May goals- update

1. Maintain some sort of fitness routine.
I was on the move (walking a lot) for about 3 weeks of the month between the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, and I've been sick since I got home a few days ago. So I'm not holding myself to it and I think that's ok.

2. Apply to 1 job a week.
I've had fruitful conversations about jobs with people who have made me offers. While they're not perfect offers and I'm going to keep applying, I think this still 'counts.'

3.  Get on top of my travel planning. 

4. Scaling down the blogging objective, as I'm going to be extra-busy: two blog posts that are not about monthly goals.
Fail. Maybe now that I'm sick I'll prioritize this, though it seems unlikely.

5. ENJOY the trip!
THAT I did a great job on-- hard to prevent when you're seeing such beautiful landscapes!

April goals- update

Quick update from the road:
I've been in the Philippines for 2+ weeks at my company's Manila office. It's been fantastic for both work and personal reasons, and just for a little change of pace. I'm also proud to report I've done pretty well on these goals. Here's the breakdown:

1. Maintain some sort of fitness routine.
Check. I've done a good job of mooching off colleagues' gyms. The next few weeks will be more challenging as I'll be on the move.

2. Apply to 1 job a week.
Check. The applications weren't as crafted as I would have liked, but I definitely did send in some applications. I also have a few prospective chats scheduled with people who may offer me jobs.

3.  Get on top of my travel planning. 
Check, more or less. My solution to being super busy and distracted has been to let my travel buddy do most of the planning, which he doesn't seem to mind (he's kinda OCD. and super organize. and just a really nice guy.) All this to say that the plans are being take care of, if not really by me.

4. Scaling down the blogging objective, as I'm going to be extra-busy: two blog posts that are not about monthly goals.
Um.. oops. I need to take some notes for a post on this trip, and other stuff that's been going on.

5. ENJOY the trip!
Yeah... I've been doing ok on this. A little too well perhaps!

Hoping to keep it up next month! How is everyone else doing?

April & May goals

I'm on the road 3 weeks in April and 3 in May. I tend to be really busy on trips and don't take much time to reflect. Plus my routine is all disrupted. So these goals will have to do for both April and May. I'll update in a few weeks if I'm making good progress and can take more on.

1. Maintain some sort of fitness routine.
I'm traveling, so I need to find something I can take with me. This probably means I should take up running (ack), and be very disciplined about doing my personal workouts. Mostly I attend classes at my gym, so once I show up, I know I'll work out. This will be tougher.

2. Apply to 1 job a week. I just found out I didn't make it to the second-round interviews for a job I really had my heart set on, and was a good fit for. I want to keep my chin up and look ahead.

3.  Get on top of my travel planning. This is almost only valid for the next 6 or 7 days. I leave for 5 weeks on a multi-country/-purpose trip: 3 weeks in Manila (working), 1 in Vietnam and 1 in Cambodia (vacationing.) There are a bunch of shots I need to get and small logistical matters I need to take care of before leaving.

4. Scaling down the blogging objective, as I'm going to be extra-busy: two blog posts that are not about monthly goals.

5. ENJOY the trip! I'm super excited and really want to make sure I savor the moment and don't get caught up in my all-encompassing musings about jobs and career directions, as has been the case of late.



Good luck!

- - - - - - 
To participate in the meet-up:
1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for March, along with your checked off February goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Go back to Brazen Careerist and leave a link to your post (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

Update on March goals

March Objectives: 
1. Weekly fitness routine: 4x yoga and 3x cardio.
Yeeaaahh. (Except this week as I'm traveling; hard to stick to my workout routine when I don't have a gym to go to.)

2. Three non goal meet-up posts this month.
Sort of., though I need to do better on this. But blogging in and of itself is not a priority for me right now; it's a good way to keep track of promises I make myself and internal debates.

3. Make sure I'm on my way to saving regularly for important, predictable expenses, and emergencies.
-Emergency fund: CHECK.
-Set up ING savings accounts for big, predictable expenses: wedding, car, and down payment for a house.
Have decided not to deal with ING issues in Canada and saving with my current bank. So: CHECK.

4. I'd like to make more progress in my personal development. My objective this month is to sign up for at least one training course or class.. It can be a Mandarin Chinese class, an excel class, a quant skills class, a  carbon finance class (all of which I want to take this year.)
I signed up for a class, then had to cancel it because I'm traveling for 5 weeks and will miss too many sessions. I'll need to find a replacement class.

