15 - 20 minutes a day...

It's exactly one year since I took off from my Blog world. Well...happy to be back again.

For the last one year, life's been juggling with job, household chores, kids studies, my studies, house construction..well.. the list goes on.... People say WFH(Work from Home) is an easy job....wonder where exactly I fit in when I see the letters from housewives and working women ;-).

But one thing that helps me stay organized is my 15 minute regime. Felt the beauty of this Mantra when I was explaining the same to my kids y'day. When I asked them to spend 15 minutes of their time cleaning the house....their immediate response was.."What Mommy, 15 minutes?? That's a lot of time..we want to enjoy our vacation..". But when I made them calculate the number of minutes in a day, and compare it with 15 minutes...they had no choice, but to agree with a naughty smile.

I, being a dedicated writer of my daily TO-DO list, always make sure that there is one item that cleans up the house. Don't believe in Spring cleanups or Bhogi cleanups...that's a lot to do for me in one day...I'm a strong believer of Kaizen :-).

Other than the mandatory household chores, there are many other things that slip our mind to become insidious clutter. Whether I do it or not, there'll be an optional item for cleanup....cleaning the refrigerator once in a week,  mixer - once in a month, water filter - once in two months etc.. etc...and the routine repeats itself.

When I know my schedule, my priorities and what needs to be taken care of .... I can plan the day and know what and when to reschedule the items. When other things take priority, optional items get rescheduled to some other day. As long as I know that an item is under my watchdog, I know it'll get its special attention some day or the other.

Not just house cleanup, I apply the same Mantra for checking bank accounts, paying bills, reading books, watching movies on YouTube for 15-20 minutes a day...I know people think I'm crazy, but it works well for me :-). When I surrender myself to Eternal time, things look so organized and relieves me from all the clutter in my mind.

There are few things in life that bring more joy to mind and body, and they definitely get an entry in my Hippocampus...spending time with loved ones, playing with pets, listening to favorite songs, walking with nature and gardening.

Didn't realize that I was doing my part for the EARTH WEEK and glad it happens throughout the year. Proud to plant around 100 Marigold plants for the 4th time...all with a simple strategy:
- Dried the flowers offered to God - it hardly took any time
- Spread the seeds under Mother earth's womb - 10 to 15 minutes
- Sprinkled water daily for few weeks - 5 minutes per day
- Patiently waited for the seedlings to get enough strength to stand up straight



- On weekends, planted 10 to 15 seedlings - took only 15-20 minutes per day



That's it. It took me around 4 weeks to transfer all the seedlings to their designated spots. Mission accomplished.

Gardening for just few minutes gives so much of joy...and when the home grown flowers are offered to God....the Joy is Priceless. Not just cleaning the clutter for few minutes, TOUCH THE SOIL with your hands and GIVE LIFE TO EARTH with plants and trees...I bet, you'll never regret the few minutes spent on mother earth...

Adding more life to this blog post with my daughter's creative lettering on "LET US MAKE OUR CITY GREEN"

Strength based approach, Appreciative inquiry and Positive thinking

      During our last session on Team building at IIMB,  we were exposed to the underlying power of Strength based approach & Appreciative inquiry(AI) and how to apply them at work place. Most of us use these approaches in our daily lives, but paying more attention and reaping the benefits of these approaches may change the way we live our lives.

      Strengths and weaknesses are unique to each individual. Some strengths are built-in, whereas others are acquired due to our interest in a subject. Culture and society play an important role in exhibiting our strengths. Sometimes we may be unaware of our own strengths, all it requires is to try out different activities and find out what we are good at and what makes us feel happy.

      Once we know what our strengths and weaknesses are, let's try to invest more time on our strengths... because that's the area which maximizes our satisfaction and feel-good factor...which in turn leads the path to success. A formal definition of strength-based approach...

