Pankaj Tripathi (born 5 September 1976) is an Indian actor who appears predominantly in Hindi films. He debuted in 2004 with a minor role in Run and Omkara, and has since worked in more than 60 films …

Born5 September 1976 · Bihar, India

Alma materNational School of Drama, New Delhi (Diploma in Dramatic Arts) · Institute of Hotel Management, Hajipur, Bihar (B.Sc.)

Spouse(s)Mridula Tripathi · (m. 2004)

Children1

OccupationActor

Years active2004–present

Don’t fixate yourself on doing things one way. Try different methods to see which is efficient. Take breaks if you’re stuck so you can turn away from your problems for a short while. Use music to enhance your brain activity depending on the work you do.I’ve tried a lot of strategies in being productive. Be it household chores or office work, I always look for an efficient way to get things done. Why you ask? Well, honestly, I’m quite LAZY — thats the simply truth. But who isn’t? There’s so much to do these days, so many things to look forward to and to visit. With the world so connected, more than ever, we all want to experience a little of everything, at the very least. So, in order to do that, we should either minimise our chores or maximise our capabilities.Can you minimise your chores? Can you quit your job and travel all over the world? If you’re a YouTuber or a blogger with 5 to 6 figures cashing into your bank accounts, sure, you can. But can the rest of us do it? We can scratch our heads all we want, but unless there’s a hefty inheritance popping in (minus the inheritance tax, sigh!), you ain’t going nowhere.Okay, so, I didn’t start writing this to rant. The idea is to change our mindsets. Let’s look at the three techniques and why it works for me.Leave your fixations behindTo do that, simply start with letting all your fixated behaviours go away. Now, what do I mean by that? If you’re always accustomed to doing things a certain way, take a moment to realise if it takes you less time to do the same things in a different way. Nobody wants to spend hours and hours coding or cleaning or washing something only to end up doing it over and over again. Keep it simple. If it costs you less, outsource it!Take a breakTake a short break in between to really allow your brain to get distracted in a positive way. I used to work with a Manager who takes me for coffee breaks when he sees me boggling my head to fix things. It was his way of ensuring that nobody feels the work pressure. If he sees any of us stressing out, he’d take us all out for a cup coffee. It lasts for 15–20 mins and we talk about anything but work and when we come back, we’re all in a different mindset and things just go so smooth after that. There have been times when I’ve even forgotten that there actually was a problem.Use MusicMusic can be a great motivator to complete a task. I use slow music for certain types of household chores or when I’m writing articles. I also make sure to keep it on medium to low volume so it doesn’t take over my thoughts. But, When I’m working on something concrete and don’t want my attention to be taken away, I use upbeat music with a very minimal selection of songs in loop and on high volume. No disturbance and the work gets done. I have created playlists for myself depending on what chores I do. It helps me while doing the chores and also motivates me at the same time to do it again.And don’t forget, in anything that you do, consistency is key. The more you do the same thing again and again, the better you get at it.So, there you go. My three simple techniques to adapt into your lifestyle to make things easier and to boost your productivity. If you’re already using these, a BIG thumbs up to you and do let me know which ones you find more productive. Also, feel free to share what upbeat music you use. I would love to update my playlists.Oh, and for those TL;DR folks, my three techniques to boost productivity are,

5 habits to boost your productivity BY GIGL

46% of smartphone users spend between 5–6 hours per day on their smartphone

The average adult spends 3 hours and 54 minutes on their mobile devices per day

On average, we pick up our smartphones between 150–344 times per day (that’s once every 4 minutes)

During the pandemic, daily smartphone usage has nearly doubled among children

When it comes to learning English, learners struggle the most with practising speaking. The main reason is that you need a speaking partner to practise speaking. But: do you really need a speaking partner?

Let’s not beat around the bush: speaking to someone is always the best and easiest way to improve your fluency. But there are good reasons you’re unable to speak to someone. One of the reasons is that you need someone to talk to. In these COVID-19 times, it’s difficult to travel the world and speak to people who don’t speak your native language. Fortunately, there are ways to practice and improve your English speaking skills independently (= on your own), without a speaking partner.

Tip 1: Shadowing

This tip is particularly interesting for new learners of English. Shadowing is a technique you can use to improve your speaking skills. It does require some concentration, and you should do this regularly. What you do is you look for a native speaker you like to listen to (like I did with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), and you mimic the way they speak. This means that you try to sound as much as them as possible, and you even try to move your mouth in the same way as the person you’re mimicking moves their mouth.

Shadowing works extremely well for your pronunciation because you don’t have much time to think about what is being said; you have to reproduce the language you hear, and since you’re doing that “on-line”, you don’t have time to use other brain processes to understand what you mean.

This makes shadowing an excellent exercise to improve your pronunciation and fluency. It appears to be more effective when you already have a high level of English proficiency, but using a simple example (without too many complex language structures) could still be benificial for beginners.

Tip 2: Retelling

This second tip is also an excellent way to improve your speaking skills in English on your own. Instead of following a particular person and mimicking what they say, this method focuses on the content. This is a good way to practice creating sentences, and this is an excellent way to practice some vocabulary.

Another benefit of this method is that you’ll get exposure to real-world language, ánd that you’ll do something with that exposure (which are two of the most important elements of language learning: exposure and interaction).