When the Right Task Becomes the Wrong Choice
One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming our ability to think remains constant throughout the day. It doesn’t. Our mental energy rises and falls. Yet we often choose tasks as though every hour is equally suitable for every kind of work. It isn’t.
Some tasks demand far more mental energy than others:
- Planning a project.
- Breaking down a complex problem.
- Designing a presentation.
- Writing an important proposal.
These activities require deliberate, sustained thinking.
Other tasks require much less mental effort.
- Replying to routine emails.
- Booking tickets.
- Paying bills.
- Organizing files.
These rely more on familiar patterns and routines.
Daniel Kahneman described two broad modes of thinking: slow thinking and fast thinking. Slow thinking is deliberate, analytical and mentally demanding. Fast thinking is automatic, familiar and requires much less effort. Most knowledge work involves both. The important question is not which mode is better, but when to use each.
The common mistake lies is doing the right task at the wrong energy level. This leads to what I call The Energy Cascade Principle:
As your available energy changes, consciously choose the task whose energy demand best matches it.
Notice that I haven’t mentioned any particular time of day. That’s intentional. Everyone’s body clock is different. Even for the same person, energy varies from one day to the next depending on sleep, stress, health, exercise, or circumstances.
The question is never:
“Is it morning?”
The better question is:
“How much mental energy do I have right now?”
Whenever you find yourself at a high-energy point—whether that’s after a good night’s sleep, after an afternoon nap, or simply during your natural peak—invest it in work that requires slow, deliberate thinking.
As your energy gradually declines, let your work cascade toward activities that rely more on familiar routines and fast thinking.
One of the hidden benefits of this approach is efficiency. We often think of efficiency as using better tools or finding faster ways to complete a task. But there is another kind of efficiency: matching the task to the mind that is performing it.
A planning session completed at your mental peak may take half the time and produce a better result than attempting the same work when your energy is depleted. Conversely, routine administrative work rarely benefits from your sharpest thinking. Doing the right work at the right energy level is one of the simplest ways to improve both productivity and the quality of your thinking. Once you begin noticing your own energy patterns, task selection becomes much more intentional.
The pioneering neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield observed:
“The best rest for doing one thing is doing another until you fall into a sound sleep.”
That insight is profound. Recovery doesn’t always mean stopping. Often it means changing the kind of effort.
After hours of strategic thinking, reading may feel refreshing. After writing, organizing your notes may be relaxing. After solving difficult problems, a walk, gardening, cooking, or exercise may restore your mind. You’re still engaged—but you’re no longer asking your brain to perform at its highest level.
But Don’t Let the Mind Go Completely Slack. Relaxing is not an invitation to spend the evening in mindless distraction.
A. G. Sertillanges, in The Intellectual Life, captured this beautifully:
“Yes, indeed, relaxed; but like a violin with all its strings completely slackened. What a labor next day to tune them all up again!”
Recovery should keep the mind gently alive. Reading, Learning, Meaningful conversations, Music, Hobbies require less energy while still engaging the mind.
The goal is not to maintain the same energy throughout the day. That is impossible. The goal is to consciously match your work to your changing energy. As your available energy changes, transition naturally to work requiring less mental effort and supported by greater intrinsic interest. By the end of the day, you aren’t forcing yourself through difficult thinking, nor have you abandoned your mind to passive distraction. Instead, your day has flowed naturally—from demanding to lighter, from analytical to enjoyable, from intense concentration to gentle engagement. Like water descending a mountainside, your work follows a natural gradient.
When you match the energy demanded by the task with the energy available in your mind, work becomes more effective, more enjoyable, and far less exhausting.
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(Originally published in Times of India on July 18, 2026)
Why We Procrastinate: The Tug of War Inside Our Minds
You know exactly what you should do. You even want to do it. Yet somehow you don’t. Instead, you check your phone, rearrange your desk, make another cup of tea, or convince yourself you’ll start tomorrow. Why? That is procrastination. But why does it happen?
I have had my own struggles with personal productivity over the years. Interestingly, procrastination was never one of my biggest challenges. Because of that, I never really understood what was going on in the mind of someone who procrastinated regularly. From the outside, it seemed simple enough. I assumed it was mostly a matter of low enthusiasm, poor motivation, or plain laziness.
