The way of focus, fittingly, involves asking just one question – “Is this the best use of my time right now?” – over and over again.
Asking this question automatically requires us to evaluate if we’re spending wasting time focusing on urgent items vs. important ones. It means consistently understanding and evaluating trade-offs and, then, making the best decision given the constraints.
Relentless focus and great strategy are, in essence, the same thing.
Newspapers in India have had full page ads like the one below asking people to support “digital equality.” The Free Basics initiative by Facebook (previously called Internet.org) provides free access to a list of 20 “basic” websites on most mobile plans. More free internet for 1.2 Billion people – all good, then.
However, since the ads were first published a week ago, there has been growing outrage. All of the criticism, to me, revolves around the two words that make up the name – Free and Basics.
The internet has been “free” throughout its history – free in the sense that we could always access any website we wanted for the same cost. There was no priority given to certain websites, regardless of whether or not it was controlled by a service provider. When measures to change this “net neutrality” were discussed in the US Congress a couple of years ago, internet denizens around the world rose up in arms to express their discontent and anger. So, there are a lot of people who hate folks who try to mess with this equality.
The other issue is with “basics.” The issue boils down to one question – who decides what constitutes “basics?” The fact that Facebook does so doesn’t sit well with most people because Facebook, like any profit driven corporation, has incentives. What are the chances Facebook would willingly label a competitive threat as part of their “basics” list?
As Techcrunch points out, Facebook definitely has its work cut out in resolving this.
If I were Facebook, I would consider re-branding the initiative. All of the marketing that has surrounded the initiative seems to indicate a philanthropic initiative and that is the center of this outrage. It is coming across as manipulative. Companies like Google and Facebook benefit greatly from having more people on the internet. More people = more ads = more money. It is no coincidence that the other company experimenting with providing internet for the masses is Google. This is a fantastic business idea – it is akin to subsidizing membership costs (effectively cost of data usage) in countries like India and then getting customers hooked on the service (Facebook does this well). Telling it as it is – “we want more of you to use Facebook and we will subsidize it” – would go a long way.
It is a pity that a fantastic business initiative is getting lost in some misplaced attempt at corporate social responsibility.
(Some folks are using the opportunity to also criticize Mark Zuckerberg for the way he structured his $45 Billion pledge. I think that is nonsense. There are always people who’re going to find ways to criticize people who give. In the critic’s world, the giver would find some unbiased way to donate their wealth. There is, however, no unbiased way. The way I see it, in Mark’s case, it is his money and he can do with it what he likes. If he is going to apply it to make the world better, good for him. At least he’s trying…)
If you had to pick 3 words that, in combination, would change your life, it is unlikely you’d pick “No, not now.”
But, they would. Such is the power of delayed gratification. Say “No, not now” to unhealthy food and we gift ourselves better health in the future. Say “No, not now” to non essential time suckers and we gift ourselves productivity and happiness.
Why say “not now?” Because, we hate hearing “no.” Just delay it. Forever.
But, does this mean signing up for a life with no joy? Does everything good get perennially delayed?
Absolutely not. Once you start down the delayed gratification path, it takes a few months for the effects of your work to kick in. But, 6 months down the line, as you’re saying “No, not now” to a new beast, you’re probably experiencing the joys of good health thanks to your excellent exercise regime. Or, you’ve just finished celebrating your top notch performance at your half yearly performance review. And, what you’re doing now will be cause for celebration 6 or 8 months later. It is a beautiful virtuous cycle that encourages us to focus on what’s important for the long term.
The cycle is so beautiful that denial becomes a beautiful thing. Every time you find yourself in pain or denying yourself something, you know there’s something better in store later. The value of good stuff compounds over time.
“No, not now” – they don’t just make things better, they make life awesome.
During a visit home 2 years back, my mom and I started a simple tradition – we go for a walk to a park nearby (pic below) every evening I am at home. This is, of course, great for conversation as well as for our health. But, the biggest benefit is that it is now “our thing.”
Simple traditions such as this evening walk have a way of becoming special over time. I have a long list of these over the years – McDonalds breakfast at 4am after hanging out on Saturday night, lunches at a particular restaurant with a certain friend, catch up on Friday afternoons at a particular spot – that remain very close to my heart.
I look to create these traditions from time to time. As with most of my experiments, many don’t work. :-) But, some do.. and these end up becoming very memorable.
I’ve shared my favorite books in 3 of the last 4 years. I generally manage to read ~25 books per year. This number has effectively halved while at school given all the reading I get through for coursework. So, I’d predicted I’d read 12 books this year during my end of year review of books that made an impact last year. I managed 14 (woohoo!) and I thought I’d pick out 4 fantastic books.
