[ To Express, To Reflect, To Look Back ]

Simple strategy to reduce over commitment and slow down

Lately, I have been thinking more and more about over-committing myself. On one end are the day to day little things that I like to do – internet, books, TV, movies etc. On other end, there are bigger things such as long-range goals on sports, music, writing, business ventures etc. And then, there are things that I should do but never consciously plan for – spending more time with family, calling friends, relax, laugh out loud etc.

The desire to do “MORE” can sometimes be a chronic addiction.

Having said that, I genuinely wanted to slow down. In Praise of Slowness and ADULTITIS couple continue to inspire me to “escape adulthood” and find practical way to stop being stretched too thin.

My greatest inspiration though is closer to home: my little boy and my wife.

Unaware, he has been disciplining me to slow down. He won’t stop until I put down the phone or remote before we can play. If I have a book, he will ensure its put far away. And when he is playing, he is just playing. He makes me wish God had given a toggle switch somewhere in the head to stay focused.

I continue to admire my wife’s ability to get so much done at home and outside and yet find time for me, Rishi, her parents, chatting with friends, wishing birthdays, facebook and people.com! Not for a day had she complained that she didn’t have time to do her things, it’s really a question of if and how I am planning for and make our time together and family time.

I know many men struggle with this, so here are some steps that I am using to reduce my yeses…

1) Accept the problem exists and then sincerely commit to fixing it – if you don’t admit, then there is really no issue – at least as far as you are concerned.
2) Take an inventory of all your activities (time suckers!) that’s going on daily/weekly – don’t get worked up with GTD - just grab a piece of paper and dump it.
3) Just do the top 3 things – for next 1 month. Don’t do anything else. Your time and energy will be spent on whatever the top 3 things from your dump. Remember to share the top 3 with your family so they know you are cutting down.
4) If you are successful during the month – revisit the top 3 – change it – but stick to 3.
5) Trust that you will be happy – by doing less. Trust your soul will rest in peace no matter what.

Finally, don’t think too much. Don’t try to rationalize it. Any approach is better than no approach.

I still am struggling. The top 3 strategy is working but still takes up more of my available time. I have started somewhere, nevertheless.

What has worked in your experience?

02.09.2010 Lessons for Life No Comments

Can you tune out of a conversation in a language you know?

It was a moment before the doors were shut, I sneak into the PATH train in Grove street heading to 33rd Street in Manhattan, on my way to Long Island City.

If I make it before 8 AM, it’s usually easy to find a spot to stand somewhat comfortably so I lean against the wall in the corner standing right in front of two Indian guys – one an older man with silver goatee and younger guy. They looked like father and son.

I am busy reading the last chapter of “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. I have this strange habit of reading books back to front – not literally, but starting at last chapter or last page and going back. Am I the only one with this bizarre habit? I digress.

They are talking to each other in Hindi, which I understand.

Older guy: “Have you noticed there is not as many cars in the parking these days?”

I figured they are going to talk about the economy and layoffs.

Younger guy: “Oh is it? I don’t have to park”

They can’t be father and son, of course.

Older guy: “These days, I don’t have trouble finding a parking spot in the morning”

Younger guy: “Good for you. Where do you live?”

They seemed to like each other’s company and went on chatting. I was wondering how I can tune off. I couldn’t so I hear half of it and understand half of what I am reading.

Next stop; Pavonia Newport. A swarm of commuters rush in. I swear half of them are from the Indian subcontinent. I lost the little bit of extra space I enjoyed for 3 minutes.

Two more Indian guys walk straight up to the conductor’s area and stand very comfortably right across me. They must have thought we were all dumb trying to squeeze in all around them, leaving this premium spot for them! The conductors area is a 3×3 spot in the corner of the compartment that’s used by the conductor to control doors and signals to the driver. He usually moves between two compartments depending on which side the station is. Obviously, the conductor was in the next compartment at the moment.

These two guys are busy continuing their conversation in Tamil, which indeed is my mother tongue – so can’t stop listening to it.

First Tamil guy: “I sent that email on Friday but still don’t understand why they had asked me to come?”

The younger guy, who is sitting in front of me, was also watching the two Tamil guys barge into the conductor’s spot. He says to the older guy in Hindi: “There you go, he is going to kick these two out of there in a minute”

In response, the older guy leans into the younger guy and said something that I didn’t quite understand. They both started laughing.

