Watched Lion King again

Mufasa, the Lion Kings latest verion was released last week. I got the idea of watching Lion King again. I should say, I felt great after watching the movie. I enjoyed the initial bonding moments between Mufasa and Simba. It gave me immense pleasure and was so pleasant and pleasing to watch. I cherished the entire movie of 2 hours and got couple of ideas as well. Watching a good movie can sometimes makes you feel great.

I fell when running today

I fell down in park today during running. Ideally, i should have felt sad, angry or frustrated. Instead, what I really felt was happiness. I just dont know why. What came to my mind instantly is, i need to be more humble. We are just a fall away to fell it to the bottom. It reminded me of the how humane we are. Especially when you are talking to people, having presumptions about them, dealing with your colleagues, etc. If we keep this in our mind, its easier to be humble. Another thing which i came to my mind was it was like a chaos testing for my fitness. When I fell down, I quickly got up and continued running again two rounds like nothing really never happened. I was happy and grateful that my fitness is good these days. Every situation is an opporutunity and it is the lens which you view through makes all the difference.

What do you do when you feel tired?

Yesterday evening I was in the office and I was feeling very drained. The obvious thing we all will do is sit somewhere and take a break or take a nap. But there is a better way. Instead of doing that, I paced fastly for sometime. It just activated my brain again. It was kind of recharge. Try this out next time when you feel drained.

What archery tag taught me

We had a team offsit to a resort in Bangalore. There we got a chance to play archery tag. There will be two teams on each side and there would a target on each side. Target is a square shaped board with 5 circles embedded into it. We need to make the circles drop. Thats the game. Initially, everyone where trying to hit at the same time. Then, we took a new strategy. We collected all the arrows. We holded, then we shot at the same time. Since all the arrows hit at the same time to target, the board shaked heavily and all the circles fell down. We have heard of this concept many times in different ways. But still we dont realise the potential of this thing. For example, when you have a hard deadline and so much worried about it. You may not be in a position to help someone in the team. But, if you can do that, then you would be going long ahead. Same concept, alone you can go quick, together you can go long.

Looking at time

This happened to me for two days continuously. I was suppossed to do task A as part of my sprint. But, I got occupied in the meanwhile for a lot of things. The interesting thing which happened is on the next day when I attended the daily update meeting, usually I used to go prepared well in advance. Yesterday, even my mornings started with some urgent code reviews. I didnt get much time to prepare and suddenly I was asked for my update in my standup. Alas, i was literally thinking what did I do the entire day yesterday. Luckily, i have a habit of keeping a log of what I do. I just looked at my log and try to figure out what went wrong why didnt I do my tasks. I realised that, all of my slots were occupied with one thing or another. I had not realised time passing. Well, lesson learned. Now you know what to do. In these situations is keeping a log becomes a boon. You know what went right and what could have been done better.

Caring genuinely

One of the qualities what makes us humane is the ability to care of your fellow beings. Its just makes life a lot easier. In the sense if we expand this fundamental idea to a broader perspective, for example when you are at your work place. Just genuinely care for your colleagues. Be there for them whatever they are going through. Be there for your family, friends, etc. You dont have to do much, treat the other person as a human and try your best to care for them. It would make us feel good and will help in shaping our life in a better way.

Trick for motivation

Yesterday morning I was at this Seetharampalya Lake for my morning lake. Thats when I listened to an episode of Huberman Labs podcast. He talked about how we can motivate ourself to do things. It considers two scenarios. One, when we already have enough motivation and energy. Second, when you dont have enough energy. In the first case, visualising the success will take you closer to the task. Whereas in the second case, visualising the negative impact of the failure scenarios would be a great help. Im gonna try it out when the need arises. Check it out folks, its not that difficult to do.

From goal centric approach to human centric approach

How does the society or corporate or how do we function. I used to have a goal centric approach. You have certain goal, you need to do what needs to be done. Some times during this pursuit, you miss the human part of it whether it be taking time off to take care of your people. Taking a break to understand how your colleagues and peers are doing, whats happening in their life and genuinely just care for them and be there. Im working on these aspects. From just being a goal centric way to a human centric approach. We all are just guests in this world, and would be here only for couple of years and in that years how can we make sure we have touched more lives and have helped them in all the way you could have done.

Its always people what matters

One of the common mistakes which I have seen new folks including when they start their career is focusing only on work. Most of the time, they miss the people part in the equation. They dont try to make time to talk to their peers or colleagues. Im not saying this will have an impact on career. Most of the time not. Im just saying there is also another way to it. Instead of focusing only on work, try to care a bit more about your colleagues. Just try to understand whats happening with them as a friend and be there for them. Thats more than enough. It feels good and would give you more inspiration to go to your workplace.

Walking fast

Its been a month since started practicing walking fast. Its a great mood improver. In my case, i have two long walks a day one going to office and while coming home. When im walking so fast, I usually take it as a game on number of people you overtake till you reach your office. Along with this, I usually use IntenSati exercise which we had discussed earlier. This greatly improves the mood and set the mind for getting through the day.

Do you get upset when something get delayed

One of the mindset shift which Im doing this days is catching the right things happening more than figuring out what went wrong. Everyone gets upset when you are stuck in traffic or your food get delayed in restaurant for no reason. But, these days I consider these events as an extra time which I get from all the life hustles to think freely. When your food is getting delayed, you dont have any other goals than just wait for the food. Its a 10 mins or 15 mins which you got extra to think about your life and mind or whats happening round. Its pretty good exercise.

I was wrong

When you see someone's face, you would make some assumptions or first impressions whatever you call. So, there was this person in gym today, the face type looked very arrogant kind of thing to me. Its just my view and that guy is not even close to being arrogant. Thats the interesting part. When we talked, I happen to realise this person is actually a very nice person and even his behaviour later wards was very polite. Some times, we assume character of the people just by seeing them, in most cases you might be wrong. You just need to talk to them to break your stigmas.

The importance of meaning ful conversations

We all have lots of conversations a day. This is one thing which I have noticed, If im having a deep conversation with some one whether it be personal or work related, I would be more happy and productive that day. We often just skim over the surface of conversation never dig deep. Well, to me skimming never helps, I enjoy more when having meaningful conversation with people.

Catching right things more

Most of the time, we are so focused on improving. We forget to appreciate the right things going on in our life. I encountered with this thought when I was walking in the lake side near my place. I saw this kid taking the help of his parent to walk. This kid would be age of my brother. Would be some thing like 10-15 year. At that moment, I was so grateful that I have leg and I can walk well. I felt sad in the beginning for that boy, why it has to happen to him. After a while, I thought again, instead of what could have been better. What is right things happening there?. He has a supportive parents. Both his Mom and Dad were taking good care of him. It is just a phase for him and he has people around him to support him. That is not the case for some of the children. And he can recover in 1 or 2 years. By having thinking about the right things happening, it made my mind at ease and peace. I figured, this can be applied to all of the things we do. Especially at work. Instead of focusing on what went wrong and what could have been improved. Focus on what went right and how can it be done more.

Thinking long term

Its easy to get busy in the day to day activities and unitl one day we realise 10 years have passed or 20 has passed or you have become this old. World is not going to stop for anyone, you need to be careful about your priorities. What is it you want to do. How you want to be remembered by your people. Are you doing anything in that direction today. Even thinking about it is a step towards your north star. Present is all we have and future we never know. Until, we make some changes in the present nothing is going to happen in the future. And it ends up being past which is an irreversible state.

Being content

One of the thing, which im improving on a daily basis is being content and grateful for what I have already. This is something which I had not before or my early days, it never occured to me like that. It was always about doing more, I will be happy once I have this and that. But, thats a never ending list. It never end, and makes the life a bit miserable. But, just enjoying the present and being grateful and having that feeling inside is whats actually helping me to grow and do more. Its so easy to do and the impact is so huge.

Priortising well

These days Im trying my level best to identify the impactful things which needs to be done. Im able to do better and create more impact by focusing on less things which can have more impacts. I believe it is a crucial skill to develop and it improves with practice. Well, I have already onboarded on this journey to learning priortising well.

Trying AI at work

I have become a fan of AI assistants for work. Especially for coding. We have GitLab Duo subscription which is similar to Github Copilot. The interesting part here is, by having this I dont have to worry too much about writing test cases. It is easy now for me to write all success and failure path and cover 100% line coverage as well as branch coverage very easily. And it also helps in code refactoring. As an engineer, you can focus on writing core business logic and ensure it is working as expected. The productivity of an engineer can easily be increased by 50% if AI coding assistants are used for work. Having said that, it will only be useful and faster if you know the concepts in the framework as well as the general library which you use. Along with AI, I recommend investing time to learn in depth framework as well.

You would be happy when you feel happy

This is a fundamental thing most of miss or fail to realise. It is not the external factors which makes you happy and successful, it is the state of mind of being happy which helps you get there. The vice versa is also true, in the sense if you are not in good mood, not so good things happen to you more often. I have been observing this pattern for quite some time. Do observe the people around you and can vaidate this hypothesis. I saw this thing first time in the book, happiness advantage. Thats where I got the whole idea of this trick. But somehow it works.

Death makes you more humane

Yesterday, I attended funeral of one of my close relatives. When I was there, all I could remember was the smiling way she had treated me whenever we visit their home. Unknowingly, I was deeply touched and was sad and tears were just filling in my eyes. I really dont know why I felt, even though I have not talked to that person for quite some time. It made me realise, this is how I want others to remember me. It never came to my mind the money she had or the food she gave me, all it came to my mind is the smiling and talking she did. And it feels to me, it is all that matters not anything else. It is how you treat people and interact with people what matters at the end. Nothing else matters and it makes us more humane.

What would you do when you miss a bus

I was travelling to my home town from Bangalore. I had booked bus in advance. Somehow, I had read the starting time to be 8.30 pm instead of 8.00 pm and I had planned accordingly. The bus boarding point was about 1 hour drive from my place. While I was on the way, I got this call from the bus operator that they are going to start. For a moment, I was a bit stressed as it was a sudden revelation to me. And it was Friday evening and some traffic started to form in the outer ring road. I was evaluating my options, it included not going home, going to the next boarding point and booking another bus. Well, I went with booking another bus which was after 2 hours. What I wanted to point here is what I observed in the change in behaviour and mood internally. When I didnt have a solution and was stressed, I was so angry and frustrated with driver. The driver was driving very slowly and even his way of driving made me a bit more infuriated. But, suddenly once I got the ticket for the next bus and I was relaxed, things were different. Suddenly, he started to drive faster. He was driving very carefully and I was very relaxed. Well, I feel nothing has changed. It was the exact driver and the cab. Only the thing which changed was my situation. I believe this happens to us everytime, if we remain calm and try to be a bit more relaxed, this would appear to be better than they actually are.

Refreshing brain during breaks

Do you feel brain tired by the end of the day. I had felt it before. And I figured refreshing brain in between helps to recover from this brain clogginess. I usually try to take three breaks one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. And during those breaks, I usually meditate for 5-10 mins which helps my brain recovers and is fully energetic again. The result, im not tired any more at the end of the day.

Sometimes missing train is a boon

Yesterday, I missed my metro train towards work. I would have to wait another 10 minutes till the next one arrives. But the interesting thing I observed is this. I should have felt bad about missing train, instead I was happy that I missed my train. Now, i get to make progress on my book which Im reading. If it has not been missed, it would have been difficult to add that into my schedule. Voila, missing train is a boon.

Doing the hard things

This is something what i did yesterday. Normally, when I come from office in the evening I would be dead tired and wouldn't have the energy to cook food. To fix this, I had resorted to eating from office dinner as well. However, yesterday, I cooked. I knew its not going to be easy, but its doable. The interesting part here is eventhough it was difficult to get started, but once I finished and had food. I was more than happy. And I had the feeling to do more things. That's when I recall the quote or read somewhere. Im not exactly sure where I heard that, If you do more hard things in a day, you could do more things. Could be just a brain hack. It always tries to protect you by curtaining your actual abilities. It is difficult to understand and recognise this. But, I would like to try an effort in understanding the brain a bit more. Looks cool.

