Author: alearningaday

This incident took place 2 years ago or so in university. I had wanted a few pages printed and I’d gone to a friend’s room as I didn’t have a printer. I was pressed for time and I remember wanting my documents in separate pages. And she insisted on printing stuff double sided.

Now, given she had a conventional laser jet, this meant printing a page and then turning it upside down just in time so it prints right. And so, it took longer than it should have and I remember getting annoyed. And then, something went wrong. I can’t remember what but I think the paper got jammed.

At that point, I voiced my frustration about her slow process to which she pointed out that she was doing her bit to save the environment. And I remember smugly pointing out that the real wasting is in the industries and this is not helping.

While my irritation and smug-ness probably got the better of me, it doesn’t take away from the fact that I was very wrong. It does matter that we do our bit.

I thought about that incident the other day as I was taking my little ‘environment friendly’ shopping bag to the Waitrose next door for my weekend shopping. I paid 50p a few months back for this bag and I take it along every week and thus don’t use any plastic bags. And over time, I’ve always tried to minimize paper wasting by using the back side of printed pages for scribbles and notes. I have a stack of these sheets under my desk.

I still don’t think these little steps are going to change much in the grand scheme of things right this moment. The biggest users of paper and other such resources are still the massive corporations that I/we don’t control. But, therein lies the key. There will come a day when I/we will have influence on these ‘macro’ factors. Either that, or we will be the parents of those who will. And, if we have been schooled well in sustainability and responsible use, it will show. We are creatures of habit after all.

Doing our bit – I’ve realized it matters in more ways than we can imagine. We often have very deep learnings from times when we were wrong and made errors in what we said or did.

Why, then, are we taught to fear and abhor such moments?

We live. And we learn.

I was at the Sports Store the other day to buy shoes.

I was there to replace my football studs. And, additionally, I was out to enquire how much Tennis shoes and Running shoes would cost. I was running with my tennis shoes much to the gym instructor’s annoyance. In short, now, I needed 3 new shoes and that meant an emptier wallet.

As always, I had a conversation inside my head between the stingy guy and the more pragmatic one. The stingy guy made a case for just 1 shoe and reminded me that nothing bad had happened for many years. Why worry now? He ignored the fact that I hadn’t been doing any treadmill running prior to this.

The pragmatic guy took a different approach. He beamed in an image of a friend twisting her ankle on the football field thanks to wrong shoes. And he also reminded me of a shopping experience I had had ages ago.

I had gone shopping with a wiser friend before a grass game we had signed up for. He was buying football studs and chose one for himself. He asked me if I had one and I shrugged. I told him that I was happy with my hard court shoes and I’d play with them. In truth, I wasn’t happy at all. I had slipped a fair bit in the previous game but I was a university student then and didn’t have money for 2 sets of football shoes. And he immediately bought me a pair and shared a quote that I had shared on this blog in January 2010 – When you are young, your feet are right but your shoes are wrong. When you get old, your shoes are right but your feet are wrong.

Brilliant. The pragmatic guy won it because he pulled a great chord – I was reminded of something I had preached here. And now, thanks to this blog, I now have as many shoes as many of close (girl) friends.

That aside, I also realized that we are always faced with hidden choices. When we say yes to something, we almost always are saying no to something else. And as we grow, we become more aware of these choices. The flip side is we take less risks and become more cautious with age. While we might have jumped onto a football game with the wrong gear when we were 16, we are likely not to do that when we are 32 and have more at stake. With growth comes responsibility.

I don’t know what to make of this thought yet except that we have to take as many risks as we can while we are young and irresponsible. So, I’ll leave it at that for now – as an observation. Look forward to your thoughts in the comments. :)

Yesterday, I finally put together a post on Elephants and Riders. It’s been a long time coming. But I chose to wait till I finished ‘Switch’ just in case I learnt something new about the concept. In hindsight, that was a good move as I feel I understand how to use it a little better.

And thanks to a friend’s email wondering how to put this into practice, I thought I’d go ahead and share what I’ve started with.

