Posted by Daksh Haldar on July 16, 2019

The amount of free time, we as humans have now was never been the same as before. As primal beings, we used to spend our whole life looking for ways to survive and to keep ourselves and our community safe.

But now, life has become much easier to survive and everything is ready-to-make, we have lots of time and many ways to entertain ourselves and engage ourselves in meaningless activities. The world is at your fingertips

Even the food is delivered to our premises making us more sedentary and less mobile. We are all living vegetables. Even the food is delivered to our premises making us more sedentary and less mobile. We are all living vegetables.

Make a Timetable!

We just choose to fill the voids with crappy stuffs like aimlessly scrolling through social media, or doing meetings where isn’t necessary, talking aimlessly to unnecessary people when you have better things to do.

I believe, the only difference between someone stuck and someone making it big is the way he uses his time.Here are some of the ways with which you can get a hold of your free time to be happier and fulfilled.

A Man who Lifts Twice stays Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise!

Meditate:

If there is only one keystone habit you want to concentrate on and acquire, then I will highly recommend practicing meditation even for as little as 10 minutes a day.

It will make you live in the present which is going to bring happiness to you which is the end goal for most of us. It also helps is focusing more on your goals and jitters away distracting habits eventually.

Exercise:

An age-old saying-‘Health is Wealth’. And trust me, it is. It is one of the most important things in the long run. You can work 16-18 hours a day and make your business prosper in 2 years, but soon you are going to be prey to many diseases.

Then you won’t be able to work even for 2 hours a day. Who is going to manage your business then?

Exercising every day has a number of benefits including:

• More energy throughout the day.
• Better physique.
• Increased Happiness.
• Increased Happiness.

And Many More.

Aim for the Moon, You may hit the star!

Starting a Side Business:

Starting a business has never been easier than it is after the advent of the Internet. You can write blogs, start your Instagram page, or even a youtube channel. There are many more options to choose from. It may take time but it is going to be a hit as there is an audience for everyone these days. You just need to pick your niche and go hard on it. It will soon start making you money and might overtake your salary if you stick long enough with it.

Reading Books:

Another activity/habit especially recommended by most of the great minds of any generation. As we graduate, most of us give up on learning which is one reason most of us aren’t able to improve much. Books are available on every topic, from currently hot Artificial Intelligence to age-old Mediation, from cooking to farming, from money management, home science, from animal rearing to parenthood. You don’t need to get a degree to learn all of this. Nor do you need to pay tuition fees for learning. It is all available in the books. Just grab the one which is the most intriguing to you or the one you need the most.

Don’t wait for things to settle down. Do it now!

Learn a new Skill:

Be it learning to play guitar, taking a calligraphy class, taking a cake-making class, or even a knitting class, learning a new language, or doing something you would like to do. You might have given up on a passion of yours in your school days for studying or some other reason. It is time to work on it. It is time to try it out. Don’t miss out on it.

Goal Setting:

One of the best things to do in your leisure time is to set and review your goals. It is a great way to reflect on your progress and it keeps you on track with the end goal. You can start by making weekly, monthly, 6-monthly, and annual goals. I personally don’t set any goal for more than one year in the future as it is highly unpredictable to assume the life I will be living 1 year from now.

Cleaning and Organising Your Place:

Coming back to a clean and organized place after a hard day at work or at college is such a mesmerizing feeling. You can just get into the comfy sheets and relax. Cleaning the place can be a fun habit if you play your favorite songs while doing so. It lowers stress anxiety and fatigue and also helps you defeat the deadly habit of procrastination.

Start Now and reap the rewards later!

Monthly Budget Review:

Reviewing your budget if you already have one is a great exercise to save a few hundred bucks. And making a budget in advance creates a psychological barrier that is hard to cross. You will never be in debt. You can also observe and unlearn your bad spending habits.

Getting Bored:

I tried to make myself clear in the last blog that you can be more creative by getting bored in this ever distracted world. Give it a read if you haven’t already. It will amaze you. It will let you think of your present, past, and future, keeping at the core the ways in which you can improve your life. You will start thinking about your choices and how you can better them. This is called Autobiographical thinking explained in the last blog.

Conclusion:

Now with your time in your hands, explore more to find yourself. Try to find things you like and don’t like. It will be amazing to know that you weren’t doing certain things before that you love to do and you are pretty good at them. If you aren’t able to free your time, use the YourHour application on your Smartphones and go nuts. Learn something new, read something old, explore the unexplored, and be more fulfilled. What do you people do in your leisure hours? Comment down to tell us. Maybe we can share it with others. Keep sticking with us. Until the next read, See ya!

Work From Home is fast turning into the new normal!

Posted by Daksh Haldar on June 16, 2019

Companies, in the face of this global pandemic, have asked their employees to Work From Home. While these measures are aimed at staunching the spread of the coronavirus, the work does not stop. This, however, seems to be easier said than done. Chances are, if you’re not a freelancer or a WFH veteran, you find the environment not conducive to work. It is important that you establish certain things in order to be more productive. And, even though we cannot go on living as if nothing’s wrong, we need to put out the work our employers expect from us. Here are a few tips on how to be a good employee and not lose your work ethic while working from home.

