365 Exciting Ways to Live : Excitement # 93. Sponsor Your Own Training and Development!

 Sponsor Your Own Training and Development

I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.

– Muhammad Ali

Do you invest on your own training?   We live in world of exciting opportunities and unless we are the best, we cannot remain competitive. For this we need to hone our knowledge and skill.

Normally, people wait for their organisation to sponsor them for training. But achievers are proactive and design their own training calendar. They are clear about where they are going and what they are lacking. They are focused on their long, medium and short term goals. They plan to equip themselves with the type of knowledge and training they need to reach their goals.

Do the following exercise:

·         Review your list of goals and identify the gaps in your ‘skill set’.

·         Identify your training requirement – technical and non-technical.

·         Evolve a monthly budget in terms money and training hours and nominate yourself for appropriate training programmes.

In short, you should become your own HR and Training Manager! You can surrender anything to others, but not your future. The quality of your life depends on what you can deliver, which in turn depends on your training and personal development.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live - Excitement # 92: Encourage Others

Encourage Others

A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.

– Anonymous

Do you generally encourage or discourage others? Encouraging others is an important quality of a leader. We all need encouragement to achieve in life. Encouragement is the emotional tonic you give to others to build self confidence. This is the mutual help we give each other. We need a lot of help from others, but the most important one is their encouraging words.  

Great achievers were lucky that they got encouragement at the right time, which made all the difference. But for the encouragement of Helen Keller’s mother Kate Adams Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan, she would have remained deaf and dumb forever.

Read the following:

·         Do you generally encourage people or discourage them?

·         Are people comfortable to come to you to say what they are trying to achieve? Or, do they shy away from you for fear of discouragement?

·         Would you have achieved whatever you’ve achieved, if you had not been encouraged by someone?

Over the next one week, identify at least ten persons, who are trying to achieve something in their life and think how you can encourage them.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 88. Double the Planning Time!

 Double the Planning Time

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

– Benjamin Franklin

Double the planning time to cut the execution time by half! Looks very simple! But it is a very powerful time management idea. Every project involves a planning and an execution phase. If you plan meticulously, you will be able to accomplish any task to the highest quality standard.  

Before going to sleep, spend at least thirty minutes of your time on how you are going to spend your next day. In addition, spend the first hour of the day in planning and meditating.

Take an important project which will make a substantial value addition to your life and do a detailed strategic planning. Use project management charts and tools. Plan for all the activities, resource mobilisation, time schedule etc. Anticipate problems and think ‘if this goes wrong then...’ and prepare a contingency plan.

Put your plan on a piece of paper. Many people don’t do this part well. Mental planning is not good enough for important projects. When you write down, many things will get cleared. It will be a good idea to discuss your plan with others, who may have a different perspective.

Meticulous planning will avoid unnecessary tension during execution. 

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 87. Respect Others’ Time

Respect Others’ Time

Time = Life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.

– Alan Lakein

Are you sensitive to others’ priorities? If you want people to respect your priorities, you should respect their priorities. Time is a scarce resource which should not be wasted, whether it is your time or others’.

Check if you do the following:

• Do you waste others’ time by involving them in unnecessary conversation, especially if you are in such a position that they cannot avoid?
• Do you engage others on long telephone conversations, insensitive to time?
• Do you make people wait without any reason?
• Do you make unreasonable demands on their time regardless of their time pressure?
• Do you interrupt others very often affecting their flow of work?

·         Do you force your priorities on others using your power and authority?

Some people may not express their embarrassment, if you are not sensitive to their priorities. They may not feel comfortable to say ‘no’ to your demands on their time.

Over the next week, audit your own style with respect to the above factors. If you value others’ time and priorities, they will also reciprocate the same sentiment!

(From my b00k  '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 84 : Programme Your Reading Portfolio

     Programme Your Reading Portfolio

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

You should have an effective reading programme. In a world where information is power, you should be well informed about the most important developments in your field of specialisation. Due to various other priorities, your reading portfolio may get the least priority if you don’t programme your reading.

Consider the following:

·         Set aside a specific place for reading. Have a small book shelf, note pads, pencil, etc. to help your reading effectiveness.

