Cal Newport's Nuggets of Wisdom
Fixed Schedule Productivity
10-year Rule
Favorable Conditions Never Come
Work-Life Balance
Books Read This Year
The Body - Bill Bryson
T. Rex And The Crater of Doom - Walter Alvarez
Einstein’s Dreams - Alan Lightman
Krakatoa - Simon Winchester
Atlantic - Simon Winchester
The Runaway Jury - John Grisham
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
The Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
[Tuesday, Dec-10-2024]
I've been reasonably happy with how my days have been unfolding these last many weeks.
Things going well
I've been running 2-3 kilometers on the treadmill every 2-3 days, Also lifting some weights alongside.
For the sweet tooth that I am, I have drastically cut down on sugar intake since early November. Most of my sugar right now comes in its natural form through fruits. It's the season of Persimmons and I've been enjoying these delicious fruits almost daily.
I've been getting my daily dose of vitamin-D by standing shirtless in the sun every morning for 10-15 minutes, just meditating on my thoughts.
My protein intake has been satisfactory - meeting my daily target of 2-3 eggs. Like most Indian families, we're a carbs-obsessed vegetarian household and I need to make extra effort to get my proteins. I wish we cooked meat, but since we don't, I try to make up for it with daily eggs and weekly grilled chicken from restaurants.
My German has been improving consistently. I've been watching an episode of Peppa Wutz everyday for the last two months. As a grown-ass man, I'd be ashamed to admit that I watch Peppa, but the learning I get through these videos is tremendous. I tried Duolingo and gave up within two days. I couldn't stand the bullshit lessons that repeatedly teach you how to say "Coffee and Milk" in German. No, screw you Duolingo! I need to quickly learn how to say "your lessons suck and I'd like to kick you in the nuts" in German, and you instead waste my time and insult my intelligence teaching me how to say "Kaffe und Milch" a hundred times. Thanks, but I pass.
Things needing attention/improvement
Read more technical whitepapers. It is just so hard to make time for this. I've been working through the Azure Storage paper for a month now, and have barely gotten through half of it. The challenge is not in being able to focus and digest dense technical material, the challenge is in being able to find large blocks of uninterrupted time. This isn't Duolingo where you can sneak in 10 minutes of reading everyday while sitting on the toilet. These studies require 2 hours of contiguous time-blocks for you to give them the focused attention they demand.
To keep your mornings chores-free. Right now, I spend time every morning doing household chores like taking out the trash, restocking drinking water, giving my daughter her vitamin-D supplements, soaking my breakfast oats, etc. All these mindless but essential tasks take away precious morning time from high-value deep work. I need to push all these activities out to evening, after work hours.
I need to make time every night to read epic classics to my 5 year old son. I feel bad that I'm depriving him of the joy and pleasure of awe-inspiring tales of fantasy and adventure, while he continues to consume crappy YouTube videos on the iPad. I'll be making conscious efforts to start reading him bedtime stories of timeless classics such as Chronicles of Narnia, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Amar Chitra Katha, Jules Verne, etc.
Things to stop doing
Scrolling - in all forms. Any online activity that involves scrolling is to be avoided at best, very much including Reddit. Scrolling destroys your ability to train your focus on one single topic and turns you into a dopamine hungry beast. I have now put up a cheesy quote as a sticky on my laptop screen that says in bold letters - "SCROLLING IS THE ENEMY". Right beside that, there's another quote - "CONTEXT SWITCHING IS THE ENEMY".
Avoid consuming mass-manufactured content around "hot-takes" on contemporary topics. These are some of the sneakiest time-wasters disguised and packaged as educational infotainment. Very popular Youtube channels like Dhruv Rathi and Mohak Mangal do put out good material ocassionally, but you need to realize that this is all ultimately empty calorie junk food for your brain. Constantly remind yourself that true thinkers are not found on Reddit and social media. The truly smart people write books and run hour long podcasts, not engage in bite-sized tweets and low-effort Reddit comments.
[Sunday, Nov-10-2024]
There's a temple right in the vicinity of my apartment. If you know temples well enough, you'll know that they start blaring devotional songs early on in the morning. My neighborhood temple isn't any different. This was a nuisance to me early on when I moved in here, but now I'm used to it and it's basically white noise to me and I'm able to sleep through the noise.
Today I woke up early for some reason and was surprised by the silence I encountered. The temple for some reason wasn't playing its daily playlist. And boy, that morning silence was divine. Instead of the same old "Kausalya Supraja", I had the sound of birds chirping in the backdrop.