The problem I started with was waking up at 06:30 for the hour of power. This truly is the toughest battle of them all. This is the kind of habit that gives my rider tremendous happiness. It means fitness, completing my book reading quota for the day and generally improving my overall well being. And of course, this is exactly the kind of goal that my elephant HATES.

Ever since I read this little framework, I did the following –

1. Renamed the hour to ‘Hour of Power’ simply because it sounds cooler. My elephant is more receptive to that, especially when the alternative is 45 mins of exercise instead of snuggling under the blanket in the sleep inducing cold weather.

2. Took out all excuses – the chief one being sleep. I realize my elephant likes to believe it’s all logical. On nights I don’t get enough sleep, it will generally do a great job convincing me that sleep is more important. So, now, the focus is to get 8  hours of sleep so I can take out that bargaining chip early in the morning. (And I always have to! Always.)

3. Caused some pain. The first thing I do when I become conscious is to switch off the fan. That helps. I’ll have to find an alternative when the weather becomes colder though.

4. Found an excuse to start thinking. I used to call up a friend in the morning to wake him up and thus have a 5 min conversation to wake myself up. Then, I switched to checking email (a practice I hate). Over time, I’ve grown out of that. I’ve realized that all I need to do is get my hands on water to drink.

5. Drink a glass of water. I keep a jug next to my bed. I realize the moment my dehydrated body gets some water, I wake up.

This whole process coupled with 2 min snooze alarms typically takes about 10 minutes but has hardly ever failed to work. The big barrier is 8 hour sleep which I try and ensure.I find it pointless to fight my elephant if I don’t get my sleep quota. Self control is an exhaustible resource after all. (More on that coming soon..)

That’s my process. I’m sure you have yours and I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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On a completely different note, if you had told me a few years ago that I’d spend so much thought into just waking up at a certain time and doing some exercise, I might have laughed (cue: my teenage self). I’m learning to appreciate more and more that consistency on these little things takes so much more grit, discipline, strength of will and character than I can ever imagine.

My respect for those who attended every class in university has only gone up. :)

One of the highlights this weekend aside from watching the 1st Star Wars movie (awesome graphics for the 1980s!) has to be getting started on ‘Gifts Differing‘ by Isabel Briggs Myers, the woman behind the famous Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

I have been wanting to dig a little deeper on my understanding of ‘Introversion’ and ‘Extraversion’ for a while now. And on Friday, I began taking a couple of tests online and wasn’t satisfied by the results. I needed to understand more so I made sure I had a copy of the book in my hands before the book stores closed on Friday evening. Given it is a hard copy book, I expect to make slower progress than usual. But, this is also one of those books where having a physical copy helps greatly (vs an audio version).

The MBTI personality type is composed of a combination of – E vs I (Extraversion vs Introversion), S vs N (Sensing vs Intuition), T vs F (Thinking vs Feeling) and J vs P (Judging vs Perceiving). And we typically are closer to one or the other – a sample MBTI type would be ISTJ or ENTP. In essence, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator is based on the assumption that we all have certain dominant characteristics. Like all other psychometric instruments, I don’t think the MBTI is anywhere close to perfect. However, it is likely to give us a framework in which to view the world (and ourselves, as I have realized) – and this is often most helpful.

Eager as I was to get a sneak preview of the pages ahead, I went to one of the tables that described the difference between 2 characteristics – P vs J i.e. Perceptive vs Judging.

Judging:  Are inclined to regard the perceptive types as aimless drifters.
Perceptive: Are inclined to view the judging types as half alive.

Judging: Aim to be right.
Perceptive: Aim to miss nothing.

Judging: Are self-regimented, purposeful and exacting.
Perceptive: Are flexible, adaptable and tolerant.

I couldn’t help burst out laughing when I read this because I was thinking of the number of times I thought of someone as an aimless drifter and the number of times I’ve gotten annoyed at others thinking of me as half alive thanks to my own routines/organization systems. I have worked hard over time to be more tolerant of other points of views because that doesn’t come easy to me either. I tend to be viewed more as arrogant than accepting and I’ve worked hard (still work in progress) to smooth that edge. And don’t even get me started on how hard I’ve had to work to not try to be right in every argument.