“The strength-based approach is an approach to people that views situations realistically and looks for opportunities to complement and support existing strengths and capacities as opposed to focusing on and staying with the problem or concern. The problem and the person are separate; however, the problem is never minimized. (Bernadette Glass) 

      Rather than wasting our time and effort on improving our weaknesses, spending more time on our strengths may give good results in life. This can be well explained the way kids behave to different situations. They do well in what they are good at, but once they are forced to spend time on activities they are not interested in, it results in poor performance. Said that, one can't ignore the weaknesses too. We need to make a right balance. Sometimes working on our weaknesses will complement the strengths we have.

      If you are in a leadership position (whether it be at work or home), you need to identify the strengths in your team and try to maximize the output by making use of their strengths. Appreciative Inquiry comes into play to identify the strengths and pave a path to success. 

Appreciative Inquiry is primarily an organizational development method which focuses on increasing what an organization does well rather than on eliminating what it does badly. 

Rather than spending more time on what went wrong, if we identify what went smooth, we can share those findings to minimize the problems in the future.

      When we are appreciating the work done by others, make sure that our appreciation is genuine. If it is sugar coated to just get the work done, it may actually reduce the output if the person takes advantage of the situation and exploits the beauty of the process. Tricky part is to identify the right tools and environment that actually encourages the person to contribute more towards the goals.

      In order to reap the benefits of Appreciative Inquiry, one needs to have positive attitude towards others. This comes only when we have positive thinking in our mind. From childhood, we are taught to stick to the phrase See no evil. Speak no evil, Hear no evil. When we hear this phrase, the imaginative power of Human mind actually thinks of an evil scene :-).  But if we rephrase the same sentence to See Good, Speak Good, Hear Good, it changes the way we imagine things. Always think positive and enjoy the video clip to tap your positive energy.

State of Mind

Our mind takes on different states based on our physical condition. Mind works continuously, and our thoughts and actions are controlled by the STATE OF MIND. If our Physical condition can change the state of mind, our Mental condition can change the physical activities being carried out. There is this invisible soul that's tangled with the visible physical body, both cooperate with each other giving life to soul.

Knowingly or unknowingly, emotional part of our mind spends most of its time on two types of people, if one type is the group of people whom we love the most, surprisingly the second type is the hate list. Our mind always pre-processes activities to handle these two kinds of people. Then, how about people outside this circle? They are in and out of our mind on demand.

Mind is a powerful invisible tool that can change the way we live our lives...as they say "Mind rules our body". It's our own INNER SELF with whom we talk most of the time, our true companion. If all the activities in our mind can be reproduced on a piece of paper, I'm sure we'll run out of paper in no time.

Below is a brief analysis of how I look at our State of mind (please bear with me if you are into Psychology and the terms are totally different). As you can see from the diagram, mind takes on four different states - Conscious, Subconscious, Superconscious and Unconscious states.

In Conscious state, both mind and body are in sync, resulting in visible actions that are controlled by the physical senses. The main driving force to make decisions are based on past experiences, as we are well aware of the actions and their consequences in real world. Conscious mind talks with inner-self continuously accompanied by the powerful gift - Imagination. Imagination has no limit and the mind creations that can be achieved in real world can be turned into actions/goals, whereas other subset forms our fantasy world.

In Subconscious state, mind travels bit far from physical senses and adds bit of sixth sense to control the actions in Conscious state. Ever wonder how we can set our Mental Alarm clock and wake up on time during exams or in need? The other dimension of Subconscious state is the powerful tool called Intuition. I'm sure many of you might have experienced the power of Intuition at times. When a decision has to be taken based on Subconscious state, our mind debates between conscious state and intuition, and there could be a lag in taking decisions.
And Dreams come on our way when mind drifts from Subconscious to Unconscious state and vice versa.

In Superconscious state, mind goes bit farther from the material world and can completely control the actions in Conscious state, bypassing the lag caused by decision debate. This state taps the spiritual side of inner self with sixth sense being the predominant factor, one of the wonderful experience of the power of the soul within. Telepathy is that Superconscious state of mind that allows one to be in sync with loved ones, even when they are far physically. Mind reading and Prophecy are other arts of the Superconscious mind only few can master.

