Month: June 2011

On ‘1 thing that gets in our way of being Productive’

This week’s learning draws inspiration from Ready for Anything by David Allen.

David Allen, the famous productivity Guru was once asked for a 1 minute answer on a radio talk show to the question – What is the 1 thing we do that gets in the way of being productive?

His response was telling. ‘It is never 1 thing, but 5 things all wrapped together.’

1. People keep stuff in their head
2. They don’t decide what they need to do, about stuff they know they need to do something about (i.e. deciding a simple next step)
3. They don’t organize action reminders and support material in functional categories (example: grouping admin tasks together)
4. They don’t maintain and review a complete and objective inventory of their commitments (i.e. no collection bin)
5. Then they waste energy and burn out allowing their busy-ness to be driven by what’s latest and loudest, hoping it’s the right thing to do but never feeling the relief that it is (i.e. urgency driven)’

One action step to get started is to create a place called a ‘bin’ to put in all your ideas in 1 place. I use the notes feature on my phone to take down ideas and then use Microsoft OneNote to maintain the collection.

I would highly recommend ‘Ready for Anything’ for an understanding on how our brain works and how we can use this knowledge to get productive, stay inspired, stress free and make a lasting difference!

Here’s to staying productive and stress free this week! :)

Emotional Recharge and an Annoyance

I thought of the post by HBR today on maintaining mental well being.
It basically underscores the importance of different kinds of activities that recharge our minds. Holidays are generally a lovely way to recharge our minds. More often than not, they help fully recharge those parts of our brain that require fun, emotional connection etc.
My 1 week of holiday was one such holiday – a holiday of emotional recharge. Lots of great conversations, fun, laughter, food.. Spent time re-connecting with many old friends, family.
My only little annoyance (at myself) at the end of the holiday is that I didn’t tell most of these people enough how lucky I was to have them in my life. And how each of them were the best friends they could be, and for that, I believe they deserve all the respect in the world.
It never fails to amaze me how our greatest regrets always tend to be the things that go unsaid. Ever since I experienced the loss of 2 important family members, I had made it a personal crusade of sorts to try and express as much I could to all who I was connected to. And to tell people how much they meant to me.. and never take for granted that they knew or realized. More often than not, they didn’t (to my surprise!).
But, I guess time has changed that. Some of those wounds have healed and some of the pain I felt then has lessened. And I think, with time, I find myself taking more from granted..
Let this be a note to myself – a reminder to not forget the one thing that causes more angst than anything else I know – the feeling of not having told someone how much they meant to you.

Memory Lane

I have finally cracked why my blog roll only gets longer and longer. As exciting as many ideas may seem, I feel most in flow when I feel strongly about something. What would words be without emotion after all?
Today had to be about that walk down memory lane.

This evening could have been a weekend 8 years ago. I might have struggled to tell the difference. It was a mix of all those little things that made school life magical – endless jokes and attempts at pulling each others leg’s (with the one friend winning all such verbal battles with his wit as usual), talking about so many of the great moments we shared, the many games of cricket we played, the many teachers we annoyed..
We were cracking up on all our old times – these were the friends who knew each other’s first crushes before the (poor) girl was even aware of anything, these were the friends with whom we played cricket till we were tanned black. We made many compromises – I was a pathetic cricket player but still went along.. everyone did their bit.
Many years have passed. We have all gone separate ways but somehow, we end up picking up right where we left of – every single time. Those weekly meetings have become half yearly now.. but they haven’t changed. Still fun, still amazing and still memorable.
Sometimes, it is nice to know that some things don’t change. As we grow older, relationships tend to get a wee bit more complicated than they were when we were young. Schools and universities are great levelers after all. Unsaid equations like ‘what we do’, ‘how much we earn’ etc are never in the equation.
It is nice to have friends disconnected from our current lives – friends with whom we can relive those great memories that have shaped us (whether we realize it or not.. and whether we like it or not) and friends with whom we can go back to being the little boy/girl who just loved going down to the little snack shop in the corner, munching on some delicious junk food and chatting for hours..
What a wonderful little trip down memory lane it was! Our thoughts fast forwarded to our next such evening with the whole set (we were missing a couple from the gang).. and to another evening where we would go back to being in school.
The simple life. :)
And on that note, there were no photos and no facebook right after. Just like old times..

