How to Prepare for an Online Consultation: A Checklist

Because a screen removes the small cues that carry a conversation in a room — the pause before you answer, the glance at a doorway, the way you sit. Preparation replaces them with clarity: a question already thought about, information already sent, and a space where you can speak without editing yourself.

It also protects the time. A session that begins with ten minutes of hunting for a floor plan or restarting an application has lost ten minutes of the thing you came for.

None of this is elaborate. Twenty unhurried minutes the day before is enough for any of these services.

This varies by service, and sending it in advance is the single most useful thing you can do, because it lets the analysis happen before you meet rather than during.

Write it in one sentence. If it takes a paragraph, there are probably three questions inside it, and choosing which one matters is work worth doing before the call rather than during it.

Prefer questions you can act on. 'What should I do about the bedroom my son will not sleep in?' is answerable. 'Will things get better this year?' is not, and no honest consultant will pretend otherwise.

Then write the two or three things you would count as a useful outcome. People often arrive with a vague hope and leave with a vague feeling; naming what you actually need is what turns a session into something you can use.

Treat it as an appointment. The physical setup takes five minutes and makes a visible difference to how the hour goes.

More than the session itself. Keep a buffer of at least twenty minutes afterwards so you are not ending mid-thought to join another call.

The expected length for your particular session is confirmed on the first call, which is free, along with the timing and the arrangements. If you are abroad, write the slot in both clocks — '7:00 pm IST / 9:30 am New York, Saturday 11 October' — because India does not observe daylight saving and your own clocks may have moved since you last spoke.

For a distance Reiki session, keep the quiet time afterwards as well. You will not want to drive or take a call immediately, and a few minutes of शांति (shanti, peace) is part of the session rather than an extra.

For a home or office consultation, whoever will actually implement the changes. A remedy plan explained to one person and relayed inaccurately to another is a common reason things do not get done.

For a tarot reading, only you. The point is a conversation you can be honest in, and an audience makes that harder — even a supportive one. Readings are for adults aged 18 and over.

For anything involving a shared household, agree beforehand who is speaking. A call where four people talk over each other across a bad connection helps nobody.

Write three lines the same day: what you understood, what you agreed to do first, and what you are unsure about. Do it before the evening, while the session is still clear.

Then start with one change rather than all of them. A remedy plan is usually sequenced deliberately, and doing everything in a weekend makes it impossible to tell what helped.

Keep the written report where you will actually find it, and note down your questions as they come up so the follow-up conversation has something to work with. If something in the plan turns out to be impractical in your home, say so plainly — a remedy you cannot live with is not a remedy.

Dr. Kimaya Parikh-Ambekar consults online for clients outside Mumbai and outside India — Vastu from a floor plan and photographs, tarot reading by video call, distance Reiki, numerology and crystal guidance.

Write to stayblessed@vastukimaya.com or message +91 70391 07512 with your city, your time zone and a line about what you would like looked at. The first consultation call is free, and the process, timing and arrangements are all explained on it.

The office is at A-1304, Naman Premier, Marol Military Road, Andheri East, Mumbai 400059, for in-person Vastu work across Mumbai and Thane, with other Indian cities on request.