Hey Siri, whats the time now

Now a days, i dont wake looking at my phone. To do this, initially i thought of buying a table clock. But, couldnt find a nice table clock with a nice alarm. Hence, I resorted to phone. There is something which we could do, you dont need to look to your phone to turn your alarm off. You can just say, hey siri stop!. It will stop the alarm. Voila, you get to have your soothing alarm and you dont have to look at the phone in the morning.

Grass is always green on the other side

This is something which I realised when I was listening to podcast yesterday. I have this habit of listening to podcast when Im going through long metro rides. Usually, i pick 4-5 different podcasts and add to the queue. Yesterday, for a change, i just picked one and gave it my 100%. I still remember what it was discussed in the podcast. Got some goot book recommendations. But, the point here is sometimes we really dont have to chase behind multiple options, if the option you have is good enough, try exploring all the possibilities with the options you have. This is looking better at the moment. Having said that, there is no harm in knowing the other side as well. You can look for more options, but right now im optimising to reduce load on brain and figure out how we can do better at what we do.

I have lots of time

It was Saturday yesterday, and I had decided not to touch my laptop for programming related things and has just decided to chill out. It looks like If im not touching my laptop, I have lots of time in the world. Just to add, I dont do social media and youtube reels as well. Not much excited about watching those. Which gives me lot of time back which I was looking for places to spend. Had a good sleep of 9 hours yesterday, sleeping is way better than any of the other alternatives.

Weekly review done well

For last 5 weeks, I have been doing this exercise of preweek planning and evaluating it how the week went. Every friday evening, I will look at my weekly planner and check what had gone right in this week. And then, will plan the next week allotting time for the weekly goals. To my amaze, i have clear picture of where my time is going and its easy to spend your time in the place which need much attention.

Analysing what went right

We all look for what went wrong when reviewing things. But, by doing that I never ended up in good place in terms of state of mind. Rather what if you look at what actually went right in the day. Now our brain can look for the good things on that day and train for doing more right things. It is just a way of mindset. Rather than identifying wrong things and fixing those and improving. Figure out what is actually working for you and appreciate yourself and do it more often.

One thing which Im trying to improve

Time boxing things is one of the things which I really want to improve upon. When I get a problem to solve, its difficult to move to some other without solving the first one. Sometimes, I could have done other things, if I had time boxed this thing and came back again after some time. We can actually do things better as well as you would have some more new ideas to solve the first problem as well. Practice makes things perfect. Will make sure to stick to this in the coming days.

Metro Meditation

From last month, its been there in my planning to improve the number of meditation sessions. Somehow, I never get time in my routine to do that. But, things have changed. I get 15 minutes of metro time. I meditate every day when I go to office in metro. I feel very energetic when I get out of the metro station. I had done a course from linkedin related to meditation, the principles which the instructor has shared has been very helpful. Im feeling great and will keep doing this.

IntenSati at Gym

Ever heard of IntenSati. I have been reading Wendy Suzuki's book, Happy brain happy life. She talks about IntenSati and its effects on brain. The idea is simple, when you workout you say positive affirmation in your mind. Today, I tried while doing my run. It was amazing experience. You can literally feel that atheletes high going over all your body. And suddenly you feel more excited and energetic. Im going to keep doing this.

Knowing when to stop and get up from the table

We all have the habits, we get to the zone, then we forget how long we have been sitting. It used to happen with me all the time. I will be like in mind, i will fix this and that and then im going on break. But, you know what I have a better way. I just fix your break timings and schedule your work in the remaining slots. Now you are sure that your hardware is getting its down time and recovery period. At the end of the day, you and both your body is happy.

Over communicating things

This is one things which im working on. Im trying to over communicate things to people whether it be related to work, personal life, sharing learnings. Sometimes we think, we are blabbering a lot. But, you explaining the same stuff in multiple times, helps the listener understand the things very clearly which makes everyones life easier. When it comes to learning, if you share what you have learned with your colleagues or any where and multiple instances in different formates, it is highly likely that you will remember when comparing to the situation where you dont share or share it less number of times. Folks, its a powerful tool.

Mind and body connection

Its from Wendy Suzuki. She is a neuroscientist. And she tells, that mind and body has a good connection. If we understand that, we can do things better. For example, when we are exercising. Along with body, if you say im getting stronger. You would feel better more. Well, I realised its been told in most of the religion as well in an indirect way. Im a muslim and when we pray or do anything we first set the intention right. We tell it loudly or if in a crowd at least in mind. However, i tried it yesterday and the change is very much noticeable. Im going to try this for everything I do, whether it be writing, learning or programming, going to meeting, etc. It is just letting your mind know in advance what you are going to do. Makes its life easier it seems.

Making the break times constant at work

I take good breaks at office in between work. From last two weeks, i have fixed my break times. I take break at 11.00 am, 1.00pm lunch, and 3.00 pm and 6.00 pm. By having the break times predefined, it is very much easier to do deep work and Im able to do more things in less time. Plus, your body is not adapted to sit long hours, it needs to move around a bit. Well, great going guys. Happy friday.

Cold shower in morning

I live in Bangalore and its getting winter here. The added benefit is to get to have cold showers in the morning. After a good workout, then a cold shower and post a hot coffee. Just make my morning perfect.

Recollecting happy memories more

Ever tried to check in your memory what is your latest happy memory. We usually dont do this exercise. Often we realise, its very hard to remember a happy memory. The reason is not because you dont have a happy memory. The reason is all to do with the brain memory and how it works. It will recollect only things you access frequently. The way to remember more is nothing but active recollection of your important memories. We dont see ourselves as some machine but indeed there are some analogous to it as well. I was reading this Happy Brain, Happy life from Wendy Suzuki, who is a neuroscientist. She was describing how we store memories. We will remember things more if we attach emotions to our memories as well. Will share if find anything more interesting here. Till then, cheers.

Watching Netflix vs spending time outside

Well, this weekend I had decided that I would not indulge in watching OTT and crouch on my couch. Instead, will go out. Im not a big fan of malls and busy streets. What I enjoy more is spending time in nature like Lake fronts, Green parks. Luckily I have all of these near my place where I stay. The day was very satisfying and I was so relaxed in the night and got a very good sleep. Even the next day, I did the same. And in the evening. I decided that I would not spend time on watching videos, you can do anything else. Voila, i have more time instantly and time was moving very slowly for me. I feel, this is one of the reasons for people feeling that time is moving fast and they dont have enough time to do things or be their closed ones. It is these non important times creeping into our daily schedule.

Lots of very serious face in metro

It was Sunday yesterday and I had gone to Cubbon park for my Sunday reading. I had gone there using metro, while one metro there was this two kids sitting infront of me. They were so happy. They were smiling and they were doing something and they were so happy and it can be seen in their face. Now, I looked at the faces of the adults in the train. Most of them had been wearing a serious face. I felt like people are doing something very serious and is in very trouble. I wondered, when we were kids, we never usually be bothered about what others think about us. However, as we grow up, we try to put up a serious face even though you are a very happy and easy going person. It is just how the society has made us to adapt. I do remember one instance from my personal life, I normally smile at friends when I meet them. Its been like that for quite some time. But, one time someone mocked me for being smiling all the time. Then, I thought the smiling part is not acceptable and the one with the serious face should be the one I should be wearing. Well, as time passed, I realised it was the guy who mocked was wrong. It is entirely difficult for people to put happy and smiling faces. And it should be the default rather than the serious face which our society force upon us.

Keeping only the things you need

Yesterday, I did a full flat cleaning. I threw out most of the thing. The criteria I used was simple, did I use this in last 3 months. If the answer was no, that goes into bin. We often think, it would come to use later wards, may be some old clothes, some broken electronics, some used books. In my experience, that never comes. You are not going to your school notes to refer something, at least I never did that. Similarly, there would be lot of things lying around, empty bottles, cans, buckets, etc. Once you keep whatever you use daily, the flat looks very cleaner and is very easy to maintain. Next would be to go to my wardrobe and do the same. Happy Sunday folks.

Dealing with imposter syndrome

I recently got into a new job. As every joinee, i also had an imposter syndrome. You wont have context of many things, when an issue comes, you even dont even know how it works. But, the important part here is not whether you know it or not. Its about you show up and you think on what all things you should be needing to solve the problem. If we ask the right questions, we can figure things out. And it is just a mindset shift, we will not be ready to deal with anything. You just get in, initially it would take some time but eventually on the way, you would have learned many new things.

Knowing your priorities in advanced

Everyday many number of things comes to our to do list. It is for sure, we wont be able to do all of this. But, what would make a great difference is knowing which of the tasks would create a greater impact. And making sure, you are doing those. It is as simple as that. But to identify, which are important. You really need to know your north star and what are the adhoc task which comes to your list. And you can ensure that your north start tasks are getting done no matter what happens. Cheers folks, wish you all a great thursday.

One from parking my car

Many of you might already be knowing this and it is so obvious. Even i knew it beforehand. But, today i got reminded again while parking my car. I was reverse parking in the parking lot of my gym and if you try to reverse it directly, it will not be easier, but you would be able to do it. Instead if we move forward a bit in the opposite direction and take a reverse, now things are easier. The core idea here is better positioning yourself. Isn't the case with everything else as well? That's what I thought. Whether it be in your personal life, trips, work, relationships, money, etc. Its all about you yourself making some decisions so you would be better positioned. If you are better positioned, life is very much simpler and easier.

A good sleep is all you need

I have mentioned this before as well but even I forget this thing some time. But, now a days im being very regular on sleep timings. I usually go to bed at 11 pm and wake up around 6.00 am ensuring a 7 hour sleep. I had tried with different period of sleep timings and 7 hour is something is working for me. With a good sleep, you are very much refreshed to start your work with full energy and excitement.

Taking breaks helps to do more

Last four days have been holidays here. What I decided to do is not to work on any tech related thing. Whether it be learning a new course or doing something on my hobby project. I slept more, went out more, made good food, talked to friends and family, watched couple of movies. It was entirely relaxing. What I felt at the end of Sunday is, I badly wanted to go to office and get started on my work. But, this is something we dont do that often, I have heard a lot about Monday blues. I feel it is because we take the work home as well and is not giving enough space for your personal life and effecting both work and personal life.

Asking the right questions is the key to solving problems

When we are faced with a problem to solve, we look for answers. The problems with the approach is each situation would be different and reusing the learning becomes difficult. But, instead of learning the answer what about learning the questions you asked yourself to arrive at that answer. For example, what is it a problem. What are the different approaches we could take. What will happen, if we take approach A. Would that approach solve the problem. Would it have any cons. The question template would be reusable for different situations. Once you master asking the right questions, everything can be solved.

Doing less number of things more

To my schedule, some times many things comes up. Now a days, Im figuring out the most impactful one and do that things more. There is always this rule that 20% of what you do cretes 80% of the impact. Im figuring out step by step what those 20% are for me.

Being happy innately

Being happy is not something which happens externally, instead it is something which you can feel it internally. It has nothing to do with anyone else but us. At the end of the day, we are feeling the emotions becuase of hormones and neuron firings. We just have to recreate the happy moments not by doing it, just by remembering it and feeling it.You are going to feel the same way you felt when you were actually happy. Now being in good state of mind, helps you do more at what you like to do and you are going to be innately pleasant and calm which helps you reach where you want to go.

Pacing in work breaks in office

Every paced yourself in office in your work breaks. Well, I happen to listen to Wendy Suzuki on a podcast, she explained the benefits of exercise and even just walking on the brain. Now, applying that to the breaks we take in between the breaks, its a great way of refreshing your brain along with having meaningful conversations. If you pace, somewhere near the cafeteria, you would end up meeting folks from different teams and you can get to know each other.

Improving hardware along with software

We always think more about the software and rarely about the hardware. Im not talking here about your phone or computer. Im talking about the we as a person. Hardware being our body and mind. Software being the skills and learnings you do. On a day, we focus more or only on the software part. How can you run your latest OS on a pc which is 10 year old and never upgraded. Similar analogy can be applied to our hardware as well. We need to regularly do the maintenance which we often take it for granted. Even some times, we may end up taking care of the body by doing exercies, we most of the time ignore mind. At least, I ignored. But now a days, Im improving my hardware as well through mindful meditation in the morning. Oh boy, it is impressive. How a small 10 minute meditation and being mindful shape your entire day.

