Learning to Slow Down~ Because slowing down is sometimes the best way to speed up..

Learning to Slow Down~ Because slowing down is sometimes the best way to speed up..

           

In last few days I find everything that is happening is more of lesson, constantly I have been asking myself to slow down..

I am someone who loves being quick in what I do because there are deadlines to meet and

to meet them we need to be swift.

Which I’m sure all of us do love and would like to be one  if we are not quick..

Fair enough but not all the times ..These days I don’t know if it is really good to be quick at times.

Whatever has happened in last few days has made me think about it..

Slowing down is something I’ve been thinking about in last few months- You may find me silly saying this,

Yes, I made mistakes and the reason was providing quick solution as I was being more productive.

And the results left me saying “Oh , no”, “Crap”, “Shit”, “I should have confirmed once”, “Should have done this and that”

You know lot of regrets ….

There was nothing uncontrollable… trust me , I could have controlled or avoided mess.

Being quick and productive is always considered to be one of the best quality, as you are praised by your friends, colleagues and even you believe that you’re doing something well and continue to be the same.

I was once told “ Don’t provide immediate solutions , instead think from all different views ,analyse and provide a solution”

And I just nodded ..

Because it all went above my head and was too complicated to understand– because even here my thought was- why do I have to think about giving a solution when I know the answer and waste time,

See now you know how quick I wanted to be always, so it really took a while to understand what this guy meant ..

To be honest ,I gave up solving this sentence after a week or so ..

I happened  to  discuss this with Deepak about the feedback shared and his opinion was  -“Right, I agree you need to think and take action but the amount of time should not be too long or it will lose its essence”  makes sense…but then I felt he again made it too complicated  for me ,

So there should be some sort of balancing is what he meant.

I began experimenting with slowing down.

So - How can you be chilled out.. i mean to say calm and not busy and at the same time still effective ,dependable and productive?-   was something I had to work on..

·I always felt anxious when i rushed and then  as advised by every Parents  and maybe every odd person you know,

Drink water and stay calm, 

it truly reduces stress and anxiety or you know when you feel like you are rushing.



For the sake to stay out and think ,even if it is matter of minute it keeps you out of your work and gives you time for yourself..

·         We are sometimes so deeply involved in what we do that we do not pause ourselves and forget that someone really need our help and maybe waiting, (well ,I’m talking about our work environment)

Trust me , I have suffered many times when someone did not respond  upon waiting long and make you repeat things, it’s a pain I tell you ..

Pause yourself for a while and listen to the problem Instead of making someone repeat the same,

This will show how dependable you are and have some time for your colleague/employee and in turn will also save both of yours time.

·         Before providing a solution even if you know the answer, it is always better to challenge your thoughts-

                    Is this likely to happen?

                   Recall if this has happened before?

                  What’s the worst that can happen? Can we handle that?

(Well, I have put these questions here as I missed to check all these before I provided a solution to my peer.) So, you can add up questions depending upon the situation.

·         Always provide a space and an opportunity for people to present their ideas and to come up with their own solutions.

       When you rush to provide a solution to someone else's problem, it may be the wrong sometimes

                           
Your solution might be right, but if you jump in too soon with all the answers, you could miss out on something that could be far better.

·         Last but not the least, Make it your goal to work smarter  by finding strategies.

I tried this for few months and it worked smoothly…there were of course some extra efforts to remind myself often , pooja.. calm down ..think ..analyse was always there though..

However, before I could put this across my blogs i wanted one of the leaders to share their opinion about this or if rushing was good to stay productive.

One whom I haven’t closely worked with but know that he is smart and hard working at the same time.

So yes,One of the operations lead.. It was again easy to walk upto him and ask how he managed to stay calm and  productive ..

And he had to say this–

“Human should always keep the control with oneself, the moment you lose your patience you are giving your remote control to others.So we need to keep patience and relaxed so that we take the right decision at right time by ourself. Not by giving control to others.”-
So here patience is the key . ..isn’t it ?

So here it is all about losing opportunities if you aren’t patient enough..once the remote is controlled by someone else you lose the opportunity to grow.

Do you take time to answer even when you know the fix?- was my next question-

And his immediate response was-

“I never rush, I think and calculate atleast 3 steps ahead ..no knee jerk reaction”.

That’s how they manage to stay calm and speed up things they do by slowing down.

So basically, In everything we do we want to be quicker, more efficient and more productive, which is good but sometimes hazardous.

So stop rushing and slow down, worry less, make fewer mistakes and stay Focussed.

As someone said - "At the end of the day,you can't control the results;you can only control your effort level and your focus"