And so the call for time management has echoed like a battle cry across the world. With organizations lobbying for better or reduced work hours, better working conditions, more efficient tools to work with, it seems like time management is the only viable solution to getting things done. And though there is no dearth of strategies to manage your time, we have shortlisted four of the best ways to manage time.

Work Area!

The atmosphere of a home and an office are very different. To that end, one feels that a corner of your home can be converted into a workspace of sorts. It is crucial that you have a desk where you have all the things that you need. Try to limit the number of times that you get up from your desk to go fetch implements that you need. Which leads us to our next point:

It is important to create a healthy working environment while working from home!

Block Distractions!

At the office, it is important to create an environment that does not provide easy distractions. So, get away from it all. Try to do away with all the noise of the household as daily life unravels around you as you try to work. Remember: noise is sound that comes at irregular intervals and disturbs us. But if you are one of those people who need at least some sort of noise, try to have a dull sound playing in the background. White noise, research has suggested, is conducive to a work environment. It is also important that you establish ground rules with your family or the people that you live with. Try to have them treat the situation as if you are really working at the office. Do not get pulled into family drama, or household chores. Dedicate the time to your work. Similarly, try to finish your tasks by the deadline. It is not fair either to you or your loved ones, that you take your work to the dinner table, which would mean that you have neither proper family time nor proper work time. a clear distinction between the two will let you have the best of both worlds.

Work-life encroaching on family time? Remember to create a separation between the two for the best of both worlds!

Get Organized!

It would do you a lot of good to make a list of all the things that you would need while working from home and keeping them within easy reach. Try to think of all the things that are on your desk at your office, and bring all of them together at your home office.

Remember to plan your day’s work so that you meet all the goals that you set!

Communicate!

When working from home it is crucial to keep in mind that you won’t have your colleagues around to ask them about things all the time. In this respect, it would do a lot of good to first establish what work needs to get done by the end of the day. a call with your employer or your project partner will help you to outline the tasks that need to be dealt with by the end of the day.

As always, communication is key. Make sure your workmates are on the same page as you!

Take Breaks!

Research has suggested that when one works in breaks of 25-30 minutes and then takes a break for 5 minutes, the workflow becomes smoother, and the employee is more productive. It is not good for the body to remain, neck-bent over a screen and chained to the desk without relief. Once in a while, it is important to get up from your desk and take a walk, use the restroom, and listen to something more soothing than your work.

And when it all gets too much, remember to take a break!

During these times, it is very easy to shrug-off work. Since there is no authority that is constantly overlooking the work you’re doing, it is infinitely easier to say that you’ll do it later. Since you’re essentially in charge of yourself, it is imperative that you take responsibility and do the desired work. Home environments do not easily lend themselves to work, and these are but a few things that one could do to work easily from home.

Posted by Daksh Haldar on May 14, 2019

In a world that is obsessed with getting things done, the focus has shifted from having a qualitative output to a quantitative one. This massive paradigm shift in career-related areas makes a lot of people feel conflicted about the way they see their work. For those that had their hearts set on a certain career, the need for passion is fast becoming redundant, with productivity taking center stage. The world is a lovely place to be, I’m sure, but what do we say to those who feel disillusioned and yet hope to find meaning in their work? There are answers galore, and with strategies presenting themselves at every bend in the road we embarked on a quest to pin down the most effective strategies.

And so the call for time management has echoed like a battle cry across the world. With organizations lobbying for better or reduced work hours, better working conditions, more efficient tools to work with, it seems like time management is the only viable solution to getting things done. And though there is no dearth of strategies to manage your time, we have shortlisted four of the best ways to manage time.

Make a Timetable!

One of the chief methods of time management suggested everywhere is one that has been reiterated from our school days, the easiest of them all, and perhaps, therefore, easily ignored. It is a timetable. Our teachers always tell us this when our exams approach so that we don’tfind ourselved pulling all-nighters. But unfortunately, the time it takes to sit down and draw up a schedule makes us procrastinate and further delay this task. In the end, it is yet another task that bites the dust. But people have found that dividing up their day into smaller bite-size work intervals has helped them get through major portions of their work. I think it plays on the psychology of the human mind. With the completion of a task, the mind releases a dose of dopamine to propel us and make us happy. This works in much the same way; when you get through one work interval successfully, you want to do more.

But remember that timetables often turn mundane. The way to get over this is by crafty use of breaks in your schedule. The Pomodoro Technique, which employs a strategically placed break at the end of a short work cycle, helps the mind focus and breathe…

Remember to prioritize! It’s important to know what you’re giving your time to!

Using To-Do Lists!

