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“Time and tide waits for none”- Proverb

Time just flies! For the corporates, the work time lost equals rupees lost but for people, it refers to irreparable and irreplaceable loss of opportunities, left out experiences and potential achievements. Time isn’t money, as a famous tagline of an airline says, in fact, time is ALL that you have and EVERYTHING! Just talk to someone who realizes they have missed many opportunities in life and now regrets it. Or ask a failed student about the importance of the time he wasted away or a patient who has just been told by the doctor that they don’t have much time to live. Or ask a youngster, who has just now been jailed for a life term for committing a really serious crime.

Time is an invaluable and unique resource which isn’t expendable in advance, isn’t lendable, isn’t gifteable and isn’t re-claimable like money or materials. Besides, time is perfectly democratic in the sense of having been given  to all in the same amount in a day, not a second more or less.

But so many times, you may have seen people cribbing about the utter scarcity of time for the many vital things in life they would like to do. In fact, I have also been a culprit in this regard as I, too, used to complain of the lack of time and longed I could have a longer day until …….

I have talked of this incident in my A Story Can Change Your Life, too. Today, I see many clients with nearly-identical complaints of a feeling of being swamped in life, of running short of time, or feeling tense due to a shortage of time. Sounds quite commonplace? It must be ringing many a bell out there as we all too often wish for a longer day to pack all our tasks but….

Everyone has 24 hours a day only but in spite of its being so, many of us waste it thoughtlessly on meaningless activities. Wasting it equals wasting chances and once time slips off our hands, we can’t do anything but regret as we can’t be regain it. The tomorrow, the next week, the next month or the next year you have been thinking of to start a particular activity at the “auspicious time” will never come. The only RIGHT time is RIGHT NOW!  So it’s unwise to procrastinate your work what you really and truly own is just “today”, which means brisk action, hard work, sweat, and effort. Obviously, it’s no use striking the iron when it’s cold; the opportune time for doing this thing is while it’s hot.

By practicing time management, I am convinced that our days are long enough to pack all our activities, leisure and other needs.  The trick lies in optimum time management, an important skill, which we all have to ace to optimize our productivity and design  a better, happier, healthier life for ourselves and others, too.

What’s Time Management?

Time management essentially says that you

•       Are organized   
•       Prioritize your work
•       Set your goals clearly
•       Have good communication skills
•       Plan your time properly
•       Delegate your tasks properly
•       Control your stress levels well

Benefits of Time Management

Time Management

If you don’t manage your time effectively, you are going to have  missed deadlines, poor quality work, more stress, work-life imbalance and burnouts. But with proper time management, you can find a dramatic

•       Improvement in personal and professional productivity   
•       A reduction in stress
•       Improvement in work-life balance

Why Time Management?

More out of less

You can realize more work productivity by getting to manage how you spend time. That way, you can focus on more important tasks to achieve better work efficiency.

To get the idea, imagine a vehicle driven slowly by someone busy on the phone alongside. Now compare it with another vehicle driven by someone (without any distraction) at an optimal speed to reach the destination in time. You can comprehend the difference that proper time management can bring to your performance.

Decision making

As a time management coach, I can assert confidently that time management skills help you take better decisions as you can better realize the impact of your decisions.

A bad time manager is hard pressed for time and has to hasten to choose the easier option. That way, he suffers the risk of losing out in the long run. On the other hand, a good time manager assesses the scenario coolly and calmly and then chooses the best possible option.

Success

Good time management means meeting your deadlines and having time for all the things in life including your family and friends and yourself. Greater success, better performance, effective decision-making and a focus on important tasks are its corollaries.

Better Quality of Life

In a rushed, competitive and stressful life, we often miss out on  socialization, bonding, relaxation, and health and pay the price of having material accomplishments. By making time management a part of lifestyle, you can get much more by freeing up time for the things that make us truly happy. That way, we can minimize stress and get more fulfillment in life.

Reduced stress

Effective time management can help minimize stress and anxiety and improve confidence as you can now meet your deadlines easily. With higher productivity, you feel on top of your game. Reduced stress improves productivity, sleep and work-life balance.

More time

You have all the time for the things that matter to you and achieve your biggest goals. You can spend more time with family and friends, strengthen your social bonds and follow your hobbies.  

 Improved energy

The extra bonus is more energy and motivation, with which you can focus on the most important work. More energy gives you a better focus and productivity for a longer time. Personally speaking, I have seen it keep my energy levels high for more productivity.

 Time Management Coaching

Many people struggle with time management, whereas others are pros in this regard. Of course, in order to master it, you need to know how to do it the right way. Time can be tricky. And so, it’s vital to know how to fit your work and daily activities into it. So, how do we go about it? Join me here for some tried-and-tested time management coaching tips:

The key lies in allotting the right time to the right activity for optimum time utilization by prioritizing tasks according to their importance and the estimated time for their completion.

Plan early

In time management coaching, planning is the first and the most readily proven time management technique. First, it helps you properly organize your day. Second, it provides a detailed insight into all the things you need to work on. So, if you plan your daily, weekly, or monthly tasks, the rest gets easier.

Many tools are there to plan and organize your work:

•       Calendars, personal organizers (digital or paper)
•       Time management apps and tools
•       To-do-lists
•       Post-it-notes, notepads, and other time managers

You may mix and match these options to evolve your own time management formula.

Prioritize

Any time management coach can tell you that good time management basically means spending more time on your priorities, along with avoiding a wastage of time on non-priority tasks. Ask yourself:

What’re your goals?

What’re the consequences of doing a particular activity? Are you getting ahead in that direction or away from it?

Plan in advance for the week or the day to feel organized and focused. You can break your tasks over days to see how much time you need for a specific project. Even a few minutes of planning can transform the way you work.

Group together your tasks in terms of their importance by placing them in terms of their relative importance. For example, the tasks labelled “urgent” must be done today while those named “important, but not urgent” are important, but can wait for some time. And “low-priority” tasks can be put off, if you need to.

Now put the tasks under each category. If you need to make a report, it’s an urgent task. But if you have to begin another project with a 2-week deadline for completion, it is an “important, but not urgent” task. Chatting with friends is vital, but certainly not urgent, therefore, you can put it in the “low-priority” group.

To-do lists

At a personal plane, I find them very easy, useful and motivating as I can get a clear idea of what’s supposed to be done on a day. I have found with experience and time that the ideal time to make a to-do list is the end of the day when you clearly know from where to start work the next morning. You may also use some software to do the job for you. 

Time management coaching recommends having S.M.A.R.T. — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound goals to bring a solid structure to work and ready yourself for the day’s work. Take a short break for a coffee, a walk or just stretch your limbs after an hour or so to boost your productivity. It really works!

Decision-making

You cannot sit down and begin working unless you have made a prior decision about how you are going to do it i.e.

•       Which task demands high priority?
•       When is a task to be finished?
•       What resources are available for the task?
•       Which task/s ought to be taken up later?

All these decisions need to be made before you begin to work. This strategy can let you decide clearly about your tasks to improve your quality of work.