An amazing weekend

Last weekend was Amazing. I was able to do whatever I have planned. Running near the lakes on Saturday morning, finishing up the laundry tasks for the week, tried out new recipe for chicken (it was Kashimiri chicken), nature walk on Cubbon Park on Sunday and cooking prawns for Sunday lunch. Along with it, reviewed last week plans and did planning for the next week. Made couple of changes in the routines and excited how it would turn out. Other than these, I had lots of free time, caught up with family and friends, watched movies, tv series, etc. Overall it went really well.

Imagining a perfect day in the beginning of day

I have been listening to this podcast from Andrew Huberman. In one of the episodes, he was discussing how imagining your perfect day in the morning can have significant impact on your day would actually go. I tried it on Friday and it was wonderful. You just imagine what your perfect day would look like and it was become way better than what I had imagined. It is one of the practise which I will include in my morning rituals.

Aligning your process towards your north star

I often thing about goals and trying to achieve it. For example, when running I emphasise more on covering the distance and the time I take to cover this. But, there is a different way to do the same thing which is more enjoyable. Instead of thinking about your goals, you enjoy the process. In this situation, just enjoy the running. Notice how you are breathing, if you are running in nature, observe whats happening, try to find peace there. By merely just enjoying the process and shifting your mindset, it is easier to achieve the goals whatever you had targeted. Its just that you emphasise on the process. And this can be applied to all our goals, whether it be career or personal. And we need to review the process in regular cadence and align the same in the north star of your goals. When you are in the process, just enjoy it and have fun.

From blaming to what's next

When some thing goes wrong, it is our human nature to blame some body for that atleast in mind. In the sense, it happened because that person did that or its because of the other thing. This is one of the things which I'm working on right now. Changing the default mindset to what can we do about it rather than complaining and looking some for blaming. No one agains by blaming other than getting a bit of self ego boost which I'm very much willing to sacrifice for this. The only thing which I would be concered would be getting things done.

Finding happiness inside

I used to think, it is the environment, your situation or the people which makes you happy rather what makes you happy and peaceful is just what you. If you look inside you, what's happening then only you would find a sustainable clue for figuring out peace. I'm looking inside everyday and I'm just happy for no reason.

Planning a week ahead at work

This is the current practice which I'm following, I plan for a week ahead on Friday afternoon, then on modify the days as per need while ending each day. And always look at the things plans for the day. It helps me gain control over time and im able to get more things done. In the sense, when you set time to review a doc, then you don't have to worry about anything else in that time, whether it be checking mail, slack, etc. This just frees up memory space and is easy to get things done peacefully without a great toll on brain to think what to do.

Keeping buffer time

I usually dont do this, in the sense when Im going to a place. I just go on time. But, yesterday I did something differently. I planned to start 10 minutes earlier. Even though, something came up, I was able to reach there on time. It is one of the things which I would like to employ in my further days as well.

Testing as a learning tool

How do we study things. I usual do by revising the concepts again and again. It could be the case of most of us. However, yesterday I came across this podcast from Andrew Huberman. According to him, people who test thier understanding just after they learned something showed 50% more retention of information. This is something which is easy to do and is very effetive. I tried this approach yesterday while I'm reading an article. I just ask questions about my understanding about the article and try to figure out the answer. Sometimes, I wouldn't have a clue what that was. I will have to revisit again to understand that part. The result, I recall most part of the article.

Habits and routines

Our motivation to do things are depended on lot of external and internal factors. Definitely, the will power is unlimited and if you believe this is the case. It would eventually become the case. But, definitely we would not be in a position to believe to the core that motivation is unlimited. I have been trying and this was the case with me. However, this is were your habits and routines comes for resque. When you are doing something for a long term, the effort required to think about it is very less. For example in my case, writing this blogs. I have tried to make it a habit of writing in the morning once I'm back after gym. Now its easy to do the things and I really don't have to force myself in writing. It just happens naturally. My point here is, habits and routines can be one of the handy tools to get things done even if you know you won't be having that kind of motivation to do things.

Drinking three cups of water and a cup of coffee

This is something which I'm practicing right now. Im an early riser, and once I wake up i drink three cups of water, followed by an hour of reading. Post which, I drink a cup of coffee followed by an hour of coding. Then, 45 minutes for exercise and then starts my work day around 8.30 am. The habit of drinking 3 cups of water first seems to help me to get up to speed in my morning. Earlier, I used to be grumpy for a while before I could actually do something. Now its not the case, could be placebo as well. Whatever it is, it works.

What are some of the things which are not taught in schools

I grew up in India, and in the educational system I came through, the emphasis was more on getting academic knowledge and to some extend the extra curriculars like sports or music or something else. Most of the time, when people get out of the educational system to the real world, they tend to wander around confused a bit. I was there myself. Suddenly, you are on your own. You need to figure out what to do with your life, where to work, where to live, which area would be better, what to eat, pay the bills on time, manage finances, manage relationships, and what not. Eventually, you would figure it out. The time taken would depend entirely on person to person. These things are not something which we are taught in schools, at least I wasn't. I really feel, there could some awareness be provided to college students on what they needs to be prepared for in their first year or second year. It could bring a major change on how they view their future and handle their life and would definitely will have a huge change on thier future. And in large, an entire society.

Reading Millionaire Fastline

Currently I'm reading this book millionaire fastline. I stumbled across this idea of making more income. It sounds pretty solid. The basic idea here is to either start something from nothing or you buy a business which have some profits. The value of each business is usually annual profit multiplied by a number in between 4 and 10 which would vary based on the business. The idea is simple, you increase the yearly profit by 100% by optimising the bottle necks, you would get the 400 - 1000% percent in return. The concept looks dope though doubling the profit or event keeping up with the same revenue needs enormous understanding of the market and business. But definitely a valid and solid idea.

Eating the frog first

There is the notion always whether to do the difficult task first or the easiest first in start of the day or in the beginning of the week when you are planning. There are two ways to argue that both can be used. In the sense, when you do easiest task first, you can easily get that momentum and keep going, but when you keep the hard things to the end, it becomes very difficult to do it at end. When it comes to doing the hard things first, it may not be that easy to get started and create that momentum however, once you finish that hard task, doing the easier ones would be a cake walk. I usually go with the second option, when I see something in my list as the hardest and require more mental cost, I do it first in the morning which makes my rest of the day easier.

Leaves in a stream technique

This is an idea from the book Indistractable. The technique can be used when you actually want to get ride of some thought you are having. Say for example, you are working on something deeply, suddenly you will get some new idea or some urgent work which can actually be done later wards. If we ignore or resist those thoughts, the thoughts become more powerful eventually you give up. This is way of handling such a situation, what we have to do is. Imagine placing this thought on a leaf and place it in a flowing stream and watch it flowing away from you. I tried this in couple of situations and it was like, I instantly forgot about what the thought was. Indeed, brain comes with some manual which we are not aware of much.

Tried Meditation for 20mins yesterday

Making meditation as part of my weekly routine has been there on my list for quite long time. Yesterday, I broke the curse of procrastination on it. I did a guided meditation with the help from a linkedin learning course. It indeed was very powerful and relaxing, after the 20 mins session, I felt bit more clarity in mind. And I could really feel a relaxed and coldish inside my brain. It was indeed an amazing experience. Looking forward to doing it every Sunday.

Taking a pause on checking phone

When I look around, I always see people staring at their phone. Today, what I tried was to use the phone usage minimal. I usually check, my twitter feeds or linkedin feeds or email for that matter when I'm waiting for something or you are just staying idle. For a change, I decided not to do any of this. Check those only during the time which I committed earlier. I feel less tired at the end of the day, I have not missed out on anything, and I was able to be there when I'm actually doing things whether it be having a conversation with your folks, having a nice food or watching a movie for that matter.

What a pleasant morning

I live in Bangalore and it rained yesterday night. The morning was very pleasant to see when I went out. Thought of quickly going for a run around a good running spot around a lake. It was amazing. Felt fresh a lot. Indeed its true, nature can inspire you.

The curse of Tantaulus

Tantalus is from greek mythology, son of Greek god Zeus. Tantaulus has a curse on him that he would get distracted while he was going to do something and he never ends up doing either. The story goes something like this, he find wandering in a pool and he is about to bend and take a sip of water. While bending, he sees a reflection of fruit in the water and he tries to snatch the fruit, when he tries to snatch the fruit, it goes further away. But, when he gives up and goes again to take a sip from the pond, the tree comes back and he agains tries to get the fruit. The cycle repeats. The moral that the story is trying to say is, we are also cursed like Tantalus, we end up getting distracted by something else and we end up doing something else. The something else can be you surfing social media while you want to get something done, or watching something, or you got a ping, or a mail, etc. If we are able to digest the story of Tantalus well, its easy to focus on what needs to be done. Most of the time, the distaction which comes towards us may not need our immediate attention as we think it needs. Just like the fruit, he could have ignored and drank water and be on his own way. Beware of such fruits hanging from branches in disguise.

It really does matter how you tell your story

This is one of the ideas which I came across while reading a business article. The gist, the way you tell your stories greatly effect the influence you have on others. I really feel, most of us or atleast me may not have gave this importance to how you present your stories to your peer at work or your friends. It can go in both directions based on how you tell the story in a good well crafted tone and a broken road kind of story. Well next time, you tell some one something give it a thought on how you can tell it in a well crafted story.

Mans mind may be likened to a garden

I came across this today morning while doing my morning read. Mans mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild. If no useful seeds are put into it useless weed seeds will fall there in and will continue to produce their kind. Very much liked it. Often we forget to view our mind in this way. If we are not consious about what we are thinking and kind of thoughts we are having, it could end up having lots of wild weeds. Entirely depends on the environment you are. But, Im not a big fan of leaving things to environment and going with the flow kind of attitude. I enjoy taking control and taking actions, its something what I prefer. And no harm in going with the flow as well. Well, what I want to say is its easy to put good thoughts in mind as a habit and its also easy to not do it. But, if you do it over a long period of time, the mind garden would have a larger collection of yielding trees of good thoughts. Its a choice we have to make.

Modifying your will power by understanding the dopamine levels for activities

This is something which I tried yesterday. Ever felt like you really don't want to do something and you end up doing something else on a day. Like you should be writing some code, then you end up scrolling your linkedin posts. Just an example. Now, going back to the previous work would be a bit harder. My hypothesis is this, each activity will give you certain level of dopamine high. If you do high dopamine activities first and then the motivation to do the lower ones would be less and would be difficult to start. For example, if watching youtube shorts has a 100 dopamine release, then learning something new would be 20. If you watch youtube short first, then it would be difficult to go to the learning part which gives you less. What I did yesterday was to sort my days action based on dopamine release which I assigned, in the increasing order and did the task in the same order. It was rather easy doing the difficult tasks. Sometimes, we like to chill out for 5 minutes watching something but it could do more harm than to actually helping you relax.

Reducing the dopamine before going to bed

One of the habit which I had was to watch movies, tv series, random youtube videos or some shorts before going to bed. It gives good dopamine hits even when you don't want to do anything else. However, I'm trying something new. I happen to hear this latest podcast from Ali Abdaal, where they suggest to reduce dopamine before going to bed. Have activities which does not give instant dopamine like reading a book before going to bed. I tried it yesterday and felt great in the morning. Not sure, its just the placebo. Doesn't really matter if it works, i'm good. Planning to continue with this change, will update how it went next week.

A biriyani story

It's Sunday, and I usually go to Cubbon Park in the morning for my quiet reading session. And followed by a nice fine dining. Its been almost 3-4 months, where I have been doing this consistently if we ignore rare occassions when I'm not in town or has some other business to cater. My usual routine is something like, after cubbon park, would take a walk to Church street. Pick up a restaurant from there then take Metro from MG road back to home. Today, it was Paragon's restaurant in Church street. It's not about how actually good the food were. Of course, their food is nice. What I want to tell is, how good I felt. It was busy afternoon, however I was able to get a place instantly. I was served by a waiter let me call him John, while he finished taking my order, I asked what his name was and said thank you to him. I felt that he was happy with having a conversation with me. Then came my order, the biryani was tooo good and yum. I was able to sense each and every flavor and each bite just made me more happier. I had been this place before, but I never left the kind of happiness before when I ate the biryani today. Now coming to the point, it could be due to me priming my brain to be happy and it was exactly looking for that experience. This is just an additional experience to what I shared yesterday. Let me know, if you have tried and have similar experience. Happy Sunday.

