Author: alearningaday

Only dead fish go with the flow

This quote is one after my heart.

Have you seen Animal Planet documentaries on life under the ocean? If you have, you’ll see that life under the ocean never ever go with the flow of the water. Doing so is a sure sign of death. They all have their own agenda – to hide, to find lunch, to escape being lunch, or to mate.

The flow is a trick conjured up by that wily beast called the resistance. It’s a nice way to prevent us from being our best selves. It is an excuse to say that sleeping, lazing, and procrastination are part of “the flow.”

Have you ever organized a great vacation? Did it just happen or did you have to book the tickets? Did your hotel booking happen as a part of “the flow” or did you have to research it? Did you magically get transported everywhere or did you have to make an effort?

Do you know why the resistance hates intentions? Because declaring your intention needs to be followed by making an effort. And, making an effort means being open to the possibility that your efforts might fail. So, why not just say we’ll go with “the flow” and not make an effort? It’s convenient, easy, cowardly and pathetic.

We need your intentions. We need you to shout them off the rooftops and create a stir. We need your intentions, your effort, your heart and soul invested in building things and making the world better. Show us some of that initiative. Give us some of that energy. Share some of those ideas.

And, oh sure, take a break. But, decide you want a break and enjoy it. The world belongs to those who are intentional.

Chasing momentum

The resistance is a powerful beast. If procrastination is one of your weapons of choice, how can you not be all powerful?

3 months back, I decided it was time I banished procrastination. I was sick and tired of it and didn’t want anything to do with it. So, the task was to make banishing procrastination habitual. After the usual and expected difficulty, I think I am finally beginning to make progress. This is thanks to shifting my focus from banishing procrastination to chasing momentum.

Chasing momentum involves a single minded focus on building momentum. These are the steps I follow –

1. Get to the desk. Clean up the desk, if necessary.
2. Check for a prioritized list and start working on the big rocks.
3. If I’m unable to start on the top priority item, start working on the little rocks – small tasks that need to get done.
4. If I’m unable to get to the small rocks, start with the “sand” i.e. simple tasks like responding to email, catching up on my feeds.

I find myself working my way to step 4 more often than not. That’s where I start building momentum and, over time, I’ve found that momentum grabs hold of me. Suddenly, like it or not, it’s hard to stop. In the very rare instance when I don’t even feel like chipping away on a small task, I realize it’s time to take a break and not look at the list. As long as you’re not working 7 days a week, that shouldn’t happen all that often.

So, that’s all it takes – have a clear prioritized list of tasks at hand. Keep going down the list until you find a task that you just can’t not do. And, just start. Don’t worry about procrastination. Chase momentum instead.

The full decision making LearnoGraphic – The 200 words project

This is a re-post of sorts. I’m hopeful it falls under the category of “so good that I have to post it twice.” However, I understand that this does sound very self-flattering. I am sorry about that. After the sort of effort it took to make it (hat tip to our talented illustrator, EB, who deserved the lion share of the credit), I must admit I feel less guilty about sharing ‘it again again as a part of the 200 words project. :-)

As some of the regular readers might know, we call this a “LearnoGraphic” (you heard it here first!) as it is a summary of one of our favorite books.  This is inspired by “Decisive” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

At the LearnoGraphics project, we believe that our progress as a species occurs when we find, build and share great ideas. Books are a big source of learning and ideas and we’ve embarked on a mission to spread ideas from our favorite books. We are hoping to share one LearnoGraphic every quarter – it is an ambitious goal as these take a lot of work in synthesis and illustration. This quarter’s LearnoGraphic is on “Decision Making” and a few of these ideas will hopefully sound familiar from previous 200 words project notes. We will explore other ideas in depth too in the coming weeks.

<Please click the image to open – for some reason, I’m unable to display it in full size>

Decision Making Learnographic

Kanye West on the point of life

Rapper and entrepreneur Kanya West had a great quote recently – “The point of life is to get shit done and be happy.”

This is as succinct as they come and probably as good as they come as well. As Lifehacker points out, the two feed into each other in a cycle – the more you get done, the happier you are with life, and the more you want to keep doing things.

I had a similar thought the other day. I am technically on a “break” as I transition to student life but this break has been every bit as hectic as any other month of the year (sometimes more hectic!). There is a seemingly never ending task list of things to get done and it’s great. I don’t need more than a few weeks off every year. The rest of the time, it’s just wonderful to get shit done.

If you are one for warrior analogies – as a warrior, you live for the war. Day-to-day living is no 15 day battle but a lifelong war. There are times of respite but the challenges never stop because the war will go on – you’re either escaping it for a short while or preparing for the next surge. The to-be-done list never ends. Enjoy it.

Or, as Kanya might say – Get shit done. Be happy. Win.

What is the goal

If you are working hard (and I hope you are), we assume a large part of that is devoted to productive work.

