Study Smartly And Not Hard Part 1

By Author: Lieutenant Colonel Anil Kumar Nigam
Total Articles: 6
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Working Smart and not hard
I define smart work as the right amount of work done at right time and in right direction. For example even if you want to plant a sapling you have to select the right timing, right season, right amount of water and manure and also timing of its application. If you do not do it in right amount and at right time and that too not in right direction, it may not survive at all, even if it survives, it will not be healthy.
Is it really as simple as that?
Yeah.provided you have developed right kind of skills required. Most of you already posses those skills but do not use these to full potential. What is required is to identify and sharpen these. These skills are: -
·Having right frame of mind.
·Multiplying available Time.
·Getting most from lectures.
·Effective use of memory.
·Choosing right answering Techniques.
·Handling Examinations effectively.
Having Right Frame of Mind
Have faith in yourself: If you think you can not do a particular task, you can never do it just because you don't give a try to it and even if you try, you ...
... don't give it your best. Just remember if someone else could do it you can also do it and probably better than him. It is all in your mind. You have to have faith in yourself, in your abilities and you will find that nothing is impossible. I will give you an example to illustrate: this one guy just joined military training and one day he was punished and was asked to do ten rounds of a large ground with rifle up on the arms. He just could not believe that some body could do it and said no it is not possible to do ten rounds for anybody. The instructor asked what is your number. Thirty thousand and fifty five sir came the reply. If thirty thousand and fifty four guys before you could do it why you can't do it and to his amazement that boy did it and did it fine. The problem was in his mind. He never imagined that some body could do it and once that got resolved he did not have any difficulty. Do not get bogged down by your exaggerated fears.
Use Power of Autosuggestion
Autosuggestion is a powerful tool with which one may rise to heights of great achievement, when it is used constructively. Used in a negative manner, however, it may destroy all possibility of success, and if so used continuously it will actually destroy health.
All suggestions coming from others, or from environment, influence us only after we have accepted them. Once we accept these are passed on to the sub-conscious mind. Stated in another way, no one can influence another without the consent of the one influenced, as the influencing is done through one's own power of Autosuggestion that is his mind has to accept that.
The conscious mind stands, during the hours when one is awake, as a sentinel, guarding the sub-conscious mind and warding off all suggestions which try to reach it from the outside, until those suggestions have been examined by the conscious mind, passed upon and accepted. This is Nature's way of safeguarding the human being against intruders who would otherwise take control of any mind desired at will.
Autosuggestion, as defined by Dr. Hill, is a method by which we can take thoughts from our conscious mind and push them down into our subconscious mind, where they will be processed in the background of our lives. At various stages of processing, our subconscious mind will return its results to the conscious mind, usually in the form of flash insights. Autosuggestion, therefore, is the way we seed our creative thinking".
According to Dr. Hill, before your subconscious mind can latch on to a line of thought and begins processing it, that line of thought must be dominant in your conscious mind. If the dominance of the line of thought is combined with strong emotion, then the subconscious mind is very likely to begin kicking it around, while we are awake and when we are asleep. In addition, if the same idea is presented to the conscious mind by more than one of the physical senses — sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell — both the conscious and subconscious minds become focused more intensely on that idea.
To achieve this state of mind, Dr. Hill recommends a three-step process. First, he tells us to write out a statement of the goals we are trying to achieve. This statement should be as specific and detailed as we can possibly make it. It should contain what we are trying to achieve, the time frame in which we want to achieve it, and what we are willing to do to achieve it.
After we have written our statement of purpose, Dr. Hill suggests that we set aside two or more times a day when we can focus our attention on that statement of purpose. During those times, we are to read our statement of purpose, preferably aloud, to ourselves. Reading the statement aloud brings two of our physical senses into play — sight and hearing. The minimum number of times per day for this reading, according to Dr. Hill, is two: when we awake in the morning and before going to sleep at night. If we can manage some quiet time during the bulk of the day, we should read our purpose statement at those times as well.
The final step in Dr. Hill's process is to visualize ourselves in possession of what we seek while we read our purpose statement to ourselves. For example, if you have set a goal of earning a specific amount of money as your goal, you should imagine yourself holding that money (or what you intend to buy with the money) in your hands while you read your purpose statement to yourself. The more vividly you can visualize your goals in your imagination, according to Dr. Hill, the quicker your subconscious mind will come up with ways you can achieve those goals.
The keys to successful autosuggestion, therefore, are specificity, intensity, and repetition. Your goals must be specific, so that your subconscious mind can narrow down the directions it will provide for you. Your goals must be something that you intensely want to achieve, so that it can easily become the dominant line of thinking in your conscious mind. And you must think about those goals over and over again, to the point that your subconscious mind says, you keep coming back to this idea — I guess I better get to work on it.
Your Attitude Matters

