How should Organizations handle 'The Great Resignation'

This article was first posted in LinkedIn. 

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6904301546314571776/

There has been a recent focus on the 'Great Resignation'. People are quitting their jobs and leaving.

As an employee of a company, people sign three contracts. The first one is an economic contract. Company pays employee for her time. Everyone signs this contract.

The second one is the social contract. The employee becomes a part of a team. They go out to team lunches and team dinners, they laugh and have fun at the workplace. They celebrate together. Going to office becomes fun.

Seven Games People Should Play

In the book 'Games people play', author Dr.Eric Berne talks about the various emotional games people play in their transactions. All the games are harmful to the relationship and weakens it over time. 

This article is the reverse, here I am talking about the various games that people should play to get the best outcome for themselves in the long-term. People take years to learn these and by the time they do, they find that they have already missed the bus.

This article is for everyone who are struggling in their life and their career. It covers almost all of us. These are the advises that I would have loved to get at a young age.

The main benefit of these games is that you can start on these games any time. The results will almost immediately start showing. 

The fine art of procrastination: Part 2....

Over the last few days, I have read a couple of articles on various aspects of Procrastination and how to deal with it. Then I remembered that I had read more articles on the subject including the wildly popular article and TED Talk by Tim Urban as well as the mother of the self help books, Getting Things Done.

This is Part 2 of a two part post. 

I thought that in this article I will collate the lessons from all these books and articles and present a 'Universal Theory of Procrastination'. I will be referring to the following material in this article.

In part 1, I reviewed the following articles.

Why you procrastinate (It has nothing to do with self-control), written for NYTimes by Charlotte Leiberman

The smart guide to procrastination, written for BBC.com by Zaria Gorvett
Productivity is not about time management, it is about attention management, written for NYT by Adam Grant

Article on the Promodoro Technique by Chris Winfield

In part 2, I review the following articles and resources. 

Why procrastinators procrastinate, written for waitbutwhy.com by Tim Urban

How to beat procrastination, written for waitbutwhy.com by Tim Urban

Getting things done, best selling book written by David Allen

TED Talk by Tim Urban on Procrastination 

All the material referred in this article are sources from publicly available material. I have just collated and summarized them in this blog post.

 Why procrastinators procrastinate is the first of a two part article written by Tim Urban. Originally written in 2013, the two articles and the TED Talk by Tim Urban on Procrastination  has attained cult status in any discussion on procrastination. The highlight of the article is its creative and innovative way in which Mr.Urban discusses the emotional topic. He has introduced terms like 'Instant Gratification Monkey (IGM)', 'Dark playground (DP)' and 'Panic Monster (PM)' to explain the idea. While a rational decision maker does what she decides to do, the procrastinator's decision making is clouded by 'Instant Gratification Monkey' that focuses on momentarily gratifying but ultimately useless tasks. The IGM guides the individual away from the important tasks to immediate puerile tasks.

The IGM takes the individual to the Dark Playground (DP) where leisure activities happen when they are not supposed to happen. The air in DP is filled with guilt, anxiety, self-loathing and dread. Sometimes the individual tries to fight back, but end up doing weird unrelated activities which are neither fun nor have any relation to the real task.

The only thing IGM is scared of is the Panic Monster (PM). Normally dormant, this waits till the task can no longer be postponed. Once PM arrives on the scene, the IGM vanishes and the individual is left to fend the panic all by herself. While the individual  finishes the task after attack by PM, in rare cases, the individual may run away from the task itself.

Procrastination cannot sustain due to three reasons:

1. It is unpleasant
2. The procrastinator ultimately sells himself short
3. The have-to-dos may happen, but not the want-to-dos (What Steven Covey calls the 'Important but not Urgent' tasks.)

How to beat procrastination? This is covered in the part 2 of the article. The reason why a procrastinator does it is because in his mind he has this belief that 'He will somehow finish the have-to-do tasks, but is not competent enough to finishing the want-to-do tasks'. Unless this belief changes, the individual will not be able to get rid of the bad habit. There are two aspects to this, one is Planning and the other is Doing.

The plan of a procrastinator is hazy, wildly ambitious and do not consider reality. The list may be long and daunting. Many of the tasks in the list may be unpleasant and procrastinator puts  them in his list without thinking any details. On the other hand, effective planning sets you up for success. Effective planning deals with selecting one task from a list of many tasks and complete it. Ideally you should choose the activity that will bring the most happiness to you. Ensure to knock out the urgent items quickly before you focus on the important things, the things that matter.

Effective planning turns a daunting task into small manageable steps.

The idea is to take it step by step and consistently move forward.

The final step in effective planning is effective scheduling. Until the task is in your calendar, it will never get done.

Now that we have planned and scheduled, the next step is....

Doing...

He compares starting a task as entering a Critical entrance. Once you enter, you can either go to the Dark Playground to procrastinate or to the 'Dark Woods', where the process of creation and task completion happen. Once the task is completed, you come out of the Dark Woods into the Happy Playground, where you feel happy and satisfied. Sometimes you enter into a state of flow where you complete one important task after another.

So what should a procrastinator do? First thing to do is to get in to the critical entrance. Start the task quickly. However this is where IGM puts its fiercest resistance. Once you enter the Dark woods of doing the actual work, you must resist the temptation of delaying or quitting and going to the dark playground. In Dark Woods, you may also come up with some obstacles that look insurmountable and the temptation to stop and quit is tremendous.

As you make progress on the task, the satisfaction produces its own motivation that propels you over the dark woods. The ensuing increase in self-esteem weakens the IGM.

As you continue working, you will reach a tipping point where the happy playground is in sight. Since IGM is interested only in playing, at the sight of the happy playground, he will become your partner and both you and IGM will move towards the happy playground in unison.

