Are you the one who follows the fashion? Always running after trends? Following the herd? Scared to be left behind? Doing what is latest and happening?

OR

Are you someone who does contrary to what the majority do? Are you someone who always breaks the rules?

Majority of people belong to either of the two categories listed above.

There is a third category too, of the people, who aren’t biased by what majority is doing. They have their own goals defined and are focused to achieve them. They don’t bother in which category they fall, they just make sure they are doing what they love and they are loving what they do.

Which of the three are you?

There is nothing called a STUPID QUESTION

Well, I don’t agree. If good questions exist, then stupid questions must be there too. All we need to do is avoid asking them. For e.g. it is stupid to ask the obvious like “what are you doing?” to a friend having his lunch in the canteen. Questions get stupid when they are asked to the wrong person or at wrong time or both. You are not supposed to ask name of that cute girl while on date with your girlfriend, that is a wrong timing (and probably wrong person to ask too); asking chemical formulas to your father (unless he is a Chemistry Professor) is another bad idea (dads often get angry when caught offgaurd on something they don’t know).

I still remember few cool kids who would get pissed off to see me on their door. I didn’t realize that until I experienced it myself… being asked stupid questions. You may or may not know when are you asking a stupid question, or maybe what you are looking for is feasible or not in real world. In today’s world when people are making millions to coach and consult, it is not wise to exploit your intelligent resources for every other doubt. Check out this little graph (however confusing it is) to see just one of the simple ways to avoid turning them off (..and lets assume the two guys next to you are also looking to kill some time XD).

Click the image to enlarge OR Download

Permission to ask questions are like karmas. You build these karmas over the time, and should use them wisely, and don’t exploit the niceness of that helpful geek by giving him mouthload of “thank you”s. It really don’t work that way.

Why ask the right questions?

• Well, if you want the right answer, ask the right questions
• they make you sound intelligent
• maybe your question is also helpful to the person you asked it to. Maybe he got a chance to refresh his knowledge or to research and learn something new.
• because noone has time for answering foolish questions

How to ask such questions?

Once you are stuck on something, and you decide to approach someone for help, its ideal to make sure that you:

• tell him what exactly were you trying to achieve
• tell him if you have already made any progress on the same (as in what worked/what didn’t)
• show him any research you have already done on it (links to some websites or forums relating to your issue)
• have patience while he take time to work on your issue according to his priority

It is ideal to choose your mode of contact depending on the importance or urgency of your issue:

• Critically Important: Make a phone call
• Important: Send an instant message
• Moderately Important: Send an Email
• Not so important: Well..
• Just time pass: Use telepathy

If you have been to any forums or have tried making a post to Digg, you must have came across the “guidelines before you make a post”. Repetitions are really boring and rather irritating. Just by sacrificing little of comfort and laziness, one can avoid inconvenience and save a lot of time for the people who really need it.

I initially thought of writing a post about “How to deal with unwanted requests?” but that would be like shaving bears to prevent them from global warming.