Discipline

Lilies and Leeches

November 14, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Lilies and Leeches: Surround Yourself with Those Who Elevate You You may have heard of the notion of lilies and leeches. The lilies are the people—and situations—that bring out the best in you. The leeches just grind you down.

Learn to say ‘no’ to relationships or situations that don’t work for you. Life’s too short to waste time on anything that can suck your happiness and energy. Avoid those emotional leeches, productivity leeches, and financial leeches.

Idea for Impact: A little-cited key to a rewarding life: choose to surround yourself with those who elevate you. With those who are caring, supportive, and nonjudgmental, and who make you feel loved, appreciated, and respected.

3 Ways to … Eat Healthy

October 19, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Mindful eating for wellbeing isn’t just about what foods to eat but also about establishing and maintaining a healthy relationship with food.

Slow down and really be present while you eat. Mindful eating is best achieved when your focus is on the meal. Put your phone or book elsewhere and just focus on your food’s taste, smell, texture, and look. You’ll enjoy the food so much more when you savor it. Wolfing down your food leads to overeating because your brain doesn’t realize it’s had enough to eat.
Honor your hunger and fullness—relearn what it feels like when you’re hungry and full. Don’t overeat or eat the wrong things because your environment triggers your appetite. Change your environment, so it works for you rather than against you.
Use smaller plates. The larger the portion size, the more you’ll eat. Aim to eat healthy most of the time and allow some wiggle room. There’re no ‘bad’ foods, and identifying foods as ‘off-limits’ only makes you want them more. Practice portion control if you step off your diet for a special occasion.

Idea for Impact: Building wellness begins with really paying attention. Change behavior with simple nudges.

You Shouldn’t Force Yourself to Be a Morning Person

October 10, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Since the dawn of time, the world has venerated early birds and propagated the notion that getting up with the lark makes you healthy, wealthy, and wise. The internet is full of references to the early-to-rise habits of Tim Cook, Michelle Obama, or some celebrity du jour. Those who struggle with mornings are slandered as slothful.

Even the wiser productivity gurus often fail to acknowledge that “4 a.m. is the most productive hour” not because of some configuration of the planets or some scientific phenomenon but simply because there are fewer distractions at that hour.

Night owls, no need to force yourself into a mold that doesn’t work for you. No need to completely adjust your life and feel weary and less productive throughout the day.

Overhauling your sleep times may not have much effect. Ultimately, productivity isn’t about the time you wake up. It’s accommodating your most challenging tasks when your brain is working at its peak.

Idea for Impact: All of us are born predisposed to function better at certain times of the day. The more you understand your chronotype and adapt your work around your naturally preferred times, the more productive you’ll be. Experiment with your sleep schedule, but don’t push too far out of your natural preference. Stick with what works.

Beware the Opportunity Cost of Meditating

October 6, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Many people claim to derive substantial benefits from mediation. Experiencing the present moment can help exclude the torrent of diverse thoughts and mind-wandering.

But sometimes, meditation may not be the most prudent use of your time, especially if you’re stressed.

Disruptive thoughts emerge when you sit down to meditate. Not engaging in them can be challenging if you aren’t an experienced meditator.

Unloading your mind precludes thinking and, in turn, making progress on your issues and dilemmas. Meditation increases the sense of time starvation. After your meditation session, your troubles are still there, only that now you have lesser time to solve them. And losing time is even palpable if you attend a meditation retreat for days or weeks.

Idea for Impact: Meditation is not a substitute for action. Sometimes you could benefit more from spending that time on more active approaches to deal with whatever’s stressing them out. Try journaling, thinking through what needs to be done, withdrawing to a secluded corner for focused work, chatting with friends and colleagues, or seeking counseling. As with meditation, these actions allow you to step back from your life to take a meta-view of whatever you want. That can reduce your stress and improve your approach to problems.