5. Pay my taxes!
Done, but I cheated: someone is doing them for me.


I'm still thinking about my April goals. Will post on those soon.

Note: On Patience and Discipline

As a follow-up:
I'm grouping Patience and Discipline together; Patience is a sub-set of Discipline as I see it. For anyone else also working on these mega-goals, this is what I've found so far.


The tips I've seen largely have two common elements:
- Start small.
- Give yourself time to succeed. It's ok if you slip-- as long as you keep at it.

From experience, two more (admittedly very abstract) tips:
- Commit to someone else.
If your goal is to get to the gym regularly or the library early, plan to meet someone there. I bail on other people for 2% of the commitments I make only to myself.
- Make it a priority.
Block time in your calendar for it. If you are dreading the cold calls you need to make, set aside a realistic period of time to do it. Don't accept any meetings during that time, and don't let anyone interrupt you. Those distractions will just give you a reason to procrastinate.

Tue March 16 - Note: PenelopeTrunk posted on somewhat the same topic today.

Breaking down big goals into manageable pieces

Developing more patience and discipline are two of my 'big' goals. I feel that these are akin to a change in my personality, which is pretty daunting. I prefer to think of it as a habit change, which is much more mentally and practically manageable.

The achievement of several of my monthly objectives rests on my capacity to deploy either patience or discipline, sometimes both, so I know I'm working on them in the margins. Yet I feel that these are important enough to be discrete Goals in themselves. Now... how do I go about it? I can't see it being worthwhile, or useful, to make myself do (or not do) something I don't actually care about just to practice discipline or patience. I have tried to be consciously patient in situations that typically set my short temper off, though I haven't had the presence of mind to do it systematically. Are there any good exercises that can quicken this self-training? What does the process of achieving 'patience' look like? Should I spend time in an ashram and meditate? Or is it enough to think about it regularly from my desk or during my commute?

So far, I've found that setting an objective whose achievement implies successful unfolding patience or discipline is a good way to go about it--- at least until I have the time and money to spend going to an ashram.

How have you gone about breaking down big goals into digestible, attainable pieces?

Note: On True Polyglotism

Nick Kristof says it so well in his column today:

"Here’s a one-word language test to measure whether someone really knows a foreign country and culture: What’s the word for doorknob? People who have studied a language in a classroom rarely know the answer. But those who have been embedded in a country know."

My usual default word is "wheelbarrow." Same difference.

How to run a meeting

Many people have posted on this topic. But the basic rules of running, and attending, decent meetings are broken everyday. 

Here's a little refresher:

1. Fix a time period. Do it out of respect for your and everyone else's time, and to ensure you don't get lost in mindless details because there is no feeling of urgency to ensure all the ground you need to cover gets covered.

2. Stick to it. A few minutes before the end, do two things:
a) Decide on a follow-up meeting for certain specific unresolved issues. Schedule it.
b) Wrap it up by outlining the decisions that were taken, next steps, and who is responsible for them.

3. Come with an agenda. Even if it's not your meeting-- if the meeting organizer doesn't have one, you'll look good and it will be more productive and focused, and she will be grateful. Better yet, type one up and send it around to attendees before the meeting.

4. Moderate the discussion.
Stick to your agenda, and make sure everyone else does, too. Cover the most important points first, and unless you're missing a crucial piece of information, don't move on until the previous point is settled and next steps are clear. Don't let the chatty colleague do the moderating or she will go on 16 tangents and you will be there thrice as long. If a tangent starts hijacking your meeting, firmly and politely state that the topic could justify another get-together but shouldn't be discussed here, and come back to the points on your agenda. Let those going on the tangent follow-up if they want to. They probably won't, because it was a tangent-- if it had been important it would have been on your agenda.

5. Thank everyone for attending. A meeting is only useful if the decision-makers that need to be there actually show up, so make sure they will want to show up the next time you ask them to.

If you want or need to make some friendly, collegial conversation, do it as you're walking back to your desk, so it will be kept relatively short. You can't really conduct an in-depth private conversation in the hallway, but it's easy to get trapped with a too-friendly colleague in an empty meeting room.

February goals- update. and March goals

1. Once again: maintain my 4x week yoga + 1 spin workout schedule. Here comes the hard part: add one session a week. One session of anything: rock-climbing, weights, cardio.. whatever gets me to the gym.
Happy to say I killed this one. I also started working on what will be my March goal #1: maintain current routine, and have it include 3x cardio a week.