Second Tamil guy: “What to do? That’s the way it is. I don’t know if he is trying to push his agenda here”.

First Tamil guy: “What agenda?”

Second Tamil guy: “You know? There is some serious politics going on here.”

I figured this must be one of the popular Indian IT firms loading up consultants left and right.

First Tamil guy: “I was in Atlanta three years ago, and it was not like this”

I sure thought this poor guy must have landed in Newark Airport from Chennai the night before.

The conductor walks in. “Excuse me?”

First Tamil guy now gives a naïve look: “Huh?”

The rest of us around were acting as if we were not watching any of this. I suppose something like this happens quite often given the nature of moving population in this part of the US.

The transit conductors are not the nicest public servants I know. “Can you guys move and let me do my job?” pointing to control board on the wall.

The Second Tamil guy seemed as if he understood “Oh ok!”

I turn back to my book. Where the heck was I? I am not sure if I read the whole page.

A portion of the Tamil and Hindi conversations pass through my ears. A part of was wondering the beauty of Human brain – there was no way I could tune out of a conversation in language I know.

Or may be I didn’t want to.

01.09.2010 Daily Notes No Comments

Writing one blog at a time

Writing a blog should be about expressing my opinion in an authentic voice – initiating a conversation with myself and of course, readers. It is not about finding the right topic or spending twice the time to “edit” the writing or censoring the thoughts before they show up on screen.

OK – I think I understand.

But the laziness comes from different directions. Having no readership is no incentive to anyone, though it shouldn’t stop me from writing. We all start from zero. But that is beside the point, I do seem to have some readership already, I have to presume they are real people and not search engine crawlers.

Or does it matter? See how I find excuses?

The habit of not following through on the ideas is possibly due to fear of imperfection. Perhaps, I have lost faith in my own capacity to form sincere opinions – let alone express them in writing – forget being able to write perfectly. I seem to have this unwritten expectation that what I write should of highest quality. Truth is I need to acknowledge that I am just another one of the millions writing through blogs and that I should simply write for myself and for the love of writing.

The biggest negative is, interestingly, the insatiable curiosity to read and read and…read, anytime, regarding any topic that catches my attention at the moment. iPhone and Google has only made it worse. I search and read about things so far and wide that if Google were to profile my searches, they could classify it as either ‘mindless’ or ‘cosmic’! Of course, this doesn’t help a bit because I seem to trade the time I could be writing to reading one more thing. Much of the reading is helping expand my awareness, which in itself won’t be of much use – or is it?

On the other hand, I do have a burning desire to write. This is the nutty part of this whole struggle. The desire is at a point where it’s equally pushing down on my procrastinator and mental naysayer – but unsuccessful. Ideas run through my mind all the time on what I could write about. It is as if I sit in imagination to write and hit a block and give up. The imagination reassures that I don’t need to waste time in real. Even if I end up writing the full blog in my imagination, it somehow seems to extend beyond that time frame to indicate the blog isn’t that great a writing. Another reassurance to go do something else – may be read about inability to write a blog or something!

In the end, I get it. This is a battle with my own psyche. Nothing will help unless I let desire to write raise up. No amount of reading matters, unless I let a few words down the hand into this laptop – to make up one blog at a time.

The silly part is this is my 350th post!

29.08.2010 Daily Notes No Comments

Fire Drop Quote

I have been dormant for a while but got totally inspired today to write about this. In spite of owning the now-not-so-trendy iPhone, I don’t spend a lot of time playing games in it. I open up the FireDrop today and after a level or two, this quote showed up in my screen and it just shook me up a bit.

If you don’t want anybody to know it, don’t do it

Just think about it.

28.04.2010 Daily Notes, Lessons for Life No Comments

Will an Indian compete in Snowboarding in Olympics?

I am not surprised about lack of attention to India’s representation in the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Most Indians aren’t interested in winter games and even amongst those who follow it, there is lesser people who actually play winter sports themselves.

Personally, I actually snowboard. Yep. Many of my Indian friends and family think, it isn’t much different from skiing. But it is not. I never skied so I wouldn’t know which one is harder or better. However, It did take a long time for me be a decent snowboarder, especially since I had not seen snow until I was 21 and started learning snowboarding only when I was about 25 or 26. I can come down the hill in most trails with no issue, but my speed and aesthetics still sucks in steeper trails.