There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative. The fact you see or the state you're in remains the same - only the way you look at it changes. "Positive thinking" doesn't always get the job done but it changes the way you look at the things. Right now, just grasp the idea that your attitude in any given situation is your choice, and the attitude you choose will determine your happiness and achievements in life. Let me illustrate this with a story I read about twenty years back. It is about a young bride from the east whose husband was stationed in the desert during World War II. She decided to go with him even though she was told that the living conditions were very bad and tough. She lived in a small hutment a village. Living conditions were really bad; the place was full of sand and was infected with snakes everywhere. The wind constantly blew, and sand got into everything. The days were long and boring. The only people she saw were the tribal and they didn't speak her language. When her husband was ordered further into the desert on maneuvers, she decided she just couldn't take it anymore. She wrote to her mother that she was coming home. Her mother answered with just two lines, "Two men looked out from prison bars. One saw mud, the other saw the stars.

After reading the lines over and over, she began to feel ashamed of herself. She didn't really want to leave her husband. She made a choice to look for the stars. Over the next few weeks, she made friends with the tribal and started learning their language. They taught her weaving and pottery. She became fascinated with their culture, history - everything about them. She also began to study the desert and found it to be fascinating - not the desolate place she had been seeing. She wrote to her mother and got her to send books about the desert. She studied all the different types of trees. She collected seashells that were left there millions of years ago when the sand of the desert was an ocean floor. She eventually became such an expert that she wrote a book about it. What had changed? Not the desert; not the s. By simply changing her own attitude, she had transformed a miserable experience into a highly rewarding one. That's the lesson we can learn. Your attitude is key to happiness in life, and you have complete control over it. Each of us shapes our own life, and the shape of it is determined by the attitude we hold most of the time.
Manage your Time Well
I wish I had 48 hours a day! But god has given us only 24 hours. There is too much of job pressure on me! How do I do it! You can still do it by managing your available time well. Usually, there's not much you can do about the amount of work that needs to be done. But there's a way you can increase the effective time you have to do it. A recent time management study by the University of Leicester, in England, found that for every hour we spend working only 30 minutes are actually productive work. The rest of the time, we waste on little or no value tasks. The study also found that most people worked in short bursts followed by periods of waiting, distraction or mini-breaks. Just think: If you could do an hour's worth of work every hour, you'd be able to pack 48 hours into each day!
Contd..
For consultation and advice you can contact me at aknigin@yahoo.com. Other articles as follows: -
Study Smartly and not Hard Part 1
Study Smartly and not hard: Part II
Work Smartly and not hard: Part III
Dressing up and Body Language for Job Interviews
Essence of Team Work
Paradigm Shift from Teaching to Learning
Facing Job Interview
Introduction to EMI/EMC

About the Author Author has 28 years of experience in the field of Teaching and Management. He is M. Tech from IIT Kanpur and has worked in different capacities including Signal corps Indian Army, Regional Manager for a Telecom Company. Currently he is Associate Professor with ITM, Gurgaon that is rated as best Engineering colleges of North India.