Introduction of good habits in your daily life is the first step to improve productivity. Habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated frequently, and tends to occur unconsciously. Bad habits intrude your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. Breaking any habit can be difficult. For instance, if a person smokes regularly, it becomes his habit and even if he wants to quit, it becomes difficult for him to give-up. Psychologist and philosopher William James proclaimed that the entire life is nothing but a series of habits that we form repeatedly. The power of habit has been explained by various authors, world leaders and motivational speakers. One of the famous Authors, Stephen R. Covey, wrote a book titled “The 7 Habits of successful People” describing an approach to being effective in realizing your goals. One can create excellence in big things, by developing good habits even in small matters. Keeping the desk clean, using mobile with discretion, removing the clutter from your mind, etc. All these can be practiced again and again easily. When you instill these habits into your life, you create the foundation for achieving your goals. Here are 8 Habits of highly productive people that you may adopt to get the best out of you!!
1.Form a habit to ruthlessly cut away the unimportant
That’s right. Try to focus only on the important things, and cut away everything that’s unimportant. There is no point doing something that is not needed for the desired results. So push yourself to quit wasting time, and bring yourself back to the production mode. Ensure that you do it everyday to experience the power of good habits.
2.Allocate breaks strategically
Productivity declines over time without taking brakes. Take many small breaks during the day. The rule of thumb would be to take a 5 to 10 minutes break every 2 hours of work. Breaks are a highly effective way to boosting your productivity. Importance of good habits needs to be experienced by putting them into practice.
3.Importance of habit information.
It’s necessary to understand your habits. Things that limit your productivity must be thrown out. It can be the loud music you listen to when you work, your phone calls, alerts from your inbox, your slow computer, the internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These things trap you and prevent you from getting things done.
4.Advantages of good habits need to be counted .That will inspire you.
No matter what field you’re in, your inspiration is the key to your output. So, channel your inner muse. Keep on thinking and contemplating the things that motivates you. And definitely you will find that your focus increases thereby up surging your productivity.
5.How to practice good habits?
You may have defined good habits that you want to develop. But how to do that and more importantly how to practice these good habits on daily basis needs your urgent and consistent attention .Don’t make yourself too accessible. If you’re too accessible, then you will face a lot of interruptions. Nowadays, people can connect with others very easily- with the touch of button (text, emails, calls, etc.). Therefore, guard your time to improve your productivity.
6.Optimize time pockets
Make the best of every minute. For instance, if you’re working for 10 minutes, ensure that you achieve maximum outcomes in those 10 minutes and then you can take time off. You usually get time pockets while waiting for people, commuting, chess app, reading books, or planning.
7.Set time limit for all your project.
Unless you do a thing in time, it may loose its significance all together .Delay is most damaging. Be clear on what you want to achieve, and then set your timelines for them. When you set timelines, you commit to yourself to complete the work on time, hence, paving the way for the reality to manifest.
8.Automate everything possible
Technology today has made automation possible for a lot of things we do. Hence, find a way to automate every task and let it be your habit. If you outsource, delegate. Delegation and automation wherever possible will enhance your productivity. By no means, this is a complete list. But as you focus on improving productivity by adopting good habits you will be inspired to adopt more such habits which are particularly useful to you.
Sometime ago, we had a very useful discussion regarding managing CHANGE in life. The subject was how to inculcate good habits and how to ward off, the bad ones. Each participant was advised to identify 10 good habits of their friends, colleagues or of family members which each wanted to imbibe in their own personality. At the same time they were also asked to identify 5 bad habits of their own which each wanted to give up. Besides, what efforts have been made so far to give up the bad habits were also to be explained? Since it was a Speech Training Session, the participants were supposed to detail clearly each point with examples. These examples could be chosen from their own lives or those of others known to them. A heartwarming open and interesting discussion led to a number of conclusions. First of all it’s necessary to understand how habits work. A habit is a kind of repetitive behavior for which you don’t think. You don’t have to apply your mind to check up anything before you take action. Let’s examine with some examples. If you wake up at a particular time, you don’t need any alarm to remind you. Taking bath and getting ready is also done as a matter of habit. If you were to check the time you take for getting ready everyday it will be more or less the same. Taking your breakfast fast is also a habit which need consistent efforts to bring about the desired change.