1. Mastery by Robert Greene. I read half this book in 2014 and half in 2015. Many of the lessons from this stuck resonated deeply. While I didn’t necessarily find many of the topics around deliberate practice and effort new, I thought Greene’s take on emotional intelligence and managing mentorship enlightening. The most powerful lesson for me was – “Don’t listen to what people say, pay careful attention to what people do.” This sounds pretty obvious. But, it came to me at a time when I really needed this advice.
Great book. A must read.
2. How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. Another book that receives my highest recommendation. Scott Adams is smart, savvy and lives his life as an experimenter. I love and relate to his approach to life and I think he’s gotten the skill of living well down pat. He has plenty of practical advice about success and day-to-day living. There are many favorite lessons from the book. However, his theory on collecting many mediocre skills versus mastery in just one and his insistence of designing systems versus setting goals are my favorites.
3. The Innovators by Walter Isaacson. This book is a history of technology from the times of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. I found this book both interesting and inspiring. It definitely helped solidify some of my thinking around the power of teams while also helping me understand the nature of innovation.
4. High Output Management by Andy Grove. I’ve written about this book in the past few weeks. A good part of this book wasn’t completely new to me as the wonderful Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing about Hard Things” was clearly inspired by Andy’s style. But, Andy’s “tell-it-as-it-is” style combined with his piercing insight on the science of management make this a management classic.
As always, book reviews from all books this year and before are on my book reviews blog. The books are categorized into 4 priorities based on the strength of their impact in my life.
Here’s to more reading in 2015. And, just for fun, I’ll continue the trend of making predictions and predict 18 books read next year as I expect the number to go up once I’m out of school.
Happy reading!
Every human being we closely associate with is a result of a conscious or sub conscious choice we’ve made. We pick friends, life partners, colleagues, and managers. We control the picking process more in some cases than others. In cases where we didn’t directly pick a person we interact with, it was likely a result of association. If our friends are accomplished athletes, it is very likely they brought in a new athlete into the circle.
In the final analysis, the depth of our relationships will likely determine our happiness. And, what’s more, our intelligence, fitness, maturity and wisdom will likely be the average of the people we associate with the most.
Life, as a result, is an exercise in picking people.
So, as we reflect this holiday season, let’s examine all the relationships we’ve picked in our life. Let’s be open to letting go of relationships that aren’t working as well as they used to (I’ve learnt that is more because of “bad fit” rather than because of “bad people”). These relationships are a great opportunity to fine tune our picking process.
And, after we do that, let’s make sure we take a minute or two to give thanks (or, perhaps, write a quick note?) for those relationships that make us happier, wiser and better. Those don’t come by often. And, for every one of those, congratulations to you on picking well.
6 years ago, I created a 10 question annual review form as a way to do a “look back and look forward” reflection exercise at the end of the year. Of course, ten questions isn’t perfect and longer forms might do a better job. But, I wanted the reflection to be short and fun rather than something that felt daunting.
Over these years, I’ve found myself spending lesser time on this review. That’s because the questions from the exercise, particularly the ones around the skills I intend to develop, have increasingly driven my thought process during the year. So, the reflection has become an ongoing process rather than a once a year thing. And, I think that’s exactly how it should work.
I have shared the form every year on this blog and, keeping with tradition, I have the PDF and word versions of the review form for you. Please feel free to use as is or edit to develop your own. Aside from suggesting you take 15 minutes to do this, I would definitely suggest keeping these forms with you. Revisiting them in future years is not just fascinating.. it is fun. :-)
Happy reflection!
PS: If you’re having difficulty with the word version, please just send me an email on rohan at rohanrajiv.com
Seth Godin got me thinking about my use of devices thanks to his post on “paying the smartphone tax.” As this is the perfect time of year for reflection, I began taking notes about my device use on a flight. I am glad I did it – I think this is the first time I reflected on my device use behavior as it is just something that has unconsciously evolved over time.
In the short term, it led to an immediate reorganization of apps on my phone to maximize positive energy and minimize activities that reduce energy. The other effect is simply increased awareness. I’m not sure what changes this increased awareness and thought will drive. Only time will tell.
Rather than give you just the highlights, I thought I’d share my unedited version below. Sorry if it feels long and all over the place – it was a stream of thought. As always, I hope it helps.