In Unconscious state, soul completely shuts off the physical power and takes a stroll into space that's beyond human perception. When soul comes back to same body, mind had a flight from unconscious state to conscious/subconscious/superconscious state, and that means you had either a good sleep or in coma. If not, soul is planting fresh mind in another body.

I'm blessed to experience the Superconscious state through a sequence of events during my father's last few days of life. Wonder what made me to book a Tatkal train ticket to see my father on a busy weekday? Stayed with my father for four days and fulfilled his wishes sitting by his side.

After few days of returning home, I was restless....completely restless. My husband was listening to his favorite songs and he started humming 'Abhi mujh Mein Kahin'. I didn't know why, that song touched my heart so deeply, I started crying, called my brother and begged him to take my father to hospital and made my husband console me for more than an hour. As per my brother's update, father was fine and in deep sleep. Still I was not convinced, kept on crying. Went to YouTube and watched the song for the first time, as its lyrics were in sync with my state of mind. The moment Hrithik Roshan hugs her sister in the song, I felt my father with me and broke down into big tears at 10:50pm, and that's the exact time my father passed away.  After half an hour, I got a call from home and my brother told that father passed away at 10:50pm. Each time I listen to this song, I feel my father with me and tears just roll down. A song that will remain close to my heart forever....

Later, I was shocked to hear that my father asked my mom "Am I in Punni's house in Bangalore?". And this was just few hours before his death, whereas he never visited Bangalore in person...proving loved ones will always be with us, no matter how far they are from us.... and our mind in superconscious state is a reflection of our love for them. 

Mother - The visible God

At first sight, birds in our balcony made us happy... but soon our happiness turned into a headache with pigeons...they peck at the plants, dig the mud out of pots and dance on the washed clothes with their muddy feet.

They left me no choice, but to scare them to save my plants. Shouting Shu...Shu..Shu.... and chasing them like a live scare-crow seemed like a temporary fix. Planted some twigs around the plants to cover flat surfaces. This idea paid off to some extent. But after few days, they learned the art of pulling out the twigs. And I tried my best to secure the twigs :-).

One of my friend warned me to cover all the flat surfaces around the plants...as pigeons lay eggs and make lots of mess. My next solution was to tie pot plates upside down ....that too in a slanting position.

At last, I was happy to save the plants in the balcony. BUT BUT.....one pigeon outsmarted my plans and laid an egg in the pot next to the window, the place where I spend most of my day. Lesson learned...pigeons are indeed SMART!!

When I saw the mother sitting on the egg, motherhood within me started admiring the hen pigeon. Couldn't believe that the pigeon was sitting just half feet away from me....

My famous quote "oops...my plants" turned into "oops... poor egg". I didn't want the egg to float in the water, so arranged some coconut husk when mother was away for lunch.

Soon realized that father also comes to guard the egg when mother is away for food.

But it is the hen pigeon taking care of the egg throughout the night....father comes once in awhile, giving sometime for the mother to get her food. Amazing to see their understanding to raise a family.

To our surprise, the pigeon laid another egg by next morning. Soon I moved them into a tray....to protect the eggs from the plants ;-).

Hats off to the mother for sitting day and night to keep the eggs warm by spreading her feathers.

Our patience turned into happiness when we saw the baby emerging out of the shell. Some of the beautiful moments to watch.

In few hours, saw a crack in the other egg too...

Again, it was father's visit in the afternoon...

And after sometime, Mamma was back to the baby...

In few hours, one more baby was out to the world...

In no time, they started cooing. It's fun to watch them cooing and playing  :-).

Proud father was happy to see both the babies and sat there for quite sometime. And I was overwhelmed with happiness to see the proud family. Amazing to learn "Human" nature of Pigeons.

And next saw the usual process,  Mother out - Daddy in.....

In no time, babies started drinking mother's milk. It's interesting to learn that father also feeds milk to the babies ...lot learned from these small creatures..

"Pigeon's milk begins to be produced a couple of days before the eggs are due to hatch. The parents may cease to eat at this point in order to be able to provide the squabs (baby pigeons and doves) with milk uncontaminated by seeds, which the very young squabs would be unable to digest. The baby squabs are fed on pure crop milk for the first week or so of life. After this the parents begin to introduce a proportion of adult food, softened by spending time in the moist conditions of the adult crop, into the mix fed to the squabs, until by the end of the second week they are being fed entirely on softened adult food..."

