Time To Kick Murphy's Butt

When you stop doing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch up with you.

3 Things To Do To Smack Murphy

Murphy’s Law

I’ll never forget one day while teaching class, a student was late to class and knocked on the door to be let into the classroom. I opened the door and said “Good morning Sagar” and his reply was “Mr. Brown, Murphy is a punk. We got stopped on the way to school by a train, I’m sorry I’m late.” Sagar was referring to Mruphy’s Law. I had recently taught the class about Murphy’s Law and jokingly said to my students, “Man, Murphy is a punk. I hate this Law.” Murphy’s Law says, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

Sometimes Murphy’s Law can be extremely disastrous like the Hindenburg disaster. The Hindenburg disaster occurred on May 6, 1937, in New Jersey. The German passenger airship Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast. On board were 97 people; there were 36 fatalities. At other times Murphy’s Law can be very minor like Sagar coming to class late. Murphy’s Law can be catastrophic to a minor inconvenience. We can never beat or have total victory over this guy…Murphy’s Law but we can significantly reduce it. How?

3 Ways To Take Down Murphy's Law

1. Be Thorough

Thorough means to do something carefully and complete. Take your time to do whatever you are doing at a 100% completion rate.

2. Slow Down a Bit

The enemy to thoroughness is speed. I’ve noticed that in my life, when I rush through things, invariably something tends to go wrong. Maybe things don’t go wrong all the time but when I rush, the odds of Murphy's Law goes way up.

I’m not saying we should do a task at a snail’s pace, that’s slow. What I am saying is if we build into our time management, room for not having to rush and being thorough, Murphy might not show up as much. If Murphy did NOT show up as much, I'd be pretty darn happy.

3. Create a checklist and ask yourself, “What can go wrong?”

I’ve created two kinds of checklists. One is a written or digital checklist I make in my phone. The second checklist is a mental one. I just slow down a bit and will make a mental checklist. I will ask myself in my checklist, "Michael, what can go wrong? And where could that doggone Murphy show up?"

From time to time I will have students who will forget their homework at home. Yikes! Not really a big deal if this rarely to never happens. However, I have some students who forget their homework at home all the time. This is definitely not good.

Take a look how doing the above 3 suggestions can eliminate Murphy’s Law of homework being left at home.

As soon as you complete your homework, slow down and take the time to put your homework in its proper place. That might be in a binder and then place the binder in your backpack. Next, if you are driven to school by mom or dad, take your backpack and immediately place it in the car. Done! The odds of not taking your homework to school the next day is ZERO! Now go bust out your favorite video game! If you drive yourself to school, take your backpack and immediately place it in the car. Odds of not having your homework to take to school ZERO! Now go bust out your fav video game! Lastly, if you take a bus to school, ask yourself, “Self, how do I leave the house in the morning?” Odds are you go out the front door or garage door. Immediately place your backpack with your completed homework in it in front of the door you exit the house through. BOOM! Nailed it and now it’s time for video games!