Have you created a daily dashboard for yourself?

It is important to have a daily dashboard that guides you to take course correction. We usually get focused on one thing or another and get blind sided to the rest; Very soon we get our lives dangerously imbalanced.

Imbalance has tremendous impact on our quality of life.

Please find below some symptoms

• You are extremely successful professionally but lost out on family relationship
• You are successful and have a good family relationship, but financially you have created a mess
• You are so focused on friends and relationship that you neglect your professional life
• You are so busy getting through the day that you forget to stop and learn
• You find you are living a life against your values or your values have quietly shifted
• You have completely missed out on the spiritual goals you set
• You find that it is more than a year since you spent some quiet time with yourself
• You have no friends

Well, these are some of the symptoms. It generally manifests itself as a feeling of restlessness, for you know deep in your heart that you are spinning your wheels and getting no where.

The antidote to this frightful state, is daily monitoring. What you need to do is construct a dashboard with which you can constantly monitor and course correct.

The dashboard, I use is depicted in the figure. You may begin with a few of the dials as you may have not constructed data feed for all the dials

Explanation:

Physical:

• Exercise, nutrition, relaxation, sleep etc.

Learning:

• Professional, new skills, training, new hobbies---

Living and adding values:

• Your values, value shifts, and your daily contribution levels in various areas of your life

Financial:

• Your bank balance, spending pattern, debt, earning capacity---

Relationship:

• Your family, friends, new network you have been nurturing---

Spiritual:

• Your spiritual goals, exercises, meditation---

You have to build your dashboard; Some of the dials need a lot of intra-personal work but you have to build it sooner or later.

Use this powerful concept to live a balanced life. Your dashboard will not only make your life richer, it will also make your life balanced.

Use dashboard daily!

Try it out and share your experience here.

Use this tool to make your life productive!

We are living in times when we need to focus on multiple things. Assembly line approach to work is ineffective in most of the situations we find ourselves in; This is true, especially, if you are a knowledge worker.

In an attempt to solve this problem many people try multitasking. Multitasking is not only dangerous, it is outright ineffective.

It can result in burn out and you will end up producing low quality work.

What I am posting here is a tool that will help you to succeed. The tool is simple and fun to use.

Try it out! Refer to the picture which is self-explanatory.

• Scan: You scan for 3 minutes or longer for various activities
• Spot: You spot an activity based on the context, situation and the goals you have in mind
• Focus: You focus on the activity for a preset time
• Accomplish: You accomplish the preset goal for the activity
• Stop: You stop the activity
• Break: You take a break which is predetermined

You go through the cycle again and again through out the day. At night you take a long break-you sleep. Next day you continue---

Try it for a day. You will be stunned at what you can accomplish.

Do share in your experience here.

How much do you use the things you buy?

Week in week out we shop. One of our favourite pastimes is to go to a mall and window shop; very soon window shopping becomes actual shopping.


The things we buy usually are:

1. Books


2. DVD


3. Clothes


4. gadgets


5. magazines


6. grocery


7. vegetables


8. perfumes


9. Watches


10. Jewellery


11. trinkets


12. Stationary

The list can go on and on. I am sure you can come with a similar list or even a more comprehensive one.

In addition to this we subscribe to magazines, buy comics, subscribe to all kinds of channels on satellite TV.

As I look back to the past six months, I am amazed and also stunned. A thought immediately struck me.

How much of what we buy do we actually use?

• There are many books I have not yet read


• There are many magazines I have not read-Example-Harvard Business Review


• There are movies (DVDs) we have not yet seen (Last Saturday I subscribed to a home delivery movie rental agency)


• There are channels on my TV I have never seen


• There are regular channels I have not watched for a long time


• I have not used my Nikon D80 SLR for a long time


• I have not used my Sony Camcorder for a long time


• We have not used our printer and scanner for a very, very, very long time


• I have one more TV neatly packed in a box


• I have 18 hours of digital video tapes not yet processed and burnt on DVD

I think I will stop here because this is becoming a really long painful list.

The point I am driving at is this:

We buy a lot of things (It costs money to buy) and we use it very erratically or do not use it at all.

