Self-cluing

Everything that the eyes fall on right from the moment one wakes up can be treated as a clue to do or learn something.

Following through on jobs and conversations day after day is necessary. What you did yesterday may just be the most important clues for doing something today. That makes writing what you did yesterday a good self-cluing technique.

It is easy to self-clue. Though it can be boring and cumbersome too, very much like self-help is.

Productivity is memorio-habitual in nature

A friend just shared this little article on productivity apps. The article raises questions on the claims of such apps.

The forms of internet-enabled communication have changed every sphere of life. Apps that offer good communication structures certainly help. But again different structures suit different kinds of people. And now there's also an issue of how many communication structures do people adopt to really stay productive, even if we debate the meaning of 'productivity'?

My observation is that folks that can work well with their memories (not the app ones or computer ones. One has to remember at least the name of the app or the location of the folder on the computer screen or hard disk to use the app or the folder) are productive. Mind you, I am not saying 'folks that memorize well'. I am saying folks that can work well with their memories. The way memories work, quite a bit of it is still a mystery. But the triggers you can offer your memory to respond to make the memories work anyway.

On the mobiles or computers, all apps, apart from communicational functions, trigger memories in certain ways. Cockpit Planner also offers triggers that helps one work well with one's memories.

Try the apps. Try the Cockpit Planner. See the difference.

I don't use productivity apps anymore.

Meaning of WATCH

For a long time now I've been asking myself why is WRIST WATCH called so? Especially, why is it called WATCH.

So here's what Google has to show when we search for 'etymology of watch':

REMAINING AWAKE it says.

Check the etymology here. In the sense of a verb, it even hints at "to be strong, lively".

From the link above, in Old English it also carried a meaning of "act or practice of refraining from sleep for devotional or penitential purposes"!
 
I like that 'penitential purpose'. Industrial assembly lines ensured working 'by the watch' and making it absolutely penitentiary. From my observation, folks into white-collar desk-jobs feel equally penitential these days. They work by the watch and beyond the watch.

I wonder how a wrist watch keeps us awake, except in the sense of reminding us when the boredom of a timed job would get over before one can fall asleep at will. It's your memory of what you want to do or would like to do that keeps you awake, that truly keeps you watchful.

Try Cockpit Planner. It might become your watch "to be strong, lively".

A trophy for you

Meaning of atrophy, in short, if you put a query on Google:

gradually decline in effectiveness or vigour due to underuse or neglect.

Biceps atrophy. Brains atrophy. Minds atrophy too. Still don't get it? Here are a couple of pics to understand.

While biceps and brains are physical muscle-groups (and so can be represented visually), what constitutes a 'mind' is open to interpretation. Even so, it can't be difficult to see how minds can atrophy.

Since our 'work' or 'profession' or 'office' consumes so much of our waking life, and how well our mind works depends in a significant way on the 'work' we engage ourselves in, you might be able to counter mental atrophication with the Cockpit Planner. Try it.

Why Strangers adopt Cockpit Planner more readily?

That's quite a conclusive question.

It could also be that, in terms of absolute numbers, I meet more strangers in the context of Cockpit Planner than near and dear ones. It could also be that with the near and dear ones I am not as 'passionate' in pitching the idea of Cockpit Planner than when I am with strangers. It could just as well be that I've got an amazing geniusy rub-off on my friends that they don't need the very product of my genius. Or just the fact that I am likely to make friends with geniuses.

Since I don't believe the above to be true, let's get down to addressing the conclusive question. Why?

Cockpit Planner is a sort of meta-tool. Meta = higher order. It makes the mind work on itself before the mind allows itself to work on other things.

Looked at this way, a friend or a near and dear one would often feel offended by the fact that I (Siddharth Soni) could give birth to Cockpit Planner. He ('she' unlikely) would think,

"So now Siddharth (so fuckin familiar and such a snobby failure how many times I've witnessed him) will tell me how to use my mind! How to do my work! BS! Fuckin, I buy and he makes money."

"My mind's working super fine. Just yesterday I spent the entire day analyzing the entire stupidity of my work and make money out of it nonetheless. And he's telling me to plan. Stupid ass!"

"Bloody, I just bought this expensive smartphone and downloaded this hyper-cool app to prepare my to-do list and he's asking me to write with my fingers on a piece of paper! How absurd and retrogressive!

"Such a heavy pad! How many meters can I walk carrying such a thing!"

"One more rough pad. Let's hear him out anyway though!"

Without any familiarity, without any preconceived ideas about the planner or the originator or the origins, a stranger would instead marvel at the sheer existence of the tool.  He's more likely to thank himself for discovering Cockpit or for the chance to come across Cockpit Planner. He's just a little more likely to give it a try.

Some strangers are trying out Cockpit. Taking pains to write back how it's helping them. To convey that it introduces a little pleasure and a good amount of discipline and lots of anticipation towards the day's work early in the morning.

To work on a system that makes us work

It's needed but it's kind of weird.

Let's say we need to prepare for the preparation! The same thing can easily go like we need to prepare to prepare for the preparation. It's a strange loop, no?

Yesterday I was sitting with our neighbor-entrepreneur Hirenbhai. And while showing the Cockpit Planner to him I uttered, "We can't keep working on the system that makes us work!" And he gave an instant nod of acknowledgment. He added, "That's precisely the problem. We have a CRM installed but to work on the CRM itself requires too much of work."

Having shared the above however, I must also say, that we indeed have to build a system that makes us work. It is just that we can't be spending disproportionate time on building the system of work. Otherwise who'll do the 'work'. Yes, that's the quandary we often find ourselves in.

