Personal Improvement Blog
Personal Development
Busy vs. Productive
Jul 27th
Shamelle has written a great post on distinguishing between “being productive” and “being busy” all the time.
This is a coincidence, since I was reading Seth Godin’s book (featuring his blog posts) and one thing jumped at me: “Give me nine-to-five executives who can create remarkable things and I will change the world”.
Put these two thoughts together and you will come to the conclusion that you can get a lot of things done without slogging for 15 hours a day. Honestly, I believe a strict nine-to-five job is generally not possible, especially as you move up the ladder.
Teams spread across different time zones, systems that function 24×7 and the sheer volume of decisions that need to be taken, makes it almost impossible not to have a Blackberry. Which, essentially, means, I disagree with Seth (on the nine-to-five part 
)
Back to the real question, how can you be productive and not just busy? To add to Shamelle’s advise, I have a couple of things you can do.
1. Deliverable-based Structure (as opposed to WBS)
Most of us, including myself, think of work in terms of activities and not as deliverables. For example, if I have to send out a report, my task is named as Create Report with sub tasks as organize a meeting, talk to systems group and get information etc. You can see the output of each activity is not clearly identified, with the result that the meeting happens, but there is no concrete outcome.
Instead, reword your tasks as units whose progress is measurable. In our trivial example, the sub-tasks could be Meeting minutes with commitment from the teams, raw data report from the systems group, analysis document prepared from the data etc.
2. Schedule tasks as much as possible on your calendar
This allows you to focus on things you need to get done by meeting with yourself. By allotting time to your tasks, you make sure you have made some progress on all your tasks, rather than look only at the urgent tasks.
An empty calendar can also get you pulled into meetings that don’t have much value 
.
Bonus tip: Use a Task Manager (not the Windows Task Manager). Check out my post on using TaskCoach.
4 neat things to do when you feel unproductive
Jul 16th
Have you had a day at work when you have felt/done more than one out of the following?
Image courtesy HikingArtist
- Did not look at your to-do list
- Postponed tasks without reason
- Spent an unusual time at the water cooler
- Asking strange/weird/odd questions on the internet or surfed endlessly
Then, you are bored, officially. Yes, we have all had those days when work seems uninteresting, but you cannot take a day off. What do you then? You can try one of 3 things
1. Buckle up and try to turn around an unproductive day into a productive one
2. Get back your lost focus
3. You can do these 3 things (I love lists!)
- Reconnect
- Recreate
- Rest
- Review
Reconnect
There are those “long lost” friends or close relatives you were intending to call this week to see how they are doing. Call them now. You can also take this time to network on a personal level and send out a “hi, how are you doing?” email.
Recreate
Download and play an enjoyable computer game [a flash game perhaps, so that you don't have to install it]. Don’t get carried away, though
If computer games are not your cup of tea, you could read an e-book or go to the office library, if you have one. Choose something that is light and fun, otherwise, you will start hating that too.
Rest
Take a nap, if you have a nap room (as they do in some companies, especially Japan). Or simply close your eyes for a few minutes. Taking a mental break and slowly counting to thousand might also help.
Review
This may be a good time to think about the big picture – your family, your goals in life, direction in which your life is going, satisfaction etc. Don’t combine this with point 3 though – your nap may turn into a deep sleep.
For the folks doing GTD or its variants, this may also be a good time to look at that “someday” list.
The idea is not always to “motivate” yourself to work harder – sometimes it is better to acknowledge that there will be days when you are not simply upto it.
What do you on such rainy days at office? Let us know in the comments.
Managing my Tasks
Jul 9th
I received an email today (surprise!) from a blog reader on an aspect I have never written about – managing my tasks. The question was (snipped for clarity),
“Hi
I need some software/tool to manage my tasks. I am not yet ready for frameworks like GTD, but need something that can help me in my daily work.”
I thought the best way to respond to him was to show him how I managed my tasks myself. Out of my response grew this post.
Over the past few years, I have tried many ways of keeping tracks of tasks. The ol’ paper, spreadsheets and even MS Project (that was truly overkill). Within these mediums, I invented new ways of managing my work. It didn’t work. And one day, it happened. I read the book Getting Things Done. I was excited, because the book showed me exactly what I was doing wrong. 
My mistake was a common one – I was not capturing all inputs and transferring into a written form (I don’t mean “written” literally, of course). I dutifully downloaded some GTD software, bought a moleskin and sat back for a smooth ride. Oops.
A couple of months later, I realized I was doing worse than before. Now, I left the mechanics of GTD and delved deeper into the principles and philosophy. What did I find? I had trusted my capture system, but was not really capturing all of them, I couldn’t do contexts right and more importantly for me, I was not breaking up composite tasks.