Putting together same tasks can save you time. Instead of jumping from one task to another, it would be smart to group them together. For instance, you can fix a time for emails and phone calls rather than doing it anytime in the day. I can certify its efficacy as this is exactly what I do all the time.

Mornings for MITs

Time management coaches advise taking out the most important tasks (MITs) from your to-do list to finish them first. We have the most amount of energy and enthusiasm in the mornings, so why not solve the biggest and the most challenging tasks then? Besides, by accomplishing the most important tasks early in the day, you can keep yourself motivated for the rest of the day.

Log In, Log Out

Try to be aware of how you’re spending your day on various things. List down all your day-to-day, routine activities and the time they take. Now, by having a clear idea of how you are spending your time, you will be better positioned to focus where time is leaking off the tap and how you can plug the hole. 

Make a diary of your daily routine to know which activities are time-wasters e.g. phone calls, social media, TV, gossiping etc. Time tracking and productivity apps are great tools for this one. By recording your daily routine for about a week, you will be able to spot all the time-wasters and then cut them out.

Limit e-mailing time

Several time management examples focus on the apparently innocuous tasks like e-mailing, which, takes a lot of time. Checking and replying to e-mails is a burdensome task. An average worker spends around 20 hours a week checking emails. Think of all the tasks you could do in this time. Reduce the time you spend on e-mails to the minimum to keep those 20 hours for work. If you check e-mail in the morning, reply only to important ones, which need an immediate reply and leave the rest for breaks or read them at the end of the day. Make sure that you mark those unimportant messages as “spam” so that they don’t tend to crowd your inbox.

Get breaks

While giving time management examples, many time management coaches recommend that working without breaks can be more harmful than good to your performance. These breaks help us freshen up our brain and refocus on work. Take a short walk, read some pages from a favorite book, have a coffee or watch a documentary or play an instrument to spend your breaks.

Do use these intermediary breaks to improve time management and feel refreshed for a significant productivity boost.

Discover your time zone

An important part of time management coaching is finding out which particular time works best for you. Each of us is focused and highly productive at certain specific times in a day i.e. we are in our ‘zone’. Find your zone for the best time utilization to bring out the best in you.

Should you feel more energetic at some times in the day, amend your schedule to accommodate this fact to make the most of your time. Some people feel more energetic early in the morning, while others happen to be night owls. Find out your personal best time schedule to reap the benefits of doing more and achieving more.

Avoid Perfection and multi-tasking

Time management examples often show that the perfect is very often the enemy of the good. Avoid over-thinking and do not try to do everything. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you should be careless in your work. Do your best but a longing for perfection can drag you down. Once you’ve done a task by giving it your best, move on.

Let’s accept this hard fact: Most of us aren’t really good at multi-tasking. Therefore, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time and excel at it. Try time boxing i.e. allot a time-frame for every task which increases the likelihood of its completion.

Know time stealers

In time management, we often talk upon finding time stealers to do something about them. You may be spending an hour on emails instead of completing your projects. Knowing where your time goes can let you decide about delegating tasks or using a software to accelerate the lower-level processes.

Similarly, you can’t do everything by yourself. So train someone to undertake simple processes to free yourself up to work on bigger things or more complicated tasks. It’s always a smart thing to allot some tasks to others and let them share the load and if done correctly, it can save you time and effort, besides making others more responsible and confident. You may even outsource some secondary tasks to a freelancer.

Time blocking

The Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s secret to good time management is time blocking i.e. giving a certain fixed number of hours to only one task, while blocking off other tasks. In his 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management, Kevin Kruse says that top performers plan their day by way of time blocks. It seems to be commonsensical as you are more likely to succeed with a well-defined action plan and see your task through to the end. Avoid doing half work, i.e. procrastinating over the current task to do something else e.g. writing a report and then suddenly checking email for no reason and writing back replies. It is not only bad time management but is also bad for your concentration and momentum.

Distractions

Being focused on a task in hand when you have hundreds of them isn’t really easy. So, getting distracted is perfectly normal. Notifications, pop-up messages, e-mails, colleagues constantly disturb you and divert your attention away from work. While working, put your phone on the silent mode and block the phone notifications to save time and improve your efficiency.

Time Management

There are many ways to become focused – keep your phone away, turn off social media notifications or block distracting websites. But the best way is to concentrate and do what is to be done. Reduce your presence on social media to the minimum possible as it takes a lot of time and doesn’t bring much value into life. Be on track with your goals by focusing on one part of your work at a given time and say no to messages, emails or social media notifications. Hard? You may need some practice and a short wait. It will work out ultimately!

Group similar tasks

Various tasks require team members to spend different amounts of time and effort but because most team tasks are quite similar,  putting them together is a good, smart idea. It can allow the teams to save the time spent on reorienting themselves for a new task, thereby ensuring faster project delivery.

Reward yourself

Having done the task at hand, have a break to do something else- a cup of coffee, listen to a song or call a friend. These little gifts are a great way to motivate yourself – the same thing to a rabbit chasing the carrot tied to its ears. It may look a little odd but when you think about the satisfaction you feel after completing the work, you will find it to be worth the effort you spend on it.

So go on, take that nap, have a walk, or read a chapter from your favourite book!

Kids acquire several important emotional, social, academic and spiritual skills during early childhood that equip them for later success in life. Fruitful learning in early childhood covers the ability to focus one’s attention, follow rules, appropriate response to authority figures and peaceful interaction with peers. All of them are foundational for their later achievement in language, literacy, and maths. But paramount to a thriving early childhood experience is the development of self-control, which is often inhibited by impulsivity, aggression, and hyperactivity. Children having these negative traits struggle emotionally, socially, and academically throughout life. One researcher goes to the extent of calling it a “treasured ability”.

The importance of developing self-control can be illustrated with a classic longitudinal study conducted at Stanford University in the 1960s. Some hungry four year-olds were given two options – one marshmallow right away or get two marshmallows fifteen minutes later. About one-thirds of them opted for one marshmallow. A follow-up study years later found the children who waited (for the second marshmallow) to be more successful people, positive, self-motivated, and persistent in pursuit of their goals. These habits are predictors of successful marriages, higher incomes and better health. Alongside, the study also showed that those kids who did not wait, had lower scores in achievement tests, were indecisive, less confident, and stubborn. Even a more recent longitudinal study confirms that kids with high levels of delay-of-gratification have more cognitive control than those with lower levels of delayed gratification.

A child passes through so many developmental phases on its journey from infancy to adulthood. Each such stage in a child’s life is marked by clearly defined, observable and distinct changes in terms of physical, psychological, emotional, inter-personal, social and moral arenas. Among these changes, developing the capability of self-control is a crucial step on the way to maturity and responsible adulthood.

Self-control is variously defined as willpower, self-discipline or conscientiousness. Despite the differences in the way it is defined, self-control is all about one’s ability to self-regulate behavior and actions -resisting distractions, inhibiting impulses, bouncing back from difficult emotions,  delaying gratification and planning ahead.