Fine tuning brain with happy thoughts

Ever observed when you are happy, you are relaxed, your creativity just comes right, you meet right people, you have immense energy to do things, etc. It's nothing but a play from firing the right neurons in brain. When the brain fires the neurons which makes you happy, it creates an environment which helps you better in creativity. Its been proven from scientific studies. There are lots of studies on how positive thoughts before exam help you with good grades, with interviews, with meetings, writing something, etc. Similar is the case with you having negative thoughts about something. Like that work is hard, that problem is very complex. Just having these thoughts makes it actually complex. Again its due to the predictive nature of the brain. The important part here is knowing how we could use this information to improve our day to day life. Well, you would already be thinking of scenarios where you could just use this idea and experiment with it. Trust me, it works.

Again one about sleeping well

I had woke up at 5 in the morning. But, I felt tiredness in my body. I slept again till 8. And I was full fresh by that time. Then, everything fell in place. I went to gym, had my work out. Was able to get done all the things planned and am able to think very clearly. I was comparing to the days, where I had forced myself to getting up early and putting more time into doing thngs rather than considering what I body wants. I cannot ignore the fact that it definitely would give me more time to do lot of things. But, however there is a factor which I had ignored the will and the motivation to do things. When I sleep well, Im relaxed very much, I really don't have to force myself to be disciplinedand and am able to get things done in half the time and I'm more happy that day. This was just my observation, let me know if you had any similar observation.

Being happy leads to achieving things and not the other way round

Well isn't it a bit absurd. I never believed this is the case. I was always thinking, i would be happy when I get that or when I achieve this or when I go there, etc. It was always like. This concept, I'm saying in multiple books that I read recently. We have our brain as a prediction model from expectation effect, then when you try to be happy in the moment, it predicts well and which then results into better work and performance. This is the same thing which is coming out in the book the happiness advantage. The author says after doing a study on Harvard students, our brain tends to perform better when we are in a positive mood. Brain indeed is an interesting thing. There are lots of things it can do if we know how to fire up the right neurons.

Focusing on the pursuit and process with just a north star in mind

I used to be a very goal oriented person. Would look into what to do to finish of that project or what needs to be done to get the things done in your way. Now a days, I'm focusing more on the process of doing things. I would have a long term north star in my mind, and I just optimise by daily processes towards it. I do these optimisations once a week usually on Saturdays, looking back on how the week end and what could have been done better. I feel its a lot easier this way.

Tried visualising ahead about things today

I keep hearing the idea of visualising the things which you are going to do. Well, I tested it out today. And I did it during my gym time in the morning. In between the breaks between each sets, I try to visualise what the next set is going to be and how many reps/time I would be doing. Just by warming up my brain about the reps, I was able to do more reps than I usually do. Now I'm trying this on everything whether it be writing an article, programming, reading, meeting people, etc. Really not sure, how it would go on things, if you know how it will go where's the fun in doing the experiment. Cheers and try it out on some of your things, let me know whether it improved your performance somehow.

Some time what you really need is a good sleep

Often I neglect sleep for one or the other reasons. In the sense, not taking longer period of sleep in the night. Recently, I experimented with taking 7-8 hours of sleep every night and it has been an amazing experience. I feel very fresh in the morning with lots of motivation to do stuff and is not at all tired and doesn't need a coffee to get a jump start. Some times I feel a bit of back pain, when I sleep less and the back pain sort of went mysteriously away when I'm sleeping more continously. People would definitely have done tremendous experiments on sleeping, will become a book on sleeping and get to know the reasons for my observation.

Time boxing things to get more done

This is one of the thing which I'm really really is working on. Everytime if there is an issue or an error while programming, i don't stop until I figured a fix. I would be in the mindset of figuring it out and won't look at the alternatives. I would eventually find the solution, but sometimes what happens is the it may take up more time than you anticipated for the thing to be done. As we all know, time is a very limited resource, what you could have done instead would be to time box the chore you are doing and move to other stuff that needs urgent attention and come back to this once the other things are resolved. In this way, you would have done more things as well as you may get some new ideas during the break you have taken from the task. I won't say its easy to practice, especially when you are working on something very interesting, you won't even notice that you have spend enought time on it. But, this could be improved with practice. I'm not saying, its a bad habit or so. Its just that, Im of the opinion the other way is better.

What do you do outside work matters more than you think

Most of us won't take the things outside the work with atmost care. It actually would have greater effect on the work as well as life. When I say outside work, it doesn't mean not doing work related learning things. It just means, you should have something fun outside of work. It could be creating a website using some new framework, building some backend stuff, checking out some new blogs, etc, whatever you would enjoy. Or you could also have something other your core career stuff like going somewhere, hanging out with some folks, etc. The important part here which I find is you need to be involved actively rather passively. Active in the sense you should be involved yourself, example if you are reading or watching something. Try to actually understand the thing using your brain. Rather just going through the stuff. Similarly, passive is nothing but binge watching movies, series, reels, etc without having any involvement of yourself. The default options of most of us would be to go passive mode, but if we plan it well we can do more active stuff. It is this active things, which would actually make us more motivated, energetic, relaxed, etc. Try it out once.

What energises me the most in a day

I really have been exploring this idea in the past couple of months experimenting with lots of things. For me, i have shortened the list of items to just two things which would energise me in a day. Its nothing but my work and the vibrant conversation that I have with the people I interact on a day. What I have observed, If I just ensure these two things have been taken cared in a day, then voila, I feel fulfilled, satisfied and is very much energetic to do anything.

Taking the baby steps

I just finished the book slight edge. The one thing which I'm taking away from the book is doing the baby steps consistently over long period of time. It's not something new. I have done it before and have experienced the results first hand. It was during my JEE Advanced preparation time. I never worried about the end results, what I did was simply putting equal work daily and consistently for two years which helped me understand my concepts better. It was back in 2016, but somewhere I lost that thing. This book just reminded me the important of doing that minute thing towards your north star. I have started 5 items which I plan to do daily and wouldn't take more than half an hour to finish irrespective of wherever I'm.

The thing which actually have a huge impact is the thing which is actually easy to do.

This is from the book which I'm reading right now, its called the slight edge. The core idea is simple, the thing which differentiates us from others is not the one big thing you do entirely, rather the small minute improvement you make daily, and over the course of period the change becomes huge. It is applicable in case of health, diet, finance, professional work, etc. The interesting thing here is it is easy to do and it is easy to ignore and push to the next day. I don't take anything for as they easy, I gave it a shot today at gym. It was my cardio day and I had covered 3km in 18 minutes 20 seconds last week. Last week, on average I had run at 10km/h. This week, following the slight edge principle I made a slight increase in speed of 0.2km/h making it 10.2km/h. It wasn't that difficult, I covered the distance in 17 minute 54s. Well, when you look at the improvement, it may not be that much. Its hardly 30s. This is exactly the idea. Say after 10 weeks, this 30s may become 2 minutes. Within 30 weeks, it may become 5 minutes. Voila, now the change is significant. The two principles which I tried was the idea from the expectation effect which involves not trusting what your brain says rather you can ask your brain to do what you want. It is the prediction model. I actually felt like stopping when it was just 10 minutes. I just kept saying, you can easily go till 3Km and asked to control my breathing. I don't know, my breathing was normal and was able to make it to 3km. Indeed, the ideas were interesting.

No one told me this when I was your age

I'm very sure, some one would have told this to you whether it be your parents, teachers or elder colleagues. I had often hear this, no told me this to me when I was your time. Even I had lot of things to say to my younger versions what could have been done better. And do you know the most interesting part, no one is ever going to tell you this thing in the future as well. Only way to know the choices you have is actually doing a bunch of research which we never do. If we have done enough research on whatever we want to find, you would have come across all these ideas which you want to preach to your younger self. It's just a matter of taking a small action which could have a greater impact on your life.

Having an answer or knowing what question to ask which is more important?

Ever thought of this thing. I have felt most of the time, it is not knowing how to approach a problem rather how to ask the right questions solving any problem. Especially when I'm creating softwares, I usually ask bunch of questions. Some of the questions, I would be knowing the answer from my previous experience, but for some I wouldn't be. But having the right questions, help me disambiguate the problems and figure out the best approaches. I'm practicing these days, thinking on what the right question to be asked in every situation. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.

What I learnt from getting injured from Gym

Last month, I had a shoulder injury while working out at the gym. I was doing shoulder press with a weight of 17.5kg dumble on each hand. I did five reps and on the sixth rep, my hand gave away and i placed my dumble slowly and went home. I took two weeks rest from gym to recover. Then started going again, now after a month Im back at where I used to be. Before getting injured, I was able to do pull ups of 10 without any support and after injury, I had to take weight support and had started doing it from 2. Last week, I actually did 7 reps without support. I'm still recovering. What I learnt is sometimes, we push ourselves so hard and we end up in a situation not so good. The overall cost of recovering will be too much than the gain you get stretching too much over yourself. Reduce your load a bit, you can actually go farther and in long term it would be quicker than you stretching yourself more. Think about it.

Brain as a prediction model

I just finished reading the book, the expectation effect. Some of the ideas were difficult to digest at first. It basically tells our brain is kind of a prediction model, it does not know what it is doing. It just makes a good guess. The book explains the idea citing various scientific researches. I was not ready to take it up entirely, so I thought I will give it a try. Yesterday, it was cardio day at gym. I usually run on trendmill at 10km/h speed for 13 minutes straight. Post which, my breath will become uncontrollable and I start walking. This was last weeks data. As you all know, I record my gym stats every day. What I did different was, before going to gym, I just told my brain, today you are going to do the entire 3km (that's the distance which I cover every cardio day) in a single stretch at 10km/h. Even while running, I just told my brain to keep going and I don't want to know my legs are getting hurt or I'm getting tired and also asked to maintain the breathing. Well, I was astonished by the result, I actually ran 3.0km without any break and I was not breathing uncontrollably. I had not done anything different in taking anything before or time of the day or sleeping more etc. It was exactly the same as what it was the week before, the only thing which changed was me telling my brain how to act. This is what it was mentioned in the book. You brain will do what you tell its do, it doesn't have its own way of doing it especially when it comes to feeling things. Or reading the sensory data from the organs. It just makes the best guess, you can always manipulate the data upto a certain limits for the best use.

Reducing the load on brain

I tend to assume our brain has infinite capacity. And it can do whatever you want. Well, I think its not right. For an analogy, lets compare brain to a computer which expands its processing power with training. Definitely, if you train on right things, it gets expanded and can handle those computation quicker. But there is also a catch, the processing power of brain in a day is not infinite, its very much finite. It really matters how you use your computational credits. Each tasks like remembering things, doing routines all of these things uses some computational credits. If that is the case, how can we optimise the usage of these computational credits. One idea which I can think of is free the brain from thinking about mundane tasks and what you really don't need to remember. For example, you want to want to mark things on days on went to pay your bill. Say you have 10 different bills which may be due at different times. Just mark it in your calendar and make a morning check list to check the calendar. In this way, you have freed your brain from always remembering the day when you actually need to pay the bill. Instead of storing and recollecting, have a digital repository where you dump your thoughts and ideas and you should store in such a way that, when in need it should be retrievable. By doing this way, you reduce the strain on your brain and you can actually get more things done with freed up computational credit. I have been experimenting with this for last 2 months, and its been wonderful. Never miss a tasks and never forget anything. I have created a system for all of this thing. Whenever I get an idea or some one asks to do something, it goes to my todoIST app which is available on phone, ipad and mac. Its easy to get inside to the tasks list. Every evening, I just check the task list, if something needs to be done on specific date, i mark it on the calendar. And every morning, I have a checklist, to check the calendar. Now everything is loosely coupled, once it goes to todoIST, you really know, its going to get done.