I couldn’t help but laugh because I finally felt understood – by myself.

A touch of understanding. It goes a long way. Exciting times ahead.

I also had a major ‘I am such a geek’ realization on Friday. Getting so excited over a book on personality types? My teenage self must be laughing..

This week’s learning draws inspiration from ‘Switch’ by Chip and Dan Heath.

Jonathan Haidt developed a very interesting way of describing the relationship between our emotional and rational sides.

He describe the emotional side as the elephant and rational side as the rider.

Perched atop the elephant, the rider seems to have control. However, his situation is very precarious because IF they disagree, there is only one winner. And you will recognize this if you have ever over eaten, called up an ex at midnight, skipped the gym, procrastinated, said something you regretted, abandoned piano lessons and so on. :)

The weakness of the elephant is evident. It is lazy and goes for short term pay off – eg: ice cream vs being thin. When change fails, it is generally because of the elephant.
However, the elephant is also the reason for love, compassion and sympathy – it’s the elephant that gets things done as it has the energy and drive.

Our rider, while responsible for logic, tends to over analyze and over think things and can brainstorm about ideas for hours without really doing anything!

It is only when we understand the nature of our elephants and riders can we truly understand how to bring about change – both in ourselves and in our organizations. For real change, we will need to appeal to both because we need both the rider’s direction and planning as well as the elephant’s energy.

I found the elephant and rider analogy VERY powerful. I find myself applying this to all the goals and tasks I set for myself. The applications for this are endless – appealing to both the elephant and the rider matters in our daily conversations, important presentations, any change effort and probably most importantly, in understanding and managing ourselves.

Here’s to appealing to both our elephant and rider this week!

It’s been many weeks since I’ve taken a break of sorts.

Today has turned out to be the day.

Since afternoon, I’ve been feeling a certain numbness that signals it’s time for a switch off. So, many plans have been shelved. It’s time for a break. (and that’s the bottom line cos’..)

This is unlike the usual weekend – which is a web of activity. And this weekend was the same till this afternoon.

There were a stream of learnings waiting to be plugged in today thanks to the learning filled last few weeks.

I almost began typing one out but decided today’s learning had to be about today’s learning.

Switching off.

Have a nice evening.

PS: I’m very excited about reading ‘Gifts Differing’ by Isabel Briggs Myers. I bought the book yesterday and can’t wait to spend some time with it. Yes, I am weird. And I’m still trying to understand myself. :) More to follow..

The theory goes that there are ‘owls’, ‘larks’ and ‘hummingbirds’. Owls are people who work better at night while Larks are those who work better in the morning. And of course, the Hummingbirds are those who can do both.

Going by this definition, I was your classic owl. Before work-life began, getting up in the morning meant an unproductive and dreary day. Over time though, I’ve begun to wonder if my ‘owl’ tendencies were a result of my expression of rebellion in my teenage years. My grandparents didn’t at all appreciate the fact that I was up studying at inhuman hours (in their definition atleast). Over time, of course, they came to accept it. And, in hindsight, I think I loved doing something they disapproved with good enough results. (My way is better, etc..)

I used to like working into the night primarily because it was productive. No interruptions or disturbances at the inhuman hours. Interestingly, by that argument, waking up early works just as well.

One year into work life, I seem very happy being a ‘lark’. My ideal day starts at 6am, followed by my ‘hour of power’ and then the work day. I’ve noticed over time that my days just flow better when I wake up early vs staying up late. And now, the challenge is to find the discipline to get my regular quota of sleep and wake up early enough.

So, again, by the definition, I must now be a ‘hummingbird’.

Let’s consider the situation for a moment here. As a university student, being an ‘owl’ is natural order. Going to sleep before 2AM was rare. That changes when you start working of course.

