We have always associated natural disasters, crisis situations, big changes etc with the term  “Readiness Quotient”.
Readiness quotient is a simple measure of how prepared a person, a society, an organization or a nation, is, to face a certain predictable/ unpredictable situation. Naturally, when we are prepared for a situation, we are able to handle it better, with minimum damage.

We are living in a crisis situation now and we all know the consequences of not being ready for a situation like this. We will learn some lessons from this to help us increase our readiness quotient for future.

Applying the same logic to our life, we work hard to increase our readiness quotient for the rainy days. ( We all want to be the Ant, and not the grasshopper, of the story “The Ant And The Grasshopper”). So we plan, we invest, we anticipate, we budget.

We are so used to having long term macro level goals that we often overlook the micro level aspects of life. We get so caught up in making our five year plans that we don’t know what we want to do the very next day. We are so busy planning and saving up for the year end vacation that we miss out on the beautiful places we can visit every weekend.

As one of my self development projects, I decided to figure out my readiness quotient (RQ) for the next day.  My end goal was obviously to increase my RQ.
After trying out different methodologies, this is what I figured out.

• The taste of the cup of tea that I make every morning with ground ginger and cardamom inspires me to wake up as soon as the alarm rings every morning.
• The weekly menu plan that I make every (well, almost every) Sunday plays a big role in increasing my readiness quotient for the next day.
• The exercise plan that I chalk out for the next day, especially the type of exercise and the place of exercise really makes me ready for the next day.
• The chores I have marked out for the next day, the book that I plan to read the next day, the programs I plan to watch the next day, the blog posts that I plan to read and comment on the next day, the emails and phone calls I decide to make the next day, all of these increase my readiness quotient for the next day.

No matter what you do (go to office, stay at home, work from home) the most important aspect in increasing your productivity is to increase your readiness quotient. The following points have helped me in being, tomorrow-ready:

1. Having a clear cut plan written out. Even if there is a long term plan, having specific task cut out for the day is what will actually help you to get going.
2. Even if it takes a couple of extra minutes, start a job that you had decided to do the next day. For example, I had to send an important email the next day. All I had to do to increase my readiness quotient was to save a draft email with just the introduction and the conclusion. It took me exactly 3 minutes to do that. I could have changed some of the content the next day, but still, it gave me a head start for the next day.
3. De-cluttering and keeping the workspace (office or home) ready for you to come and start your work the next day is very essential.

RQ is futuristic. It tells us how prepared we are for all the uncertainties that tomorrow offers. It need not be just in case of disasters, it can be in terms of the normal routine running of the show tomorrow.

So when a company measures its RQ with regard to customers, the question that the company needs to answer can vary from – Do we have a mechanism in place to consistently obtain feedback from our customers to Are customer feedbacks captured and incorporated into the marketing database and customer profiles.

A high RQ also implies that any change will be less challenging. But what if there is no change. How motivated are we to wake up the next morning and get going with our life? I was trying to focus on that point. The simple things in life that make us ready for the very next day.

During, and after a natural calamity the local governing bodies are usually assessed on their readiness quotient. Be it a cyclone making its landfall or a forest fire fast catching up, it is imperative and critical for the residents and the government to up their readiness quotient. It helps to reduce the impact on the people and animals to a large extend.

All said and done, we have now learnt that there can be changes and problems that cannot be foreseen. I recently read about Choluteca Bridge in Honduras that withstood a hurricane only to find out that the river underneath had changed its direction, thus earning the title of a ‘bridge to nowhere’ and ‘The bridge without a river’. This example however screams out loud to us to have out readiness quotient written , but not with permanent markers. It is a wise thing to have our readiness plans to be written with pencils which has an eraser placed right next to it.

What is your take on readiness quotient? How do you increase your RQ?

Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

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