The taste of rediscovered freedom (Freedom 2008, 300 kms.) made us more adventurous this year. We decided to test the extent of our independence and chose to explore eastern India, 3000 kms from home. Sikkim in the Eastern Himalayas was our destination!
It was a long journey – with a changeover at Delhi, we finally reached Bagdogra after 9 hours. From Kannadigas to Punjabis to Bengalis and now it was our Nepalese driver – all in a day, inconceivable diversity! We commenced the last leg of our journey from Bagdogra to Gangtok.
Exhaustion from 16 hours of travel was wiped out the moment we got a view of mountains in a dusky sky from our room. Soon it was dark and we treated ourselves with yummy local Chinese dishes.
Early sunrise in the mountains gave us a longer day for local sightseeing. We were getting acquainted to a new culture with stupas, Rumtek and Ranka monasteries hidden in the mountains, breathtaking viewpoints, waterfalls, rivers, green garbed mountains and MG Marg – one of the most charming bazaars with a feel of MG Road, Bangalore of the 70s.
Sikkim is nothing like what we see around us. Different landscape, weather and different people – from concrete jungles to tiny wooden cottages on the hills, from malls to village pump like gatherings – no polythene bags. Interestingly, few things don’t change – there is Baba Ramdev, Katrina Kaif and (always locked) BJP office that make all towns familiar. People are comfortable speaking Hindi with a local, cute accent. On deep probing, our prosaic driver mentioned his favorite actor was Govinda and favourite film – Anil Kapoor’s ‘Nayak’. He didn’t know a thing about Kaminey though – furprising!
Among monasteries, flower show and other attractions, what really caught our boy’s attention was Banajhakari falls. Even after hours of playing and scaled fingers, he declared he was not leaving. Finally, we cajoled him with a (broken) promise of getting him again the next day. By then, he was tired enough to stay awake for our last and final destination of the day – the ropeway. In 10 minutes, we got a bird’s eye view of the town – narrow lanes, mountains and the legislative assembly. Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) is the ruling party since 1994, and their flags are omnipresent. At the end of day 2, we were tired but excited about next day’s plan for a South Sikkim excursion.
The natural grandeur of South district was enthralling. The four-hour drive to the majestic statue of Guru Padmasambhava was magical. We reached the peak of the mountain (2000 mts.) and Peeyush had a gala time on Cloud 9. Air was chilled, beauty at its peak and we became engaged spectators of the nature.
On our way back, we chose to walk through the sprawling Temi tea gardens spread over gentle hill slope making it easy and enjoyable for Shlok as well. Capturing the panoramic views on camera and memories, we returned to Gangtok.
The following day, we ventured to find some undiscovered spots of secret Sikkim and our quest led us to Ray river. This was just the right place – girdled by towering lush green mountain trails, the transparent ray river flowing through the rocks, with a clear blue sky to cover it all. It was super exciting for Shlok as he forgot the unfulfilled promise of going back to Banajhakari falls. Without wasting a moment, he got into action. And in no time all of us were splashing water on each other. Finally, Shlok was exhausted and hungry and decided to call it a day. Our next day was to be very special and a lot of things had to be planned.
12th August was there. Day started very early as we had to get ready and leave for NathuLa Pass taking the longer route (additional drive of 6 hours) as the regular route to this Indo-China border was blocked by a landslide. But what’s ordained; happens and a breakdown on the longer route made it impossible to go beyond 50 kms. After a failed trip to NathuLa, we returned to the room. Like they say ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, this failed trip gave me an opportunity to plan my surprise well. Thanks to the hotel staff, we (secretly) decorated the room, got a cake, a card and a rose (my first one ever) and surprised Peeyush with a small birthday party. A couple of photo sessions happened. Amidst all this fun we almost forgot how our holidays were over and it was our last night in Gangtok.
Our return to Bangalore was planned with a 4 hour stopover at Kolkata and guess what all we achieved in less than half a day? The Victoria Memorial, puchkas, rashogullas, sandesh and Kali temple and last but not the least the much talked about trams on the streets of old Kolkata. With all this, we barely managed to catch our flight to Bangalore (because it was delayed ;))
End of Freedom 2009, we reached home with fond memories from a relaxed holiday. It’s a different matter I am still grappling with my to-do lists.
