Simple Note

It is an easy way to keep your notes, lists, ideas, to-dos, goals and other stuff. It is similar to evernote, springpad and so on but it does not clip webpages. There is an iPhone application that can sync your information. Click here

Chrometa

Keep track of what you do with your time both at office and home. Nice application, used to be 99$. It is Free now. Click Here

Mastering One At a Time

Almost everyone know this saying - "Jack of all trades but Master of none". When you really think about it, people who are really paid well or say highly famous are the one's who are really good at one or few things. The rest are, say, average or may be good at what they are doing. In some cases, people are well paid because of the industry they are in. Those industries need more people as a result of more and more demand for their services or products.

"A rolling stone gathers no moss" - Consider this proverb. It is almost similar to the above one. This one may say more than the skill of a person. It speaks about the attitude of the person towards life and responsibilities. What is our attitude towards learning?? As far as I know, especially in India, people tend to move towards areas of more prosperity. People tend to gravitate towards high paying professions. The reason being poverty or may be to improve their standard of living or say just pure insecurity. In most cases, including myself at one point, made choices based on possible results. While doing so, most of us did ignore competition and the odd's of getting what we want. In competition, there will always be more losers than winners. There is no consolation for the time and energy utilized in this process.

We compete for what we want (what we do not want - actually speaking), we lose most of the time. The next path we take is a deflection of past action. We end up in a field or work that has little to do with inherent talents or skills of the person. At this stage, people tend not to change much and keep doing what they are doing for the sake of financial security.

My point is, have we learnt anything so much so that we can call ourselves "Masters". What are we so good at?? Look around.....people who are losing jobs or unemployed or insecure in their jobs. They are all the ones who are just good or OK in their profession. Think about this ---- Who are firing them???? Who are they to fire......Answer is -- They are usually "The Masters" (there are exceptions--some people might climb up the ladder by other means). Who are these Masters-- These are the people who might not know who is the president of america/india or the ones who cannot use Facebook or twitter.

I have seen an interview recently, one of the cricketer in India team, cannot even speak proper English and  is currently playing for the country and earning millions. The reason being-they are good at what they are doing and they have chosen a profession that most people would not take. Also it is the profession they love.

The idea behind this post is to emphasize the importance of getting really good in what you are doing. We tend to do many things and at the end we kind of lose our way. Even if you consider, a simple habit such as "getting up very early in the morning"- It is very hard for people to make it a habit. The reason being - we have multiple goals at a given point of time. The best way to improve ones life is to master one habit or one skill at a time that is relevant to your life. Anything that improves and simplifies ones life is a great thing to do. I hate to be preachy but this is something I always thought about and never did in my life until now.

A specialist is better paid and respected than a general physician. In other words- Quality is more important than Quantity. If quantity joins quality that would be icing on the cake.

Train Your Brain

Lumosity is a web application that helps you improve brain health and performance.

Focus Free

This is a free ebook written by the Leo from ZENHABITS.NET. Click Here 

Dream Living

This I received in email. Check Here

Warren Buffett on Gambling

Australianism

Dreamstime

Sixty one years ago, at the end of a tour of England by Don Bradman's famous pack, John Arlott put it thus: "Australianism," wrote Arlott, "means single-minded determination to win - to win within the laws but, if necessary, to the last limit within them. It means where the 'impossible' is within the realm of what the human body can do, there are Australians who believe that they can do it - and who have succeeded often enough to make us wonder if anything is impossible to them. It means they have never lost a match - particularly a Test match - until the last run is scored or their last wicket down."

Source: Cricinfo.com

20-80 Formula of Life

Dreamstime

Life can be very hard to live for all of us at some point or the other. We get bothered by something or the other, we get bored, we get frustrated and we lose hope from time to time. These are like recurring episodes, it is natural to have such feelings but it is not good to have them at regular intervals. When we see our lives, we see too far and get scared of the future, due to past failures. In most cases than not, work stress is the biggest problem a person can face in his/her life. We take work issues to home and its effect is on the family and friends. We don't enjoy our lives in the present, instead we think about problems at work. If we are not capable of doing our work then the person who hired us should be a fool. In most occasions than not, it is not true. We are very much capable of doing our work but we think we cannot. The amount of time we have in hand is a lot compared to the time we spend on work. Let see if it is true....

• There are 168 hours in a week. (Imagine these are not hours but dollars and we are asked to spend them properly in a week)
• Say we spend 56 hours (8 hours per day) for sleep
• The balance is 112 hours
• Officially we are paid for 40 hours a week, so lets take those off
• Balance 72 hours ( equivalent to 3 days)
• Lets spend 30 hours on our daily routine (cooking, bathing, brushing, travelling to work and so on)
• Balance is 42 hours (Almost 2 days); equal to 25% of total time.
• These 42 hours can be spent for entertainment, phone calls, internet, time with family and friends and other hobbies.

Analysis: (approx. numbers)