Purpose of the mobile
1. Take care of myself – (Music, Headspace, Fitbit, Audible, Weathercaster, Envelopes)
2. People – Connect with and record memories with framily (FaceTime, photos, Whatsapp, iMessage, email)
3. Find/do stuff on the go (chrome, google maps, uber, Amex bill, AT&T, etc. )
4. Learn by healthy consumption of content (Economist Espresso, news over email)
5. Create content when possible
6. Enable occasional bouts of catching up on social (LinkedIn notifications, Facebook notifications)
Stuff that reduces my energy
1. A long feed reading list
2. Checking email when I can’t clear it
3. Checking social notifications to get to social inbox zero
4. Switching across various social apps
5. Meaningless messages on messaging apps
Guiding Principles
1. Use phone in accordance to values aside from on-the-go stuff – to take care of myself, to connect with framily, to learn and to have impact by prioritizing content creation over consumption
2. Engage when I want to and not because the option is available. If it isn’t a HELL YEAH, it’s a no
3. Set notifications based on priority – calls – keep phone on silent through work day, texts – keep vibrations and sound, whatsapp – no sounds or vibrations but allow badge icons (mute groups that annoy) and no notifications on all others – email, messenger, etc.
(Align home screen to priorities)
Other good phone habits
· Switch off background refresh
· Keep minimal number of apps open
—
Purpose of the iPad
1. Myself – Kindle, Music, Tabs
2. Framily – FaceTime
3. Media – Netflix, iTunes videos
iPad use – Overall, aligned and good. :)
—
Movies and tv shows
· Watch on Netflix
· Buy on iTunes
Purpose
· Relax! Especially when at home
General principles
· Avoid purchase unless you’re absolutely sure you will want to watch from time to time
· TV shows better value for money than movies
· Never ever feel pressurized to watch a movie/TV show. They’re great to pass time but don’t matter much in the big scheme of things. :-)
· Treat nature documentaries as educational :)
—
Music use
· Purchase and Listening: iTunes
· Discovery: Typically framily. Occasionally Shazam, iTunes Radio, Songza
General principle – have hardly ever regretted a music purchase. Great return for $0.99/$1.29
—
Books
· Audible – non fiction books only
· Kindle – fiction, fun, memory books :) and non fiction when unavailable on audible or when easier to read as a textbook
· Hardback – when note taking is necessary. Typically for dense topics / hard to follow books
General principle – never question a book buy. However, make sure you’re thinking about whether the format is right for that particular book.
—
Laptop – organize, study/work, think, email
Stuff that reduces my energy
· Frequent checking of social media
· Using email to procrastinate
Productivity notes / choices
· Maintain inbox zero, social zero – use inbox/social as means to make serendipitous connections and help where possible
· Avoid phone/skype calls where possible (especially for random reach outs) – request email correspondence instead. Use email correspondences to create scalable content where possible.
—
Social rules of engagement
· Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – use is pretty healthy. Largely for blog sharing and connection with limited/no time on feeds. Buffer for sharing interesting content across networks
· Clean up LinkedIn contact list as necessary. General rule – only accept LinkedIn invites from people you know – unless there’s a clear message in the invite. Facebook invites can be more random as long as there are mutual friends. Revisit if there is trouble.
For managers – between structure and ambiguity.
For CEO’s – between centralization and decentralization.
For survey creators – between question rich surveys that will yield many an insight and shorter surveys that will actually be completed.
For teachers and coaches – between the stretch zone and panic zone.
For us – between life, work and everything else we want to prioritize.
… and so on.
Tension is a key part of what makes anything great. It is impossible to get something “just right” without the right amount of tension. And, getting it “just right” requires us to accept the fact that it’ll exist, embrace the idea that we won’t always get it right and keep plugging away.
Tension accompanies us at every step and in every decision we make. Great strategy is making decisions with a clear understanding of the tension/trade-offs involved. As with most challenging life lessons, awareness is the first step.
Perfection worship – there’s something about it that just feels right. The issue, as with any choice, is that there is a serious trade-off – the moment you choose to engage in perfection worship, you become an excellent critic, an accomplished talker.
The moment you see a problem or opportunity and roll your sleeves to take action, you learn that the first required step is to shun perfection. That’s because perfection doesn’t really exist. Every initiative that we lead is littered with our biases and reflects our values, character and personality. Perfect work doesn’t move people. Humane work does. Humane work, by definition, is full of heart and imperfection. It won’t work for everyone. But, it’ll move some and that will make it worth it.
Critics are fantastic problem spotters as they can always pick out the pieces that are imperfect. As a doer, you’re going to run into critics every single day of your life. Put yourself out there and there’ll be people who’ll tell you why they hate your work. Pay no attention.
If they care, they will attempt to fix it. And, when they do, they’ll realize your work was perfect all along – in ways they weren’t able to comprehend.