We need to take stock of stuff we buy/subscribe. and we need to use them to our advantage. I think systematically planning to use the stuff we have and using them is the sign of prosperity and plenty; Otherwise you may have everything and still live an impoverished life.

We need to have gratitude for all the stuff we have and use them wisely.

Take stock! Are you doing justice to the effort you put in and the money you spent?

Look around you and use the stuff you have wisely. It is the best foot you can put forward to live life prosperously.

When was the last time you thought of your best friends?

It is important in life to have friends; More important to have true friends; And extremely important to have best friends. While it is easy to have acquaintances, it is very difficult to have good friends. If you have good friends and few of them are your best friends you can count yourself as a very lucky one on this dreary planet we are living in.

I would like to share with you a beautiful poem composed by my daughter. She composed this for her best friends. I found an universality in this poem and hence I am posting it for all of you who will read this post.

The Poem:

My Dear Friend…

Friendship… what does it mean?
A question in the mind of every teen
An answer I have found through a few
Cause I have friends that are very true!

I think I truly am a really lucky girl,
As I silently watch true friendship unfurl
Cause my friends, they are always there,
And they never let me any sorrow bear

Across the distances long and forlorn,
To be the best of friends we were born
Such high standards for us we have set,
But I trust you’ll surpass it, do not fret

Be it in the morning, evening or at anytime,
Even at midnight I wouldn’t think for even a dime
Where ever you are, India or U S A,
I know your support is always on its way

You follow every single unwritten rule,
To not honor you, I would be a fool!
I will not thank you cause you’re my friend,
But I can promise to love you till the very end!

Do share in your experiences.

Try this quantum leap experiment!!!

Look back at the week gone by. How did it go? Did you achieve the goals you set? Did you set goals at all?---

These are the few questions and many more that are going around in my head, as I sit on this Friday evening, in my office, with the weekend staring at me.

I think we need to ask these questions every week; Of all the questions that I found interesting to ask, I found a question that profoundly shook me up and energized me.

The question is:

What was the one thing I needed to change, if I had changed, that would have given me a quantum leap in productivity and quality of life last week?

Home in on that one thing you need to change and change it next week; Experiment.

This is the quantum leap experiment and the question is the quantum leap lever you can use to your advantage.

This question should act as a lever to move and turn your world around.

Every week the answer to the question may be different. Every person may get a different answer.

What is important is to get to that single, core behavior that is causing the problem or inhibiting you. Once you get to that critical behavior, you can find a way to change it.

Try it out and do share your experience in your comments to this post.

Do you use the power of subconscious processing?

Many a times I have got an idea as soon as I get up in the morning; By the time I reach my office, the idea is well formed and is ready to be acted upon.

There is a power that goes to work for me every night and that power is subconscious processing. It has never failed to give me brilliant ideas.

Given below is the way to tap the power:

1. Think of the area or problem you want your subconscious mind to process upon
2. Dwell over this problem just before you go to sleep
3. Visualize yourself getting up in the morning with a brilliant idea
4. Now relax by visiting some memory that was very pleasant to you
5. Give a command: My subconscious mind is processing the solution for the problem I just dwelt upon while I am falling into a nice relaxed sleep. My subconscious mind is continuing to process the solution which it will present to me when I wake up after a good relaxing sleep.
6. Fall asleep thinking of the good memory

It is important to word your command carefully. One needs specialized training in this and the commands have specific rules of construction.

For those who don't have this knowledge, being alert in the morning as soon as you wake up and keeping a pencil and pad at hand is an alternative route.

If you get an idea continue to think of it and process it as you shower, get dressed, eat your breakfast and commute to reach the office. Do this only if you are NOT driving to office. Always follow safety norms and ensure you are in deep thought, only in places that do not require your alertness to avoid accidents.

Let your mind work for you! Train it and it will be your best ally in the years to come.

Happy, safe idea processing!

Do you schedule sufficient time for your ideas to incubate?

Scheduling sufficient think time for creative projects is very important, especially if that project has a deadline.