Does it mean that we cannot change our habit/habits which we want to change? No, it doesn’t. We certainly can with required will and efforts. However some habits can be changed by one’s own efforts, whereas some others require professional help. But in both the situations one needs to adopt a systematic approach. First of all we must state clearly what new habit we want to adopt. It’s always better to write in your journal in clear terms. For example, if you have wanted to go for a morning walk but habitually you get up late, you can change this habit. After writing in your journal about your decision to start doing for a morning walk regularly you must fix up the date for starting. The first few days you may have to use the alarm which will wake you up at a particular time. It’s necessary not to laze around after the alarm. Just get ready and go for a walk. It is said that it is normally take 21 days to form a habit. Now I give another example. If you suffer from stage fright and you cannot speak to a group by standing up, you need a professional help. You also require a firm determination that you will overcome the stage fright because it is impeding your progress. Further, you must carefully select the professional. It is like going to the right doctor for getting the ailment eliminated. With appropriate efforts and continuous practice one can definitely overcome the bane of stage fright. In today’s environment, it is necessary. In colleges you have to give presentations, and wherever you work, once you are in a senior position, you need to give presentations to your bosses.
Even if you are an entrepreneur and doing your own business, you need to motivate your staff and for this also you need great confidence. Besides, you must not have any fear of facing the people from the stage.
Five Ways to Break 10 Bad Habits
Nearly everyone has a
bad habit that they should break. Some people have less than others and some
people’s bad habits are more grating than those of others. Bad habits
like excessive drinking, smoking, biting the fingernails, etc., starts slowly
and gradually. They jeopardise your health — both physically and mentally
thereby wasting your time and energy.
Bad habits are hard to give up, they are like a comfortable bed, easy to get
into, but hard to get out off. However, you can achieve anything with the
right amount of willpower and a realistic plan of action. With persistence and
right mind-sets, it’s possible to break your bad habits.
Here are some ideas for breaking your bad habits
1. Change one thing at a time
It is most important that you don’t try to break all your bad habits, at once.
You’re not a superhuman and trying to quit all your bad habits at the same time
is probably going to be hard to achieve. Instead, prioritise and choose the
habit that you need to change most urgently and then focus on that accordingly. 2.Prepare for weak moments
A positive mindset is significant but if you’re not prepared for those weak
moments this can be a biggest mistake. Try to remove temptations as that can
help you prepare for those weak moments. For instance, clear the cupboards of
junk food, keep some distance from friends who encourage you to smoke/ drink
and avoid stressful situations. 3.Set regular reminders
Bad habits are often so deeply ingrained in us that sometimes they can catch us
unexpectedly. To help prevent those accidental slip-ups, try setting yourself
regular reminders to resist those bag habits. 4.Reward your success
The key to breaking bad habits is to make the process as rewarding and
enjoyable, as possible. If you are facing difficulty focusing on the long-term
benefits of breaking bad habits, then arrange small rewards for yourself as you
go along to help keep you motivated.
5.Remind yourself why you’re breaking those habits
In order to successfully break a bad habit, you have to be sure of your reason
for breaking those habits. Find a solid reason for breaking your habit that
really means something to you – such as improving your health, relationship or
appearance – and keep your goal in sight. This will help you to carry on and
stay strong in moments of weakness.
Power
of Good Habits!!
As described above, habit
is a routine of behavior that is repeated frequently, and tends to occur
unconsciously. Bad habits intrude your life and prevent you from accomplishing
your goals. Breaking any habit can be difficult. For instance, if a
person smokes regularly, it becomes his habit and even if he wants to quit, it
becomes difficult for him to give-up.
Psychologist and philosopher William James proclaimed that the entire life is
nothing but a series of habits that we form repeatedly. The power of habit has
been explained by various authors, world leaders and motivational
speakers. One of the famous Authors, Stephen R. Covey, wrote a book
titled “The 7 Habits of successful People” describing an approach to being
effective in realizing your goals.
