You get up in the morning with the resolution to finish all the due work, do your chores, sit over work till it turns alive and starts panting for breath. But guess what, you have an obligation to give some breathing space to that alive piece of work howling at you, right?

So, you decide to check what people are up to. One click. New tab. Facebook, Twitter, Gmail. And then you have notifications to check, emails to reply to. Fifteen minutes, one hour, three hours spent. You realize you have to get back to work. You start working again.

But then you have been sitting like that for hours and its getting boring and you need a break. That follows, well, facebook, twitter, mail, and other things on the web that attracts you like a magnet.

In the end, time wasted- seventy percent, work done- thirty percent, remorse- hundred percent.

Phew! Isn’t it a vicious cycle, most of us are subject to?

Slacking and Procrastination: Lead heroes of your vicious cycle

The problem is with the habit of slacking, of sitting over a thing for ages. Why do we do that?

But then at the end of the day, before you hit the bed you realize, oh heck, I have so much to do and I have been procrastinating. You pull up your socks then and get done with your work and sometimes you don’t, giving it as a gift to your tomorrow.

Still, at the end of the day you are exhausted. You didn’t work throughout the day, but you didn’t take a break either.

Where did the time go? Oh, but you did waste your time on that wicked thing called the internet, remember?

You would have definitely heard about ten books and 15 blogs that tell you how you should keep yourself focused, concentrate on the task in hand and keep looking at the goals. Most of us even try.

But heck! it doesn’t work. Stop jordaning and admit the irresistible urge one face to do everything that has nothing to do with the work in hand.

As a matter of fact, the last minute work when your ass is on fire (constituting 10% of your time you sat on your work), produce 100% result. The remaining 90% of your time, you just sat on it, slacking and procrastinating. This causes your efficiency to nosedive and fall on you as exhaustion and drench you with ennui.

So, let’s party!

Spend only that 10% of the requisite time on the work. That is any way all it takes. And let your mind and time do other things in the remaining time, eat, pray, love, read, romance, travel and yes, party!

I want to write articles, but I can’t think of a topic.

I will do my projects well this time, but I can’t choose a topic for my term assignment in contract law.

Have you ever thought you were unable to think in such a situation?

Many people prevent themselves from taking action because an inner voice: <span><i>I don’t know how to start, or where to begin.

Where you start is not important, it’s important how you execute, the way you make for yourself, and what you leave behind that others can carry on from.

Here’s how you can start. Is the world around you perfect? Is everything perfect with the domain you are thinking of working on? Can you think of anything that is not right with it?

Are you capable of exploring how to fix it?

That’s where you can start for now.

A book that has been translated into so many languages that no one kept track!

This is a post by Anuttama Saha Ghosh on a book that I recommend to my friends and students all the time. The good thing is that Anuttama made some notes when she read it, which she has converted into a pretty nice blog post. Let me know if you guys find this.
How does the thought of joining college, leaving hometown, staying in hostel make you feel? I am sure the first reaction would be: excited to go to a new town, a new college, and above all, being on your own – nobody to tell you when to wake-up and when to go to bed! Leaving home to stay in a hostel is further loosening of child-parent ties…so some will miss their family, while some will try to enjoy the liberty to the fullest – not because they don’t care about their parents but because healthy absence of parental guidance helps adolescents to become independent and autonomous smoothly.

The next challenge is to interact with the new people – teachers, friends, seniors – do you feel nervous or lack of confidence while interacting with strangers? Especially when you are thrown in a completely new atmosphere and asked to interact with seniors trying to establish their superiority over you or classmates who seem to be very focused and talented and you would be afraid that they may judge you at the drop of a hat?
Well, I was facing the same problem! I find it is easier to converse with people through Facebook and other social networking sites but not when they are directly in front of us!

The Solution: Never Eat Alone

While going through such a mental conflict, few days ago Ramanuj suggested to me to read a book named “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. Well, to be very honest the book didn’t seem to be very interesting at first (it’s not your average love story or detective- suspense thriller that I would find thrilling and interesting), but still as I didn’t have much to do I continued reading. After a while, quite suddenly I found a typical interest from within, as I realized that it is helping me to build confidence within myself and giving birth to a desire to know the new world with a new perspective!

Although the book is clearly business-focused, its concepts are equally applicable to our personal lives as well. The book enlightened me to the fact that human relationships are one of the most important keys to success. After some time, the author takes the concept to the next level by telling us stories about his entire career and lifestyle built around relationships! The book shows that professional relationships should also be rooted into friendship and generosity! And just like personal relationships, they can be based on authentic connection.

The book is packed with insights and practical tips about how to build up your social confidence and how to interact with an open mind with the new people from different backgrounds and move forward towards achieving your goals and destination at the same time. I decided to share a few tips from the book which we are more likely to follow.

