Too many things to do, too little time. Most entrepreneurs feel this pressure on a daily basis. Managing time (as a person or as an organisation) is a challenge. Continuing my readings on Time, I found this post by Josh Spector making 3 great points:
Kristin Wong wrote this interesting article for Lifehacker on the big timewasters most of us indulge in and come to regret. As we grow older we seem to recognize some of these and make amends perhaps. But recognizing these and adapting to these early can make a lot of difference to ones productivity.
Apparently Albert Einstein famously said “the person who has not made his great contributions to science by the age of 30 will never do so.”
Albert-László Barabási is a Physicist, the author of the book ‘The Formula’ and a pioneer in network science. In this very interesting TED talk he disagrees and unravels the inner workings that drive success irrespective or your sphere of work and unveils the connection between age and success.
Albert Laszio got interested in the network effect on success and started with some very accurate predictions of ‘the success of an artist if you give me the first five exhibits that he or she had in their career.’ Although our understanding is that success is intrinsically linked to performance but the truth is ‘ ..performance is what you do: how fast you run, what kind of paintings you paint,’ while ‘..success is about what the community notices from what you did, ..how does it reward you for it? In other terms, your performance is about you, but your success is about all of us.”
All in all it is a fascinating take on input and output. Well Success is not an output but a perception of what the output is worth assigned by the rest of us.
Where I learnt it #219
What can we learn from people who succeed later in life? https://ideas.ted.com/what-can-we-learn-from-people-who-succeed-later-in-life/
We all need to have these – Difficult Conversations. Most of us avoid it till the point it cannot be avoided anymore. And we all know the delay hurts the organisation and relationships. Joel Garfinkle, an executive leadership coach wrote in this piece in Harvard Business Review and it provides simple framework that will help with those otherwise dreaded moments.
As an entrepreneur you need time to just sit and do nothing. Sleep. Read a book. And not go out and party. Or group watch a movie. Or even take care of the kids. Managing ones scarce unscheduled time is crucial. It is one of the most valuable resource that you have.
Liz Fosslien is the Co-author and illustrator of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. She recently spoke to First Round Review and explained the myths that we carry around about feelings and how “Follow your head, not your heart” is hurting the person as much as the workplace. Specially in startups. She elaborates on the seven emotions which we are told are deadly in the workplace but could be your secret career superpower. The cost of ignoring emotions at work is steep. “Part of the reason why emotions have such a bad reputation is that we’ve tried to keep them out of the workplace for so long. We suppress everything we feel, which means we don’t resolve issues while they’re still manageable.” says Liz.
Like most of the people I know, across geographies, distraction has reached alarming proportions. I have multiple tabs open when I work. Multiple notifications, phone, at least 4 different VOIP apps any of which can ring at any time breaking me off from whatever I am doing. The distracted mind also does its tricks. Things I need to do pop up at times when I am focused on something else. The urge to finish those breaks the momentum. The ability to read anything beyond 500 words is interrupted. Pop ups, download and update notifications from numerous softwares and browser extensions – all essential for work, keep jerking the mind around.
Being an entrepreneur is about taking decisions. All the time. It wears you off specially if you are trying to optimize every single one. Every decision has to be the best decision. Fine tuned. To the T. It can be exhausting if not paralyzing. When is good enough good enough? Most of the time it appears.
So here is the thing. Most of us believe, me included that focus is the key to better productivity and meaningful life.
Srini Pillay thinks otherwise.
Dr. Srini Pillay is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Part-Time) at Harvard Medical School. He is also an executive coach, technology innovator and author of the 2017 book Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. He was Director of the Outpatient Anxiety Disorders Program at McLean Hospital and was Director of the Panic Disorders Research Program in the Brain Imaging Center. There, he spent 17 years studying functional brain imaging.
“Victory awaits the one who has everything in order. People call it good luck. While defeat always follows bad preparations and people call it bad luck.”
Ronald Amundsen
Erling Kagge is the first man to complete the Three Poles Challenge. He walked to all the three poles. “- North Pole in 1990, the South Pole in 1993, and the summit of Mount Everest (the “third pole”) in 1994”.