One can create excellence in big things, by developing good habits even in
small matters. Keeping the desk clean, using mobile with discretion, removing
the clutter from your mind, etc. All these can be practiced again and
again easily. When you instill these habits into your life, you create the
foundation for achieving your goals.
Here are 8 Habits of highly productive people that you may adopt to get the
best out of you!!
1.Ruthlessly cut
away the unimportant
That’s right. Try to
focus only on the important things, and cut away everything that’s unimportant.
There is no point doing something that is not needed for the desired results.
So push yourself to quit wasting time, and bring yourself back to the production
mode.
2.Allocate breaks
strategically
Productivity declines
over time without taking brakes. Take many small breaks during the day. The
rule of thumb would be to take a 5 to 10 minutes break every 2 hours of work.
Breaks are a highly effective way to boosting your productivity.
3.Remove
productivity pitfalls
Things that limit your
productivity must be thrown out. It can be the loud music you listen to
when you work, your phone calls, alerts from your inbox, your slow computer,
the internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These things trap you and
prevent you from getting things done.
4.Tap into your
inspiration
No matter what field
you’re in, your inspiration is the key to your output. So, channel your inner
muse. Keep on thinking and contemplating the things that motivates you. And
definitely you will find that your focus increases thereby up surging your
productivity.
5.Create barriers to
entry
Don’t make yourself
too accessible. If you’re too accessible, then you will face a lot of
interruptions. Nowadays, people can connect with others very easily- with the
touch of button (text, emails, calls, etc.). Therefore, guard your time to
improve your productivity.
6.Optimise time
pockets
Make the best of every
minute. For instance, if you’re working for 10 minutes, ensure that you achieve
maximum outcomes in those 10 minutes and then you can take time off. You
usually get time pockets while waiting for people, commuting, chess app,
reading books, or planning.
7.Set timelines
Be clear on what you
want to achieve, and then set your timelines for them. When you set timelines,
you commit to yourself to complete the work on time, hence, paving the way for
the reality to manifest.
8.Automate
everything possible
Technology today has
made automation possible for a lot of things we do. Hence, find a
way to automate every task and let it be your habit. If you outsource,
delegate. Delegation and automation wherever possible will enhance your
productivity.
By no means, this is a complete list. But as you focus on improving
productivity by adopting good habits you will be inspired to adopt more such
habits which are particularly useful to you.
Thanks for reading.
Social media is a phrase that we throw around a lot these days, often to describe what we post on sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others.
But if we use the term to describe a site like Facebook, and also a site like Digg, plus a site like Wikipedia, and even a site like I Can Has Cheezburger, then it starts to get more confusing. Just what is social media anyway?
The term is used so vague that it can basically be used to describe almost any website on the internet today.
Or maybe not. Some people have more of a restricted view of social media, often equating it to mean the same as social networking (a.k.a. Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Other people don’t consider blogs to fall under the social media category.
So, What Is Social Media?
Rather than define the term using a bunch of boring jargon that would probably only complicate things further, perhaps the best way to get a clearer understanding of it is to break it down into simpler terms. To start, let’s look at each word individually.
The “social” part:
refers to interacting with other people by sharing information with them and receiving information from them.
The “media” part:
refers to an instrument of communication, like the internet (while TV, radio, and newspapers are examples of more traditional forms of media).
Okay, so from these two separate terms, we can pull a basic definition together:
Social media are web-based communication tools that enable people to interact with each other by both sharing and consuming information.
Yes, it’s a broad definition – but keep in mind that social media is a very broad term. This is likely as specific as we can get without zeroing in too much on a more specific subcategory of social media.
2. Common Social Media Features
The following list of common features are dead giveaways of a social media site.
If you’re questioning whether a particular site could be classified as social or not, try looking for at least one of these features.
User accounts:
If a site allows visitors to create their own accounts that they can log into, then that’s a good sign there’s going to be social interaction. You can’t really share information or interact with others online without doing it through a user account.
Profile pages:
Since social media is all about communication, a profile page is often necessary to represent an individual. It often includes information about the individual user, like a profile photo, bio, website, feed of recent posts, recommendations, recent activity and more.