Obviously, we cannot expect an infant (0-18 months) to exercise self-control as it is yet to develop many capabilities necessary for achieving self-control. Toddlers, too, lack the self-control found among older kids. The ability to self-control develops slowly over the years, with some remarkable, big changes happening between the ages of 3 and 7. Just like with other facets of development, there is a lot of individual variation here, too. Some kids find it difficult to self-control and they face its consequences.

A raft of relevant psychological studies confirm that young kids with poor self-regulation make less academic progress and are more likely to be anxious, depressed and aggressive. Besides, child counseling experts say that such poor self-control kids have a higher risk of obesity, drug addiction, committing crimes and being poor.

Overview of Self-Control

During the early years, kids acquire emotional, social, spiritual, and academic skills that equip them for later success. Paramount to a thriving early childhood experience is the development of self-control, expressed by the ability to trust adults, internalize rules, delay gratification, control angry impulses, find internal ways to be more patient, empathize with others’ feelings, take turns, and find ways to cheer up amidst sadness. Self-control expects them to “delay, defer, and accept substitutions without being aggressive/ disorganized and to cope with arousal, due to environmental challenges or fatigue. These constructs make the idea of self-control a multifaceted concept. Self-control is therefore interchangeably used with self-regulation, emotional regulation, delay-of-gratification, and self-discipline.

Examine the following scenarios to understand the emergence of self-control among kids:

Four-something Swarn went mad over Jaggu hogging the big building blocks. He stood disgruntled nearby. Only a week ago, his teacher had had a group discussion about hitting and hurting….. No one was to hit anyone else…but Swarn was so frustrated that impulsively, he clenched his fist and raised his arm above his head. The class teacher looked straight at him with a reminding look. ‘I wasn’t going to hit him. I was only raising my arm, Ma’m,’ Swarn explained. The teacher smiled encouragingly and helped Swarn take up another activity.

Dingy, a nursery student, was in a crowded shopping mall with her parents. The trip was getting very tiring for her. Father said, ‘Dingy, we didn’t realize we would have to buy so many extra things, and that our trip would be this long. We’re sorry. Thanks for being so patient.’ Dingy sighed, ‘Well, I guess it was necessary’.

Parents’ role in kids’ self-control

Those involved with child counseling services soften report that a strong parent-child attachment increases a child’s ability to control impulses and develop self-control. Young children need plentiful practice and patience from their parents as they work on achieving self-control. Authoritative parents, those who are firm yet nurturing and do not accept any defiant behavior, teach self-regulation with warmth and consistency and expect the kids to show control in a variety of situations. Such parents try to become role models of self-control for their kids and do not resort to punitive or controlling methods of parenting. Their discipline style is more effective because they explain to the kids the reasons behind what they do.

Of course, young children need clear and consistent rules to learn self-regulation. To teach social skills effectively, parents and teachers would need to communicate their expectations clearly to the kids.

Development of Self-Control

Experts dealing with parent counseling services believe that self-control develops with the kids beginning to differentiate between short-term and long-term outcomes. When they realize that a long-term outcome is greater, they delay gratification in their best interests. This capacity to choose a future reward is a function of the prefrontal lobes in the brain. This capacity requires a special memory, which stores information about the past and the future, while carrying out the responses needed to accomplish the goal.

Can we really teach it?

From a life coach’s perspective, this one is a very vital question in the child counseling arena. While tackling the billion dollar question of fostering self-control among young children, some people will tell you that we can’t do so since it’s “all in the genes.” But science says otherwise, offering us some hope. Repeated studies confirm that our genes DO play a significant role in shaping the development of self-regulation but so do parents and teachers, too. Besides, many studies also confirm that it’s really possible to teach self-control to kids. Kids certainly benefit when we remove temptations and distractions, and create such environments as reward self-control. Besides, kids also need to be given timely reminders to stay on track, practical advice for being motivated, overcoming roadblocks and sticking to a plan.

Top 10 Tips To Develop self-control

Here are Top 10 Tips for developing self-control among kids, coming from experts in parent counseling services:

1. Out of sight, out of mind

It’s rather commonsensical! We all have seen self-controlled, high-functioning adults trying to diet lose their will power at the sight of a tempting ice-cream. So the most important tool to facilitate self-control among kids is to change the environment by keeping such temptations hidden from their view!

Now, for young kids, it may imply putting away a toy that is likely to create conflict during a game or avoiding the ice-cream side of the supermarket, while  shopping together. For older children, it might mean keeping electronics gadgets away from their study table. But we can go even further with older kids by teaching them to identify temptations on their own, and then take the necessary steps to eliminate them.

Remember, the kids who remain trouble-free and are better achievers aren’t always blessed with a greater strength of character. Rather, they can better anticipate and avoid situations that can trigger impulsive behaviors.

2. Consistent rewards for self-control

Refer back to the “marshmallow test” wherein pre-schoolers were given a choice between eating one treat now or two treats later. Remember, the kids who demonstrated a better capacity to wait ended up later with better outcomes – better school achievement and less likelihood of drug abuse.

Later research also showed that only a couple of disappointments were enough to erode the kids’ willingness to delay gratification and exercise self-control. Our willingness to wait depends on how we weigh the risks and benefits of a particular action.

As any life coach would confirm, humans select immediate gratification if they distrust the person promising a future prize. And even two-year-old kids can resist the temptation of eating a cookie if the rewards of a wait are sufficiently high.

3. Timely reminders

If you don’t remember the rules, it’s difficult to stick to a programme. Young kids face more trouble keeping directions in mind as they can be easily distracted. So to tide over the problem, it’s useful to remind young kids of our expectations.

In a recent experiment, three-year-old kids were asked to perform a simple task involving  impulse control. They were to open a box to get a prize, but only after getting the correct signal from the experimenter. If they saw a blue square, they could go ahead while getting a red triangle meant leaving the box alone.

The researchers tested two different approaches in this experiment. When an adult reminded the kids of the rules before each trial, they were more likely to have self-control. In contrast, giving the kids a few seconds to stop and think, without any reminder, failed to have any such effect.

The lesson? Remind yourself to remind them.

4. Play self-control games

Whenever we ask kids to play by rules, we’re, in effect, asking them to develop self-control. But some games can be more challenging than others. For example, in the traditional “Red light, Green light” game, when a child hears “Green light!”, they are supposed to move forward and upon hearing “Red light!”, they are expected to freeze.

In this classic shape, this game is all about following directions but it can become slightly trickier. Once the kids have adjusted themselves to the rules, simply reverse them i.e. make “Red light!” the signal to go and “Green light!” the cue to stop. This one challenges a kid’s ability to go against habit. The kid must control impulses i.e. show “self-regulation.”

Do such games help? Researchers say yes. The experiment involved a modified form of the  “Red Light, Green Light” and other games designed to give kids practice in self-regulation. In the Freeze game, kids dance when the music plays and freeze whenever it stops. They dance fast for fast-tempo songs, slowly for slow-tempo songs. And then the cues are reversed i.e. Fast music = slow dancing. Slow music = fast dancing.

