pay at the end (wa kol e3malo, fasayara Allaho 3amalokom).

Let's turn 2011 to a Labour Year and start from today ... The Free Labour Day.

Mohaly

728) Money, Energy & Time !

Money, Energy, & Time are 3 major components in the success and achievement of our goals. We try to have them together, but there is always something missing in each stage of your life:

School age: You Have Time + Energy, & No Money

Working Age: You Have Money + Energy, & No Time

Old age: You Have Time + Money, but no Energy

You'd better make the best of the components that you already have or else you will end up losing in all the stages.

Mohaly

670) Hope is born from Despair !

At a certain moment...

when you feel that you lost everything that you have done and there is no time to do it again...

at this specific moment, hope and creativity are born, and you amaze yourself by how good you can do it again and again and even on the right time..

Don't lose hope, you may not be able to change fate, but you can control your destiny..

Mohaly

experiencing the loss of all the work I did for the last couple of days, and writing this to encourage myself and others who may experience the same...

487) The MicroSoft Bus!

On 29th Sep 2008, and because of the traffic Jams Microsoft started bus service for employees & Employees can start work from the bus itself and their office hours counts from the time they start work in the bus.

That is what I call Time Optimization!

Mohaly

453) Manage Your Vacation - Eps. 3 - How?!

How to enjoy your vacation?

Some of us really know how to get the best of their vacations, while many are not!

To make the best use of your vacation, you should:

1. Know why are you taking it and plan it based on it (see post 451.

2. Know what are the right place to go in the right time and plan based on it (see post 452.

3. Do NOT work during your vacation (a working vacation is a complete schizophrenia)!

4. Plan for the vacation as if it is work, there nothing called I will be happy if I did nothing. This is against human nature.

5. Avoid getting boared, this can be achieved by doing stuff that you are not used to do in your working days; e.g sports, painting, visiting different or new places in your city, knowing new/old people...etc.

6. Avoid the PVS (Post Vacation Syndrome ; bravo ya Shaimaa) by:

a. Preparing the first day after return from work on the last day before you take your vacation. Make sure that you consider your state as well so don't take meetings or set deadlines on that day.

b. returning home at least 1 complete day before you are back to work, and use this day in preparing for work (like 7ogret mo3adelt el daght).

Moh@ly

N.B. For my dear readers, these episodes are parts of my book (the forgotten wealth) so kindly if your want to copy or send them, please refer to me. Thank you.

452) Manage Your Vacation - Eps.2 - When?!

When to take a vacation?

In such hectic world, planning your vacation is not an option anymore. If you don't plan your vacation ahead (I mean long vacation not 1 or 2 days), you will be at risk of not being able to make it.

Remember that most of the people especially in Egypt are not organized, so the more you are, and the more you have planned time, the more they will plan based on what you have already planned.

Another common mistake is that we prefer to take the vacation all at once (1 month for example) and that is totally wrong. Too much of a vacation leads to same effect of no vacation. You should have at least 2 vacations per year ( 3 is the best).

So when you plan a vacation, be smart and plan it so that you insure minimal interruption in order to have the optimum output:

1. It has to be a down timing or a time that there aren't major need for your presence at work so that you will not be interrupted during the vacation.

2. If you are going with family or friends; make sure that the timing you choose is suitable for all.
3. If you are travelling abroad, make sure that that is the best timing in your destination, and give enough time for the VISA, bookings...etc.

4. Last and not least, if you are travelling for example 7 days, you should take a 9 days vacation so that you have 1 day or preparing for and getting into the mode of vacation, and 1 day for preparing and getting into the mode of work in order to avoid the PVS..

What is the PVS? ... In the next and final episode about How to enjoy your vacation..

Mohaly

451) Manage Your Vacation - Eps. 1- Why?!

Why should you have a vacation?

Many of us just take the vacation either for granted or by default, and this is one of the main reasons we do not enjoy it to the full or may be do not enjoy it aslan.

Vacations are like work, they have goals and things to do but different than work in nature and not the importance.