Do we behave the same in same circumstances

Well this is something I was pondering around. Do we behave the samey way, when same emotions appear. The cause of emotions can be different. If the emotion generated from the cause is same, do we behave or act the same. Most of the time, in my case I observed is true. In the sense, when you are tensed or stressed you know in advance what you are going to do, if you had observed what you did last time. Just keep a note of these emotions and generalise them, its a cake walk for you to know how you are going to feel or act in the situation. The human emotions for a person can be counted (it may expand. If you note long enough of your own emotions. There won't be any new emotions) and the situations is an uncountable one. Just an interesting thing to observe.

Is parallelising things really help?

I was a core believer of parallelising and doing things very efficiently. Now I started doing things synchronously rather than asynchronous. One after another. Not only in working, in general. Let me tell you an example, when I cook, I try to do lot of things parallely and end up being more stressed and I would miss the joy of cooking. Yes, the things get done faster. I definitely. Now, what I do is, I finish the things for a set of item, then I start preparing for the other dish. Its not ideal. But definitely lot of peace.

Consuming knowledge without actually processing it

We all consume lot of things especially if you are in tech field. Lots of information from social medias, books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. If you have noticed, most often we don't even recall the next day what we saw or learnt. It just fades away, we again go into the loop of consumption. This is what I was doing before. But now, i force myself to write what I understood in a few lines whether it be reading book or listening to podcast or anything. If you really don't ask the question, what you understood without looking at the source again. You clearly haven't understood at the first place. Its not me or you its just our brain. It has gotten into this habit and it knows we don't do a random access on this thoughts. The efficient way to reduce the load on the system is not to cache it rather than discard it. This is exactly what its doing, when you force yourself to check whether you actually understood, you are forcing your brain to think which it does not do on default. This is also just an instruction to the brain, with time it becomes and default and our brain becomes accustomed to focus on details while consuming knowledge.

Strategising your time

We never are ready to accept our own capacity to the core truth and in the pursuit of doing more we end up doing less and spending more time and would feel more pressure. Instead, one way to think through is to breaking your day into three sections, morning, afternoon and evening. Each will have certain number of slots of 40 mins, say morning has 4 slots, after noon has 3 slots and evening has 2 slots. Now, you fill these slots before start of the day ideally before start of the week. Now, most of the time, you won't be able to do 50% of the things which you have planned. For example, you may wake up late, or you may have some urgent meetings, or some friend came over for a chat or etc. The key point here is realising, which slot you have missed and how many are remaining considering your time. Now, since you know this the time you have, which is the most important you have to do in those slots. If we do by this way rather than pulling late nights, you can actually get more done without less stress.

Everything boils down to how you tell your story

It really doesn't matter most of the time much but what matters is how it is being told. The impact is quite noticeable in various scenarios, whether it be the story you are telling yourself, whether you are explaining something to someone, whether you are trying to convince some people and in any situation. The better you get at telling wonderful stories, the better you get done.

Do we actually need more time or less time in a day?

This has been an interesting question. The obvious answer is to say the more the merrier. However, think again. Whatever time you allote for work, it just figure out a way to fill that. If a work actually takes 1 hour and you assign 15 minutes, it might get done in 30 mins. The point Im trying to make here is even if we save the other 30 mins, our day might end up not so good. Once we get are done with things, we tend to pick more things and this more things most of the time the brain prefers to pick the easiest tasks which requires less mental efforts. It all depends on how you have configured your brain for your less effort tasks. If your less effort task is reels or TV, then the time you saved might become a reason to affect your productivity the next day. May be sleeping a bit more might help in actually reducing the time you have in the day, which would result in you having just enough time to finish of the important ones and not having time for the least effort ones. However, having said that sleeping more and not doing the important ones and picking up the least effort ones would make up a disaster combination for sure. Try only the technique if you really are confident enough on your least effort default options of your brain.

A planning insight from driving today

I drive to gym every day in the morning. On about to reach the gym, there I need to get into a service road. To get in there, there are two exists, one which I have clear visibility on all vehicles if I look check in all my mirrors and the other, you have some blind spots. I like to drive safely, I try my best to anticipate most of the potential moves of other drivers which makes my life difficult if i'm taking the second way with less visibility. When I changed to my first way, things are easy. You know from where which vehicle is coming, it is easy to make your move. Well, I find some similarity of this observation when I'm doing my weekly planning. If you can fix couple of things and where your view is better, things get easier. For example, in the case of planning if you know you only get 6-7 slots of 40 mins dedicated time in a day, its easier to put things in that boxes. Assume in a week, you have 36 slots, now its all about filling those. The other thing you know about this is, the slot is of 40 mins. You really need to be honest with you on what you can do in your 40 mins, then its easy to plan for the week. How this helps, once you know your baseline, then only you can possibly improve over what you can do in 40 mins. May be with time, you realise, you can get done work of 2 slots in a single slot. Or sometimes, the work in 1 slot may be getting expanded to 2 or 3 slots. You will have the opportunity to figure out what went wrong so that you can do no blame fix there and ensure your time is protected. The core idea here is, we all have 24 hours in a day. And each time is gone and is not going to come back. You need to be very deliberate on what you want to do with your time, else it would be just be gone before you even realise it was there.

Breaking down times the school way

Today I experimented the school way timing. Till 12th, my school had usually 7 or 8 classes a day of different topics. Usually classes starts at 10 am and ended up by 5am. Each of the classes would be of 40 mins. Well, today I breaked by deep working time into slots of 40 mins. It was good. And after each slot, I record what I had done in that slot. The one advantage which I see right now is, it is easy to figure out what I was doing in each of the time slot and I can clearly identify where I had spent time. Which slot didn't go as planned due to whatever reasons and some slots may have gone beyond what I had planned. I had tried different break points like 20 mins, 1 hour, 2 hour, etc. However, 40 mins just feels like an optimum to me. After 5 intense sessions of deep work, I really felt tired and had to take a break. And had got done much more in half a day than I get done in full day other wise. Well, its just an experiment. And its been just a day, won't be a good idea just praising it at the moment.

Working backwards

I believe everyone knows this or atleast would have heard this thing somewhere. Usually it is applied in project planning. But, it can be used in our day to day activities. A simple example, can be you want to reach your office at 9 am. By when, you should leave. If you want to leave by then, what time you should finish your morning routines. If that's the case, what time you need to wake up. If you really have to wake up at that time, what is the max time that you can awake up. If you want to sleep by that time, by what time you really need to be in bed. If you want to be there in bed, what time you need to have your dinner. What time you need to come back from office. By thinking backwards, you will have a great sense of what you do in your time. And its easy to anticipate when things can go wrong, and do the remedial measures.

Protecting credibility over anything

Most often we fall victim to the short term benefits by taking a hit on credibility whether it may be taking advantage of someone or some situation. Most of the time, it would go unnoticed. But when you get caught, you may lose your credibility. Protecting it may not come as a default option to our brain or mind as it always go for the easy way around things. It always finds ways to go around things without facing the hard reality. However, friends protecting credibility over anything will have stringent long term benefits.

Nike knows it already, Just do it

The best thing to do is to actually do the thing as Nike says it well Just do it. It's a mindset shift which we all needed, time box your thinking what you want to do whether it be 5 mins or 10 mins and then start acting on it and it becomes easier as you gain momentum. Well, as you all know for new readers if they don't already, I cook my own food. Today, I was a bit lazy to prepare my food and was giving all reasons to me why I should order than cook my own. What I instead did was just get started with it, after five minutes I have totally forgotten that I had even thought of ordering food.

There is nothing like bad day or bad mood, its all in your mind

Its easy to just stay in a corner or lie down in bed thinking of things and feel bad about yourself. However, I really feel whatever we experience is entirely a construct of our mind. If you deliberately design your default choice of things, with time our brain is going to pick up on that. Initially, it won't be easy but with time and effort, it can be done. Even when your day is going very bad and you really cannot do anything about it to change the situation, what you could actually do is to change how you want to feel about it. If you could tune your brain not to go to distress, rather focus on possibilites that exist in crisis. It just picks up on that. These all are just my observations on my experience on how I feel things.

Oh Boy, I never saw my life this way.

What happened is, there is a guy from Nepal who sells Momos near my Apartment. He would be there everyday in the evening. I very much like his momos and Im a recurring customer of his. In a conversation with him, I asked him do take offs. He said, he don't until he fall sick. And he don't told me that he sleeps 6 hours and rest of the day, he is working and he does this every day. Obvious question of mine would be wouldn't you ever get bored of this. He said, no he don't and he actually enjoy doing the way it is. This is totally true in one sense, for me its software engineering. I like doing that, when I code quality programs, I really feel inspired which makes me more happy and then I radiate the same to the people around me and they radiate it back which further increases the overall vibe which further inspires to do more things. It's just the widom of enjoying what you do for work is what made my day. Well, thanks to the Momos guy for pointing my thoughts in that direction.

Grouping fun things together

Today I just experimented with batching things. You batch similar thing, and do all together. In the sense, when its work, do only work. When its fun time, don't think about work and just do fun. The separation and boundary in things gave lots of peace of mind, you exactly know what to happen and when. You even have lots of time, since when you collect all those little times, it becomes a bigger one. For example, everytime, we check mail or see a text message, its going to take at least 5 mins. And from morning to evening, if you do this unknowingly, a lot of our time just goest like that without even we noticing. If we batch and even give an hour for these activities you want to do, you would still have more time. Since, you end up getting additional free time from context switch time toll you saved. I did it today and it was fantastic, but only time would tell whether its doable for me for a long term.

Hemingway bridge to keep up the momentum

Have you folks heard of hemingway bridge. Well, its just a trick to keep the work going. When you are moving from an unifinished work or taking a break from a work or ending your day, just right clearly what the next of the work is. The idea is you don't stop until you know what to do next. This helps keep up the momentum. Whenever, you are going on a break and it takes couple of minutes to bring all our thoughts back where we where. By doing this way, you know what to start with and its easy to get a quick start. I'm doing this with my day job whether it be writing code, researching or planning. When i'm taking break, I write there clearly, what are the next two steps I should be doing. Hope you folks would give it a try.

Speaking kindly in our daily interactions

One of my core values is thinking long term. Whether it be learning new things or talking or interacting with people. But more often we really don't realise the long term impact of your interaction. Especially when we are in power. Whether it be talking to some one who deliver your food especially when you are hungry and he got stuck in traffic, you are explaining some concepts to your juniors, you are in some committee and some one reach out to you for something. There are lots and lots of situations, most of the time we think short term and we speak to people which would give us an ego boost. This is quite common when you are having a bad day. Doing this is easy and it doesn't take much time. But, what's difficult is being kind to other even when you are not in a situation. It could be appreciating the food guy, that he delivered the food even after going through all his struggles, appreciate the junior that you asked the question and help him to reach greater heights, make a wonderful experience to the person who reach out to you rather than showing whole frustration. We all can make a wonder life around if we just focus on how we are behaving with people, we all need to think of making long term relations with people. Life is short and there is nothing more joyful than making other fellow people's life easier.

Procrastination is nothing but just a coping mechanism

I'm not ashamed to say that I was a procrastinator and I'm proud to say that I have found the work around in my case. Well, I used to put off my work or other things which needs to be done for silly things like watching TV or doing some chores or reading boring book. I really have been thinking it is due to my laziness of doing things, but I was wrong. It's not laziness. It's just a coping mechanism my brain has learned. When hard things come in my brain's way. It just goes to the easiest way of not facing it. My brain doesn't like to face failures in the process. And it just avoid it so that It can proudly say that I'm not a failure at that task. Well over time, my brain has accustomed to the habit and it came to a point that it even doesn't need to think to put off things. The way which I fixed this was to understand the real reason why you are putting off. Its definitely not laziness. It can either be the ambiguity or not having clear knowledge of something or could be something else depending on the situation. Once you understand the reason, I just tell myself its okay to fail at what you do, what matters is you made progress. Failure is a progress, at least you learned a way not to do. When you make doing things this way, with time, the thing which your brain has learned would be replaced with the new learnings. Your brain will no longer be afraid of the failures as you really don't care about the failure much or the other things which brain was earlier afraid of. It has worked out pretty well for me. Hope it works for you folks as well.

