[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

13th June 2012

`The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that

it has taken place'

George Bernard Shaw

While interacting with someone, have you ever said `I told you so, but you did not pay attention to what I said'?

 

A simple rule in effective communication is: it is the responsibility of the communicator to ensure that the content of the communication is understood; it is not the responsibility of the person receiving the communication. You need to own this responsibility. Next time you watch the television shows, notice how the media advertisement is presented. The company who shoots the advertisement episode will assume that the viewers are not interested in watching the footage and their entire focus will be on how to register the message in the mind of not just one viewer, but millions of viewers.

I remember what my father, who was a busy and successful lawyer, used to say. While arguing a case before a judge, he will assume that the judge is least interested in listening to his argument and this assumption will give him the mindset to improve the quality of his communication to capture the judge's attention. No doubt he was a successful lawyer.

 

Here is a simple exercise for you: next time you watch how a mother communicates with a child refusing to eat and how she convinces the child to eat! She owns the responsibility to ensure that the child understands. Obviously she has not read this piece on effective communication!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

12th June 2012

 

"An amazing invention - but who would ever want to use one?"

 

A comment on Graham Bell's invention of telephone on 7 March 1876

 

I was thinking about our life before we started using the mobile phone. I think we were much more disciplined in the process of our communication. We completed all our telephone calls before we left the house and let people know when we will be available again to receive any phone calls. But now? We have a policy of `any time any call anywhere'! We have no discipline in using the rare technology of mobility telephones. Sometime back I wrote what it means to have technology without discipline, power without discipline, money without discipline, freedom without discipline, authority without discipline. Now we should add to the list mobile phone without discipline!

I wanted to speak to a very busy and world class gynecologist in Singapore whom I know him very well. I sent him a mail and asked him his mobile number. He was very sweet in his prompt reply enquiring about me and my family, but added that I can call him on his land line since he does not answer mobile phone as he is very busy! He said he only accesses people through e mail at an appointed time!

No doubt he is a very popular and successful person! Why not do an audit of your use of mobile phone to find out if you are over using or misusing the same!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

11th June 2012

Obstacles can't stop you. Problems can't stop you. Most of all, others people can't stop you. Only you can stop you'

Unknown

Answer just one question: who takes the various decisions in your life? Obviously it's YOU! This is not only when you are grown up, but also when you were young, even when you were a child. Others may decide temporarily for you, like you should not play now, you cannot sleep now, you should eat now etc. When some decisions were not suitable to you, you changed them, didn't you?

 

When you are the decision maker and the implementer, how can you blame others for what you have achieved and what you have not achieved? As we grew up in life we became very intelligent to blame others for what we got and this gave us a satisfaction. Over a period of time this became our trait.

 

But great people differ from us in this very dimension of personality. They take ownership for their decisions and quality of life. They continued to do what they wanted to do. If they failed, they knew it is the result of their actions and inactions. With this mindset, when they failed they corrected their strategy. But when we fail, we try to correct others and once again fail, and we once again blame that others are bad!

 

Think if this is true for you!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

8th June 2012

 

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.

Steve Jobs

 

These days we talk about ergonomically designed chairs and modular offices and kitchens to improve personal effectiveness and productivity. Contrast this mindset with that of Michelangelo. Yesterday I wrote about how Michelangelo painted the ceiling of Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo in a letter describes the ardous conditions under which he worked:

I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den–

As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,

Or in what other land they hap to be–

Which drives the belly close beneath the chin:

My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,

Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly

Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery

Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin.

My loins into my paunch like levers grind:

My buttock like a crupper bears my weight;

My feet unguided wander to and fro;

In front my skin grows loose and long; behind,

By bending it becomes more taut and strait;

Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow:

Whence false and quaint, I know,

Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye;

For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.

Come then, Giovanni, try

To succour my dead pictures and my fame;

Since foul I fare and painting is my shame.

 

Now tell me: do office comforts really matter to improve the quality of work?

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

7th June 2012

 

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."

Aristotle

I am now returning after giving a talk to a group of university students. I asked them a question: what makes the difference between excellent and ordinary work? Some said it is intelligence, some said it is passion while some others said that it is the attitude to work.

I would say that is the love of doing what you do which brings out the best in you. I was reading how Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. He wanted to do the painting `as he liked'. Totally he painted over three hundred figures during a period of three years while the work was started in 1508. The work was completed in 1512.  Michelangelo read and reread the Old Testament while he was painting to draw his inspiration from the scriptures. In fact, Michelangelo was not a painter, but a sculpture. On compulsion from the Pope he accepted the work after some reluctance. Ultimately he painted 343 figures as a part of his project and all the figures were on the ceiling.

To paint the ceiling, Michelangelo designed his own scaffolding, a flat wooden platform on brackets built from holes in the wall near the top of the windows. Some say that Michelangelo was lying on his back and some others say that he was standing with chin up while painting all the four years!

Now, think that you are Michelangelo and return to your work which you are doing to experience the mindset of a great legend!

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

6th June 2012

`I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas'

Albert Einstein

Have you heard of the old adage `a bird in the hand is worth two the bush'? You have a lot of talents and the possibilities are infinity. What is required is mere perseverance and willingness to work hard enough. Many of us admire what others have done  and limit our ambitions.

I recall an old story. There was a beggar in a busy street of London. He stood there for hours together holding his cap in his hand. He will not ask for money, but will accept whatever people dropped into his hat. He stood there for nearly thirty years. He really became a landmark and people used to mention his location and give direction to the place where they were!

One he died and the place where he stood became empty. People missed him and they decided to install a statue where he stood. They made a statue of him and were digging the place where he stood. As they were digging, hardly three feet from the ground they hit a treasure pot of gold coins, which was perhaps buried several hundred years ago!

The man was begging for money without knowing that there was treasure just underneath his feet!

Think: have you worked hard enough in your chosen field? Have you exploited all your talents to your optimum capacity!

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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[Time-Management] 100 More Exciting Ways to Live!

 

5th June 2012

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

Swedish Proverb

There has been an unusual response to my newsletter of yesterday. Some of them are very emotional and moving. Some say that tears rolled their cheeks when they read the poem! Yes, relationships are very emotional.

In my time management programme, I repeatedly say that time itself is a very emotional subject. Time cannot be measured by the various gadgets we use such as the clock, the timer, the hour glass, the stop clock, the gong bell of the church or temple. They are all indicators of the passage of time.

Somewhere I read a story of a couple who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Hundreds of their friends and relatives attended and they were curious to know the quality of their married life. The couples replied that in the entire span of sixty years they never quarreled, even for small things! The friends and relatives wanted to know the secret of their harmonious married life.

The husband said that when he married his wife, her father gave a wrist watch which made the marriage so blissful. The friends looked at the watch. At the bottom of the watch was written in very small letters `love my daughter!'. Every time he looked at the watch, his love for his wife was reinforced!

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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