Really simple ways of getting work done

While I was in office, my boss calls up on my extension at 12:00 and I tell him "Hey, I am going home, my work for the day is done!".

Imagine getting a full day’s work done by noon. Sounds impossible, right? But it really shouldn’t be. If you eliminated all the time you spend procrastinating, distracted or stalled, getting a full day of work done by noon could be realized. I have done it, so can you!

But being this productive everyday, day by day is not so simple. Lets try and make this simple. I recall going back to my old school day - THE SPORT DAY! I would always ask my mom "Why do I start running far faster when I see the finish line?". To that, mom would reply - "You can see the milestone far closer to you and achievable". Along the race, I would be all tired and almost ready to faint but when I see the finish line, I wonder where I would get the energy from to cross and win! Hope you are understanding the analogy I am giving here!

Procrastination isn’t mostly about knowing when to start. It’s about knowing when to stop. Most of us, start with a infinitely long TO DO list. This is the underlying stress that comes from feeling that there is too much work ahead, and so any effort won’t make much of a dent in the short term. You can short-circuit this stress by having a clearly defined end-point for your work. With a finish line in sight, it is much easier to summon up the energy to sprint ahead and cross it.

What is measured is improved upon. If I measure my work in hours rather than tasks accomplished, I will improve upon nothing. This was the main reason why the concept of flexi timings was introduced. Why have timings at all in the organization as long as you accomplish your tasks! Isn't that itself a big motivation factor already! What better if I can start my day saying "I will complete 10 tasks today within 2 hrs and then can wind up early and see Siya skating in the evening."

One lecture that I had heard sometime back, completely changed the way I worked. It was on "Channelizing your energy correctly". Many people learn about Time Management to make them more productive. The basic concept is that your energy, not time, is what matters when getting work done. With a lot of focus and enthusiasm you can often get done triple the work in the same period of time. Whereas, working a 16-hour day instead of an 8-hour one is just a recipe for burnout. So manage your work in bursts - extremely productive and high energy followed by energy recover. This is cyclical.

Now how does it work - on every Sunday, prepare a weekly to-do list, every night before sleeping, prepare a daily to-do list, and now simply follow the daily to-do list. Pretend your other work doesn’t exist. When you’ve finished the daily list, you’re done for the day and you’re not allowed to add more work. The fact that you can see the finish line daily, you will be able to put it far more energy and focus. The fact that you will now measure your day by tasks accomplished rather than hours, you will be far more motivated and procrastinate far lesser!

Try it and let me know how it goes!

Siya and her stories...

Siya and her stories....
Purwa - Siya, now a days why are you taking skating lightly?
Siya - Mom, you changed my wheels telling me that they are far lighter and now you are asking me why am I taking it lightly!

:-) - Can someone teach her English!

Tryst With Beas - 30th Apr, 2011

Warm greeting from me after a fun-filled vacation! This vacation was planned a little different! The entire trip had two flavors - first 7 days was all about adventure basically with the objective of testing our power of withstanding stress or hardships. The next 7 days was very consciously getting back to civilization and relaxing well out. I will not be describing the last 7 days of the trip at all (I am sure you know why :-|)

Siya is 6 years and considering the only one in family in her generation, a highly pampered child. The maximum she would have walked ever is not even a km. She is of course very active in terms of running and skating but if she sees one of us around, she prefer to be carried :-). Coming to think of it, why blame her, I love carrying her!
So this trek was planned just to make sure we make Siya aware of nature and most of all endurance!

Day 1 - We traveled from Mumbai to Chandigarh. After a small wait for my cousin's family, we left from Chandigarh at 4:00pm. We had a pre-depature meeting with Countryside (the group that had organized the Tryst With Beas that is first 7 days)where we were told to carry a good number of woolens and thermals. And hey like any Marwadi family, we had packed more than sufficient of everything be it woolens or food! But Chandigarh was around 40 degrees, we were almost in half mind to remove even whatever we were wearing ;-). The car travel from Chandigarh to Mandi started. We landed in Mandi at around 12 mid-night in Visco Resort. The drive on the mountains was kind of not comfortable. The driver was driving as if he is the only one on the road and for us it was no less than a roller coaster. Me and bhabhi would have committed some 100 vices we will NOT do to God before Mandi :-). We had still not felt the need for woolens inspite of he fact that we had started gaining altitude. The resort was by the river side and was very peace full. Siya and Prerit (her cousin) were to our surprise were good kids and played together. Both me and my bro were expecting a good bit of fireworks between them.

Continued tomorrow...

Siya and her stories...