In my frustration, I threw out everything and started with paper and pen. One thing I learned is that it doesn’t scale up well. After asking around in forums and speaking to a lot of people, I decided to simplify and create my own version of GTD. A bit of planning and introspection told me that there are a few important things to keep in mind
Image courtesy Klaxon
- Break out composite tasks (or what GTD calls Projects) in as much detail as possible with separate end dates for each of the sub-tasks
- Self-appointments don’t always work, as I work with large teams and there are a lot of on-the-fly interactions (I wouldn’t take the more negative word “interruptions”)
- Use your smartphone for the really, really important tasks and personal tasks
- Use Weekly reviews consistently (Read this article from StepCase Lifehack on how to do them well)
- If you can’t note down some idea or task immediately, record it in your phone and then transcribe it. Schedule it on your phone as well with a reminder.
My biggest problem, thankfully, was finding a simple software that could handle my projects and tasks effectively. After a lot of installations and un-installations, I found TaskCoach, developed by Frank Niessink and Jerome Laheurte. It is a wonderful piece of software that, unlike many other task managers, can handle composite tasks very well [It is also free and comes with a GNU license].
TaskCoach can track effort through its built-in clock, has pop-up reminders, color coding based on completion dates, filters and other great features. You can add attachments and notes to your tasks and the most helpful point for me – I can drag Outlook items to create new tasks quickly with the email as an attachment
With this software, I have not missed any dates, although I still have to improve in the “ubiquitous capture” aspect. After the stabilization period (I have set 6 months and in month 4 now), I am planning to move on to the next level of GTD.
Resources:
- If you want to know more about GTD, get the book here or the audio series here
- If you are more of a visual person or need an image to get the big picture, here is a good one
- A simplified version of GTD that has become very popular is Zen-To-Done (ZTD) by Leo Babauta
How do you manage your work, with all the complexities of modern life? Do you use an electronic system or paper or a hybrid? Let us know in the comments.
3 Less-known attributes of truly Successful people
Jul 1st
There is a billion dollar industry of books, seminars and workshops on making people become more successful. There are also hugely successful people in our own spheres of life, people whom we meet regularly – senior members of large/great organizations, self-made enterprenuers and so on.
What are the things that distinguish successful people from the run-of-the-mill folks like me? This was what got me interested, when I found people in senior leadership roles, but had not yet crossed 40. Of course, education, luck and the simple aspect of being the one available may have taken them there, but without “stuff”, you cannot stay there for long.
I started observing such people and so far, I have found 3 attributes – passion, genuine interest in people and the ability to understand subtle communications. You will notice hard work is not in here – surprisingly, not all of them work 16 hour days!
Passion
This is a no-brainer, but many people unconsciously set limits on their passion for work, either by limits on time or simply by the distance they are willing to go to get things done. Passion is ownership, passion is about finding ways to get things done, even if it means not going by the book sometimes (I am not referring to the non-negotiable rules like ethics, just the systems that organizations or societies setup). Passion is standing up and being counted when things are in a crisis. Passion means going beyond your defined role and responsibilities and ensuring that the overall team goals are achieved.
To have real passion, you have accept that sometimes, other things in life have to play a secondary role to your work life [This means you never talk about work-life balance - even if you go home on time usually]
Genuine interest in people
Passion can only take you so far. If you don’t have or develop a genuine interest in people and how you can harness their immense potential, you cannot become a successful person. Great relationships means word-of-mouth praise, which I find is the most effective way of marketing yourself. A word of caution: Do not try to manipulate people – you may be unpleasantly surprised about how many people can easily read this. Understand genuine concerns, show empathy and try to truly help people.
A successful track record is of no use if people under you refuse to give their best, due to some unconscious anger at you. You will have uncooperative people, who will balk at every work that you assign, delay their tasks and as a result, you end up doing all their work.
One other benefit of being able to interact with people well is that you become naturally good at networking. You will not need to fake things when asking for help – on the other hand, people will feel it an honor to work with you.
Ability to understand subtlety
You can call it reading between the lines or know the flow or oh whatever, but I have found this to be one of the most underrated secrets of successful people. This could be a situation or a person talking to them or a set of numbers being thrown at them. They can analyze what the situation is and come up with an answer that is simply awesome.
I really can’t explain this, but I am sure you can connect with the idea.
The obvious question at this stage is, can we develop these attributes? I haven’t found my answers completely. Have you? Let us know in the comments. If you have noticed other things which you feel are common among successful people, those are also welcome in the comments.
Why language skills are important to your success?
