[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

1st  March 2010

 

"There are no shortcuts. To be a big success, start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later."

—Brian Tracy

Whether we like it are not, the above is true. We need to understand that big success calls for big efforts and a lot of focus and consistency. You take any person in any field. They elucidate the quotation: there is no substitute for hard work. If by merely wishing alone one can get success, then there should be no failure person around us. All of us work. But the question is do we work hard enough and long enough? We get an idea and get excited about the idea. We may also start working long enough and early enough. But do we follow through? Are we consistent? Do we give up much earlier than our competitor?

 

Have you calculated how much you work? You may have known what you are doing. How much is a quantity term. The question `what' defines the content of our time. This explains the activity we pursue. For example, we write, we swim, we dance, we sing etc. If you are a writer, you need to decide your scope and the sweep as a writer; if you want to a violinist, decide who is your bench mark; if you want to be a social worker, decide who is your bench mark and role model.

 

Once you have defined these parameters, then the only remaining issue is the quantum of work you have to put in a day's time. For example, if you want to be a professional writer, check how much your role model writes and try to write ten percent more than him! The reason is simple: he started earlier than you, he has written more than you and he has stayed more than you in the writing field.

 

Now, do you agree that there are no shortcuts to big success?

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

26th February 2010

"The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."

Charles du Bois

The whole world was watching the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar reaching his 200 runs – the first ever cricketer in the world to have done this in the 50 over international match. Parents and students and everyone watched the miracle and excitement taking place unbelievably in front of their eyes. But one mother locked herself with her two children in their study room coaching them for the next day's exam and strictly advised everyone not to disturb them.

Guess who is this lady? It is Sachin Tendulkar's wife Anjali Tendulkar and the children are their children Sarah and Arjun! However the kids could not resist the temptation of watching their legendry father achieving the world record and watched a few minutes of the great excitement and then went back to their study room with their most responsible mother! Of course they enjoyed the historic event, but soon got back to what they should be doing for the next day's examination!

Do I have to elaborate the above quotation anymore? Just recall what our children were doing at this historic moment with the School Board Exam a week away!

Perhaps, focus and responsibility is in the family!

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

24th February 2010

Start every day with an inspiring thought.

I'm very determined and stubborn. There's a desire in me that makes me want to do more and more, and to do it right. Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit. Mary Lou Retton

There is a proverb that well begun is half done. It is very much true with reference to our confidence level when we start the day. We need to understand that there is a link between our state of mind and the quality of thoughts in our mind. Every action originates in our mind. If we have a healthy mind, our actions are healthy. If we have confident and motivating thoughts, our actions are bold and we feel enthusiastic. On the other hand, if we have negative and disempowering thoughts, we are diffident and feel dull.

We can change our mindset by having a quality thought in our mind in the beginning of the day. There are a lot of sources for healthy thoughts as follows:

·        Quotations: there are books on quotations, some diaries carry quotations, you can browse the websites for inspiring thoughts, there are people who can give a good thought every day.

·        Motivation stories: there are lots of small stories which carry a good message which will inspire us.

·        You can read an autobiography of a successful person and recall some incident to inspire you early in the morning.

·        There are small poems with a very powerful message which will inspire you.

You can type out a powerful motivational quote and place it in front of you which will guide you through out the day. If you are working in an office, you can have a `sun rise meeting' and start the day with a powerful and inspiring thought. You can share a powerful quotation through e mail or sms. I get motivated by Patanjali's yoga sutra given below:

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be"

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

24th February 2010

 

List and rank your limitations…

 

 

Others can stop you temporarily -- you are the only one who can do it permanently.
-- Zig Ziglar

 

In the process of our working towards what we want in our life, there may be a time when we are struck and not able to progress beyond a stage due to some limitation. Some limitations may be real and some others may be in our mind. We need to handle this situation successfully and continue our journey in the direction of our goal.