Here are my Top 5 from Sikkim:
1. Evening walks on MG Marg as a daily ritual. Peeyush was fascinated by dingy, unending staircases that led to MG Marg.
2. Souvenirs for all and tons of junk jewelry for myself – and not in plastic bags
3. Shlok going crazy at the waterfall.
4. Delicious Chowmein gravy and aloo paratha.....mmmm!
5. Clean, soft water from the Himalayas – it actually felt lighter.
Here's an album.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Freedom 2009 - Sikkim
Friday, May 22, 2009
Can Innovation Outwit Recession?
In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize opportunities as well.
Downturn in economic conditions and we are ready with our two most easy, quick fix solutions of containing costs – lay-offs & budget freeze. Why can’t we think beyond this? Is it so difficult for HR to be creative?
It’s important to think ahead, times are bad now but will not remain so ever. Where do we want ourselves to be sitting when the tide turns? Lets take time to do that analysis and make sure when things start to change, we are exactly where we need to be to capitalize it.
To come out a winner in such tough times, it’s not always necessary to choose between increasing productivity and cutting costs. It can be both – all that is needed is ability to think differently and driving it across with conviction.
Think unconventionally – Trainings may still be possible
Cutting training budgets can be seen as a quick way to save money during a recession, but now is precisely the time to keep investing in the skills and talents of people. The skills of an organization’s workforce are its best guarantee of future prosperity and the best investment a business can make in these challenging times. All that is needed is finding a more cost effective approach of investing in developing employees. For instance, assign top performers or area experts to hold in-house training sessions and optimize on the internal talent pool which is available. If there are specific trainings wherein outside expertise is needed, organization can work out a new approach of sending one or two employees to learn basic tools needed to customise, personalise and deliver training courses internally.
On similar lines rather than having a policy of hiring freeze which may negatively impact customers and organizational brand leading to revenue loss, a different approach may be used. For instance, source talent through internal references rather than outsourcing it to some agency and modify organizational referral reward policies. For instance, instead of paying them bonus or cash prize, make the rewards more aspirational like being mentored by HOD or senior employee in the organization.
Consider Alternatives and explore possibilities – Layoff may not be needed
Organizations can consider various measures rather than involuntary workforce reduction. These include Flexi-Work options which includes tele-working and telecommuting, part-time, compressed/consolidated hours, annualised hours, staggered hours, and job sharing. Other options could be encouraging employees to take a sabbatical for educational studies or skills upgrading.
Infact, few companies have also adopted Flex-leave program where employees will get 20 percent of their salaries & benefits over a 6 - 12 month period. Stock options offered will remain in place for those who took the offer. Employees can take another job during their leave, but can't work for a competitor. These programmes not only help control costs, boost motivation but also increase productivity.
Another such way to optimize output from the workforce could be to ask them to spend a part of their time on corporate development activities where group of employees come forward to suggest projects which will help develop the organisation. Focusing on culture development, branding, better linkage of strategy and employee goals, improving the quality of performance reviews, internal communication systems are all good examples. This not only helps organizations to increase productivity but also decreases hiring needs.
Engage well – There may be enough opportunities to leverage
There is no denying, we are dealing with difficult times but shifting focus to the future and finding new ways to engage people will ensure above average growth going forward.
As work slows down everywhere HR can facilitate other departments and business groups to invest time in their people by instituting different measures at different levels. For top performers, it can take the form of giving stretch goals and challenging assignments to them and giving them enough decision-making authority and flexibility based on their skill, experience, and maturity levels. For the next level of talent, performance coaching sessions can be facilitated with their respective managers to further increase their productivity. It could guide employees in taking up some key projects/initiative which were important but kept getting procrastinated as they were time-intensive.
It will be good if we use this time effectively to plan ahead and mobilize for turnaround by focusing on reassessing employees’ skill sets, restructuring the organization, researching and exploring opportunities to value add to the business. For instance, find innovative ways of reaffirming employees’ confidence in the company such as blogging by the senior management or HR connecting with employees informally more often and giving a patient hearing to their concerns.