Friends, followers, groups, hashtags and so on:
Individuals use their accounts to connect with other users. They can also use them to subscribe to certain forms of information.
News feeds:
When users connect with other users on social media, they’re basically saying, “I want to get information from these people.” That information is updated for them in real-time via their news feed.
Personalization:
Social media sites usually give users the flexibility to configure their user settings, customize their profiles to look a specific way, organize their friends or followers, manage the information they see in their news feeds and even give feedback on what they do or don’t want to see.
Notifications:
Any site or app that notifies users about specific information is definitely playing the social media game. Users have total control over these notifications and can choose to receive the types of notifications that they want.
Information updating, saving or posting:
If a site or an app allows you to post absolutely anything, with or without a user account, then it’s social! It could be a simple text-based message, a photo upload, a YouTube video, a link to an article or anything else.
Like buttons and comment sections:
Two of the most common ways we interact on social media are via buttons that represent a “like” plus comment sections where we can share our thoughts.
Review, rating or voting systems:
Besides liking and commenting, lots of social media sites and apps rely on the collective effort of the community to review, rate and vote on information that they know about or have used. Think of your favorite shopping sites or movie review sites that use this social media feature.
3. What’s the Difference Between Social Media and Social Networking?
As mentioned earlier, a lot of people user the terms social media and social networking interchangeably as if they mean the exact same thing. Although the difference is subtle, they’re not the same. Social networking is really a subcategory of social media.
The easiest way to understand the difference between social media and social networking is by thinking about the terms “media” and “networking” separately. Media refers to the information you’re actually sharing–whether it’s a link to an article, a video, an animated GIF, a PDF document, a simple status update or anything else.
Networking, on the other hand, has to do with who your audience is and the relationships you have with them. Your network can include people like friends, relatives, colleagues, anyone from your past, current customers, mentors and even complete strangers.
They certainly overlap, which is why it gets confusing. For example, you can share media with your social network to gather likes and comments–a form of social networking. But you can also just upvote a link on Reddit, which is a social media platform, to help out the community and give your say in the matter without any intention of building relationships with other users.
Still confused? Try to think of social media like fruit. Apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, berries, melons and pineapples are all part of the broader fruit category the same way that social networking, social news, social bookmarking, wikis, blogs and private web messaging are part of the broader social media category.
4. Are Traditional Media Also Social Media?
Traditional media was mentioned earlier on in this article just to demonstrate broader examples of media, but don’t be fooled into thinking that TV, radio, and newspapers are a part of social media. At least not quite yet entirely. The line drawn between the two is slowly thinning as each continues to evolve.
Social media doesn’t just give you information but interacts with you while giving you that information. This interaction can be as simple as asking for your comments or letting you vote on an article, or it can be as complex as Flixster recommending movies to you based on the ratings of other people with similar interests.
Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give your thoughts on the matter. Social media, on the other hand, is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too.
5. What Are Some of the Known Issues With Social Media?
Social media isn’t all just fun and games with your friends, celebrities you admire, and brands you follow. There are lots of common problems that most major social media platforms haven’t totally solved, despite their effort to do so.
Spam:
Social media makes it easy for spammers – both real people and bots – to bombard other people with content. If you have a Twitter account, you’ve probably experienced a few spambot follows or interactions. Likewise, if you run a WordPress blog, you may have gotten a spam comment or two caught by your spam filter.
Cyberbullying/Cyberstalking:
Children and teenagers are especially susceptible to cyberbullying because they take more risks when it comes to posting on social media. And now that we all interact on social media via our mobile devices, most major platforms make it possible to share our locations, opening up the doors for cyberstalkers to target us.
Self-image manipulation:
What a user posts about themselves on social media only represents a small portion of their life. While followers may see someone who’s happy and living it up via their posts on social media in such a way that makes them feel boring or inadequate by comparison, the truth is that users have the power to completely control what parts they do and don’t want to broadcast on social media to manipulate their own self-image.
Information overload:
It’s not unusual to have over 200 Facebook friends or follow over 1,000 Twitter accounts. With so many accounts to follow and so many people posting new content, it’s almost impossible to keep up.