You need time to think, you need time to generate new ideas and once a new idea is formed, you need time for that idea to incubate;

Hence the chain of events should be as shown below:

Start---Think time---Understand the project---Think time---Goals set----Think time---Ideas---Incubate time---Final selection.

Most of the people do not schedule think time into their projects; Very few people even know the concept of incubation time.

Incubation time gives your mind, sub conscious mind, the time to process and give you a well formed, quality idea.

In this fast track, reactive, hyperventilating world, very few people use the power of incubation time.

They just react from one situation to another and from one project to another.

You can use incubation time only if you sufficiently plan for it and schedule it.

Try it out! Do share your experience here through your comments.

Do you use the power of pause?

Do you know that there is a power in a pause? When I say pause, I mean a pause for just a few seconds. What do you do in these seconds? You reflect! You take stock! You ask your self a few questions!
Some examples:

• You get back home, mindlessly sit on your sofa and your hand reaches for the remote; Pause; Is this the best use of time?
• You open the refrigerator and look at the cake with your name written all over it. Your hand automatically moves towards the cake; Pause; Am I not dieting? How much more will I have to jog to burn the calories of this cake?
• Your peers are gossipping near the water cooler. You can see them laughing and they seem to be having lots of fun. You find yourself walking towards them; Pause; Isn't there a major report that is due at 4:00 PM?
• Your wife is upset with you because you forgot to do what you promised to do. She is giving you a feedback which sounds to you as criticism; You want to lash out and give her a piece of your mind; Pause; Isn't what she is saying true? Why did I forget to do what I promised to do?

These examples can go on and on. There is a power in the pause. It can change the course of your life. It is one of the best antidotes for slacking too.

The only time you should not pause is in an emergency situation that makes your body react to save your life: You are walking in a jungle and a tiger jumps in your track. You are driving on the highway and the car in front of you breaks suddenly. These instances call for instant action and a pause can kill you.

In other areas of your life a pause has the power to empower you to take the right course of action.

Try using the power of pause ,after you finish reading this post, for the next 24 hours. Do share your experience in your comments.

Try using the power of pause for a week. You will be amazed at the results!

Happy pausing!!!

How do you avoid your habit to slack off?

There are times when you totally get side tracked. There is a huge inertia that you need to overcome. You thought all this while that you were in perfect control of yourself and your planned effort; Then, suddenly, the bottom gives away and you have free fall;suddenly you realize that you are in the bottom of a pit or a rut.

Why does this happen?
Several reasons:

1. You are tired
2. No recreation
3. Stressed out
4. Too many changes hitting you all at once
5. Trying too many things together
6. Multi tasking
7. A sense of overwhelm
8. All or nothing thinking (Perfectionism-miss one day of exercise, get demotivated and give up totally
9. Having double set of values-wholesome and unwholesome

How do you avoid this for good? I offer two sets of strategies.

Stay tuned for future posts for these strategies.

Meanwhile, the question you need to ask yourself right is:

Am I slacking off, right now? Do I need to use some specific strategies to get out of the rut?

Do share your experience!

How are the stories around you influencing you?

We are constantly bombarded by stories. They come in different forms, shapes and guises.
I am listing below some sources of stories:

1. TV-soaps, movies, news, reality shows---
2. Movies
3. Colleagues tell you of their stories
4. Friends sharing with you their various encounters/events
5. Bosses narrating you of your peers
6. Your peers narrating you of your boss
7. News paper
8. Magazines
9. Video games
10. Internet
11. Advertisements
12. Commercials
13. SMS
14. Radio
15. Music

The list can go on and on.

Why am I writing a post on stories?

It is because stories are the most powerful form of influence. Let me give you an experiment which you can try from this moment. Try to keep a count of the number of stories you encounter from different sources from this very moment to the time you retire to bed today. You will be amazed at the outcome.

Each of the stories you hear day in day out has tremendous influence on you. The influence works subconsciously. The stories you hear are shaping you either for good or bad. The only way to channel it to good is to do some kind of reflection and process the stories.

Think about it! What are the major stories that have influenced you to become the person you are right now?

Do share your experience in the comments.

