Category: Everything else

2000: Remembering the Why and Saying Thank You

Well well. As it is often said, ‘who would’ve thunk?’ :)
This blog has now been up for 1136 days since May 12, 2008 or 3 years, 1 month and 10 days. For the geeks, that translates to 1.76 posts a day – an average no doubt helped greatly by 475 odd ‘Good Morning Quotes’.
And what a journey it has been. I vaguely remember my post celebrating 1000 and I think I would like to celebrate this moment in similar vein.
In typical style, 3 things then –
1. Remembering my 1st post

Here it is –

A learning a day..

The name says it all – Its just what the blog is intended to be. To help me re live some of those meaningful learnings. Hopefully, I will be able to keep up writing one a day.

(PS: I tend to have weirdly long days sometimes resulting in the next day being understandable short(36 hrs and then sleep through the next for example). So, the definition of day can be a bit..well.. shaky..

(PPS: That’s just me making excuses! Hoping to make it happen..)

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Haha. Well, for one – my writing style has evolved.
2. Why does this blog exist?
I think the 1st post explains the purpose very clearly. The idea was/is simple – every day of this wonderful life is a journey worth remembering because we learn something every single day. Of course, the learnings may not really be all that apparent but they exist all the same. We just have to look carefully.
Why did I then not just choose to keep a journal?
For one, it feels a lot better celebrating a moment like this with you. I also a believe in the ‘Butterfly effect’. One action of ours often has a ripple effect and this blog only reinforces that.
Who knows? Someday, a learning from this blog might lift a dejected soul, save a life, inspire someone who is searching for meaning, help someone on their way to a goal, give someone a reason to smile when they have none.
Besides, I also feel there is great power in sharing your stories. Aside from the fact that others can learn from your successes and failures, it also helps you. These learnings are reinforced a lot stronger.
Sharing my learnings with you also reminds me to ‘practice what I preach’. There would be no point in sharing these learnings and not living them.
3. Giving Thanks
It is time for the ‘A Learning a Day’ Oscars again. I had a short list on my 1,000 post. I am not going to bother with the list this time. Those were the days of 10-15 readers a day – often just family and friends and a rare visitor who stumbled onto the page.
Now, it is the norm to have around a 100 visitors a day aside from those who read it via email, Google Reader and the like. Still very small but the beauty of it has been the organic growth and I can feel the momentum building as the quality of the posts get better. (I am working on it!)
So, thank you to all who read this blog from time to time. It is very nice knowing that you find something of value that brings you back here. Thanks to all those who like the blog on Facebook, follow the blog via Google’s follow widget, subscribe via email or via RSS on your various readers.
A special thank you to those who take time to comment and like the posts. It makes a HUGE difference. Thank you for taking the time to touch my life! It is only since I started blogging that I have been active on other blogs. It sometimes takes a bit of blogging experience to know how much a simple response to a post can mean..
Of course, a note to all those friends, family, mentors, colleagues who inspire me every day. Thank you. None of this would be possible with you..
And finally, to all who read this – stay inspired, happy and let’s keep learning and growing every day.
Quoting from a birthday card I received last year

‘We’re never older, Only better’

All the best!
Yours Sincerely,

Bad Mistake

I am 2 posts away from 2,000 blog posts (!!) and I am begin to wonder if it has stayed true to its purpose.
One of the biggest reasons for it’s existence is to not fear mistakes but ensure creative, constructive and corrective responses to those. This morning, I made a bad mistake – for the 1st time in 3 years, my Monday Learning email was repeated!
Essentially, the content was repeated. One part of me felt completely annoyed at myself at the moment I realized. But, after some thought, I’ve realized there are a bunch of positives –
1. I realize how many people really read the emails ;)
2. A little bit of reinforcement is helpful at times – so I hope the story strikes a positive chord
3. It is an opportunity to better strengthen my system. Seems like my repository system is not working as well as it should. 99.9% is not good enough.
4. I should listen to myself. There was a niggling feeling last night as I prepared the email that I might have sent it. But then, I chose to ignore it..
5. And finally, I had this blog to thank. Now, as I was soul searching about whether it had stayed true to it’s purpose, I realize it has. I screwed up. I hope not to overly disappoint those who receive the email!
All that said, that’s that. And now it is time for response. And respond I will.
Here’s to failing forward and building better systems!

3 Simple GTD Ideas and a Tip for Better Meetings

A close someone just replied to my productivity book learning asking for a few tips on how to act on the David Allen suggestions with an additional question – How do I better manage taking notes during meetings?

Principle 1: Never leave ideas in your head.

Situation: Situations where we get ideas are in the shower, in the car, while walking around and doing meaningless tasks / tasks that don’t require thoughts.
Solution: Use something that you carry around all the time. Some people carry notebooks.. i prefer just writing them on my phone. Every phone these days has a ‘Notes’ feature – you can keep putting these ideas in and email them to yourself so you know you will never forget. This generally eliminates a LOT of stress. These ideas could be anything – a simpler way to solve bank payment for example – just putting it down helps greatly.
What’s also important is you keep an idea collection ‘bin’ somewhere. When you email all these ideas, try and put them all in one place (instead of processing them all at once) so you can collect them and your brain knows it is there safe. When you have time to plan, you can plan accordingly.
I use Microsoft OneNote as my bin and would recommend it above all else (yes, even Evernote)
Principle 2: Always decide 1 action step
Solution: Simple – just pen down the ideas with the action step. Eg: Clean room versus room has to be cleaned

Principle 3: Group admin tasks
Solution: Once you have a working bin (I use a file on the computer – a close friend uses a notebook), you can plan stuff on a Sunday morning. Then, you can start combining all admin tasks for a single day – instead of doing them one at a time.

Problem: How can I take comprehensive meeting notes?

Best Practice: I learnt this from my senior consultant on project over the past 2 months. Every time we had a meeting, he had his email window open where he took down all meeting notes. As soon as the meeting was over, he emailed it to everybody to check if he had the correct points. This accomplished 2 things – proved he was listening and also reminded everyone of actions they promised. Besides, if there was a misunderstanding, it was corrected early.

If the meeting was face to face, he diligently took notes and first thing as soon as he got out, sent everyone a follow up email with action steps.
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These are simple ideas which make huge differences over the long run. All the best. And do suggest ideas that make you more productive!

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..