Sep 17th
And what you can do about it…
What do great leaders have in common? Charisma, passion, hard work – yes, these qualities come to mind readily, but what 
about the ability to communicate to your superiors, peers and juniors effectively? To communicate effectively, you need to have a better-than-average language skills.
After reading a book called Rules of Work, I listed some managers in my organization who were considered potential leaders and started observing them in great detail. I found that the best managers in my organization, regardless of their seniority tend to be the ones who can speak effectively and efficiently.
Are you a good with your language?
Everyday, we demonstrate our ability through our interactions with others. Emails, Phone calls, meetings, presentations, talk near the water cooler and even informal toasts provide perfect opportunities for our superiors and peers to judge us.
Take a moment and think about how you are perceived by your colleagues in your ability to communicate effectively. Are you the person they turn to for sudden presentations (and luncheon toasts!)? When you speak, do they listen closely or interrupt you frequently?
The keywords when it comes to language is “Clean and Clear”
Below are some techniques to improve your language skills and tips on using them.
The Lost art of Precis Writing
Precis Writing is a technique where you are given a long text and are expected to summarize in a defined set of words. You must be able to condense verbose text into something that is easy to understand.
Tip: Use this to improve your email-writing ability
Email is the most widely used communication tool in business today. However, this generation has not been trained to write effectively with the result that most emails are either incomplete or ramble so much as to leave the reader confused on what he is supposed to do.
Note: Email etiquette is a bigger subject, which I will not get into here. Here are some links for you to find out more on it:
http://www.sideroad.com/Career_Advice/business-email-etiquette.html
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec99/pirillo1.htm
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/636/01/
Play JAM
JAM or Just-A-Minute is a game where you have to speak for one full minute without pausing on a given topic. The original JAM is a BBC Radio game, with many rules and interpretations. For our purposes, just the “without pausing rule” is sufficient. If you are not used to this sort of quick thinking, you can spend one minute thinking and framing your speech.
Select a topic from your daily newspapers, spend a minute thinking and then use a timer to speak for one minute. If the topic is something you feel passionate about, then you will find words come easily. To add to the excitement, choose a boring subject or a single word!
Tip: Use this to become an engaging talker in informal gatherings
Note: I also find JAM to be quite entertaining for a party at home with family or close friends.
Join a Toast Masters club
Once you have some experience of speaking, join a ToastMaster club near you. In addition to plenty of opportunities for speaking, you get other many other benefits:
- Speak in front of an audience of strangers
- Listen to others and learn techniques from them
- Learn to speak the right way – with tonal changes etc
- Tip: Use this to overcome your stage fear and speak in front of an audience of people you do not know.
Learn correct grammar
I don’t mean you should spend a lot of time with grammar books learning the difference between sarcasm and satire, but you should know correct pronunciation, use proper sentences and have a decent vocabulary.
There are hundreds of courses online, but often, the cheapest source is either your own organization’s training department or the local library.
http://esl.about.com is a good online source for learning the finer points of English. While it is focussed on people with English as a 2nd Language, it has something for everyone too. There are many links to other resources (since it is on the About.com site), which may be useful.
Here is a site which shows the common mistakes made by people – http://www.learnenglish.de/mistakes/CommonMistakes.htm
Tip: Ensure you don’t make basic mistakes. It also impresses people when you can talk and write flawless grammar.
Note: Bad spelling, pronunciation and incorrect grammar can confuse and irritate many people, especially for those who do not have English as their native language. They have taken the trouble to learn it correctly and they expect you to do the same.
Use the old ways – Voice recorders, mirrors
When I was in school, I used to participate in speech and debating competitions. One technique taught by my old teachers was to record myself using a tape recorder and listen to it a few times. Natural pauses, ‘umms’ and other blanks needed to be identified and worked on. The first time I did this, I was shocked – I was using these fillers a lot!
Another good way to study your body language is to stand before a mirror or better still, ask a close friend or family member to critique you.
Tip: Use this to correct your tonal modulations, posture and hand-waving when you speak – especially when you are speaking about something passionately.
Practise, Practise, Practise
There is no substitute to the real world. Grab any opportunity to speak before an audience. Just ensure you don’t bore them with long monologues and everything will be fine. This is especially true if you are not in the “prime speaker” mode, e.g., in a party. Keeping the conversation flowing by active listening is an important skill and better left for another post.
If you are in a position to plan your presentation or speech, ensure you know every aspect of it fully, so that you don’t get rattled by any questions.
Tip: There is no tip for this
Important Note:
All your efforts will be in vain if you cannot carry them off. Confidence is the important ingredient – confidence in your thinking ability, postures and language.
Summary
Your ability to speak and write well contributes to maintaining a successful image, reduces brain clutter and makes conversing with you a pleasure.