DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

One of my friends/ ex-colleagues once told me the concept of Work or Fun. He said one should spend her/ his life doing either of two things – Work Hard or Have Fun, but don't Waste time otherwise (except of course the tragic times and similar other times).

So, based on that, after a lot of thinking I have come up with few tips using which you will be able to utilise maximum of your time, all for your good. You will find that we already do almost all of these things. However, the perspective here is of doing them consciously with a purpose in mind. 

I shall discuss the premise behind not wasting time after the tips.

So, here they are:

• Read: Read newspapers, magazines, journals, novels, biographies, your text books, websites, the paper bag / envelope / holder of the street delicacy you are eating, sticker/ poster in bus/ street or anything. Do it while walking, sitting, standing, eating, watching IPL, traveling etc. You dont have to read all the things in detail, but keep your eyes open and give a careful glance to readable things around you. Often, there are a lot of interesting things to be learnt.
  

• Write: Write poems, proses, essays, letters, daily diary, ideas, your best and worst moments of life and now-a-days you can additionally use blogs and micro-blogs (Twitter) to do that. When you don't have much to do, start writing whatever you think, what new ideas you have thought of during last week on any topic, etc. Overtime, if you work consciously, you may have a database of ideas which could be used in some way. Writing a great way to express yourself!! Isn't it! I just did it (though I do it to earn a living)
  
  

• Talk: Some people are just chatterboxes. This is a great way for them to not waste time but talk with some productivity. Talk to people about ideas, people (never do bitching though), issues, yourself, themselves, business, job, and sometimes real gossip as well. Ask them what they do, what they did in life, how they did it, how can you do it? You will surely learn a lot from people's experiences. As the ad says, "Baat karne se hi baat banti hai!!".

• Look Around: Keep aware of your surroundings whenever you are walking, sitting, standing eating or doing something not requiring focus. You will learn many new things. Look out to people, what they are doing, how they behave in public, their expressions in particular circumstances, how they behave with and think about other cultures, how they live, how they work, their attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and values, as well as the unspoken cultural patterns that shape behavior. Overtime, you would have learnt a lot of new practical things about the world and people. And after learning so much about people, you would surely become a people expert which is a skill rare people have. You may end up become ethnographer if your experience of this knowledge is multi-cultural and /or international. Its all about keeping noticing!
  PS- This however in no way should mean that you stalk people or stare at them, but should do all this within legal, moral, social, and ethical limits.

• Sleep: Not a sound advice, you might say! However, if you are one of those who often have to compromise on sleep for many reasons, this is a good use of time, to keep doing what you were doing at that time only , but not compromising on health. I learnt this from one of my college friends, who was an intelligent being, and used to sleep in class whenever he got time, so that time is not wasted. Nice naa...

• Travel: This holds for those who have days and not hours or minutes to spend time. Travelling to new places combined with all above tips shall make the best experiences for you., which you will remember for a lifetime.
  

• Practice Song, Dance, Mimicry, Sketching etc: Most of the celebrities we see on TV, radio and stage are there because they utlised their extra time in practising skills like singing, dancing, mimicry and other performing arts. The bathroom singer in you needs more practice and get out in public. You never know when someone notices you to give a break or when you become famous, even after a social performance of your dancing skills. One of my college friends even got a designer's job owing to his class practice of sketching making him too good at that. Thats how you get to do what you love in life and earn for the same. Not all people get that.

• Innovate ways to do all this at minimum cost, and with maximum novelty factor – Who does not love spending money? I'm sure you would love doing it all the more if you get to spend it only on things you love doing. So, innovate ways to minimize your unnecessary costs. Besides, try changing the environment for each of the above tips everytime you are following them consciously or unconsciously. Change places, topics, medium, people (except friends & family), and whatever else possible. Bring in novelty in everything, and life would be fun.
  

As I earlier said, the purpose behind all these activities is not to just pass time, but pass time productively. In a way, you may call it pursuing excellence (doing what you love to do) (Yes, the stuff is borrowed from 3 Idiots!!! So what!)

The whole point of doing all this is to LEEDU:

LEARN

EXPLORE

EXPRESS

DISCOVER

UNDERSTAND

But not in school/ college.

Born intelligent!? Now, let your self defined education enrich you and not ruin you!

I am open to any / more discussion on this.

Comment (6)

Well, one of the businesses that can never be organised is that of carpooling. Its a popular option for cost saving and reducing pollution, and there have been many efforts to make it organised but most in vain. There are a number of websites that facilitate carpooling, by giving options to car drivers and other users. A quick search will reveal names of carpool.in, commuteeasy, indimoto, carwale, carcabpool, carpoolworld, carpooling.in, poolmycar.in etc. However, the uncertainty of the availability of cars and difference of timings of office-goers, websites have not been able to do a wonderful job. There are postings by people who have a vehicle to offer, and by those who want a vehicle for carpooling. But difference in routes, timings and needs for flexibility, most of those are lying old and unanswered. However, it in no way means that carpooling is not happening. In offices, schools, neighbours etc, people do pool in vehicles, even though its to save their own money.

And in a way, even the conveyance provided by companies to their employees can be called pooling, since it is done either in cabs or buses, saving time for companies and cost for employees, and some green brownies for environment.

In corporate hubs like Gurgaon, there are crossings where you can find people pooling vehicles with strangers, as what we can call hitch-hiking. Each and every vehicle (which include trucks) going there is looked upon as potential time and hassle saver for the commuters. In fact, even for coming there from main city (read Delhi here), there are native-defined places where you catch the call center cabs, which are coming empty after leaving night shift employees to their homes. Commuters come to the cab 'stand' and have to wait for a willing cab driver to stop the cab, and confirm destination. Though it may financially hurt the owners of cabs as they are undergoing revenue - pilferage, those drivers are in fact doing a service to public and environment, even if they earn from it (Rs 25 for a 35 km ride is not bad at all). The unofficial cab 'stands' that I know of are Karol Bagh, Wazir Pur, Saket, Dhaula Kuan besides others. There might be mention of these in some orkut or facebook communities, but otherwise, only the natives know about these options.

On the lighter side, there have been instances where innocent personal car owners have unknowingly stopped cars at such 'stands', may be to see-off some friend-relative and people standing outside (with demand more than supply of seats) just open the doors, and sit inside forcibly, as if kidnapping the driver. It happened with my own sister-in-law and her cousin. They were like what this happening!! Then the people had to be instructed to get down from the car, which is an embarrassment for the 'high-nose' commuters (sorry for poor Hindi translation).

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