Vacations are taken for 3 main reasons that can contain sub-reasons as well:


1. To have a passive rest of doing nothing and discharge mind and body (i.e. Sleeping, eating, resting; i.e. Antakha)

2. To explore different worlds that the default or the routine you are used to (travelling, doing difference/crazy stuff, i.e Entelak)

3. To get out the energy (playing, gym, sports,...etc).

The problem comes when we take a vacation without knowing which of these reasons is the real reason for the vacation, even if a mix of the reasons. So it ends up doing something different and not feel the needed satisfaction, or even feel worse. E.g.: you travel and have fun while you need to rest, when you are back, you be happy about the fun and change, but will still be tired and want to rest in order to regain the strength needed for work, and vice-versa.

So when do what? that is our next episode in-shaa-Allah...

Mohaly

450) Manage Your Vacation Series Intro !

AUGUST is here, it is the month of vacation for almost everyone whether a student, employee, or even doing nothing!

But did you ever stop and think about Why do you need vacation, When you need it, and What kind of vacation I need most now?

This short series about Vacation Management (3 episodes: Why, When, and What/How) running during the 1st week of August, will be discussing this very important issue specially Egyptians who don't know how to really get the best out of their vacations.

Anyway, I hope it will help you if you are having a vacation whether in August or even next year.

Mohaly

P.S. As promised in post 432 I will start the What Women Want - Male perspective series, but I found that talking about managing our vacations is more relative to August. I will start What Women Want and finish it in August before Ramadan.

398) Learn to Say No!!

Many people become overloaded with too much work because they over commit; they say yes when they really should be saying no. Learn to say no to low priority requests and you will free up time to spend on things that are more important.

Mohaly

376) Save Your Time; To-do-lists !

Most of us feel that they are running short of time, and would like to save some more time to either do some stuff or have some fun or even rest. During the coming couple of weeks I will be posting couple of articles (original+compiled) about saving your time that -hopefully- should help you saving sometime for yourself :)

You never know when you are going to have a great idea or brilliant insight. Carry a small notebook with you wherever you go so you can capture your thoughts. If you wait too long to write them down you could forget.

A common time management mistake is trying to use your memory to keep track of too many details leading to information overload. Using a to-do list to write things down is a great way to take control of your projects and tasks and keep yourself organized. This is on the business as well as personal levels.

Prioritizing your to-do list helps you focus and spend more of your time on the things that really matter to you. Rate your tasks into categories using the ABCD prioritization system:
- A are the urgent and important
- B are the non-urgent and important
- C are the urgent and non-important
- D are the non-urgent and non-important

Next: Planning Your Month

Mohaly

320) Choosing Job Matrix!

I was sending an email to a new dear friend yesterday to help in guiding her choosing between her offered jobs. I thought of sharing it with the rest of you:

If you are confused between jobs, you can do the choice matrix (that actually needs a session not a post) quickly keda:
1. List all criteria you see important in a job (career path, place, salary, environment….etc)
2. Put a weight for each criterion (20%, 30%...etc)
3. Give a score for each in a scale from 1 to 10.
4. Multiply the score with the weight (e.g u got 7/10 and it weights 20% then you score 14% (0.7*20%))
5. Add up the criteria’s scores.
6. Do the same thing for the other job.
7. Compare the final results, and go for the higher score!

It uses more rational flow than the direct choice or chaotic thinking, and el 2arkam mabtekdebsh :)

Let me know if you need any further explanation.

Mohaly

290) The Bright Side of Egypt - Part I

I was, am, and will be optimistic about the future of this country. I will keep on giving my thought, time, and effort for taking part in its positive change. For those who still have hope and working or even supporting us, I am dedicating a group of posts "The Bright Side of Egypt" about young Egyptians some of them are my friends, or I know personally, or I dont know at all. What is important is that we all share the same vision of developing this country and the whole Arab and Muslim communities in-shaa Allah...

