NYT: “There are two ways to tackle procrastination: (1) Remember the task. Because procrastination is a repeated decision, you need to remember you had something on your plate in the first place. “If you forget that at some point that you have this decision to make, then obviously you will never perform the task,” Le Bouc said. Setting reminders for the task and prompting that decision more frequently may reduce your probability to procrastinate, he said. (2) Envision your future self. You could also try addressing the cognitive bias of believing a task is easier in the future head-on. Envisioning your future self — the one who will be saddled with unpaid bills, looming deadlines and unwashed dishes — could remind you that procrastinating is not making the task any easier.”
Economist: “India’s vast informal economy is both a blessing and a curse. The hundreds of millions who toil in it—without contracts, outside the tax system, often on miserable incomes—are the human engine for the country’s farms, hawker stands and rickshaws, providing food, transport and even phone repair and currency exchange. They shape how India looks (the crowded markets), sounds (the buzz of bargaining) and smells (the snack carts lining the roads). And it is the sector’s resilience that keeps the country operating even in the most difficult times, soaking up unemployment. But these sights, sounds and smells may be less pervasive in future, for there are signs that work in India is undergoing a transformation. Data from a range of sources suggest the country’s workforce is becoming increasingly formal. In the first half of India’s fiscal year, concluding in September, the number of employees registered with the national pension fund rose by 35%, compared with the same period the year before—a rise equivalent to 9m people. The number of firms paying the goods-and-services tax, an indicator of formal business creation, has risen from 8m to 14m since 2017.”
Dan Shipper: “Note taking is building a relationship with a future version of yourself. Notes record facts, quotes, ideas, events, and more so they can eventually be used to make better decisions, create more interesting writing, and find solutions to problems…A better way to unlock the value in your old notes is to use intelligence to surface the right note, at the right time, and in the right format for you to use it most effectively. When you have intelligence at your disposal, you don’t need to organize.”
McKinsey: “Michael Ross: A high-value customer—what we’d call a top-decile customer—can be worth 40 or 50 times a low-value customer. The notion of an average customer may be mathematically true, but it doesn’t really exist in practice. Peter Fader: We’re riding a longer-term wave. In general, companies are becoming more interested in what customers are doing, how they differ from one another, and how they change over time. There’s been, overall, a rising tide of desire to understand customers and weave them into a variety of business decisions.”
Ruchi Gupta: “A key difference between a political party and a company is that parties have claimants and volunteers while a company has employees. This difference has an impact on all aspects of decision-making and operations of the two entities. The purpose of a political party is to capture state power in service of some stated social agenda. To legitimise this aspiration, the party itself must be seen to be as a microcosm of society, with its organisation necessarily populated by individuals in a volunteer capacity as opposed to paid employees. Thus, while all parties have some paid employees, positions which enable the people holding them to exercise political judgment and have executive authority, such as area presidents and in-charges, are honorary ones. Despite this, there are multiple claimants for every position commensurate with associated prestige and power. On the other hand, most private companies operate in a narrowly defined and apolitical space selling goods and services…Ultimately, politics is a value-driven enterprise. We should seek competence and accountability from political functionaries, but the way forward is not through the corporatisation of our parties.”
Ninan: “Employment [in India] remains the biggest challenge. Education is the other constraint, given the low knowledge and skill levels compared to competing countries like Vietnam. Those countries are also more open to becoming part of international value chains, with lower tariffs and a better business environment, whereas India has been raising tariff walls and abstaining from regional trade arrangements. Greater dependence on domestic sources of growth will deny the country the momentum that comes from accessing international markets.