2. In addition to my two monthly goal meet-up posts, post thrice this month.
Utter failure. But I do have a bunch of posts in 'draft' form that need a few more hours of work before publishing (who doesn't?). I will be trying this again in March.

3. I'd like to have at least some of my current career conundrum figured out. However, I've figured out what I want, but a lot of the decisions that would make it happen aren't mine to make. I'm not sure if this really counts as a 'goal' as a lot of it is out of my hands.
Since November, I've been actively unhappy/disillusioned with my work and struggling to rectify the situation. I realized pretty early on that trying to craft and reach a 'next step' in my career is very, very difficult if you don't have direction. Now I have that: progress! But I still need to change jobs. I've been pretty active about applying and scouting out opportunities, as well as discarding options that I was still holding on to at the beginning of the month. Nonetheless: Feb goal #3: accomplished.

4. Network and conduct informational interviews. I've been doing a lot of questioning lately: is this the right company/position for me to work now? What if I were doing X, or Y, or if I lived in London, New York, or Harare? A lot of the information I need to figured out what I want is info I can get from others-- largely from people I already know. This is an important one: reach out to at least 4 people who either have jobs I think I might want, or work at institutions that interest me, and pick their brains about their career paths, choices, gripes, etc. Better yet, get some advice and maybe even connections to other people I can grill. This will really help give me DIRECTION, a central element to building any sort of career path, that I've been missing.
(Note to self--- low-hanging fruit = Guy, Cecilia, Patti, Chelsea, Stephen.)
I spoke to and emailed a number of people that gave me valuable information, advice, and further contacts. Feb goal #4: accomplished. I need to maintain the pace, but am not concerned I won't do it since I've gotten the ball rolling and am in good, optimistic spirits and motivate to make a change. So no need to include it as part of my March goals.

5. Automate my finances. I'm largely on top of my finances, but there are some basic steps I need to do a little bit of research about, then take, e.g. having an emergency fund, saving $ for several big events/trips, thinking about my 401k, etc. ING should make this easy-- I just need to do it! 
I took all the steps I needed to get this done, but am facing administrative hurdles at my bank. But I've started the process has started, so once I get over the obstacles, this will fall into place. Feb goal #5: not yet accomplished, but will be soon. I'll break this goal down for March. 


March Objectives: 
1. Weekly fitness routine: 4x yoga and 3x cardio.

2. Three non goal meet-up posts this month.

3. Make sure I'm on my way to saving regularly for important, predictable expenses, and emergencies.
-Emergency fund: CHECK.
-Set up ING savings accounts for big, predictable expenses: wedding, car, and down payment for a house.

4. I'd like to make more progress in my personal development. My objective this month is to sign up for at least one training course or class.. It can be a Mandarin Chinese class, an excel class, a quant skills class, a  carbon finance class (all of which I want to take this year.)

5. Pay my taxes!

- - - - - - 
To participate in the meet-up:
1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for March, along with your checked off February goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Go back to Brazen Careerist and leave a link to your post (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

February goals

Last month didn't quite go as well as I would have hoped. But then again I suppose keeping at it is a key part of the process. Discipline is a BIG goal I have (though I haven't yet figured out how to break it down to a monthly piece-- tips anyone?), so I'm dusting myself off and trying again.

So here are my goals for February:
1. Once again: maintain my 4x week yoga + 1 spin workout schedule. Here comes the hard part: add one session a week. One session of anything: rock-climbing, weights, cardio.. whatever gets me to the gym.

2. In addition to my two monthly goal meet-up posts, post thrice this month.

3. I'd like to have at least some of my current career conundrum figured out. However, I've figured out what I want, but a lot of the decisions that would make it happen aren't mine to make. I'm not sure if this really counts as a 'goal' as a lot of it is out of my hands.

4. Network and conduct informational interviews. I've been doing a lot of questioning lately: is this the right company/position for me to work now? What if I were doing X, or Y, or if I lived in London, New York, or Harare? A lot of the information I need to figured out what I want is info I can get from others-- largely from people I already know. This is an important one: reach out to at least 4 people who either have jobs I think I might want, or work at institutions that interest me, and pick their brains about their career paths, choices, gripes, etc. Better yet, get some advice and maybe even connections to other people I can grill. This will really help give me DIRECTION, a central element to building any sort of career path, that I've been missing.
(Note to self--- low-hanging fruit = Guy, Cecilia, Patti, Chelsea, Stephen.)

