Decoding Productivity for Millenials
every useful object on this earth
has three agents of success the creator
the propagator and the user the creator
creates a product the propagator sells
it
and the user utilizes it the success of
that product
policy idea or technology depends on the
performance
of all three we’re all part of this
chain performing one role or the other
in our lives
and most often we limit our performance
without realizing it an experience
taught me this and it was
quite an embarrassing moment to be
honest i was desperately looking for a
phone app that would lock my social
media apps for me
i was sick and tired of all the
scrolling i did in the day
and all i wanted was for an alarm to go
off on my phone
and say that’s it your time’s up i must
have spent
months in the state of longing when will
i find that magical app that will save
me so much time
i finally did the smart thing and i
called the tech savvy friend
i said hey listen i’ve been trying for
days i cannot find an
app locker on the app store he said what
do you mean
an app locker i said you know those ones
that lock your social media apps for you
after a certain amount of time
and he said you know you have an inbuilt
feature
in your phone that performs the exact
same function
don’t you my tech savvy friend judged me
very hard that day apparently an iphone
user five years is supposed to know
something about that
but i was ignorant and i still am
frankly of the amazing things my device
can do
in this particular example the creator
must have designed the product
beautifully
and the propagator must have advertised
it but i the user
didn’t allow the potential of this
feature to be truly realized
the potential of so many things in our
lives
are unrealized due to this very
circumstance
i mean we’ve all done it most of the
times inadvertently
i think the only place where we really
squeeze out
maximum potential is from our almost
empty toothpaste
in the morning imagine if we apply this
to our daily lives
our time efforts and energy can be
utilized to become more productive
i’m in my early twenties you know that
age group
when we hate cleaning our room and just
like everyone else in this stage of
their lives
i’m ripped with a further of doing
something great
there’s a sense of anxiety almost about
the future
and about the steps that need to be
taken to get there
we all need to maximize on this energy
to become more productive in our lives
there’s a myth i’d like to debunk here i
get asked a lot about how i’m able to do
so many things
and i hear a lot of it’s in your
personality or you have some special
ability
and i think to myself every time that
that’s not true
i’m an ordinary girl just like everyone
else perhaps the only difference
is that i’m aware that there is always
more to something
more things you can do in a particular
amount of time more growth and more
potential
the announcement of the lockdown all the
way back in march
came as a surprise mainly because i
didn’t understand the seriousness of the
issue back then
i remember thinking to myself that this
would last only for a couple of weeks
and i’d better use this time to catch up
on my pending tasks
those two weeks turned into months and
months of staying at home
day in and day out it was so hard to
remain productive and to get stuff done
and as a medical student i really wanted
to take a long break
but my ability to recognize the
potential that this extra time had
allowed me to stay on track i actually
managed to get a couple of publications
under my belt
i was very lucky to be guided by a
doctor who’s been
bitten by the research bug like i’ve
never
seen before one of the most
inspirational people i’ve met
she guided my inexperienced mind and
allowed me to put my
core beliefs of maximizing potential
into practice
in the form of research the study that
we conducted in the following months
proved to me that the tools we use today
are not utilized to its
maximum potential the doctor sent me a
message one day
saying that her team wanted to conduct
some research related to kovit 19
that i could be a part of provided i
came up with some good ideas
now this is back in april before the
scientific community was absolutely
flooded with research papers and i was
excited
i then surfed the net like we all do
when we need some brain stimulation
and i came across a blog about the
importance of smartphone apps in this
pandemic
on the national institutes of health
website
now i knew of smartphone apps being of
use in this pandemic
but when i did a simple search on the
app store with the keyword covid
i expected maybe one or two apps
you’d be surprised at the number of apps
i found
and when we did conduct the research
systematically we found
63 apps spread across three countries
so many apps performing similar
functions not only is this confusing
to the user but it is also detrimental
to contact tracing efforts
if everyone downloaded the app of their
choosing
how could each work to their full
potential
mobile health apps is not a new
technology
actually one of the first telephone
related health services
was employed way back in 1949.
