The Journey of a GSB Time Ninja

My Stanford classmates are GSB Time Ninjas. I’m in awe of their spirits to schedule. If you are reading this, you may be one of them. I remember when I received my first calendar invite for a 1-on-1 at the GSB. “SoulCycle +Dinner” would now require me to restructure my weekend. This innocent invite became an impassioned, somewhat spiritual awakening to optimize my life. And where better to have this awakening than at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Nowhere else do you have an opportunity in your 20s to 30s to live, study, socialize and work with 400+ impassioned, intelligent and successful young professionals. The GSB is a brilliant experimental lab to influence and be influenced by the habits of high-performing peers. Each one of them accomplishes different things using the same currency of 24 hours. I laugh thinking of the secret studies Stanford professors probably have been running on “our breed” for decades.

I wondered: how did everyone use their 24 hours?

Unknown to me, this classmate’s invite would begin a two-year product management internship — where I was the prototype. Each quarter, summer included, was an agile sprint with a series of iterations to launch Pooja 2.0 — a GSB Ninja learning to harness my life’s true currency.

Time.

I studied myself. I observed classmates and watched how everyone made different choices. Like a good Start Up Garage student, I tested numerous MVPs. At first, I scheduled nothing. And then I scheduled everything. Meals. “Creative Thinking” time. I color coded. I defensive scheduled. I even timed how long it took me to walk from the Quad to Town Square aka “Commute Time.” Because if I didn’t, someone might see that as an opening to connect — and then I’d have to say no. Which I learned to say but still despise.

I was flaked on and I flaked. I downloaded numerous productivity apps and almost traded my Samsung for an iPhone so I could use Superhuman. It’s magical what I can do with an iPad now. Some of you even bought one after seeing me in action. I was slowly transforming into a GSB Time Ninja.

But I noticed when I got too good at scheduling and focusing on myself, I observed life felt emptier. Less moments of laughter. Less moments of creativity. Less moments of excitement. My mental preoccupation with efficiency even interfered with my weird ability to recall every word from conversations. That was shocking. Beyond a certain point, hyper-efficiency dimmed the spark that made me feel alive.

What the calendar didn’t capture was the richness of my life. The laughter hidden in the unplanned moments. Joy couldn’t be measured. I could count minutes and deliverables, but happiness wasn’t a function of time spent with someone or frequency of interactions. Sometimes, just five random minutes spent with some of you moved me in ways I’ll remember for a lifetime. What’s ironic is I felt more connected and inspired by people who made me feel like time didn’t exist — who left me with a feeling that I wasn’t a transaction on their calendar and shared their presence generously. Those are the people that left an impression on my heart. Life felt richer when I focused on others and cultivated moments to simply be.

The takeaway? There is a spectrum of “doing” and “being.” Life ebbs and flows. Learning where to let it ebb and flow is an art. Mastering the art makes life magical.

Our application essay was “What matters most to you and why?” It reveals everything about the GSB experience. We are asked this question when we are repeatedly forced to choose between two or more equally attractive options, multiple times a day. The truth is, we are always answering this question — at the GSB or not — by where we choose to focus our time. The infinite immediate tradeoffs are hidden outside this experimental lab but the gravity of this truth is unmistakable here.

My answer to the GSB essay in one word. Growth. And oh my, how I’ve grown.