Time management – exhausted or confident?

30 November 2015 is the 180th birthday of Mark Twian (1835 – 1910) the famous American writer. The following quote is widely attributed to him ‘If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if It’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first”. However the quote was said for the fist time in 1791 by French writers including Nicolas Chamfort, Émile Zola and Apocryphal a little differently.

Later when quote arrived in English speaking nations it was modified, re-quoted and so goes on the story. The quote became a global phenomenon when picked up by time management gurus. If researched in detail, the quote was not related at all to the time management concept in 1791’s France. It was an advice to people of France to be prepared for worst things happening every day. Searching at amazon.com one can find more than 1200 books dealing with frog eating issue. If you narrow down your search to exact title ‘Eat That Frog’, in Business and Money Category you’ll currently (Nov 2015) find 15 books with that exact title in English language. However, the term is widely being used and I suppose that it is certainly searched few hundred thousand times a year. Google search engine shows that average monthly search for the term ‘eat that frog’ is more than ten thousand.

The simplest explanation about the quote in this aspect is that one should handle the most difficult task as first thing every morning. As per this perception, once you complete that most difficult task i.e. “The Frog” you’ll be highly relaxed and would be ready to happily finish all remaining tasks.

Let me admit that I had been a sincere follower of this school of thought for years until it started to taste bad and started hurting my stomach. Following this very approach greatly diminished my happiness level and my analytical capacity to handle tasks and other issues. However I figured out that this eat the frog idea leads to DBFE states i.e. Depressed, Bored, Frustrated and Exhausted stages. It makes you depressed even a night before to think about the ‘hard’ task for next day for which you have limited capacity, that's why it is labeled as hard!

Therefore I decided to challenge the idea and have put forward a rival model named as hsbc i.e. Happy, Successful, Boosted and Confident stages. In this model you start the day by happily handling the tasks. The happy handling of the tasks then makes you successful that in turns boost your morale. Eating the frog simply exhaust any person while hsbc model would leave any one confident and even lead her to the Creativity stage. I suggest all people who are stressed with deadlines to manage the tasks, to give a try to this approach. I am quite sure that most of them would end up being successful, confident and more creative. Further details about hsbc model can be found at: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B018PXIBJU?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Don’t forget to leave a review!

View other books in ‘Satisfied Careers’ series by the author: 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6005899.Azhar_Ali

Why 2015 Failed to get me surrendered?

There could be many ups and downs in ones life, a year, month or even a day. You can get good news in the morning that can completely be dominated by relatively bad news by evening.  Year 2015 started with many wonderful ideas in mind and in pipeline for me. I had been following a quite promising project since October 2014 and by January 2015 things seem quite on track. Whole team was quite happy but unexpectedly problems started to emerge leading to complete cancellation of the project.

This was not the only bad news the first month of year brought; I had to quit my long time associated company on 31 January 2015. I needed to realign my whole career strategy now; I did not have the crucial support of company when a break comes during free lancing work. Therefore after working for almost 13 years mainly as a free-lancer consultant I decided to go ahead with idea of a Job. A wonderful opportunity appeared in Qatar and after ups and down finally by August I came to know that I could not avail it! Coming back to end of January, I also applied for a Job with local company and got the job but it needed approval from some ministry also. It was expected that I’d start working by 01 March 2015 that finally realized only by 2nd week of May 2015.

Those were really hard times but thanks to my close friends’ network I managed to survive both financially and morally. Job was good but it had not been enough to build the day, it only helped to save the day and that also sometimes only partially.

However when ever I have downs in my career life I always started developing new skills and polishing the existing ones. It was hard time and I had limited budgets for such activities but I remained consistent. By end of July I had completed my Specialization in Entrepreneurship from Maryland University and another 6 courses related to disaster management and health care issues. All of this learning increased level of my internal happiness regardless of the situation around me. Then in July I also got my Master’s Thesis published as a book. 

Life started to follow a certain defined trend that was quite different. Previously I was going for international assignments thrice or more times a year, was getting money as per free lance international expert at much higher rates but now I had very limited options to increase my earnings. At this time I got the most severe blow due to death of my beloved mother. I know well that there is no compensation to this loss whatever we do.

After August while concentrating on my job’s work I started reading books more than I used to read previously. I tried to further develop my analytical skills and knowledge about ancient ways of life. I became interested in observation and assessment of the stress as a result of our current technology and living styles. At this stage using my notes I managed to compile a brief e-book entitled, ‘13 Ancient Ways to Overcome Technological Stress’. 

The book provides ancient and some not so ancient ways to keep us happy in spite of all the problems and technological stress. A Danish study done after I published my e-book clearly supported the idea I put in my e-book. I am sure that readers of this e-book would find the described ways useful and become happier in future by following them.