What would scare you more?

Imagine you have just pissed your customer off.
Which scenario would scare you more –
a) The customer screaming their guts off
b) The customer replying with ice cold tones expecting you to think on your feet and solve the problem
Now, maybe you should try what scares you when you are upset, and want things done?
—
Notes:
a) I was a proponent of getting wildly upset and screaming at people i.e. option a). Of late, I have been experimenting with the other approach and it seems to give better results. It seems to reinforce ‘Your power is directly proportional to your ability to relax’
b) For readers based in the US, bad customer service is a rare phenomenon. But, Asian and European based readers can possibly relate. It is very likely you’ve had an annoying experience in your last few shopping sessions.

The age of Facebook

As some of the regular readers of this blog know, I spent a good part of 4 great months in the middle east on a project. The project was a simply fantastic experience – a post merger integration of 3 massive companies in Oman. The year long integration process has come to an end and one of our core teammates put up the new company’s logo on Facebook and tagged me and a whole lot of others who were involved.
(Very very very nice of him to share the moment!)
Among the first bunch of commenters were the CEO of the newly formed organization and the co-founder of the firm I work for – i.e. my big boss.
That’s when I thought it was a perfect moment to marvel at the age of Facebook, the age where everything is out in the open. I realized then that Facebook is the one place which brings together my friends from school and university, all classmates, colleagues at work, friends at the not-for-profit I am passionate about, bosses, mentors and lest I forget, family.
All of a sudden, I have my Mom being notified (on her feed) in real time that our post merger integration was successful..
Wow! How powerful is that.
Now, I do know many who have tried to resist this – by blocking colleagues off their facebook, by not signing up or being completely inactive. My view is simple – like it or not, this is the age of information and Facebook is a massive part of it. If you are not on Facebook, it is likely that your photos are up anyway – just that you aren’t tagged on them. And choosing between the 2 options, I’d rather know what content of mine is up online anyway. And if it is privacy you are worried about, well, that’s a lost cause. Don’t bother wasting your emotions.
Instead of trying to resist the wave, my recommendation would be to embrace it. Unless you are a serial drug user who operates in secrecy, I think Facebook (/twitter/blogs) can be very powerful and positive. All of a sudden, your colleagues or classmates see a different side of you – they see the part time photographer, the passionate musician and the persistent philanthrophist. Isn’t that amazing?
Gone are the days of the ‘office face’, ‘friends face’. All our information is out there – whether we like it or not. If it isn’t out there yet, it is going to be, soon. There is no way around it. Why not just be proactive and make the best of it?
And yes, I do hope you have more to show than photos from parties every couple of days.
(Oh, and on that note, you may want to stop putting up messages like ‘work sucks’, ‘boss screamed at me today’. If you are really THAT frustrated and would like your friends to know, try the old school method………. email.)

Kung Fu Panda II – The lovable super hero

Firstly, due credit to all those animation specialists i.e. the unsung heroes who create these wonderful wonderful movies. And what I always find amazing is that there is always so much to learn from these movies – they hardly ever disappoint.
Kung Fu Panda II revolves around the lovable super hero. The superhero who always surprises himself, always makes you laugh by not taking himself too seriously!
My favorite moment of the movie is when he attacks the enemy in a bid to rescue his team. Once his team is free of their chains, they all look at him, express their joy and then ask ‘So, dragon warrior, what’s the plan?’
And his response is ‘Seriously, I didn’t expect to get this far in the first place.’
The movie takes us on a journey with this joyful character in his quest to save Kung Fu and also find ‘inner peace’.
All in all – Great movie. Lots of learnings. Lots of laughs. Watch it. You won’t regret it!