This is turning out to be a intense week! Last couple of weeks were also tight but I managed to mostly stay afloat.

Now, I am slowly beginning to get pulled under from different sides and it is forcing me to rapidly prioritize, plan and execute to keep things moving. Which is tiring but very exciting. So far it has been great fun but it is ever so easy for things to become spin out of control. And this time, I was so determined to stop that from happening that I was able to turn the crisis switch on earlier than usual. Crisis mode is always fun - but I hope there isnt much damage done this time around. Cannot compromise.

I am a strong believer in perspectives. Perspective changes everything.

Yet, some perspectives are ridiculously hard to achieve. Like the one where you look at yourself as an outsider. Maybe I can step back - but can I look at myself as another person would? No, I cannot. I am restricted by me. The assumptions  I make about myself. The curse of knowledge. Knowledge about myself.

I have always maintained that the person who knows you best is yourself. I still hold on to that. But then, I realize it is a biased perspective. To see that knowledge in its raw form objectively is very difficult. It is too complex. So we have checkpoints. Abstractions. Assumptions. Axioms. Call it what you want, but it is biased.

Especially when you angry. Anger tends to make your view myopic.

and half way through convincing myself to dump my work and go to sleep.

And my lovely sister had this on her status:

When life gets you down you know whatchu gotta do? Just keep Swimmin’! Just keep swimmin’!Just keep swimmin’ swimmin’ swimmin’ What do we do? we swim swim.

I asked her why so much excitement and she sent me this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxB_TemN1pc

Gave me that little extra firepower to last the night!

Judging people is never easy. Yet, your brain often jumps to conclusions using half-data. A quick preliminary analysis using stereotypes and probability. 

This ability of our brain is not a bad thing. 

For instance, we were interviewing our country manager ( and ex-finance minister of the philippines) today. He was talking about his biggest take-away from Harvard Business school other than the network he developed - How to make decisions using partial information. It is an important skill to have because in the real world, our information is hardly going to be complete. We usually have information with varying degrees of accuracy, reliability and completeness. Yet we need to take a call with what you have! If we wait for the full information, the decision might become irrelevant. 

Hence, there is no doubt.

Not that hard, was it?

Overconfidence kills.

And follow the code. That means you don’t go late for work without informing even if you stay there till 12 midnight.

by listing the time remaining to a predefined deadline as my gtalk status every now and then.

Its like shouting out to the world - “This is my commitment. And I am writing it down - so you can hold me to it!”

Should use it more often to get work done. :)