“Unless the downturn threatens a company's existence, executives should focus on rooting out operational slack and inefficiency, not on modifying or sacrificing strategic initiatives, which build capabilities for long term competitive advantage.” - Kaplan and Norton, Harvard Business Review, (December 2008)
A crisis is too good an opportunity to waste – put on your thinking caps and make the best of it!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Hiring Freeze - Is it the most effective strategy?
How often do you read – “Cisco India implements hiring freeze”, “Recruitment activities put on hold in Google”, “Hiring freeze policy at Apollo tyres” or “Patni, Fidelity, 24/7 Customer freeze recruiting budgets” . But why such hiring freezes and dramatic recruitment budget cuts? Is this the only way out during economy slowdown? Will cutting jobs or keeping recruitment on hold solve the business problems? Or on the contrary, will it prove to be a handicap in company’s growth?
This is certainly not first or the last recessionary cycle. The period of high and low growth, which are referred as economic cycles are more of a rule rather than an exception. These cycles tend to occur every three to six years and last for 6-18 months. This is one such temporary phase.
Undoubtedly, times are tough but then Indian economy is not sustained by exports alone, there is a huge domestic demand as well. The large foreign exchange reserves, high savings rate and a reservoir of management and entrepreneurial skills are some of India's strong economic fundamentals that insulate her from the global financial meltdown.
There’s definitely enough merit for companies to see an opportunity in such times and gear up to reap greater benefits when tough gets going. This could be possible only when there is a right kind of workforce or exceptional talent available within the organization. Perhaps resource freeze could be the easiest solution during global financial crisis but certainly not the most appropriate business strategy. More so for large business establishments because when there is a hiring freeze across the board, organizations’ growth gets impacted as some business units showing a high growth trend, generating enough revenue have to face the brunt due to lack of talent availability.
Not only this but there is an adverse impact on company’s repute as well. When the recruitment budgets are cut drastically, it leads to understaffing of employees making the existent staff work longer hours further impacting the quality of products/services and in turn affecting the organizational brand adversely. So at what price are you ready to contain costs? Have you given enough thought to the various long term consequences that the organization might have to face in the future?
In fact, it is during such times that the amount and quality of available talent is greater. If an organization is not recruiting, it is missing on some exceptional talent. Apart from this, ‘hiring freeze’ sends a wrong message to customers, analysts, suppliers and people at large that the company is in trouble which may affect the stock prices as well.
So how should businesses manage a strategic function of the organization in such trying times so as to achieve a competitive edge? Some of these are:
Welch-Way
There is certainly a case for 20-70-10 rule given by Jack Welch. This is the right time of weeding out non-performers by differentiating employees into various performance categories of the top 20%, middle 70%, bottom 10% and filling the vacant positions with competent and skilled employees. Cutting jobs to reduce cost and hiring freeze to contain costs are not the most appropriate measures as this will not only put unnecessary pressure on the existing staff leading to losing out on your organizational talent/asset but also impact the brand of the organization when economy returns to normal. Thus, right-sizing workforce is the way to go.
The Road Less Travelled
Times are different so think differently, get innovative and work out ways to widening the sourcing pool and minimizing recruitment costs at the same time. Simplest of it could be emphasis on sourcing through referrals and modifying organizational referral reward policies. For instance, instead of paying them bonus or cash prize, make the rewards more aspirational like dinner with CEO, organization-wide recognition during annual award ceremony, providing with developmental opportunities by sponsoring them for some professional course or skill building workshop which in turn proves beneficial to the organization as well or a 5 day paid leave.
Since, the number and quality of workforce available in the market will be high due to lay-offs by competitive organizations, it’ll be good to look for some such laid off, but exceptional talent or spotting the ones who survived the restructuring but their loyalty towards the organization is at an all time low. The other ways of increasing the pool of available candidates could be connecting with ex-employees and exploring possibilities of sourcing them or getting further leads or even sourcing talent through social networking sites, industry specific blogs or discussion forums.
