The Beginning

I recall some of the times during my 4 years of college life when a lot of people told me – “This is the phase of life you can enjoy the most! Once you get into corporate life, you’ll not have the time to meet your friends and have fun. Each of your friends will take his/her own career path” and so on. These statements never sounded true to me in those years, and touch wood, not even to this date!

The challenge is to meet up old friends regularly and find a common topic to talk about. So we end up talking about movies, T20, politics or recall old college memories. But how often do you get to meet? Initially, once in a month, then once in 2 months, then once in 6 months and then probably years later! “What else could one possibly do?” you may ask.

While I decided to be a part of this wonderful start-up IU with the best of my friends and work together for a lifetime, not everyone gets a chance. How about working for a cause with your friends part-time? Recall the projects you did with your friends during college. Or if you are still an under-graduate student, wouldn’t you want these friends of yours to stay connected for a lifetime? There is a door open to this possibility! That is Social Entrepreneurship!

You could be a student, you could be an employee, you could be a home maker, you could be a businessman or you could be a retired individual but Social Entrepreneurship still has a place in your Life along with everything else you already do. It can bring back the enthusiasm in your life combined with the satisfaction of serving the society.

Make a new beginning in your life with ATTH – the first ever of its kind – Social Entrepreneurship Forum Live in Bangalore on November 4^th. Innovation, Inspiration, Live examples, Right Contacts, Right Platform, Right Time and more and more is Atth! Yes, I’m a part of it and enjoying every bit. Grab this opportunity, as you never know when the next one could be!

Log on to www.atth.org for complete details.

Seeds of Retrospection

Flashback! Rewind and fast forward every two weeks of your life fortnightly, take the juice from there and you’re sure to have the best fruit punch in no time to share with the world. So what’s the juice I have taken from my last 2 weeks?

Feed the side of your brain that’s starving!

A year ago I would go around telling everyone “I’m not creative! Give me an idea and I can work as hard as it takes to implement. But I cannot generate ideas!” I laugh at this statement of mine today (Proof that I could create something out of the world: www.iuquotes.com design). They say creative people use the right side of their brain. I tried to tap that hemisphere of mine for a long time, but all my attempts went futile. What can I tap out of the side of my brain which I’m not feeding at all? What you SOW is what you reap.

S – See

O – Observe

W – Watch

You might say they’re all the same. I’ll elaborate here.

See every element around you like you’ve never seen it before. See more of it, and see it more often than you think is necessary.

Observe what makes it so beautiful, so eye-catching or so enticing. If it doesn’t appeal to your eye, observe why it didn’t. Think what could have been better.

Watch out for what you can create from there. Nothing gets created out of nowhere. There’s an inspiration every creative person draws from a lot of things around him.

So go ahead and start sowing. In some time you’ll have enough and more ideas than you can ever implement.

Feedback on this small write up of mine is most welcome!

Shruti Balasa

Chief Web Designer, IU Web Solutions.

(eMail me @iu.shrutibalasa@gmail.com to get your website LIVE!)

Organize your Workspace to Organize your Work.

Have a PC or a laptop? You download a document or transfer a photo to your system, and where do you first place it? “Ah for now, let me put it on my desktop, I’ll move it later!” And it remains on the desktop till the number of icons on the desktop makes you go crazy! Then you make a folder ‘Desktop files’ or if you are like me ‘Others’. And then comes a crucial time when you need ‘that very file’ and “Oh God! Where did it go? I have 5 – 6 folders by name Desktop Files!” I’m sure you can empathize with the above situation. So what do you do?

1. Get organized from Day 1. (Don’t get disheartened if you’ve already been disorganized. It’s still not too late. :) )
2. Trust me, doesn’t take too much time to keep your system neat and organized (I agree my room is not clean enough, but my laptop definitely is)

Let me first introduce you to the culprits who make you lose files – or rather keep them so safe that you yourself can’t find! Meet them here

• Downloads – You quickly download something and put it on your desktop, or you open it directly from downloads folder and it remains there forever.
  How to avoid this? If you’re using Firefox browser, the default setting is to save the downloaded files to ‘downloads’ folder. Change it to “Always ask me where to save files (Firefox menu -> ‘Options’ -> ‘Options’ -> ‘General’ tab is where you’ll find this setting)
  For Chrome – Chrome Menu -> ‘Options’ -> ‘Under the hood’ -> ‘Downloads’ -> ‘Ask where to save each file before downloading’ and so on for other browsers. Now when it asks you each time you download, kindly do not choose desktop, create a folder if need be and dump it there. A stich in time saves nine remember?
  Not to forget to rename the file to something that makes sense to you while saving it. If you’re downloading too many softwares, you’d usually install them right away and forget what they were named or where you saved them. Maintain a ‘Softwares’ folder and remember to download every single software into this folder and rename them. Trust me, your friend or colleague might ask you for the same software and they’d be impressed at your speed of finding them :)
• Files transferred from a pen drive or external hard disk – General tendency yet again is to put it on the desktop. Be cautious. Choose a relevant folder or create one. You’ll love yourself for it another day!
• Word documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations or any newly created file – Here, apart from choosing the right folder, it’s equally important to name the file correctly instead of naming it ‘New’, ‘Sample’ or leave it ‘Untitled’.
• Photos and videos – B drive, C drive, D drive, E and F also may be, will contain at least one photo, or worse even, contain a folder ‘Photos’ each. Best way to solve this is to keep each drive for a different purpose. One entirely for college/office or anything related to college/office (Yes, even if they are your photos with college-mates) Another folder – completely personal – which has nothing to do with college or office.