 

One way is to list all the limitations known to us and rank the same in the order in which they adversely affect our progress. For example, look at the following limitations:

  • I cannot communicate assertively
  • I lack the stamina to work continuously
  • I feel sleepy during the day
  • I am short tempered and shout at people
  • I don't have the patience to wait for the results
  • I cannot accept even small mistakes from others
  • I do not have adequate resources to fund my projects
  • I do not have a management degree
  • I am slow in reading
  • I have hyper tension.
  • ….
  • ….
  • …..

 

Once you have listed them, then the next step is to rank each limitation depending how seriously it affects your progress. Give a rank from 1 to 5 and think about the consequence if you didn't do anything to deal with the limitation. Mentally visualize what will happen if the limitation is allowed to affect your progress. Talk to people who have had similar limitations and how they over came the same. Evolve a strategy to deal with these limitations starting with the one which affects you most. Decide on a time frame by which you would have worked out all the limitations.

 

Just try this approach and notice what happens to your progress!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

23rd February 2010

 

100 Improvement Plan…

 

 `Winning starts with beginning.'

-     Anonymous

 

We need to improve our abilities in the fast changing world in order to compete in life. We need to adapt ourselves and remain fit. Even if we were the best in our field five years ago, the same skills and faculties which made us the best at that time will not the make us competitive now. The same skills and abilities that we have now will not help us in the years to come since we are not in a static world. In our anxiety to keep pace with what is happening around us, we are managing with our present habits, skills, education, effort level, traits. We need to review all these.

 

However, we may not be able to change all that are out of place all of a sudden. But a time will come when we have to make a paradigm shift and we may not be able to bring about major changes in our life. We need to have a strategy to deal with this situation.

 

One way is to recognize the areas we need to improve and list as many small improvements in our life. List hundred improvements needed  in your life, which are very small, but the combined effect of the same will bring about a major shift in your life. They should be small and easy to be carried out. Some examples could be:

  • Change the configuration of my computer
  • Up date the address book in my organizer
  • Transfer all the bits of notes from my old diary to the new diary
  • Change the curtains in one of my rooms to start with
  • Dispose off the old shoes that I have not used for a long time
  • Clean at least one drawer of my table this week end
  • Renew contact with at least one class mate this week.
  • ….
  • …..
  • …..

 

You have to make one hundred easy improvements  to  change things around you which you can do on your own without the support and help of others. If an item is big, for example, change the configuration of my computer, break it up into smaller activities.

Once you have the list of small things to be changed, it is very easy to proceed further.

Try it out and you will notice the difference in the progress of your change!

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

22nd February 2010

 

Nothing is too late….

 

Forty is the old age of the youth and fifty is the youth of the old age!

 

I came across the above quote somewhere and it made me to  think. All of us will pass through the `mid forty dilemma' when we will take stock of what ever we have achieved in life and remains to be done in the rest of our time. We may feel happy about some of our accomplishments and we may also feel a gap between what we wanted to do and what we have actually done. We may think that we missed a large part of life doing things which are not really relevant. I many organizations I have come across people who say that they are just waiting fro retirement and counting their days.

 

We need to accept the fact that life is as exciting as we make it. At every point of time in our life, we need to redefine our mission in life and draw our goal from the same. A mission is the over all purpose and a goal is a target. Our mission up to the age of forty could be something related to our education, career, savings, professional accomplishment etc. From the age of forty to fifty, we need to redefine our mission and focus on larger issue in life such as spirituality, helping the society, seeing and enjoying our people perform and prosper.

 

There are some goals and tasks which we cannot undertake until we are old enough and mature enough to appreciate. These issues are very relevant as we reach the evening in our life. As long as we are busy in growing and earning in our career, we are not able to find time to focus on these larger issues. When we turn forty or fifty, we are richer by experience and knowledge and fit to handle larger issues in life.

 

We can think of living for others instead of living for ourselves. We can think of leading our youngsters instead of managing our own work. We can think of pursuing our favourite hobby which we were not able to do when we were busy in pursuit of our work and career.

 

Think about some exciting mission and goal in life when you turn fifty!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

19th February 2010

Don't change, but transform!