Creating a habit of starting immediately

I have heard this concept and experienced it many times whether it be at job and college. But recently i have forgotten this one somehow. The idea is so simple that, whatever you do especially work or project related things, you start as soon as possible and do it in small chunks. So that you will have more will power to get things done. You will easily push yourself. This is not usually what we do, we will be like I will start after 5 mins or an hour or may be tomorrow or may be next week and it goes on and on. As we procrastinate, it becomes more and more difficult to start. The easy way is very intuitive and is just to start early. Don't go for starting in the end and hustle. It may be over glamorised in college, people burning midnight oils to finish assignments and study for exam. But, it is important to realise there is an alternative way which is stress free and would have greater quality output.

Learning complex concepts made easy

I struggle on understanding difficult things especially in engineering. I will have to spend much time and even after that I will forget after a week or two. I happen to see this article yesterday about learning things. The concept is not very complicated, it is simple as you explain what you understood from that concept to a friend or a younger sibling. And you need to do it loudly so that you can hear yourself. You should break down the concepts using examples such a way that the other person understands this. I tried this today, with teaching Dijkstra's algorithm to my younger brother, voila its never been very clear to me. But, as of now, Im taking much taking simplifying and explaining things. As with any new ideas, it would take some time for you to master it and I believe with time and more deliberate practice, explaining things would become more easier. Hope you also got a new idea to try on.

Accepting ourselves just as we are

This is something which I heard in a podcast recently. It was a discussion on a book named Wabi Sabi by Beth Kempton. I just heard this line accepting ourselves just as we are. It was just a powerful one. Every day, we strive to be some one else and in the pursuit we end up being not satisfied with where you are and what you are doing. But, shifting that mindset where you are just okay with what you are gives a lot of peace of mind and brings out the best in you. That's how I felt, when I started approaching things in that way.

A happy stomach for a happy mind

I used to take my eating habits very lightly. It was just to cure my apetite. I really didn't use to bother about the nutrients or the taste much. If its decent to eat, I'm good. But today I felt that a good food can have a positive impact on your mood. I was a bit tired in the evening today and my first thought was to order something from outside. But for some reasons, I didn't do that and instead I turned on my acoustic playlist on my iPad and started cooking. I prepared rice and sambhar. And had a wonderful meal. Post meal, I felt more refreshed and energetic and was in a great mood. I even didn't know that I was tired couple of minutes before. I remember days, where I had ordered in the same situation and ended up being more tired. No offence on ordering food, I had recently started preparing food myself and was depended on ordered food. This is something which I really want to keep doing, even though I'm tired or not in good mood, I would try my best to keep my stomach happy. Please do try this hack as well especially on your bad days.

How John Snow from GOT influenced me

I recently finished the epic show Game Of Thrones. I know its been some years since its been released. The interesting thing which I noticed is the traits and values of each characters. Most of them choose to do whatever is advantageous for them in the short term rather than the impact on the long term. Many people broke trust, many betrayed on another. However, one of the person which really influenced me is John Snow. He may not be the smartest or clever in the room. But, he always try to be honest and do the right thing. He keeps his promises and is not ready to commit to any promises which he think he might not be able to keep it. He was trustworthy. Everyone believed him and trusted him, they made him their King even though he never wanted it. When I saw, Snow's character, it is what I really wanted to be. You don't have to be crooked or too clever. Just do the right thing, be truthful, honest and kind. Don't go for short term benefits, always look beyond what's tomorrow. This may not be idea in most of the time, but practicing this gives me peace of mind and I find very easy to deal with people who have this kind of attitude. As Gandhi, once said Be the change that you want to see. I want to try my best to keep this word.

Sleep vs motivation and energy

This is just an observation of me. On nights when I sleep for 4.5 hours, the next day I would be less energetic and would be less enthusiastic to do things. On the other hand, if the time is 6-7 hours, things are fantastic. And the waking time also some times plays on how the day unravels, if I wake up some time between 4.30 - 6 am, things go awesome. If it is outside 7am, the day would be just an average. If it is after 9am, the day is gone most of the time, would be able to get only minimum things done. To put things to perspective, it all starts with just scrolling in bed for 5 mins, which may take away your sleepiness and you may end up sleeping sometime after 12am, which would result in getting less sleep if you want to wake earlier. If you want to get enough sleep, then you may wake a bit late, things won't be extra ordinary. Of course, the entire scenario is only based on my energy levels and the data which I recorded for a month. Try out for yourself and figure out what works best for your.

Organising notes daily

We consume lot of information daily, whether it be through reading, listening to something or watching videos. Most of the time, we don't even remember the next day the information which we consumed today. This is the case even with taking notes in meetings or any discussion. We will have the notes only for that meeting and we don't even know whether there is some important information available in those. To solve these things, I'm trying a new approach called organising my notes daily. Doing it daily is crucial since we collect in immense amounts, it pile up pretty quickly and things will become impossible to organise. My method is as follows, I will collect my ideas or notes in any note taking application, I usually use Apple notes for writing and MindNode for making book notes. At the end of the day, when I do my close down ritual, I will organise all the notes collected for the day in my obsidian with proper tags and links. The ideas looks pretty dope to me. Will update here how it went after two weeks.

The second brain

Recently while listening to a podcast, I happen to hear about the second brain. It was a discussion on the book 'Building a second brain' by Tiago Forte. The core idea is to digitize your notes and be organized in such a way that it is easily accessible whenever you are in need. The idea looked quite interesting to me. I have learned tremendous things, but learning new things often makes room for forgetting older things. When you want to get those information back, you go to an article or a video again to understand what it is. Sometimes, that information may lost be forever. The idea of keeping your mind free and by organising things at a good place fascinated me. And I went to figure out which tool can I use for that. Well, there are lots of tools and to reap the benefits of compounding, you will have to stick with it for longer periods. Good options included, Apple Notes, OneNote, GoodNotes, Evernotes, etc. But, I thought of giving something else a go, the Obsidian. I have heard about Obsidian from Book Worm podcast where the spokesperson Mike always tell something or other thing about Obsidian. I did my setup for Obsidian today and it looks promising. Looking forward to organising and recalling things as and when I need it.

The art of visualizing things

I read for fun on Sundays. And usually I pick books on philosphy. For a change, I took fiction today. I started reading the novel 'The Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy'. What I observed is, its very different from reading non fiction books. When reading non-fiction you can just skim through the lines, looking for core concepts and finish the book quickly. But, when I read this, it took almost an hour to read 10 pages. I just didn't want to get it done, I tried imagining the description of scenes in the book and tried seeing all the dialogues and characters in my mind. I remember clearly what I have read, but it did took time. Then I wondered why is it taking too much time. Then I asked myself, when was the last time you tried to visualize things. In these days, we all of us are prone to seeing videos and shorts and less of reading and imagining. That could be the reason for which I took more time in the reading pursuit of this fiction book. I'm planning to continue on this book and observe whether the speed improves in the coming weeks. If you ask me, how imagining or visualizing can help you get ahead, I would say, it would become easier for you to analyse different scenarios of things happening even before it happens and be prepared. If it's a meeting, a presentation, an interview, you are designing something, you are solving a problem, etc. It applies everywhere and the core thing here is to maintain the chain of thoughts along with clear visualization. If you can do it quickly, that would be perfect then. I believe reading fiction could be a good of training our mind to imagine things.

Isn't your present day a boon for your upcoming tomorrow

Everyone would have some bad days, it could be due to anything. Each of us will have different reasons for having a bad day. What makes the bad days so wonderful is how it humbles you to appreciate your coming good days. I happen to observe when we always have the good days and good things happening, we often take it for granted the things happening for us. Once you have set backs, it makes you more humble and humane, I strongly believe it is what makes you stronger. The more bad days you have, and the more you reflect and learn, the more stronger you become.

Anchoring effect in daily life

I was going through the book Thinking Fast and Slow, and I read this chaptor on anchoring effect. This explains a lot of things related to the estimate which we give. For example, whether it be in negotiatoin, whether it be comparing two lines, whether it be estimating your work, whether be the idea of doing more in less time, etc. All of this can be attributed to anchoring effect. I will just take the example of work, if you estimate the time for a work needs to be done with your full effort as 1 hour and you gave yourself 20 mins to do that, most of the time you would have done the work or majority of the work within 30 mins. That anchoring effect will help you get more things done in short time. You can read more about the anchoring effect either in the book or anywhere else. Its written very well in the book with necessary explanations and stories, I enjoyed reading them. Would suggest to read it as well.

How can we have a longer chain of thoughts

This is one of the thing which I'm trying to figure out recently. How can you have a longer chain of thoughts without losing any context in between. Only way, I can think of is to meditate. Something like a zen meditation. I'm trying out this from tomorrow, will start smal may be 10 mins in the morning. At may be will also do an exercise of measuring how long you can continue creating a chain of thoughts. I strongly believe, if you train your brain to have more chain of thoughts, it would eventually develop and you would have that capacity. Just an analogus to how we gain muscles while training in gym. I will log my experiments and will update next week, how things went.

Figuring out how to get 10x out of the time

I have heard this notion of doing 10 times within time you have. The idea if we think about it is quite good. If it is like that, work done in each month would be a year worth of work. This is is being heard from popular entrepreneurs and executives like Elon Musk, Andrew Groove, etc. How do I do it with all the things going with my life. That's what i'm try to figure out this week.

Its not the solution, its the process which is more important.

I wonder is it the solution we should be learning or the process of solving the problem. If you know the solution to solve an issue, you would need the same issue to come up. Intead if you know the approaches to concur the issue, things just add upon and comes handy every situation. It could be you designing something, rather going through different ways to reach the solution, there would be a certain order of thinking, things become easier to solve.

Ten things I'm doing different these days.

I feel like I have more time these days. The interesting point here is lot of work is getting done effectively with less time. I was looking at the weekly milestone for this week and last week. Last week, I had done 58 commits and this week its 68 commits. Initially, I was also doubting am I adding silly commits to go the number high. To verify this, I also checked the number of features finished, it was also gone high. So that was not the case. I feel this could have been due to these things which I have been doing recently. I have committed to mastering software concepts every day in the morning for 2 hours, since I practice and revise daily the concepts, during implementations its very easy to recall and get things done quickly. Second, I have been reading a lot about writting clean code, this has helped me in reducing more time to understand code easier, I'm more sort of the believer of this thing, whoever reads your code should understand the logic just by reading the code. Just like how you understand a well written book. Basically, if you follow all the best practices, this would make up for it eventually. Third thing, working in small sprints. I work for 40 mins straight without any distractions. I will put my phone in silent mode, have restricted myself checking any messages. Core focussed work. After 40 mins, I will just go through all of these things to check if there is any important thing that I need to cater quickly. Usually every hour will have 40 mins core work and 20 mins to attend miscellaneous things and break. Fourth thing, I have setup my defaults. If something is not going right, you would have your default reaction. Whether it be sitting gloomy or binge watching something or whatever it is. I replaced it with a walk by listening to a podcast. Usually within 10 or 20 mins, I would be back working on the things which I actually needed to do. Fifth thing, I do go to gym every week day. This just makes you look good and trust me you have a lot of energy to move around. Sixth thing, weekend reading at Cubbon park. On every Sundays, I visit cubbon park with a fun read. This is reading is just for having fun. I have been reading Kahlil Gibran's fables for the time being. Seventh thing, Friday hackathon. On every friday, i don't do my work. Instead, I work on something new from scratch whether it be creating a new website, playing around with a new framework. Something new or create an app to cater some of my needs. It would be entirely different from my work week. Eighth thing, I have systems setup in place for most of the things whether it be getting your laundry done or trimming your beard or paying your bills. Its there in my calendar. My mind is free of it. It just take care of itself. Ninth thing, I do wake up early in the morning. I try to get up from bed in between 4.30am - 5.30 am. That's how I have more time. Tenth thing, this is also very important. Going to bed at 10 O clock. Whether I will get sleep or not, just go to bed and lay down there. I'm not sure which has contributed towards the productivity but I believe each of these items had a significant role to play in that.