This should do, for a start. One tip to conclude – The best way to compel yourself to keep your desktop clean is to put a desktop wallpaper (Stretch) so beautiful that you wouldn’t like to dirty it with icons and icons all over. I suggest a photo of someone you admire…. Could be yourself as well! So here’s me, wishing you luck! Do let me know in your comments if this helped. If you can catch hold of few more culprits, do pour in your thoughts. :)

Inspiration Unlimited

It's been long friends I wanted to share with you all, about our Venture and platform Inspiration Unlimited. Just covering this write up about the same.

Inspiration Unlimited is a vision, founded as an answer to the present scenario in the world. The need for training is higher than ever in every manner. Values have to be restored. This time the felicitous process is hammering. The values need to be hammered into masses & potentials incarcerated inside need to be brought out. The masses stand in need of training in some or the other form, right from school level to the level of CEOs.

As is rightly said, Any & every form of success has its root in training and then success stems from execution. IU believes in passing the right training in every arena of life, from personal development, to mental abilities, to staff training, to self motivation, to leadership, to sales training, to art of relationships, to training for teachers, to better parenting & lots more.

IU is backed up by the founder's profound experience of dealing with people from different occupation, places, age groups & different intellect levels. People eulogize his training & the kind of change it brings about in the participants. He has a spark in his speech that can bring a dead man alive. He has a practical approach & is not a speaker or trainer who has emerged from mere reading of a few books, as you find many such individuals in the market today.

Our vision is to empower masses to follow their heart & experience life of full potential. We envision to help everyone live, not just exist. We also believe in seeing a better world with human race in greater levels of harmony by converting peer pressure into peer pleasure.

We have forayed into hand-made greetings under the banner of Aaslesha. All details are available on the following web links.

To avoid confusions and so that you are able to reach us right here are some links on web:

www.iuindia.com
www.facebook.com/iuindia
www.twitter.com/iuworldwide
www.youtube.com/iuindiaonline

Our magazine links:
www.twitter.com/iuemagofficial

Our Social Initiatives (each one would be covered in other blogs):
www.facebook.com/iuy2c
www.facebook.com/iunewspaperbag

To join us as a speaker or marketing executives from your city, district, state or country. Mail us at iuworldwide@gmail.com and we shall take things further!

Thank you. Hope it helps all those who wanted to know more about about IU.

Give it any Title

When we are born, we have a lot of questions on our mind. We don’t know who the people around us are, where we are, what we are supposed to do, how to talk, how to walk and so on. As we grow up, we find answers to most of them – from mother, father, siblings, teachers, friends and few other answers on our own. And then we have more questions – Why do I have to go to school? Why is the moon not falling on earth? What are stars? Who is an engineer? Why is my friend taller than me? Why can’t I eat chocolates and so on. Yet again, as we grow older, we find answers. We like it or not, some answers cannot be changed. Later in life, few more questions – What is my purpose of life? Where am I heading to? Why am I not as talented as my friend? Why do I have all the problems in life? What’s my passion? Am I passionate about something at all? Where do people go when they die? Who’s my life partner going to be? Am I really alone in this world and so on.

As it goes, we continue to find answers again. Some answers strengthen us, some make us happy, some unexpected, some tear us apart, some of them come at the right time when we just wanted them and some questions go unanswered… Yes, some go unanswered, you like it or not and that has to be accepted! We continue to live to find those answers. So does that mean we find them all before we die? Not necessarily. If we do not know an answer, it just means we are not supposed to know the answer! That gives rise to another question – Why?

Well, I don’t know. All I know is, every question has to have an answer. Just that, we do not know, at this point. We might never know. You might be a superstar, richest man on earth, most powerful saint, man with highest wisdom or anyone – The answer is the same! You cannot know all answers.

If there is pain, there has to be pain. If there is pleasure, there has to be pleasure. If you have to go through something all one, that’s how it has to be! The Almighty and his intentions cannot be questioned. We have to keep faith and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you know the reason, well and good. If you do not know, believe me, it’s better!
This is probably all I want to say in this post. If it’s incomplete, well, that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s again for a reason. I also do not know all answers for the questions in my life. But I enjoy finding answers. I enjoy this mystery. There’s no other way I feel.