Another thing that could happen at the tipping point is that you become so passionate about the task that you continue with another task after the present one has completed. You enter into a state of flow. Since the monkey is also looking for happiness, in a state of flow both you and IGM work in unison again.

The final problem is that the IGM has a short term memory. It forgets the lessons on tuesday that it learned on Monday. So for procrastinator, everyday is a struggle.

How do you overcome the struggle.

Learn to finish the tasks that you start, the more tasks you finish, the more the confidence will build up inside you that you can finish tasks you start. So your challenge is just getting through the critical entrance. Once inside, you will tame the IGM.

To take control on your tasks, you have to:

1. Internalize the fact that everything we do is a choice.
2. Create methods that will help you tame the monkey.

• Get external support
• Create an artificial panic monster
• Remind yourself to make right choices
• Schedule your tasks. Set an alarm to remind you to start
• Remove distractctions
• Review and modify

3. Aim for slow and steady progress. Change the storyline from 'I procrastinate on every task' to 'Once a week I do a hard task without procrastinating'.

While the TED Talk by Tim Urban on Procrastination cover the same points discussed in the previous two posts, there was one critical point that stuck me and even shocked me when I heard it. There are some tasks that are very important for you where there is no panic monster. For example, if you are planning to write a book, you can spend years procrastinating on that without any 'Panic Monster' to goad you in to action. For example, for the last five years I have been telling myself that I will start a consulting company on my own, and I am just delaying it year after year. There is no deadline to meet, there is no immediate panic monster to goad me in to action. Mr.Urban says that while you do not feel immediate urgency, a time will come when you will no longer be able to do it even if you wanted to and that time the 'Regret Monster' (words mine) will hit you so hard that you will end up only with guilt and self-loathing and no achievement.

That hit me hard. As soon as I heard this Ted Talk, I started writing the first draft of a book that I have been meaning to write for a long time.

The fine art of procrastination: Part 1....

Over the last few days, I have read a couple of articles on various aspects of Procrastination and how to deal with it. Then I remembered that I had read more articles on the subject including the wildly popular article and TED Talk by Tim Urban as well as the mother of the self help books, Getting Things Done.

This is Part 1 of a two part post. 

I thought that in this article I will collate the lessons from all these books and articles and present a 'Universal Theory of Procrastination'. I will be referring to the following material in this article.

Why you procrastinate (It has nothing to do with self-control), written for NYTimes by Charlotte Leiberman

The smart guide to procrastination, written for BBC.com by Zaria Gorvett
Productivity is not about time management, it is about attention management, written for NYT by Adam Grant

Article on the Promodoro Technique by Chris Winfield

Why procrastinators procrastinate, written for waitbutwhy.com by Tim Urban

How to beat procrastination, written for waitbutwhy.com by Tim Urban

Getting things done, best selling book written by David Allen

TED Talk by Tim Urban on Procrastination 

All the material referred in this article are sources from publicly available material. I have just collated and summarized them in this blog post.

A Universal Theory of Getting Things Done...

Everyone wants to get stuff done. Right?

If you are like me, you have ideas that you want to get done, but you lack a structured approach to doing it. I am guessing that you will need help.

It is not that ideas are not available out there. The problems are two. One, they are disparate, not integrated. And two, sometimes they are contradictory. 

Steven Covey asks you to prepare the list of your 'Urgent / Important' things to do, Another author tells you that just a 'To Do' list is useless without a 'When to do' list. As per the conventional wisdom, you have to schedule your tasks in the To Do list. That is not correct, says David Allen in his book 'Getting Things Done'. As per Allen, you have to group your To Do list by the location where theywill get done. For example, identify all the tasks that are to be performed at or near MG Road in Bangalore. Then when you go to MG Road, complete these tasks. There will be many tasks like writing this blogpost for example, which can be done in the computer. Complete them one by one as you sit in front of your laptop at home or office as the case may be...

Confessions of a hopeless perfectionist....

About four months ago, I got an offer to write a sponsored blog post in my ERP Blog. The topic was 'ERP Market in India'. I asked for two weeks of preparation to deliver the post.

I quickly got down to researching on the topic. I read voraciously, took notes copiously. I exhausted the Internet looking for relevant material. I sat in front of my computer surfing the net for three straight days !! By the end of three days I had almost 10 pages of handwritten notes.

(This blog post by Tim Urban explains how procrastinators get things done)

You could say that I had enough and more of material for a 1000 word blog post.

But that is not how I felt. I felt helpless. I felt that I don't have any material to even start the blog post. I felt that my research was pedestrian and amateur. This drove me to the Internet with more vigour in search of more relevant material. I checked the websites of product vendors (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Epicor), implementation partners (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech, Accenture), top three consulting companies (EY, PwC, KPMG) and Government websites. I downloaded pages of PDF documents, read and made notes...

Dare to dream.....

The other day I was at my son's school to attend a function organized to felicitate the best performing students from the school in the just concluded class X and XII examinations.

(Read my related post here)

Pretty inspirational, the entire event. Children were the heroes, of course. Lanky, gawky, self-conscious teenagers, getting on to the stage to receive awards for some spectacular achievements.

There were many rank holders, who scored high marks in the entrance examinations for the graduate programs in Engineering and Medicine. There were many children who were very focused and appeared only for one of the entrance examinations (either Engg. or Medicine) and did exceedingly well and there were others who attempted both and came out with flying colours in both.

As you can see, the atmosphere was electric. There were thunderous applause as the name of each student was announced along with their achievements. There were happy parents, grandparents, siblings galore. One could not help feel the happiness felt by the audience.

I was happy, of course. The enthusiasm rubs off on you.