One day, when everyone can clearly see the light, you will say, these people weren't kidding, they really believed in their duty as Egyptians and as Muslims to do a positive change even -as i always say- if we didn't see it in our life time.

I am listing the people -including myself- I know personally or I have worked with, who gave, and still giving a lot of their time and effort to make our community a better place in donya and even akhra. I am sure that there are 100s of us everywhere and some day - not far- we will make the difference.

Abdel Rahman
Ahmed Zahran
Ehab Abdou
Mahmoud El Hefnawy
Maggie Tawfik
Moez Mas3oud
Mohamed Aly (aka Mohaly)
Mohamed Yehia Fahmy
Nesrine Khaled
Sherif Saleh

and others to come ...

Anyone who has a success story or wanna post something about The bright side of Egypt, please email me at mohaly.mail@gmail.com

May Allah Bless us All,
Mohaly

263) A Role Model $31 Billion Guy!!

I got a great email about the vision and life of Warren Buffet, and I think it is important to share it with this blog audience coz it is in the core of its theme...Enjoy and try to make use of it..
Mohaly

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:
كانت هناك مقابلة استغرقت ساعة زمن على قناة السي ان بي سي الامريكية مع ثاني اغنى رجل في العالم "وورين بفت " والذي تبرع بمبلغ 31 بليون دولار من ثروته لأمور خيرية ، وهنا بعض من مظاهر حياته وفيها دروس للاستفادة وخصوصا لأاصحاب النفوذ والملايين في بلاد المسلمين :
1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
اشترى اول سهم مالي عندما كان عمره 11 سنة ، والآن يأسف بأنه ابتدأ متأخر جدا !!!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.

اشترى مزرعة صغيرة في سن الرابعة عشرة من ادخاره في توزيع الجرائد اليومية !!!

3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He
says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.

لازال يقيم في نفس بيته الصغير المكون من ثلاث غرف في وسط بلدة اوماها ، والذي اشتراه عقب زواجه قبل 50 عام. ويقول بأن لديه كل مايحتاجه في ذلك المنزل والذي لايوجد به جدار خارجي او سور .

4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
اعتاد ان يقود سيارته بنفسه حيثما يريد وهو لايوجد لديه سائق او رجال امن يحرسونه .
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.
لم يسافر ابدا بطائرة خاصه بالرغم من انه يملك اكبر شركة طيران خاصة بالعالم
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
تملك شركته 63 شركة وكل مايفعله هو كتابة رساله واحده سنويا للتنفيذيين في تلك الشركات يحدد لهم الاهداف للسنة. لم يعقد ابدا اجتماعات او يجري مكالمات انتظامية . قاعدتان فقط يعطيها لاولئك المسؤولين. القاعدة الاولى: لاتفرط ابدا في شريكك المالي ، والقاعدة الثانيه: لاتنسى ابدا القاعدة الاولى.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some popcorn and watch Television.
لايشارك اجتماعيا مع حشـود المجتمع الراقي . كان فيما مضى من عمره بعد العودة لمنزله يعمل لنفسه الفشار ويشاهد التلفاز.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.

بل غيتس ، اغنى رجل في العالم، قابله لأول مره قبل خمس سنوات ولم يكن يتوقع بوجود شيء مشترك بينه وبين وورن بفت، لذلك حدد المقابلة بنصف ساعة فقط. ولكن عندما قابله، استمرت المقابله لعشر ساعات ومن يومها اصبح بل غيتس شديد التعلق بوورن بفت .
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

وورن بفت لايحمل الهاتف الجوال ولا وجود للكمبيوتر على طاولته
His advice to young people: " Stay away from credit cards" and invest in yourself and Remember:

نصيحته للشباب " ابتعد عن البطاقات الائتمانية " واستثمر في ذاتك وتذكر الآتي:

A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
المال لايصنع الرجل بل الرجل هو الذي يصنع المال
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
عش حياتك بكل بساطة وعفوية
C. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel good.
لاتفعل مايقوله الآخرون ، فقط استمع اليهم ولكن اعمل ماتراه حسنا.
D. Don't go on brand names; just wear those things in which u feel comfortable.
لاتنجرف وراء الاسماء التجاريه، البس تلك الاشياء التي تشعر معها بالارتياح
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend them on who are really in need, rather.
لاتضيع نقودك في الاشياء الغير ضروريه، فقط انفقهم على المحتاجين حقيقة.
F. After all it's your life then " why do we give a chance to others to rule our lives."
اجمالا، هي حياتك ، فلماذا نعطي الاخرين الفرصة ليحكموا معيشتنا.