Other low cost approaches to contain recruitment cost could also be hiring contract/temporary staff to minimize permanent liabilities. Efficient use of interns can also prove beneficial. Make interns accountable for deliverables and give them work best suited to their competence and capability.
Tough times require tough measures
Make recruitment policies more stringent with various levels of ratifications at each stage. Limit the hiring freeze to pre-identified non-key positions only, else continually add employees in business units which are experiencing growth and innovations and release the ones which are not performing to the organizations’ standards.
Maximize the high-touch, high values-add functions performed by the internal recruitment staff and outsource the rest. This would help in reducing expenses and retaining core-recruiting staff without overloading them with increased work.
Also, work out recruitment metrics to determine the impact of hiring freeze on organizational cost. This will further help the organization in deciding the future course of action.
Concluding Thoughts
Think different and be strategic in your approach by making sure that you are able to transform the challenges to the best of opportunities, else you will always be busy catching up with your competitors!
This is certainly not first or the last recessionary cycle. The period of high and low growth, which are referred as economic cycles are more of a rule rather than an exception. These cycles tend to occur every three to six years and last for 6-18 months. This is one such temporary phase.
Undoubtedly, times are tough but then Indian economy is not sustained by exports alone, there is a huge domestic demand as well. The large foreign exchange reserves, high savings rate and a reservoir of management and entrepreneurial skills are some of India's strong economic fundamentals that insulate her from the global financial meltdown.
There’s definitely enough merit for companies to see an opportunity in such times and gear up to reap greater benefits when tough gets going. This could be possible only when there is a right kind of workforce or exceptional talent available within the organization. Perhaps resource freeze could be the easiest solution during global financial crisis but certainly not the most appropriate business strategy. More so for large business establishments because when there is a hiring freeze across the board, organizations’ growth gets impacted as some business units showing a high growth trend, generating enough revenue have to face the brunt due to lack of talent availability.
Not only this but there is an adverse impact on company’s repute as well. When the recruitment budgets are cut drastically, it leads to understaffing of employees making the existent staff work longer hours further impacting the quality of products/services and in turn affecting the organizational brand adversely. So at what price are you ready to contain costs? Have you given enough thought to the various long term consequences that the organization might have to face in the future?
In fact, it is during such times that the amount and quality of available talent is greater. If an organization is not recruiting, it is missing on some exceptional talent. Apart from this, ‘hiring freeze’ sends a wrong message to customers, analysts, suppliers and people at large that the company is in trouble which may affect the stock prices as well.
So how should businesses manage a strategic function of the organization in such trying times so as to achieve a competitive edge? Some of these are:
Welch-Way
There is certainly a case for 20-70-10 rule given by Jack Welch. This is the right time of weeding out non-performers by differentiating employees into various performance categories of the top 20%, middle 70%, bottom 10% and filling the vacant positions with competent and skilled employees. Cutting jobs to reduce cost and hiring freeze to contain costs are not the most appropriate measures as this will not only put unnecessary pressure on the existing staff leading to losing out on your organizational talent/asset but also impact the brand of the organization when economy returns to normal. Thus, right-sizing workforce is the way to go.
The Road Less Travelled
Times are different so think differently, get innovative and work out ways to widening the sourcing pool and minimizing recruitment costs at the same time. Simplest of it could be emphasis on sourcing through referrals and modifying organizational referral reward policies. For instance, instead of paying them bonus or cash prize, make the rewards more aspirational like dinner with CEO, organization-wide recognition during annual award ceremony, providing with developmental opportunities by sponsoring them for some professional course or skill building workshop which in turn proves beneficial to the organization as well or a 5 day paid leave.
Since, the number and quality of workforce available in the market will be high due to lay-offs by competitive organizations, it’ll be good to look for some such laid off, but exceptional talent or spotting the ones who survived the restructuring but their loyalty towards the organization is at an all time low. The other ways of increasing the pool of available candidates could be connecting with ex-employees and exploring possibilities of sourcing them or getting further leads or even sourcing talent through social networking sites, industry specific blogs or discussion forums.
Other low cost approaches to contain recruitment cost could also be hiring contract/temporary staff to minimize permanent liabilities. Efficient use of interns can also prove beneficial. Make interns accountable for deliverables and give them work best suited to their competence and capability.
