We all love ourselves. When it comes to write up, I find it difficult to write about myself inspite of loving myself. So, what’s so difficult about it?

The difficult part is not about beginning – its about the end. We write about our qualifications, interests and achievements or milestones in our work, then do we write about those emotions that led us to achieve that milestones or is it left to the interpretation of the reader.

Like, Mr.X has been conserving water bodies in and around Chennai – should this be enough in a write – up or should it include – this shows that he is …….. (is this mandatory).

I have been doing this for quite sometime now, when I write for my guest lecturers who pay our class a visit – but still not sure if I am doing it right. It is still a challenging task.

I have struggled with planning since my childhood, my teenage and of course, adulthood. Time management or rather the lack of it – was much discussed and thrashed out issue throughout my life.

I never knew how to make a to-do-list. It took me years to realize that it had to be realistic – with reference to the time I had at my hand, my biological needs – in terms of rest and food plus enough time for family.

So, what ‘time’ was ‘enough time’ – should it be set minute-wise or hour-wise. I read a lot about the planning for a week, for a day from books and various internet sources. Some worked, some failed. In most cases, the way I planned kept changing – with every new planning idea that I read I put it to practice – I never succeeded in implementing anything and often, confused myself – that lead to planning anxiety, that made me feel miserable.

I often, discussed time management with people I felt could help – but none worked. I guess, I always went to the wrong people : I had heard more than a hundred lectures about time management and nobody told me how do I go about it. I received colorful time table charts, to- do lists and lot of printed materials, dairies…. I have never succeeded.

Over the years, what I understood about time management is that it can never be a universal format. It has to be customized based on our priorities in my life. I realized that prioritizing is a big challenge, once that is done- planning for a day or a week becomes easy and execution becomes effortless.

One aspect that I prioritize is my : ME time. That is something sacred and I donot compromise on that. I schedule every other work after that. ME time uplifts my mood before I hit work. So, I never miss it.

ME time – anytime of the day where you reflect, engage in a favorite past time/ hobby or just plan a day. Since it is a top priority – I schedule that on the wee hours of the night – when the entire household sleeps.

I make a plan on a daily basis with 3 agendas per day. Two of them is mandatory – one with reference to my profession and the other with reference to my personal life. The last agenda is with reference to leisure – and it is always marked as optional – more because it involved external factors. Like, I may want to eat out with my child – this would be the third agenda- but then it depends his availability, the weather condition.. so even if I miss it – there are no regrets and it can always be clubbed with shopping at a later point of time that week. This 3 point agenda has worked wonders for me till date.

Happy Planning !

I loved the movie Top Gun : Maverick – sequel 2 ; it reflects a lot of HRM concepts I teach in Business Studies : Lessons on Team Spirit, Morale, Motivation and Leadership Skills. Those are for students in my class. Viewing this movie – applying the terms to different parts of the movie and presenting it in class leads to serious discussions from Business related terms to movie making.

An immersive movie – where the sequel was a zillion times better than the first one, taunt narrative, well-trained actors and mind-blowing visuals – one movie with lessons packed for all ages – children to the elders at home. Lessons on minute planning, meticulous execution of the plan, excellent organization of human capital, effective use of technology, casually delivered life changing quotes and one man’s respect and love for the audience.

1. When you love someone/something wholeheartedly, you give your hundred percent to it.
2. Age hardly matters when you are passionate about your work. : a strong lesson I learnt from it.

I am an easy-going mother – light-hearted and casual – as per Indian standards, and definitely not approved by many mothers in the society I live in. It is expected that if one has a single child – esp. a boy he has to doted on – all his mistakes are to be overlooked, he has to molly-coddled, extra extra extra care has to be taken about his food habits (fuss over him to eat more); when he is sick I should be at his bed side fanning and feeding him rather than encourage him to bear and handle the pain and enable him to recover.

Well, its just that I do not believe in all this. I believe that as a single parent I give him the best platform to educate himself, encourage him to grab the best opportunities available to him within the economic constraints I have, point out his mistakes and get him to correct himself and support him when he takes risk and fails. As per society’s standards these are not what a mother should do. I not agree. That always leads me to question : what exactly is motherhood? Who defines motherhood – the mother or the child or both or the Society?

Is motherhood associated or deeply ingrained in the culture of the country? Does it have to do with religion? or does it have to do with mother’s personality? Who defines it?

Should I always and every minute strive to be an ideal mother? If yes, then how would describe an ideal mother? Aren’t all mothers beautiful? If that is true, then all mothers are ideal in their own way?

Motherhood implies unconditional love – which to me, translates as unconditional support to your child with respect to what they love to do, to help them find their identity and above all, to just let them be.

Motherhood, according to me, has to be defined by the mother – it is as expansive as the ocean below or the sky above – not as narrow like the kaleidoscopic lens of the society.

Making knots with coloured wollen threads is a current past time of mine. Knot-making helps me de-stress. Infact, Knot-making is also a form of meditation as it gets us to focus on getting the knot right- hence we do not think of any problem or issue while doing the act. This helps us to clear the mind.

Knot-making activities are plenty – knot making for making a band, for making fancy bag, for dresses, for wollen caps and curtains.

I choose to learn knot-making creating small woolen bands that can be tied around the waist. I am required to tie different coloured wollen threads on the toe and connect it to all my 10 fingers in my hand. This helped me in working at hand, leg and eye co-ordination – this proved to be a simple but effective exercise.

I make these threads and gift it to people who matter the most to me – hence I now am able to gift personalized things to my loved ones.

This is a wonderful and engaging past-time. I would definitely recommend to everyone, who wants to have an inexpensive hobby.

I was taught to ask a question – Am I available?

What does the word availability mean?

A deep reflection on the word of availability gives deep insight.

Are we available? – Available with all our faculties to every relationship or encounters in our lives.

The answer is simple : No.

When we talk to someone at workplace, we are available mentally at home and vice versa.

While watching a movie, we are available elsewhere planning something else.

When with family, we are available in the mind at our desk in our workplace.

We are so consciously not available to our body’s needs. Do we consciously be available to everyone around us – children, friends and families? No. We are lost.

Am I available to understand others pain or join others in their joy, without placing ourselves first – without bias, without judgement, without jealousy?

Availability is how I perceive my role in relation to others and their needs.

So, how do we consciously be available to our environment? Need to ponder.

I thought about it : Being Mindful. Being Mindful of the things we do. I struggle being mindful? Do you? Any thoughts on this.

‘Me’ time can be any part of the day – a time exclusively for ourselves. Me – a selfish time. It could be few precious hours before bed. It could be a few moments before the entire family wakes up.

‘Me’ time – could be a few moments of a day when you groove to your favorite music undisturbed, a time you are journaling and a time you get messy -either gardening or just playing with colours.

Just because the world rushes around me, I am under no obligation to do the same, instead find ‘me’ time throughout the day – moments or pockets of solace.

I got to learn a different form of meditation last week. Meditation – where I got to observe a plant.

The plant is observed everyday at a specific time for a week. I get to use all our five senses to observe the plant.

In the first few days, I observed the plant at the surface level – whatever meets my eye. Then the plants got interconnected to memories/ past events in our lives – this eventually led to reflection.

Reflection is one of the best teachers. Reflection is also a form of meditation. Meditation makes you aware and that’s exactly what the observation does to us. It gets us to meditate.

An interesting exercise for any age group.