A lesson from doing dishes

This is something I observed as part of my cooking routine. However, the idea was easily extensible to my coding work as well. When I started learning cooking, initially what I did was to do the dishes at the end of the cooking. My kitchen sink would be filled with utensil to wash. By just seeig the sight of the utensils would make me not do the dishes and not cook. Further, when you are washing the utensils for quite some time, it was feeling like a big burden to me. Cooking is something which I enjoy a lot doing and I started to loath the same for this reason. But it became enjoyable when I just tweaked a thing. I started washing the utensils as and when the need is over. While cooking, there are always waiting period in between which you literally cannot avoid, during that time I do the dishes in small chunks. By when the food is ready, there would be one or two containers left. Further before eating, I will transfer the food into serving plates and would clean the remaining utensils as well. After eating, then its only one or two plates and bowl left to clean which saves a lot of time and would change the way I saw cooking. This can be easily extensible to the coding part. When we write code (strictly not the production code i'm talking about, If you don't write well it won't go through the reviews obviously), we would have the eagerness to get the things working very quickly. We may not be caring about how organised our files are. Whethe we are following the right architecture or not. Things would be okay for the first time, but if you come back to the code base again after a break. You would spend more time understanding why you had written the code and figuring out the code base. Cleaning can be considered the refactoring here. If you refactor your code keeping in mind, it would make your life easier when you come back. You would save a lot of time in the long run. That's some bit for today. Cheers,

The worst thing to do is to open that video some on had send you

Ever happen to you that you just opened the messaging app. Some had send you a video or text in between the work. I feel like that's the worst thing to do. It would be a 1 min video. But would may take your 20 mins of time. Our attention span is quite limited. to come back into focus mode, it would take some time. Better be aware of this thing, next time when you get a ping in the middle of work. Of course if it is emergency, things are different. But still give a thought.

Protecting my morning time at any costs

Last two days of my work day didn't go quite well. It was just average and performed poorly in comparison to last week same day. However, I do reflect on the days when things didn't go quite well to figure out what went wrong and what could have done better. The one thing which I figured as the root cause was me getting distracted in the morning deep work time. I do my deep work from 9am to 1 pm. This is when I code for my work. It really needs focussed effort else it would consume my entire day. What happened last two days was, I got a bit careless and attended all calls which I was getting which was not urgent at all or looking at mails frequently which literally wasn't needed, checking for messages frequently which was also not needed which resulted in me reducing my output by at least half. What I did today was, I had made up my mind that I'm not taking any calls unless it is very very urgent and important, and I'm not going to look at mails unless it is my break time between my deep work. Similar thing with the messages as well. Voila, got a good output today. Very much excited how its gonna work out tomorrow. Can't conclude anything for now, its just an observation and an experiment as always.

Having multiple verticals of work a day

This is something what i observed today. I was trying to figure out a solution to difficult problem and even after trying for some time, I didn't quite get the solution which I really needed. I wasn't so happy about it and was kind of not in a good mood. However, in the evening once I hit the gym, I was able to do break two of my earlier records. I was able to do 3km run in 18 mins which took 23 mins last week and was able to do 3 min plank which was 2 min 40s last week. When I beat my own record there, I was just released from my earlier misery. It just kept me wonderying, what if you have two or three different verticals even if you fail at one in a day and you are able to make some gain in other, your overall feel good would be balanced. Well, that's all for now. See you tomorrow.

Changing car tyres the first time

There is always a first time to everything. Recently, it was my first tyre changing experience. It started with me going to my parking lot and happen to see my car's tyre punctured. The first reaction was to call a mechanic and get it done. One a second thought, why not try changing myself. Will get to know how to change tyre. Since we are in my apartments parking, there is nothing to worry about as well. That's when we took the jack out and raised the car by placing it at the correct ridge. It was a fantastic experience, initially not knowing where exactly to place the jack, looking for different youtube videos and figuring out how to do it and changed the tyre successfully. Everytime, we are thrown to different challenges, it is upto us how we react. If I just face them directly, even a hard challenge can be solved with enough time and effort. Well, the whole point was to try things which you find difficult, you would definitely have a great euphoric experience at the end. Happy Monday folks and wish you a fantastic week ahead.

Trying out systems than goals

I have been doing things differently. When I would have certain tasks at end, I would worry only about getting it done and won't worry about when it is getting done or how fast it can be done. This has its benefits since you know for sure your most priorty items will get done. However, what may happen as well is your least prior goals for the day may end up getting buried in the pile of these so called high priority tasks. Usually the high prior ones are short terms and wouldn't matter much. But the ones we skip would have unseen benefits over a long period of time. This is what i'm trying now, I have blocked my times for certain things and I ensure that the things from one time block do not creep into the other one. Initially, I had trouble getting things in order. Now it seems, my habits and working have optimised to the system. I'm able to get done all of the high prior goals within the time block i had planned. The one thing I also do is not picking additional work even though you finish up earlier thus ensuring the starting time of the other time block is not affected.

Not getting distracted in the sight of a short term event

Every week, you will have one thing or the other thing as the priority. Most of the time we feel like it is very urgent, and I really need to do this. If I don't do this, this may happen, that may happen, etc. During this short term optimisation, what we miss out would be the long term gain and plans which we made the other day. And days goes like that without even you realising your young days would be gone. This is what i'm trying to develop, I'm trying to build the resistance against the short term distractions. Whatever be it, just be on track on the long term things you planned and keep building on it daily.

Do it in your natural pace

This is one of the core reasons we end up stressed while doing any work. If we try doing things in the natural pace which works for you, the quality of your work will be high along with a good peace of mind. For example, if your morning routine takes 1.5 hour, just don't try to squeeze it in half an hour. We can do that for one or two times, but doing it every day makes it dreadful. You may ask if we do that, how can we get our things done. The major hack here is to collect all the time we are wasting. For example, you saw a notification in phone, you opened it and went to the app and spend 10 or more mins there. This is just a once a situation, there would be similar distraction like checking social media, checking messages, emails, etc frequently. Instead set a 5 min break every 1 hour of intense work. And just scout these things and only respond to those which needs at most attention. By this way, if we collect all the time wasters which we go unnoticed, we would have enough time to do things in our natural pace and we won't have to rush while doing things. This is what I have been doing these days and is working greatly so far. I'm able to find fun in all the work which I'm doing and is able to get more output done in less time.

Not the goal I'm interested but the person I become

Up until recently, I never really thought of this idea of what kind of person when you are trying to reach an objective. It was always about reaching the goal. Whether it be getting good grades, getting a job, getting a promotion, etc. It's always been about the goal. But, if we think about these things in a different way, things are way easier and life is simple. Instead of pointing towards the goal, try to learn the characters of the trait of the person you would become once you are there at the goal. Instead of having a goal or a path, have a north star and just work towards it every day. This insight has infact helped me becoming a better person and a better engineer. Hoping this would help some one out there. Until next time, cheers.

Not overflowing your blocked time with just one more thing

I used to do this quite often. I would have set time to finish certain things say for an hour or half an hour. If i get the some 10 minutes back. I will squeeze in some more items to that slot to get more things done. But what i have been observing recently is, this is doing more harm than good. Most of the times, the task which you take in the last moment will spill over to the next time block which you have planned and it goes for a domino fall. Instead, a better way which I think would be. Just sit and relax, take a break. Enjoy your free time. Start with your next task in the time slot you planned. By this way, you would always get the things you planned done well in time. Just don't do more things, do whatever you have planned in advance. You would feel a lot better. And there ain't no extra benefits of doing 1 or 2 extra things. Let me know what you folks think on this. Until then, cheers.

Taking a moment before you pick a task to do

Some times it will be like a mail you saw. Then, if you just at the clock it would have been 10 minutes. And you event won't recall why you had to open the mail. This used to happen a lot with me. Sometimes it would be email. Some times it would be you picking your phone for something and you may end up with something else. The problem comes when these small set of time compound and it gets accumulated in a day and we lose a huge junk of time without we even noticing and which does not at the end bring any good. This is what i'm trying to do. Even if i want to pick up some task while im doing a focused work. I would just add that task to my todoist app with a keyboard shortcut and I continue with my work. Post work during the break hours, I will go and check those. Even if i forget, i usually check my todoist in the evenings for the things I have collected. I can still do it at that time. By this way, you can actually get more things done in less time by reducing the distration. Next time, when you open a new tab and go to your mail or your favourite site, think twice or just add it to your task list. You can always check it later.

What you do on your bad days matter the most

Every now and then, we will have out high days and low days. For some days, due to whatever reasons, we may not be up to the par as we normally be. What I have observed is, what matters most is what I do on my bad days. How i behave with people, how kind im to people, am I finishing the work that I'm supposed to do and many more. Your core value as a person comes when you are at your lowest point. It is easy to do things when you are already high in motivation and energy, but when you are low. It would be a great test for your personality and traits. If you perform even average during your bad days, that's show some great courage and will power. This is what i remind me whenever i'm having a bad day, this is the best opportunity to know myself better.

An experiment of finding balance between work and life

We have been hearing the notion of working 70 hours a week or crazy schedule of working 12-15 hours a day. And this thing is quite common among the folks who are starting out the career. Even I was like that. However, its not quite sustainable. And no one tells you about this until you figure it out yourself. What if there is a different way of doing things and getting the same output as you get when you do the 70 hours of work or the 12-15 hours work. It's the notion of doing the deep work with breaks and blocking your time specific for specific needs. This is something which I have been following. I start out my day by learning for 3 hours, then 7 hours continuous work, followed by 2 hours of exercise, evening half an hour to readnewsletters and checking on my admin work for the day, half an hour to focus on long term goals and blogs. I'm usually done by 8.30pm with all of this. And I don't plan any thing beyond this. I work for 4 days. And on fridays, during work hours. I do friday hackathon, which is basically you do a mini project which is entirely different from your work but related to gaining your core technical insterests. Further on Saturdays and Sundays, learnings slots are constants. Instead of work time, its taking a book and going to park for an hour for reading, catching up with friends in the evening, finishing of other chores, etc. I just don't take the work to the weekends. This just helps with the mental peace and I literally am eager for Mondays to come. This is working out for me and may work out for you as well. Try to plan and finish of the work in the work hours. Don't get distracted during the work hours and let your work spill over to your break hours. At the end of the day, you need to get your work done and have regular breaks to recover. Hoping you may give this thing a shot. As I think this would more sustainable way of working with having a life outside work.

Being kind day by day

This is what im improving daily these days. Just being kind to everyone including myself. I'm just asking every day to me how can I be more kind in this situation even though you literally might be raging with anger inside. How can you be kind to yourself. How can you accept the notion of good days and bad days just like that instead of punishing yourself and others. How can I help others on a daily basis. How can just be a pleasant face to look at rather than being dull and gloomy. How can i just make the place a better place for others to coexist. Just a work in progress initiative. At that the end, you don't have to impress anyone else what matters is whether you are able to impress yourselves.

Stories to tell your grand kids

Days are getting by so fast even before i realise. I'm sure this would be the case with you all. We all do lot of things which needs to be done for short term. For example, you have an exam tomorrow, and you start studying today evening. There are lots of many such situations in life. We priortise our time for our short term goals and we end up not having time for long term goals. Do you even remember, what's score you got in the exam. You would just recall that you cleared it. These days, i have been focusing mostly on the long term goals. I don't priortise my short term time needs unless it is at most emergency. The one criteria for picking the long term task or a decision i take which have a major impact is, would this be an interesting story to tell my grand kids and laugh about it. If it's not, then that thing is not worth doing is what i feel. Even, what we think we are doing is very critical down the lane 10 years, it just don't matter. Please do let me know your what stories you would like to tell your grand kids and is there anything interesting going on there.

Things are way better than you actually think

Most of you would have said this I'm having a bad time or at least would have some one told you in their conversation its not a good day. I'm so sure about it. But there is really interesting take, if you think a step more to this. What if it was worse than what you are having right now. Now, thinks looks way better. Seems very intuitive but more often we just don't do this. I just started doing this. And I feel things are way better if i'm looking with this way of perception.