·         Practise fixed time reading as a discipline. May be one hour in the morning or one hour in the night.

·         Remove sources of distractions such as television, radio and mobile phone.

·          Use the timer or stop watch to track time frame.

·         Ensure that you are not disturbed by others.

·         Practise paraphrasing each chapter and it will enhance retention.

·         Focus reading topic-wise, like leadership on one month, time management on another, etc.

Time is an invisible resource. If you don’t have a schedule and budget, it will be dissipated on unimportant activities at the cost of critical issues.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement# 73: Focus on Your Core Competency!

      Focus on Your Core Competency

You will never ‘find’ time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.

– Charles Bruxton

Are you a ‘Jack of all trades, but master of none’?

Today, we live in a world of specialization and you have to be a specialist in any one specific field. You should identify your special talent and become an expert in that area. You should focus all your efforts to develop that talent. This is called ‘core competency’. Many organizations focus all their attention on their core competence and even stop manufacturing products which do not fit into this strategy.

Over this weekend, introspect and reflect to find out your core competency. Analyze and evaluate if you are spending adequate time on this area. Check if your time is dissipated on activities which may be interesting, but does not relate to your core competency. Prepare a ‘not to do list’ in which you list at least five activities, which do not belong to your core specialization area to release your time to pursue your most important activities.

Unless you say ‘no’ to unimportant, but interesting trivial things, you will not find time to do the most important and critical things which will add value to your life.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Excitement Ways to Live: Excitement # 72: Plan for the unexpected!

       Plan for the Unexpected

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

-Norman Cousins

It is ideal to wish that everything will go as we want. However, the reality is that certain things may not be in our control. Some unanticipated events may throw our plans haywire. Someone may not be as effective and efficient as he should be. Some assumptions could go wrong. You have to anticipate such eventualities.

You can ask yourself the following questions when you are about to get out of your bed:

·         What is the most important task that I have to complete today?

·         Do I have all the resources lined up, including time?

·         What could go wrong and what should be my counter-measure?

·         What critical assumptions could go wrong and what should I do?

·         Am I realistic about my expectations of others? Am I too optimistic?

I am not sounding pessimistic. While we should be optimistic, we should also plan for unexpected events. Perhaps we should be ‘optimistically pessimistic’!

Human beings are unique from other living beings in their ability to anticipate and plan and this has made us to survive millions of years while other living beings extinct.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 70 : Take Pride as People Developer!

       Take Pride as People Developer

He isn’t a real boss until he has trained subordinates to shoulder most of his responsibilities.

– William Father

Time is a limited resource and we have to intelligently invest it. It is not how long you work. What is more important is the ‘productivity’ of your time. Our aim should be to work less and produce more.

One key factor which will decide your effectiveness is the competency of your people. In your own interest you have to develop and train them. Let us compare this with the automobile metaphor. If you are the engine, your people are the sub assemblies such as the wheels, the gear box, the transmission, the brake and the accelerator. No matter how good and powerful is the engine, if the sub assemblies are not maintained properly, the vehicle will not arrive at the destination at the right time!

Today, you list the people who work for your project and evaluate their knowledge, skill and competency.  Assess the gap which will affect your project.  Discuss with them and evolve a strategy to develop them. Take pride as a people developer. When you develop your people, both you and your people will be empowered!

Do this honestly!

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 69: Develop ‘One-Pointedness’

Develop ‘One-Pointedness’

Concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket.

-Andrew Carnegie

What’s your longest span of concentration and focus on one single selected task without your mind wandering? Great success calls for great efforts and a disciplined mind. By nature, mind is not disciplined and will drift. We have to train the mind to ‘one-pointedness by deliberate exercise and practice. When we were children, we were able to concentrate on one thing. But as we grew older we lost this important quality, like we gave up diaphragmatic breathing!

Every day set aside one hour to concentrate on the most important task on hand such as writing, portfolio management, reading and thinking. Switch off your mobile phone, shut down your television set and tell people that you are not available. If necessary lock yourself for one hour in a room. Just disappear from the crowd! If you find it difficult to concentrate for one full hour to start with, begin with fifteen minutes and gradually improve. Treat this as a very important self-development portfolio exercise, like jogging and workout.