Productive work is work that enables us to make progress towards a goal. Hence, many hours of watching YouTube video is considered unproductive when you have a report to be finished. A short video break might aid productivity but it still wouldn’t be productivity.

So, if productivity doesn’t exist without a goal, defining a goal becomes all important. What is the goal you normally work towards when you don’t have fires to fight? Is there even a goal?

It is hard to set goals in every aspect of our lives. We struggle with just exercise goals and expecting more than that is wishful thinking. However, we could easily make a case for the importance of productive work in the case of our personal relationships, a.k.a. quality time, and productive work in case of our hobbies. So, how do we go about doing that?

My suggestion would be to consider defining your personal “why.” My personal why, for example, is ‘to build active relationships with family and friends, learn, and have a positive impact on the world.’ Once I have this defined, it becomes very clear as to which activities move me towards this goal and which don’t. This “why” has been a work-in-progress for 2 years now (so get started now!) and I consider this a near-finished article. It makes for an excellent measuring stick.

Take time to define your why and your goals. Productivity doesn’t exist without goals. And, now that you are here and taking up some space, why not be productive? :-)

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Hat tip to Messrs Eliyahu Goldratt for the insight

When you share constructive criticism…

…do it not to satisfy your own ego and insecurity, but do it because you care. It shows.

This could apply to everything we bring ourselves to – do it because you care. And that in turn means you have to make it a habit to avoid doing things because you “should.” Should is toxic. Do it because you care.

When you strip out what we did, our intent is all that remains. There are many ways to screw up the “what,” so let’s ensure the “why” is pure. In the long run, it always shows..

Everybody makes it

I met a kindergarten head yesterday who’s been teaching kids for 31 years. Consistent with her sunny disposition, she said “Everybody makes it, Rohan. Nearly every kid I know is successful in one way or another.”

I largely agreed with her. Everybody does make “it.” But, I said so then and will say so again – my only wish for education, and for us when we play the role of teachers, mentors, and friends, is that we will help those we come into contact realize that the “it” is entirely their definition.

Let’s take some time to define our “it.”

Working your way through painful conditioning

I joined a group of very skillful footballers I didn’t know for a game last week. It has become a habit to do this wherever I am – find a place where footballers gather, join them, and ask if I can join. It’s a simple idea and is one that seems to work around the world, regardless of language.

Before you get in, getting in seems to be the challenge (and this applies to every place we try to get in – prestigious jobs, schools). It soon becomes evident that staying in, staying motivated and sustaining high performance is the hard part. I hadn’t played football for many months before I got in to play 4 days ago and, when playing with a high skill group, it shows. It wasn’t a bad game but I got out feeling aches and pains in multiple places. I had a few blisters too and immediately replaced my old studs with new ones to solve that problem.

The next day was worse. While there were no aches, pains or blisters, my complete lack of game time showed strongly as I was part of a poor team. We lost all 5 games I played in and I went home feeling demotivated. I tried reminding myself that I was doing this only for fun but it still hurt. The competitive person within hates being the person that sucks. The resistance even tried popping up to dissuade me from playing on Monday (i.e. today). That’s not going to happen.

If you’re wondering why I’d rather continue to embarrass myself, then you should know why… THIS is painful conditioning. This is the stuff I talk about on this blog nearly every day. THIS is the hard part. THIS is an example of the daily grind and the war we wage with the resistance.

There is no shortcut. I just have to work my way back in – play more to get my touch back, get fitter so I can compensate for my lack of touch with graft, and start again from the basics.

We just have to work our way through the painful conditioning to the places where the good stuff happens..

Andrew Hallam’s car buying technique – The 200 words project

Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from The Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam and Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

Andrew Hallam, a school teacher and self-made millionaire, became wealthy with careful control over his spending (and consistent investing in index funds). One of his decision making strategies is to attain distance before making big spending decisions.

For example, in 2002, when he was ready to buy a car, Andrew refused to let himself be hoodwinked by fast talking car salesmen at the store. So, first, he decided exactly what he wanted in a used car: namely, a Japanese car with a stick shift, original paint, fewer than 80,000 miles, and a walk-out price of less than $3,000. He didn’t want a new paint job because he worried that it might hide rust spots or damage from accidents and he didn’t care about the age or model of the car.

He then called up second hand car sellers and told him what he wanted. Many baulked at his request. But, a few days later, one of the showroom offered a second hand Japanese model that had just arrived at their store for $3000. Andrew went to the store, inspected the car and walked out with the car.

As Andrew attests, attaining distance is a great way to make good decisions.

AndrewHallam car buying

Source and thanks to: www.EBSketchin.com

“Imagine wandering onto a car lot…. A sharply dressed salesperson will soon be courting you through a variety of makes and models… a minnow like me needs an effective strategy against big, hungry, experienced fish.” | Andrew Hallam