Making and following a to-do list not only furthers our attempt to complete our work but also brings into focus the tasks that are waiting for our attention. When we have penned down our tasks, it becomes that much simpler to set a time limit for each task, while also making the process of prioritization better and simpler. To-do lists are an efficient way to handle the tasks that need completion.

To-dos are good for you!

Cut Out The Noise and Distractions!

The secret to increasing productivity is to manage your time well!

And here we don’t mean just the noise of traffic on the road or in the hallway. It’s all kinds of traffic from the internal to the external. Do away with distractions that impede your progress. This means, muting that annoying family group, and all other things that are not work-related. You must concentrate on work during work hours if you want to get stuff done. If, like the rest of us, you too are working from home, keep in mind to carve out a space for yourself. Read about how to work from home here…

While a distraction now and then is a good thing, it proves to be a hindrance to completing work on time. Therefore, all social obligations are to be slotted into your schedule when you feel you’ve completed a satisfactory amount of work.

The world’s markets are an increasingly competitive place. Thus, one must always remember to work smarter, instead of harder. Time and energy-efficient ways are the keys to getting work done. “We live in a culture obsessed with personal productivity. We devour books on getting things done and dream of four-hour workweeks,” says Adam Grant. He believes that we must also change the way in which we think. He suggests attention management. This way you focus on things as and when they come to you and focus on getting them done.

Posted by Daksh Haldar on May 20, 2019

Here you are again. Reading an article on how to avoid procrastinating when you probably have a dozen tasks that are calling for your attention. You are the proverbial college student- you have a test to study for, a research paper to submit, and yet, the most interesting thing to you is how you’ve not cleaned your room in ages! And so, off you go on a cleaning spree around your house, cleaning up your desk, tucking away the bed corners, rearranging your bookshelf alphabetically, and sorting out your wardrobe. Then, having exhausted your physical and mental capacities for the day, you have no motivation to contribute towards the completion of your more pressing tasks. You put them off for yet another day.

But what if I told you that you are not alone in this? That there are a billion others (at least) who are doing the same thing as you- procrastinating. You see, procrastination is one of those universal maladies that impedes the forward progression of professional life and everyone experiences it some time or the other. As James Surowiecki wrote in The New Yorker, “surveys show that the vast majority of college students procrastinate, and articles in the literature of procrastination often allude to the author’s own problems with finishing the piece. (This piece will be no exception.)”

But such is the lure of procrastination. We find that what assails our ability to do work is the fact that small distractions give us short bursts of quick pleasure. Completing that article that you’re supposed to write might give you a sense of accomplishment in the end, but in the present moment what is most alluring is being able to browse social media or take up a DIY art project. Humans are largely motivated by the proximity of the reward; the further away a reward is, the more you disregard its value. Behavioural psychologists have called this Hyperbolic discounting. When faced with having to choose between a Hundred Dollars given today or a hundred and ten dollars tomorrow, people often pick the hundred dollars today. But say you extend the condition: a hundred dollars a month from now or a hundred dollars a month and a day from now- people choose the latter. Most people are, as the adage goes, “penny wise, pound foolish”.

People procrastinate for lots of different reasons. Often trapped in a repetitive cycle, they tend to push the work away, then lose motivation, when the deadline draws nearer, they work for longer under more stress, love faith in their work, they tend to procrastinate further. The fear of failure is another cause for people to procrastinate, and so is perfectionism. “This is the perplexing thing about procrastination,” says Surowiecki, “although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn’t make people happy.”

As easy as it is to make intelligent witticisms about it, the fact remains that procrastination is a problem that propels many individuals to look for a solution, lest it becomes unmanageable. In fact, that is probably why you are here. Many solutions exist for the same. When talking about writers and artists, one often heard excuse is writer’s block. This is just another way of saying “I don’t want to do it right now.” But the solution only comes when you get down to sitting and writing. Productivity workshops always echo the mantra that Nike immortalized, “Just Do It”. As Picasso once said, “to know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.”

Procrastination often arises from a muddy thought process. When you don’t know where you’re going, you do not know what path to take to get there. And if you manage to start with your work, you often don’t know where it is going to end. Visualizing the end of your work will come in handy here. If you can, draft an outline, frame a timetable, walk your mind through the procedure that you will need to follow to achieve your goals.

Another effective measure that many productivity enhancers are using is the Pomodoro technique. What you do here is your work in short bursts of twenty-five minutes, and then give yourself a reward plus a five-minute break. You do this while gradually increasing the amount of time you spend working until you’re working seamlessly.

You must also keep in mind to do away with other distractions. It is essential that you work from an environment that does not make demands that would in turn lead to you underperforming. Therefore, keep away all gadgets that are not absolutely essential. All other sources of information that are not directly related to work must also be done away with. This includes games, newspapers, and so on. If you feel the pull of these distractions is too strong, you may always put obstacles in the path of your getting access to these distractions. This may range from keeping the distracting objects in a different room, to having them locked away for the duration of the work time.