That explanation made sense—until it didn’t.
I would see intelligent, capable, and hardworking people postponing things they genuinely wanted to do: starting a project, preparing for an exam, or reading a book. These weren’t lazy people. Clearly, something else was happening.
That question stayed with me until I came across an explanation that completely changed the way I looked at procrastination. It came from Tim Urban’s excellent book What’s Our Problem?
Tim explains how two parts of our brain are often engaged in a quiet struggle for control.
One is the Prefrontal Cortex, responsible for planning, judgment, learning from experience, and long-term thinking.
The other is the Amygdala, an ancient survival system designed to detect threats and keep us safe.
What really struck me was that Tim didn’t present this as a model of just procrastination. He described it as a much broader tug of war that also shows up in addiction, impulsive behaviour, emotional reactions and many other aspects of our lives.
That was my ‘aha’ moment. While procrastination had never been my biggest challenge, I immediately recognised this tug of war in other situations in my own life. If it could explain my own behaviour, I could suddenly appreciate how powerful it must be for someone who struggles with procrastination every day.
That idea stayed with me.
Later, while preparing my first Time Management and Personal Productivity workshop for teenagers, I wanted a simple way to explain it. That’s when Jai and Veeru were born.
They are actually very good friends. They live together peacefully most of the time and usually make a great team. But every now and then, they disagree. And when they do, a tug of war begins. Jai represents the Prefrontal Cortex and Veeru the Amygdala!
One thing is important to remember. Veeru is not the villain.
For most of human history, he helped our ancestors survive. Without him, they wouldn’t have escaped predators or responded quickly to danger. The problem is that the world has changed much faster than our brains have.
Today, the threats we face are rarely life-threatening. Instead, we face uncertainty, criticism, fear of failure, difficult conversations, exams, deadlines, and mentally demanding work. These situations are uncomfortable. But they are usually not dangerous.
Unfortunately, Veeru doesn’t always know the difference. And that’s where procrastination begins.
Procrastination begins when Veeru mistakes discomfort for danger.
When that happens, avoiding the task feels like the safest option. We postpone it, distract ourselves with something easier, and experience immediate relief. Unfortunately, that relief is temporary. The task is still waiting for us—often accompanied by more stress and guilt than before.
Understanding the problem was one thing. Finding practical ways to overcome it was another. As I searched for solutions, it became clear that people procrastinate for very different reasons. That insight eventually led me to develop six procrastination personas. You can read about them here.
Yet beneath every solution lies one common principle: support Jai. Veeru doesn’t need encouragement. He is always alert and ready to take charge whenever he senses discomfort. In fact, he often takes over before Jai even gets a chance to speak. Our job is to give Jai a fighting chance.
The next time you catch yourself postponing something important, resist the temptation to label yourself as lazy. Instead, pause and ask yourself:
“Is Veeru mistaking discomfort for danger again?”
Or, if you prefer the metaphor:
Who’s winning the tug of war right now—Jai or Veeru?
That one question changes the conversation.
Instead of fighting yourself, you begin to understand yourself. And that awareness gives Jai another opportunity to lead. Because, more often than we realise,
Discomfort is not danger.
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(Originally published in Times of India on July dd, 2026)
The Journal That Helped Me Stay Productive for Years
Imagine waking up on a rainy Sunday and wondering, “What exactly did I do with the last six months of my life?”
Most of us can answer only in broad strokes: worked a lot, attended meetings, read a few books, spent time with family. The details have already evaporated.
Now imagine opening a neat matrix and being able to see, day by day, what you built, learned, fixed, wrote, read, and experienced. Not because you have an extraordinary memory, but because you kept a simple journal.
Before you stop reading, this is not the “Dear Diary” kind of journal.
This journal is more like a flight recorder for your life.
Every day gets one row. Every important role you play gets a column. Mine typically has four columns:
- Job
- Vocation
- Reading & Learning
- Personal & Family
Whenever you finish something meaningful, record it in the appropriate cell. A client presentation. A chapter of a book. A long walk with your spouse. A difficult conversation. A blog post. A new skill.
