Life is beautiful- Put on a happy face and smile at life

Many people seek happiness the wrong way. Either they think there’s nothing they can do against external circumstances, or they just sit there and wait for Luck or Destiny to come to their aid, thinking someone else can show them the way. They could wait for a very long time, because that kind of mentality never accomplishes anything.      You create your own happiness, and it depends solely on you. The first thing you have to do is decide what you want to do with your life, and set at least one goal for yourself.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              It doesn’t matter whether you set material or spiritual goals. What does matter is that you have a direction to follow. Once you determine what your goals are, don’t count on anyone else but yourself to reach your destination. Do everything you can to move forward with your plans. Think, speak and act in ways that bring you closer to attaining what you want, if only for a few minutes a day. That will keep you on the right track.        

                                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                              Each day that passes without you thinking, speaking and acting to further your objectives is a day lost. But if you keep your mind focused, you’re sure to succeed. Don’t wait for events to become favourable, or for other people to come along and help you. Just do what you need to do, at your own speed, and be constant in your efforts. That way you’re sure to reach the shores of happiness. Give up on the idea of Luck or Destiny – your life is what you make it! Don’t wait for life to start smiling at you. Instead, put on a happy face and smile at life!   

Abdul Kalam urges solutions to make N-plants safe

India’s former president and nuclear scientist Dr APJ Abdul Kalam said the world should identify solutions to make nuclear power plants safe rather than deciding against them.

“Just because the Titanic sunk, the world did not stop building better ships.

Similarly we need to work towards improving technology and ensure nuclear power plants are safe. There will be accidents, but we need to work towards removing the hurdles, rather than go back,” said Kalam addressing a group of children at the JSS International School in Barsha Dubai.

Stressing the need for nuclear power, the man who was instrumental in India’s second series of nuclear tests in 1998 said: “We need nuclear energy, especially since it is clean energy.”

Even as workers at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant are struggling to contain the radiation leak from the nuclear fuel rods, the world has started to debate on the safety and future of nuclear power plants. Opponents of nuclear power have already started to call upon governments to stop all future plans to build nuclear power plants, especially in earthquake prone areas. According to reports, Tepco the operator of the Fukushima power plants says it will take another six to nine months before the crisis is resolved. People living 20km around the plant have been evacuated.

Kalam who asked students to dream, work hard and persevere to achieve the goal, answered a series of questions that were thrown at him.

Answering a question on corruption Kalam said: “Corruption is an evil that has to be eradicated and is the biggest challenge India is facing. I would advise each and every child to go back home and tell your parents not to be corrupt.”

Indian Corporate Story

Time Management Tips for Project Manager

Good time management is very important to a successful project manager.

The best project managers ensure they are productive for most of their time and avoid time-wasters at all costs. Here are some tips for project managers that can help you manage your time more effectively.

Create the Plan

What does this have to do with time management I hear you ask? Well, if everyone knows what they are doing and have a plan with regular milestones to focus on, you as project manager will spend a lot less time dealing with issues brought about through a lack of clarity.

Remember the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule (or the Pareto Principle) is the idea that by doing 20% of the work you can produce 80% of the benefit of doing the whole job.

The value of this for a project manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 per cent of activities that matter. Of the activities you do during your project, only 20 per cent are important. Those 20 per cent produce 80 per cent of your results. Identify and focus on those activities.

Not Just Status Updates

It’s best to avoid team meetings where you go round the room asking each person to give a status update. These meetings have little value and waste time. Instead, spend that time focusing on risks, issues and opportunities. Use the team to brainstorm solutions and create ideas.

Team meetings should have an agreed agenda that you stick to. If you schedule an hour for the meeting, make sure it lasts for an hour and no longer.

Take big issues off-line if they are likely to cause a meeting overrun. Don’t make everyone sit through lengthy technical discussions that don’t involve them. Setup a working group to focus on the issues and report to the team at a future meeting.
Stop Micro Managing

Avoid delving into the detail of the work. With software development projects, it’s not necessary for the project manager to get involved at code level, leave this to the developers. You’ve selected the right team for the job. Let them get on with what they are best at, while you concentrate on steering the project to a successful conclusion.
Don’t do the Work

Many project managers make the mistake of getting involved in “doing the work.” Avoid this at all costs. Managing projects is a full-time job and taking your eye off the ball (even for a short period) can lead to problems. It may be tempting to carryout a few tasks when a deadline is looming, but leave this to others while you get on with managing the project.