Do you periodically check whether your children need your help?

Often we leave our children to themselves. We are confident that they can handle their day-to-day activities in school or college successfully, by themselves.

We do this more often when we find our children are very successful. We also exhibit this "let go" approach when we are caught up in our whirlwind of activities.

Children, too, often forget to reach out for help; They approach us only when they hit the wall or experience a crisis.

This is not a good approach. Parents should periodically check whether their children need their inputs.

You can never know, an input from you can make a big difference in your child's approach to study or in the submission of a report.

Children should be taught and encouraged to ask for help. A collaboration of this kind can enhance the bonding between you and your child and also raise the performance of your child.

This is true, even after they grow up, get employed, get married, and have their own children. The need and opportunity to help your child never ceases.

Think about it? When was the last time you reached out to your child to help?

Stop everything and do it after you read this post. You may be surprised at the outcome.

Do share your experience in the comments to this post.

Do you teach your children to detect dishonesty and deceat?

As you teach children to be honest and have integrity, it is also important for you to teach them the absence of it.

It is important that they learn to detect dishonesty when they come across. This will protect them from being deceived.

This is an important skill many parents forget to teach their children. A good way to teach is to discuss real-life examples.
When you buy expensive stuff for your children, you also need to teach them how to keep them safe.

All these efforts will hopefully protect them from others deceit and dishonesty.

What is your experience? Do share it in your comments.

Do you leave your day to chance?

How do you spend your time? Are you preoccupied with activities defined by yourself or have others defined them for you or have they been chosen by chance?

What is the right mix of activities?

It is important to adjust these levers of activities. The adjustment will depend on your circumstances and your current situation. Invariably, people forget to include activities which have been defined by themselves. They just react to chance or the demands of others.

You need to determine the right mix for you. You need to take charge of these three levers.

Try this out. Check which lever is high! You may need to readjust those levers.

Do share your experience in your comments on this post.

How much time do you take from idea to action?

All of us have ideas. Some of us have brilliant ideas. We also get ideas from others or by reading a book or watching a movie; Sources of ideas are plenty.

However, it is not the number of ideas you have that matters, it is the number of ideas you action out that will make the difference for you.

The time taken from an idea to action depends on the nature of the idea and the situation/context in which you operate. Hence, every idea has its optimum starting point and its own optimum speed of action.

Determining the optimum starting point, the speed of action and the deadline for completion is a task of utmost importance.

The time for such analysis and the treatment of the idea should be any where between zero to not more than 24 hours; Depending on the situation and context you are operating in and the nature of the idea.

Any idea delayed after 24 hours has the danger of being forgotten.

How you treat ideas will determine whether you are an "also ran" or an "Olympic Champion".

Think about it! Do share your comments.

How do you handle clutter? - 2

How do you ensure an item in your house does not get lost? It is important to follow the principles of organizing. Let me introduce you to an important principle of organizing

The principle of inherent potential of an article/item to get lost:

Every article/item has an inherent nature to be high or low in its potential to get lost.

Hence our care for ensuring the article/item to be easily accessible increases as the potential of the article/item to get lost increases. This may appear as common sense but you may be surprised how many people violate this basic principle.

Here is another principle for you.

The principle of inherent current/future value of an article/item

Every article/item has an inherent value-current or future which may range from low to high.

Please refer to the previous post "How do you handle clutter? - 1" for further details on value.

If you want to ensure that your house is clutter free and also you are able to get the articles/items immediately when you want them, you will have to consider these two principles and work with them.

Look at the figure to understand how to apply these principles.

When you get an article, you need to immediately determine its value. Which category does it belong?

1. Expensive


2. Daily usage value


3. Nostalgic value


4. Contextual value


5. No value

If it is of no value then throw it out immediately. If the article is of value to you then you need to assess whether it has a high potential to get lost and hence the care for making it accessible is high.

Low care, Low value -You will come across articles of Low care, Low value - these are junk to be thrown away. Example: A rusted bicycle in your garage - Low care because it is there and it is unlikely to get lost. Low value because it is useless now and you have no emotional ties with it.

