Treat your brain like a two-year old child to beat procrastination

You have heard productivity gurus often say that in order to go to the gym the next morning, you have to lay out the clothes near your bed at night, or perhaps even sleep in them. This sounds like excellent advice. But despite that friction-busting move, here’s what happens in the morning.

Alarm clock: RRRRiiiinngggg!

You: Okay, let’s go to the gym.

Your brain: Whiiiiiiiiine…. I want to sleep. The bed is comfortable. I am not getting up.

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Advice and Feedback – When to ignore?

We saw how to give praise and Feedback the last few weeks. In the next couple of weeks, lets look at how to receive them and what to do with it. When and what to consider and what not to ?

We seek advice and feedback often when we are unsure of our future course of action. Sometimes people add relevant perspectives that we had never considered. They challenge the way we look at our world and bring clarity. Sometimes they leave us even more confused and are best ignored. But how do we know when to do what? Am I ignoring an advice because it makes me uncomfortable or if it is not relevant to me?

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Explore and exploit: The intentions that determine our choices

Let’s say you have a dinner date night with your spouse this weekend. Will you pick the same restaurant where you have been before and enjoyed your meal or will you try something new? Your regular restaurant will surely guarantee a great experience. That’s why you often go there. But it takes away the feeling of serendipity. A feeling of discovering something somewhere which is better than any experience you have ever had. For that you should seek a restaurant you have never been to. What if you stumble upon something that becomes your new favourite? But contrarily, what if the experience there is so bad that it ruins your weekend?

You’ll never know the answer. You’ll never know if you are stuck in a rut, not willing to try something better. You’ll never know if a new trial will be a worthwhile experience. That is what we try to answer with the explore / exploit intention. Sometimes you have to EXPLORE new experiences, hoping that one of them becomes a new favourite. But more often, you have to exploit, using your existing knowledge to lock in a good experience.

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How to give feedback the right way?

Providing feedback the right way is a critical part of the job of a parent, teacher, manager, friend, customer etc. Feedback provided the right way can help one to deepen relationships and become better at tasks at hand. A botched up feedback can turn a reluctant person into a rebel, beginner struggles into permanent disinterest and wasted talent. Last time we looked at ways to keep people motivated through right praise, let us know look at a even more vital aspect of sharing feedback the right way.

When to give Feedback:

Only when appropriate:

When your spouse is asking you about her new haircut, she is looking for validation and not feedback. It’s not much different from when your 5 year old artist shows his new painting. Distinguish between validation seeking and feedback seeking and act accordingly.

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The four pillars of occupations

Hindu religion and several other cultures talk about the concept of trinity. In the trinity principles, three types of activities are spoken about. There is a creator who creates and a destructor who destroys. In the middle sits the concept of security, the one who protects. As with anything in Hinduism, these principles are deified. They are Brahma (creation), Vishnu (protection) and Shiva (destruction). Our occupations today can be classified into these three categories. Along with them, I would also like to add another category to make it a quartet, i.e. maintenance. I call these the four pillars of occupations. Continue reading The four pillars of occupations

How to Praise the Right Way?

To share our sincere praise to someone is the best way to make them like us and listen and adhere to our requests. But delivering the praise has multiple aspects to it, that we are not normally taught. While it is of no need to mention a list of benefits of praising someone, delivering it incorrectly, can backfire badly. So let us look at various aspect of delivering praise.

How to Praise?

Praise Sincerely:

Like a fake smile, a fake praise is often easily deciphered by the person who it is addressed to. Even if it works in the short term and you derive benefits, in the long term, you are bound to be caught someday and it may really badly backfire.

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Why doctors and lawyers ‘practise’

Since 2015, I have been a software freelancer. I have been frequently asked about where I work, to which I respond that I work from home. I am asked if I have my own business and company. My reply is that I work alone on contract with companies and that I don’t own a company and do not have employees. I explain that opportunities of such nature are abundant in fields like photography, carpentry and weaving, and thankfully in software.

To my own surprise, I have often caught myself replying, “Not a business, I’d rather say I have my own practice*.” I have heard several individual professionals, mainly doctors, lawyers and chartered accountants who use the term ‘practice’ to describe their occupation. It is a wonderful term in my opinion, something that perfectly describes almost everyone’s occupation, whether working alone or with a company, whether a sweeper or the prime minister.

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Book Summary: Mindset – Carol Dweck

	Title: Mindset, the new psychology of success
	Author: Carol Dweck
	Publisher: Random House
	ISBN-10: 1400062756
	ISBN-13: 978-1400062751
	Buy from: Amazon.in \| Amazon.com

This book has been the most embarrassing book for me to read ever, for it showed me the mirror. In effect it was deeply revealing, it gave me a perspective into how I had been looking at several things. Dr. Carol Dweck’s research has been the most revealing and explained many of my bizarre moments of life.

Personality Mindsets: Fixed Vs Growth

People with fixed mindsets believe that abilities are frozen in stone. Most of their efforts are spent in trying to prove themselves. People with Growth Mindsets believe that we can change and improve with practice.

Mindset - Growth Vs Fixed — Mindset – Growth Vs Fixed

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Book summary: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Title: Atomic Habits
Author: James Clear
Publisher: Penguin Random House
ISBN-10: 1847941834
ISBN-13: 978-1847941831
Buy from: Amazon.in | Amazon.com

Introduction

There is a myth and an all-pervading belief that in order to transform your life, we need to transform our behaviour in a major way and need to do is fast. To lose weight, people go on crash diets overnight. Alcoholics and addicts go cold turkey. People with no previous experience with workouts join the gym and work out so hard on day 1 that they get sore muscles.

James Clear offers us a better solution in his book Atomic Habits. He argues that in order to transform our life and add new behaviour, it is necessary to take tiny steps and let the habits build and then change one thing at a time.

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How to Retire early?

Retirement of the Earlier Generation:

In 1990, life expectancy in our country was at 58 years, while the retirement age was between 55 – 60 yrs in various state and central government jobs. Many people died before they retired. We had movies on withdrawal symptoms after retirement and how the erstwhile who’s who coped up with inactivity and lack of importance. Since that generation had steady pension and a huge Provident Fund, usually financial trouble was not one of the problems they faced post retirement. This was despite being predominantly a single income family with several dependents.

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