However, I couldn't help think that for many of these students, this might be the last 'HUGE' goal in their lives. In India, for many students, the two years, starting with the Class X exam, culminating in the Entrance exams two years later is the toughest phase in their academic career. The pressure is enormous. There is pressure from parents, of course. In addition there is pressure from the teachers, peers, coaching institutes that preps the kids for this examinations....

Every child has a clear goal, and there is an ecosystem that supports her to keep the focus on the goal and also, continuously guides them on the path towards goal achievement.

Yesterday's function was the culmination of this two year rigorous process. These kids had clear goals that gave them focus, and a supportive ecosystem that helped them to work towards achieving their goals.

As I mentioned earlier, for many of these kids, this may be the only 'Huge' goal that they will ever have in their lives. Even after fifty years, they will tell their grand children the story of how they 'got the top rank in their entrance examinations'.

Isn't this is the story of many of us? Each of us have some achievements from the past that we are still proud of.

This is not how it is supposed to happen. As the saying goes, if you are still talking about what you did yesterday, you have not done much today. You are supposed to continually add accomplishments to your life.

However, for many of us life is a routine of getting up in the morning, going to office, slogging, coming home, eating dinner and going to sleep. All for a promotion, a bit of a recognition and some income. In this rat race that we are in, we do not even get time to reflect on ourselves. We do not get time for ourselves.

How do we overcome it? How do we get to have a goal?

First step is to have a dream. Goals are derived from dreams. Without dreams, there can be no worthwhile goals. Many of us adults have forgotten the art of dreaming. We are scared of dreaming, let alone dream big. We find it difficult to fill in the statement 'I want to......' with an action verb. At the most we will fill it with 'I want XXX dollars'. Our dreams, if at all any, are in monetary terms.

Which means what?

One, most of us do not have any dreams....

Two, in case of those who have dreams, the dreams are very small and limited in scale. We conflate dreams and achievement. When we dream about something, there is a small voice in the back of our mind constantly reminding us of our limitations and constraints. Hence we limit the size of our dreams.

And three, as mentioned above, some of us dream in monetary terms. Money should not be the dream. It should be the outcome.

We either conflate dreams with our 'current' limitations - our dreams are limited by our perceived limitations to achieving the same, or we conflate dreams with monetary outcomes.

This is not how children dream. When the child says 'I want to become an airline pilot' there is no voice in her head that tells her that she can't achieve it. There is no limitations in her mind. That is her dream. Period.

Children do not limit their dreams. They do not dream in money terms. They dream big. They dream of achievement. They dream of accomplishment.

Remember, this moment, as we are reading this line, is the first moment of the rest of our lives. It is like, at every passing moment, we are being born again.

What we dream is what we do. Since you are being born in this moment, there is no need to conflate your dreams (that live in your future) with limitations (a thing of the past).

A marathon runner, runs nine tenths of his race at a lower speed and picks up speed for the last tenth. When it comes to the last one tenth (future), he does not constrain himself with what happened in the previous nine tenths (past).

Same is the case of a blind man, whose blindness is cured by new medical science after twenty years of being blind. Post surgery, after regaining consciousness, he does not limit his behavior to his blind days. He does not walk around with a stick and a guide dog as if he is still blind. He goes about, experiencing new stuff and soaking in all that the universe has to offer.

In both cases, it is like being born again.

Let me reiterate this. This moment is the first moment of the rest of our life. What we do from now on will determine our future. Do not constrain it by the negative messages from the past, limiting messages from others, and negative messages from oneself.

Look to the future. Imagine you are the marathon runner and pick up speed. Do not let the road bumps in the past affect your speed in the future. Imagine you are the blind man who has regained his vision after years of blindness. Throw away your crutches, leave your limiting thoughts behind, look at the future, soak it in. Dream big, think big, act big.

Whatever be your age, whatever be your position, wherever you may be, Dare to dream, it is where it all begins. It is where the future is.

The structured mind...

I am a firm believer in the idea that you can learn something from every interaction that you have with anyone. People have a way of surprising you with facets of their personality that you never thought existed.

Take for instance my recent interaction with Mr.PP and Mr.RA. Mr.PP is the HR Director in the company that I was working till March 31 of 2015. After I put in my papers, Mr.PP called me for a meeting to discuss the transition of tasks from me to my replacement.

During the meeting I observed Mr.PP taking notes in a dairy which was of the size of a notebook. The dairy was crammed with words line after line. No space was excessive in that book.

I was curious.

‘What is that book?’ I asked

‘It is my ‘To Do’ list’, he relied

It is filled with sentences’, I observed casually

'I have been maintaining this from 2012’, Mr.PP replied, ‘each line is a task that I have to do along with the expected date of completion. I use blue ink pen to note down t he tasks. As soon as I complete a task, I put a tick mark against that tasks with purple ink’, Mr.PP explained.

He showed me the dairy. Pages and pages of lines written in the same blue ink and tick marked with the same purple ink.

It does require a highly structured approach to maintain this habit, doesn’t it? Using the same dairy, same colour inks, same process….

Very disciplined.

I tried to think how I was creating my ‘To Do’ list. Ruefully I realized that my 'To Dos' are spread all over. Some tasks are in my PC in my ‘To Do’ Desktop software. Some are in dairies and notebooks, many of them, each task written in different levels of detail that suited my mood at the time of entry. Some tasks are in my mobile phone, some are in Google Tasks and some are in my Google Desktop.

With this approach to ‘To Do’ list, there is no way I can be predictable. I am not structured, my mind is all aclutter and I flit from one urgent task to another…

So my new resolution? Become structured like Mr.PP

Now we come to Mr.RA

He is the Managing Director of our company. I went to meet him just before I was moving back to Bangalore. After thanking him for his support and guidance, I asked him for his business card.