The problem of procrastination is an eternal one, faced by laypeople as well as Nobel prize winners. That is not to say that it is insurmountable. It is only with practice that this can be controlled and it is crucial that we learn to do so. Because, as Annie Dillard says, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

Posted by Wesley D’Souza on July 01, 2020

Make a career of humanity,” this is what a two-time Pulitzer winner urges us to do today. In the world in which we live there is no dearth of divisive obstacles. The human mind has categorized and compartmentalized what is up for perception; in its extremes, this categorization has led to some of the most oppressive and exploitative systems of governance. In uncertain times like the one in which we live turn to the voices, we trust the most to make sense for us out of the chaos that pervades our world.

When reading The Nickel Boys, a novel set in 1960s Florida one is brought face-to-face with the grotesque reality of racism and segregation. Elwood Curtis, an ambitious young man, is all set to apply to a local black college when one tiny, innocent mistake derails his plans for the future and lands him in a correctional facility that promises to make an honest man out of him. But the nightmarish reality of it is that anyone who would dare to stand up in the face of a corrupt and degenerate institution would ‘disappear’. An ideal young man- beloved to family, adored by his teachers, thought of in amicable terms by the rest of his peers, Elwood Curtis finds himself, to use the old adage, in the wrong place at the wrong time. One simple act gets him thrown into an institution that treats its inmates with a severed hand; the facade of z correctional facility is a barely ill-maintained one.

In clear, eloquent prose, Colson Whitehead presents to us a canvas on which is painted a very difficult painting. Difficult, because of its subject matter. Segregation and racism which was woven into the very fabric of America and other colonies created a breeding ground for contempt and hatred of a single community based on the colour of one’s skin. Perhaps it was the freakish nature of the violence that lent itself to the drestruction of a single community that prompts Whitehead to avoid fantastical labnguage; the problems themselves read like something that one could only have imagined. But this was the clear and present reality. The story that we have to stare in the eye is a terrifying one. One inwardly flinches at the clear and brutal descriptions that find themselves into the story.

One finds themselves growing quite fond of the characters that Whitehead molds with his words. Their development is steady. The book itself is emotive and you are exposed to the emotions of the characters. At some point, their emotions become your own. On the other hand, you come to despise the other malevolent characters and everything they stand for.

Books like The Nickel Boys are important when we stand more in danger of repeating history by forgetting it. But now, having brought our attention to it, the book also sensitizes us towards the problems of a community as if they were our own.

The Nickel Boys won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction 2020. This is Colson Whitehead’s second Pulitzer, the first being for The Underground Railroad…

Posted by Wesley D’Souza on June 21, 2020

The esteemed poet, Robert Frost, once wrote, “two roads divulged in a yellow wood…” he was talking, centuries ago, about how we have to make choices every day of our lives. Today, however, we know that there are not merely two roads; there is a multitude of options and paths available to us. This creates a paradox of choices which in turn leads to us spending an inordinate amount of time trying to decode what our next move ought to be. We often catch ourselves thinking about our family, work, hobbies, dinner, all in the same line of thought. And if you’re not an experienced multitasker, chances are you will be quite worn out by the end of the day.

But, not to worry, we have a solution. Indeed, this one has been around for quite some time. But before I introduce to you this solution, I ask you to indulge me. Spiritual gurus and meditation experts have always asked their pupils to choose. Choose what they give their attention to. Of course, they talk in terms of theological beliefs. But it can be extended to our world as well. Yes, there is a world of choices for us. In fact, not making a choice is also a choice, as frustrating as that is. But keep in mind that yes, you can filter what you wish to let in.

In the world that we live, there is an insurmountable amount of energy that pours in from various sources- the internet, newspapers, whatsapp groups- you name it. But what if I said that there is a way to not let all of this information overwhelm you?

The solution we are talking about is Mindfulness. To put it simply, it is the conscious practice of the mind in choosing to focus on one task at a time. and it is a tool that comes in handy when we have a lot of tasks, but we want our output to not just be about quantity, but also about good quality. William James, the father of modern psychology, termed it as “the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again.” Our minds are often like rebellious children- doing what they are told to abstain from. And it is our job to bring it in line. This can only be done with practice and patience.

There are many ways to build a mindful approach to work. One of the most popular is meditation. In this form of meditation, we focus on our breathing. Breathing becomes the sole, most important activity at that time. But as we pay attention to the inhalation and exhalation of breath from our body, we find that our elbow itches, our neighbor plays music while she gardens, three cars drove by in the space of this minute. Then you suddenly remember that you’re supposed to pay attention to your breathing exercises. This happens in cycles and becomes, what we call Mindfulness. In time, you will find that your attention wanders less and less and that the proverbial itch, has faded away. The best way to achieve Mindfulness is, and I believe Wendell Berry said it best, “Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet.