I did not surrender to year 2015 in spite of all hardships and who knows might turn it to be one of best years, we still have 47 days to 2016!

Don’t Follow Routines but these 3 to not to fail

One can find numerous tips to be more productive and efficient at work from different forums. What really amazed me was that most of the top attractive posts held a title with something negative in them. They included phrases like, ‘never do’, ‘common mistakes’ and ‘ruin your career’ etc. This posed a question if we are more afraid of doing mistakes rather than trying something new.

A golden rule for productivity and efficiency has been to decide, start and finish your task. It is good but I would say that only one word can make you much more productive and that word is ‘reject’. If you are able to reject all the non-necessary rituals at a certain time, you’ll be left with the one that is most important. This would allow you to fully concentrate on that particular task. However rejecting alone won’t be of success unless after rejecting all non-necessary tasks you start and stick to the one at hand.

Many of the career coaches have been saying to burst the routine to keep our interest in career and life. They have suggested us to try different things so that we stay interested in life. Agreeing to this to a certain level I would say that we still would need some type of routine. I call this a 3 routines formula.

We must develop 3 types of routines in our every day life. First lets say our work needs something done every day like answering important queries, so we need to do it. This helps us to hold our grounds at the stage we have already reached in our life or career. If we don’t do it not only we’ll be out of touch with our existing situation and duties we may face an ultimate danger of loosing that position also.

Next routine window should be the one in which we invest on ourselves. Successful people never stop investing in them. One must use a routine to improve her every day preferably. It could be learning something new relevant or irrelevant to your career or simply becoming expert in your existing skill. Only with continuous improvement and learning one can avail more chances in life. Limited skills would lead to limited doors only. Limited skills would be like having only few keys that are of no use when another door probably leading to a better pathway appears on the way. 

Last routine interval should be the one in which one does all unnecessary tasks. It could be answering non-urgent emails or any other task less important than the ones you completed that day. This is actually a great blessing. It allows you to postpone these less important tasks instead of completing them while you were busy with some other more important tasks. Lets say that while working on some important project you receive an email or phone call from a friend, you may postpone answering it to this 3^rd routine window. Thus you reject the interrupting tones at time you were busy and dealt them later in a routinely manner. A practical way is to keep a paper and pen near you and whenever any such interrupting call of work arrives note it for the 3^rd routine window to be tackled later. This would also allow you not to pile up unnecessary but to be done tasks.

In the time left other than these 3 routine windows you may do whatever is required but sticking to these 3 routine rituals can make a lot of difference in your life for good.

Purpose of Life - Lost in work!

Few days back I received a call on my mobile from an unknown number. Although I rarely pick such calls but somehow I thought may be it is related to ‘work’ so picked the phone. The lady at the other end stated my name and said that she was calling on behalf of ‘Theater of Community without Hindrance’. She said that there would be a theater show near my place after 20 days and if I wanted to purchase tickets. I told her to call me next morning. Next morning she called at exact time we agreed and provided me some more details. All (and if any) income from the show would be spent to make life better for people with hinderances. I agreed to purchase 2 tickets and asked her if she can send tickets to my place after a week as I am going out of city.

When I was back and the day came, she called me but I was in a meeting with some high ups of the city and had completely forgotten the theater issue. Any how I apologized and said if tickets can be sent next day, to which she said it was her pleasure. I requested to call me again the next day before ticket delivery.

And today I received a call around 09:50 in the morning, a guy was saying that he’ll be bringing the tickets. I was little annoyed because I asked tickets to be delivered by 10 which was at risk now and I felt that voice of the guy was a little rude in my opinion. Any how as time passed I put coffee in my cup and started drinking it slowly, by 11 O’clock the main bell rang and I opened the door. I was waiting at the door and a guy came up.. I looked and guy was younger than me (for sure!) but he had some handicap and was also receiving chemotherapy. My all annoyance simply disappeared. I was victim of the condition related to perception and feeling as mentioned in one of my previous blogs HERE. 

I took the tickets and made the payment. My mind was at the huge task I was working on and wanted to return to desk. The guy turned back to go and at just that moment I realized how preoccupied I have become with my work during last few years. The guy’s lips were dry as fertile soil is under the burning sun. Then I realized that he had some speech problem also.. he hardly said following, ‘I had to walk 2 miles under sun to give you these tickets and if you are not annoyed can I get a glass of water, even from tap’. 

Man.. I was pitched in to earth what on hell I have been preoccupied with.. I immediately said no issue, let me bring you something to drink. When he drank he said he liked it, it was a traditional drink with rose and other herbs in it. I said no problem and wished him a good luck. He just said thank you and carpets at your home are nice, I said thank you again and closed the door.