Here is a video clip of their feeding...

After few days, their beak started turning black and so their body color.... 

I noticed a big difference between mother pigeon and father pigeon. Whenever I water the plants, if father is around, he just flies away and watches them from far.

But if mother is around, it just stays with the babies, tries its best to scare me with fluttering feathers, unusual sounds, angry eyes and pointed beak. God's creation is great. A mother is not blessed with big brain and big muscles like a man, but she is blessed with big heart and big emotions that make her BOLD enough to protect her offspring. 

And babies started responding to the surroundings. Each time I made a sound, they stared at me in protective posture.

It was fun to see them growing....

The babies were growing bigger....and so was the mess in the tray. Baby birds also started realizing the same. Couldn't stop laughing to see them sitting on the edge of the tray and pooping outside. 

One fine day, I decided to clean the tray. But on the very same day, I saw both parents sitting in the tray ....seriously thinking something.

When I came back after two hours to clean the mess, I couldn't find the parents and their babies... family relocation I guess  ;-). And now, the pot in the window moved out of its place...as we are shifting our nest from Punyanagari(Pune) to Bangalore....family relocation to give an independent nest to our kids.

By Laws of Nature, parents responsibility is to provide a comfortable and secure nest to their babies. But what if the parents kill their babies before they even enter the nest? It's shocking to see some facts in 'Satyameva Jayate'...wonder how suffixing IN-LAW title changes some mother's behavior :-(.

Puranas say that a woman will never achieve Moksha and get closer to God.... as Purusha(man) is the only qualified gender to achieve the same. But for a Mother, it's God who is coming closer to her as baby in her womb. Wonder why she needs Moksha?

The beautiful journey from pregnancy to motherhood is filled with emotions and pains. But the moment baby is out, holding and hugging the newborn baby close to her chest and feeding the Nectar of Life relieves her from all the pain....some of THE most precious moments of life for a woman.

All of us pray God almost everyday, but still we dedicate a special day called Festival to pay special tribute to that invisible God. Happy to have a special day for Mother - the visible God. For all the proud mothers, I wish you a very HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!! 

And to all the readers of this post, go and hug your mom if she is with you. Forget all the tensions in your life, go and sleep in your mother's lap for few minutes...feels like heaven. Isn't it?

S.......L......O.......W motion

Slow motion refers to an effect resulting from running film through a camera at faster-than-normal speed  and then projecting it at standard speed. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving more slowly. The technical term for slow motion is overcranking which refers to the concept of cranking a handcranked camera at a faster rate than normal.

Never realized that slow motion is a result of faster speed. You might be wondering, what slow motion has to do on my blog?... SLOW MOTION...yes..the same thing happened to me few weeks back. Even though it's a weekend, Saturday is the most busiest day of the week for me, with most of the time spent running around kids classes, and then my own list of tasks to accomplish. Mind had lots of plans to work out, but there was something...something... that was resisting my MIND POWER ...that's none other than MY OWN BODY.

With my husband out of town, sick maid off from work, I was completely exhausted by the end of the day. With so much pain, legs were hard to move...just felt like leaving everything and sit down.....I could feel the effect of slow motion. Thanks to my girls for giving a nice massage..and then cup of tea and crocin to forget the pain. After one hour, pain was gone...but mind was not ready to come out of the comfort zone and tightly tied my body to the sitting sofa.

While mind-body saga continued, eyes were glued to Dance-India-Dance. And to my amusement, there came the slow motion act by croc-roaz....God's sent messenger to lift up my spirit ;-). Truly awesome act...

Hope most of you tried slow motion act at some point in life....if not, try it in front of the mirror before giving a demo to others ;-). And here is Raghav's next and last act on DID (as of Jan 15th 2012...at the time of writing this blog).....

 

Movies add slow motion effects to elongate the acts...the famous Indian act being hero and heroine running towards each other with stretched arms...showing how much effort is required to give a simple hug ;-).  And video umpires in cricket and other sports make people open their mouths until the verdict is out.

