5 Tips to Stay Sane in Knowledge Industry

In general society thinks, Knowledge industry workers job is best. They are earning and enjoying so much. While I completely don't deny it but it has its own challenges. These guys face their own problems. With the sedentary lifestyle and excessive relying on their mind to deliver everyday they face tremendous stress. These guys carry their work everywhere and find it hard to relax. Although software industry might look very soft for outsiders but inside its real hard nut.

One needs to give some serious thought to stay competitive & sane in this industry over a sustained duration of time. There is no one single list for everyone.  Everyone has to work out their own list of practical N items to do everyday. Following list is reminder to figure out one for yourself and give some ideas to get started.

Lets jump in to the list:

[1]  Exercise 10 minutes
Exercise as simple as walk for 10 minutes in morning can keep you alert and positive for the full day. It clears up your mind. Its totally understandable that taking out 10 minutes in highly packed morning times could be a challenge. No, I am not going to ask you to get up early by 10 minutes. If you can afford buy a Treadmill and do your brushing of teeth on treadmill. It will make sure that your teeths are getting enough attention as well as your body.

[2] Yoga 10 minutes
One might ask why is yoga needed ? Exercise such as walk will not be able to provide benefit to all the parts of body. Yoga focuses on each each part of the body and allows you to focus on it. Especially this is important for all the joints of the body. With long drives, long hours of typing and stiff  posture will make your feets, palm, neck and shoulders looking forward for some focused movements to relax them. There are good number of simple yoga techniques to relax these parts of body. Overload your morning tea session with the yoga. Along with sipping your favourite morning beverage do some simple  yoga posture. A very simple yoga called PavanMuktasana can be incorporated as everyday lifestyle.

[3] Prayers 10 minutes
We all know if anything needs to be run well there needs to some active person managing it. So assuming that this complicated world is running all by itself is biggest lie we can tell ourselves. We need to understand we cannot control everything. We believe it or not there is higher level being running this world. More we connect with that higher level power the more harmony we can experience in our life. It will take off the loads in all areas where you cannot absolutely do anything. So pray to whatever form  you believe in for 10 minutes everyday. It will eventually connect you to yourself.

[4] Inspire 10 minutes

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar.

So to keep your morale up do something inspiring everyday or if you cannot, read something inspirational. With the growth in social media its very easy to find the type of content that inspires you daily. Use them wisely. Use the mediums like Twitter and Linkedin well. Follow some right set of people to keep finding something inspirational. Don't just stop at finding the insight, share it with others as well. It extends the joy and allows you also do more firmer commitment to apply and try those insights in your own life as well. Improve together.

[5] Reflect 10 minutes
This is tough one. Its most important. Start off with very simple way of just reliving the day by just recalling all the things that you could remember at the end of the day. Slowly you will start identifying what thoughts need more focus and what to filter. Slowly you will able to connect these to your longer term goals and see if you are going towards achieving them. Its difficult to control the mind from just wandering away. Its practice. The more you practice the more you will be able to do it well and benefit.

One more...
[6] Reality 10 minutes
Being part of knowledge industry good part of our day, we stay in virtual world created by our mind. Even most of the work we produce gets confined in some form thats not clearly visible. A civil engineer can showcase the building he has been working on but for many software engineers they cannot directly showcase what they are working on. This sometimes can lead to self doubts about the skills we possess and what we can produce. Periodically engage in something physical and concrete. Do some regular errands very consciously well or pursue some hobby that produces results that can be easily perceived. Get in touch with reality periodically, come out of your virtual world. Stop and smell the roses.

I call this sum of 60 minutes a "Golden hour". I hope that this inspires you to think about your golden hour to stay sane. I wish you that you find what you are looking for. Do share your thoughts and lists.

How to empower your work to achieve highest possible impact?

We all know, we have limited time at our disposal. So we better invest our time in such a way that, every moment of it can achieve the highest possible impact it can.

Let me tell you don't need to sweat it out to do that. There is very simple principle involved behind it.

Principle of highest impact:

That principle of empowering maximum impact for your work can be easily incorporated by doing following:

Whenever you encounter any problem or solution, you need to answer following two questions:
[1] What is the maximum theoretical scope for it ?
[2] What is the maximum impact practical application for it  ?

These two questions have to be answered in the order listed. Answer of the first question helps establish the boundary by listing options.  Answer of second enables the choosing the right application area from the list of options.