There are many benefits to Mindfulness. For one, we become qualitatively productive. The only thing than getting the job done is getting the job done well. That way, you satisfy your boss, and very importantly, you reassure yourself that you are capable of doing your work very well. This in turn becomes a strong motivator for you to perform well on future tasks. We live in a world that strongly in multitasking. But we should also keep in mind that multitasking is not for everyone; it is known that when asked to multitask, employees perform worse, while also decreasing memory and delivering a massive hit to our general wellbeing…

Another benefit of practicing mindfulness is that it can greatly reduce the stress caused by eliminating the need to expend crucial energies on making choices. By thinking of one thing at a time, we arrive at decisions much faster without much furrowing of the brow. We find that we are able to prioritize with greater ease, thus allowing us to complete tasks that demand our attention at once. Our tendency to procrastinate is also done away with.

The best thing about this is that we don’t need any special instruments for it. It’s like a gym workout, minus the heavy lifting. The only thing you need is to sit down, breathe, focus, and become mindful

Posted by Wesley D’Souza on May 18, 2020

The dawn of the quarantine era that arose in the wake of destruction left by the coronavirus has spawned an ocean of articles containing some variation of the phrase “in these trying times”. And though this article, too, shall use this phrase at some point (time really does turn phrases into clichés) we must begin to pay attention to the many wonderful things that have also been happening quietly, but surely. One of them happens to be a popular spoken-word poem that is doing the rounds of the internet. And in times when we might seem to let things go out of focus, it serves as an optimistic reminder that we are both- problem and solution.

The poem called The Great Realisation by @probablytomfoolery on Instagram is the one I am referring to. Disguised as a bedtime tale for children, the poet himself speaks the poem in a soft and kind voice. There is a feeling of calm that washes over you while you listen to the story of a species that is narrated stanza by insightful stanza.

Of all the things that stays with me even now, something that is as striking as it is confounding is the near debilitating control that technology has over us. While conversations and arguments rage over various social media and in the comments sections of different sites, we may have let our conversations with people in real time fade away, let away into background noise. As Tom would say- it’s not that nothing’s being said, it’s that the meaning of our words is being watered down. Ironically, I need technology to write this piece and bring it to you. But let’s not dwell on that. To those of us who have it, let us be grateful for every little distraction that takes our fraying niceness away from the bursting point and towards something productive.

It truly is wonderful that people are using this time to rebuild the relationships that they’d let crumble in the hustle and bustle of daily life. Many I know are rejoicing that they get to see more of their parents or children. Amidst the volume of baking and cooking and home workout videos that seem to be pouring in over the internet, we see a lot of smiles, a lot of laughter. senses and very often, this information can be overwhelming. Many psychologists have reported cases of cell phone-induced anxiety, stress, and depression.

But indeed, being, for all intents and purposes, trapped, really shows us how grateful we ought to be for all that is available to us. But this gratefulness I accept with a pang of great guilt; all the things that we can be grateful for should serve as reminders to us of the unimaginable privilege that we are a product of. In a country where people are walking many hundreds of miles to get back home, I am grateful that I already have a home. For every morsel that I can eat, there are people who make a meal once in two days. And yet my dwindling belief in the goodness of humanity does not die; there are people out there who are taking care of each other. NGOs and other private institutions have started charities that are working overtime, all hours of the day and night to get essentials to those that are truly vulnerable, while also being exposed to great risk themselves…

A great many have poured in the thought that a lot of lessons are there to be learned from this pandemic. The time of subtle hints has passed; this disease has, as has been pointed out, exposed an already broken system. The days of subtle allusions to the vices that grip our world have faded and great facades have been torn down to expose the inherent greed that has a chokehold on the world. We see it now, and all its enablers are clear as day. But these lessons are for those who have the time to educate themselves. For others, it is water over an upturned pot.

Posted by Wesley D’Souza on April 14, 2020

In the world as we know it today, technology plats a very significant role. It has enabled us to scale great heights, achieve our goals, make advances in medical science. Truly, the pros of modern technology are innumerable. Technology has made itself so indispensable to us, that it has permeated very sphere of our lives.

While this is not entirely bad, the dependence we have on technology can be crippling in its absence. The problem of cell phone overuse, attracted the attention of various agencies who sought to study the matter more minutely. They decided that this smartphone dependence is a form of psychological or behavioural dependence associated with the smartphone.

It is an addiction,that has gone right to the heart of our society. This addiction has had an adverse effect on human communication which is odd, because the phone made the world a smaller place and made it easier to reach people in the first place! It is a constant complaint of parents that their children don’t look up from their phones and do not participate in dinner table conversations

We now have the world at our fingertips. Information from all over pouring in at lightning speed that leaves us reeling. There is a barrage of knowledge that assaults our senses and very often, this information can be overwhelming. Many psychologists have reported cases of cell phone induced anxiety, stress, and depression.

One of the things that is often overlooked while talking about cell phone addiction is the bad effect that it can have on our productivity levels. Humans have a tendency to put off for later many things that need their immediate attention. This behaviour is called procrastination and all of us have been guilty of it at least once in our lives. This adversely affects our ability to be more enthusiastic about our professional lives. When work is assigned, employees should get to it more readily, with due diligence,

But instead, managers complain of the fact that their employees are jumping to their phones every time it beeps. People are so attached to their phones that they check their phones when they feel the slightest vibration. Sometimes they are alerted by phantom or ghost vibrations which occur when they are waiting for a call or text, or just generally waiting for some kind of feedback.