He gave me the same.

I asked him if the mobile phone number on the card was the number provided by the company. The idea was to take his personal number

You never know in which company your contact will be working tomorrow. If the number was provided by the company, they (your contacts) many not have the same number if you switch companies. It makes to take the personal phone number of your contacts.

‘This is my personal number’, Mr.RA told me, ‘I have been having this same number since 1995’.

That was amazing. The mobile telephony in India started around that time. People were getting used to the new technology, new service providers and plethora of tariff plans. The charges were very expensive. Incoming local calls were 10 rupees per minutes (Now it is free) and outgoing calls local calls were 16 Rupees per minutes ( now it is between 0.3 and 0.40 rupees per minute). If you made an inter-state call (known as STD Calls in India) or an International Call (ISD Call), you can bet your one month of pay check on that. Customers were always on the lookout for better plans and service providers were poaching customers from their rivals with the objective of improving their holy grail, ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). Every time you changed a vendor or a plan, your mobile number changed. In those days it was rare to find a person who had the same mobile number for more than 4-5 months.

It is in this context that the fact of Mr.RA maintaining the same mobile number over all these 20 years looks amazing. Mr.RA would be one of the few people in India who could boast of that feat.

Just try and imagine the benefits of an unchanged mobile number. You are structured and dependable. People know where they can reach you at any time of the day and even after years. They do not have to worry about your number changing thus forcing them to update their contact list.

You do not lose your effectiveness just because you changed your mobile service provider.

Having the same mobile number, like your personal email id, is a way of tethering you to your identity and like the ‘To Do’ book of Mr.PP, helps one structure their life and work.

Both of the above can be managed only by a structured mind. Not everyone can carry it off.

Hats off to you Mr.RA and Mr.PP.

I have learned something new from you. For that I thank you.

What is your 'To Become' list?

Remember when we were kids?

'I want to become like Sachin Tendulkar'

'I want to become an astronaut'

'I want to become a pilot'

'I want to become an engine driver'

'I want to become a doctor'

And so on....

When we are children, preparing a 'To Become' list comes naturally to us. We want to 'Become' something, We want to show off our capabilities, we want to 'do something' and 'Be Something'. It may be a wish list but it is there.

Our 'To Become' list changes as we grow up. What started as 'I want to become an 'Engine Driver' will turn to 'I want to become an engineer'. 

What happens when we become what we wanted to? Or if we did not become what we wanted to? When we have a job, when we have a family, when we have work?

What happens?

What happens is that our 'To Become' list slowly gives way to 'To Do' lists. We have all those task lists and check boxes and post its that remind us, day in and day out, that we have to do so many things. We have work related activities 'To Do', personal task 'To Do', family work 'To Do'....

Where is our 'To Become' list? Don't we want 'To Become' something? What happened to the dreams? Have we become what we wanted to become? Is there nothing to look forward to other than completing those 'To Do' stuff?

May be all those 'To Become's are replaced by one 'To Become'. 

I want 'To Become' rich...

In his book '7 Habits of Highly Effective People', Mr.Covey reminds us that we can group our tasks in two different parameters. One is Urgency, which can be high or low. The other is Importance, which can also be High or Low. The combination of these two together leads to four different possibilities.

Low Urgency, Low Importance

Low Urgency, High Importance

High Urgency, Low Importance

High Urgency, High Importance

Most of us categorize our 'To Become' lists, if at all we have, to the category 2 above. 'To Become' lists are very important, but most of us assign very low urgency to it and hence we do not take time to prepare our 'To Become' lists. Without a 'To Become' list, we do not have a base to benchmark ourselves.

So go ahead, prepare your 'To Become' list. Think big. Dream big. You don't have to limit your dreams to your current constraints. You have to base your dreams on your potential. 

'To Become' list is different from 'To Be' list in that the latter deals with Behavioural attributes like 'I want to be nice', 'I want to be acting fast', 'I want to be kind and gentle' etc. 'To Become' list is the list of your goals and ambitions unconstrained by your current situation. 'To Become' list is the listing of all that deep down we think we have the potential 'To Become'.

So go ahead. Prepare your 'To Become' list, your 'To Be List' and your 'To Do' lists. Ensure that all are in Sync with each other and with your true self. 

Three ways to 'Remove Negativity' from your life....

The readers of this blog know that the theme of this blog is about 'Personal Growth as a Journey which we undertake together'. We experience together, sharing lessons that we learnt on our Journey of Life...

One of the most important aspects in this journey is how do we remove negativity from our lives. We all would be better individuals if we are able to do that. Over the last two days I learnt two ways in which you do that. I learned the third approach when I read the book 'The Pilgrimage' written by Paulo Coelho (POW-loo KWAY-lew).

The three approaches are:

1. Always talk positive. At least stop talking negative.

2. Motivate yourself by talking to you in second person or your name.

3. Transfer your emotional pain to physical pain.

As per the article Things You Should Change In Your Language To Change Your Life Forever | Life Hacker India, the first step in removing negativity is to speak the correct language. The author exhorts us to observe our language, the tone, tenor, language, key words etc as we speak. That observation and the concomitant awareness will smoothly take us to the next step which is to remove negative statements from your language,

If you are in the habit of starting your sentence with, for example, 'I don't...', you could well flip it over and start taking positive. Instead of saying 'I don't want to be late...', you could say 'I am always on time'.

Another step is never to complete negative statements.  If you observe, we do it all the time. If a negative thought appears in our mind, we try to remove the thought from our mind and replace them with positive thoughts.  Try to make this a habit.

Complaints and justifications add to your negativity. Always try to look positive and never to focus on negative. It is very easy to complain. We are all wired to complain about stuff that we think are wrong. But, try shifting your focus to what is positive. Try to find good in people and situations. That way, your mind will have no space for negativity.