The kids played these games twice weekly and after two months, their self-regulation abilities were assessed. Though the kids with above-average self-control had no improvement, the story was different for those who had been struggling. Those with low self-regulation scores (below the 50th percentile) had got a better degree of self-control now.

5. Give kids a break

Kids benefit from breaks after following directions and working hard. Studies confirm that people don’t maintain the same self-control over time. If they are given two demanding tasks one after the other, they tend to show lesser self-control during the second task.

One reason could be that our “quota” of self-control gets exhausted and we literally lack the energy to keep going. Another account says that our brains are designed to seek a balance between bearing drudgery and getting easy rewards. One, who sticks to the same old work routine, sans a break, is going to miss important environmental changes. Therefore, by taking time out to play and explore, we improve our chances of finding profitable new opportunities.

The upshot: If you ask your kid to go from one unpleasant duty to the next, they are going to have lower self-control. Give your kid a break to help them recharge, and that’s a good way to learn, too. Many studies on kids’ learning confirm the oft-believed idea that kids learn faster with shorter lessons separated by breaks.

6. “Must do” vs. “Want to”

A certain kid, who doesn’t cooperate in the class, may be the poster child for poor self-regulation but just give him his favorite toy or a video game to turn him into a picture of complete focus, persistence, and drive. The thing is – the kid doesn’t lack self-control. Actually, he lacks motivation and needs to find enjoyment in the things he’s asked to do. This is what we need to address.

The savvier among us adults know how to brace up for an upcoming assignment, how to become interested and how to mix work with a bit of pleasure. We also know that approaching a task as a nasty chore makes things even worse. But in contrast, kids face a hard time figuring it out, especially if adults themselves display the wrong attitude.

Making a chore a game takes time and energy. Finding the right things to get kids interested may need great patience, observation, and flexibility but as many successful teachers would vouch, it’s an investment that has great pay offs. It may be the key to beating “self-control fatigue” as it’s much easier to tackle a pile of homework if you’ve learned to find at least some of it to be enjoyable.

7. Tackling challenges, learning from failure

Many people often think of intelligence and talent as “gifts” that we inherit and which can’t be improved upon. Therefore, when these people fail in doing something, they feel helpless and give up easily. In contrast, those who believe that efforts can shape intelligence and talent, are more resilient in nature. Life coaches would confirm that such people, in general, are more likely to face challenges and learn from their mistakes.

We, too, can help kids develop this kind of resilience and determination by being careful about the feedback we give them. Several experiments show that praising a kid for their general traits (“You’re so sharp!”) makes them adopt a wrong mindset as does general criticism (“I’m unhappy with you”). Instead, what works far better is praise for effort and feedback, which  encourages kids to try out different strategies (“Can you think of some other way of doing it?”).

Remember, pinpointed, consistent and proportionate praise and criticism always deliver the desired outcomes with most kids.

8. Develop their attention and working memory

Many distracted, impulsive kids have low working memory. Our working memory is the “mental notepad” which we use to keep information “in mind.” While solving a maths problem or trying to remember those directions to a bank, we use our working memory.

Young children don’t perform as well as adults on working memory tasks, which is perfectly okay. But some kids face more difficulty than others, and while there is no cure-all for working memory problems, seeking professional help can improve the kid’s working memory capacity.

9. Emotion coaching

Adults often  react differently to a kid’s negative emotions. Some of these reactions are dismissive in nature (“There isn’t any reason to be so sad.”), while others are disapproving (“Stop that crying!”). Such approaches aren’t exactly helpful as they fail to teach them how to regulate themselves.

In contrast, kids benefit more if parents talk to them about their feelings, exhibit empathy and discuss with them some constructive ways to cope with their feelings i.e. “emotion coaching,” which generates better outcomes. Adolescents “emotion coached” by their mothers show reduced  behavior problems over time.

10. Practice planning

Planning is a very important component of the process of developing self-discipline. People are likelier to succeed if they can think about the obstacles and think of specific steps about when, where, and how they are going to take action. Everyday experience and research indicates that practice in this regard can be helpful.

In an experiment on kids, they didn’t always plan ahead while tackling a problem. But when they were asked to change their approach, they had more success solving the puzzles given to them. There are some games that reward the players for planning ahead, which might teach lessons that kids can apply to other situations.

“In a hundred years, when the history is written from a long term perspective, most likely, the most important event the historians will see is not technology, the Internet, ore commerce. Rather, it is the unprecedented change in the human condition.” – Peter Drucker, management thinker

Since the beginning of mankind, parents, teachers, friends, and elders have used counseling in some way or the other. It was to the family doctor that people turned frequently. Today, of course, it is a very specialized service and a profession by itself. Multiple challenges like the pressure at workplace and home, absence of support systems like elders and the mismatch of expectations are why there is disharmony and alienation among a big mass of employees. So much so that increasingly, the corporates in Indi ate sitting up to take notice of this rising trend and are also taking suitable steps to address these problems.  Counseling is an effective and preventive people management strategy for organizations to help employees better managing stress, personal issues or work related problems. As a life coach, I often conduct corporate counseling programmers to help employees tide over the difficulties they face at the workplace.

For instance, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has a network “Maitree” to counsel its lakhs of employees. Under the initiative, 90% of all TCS offices organize family get-togethers and activities like ball dancing and yoga classes and theatre workshop, helping employees working long hours keep themselves relaxed and healthy. Ditto for Wipro, which with its initiative “Mitr”, trains employees in counseling to help out colleagues in distress. The tragic death of a young couple had made headlines. Only if they had called the 24×7 helpline Infosys had set up two years ago, the outcome would not have been so tragic.

Professional counselors can address many situations leading to emotional stress, including:

Anxiety, depression, other mental and emotional problems

Family and relationship issues

Substance abuse and other addictions

Sexual abuse, domestic violence

Absenteeism

Career change, job stress

Social and emotional difficulties related to disability and illness

Adopting to life transitions

The demise of a loved one

Benefits to the organization:

Reduced costs related to turnover, burnouts, absenteeism & accidents.

Better employee performance and productivity.

Higher sense of loyalty and belongingness

 Stress at the workplace

Executives and professionals in corporate environments often face stress as they have to fulfill deadlines, responsibilities, and targets. There may also be a work-life imbalance because of frequent and extended travel.  Only some people can find the right balance between work and personal care. Many people fail to achieve it and miss out on one or more fronts. Therefore, it is inevitable that the employees will feel stressed, demotivated, and bring their problems to work, which can affect their performance and overall productivity. In fact, it shouldn’t be taken as unprofessional or abnormal; it is normal.

Corporate counseling aims to encourage employees to make healthy lifestyle choices to increase employee productivity. It gives a company the resources, knowledge, and tools necessary to create a healthy work environment. Corporate counseling services are becoming popular in terms of supporting and maintaining a motivated and productive workforce. Corporate counseling can improve employee mental health and emotional well-being by giving them the resources, knowledge, and tools to make healthy lifestyle choices.

