Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Do what you love to do


You can now read this article at this new location on techitive.com
http://techitive.com/articles/management/motivation/do-what-you-love-to-do.
You can find this and many more articles related to workplace issues and personal development by Chakravarthy Tenneti and other writers on the website - techitive.com.

Monday, November 29, 2010

To change or not to change

While most of us are able to recognize the right time to quit our jobs and move on to a new job, there are many questions that disturb us and keep haunting even after we start working in the new job. People often wish there was a checklist that will help them or a quitto-meter that tells that time is ripe to make the next move. While we leave these new gadgets to be developed by psychological experts, here are some pointers that will help you find out if you made the right decision.

Identify your state of mind. You think that it is clear in your mind that you are not happy with your current job or that you are too happy with your current job. But, there is something more that you need to do to know your state of mind. Indeed, there are some subtractions that you need to make to your inference.

First, subtract the industry trend from your state of mind. Even if there is recession and your industry is likely to collapse, you might survive if you are happy with your job and you do well as an expert. Or, things might pick up. Understand that it would be more difficult to establish yourself in a new industry.

Second, remove inferences and others' opinions. An uncle from England might suddenly criticize your choice of job or the company. Or, a friend might brag about his company and extra perks it offers. While some of them do it with a very good intention, it might not always be to your advantage if you base your decision on their expertise. Take into consideration all the factors that make up your current job - your comfort zone, your skill set, and your personal and financial status and requirements. Assess your happiness with respect to all these factors and estimate the impact of change on all these factors. Thus, you will be able to appreciate your current situation and the opportunities available to you in a fair manner.

Then, remove other people's feelings. Now that most of your colleagues want to quit the job should not necessarily motivate you also to do so. Analyze the various factors at your current job such as performance, pay, team dynamics, and growth prospects for your role to identify if it is time fo you to explore other opportunities.

Finally, never lose an opportunity because of just people. If you have a wonderful team at your present company, while all other factors are not promising, you might as well decide to move on. Remember that you can remain friends with the people despite the changes. Likewise, you can always come across good people and build new relationships. Hence, you need to focus on your needs and wants while taking the decision.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Work Out of the Box

Manage. Prioritize. Strategize. Plan. Execute. If you find these words troublesome, it is time to rethink the way you look at work. It is not just enough to think out of the box. You need to work out of the box. You need to realign your view of work and life. Here are some interesting ideas that help you do this. Well, you can manage your work on the basis of time, urgency, or magnitude of work. However, this article focuses on other ideas that help you in managing and does not describe any of the above methods of time and work management.

Break your work into sub-tasks. You must have heard it umpteen times already to break your tasks into sub-tasks. However, the catch here is that you must also classify the sub-tasks into two categories - tasks that you like to do immediately, and tasks that you prefer to delay.


Do what you like, first. This might not always be feasible to do. If you begin doing things that you like, you tend to get into the working and accomplishment mode and start completing things. Hence, it is always better to start your day or your session with tasks that you like to do.


Like whatever you do, next. The idea stated before does not necessarily mean that you should keep delaying the other tasks that you dislike. You must, instead, develop a knack for liking all tasks that yield good results for you. There are different reasons for disliking tasks - they might be tedious, boring, or associated with uninteresting people. Sometimes, you might not be in the right frame of mind to do certain tasks. You need to identify the reason as to why you dislike each task and work upon it individually. Avoid mixing tasks and your impressions regarding the tasks. This is similar to the way in which people mix different events and start blaming their lives and get into depression cycles. Hence, it is always better to single out tasks that you do not like and deal with each one individually.


Focus on the results. If there are tasks that do not yield favorable results, identify the reasons for the failure. Either you are not well-equipped to handle them or you not inclined to handle such tasks. You have to train yourself well for the former situation. In the case of latter situation, you must find better ways to execute the task or find ways to delegate it to others. You might also need to work with better associations in some cases. More often, we dislike tasks when we need to interact with unpleasant people. The significant reason behind such a dislike is the ignorance towards developing better relations with people. If you master that art, there is no looking back in the execution of people-dependant tasks.


Do things differently. Break the regular pattern. Experiment. It is easier to change the steps in a process when you have the time. Thus, you might come up with better ideas. Discuss with team mates. Brainstorm. Share new ideas. Conduct further research. Dig deeper into the process cycles. Spend some amount of time everyday to identify ways to do things differently. You will be surprised at the outcome. Well, it is not just about top management and leaders to come up with ideas. Most ideas come from the frontline staff who work day in and day out.


Do different things. Break the monotony. If you have been doing the same job for a long time, take a break. Do something else that interests you. Do some new tasks. Meet new people. Develop new ideas. It does not mean that you start singing loud at work. It means that you do something very different from your regular routine. It gives you the necessary respite. If your job is to write code for software every day, try painting or photography for a day. Today, make a list of all interesting things that you have not done in your life. Start doing these things once in a while and remove items from the list. Such a list will also broaden your perspective. You will also appreciate the importance of taking vacation frequently to rejuvenate your spirits and keep your creative juices flowing.