Where youngsters are supposed to do their schoolwork and build good communication skills, we see their eyes glued to their phone screens. When they need to make social relationships, they would prefer to stay at home or within the bounds of a Wi-Fi connection. Ignoring their work, throwing tantrums when they are denied a phone, has far reaching effects that may manifest itself as a bleak future. But technology as we have said, has helped us a great deal. For example, it is because of the internet that you are reading this article, probably on your cell phone.

Disconnected from our present reality, we have become over connected to a virtual reality. We care about what strangers on the internet think about our lifestyles, and tailor our social media handles to configure to their expectations. We seem to be losing sight of what is truly important in our lives.

As a people, we need to seriously reconsider our lifestyles. But more than that, we need to relearn how to prioritise our lives. Critical things need to be dealt with before we can spend our leisure time on other things. The ability to organise and prioritise, which seems to be in shortage today, needs to be cultivated once more among us in order to have better, richer lives.

Posted by Wesley D’Souza on May 14, 2020

Dear Device,

Of all the people I could write to, tonight I choose to write to you. This is not a love letter, but always remember that I have a lot of love for you. It’s just that, at some point, your love turns toxic. Sorry. I remember the day you arrived home. I remember unpacking you, chucking aside the warranty information papers, the user guide, and all unnecessary other paraphernalia. I remember how I ran into my garden and started to snap away at the various flowers that grew there- all to test the camera. It was beautiful. I did not know how many flowers were there until that day in the garden. You brought them to my attention.

Then the day a horrible accident befell the both of us. A prankster cousin pushed us into the swimming pool. And the dive that we went for, was your last. After that, you were never the same. And yet, the efforts to resuscitate you were long-drawn. Many remedies were tried and tested. To no avail.

In the dark night, with you not there to keep me company, I began to think about how my life had revolved around you. Far more than is acceptable. That I would treat you better than I was treating most humans! Unthinkable. And yet. Here we are.

And so, tonight, I’m, breaking up with you. No, not entirely. I can never do without you. But I’ve decided to keep my distance. I have learned my lesson well. Perhaps, one day, I shall truly be done with you. One day, I shall wash my hands of you.

And a DIGITAL solution to it – “YourHour App”

Posted by Jamila Johar on July 2, 2018

Day in and day out, we are all surrounded by technology. No doubt it has made our lives very easy and abstract but it has also increased our dependency at certain points. And maybe we can do without most of them at times, but one thing that has become essential to our living is MOBILE PHONE!

Don’t agree? Imagine this! You are at a wedding where you hardly know anyone. It’s like you are Alice in the Wonderland! So what do you do? You grab your phone from your pocket and indulge in it to pretend not being alone. Your phone offers you a companionship in endless such situations where you might find yourself aloof. And eventually you seem to forget the place, the time, the people you are with and all you tend to remember is your phone.

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

–Jimmy Dean

So where did it all go wrong? The time when you unlocked your phone to avoid the embarrassment of being alone. But what else could you do? You could have tried to grab your guts and talk. Instead of your virtual companion maybe you could have found an actual friend! But that was the tough route right! And your phone wouldn’t have allowed that.

This is just one scenario. And every day we encounter innumerable such situations. Phones are surely an aid to help us but with time they have become the most addictive drug! We start our day browsing our Instagram feeds, texting morning messages to friends and catching up on the world. We need them during meals because eating is so boring otherwise! We use them in public places, at work, while driving and even let them intrude our private time (Cause no one likes counting bathroom tiles, after all!).

But with all these we have forgotten the actual purpose of these SMART devices – COMMUNICATION! And it is sad to notice that they have constantly proved to gust a gap between people. The phone addiction has made us forget our time with friends and family. We waste almost all our day in useless streaming and have lost our productivity. We read online, we chat online, we even can’t remind ourselves of our own things and there too we need phones. Long story short, we have locked ourselves in the shackles of SMART PHONE ADDICTION!

Aah! Realisation! Pretty stressing? Want to get rid of the addiction and yet are not willing to abandon your phones? Maybe to break these shackles you don’t need to give up your phones altogether. Maybe all you need is a magic wand to undo the spell of your phones. And maybe there were an app to help you find your way out of this addiction!

For treating any disease you need to know the pattern of its working. And that’s how YourHour app helps you. This app is your constant guide in tracking your phone usage, letting you know about it, and helping you subside the urge to use your phone. The results are surely surprising!

The app is focused mainly upon letting you know the total number of time you access your phone, the number of hours you spend on different apps, a daily timeline of your phone’s activities and a report of your daily and weekly phone usage. With these features it helps you recognize the most addictive apps in your device and how much time of your day do you remain stuck in there!

