Do you remember the event that rocks the city of Florida in August 2005? It was the strongest and most disastrous hurricane in the city’s history, which claimed the life of over 1200 people and many people missing till today.
It started from the Gulf of Mexico and entered the Gulf of Florida, and the pressure increased between 24hours. The Hurricane was given a name, Hurricane Katrina. The cities usually plan for unseen situations like this, and they had walls and dikes beside rivers to prevent flooding when the rate of water increase, but the walls on the New Orleans could not hold the rising of the water and they water flooded the city. The water was about 10 feet to the ground level. Road, bridges and many buildings were destroyed, and they lost so many lives. The water flooded almost all over the city. After the Hurricane, many people had to leave, which reduces the population of the city by 50%.
Can Hurricane Katrina be avoided?
Yes, I studied Civil engineering at the University. There is a concept known as the Margin of Safety. It is used to measure the ability of a structure. For instance, imagine we are constructing a road for commercial use. If the max of a heavy-duty truck is 10,000Kg the road must be built to carry 5 to 10x of that. This will save the condition of unseen situations of more heavy trucks that are yet to be built, save cost in a long time, and safety for the people using the road. The hurricane Katrina flooded the city, probably because the proper margin of safety was not considered when building the walls. This is important in construction, but we can sure use it in our daily lives.
Using a Margin of Safety in our lives.
Finance
This depends on your income specifically. There are people living below $1 day in a city where things are extremely expensive. However, if you spend every of your income, you will have nothing to fall back for margin of safety. Therefore, it is important to spend below your income, no matter what. If all you can do is to save 10% of your income as a margin for safety, you will have a better edge in the time of troubles. But if you can do more like 40-50%, it will be great and you place a better margin for safety in case of financial, health and other life uncertainties.
Time
The margin of safety applies in every part of our lives. When using the margin of safety of time, it is simple to manage. When planning your day, and you know that it takes 20 minutes to get to somewhere. Sometimes unforeseen situations will cause traffic jam or anything on the way. If you are supposed to get there in 20min and you go exactly 20 min, there is a high probability that you will get there late. So, you can give an extra 20min in case of anything. If you run late always, it may be because you don’t apply the margin of safety to your time.
Investing
You don’t buy an asset worth $20 million for $20 million. What would happen when unseen factors affect the asset? It is important to hold a considerable margin of safety when buying and investing in any business. If you can’t get a 30% margin for safety, you may end losing your investment.
Project Management
This is the part my team made me fail. I had multiple meetings with my team during my TypeEarn app development. We concluded that everything about the application will set before 15 of September 2020. I told them I will announce this for the community and they all agreed. But I announced 25th. But they still failed.
Many projects are like this, and I have learnt lessons. Sometimes, it is better to give a large margin when it has to do with complex development. If the work will take only 10days, setting 30days will give you more time in case of so many life uncertainties.
Plan for the unforeseen.
Using this concept in every area of your life will help you significantly and set you on a better edge in life. Every information, facts, promises come with a few percentages of mistakes, and if you face them as they are, you are vulnerable to failure. Life comes with so many uncertainties, and we must plan for them in the way we can.
Live well.