Decision Making & What to Wear?

I realised that I started, unconsciously, applying my professional decision making techniques to personal choices in fashion.

I have never been a big fashion follower, and while doing a spring clear I noticed that my wardrobe became very simplified. I prefer classic, timeless pieces. No patterns, no special materials, no bright colours, no white. I like dresses. All of my trousers and skirts are pretty much in the same colour: black or navy. I only have shoes in 3 colours: black, nude and grey.

Doesn’t sound too exciting – but hey – whatever I grab from my wardrobe it all fits together. There is no extra thinking required, especially at those difficult morning hours. And in case I am suddenly unable to even select which top should go with which bottoms, I just grab a dress: all in one piece, no hassle.

I’ve only realised what I had been doing when I read Anna Vital’s experiment. Anna is the co-founder of Funders and Founders and amazing infographic creator. I bet you’ve heard about her before. The experiment, if I remember well, was to wear the same black dress for 60 days – make it her uniform to save time on selecting what to wear. Then it clicked, my wardrobe is my ‘black dress’. I have minimised the number of choices available to make the decision making process as quick as possible. It works efficiently, but the chances are if you are a guy you probably still don’t understand what I’m talking about 😉 The lesson here is to apply the same technique to all other part of life: eliminate unnecessary choices and ones that overcomplicate the situation, simplify,  make quick decisions and move on.

 

High-Potential Women = Underutilized Talent?

I have just read report from Catalyst about ‘Underutilized Talent of  High-Potential Women in Europe’. I wanted to get your thoughts on it…

I’m embedding the infographic with the key stats. Basically, what it says is that women despite trying harder (seeking out mentors, actively developing their skills, finding ways to advance their careers) still perform way worse than men in terms of progression of their career, responsibilities and salary of course. Now – it doesn’t really make much sense. Shouldn’t input = output?

Well seams like it isn’t all so simple.. But why?

• Is it because women are less ambitious? They care about careers less than men? Less naturally driven?
• Is it because they’re think about having a family early and pull back on work commitments, just in case, ahead of the time?
• Do they not ‘lean in’ enough? Not confident to stand up, speak up, ask for promotion?

I don’t know answers to any of those questions. I aspire to be a ‘high-potential woman’ and so are most of my girlfriends. In all fairness, I am not sure how reliable this survey is, considering that only 124 women were interviewed compared to 526 men.

Anyways – look forward to your thoughts and comments!

 

Not enough time? Try this.

‘I don’t have time’ is our best excuse for almost everything, especially our dreams, aspirations, or New Year resolutions. Isn’t is sad? We sabotage ourselves and make this lame excuse to not do things that actually make us happy. So what’s the solution? I’d like to share my 3 ‘time-stretching’ strategies I have and also recommend 2 best books on the topic:  4 hour working week by Tim Ferriss & No BS time management for entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy. The books helped to organise myself better and work more efficiently, but the techniques I want to share with you today go beyond working hours. So here we go…

1. Wake up earlier.

Do not dismiss this idea too soon. I am a night owl and my favourite time of the week is Sat & Sun lie-in… but believe me it is possible. When I was doing my masters while working full time, the only time I had free was before work. I forced myself to get up 2 hours earlier than usual to study, research and write my thesis before I began my usual work. I already finished my degree, but I continue doing this as it gives me extra 2 hours to work on my own business ideas. It takes discipline to develop this habit, but it’s great – you can do your morning workout, do your writing, or whatever it is that you don’t have time for. Here are 3 things that  help me to get up:

a) UP Jawbone. I got it for Christmas and I love it. Not only it tracks my physical activity but also sleep patterns. It shows my deep and light sleep phases. I programmed it so that it vibrates to gently wake me up within 30 mins of my selected wake-up time. It smartly chooses the best possible time to wake me up, as it’s easier to get up if you’re woken up from a light sleep, than deep sleep (when dreaming).

b) Philips Hue lightbulbs. I have them installed in the bedroom and programmed to slowly light up in the morning to imitate sunrise, way before the sun is up on those winter mornings… It  helps to wake up more naturally, the light will trick your body into thinking it’s daytime and become more awake.

c) Coffee machine with a timer. It’s so nice to wake up to a smell of coffee mmm… I’m very lucky that I usually find a freshly brewed cup of coffee by my bedside when I wake up, because my boyfriend beats all the records in waking up early. But you can also have it done by programming coffee machine for brewing few minutes before your wake up time. Make sure it’s close enough so you can smell it!

I also set a normal alarm, just in case all of the above fails! And I have cats who climb on top of my head if I don’t get up soon enough to feed them 😉 Whatever works!

2. Eliminate something.

You can only stretch a day by little bit, but the simplest and harshest truths is that if you want to make time for something, you’ve

Watching the time go by

got to eliminate something else. Write down things you do within a week. How much time do you need to do things you want? How can you eliminate something else? Let’s say you want to learn to play piano and you need 3 hours of practice a week. Maybe you could ask your manager to work from home once a week and that will save you 3 hours of commuting time. Maybe you can hire a cleaner to save you 3 hours of weekly cleaning? Maybe you could not go to Fri after-work drinks? You get the idea. But make sure that once you make time/financial commitment – you stick to it!