Over time, the spreadsheet becomes surprisingly fascinating.
One glance tells you whether your days are balanced or lopsided. Are you investing in learning? Have you neglected family for three weeks? Is your side project moving forward or merely living in your imagination?
The journal also becomes an unexpected source of satisfaction. There is something deeply rewarding about looking at a row packed with meaningful activity. It is tangible evidence that your days were not wasted.
And the benefits keep accumulating:
Reflection and Completion
Recording a task forces you to revisit it briefly. Did you leave any loose ends? Did you finish it properly? This tiny moment of reflection often improves the quality of your work.
Your Personal Highlight Reel
Most people underestimate how much they accomplish. A journal serves as a visual reminder of your progress. On difficult days, it can be surprisingly motivating.
A Built-in Time Machine
Need to remember when you submitted that proposal, completed that course, or started that project? The answer is usually a quick search away.
Effortless Reporting
Weekly reports become simple. Monthly reviews almost write themselves. Annual self-appraisals, resumes, and career profiles become far easier because the raw material is already available.
Balanced Attention
Reading down a single column reveals patterns. If your Learning column is empty for weeks, or your Personal column looks neglected, the journal gently points it out.
Productivity Without a Stopwatch
You do not need elaborate time-tracking systems. Simply recording meaningful accomplishments often provides enough visibility into how productive your days have been.
A few practical tips:
- Keep it digital.
- Use a spreadsheet.
- Record items as soon as possible after completion.
- Finish updating the day before you shut down for the evening.
- Highlight weekends in a different color to create visual boundaries between work weeks.
- Enable the Microsoft Office Clipboard if you frequently copy information from emails and documents.
The hardest part is not creating the journal. It is showing up every day.
But once you have a few months of entries behind you, you’ll wonder how you managed without it.
If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution that takes just a few minutes a day and keeps paying dividends for years, consider becoming the historian of your own life.
How to Keep Weekends Productive (Without Ditching Netflix)
Weekend productivity has very little to do with hustle. In fact, the biggest challenge of weekends is often the opposite: too much unstructured freedom. An entire day with no meetings, no deadlines, and no fixed schedule can quietly drift into endless scrolling, random YouTube videos, “just one more episode” or endless afternoon naps!
That’s why I recommend one simple thing: A Crisp To-Do List
A Crisp To-Do List
A useful approach is to maintain your larger master to-do list and then pull out a small weekend subset from it — a few meaningful options that fit the slower, more open nature of weekends rather than a normal workday.
The idea behind it is to have a solid set of worthwhile alternatives ready, so your free time gets utilized intentionally instead of getting wasted aimlessly. And yes — the list should absolutely include leisure too – a movie, a show, sports, music, even a proper neiksen afternoon of doing absolutely nothing, whatever you genuinely want to enjoy.
Because Netflix is not the problem, unconscious consumption is.
When entertainment sits alongside reading, reflection, exercise, errands, creative work, and conversations, it becomes a conscious choice instead of an accidental time sink. That’s the real value of a good to-do list: it keeps you aware of your alternatives.
Of course, some weekends are best spent completely differently — travelling, going on a getaway, simply disconnecting from systems and lists altogether. And that is perfectly fine too.
A weekend list might look something like this (you are not aiming to finish all of it — just to keep enough good options open and choose dynamically based on the flow of the day and the relative priority of each task):
- Go for a long walk, early morning
- Finish the book by reading the last 40 pages
- Call brother and check how his new center is coming up
-
Sketch a few ideas for decorating the empty hall corner near the window
- Watch a movie from the watchlist
-
Go shopping with the family for the upcoming vacation
-
Watch the freestyle swimming technique video bookmarked earlier
- Take an intentional afternoon nap
-
Sit quietly during sunset
The Sandwich Bread Problem
Once you are convinced of the need for a to-do list, the next thing to protect is its freshness. A to-do list is a bit like sandwich bread. Leave it untouched for too long, and it becomes stale — things past their usefulness: filled with outdated priorities, completed tasks, etc.
Thankfully, unlike bread, you do not need to bake the list fresh from scratch every day. Just keep revisiting it, cleaning it, replenishing it, and using it as your default place to decide what to work on next.
