Trust Prashanth Chengi to do something as outragious as making a new, new year resolution in June!  Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing!  I’ve been trying to turn over a new leaf, and I have been successful to some degree.

One of the most important changes is my management of time.  Though my boss was quite happy with my enthusiasm for work, he never did approve of my working late into the night-  and worse, coming in late to work.

I have been working on my ‘punch-in’ times for the past couple of months, and with the exception of a couple of days (not a couple of dozen, just two to three), I have managed to be in time to catch breakfast at the C-DAC canteen and start work, at normal hours, like most normal people.  What I still was not good at was leaving on time.  I don’t stay back to impress people or whatever, but it has become like a habit.  Even when I was at NCST, I used to work myself to exhaustion, without even taking proper breaks.  Be it my obsession with cracking the MGPTS (at which I succeeded), or my pet project, I used to work myself to sheer exhaustion.  Looking back, I feel that if I had kept normal hours, I could have achieved more in less time, as the brain does slow down after a point, but I was too hot-headed, egoistic and crazy back then to think about such things.  I had to finish a certain module, and that was it.  I just had to.  No matter what.

I used to tell myself that I would lose the flow and stuff like that, to convince myself that I was doing the right thing by keeping crazy hours and working without even breaks for sleep.  Over time, it sort of became a habit.  What I would observe was that I would get the results at the end of a marathon session (often achieving things in two nights what most would take a week for) but I now realize that it was not really worth it, as I was causing a lot of damage to myself.  I used to be so exhausted as well as elated at the end of such marathon sessions that I would lose all my steam.  I would feel that I had achieved the impossible and I would sort of become complacent.  Also, I would need to sleep at least one straight day to feel normal again, and even after that, getting the energy levels back to the optimal levels was the challenge.  How did I tackle it back then?  By not even taking that one straight day of rest!

Looking back, I think that was absolutely crazy, suicidal even, but then, that was how I was.  I remember that unshakeable lethargy and lack of energy that set in after I successfully completed my COOS project, almost singlehandedly.  It was like I had exhausted all my batteries, my life-energy.  So bad was it that I was just not able to pick up my tempo to work on my CNET project.  Result? Our team got great marks in the COOS project but flunked out of CNET.  So much for planning and execution!

Even here at NPSF, I have been doing much the same thing.  The fact that I sustained a broken relationship seemed to further justify my crazy work habits.  I was working it out of my system, was my justification, but I now see it as nothing more than plain stupidity.  I love my job and my responsibilities and I revel under the tremendous expectations that my boss and seniors have out of me, but if I work myself to exhaustion and fatigue each day, coming back the next day with equally high spirits will always be difficult.  Suddenly, the work I used to love was beginning to seem stressful.

I have finally realized that I need to conserve myself, that while enthusiasm is an asset, it doesn’t equate to over-working.  I will henceforth  take a break when it is needed, go home at civil hours and come back the next day, well on time, refreshed and enthusiastic.  So, my dear readers, this is my new, new year resolution. 

I’ll push myself to the limit, but will pack up my work and leave at a civil hour, sleep the same day (and not in the wee hours of the next!), wake up fresh the next day and enjoy my work to the fullest extent. Amen and good night!