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The AI Era: Time to Play

I was on my train commute, standing at my favorite spot near the door, staring at my phone. Debugging a web app I had been building over the last few weekends. My workflow is simple. Identify an interesting problem, go back and forth with multiple LLMs, usually ChatGPT or Gemini,

7 things i learnt from Stephen King's "On Writing "

Starting to reread Stephen King's "On Writing." Here are my favorite parts from the first time I read it. I love how several of them extend beyond the domain of Writing. On ideas "Good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at

My ‘Avoid Stupidity’ Checklist for New Product Launches

Over the years, i have developed a simple checklist to minimize failure rates on new product launches. Here are some of them from a consumer products perspective. 1. Secure marketing $$ commitment for the first 2-3 years. New products need intense marketing and distribution support at launch and up to 2-3

Why Did P&G Choose Its New CEO From Finance Instead of Marketing?

Procter & Gamble doesn't hire CEOs who never worked as brand managers. Yet, for the first time, the new P&G CEO is someone who has risen through the company's financial management ranks. Is it a routine promotion of a corporate veteran, or is there

Eight Great CEOs, You Don't Know About. Except Maybe One

The Outsiders by William J Thorndike, Jr. is a fascinating read. Buy it right now. Seeking to answer the question – "Who was the greatest CEO in the last 50 years". The Outsiders showcases eight CEOs who don't fit the popular stereotype of "great CEO."

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) – A Marketer’s Perspective

Clayton Christensen, the late author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and former HBS professor, wrote the hugely popular Know Your Customer’s “Jobs to Be Done” in 2016. While I love the focus that JTBD brings on the customer, here are a few things which bother me: * Faulty assumptions: The

Getting the Best Value Out of Your Net Promoter Scores

“On a scale of zero to ten, how likely is it that you would recommend [brand or company A] to a friend or colleague?” Chances are you have been through a survey like this. Net Promoter Score (NPS), which this question tracks, is ubiquitous and, as of 2020, was in

How To Start Tracking Your Net Worth Every Month

Grab your favorite drink, budget for an hour, and get started. 1. Download this spreadsheet template https://t.co/JP4JGpiPbi 2. CASH - list your bank accounts. Add the closing balance of the previous month for each of your accounts. Add cash closing balance or ignore it if the value

The Single Most Important Exercise for Your Financial Health – Tracking Your Net Worth Every Month

I have been tracking my Net worth consistently for the last 26 months, and it has been one of my highest leverage activities financially. I reduced the overwhelm and made the exercise quick and easy by: 1. Focusing on the liquid assets. I don't update the latest values

The Right Tool for Every Situation: My Behavior Design Stack

We cannot optimize our behavior with a single design tool. Here is my behavior design stack, which keeps me on track in different contexts: * Where I initiate the triggers or cues – Context Prompts These work very effectively with behaviors that I know when to happen, and I can control the

Online Courses Pre-sign up Checklist…for a Course Hoarder

After seeing how much we spent on courses, I won’t buy any course for a while! My friend had recently started tracking expenses. Her anguish was more to do with the value she derived from the courses rather than the cost. There is a big gap in course outcomes,

Lycurgus’s Sparta - The Most Ambitious Behavior Design Experiment in History?

Sparta’s wealthy had finally had it with Lycurgus. A furious mob denounced him in the marketplace and chased him as he attempted to flee. Lycurgus is said to have lost an eye in the encounter. And his fault – He had set upon one of the most ambitious behavior design

Do You Fancy Yourself as an Artist or a Craftsman? Only One of Them Will Make You More Effective

In the 16th century, Italian painter Giorgio Vasari published The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects a series of artist biographies sometimes described as "the first important book on art history". The Lives… elevated the artists to star status versus the reigning craftsmen following guild

Experience the Power of Emotions in 3 Minutes With the Celebration Blitz

Late in the evening, I walked into a familiar scene. Toys scattered all across the room and my 6-year-old busy with water play. Hey, would like to help me clear the room? I don’t want to be indi-pen-den-tea! I had tried to lecture him about being independent a while

Mindfully Sync With Your Diaphragm Before Stepping Into a High-Stakes Event

The diaphragm is a muscle and can be exercised to improve breathing. But you need to access it first. Most diaphragmatic or belly breathing instructions I find on the internet are confusing. Especially the instruction that "...the hand on the belly should rise and fall...". How does one

Forget the Belly, Focus on the Diaphragm: Deep Breathing Basics

“Breath is your biggest weakness As important as breath is to life, so is it for an actor to bring life to his character”. Dialogues from an iconic movie from my childhood where an actor is mentoring his protégé. Much later he goes blind and plots a revenge murder. Breathe

Are Saber Tooth Cats Still Alive? ... When Kids Discover Voice Search

Walking into our living room the other night, I got the shock of my life – I could hear my 6-year old… “How much time to Neptune and back?” Who is he talking to? And then, a response,” According to…It took Voyager-2 twelve years to reach Neptune” He had discovered

Using Expressive Writing to Heal Your Body and Mind

Expressive writing is a technique where people write about an upsetting experience for 15 to 20 minutes a day for three or four days. It sounds like journaling, but is much more. The method was first described in a scientific paper in 1986 by Dr. James Pennebaker and has robust

Automate Your Daily Routines With Habits To Free Up Your Brain

There are several behaviors you would like to do daily. Many of these occupy your brain space. That’s how they get done. You remember to do them. Or you set up reminders to do them. Some days it works and you do the behavior. But consistency is difficult. Miss

The Myth of the Ten Thousand Hour Rule...in the Making of an Expert.

