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Don’t stay busy to escape reality
Believe it or not, hard work can be counterproductive. And staying busy can be like morphine -- it numbs the pain of not knowing what to do in life or career. When we want to escape that pain of feeling lost, doing inconsequential things is very...
Recent Posts
Rethinking Instant Response Culture
Employees responding instantly to your Slack messages is a fantastic thing. Just as the Rolls Royce is a fantastic car. There is only one problem --...
Completion Discipline
I am struggling. In fact, in my startup life, I have always struggled -- there is just too much to do and too little time. And to make things worse,...
25-Minute Focus: Feasible or Myth?
My friend Vinod Thomas recently told me that while I keep talking about doing 25-minute focus sprints (pomodoros), even focusing intensely for 5...
Quit the Noise, Embrace Zen
Your sanity is under threat from the zillion WhatsApp groups that everyone seems to be a part of. These WhatsApp groups are for all and sundry --...
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Rethinking the Billionaire Race
A while ago, I was talking to a friend who once led a top-tier Indian university. One day, a psychologically distressed student came to him and somberly said, "I am 25. At my age, Mark Zuckerberg was already a billionaire. And what have I achieved?...
Here’s how you break bad habits
Yesterday, I asked my colleagues -- "Which app do you find most distracting or addicted to?" And I heard a surprising answer: Swiggy. One team member candidly admitted that around 12:30 pm, when the Swiggy offers start pouring in, she can't help...
Goal-Driven Focus
If you want to have unwavering focus but have struggled to achieve it, this Buddhist story has an answer. Once a king gave one of his subjects a challenge. He said, "You have to walk around the palace carrying a bucket full of hot oil on your head,...
Bird by Bird
When you are overwhelmed, what do you do? Read this quote from Anne Lamott's book 'Bird by Bird.' "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to...