The other day, I listened to a podcast on
which the BulletProofexec was interviewing Urban Monk about productivity. Urban Monk talked about a time management technique called Pomodoro.
Pomodoro is a technique where you work for 25 minutes straight on something, and then take a break. Each of the 25 minutes you give to a task is called a Pomodoro. You mark your successful Pomodoros with an X. After 4 Pomodoros, you give yourself a 15-20 minute break. It was great to learn a new productivity concept from listening to the podcast between the BulletProofexec and Urban Monk. After listening to it, I was thinking we should give every year a theme. We could make this year The Year of Productivity.
The Urban Monk talked about sticking to
what's on your calendar as far as possible - for the day, for the week, and for the
month.
Some of my friends are very calendar
oriented. I have not been very calendar
oriented. This is why some of my to-dos
stay on my list forever, and I often get my dates and times wrong.
Last year, I got the date of two events I was invited to wrong, and showed up on the wrong day.
One event was at a park, and I went round and round the park - which had many entrances - on a very hot day, wondering where everybody was.
Eventually, I gave up and went home. When I checked the Evite, I discovered the event was the next day, and I had already scheduled something for that day. Drat. It was because I had hastily read the
invite, and failed to put it on a calendar.
The Urban Monk also talked about setting
30 day goals, 60 day goals and 90 day goals.
I am unable to think far out. In fact, I achieve many things because of luck and serendipity.
If you had told me a year or a year and a
half ago, I would become a practitioner of something called IF (intermittent
fasting) and that I would have lost all the weight I have lost, I wouldn't have
believed it, because I did not even know about intermittent fasting at the
time, and the idea of skipping breakfast would have been preposterous. And yet, by sheer accident, I discovered IF on the internet, and based on reading articles published by reputed hospitals such as Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins, I decided to give it a whirl. I found it to be easier than I thought, and it made me challenge some misconceptions I had of what I was capable of doing and what I was not. I found out I could skip breakfast and what's more, I could do a vigorous workout in a fasted state. So here I am, several months later, still doing IF, and reaping the benefits.
Likewise, a call with my friend Krystyna
and the cabinet under my kitchen sink giving way, were the two factors which led to my apartment getting new carpet, vinyl and paint. How it happened was that I was on the phone with Krystyna, and I said how I would love to
start entertaining in my apartment again, but my apartment was a dump, and I would need to hire some painters and carpeters to spruce it up, before I could even think about doing that. She said, “Minoo, why don’t you ask the apartment managers? You’ve lived there for so long. Surely, they will do it for free.” A few days later, the cabinet under my kitchen sink collapsed because of a leak. I
called the apartment office to ask them to send someone to fix it. When they picked up the phone, I thought of what
Krystyna had said, and I said “Hey Jacky (that’s our apartment manager) do you
think I could get the apartment fixed up? I know we talked about doing this before, but it seemed like too much work for me to move everything, so I
never got around to it. But now, I was thinking, if we pick just a few areas, such as the living room and guest bathroom, I think it will be enough for me to start entertaining again.” “Sure, Minoo” she said. Next thing, I knew, the maintenance guy Don
was at my door to fix the kitchen cabinet, and he said, “Jacky told me you want to get some
work done.” I said, “Yes.” “Can you show me what you would like done?”
he said. So I showed him, and I said, “it
would be nice if I could also get the master bathroom shower redone. He said “Sure, I can add that to the order. When would you like to get the work done?” It was
mid December, and I said, “How about around mid-Jan?” Shortly after mid-Jan, I got a call from him
– Ms. Jha, we would like to do your apartment this week, since we are doing the
apartment across the landing. So by the
end of Jan, it was done. Just like that. It
was the conversation with Krystyna, and my cabinet under the kitchen sink giving way which got the
ball rolling. Not any specific plans that I had made.
Likewise, I recently moved from an assignment at Aruba to
an assignment at another tech company. One of the things I was tasked with, was to create statements for new hires in an Excel workbook that already had 637 statements. I had to tab to different sections of the Excel workbook, so I could create the
statements for the new payees in the section of the workbook where they belonged. I knew a few different ways to do this, all laborious and time consuming. I had never worked with Excel files containing so many worksheets before. I found myself thinking, there has
to be an easier way. I decided
to search on the internet for a vba solution. Bingo! I found macros to activate a sheet, to move sheets before or after specific sheets, to copy selected sheets to a new book, and to grab information from all of the sheets. I lost no time in putting these macros to use. Now, 30 days later, I have expanded the list of macros I am using to 10. I did not plan to find vba to do things in Excel before I started this assignment. So I am quite excited by the turn of events.