Feel free to comment.

Life is Beautiful, when You are in Love...…with Life itself!

It’s an age old saying – “Give respect and take respect”. True. Why just respect? Give anything and you get back the same, like this one – “What goes around comes back around”. This is true not just with people; it’s true with everything around you. Just give so much Love to your Life and see what it gives back! It’s just amazing – a magic almost! Just imagine, on a hot sunny afternoon, in heavy traffic, at a signal, when everyone else is frustrated, I’m smiling away to glory. Sitting at office, at tea break, I’m looking outside through the glass, sipping hot tea and I’m at peace – not breaking my head at coding or testing (or looking at the watch thinking of when to leave).

Sometimes, just sometimes, turn the pages of your childhood album, talk to your granny about how much they could do with 10 rupees in hand back then, sleep on your mom’s lap, feel the breeze while riding, go through your old slam book or personal diary, have a long walk with your best friend, eat pani puri roadside, ask dad “How was work today?”, smile at a total stranger, dance to the beats of your favorite song, sit with your entire family on the terrace, play with the kid next door, wear a new dress and flaunt it off like you’d do as a kid, share a chocolate with bro/sis, just look at the sky and imagine all possible objects the clouds look like, drop a tear of happiness and just ‘feel’ every single moment. If just reading this could bring a smile on your face, may be now you know why I was smiling on that hot sunny afternoon.

As my mentor says, take life at the rate of 1 second per second. No point in trying to go faster than that. Enjoy your present. One life – you can see it as, “Oh already 20 odd years over”, or as “So many more years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds and MOMENTS to live!!”

I’ve heard many people tell me “You’re a lucky gal”. Yes I am, because I believe I am! Life is beautiful if you think it is; you are lucky if you think you are. Everyone faces problems and difficulties in life. Sometimes you just have to accept the hard facts and move on. Life is all about turning the next page with as much curiosity as you did when you picked up the book.

I started looking at my Life from a whole new different perspective. Comments/queries welcome.

Time, a Precious Commodity!

Time, who has time today? Students think teachers have lot of time. Teachers think students have lot of time. Dad thinks mom has lot of time. Mom thinks kids have lot of time. I think you have lot of time and you might think I have lot of time to be writing this…. Oh wait; don’t we all have 24 hours a day?!
24 hours: What do we do with them? So, we don’t have time problem; we have time management problem! We want more time to sleep in the morning and we all press the snooze button when the alarm rings (if you keep an alarm in the first place!) We want to watch “5 more mins” of IPL – now that RCB is reaching finals!

During the so called “study holidays”, you take a book with complete determination to finish that chapter. Few lines into the first page, your phone rings. No, it’s not your friend calling you up to chat with you, but she has a doubt. Unfortunately, the phone call doesn’t end with that one doubt – it continues with topics of movies you want to watch after exams, the trips you might be planning, music, IPL, what not until your mom shouts at you. Then you go back to few more lines in the same page and you can’t keep your eyes open anymore! You say to yourself “I can study better if I take a power nap” How long is the power nap? 2 - 3 hours sometimes! It just goes on this way and you really do not know when your day came to an end. When you look back at the entire day (if you care enough to do so, that is) you see nothing has been done. So here I have compiled few tips for time management during exams. Do read and most importantly – implement!

1. Make a To-Do List Every Day.
Put things that are most important at the top and do them first. And don't forget to reward yourself for your accomplishments.
2. Use Spare Minutes Wisely.
When you’re commuting on the bus or train, use the time to get some reading done.
3. It's Okay to Say No.
If your friend asks you to go to a movie on a Thursday night and you have an exam the next morning, realize that it's okay to say no. Keep your short- and long-term priorities in mind.
4. Find the Right Time.
You'll work more efficiently if you figure out when you do your best work. For example, if your brain handles math better in the afternoon, don't wait to do it until late at night.
5. Review Your Notes Every Day.
Reviewing helps you reinforce what you've learned, so you need less time to study one day before the exam.
6. Get a Good Night's Sleep.
Your brain needs rest to perform at its peak. Lack of sleep makes the day seem longer and your tasks seem more difficult.
7. Communicate Your Schedule to Others.
If phone calls or text messages are proving to be a distraction, tell your friends that you are only available at certain times of day and not to expect a response at other times.
8. Don't Waste Time Agonizing.
Instead of agonizing and procrastinating, just do it. Wasting an entire evening worrying about something that you're supposed to be doing is not productive, and can increase your stress.

If you just follow the above with enough discipline, you’ll be able to rock your exams with just 5-6 hrs of studies per day. You have the remaining time to use it as you wish. All the best folks! Looking forward to your comments :)