Thinking time

Fear, Human Brain, possibility thinking, Thinking, Worry

Inspite of having so many productivity tools, we are so busy these days that we are not able to take out time to think.

Over the years, I have been sharing how I have tried to regain some of my life by eliminating apps from my mobile phone and tablet, so that they don’t interrupt me. That has definitely helped me regain at least about an hour, but given the amount of travel we have to do, its still a small piece.

Even on weekends, we have chores to run and family and friends to meet and interact with, which eats up time. Now we need to do all these things, because they help us get away from being caught up in our mental rut.

If you can somehow plan out your week, month, year in advance to cover 60% of what you want to achieve and leave 40% slack for unexpected situations, then you can genuinely achieve a lot. But if you have not got time to think, then you can’t plan.

So figure out ways to carve out at least 50 min in a week, in one stretch, when you will plan of the next set of activities. Once you do that, you get a lot of clarity on the next steps you have to take. To give an example, I have been thinking on ways of how I can increase my passive income. However it was always something to do. Today morning I took out about 40 minutes of time to just think of ways, because this was causing me a lot of insecurity. Finally I figured out an action plan, which I will need to put in place from tomorrow.

Now that it’s moved from your brain to the paper for execution, the brain is relieved that it no longer has to bother about protecting me and therefore my fear and insecurity has fallen. Tomorrow onwards, I will just need to ensure that I ticking off the points that we have identified.

Once the brain knows you have an action plan, it stops showing resistance and throwing up all the disaster scenarios.

Take time out for just thinking – put on some soothing music and let your brain dump out all the points it has and then figure out an action plan. This will also showcase possibilities that don’t come up when you are in the transaction mode.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The ability of your brain to give you the niggling feeling

Fear, Focus, Human Brain, Thinking, Worry

I am writing after a long time related to the brain functioning. This comes from he fact that I get to hear a lot of times and I am also a culprit sometimes, that I end up saying – “I did not have the time”. Or even if you don’t say it in the open, you are overwhelmed and always under pressure because you have so many things on your plate.

A lot of this whole situation arises because we are being reactive to our circumstances. Whether its the email which comes in – complaining about a problem or a phone call giving us a new requirement or even just a person interrupting us, asking if we have a minute. Suddenly you get pulled one after another into tasks that were not planned for the day. I have had the habit of keeping a To-Do list for many years, but by reacting to all these interruptions, the To-Dos only kept growing longer.

Now to top that when I try to switch off my phone or switch off my email, I have this constant fear, a niggling feeling, that there’s a disaster waiting to happen on the other side . Now my brain is designed to ensure my survival, so it will always keep warning me about impending danger. So what happens, its even more difficult to concentrate on a task. This happens because of the Zeigarnik effect and the lizard brain which still resides inside us.

One thing which I learnt from Dean Jackson is to do a brain dump for a concentrated 50 minutes, from time to time. I have mentioned this earlier also – please watch his YouTube video on the Fifty minute focus finder. Its an amazing detailing on how you can become more productive. I keep going back to that video from time to time and each time I watch it, I learn something new to make me less reactive.

This brain dump does help the brain become a little more restive, because it realises that I have put out the things on paper so I will execute on it. Its a very relieving exercise. But you need to do it without any kind of distraction.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Your brain could be holding you from succeeding

Affirmative action, Fear, Human Brain, Thinking, Worry

I have this terrific ability to overthink. Over the years I have tried to get better by realising that my brain is going into rumination and bring it back into the present.

Actually because our brain is designed for survival as its basic function, it wants to conserve energy. Since it tries to conserve energy it gives you resistance to anything where it believes that it will need to do work.

So I used to and even now, many a times, create scenarios in my brain. I get an insight, a new idea….then my brain thinks “work” and it starts showing me all the different consequences. How it can fail, how I will not get any more such work etc. My brain also reminds me of all the previous experiments where things didn’t go as per plan so that I don’t go ahead with my idea and it does not have to perform work. It tries to install fear.

Have you also faced this kind of a situation with your brain throwing up various scenarios and getting you tense or worked-up.

So what I have started doing everyday, is identifying one activity which is giving me resistance. Once I identify it, I then go out and take one action step. Once I have taken this affirmative action, I get real world feedback. Somethings work out and some don’t. When things don’t, I try to figure out the possible course correction.

If things work out then my brain gets relaxed that there’s no danger and it starts supporting my next steps.Nobody knows the future. We only have the NOW. If there’s nothing else that you have clear about the problem you are facing, start with the first step in trying to solve the problem and then see how things work out.

I would love to hear your comments – if your brain also plays games with you and shows you all these dangerous scenarios.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Analytics, causation and human evolution

books, Brain size, Evolution, Human Brain, Thinking

About a month back I was giving a training to our team on Analytics and what could be the uses for customers. During that training I spent a lot of time on how Analytics can be used to do correlation and also causation. These are 2 concepts which a lot of people mix up. So I spent a lot of time on that, clarifying doubts.

Today I was reading the book “Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil” by Kenneth Cukier, Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, Francis de Vericourt.

I am right now in the first half of the book. There’s a specific chapter on causation.

If you have been following my blog, you would notice that I have been interested in understanding why humans succeeded in advancing so much while the whole animal kingdom and other living beings are where they were millions of years back. Zebras thousands of years back still had the same stripes and ate grass as they do now. But humans moved from stones to weapons to flying and all kinds of other advancements.

I already believed that because the real estate for the development of the human brain was much larger than other animals , it gave our brain more capabilities to evolve physically. The second reason in my opinion was the motor mechanism where we have the concept of grip which helped us to hold things and also walk on 2 limbs rather than four.

One of the things that the authors are suggesting is the fact that humans had two key skills which the other animals did not. One was the ability to see causation and the other were social skills. With causation they were able to think about how the same causes could be caused to have the same effects while with social skills they could ask for help and collaborate.

While some animals do live in colonies, they don’t seem to seek help for achieving tasks. On the other hand even if you were to put 2-3 kids who don’t know each other into a room, you will soon find that they are playing with each other trying to help each other.

As I read further I will see if they have more information on this subject. But for me , now if I have to give another training on Analytics and its uses, I will have some more content to talk about on how causation has helped humans evolve.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!