The next article ( Talk to Yourself Using "You" or Your Name for Better Introspection | Life Hacker India)  is on how to motivate yourself when you are prepping for an assignment. Psychologist at Michigan State University find that speaking to you in second person pronouns statements are better at helping motivation. Instead of saying 'I can do that' it is more effective to say 'You can do that' or 'Rahul can do that'.

These findings demo that small shifts in the language you use regularly can significantly change your feelings and emotions and can improve your positivity and hence productivity. 

The next question that you will ask me is this. 'It is all fine not to think of negative thoughts when I am emotionally down and depressed. Is there anything that I can do that will transfer me from negative to positive? At least remove negativity?'.

That is a good question. In his book 'The Pilgrimage', author Paolo Coelho, talks about a pilgrimage that he undertook with his mentor, named as Petreus, to a Spanish Pilgrimage town of 'Santiago De Compostala' (This was the place where the horrible train crash occurred, if you remember). In one of the Chapters, his mentor gives him advice on how to remove negativity. 

'The negativity in our minds causes pain. This is an emotional pain and is equally painful but with more emotional damage than the physical pain. Just as you forget a small pain in some part of the body with a more intense pain in some other parts of the body, a process called 'Transference', you can remove the emotional pain by transferring it to physical pain'.

'Every time you feel an emotional pain, you press the soft part between the nail and the skin of your index finger. This will cause a physical pain will lead to transference of your emotional pain to the physical pain. Over a period of time, you will start associating your negative thoughts with physical pain and since physical pain is uncomfortable, you will stop the factor which caused it, which is the emotional pain caused due to negative thoughts.'

Another way to transfer emotional pain to physical pain is by tying a rubber band to your arm. Every time you have negative thoughts, pull the band and let go. It  will cause a physical pain in your arm and over the period of time, you will remove the stimulus that caused the physical pain vis. your negative thoughts.

That is it. In summary, these are the three ways you can remove negativity.

1. Always talk positive. At least stop talking negative.

2. Motivate yourself by talking to you in second person or your name.

3. Transfer your emotional pain to physical pain.

Trust that this article had been useful for you. Please comment liberally if you found it suitable and it helped you. After all that is what this blog is all about...

Did this article help you? How do you handle negativity in your life? Have you observed as to what causes negativity in your life?  Do comment. Your responses may be of use to someone...

Check out my article on 'Evernote'. I used it to collate ideas for this blog post. 

Reviewing Evernote: An excellent tool for Bloggers....

As the title of this blog shows, the theme of this blog is 'Personal Growth as a Journey that we take together'. It means that I help you grow by sharing the lessons that I learnt over the course of my life and you also do likewise. 

One of the aspects of personal growth is to improve your productivity as a person in each of the role that each of us play. One role such role is that of a blogger. All of us want to improve our productivity as a blogger. We want to blog better content more frequently. One common problem that we all face is the time gap between when we identify a content and writing a post. Out of the many contents that we identify each day, I am sure, if you are like me, that you will be blogging about may be 20% of them.

The main reason is that our content ideas lie in may places. Some of them lie as bookmarks in the browser of your PC, some lie as photos in your camera, some lie as notes in the memo pad of your mobile phone, some lie in your personal dairy, some simply lie in your brain.

I am sure all of you have felt the need for a single repository of your ideas which you can access over any gadget that you have and that can help you structure your thoughts and ideas and also help you take notes. 

Welcome to Evernote.

You can download it from the above site. There are two versions, one is the free version which comes with a upload capacity of 60 MB data per month which increases to 1GB per month for premium users. You can read the details here 

My Evernote Page

What can you do with Evernote?

1. Notebook: You can create Notebook: Notebook works just like the main folder in your PC. For example, since I blog on ERP and Personal Growth and would like to blog on Investments,  I have created three notebooks one for each topic. I also have another notebook named 'Ideas to explore'. Notebooks help you structure your main content ideas. 

2. Tags: You can create tags and attach the same to your notebook: Tags work like a 'sub folder' (not exactly, since a tag is separate identity from the notebook). Since the main topic of my personal blog are 'Good, Bad, Ugly', Wisdom and Humour, I have created tags for that. For writing this topic, I created another tag named Productivity and another one called 'Blogging' to document ideas to make me a better blogger. Ideally you should have a few tags in your repertoire. Too many tags can lead to clutter of your ideas.

3. Notes: You can create your personal notes and attach the same to your notebook. You can attach a link to a topic on the web that interested you and you can add your notes to that topic. And there you have your blog post !!

4. Photos: You can attach photos and write your thoughts in the note. That is another blog post for you. I am yet to explore.

5. Web clipper: This is the one feature that I have fallen most in love with. In the past, every time I read an article on the web, and if I had some personal thoughts on the contents of that article, there was no way for me to link the Internet article and my ideas together. For example, the other day I read an article on 'ABCD', what ABCD stands for BJP and Congress. I thought of an article of a kid learning ABCD and getting confused. All I could do at that time was to bookmark that page and hope that I will come back to that article sometime when I am free and hope that I somehow remember my ideas and thoughts that I had when I first read that article. Having installed 'Web Clipper'  this has become a breeze. I just attach that article to my Evernote notebook, type in my ideas for me to review, revise and post later. Great !!

6. Scan and attach to your Evernote: Yesterday, while sitting at the hair cutting salon, I read an article on personal health and fitness. Since I had installed Evernote in my mobile phone, scanning that article and attaching it to my Evernote notebook was a breeze. I intend to write a blog post on it sometime soon. 

There are other features that I have not explored. Evernote team keeps sending daily tips on how to use additional features of Evernote. 