Sincerely do this for a month and notice your self confidence going up along with the quality of your work!

(From my book '365 Excitement Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 66: Develop People Management Skill

       Develop People Management Skill

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

-Lee Iacocca

Compared to other resources, human resource is the most sensitive resource to manage since we have to deal with feelings, attitude, ego, values, and sentiments.

How good are you in managing people?  At the highest level of managing an organisation, the ability to manage and motivate human resources becomes very critical.  You will have to take responsibility for not only your actions and behaviours, but also that of others. You should know some important aspects of ‘behaviour management skills’.

Check for the following people management skills in you:

·         The ability to build and maintain a successful team.

·         The ability to communicate powerfully and meaningfully.

·         The ability to empower and motivate people.

·         The ability to assertively disagree.

·         The ability to communicate a different point of view.

·         The ability to manage and lead intellectual people.

·         The ability to be a mentor and guide others.

Honestly evaluate yourself with respect to the above parameters and work out an action plan to improve your people management skills. Take personal responsibility for your people management ability.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live - Excitement # 64 : Talk Less, Do More

   Talk Less, Do More

An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

– Walter Bagehot

Reduce your talking by 50% and notice what happens to your concentration and productivity.

I read an interesting story. A leading company advertised for a ‘walk in interview’ for a salesman. A lot of candidates came and they were waiting in the hall, making a lot of noise chitchatting, talking loudly on their mobile phone, etc. The whole room was very noisy. But one candidate was very calm and kept observing, what was happening in the room. At that time he heard a mild announcement, which said that anyone who hears the announcement can come and collect the appointment order. Others did not hear it since they were busy talking. He went inside and collected the appointment order! All the other candidates accused him of bribing the company to get appointed. But the General Manager came out and explained that the announcement was meant to anyone, who heard the same and since he only heard it, he only got appointed!

Now tell me: isn’t silence gold?

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live: Excitement # 63 Become a ‘Time-Rich’ Person!

Become a ‘Time-Rich’ Person

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.

– Stephen R. Covey

We will not value a resource which is freely available to us. It applies to the scarce resource called ‘time’! Time lost is lost forever. Successful people are more careful with time than with their money.

If you are conscious that money is scarce, you will become careful while spending. This consciousness will influence your attitude to money and your priorities. This consciousness makes you to handle two important portfolios with respect to money: budgeting and accounting. You will start accounting for every rupee you spend.

From today be conscious of how you spend your time. Calculate how many hours are available to you in a day, when you are awake and budget the various ‘expenditure’ of your time. Decide in advance how much time you want to watch TV, read newspaper, meet people etc. Decide if you can find a ‘twin purpose’ for your travel time, like travelling and listening to some audio books, of course taking care of your safety.

A cash-rich person knows that it is wiser to save than to earn. Similarly a ‘time-rich person’ will avoid unnecessary work and wisely invest the time elsewhere fruitfully.

(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')

NC Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

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365 Exciting Ways to Live : Excitement # 53 - Tame the Wandering Mind!

Success in any Endeavour requires single-minded attention to detail and total concentration.

– Willie Sutton

Do you know that if you can concentrate on one thing, you can concentrate on anything?

The ability to concentrate is a skill, which can be developed. Some people may have this skill naturally in them like a mature good voice. Others can develop the same.

The quality of our concentration will decide the quality of our execution. In order to accomplish any task, we need to integrate the powers of our brain and the powers of our mind.  Brain power is natural, whereas mind power has to be harnessed.

From today, spend at least thirty minutes every day to develop and enhance your concentration quality. Have a fixed time and a fixed place. Take any one idea or thought or mantra like Om and focus all your attention on the same. Be conscious whenever your mind wanders and bring it back to the point of concentration. Start with just 5 minutes and slowly go up to 30 minutes or even one hour. Unless you take efforts, your span of concentration will not improve!

We have to tame the wandering mind. 
(From my book '365 Exciting Ways to Live')
N C Sridharan
www.thetimefoundation.com
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