I first came across the ten-thousand-hour rule coined by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 best seller, Outliers. Gladwell referenced a study on expert performance by Dr. Anders Ericsson, a cognitive psychologist, in coming up with the rule. That it takes ten thousand hours of practice to become a master in

The Curse of Automaticity for Those Who Want to Become Experts

You are learning a new skill…say Yoga and start with Tadasana or the mountain pose. You learn the basics from a teacher, a book or a video. Then you practice till you reach an acceptable level. Soon you can do it easily without needing any instructions. It's

Do The Things You Want to Do but Fail To...By Applying Implementation Intentions

You intended to make that sales call first thing in the morning. To share your idea in the zoom call. Yet when the time came, you didn’t follow through. What happened? Most likely you got in the way. At least that’s what research says. Here is how you

Transform Irritating Situations Into Something Beautiful Using Pearl Habits

I am getting into a flow when my computer hangs. Arggh! I walk into the living room and find it cluttered with toys all over the floor. Meanwhile, my kid has moved to another room. We experience irritating situations throughout the day which deteriorate our emotions and energy. Here’s

What triggers are influencing your behavior? Start by getting aware.

Triggers are low-hanging fruits when it comes to behavior design. A trigger also called a cue or prompt is a call to action. Something that nudges us to do a behavior. No behavior happens without a trigger. If your phone is on silent you won’t pick up the call.

Untangling bad habits, one knot at a time…

All habits have 3 underlying elements – trigger (or cue/prompt), behavior, and reward. If you want to break a bad habit, the easiest place to start is with the trigger. Dr. BJ Fogg, Behavior Scientist recommends thinking of bad habits in terms of “untangling” them. This reflects well the need

Journey of a parent’s screen time battles

We kept away from screens once our child was born. We didn’t miss it. Babies are great at managing time. Their parents’ time. They take all of it. Growing up, our toddler soon started reaching for phones. Months later, we started allowing audio only – songs, stories on YouTube. The

I don’t use Nunchucks but here are my favorite tools to keep my mind empty

With the deluge of stuff coming at us every minute, we need external tools to ensure our brain remains free of clutter. Free to do what it does best - Think, imagine and create. “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water…” - Bruce Lee Here are some of my

Is your website really designed for your user? Think again.

Mac OS has a 15.6%* share of the June 2021 desktop/laptop market. So, roughly 84% of your desktop/laptops users are on PC (not Apple). Now think of the design community creating your online visual experience. Most web/graphic designers use Mac. What does that mean? Your designer

The Organize stage of Getting Things Done (GTD) – how a few tweaks can get you finishing more projects and faster

The Organize stage of Getting Things Done (GTD) is about classifying the clarified actions, support and reference material into appropriate categories. My biggest struggle was on Projects! * The broad definition of Projects meant that I had a list of more than 50 projects. Enough to overwhelm me into inaction. * Both

Empty your mind – Troubleshooting your Capture system for Getting Things Done (GTD)

Ever had your brain reminding you of things to do at the most inappropriate moments. Like when you are in a deep conversation with someone or your head touches the pillow at night? A lot of us carry most of our to-dos in our head. Or keep them scattered in

The Weekly review - a keystone holding your Getting Things Done (GTD) practice together

The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that the entropy or the state of disorder of a system always increases with time. Likewise, our attention and energy tend to dissipate away from our areas of focus. Weeds naturally creep into a garden. And akin to gardening, the ‘Reflect’ stage maintains and

Troubleshooting your Getting Things Done (GTD) approach - the Clarify stage

It's at the Clarify (also Reflect) stage that most people end up tripping in their Getting Things Done (GTD) journey. In the Clarify stage, the key processing questions are – 1. Is this an actionable item? 2. What is the immediate next physical, visible action on this item? According

Why is the Getting Things Done (GTD) system difficult to master?

If you struggle with getting things done, you are not alone. The Getting Things Done (GTD) skillset is a hard one to master. David Allen, an authority on productivity and author of Getting Things Done : "It can easily take as long as two years to get the practice fully

You need a Habit strategy if you are chasing any Aspiration, Skill, or Knowledge

Do you have an aspiration you want to achieve or a skill to master or knowledge to learn? Yes? You signed up for those courses, bought new tools, started high on motivation and energy. And then petered out? And what about the aspirations, skills, or knowledge (ASK) that had your

The Marketer is dead. Long live the Marketers!

Marketing as we knew it has fragmented and hyper- specialized. The impact of technological changes and now Covid-19 has ensured that there is no going back. And that has implications for traditional Marketers as well as users of Marketing as a skill set or function. Even a few decades back,

Test for your users. Not your testing devices.

Some of the most valuable signals look like noise. They come from unlikely sources, are not neatly packaged in datasets and lack explanations. They get ignored. Much of my insights, over 20 years as a marketer, came because i learnt to value such signals early in my career. At a

How I used the Tiny Habits method to set up a wake-up early habit.

The first time I came across the Tiny Habits method, I was curious to test it on waking up early. Something I had struggled with for a long time. No amount of torture including obnoxious alarms had helped. Tiny Habits—created by Dr. BJ Fogg, Behavior Scientist at Stanford University—

Use breadcrumbs to get more done despite interruptions

You have great intentions for the day. You know exactly what you want to work on and get started. A few interruptions later, emotions go downhill, and frustration sets in. The repeated switching drains time and energy and saps your brain. You don’t relish getting back to your project

How to setup Youtube to work for you instead of against you

Youtube is an amazing resource bank. But more often than not one ends up in a rabbit hole of mindless videos. The battle for your attention runs 24x7 and the algorithms usually win. Use "Watch later" - a powerful approach to regain control of your attention. Even a