Freshness and Innocence: Pictures of the Week: 16 May 2010

Email don't eeeeeeeeee mail

One fine morning, I came to my office, boot up my laptop and opened my mailbox. There was nothing unusual, I had 200 unread mails, I had no idea which mail was important and need an reply and which mail could wait for some more time. The mails were from my sales team, service delivery team, customers, calenders and so on. For me all looked same until somebody rang to my phone and told me that I messed up in one of the mail communication.

I was really frustrated and was looking for some magic to happen. I even decided to close down my email address, I even searched one in gmail but did not find any.

Another fine morning, I was introspecting where I was going wrong. What I found was that there was "lot of clutter" in front of my eyes when I open my inbox. I clearly knew that I just want to read "urgent and important" mails first whenever I look my inbox.

So I turned on to google labs and found a life saver feature of gmail called "Multiple Inboxes". What I first did is to enable this feature from my Gmail --> Settings --> Labs and then route all the unread to the top Inbox. It helped me a bit because I had all my unread mails in front of my eyes. But still my unread mails kept on increasing and many time over shadowed my other important mails.

Then I realized another important thing, that for many of the mails like alerts from calender, alerts from social networking sites, webinar alerts, I used to follow same pattern ie read and mark them read. It suddenly gave me a instant idea and I labelled my mails into two classes: Alerts and Non Alerts. Now I could just see all the alerts in one click and either create events in my calender or added to my task list and then mark them either read or deleted.

Offcoarse labelling into Alerts and Non Alerts is continous process as new kind of mails will keep on coming but as I find new kind of mails that make to do same pattern of action every time, I use to label them so that I could follow same pattern on multiple mails at a time.

Other useful features of gmail that helped me to manage my mails are:

1. you can view calender, tasks, documents along with your mails. check out Settings --> Lab

2. you can add event into you calender via mail. check more actions

3. you can send invitation in your mail while replying or forwarding

4. you can add a email into tasks and assign date to each task

I also follow following guidelines in my email communication:

1. Always acknowledge a mail within a day. If you have not finished the task what was supposed to do, just communicate that too.

2. Keep the mail unread until acknowledged.

3. Be friendly in mails and each mail is an opportunity to build relationship.

4. One phone call is worth 10 mails. know mail limitations.

5. Wherever possible, always says thanks to conclude the mail thread.

In summary, by removing "clutter", label mails as per pattern of actions and continuous labeling had made my life easy by better managing my mails.

What about you?

In general, the approach have two important concepts; spatial display of emails, actions you perform on emails.

Spacial Display of Emails

The mails should be displayed to you as per their priority (define your priority). The are following type of priorities,

1. Urgent & Important:
2. Non Urgent & Important:
3. Urgent & Non Important
4. Non Urgent & Non Important

I feel that all the "Urgent and Important" mail should be displayed on most visible part of your inbox, preferably requiring no scrolling.

Most of the mails have following states based upon your actions performed:

State 1: Unread

State 2: Read but not replied

State 3: Read & Replied but need to take action

State 4: Read, Replied, taken first action but need to keep track of mail chain.

State 5: Deleted

State 6: Archive

Important Heuristics:

1. The most important thing is that your unread (State 1) "Urgent & Important" mails be always be in front of your eyes. You can use multiple inboxes to filter and display "Urgent and Important" mails always at the top.
2. There will be some mails that can automatically be categorized into above four categories for example emails from your customer should go to urgent and important, alerts from social networking sites should go to urgent & non important (offcoarse it is controversial :) and I am going to make some guys very disappointed). You can use filters and labels to categorize these mails automatically.
3. Action based categorization of mail. Generally I read all the social networking alerts mails in once glance and mark all of them read in two clicks.
4. The categorization is continuous process and you should do it atleast once a week.

Where new technology can help?

New advance technology can help in better email management in the following ways:

1. Automatic labelling based upon your history of patterns of actions that you perform on eac mail, contacts, subject etc.
2. Context aware email system based upon my preferences, interests and profile.

Colorful Angle: Pictures of the Week: 8 May 2010

Sometimes life ask for an escape, an escape from day to day work, places and same way of looking at things. Sometime colorful way of looking at things can bring wonders and fresh energy to same old work, place or environment.

This week pictures try to convey the same.

Black and White: Pictures of the Week: 3 May 2010

Probably it is law of nature that everything has always two sides: Heads and Tails, Black and White, Christ and anti-Christ, Positive aspect and Negative aspect. Similarly, every opinion has two sides, my side and your side. Every problem also has two sides, the problem itself and the hidden opportunity. Many times we get biased with only one side of looking at things.