"Principle of Highest Impact" in Action:

Lets do that with small story.

Lets say you have joined this new high potential startup and busy coding. You start noticing recently your computer has started hanging frequently. The curious you, takes a plunge. You google around. You spot some utilities. You run them on your computer over a weekend. Results of full analysis are ready on Monday.

With your favourite cup of tea you scan those reports. You figure out that the hard disk is showing some problems. You google about the hard disk model in your computer. You spot in hard disk vendor hosted discussion forums that this particular hard disk has known issues. It starts showing the degradations after a usage over a couple of years.

Now without knowledge of this principle of highest impact, you would get a new hard disk, copy the data from your old hard disk, plug it in and get started. Problem solved, back to coding.

Now equipped with this new principle, you decide to apply the principle and see if it works:

[1] What is the maximum theoretical scope it ?

Simple answer in this case is, wherever machine of the model you are using is being used.

You start bit of spying around the cubicles. In the close vicinity around your cubicle you spot three more of your  colleagues are using the same model type. Now you don't stop there and continue your exploration.

You ask yourself where are most of the computers located on your campus? You find out its that corner room where all the server machines are stacked. On your next tea break you look around the server room and to your surprise you do find that your startup tool cluster contains some of those models as well. Now equipped with this new information you jump to second question.


[2] What is the maximum impact practical application for it ?

Simple, which affects many people and which affects  your company as whole.

Where will you apply the solution first ? Also it would be safe to assume that  your company will have limited funds, which machine will you replace first?

Maximum impact practical application would be : Server machines - Right ?
Now when you suggest that to the management with all the data, think of the impact you have had on the company and your career.

Little additional effort coupled with the application of this principle you are able to achieve the maximum impact for your solution.

Sounds interesting, Is it possible every time?

Good question. Finding answer to the first question of this principle may not be easy all the time or some time it may not even possible to find complete answer.

Agreed. In those cases the extent you can apply this principle will vary but still it ensures that proportional to that impact can be achieved.

In essence for given scenario you always can maximize the impact.

You are responsible for giving your work platform to achieve highest impact it can. Empower it.

Are you Procrastinating your Relaxation & Happiness?

Why is our life filled with so much of Anxiety and Stress these days?  Where are we going wrong? When I looked deep in to it,  I could trace one of the reason to be connected to our childhood habit. I hope that understanding it will help overcome it.

Childhood: Relaxation tied to completion
As a child I never worried about how much can I do today. There were no limits set on anything. Just jumped in and started doing it. Continued doing it till I can. Considering the fact there were always limited things I did, Could always finish them, most of them. Had the satisfaction of completing everything before calling it a day and slipping myself in to relaxing.

Leeser responsibilities as well. There were not many tasks that I did not like.  Even sometime when I skipped doing something I did not like, the impact was not of any  serious consequence. Worst was getting punished for not doing homework or even worst was getting lower grades or failing in some examination. Nothing beyond that which really scared me.  Hence many times afforded to complete all the tasks before relaxing.

Completed the homework for today nothing more to do, start relaxing. Studied hard and completed examinations. Here comes Summer vacations or semester breaks. Nothing more to do. So now relax. So relaxation almost always got associated with when you had nothing more to do or you completed most of what you had do. This lead to sort of reinforcement of concept that finish everything before you relax.

Adulthood: Completion is mirage

As I grew up to the adulthood and started growing in terms of responsibilities, number of tasks that needs to be performed kept on increasing. In fact I was always on lookout for adding more tasks in order to grow professionally as well as personally.

It was not always possible to complete everything everyday. There were only very few days the satisfaction of completing most was achieved.  It ended up restricting the real sense of relaxation to only those days. Also some of tasks if not performed in time, had bad consequences. Hence the choice of not being able to perform them reduced. Total time I had still remained to same 24 hours. This lead to developing the constant anxiety and stress. Constant worry about things to do became part of life.

It started affecting the days even when I was off from work or even when I am on my vacation. Top it up, today's technology enables you to carry your work and worries wherever you go.

Don't Procrastinate your Relaxation and Happiness
It took me some effort to realize that one cannot tie the relaxation to completion. Although to an extent its positive but when overdone, it has negative impact on the performance.

