Moved.

Click here to visit my new blog. This blog now has a new home at gcmouli.wordpress.com Please do come and visit my shiny new home. I will continue writing on the same areas of personal productivity and technology in its new avatar also.

Death to Cubicles ...

Meandered my way to this awesome Fast Company article titled Death to Cubicles. 

Collaboration is great, but sometimes I'd kill for a door. .... Fittingly, this outburst took place just down the road from the University of Colorado, where in 1968, a fine-arts professor named Robert Propst came up with the "Action Office." Propst's vision was to give white-collar workers, then toiling amid rows of desks in huge open spaces, both more privacy and a way to individualize their space. By that measure, cubicles were an improvement. But in the hands of space-mad facilities planners, the idea was perverted to justify an officescape that resembled the Chicago stockyards. Dilbert was born. Scott Adams got rich.

Nicely written. Read the full article here.

 

Zero Based Budgeting

Getting Finances Done has a very nice write up on zero-based budgeting. The basic concept here is that, all money coming in will be spent either  by 'actual' purchases, or on paper. In other words, every penny/paisa/cent should be accounted for on paper. If it goes into savings, or into investment, wherever, it goes on to a spreadsheet row.

Total income - total exp = 0

Check out the post here.

Happy Independance Day

India celebrates its 59th year of Independance today. 


Jai Hind !

 

Stay focussed at work

Dave Cheong in his most enriching blog, has a nice post on 18 ways to stay focussed at work. Makes a very interesting read. I have started implementing a couple of the tips. It has been working out well until now. Some interesting tips are :

Write out a daily task list and plan your day.

Setup filters in your email.

Clean up your desk.

Change your mindset and make work fun.

Read the full list here.

Update: Found another Being Focussed article on the same blog. Man, this guy is amazing. Check out his list of things to do, for keeping his blogging consistant:

• Having a goal to write 120 articles in a year.
• Working on 3 articles each week, or 2 paragraphs in each sitting.
• Prioritising bill paying before working on writing tasks.
• Tracking the number of posts I have done each week.
• Planning the topics for future articles in advance.
• Taking time out to do searches on Technorati and Google.
• Waking up at 5:30am and working on an article before work.
• Asking my wife to wake me up if I fail to get up on my own.
• Unplugging the Xbox to remove distractions.
• Watching TV to relax my mind after completing an article.
• Visualise the growth in subscribers to my feed to maintain motivation.

Wow !

Typing this from MS Live Writer

This is very neat. I am impressed. The UI is clean and uncluttered. All the important aspects are present. Formatting buttons, buttons to include pictures and links. Nice.

However one bummer (as of now) is I cannot publish pictures through Live writer to Blogger. Apparently blogger will not allow me to.

Download the live writer [here]

Update: Uploading the below image through blogger.com

Outlook Update

Yes. I have been using Outlook completely for about a week now. I am a happy camper until now. No mishaps. I have set up a few filters. I am wholly on INBOX ZERO (an idea, I had read about in fellow blogger Merlin Mann's 43 folders). Basically, every email that lands in my box gets a priority/action associated with it. It either gets filed into a folder, or gets deleted, or stays in my INBOX if it requires an action from me. It gets a red flag, if it is a deadline oriented task (or has an appointment linked to it - so that I will not have to toggle to/back from the calendar mode). So far so good.

Rebuttal to Steve Pavlina

This is what I like about the internet most. Healthy competition. Free flow of opinions and ideas. I am sure Mr. Pavlina will take this in good sport too. Steve had a nice article sometime back on 10 reasons why one should never work for someone. Business blog businesspundit.com has a rebuttal post to it. 'Rob', the author gives his opinion on each of the 10 points that Steve makes, and dismisses them. He ofcourse, says that these are purely of his own experience. Very nicely written rebuttal. Each point that Steve makes, 'Rob' has a comeback. For instance,

6. Having an evil bovine masterThe flip side of this is you could work for a business genius that teaches you all sorts of lessons in two or three years that it would have taken you ten years to learn on your own. Think about it - if you want to be a value investor would you rather start from scratch or work a few years under Warren Buffett?

Nice. Check out the whole article here.

Lego Art

Wow. Amazing. It is amazing how Lego enthusiasts adapt themselves to so many situations.

Check out this amazing lego art.

The starry night mosaic. Click [here] to see the mosiac in its various stages of genesis.