03

Jul

Availing Time is not Rocket Science!


I always wondered how people master the skill of availing time… but conditionally!.  True, especially if you know that the condition from getting time from someone is actually the presence of their desire and clear benefits!

I’ve done a ton of meetings wearing different hats: client, vendor, service provider, … and I’ve been calling or being called for meetings.  I guess everyone would do, as meetings (effective ones of course) are crucial to running business and execution.  During these meetings you hunt for time amongst different parties, and to be able to avail time is to have the desire for it!

To simplify, take two personas when calling for a meeting: 1) one who have a benefit of conducting this meeting and hence has the desire, and 2) a person who is being pushed for that without a clear objective or benefit.  I will call the first a seeker, and the second a dragger.  The seeker would be willing to avail the time for meeting or any other activity even with the busiest schedule.  This is supported by the fact that he understands the objective of availing that time, and have the desire to work with you to achieve a mutual benefit.  On the other hand, a dragger would find a thousand excuses to escape from meeting you, simply because he doesn’t see the benefit of doing so, or would like to spend his time on something he believes would have better return on investment.

We all know that this has a lot to do with time management, and I would like to pinpoint the fact that whether you are a master of your own time or not, you still have free time to avail… it’s not really rocket science.  If you cannot make that time available, then you need to question your desire of putting that time with someone.  This is because the minute you get that willingness, magic starts to discover a lot of slots in your schedule.

By the way, don’t get me wrong.  I’ve been a seeker and a dragger as well, and I’m not saying that being a dragger is a bad thing.  I’m highlighting the behind-the-scenes facts to make sure of two things:

  • Try to highlight the value and benefits whenever you hunt for someone else’s time.
  • Question your willingness of securing time for others if you feel not willing to avail it.

The first will help a seeker transform a dragger into another seeker to move on with business (or personal matters).  The second will help you verify your position and priorities, and can change you from a dragger to a seeker. 

In summary, be a die-hard for shared value when asking for others’ time.  Be a die-hard for availing time for the most important people or objectives in your life.

1081 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

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05

Apr

Over commit… under deliver!


Let me be honest with you: I did that before, and might continue doing it.  No promise to let go, but I wanted to share with you my thoughts on over-commitment as I experience it.  This will enable me tell moments of truth, and help control over-commitments, or avoid them altogether.

When over-committing, you simply make a promise to yourself or others to deliver a task.  You end up with either no delivery, or partial delivery in the best scenario.  Hence, you upset the other party who could be your wife, father, mother, manager, customers, partners, or even yourself.  You don’t think I’m insane if I promise myself, right?!

Over-commitment is not just a one-time thing.  It’s more of a habit that one builds over time.  I have examined myself (that’s not insanity at all!) and sometimes others, and in my opinion, I see over-commitment is caused by either of the following:

  • Over-excitement that leads to incautious or blind commitments
  • Sense of under-performance that leads to cautious commitments for up-leveling performance.

In both cases, results are the same: commitments that never get achieved.  I will share with you the internal workings of both cases as others and myself experience them.  That’s not going to be scientific at all, though.

Over-excitement can lead to over-commitment

You meet a customer, and deep dive into discussions on how your company’s solutions can meet their requirements.  You’re passionate about the solutions your company offers, and you feel the value these solutions can offer your customer.  That’s a perfect context for over excitement!  To move things forward, a need for actions on both parties are apparent.  Because of the over-excitement state you are in, you start putting actions on yourself (that’s a good thing), and sometimes you force yourself to commit on things you don’t control, or things you cannot deliver on time.  You’re in a trap of “over-commitment”, where you get caught up on a pile of commitments that you may not be able to deliver.  All that is caused by the moment that blinded you from taking into considerations the available time and resources, and the things you or others control.

Sense of under-performance can lead to over-commitment, too

Another internal working that causes over-commitment is when you have a sense of under-performance.  Weird, huh? It’s true, cause when you are under-performing (or feeling just that), you may feel low, and sometimes depressed.  If you try to get yourself out of that mood, you might tend to pressure yourself with commitments to unleash it and break through the depression.  This is where over-commitment happens, and hence under-delivery is probable!

To be honest with you, that sometimes worked for me, but not always though.  It happened once with me when I was having that sense of under-performance.  On the same time, we were negotiating a proof of a technology to one of our key customers.  This customer happened to have varying and complex requirements which needed the engagement of an external party to deliver the proof on time.  There was a challenge though.  the customer’s requirements could change as it’s more of discovery than predefined set of requirements.  Also, we need to manage satisfaction to win in a competitive environment.  With all that in mind, I have decided to step in and deliver the proof myself, and avoid the engagement of the external party because of the fluid nature of this proof.  This was of course on the expense of my time on other angles, but we were able to adapt as we go and deliver the proof successfully.  We also were able to discover more opportunities to help the customer and position our technologies right.  This was an exception to over-commitment.  I remember I did the same with another customer, but results were not what we planned to have.