Planning and prioritization helps significantly and cannot be ignored. Set reasonable goals and find happiness and satisfaction in achieving them. How to go about doing planning and prioritizing right there is quite bit of help out there. Seek it.

We are all warriors who have to fight lifelong battles. Hence need to pick the right battles and learn the art of relaxing and being happy even in the battlefield. Good luck fighting anxiety and stress.

Meeting Mr.Mind

After zombie like work weekdays, it was weekend. Time to fall really dead. Not just the work, commute also had competed in contributing to tiredness. Watched movie Lootera in the afternoon and slipped in for quick nap at 3PM. Woke up at 5PM.

Found no one was around and it was still half sleep, so just continued to lie in the bed. Tick-tock of the clock was clearly audible. Fists were still hurting due to RSI, side effect of their love affair with keys of the laptop and Foots were hurting because of their flirting with ABC (Accelerator, Brake, Clutch) of the car for more than two hours of commute every day.

After feeling the pain of the body focus shifted to feelings of mind. As I got down in to the depths of the mind suddenly met this Mr. Mind. He looked really pale. Not that he was very happy or bustling guy in the past but today he was really looking dull.  Pulled him to chat, asked him tell me what happened. He started off with usual crap of not letting him look weak. He acted strong and focused. He was afraid of being tagged as vulnerable, indulgent, lazy or non-disciplined. He had lost all his colors, truly looked black and white. He looked laser focused. He no longer looked human he looked like robot running some set of standard perfect programs. Just like the guys in the movie Matrix, completely invincible. 

It scared me to see him. He was ashamed of admitting that he was a human mind. He was busy covering it up with busyness of running some unknown race that had no end. He had achieved quite few significant things, he had set himself on to.  He was living a decent life. But yet he did not seem happy.  So I took a headshot question and asked him “Are you happy?” He looked confused. It was clear that he could not give a black and white answer.  He said, no external achievements or ever-increasing materialistic acquisitions so far have given me what I am looking for. The initial four lines of song saponse bhare naina  from movie Luck by chance started ringing in my ear. I understood that he had all the comforts but lacked the peace of mind. You can’t search it outside, if it had to be found it can only be found inside. So I played it Sapnose bhare naina, pay attention to first four lines.

After listening he opened up a bit.  Life in bigger cities sucks he said. He asked are we living to work or working to live?  So-called “Work hard, Party hard” is a myth.  The life style dumped in to our mind by media and society has corrupted the very definition of happiness. It has cut us out of our roots. All the places are commercialized. Focused and geared up to pull everyone in to a vicious cycle further. No, hold your thought right there, he said I understand Money is important but that money itself cannot be made the center of everything. To be frank money is cheap. Its your life that is invaluable. But yeah, Who cares? Everyone is programmed to laugh at it. You cannot escape it. In todays world everyone wants to pay any amount of money but they want all your life. It was his turn he played the song Gandha hai per dandha hai ye from the movie company.

I hugged him tight. Please don’t be afraid of being judged. Tell me what do you want. Lighten up. Don’t be so black and white. I want to see you in your true colors. I want you in the form you naturally are. I really don’t mind how you look. I will love you for what you are. You have always been there with me since my birth. I know you have been through a lot. No, I wont let this world destroy you and make a robot out of you. Whatever it takes, I will go any length to keep you a human.  He cried out loud. It was long silence and no words from either side. I understood words could not bridge. Silence was the only means of communication.

Finally he broke the silence. I want do things for their intrinsic value. Why money has to be benchmark of everything? Taking away the joy of doing things? Why does everything have to be so stressful? Why cannot it be fun? Why can’t we have completeness in life and have balance? The way we are heading towards is going to lead to human without all around growth. Imagine what happens if only one part of the body grows and others are not. Would it be beautiful?

I desperately asked, you were always passionate about what you did? Weren’t you? Yes he said and asked me back, you like mangoes don’t you? I said yes and asked back with smile don’t you know it? That’s not the point, focus he said. How many best of best mangoes can you eat at one go? I said may be four or five. He asked back, what happens if I asked you to eat five more after first five? I said, I can’t. He said, now you see the same mango that gave you happiness before can no longer continue to give the same. Its same fruit, same person but results are different.

He quoted Sanskrit saying “Aati Amrutham Aapi Visham”. Means if you drink in excess even Amruth also becomes poison.  