Low care, High value - these articles are precious to you however you need not put in too much effort to make it accessible as it is already accessible to you. Example: Painting on the wall-low care as it will not get lost and high value because it is expensive and it was gifted to you by your father.

High care, Low value - This is an article that has high potential to get lost, hence you need to take a lot of care to make it accessible. however, this article is of low value to you personally. Example - your friend requests you to safe guard her jewellery while she is traveling to China.

High care, High value - All the stuff that are highly valuable to you and has a high potential to be misplaced. Example - your certificates, your camera, your watches, your documents and important papers, ---

Evaluating the articles/items that pass through your hand and taking appropriate care to make it accessible is an important action that needs to be taken to live a stress free and productive life.

Do share your experience in using these principles by commenting on this post.

How do you handle clutter? - 1

Handling clutter is an important skill to master. Clutter comes in the way of everything you do; Time, energy, money, and opportunity can get lost in a clutter.

I have created a process flow to handle clutter. The diagram is self explanatory, once you understand the definitions of the various terms used.

Definitions:

Clutter: Anything that can get deposited all over your house.

Loose items: These are items that can be moved from one place to another-Example: Paper, pens, books, magazines, jewellery, watches, photographs, wires, stationary items, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo bottles, nail cutter---. These items can, easily, get lost.

Fixed items: These are relatively fixed items in your house-Example: Tables, Chairs, Sofa, Beds, Paintings on the wall, TV, Refrigerator, ---. These items cannot get lost but still may cause clutter.

Value: An item is said to be valuable if it belongs to the following categories:

1. Expensive items: These are your watches, jewellery, chinaware, diamonds, Nikon D 80 Digital SLR camera, Camcorder, ---. They cost money and are precious to you.



2. Daily usage items: These are items you cannot do without, day in day out. You need to have them near to be functional-Toothbrush, toothpaste, pens, laptops, shirts, trousers, ties, watches, ---



3. Nostalgic items: These are items that are very precious to you, as they evoke pleasant memories of the past. You want to preserve them carefully-Your father's letters, the sweater your mother knitted for you, photographs, the greeting cards, your wife gave you over the years, your daughter's little gifts to you, since her childhood---.



4. Contextual items: These are items that you need on a daily basis or at least on an immediate basis depending on the changing situations you encounter-Winter clothes, snow boots, your certificates, party wear, ---. You don't need these on a daily basis but you would like to have them, instantly, if you suddenly need them when the context and situation dictates that you need them.

Now you are ready to study the process flow and understand it.

It is very useful to apply this process flow and classify your items; You can, then, begin to organize them.

Those that you require daily need to be stored in an area that is near, easily accessible and is constantly known to you. Each item need to have a specific home to "stay put" in.

Those that you do not need on a regular, daily basis need to have a remote, accessible, known, home to be in.

The junk, of course, need to be thrown away.

The horror of clutter unfolds when all these value category items get mixed and spread all over your house along with the junk that get intermingled to create the confusion and distress.

Stay tuned for further posts on the principles of organizing to live a clutter free life.

What is the root cause of your disorganization?

We are disorganized as a family. Our house is full of clutter. All of us attributed this disorganized state of our home to some deep seated disorder in our personalities; Perhaps we inherited some faulty "disorganizing DNA" from our ancestors.

Our belief grew over the period of years until few months back when we decided to sit down and examine this "we are disorganized" belief. After several discussions and analysis we came to a conclusion that the major cause for our disorganization is lack of storage devices.

Please find below the reasons for us being disorganized.

1. Our strong held belief that we are disorganized


2. Plenty of ever increasing number of loose items such as books, clothes, paper and other stuff we shop and accumulate


3. Very poor storage devices in our house for these loose items


4. Our indecision to buy storage equipments

This led us to a vicious cycle as depicted in the picture.

Last week, we bought three book racks. We decided to focus on books as they are the major ones that are causing all the clutter in our house. The book racks had a near magical effect on our clutter. A large part of it vanished as our books got neatly organized in our book racks.

Our house now looks less cluttered. We also bought an extra storage Almira for our clothes which further reduced our clutter.