To conclude, I want to emphasize the importance of cautious decision on taking up commitments.  Measuring your abilities and available resources should be in the equation that leads to committing on a task.  Pay extra attention in states of over-excitement and sense of under-performance cause they may lead you to short or absent delivery of what you have committed on.

1169 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

Business

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16

Feb

Ignorance is bless!


Yesterday, I got the most poisoned message ever in my life.  It was a text message on my mobile from an unknown number, but clearly from someone who knows me very well.  Without going into details, the message was meant to comment/judge a part of my lovely life in a way so destructive that clearly shows how the sender meant to hurt me and offer advice.  Doing a quick thought, I can see that it is one of two things:

  • The sender is so primitive in thinking … An ignorant, or
  • The sender is so envy of a life God gave me… An envious

In both cases, ignorance is the cure simply because “ignorance is bless”.

Let me tell you why I believe from the bottom of my heart that ignorance is the cure for such incidents in my life.
In the case of primitiveness, there is basically no spark at all for a meaningful discussion.  This is simply because the other side is in a state of a black out for all sorts of rational, and hence you’ll see either dead ends or empty hallways whenever you try to convince him/her of your viewpoint.  The fun state is when you reach to a burn state explaining while the other side is floating in his closed mindset.  Don’t you agree that ignoring the whole discussion will buy you peace of mind?

In the other case where you face a tougher opponent.  An envious is like an under-cover agent who shows you a face and hides an ugly one from the inside!  Discussion with such a person is simply disastrous and a never-ending one.  You see him or her arguing for your own benefit, but goes around and spit out the poison along the side of evil lines.  Argument with such a person is full of fire… Fire on your outside with your trials to reach an understanding, and fires from his inside as he hides his envious feelings trying to fire back on you whenever he or she can.  I think you would agree with me that such a discussion is really not safe, and ignorance is the best preventive action.  Moreover, ignorance fires back on the other party with a well-deserved pain.

That’s what i did… I ignored the message and deleted it on the spot!  I wanted to fight back my desire to reply to the guy, but alhamdillah that i didn’t.  My way out of it was to blog it to get the relief from that poisoned message.  It was also a great chance to share my thoughts and get your feedback on the subject.

1218 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

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05

Feb

Share your problems only when seeking solutions or sympathy


I really hate it when people come to me talking about problems (in work, life, society, or even universe) without an honest intention to either look for solutions or seek required sympathy.  I actually am making a promise to myself for two things:

  • I will never ever talk about problems unless I’m consciously considering solutions, or sympathy otherwise.
  • I will never lesson to problem-talkers who are not willing to discuss solutions, or are not seeking sympathy.

Why would I make that promise?!

Simply because that ruins my day and usually pulls me into pessimistic thinking state without being aware, and without a clear way out!  Let me give you an example:

Someone came to me early in the morning where my energy is at its optimum, and started talking about how traffic jam was killing him, how people bad driving practices were driving him crazy, and how he was that close to making a car accident because of that speedy car passing by from the right.  Wait a second, did I mention how he was upset when he got out of bed on a fight with his wife as she discussed with him the other night!.  Well that whole discussion took a few minutes but felt like the whole day!  After he left, I have already lost focus from what I was doing and the tension filled me up to a degree that I thought I’m the one who had a fight with his wife, and had problems on his way to work… oh God!

Dear friend, I’m absolutely not interested in listening to these stories… absolutely not! and guess what, I went through the same this morning.  I live farther than you are from work, and my wife complained this exact morning about how I wasn’t listening enough lately.  You know what, I came to office full of energy until you came by and started to through your evil at me without a sense of purpose!

Dear friend, if you’re seeking a solution then let me tell you how I dealt with that same situation:

1) On my 45-min commute to work, I usually do one of two things: listen to my favorite radio station, or pull my phone and listen to my favorite podcasts.  With that I can easily ignore all traffic problems around me (ignorance is bless) and choose my attitude… smile!

2) I didn’t fight my wife back.  I apologized to her cause she was true.  I spent some moments with her listening, and agreed to have some time together later in the evening.  With that, my wife was all set and happy, and in return I got a boost in my day to choose the right attitude… smile!

With the intention to discuss solutions while talking about problems, we can have constructive discussion, and can avoid all the bad feelings that usually get unresolved.  So please be ready to consider solutions to your problems when you want to spit them out.