Self-Care Isn’t Self-Indulgence, but Self-Preservation

September 15, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The notion of self-care has received some well-deserved backlash lately. The wellness and beauty industry has expropriated it. Self-care has also turned into a way of justifying indulgence for those lucky enough to afford it. (A last-minute holiday in Tahiti? “That’s self-care!”)

But self-care is determining who you are and your limits are—sometimes at the expense of others’ needs. Self-care means noticing when you’re doing more than you’re used to handling and assessing what you can do to slow down. Self-care is figuring out what enriches and soothes your body and mind and attempting to integrate it into your day or your week.

Self-care isn’t frivolous, selfish, or indulgent. It’s self-preservation. It’s merely doing what helps you put your physical, mental, and emotional health back in check.

Idea for Impact: You deserve self-care. You need it. Be kind to yourself and take those deliberate steps to make yourself feel better. Self-care might seem selfish, but putting your needs first actually allows you to interact with others more healthily.

How to … Overcome the Tyranny of Your To-Do List

September 5, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Long before management consultants made the humble 2×2 matrix their stock-in-trade, President Dwight D. Eisenhower used the format to create one of the most powerful productivity tools of the 20th century: take your itemized to-do list, and dichotomize all the items on their importance and urgency. Then, classify these on a 2×2 with urgency on the x-axis and importance on the y-axis. The items in each bucket warrant a different kind of response.

The urgent-and-important tasks in the ‘Do’ quadrant need doing now (e.g., call the fire brigade if your house is burning down.)
The urgent-but-not-important tasks in the ‘Delegate or Automate’ quadrant are best delegated where possible (think booking a hotel or clearing low-priority emails.)
The important-but-not-urgent tasks (strategic planning, training) in the ‘Schedule’ quadrant should take up most of your time. Eisenhower noted that truly vital yet immediate tasks are few and far between: “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” That means committing to doing the tasks you schedule. Being effective can’t happen if you keep kicking the can down the road.
The neither-important nor-urgent tasks in the ‘Eliminate’ quadrant are usually time-wasting activities and must be eliminated forthwith. They don’t move you towards achieving your goals.

De-prioritize Stuff You Shouldn’t Be Doing in the First Place

The Eisenhower Priority Matrix isn’t entirely ground-breaking. Still, it can help you recognize you can deliver yourself by knowing it’s okay not to complete them all, so long as you get the most vital ones done. The challenge lies in being able to determine what’s essential and what isn’t, as expounded tediously in Steven Covey’s First Things First (1994):

Urgent matters are those that require immediate action. These are the visible issues that pop up and demand your attention now. Often, urgent matters come with clear consequences for not completing these tasks. Urgent tasks are unavoidadable, but spending too much time putting out fires can produce a great deal of stress and could result in burnout.

Important matters, on the other hand, are those that contribute to long-term goals and life values. These items require planning and thoughtful action. When you focus on important matters you manage your time, energy, and attention rather than mindlessly expending these resources. What is important is subjective and depends on your own values and personal goals. No one else can define what is important for you.

The key to productivity is to be very selective in what you pick and execute your most important priorities. Be ready to delegate and be quick and not-to-perfection on as many things as possible. You really don’t need to give 110% on everything.

Idea for Impact: Use the Eisenhower Priority Matrix to Triage Your To-Do List

The Eisenhower method can be an indispensable weapon in your efficiency arsenal. Your life will never be the same when you internalize clarity of habits. Once you’ve been using the matrix for a while, you can realize a pattern of your own behavior. With some discipline, you can change your behaviors to ensure you’re spending more time on the ‘Schedule’ and ‘Do’ quadrants, improving your ability to plan your work.

Try taking a few minutes each day and analyze your task list. Are there things on there that you can delegate or eliminate? Are you genuinely focusing on the right tasks? It’s incredible how much more productive you can be with a bit of planning and forethought.