Granular Tasks Reduce Resistance
Another useful principle is to make weekend tasks granular and actionable beforehand. Otherwise, you end up staring at free time without clarity on what to actually do with it. Vague tasks create friction. “Work on health” feels heavy, while “Go for a swim” feels manageable. “Improve networking” is abstract, but “Call Paresh” is something you can start immediately.
Smaller, clearer tasks reduce mental resistance. And that matters because starting is usually the hardest part.
A Better Way to Think About Weekends
A productive weekend does not need to look intense. The real goal is simply to avoid drifting through free time without direction.
Maintain a master list of meaningful things you want to do, pull out a small weekend subset from it, keep the tasks granular, and include leisure intentionally alongside everything else.
That way, when you finally sit down to watch Netflix, it feels earned instead of feeling like you quietly cheated on your own responsibilities all weekend.
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(Originally published in Times of India on 23 May, 2026)
The Personal Orbit Model: Why We All Need Time Management
I once came across a humorous parody of the classic advice columns you often see in magazines. (I’m paraphrasing here, but the spirit is intact.)
Reader 1: “I never feel hungry. What should I do?”
Expert: “Read Sahastra Pakakriya (सहस्त्र पाकक्रिया).”
(A grand old-style title — roughly, a compendium of a thousand recipes.)
Reader 2: “I feel hungry all the time. What should I do?”
Expert: “Read Sahastra Pakakriya (सहस्त्र पाकक्रिया).”
At first glance, it sounds absurd. The same solution for opposite problems?
But look closer… it’s actually correct. Whether you have no appetite or too much of it, what you really need is a better relationship with food.
And in a similar way:
Whether you have too much time and feel it is wasted,
or too little time and feel constantly rushed —
what you actually need is time management.
Most people think time management is about busy people trying to become more productive. But that’s a very narrow view. Time management is not about busyness. It is about life itself.
Your life is not made of years. It is made of days. Your days are made of hours, and your hours are made of moments. Which means:
How you spend your moments is how you spend your life.
And yet, people resist the idea.
Students tell themselves that discipline belongs to the future — assignments get pushed to the last moment, sleep becomes irregular, and focus keeps slipping in the face of constant distraction.
Homemakers carry an endless, invisible workload — cooking, caregiving, errands, emotional support — without clear boundaries or fixed hours, and their own needs quietly move to the background.
Professionals find their days consumed by meetings, emails, and notifications — activity fills every hour, yet meaningful progress often feels elusive.
Business owners live with constant unpredictability — everything feels urgent, long-term thinking gets postponed, and personal time slowly erodes.
Retired people suddenly have open days with no imposed structure — routines loosen, activity reduces, and a sense of direction can quietly fade.
Different situations. Same misunderstanding. Because time management is not about profession. It is about awareness.
This is another way to understand why time management matters — not as theory, but as something you can observe in everyday life. It shows what actually happens when time is not consciously managed. One simple way to see this pattern play out is through what I call the Personal Orbit Model.
At the center of our lives lies the first orbit — the orbit of daily routines.
This is the survival layer. It includes sleep, food, hygiene, commuting, and all the small repetitive activities that keep life running. You do this anyway — by habit, by need, or by compulsion. These things may feel mundane, but they form the operating system of life. This orbit is largely self-sustaining — it runs because it must. Which is why we rarely question or consciously manage it.
The second orbit is that of work and responsibility.
This includes jobs, studies, businesses, caregiving, and all the commitments imposed by systems around us — organizations, markets, institutions, and society. This is where most of our time and energy goes, and this orbit has a way of expanding endlessly: emails create more emails, meetings generate more meetings, and urgency keeps replacing importance.
This orbit is constantly nudged by the environment — expectations, deadlines, social norms, and systems keep pushing you forward. You may not always manage it in the most thoughtful or ideal way, but you still manage it. You get by.
We’ll come back to how to do this better. For now, let’s move to the third orbit.
Beyond these lies the third orbit — the orbit of aspirations. This is where meaning lives. It includes the things that make us feel deeply alive — music, writing, learning, fitness, spirituality, creativity, reflection, contribution, and personal dreams. And this is usually the first orbit to be sacrificed.