Another example? here you go:

This one happens a lot between me an my lovely wife.  She usually comes – like any other Venus citizen – and talks about tiny miny details of problems at work, with family, or even on the fact that she couldn’t find the right dress for tonight’s evening out!  Unfortunately and like usual, I get into the mood of Mr. FixIt – like any other Mars citizen – and start offering solutions!  She passes by my offerings ignoring them and continues complaining, and that gradually gets me upset cause my solutions doesn’t do her any good at all.

Dear wife, I’m so sorry that I started to offer you solutions (again) and ignored the fact that you’re seeking none.  I should have just listened, as all you’re after is just a sense of shared feeling… sympathy.

Dear wife, can we find away to give me any clue that you’re looking for sympathy?  A sign saying “sympathy, please!”… would that do?!.  I’m just kidding, and I know that we need to learn as we go so please bear with me.

As you can see from the above examples, energy and attention of others are triggered only if you’re truly trying to get out of your problem, and that happens only if you explicitly ask for solutions or sympathy.  Otherwise you’ll end up with frustrating others and filling them with anger without a way out.  So, think twice before you talk about your problems, and help others to help you.

1228 days ago Short URL Comments

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29

Jan

Never block thoughts… Give them a spin and let go!


We get streams of thoughts or ideas, especially when free and relax, or when doing a mundane task that doesn’t require a lot of attention (driving, taking a shower, or even getting to sleep).  We sometimes get overwhelmed by those thoughts to a degree we tend to block them for some reasons.  Reasons to block a thought could be very valid actually, but the practice of blocking is what I’m suggesting to change.

Why would I block my thoughts?

Blocking thoughts happens usually due to the fact that you have a rule in your life that dictates rejecting the stream of thoughts you’re getting.  It could also be due to a previous state of decision against that thought.  In both cases, those thoughts are against what you have set yourself up to, and hence you consciously block them.  You may be doing so peacefully telling thoughts to go away, or you may be annoyed as why they are coming back persistently.

Examples would be changing you job, getting married, buying a car or house, or getting some of your savings for that great trip.

What’s the problem then? what is it you’re worried about?

The stream of thoughts is intermittently persistent and usually requires a great deal of effort (mentally and emotionally).  That effort takes something out of you, and will always do as thoughts will find their way back to you!  What I’m saying here is that you’re not helping yourself by blocking thoughts and continuously doing so will get you in a state of increased annoyance.  More importantly, you’re missing the chance to be more adaptive and creative about your life and skipping a window of potentially “good” change!

What are you suggesting then?

A flip in handling your thoughts with minimum efforts possible.  I’m suggesting to stop blocking your thoughts, and instead handle them smoothly by giving them a spin of conscious moment and letting go afterwards.  If they come back again, give them another spin and let go.  If they persist, give them a final spin and let go, but consider them for a serious talk with yourself and revisit why you don’t want them coming.  That’s the window of potential change that could be for your own good.  I’m not suggesting three and only three times of spin thoughts.  I’m just emphasizing the fact of giving your thoughts several shots of what they deserve!

I really don’t get it, can you give me an example?

Sure, I will give you an example from your work life.  If you happen to be like me, then you must have gone through time in your life trying to figure out what is your passion and what you like to do for living that will keep your energy to its optimum throughout the good and bad.  If you have done so, then you surely have set career goals that align with your strengths and weaknesses, and consider opportunities and threats in your field (SWOT).  With those career goals in mind, you’ll have a different perspective at the job opportunities that goes by and you’ll have firm rules of what to consider or reject.  Then, the state I’m referring to goes like this: you get a job opportunity, it gets underway those goals of your career aspiration, and they get blocked if they don’t pass.  Hence, a thought and a block process.  If you continue doing so, that may get you in an uncomfortable state of decision making especially with the fact those thoughts will come back again and again.

What if I apply what you’re suggesting?

Ok, as I said, instead of blocking, you’ll give the idea of changing job a spin of thought and will let go.  That spin of thought will give you a chance to revisit your rules and the goals and rational behind them.  After all, your rules are not universal and your goals always have space of improvement.  With a quick spin of consideration, you’ll:

  1. Avoid the demanding state of the thought –> relief.
  2. Get a chance to review your career aspiration, and realign your goals –> validation checkpoint.

This will repeat for a while until the thought goes away and stop persisting, or until it finds its impact on your rules of life, and hopefully positively.  The whole idea is not to miss those great windows of potential “good” change and hence be agile consistently.  Notice, however, that I said “good” change, as some changes could be disastrous if not aligned with proper rational and morals.

Also, make sure you don’t make major decisions or corrections in those short revisits (what I call spins).  You need to let go and wait for the thought to knock the door again.  The final spin of your choice should get you in a serious discussion and validation where you can make the minor or major corrections (change) if required.

In summary

My advice to you is to set and respect rules in your life, but at the same time allow to validate them.  This happens by giving the other thoughts a spin, which will enable you to change for good and be agile!

1236 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

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