Tough times require tough measures
Make recruitment policies more stringent with various levels of ratifications at each stage. Limit the hiring freeze to pre-identified non-key positions only, else continually add employees in business units which are experiencing growth and innovations and release the ones which are not performing to the organizations’ standards.
Maximize the high-touch, high values-add functions performed by the internal recruitment staff and outsource the rest. This would help in reducing expenses and retaining core-recruiting staff without overloading them with increased work.
Also, work out recruitment metrics to determine the impact of hiring freeze on organizational cost. This will further help the organization in deciding the future course of action.
Concluding Thoughts
Think different and be strategic in your approach by making sure that you are able to transform the challenges to the best of opportunities, else you will always be busy catching up with your competitors!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Freedom 2008 - Coorg
Peeyush and I last enjoyed our freedom in August 2006 - that's when I said bye to vacations - knowing well that the next one was going to be a while away.
That was two years ago. The boy has grown now, and the tables have turned! So we planned a short vacation during this independence-day weekend.. We chose a quiet hill station called Cheyandane in Coorg district. Though just 300 kms away, it was completely cut-off from everything – no internet (yep, there are still such places!), no mobile, even the morning newspaper reached by late afternoon. It was a good opportunity to separate Peeyush from blackberry and Inbox. My only other enemy on the trip was his laptop and poor guy forgot the power adapter at home. Now he was gazing the walls when we were not talking! Some sadistic pleasure…haa.
As is the case with all road trips, getting there is the best part and our journey took us through Nagarhole forest and the lonely road in a dense jungle where the thoughts of 'wow, this is awesome' and 'hope we don't have a breakdown right here' kept alternating. More excitement awaited us ahead as this was the first time we were experimenting with homestay. Coorg is known for its warm hospitality and there are many authorized homestay where you live a Coorgi life with your hosts in their home. Actually, we were quite skeptical about it till we reached our destination.
All the prior research paid-off. It was a spacious and aesthetic bungalow in the midst of a 30-acre coffee estate, surrounded by a variety of flora – huge trees, flowery shrubs, pepper vines and of course coffee plants. Here's the best part – Shlok was ready for fun the moment he stepped out of the car. Man, was he thrilled or what! He was running, jumping, hopping tirelessly, and giggled without a reason – the boy had a ball!
The Aiyappas, especially Swathy aunty took great care of us and ensured we were comfortable. She pampered us with mouth watering, exquisite Coorgi delicacies and the foodies that we are, we enjoyed them thoroughly. While having breakfast, we used to dream about lunch..
We spent the daytime sight-seeing, visiting ancestral home of Aiyappas which was more than 200 years old and an ancient palace. The beauty of this palace lied in the strategic architecture with some hidden passages to escape incase of an enemy attack. We visited Chelawara falls and lot of streams that were all over Cheyandane. Infact, there were some terrains which were difficult to traverse on car and that's when the Aiyappas stepped up as a true host and took us around on their jeep. It was surprising to see how non-commercial the arrangement was. We almost forgot we were paying for the stay! We also did some trekking in the estate and had a closer look at different species of plants.
Evenings were awaited for the awesome cup of coffee straight from the estate beans. Aiyappas have two kinds of beans at this estate – Robusta and Arabica – the latter being more exotic. The flavor and aroma was out-of-the-world and even made a non-coffee drinker like me crave for it. It was fun talking about the fascinating Coorgi customs and wedding traditions, the unique Coorgi style saree, and emerging social-order in India.
We never realized how time passed and we were packing our bags to go back to Bangalore carrying wonderful memories from the trip – a quiet, secluded holiday.
Finally, the five best and most exciting moments for me were:
The moment I got to know that there is no mobile/broadband signal in Cheyandane and to add to this joy of mine was when my darling husband screemed out of sheer disappointment that he forgot his power adaptor... and I jumped in happiness - yippie!!!
The other one was when we went trekking, just the two of us in the estate, while shlok was nicely tucked in the bed, it was some fun!
Watching Shlok go crazy over the hills.
Having some delicious coorgi chicken tikka.....mmmm yummy!!