To Rejuvenate Your Brain, Give it a Break

August 25, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Research suggests that once you hit a “plateau of productivity,” the number of hours you work without a break is inversely proportional to how much you’ll accomplish.

Even brief escapes such as a walk in nature or a run around the block can clear your head and rejuvenate the brain. Just leave the phone behind and seek novelty (e.g., noticing something new or taking different paths.) Engage your mind with the world instead of worrying about the work you’re supposedly taking a break from.

Downtime allows the brain to refresh the specific neural network you’ve been using, make new connections, and inspire you to fresh approaches to tasks.

Idea for Impact: Intermittent escapism can be valuable. It distracts the brain from useless worry, helps generate out-of-the-box ideas, and may even restore a sense of wonder.

Novelist Neil Gaiman said it better, “People talk about escapism as if it’s a bad thing… Once you’ve escaped and come back, the world is not the same as when you left it. You return to it with skills, weapons, and knowledge you didn’t have before. Then you are better equipped to deal with your current reality.”

How to … Read More Books

August 8, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

With all of life’s distractions, here’s how to make time to read and get through more books:

Don’t make reading a chore. Read because you want to, and like to.
Become more selective. Choose topics you know you’ll enjoy—topics that have engrossed you previously.
Rather than choosing a book you haven’t read yet, reread one of the more helpful books you’ve read in the past. It usually takes multiple exposures for an idea to sink in.
Never be without a book; have one at hand wherever you are. Then, squeeze in some reading whenever you have a few minutes to spare—whether on the bus or while waiting at the dentist’s. (Charlie Munger, a voracious reader, has said, “As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.”)
Don’t feel obliged to complete everything you’ve started. The more enjoyable your read, the quicker you’ll get through it. If a book doesn’t hold your interest (“spark joy” to borrow Marie Kondo’s concept,) say, by page 50, stop reading.
Be decisive with the no-good books. Turn four pages at a time if you have to. Frequently, authors blather endlessly about studies and anecdotes of marginal relevance to the book’s premise.
Take a respectable speed-reading course to learn how to use your eyes to focus and gloss over groups of words (“chunking”) while making sure you dwell on what needs to be retained.
Make reading social. Join a book club—it’ll help you get more out of a title. Hearing other people’s interpretations—whether you agree with them—makes you think more about your own reading and synthesis.
Have a system to jot down, record, summarize, organize, and recall whatever you’ve read.

Thirst is a Late Indicator of Dehydration

July 26, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you’re feeling parched, if your mouth feels dry, your body has likely lost 1 to 2 percent of its water content already. That’s a late indicator of dehydration, particularly in older adults.

Idea for Impact: Amid the current record-breaking heat wave, don’t wait for thirst to set in. Monitor for early clues from your body telling you it needs fluids—darker-colored urine, reduced exercise performance, headache, exhaustion, wooziness, and hunger.

How to … Make a Dreaded Chore More Fun

July 7, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If everyday chores feel like a drag and you don’t have the motivation to do anything but be on your phone and laze around, consider the following actions that have most benefited my clients:

Find a friend you can talk to long-distance while you both tackle household chores. You can keep each other accountable.
Challenge yourself to beat the clock. Set a time to complete the task, and see how much ahead you can get it done.
Do “three-minute tidy” routines throughout the day. Choose a room or clutter magnet and go at it for three minutes. Sprucing up as-you-go throughout the day is more agreeable than a long list of must-dos that must be tackled at once.
Begin a dreaded chore in the morning or at the earliest you can. So the rest of the day is free for having some fun. The sooner you check off your to-do list, the more motivated you tend to feel.
Embrace the mess. It’s okay is good enough. Tolerate some clutter from time to time and excuse yourself for not getting all the chores done or having a perfect home. Think about it as a form of prioritization.

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Discipline

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De-prioritize Stuff You Shouldn’t Be Doing in the First Place

Idea for Impact: Use the Eisenhower Priority Matrix to Triage Your To-Do List

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