The falling dollar etc.

Originally uploaded by abyjain

The falling dollar seems to be doing a lot of good to a number of people. The most obvious are the students or tourists from India who have incomes in Rupees and need to spend in Dollars. Of course, the effect is more because of the falling dollar than the rising rupee. It is mighty interesting and convoluted the way the currency changes impact everything and it all keeps going round and round. From incoming Foreign investment to the competitiveness of Exports (Imports) and on to the long term impacts on all our living standards, these are definitely interesting times.

Some interesting articles on the fall of the dollar and the Chinese connection as well as some impact on India can be found on these links below…

From Oct 2007:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4186041

From Aug 2003:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/crisis/2003/07gpfdollar.htm

From Jan 2007:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6195198.stm

From Oct 2007:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/334575_dollaroutsource08.html

A second at a time, fighting the laziness index

The inspiration for this post comes from this post here, on Naina. My life though, somehow, has never been so hectic. I have hardly ever had to run from one project to another and always given my brain lots and lots of time to wander into nothing-land. I don’t even know what I’m thinking then, but possibly, everything that can be thought, has been thought 🙂

On most days, I wake up and start the day with 3-6 aims in mind that need to be achieved. They will usually comprise a mix of work related targets for the day, or home related projects involving the washing machine or the meetings or commitments to others rounded off by a two-some dinner with wife or some other commitments to expand our social graph!

I wonder what makes people different, and is it really the amount of work that makes them so busy or is it the way they run their lives. I’ve thought about it often (as I have thought about everything already) and I’ve come to the conclusion that its a mix of everything. Most importantly it is also something that I have termed the laziness Index. The higher up you are on the laziness index, the shorter will be your method to reach your goals. Sometimes it would be fair to call it a shortcut and at other times, it’s just about being smart 😉 Also, I think the laziness index decides on how much of the flim-flam you’re willing to cut across in order to reach the end of your to-do list for the day/week/month.

I usually wake up easy (no, it is not easy to wake up, easy in the sense of nowhere to reach in a hurry), get ready easy, and go to work easy. Also, in a day, if you have 5 things to do, in 8 working hours, It IS actually quite easy to get them done if you prioritise properly and knock them off one at a time. This I learned a long long time ago, I wonder if there are any people who still have to learn that lesson. And then it is smooth sailing to your out-of-office engagements, whether it is driving classes, meetings, shopping or anything else. The dinner (social or not) and then a nice evening watching a movie or reading a book to zzzzzZZZZ land. Life is good!

The one other thing I learned is that human beings spend a LOTTTTTTT of time talking. I mean, if people count the number of productive hours in a day and what they did for them, they’ll usually be disappointed with the results they got. One of our teachers at school, when we were veryyyy young said – “Just remember the amount of energy and time you waste when you keep talking, it’s not worth it” Of course, we will always do it, but maybe we need to put a cap on it. Not only does it take time, it is physically quite sapping… I usually can’t talk about something for more than 5 minutes… the message has to be conveyed by then!!!