• Sleep : 33.3%
• Extra/personal time: 25%
• Work: 23%
• Routine: 17.8%

These may vary based on who you are and how you live your life but, in general, most of us fit into this. There is no point in reducing the sleep hours, i think some people over do things (by sleeping less) and burn themselves down in the long run. It is important to have 8 hours of sleep (7 is OK). Work; even though it says 23%, we don't really spend that much time doing work (we spend some time checking emails, phone calls, internet, coffee, friends, chatting with co-workers, meetings and so on). So, I would say, taking into account of the work we do at home sometimes, the most we work is only 20% of total time (or less in a week). But this 20% is important for other 80% to be good. Without spending 20% of time on working, we could not have a good sleep, a good routine and we could not have fun time with friends and family. Most people ignore or take this 20% for granted. Working for 20% of the time is actually responsible for 80% of happiness in life. The extra/personal/family time we have (25%) is very important, how we spend this time determines whether we will be just happy or both happy and successful. Most part of this 25% can be spent for TV alone or Internet alone and be just happy or take some time to hone one's skills and learn something new. The one's who are constantly in search of learning more to improve themselves end up not only being happy but satisfied. The people who complain about not having time and about their job are those who do not have skills to prioritize their 20% work time. If one really focuses on work at Job, they usually don't have to complain about things not getting done. These people give more importance to the 80% rather than 20%. Its like a sports star giving importance to ad campaign, as it gets him more money. Ads come, when he is at the top of the game not otherwise. These ads (in our case extra/personal time) is the fruit of what we do and how we do at work during that 20% of time. We will still have that 80% time even after not doing well at work but we will not be peaceful and completely happy at home. 
The conclusion is, we have lot of time; when we prioritize things that matter. Time cannot be borrowed or lended like money and it is important to spend our time in a right way. You can earn lost money but not time. Since time is such a valuable thing, do not waste it on past and future and things that don't matter. Spend time only on those which are necessary for you. Don't spend time on something just because it is easy to do or because everyone is doing. When you see time as money (or more important than that), the only way one can benefit is by using it then and there (living in the present). It cannot be taken forward or backwards. You waste it....You lose it. Thats it !!!!!!!!!!

There are ways to prioritize time, which i will discuss at a later time.

The Only Thing You Can Change

You can’t change your entire life.

You can only change your next action.

—

You can’t change a relationship with a loved one.

You can only change your next interaction.

—

You can’t change your entire job.

You can only change your next task.

—

You can’t change your body composition.

You can only change your next meal.

—

You can’t change your fitness level.

You can only start moving.

—

You can’t declutter your entire life.

You can only choose to get rid of one thing, right now.

—

You can’t eliminate your entire debt.

You can only make one payment, or buy one less  unnecessary item.

—

You can’t change the past, or control the future.

You can only change what you’re doing right now.

—

You can’t change everything.

You can only change one, small thing.

And that’s all it takes. 

Source : ZenHabits

I would like to add--Serenity Prayer which says 

God, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

The courage to change the things that I can;

And the wisdom to know the difference.


There is also a saying that says -- Rome was not built in one day and other saying which says--You can't eat an elephant in one day and so on. What these sayings mean is that one can achieve a big task by breaking it down into simpler tasks and doing them consistently. It takes lot of patience and discipline, because we are so distracted by technology, relationships, friends and so on. But thing to remember is no one can distract us as long as we don't let them to. Nobody really plans to distract us but our own weaknesses keep us from focusing on our goals. We expect complex solutions to complex problems but the reality is, in most situations the solutions are very basic and simple. Over thinking and over doing ruins our path to success. When we set a goal to achieve it is very much possible that we think ahead of time and think of all possible hurdles we may face and we get discouraged by that. Imagine these hurdles as drinking water, if we think of all the water we need to drink in next 45 days @8 glasses per day, we will have to drink approx 360 glasses of water. If you place 360 glasses of water in front of you, then you will not be able to drink 8 glasses in that particular day. Same is with the goals, if we think of all the hurdles in the path to your goal, we will under perform by putting pressure on ourselves. The farther the goal difficult it becomes to do one task at a time. Knowing this, its better to focus on the task in hand rather than whats going to come up. Another example is, say you play cricket, its better to think of present delivery rather than about next one or the delivery in 30th over bowled by some fearsome bowler. Plan for the future and break that plan into minor goals and then into tasks. Perform these tasks one at a time and in the best possible way without thinking of anything other than the task in hand and then if this is done consistently you give yourself a great possibility of succeeding. Success cannot be guaranteed by can be achieved. Remember, most of the thing we fear never happen. All izz well !!!!!!!!!!

Keeping Track of New Habits

We all have good and bad habits, and as we grow, we make changes to our lifestyle in order to maximize our chances of succeeding. Many experts say- to make something a habit, one has to do it repeatedly and consistently. Since we are not motivated at all times, it is a good idea to have a log book to keep track of our consistency. I came across this website (Click here) that will help keep track of our habits.There are other websites that are like this one but i like this particular one. This website allows keeping track of multiple habits. In my case i keep track of the time i get up and the time i have my breakfast and so on. Be honest with your tracking and with time and some effort it is worth trying to change habits.

Presentation Skills

25 Presentation Tips from Dale Carnegie Training 1. Know your audiences' interests, concerns, and desires  2. Plan your talk with the end in mind; or a call to action 3. Begin with honest appreciation for your audience 4. Be yourself 5. Let an audience get to know you - Share obstacles/what life taught you 6. Inspire using emotion along with logic 7. Write out an outline of your talk 8. Fill your talk with examples and stories 9. Create a picture stack to remember key points 10. Never write out a talk word-for-word 11. Never memorize a talk word-for-word 12. Know 40 times more than you need 13. Practice with a supportive person or a child 14. Watch powerful speakers. Notice their movements, speech patterns - learn from them but don't copy - see # 4 15. Gravity will not be suspended during your talk, let go of the podium 16. Move naturally to different locations on the stage to add visual interest. 17. Use a variety of visual aids - demonstrations, charts, pictures, videos. When you practice with a child, they should say "Cool!". 18. Check venue for distance to stage, acoustics, set up, visibility of screen or your demonstrations on the stage. 19. Decide if you're going to use a microphone 20. Decide if you're going to use a lectern 21. Limit or eliminate all words on powerpoint slides - it seems harsh but they came to hear you speak, not to read. 22. Eat lightly prior to the event 23. Use a pep talk - all positive, upbeat, smile at yourself 24. Know that the audience likes you and you like them 25. Speaking is a thrill sport. Make those butterflies fly in formation.

Note : I received it in my email. Hope it helps you all.