Getting this new assignment in itself, was quite unplanned. Just when my assignment at Aruba got reduced to 20 hours a week from 40 hours a week, I got a call from the manager of a staffing agency to find out
if I would be interested in a position which had become available at a
company nearby to Aruba. I said, “I am only doing 20 hours a week at Aruba starting next week, so maybe I could help this other company out for 20 hours a week, until my Aruba assignment ends in a few months. Would they go for that – it would give them an opportunity to find out what I was made of, and whether I
had the right skills set.” The recruiter
put it to the hiring manager, and soon we were on a phone interview. After talking with me for a few minutes, the hiring manager said to me, “Minoo, my only reservation is that, we will go
through all the effort to train you, only to have you
leave.” I said, “That's true. But I will be there as long as you need me, and it will give you breathing room to back fill the Commissions Manager position. Is that a value to you? If it's not, then you
shouldn’t take me on. You know best what you need.” What I said seemed to make
sense. So
boom – two days later, I was clocking in at this new company to help hold the fort, until they found a new Commissions Manager. Once again, I had not made any specific plans to look for another assignment to fill the 20 available hours, when this happened.
Of course, one can argue, “Minoo, you may not have planned these developments, but you were fully prepared for them.” It is true. Which is what this post is about. When we put our plans into motion, unexpected and exciting developments can occur, and probably will occur; we may not be able to anticipate the exact developments,
but we potentiate a range of possible developments by putting our plans in motion; so the idea that if I keep at my writing,
it may lead me down new writing paths; the idea that by desiring to get my
house straightened up and making it a goal for 2016, it created the potential
for me to realize this desire, and see it materialize in an unexpectedly good
way; the idea that by jumping in to help out a company in a jam, it created the potential for me to find new ways to tackle laborious tasks, is correct.
The main drivers to putting things in motion
are motivation and action. We have to be motivated. For that we have to be
passionate about achieving something; or passionate about avoiding something.
When I came to America, I was motivated
to do what it took to support myself and my daughter. So I learned driving, because it was
essential to supporting myself and my daughter.
We may be equally motivated by what we
want to avoid.
I became a Commissions Consultant, because
I wanted to take back the power employers had over my time, and how I used it.
But we can’t say we want to do something,
or we want to avoid something, and not take any action.
We can’t say, “I want to lose weight” or
“I want to blog”, and not take action.
We have to take action.
And not only do we have to take action,
like Colonel Sanders who founded KFC, we have to be prepared to
try and try again.
I was speaking to my friend Julia, who has been my unofficial nutrition consultant, for the past 15 years. I told her I would be very disappointed
if my fasting blood sugar reading had not improved in my next blood test,
considering how much weight I had lost, and how good I have been about trying to
improve my insulin sensitivity through IF (intermittent fasting). She said, “Minoo, there will be other things
you can try, if that turns out to be the case.
Never lose hope.” Wise words, indeed. We should never give up trying.
One of my friends recently published his first blog post. By doing that, he has put his ideas and plans into motion.
Motivation and action are the main
drivers of achievement. But there is a
third driver. You have to persist. You have to stay motivated and do it again. And again. And again. Like I do with my blog posts.
For instance, now that my apartment has
got fresh paint and carpet, I have to keep up with maintaining it, otherwise,
it will be back to where it was before, in no time.
My friend will have to keep writing, if he is to
keep his blog going.
We each are on an individual quest - to
utilize our God-given potential, to achieve our goals, to take advantage of opportunities, and to
fulfill the purpose for which we have been created.
We should put good things, and
things of significance, into motion.
I like that I have put my blog into
motion, because I know it is of significance - even if I don't have as interesting things to say, as this guy, or this guy.
We should put good things into motion, and
trust that good things will come of it.
In 2010, unemployed after walking out of
a job, I decided to do the Xactly course on my own dime.
By doing that, I put things in motion.
I did not have on the job Xactly
experience, but now I had Xactly training credentials under my belt.
When I was hired by Solution Partners to
join their Xactly Implementations team, the general manager who hired me, told me he was
impressed I had done the Xactly Administrators course on my own dime. It showed my keenness to learn and use the
Xactly platform.
What can you put in motion that will have
a significant impact on your life?
It could be anything.
Since 2010, I have been making different
decisions. Doing the Xactly course on my
own dime was only one of these decisions.
I started the blog in 2010. I learned to meditate. I became a Commissions Consultant, my first
gig being with Solution Partners, a gig that gave me exposure to a different
side of commissions at exciting companies like Splunk, FusionIo, Lynda,.com and
Salesforce Inc.
By becoming a consultant, I put in motion
a different destiny for myself, a destiny that would bring me into contact with
many staffing agencies, implementation companies, and client companies, and bring
many different opportunities my way.
Each new opportunity results in new
contacts and friendships, exposure to new concepts and challenges, and an expansion of my
capabilities and skills.
If you look at what made me successful
before 2010, it is not the same things that have made me successful since 2010.
I have learned to maximize the use of my
time and my energy and my skills.
So let’s come back to you again.
What can you put into motion?
And how can you put the drivers of
motivation and action and repeated action to work for you?
I will end with this quote by Tony
Robbins:
“Success comes from taking the initiative
and following up... persisting... eloquently expressing the depth of your love.
What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward
success in your life?”
As always, thanks for reading and have a
great day and week….M….a Pearl Seeker like you. Thanks to Ajay and David for
their compliments on my last post, and thanks to the rest of you for your
likes, pins, shares and votes. Much
appreciated!
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