I posted the tickets on refrigerator and came back to my desk to resume work. Then something struck me. I said to me, this guy is working under such harsh conditions to make change in life of few and I am such occupied with my own payments and work. He is doing a great job. In the morning I heard at radio show someone saying that ‘duration’ of happy moments in life of most of us has decreased drastically in last 2 decades and I agreed to it!. Then I looked out from window, sun was as bright as it could be and it must have been quite hot there and the guy had to walk back all the way! I could have easily arranged for his drop which I missed.. I took my coffee cup and sipped a little coffee but this time there was no aroma or taste of this wonderful ‘Out of Africa’ Coffee!.

So I need to ask if duration of happy moments have really decreased in our life? and Although we may help people more if we have more money but have we lost the human touch with those who are suffering? 

3 Rules of Business

Some people pointed out that most of time I stick with the figure of 3 in my writings, thats true. In fact last semester one of my students came to me by end of class and told me that she downloaded slides of every lecture and they made only 3 pages in word document for each. Strange enough is that since start of my career I have always been working on 3 dimensions. Need not to say that have 3 ladies influencing my life! But truth is I feel that a common human brain can not handle more than 3 issues independently with success.

Any how during my very recent visit outside the country I met some very professional people, like Mr. Ahmad Jawad, and some highly unprofessional. To the pity of the day the unprofessionals got much more resources than the others. What I learned and then suggested made the 3 Rules of Business.

I’ll go at organizational level although these lessons can be narrowed down to personal success level also. I define Rules of Business as ‘terms, conditions and operation modes’. An organization or a person without them can be successfull only through extreme favour of his/her luck.

The first and most important rule in this regard is to ‘record’. One must record the data about anything happening related to him (although highly successfull businesses keep an eye on irrelevant events also). This implies that any correspondence, any meeting or any decision must be recorded. A lot of meetings just end up paving the way for the next meeting. A meeting must serve its purpose. In this regard I suggest that you may read a simple and brief chapter from my book, Project Management - Anchor the Success. The chapter is about progress meetings and can be viewed by clicking at Chapter: Progress Meetings.

The second issue is to make sure what ever is recorded is correct and agreed. Many minutes of meetings or decisions do not portray what was discussed or decided. In case any modification is required the final version of recorded document must contain the original thought/discussion as foot note. Its always desirable to get the document signed by those who were involved.

Lastly the third issue is of ‘follow up’. Followup is single most important missing stone in the building of success. People or organizations which do not follow up their decisions or opportunities end up in failure. Followup may lead to closure of certain assignment but it should be done. Any such closure may free up resources of all the parties involved. Followup on the events and stakeholders involved are of equal importance. Many organizations waste their resources on projects and products which become less important for beneficiaries with time. However as the organization have not been following they face greater loss.

Below a view from a successfull business, Terminal A at Dubai Airport

Success in Life

Success in Life

3 Keys to Success

Those who still remember the use of transistor radios can easily see that there were two absolute necessities to listen to your favorite channels.  The first one was to have the power supply either as electricity or from the batteries. In case you do not have it, no matter how sophisticated and elite your transistor was you could never listen to it. Secondly in order to listen to your favorite channel you needed to be at the same frequency as of that specific channel. There were dozens of channels transmitting their programs but one could listen to his/her choice only if the transistor radio was also set at the same frequency.

In case of personal success or success in career the same two rules are valid. First of all you need to have the ‘power supply’ i.e. your skill and energy. In case you do not have necessary skills or develop them in time you’ll not be able to jump on the opportunities lying in front of you. You need to foresee the future demand and develop your skills accordingly, but in time. Once you have the skills or power supply the next move should be to adjust your frequency to the frequency of success. We may find many people around us who are quite successfull in spite of having skills of lesser degree than many unfortunates. They in fact found the frequency of success and tuned themselves accordingly. The most important way to get this frequency is to spend time with those who live by that frequency. There is a famous saying about wealthiness, ‘your wealthy companions make you rich or kick you out of their circle’. They’ll kick you out mainly because of mismatched frequency. It does not correspond that you should also be involved in some if any unlawful activities but it means that your brain also starts thinking, deciding and acting in the ways theirs do.

The third prerequisite in my opinion is to complete the tasks in all aspects. Giving an example of one enrolled in a medical school we know that he/she needs to take a certain number of courses and pass all of them also. The degree will never be awarded if any course is not taken or failed. In our lives while working on any task whether related to career or personal development we must take on all issues and resolve all of them. The trick in this sense comes from the chemical process known as titration. In this process certain chemicals need to be added with some specific amount to get the required product.

Therefore in summary, one must develop the skills required (power behind the engine), should be consistent with the success frequency (right surrounding and right attitude) and should take on all issues dealing every issue in full.