but as phones became smarter and smarter
the mobile health or mhealth industry
grew
there are over 3.5 billion smartphone
users in the world today
which means almost every third person
owns a smartphone
and over 2 000 smartphones are bought
per second since health is a necessity
for all
the mobile health apps are bound to grow
but whether they grow in functionality
and efficiency
or just in number is a question worth
asking
it’s not just a number of health apps
that is a challenge
today we have millions of drugs each
with their own strengths their own
features
sometimes minor differences but we have
doctors to tell us
what is the best for our condition based
on scientific evidence
rigorous studies feedback from this
scientific evidence
allows a drug to perform to its maximum
potential
so why should health apps be any
different this is the exact question we
had on our minds when we designed our
study
we decided to use a standardized tool
that has been used before
to rate the quality of mobile health
apps by assessing their engagement their
functionality
their aesthetics and their credibility
of information
and used this skill to rate the quality
of as many covet apps as we could find
i could have stuck to the indian app
databases that would have meant
less work and faster results but i
believe that my study
had the potential to be more meaningful
i maximized on this opportunity to do
something bigger
and approach medical professionals in
the uk and the usa
so our team grew from a couple of
curious people to 10 members spread
across
three countries the success that i
achieved by the publication of this
project
strengthened my belief in the
realization and
actualization of the potential of
opportunities in our lives
of course you have to know where to
start i was almost tempted to call a
colleague’s relative in australia
saying hello do you want to be a part of
this
one of the most striking features of the
results of the study
was that most of the apps did not
maximize on the potential that they have
in this pandemic
some had an extremely reliable source of
information
but lack creativity in presentation
and others are so beautiful to look at
so interactive
but the credibility of their information
was doubtful
imagine if there was someone who
maliciously faked information about the
coveted numbers or the deaths
not only does he not know how to use his
time well but he’s also
putting other people in danger maybe he
did it because he wanted to decrease the
level of alertness
people need to have for this pandemic or
maybe he did it because he was sick of
mass
whatever the reason may be this form of
information
is dangerous a study published in the
american journal of tropical medicine
and hygiene
showed that 800 people and possibly more
had lost their lives due to
misinformation surrounding this pandemic
many more were hospitalized now
imagine if people have the power to pull
out their smartphones
and open not a forwarded message but the
kovit 19 app
and say hold on a minute you’re wrong
misinformation can be tackled so
effectively provided that health app is
updated regularly complies with quality
standards
this technology has the power to save
lives
smartphone apps can be used to log in
your symptoms every day
you can see the rate of rise in the
covet cases
you can even ask for advice regarding
what to do next
when someone thinks they have symptoms
but
if this technology is not utilized to
its maximum potential
how will it benefit anyone the creators
instead of uploading more and more apps
to flood the app markets
could you see feedback on the quality of
their app and try to improve it
the propagators could set a standard
under which no
m health app can exist thus decreasing
the number of bad choices available
and finally the user they could benefit
by making the standard app quality
rating visible to them before they
download
this will allow that the best technology
is accessible to all
now i’ve spoken about maximizing the
potential of the objects around us
but how about we look at this from a
broader perspective apply this to our
time
our efforts our energy even our
relationships
there’s so much good to be heard from it
all if only we were aware of it
when i say maximize the potential which
i have said
quite a few times already i don’t mean
to say
use every aspect of an object until it
goes dry
or use every moment of your time until
you draw
what i mean is use it well use your time
well use your device as well
use the smartphone app sitting in your
phone that’s supposed to protect you
from covet 19
well now i’m not
someone famous i’m not someone who is
born with special abilities
i don’t wake up at 5am in the morning
drink a green smoothie and pack
an excise routine all before the stand
has even risen
actually i’m not even busy 24 7.
but that doesn’t mean i don’t use my
time well
you don’t need to have special abilities
in order to perform tasks
and activities that are beneficial to
yourself and ultimately others
it’s really as simple as making a list
of the things you need to do
and by when you need to do them if that
list is long
look at each item one at a time this
will help you reduce your anxiety
and prevent you from sweeping everything
under the rug
and binge watching a tv show instead
mindless scrolling through social media
apps really decreases the potential of
our performance at work
so just keep your phones aside
often people underestimate the capacity
to participate in multiple projects
that makes them say no to opportunities
that might have benefited them
with respect to their career their
experience their learning
two key things i always keep in mind a
one
planning is absolutely essential and two
don’t say no to an opportunity no matter
how taxing the task may
seem if you have space in your plate
don’t let the fear of being overburdened
deter you from accepting that task
maximize on the potential of that
opportunity
and you are bound to get your returns
if you have the ability to pack an
entire syllabus
three days before an exam then you have
the potential to do anything
i have failed i have cried and i have
given up to
but what keeps this ordinary goal going
is the belief
in maximizing potential