The theme of this week pictures try to inspire to always look at other side of the picture as because then the picture will be complete and more beautiful.

Home: Pictures of the Week: 24th April 2010

Home is one of the most beautiful place on this earth. It does not matter what size, shape or color of your home is. We feel safe and relaxed at home. Home is true gateway to infinite creativity. So I decided to post some pictures of home (someone's home) taken while my recent visit to Sikkim, gateway to Himalayas.

My Recent Sikkim Visit: Everything you want to know about it

Gurudongmar Lake (@ height of 17100 feet above sea level), Zero Point (@ height of 15000 Feet) and Yumthang flower valley are some of the dream places to be at. The trip idea came to my mind at around one month back. In spite of having so much time to plan, I deliberately avoided too much planning for the trip as I wanted to enjoy each bit of the trip and to save some money!!!.

Day 0: From Kolkata to Gangtok

We (me and my wife) started our journey to Sikkim at 4 PM, 14th April 2010. It was hot and humid day at Kolkata. The traffic was its peak as usual. Our train was at 5:35PM from Howrah (around 1.5h drive from my house by road) and we were in no mood to spend our time in traffic. So we decided to take Hoogly River route in a public boat transportation and converted our boring journey to an excited one. The train journey upto New Jalpaiguri (NJP) station was comfortable. We reached NJP at around 7AM in the morning next day. After negotiating with a few taxi drivers, we got a shared and ready to go taxi (just outside the station) to Gangtok.

The way to Gangtok is extremely pleasant (atleast for first timers). The most part of the road is good (thanks to Border Road Organization BRO) and although the journey was 4 hour long, it was exciting with pleasant mountain views and various curves of the Teesta river. We reached Gangtok (taxi stand) at around 11:30 AM. We got one taxi and moved to a place near to MG Road, a busy market of Gangtok and you can find a lot hotels there. Luckily we got a decent hotel (Hotel Mandala) in an economical rate with around 50% discount. (as I knew the guys there in this hotel and the tourist season was still booming up).

Day 1: Stay at Gangtok

I have been to Gangtok quite a few time in the past. But everytime I visit Gangtok, it feels a bit different from the other times. It was sunny day this time. We got freshed and had tried a new restaurant for lunch (was a bad try although). As my wife was new to the city, so we decided to explore Gangtok. We walked uphill a long way to get glimpse of the city. We did some shopping at MG Road. We also booked the tour for next 2 nights and 3 days (including Gurudongmar and Yumthang Flower Valley). We had our dinner at "Alien's Kitchen" restaurant, a good find (just opposite to taxi stand and near to Mandala hotel). I tried one Tibetan dish, momos and chicken tanduri for a change.

Pictures top to bottom:
A busy MG Road, A must visit shop at MG road, Paljor Football Stadium, Alien's Kitchen Restaurant, A Tibetan Dish

Day 2: From Gangtok to Lachen

Second day started with amazing (golden) view of Kanchenjunga at 5:15 AM from my room window. It was bit cold in the morning. We had breakfast and got prepared for the trip. We started for adventure at 10:30 AM. We were sharing our trip with a couple (probably was going for second honey moon) and 5 other boys (also from Kolkata). It generally takes around 8 hours by road to Lachen from Gangtok.

For people who are new to Himalayas, the initial part of the journey is always exciting. They click a lot pictures in the starting part of the journey and exhaust their camera batteries, too bad if you do not have backup. The same was true for us, although I had sufficient backup. After 2 hours we passed by a waterfall called "Seven Sisters Waterfall". We stopped, we clicked some pictures and we moved on.

Our next halting destination was for Lunch at around 2:30 PM. We were hungry from ages (ok agreed few hours) and enjoyed home style food. Our next halt was bit unexpected. It was because of regular blast performed by BRO to cleanup landslides and clear the roads. It gave us some time to click some photos so that's what I did. After 1 more hour we left Mangan and started heading towards Chungthang (our next halt). The journey was going on perfectly well until we suddenly found a landslide at a place just few kilometers away from Chungthang. After waiting for half n hour we found out that road was not going to be cleared until next day morning. I could see a lot tension on everybody face. I was worried too. Luckily our driver knew another but more difficult route via another mountain. We had no chance but to take this alternative. We spent final part of the journey in darkness and at around 8:30 PM we reached to our hotel at Lachen. The hotel was not luxurious but decent to stay for one night. We were tired, so finished our dinner quickly went to sleep.