Cockpit Planner is a system that might work for you if you are looking for a work-system. It is self-explanatory. Fast. Covers all aspects of a typical work-day.

And if you are gifting, you might want to consider this. Bulk orders will be priced accordingly.

You can buy here. Or you can get in touch +91 814 000 2228. Call or Whatsapp, either way is fine.

Don't set goals in 2014. Create a system.

So what are you going to do next year? The question emerges out of nowhere as soon as one year comes to an end and the other's about to begin.

I am picking this little bit from Shane Parrish's blog post where he discusses 10 take-aways from Scott Adams' latest book.

Systems trump goals.

This was fascinating. I’ve long thought that the balance of organizational thinking towards goals versus systems is in need of some reflection.

Adams has looked for examples of people who use systems versus those who use goals. In most cases, he’s discovered that people using systems do better and they are more innovative. “The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways,” he says in the WSJ.

If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.
…
[O]ne should have a system instead of a goal. The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavours. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.
…
Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction.
…

Goal-oriented people mostly fail. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds, you will constantly think that you are not at your goal until you reach it. If you fall short you’re still a failure. The only way to reach your goal is to lose the 20 pounds. It’s a state of near perpetual failure.

What you really want is a system that increases your odds of success. Even if that system only improves the odds a little it adds up over a long life. In organizations this means, for example, you should care more about the process by which you make decisions than analysis. It also means that you should focus on building a system that evolves, improves, and survives ego. Systems increase the odds of getting lucky. Or, if you want to put it another way, they reduce stupidity.

Goal seekers optimize whereas systems thinkers simplify.

Cockpit is a system. A system which puts you into a cycle of getting the important little things done one after another after another.

The Technology of Cockpit

Let me start with an analogy. Thomas Hughes writes in Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture (science * culture)

Landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn’s definition of landscape in The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (1984) suggests a way of thinking about technology. For her, landscape connects people and a place, and it involves the shaping of the land by people and people by the land. The land is not simply scenery; it is both the natural, or the given, and the human-built. It includes buildings as well as trees, rocks, mountains, lakes, and seas. I see technology as a means to shape the landscape.

Cockpit is a technology to shape the landscape of mind to lead us to a good work-day. Yes, wire-bound sheets of paper printed in a certain format containing just 11-phrases/words (which we call prompts). And we all think it's bloody difficult, is it?

More fun!

You can write to cockpitplanner at gmail or call 8140002228 to order or to find more about this.

15 Years of Silliness

The planner that we have typically received as gift, and sometimes bought, and most often used over the years is called the Franklin Planner. It entered the market in 1997 (details here). Safely, it has been more than 15 years. And very safely, and sillily, we have also used it for years together.

The other day, 5th Oct, I called an old friend on his birthday. He asked me what have I been upto and I shared some details about launching this planner called Cockpit.

His immediate response on hearing the word 'planner', "Annual diary na! Woh joh gift mein milti hai... Woh toh rough-pad ki tarah use karta hoon!"

I couldn't agree more. Personally, while I could never plan with it, I never used it as a rough-pad either. But I've seen a lot of people in my family, and among friends, use such 'planners' as rough-pads. Sometimes, going well beyond the year that it's meant for.

And yet, one has to wonder that, for years, businesses have continued to gift the same thing over and over again. Not their fault, there really was nothing available. The word 'Planner' sounded good. Leather covers looked good. The binding technology has improved. So calling the 'leather-bound papers' a 'planner' seemed perfect, irrespective of the fact that it didn't work like it needed to.

So here's CELEBRATING 15 YEARS OF SILLINESS. Cheers!

If you relate to what I have written, you might want to check Cockpit Planner. If you receive planners as gifts you might want to inform your gifter about Cockpit :). And if you buy one every year, like I used to, you've got an option which will do the job for you, every single day.

Sustaining the execution loop

Loop isn't a seat on a merry-go-round seat that you climb onto a seat and then it takes you round and round and round and then you climb out and say, "It was fun".

When we execute anything, unless we are endowed in the godly ways, we have to work with or take help of others. And that requires getting into the loop of conversation.

Business being business, and people being people, it takes effort to stay in the loop of conversation. Sometimes, others don't do enough to stay in the loop. You've to gather them and push them enough to stay a part of the loop.

And if you are the one to take initiative, it goes without saying that you have to initiate the loop. And if you have initiated the loop, in all likelihood at least for a while when the natural tendencies propel others to stray off the course, you have to follow up to keep them into the loop. Once, twice, thrice. May be more.

Sometimes, the incessant follow up could be too much to handle and you might've to accept that others do not stay in the loop. Respect your failed effort and move on. Get yet others into the loop.

"I just use it like a notepad."

Source: quovadisplanners.com

I see a lot of people around use this kind of 'planner'. Not for planning. For note-taking.

So, the other day when I happened to see a friend write something in one such thing, I asked him casually, "You use this for note-taking?!"

Not aware of my undertaking to launch Cockpit AIT Planner, he responded, "Yeah! Why (do you ask)?!"

"No, I thought this is a planning diary, that's why."

"Naaah! What to plan! The pages go waste. So why not use it."

Out of this little bit of conversation I can draw some inferences.

Genuinely, this friend is so well on top of everything naturally day after day that there's no need to 'plan'.

A kind of extension of the above-made inference could be that the plan's in his head. He doesn't find it necessary to plan in writing.

Third inference could be that while he does want to plan every day but is unable to do so with the 'planner' he has. This last inference isn't very difficult to fathom.