249) Avoid Poor Time Management!

• Don’t give fine details too much attention


• Don’t prefer routine tasks over major projects


• Don’t get involved in too many things at once


• Don’t anticipate and magnify problems


• Don’t Stick without deviation to a sacred routine


• Don’t have discontented, demotivated colleagues

Mohaly

228) You can't and shouldn't want to!!

For some people it doesn't seem to matter how long their day is. They just never seem to have enough time. The clock is ticking and it's ticking too fast for comfort. It feels like they have a million things to do, a couple thousand of which were actually due last week and every new task is urgent and can't wait...

Sounds familiar? Well if it does you might be one of those people who just don't have a very good relationship with time. It is often a sign that you're not in control of your own day-planner. You may have some things on your to do list that you set out to accomplish, but anything and everything that you come across interferes with your plans.

Someone or something else seems to be claiming your time to the extent that you never seem to get anything done. You might be asking yourself: "How can I possibly get everything done?" Good question. The answer is very simple: "You can't and you shouldn't want to".

221) Avoiding Office Stress - Avoid Misunderstanding!

A good tip for avoiding doing the wrong task is to make sure your understanding of what your manager wants you to do is the same as his. When you have been given a task of anything greater than a trivial size, write down exactly what you think you have been asked to do. Take this written description to your manager and ask if you have it defined correctly. You could create and use a task specification form to act as a checklist, with headings such as:
· inputs to the task,
· required outputs from the task,
· scope of the task,
· what is not part of the task,
· standards, procedures or previous examples to be used,
· a deadline by when the task should be complete,
· total effort budgeted,
· agreed level of monitoring and coaching (you might as well suggest how much or how little help you need as many managers simply guess what you need and often get it wrong).

184) Time Management : The four generations! Which one are u in?

According to Steven Covey...

First generation: reminders
- Followers of this approach limit their time management efforts to keeping lists and notes.
- They see these papers as reminders.
- Items that are not done by the end of the day are transferred to the next day's list in the evening.

Second generation: planning and preparation
- People in the second generation use calendars and appointment books.
- They will note where meetings are held and identify deadlines; this is sometimes even done on a computer.
- As opposed to the first generation, the second generation plans and prepares, schedules future appointments, and sets goals. This in turn saves their time.

Third generation: prioritizing, controlling
- Third generation time managers prioritize their activities on a daily basis.
- They tend to use detailed forms of daily planning on a computer or on a paper-based organizer.
- This approach implies spending some time in clarifying values and priorities.

Fourth generation: being efficient and proactive
- Stephen R. Covey, in First Things First, refers to his approach as the 4th generation time management, and emphasizes the difference between urgency and importance in planning.
- For example: some people may go their entire lives completely missing out on important things (like spending time with their children before they have grown up) because it was never "urgent."
- The point is not to ignore urgent things, but to embrace important things without waiting for them to become urgent.
- Urgency can be deceptive. It can make some unimportant things appear to be important. Also, making time for important things may require spending less time on unimportant things, regardless of their urgency.

183) Time Management: One Thing at a Time!

A reason that we don't get enough done in a day is that we try to do so much at one time. Focus on one thing at a time and keep doing it until you have got to where you want to get to.

179) Time Management: Are you really busy?!

"what is the best use of my time at the moment?"
Rarely, the best use of your time is mindlessly chatting to colleagues.
It is simply -usually- about how busy you are ironically enough!