Day 3: Morning: Lachen to Gurudonmar
Bad news I am not going to write about this part of the trip. The good news is that you can follow my earlier blog to read about it: click here

Day 3: Evening: Lachen to Lachung
When we returned back to hotel, it was started drizzling. We were bit tired and hungry at the same time. We had lunch and started heading towards Lachung (around 50 KM) from Lachen via Chungthang. As it was downhill, the journey was comfortable and we reached Lachung at around 6:30pm in the evening.

Day 4: Lachung to Zero Point and Yumthang Valley
Well this part of the journey is another pearl in the gems. So you need to wait for my next post to know more about it. Anyway you can visit my album to view pics.

Zero Point and Yumthang Flower Valley Sikkim

Day 4 and 5: Rest of the Journey
After having lunch at Lachung, we headed towards Gangtok at around 2PM. It was already late to start and the weather was not that good. It was raining all along the way. Last part of the journey was totally foggy and dark giving us a lot of scares now and then. Finally we reached Gangtok safely at around 7PM. The next morning we did some more shopping and returned back to NJP to catch the train.

Some Tips and Useful Information:

1. To make a visit to Gurudonmar / Yumthang, you need to have one night stay at Gangtok. Gangtok can be reached from NJP (new Jalpaiguri) via shared taxi or by taxi booked by your hotel in Gangtok.
2. Please note that foreign tourists are not allowed to visit Gurudongmar Lake as per best of my knowledge (so please confirm with sikkim tourism department).
3. Have two passport photos and xerox of your photo ID card ready for each member.
4. Shared Taxi (10 people per taxi) from NJP to Gangtok take around 4.5 hours and cost around 150 RS INR / head.
5. You can get decent hotel double bed room at price 15oo Rs /day.
6. We booked the whole trip from Gangtok to Lachen, Gurudongmar, Lachung, Zero point and Yumthang Valley and back to Gangtok at 2100 Rs/head. The trip includes fooding and lodging.
7. Have atleast 5 hours in hand for the journey from Gangtok to NJP Railway Station.

My Recent Sikkim Visit: Gurudongmar Lake

Well there is lot to talk about my recent visit to Sikkim. But in this post I will talk about most amazing part of our journey, visit to Gurudongmar Lake. Gurudongmar lake is around 40 KM from Lachen and it is at the height of 17.5k feet. Lachen is a small village in Sikkim, a common night halt is required here to visit the lake .

We reached Lachen a bit late in the dark. It was cold and silent and only sound breaking the silence was from nearby Tessta river. We were tired and we slept early with the hope and excitement of what is coming next morning. Usually one of the last thing that I have in mind is to wake up at 4AM morning. That is what exactly we did next morning. It was still dark, cold and silent with the exception of river breaking the silence with a rhythmic pattern sound. At around 4:45 AM, I got a chance to look outside. The weather was clear and fresh. My first glimpse of Lachen was immensely beautiful. Lachen was surrounded by high mountains with blue in color as a result of mist. Fresh leaves of trees, colorful houses and mountains with blue color created a sense of freshness and gave me immense pleasure like love at first sight.

We started our adventure at around 5 AM. We (me and my lovely wife) were sharing a cab with 7 other people all along the way during our trip. Luckily I got seat near to a window so I started trying some “moving objects” photography along the way. The road was completely zig zag. We were going down and up and down crossing multiple mountains and Teesta river. Once I was looking outside, I suddenly almost jumped out of my window as I saw some golden shining thing at the top of a mountain. Yes it was ice topped mountain and sun rise was illuminating the top like gold. We went ahead to our next halt, Thangu, located at around 14k feet and it seems last civilian residential village on the way to our journey to Gurudongmar. Thangu is lovely and colorful village at such a height. We had breakfast at Thangu and moved on.

The remaining area is controlled by Indian Army. At one checkpost, an army jawan, seems to be punjabi, asked whether everyone was well and like to have coffee or tea ("Sabhi log acche hain, kuchh chaheeya chaay ya coffee"). Tough men with sweet words.

Terrain was becoming tougher and we finally left behind mountains and found ourselves in a vast barren but plain land. There was no vegetation and nobody was watching us except mountains and patches of clouds as if they were saying "welcome to our soccer playground".

Finally we saw what I would say one of most beautiful place I have ever seen my life. Probably a few pics are worth of thousand words.

We spent around an hour at Gurudongmar. It was chilled and tough but immensely beautiful. The exact feelings are still in my mind and I wish that I could share them as exactly they are. Our return journey was less hectic as it was downhill road. We reached Lachen at around 2:30 PM, had lunch there and started for our next adventure, Yumthang Flower Valley and Zero Point.

More Pictures

Gurudongmar Lake