contemplation – Page 21

The problem with paper

May 22, 2011December 30, 2013 Akshat Rathi6 Comments

I was browsing through the archives of this blog when it struck me that very soon I am going to be completing the 5th anniversary of Contemplation and thus, 5 years of being a blogger. It has been a pleasure to share my musings-in-solitude with the world while, in the process, I learnt some very important lessons in the art of writing and thinking.

This little realisation took me on a new train of thoughts. I started mentally browsing the history of events that have shaped this blog: I’ve moved countries, refined my idealogies, improved my writing and made many new friends. Each of these have affected me in ways which this blog reflects quite well.

There was one more realisation though. Perhaps not a very insightful one. Over the time of these years, I realised, more and more of my writing happens on the computer screen rather than on paper. So much so that, now days, I find paper an inconvenient medium for writing.

When I first started blogging, I was still an undergraduate student. Most hours in the day were spent attending lectures where I jotted down important bits in hardbound notebooks and in the labs procedures, observations and conclusions were all noted in a lab-book. Our examination answer sheets were made of paper (!). Sure I spent a few hours in the evenings in front of the computer screen but most of those hours I either played computer games or watched some movies (social networking was yet to take over the world). So paper remained the primary raw material for writing.

My foray into writing began with this blog and the first serious venture that shaped my writing was my undergraduate institute’s newsletter The Spirit. For both the publications, I wrote on my computer using Microsoft Word and published either through the web or through a designing software (QuarkXpress). Although, the smell of the freshly printed (paper) copies of the Spirit was enchanting, paper had lost it’s place as a serious requirement for writing.

The last time I wrote over a few 100 words on paper was when I wrote a letter to my mum last week. Not because she does not do email but because I felt that writing in my own handwriting will make a stronger impact on her than sending her an email. After finishing the letter I re-read it just to make sure that it was all coherent. It was coherent and I seemed to convey the message that I intended to. But I was dissatisfied with the inability to be able to edit my own writing.

Usually, when I write, I tend to re-arrange the words, change the phrases, organise the paragraphs, expand on some idea, cut out some unnecessary flab and most of the times I do all this together. Writing on paper made that much harder. I felt my abilities were limited. And moreover, writing at the pace of thought made my handwriting look terrible.

It is not just writing though. For me paper seems to have also lost the title of the most preferred medium of reading too.

During my days in Mumbai, newspapers were cheap enough to subscribe even with the limited money that I got from my parents. I received a copy of the Times of India and Hindustan Times delivered to my doorstep in the hostel every morning. Only rarely did a day pass when the copy received in the morning wasn’t read. Someone flipped through the sports section without fail.

All the textbooks I had were big fat hardbound kilos of paper. Other non-academic reading was also in the form of cheap paperbacks or pirated copies of classics that circulated from one room to the other. Social networking hadn’t pervaded our lives as much and thus I did not read things only because it was recommended by someone (which is what I do now!).

After coming to Oxford, although we still have big fat textbooks, most of the research papers are read online. I print an article only if I am desperate. As for the non-academic reading, I rely on my twitter feed, google reader and facebook feed to give me my reading dose (and by the way, newspapers in the UK are just too expensive to buy!). Since I’ve got the Kindle, I don’t carry paperbacks any more. Actually, the Kindle has enhanced my reading pleasure, especially with its text-to-speech option. Now I prefer a Kindle book over a paperback anytime.

These days the use of paper sometimes surprises me. For example, I came across an academic in Oxford who doesn’t do email. He prefers communicating on paper by passing information through pigeon-holes (University’s internal post). No surprise he has a good handwriting because of all that practice.

Of course, paper still holds some value. I like to receive a hand-written letter or greeting card. It is still a good note-taking tool but I think EverNote is going to replace even that functionality of paper for me. And although I can’t see a future where it will be extinct, paper just seems to have too many problems.

Photo credits: rjhaffke.com

The illusion of time

May 22, 2011December 30, 2013 Akshat Rathi2 Comments

How often do you find yourself saying, “I wish I had the time to do ABC”?