Stress can be caused by many reasons:

Nearing the deadline

Sales targets

New management or new team

Stress in personal relationships can result from long office hours, fatigue and harassment, which can cause

Poor concentration

Anxiety before a meeting

Self-doubts

Depression

Poor performance

Careless mistakes

Health problems

Counseling for corporates can be used in many areas and situations to help employees reach their full potential. These are some areas in which you may consider corporate counseling:

Recruitment

In recruitment, only technical or hard skills do not matter; otherwise, machines would be hired to do the job. Psychometric profiling, behavioral assessments, and psychometric tests are used to identify the strengths and weaknesses to select the best candidates.

Orientation and induction

Candidates must be aware of their expectations, roles, responsibilities, and the benefits they can expect. Induction and orientation programmes are the best ways to inform them and clear any doubts. Good companies have ice-breaking, trust games, and psychological team-building exercises in their induction programs, which make the employees feel at ease and relaxed.

Personal Training and Skill Development

Many employees get too comfortable with their work and resist any sort of change. By encouraging employees to participate in training and development, corporate counseling can help them become key stakeholders in the company’s transformation. It is also beneficial for managers to identify training needs and shortlist potential candidates and work out a feasible training plan and assess the results according to corporate goals. Corporate counselors can also help with team building, conflict resolution, negotiation skills, and anger management.

Promotions, performance appraisals

Some employees take the appraisal to get back at their managers for not toeing their line or being outspoken. Managers are often not objective, and are driven by emotions. Although there are many methods and tools to ensure an accurate and fair assessment, managers still have to rely on subjective elements.

Leadership Training

Leaders must be an inspiration to their team and need excellent interpersonal skills, and their attitude towards employees at the bottom of the rung determines how they are perceived by others. Corporate counseling can enable the executives to realize their potential and become leaders.

Management of Change

Many employees find change challenging as it has a significant impact on them. There are mergers, acquisitions, new managements, economic cycles, layoffs, and liquidations and sometimes, the intensity and speed can cause dizziness. In such cases, corporate counseling can be a great option by offering them psychological tools and techniques to keep them calm, focused, and balanced.

Better Environment

Happy, productive employees are cheerful and energetic. In order to give their best, the employees must be able to work in a supportive environment. Corporate counseling helps identify the worst to best work environments with effective solutions to reduce friction and improve coordination. The physical environment -temperature, lighting, ventilation, working hours, and humidity is also important rom the viewpoint of productivity.

Work-life balance

The employees must have the best work-life balance possible. We need to admit that stress is a part of life and it can affect our work-life balance. Corporate counseling helps managers understand the importance of stress management  and encourage employees to be more relaxed.

How to develop leadership skills?

As American statesman John Quincy Adams said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”

What does a lack of skilled business leadership look like? Poor leadership has many faces. A poorly-led team lacks direction, inspiration and cohesion. If your sales, marketing and customer service teams are disjointed, no one can get their job done. In time, weak business leadership creates a downward spiral that inevitably seeps into your customer relations. And when you’re not creating fan customers, your business is on its way to departure.

In my corporate counseling, I often get many questions regarding how entrepreneurial dreams can be fulfilled. You need to cultivate several essential skills to improve the chances of your entrepreneurial success. Not only are hard skills i.e. technical and financial skill extremely important, but soft skills like communication and leadership also play a critical role.

The prospect of advancing to the top makes it possible for many people to keep doing their jobs, honing their skills, and taking on new projects. But after a certain point, career development depends on more than technical skills and hard

work. You also need a few soft skills, of which a major ability is to take on a leadership role.

Some people are natural leaders, but anyone can develop the skill set needed with practice. If you want to take your career as far as possible, you have to put in the work.

1. Discipline

Developing discipline in your professional (and personal) life is a must to be an effective leader and to inspire others. People judge your capacity to lead by the discipline you display. Show discipline at work by always meeting deadlines, keeping appointments, and ending meetings on time. If you are disorganized, you may have your work cut out for you, but you can always begin small. Implement good habits like waking up early and getting daily exercise, and work your way up from there.

2. More projects

Take on more responsibility. You don’t have to take on more than you can handle, but you need to do more than your job description if you want to grow. Stepping out of your comfort zone is the only way you will learn anything new, and get noticed by executives as someone who takes initiative.

3. Learn to follow

A true leader has no problem yielding control to another person. Do not feel threatened when someone disagrees with you, questions your thinking, or puts their own ideas. Have an open mind and give credit wherever due. It won’t always be easy, but if you value and respect your team, they are more likely to step up to the plate for you.

4. Situational awareness

A good leader is someone who can see the bigger picture and anticipate problems – a valuable skill when handling complex projects with tight deadlines. The ability to foresee and avoid potential problems is invaluable for a leader. This ability also helps you recognize opportunities, which certainly earn you recognition. This can be difficult to develop when leading remote teams but with practice, you become more attuned to it.

5. Inspire

Being a leader means you are part of a team, and you should be able to motivate and inspire others to collaborate. When a team member needs guidance, offer it and try to listen and be sympathetic.  Increase employee productivity by inspiring those working with you.

6. Learn

Be open to learning new things to keep your mind sharp and your skills fresh. It primes you for new challenges, which is always good for a leader.

7. Empower

No one is a pro at everything, and the sooner you realize, the sooner you can become a good leader. Delegating tasks to others frees you up for things you do well and empowers others.

8. Resolve conflicts

Not everyone will get along all the time. Address interpersonal conflicts by talking to those involved privately. Also, be open to reassigning team members if it isn’t resolved.

9. Listen

Being a leader doesn’t mean you always enjoy the spotlight. A good leader is someone who listens to suggestions, ideas, and feedback and builds on them. Good listeners know communication is not only about words, but also picking up on eye contact and body language. 

Whatever kind of small business you are running, the matter of concern is you have to enhance your sales and produce revenue. That is the reason, a lot of people want to know the business plan to grow a small business. 

When you start a business, you aim to set up your brand and start budding. Sorry to say but success doesn’t happen overnight. Growth is a continuing process that requires self-belief, dedication, hard work, and most essentially patience. No secret can help you outdo other successful businesses to help you attain immediate success. 

Whenever people ask me for business advice, how to grow my small business quickly or in a very short period? I always say this one line.

“You cannot achieve success in one day but with hard work, dedication, and smart work you will get success one day and that day will come very soon”.

I say that because I have experienced the same, and I know it takes patience to grow your business. When my husband passed away, our business was suffering severely. Miserably, he committed suicide because he gave up, he felt unable to take that load. Later I had two options, either give up or take the challenge. 

Luckily, I chose to face the challenge because I was not alone, I had two daughters. I had to do it for myself,  my daughters, and our business. So, I walked into the business. I saw there was no hope, and low productivity at workplace but I had the courage and confidence that I might not make our business thrive in just one day but I will keep going to make it prosperous one day. 

And today with God’s grace and the incredible efforts of our teams we are flourishing. So, if I can, you also can. 