Getting education is an undermined previlege

I was at Cubbon park this yesterday reading Kahlil Gibran's fables. One of the fables had this store where one parents sees the dream of getting their son educated and wanting to be rescued from the job at the shack which they are doing at the moment. It kept me thinking, how grateful I'm to God and my parents that I didn't have to work until I finish my education. That is for how many years. 24-25 years. Parents without any expectations just give you all the things that you ask without any hesitation. And you don't even have to work. If my parents were not there, I would not be that free minded to get the education I needed and then reach the level I'm right now. Once you have a certain level of education, it opens a wide variety of world which you can explore. Education is the stepping stone to knowing and understanding the world. I really had not thought of it in this way. The kind of role my parents had in giving me the time. There are lots of kids out there who didn't had this previlege. They had to take care of themselves when you were studying without worrying about work. I'm just being grateful for what God had given me and the role my parents had played to raise me.

Having conversation with anyone is easy

Ever felt that there is not more of topics to converse with a person. I feel like we are taking it all wrong about having conversation with folks. An easy way to do that would be just keeping in my mind a natural curiosity about what that person really is and what's going on with his life. Instead of we just brining movie you watched or places you visited when you are having, try this one time to know the other person a bit better. Things are easy then.

What do you do when things go not as you planned

We all had that days, we would have planned for something and things go entirely the other way round. How do you react to these situations? Ever tried to observe that. There could be certain pattern you might be showing. I like to plan my next day in the night in my calendar. And as well review the calendar the night how did it go. Most of the time 60% of the things, would have gone what i had planned. Rest, there would be a great deviance. As an observer, what I really felt is we may not be able to plan entire things in a day with absolute accuracy. But, I could change the way i'm seeing this. I can become more open minded to accept the deviations if the core 1 or 2 things had gone as planned. In my case, having these shift in mindset had improved my overall mood of the day. Well, this is just my observation. Let me know, if you all had similar observations. Until next time, cheers.

What we do daily is what makes us

What you do on frequently a daily or weeky basis is what builts your character. I just didn't mean that it is just the skills we practice, it is about everything. It's about how you behave with others, how you feel about others, how you listen to some one, how you be there for someone, what you read if you read, what you listen to and what you see. We definitely could tweak our behaviour just by targetting these things. Just keep in mind that it will have an influence on you as a person long term. How i approach is what kind of person should i want to be after 20 years from now. That had given me answers for what i should do and practice on a daily basis even if it is in a minimal time of 10 minutes.

If tomorrow is your last day, will you regret doing what you are doing today

We humans have this habit of considering our time as infinite. We never think that our time is limited or don't even realise years have already gone. An average of max human life would be around 80-90 years. If you are in your 20s you are already extinguished your 25% of your time here. More often we get caught up in our day to day activities and we don't even realise when the time has passed. The main point what i want to convey is to think 2 min before you want to spend your day binging netflix or scrolling reels. Think about couple of things, your time with high energy and mental capacity is limited and do you really want to spend your time of that high energy time on these things. Or can you postpone these things to future time when you have less energy. Would it be better if you do things which will help you as an individual intellectually and physically especially when you are young and is having energy. What if we won't have regrets of how we spend our time in the day. All these are just pondering questions if we think about those, it may open some interesting ways of leading non regretful life. All these are just ideas, and it is totally okay in binging or watching reels. It's just what i have been thinking lately and it's something that i want to incorporate in my days. This is something which i try to do in daily things these days. Figuring out how I can do more meaning things in my time. Meaningful is a very complex term. It could vary from person to person. I have certain set of things which i consider as meaningful and would love to do more of that in my days.

Is your time important or money

Lately i have been thinking about my family as well as other near by folks in my home town living abroad staying away from family to make money. Especially, fathers who are young and have kids. They get only a month of time with their kids. And if we look at the kids time spent with their parents, majority of the time will be till they turn eighteen. Once they turn eighteen, they would be out of their home for studies and job. Then it would be like a month or two in a year with parents. But my point here, if the fathers risk their time with their kids for money, is it really worth it. Same is the question with the younger generations who leaves their parents when parents are young and is active. Shouldn't we be spending more time with the ones we care about. I'm not denying that money is not important, but i think quality time with your loved ones especially with your kids in their early time should be given at most priority.

What I learned in last 6 months

Leaving your comfort one is not easy. I recall Kahlil Gibran's lines, it really touched me. 'Verily the lust of comfort murders the passion of the soul, then walks grinning in the funeral'. How true is the Gibran here. We all live for earning and being busy everyday for the carrot that can sustain the life. And my question here is whether will you be happy looking at the life that you have lived. At every time in our life, we all have certain needs. Certain things come up, we priortise certain things. This is something what i did in my last 6 months after leaving Amazon to start freelancing. There was couple of things which i really cared. First among them is my physical health. We all need a sound body to do our best and be our best self. I learned cooking, fixed my diet and then started working out at a Gym. The physical health is taken care of. Then comes our spiritual and mental health. I started journalling my daily things, set aside some time daily for reading and reflection, started reading poetry and being regular on my prayers, and as well as took some more effort in improving my relations with friends and family. Further, as humans for us to feel really be happy and fulfilled. We should find happiness in doing our daily work. And you need to be the best of what you can do so that you will feel your self actualisation. It is an important factor in keeping yourself motivated. In my case, it is software engineering. I like developing apps, learning new things and just knowing what's going on in tech. I did this by setting aside my first hour of my day for learning two courses half an hour each. It just makes me happy and i get a good positive to start my work. Another things which i did was to start multiple websites for myself to keep track of how things were going. It helped me in tracking where i'm lagging. During this time, i happen to get time to experiment with different productivity ideas and tools. What i conclude is, to be your best when you are doing the work. You need to be focussed without distractions and you need to take break often during the work. ie, every hour takes 5 or 10 min break. We all would have worked 3 or 4 hours stretch without taking a break by feeling inspired doing something. But, it doesn't work long term. If this is the case for every day, similary you will have to take a weekly day off away from all the work. It just helps you keep inspired. And it is essential to do something other than bing watching youtube or netflix as it does not help in your recovery. A better option would be to go on hiking, go to a park read something or hanging out with your friends. If this is weekly thing, you also need to plan your quarterly mini vacation and yearly vacation. When we are working, especially for software engineers, we would always be thinking on how to solve a particular issue. It will always be behind your back. We often forget to schedule our breaks and it takes a toll on our productivity and performance. For being productive, sometimes it is good to take a break. To all the fellas out there, please take care of your physical health through exercise and diet, mental health through writing, talking more to your friends and relatives, reading good books and your career and professional growth by upskilling daily, and taking planned vacations to energise yourself to get more things done. Peace out.

What would be the right amount of work that needs to be allocated to our time?

The right amount of work should be the amount such that even if you push yourself hard, you should be able to complete 50% of what you had planned. Well the idea, is not mine. It is from Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel. Well, i tested it today and the results been good. I will update here if something is not right about this theory. It's applicable to everywhere, your work allocation, your learning time, etc. Hoping you all will give it a try. Let me know if it helped you. Wish you a great day. Cheers.

How often do we think about others?

Do we actually consider what other person would be going through. What are his current thoughts. What's happening with their life. Often not, we usually go on dumping our thoughts and worries on others. Yesterday, i did an exercise of imagining what my parents' thoughts would have been when i was born and in my early childhood. With how much care and love they did take care of me. Now after 12th, i hardly stay one or two month a year at home with parents. I only focussed on my studies, my career, what about them. What's going on in their life. They are always there for you. Would you always be there for them not just in terms of money. But in terms of emotional and being affectionate. With days moving so fast, these days whenever i see a new person, i try my best to understand what that person is going through and just be there for them.

A wonderful scene at Cubbon Park

This happened last Saturday, i had gone to Cubbon Park (Bangalore) in the evening for an immersive reading. I got a nice place under a tree infront of the central round about in the park. While i was reading, there were two dogs infront of me. Suddenly, a person came in a scooter and gave food to these dogs. Now the scene gets interesting, it's not just the dogs. A flock of crows came and sat around the dog like a people standing around a king to hear his words. The dog wasn't frightened a bit even by seeing this enormous number of crows, he was calm and just ate whatever he want. After that, he let the crows eat the rest. Now things gets further interesting. Another dog comes for food from somewhere else. However, by seeing the second dog. Our first dog is not at all happy and is very well concerned. He starts barking. The second dog got frightened, as the territory was of the first dog. But, he stood at a distance to the food. He didn't even try to go near the food. Now things take an interesting turn, a third dog comes and stands along with the second dog. The first dog increases his barking sound. But, at this time. Both the second and third are not at all concerned. They just went ahead ignoring the barking first dog, and had their food and went way. It was very pleasant to observe what was happening infront. Somehow by seeing the scene, i felt immensely happy. Nature does have the power to make you feel good.

Do we chain ourselves in our homes with material things

Well, I didn't mean the title in the literal sense. Jokes apart, i have been reading The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, there is a poem about the house. He says, we handcuffs ourselves to our home by buying expensive things. It sounded very right. Most of the people around me get mortgage for car and house beyone their income and struggle living a life. When one mortgage is done, people take another one for a higher car. It goes, till we die. And do we take any of these there. Nop, not really. And i also found this line very intriguing about we living in our comfort zone. 'Verily, the lust of comfort had murdered the passion of the soul and then walks grinning in the funeral'. Every day, we are running behind our comfort or we just stay within our homes just to be comfortable. And until we realise, this is my last day and could have lived a better life.

Distracting your mind when you are doing the things you actually don't want to do

This is something which i noticed very recently. Sometimes, we do scroll infite on instagram or youtube shorts or binge watch something else. We might not actually be wanting to do that. We just do that for its sake. This behaviour can be easily manipulated by using some tactics, you just distract your brain. Its easy for our brain to get distracted. Have you noticed that you take some seconds to recall what you were doing if you get a sudden text message or call in between. Similar is the case with this thing. Just do something else for some time. I would suggest. You can try smelling your fragrant, spraying a bit of air freshner, having some snack. Once you are done with that, you would have entirely forgotten about what you were doing before and will be easier to anchor on what you actually wanted to do.

Six things to keep in mind before going to meetings

I have been reading High Output Mangement from Andrew Groove. Today, i happen to be at the section on how to get max out of a meeting. He discusses six points which would help in getting what we need to be done. They are what decision needs to be made, when does it have to be made, who will decide, who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision, who will ratify or veto the decision and who will need to be informed of the decision. These ideas are not only applicable for bigger leadership meetings, i feel this is applicable in all of the workplace meeting. For example, for a software engineer, it could be a design review meeting or product align meeting, etc. Hope you got something out of this today. Wish you a good day.

Priortizing right kind of things to get inspired daily

I often think, I can enjoy my life once this thing is done or once you get that position, once you complete this course, etc, etc. I realize now, things could have been done better. But its not the case. We can do whenever we want. However, i was wrong about a thing. What makes you inspired is not what you do once in a year, instead what you do on a daily basis. We just need to ensure that we are contributing something daily to these four buckets. They are your intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical aspects. Most of the time, i ended up priortizing career and studies, i forgot to take care of other things. Life is easier when we priortize all of these instead of just going on all in on a single thing. Total disclaimer, the idea is not mine. I found this from Nigel Marsh from a ted talk i watched named how to make work life work. I had been doing this for sometime. And i feel awesome and inspired. Hope you all would give it a try.

A different way of looking at our long term goals

Earlier i have been thinking about the position, power and money etc as a testament for success. And i have been focusing on those aspects. But recently i have been thinking about things a bit differently. It's not about the things you achieve, what would matter would be the person you become while you achieve your goals. Say after 20 years, when you are in your late fourties, you may have money and roles, but if you have invested your time in becoming a better person, it's is going to be valuable and worth more. For example, if you are aiming to become a CEO, if you invest your time in teaching yourself what skills the CEO should have, how should be his emotional intelligence should, what should be their behaviour, etc. If you ask those questions, there are lot of things we could do. In the pursuit of achieving our short term goal, we often forget our own long term goals and we often fail to utilize the power of compounding. If we could set aside 20 mins daily for our long term goals, it would become very significant over years.