Increase your desire to learn

We should always be in the learning mode. But most often our ego gets in the way of our desire to learn. Successful leaders always keeping their mind open to new things because they know how high their level of mastery there is always something new to learn or discover.

Work on your back hand

When you are particularly good at something, its very easy to rely on that strength. But turning your weaknesses into strength will give you a competitive edge. Focus your energy on improving on your weak points. The best way to do that is to get out of your comfort zones and challenge yourself to do things which you always afraid to do.

There is no better way to impress than to reveal your backhand when everyone is expecting your forehand.

Be Open to Criticism

Constructive criticism is very essential for creative, innovation and problem solving. Designers needs to be sure not only that they are open to criticism but that they actively seek it out.

Don’t simply ask for general feedback on your design but ask people to poke holes in your ideas and approaches. Criticism can be a useful approach to test ideas/designs and keep people and team accountable.

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

- Elbert Hubbard

Listen better

Good listening isn’t about making the speaker feel respected and heard but also about making sure you understand what truly said.

Good listening strategy involves 2 key steps: seeking to understand a speaker’s idea and then offer the idea back to the speakers in your own words to confirm that the idea has been understood correctly. Often this technique is referred as Reflective Listening.

“If y0u can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

- Albert Einstein

Increase your productivity

One great way to increase productivity is keeping a todo list. Write down everything that you want or need to do in one place. Writing it down helps get it off your head and leaves you free to focus on the task at hand

Refer to the list at the end of your day and identify the item that you need to accomplish on the next day. Try to do that in the first thing in the morning when you’re likely to have more energy and less distraction.

Get through your to do list

Creating a to-do list is important and knocking off all the items in the to-do-list is even more important. Try to get 3 things done before noon. Statistics shows that the team ahead at halftime is more like to win the game.

Self discipline is hard and I stopped maintaining a to-do list last since last few months for various reasons. But from now onwards I will make sure that I resume the practice without a miss.

Prioritize value over volume

Multi-tasking often results in mediocre outcomes. By putting little focus on too many things, you will fail to do anything well. However, the answer isn’t single-tasking either. Single tasking is far too slow to help you succeed.

Its important to identify the work that will create more value and focus only on those. By prioritizing value over volume and sharpening your focus on tasks that matters, you will increase the quality of your work that delivers value.

Stop working and have fun

Its very important to take the ‘Work’ out of your work. Make work fun and enjoyable by finding the people you enjoy working with. I am quite fortunate to get that but in real life scenario you don’t have a choice. But when you do, choose people you trust, respect and enjoy spending time together.

Another way to have fun at work is to identify the problem you enjoy solving. Again, you may not have enough choice here as well. But try to seek out projects that find interesting and are passionate about.

Always ask for feedback

Its always important to understand how others are perceiving you. The best way to identify is to ask for direct feedback for your manager, peer and friends.