Sipping through the home made wine. Wait ! Wait! Btw before you guys have any further thoughts let me tell you it was completely and absolutely non-alcoholic, prepared out of fresh grapes and wheat . ;)
Now here's an album: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/peeyush.dubey/Cheyandane?authkey=wyKufANaIfM
That was two years ago. The boy has grown now, and the tables have turned! So we planned a short vacation during this independence-day weekend.. We chose a quiet hill station called Cheyandane in Coorg district. Though just 300 kms away, it was completely cut-off from everything – no internet (yep, there are still such places!), no mobile, even the morning newspaper reached by late afternoon. It was a good opportunity to separate Peeyush from blackberry and Inbox. My only other enemy on the trip was his laptop and poor guy forgot the power adapter at home. Now he was gazing the walls when we were not talking! Some sadistic pleasure…haa.
As is the case with all road trips, getting there is the best part and our journey took us through Nagarhole forest and the lonely road in a dense jungle where the thoughts of 'wow, this is awesome' and 'hope we don't have a breakdown right here' kept alternating. More excitement awaited us ahead as this was the first time we were experimenting with homestay. Coorg is known for its warm hospitality and there are many authorized homestay where you live a Coorgi life with your hosts in their home. Actually, we were quite skeptical about it till we reached our destination.
All the prior research paid-off. It was a spacious and aesthetic bungalow in the midst of a 30-acre coffee estate, surrounded by a variety of flora – huge trees, flowery shrubs, pepper vines and of course coffee plants. Here's the best part – Shlok was ready for fun the moment he stepped out of the car. Man, was he thrilled or what! He was running, jumping, hopping tirelessly, and giggled without a reason – the boy had a ball!
The Aiyappas, especially Swathy aunty took great care of us and ensured we were comfortable. She pampered us with mouth watering, exquisite Coorgi delicacies and the foodies that we are, we enjoyed them thoroughly. While having breakfast, we used to dream about lunch..
We spent the daytime sight-seeing, visiting ancestral home of Aiyappas which was more than 200 years old and an ancient palace. The beauty of this palace lied in the strategic architecture with some hidden passages to escape incase of an enemy attack. We visited Chelawara falls and lot of streams that were all over Cheyandane. Infact, there were some terrains which were difficult to traverse on car and that's when the Aiyappas stepped up as a true host and took us around on their jeep. It was surprising to see how non-commercial the arrangement was. We almost forgot we were paying for the stay! We also did some trekking in the estate and had a closer look at different species of plants.
Evenings were awaited for the awesome cup of coffee straight from the estate beans. Aiyappas have two kinds of beans at this estate – Robusta and Arabica – the latter being more exotic. The flavor and aroma was out-of-the-world and even made a non-coffee drinker like me crave for it. It was fun talking about the fascinating Coorgi customs and wedding traditions, the unique Coorgi style saree, and emerging social-order in India.
We never realized how time passed and we were packing our bags to go back to Bangalore carrying wonderful memories from the trip – a quiet, secluded holiday.
Finally, the five best and most exciting moments for me were:
The moment I got to know that there is no mobile/broadband signal in Cheyandane and to add to this joy of mine was when my darling husband screemed out of sheer disappointment that he forgot his power adaptor... and I jumped in happiness - yippie!!!
The other one was when we went trekking, just the two of us in the estate, while shlok was nicely tucked in the bed, it was some fun!
Watching Shlok go crazy over the hills.
Having some delicious coorgi chicken tikka.....mmmm yummy!!
Sipping through the home made wine. Wait ! Wait! Btw before you guys have any further thoughts let me tell you it was completely and absolutely non-alcoholic, prepared out of fresh grapes and wheat . ;)
Now here's an album: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/peeyush.dubey/Cheyandane?authkey=wyKufANaIfM
Monday, September 17, 2007
How to get more done in a day
It is one of those moments wherein i was thinking...
How often do you confront a situation wherein you start your day with all enthusiasm and intention of making it one of the most productive days and accomplishing tasks which have long been procrastinated but end up realizing not one got done and yet you were as busy as a bee? Or for that matter how many of you work for most of your morning and afternoon and realize that nothing that was important has been done, you are still sitting on a pile of pending tasks and time has gone by. Frustrating, isn't it? Leaves you with lot of dissatisfaction and discontent.
