I slowed down on 31 March 2011. I used to work for an FM Radio station in Mumbai (having been transfered there from the Bangalore station) and I had swiftly moved up the organizational hierarchy from being an on-air presenter (or RJ) to being creative supervisor, assistant program director to finally program director.
Between getting John Abraham's tuna sandwich from the Hyatt, to planning station specials, gate keeping commercial integrations into programming, and keeping abreast of Bollywood, I had very little time. And that wasn't going to be enough for the kind of father i wanted to be. So, within 3 months of knowing about the impending arrival of my first child (a boy, I would discover later) I quit, took a 20% pay cut and started working from home for a large IT company. Not having a 3 hour commute everyday, working in a team with a culture of trust and collaboration, and not possessing a tv, means that I have time for a lot of things like working out, cooking, free play with my children, arbitrarily taking a 2 hour (one way) bus journey to a neighboring state because my son's 5 year old brain felt like doing that one day, and just existing very mindfully at a relaxed pace. On the topic of removing clutter in an effort to work intensely but impactfully, I would highly recommend Deep Work, by Cal Newport. It's a superb resource for anyone wanting to 'slow down' in a less-headless-chicken-work way rather than a three-beers-everyday-by-noon way. PS - Really appreciate everyone's thoughts on this. It's given me a few new directions to think in...