Point to remember. If you are trying to install Evernote from Chrome, you may face issues. In case you have problems with download, try IE. It works. 

Also, I think that Web Clipper is different for different browsers. Since I use Chrome frequently, I have installed it on Chrome.

Web Clipper Icon in my Chrome

In case you install Evernote and find that you can't live without it, you know whom to thank. (Hint: Its me. You read it here first.)

Here are some additional links on Evernote. 

I've Been Using Evernote All Wrong. Here's Why It's Actually Amazing | Life Hacker India

What's All the Fuss About Evernote? Should I Be Using It? | Life Hacker India

How To Use Evernote for Writing Fiction | Life Hacker India

I had clipped them to my Evernote Notebook to write this blog post. So you have proof of the pudding (on how to use Evernote to write your blog post) right there !

The three biases ...

All the people and Organizations (After all, companies are made of people) go through three biases. They are 'Status Quo Bias', which can also be called as Inertia Bias, Action Bias and Closure Bias.

What are these?

Inertia Bias or Status Quo Bias is the tendency to stick to the Current situation, however bad it may be. Despite knowing that Inertia bias always hurts (without exceptions), people are content to maintain Status Quo. A smoker, who knows he has to quit, but continue to smoke, is a victim of Status Quo Bias. So is a person who hates the job that he is doing, but is doing nothing to change the environment, a victim of Status Quo Bias. 

A company, which knows that the current processes are hurting, but is not doing anything to change is a victim of Status Quo Bias. For example is company which, after having implemented technology solutions, still continues with the paper based approval systems. 

There are many other examples.

People who suffer from Status Quo bias is living life like a dream. In a dream, you see and feel things that need to change, but you don't (or Can't) change anything. Or it may be that you are a superman doing exceptional things in a dream, and wake up and realize that nothing has changed and nothing was done. Similarly people with Status Quo bias might continue to go on as if they are doing stuff. They go through life as if it is a ritual. They get up in the morning, go to office, come back, watch TV, eat dinner, go to sleep, get up in the morning and so on. Just like in a dream, they are taking action but nothing has changed. They have not become better individuals, they have not learned anything new, they have not quit a bad habit, nothing. The whole thing was a dream. That is why, when people who suddenly realize the impact of Status Quo Bias tell you that they 'Woke Up'..
Status Quo Bias is illustrated by the famous story of Rip Van Winkle. He slept for 20 years when all around him the American Revolution was going on. When he woke up,, he found the the world has moved on while he was in his sleep. 

Some people realize that they are in a status quo bias and need to take action. So they move to the next bias, the action bias.

The action bias, is a tendency to take action and continue taking action without a focus on closure. A software engineer who keeps modifying his code adding bells and whistles to the code is a victim of action bias. People who are victims of action bias think that taking action is all that they have to do. So just like Forrest Gump, who kept running without any aim or objective, these people are always busy, always working. Still nothing seems to happen.

They will provide temporary solutions to the problems without going for a long term solution. They will not spend the time in doing the 'Root Cause Analysis'. They will not spend time in training and education. They are like 'Problem Magnets'. All the problems come to them. They are flooded with problems. They are always busy solving multiple problems at the same time.

There is no time to step back and reflect on what is happening. Why are all these problems coming up? How do I resolve them permanently?

That thought process leads me to the third bias, the 'Closure Bias'. 

This is where you should be. One can only grow if one develops 'Closure Bias'. One should be able to identify problems, identify why they are happening and take action to close the problems completely. People tend to confuse 'Action Bias' with 'Closure Bias'. "I regularly go to Gym", they will say, "But my weight is remaining the same". It is possible that while they go to Gym and do exercises regularly, they are not scientifically following a weight reduction regimen. Probably they do not control their diet. Probably they only do one kind of exercise and the body has got adjusted to the regimen. People with Closure Bias will clinically analyse the issue, seek help if necessary and take a structured approach to close the issue.

So there we are. What type of biases do you have?
If you have a status quo bias, at least move on to the action bias. And then strive to move to Closure Bias. That is how you grow.

Need for 'Clarity of Purpose' in life...

You know what is the most important problem in life?

The most important problem is that we will know what is good for us only after the opportunity has passed. 

Too many people take current decisions based on past experiences, without basing the same on expected future. Even when considering past experiences, the focus in always on what went wrong in the past. What happened in the past is hardly relevant to the current decision, but most of us use that as a guiding post in making our decisions.

If not based on the past, our current decisions are based on the current problems, what is known as 'Recency Effect'. 

If at all we consider the future, it is only to consider the expected challenges in the future.

Add to it is the fact that many of us do not know what they want, what is our purpose in life.

By using the negative experiences in the past, the current challenges (which appear huge), by always considering the negative aspects of future and without a clear purpose to give us direction  to our life, it is no wonder that we end up making wrong decisions, with significant long term consequences.

It will be a surprise if we can make right decisions with so many 'Overheads'. 

It is sad.

Take for example the case of Rohit. He is a friend of mine. He was one of the early implementers of ERP in India. He was implementing ERP in the late 90's and early 2000s. In 2001, he got an offer to implement ERP in one of the African Countries (I think it was for a Nigerian Oil Company). The compensation was a whopping 1700 Pound a day plus all expenses covered. This works out to about 2 lakh Rupees a day !!

It was huge.

But Rohit did not take the offer. As he told me, at that time he had got married to a colleague and his wife had reservations about going to Nigeria. She was also working in the same company as Rohit and she did not want to disrupt her career. Also, he read in papers that there was internecine violence in Nigeria, even though he was assured full Security and the area where he was suppose to be working was not Violent.