Highlights:

• Commencing a business necessitates self-assurance, problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, detailed record-keeping, and determined organization. 
• You should know your competitors only then you can improve and enhance your efficacy.
• Initially, you should be prepared to end up working harder and make sacrifices when attaining your business goals. 
• Customer and employee satisfaction is vital to gain constancy and recollecting their business. 
• Make sure you and your business both are ready for commencement with a devoted team.

Difference between small businesses and big businesses:

Now, here in this blog, we are going to talk about how to grow your small business so first, it is important to understand the difference between small and big businesses. 

• Organization structure and grading:

Large businesses have an established structure and categorization between employees depending on the count of people working in the company. The CEOs hold the most control and take decisions for the company.

Whereas the owner of a small business runs it solely, some of them may have a few team members. I have seen many, who are running their small business single-handedly and they are killing it. It happens because of the right approach and hard work. 

• Target spectators:

Although small and large businesses may overlay their target spectators. Large businesses have abundant resources to target audiences in many different markets. So, they will get the advantage of larger audiences. 

Small businesses are limited to regions and locations so they have more local audiences. But if they have resources to build their online presence, they can also multiply their target spectators exponentially. 

• Investment sources:

Big businesses source finances through bank loans, and huge financial institutions. They also give equity capital, sell stocks, and have possessions that support security when required. 

Whereas small businesses prefer financial backing from low-risk resources such as venture capitalists, investors, crowdfunding, government business grants, and community development finance institutions. 

Indications, It’s Time for Expert Business Advice to Grow Your Small Business. 

You should continually explore ways to progress your business. But as I mentioned earlier, a lot of people are rushing to grow too quickly. 

Take an example of an American clothing brand. They opened around 300 stores within 5 years of its launch without understanding the competition and growth strategies. They kept investing. As a result, they fell intensely into debt and had to shut down their stores due to being bankrupt. At last, they had to become an online-only retailer. 

The lesson to learn here is, it is vital to recognize the suitable time to expand your business before investing too much money, energy, time, and other resources. So, it’s a smart decision to get advice from a business coach to know it’s the appropriate time to swell your small business.

• If your industry is evolving that means the competition is also snowballing, so it’s time to grow otherwise you will be left behind.
• If you have a steady cash flow and you are prepared for expansion. Steady profits assure sustainable growth which means you are financially prepared to take action. 
• If you constantly have more demand than your ability to supply. Before you take action, survey the demand, whether it is regarding one specific product or various products. Plan the growth strategy accordingly. 

Ins and Outs Why Your Small Business is Not Growing

If you are running a small business, I must say that you have courage. Because as a Business coach I know a lot of people who just keep daydreaming about launching a business but they don’t have the courage to make their dream come true. 

Before you jump into a small business, you should be equipped to face the challenges only then you can grow. For example, after a few months of launching your business, you have realized that your business Is not growing, it’s just the same as when you started a few months back. Even more money is dripping out than the earnings. Isn’t it scary? 

So, before you plan something that settles your finances or runs back to your draining job you should read this. I am telling you the possible reasons that are halting the development of your small business. Once you know the reasons you are ready to craft a business plan to make things work. 

• Inadequate marketing practices for your small business:

Marketing merely implies informing your potential customers about the service or product you are providing. Strong sales count relies on effective marketing practices. Today, every day you can see a start-up launch and a start-up failure. 15-20% of small businesses fail because of ineffective marketing such as not having a business website, beginning without a plan, inability to track results, targeting off-beam audiences, etc. 

• Not hiring the appropriate team for your small business:

I am not saying that you need to hire 10-15 people for a small business. Whether you hire 2 or 10 people, make sure they are right for your particular business. Hiring inexperienced and unprofessional people means wasting your resources and money without any noticeable growth in the business. 

I have read a line somewhere that precisely suits here. ‘Get the appropriate people on your bus and inappropriate people off the bus and then make sure you get the right people in the suitable seats on the bus.’

• Overinvesting in the early stage of your small business:

I have already given you an example because it’s a very common mistake. Do not rush to overinvest in your idea as it can put you in a scary situation later. If you have good investors, do not go with the flow and keep investing in the excitement of launching your business. If there is no one you can ask for mentoring, a business coach can be the finest pick. They can help you create an investment plan and everything you need help with. 

• You are not willing to learn:

If you are not from the same background, you don’t have adequate knowledge about business strategies or marketing, etc. don’t hesitate to learn. Nobody is born with a variety of talents, but everybody can learn. Don’t be shy about getting help. Either you can hire someone for that specific job or you can learn. 

• Failing to know your customers:

Maybe you are not sure who is going to get your service or product. That means you don’t know your target audience but it’s necessary for an effective marketing strategy and boost sales. Do thorough research to know your customers, connect to them, and understand their needs and problems. It will also add to customer and employee satisfaction. Because if your employees know their customers better, they can do their job better. 

• You are declining to pivot when required:

Your business is not going to look the same as you pictured when you launched it. With time, after a few months, you need to make changes. Further, after a few years, you again have to modify or modernize things. It demonstrates learning and growth. If you are not prepared for that, your business may suffer.

The Secret to Growing Your Small Business:

Whenever it comes to strategies to grow your business, let me tell you that there is no size fit for all business holders. However, there are some key approaches you can implement to support your business growth upward. These are the proven ways I have executed to achieve growth milestones that can propel a small business toward attainment.

• Understand your existing customers:

If you want to serve your customers, you should understand them better. Communicate with them to figure out what attracted them. Why did they buy your product? What do they like and what they do not like? This way you will know which strategies are not working and which are effective to boost sales. If you are well aware of your customers and their experiences you can enhance your positive sides and improve the areas where you are failing. 

• Let the public know what makes you unique:

I have noticed that sundry people who consult me for business advice are imitating their competitors to find success. How long will it work? If you want to prosper your business you have to establish the uniqueness that sets you apart. 

If you are just copying your competitors, why will customers come to you? Build a unique identity for your brand. Think of something that others are not doing and that can help you grab more customers. 

When I entered our leather business, I did a thorough research about the industry. I focused on coming up with something different. I was always very creative and I applied the same approach to the business. I did what others were not doing. I decided to develop biodegradable products because my vision is to make this world a better place. 

• Develop a considerable online presence:

Today, we are living in the digital era, right? Whatever people want, they first search online. So the online presence of your business is a must. I would not suggest you invest a lot in it but at least a significant visibility that people can easily find you online. 

Other than that, make sure you are posting business-related content consistently online. Create crisp and attractive content that meets your target audience’s needs. As your business grows, you can invest more.

• Deliver remarkable customer service:

If you are offering superior customer service, customers are going to neglect minor mistakes from your side. See, if you are delivering a top-notch product but your customer handling service is not satisfactory, customers are certainly going to criticize you. Just consider it as an additional step to make your customers feel valued. 

For instance, a customer bought a washing machine from you that needs to be installed by your engineer. If you are not sending the engineer on the promised time or the engineer is not able to serve them appropriately, they will complain. They may also return your product, right? On the other hand, if you are serving them suitably, they will feel valued and they will come to you again and also give your reference to their family and friends.