Let me tell you my secret – just do it and don’t give up. Most newbie give up after the first day on snowboard. But the truth is you can really get a hang of it within the 3rd day of learning and rest is just showing up and mastering it.

I have been hitting the slopes at least 2 or 3 times a year for many years now though I only frequent ski resorts in NY area. I have tried out resorts in Colorado, Vermont, and Candada too (Tremblant!). There is no comparison to the quality of snow and the overall boarding experience in Vermont or Canada. The local resorts here are just easier to access but not for great snow.

In all these years, I have seen many people from India in the slopes. Almost all of them ski. However, I am yet to meet another Indian (1st generation Indian like me) who snowboards. I am sure there are many out there, it’s just that I haven’t had a way to connect with them. I continue to go all by myself, year after year. Its a great meditative feeling to snowboard down a long hill all by yourself.

Since the day I picked up boarding, I always wondered if an Indian will ever compete in Snowboarding in Winter Olympics. May be, who knows, someone might be training today for it.

Shiva Keshavan thinks we can do something about winter sports and India. From India’s standpoint, he is a veteran winter Olympian even though he is only in late 20s. He has been participating in Luge, representing India for three Olympics now. While I know nothing about Luge beyond being a spectator, I got to imagine its just as hard as any sport and at least, he finished at a decent spot, unlike his two other counterparts who literally ended up at the bottom of all participants. Sad as it is, I applaud their courage to participate (against the usual odds) and hold India’s flag in Winter Olympics. Let’s not forget that we got to start somewhere to get to the top!

I found just a few blogs or news items on Shiva Keshavan :

A Chance Interview with Indian Olympian Shiva Keshavan (btw, he speaks genuinely and very sensibly)

Kamala Bhatt (who also runs a popular Internet radio show) blogged about Shiva.

Lakshmi Gandhi pieced the ten facts about Shiva’s sojourn to Vancouver.

CNNGoAsia cribs about the beaten Indian team

Comments are closed since I couldn’t keep up with deleting spam. You can reach me at my yahoo at skchary.

24.02.2010 About Me, Daily Notes, Family Happenings, General, Lessons for Life, Technology, World of Business No Comments

80/20 rule

“Most of what any of us achieve in life, of any serious degree of value to ourseleves and others, occurs in a very small proportion of our lives.”

10.02.2010 Books I read No Comments

Firing the hungry spirit of rural children

My next article for ThinkChangeIndia is available here. This time I had the opportunity to speak to another Ashoka Fellow, Ramji Raghavan, who runs the Agastya Foundation in India. He has started an organization that directly serves rural children’s creative needs. Among other things, Agastya operates mobile science museums, an innovative idea, since the core problem is the reach. Agastya takes the science museums to the children in rural schools, instead of expecting them to visit them. You can read more in the article and through their website.

06.02.2010 Education, Social Enterprise No Comments

Article of DHAN Foundation

My next article for ThinkChangeIndia on DHAN is online. I had not heard of DHAN before and it was edifying experience to research and write about them. For over two decades, they have been doing some phenomenal grassroots work, getting thousands of people out of poverty. I had the pleasure of interviewing some of the senior staff there, including the head, Mr. Vasimalai and I must say it was an eye opening few hours worth of discussion. The extended version of the article and recording of the interviews is available for anyone who might be interested (email s k c h a r y @ y a h o o . c o m)

11.01.2010 Leadership, Social Enterprise No Comments

Prayer, Intuition and the Alchemist

I have a stack of some of my favorite books in the bathroom. In the few minutes I have there, I love picking one at random and read whatever page opens up.

Today’s pick was page 78 of Alchemist:

…Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there…

It reminded of a simpler version from Wayne Dyer:

If prayer is you talking to God, then intuition is God talking to you

08.01.2010 Lessons for Life No Comments

Dosas all over 2009

Krishna Prasad weaves a beautiful look-back satire of 2009, anchored by the deadly masala dosa!

… a truism heard commonly in South Indian kitchens—“Even the best dosa has holes”—comes closest to sounding like wisdom. So, as the year began, the IT brain behind an angelic ambulance service revealed holes, lots and lots of them, in his company’s balancesheet. And, as the year closed, the greatest golfer the solar system has seen seemed to have played with more holes than 18.

Sometimes these things just jump out for me, begging to take a step back, and commend the writer!

06.01.2010 Daily Notes No Comments

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