Shruti is a CFO for Amazon Canada Consumables business, an executive coach with a focus on Productivity and a mentor with 16+years of corporate experience across 3 countries (India, UAE and US) in both regional and global roles in Amazon, ABG and KPMG. During her corporate career, she built successful teams, strategized on billion dollar investments and was instrumental in launching Aditya Birla Bizlabs – an Accelerator and venture fund for one of India’s biggest diversified conglomerates.
What she focuses on
Amazon
- investment analysis
- frameworks for decision making
Executive coaching
- 1 on 1 coaching
- listen to 2nd and 3rd level
Family
How she relaxes
- planned
- workouts
- meditation
- unplanned
- reading
- jigsaw puzzles
- recipes
- tidy up house
- talk to friends
- walks with partner
Productivity tactics
- For coaching: use scheduling link
- Calendarise important but not urgent tasks
- Use mindfulness during meetings
- Yoga nidra to boost energy levels on days where sleep is limited
- Control environment to block distractions (Slack, Chime, emails)
- Switch off notifications
- Put phone in another room
- Email autoresponder (I'm busy for the next 4hrs)
- Email SLA should not be 5 minutes!
- Prioritisation
- Push back: ask questions like "why do you need this? why is this urgent? who needs to do this? how does it need to be done?"
- Eisenhower matrix: good for task prioritisation but not goal prioritisation
- Q3 tasks can often be delegated or postponed
- Importance:
- what's in it for me/my family/company?
- Goal prioritisation: take a long term perspective
- how can you get there faster or add more value
Morning routine
4:30-5am wake up (no alarm) - 6hrs of sleep
Plan schedule for day and week (on weekends look the month ahead)
Deep work for planning and creativity
Make breakfast and lunch for family
Workout (bike for 45 minutes or 30 minutes of aerobic workout)
Meditate (insight timer: 15 minutes with Zen guitar)
8:30-9 start normal work day
Evening routine
Thankyou notes (jar with postit notes or verbal thankyous - different each time) with family
Journaling at least twice per week
Resources
Books
The power of habit - Charles DuHigg
Atomic Habits - James Clear
Start with Why - Simon Sinek
7 habits of highly effective people - Stephen Covey
Deep Work - Cal Newport
Getting Things Done - David Allen
Techniques
Pomodoro technique
Final words
Planning and prioritising maximise your effectiveness
Pushback regardless of who the other person is
Ask pointed questions to figure out what really needs to be done