People often say:
“I’ll come back to it once life settles down.”
But life rarely settles down. The inner orbits don’t necessarily expand; executing them—often inefficiently—consumes all available time, leaving none for the third orbit, and slowly, almost invisibly, the outer orbit fades out of existence. With no external nudge—and with you as the only promoter, it becomes the easiest orbit to drop rather than protect, and this is how many people lose their dreams before they even realize.
This is where time management becomes important as a way of protecting balance between these orbits.
Time management, then, is not about filling every minute. It is not about becoming mechanical, rigid, or hyper-productive. It is about ensuring that your limited life energy goes where your values truly are.
It also means using time wisely with intent: doing the right thing at the right time, and consciously parking what can wait—even if you feel like doing it now. That requires a system you can trust—one that helps you choose, sequence, and defer without guilt. In other words, good intentions are not enough; you need a solid time-management system.
Perhaps the real purpose of time management is not productivity at all. Perhaps it is protection.
- Protecting attention.
- Protecting energy.
- Protecting relationships.
- Protecting health.
- Protecting dreams.
Because in the end, time is not something outside life. Time is life itself. And whether we have too much of it or too little of it…
we are always living inside it.
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(Originally published in Times of India on May 06, 2026)
From Scattered to Structured: Living All 24 Hours
I remember my mother constantly reminding everyone around her about one thing: budget your money. Don’t overspend. Save for the future. Stay disciplined. At the time, it sounded like good advice. But its real weight became clear only when I saw people around us struggle because they ignored it.
As my own responsibilities grew, I moved from a ragged, ad-hoc approach to finances to working with a professional financial planner. The result? Clarity, control, and the quiet confidence that comes from knowing things are taken care of.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth I now tell people:
If you don’t budget your time — not just your finances — something else will, and you won’t like the results.
Arnold Bennett wrote something very powerful:
You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul.”
— Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (1910)
So, should we budget time like finances?
Short answer: No.
I mean, no, you need more rigor than that. You can borrow money; you can’t borrow time. But beyond that, it’s not hard. You just need a simple structure:
How to start:
- Sketch an average week — 24 × 7 hours.
- Subtract 12 hours/day for sleep, personal hygiene, and meals.
- Budget workdays and weekends separately within the remaining 12 hours/day.
- Start rough, keep fine-tuning, and don’t overdraw time.
Here’s what a typical budget might look like:
| Broad head | Weekly hours |
| Day job | 40 |
| Vocation/Passion | 16 |
| Exercise | 7 |
| Singing | 3 |
| Meditation | 3 to 5 |
| Household Chore | 4 to 5 |
| Socializing | 5 to 5 |
| Reading/TV | 4 to 5 |
| 7*(24 – 12 sleep, basic routine) | 84 |
Sounds Easy? Yes, but where it goes wrong is that we rarely get the balance perfect. We slip into one of two traps:
Trap 1: The Spent Professional
We end up thinking workdays are only for the job and nothing else. Again, Arnold Bennett has a very sharp observation in this regard.
“He persists in looking upon those hours from ten to six as the day, to which the ten hours preceding them and the six hours following them are nothing but a prologue and epilogue… Such an attitude… kills his interest in the odd sixteen hours; even if he does not waste them, he does not count them; he regards them simply as margin.”
— Arnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day (1910)
Result: persistent frustration at untapped potential.
Trap 2: The Scattered Enthusiast
We fall for everything shiny — courses, hobbies, newsletters, side hustles. Progress gets diluted across too many pursuits. As a Marathi proverb says: “एक ना धड, भराभर चिंध्या” — not one thing complete, only plenty of scraps. It’s often hard to say no to new opportunities. But Mark Manson’s lens helps: choose your pain, not your pleasure. Before saying YES to something new, ask:
“What effort, inconvenience, or sacrifice am I truly willing to sustain?”
If you’re ready for that pain, proceed — but keep the budget in mind. Remember: you can’t overdraw time.
Avoid these traps and follow your time budget with discipline, and you’ll build a productive, stress-free life.
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(Originally published in Times of India on April 28, 2026)