Everyone likes slow motion once in awhile.. but not if the entire movie is in slow motion. Slow motion to recharge the body makes wonders..famous examples being Yoga and meditation. But if a healthy body continues slow motion for a longer period of time to avoid work and waste time, it results in laziness. So watch out your slow motions...

Uttarayan is leaving winter behind, to increase day-time by actually slowing down the day light process, to bring more sun light and to bring more consciousness to increase working efficiency, thus speeding up your slow motions. Wish you all a very Happy Makar Sankranti/Pongal!!
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Editing this post on 03/12/2012 to add more links to Raghav's slow motion acts....happy to see him back on DID :-). Shared this video on my Facebook wall "Beautiful song...few moments of flute at the beginning reminds me of Ilayaraja compositions...and this boy turning on a stable platform and his slow motion acts are simply speechless!!".

Just Do It (JDI)

New Year is here, and one thing that comes to mind to almost everyone who wants to succeed in life is the famous phrase "NEW YEAR RESOLUTION" - the phrase that's set for personal commitment to complete certain goals for the year. But do they really work...the urge to fulfill goals is stronger at the beginning...but as days pass by...goals and their strength fades away....only few people can make it to the end of the year and if you are one of them..HATS OFF to you.

To certain extent, we do accept the fact that NEW YEAR resolutions always don't work the way we think. Why not JUST DO IT whatever we have in our mind? But how? Unlike work culture where goals are set to fulfill company needs and have a cross check in terms of personal performance reviews, who will review our own personal goals? YES..it's none other than ME...the inner ME.

Sometimes at work, when my boss says, "we have no solid requirements, but we must complete this work by certain date...so JDI(Just Do It)"....in turn, our team response will be JDI(Just Doing It). Even though it’s used in a witty way, there is certain driving force in it. When dates are set with no final requirements...just start doing it with whatever requirements we've at hand, gives us an opportunity to raise questions, and further understand and discuss the requirements with the team well ahead in time. So why not JDI to get a better understanding of the product and start some ground work? If requirements do change completely, the learning curve stays with us...whether it's a failure or success. If requirements are in-line with the initial set, we are close to achieving the deadlines.

Unlike the goals set for us by others, how about our own personal goals? Everyone dreams of doing something in life. Dreams or thoughts are the stepping stones for our actions and in turn our goals. If you have the goal to turn your dreams into reality, judge yourself whether certain dreams can be met in real. Judging and preparing no-commitment list is another challenge that goes a long way and saves lots of time.

This raises another question, do you always do things with SUCCESS tag in mind? Well, things always won't work for success...and that results in disappointed soul. It's good to dream of success in life...but be ready for the outcome, whether it be success or failure. The laws of action   - "Karma" are very well defined in Bhagavad Gita. Try your best with positive attitude to reach your goals and leave the rest on God.

Still remember the message conveyed in the movie Ashwini Nachappa ..."try your best to be number one....but don't compare with others". There is so much truth in it...when we start comparing with others, that implants a feeling of egoism and selfishness...when the struggle is with self...that raises the bar far from the competing world, close to God and then to self-realization.  If possible, adopt good things that made others achieve their goals and learn lessons from failures to pave the path to success. 

So what should we do to achieve our goals? Is NEW YEAR RESOLUTION the start? In addition to the long-term goals set in mind, you better pen down the goals daily. Don’t leave commitments in your brain. Whether you dream or think of something, putting it on paper gives clarity and sets you for the rest of the day. As the little drops make a mighty ocean, doing a bit everyday helps us achieve our goals. The strategy that's helping me is the mighty TO DO LIST..whether it be POST-IT-NOTES at work or DIARY on my desk. 