•  If you do something to make someone else more successful, they’re more likely to value your relationship with them, and the more relationships you have with value in them, the more valuable you become, not only to yourself but to the world generally. It is better to help people around without any immediate selfish motives so that when we are in need of help ourselves, they would anyway love to help someone who helps them unconditionally without any specific agenda on mind!
• We need to set a goal first then plan how to move towards it, and try to be in contact with those who can help us in our way! You must not be shy to ask for help!
• If you want something, be up front about it. Hidden agendas are not good. It takes courage and a bit of talent! Keith Ferrazzi says that to find the courage we should:

We all know the story. Some law students come from illustrious legal backgrounds – they have close family members who are doyens of the bar of a High Court, partners in top law firms or judges or civil servants. It is not necessary that such family connections exist only at the bar or bench, it often extends to MNCs, political parties or even policy organizations. It is very easy for these kids to score the best internships just at the time when they want, get an interview at the best law firms, get great career advice and mentorship as they go up the ladder of professional success.

This is, however, intimidating for a lot of first generation law students, especially those whose family do not bring a lot of professional network on the table.

They often wonder if they will ever be able to compete with the law students with senior counsel uncles and equity partner moms. When young students try to decide if they should study law, this can be a major factor. Almost every week I am asked if being a first generation lawyer would be a serious disadvantage. Even after studying law for several years, students still ask this question. There are lawyers who accept this as hard reality and limit own ambitions to what they consider more achievable dreams if not what they wanted for themselves at the beginning.

Is this perception real?

When I was in law school, I was led to believe, by some well-wishers nonetheless, that the bar is an elite old boys club – and there is a glass ceiling that prevents even the most meritorious lawyers from achieving the highest levels of success. Early on in my career, this worldview led me away from a career in litigation. While I don’t regret that decision, I must confess that it was not the most well-informed decision. In the years after college, I have seen numerous former colleagues, classmates and seniors doing well in the practice of law, according to their abilities rather than just their family connections.

We often take away unfairly from the success of the well-connected law students. Their connection to successful people may get them a foot in the door, but it rarely guarantees the kind of professional success that we covet. From a certain point, it is long hours, smart decisions, and arduous hard work for everyone – well-connected or not. However, there is little doubt that being well connected is a competitive advantage that all of us should strive to achieve.

Having parents or relatives who can get you the internship or make a good introduction is cool. But do you know what is really cool?

It is having your own professional network.

If you can build your own professional network, find your own mentors, create your own circle of influence – which you would have to do someday anyway if you want the kind of success that everyone is jealous of, the factor discussed above will be relegated to non-significance. In fact, you may even thank your luck like I do.

My father is the last person to ever build any network or influence. He is reserved and reclusive in his professional as well as personal life, and my mother has never attempted to build a professional network. In their generation, people looked for very different jobs and career success was defined in a very different way. However, things have changed!

I am a first generation lawyer who rebelled against his parents to study law.

I never even imagined getting any professional support from them. It was clear right from the beginning that I am going to be on my own.

However, I believe that this helped me to learn the importance of building a professional network early on. I will not be where I am unless my friends, colleagues, mentors, and peers supported me throughout. As I grew through the years in law school, I sought out mentors, collaborators and even my own set of mentees with whom I shared my learnings and who I helped to grow. Starting to teach CLAT aspirants was definitely a turning point. All of a sudden I had my students in law schools all over the country, which exponentially increased my professional network. Every time I did an internship, I made an effort to connect with those who gave me work and those who worked with me. I made it a point to keep in touch even later and offer to help people in every way I could.

The next big step was starting to attend professional networking events.

I was in my third year when I went to a startup event called Startup Saturday for the first time. The first speaker I heard there was also the first client I ever had in my life. How did that happen?

When this startup founder finished his talk and stepped out for a smoke, I simply followed. His company was working in the area of data protection. So I told him about the newly developing data protection laws in India. I introduced myself, offered to help in any way I can, took his card and had a long chat about startups. Later, whenever I would find an article on data protection, I will send it to him. Soon, one day he called me and offered a job. I politely declined the job but helped him out through several rounds of funding negotiations. Now he is CEO of a rapidly growing business. Even today if he faces a legal issue he calls me to discuss – even though I do not practice law.

However, my professional network reached a whole new proportion when I really started to put some effort into blogging.

This is an amazing tool available to every modern professional. Share your expertise through a blog with your target group – and you will not only build an audience that is tuned into what you have to say but a network that brings you new opportunities on a regular basis.

You can start building your professional network today – just start to help out people, add value to others – and all that value will come back to you many times over.