• Be flexible to market trends:

Being adaptable is a common trait most successful businesses have. You should be capable of switching directions speedily to counter market changes. It’s a supple tactic for development. As a Business Coach, I advise small business holders to allow themselves to adapt to changing market needs. It makes you test various approaches for your business and identify which performs best. It allows you to keep going without sticking to limiting methods. 

• Maintain productivity at the workplace:

Productivity directly contributes to the expansion of your small business. Whether you have a team of two people or eight people make sure they stay focused during work hours. Work with your team, communicate regularly, listen to them and create a comfortable and encouraging environment at the workplace. If you and your team are making the best of your working hours, growth is on its way. 

• Be acquainted with your competitors:

Knowing and understanding your competitors keeps you inspired. When you know the level of competition in your industry, you are more likely to put effort into staying at the top. I earlier said that don’t imitate your competitors, now I am saying be aware of your competitors. Don’t get confused.

I am suggesting you comprehend your competitors, who they are, what is working for them, what makes you different from them, what they are not doing that you can do etc.  When you will get the answers to these questions, you will get a clear idea about which areas of your business need more attention and how you can boost productivity at workplace to flourish.

When my husband started the leather industry everybody said, it was not going to prosper. The biggest competition was china. Everybody was like, why would somebody buy your products when they are getting the same products from China at the cheapest rates? Due to huge loans and court cases, both businesses were suffering and he lost hope. He did something I never expected, he committed suicide.

Later when I came into the business, I knew that China is our tough competitor. I went to china to understand what products I can sell which are out of the competition. I identified the products in which China was not interested. And today we are selling good quality products and the industry is doing well. 

• Create a business plan to nurture your business:

It’s extremely significant to craft a business plan. From email marketing to reassuring online reviews to marketing tactics, there are plenty of ways to grow your business. You should have an incredible plan ready for execution. 

Unfortunately, around 40% of small businesses are practicing digital marketing without any clear strategy. If you heard about digital marketing that doesn’t mean you can blindly stick to it. An expert business coach will never advise you to do that. Do your research, consult a professional, recognize your customer needs, and test if it works for your business. 

Focus on customer retention:

It’s good to attract new customers but maybe not enough to grow your small business. Customer retention is also vital. Make sure your existing customers are coming back to you, they consider you over others. 

When you focus on customer maintenance you are developing customer loyalty that will boost sales. You can offer customer loyalty rewards to keep them engaged with your business and stay connected on social media platforms.

• Reassure customer and employee satisfaction:

Don’t neglect the satisfaction of your customers as well as your employees. I know it’s very obvious to reassure customer fulfillment but employee satisfaction is also equally important. Satisfied customers are going to be your loyal and lifetime customers for sure. 

You should make sure that your employees are enjoying their job without workload, it will enhance efficiency. Appreciate and value them for their accomplishments. Happy employees work with a calm mind and stay inspiring. 

• Consider collaboration and partnerships:

Collaboration is much better than competing. Partnering up with other businesses or influencers offers a wider reach. For example, if you are in the fashion business, you can plan a strategic partnership with social media influencers. They can recommend your products to their followers. You can also collaborate with other brands to support the expansion of your small business. 

The bottom line:

Growing your small business means you should have a business plan, achievable goals, marketing strategies, growth tactics, expert business advice, and patience. You should be prepared to take calculated risks. Improve productivity at workplace, and monitor your progress to build a fruitful business. 

Now you know every single secret ingredient to growing your small business. Pull your socks, bring your best to the table, and do not be scared of failures, keep going and welcome success with open arms. 

Learning is the bedrock of all human existence. And contrary to common view, it doesn’t end with school or college or university. Rather, it is a lifelong process, going on from the cradle to the grave. It is learning only, which makes possible the transfer of knowledge and skills from one generation to the next so that it becomes part of human heritage. The amount of the unbelievable scientific and technological progress made by mankind in the past two decades is far more than the progress made in the past 1500 years.

A skill means an acquired ability to execute an action having well-determined results with a given amount of time or /and energy. Very simply, it is a desirable way of “doing something”. It is different from knowledge as knowledge signifies only a collection of facts and data while a skill defines how to put them to use. For instance, we all know that to make tea, we need water, sugar, tea leaves, milk and a gas burner (or some other heat source). But making a cup of tea isn’t possible with this knowledge even until you know the process i.e. skill. Therefore, all our daily activities i.e. bathing, grooming, eating, driving are skills which we have learnt with practice. A skill may be general or specific e.g. at the workplace, some general skills required would be time management, teamwork, leadership and motivation, whereas specific skills would be useful only in a certain job.

The expression “Learning skills” describes the tasks involved in making the process of learning enjoyable, fruitful and efficient. It includes things like time management, making notes, effective reading and study skills, writing descriptive tests. A learning style shows how you learn and interact with information. Learning skills are well-formed habits that can be used across life at school, college and beyond. And the good thing is, everyone can develop and improve themselves to accomplish daily tasks or achieve career goals. We are not really born with a knack to develop learning capabilities; rather, we have to learn “how to learn”.  But unfortunately, the Indian educational institutions, barring some exceptions, lay no emphasis on developing these skills. Most Indian students, for instance, do not know how to study, take notes, revise or write their exam papers to score well.

Develop learning skills

If you really want to make the best of your time, you need to develop learning capabilities for optimum output. You may have seen some students learning more quickly and easily than others. By studying only for 2-3 hours daily, they manage to score even better than others who may spend much more time with books. The reason lies in the way they process the information rather than in any inherent superiority on their part. I often get young school and college students, who complain of getting poor scores despite working really hard. Towards this end, here are my top techniques for better study skills and great exam scores.

The ways to improve learning skills vary with the kind of information processor you are. Each of us is born with a different way of processing information i.e. some of us learn best while reading something aloud, others learn best in an “experiential” way and still, others prefer group study. In the example we quoted earlier, there is a difference in the study technique followed by those two students. To improve learning skills, we need to understand the specific learning styles and the big gap in study time can be plugged only with some really smart ways of learning to improve the outcomes.

As a life coach, I often get queries on improving academic performance but even the best life coach out there can’t help you unless you work to improve your learning style. Here are my top 7 tips to improve your learning skills and help you stand out academically:

1. Studying Right

Let’s admit this stark reality: most of us are not aware of the right ways of studying for exams. We just grab a book, pore over it for hours without making any conscious effort to “interact” with the information we are trying to assimilate. In a way, we become passive information bins, which just receive bits and pieces of information and don’t try to process it further. Herein lies the problem. Please remember, long term human memory (that’s what we us during exams) works best when it is elaborated with the help of newer neural pathways. Fret not, let me make it simpler.

For instance, you meet a stranger named Kapil at the wedding party of your friend. You stay together for a while, share some general talk and then depart. If Kapil stumbles upon you two years after this incident and asks you to recognize him, you may be go totally blank. So embarrassing. But really pretty common, isn’t it?   