Here are top features of the app:

★ The Dashboard: Your gateway to your day!

The dashboard of YourHour provides you all the essential information you need to know about your day long phone usage. The app keeps a track on your “Total Screen ON Time” and “Total Phone Unlock Count” and thereby, gives a comparative info graph of your weeklong activity.

★ The Report: We Remind you!

YourHour provides its users Daily and Weekly report cards for their app usage. The Daily usage report reviews the usage on individual apps, with app run-time and app launch count for each app separately. You can also view the Daily App Timeline to know the breakdown of the app’s daylong usage. Also, a consolidated report notification is sent, before you mark it as an end of the day. The Weekly usage report will summarise the last 7 days phone usage and unlock count for you. The user can also see how much time he has spent on individual apps and app launch count for each day throughout the week.

★ The “Clock Timer”: See your time slip by!

YourHour app comes with a Float “Clock Timer” that you can activate on all your addicting apps. Henceforth, every time you launch your addictive app, we show you a nicely designed ticking “Clock Timer” next to it. You are free to drag and drop it wherever you want. This way you can be aware of each minute of your precious time that you remain glued to non-productive apps. We don’t block your app notifications or calls like other apps because we want YOU to be the best judge of YOUR time. So we keep you aware at every possible juncture.

★ The Phone Diary: Your Phone’s Routine!

The daily usage timeline shows the entire day schedule of your phone in one go. What you used, when you used and for how much time did you use it. It tells you each small detail and also shows you the happy hours! (no phone usage hour). 

★ The Goal Challenge: Hit that goal!

People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. With YourHour you can set your phone usage time. Thus, as you come nearby your goal for the day, the app reminds you of the same and aware you that you are done for the day!

★The Amazing Facts: Learn along the run!

YourHour cares for you. And so, with your daily report on app usage it gives you some facts, figures, and quotes to remind you of how much your health is important to us.

★ The Share: Coz sharing is caring!

You can share your daily and weekly reports with friends and family and have fun comparing your results and improve together for the better.

With more exciting features coming across to help you keep Your Time in Your Hand, the YourHour app is a complete digital solution for detoxification of your phone addiction. Let’s take our steps towards being SMART USERS of our phones and not just owners of SMART PHONES! 

Download your medicine now on Google Play Store, and start your treatment today!

A Journey to the Start of Phone Addiction!

Posted by Jamila Johar on July 24th, 2018

It is often said, “Change is the inevitable truth”. Things change, situations change and people change. It spares no one. And this change never happens overnight. Like one day you suddenly wake up and, hola! You are a changed being! No that happens only on telenovelas. But in real life, all changes have a long end process behind them.

And so is the process of being a Cell Phone Addict! We all have this general idea of what “addiction to phone” means, but how do we know we are an addict? When do we realize that? Does a fairy come down all the way from heaven and speak the magic words to us? Or is there a whole lot of show going on behind the veil, which we need to understand?

In my last blog, we discussed upon Phone Addiction – the new Drug! And in this one we would focus on the mechanism of becoming a phone addict. Addiction, like any other process, occurs in stages. And like any other drug, mobile phone addicts too pass through all of these. So, let’s start!

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

–Jimmy Dean

Stage 1: CRAVER

Craving means to long for something and that’s what a craver does. This is the start flag to the addiction process. Once you clear this check post, you are in a greater mess. This is the point where everything seems normal. You are still a normal user and are able to effortlessly manage your life and your phone in a balanced way. But slowly you crave. You want more of your phone, everywhere. You miss it. You regret leaving it at home. You find it more interesting than get-togethers and even shopping! You crave for it like a small child craving for a toy! Buddy, believe me, if you fall for this there is no turning back!

Stage 2: HABITUAL

Habit. A very deadly word if you have a ‘bad’ one. The most interesting thing about habits is that good ones, take a long time to cultivate but these evil, nasty ones, are so damn fast! And so is ‘mobile addiction’. You won’t realize when it happened, but your cravings slowly form a habit. Your ‘want’ for the phone now becomes your ‘need’, your craving turns into something you do on a regular basis. You wake up and check your phone and sleep after kissing it goodnight. Just like you brush, bathe, eat and sleep, your phone too, becomes your routine! And as said ‘Habits Die Hard!’

Stage 3: DEPENDENT

The venom now starts to show its colors. Slowly you become dependent on your phone. You cannot do a thing without it. Whether you want to talk, play or read your first choice is your phone. This little poison becomes your best pal. You chose its company even at meals, in the washroom, at movies or tours! It is like a doorway for you, out of your life. A window from where you helplessly just stare at the moments slip by!

Stage 4: OBSESSED

Now you actually start enjoying this dependency. In fact, you become greatly obsessed with your device. It becomes so hard to even keep it down. You go on doing your stuff in it, without blinking an eye. And I mean it, literally. You forget to blink. You forget to eat. You are removed from your daily life processes. You lose productivity. You lose the will to do new things, try new stuff. All you want is your phone. All you find interesting is your phone. Although you won’t do any real work. You would just scroll down the feeds, or watch movies and videos, or play games, or stare at dresses you don’t even want to purchase! But it’s always you and your phone!