What happened? Where did your time go? What kept you so occupied and engaged throughout the day? Lets see - probably, you spent morning time clearing your inbox - glancing the forward jokes, messages and other junk mails, or went for a refreshing cup of coffee with one of your colleagues. In the meantime you realized that there is loads of work staring at your desk and just when you were about to commence your work, someone called you for schmoozing and the next hour went. Around this time you realized you have wasted a lot of time and unexpectedly you are beleaguered by hornets' nest and your entire day went in putting out that fire. At the end of the day you wonder - where the heck did my time go? These are certainly not the symptoms of a productive individual because a productive individual plans his/her day well and is in a position to comprehend where his/her time goes. Its no convoluted tax structure that needs unusual competency to apprehend. Its mere common sense, which all of us are cognizant of but only few put it to practice where as the rest forget, postpone or resist to act on them as it is disquieting.
Some such facile strategies are:
Start your day early:
Start your day half-an hour early than usual. At the end of each day, make a list of 10 most important things that you will accomplish the next day. This will give you some time to make a mental outline of how to exercise control over your time being spent rather than how others want your time to be spent. When you have some inevitable and inescapable tasks at hand that need a closure immediately, it is expedient to commit some time for yourself by blocking the calendar. Make sure you keep your commitment.
Prioritize:
Prioritizing tasks enlisted on your to-do list is essential and can be done by categorizing them based on their criticality viz. have-to-do, need-to-do and nice-to-do. Start your day with have-to-do's and then work your way down. Keep in mind the 80/20 rule the intent of which is that 20% of your efforts will account for 80% of your results. So the key is to identify the tasks that fall into the upper 20% and focus your efforts on them. Thus, in a day when you have tons of tasks to be accomplished choose to do those 20% which will get you closer to your goals.
Work Smart not hard:
How often do you confront a situation wherein you start your day with all enthusiasm and intention of making it one of the most productive days and accomplishing tasks which have long been procrastinated but end up realizing not one got done and yet you were as busy as a bee? Or for that matter how many of you work for most of your morning and afternoon and realize that nothing that was important has been done, you are still sitting on a pile of pending tasks and time has gone by. Frustrating, isn't it? Leaves you with lot of dissatisfaction and discontent.
What happened? Where did your time go? What kept you so occupied and engaged throughout the day? Lets see - probably, you spent morning time clearing your inbox - glancing the forward jokes, messages and other junk mails, or went for a refreshing cup of coffee with one of your colleagues. In the meantime you realized that there is loads of work staring at your desk and just when you were about to commence your work, someone called you for schmoozing and the next hour went. Around this time you realized you have wasted a lot of time and unexpectedly you are beleaguered by hornets' nest and your entire day went in putting out that fire. At the end of the day you wonder - where the heck did my time go? These are certainly not the symptoms of a productive individual because a productive individual plans his/her day well and is in a position to comprehend where his/her time goes. Its no convoluted tax structure that needs unusual competency to apprehend. Its mere common sense, which all of us are cognizant of but only few put it to practice where as the rest forget, postpone or resist to act on them as it is disquieting.
Some such facile strategies are:
Start your day early:
Start your day half-an hour early than usual. At the end of each day, make a list of 10 most important things that you will accomplish the next day. This will give you some time to make a mental outline of how to exercise control over your time being spent rather than how others want your time to be spent. When you have some inevitable and inescapable tasks at hand that need a closure immediately, it is expedient to commit some time for yourself by blocking the calendar. Make sure you keep your commitment.
Prioritize:
Prioritizing tasks enlisted on your to-do list is essential and can be done by categorizing them based on their criticality viz. have-to-do, need-to-do and nice-to-do. Start your day with have-to-do's and then work your way down. Keep in mind the 80/20 rule the intent of which is that 20% of your efforts will account for 80% of your results. So the key is to identify the tasks that fall into the upper 20% and focus your efforts on them. Thus, in a day when you have tons of tasks to be accomplished choose to do those 20% which will get you closer to your goals.