With so many electronic gadgets in hand, nobody wants to touch a pen ;-). But penning down the TO-DO-LIST gives so much joy once you are addicted to it:

• If you are a computer geek and never hold a pen, it helps you honor the writing you learnt for ages.
• We tend to forget things with so many distractions in life, writing them down let's your mind free from remembrance.
• Whether it's household work, paying bills, kids activities, attending parties.... writing them down by date alerts you with due dates and lets you plan ahead.
• If you have a list at hand, you know what's more important and what not, and that helps you prioritize tasks for the day.
• When you are feeling low or depressed, the actions written down drive your day. At least, try doing some of the light actions that can divert your mind and give the happiness of completing certain tasks.
• Not just that, when your mind feels cluttered with so many things, writing them down brings clarity in your thinking.
• If you have a goal that spans more than one day, divide the work and do it in chunks... like reading tech books, divide chapters by day. If you can’t get it in one day, postpone it to next day….but keep writing the task…after sometime, finishing off the work makes you feel happier than writing it again….testing your own patience you know ;-)
•  In doing so, you'll get into the habit of DOING the work and be satisfied rather than DOING it for success or failure.
• Also write down things that you don’t want to do for the day. Sometimes, this NOT-TO-DO list fetches more time to target your actual goals.
• And ultimate happiness comes when you start striking out the completed items...one of my favorite :-)

The DIARY sitting on my desk is not a reflection of my past...but stepping stone in to the future. Successfully completed my 2011 diary...my TO-DO-LIST scrapbook. And the new one is ready to be filled with items that will be struck out at the end of the day, to give a smile on my face.

Started implementing the same with my kids, especially when they are off from school, and they love it. They may not know the ultimate goal of this activity...but kids definitely like the idea of striking out the items once done :-)

Feels funny when my younger one strikes out items even before doing them, and then explains me "mamma, don't worry, I'm doing it now..". Whatever it is, it's good to get them into the habit of visualizing the actions for the day. Hope this post inspires someone for the year...and do share your thoughts.

And when it's our turn to spend time with loved ones, all the other goals take backseat and it takes top priority. Something that's written in heart... not on a piece of paper.

Before leaving the post, just want to say one thing..JUST DO IT doesn't mean you'll just do whatever you want and wherever you want... ;-)

DO THE RIGHT THING IN A RIGHT WAY AT THE RIGHT PLACE.

Thanks for reading this post and Wish you all a very Happy and Prosperous well TO-DO New Year!!

FM....FM...FM...Family media

Never thought I'd be so addicted to FM radio. It's a great way to uplift the soul without stressing eyes. And good part is its ability to allow you perform parallel processing and enhance your imagination to never seen songs. Well....if you like a song...you can always go to Youtube to override your creative mind :-).

FM radio was the only media to entertain the boring souls when I was a kid. Waking up to early morning Venkateswara Suprabhatam and then daily news digest at 7am...don't think I'll ever forget those days...and especially the All India radio signature tune...feels like I'm back to my lonely days ;-).

When TV sets entered the market, we entered neighbour's houses with great enthu. And when TV entered our house, we let others share the joy with great pride. Wonder how we survived those days with so many people at home, and even serving them chai paani at times. And those Shivaratri days...watching movies in our front yard among 50 people, with no one paying attention to Lord Shiva, but just there to stay awake all night in the name of Jaagaran... anyways, love those days. And now, it's a treat to listen the trio singing Doordarshan tune in the latest flick ZNMD...

After TV, FM took a backseat to some extent. Over time, with FM installed in cars, it's back to life on roads. With so many soothing songs in the air, got myself one FM radio. And it's the best family media I've at home after games. Unlike TV shows, I don't need to worry about switching channels when kids are around. But still there are songs that can't be avoided on FM too ...after Munni and Sheela, the latest Himesh Reshammiya's flick "no touching, no touching....only seeing, only seeing..". ...kya kare...kids catch those songs pretty fast :-(. Anyways, much better than seeing those songs on TV, and someone better compile FM version of the song "....no seeing, no seeing....only listening, only listening..." :-).

With only one hour TV time for kids, FM radio with its soft musical background makes us feel like someone is home all the time, and our maids don't mind syncing to songs to ease their work. All I can say, FM has the power to paint the mood with surprising songs ranging from old to new, sad to happy and much more....so just tune to FM and enjoy life!!