Also, Africa was not very sexy. All his colleagues were going to exotic places like US, Europe, UK etc and he was hesitant to go to Africa. He was not sure if he will get the same facilities in Africa that he was accustomed to.

Having missed this great opportunity, his career went on a limbo. Let me modify this statement. Having carried this paradigm of decision making, his career went into a limbo. His company gave him the option to choose the country that he wanted to work. He declined the offer and said that he wanted to work only in India. His company did not have any opportunity for his skills in India. He left the company soon after. As he moved around from one company to another, only the constant that he carried with him was the paradigm of always looking back and regretting the various decisions that he made in life. 

When you talk to him, the predominant theme is that of regret. He regrets that he did not take the Africa offer. He regrets that he did not go to US or Europe when his boss gave him the opportunity. He regrets that his career is in a limbo. He is always carrying his regret along with him.

It is obvious that he has the requisite knowledge and expertise. But it is also very clear that he has lost his Mojo.

Take the case of another of my friends, Sunder.

He is expert in a niche technology which is very useful for many organizations. In 2007, he got an opportunity to work in Australia at a rate of 700 USD per day plus all expenses taken care. He declined the offer because he read in papers that Indians were getting killed in Australia !!. 

Why did highly intelligent people like Rohit and Sunder make the wrong choices? Why are they carrying the impact of the choices even now, after almost a decade? Why were they focusing on non-relevant parameters while making critical decisions?

More importantly, what do they do now? What do WE do in such situations?? How do we make good career decisions?

In my opinion, there are three aspects to consider.

First, it is very important to know what we want and what is important to us. What is important? Career, Family, Money, Recognition? We have to decide. It should be the peg around which our decisions should be based. If we have a strong base, our decisions will not go wrong.

Second, do not be afraid of the future. Fear of future (euphemistically called 'Risk') is always based on the past experiences and / or current experiences. Rephrase 'Risk' as 'Future Experience'. If we do that mental paradigm shift and start calling Risk as 'Future Experiences', our perspective will change. We will start thinking about future far more positively and as an opportunity to mold. After all, we cannot control our past experiences, but our future experiences are always under our control. Considering 'Risk' as 'Future Experiences  will give us a sense of control on our life. We may not be able to control 'Risk' (because it is perceived as external to you), but we can always control our 'Future Experiences' (because the control is internal), can't we?

Third, do not regret. Like I mentioned earlier, we cannot control the past experiences, but we can always control the future experiences. So focus always on what we can control and not on what is uncontrollable. This will make us more positive and we will start inviting positive experiences in life.

So, from this moment, pledge to that 'You will always focus on Future and try to control the future experiences. You will look at past only to take the right lessons'.

All the best.

Three Productivity Tools that anyone require....

There are three common factors that link a working professional, a home maker or a business person.

There are things to do....

There are schedules to adhere to...

There are things to follow up...

You can improve your productivity by identifying and documenting the things to do, carefully scheduling them and following up with the people who have to do some of the tasks that are important for you.

Things To Do (TTD): The main characteristic of things to do is that these are tasks which YOU have to do. You cannot delegate these tasks to others. These are random list of items that you have to complete at some point in time. This may be as simple as taking the medicine or writing a new post in your blog or writing that email. The funny thing about this list is that the points will come to your mind at any time and if you do not jot down the thing to do as soon as you remember them, the chances are that you will forget them. 

Another characteristic of things to do is the priority. Some tasks are more important than the other. You should be able to prioritize these tasks. If you do not prioritize the tasks, all the tasks will become urgent at some point in time and you will have time only for urgent tasks and your important tasks are relegated to the background.

Yet another characteristic of things to do is the location. Each task has a location. You can improve your productivity by arranging the tasks by location and when you are planning to go to a particular place, you can complete all your tasks of that location. 

When to do, Schedule: Associated with things to do (TTD), is the Schedule. You must decide when you are going to do the same. Some of the tasks are urgent and will be scheduled. However, the key aspect of scheduling is to find time for the important tasks of your life. You have to schedule two hours a day for studying on that certification, find time for your annual health check up. While you are scheduling, ensure that you only schedule the tasks that are in your Things To Do (TTD) list. In other words, ensure to have a linkage between the TTD list and your schedule. The best approach will be to schedule the tasks as soon as you add them to your TTD list. However, for best results, prepare TTD through the week and prepare a Schedule on a particular day, may be on Sunday. This will help you review your priorities and schedule the top priority tasks first before you focus on your lower priority tasks.

Tasks To Be Followed Up (TTBFU): The key characteristic of these tasks are that, while you are responsible for these tasks, 'SOMEONE ELSE' has to actually do these tasks. This list has two parts, one, there is a list of tasks and two, there is a person (other than you) who complete these tasks. While it is difficult to schedule these tasks, they may have linkages to some of the tasks in your TTD list. These may be very important for you, but you have no control on TTBFU.

To improve your productivity, you have ensure that you have a comprehensive list of TTD and TTBFU and have a detailed schedule to do these tasks.

Being a working professional, who still use my Laptop to handle most of my work, I am always on the lookout for various Windows based applications to track my tasks and schedule my activities. 

What do I want?

One, I want an application that will help me list down my TTD list. There should be ways in which I will be able to identify the top priority items and also I should be able to group these tasks by location.

Two, I want an application that will help me prepare a weekly schedule my tasks

Three, I want an application that will help me track the items that I have to follow up.

I did some Google search to find out some applications that will help me handle these requirements. As I understood, it is very difficult to find an application that can do all the three. While you can still find a task and calendar application, there are no application that will handle TTBFU. I downloaded the following Things To Do (TTD) applications.

1. Wunderlist
2. GeeTeeDee
3. Google Desk Top

While the first two are comprehensive apps with the facility to create tasks with additional details like responsibility and schedule, Google Desktop is just a task list application. All the three can be installed on you Windows Laptop.