It’s not that you have a poor memory. Most humans are born with pretty much similar memory. The difference lies in the way we process information. Now, if Kapil begins giving you some clues about that evening like the colour of his dress, the exact location where you spent some time, things start becoming quite easy and after a few minutes, you may begin to have a clear recall of everything that had happened that evening. But you failed to input the connecting links i.e. didn’t try to develop neural pathways, which could have helped you recall that evening.  You may have seen people having very vivid memories, those who can recall your name years after meeting you once. They are not necessarily memory whizzes; they are just better at what we discussed above. Much the same thing happens while studying. Most of us don’t actively try to learn, rather we behave as passive recipients, which needs to be changed.

Secondly, we do not pay much attention to organizing what we learn. Ample research tells us that organized information is much more permanent and is easier to recall when needed. One good example of such organizing can be the “chunking” method. This technique is rooted in the fact that all humans have a limited short-term memory span (7 items, give or take 2 i.e. between 5 and 9, with an average of 7 items). Now a fundamental problem is that this memory span can’t be enhanced but we can certainly compress more bits into an item, thereby fitting more information into this limited memory size e.g. the acronym PQRST we used above is a good example of remembering all the steps in better learning skills. Now instead of remembering Preview, Questioning, Reading, Self-0regearsl and Testing (5 items), we have condensed it to just PQRST and have occupied only one memory slot, leaving us with 6 more.

Similarly, if you would like to remember the names of different phyla like Protozoa, Porifera, Arthropoda, Platyhelminthes etc. (9 or 10 of them) etc., simply take out the beginning letters and arrange them as an acronym and you’re done (i.e. PPAP…….Please pehle aap pehle…(interestingly, they did come first on the phylogenetic scale).

An interesting variation on this one, which can help you even more in cases where the information does not need to be remembered sequentially, is to shuffle the beginning letters in the acronym so made and create a sentence containing words beginning with each of the letters. You may have to invent some funny ones here, but I bet you’ll never forget it.  You can easily recall such funny sentences using the first letter of each phylum name or make sentences that begin with the first letter of the phylum and then describe some of its aspects.

Consider the example quoted a little later about the triggers for India’s independence.

Domestic unrest (D)

International pressure (I)

Rising nationalist sentiment (R)

Poor morale of the British forces (P)

Erosion of authority (E)

Bad financial situation of the British (B)

By taking out the beginning letters i.e. DIRPEB, we can try to create an interesting sentence out of this acronym e.g.

DIRPEB – Demonstrating Indian Resident People Against External British.  OR

DIRPEB – Do it right prove your English background. OR

DIRPEB – Deepa is resting, Pallavi exiting bed.   OR

DIRPEB – Directly In Rupees Pay Your Electricity Bill.

Another example of good organizing is to make charts and diagrams, which not only make things clearer but are also much more likely to be retained permanently.  There are many more such techniques, you just need to find which ones suit you best of all.

PQRST Method

The PQRST method aims at helping students absorb the textbook information into long-term memory.

Breaking Down the PQRST Method

P- Preview

Having an overall idea of the organization of an entire chapter is vital as it prepares the mind for the impending onslaught of information. Understanding the overall framework offers a valuable idea of what’s about to come.

Start with skimming the chapter, beginning with the introduction part. Go through the headlines and titles, section and sub-section names, examine the data and figures, and review the chapter-end summary.

Q- Questioning

After the preview, consider the purpose of the chapter. What am I supposed to learn? For instance, you are studying a chapter concerning the reasons behind India’s independence. And you have a whole chapter talking about 10-12 major factors like

Poor morale of the British forces

Bad financial situation of the British

Erosion of authority

International pressure etc. etc.

Remember, the more you prime your brain for the topic, the more accessible the material will be to you. Create as many questions as you can around these points and when you go through the stuff, try to find answers to them. This is an elaboration at work for you.

Reading

It may not sound commonsensical to make the reading part the third step in this process. However, the two preceding steps are integral to maximizing your performance. Read slowly to absorb the meaning and connect the new material with other ideas. You can underline and highlight, but use some restraint and do not take notes right now as of now, you are unaware of the relative importance of different ideas in the chapter. Instead, read an entire section and then refer back to the questions you had thought of in the previous step.

Summarizing

Once you complete a section, stop to reflect on its major ideas. Try to repeat what you learned aloud to yourself as recitation (maybe by heart even) aids retention. Now you can summarize and make notes and it can include answering your questions, making a list of key ideas and simplifying the main points in your own words. If something is not clear or you are unable to recall key concepts, return to the relevant part.

Testing

Now is the time to know what you’ve really learned. Self-testing may involve using questions, writing summaries and testing yourself with a quiz.

The PQRST method is applicable to a bulk of academic reading materials. The “Preview” and “Testing” sections apply to the entire chapter, while the rest are to be used with each section. The PQRST method can help you keep active and engaged through the study process and give you a more pleasant and rewarding study experience.

2. Making a Study Plan and Being Organized

A well-organized study plan helps you become clear with what you need and when you need it. Make a rough study timetable and stick to it. A study timetable reminds you of what to learn when to keep you organized and productive. It also puts your mind at rest and eliminates that nasty feeling of uneasiness when you walk into an exam hall.

There are no hard and fast rules about the best time for studies. Some people do best in the morning, others love the nights. Just find your own best time and you are good to go!

Your brain can get tired if you overwork it and once it is tired, you really can’t focus. Of course, every study session should be split into chunks of 1 hour each so as to maximize your efficiency. So it’s important to limit your concentration span and have some rest. Take a very short break for 5 minutes, take a walk, look at nature, have a tea or just listen to a song. It gives the brain a good chance to restore your learning.

The best way to establish a study schedule is to try and see what works best for you, and then change it for maximum learning efficiency.

3. Highlighting Key Points

Highlighting something means you are engaging with certain key ideas. Highlighting the most significant parts of your text helps you summarize the whole chapter so that while revising a chapter, you just need to scroll down the underlined sentences to get an overall gist.

4. Having Study Buddies

To break the monotony of sitting alone, have some motivated study partners with who you can work. Group study can help you keep engaged and results in better information processing. If you are not clear with some concept, you can discuss it with your friends. Actively engaging with someone else not only helps you learn but also makes it enjoyable.  You may also choose a topic and teach your friend as sometimes, the best way to learn something is to teach it (even if you haven’t mastered it).

6. Recalling Learning and Testing Yourself

Never ever forget to recall what you learnt. This is quite important for your to sort out the information fed into it. This is the time to realize what topics are there in your mind and what others have swept off it. Thus, at the end of the rest, the information will be much clearer than it was, to begin with.

Periodic testing helps you not only get an idea of your performance but also gives you a booster dose of confidence to face the exams. So have oral quizzes, written tests and the like to always keep assessing yourself. A good score is a pat on the back while a bad one is a spur for more hard work. Either way, you’ll emerge a winner.

7. Trying out new technologies

Nowadays, you have many more options for personalizing your study than jotting things down with a pen. Though the good old handwritten method has its own place in the scheme of things but you can also try out the online learning tools like social media, blogs, videos or mobile apps, thereby making the learning process more user-friendly and enjoyable.