Stage 5: ADDICTED

What could be next? A stage where all is blur……where you are just a puppet not knowing what went wrong. You now have a sense that your phone has been a devil in disguise all this while, but even then you are unable to give up on it. You want a break-up, but your mind is all consumed in your cell phone to be ready to do it. And here is when my friend you realize, YOU HAVE BECOME A PHONE ADDICT!

All these stages are hairline apart. And maybe you identify yourself with more than one stage at a time. Maybe you are at the transition between two stages. Maybe you are at the last stage, or maybe you have just started on the path to Addiction! But my friend, you need to acknowledge this and accept this ASAP! Or else the return is going to be tough.

Being this said, I would love to recommend you an amazingly useful app that would help you know exactly, at which stage you are and help you get out of it in a fun and easy way. No app blocks, no alarms, and buzzers. This app is just that FRIEND, which would be there with you and guide you until you are finally detoxed! It is the YourHour App – placing Your Time in Your Hand! Try it out, it really works!

With more exciting features coming across to help you keep Your Time in Your Hand, the YourHour app is a complete digital solution for detoxification of your phone addiction. Let’s take our steps towards being SMART USERS of our phones and not just owners of SMART PHONES! 

Smart Phones Separating Generations!

Posted by Jamila Johar on August 3rd, 2018

Addiction is injurious to health! And while most narcotics damage a person’s Biological wellbeing, Smart Phones attack, point-blank one’s Social wellbeing. But isn’t it an irony that the devices meant to connect us with the world, are in fact, responsible for breaking our ties from our closed ones?

Smartphones have always been seen as the WEAPON OF THE YOUTH, but is it only the young minds being trapped in this dungeon, or are the adults the actual ringmasters! Do the youth exploit themselves on their own or are they just the path followers? Are they the assailant or are they the real victims? This drug has influenced the young and the old alike!

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

–Jimmy Dean

In my past blogs, I have described what phone addiction is like and how a person slowly becomes an addict to their phones. And this time you are going to be the jury and judge for yourself whether your relationship with your phone is affecting your REAL-LIFE BONDS?

Teenage: The Age of the Lost!

Almost a majority of mobile phone users are teenagers. And as a proven fact they all waste a huge amount of their productive time on a list of useless activities. And hitting the top rank in that list is their cell phone with the added blessing of low rate internet facilities!

The favorite pass time of any teenager is to browse through their phones. Staring down at the posts, comparing stuffs, snap chatting each other, waking up early in the morning just to maintain their streaks…. The list goes on and on and on. They prefer to ignore than being ignored and so they pretend to be busy whenever they are alone. They love to tag their friends on memes but remain unaware of their surroundings. They do listen to people around but it’s just like a music system surround! And this incomplete attention leads to reduced retention!

A cherry to the top, these pass times get converted into more dangerous obsessions like nomophobia or fear of being phoneless! Also, visualising life through social media often lets depression crawl in. And this mental stress usually gets reflected upon family. They are the ones who eventually face our ignorance, our involvement in our own world makes us detached from them, and it definitely affects the closeness of our relationships. We are all busy people and with growing aspects of life one hardly is able to find quality time anyways. And this engrossment into a virtual world makes us fall behind in our real lives!

Parents: The Path Leaders!

If it were a time 10 years before, we might have overlooked the fact that our parents too are mobile phone addicts. But today, with the young generation getting all tech savvy, how could their parents lag behind in the race?

In the modern age, parents are more addicted to their phones than their children. There was a time when the entire family used to gather in the living area and together watch their favorite shows on the television. But now the entire family does gather but use their phones together. With all the attractive apps and easy-to-use interfaces, it is more interesting and exciting for our parents to indulge and enjoy these rare treasures.

This has caused a greater addiction amongst the adult generation than the teenagers. We can see ample cases of technoference- an interference by technology! Parents tend to have a greater relationship with their friends on social media than their own child. The child might be needing company but who can be heard over the earphones? This has developed a great communication gap amongst the generations and paved the way for the child to feel lonely, unheard, and left out. Ultimately, these insecurities result in children finding adverse ways to fill in the gaps, becoming either drug addicts or worse- Phone Addicts!

For this generations and the ones to come, these gadgets would always continue to create a SOCIAL DIVIDE amongst families. We have all lost our quality times with friends and family to these devices, which have cast a strong spell on us. And it would be not so far a day when “FAMILIES” would be strangers living under the same roof!

It is need of the hour to have some handy help to get rid of this addiction and YourHour App is that perfect solution. With exciting features to help you keep Your Time in Your Hand, the YourHour app is a complete digital solution for detoxification of your phone addiction. Let’s take our steps towards being SMART USERS of our phones and not just owners of SMART PHONES!