- The ability to not press Alt + Tab while working.
- The ability to focus only on the Google Doc you’re working on, and not reach out to your phone.
- The ability to forgive your “friends” who never asked for an apology.
- The ability to grow your people yet be inspiring instead of dominating.
- The ability to sit for 90 minutes straight and only work.
Tag: focus
Giving up on trends
Okay, so I have finally decided to give up on creating Insta reels.
Not because I can’t.
Rather because it is distracting.
Creating a video requires a lot of effort. And a lot of screen time. Which is not the best use of my time.
Also, as I thought deeper, even if my reels get viral, even if I become a great influencer because of reels, even if each reel of mine hits a million views, I am encouraging mini content which anyway has very little impact for inducing change in viewers. Especially on a platform like Instagram where everything is designed to make you waste your time and kill your attention, I want to be someone who actually makes people NOT waste their time by creating text-only images.
The best part? They can be scheduled through Facebook Creator instead of actually installing the app.
So maybe yes, reels are trending. However, I am way happy with working on LinkedIn and Twitter, while creating text-only pics on Instagram. Instead of working on “virality”, I’ll work on my originality and let my tribe fall in love with who I really am – a words girl, not a video girl 🙂
There’s nothing wrong with Instagram!
Today I attended a wonderful master class by Nir Eyal, author of the book Indistractable.
Some wonderful things he said:
1. Schedule everything – learning, work, leisure, family time, sleeping time, free time social media and even OTG!
2. To-Do lists should be done away with, because no one accomplishes all of those daily.
3. Instead, do whatever you had desired to accomplish during that time. That is powerful! You’ll then end up achieving MORE than your To-Do list.
4. Life is NOT about getting things done. Rather spend 30-45 minutes daily, thinking.
5. And last resort, make an identity pact: Is what you are doing aligned with who you are?
Very very thoughtful! This master class is definitely going to be a masterpiece.
Easiest way to beat distraction
Do you often see yourself huddling with waste thoughts?
You decided to stay focused, and five minutes later you are scrolling endlessly?
Happens with you?
We would have read hundreds of texts and literature on how to change that, and of all those, one has been the most effective: To always keep listening to motivational audios or read such books. I personally have started doing it morning and evening, and the results have been way better.
Now stretching it to four hours a day while working on mundane activities.
Not because it will give me motivation to act, rather because we are accustomed to act in a manner consistent with what we hear and whom we spend time with. Since what we hear and whom we spend time with isn’t something wonderful in today’s world, why not start with doing it on purpose?
Any habit that we form on purpose is what we reap benefits of without waiting for. Always.
Two money lessons from my life
Some money lessons:
- If you want to earn more and you do have the capability and credentials for that, don’t settle for a less-paying job or contract. No one will respect you if you won’t.
- Pay credit card bill immediately after making the transaction. You will have reward points, AND you will not see a HUGE bill at the end of the month.
Tell me, have you tried these and succeeded?
Your house’s on fire!
I came across a clip of an interview of Kobe, the legendary basketball player who passed away in an air crash earlier this year.
The interviewer was talking about a game, where both teams had to do a tie-breaker of final throws. Once Kobe’s turn came, he had a Achilles tendon, yet he got up, made his throw, and finished the game like a star.
When asked about the reason, Kobe said:
“Let’s say you have an Achilles, your hamstring is torn, your doctor tells you to have a bed rest, not move at all. So you’re at your home.
And suddenly, the house’s on fire. The kids are upstairs, the wife is somewhere else, and now you have to save them. You will instantly forget your hamstring, grab your kids, make sure your wife is safe, and get out of the house. You won’t remember the hamstring because your family is more important than the injury. So when the game is more important than the injury itself, you don’t feel that injury.”
When the game is more important than the injury itself, you don’t feel that injury.
What is the game that we are into?
Injury or the kind that Kobe was into?
Is your education worth it?
Back in my school days, rather for the entire time of my formal education, I was a top scoring student.
Off late, when exams were dismissed by education boards in India, it still came as a pleasant respite to me.
Someone in my family, who passed their exams 20+ years back, wasn’t though.
When I told them I was quite happy with it, they were rather upset.
“How could YOU be happy?”
“What would happen to students like you, whose life depended on school marks?”
“Won’t it be unfair for students like you?”
Though I could sense they were not in a position to understand, it made me think:
- How many of real world skills are dependent on the numbers you got?
- Yes, your marks gave you a kick-start at the beginning of your career, however, did they decide your entire future? Never.
- We all have countless examples of back-benchers who went out to do amazing things in life, then why do we still place so much importance on formal education?
Of course, formal education is important. However the pressure we put on it to take us to the other end is unbelievable.
What really matters beyond formal education, is:
- Real world education: To observe. Reflect. Let your life be the teacher.
- Entrepreneurship: It doesn’t just mean starting up. It also means having the mindset of getting things done with trust for them.
- Letting go: So so important. The basis of life is letting go, after being and doing your best. Everything that you see with your eyes, is going to vanish. What will stay, is how you actually lived in between your two ears, during this time.
Closing statement: Formal education isn’t dead yet. However, the authority it had to dominate our lives never existed. You get to decide how your life will be, not your formal education.
Where do you go for meditation?
What is the place your thoughts wander towards, during meditation?
That is the place you need to address.
Most certainly it’s going to be difficult because that’s where the mind is seeking pleasure among productivity.
However, you don’t have any to be thinking of someone’s break up pics during meditation. Don’t you?
To have the focus
We all have been given this free time.
A lot of free time.
Time to reflect, time to think, time to be the best.
Yet amidst all this there is one most important thing that no influencer has ever told you: to be self respecting.
Self – respect. It means to be in the zone of loving yourself. To know who you are. To be just the best version of you.
It may sound repetitive. To those who don’t practice it.
To those who do, it’s life changing.
Breaking the norms
To break the norms does not mean break the legal norms and go murder the person you’ve desperately wanting to do for years.
Breaking the norms, may seem useful (and powerful) when you break the ones that are not serving you, like:
- You may choose to go workout instead of making tea for someone who is already busy getting obese. (Love begins with the one in the mirror.)
- You may choose to get up from a boring meeting and come back after a 10-minute walk (your mind and body get recharged by missing out on irrelevant stuff.)
- You may choose to cook a ten-minute khichdi versus waiting for a quick 30-minute calorie filled home delivery.
- You may choose to send that email you know you have been waiting to send, versus scrolling a meme page on Instagram.
- You may choose to do a quick reading of at least two pages, versus listening to gossips of others on your metro ride.
You have tonnes of norms to break, that aren’t serving the society. More than that, you.
Will you break the norms for You?