5. Automate my finances. I'm largely on top of my finances, but there are some basic steps I need to do a little bit of research about, then take, e.g. having an emergency fund, saving $ for several big events/trips, thinking about my 401k, etc. ING should make this easy-- I just need to do it!

- - - - - - 

To participate in the meet-up:
1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for March, along with your checked off February goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Go back to Brazen Careerist and leave a link to your post (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

January goals- UPDATE

1. Add ONE gym session a week to my current routine (4 weekly yoga classes and 1 cardio.) It can be weights or cardio, but I have to go.
Caveat: I'm going on a trekking vacation the last week of the month, so I won't have access to the gym.. but since I'll be exercising, I can still hold to this!
Result: total failure. I maintained my usual routine but added zero sessions of anything. Pooh. There is hope for February, though: I'm going to start rock-climbing, hopefully with a crew of sorts. Turning a workout into a social outing basically ensures I'll show, so I am optimistic. Plus I've been wanting to rock-climb since I was 15.

2. Make a decision re: my current job by the end of the month. (I know I haven't yet explained my career conundrum, but I will in soon-to-come posts.) 
Result: made a short-term decision, which is about as much as I can ask for right now. I've decided to push hard to get sent to my company's Manila office for at least 6 months. If that doesn't work out, I'll need to reassess.
I still need to elucidate my career situation, but have been stalling as it's a big source of doubt an uncertainty in my life now, which means I don't feel I have the perspective to write about it yet. Maybe this post specifically should be a goal for Feb..

3. 1 blog post a month.. baby steps!
Well, asides from the monthly goal-meet up posts, I haven't posted. But those are still posts, so I consider this to be accomplished. Now I have to keep it up! There are plenty of topics I want to write about (Agency, my current career/life conundrum, work-life blur, How to handle a quarter-life crisis, ...), so it's about making the time.

- - - - - - 

To participate in the meet-up:
1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for March, along with your checked off February goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Go back to Brazen Careerist and leave a link to your post (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

January goals- woo I'm late!

I've had these goals in my head since December but hadn't actually posted them. Here goes:

1. Add ONE gym session a week to my current routine (4 weekly yoga classes and 1 cardio.) It can be weights or cardio, but I have to go.
Caveat: I'm going on a trekking vacation the last week of the month, so I won't have access to the gym.. but since I'll be exercising, I can still hold to this!

2. Make a decision re: my current job by the end of the month. (I know I haven't yet explained my career conundrum, but I will in soon-to-come posts.)

3. 1 blog post a month.. baby steps!

- - - - - - 

To participate in the meet-up:
1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for March, along with your checked off February goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Go back to Brazen Careerist and leave a link to your post (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments - click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

Monthly Goal meet-up... starting next month

Rebecca Thorman over at Modite has started a movement of sorts. It consists of 1/declaring, in very concrete terms, one's monthly goals, in a public (and very supportive) forum, and 2/following-up at the end of the month with other participants to report back, compare notes, congratulate, encourage, offer tips, etc. Sounds like a great set-up-- accountability and credit are key drivers for me! So in spite of the current uncertain state of my life (I'll get to explaining this soon), I'm signing up. But as it's the middle of December 09, I'm starting by preparing myself, and this blog, for giving this a proper shot next month.. and maybe even getting a head start on my January goals.

Starting anew

This blog has been dormant for over three years, largely because I wasn't interested in blogging. But my interest has been piqued and I'm going to give it another shot.

nothing new, really

i've been in exams and writing papers and such for the past month or so. econ exam today, IL exam on friday, then i am done for the session-- i've put off two of my exams for october in order to prepare them correctly.

no pictures today. but i'll root through what i have and put some up.

we are sexy!

a friend of mine (Victor) was recently here for the WE and took a picture of me trying to imitate one of Rudra's usual face (while he was acutally doing it). here is the result.

need i mention that I HEART THIS PICTURE.

Memories from Milano

hey again,
just got back from a crazy week in Milan for MilMUN 2006 (www.milmun.org)
here's a picture of andreas and i co-chairing one of the meetings. i don't remember why the sunglasses were on.

first blog evah

hello all! so i too have started a blog, mostly to be able to post comments to my mom's and to upload pictures. check back if you feel like it but don't hold your breath! muntsch to alles. c