Most Important Things (MITs)….

You might all have read the popular story that goes like this….

A Professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the Professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The Professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The Professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the space between the grains of sand.

Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the Most important things of your life–depending on your life’s purpose – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles and the sand represent the “small stuff” that can fill space but essentially do not add meaning to the Life….

The Moral of the story is to Focus on the Most Important Things (MITs)…a vital few Big ticket items / people in our life eliminating the trivial many. This is very relevant when it comes to managing the Time.

Here is the above story  applied to Time Management:

1)    Identify the golf balls for the Week: At the beginning of the week, on a Sunday or the Monday identify 5-6 Most Important Things that you want to accomplish through the week

2)    Schedule : Now schedule the 5-6 MITs across the week, say 1-2 activities per day

3)    Each day… : Each morning identify the MITs and schedule them as the first activity…plan rest of the tasks around this MIT (Pebbles and Sand)…even if you miss them who cares !

4)    Complete them…: The key is to key complete the MITs...for the day….no matter what…

5)      Look back : At end of the week, review the completed MITs….if you missed completing them, analyze on what the lacunae is ! ….It means you surely are filling the pebbles and sand in the Life jar before putting in the golf balls ….

Dashboards for Life!

                One of the most widely used tool in the Corporate world are the dashboards that serve the purpose of acting as visual indicators regarding the health of Program/Project. Dashboards exist for at least two purposes :

1)      Set the Target for Success

2)      Track the progress against the Target

We can use the dashboards in our life too to check if we are indulging our self in the right things…Following are some of the Dashboards that I monitor for myself

Physical Health :

                Measures : Weight , Blood Pressure

We all should know how much we should weigh…It is determined the Body mass index (BMI) which should be less than 25.To calculate BMI, take the weight (kg) and divide it by height (m). Then divide that number once again by height (m). Round to the second decimal place. Please get a digital weighing machine (costs around Rs.700-Rs.1000) and record your weight frequently.

Similarly so with the Blood pressure too…Ideally we should have a Blood pressure of below 120/80. With the sedentary life style & Junk food of the modern world, every one should be on top of their BP charts. Digital BP Measurements are again available in the market. BP apparatus (sphygmomanometers !) are a bit tricky and accuracy of data depend on the type of instrument, wrist or arm based. The cost is of the order of Rs.4000 for a good measurement device. I would recommend the measurements on a weekly basis on your own or tying up with the local diagnostics lab.

Fiscal Health:

Like a country’s wealth measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product growth, Foreign Exchange reserve, Export-Import balance, everyone should have a measure of their Fiscal health as well. 

According to me, there is only one measure of your Finacial wealth :

Net Worth = Total Assets – Total Debts

Please open a spreadsheet and put in value of all the assets that you own in terms of the Bank deposits,Government bonds,Mutual Fund investments,Stocks ,Gold and what not….Also, put the value of the debts that you own …Your Fiscal wealth is really that difference ….nothing more …nothing less

Mental Wealth:

I am skating on thin ice on this, because this is more to do with Life’s purpose & fulfillment…Anyway, I would recommend you to focus on Physical wealth & fiscal wealth till I get back to you on this ! 

Bye for Now!

Efficiency and Effectiveness

“Efficiency is doing the things Right; Effectiveness is doing the Right thing”…Peter F Drucker

Efficiency and Effectiveness are often mixed up on what they stand for. The above quote from Drucker while is insightful, like often with other management connotations, it is a bit confusing…So let us look at them…

Efficiency:

Efficiency is all about how well we are using the Inputs to convert into an Output. Efficiency is usually measurable. Some of the measures of the efficiency are the Time taken or the Money saved. One of the finest examples of the Efficiency is the Pit stop in a Formula1 Race. The typical activity in the Pit stop are like 7-8 crew members involved in changing the tyres (1 or more) and to fuel the tank all in a matter of 8-13 seconds ! Efficiency is all about doing the set of standard activities in the right manner

Effectiveness:




  In the above example of Pit stop, while it is the incredible efficiency of the crew alone cannot make the race for the driver.You may wonder why…that is due to the Effectiveness .Okay…Okay…I will come to the point here….Say if we were to rely on the efficiency alone, and there were standard instructions for the crew to change all the 4 tires & fill the fuel to the full tank, the Output of this pit stop process can still be good but the Outcome of the race for the driver may still be bad. This is where the role of effectiveness comes in…

• How many laps are still left?

• How much fuel would be enough?

• Can I just replace 2 out of the 4 tyres and finish the race?

Answering all the above questions can shave off at least 3 or 4 seconds in the pit stop which can alter the Outcome of the race for the better.

So,Effectiveness is the process of determining what are the right things to do. Effectiveness is more of a common sense or what we commonly call as experience

So, you may ask “ Which is more important…Efficiency or Effectiveness? “…..Without doubt the answer is Effectiveness. This is because, Effectiveness is about taking the right direction ,without which Efficiency will lead us to the wrong destination faster !

I am not discounting the role of efficiency in any way…It is definitely necessary…World class companies such as Toyota ruminate a lot of time in determining the effective process. Once they zeroed in on the right process, they operate with ruthless efficiency.