Eaglezview

In this post, I list a few of the critical take backs for me in the last two and a half years of working in the IT industry; they are generic and can’t be restricted to the IT industry. I think they apply to all industries.

• Only the crying baby gets milk!

Unless you voice your opinion, your colleagues, especially your boss will tend to think that you are comfortable in your current position although in reality it may not be so.

• A batsman’s statistics speak as much about him as his current form!

Your bosses will repeatedly tell you not to talk about your past experiences within and outside the team or organization; they might reinforce that it is not relevant to the current situation or discussion. During such moments it is imperative that you remember and bring out the essence of the adage – a batsman’s past speaks as much about him as his current form.

• If you don’t know the Prime minister, know somebody who does!

Build your network. Like a professor from the INSEAD school in France said in a research paper, it pays to build your network. Operational network needs no special attention as it is built while we perform our day to day chores. Social network may need us to spend more time outside of our work. The third kind of network labeled as the strategic network is all about building relationships outside of your team in your work environment. This is a weak an unattended area of many managers. Remember the above credo to help you mend this.

• Put it in black and white – grey cells don’t matter when grey areas crop up!

Be precise and concise. Ask if you don’t understand. It is better to look stupid asking a question before hand as compared to cutting a sorry face at a later stage.

• Watch your back as much as you look forward 

Always plan a back up course of action. Be adventurous but don’t goof up.

• Keep your eyes and ears open           

Be all attentive, all the time; you don’t know what information may be handy.

If someone where to put the question, “What is the best time of the day?” to me, I would invariably say Morning.For most people, morning is the time to relish the laziness by lying half awake(or rather half asleep) in the bed. Surprisingly, I am out of the bed the moment I am awake. Intriguing for me is the fact that if I wake up blank, without knowing what I am going to do for a better part of the day, then my day is doomed to be dull and gloomy. I need to have some activity planned ready! Sometimes it is difficult when I don’t plan my day.To get over this fuzziness, I did devise a way, though. Run early in the morning. I enjoyed my morning runs at Nehru Nagar. In fact, I was one of the two or three regular early morning joggers on campus. It gave me a feeling of having done something useful early in the day. Now I have to leave early from home in an attempt to beat the traffic. Yet, I  invariably spend 2 hours on the roads on my way to the office. I hardly manage to get time for a run.

I guess like me all of us have their own specific times of peaking in a day. Some of us get into high gear by 3 or 4 pm and then work till 8 or 9 pm. Quite a few are like me, they accomplish more during the forenoon hours. I think we should find what time suits us best and try and complete the most arduous tasks in those hours. This simple trick could help us reduce a lot of our stress and accomplish more.