Clayton M Christensen’s writing on ‘How will you measure your life?’ made me have a re-look at my priorities. In the year 2010 I had been doing so much that I had never been so busy, stressed and tired ,eventually fell too sick. Yet when I recollect that year, nothing good stands out barring a few high points and most of the time I had spent trying to squeeze in more and more. On the contrary when I identified some core areas to work & concentrate; and try not to pack myself, I see a remarkable improvement in efficiency and my sense of well being.
I inferred Clayton’s writing as below
- Get the priorities right and use the resources wisely, we have only 12-14 hours in a day. We should learn to amplify the effectiveness in the tasks we will be involved in every day instead of trying to cram in more hours. Keep revisiting the priorities as they change very often and one plan is never good for long
- Avoid succumbing the temptation of this one time. Some positive habits are hard to catch on and difficult to follow. Have something like a Seinfeld calendar and make sure not to break the chain.
- Stay away from the power tools both at work and the family. The best way we can win the confidence of others is to create a level playing field and help each other. Collective intelligence is far more superior than the sum of individual intelligence put together, team work will take us to new height even in a learning mode.
- Every person we meet has something to teach us, right or wrong is always a perception. By being humble we will be approachable and people will readily share experience and knowledge to help us out. Individuals who act overly assertive or arrogant can leave a wrong impression of being successful, we should be careful not to follow them because mostly their arrogant behavior is to mask their shortcomings. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves.
- Have simple rules and values by which we would leave our place lot better than what we found.
Clayton M Christensen is a professor at Harvard Business School. His work on which this blog is based on is available at HBR
Novi's 
Wonderfully Consolidated. You always have to understand what you want, than just being a rat in the race. That’s when you stop advertising and defending, instead will start looking at how you want to live.
One thing that always puzzles me is, why should you be a jesus/buddha to show the other cheek when bullies behave over-assertive or arrogant ?
@Sriram: Any thoughts on how you deal with bullies? I prefer to ignore them unless they are a menace or someone else needs a rescue; bullies are not worth our time.