When it comes to Calendar, I found that Outlook Calendar is by far the best Calendar Application. The only problem is that this application is available only on a license basis. Another Calendar Application is Google Calendar. The main advantage of this application is that it is from Google and is integrated with your Gmail.

The disadvantage of Google Calendar is that it is not a desktop application, though I understand that recently Google has released a Desktop widget for Google Calendar.

So I was on the web, looking out for a good task cum calendar application, which is free, and I came across 'Rainlendar'. This is a very good application with integrated Task and Calendar feature and which can be easily installed and is intuitive.

It comes in two versions, the basic version is free, while the Pro version is chargeable.

I am still on the lookout for an application that can handle Tasks Follow up. I am yet to find one.

I think I am stuck with Excel for task follow up.

Do you know of any apps that can help me follow up on the tasks? That will complete my portfolio.

13 Action Items for 2013

It is a bit late in 2013. Here are 13 action items that I will be putting into practice in 2013.

1. Pray five minutes every day before going to bed
2. Meditate for five minutes every day between 5.55 and 6.00 AM
3. Read two self-help books every month
4. Spent lots of time with family. 
5. Spent quality time with my son helping him to do well in his studies 
6. Work very, very hard. Work to my fullest potential
7. Plan and review: I will spend two hours every Sunday preparing Weekly plan. Prepare to do list and follow it up rigorously. Before going to bed, review the plans for the next day. 80 Percent of my time will be spent only on planned activities every day.
8. Go to Gym every day from 6.15 AM to 7.30 AM. To ensure that I exercise everyday, I will carry my Gym Shoes wherever I travel.
9. Eat well: I will eat at least one fruit every day, eat only 'Sattvik' food.
10. Write at least two blog posts in my professional blog (http://erp-consultancy.blogspot.com) and personal blog (this blog) every week
11. Review and update my Linkedin Profile once a month.
12. Prepare Budget and Cut spending. Get a mail approval from self before spending more than 1000 rupees. Plan for any expense above 1000 rupees.
13. I will always think positive and maintain my sense of humour. I will repel negativism all the time.

How do you influence people on a large scale?

Every day morning, while coming back from the gym, I see the rising sun.

Nowadays, summer is setting in here in India and the morning Sun, even at that early morning, shines bright and .... well.... sunny.

Watching the sun rising in the morning is an awe inspiring sight. Also it is wonderful and never ceases to amaze me to watch sun rise and shine its light on the entire world.

Nowadays, I have started praying to the Sun God. The prayer goes like this.

"Oh my sun god, just like the way you shine your light on the entire world, remove darkness and bring clarity to the world, I also want to shine my light on the entire world and influence the universe. Please help me to fulfill my wish."

I analysed as to how Sun was bringing light to the world. The objective was to understand and learn any lessons from the Sun God on how to influence huge number of people at the same time.

Here are a few of the lessons that I think are relevant.

1. Focus: The Sun is a very small speck in the entire universe. While shining, it doesn't try to light up the entire universe. The focus of the sun is to light its planet earth. The entire light of the sun is focused on lighting up the earth. Likewise, if you want to achieve anything, you need to focus like a laser beam, let your 'Teesari Aankh' see only your goal and the whole internal energy should be focused on the goal. 

2. Consistency: Every day in the morning, like a clockwork, or shall we say 'Sunwork', the sun rises in the east, lights up the earth and sets in the west. At night when we (the people in the earth who are beneficiaries of the God's munificence) know that the Sun will be there the next day, next month, next year, till eternity, lighting up the mother earth. This helps people to plan their activities years in advance. Imagine what could have been the outcome if the Sun was inconsistent. You would never be able to plan anything. For example, try going out without an umbrella in a rainy season. You will not be able to plan. Consistency of sun provides the opportunity to plan your work effectively. 

Likewise always be consistent in whatever you do. Another word for consistency in personal life is Integrity. A person who has integrity will have consistency in his thoughts, words and deeds. Like the consistency of  sun allows others to plan, the personal integrity allows others to plan their personal life around you. Be it in business or in personal life, always fill yourself with integrity and also, always associate yourself with people of integrity. 

3. Perpetual Motion: Right from the time it rises to the time it sets, the sun is always on the move. The movement allows the sun to shine its light on various areas of the planet. There is nothing called inertia as far as the sun is concerned. The movement allows the sun to spread its sphere of influence.

Take cue from the sun, always be on the move. Never fall pray to inertia. Never fall pray to lethargy and lassitude. No amount of personal competence can help you if you fall pray to inertia and procrastination.

Be alert, be aware, be like sun.

4. Remember your limitations, don't spread it too thin, don't cast your net too wide: No matter how hard the sun may try, it cannot light up the entire earth at the same time. At any time, the sun can light up only one side. Just like sun, which works within its limitations, analyse and evaluate yourself and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Always work within your strengths and avoid the weaknesses. Remember, even sun cannot light up the entire earth at the same time !!

5. Take enough rest, chill out!: The sun works for about 12 hours in giving light and takes rest for the remaining part of the day. Similarly, ensure to plan your tasks in such a way as to factor in rest and relaxation.

6. Pace yourselves: One of the characteristics of sun is that at the beginning of the day, it is less bright, becomes brighter as the day goes by and gradually cools down and winds up. This is an excellent lesson. Marathon runners never start off at a great pace. They start slowly and builds up pace. As another example, a gym instructor always asks you to 'Warm Up' before you start doing rigorous exercises. We sometimes tend to forget these basic lessons. We start off at a great pace, soon gets tired and stop. And then blame the tool!.
Learn from Sun on how to pace yourselves so that you can exert the maximum influence.