We still have to work on other areas such as papers, DVDs etc. which we have decided to tackle in the coming weeks.

The learning from this experience was profound for me. Many a times we conclude that we have a personality defect like disorganization and use that as an excuse to do nothing. What I realized is that invariably the major part of the problem could lie outside us rather than inside us.

It is important to elicit both internal and external causes of the problem. It is far easier to tackle the external cause of the problem (example:buying a book rack) rather than trying to change an internal personality trait that may not be the primary root cause of the problem.

The questions you need to ask yourself constantly are:

1. Have I identified the internal and the external causes of the problem?


2. Have I tackled the external causes first?


3. What is the effect of tackling the external causes?


4. Is there any internal cause to tackle or was my belief that there is such an internal cause wrong?

Try this approach and do give me a feedback through your comments.

Have you tried doing things for fun which you have never done before?

Many of us get stuck in a routine, even for activities that give us joy. We may continue to go for movies, read the same kind of books, visit the same friends, go to the same mall for shopping---
Unless we consciously take stock and break out of the routine, we will miss out on various other ways to enjoy.

Here are the steps you need to take to break out of your routine and have fun in new ways:

1. Take a blank sheet of paper
2. Suspend judgement for about 5 minutes (you are going to think creatively for the next 5 minutes).
3. Generate ideas to have fun. Write whatever comes to your mind. Do not judge. The crazier your ideas are, the better they are. Sometimes you may be writing the ones you are already doing; No problem, just acknowledge and continue. Write non-stop for 5 minutes.
4. You can, now, begin to judge those ideas. Cross out anything that is harmful, illegal, immoral, and impossible.
5. Now you have a list of things to do that are clean fun
6. Segregate the ideas that you can attempt immediately. Save the rest for the future (Example-you may want to visit Paris but you have to first save money for such a trip)
7. Select an idea that appeals to you most and is feasible for you to do this coming weekend or alternatively, select the idea that least appeals to you ( you may be pleasantly surprised at the outcome)
8. Develop an action plan to do it
9. Do it
10. Enjoy

Do share your experience in the comments, because you are going to have the time of your life!

Do you raise your bar periodically?

How about taking everything you do to the next level? How about doing this periodically?

Many of us never raise the bar. We have this habit of quickly being satisfied with our level of achievement in the various things we do. We will either continue to maintain it at the current level of excellence or mediocrity or become complacent enough to let our level slide down.

We need to challenge ourselves by shifting and raising the bar of achievement on preselect areas in our lives.

Here are the steps to do exactly that:

1. Identify areas in your life you want to focus upon. Strive for balance by choosing from several areas-Physical, Health, Financial, Professional,---
2. Determine your next level goals in the areas you have chosen
3. Develop an action plan to achieve them
4. Periodically review and monitor progress

Once you have achieved the next level in one area choose another area to work upon.

Try it and share your experience by posting a comment.

Do you care enough for people that you take care to remember them?

I have this tendency to forget names. I rarely do forget faces. This is very dysfunctional and I am taking steps to counter it.
How do you ensure that you remember people and their faces? I think we need to go even beyond that.
Here are the steps:

1. Consciously study the face so that you remember it next time
2. Repeatedly connect the name to the face. You could use mnemonics if you want to
3. Enquire and remember what they do in life
4. Remember the conversation you are having with them
5. Take their visiting card and study it to connect to the person you are talking to

Let's say you meet him after three months and your conversation goes like this:

You: "Hi! Bob, How are you today?"

Bob: "Fine."

You: "How is your work going on in ---?"

Bob: "Oh! we made great progress ---. This is what we achieved ---."

You : "Great Bob!. Last time you had discussed with me about your trip to Hawaii. How was your trip---?"

Bob: "Wow! that was fun ---"

Just imagine the impact you will have on people if you remember to the above detail. They will look at you differently.

While it is important to record the data of people in your Palm or which ever PDA or low tech device you use, it is more important to register and record them in your mind.

Stay tuned for future posts on how to accomplish this.

Think about it. How much do you remember about people you meet.?

Think about the last person you met for the first time.

How much do you remember about her?