That ‘ABC’ can be to read a new book, learn a new language, travel to a new country or even just to visit the pub that opened round the corner. It doesn’t matter whether ‘ABC’ will take only a few minutes or many hours or even days to do. It seems like you never have the time to do it.

My ears hurt when I hear the phrase being used as an excuse. Even if it comes up in some mundane conversation. You create this illusion of time for yourself. It’s a lie that you can use to fool yourself (and sometimes even others). A very convenient lie indeed.

You do this probably because somewhere inside you feel good about making this excuse. It means that you are a very busy person. That you have so many other things to do. That even though doing ABC is important, you just don’t have the time.

Well, here’s the truth. You will always have enough time to do what you really want to do. This façade of busyness that you create for yourself or for others is only a façade. If you are doing this unknowingly then take this as a warning to fix your ways. And if you are doing this knowingly then this is a warning to inform you that your façade will not last very long. Give it up now.

Prioritising is a hard thing. All of us are troubled with it all the time. Especially because all of us underestimate the time needed to do something (and sometimes overestimate our abilities to do it). But beyond all that faff, what you really want to do… you do anyway.

If you can’t do something then it is not because you don’t have the time. It is because you did not really want do it in the first place.

Get over this illusion of time. You don’t need time…. you just need to decide.

An experiment with delegation

March 8, 2011December 30, 2013 Akshat Rathi4 Comments

I recently attended one of the best talks I have been to in Oxford. It was a talk by Felix Dennis of Dennis publishing. He is one of the most famous self-made billionaires in Britain. And to his credit he can do much more than just make money. He is a great poet, a philanthropist and in my opinion, a great orator.

At the talk, he spoke about his life story, some lessons that he has learnt and what he plans to do ahead. In question and answers he also gave a brief picture of what it takes to be an entrepreneur. I was particularly impressed by an answer that he gave in response to a question of how to deal with employees. He said:

I am only really good at two things. First is recognising talent. I can say within a very short time whether someone is suitable for a certain task or not. Second is delegating. And by delegating I don’t mean giving work away to someone so that I don’t have to do it. What I mean is really delegating, letting that person handle the task on their own, giving them the space to work and making them understand the expectations I have of them. I’ve seen very few people delegate work effectively.

Although, I can say very little about recognising talent (which on occasions all of us do), there is something I can say about delegating. For any of us who has been in a position of responsibility (however big or small), where we lead a team to a complete a task, we will know that delegation is a really important aspect of the job. It requires us to understand the other person well enough to assign a particular task to them and to be able to ask them, in the most effective manner, to do that task for the team. In most cases, there is also a degree of trust that needs to be present

Looking at my previous experience with delegation, I realise that I am able to do it and to a certain degree well enough. And I say well enough because according to my definition (not Dennis’) delegation means getting someone who to do a certain thing for the team. In that regard, I have definitely managed to get a fair amount of work done.

But according to Dennis’ definition, I feel I have utterly failed at it. That’s because very rarely have I come across a piece of work that I have delegated and which has come back to me in a way that serves the set purpose best. I tend to feel that it could be done better or sometimes, that it would have been better had I done it.

Clearly, there is something I need to change about the way I delegate work. And I think after listening to that answer by Dennis, I realise that I can definitely improve on communicating my expectation of the task that I am about to delegate.

Here’s what I think I will do: when delegating a piece of work, I will ensure that I will give the person doing the job as much detail as possible about what I expect as the outcome of the job. After that, I will set a deadline for the task and then give them complete freedom to do it on their own. And at the end, I would request them to let me give them some constructive feedback about the task they just completed.

I think this in many ways should improve the quality of work that I receive on delegation. With this freedom, of course, there comes some added responsibility on the person doing the job. And I think that is what can serve as the true driving force of some quality work.

The feedback idea should also serve the purpose well because it then gives the person who has been delegated the task a chance to reflect upon what they have done and take in the feedback in much a better setting. Doing this at the end is advantageous, of course, because they don’t have the pressure to finish the task. Additionally, it is a better setting because interrupting someone while they are doing something is very inefficient (and I realise that because I have done it on some occasions).