Siya and her stories..... (thanks Aarti Hemen Kapadia for sharing the same)
Background - There was a play in the summer camp where Siya was a rose and one of her friends had to pluck her
Her friends went to pluck her and she tell Aarti Aunty
"Yeh pluck kar rahi hai ki pyaar kar rahi hai"

This is just so bollywood man :-)

Happy Birthday Siya - 6 years

Dearest Siya,
Year from April 2010 to April 2011 has by far been the most exciting year for me from the time you are in my life! This is not to say that the past years are forgotten at all! As you go through the letter, you will realize why am I saying this. You were more a friend and a guardian to me this year! Isn't it weird that your mom is saying that you were her guardian! But that is just so true! What really transformed this year to its best was we were able to have conversations. Coming home and discussing office problems, discussing what to cook for lunch, discussing why is papa having oily stuff, discussing why is it important for us to know our social state of being, etc etc. Each one of them is very interesting and each one of them is also recorded explicitly for you. Some day when you read through it, you will enjoy it. Hence, a friend and a guardian.

This year was your journey more to build an identity for yourself rather than just being a daughter of Vipul and Purwa. You do understand the meaning of my best friend, my cupboard, my things, my views, my opinion, my victories, my dance style, my skating style, my computer, my choice of food, my table, my room and what you always insist on the most "MY MOM". Your dad surely takes all of the "MYs" not very neatly which is like what most of the parents do. They have given 4-5 years of their lives to bring up the kid and when suddenly the child start building its own identity different from parents, it is a little difficult to digest! So, I do not blame him at all. If you remember, in my previous letter, http://purwajain.blogspot.com/2010/04/happy-birthday-siya-5-years.html, I had mentioned "All that I would like to tell you on your birthday today is (of course told to me by one of my friends a few days back) your future is decided by choices and not by the chances that you take along the way. Everyone in this world (including us) will have a opinion but the matter of fact is that only you can decide what can make you happy.". Please do remember this always and will surely realize its meaning when you are in the process of making up your identity.

Something that really made me proud of you and made sure that you have the right values inculcated in you was all your school incidences. Your best friend Pearl Jain was once beaten by your class teacher. You came home and told me about the same. I had conveyed the same to Pearl's mom. The matter was really closed for us. After a few days, your class teacher cornered you and asked "Did you go and tell your mom about the same". To that your reply to your class teacher was "Yes, I did because you did wrong". I was moved by your reply. It is a situation that even we as elders sneak out from but you decided to stay there and face it. I am proud of you Siya. However, do remember that something that is right for you may be wrong for someone else. As long as you can justify why it is right and stand by it, you are doing good.

This year I also did see you getting a lot more independent! You demand to do your own things and you also demand that you will take care of yourself. I really do not mind you being that way. Remember always that when you are demanding independence, you are demanding freedom. And freedom is such that if you have it all, soon you will loose the fine line between what is right and what is wrong. I will constantly remind you of the same in your primitive years and teach you well enough to make a judgement once you grow up.

This year you also started reading! This has made my job of bringing you up far more simpler. Now you have two moms, one me and other is your books. The fact that you get always so moved by "Moral of the story" and try putting the same to practice, they have helped me a lot in cultivating the Value System that will grow up with. Always remember, books are your best friends and they are something that will never ditch you.

While we do understand that now, in the coming years, the "I" factor will be building up, always remember our world revolves around you. We love you, we are very proud of you and we do accept that you are growing up. Just know that you will always be our baby.
Happy Birthday Siya and God Bless!

Long Emails for Communication

I had read it somewhere "If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea". I read this almost 15 years back. But somehow, none of the corporate houses have still got it right! I’m a fairly busy, but who isn’t busy? I try to be responsive but when I get an incredibly long email there is no way I’ll answer quickly. If an email is short, I’ll shoot out a reply as soon as I read it.

So why send long emails?
Here’s a rule: a long email is never necessary. Never.
Is it a rant against people who’ve emailed me? No, it’s a general problem that I’ve seen with email, and I hope this will help people write more effectively.

I really don't need to say why long emails are just not the way to go!

So, here are quick tips on how to write short emails:
1) In my MBA I was taught the 6*6*6 rule! That is 6 slides, 6 sentences, 6 words per sentence! And I was able to achieve that always most of the times for any presentation. Then why not in emails?
2) Figure out the crux of the matter you want to convey and talk about only that!
3) Do not ask too many questions at one go! Ask one thing!
4) Try using links for references.

Siya and her stories...

Siya and her stories.....
Background - Her teacher called me up all angry to say the following....
Teacher - 'Siya, please pay a little attention to what I am saying.'
Siya - 'Teacher, I am paying as little attention as I can to what you are saying!!!'

...I really did not know how to react on phone to this! Except apologies and good luck, I had nothing to offer her :-)