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Saturday 19 September 2015

Early Bird

I am one of those few people whom friends often tease “She’s a school kid. She loves sleeping by 10:30pm”. Yes that’s true, although the interpretation is wrong. I don’t love sleeping at 10:30 pm but I definitely love waking up at 6 am. That is because human body needs on an average 7 hours of sleep to be efficient, fresh and cheerful. So I hit bed by 10:30 pm and wake up at 6 am.
And when I wake up, the peacefulness of early hours makes me feel like my clock is working as per inter-stellar time.  Within an early morning hour, I am able to do so many things which I would otherwise struggle completing in half a day. This efficiency, energy, and spirit is maintained through the day.

Below are the reasons/benefits for which I prefer waking up early:

Winner’s confidence: There is a sense of control acquired when you wake up suppressing your inner voice. When the alarm goes off, there is a voice which tells you that you went late to bed last night or no one around is awake, you also sleep. DON’T LISTEN. If you win the battle here, things start on a high note and get even better during the course of day.

Greeting the Day: I enjoy nature. Walking on silent roads, watching birds chirping and flocking in fascinating patterns, observing the sky getting illuminated with sun rays, and spending time in lush green garden brings a perfect start to my day.

Morning Sky :)

Get Active: Morning is a great time to exercise. Along with bringing in lots of positive energy and enthusiasm, it’s a great stress buster and leaves you calm and focused for the rest of the day.

Fresh air in which I workout!

Quiet time: My idea of personal time includes meditation, reading & writing. I ensure to do at least 2 of these at the start of each day. It helps me to connect with myself. Doing something for myself early in morning energizes me and makes me ready for the day. 

Ways of pursuing passion! 

One step ahead with enhanced productivity: Waking up early helps me be more organized and plan my day well ahead. Instead of waking up from bed and rushing to office, I prefer giving myself the time to list and prioritize the day’s activities. This helps me do things with complete focus and by the time other people begin to work, I would have already completed few important tasks. This gives me psychological comfort and also buffer time for impromptu work.

More time for family: Early start to the day helps me complete my activities on time and leave office without having to worry about connecting back from home. Having done few things of my interest in morning, and completed the day’s work in office, in the evening I feel much more relaxed and satisfied about the way my day was spent. This leaves me with some more time for my family. I cherish sharing the dinner time with dad and chit chatting with mom while watching her favourite soap operas. I look forward to this time each day. 

Time for beautiful sunset from office!

To conclude, waking up early has improved my quality of life in many ways mentioned above. But in the beginning this may be hard. To start with take baby steps like just waking up 15 minutes earlier. Get to bed an hour earlier so that you won’t feel tired. It may take couple of days to adjust and you may not feel the benefits right away, but stick with it. Once you experience the benefits, it will be difficult to let go of this good habit. 

P.S: However I like to stay late on one of either Friday/Saturday. This helps me come out of my routine and feel good about being still able to stay awake beyond regular time :P

Cheers
Morning Bird
Komal

Sunday 13 September 2015

Award - My moment of Fame


Last one week has been extremely generous on me, showering lots of love in personal life and appreciation in professional. While personal end can be put off for the moment, I would like to share my professional achievement here. 

I am just a month short of completing 2 years with Infosys. These 2 years were not exactly like a flash in second, but yes, it doesn't feel like I am going to complete 2 years so soon. I have always enjoyed working here. Employees of Infosys, relatives of employee, media & population at large have lot of things to say about Infosys. Good, Bad, Ugly...! We're the first one to hit media top lines for positive or negative reasons. Personally for me, it has been a journey full of learning, fun & memories. 

For HR team, the awards are given away semi-annually. There is a HR town hall in which people who have contributed significantly &who went the extra mile are rewarded. This time it was scheduled on 10th Sept. When I logged in the morning, my calendar looked packed. I did not plan to attend the townhall and I thought to utilize the time for completing piled up work. At 10:30 am, I thought its late now! And then an email popped in, saying the town hall will now begin at 11 am. So far I was giving myself the reason that it will be a long walk from bldg 4 to bldg 12 [Infoscions will understand this], and its better not to attend than being late. But now I did not find an explanation to convince myself. It's rare that something is done for HR. Else we're busy organizing things for others. With this thought, I took the long walk in pleasant weather and reached the auditorium. 

After 1.5 hour of speeches, discussions & debates on various topics, came the time for awards. A presentation was projected on the Video Conference. And came the first slide. My eyes quickly skimmed through the names & photos and they stopped on one! It was a girl's photo in a blazer, written underneath - "Komal Laddha - HRD Shine Award in recognition of outstanding performance and contribution to HRD 2015-16". Yayyieee. It's me! And people in the room started clapping, SMS started pouring in, People on Lync started to ping to congratulate. My team's email thread was started and team members started writing some good words for me. And this was my moment of fame :) It really feels good when your colleagues come up to you and say "You totally deserved this". That's what matters more than an award. 




I was still cherishing for this award, but it was not over yet! On 11th Sept, we had an internal team meeting. Two members from each team were being recognized for the efforts put in to ensure maximum retention [ya! It's right. That's my job!] From my team it was me & my location colleague who received the appreciation & award from our HR head. And all I could do was smile and say "thank you". 

Recognition for the work done, is one of the biggest motivation. You may be well paid off financially but if you do not enjoy coming to office each day, the journey in the organization is bound to be short lived. And that excitement to go to office comes when you have the confidence that your efforts will be recognized :) 


That's me, posing off with my accomplishment !!!


Signing -off on this note. 

Cheers
Komal