 

Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally

 incapable of great ones.
François duc de la Rochefoucauld

 

Today we are witnessing sweeping changes in the environment in which we live. The rate of change is steep. We need to keep pace with the rate of change. Organizations are taking a lot of efforts to bring about a change in the mindset of people working in the organizations. This change in mindset is necessitated in order to survive in the extremely competitive environment. In fact the interesting thing about change is the fact that change is a survival agenda.

 

However, one fact that is worrying many organizations is the acceptance level of change as well as the quantity and quality of change that have to be accomplished within the short time that is available to complete the change process. The agenda in front of the organizations is not merely a change of mindset, but a core transformation in the attitude of the people making the organization.

 

We have to transform from managing to leading, from customer satisfaction to customer delight, from product quality inspection to process quality installation, from behavioural manipulation to attitudinal alignment, from quality inspection to total quality management and so on. This is a major shift in the management of the change process.

 

This introduces an important agenda for us. We need to bring about a major shift inside us and look at our job in a new perspective. We need to take change as a personal agenda and not an organization induced process. This calls for a change not merely in our external actions, but in our very thinking process. We need to be thinking of a change on  our values, attitude, feelings and emotions.

 

If we change at the external action level and not transform at our mind level, the change will be short lived and we will go back to our original behaviour. The change I am talking about is like the transformation from the  caterpillar to the  butterfly!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

18th February 2010

 

Fit for today and ready for tomorrow?

 

 

Today is the tomorrow you didn't plan for yesterday.

ANONYMOUS

 

We are in a very competitive world and a lot of changes are taking place around us. If we compare the changes that have taken place around us in the last 20 years and compare the same with the changes that have taken place in the last 5 years, we will be amazed at the rate of change. Just look around and notice the change in the various products and technologies. Also notice how much has changed in the skill level of people. Notice the expectations at the market place and how people respond to obsolete technology and skill level. Consider the amount and intensity of communication and the near cut throat competition in the market place.

 

All these things point to one thing: we need to be fit for today and ready for tomorrow. If do not have a competitive advantage over others, we will be side lined. It is the age of the survival of the fittest, our knowledge, skill, capacity, contribution, experience, attitude, aptitude and education should meet today's expectations and requirements. Else, we will not be wanted. Keeping ourselves up dated to survive and being wanted for today's requirements is very critical. We cannot afford to take things for granted.

 

At the same time, being fit today does not mean that we are ready to meet the challenges of the change that await us tomorrow. More and more changes are bound to take place in future and we should also be preparing ourselves to be relevant when the future arrives. We have to spend some time to equip ourselves for tomorrow.

 

While this above is true, if you really consider how our time is spent, most of our time is spent on putting down yesterday's fire and attending to today's priorities. These are required and there is no doubt about it. But, these are not the only thing required. We need to look beyond what is relevant to day.

 

This week end spend some time on the question: what effort am I   taking now  to be ready tomorrow? Do I have the skills and education required when the future arrives with all its uncertainties?

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___

[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

17th February 2010

 

You cannot do it alone!

 

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

John D Rockefeller

.

 

All of us want to succeed in life and reach our goals and aspirations. Our goals may be very big or modest. We need to understand the simple principle in life that we alone can succeed, but we cannot succeed alone! This calls for an ability and willingness to understand that others are valuable resources and they can contribute to our success. Sometimes our ego may not allow us to accept the fact that others are valuable for our success. It is more so if we have an exaggerated opinion about our own ability and skill.

 

When we want to achieve something on our own, we can do it. There is no problem. But such an accomplishment will not be much in terms of the size and magnitude. With a larger team, we can aim at a target much more than we can do it on our own. The power that is generated by all the individuals put together is much more than the arithmetical total of all the strength of the individual members. This is called synergy. Great organizations are built this way. In an organization, the weakness of one member is more than neutralized by the strength of other members.

 

This week end, you can do an exercise. List a few big projects that you want to initiate and finish. It should be much bigger than something which you can do  alone. Then list the names of the people who could be of resource to you. List the areas in which they can help you. Be very meticulous and specific in your listing. Once you have done it, make out an action plan as to how you are going to tap from their experience and knowledge.

Review the result of this approach and compare the same with another project which you accomplished and did on your own. Notice the difference in the two approaches.

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
.

__,_._,___
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)