Fakes new websites promote links to their own totally false news stories on social media in order to drive traffic to them. Many users have no idea that they’re fake in the first place.
Privacy/Security:
Many social media platforms still get hacked from time to time despite having good security measures in place. Some also don’t offer all the privacy options that users need to keep their information as private as they want them to be.
6. What Does the Future Hold for Social Media?
It’s difficult to predict anything exactly, but if one thing can be said about the future of social media, it will probably be more personalized and less noisy. Over-sharing will be less of a problem and filtering out irrelevant information will become a stronger trend.
Snapchat is a social media platform that’s really at the forefront of social media evolution. Rather than blasting out updates for all our friends and followers to see, we use Snapchat more like we communicate in real life – with specific people only at specific times.
If anything, social media is probably about to move more toward ephemeral sharing for quicker, more intimate sharing without the stress of having to blast something out to hundreds or thousands of followers that stays up there unless it’s manually deleted. Instagram has already made the move toward ephemeral content sharing with its Snapchat-like stories feature, so maybe more platforms will be soon to follow.
India’s software services sector is bracing for the consequences of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, which include the restrictions on so-called H-1B visas. Having won the presidency on the promise of protecting US jobs and against moving work offshore, Trump through his reforms restricted the flow of immigrants and temporary labourers into the US workforce.
H-1B visa is an employment-based, non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupation. Indian IT firms and H-1B visa aspirants will be badly affected due to changes proposed by the Trump administration. However, this reform doesn’t affect the Indians, settled in America who therefore being an American citizen enjoy all the benefits.
The American authorities have raised the minimum salary from 60,000 USD to 130,000 USD per annum with additional restrictions on the employer. And therefore, doubling of the minimum wage applies to “visa dependent employers” who send the workers for a short period say 1 or 2 years from India. Thus, Indian companies have to send those people who are really worth the minimum wages.
An opportunity to “work onsite” and “earn in dollars” has been a big lure for Indian Techies. But the Americans want only those specialized US workers to occupy those high-skilled technology works and the remaining jobs to be filled by local Americans. However, there is nothing to worry about because the local American cannot become excellent techies overnight.
The US government have received about 250,000 applications for H-1B visas – with a majority of them being from Indian companies. Of nearly 85000 H-1B visas granted in 2015, 55900 visas were issued to engineers, designers, coders and others from India. This shows that the majority of tech worker in America are indeed no doubt Indians.
The new bill introduced by trump in the US House of Representative, made it difficult for the firms to grant H-1B visa as it is quite expensive. Furthermore, nearly half of the techies are actually working in India on the American projects. And therefore the problem is not the visa or the immigration laws. The exact problem lies on the shortage of appropriate manipulative skills which can take the country, workforce and economy from traditional one to a digital world. Key Points on how the new bill on H1-B visas can impact Indians:
India’s IT industry will face short-term challenges
The reform will affect the profits of Indian IT companies in US. Because the new H-1B Reform Bill has doubled the minimum wage requirement of H1-B visa holders from $60,000 to $130,000. This change could turn into a major catastrophe for Indian companies and workers, as it would make it financially unviable for Indian workers to be hired in the US. This automatically negates one of the biggest reason for hiring Indian workers – the availability of cheap labour.
Indian tech workers may face uncertain future
Due to the new reforms, Indian IT companies will not be able to send local engineers to work in US, for a very high salary. With the new mandated levels, Indian workers must be paid more than the American workers, making them a costly proposition. Moreover, it will be difficult to get them back home and make them work for the same salary. Even when they tend to work– they will feel more dissatisfied.
Results in higher operational costs for the Indian outsourcing industry
Changes in the H1-B visa arrangement will add immense cost pressures on IT firms. IT companies in India that enjoy significant cost advantages by sending Indian engineers to the US for a lower salary, are likely to be affected. H-1B programme was initiated on premise to complement America’s high-skilled workforce, but not replace it. Unfortunately, many companies are trying to exploit the programmes by cutting American workers for cheaper labour.