Of late, I’m realizing that what looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. In this case, while it’s not a ‘problem’ in the traditional sense of the world, I’m beginning to wonder if the behavior is just a manifestation of the situation.

I have more questions than answers on this one. I began wondering about this when I thought of university – if you go by the ‘owl’ and ‘lark’ view of the world, it would seem that >90% of university students are ‘owls’. Now, that can’t be true, can it?

So, when are you most productive? And does this ‘owl’ and ‘lark’ view of the world make sense to you? Looking forward to your comments.. 

A groundbreaking Harvard Medical School led by Dr Nicholas A Christakis once revealed that Obesity is contagious. For the purposes of the study, they followed 12067 subjects for 32 years. And they found that when someone became obese, the odds of that person’s close friends becoming obese tripled.

Proximity didn’t matter. It even spread across geographies. What happens is that we change our idea of what is an acceptable body type by looking at the people around us.

Another study showed that when college males were paired with a dormitory roommate who drank frequently in high school, they saw their GPA’s drop by 0.25 on average.

Marriage, smoking, shaking hands to greet someone, wearing fashionably fluffy boots and investing in Google are a few examples of an endless list of contagious behavior.

We imitate people around us especially when a situation is ambiguous. For ambiguous situations, think starting in a new job or starting out as a freshman in university.

Essentially, if we want to change things, we have to pay close attention to social signals.

I was very inspired when I heard this on ‘Switch’ this morning. It brings to attention (again) the question of the season – Who do you spend your time with? :)

And more importantly, the presence of a behavior like ‘marriage’ amidst low GPA’s and tobacco reinforces that fact that all kinds of behavior have hope.

The Silicon valley has proved that over time with an incredible tolerance for failure and mistakes.

Perhaps the daily learning habit and ‘learner’ behavior will get contagious as well. Someday.

It’s been a good 5 years since I left home (Chennai) and 1 year now since I effectively left my 2nd home (Singapore). Thanks to having worked in a start-up almost all through university, my vacations were generally short 2 week affairs as the summer/winter breaks were times suited to focusing on work without the hassle of exams.

That hasn’t changed with work, of course. If anything, the breaks have become shorter.

Over time, I’ve gone through a learning curve when it comes to taking trips back ‘home’ or to ‘home-like’ places to meet loved ones, close friends, family. In my first few trips, I used to try and jam everything and everyone in. So, my breaks were never truly ‘breaks’. They felt like work. And I never had enough of anything. When I was meeting one friend, I had to ensure I was off soon because a whole bunch of such catch ups would be ruined. Heck, I was busier during vacations than any other time of the year!

I also realized I often came back from such ‘breaks’ unsatisfied. They were busy, but not meaningful.

There were 2 big realizations that changed that. The first was the importance of putting ourselves on top of the holiday priority list and the second was by focusing on making catch ups and conversations meaningful.

The first required a lot of practice in terms of using my self discipline muscle to say ‘NO’ when a No was required. And the second has involved a real effort to have few catch ups, but to keep them meaningful.

I was in Singapore for a few days to get my Permanent Residency and this realistically meant one weekend and maybe a couple of other evenings of catch up time. And the focus on keeping it meaningful was, hence, paramount. The way our lives go these days, we can talk so much without really saying anything. And when you live a few thousand miles away and get to meet only for a couple of hours every few months, such conversations can be both frustrating and useless. Meeting friends/loved ones at nice restaurants, at old ‘haunts’ or in a different environment altogether have worked well for me as great environments to catch up. Playing Risk all night with friends, as I always realize, is another fantastic excuse to spend time and connect.  :)

And as is the case with relationships, staying in touch while being away also help us pick up from where we left off. As a friend put it nicely, you can’t tune in and tune out of relationships. You’re either in them or are getting phased out.

There’s no perfect formula to making such meets meaningful. Most of all, I’ve found that it takes a desire to make them count. And I’ve found that I’m quite enjoying such ‘catch up’ trips of late as I’m getting better at managing myself and my energy during these trips. This trip was one such example.

It was short. But meaningful.