My daughter came in and woke me up.  She said, Pappa take me for bicycle ride. I said sure, let’s learn to balance it !

Message from Movie "Bheja Fry"

Well, if you haven't tasted "Bheja Fry" yet then you really have saved for yourself something tasty, go watch it and enjoy! 

It was one among best comedy movies that I have watched. Very few characters and each one of them stand out. I felt movie is not just to laugh your stomach out but has some good message hidden it as well.

Be yourself

The way Bharat Bhushan carries his scrapbook about his life wrapped up in a plastic bag with thread, locked up in his suitcase is perfect example. Also he never runs out of enthusiasm to show it.  It does not matter as long as you follow “live and let live” principle what others think of you. You need to happy. In order for you to be happy you have to be yourself. That's message of the lead character Bharat Bhushan.

Don’t let go your life partner

The entire male cast Bharat Bhushan, his friend Asif Merchant and Anant Ghoshal friend of Ranjeet Thadani have lost their life partner. In fact second lead character Ranjeet Thadani is about to loose his life partner. Which forms the main theme of the movie. None of these characters that have lost their life partner seem happy. Loneliness is not easy to handle.  There are going to be ups and downs in life. No one is perfect. Augment one another's weakness and help resonate the strengths. 

Value your friends

The friendship of Bharat Bhushan and his friend Asif Merchant is kind of exemplary. One is fan India and another is fan of Pakistan cricket team. They have their own differences but that does not prevent them being there for each other. Asif even goes to extent of potential of losing his job to get the information about Keval Arora from his office when requested by Bharat Bhushan for Ranjeet. The same reflects when Bharat Bhushan asks Ranjeet to order the Pizza as his friend Asif as he likes it. Friends are milestones of life. Value them and nurture the friendships.

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” - Bob Marley

Australian Open 2012: Djokovic plays tennis as chess

There are experts to write about technicals of this series, I just wanted to share the strategic take aways of Djokovic's game. I have watched the Tennis for some time but have not realized what it meant to me till I watched this final game of Australian Open 2012 finals. This game was different. I realized why I liked the Tennis. It's because it's 1:1 game. Straight efforts to results relation.

Quick read through wikipedia on biography shows both Nadal and Djokovic have had very early start. I have realized by now that chances of success rise exponentially if you have early start in life. It may be these players or Steve Wozniak of Apple all these guys had started very early. Part of the credit goes to their parents for creating such opportunity. I hope new parents pay attention to this point. A kid may or may not utilize the opportunity but it should not be denied. Its all the worth the efforts of parents to gift one such jump start to their kids.

 

I watched both Semi finals and final matches. There are two main components. Mental and Physical. I have always thought physical tiredness can be quick. One can degrade physically faster but not mentally. One can continue to be mentally fit. 

Emotions drain energy. Lower energy affects the sharpness. I dont think all the four semifinalists lacked the skills to play good tennis game. They were all well matched with each other. Agreed each has one had some special unique move for himself. What they differed was how much emotionally they gave out themselves during match.

Semifinals:

Nadal Vs Federer is well known mental battle I guess. Nadal has probably mentally got the Federer. You can sense what is going on in the mind of Federer by just looking at his face. He was giving out his fears. This is not good. Nadal displayed positive aggression. He put some extra ordinary athletics to win some points meant more than one point he made. Winning such tough points makes opponent weaker. Winning few impossible points is not just about a point but it makes a statement to opponent. 

This is good.  Nadal is quick and makes his presence felt across the court and point to note is he also makes sure it shows up as his strength by his display of aggression and expression.

Djokovic vs Murray again Murray was so expressive. I thought he was displaying aggression. Aggression display is better than display of fear. But again hope it was not meant as cover for fear. Assuming it was display of true aggression still the energy leaks by such display. It showed up later and Murray looses straight 3 sets. 

Epic Final : Almost 6 Hours. Hats off to both of you, guys.

Nadal Vs Djokovic, Among this pair as well Nadal was more expressive, He tended to give away himself more. Nadal has this true passion and purity. He plays at peak all the time. He tries the best of his physical skills and there by score the point. He is highly athletic and well versed with all the conventional tricks of tennis. You can't beat him at that. 