Will affect Small Companies to a large extend
The restrictions on H1-B visas, is most likely to affect small firms more than large outsourcing firm. Since the process is expensive, small companies do not even dare to apply for these kinds of Visa. Though the start-ups and emerging companies dare to innovate and progress, because of the high expense of acquiring the H1-B visa, the smaller companies tend to step back.
Unlike other countries like America, France, etc., there is no provision for start-up visa and thus, the companies daring to do something new can enjoy these benefits. India’s one of the biggest outsourcing industry, Information Technology contributes around 9.5% to the country’s GDP and employs nearly 3.7 million professionals. And due to unfavourable developments in key markets, the industry faces difficulties on home-ground because of higher Operational Costs.
The US government allows upto 85,000 new H-1B visas each year but the demand is usually higher than the supply. NASSCOM, the industry body for software and services companies is planning to send a delegation to the United States to negotiate and discuss on these issues. Meanwhile, India discussed several issues, including the proposed restrictions on H1-B visa with the US lawmakers. The negotiators have to find an effective solution that does not hurt our economy, technical department and Indian IT companies.
Many social media companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, etc. have emerged to be successful in a very short span of time. Companies are automating jobs and seeking innovative technology to remain competitive. This kind of innovation has to be inculcated even in Indian Companies. Consequently, India has to inject the culture of innovation.
Thanks for reading.
What is habit?
Habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated frequently, and tends to occur unconsciously. Bad habits intrude your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. Breaking any habit can be difficult. For instance, if a person smokes regularly, it becomes his habit and even if he wants to quit, it becomes difficult for him to give-up.
Psychologist and philosopher William James proclaimed that the entire life is nothing but a series of habits that we form repeatedly. The power of habit has been explained by various authors, world leaders and motivational speakers. One of the famous Authors, Stephen R. Covey, wrote a book titled “The 7 Habits of successful People” describing an approach to being effective in realizing your goals.
One can create excellence in big things, by developing good habits even in small matters. Keeping the desk clean, using mobile with discretion, removing the clutter from your mind, etc. All these can be practiced again and again easily. When you instill these habits into your life, you create the foundation for achieving your goals.
Here are 8 Habits of highly productive people that you may adopt to get the best out of you!!
Ruthlessly cut away the unimportant
That’s right. Try to focus only on the important things, and cut away everything that’s unimportant. There is no point doing something that is not needed for the desired results. So push yourself to quit wasting time, and bring yourself back to the production mode.
Allocate breaks strategically
Productivity declines over time without taking brakes. Take many small breaks during the day. The rule of thumb would be to take a 5 to 10 minutes break every 2 hours of work. Breaks are a highly effective way to boosting your productivity.
Remove productivity pitfalls
Things that limit your productivity must be thrown out. It can be the loud music you listen to when you work, your phone calls, alerts from your inbox, your slow computer, the internet, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. These things trap you and prevent you from getting things done.
Tap into your inspiration
No matter what field you’re in, your inspiration is the key to your output. So, channel your inner muse. Keep on thinking and contemplating the things that motivates you. And definitely you will find that your focus increases thereby up surging your productivity.
Create barriers to entry
Don’t make yourself too accessible. If you’re too accessible, then you will face a lot of interruptions. Nowadays, people can connect with others very easily- with the touch of button (text, emails, calls, etc.). Therefore, guard your time to improve your productivity.
Optimize time pockets
Make the best of every minute. For instance, if you’re working for 10 minutes, ensure that you achieve maximum outcomes in those 10 minutes and then you can take time off. You usually get time pockets while waiting for people, commuting, chess app, reading books, or planning.
Set timelines
Be clear on what you want to achieve, and then set your timelines for them. When you set timelines, you commit to yourself to complete the work on time, hence, paving the way for the reality to manifest.
Automate everything possible
Technology today has made automation possible for a lot of things we do. Hence, find a way to automate every task and let it be your habit. If you outsource, delegate. Delegation and automation wherever possible will enhance your productivity.
By no means, this is a complete list. But as you focus on improving productivity by adopting good habits you will be inspired to adopt more such habits which are particularly useful to you.
Thanks for reading.
