Nuggets On
managing time
Money is a renewable resource, time is not. Leaders share their wisdom around how they have thought about their time and gravitated towards initiatives that yield the maximum Return on Time Invested (ROTI). They also discuss how the pie chart of time has evolved with changes in context.
Current portfolio of time spent
Nandan talks about how he organizes his time currently and more importantly, the design principle behind how he prioritizes his time. He also talks about his journey through Infosys and Aadhaar to the current portfolio of initiatives that includes India Stack evangelization, EkStep, Philanthropy and investing in & mentoring select start-ups.
Pie chart of time in Venture Investing
In any profession, it is important to understand how to spend time on the right priorities. People often get consumed by the urgent and miss out on the critical. That pie chart looks different across professions. Karthik talks about how he spends his time as a Venture Investor and as an entrepreneur at Blume Ventures.
Current portfolio of initiatives
Pramath talks about the portfolio of initiatives that he has today. More importantly, he talks about the underlying principle behind how he has assembled this portfolio together. He gives us a peek into how he thinks about success using internal and external metrics.
Pie chart of time today
Rama has been a solo-advisor for several years now. She talks about how she has thought about her portfolio of work (she likens it to broadcasting multiple TV channels) and how that has evolved over time.
Increasing productivity
Suresh speaks about how he used the crisis as an opportunity to ensure that people in the company spent time on the right things. He speaks about how he went on a war-footing to cut down meeting times in the company and got people to be more productive during office hours. He discusses his perspectives around the trade-off between efficiency and effectiveness.
Perspectives on Prioritization
Jay talks about the criticality of creating the leverage as a leader to find a mechanism to process the volumes the data that comes to you to be thoughtful about your decisions. He goes on to talk about how he has to balance the need to go after legislative priorities with crises that might erupt in your constituency from time to time.
Moving to a 50% model at Bain Capital
Amit currently operates on a 50% model where he spends 2.5 days at Bain Capital and 2.5 days on Social Impact, Boards and other matters. He talks about how he and his wife gradually started spending more and more time on the Social sector and how he structured this arrangement when the last fund was being raised.
Managing time, unfettered curiosity and resilience
Vinay talks about Narasimha Rao spent his time at various points in his career. More specifically, he breaks down the pie chart of time across different phases - when you are campaigning, when you are in power and when you are in opposition. He talks about how Narasimha Rao had unfettered curiosity that helped him indulge his curiosity when he was in opposition which helped him evolve as a person but also ensured that he did not make any hasty decisions in the short-term out of anxiety that would hurt him in the long run.
Dealing effectively with Jet-lag
Matt speaks about how travelers who fly across time zones should think about acclimatizing themselves to the new location without too much disruption. He refers to the timing of when we sleep and how we think about eating and suggests that we should forget about the time zone of the origin and start aligning to the destination the moment we board the plane. He also shares some perspectives around how long it takes to adjust the body clock from one time zone to another.
Time scarcity and generosity burnout
Raj speaks about the link between time affluence and an abundance mindset, two seemingly uncorrelated concepts. He also goes onto talk about the link between how much we load our plates and the link between that and happiness. He also shares some insights around how we can bring in some time affluence in our lives.
Build ability to beat motivation cycles
BJ speaks about how we could overcome the vagaries of our motivation by working on our abilities and by keeping the habit really tiny. He also breaks down ability into a chain and says that our probability of doing something depends on the weakest link in the chain. The chain consists of time, money, physical effort, mental effort and routine.
Fertilizing a new possibility
Atul speaks about how he straddled the two worlds concurrently – one in which he was running an IT business, the other where he was an emerging comedian. He speaks about how these two ecosystems were very different and how he moved from one domain to another. He also speaks about how doing more stand up made him better in his IT job despite getting busier.
Riding two horses
Atul speaks about how had to straddle both the worlds concurrently – the world of business and stand up comedy. He had to ensure that the business partners didn’t feel that he would let them down and vice versa. He also speaks about the fact that he had been battle hardened in life to deal with the ups and downs that the world of stand up threw at him.
Understanding the notion of time poverty
Ashley speaks about the notion of Time Poverty and how it is structural and psychological. She goes on to say that while have more time for leisure now than in 1950s, we still “feel” time poor. She speaks about the role of technology in exacerbating this further.
Are you a Taylor or a Morgan?
Ashley speaks about two broad archetypes in the world – Morgans (people who prioritize money) and Taylors (people who prioritize time). She speaks about how this impacts some of our daily choices and some of our macro choices. She goes onto say that interestingly enough Taylors often end up making more money than Morgans. She links it to how this is often impacted by our upbringing and the impact on our overall happiness levels.
Consulting causing an adversarial relationship with time
Ashley speaks about how having a number attached to a unit of time can sometimes lead us to optimize for money thereby leading to us solving for the short term while missing out on some of the elements required us for us to be effective and happy in the long run.
Changing our relationship with time
Ashley speaks about how we should think about bringing time affluence in our lives. She speaks about the notion of time being a collective resource and therefore the need for us to engage our friends, our family members and our colleagues at our workplaces to move from cognition to behavioural change.
Role of money in transitions
Bruce speaks about how we live in world today where there is an opportunity for us to architect a life that is resonant with what matters to us. He urges to be more open about taking cuts in compensation in the short run for us to pursue what we really love.
Learnable elements from Jeff Bezos's leadership
Bill speaks about some of the elements of Jeff Bezos’s leadership that make him distinctive. While some of those elements are in-born and hard to replicate, he teases out some of the elements that we could learn and imbibe as we go through our journeys.
Attitude towards Money
Rajiv speaks about how he thought about money when he decided to step off the financially lucrative corporate track. He also makes the distinction between foregoing future upside versus taking a cut on the lifestyle as things stand today.
Key choices as a Coach
Rajiv speaks about some of the key choices he has made along the way in his journey as a Coach. He speaks about how he kept his North Star front and centre as he thought about various options and possibilities around expanding the practice. He also speaks about how he balances quality of his work with the volume he takes on.
Prioritizing sharply
Dorie speaks about how she has prioritized her time and attention as her practice has picked up over time. She urges us to raise the bar on meeting people as one builds a brand and more and more people start reaching out for help.
Extending the horizon
Dorie speaks about the time horizon with which we operate and says that if we are able to operate with a longer time horizons, the number of credible competitors around us drops significantly.
Key choices post the Corporate path
Ravi speaks about some of the choices he has made post his corporate career spanning Cummins and Microsoft. He speaks about how he has thought about the portfolio of things that he has architected and how the portfolio has evolved over time. He also discusses how one could think about doing one thing versus pursuing a portfolio.