If you noticed Djokovic he never leaked energy. In fact he at times displays weak body language by even limping at times. Very important aspect is I doubt he was in state as to limp. In very next minute he was ready to run across the court. What does it mean? My take is Mind game. I know you may not agree. But I have more, Just before serve observe him he will always bounce the ball for little extra. There are two advantages of doing this. One any periodic movements help focus. How? Remember one of the old method of hypnotism is swinging pendulam. Have  you observed what do we do to put baby's to sleep for ages. Okay if you have not seen one, by swinging. Second advantage it also helps in breaking the concentration of opponent.

 

Djokovic does not play the physical best all the time. He conserves his energy and applies in burst when he sees a chance which he can convert it to point. If you looked at the statistics of distance covered on the court during match it might be surprising Djokovic covered more distance than Nadal. This means he was moving more without being obviously visible as moving.  Contrast with Nadal, he moved quick and made it show that he was moving quick.

Djokovic played tennis like chess player and concurred pure tennis player Nadal.  I am not down playing any one. Both played really great game and it was very inspiring to watch them. Its not easy to hold on for 6 Hours of play. It was extra ordinary and incredible. Both showed extreme resilience, passion and determination to win and towards playing great game.

Both gave all they had. Made me reflect when I did the same last? There was long silence.... 

Birth of Innovation

Well, I dont know If I am authorized to talk about it. I have invented nothing that mattered a lot so far. The only reason I allow myself to write this is because of the problems I have solved.  Some of them have been tough nuts. My strong belief is that this process holds a clue that can lead to innovation and I wanted to define it out to myself to extent I have understood it.  

I was browsing about what is it that leads to big inventions,  much of material I found did not give me clear idea towards process of its birth. I think every one first needs to invent process of invention that works for him/her. Here is what I felt from my very limited experiences. 

Innovation's birth place is mind. In order for it to take birth,  a virtual world of the problem space you are dealing with has to be re-created in the mind. This is not over night process. As they say "God is in detail". Details have of problem space has to be keenly observed and absorbed. Step by step, atom by atom, electron by electron. Without any prejudice and with highest sensitivity and accuracy. Over time the virtual world continues to grow in size and details.

This problem space needs to be built very intensely in your mind. Benchmark of such intensity is, one should be able forget the external world completely when one enter's this virtual world. It should become like trans state of mind, like in deep meditation. 

This is nothing different from settling down in another planet. Duration for which one can stay in another planet depends on the supplies stored. Duration of staying in this state of trans in virtual world depends on the details one has absorbed. Higher and finer details ones holds greater the duration of stay. Greater the duration of stay greater the possibility of solving the problem or inventing something new. On the other hand during early stage of this process not all details are absorbed so there will be frequent entry and exits out of this state. Exit's to absorb the missing details from real world. If you are aware of how Computer Cache's work you would understand this better. There is no real auto pilot mode. You need to make an conscious effort to make this sub-conscious mind to the do the work. It has to be intense, focused and pro-longed effort.

Another Benchmark of such clarity is you should be able to get in to context of problem space in split second. It needs to be continuously refined to make it clear. Immediate practical application is being able to write better programs. Check this out Holding Program in One's head.

I have found a close alignment to way's of Tesla. No I am not claiming to be him but all I am saying is this stuff I have experienced in some discrete forms is closent I have come to defining it. Snippet from "The Power of your Subconscious Mind", About Tesla: When an new idea came in to his mind, he would build it up in his imagination, knowing that his subconscious mind would reconstruct and reveal to his conscious mind all the parts needed for its manufacture in its concrete form." Mainly the information absorbed needs to be consciously organized in mind for sub-conscious mind to work of it. I know its not a easy process and relentless work but worth the effort.

Archimedes's eureka moments are as result of living in such world. Its not a accident, its hard work and deep meditation on the problem.

Barrier for innovation has raised in today's world. There is already so much that has been invented and as humans we need to build on the top of what has been already done. Now the point is in order to do that effectively in a chosen field what has been already known has to be on the top of head. It has to be well organized in mind. This needs to be done in order to not to repeat the inventions. When what is known is known in best possible ways we can invent what is not known. 

For programmers like us who all the time deal with the computer programs, we are really living in a virtual world. Tesla's process application needs little bit more effort since virtual world imagined here does not exist physically et all. What I am adding to what has already captured by many is you can't innovate if you can't live with the problem as naturally you live at home. Innovation space needs to become part of life. One should be able to correlate it to life and live intimately with it. This intimacy is what finally leads to birth of innovation.