Work Smart not hard:
Its not always about hard work or the number of hours that you put doing a task, instead about achieving the targets. Focus should be on outcomes rather than activities. Not every task requires or deserves the same degree of attention or intensity. Perfection can often be a waste of time. It's not worth the effort to try for perfection on inconsequential jobs. Productivity leaders advise giving each task the effort it warrants--nothing more, nothing less as this way you get lot more done.
Exercise email will-power; tame your phone and minimize meetings:
Emails, phones and meetings though have their respective set of advantages but they are the biggest dissipaters of time and exercising discipline in this area is important. When in midst of some significant activity there is absolutely no need to take all the incoming calls until and unless urgent. You can respond to them at your convenience. Phones are meant for your convenience, not for others’.
Similar discipline holds true for emails. Checking mails can get extremely addictive and can stop you from getting your real work done. The trick here is to process your inbox after every 3 to 4 hours depending on your job requirement rather than being so inquisitive that you check each and every mail the moment it arrives. Also while processing your inbox keep your exchanges very short, to the point and specific, for instance "Pls. confirm our meeting at 10 am tomorrow."
In the age of virtual and globally distributed work teams, it is much more beneficial to accomplish as many tasks as possible through conference calls as this saves both time and energy. Lot of time is wasted in going to and fro to the meeting place and some avoidable conversations and social pleasantries that are exchanged while you meet. Thus, its always advisable to finish most of the tasks over the phone as this way you save time which can later be put to a more productive use.
Protect your productive time:
We often hear people complaining that i am not able to work in the office hours as there are people who come and interrupt for something or the other. The best solution is to form a practice of talking to people only on prior slotted time or else learn to say "not now please" and refer them to another time. This way your productive time at the office is put to best use.
Multitasking:
Multitasking works best when you have two tasks not conflicting with each other for the same areas of brain and it helps save a lot of time in a day. Tasks which are not very critical and do not require your 100% concentration can be clubbed together. For instance, while on call, you can respond to routine mails. This helps you in saving time which can be later used to complete other tasks on to-do list.
The suggestions discussed above are something that all of us know but the only difference between people who achieve more than the others is that they put this knowledge to use. Try and see for yourself how this help you in getting more done in a day – at home and at work making each day much more enjoyable.
Exercise email will-power; tame your phone and minimize meetings:
Emails, phones and meetings though have their respective set of advantages but they are the biggest dissipaters of time and exercising discipline in this area is important. When in midst of some significant activity there is absolutely no need to take all the incoming calls until and unless urgent. You can respond to them at your convenience. Phones are meant for your convenience, not for others’.
Similar discipline holds true for emails. Checking mails can get extremely addictive and can stop you from getting your real work done. The trick here is to process your inbox after every 3 to 4 hours depending on your job requirement rather than being so inquisitive that you check each and every mail the moment it arrives. Also while processing your inbox keep your exchanges very short, to the point and specific, for instance "Pls. confirm our meeting at 10 am tomorrow."
In the age of virtual and globally distributed work teams, it is much more beneficial to accomplish as many tasks as possible through conference calls as this saves both time and energy. Lot of time is wasted in going to and fro to the meeting place and some avoidable conversations and social pleasantries that are exchanged while you meet. Thus, its always advisable to finish most of the tasks over the phone as this way you save time which can later be put to a more productive use.
Protect your productive time:
We often hear people complaining that i am not able to work in the office hours as there are people who come and interrupt for something or the other. The best solution is to form a practice of talking to people only on prior slotted time or else learn to say "not now please" and refer them to another time. This way your productive time at the office is put to best use.
Multitasking:
Multitasking works best when you have two tasks not conflicting with each other for the same areas of brain and it helps save a lot of time in a day. Tasks which are not very critical and do not require your 100% concentration can be clubbed together. For instance, while on call, you can respond to routine mails. This helps you in saving time which can be later used to complete other tasks on to-do list.
The suggestions discussed above are something that all of us know but the only difference between people who achieve more than the others is that they put this knowledge to use. Try and see for yourself how this help you in getting more done in a day – at home and at work making each day much more enjoyable.
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