Create a To-do List

E-mail fixation is a modern-day problem that can distract you from doing the tasks you need or plan to. Creating a daily to-do list keeps you focused on achieving your objectives. Scratching tasks from your list creates a real sense of achievement and drives further activity.
Summary

Time management is a basic skill for project managers. If you can’t manage your own time, how can you expect to manage your teams? Ask each day what you did to move the project forward. Plan your next day, what will you do to ensure your project continues along the straight and narrow. Plan your time, manage your resources with a light touch and communicate effectively. With a little time management, project success should come easier.

A Few Ways to Make Life Changing Decisions

Most people don’t know the profound effects of making decisions. Often times, we go through life oblivious to what thoughts we are thinking and what actions we are taking. Every single decision we make in our days shapes our current reality. It shapes who we are as a person because we habitually follow through with the decisions we make without even realizing it.

If you’re unhappy with the results in your life right now, making the effort to changing your decisions starting today will be the key to creating the person you want to be and the life you want to have in the future. Let’s talk about a few ways you can go about making life changing decisions.

1. Realize the power of decision making.

Before you start making a decision, you have to understand what a decision does. Any decision that you make causes a chain of events to happen. When you decide to pick up a cigarette to smoke it, that decision might result in you picking up another one later on to get that same high feeling. After a day, you may have gone through a pack without knowing it. But if you decide not to smoke that first cigarette and make a decision every five minutes to focus your attention somewhere else when you get that craving, after doing this for a week, your cravings will eventually subside and you will become smoke-free. But it comes down to making that very first decision of deciding whether or not to pick up that cigarette.

2. Go with your gut.

Often times, we take too much time to make a decision because we’re afraid of what’s going to happen. As a result of this, we go through things like careful planning, deep analysis, and pros and cons before deciding. This is a very time consuming process. Instead, learn to trust your gut instinct. For the most part, your first instinct is usually the one that is correct or the one that you truly wanted to go with. Even if you end up making a mistake, going with your gut still makes you a more confident decision maker compared to someone who takes all day to decide.

3. Carry your decision out.

When you make a decision, act on it. Commit to making a real decision. What’s a real decision? It’s when you decide on something, and that decision is carried out through action. It’s pointless to make a decision and have it played out in your head, but not doing anything about it. That’s the same as not making a decision at all. If you want to make real changes in life, you have to make it a habit to apply action with your decision until it’s completed. By going through this so many times, you will feel more confident with accomplishing the next decision that you have in mind.

4. Tell others about your decisions.

There’s something about telling other people what we’re going to do that makes us follow through. For example, for the longest time I’ve been trying to become an early riser and whenever I tried to use my own will power, waking up early without falling back asleep felt impossible. So what I did was I went to a forum and made the decision to tell people that I would wake up at 6 AM and stay up. Within two days, I was able to accomplish doing this because I felt a moral obligation to follow through with my words even though I failed the first time. Did people care? Probably not, but just the fact that there might be someone else out there seeing if you’re telling the truth will give you enough motivation to following through with your decision.

5. Learn from your past decisions.

Even after I failed to follow through my decision the first time when I told people I was going to wake up early and stay up, I didn’t give up. I basically asked myself, “What can I do this time to make it work tomorrow? The truth is you are going to mess up at times when it comes to making decisions and instead of beating yourself up over it, learn something from it. Ask yourself, what was good about the decision I made? What was bad about it? What can I learn from it so I can make a better decision next time? Remember, don’t put so much emphasis focusing on short term effects; instead focus on the long term effects.

6. Maintain a flexible approach.

I know this might sound counter-intuitive, but making a decision doesn’t mean that you can’t be open to other options. For example, let’s say you made the decision to lose ten pounds by next month through cardio. If something comes up, you don’t have to just do cardio. You can be open to losing weight through different methods of dieting as long as it helps you reach your goal in the end. Don’t be stubborn to seek out only one way of making a decision. Embrace any new knowledge that brings you closer to accomplishing your initial decision.

7. Have fun making decisions.

Finally, enjoy the process. I know decision-making might not be the most fun thing world to do, but when you do it often, it becomes a game of opportunity. You’ll learn a lot about yourself on the way, you’ll feel and become a lot more confident when you’re with yourself and around others, and making decisions will just become a lot easier after you do it so often that you won’t even think about it.

Anything you decide to do from this point on can have a profound effect later on. Opportunities are always waiting for you. Examine the decisions that you currently have in the day. Are there any that can be changed to improve your life in some way? Are there any decisions that you can make today that can create a better tomorrow?