3. Plan for the future.

I always get disappointed when I can’t squeeze enough into my schedule; or spread myself too thinly not achieving anything. One good solution which gives me psychological comfort is planning for the future. So let’s say there is no way I can find those extra 3 hours a week to practice piano right now. The earliest I could start is in April when my dancing courses / important work project/ language classes finish. Then book it for April. Or next year or whenever you can. At least it gives you a feeling that you have it planned and will do it in the near future. You can go as far as creating a 3 year plan of all the things you always wanted to do. I got this idea from Barbara Sheer’s book What do I do when I want to do everything? and I must say it works. As silly as it may sound in the first place, it does help you to prioritise your ideas and make an actionable plan on how to make them happen.

Good luck. I hope some of my tips will help you stretch the time a little bit so you can make your dreams happen. I am super curious to hear what works for you, so please share that in response!

Photo credits: http://psd.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/conceptual-photo-manipulations/

We all need to do a lot more leaning in

I hope you’ve all read Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In’. If you have not, go to Amazon, order it and read it right now; and I mean ALL of you. The book is not only for women. If you are a man, but manage or work with women, or would like to support your wife/girlfriend or daughter in their careers – you have to read it too. You can also watch her amazing TED talk on ‘Why we have too few women leaders?’.

Straight after I read the book back in April last year, I handed it over to my boyfriend and ask him to read it. He was confused… ‘why should I read it?’. My answer was ‘because you run a business and employ women, you need to understand how they think and work’. So he read it and soon after he put it on the ‘suggested reading list for new joiners’. No kidding. Now everyone in his company needs to read the book (95% men). On top of that, they were trying to figure out how to attract more women into their business. They’ve increased their efforts to attract more female graduates, but they realised that at this stage it is too late. Much fewer women study mathematics, statistics, engineering, and science in general; and these are the kind of backgrounds they’re looking for. They realised they need to help much younger girls before they make a choice on what to study. To be proactive, they got involved in organising Stemmetes hackathon taking place in Oxford in October. It was an event aimed at attracting more girls age 7 to 21 to science and IT. It was a great success and I was just so proud they made it happen. They continue to make efforts to attract more women to work with them and give them equal chances – and it all started with a man reading ‘Lean in’. What an incredible ripple effect.

When it comes to the effect the book had on me, I can certainly say I’ve become more confident and outspoken about what I want and need. I asked for a promotion and pay rise in 2013 and I got it. I leaned in, I took initiative, I sat at the table. Initially people ‘discount you’ – you’re a women and you’re young. Why should you have a voice in the room full of older, more experienced men (if you work in IT, like I do)? But I remembered the lessons learnt from the book and did my thing anyway. I was called arrogant and aggressive. I didn’t get upset because I realised that if I was a man no one would call me like that. They would call me ambitious.

According to Sandberg, an average salary for women and men is at ratio 77:100 – exactly the same as last year. This hasn’t increased since 2002. But here I need to explain that it is an annual median salary of all women to men, and not a ratio of woman’s salary to man’s in the same position. It is easier to explain the gap this way, because more women are in part time jobs or freelancing and more men work in highly demanding and rewarding jobs with huge bonuses. So 77% might not be a good reflection of reality, but the gap is there. Another study measured earnings of young professionals a year after graduating from the same university. Women were getting 93% of what men where getting. That just shows we value ourselves much less than men and we’re worse at negotiating entry salaries (or any salaries in fact). What can you do about it? Well, there’s no point asking or campaigning for equality and if we don’t start from ourselves. So, go on, lean in. I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself as well.

Photo credit: http://leanin.org/

How do you develop a habit?

There we go – 3rd blog post and that’s where it’s stops. For the 3rd time. Coincidently, we’re now in mid January and some time soon people will start breaking their New Year resolutions. This one started before NY, so no excuses! I have promised myself to keep writing and there’s nothing worse than failing your own expectations. At least for me.

Btw. this is the soundtrack to this blog post is: Linkin Park, Breaking the Habit. The song is about breaking bad habits, not developing good ones, but still it’s stuck in my head right now.

While trying to self-analyse myself as to why I stopped something I wanted to do so much , I pondered on how much does it take for people to form their habits. According to research from UCL it takes on average 66 days. Which would take me till the end of March… Long time, yes. Challenging, not really – if you’re taking small steps. I noticed that people focus too much on the end goal, e.g.  want to lose 10kg, want to set up a business; rather than thinking about what would be the process of getting there, what would bring them one step closer.

So this year, instead of grand plans of who and what I want to become I focus on the small, realistic and actionable steps. That includes 10 mins a day clearing clutter to make the space around me more organised; getting up at 6am, so I can work for 2 hours on my own projects before work; going for a run 3 times a week, so I can feel healthier and stronger. So far it works – but let’s see if I last till end of March. I should schedule in my diary blog writing too. If you have any proven methods of developing habits – share them in the comments!