I drifted off to day dreaming, my inner voice talking to me - "if only I woke up to this silence everyday, if only I had some spacious, thinly populated parks nearby to go jogging with my son, if only I had some hiking/running trails within a half hour drive, if only there were some state/national parks within a pleasant 3-4 hour drive, or maybe a lake to go to where I could sit and read/write or watch the sunrise/sunset - man, that would be all I could ever want in my life to be happy." Lots of "if onlys".
As I continued building a fantasy land in my head, I was rudely jolted out of it when the "Kausalya Supraja" song suddenly began pouring out of the temple. Looks like they started their broadcast a little late today!
This sudden shift in my headspace from the ideal to the real was jarring. It also reminded me of the YouTuber "Small Brained American" whose India videos had gone viral a while back. I revisited his channel to see what he's been up to lately and what a surprise - his latest video had just the perfect content to satisfy/amplify my confirmation bias about how much living in India sucks. I went down a rabbit-hole of YouTube videos that show India in poor light. I binged Small-Brain's India content and then binged some more from the Bald guy.
I've got my fix now and am done bingeing "India sucks" videos. This is all ultimately a waste of my time anyway. Nothing will change in my lifetime, there's nothing I can do about anything, and there's nothing in all this content consumption that benefits me. So, thanks YouTube, please don't recommend more such videos of our great nation, I've seen enough.
Other than that, this Sunday was mostly about spending time with my kids. I'm guilty about my YouTube bingeing today, but on the other hand, I'm happy about how much time I spent with my daughter today. In one of my previous journal entries, I had written about exercising maturity. I'm pleased that I exercised this maturity today, even when the chores of childcare seemed endless.
I've been watching "King Richard", the movie around the sacrifices the father of the Williams sisters made, and groomed the two girls into Tennis superstars. Kinda got me thinking about what I am doing for my son's nurturing. My son is 5 years old and this is the right time to start igniting in him a fire toward some worthy pursuit. While I'm not a pushy, ambitious parent and I especially don't want to be the typical peer-pressure driven competitive desi parent, I still have a lot of lessons to pickup from this movie. Will get around to thinking more around this in the coming days.
It's 8 PM, and the weekend draws to an end. It's time to log off from the Internet, set my phone aside and tune down my sensory inputs as the day winds down. Gotta get my distracted son to finish his homework. More household chores lined up ahead of me. Time to get to all this...
Looking forward to the week ahead to pull back my focus only on what really matters and continue my mindful endeavours.
[Thursday, Oct-31-2024]
It's easy to get caught up in the chaos of everyday existence and to start taking life one day at a time, while losing track of the big picture and neglecting your bigger goals.
October wasn't that great of a month for me as I got caught up in putting out these smaller fires, and put my bigger goals on the backburner.
My baby daughter fell seriously ill and we ran the loop of doctor visits, extra care and medication.
At work, I had to focus on short-term issues while my larger-scope learning efforts took a backseat.
I've been dealing with unpleasant interactions with a real estate guy that owes me a large sum of money and I'm patiently working with him to get my money back.
The nanny working for us quit, so we were burdened with extra childcare and searching around for a new nanny.
A super crappy visit to Bannerghatta that ruined my spirits for the next few days, filling me with anger and disgust.
I don't identify with the Indian obsession with festivals, and grow tired of the noise and public nuisance of large public festivals. September/October were months of large, noisy festivals - Ganesh Chaturthi, Dasara and Deepavali. I wasn't in the best frame of mind these last many days/weeks as the noise pollution drowned out my internal voice, and the peace and silence that I crave.
With all these things disrupting my days, my personal development has gone kaput for October. It's been weeks since I've visited the gym. My German studies have taken a hit. I haven't spent time engaging in high-quality technical studies. Neither have I been eating healthy or sleeping well.
With November beginning, it is time to get back on track again. It's a great reminder that you need to keep making consistent progress toward your goals no matter what you've got going on, because "favorable conditions never come".
My major goals for November:
Studies (all weekdays) - 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM, and 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Gym (Tue/Thurs) - 12:45 PM to 1:30 PM
German - Wed/Thurs (5-6 PM), Fri (4-6:30 PM), Sat/Sun (1 hour or more, whenever there's opportunity)
Diet - 2 eggs, 2 bananas and 3 liters of water everyday.
Sleep - latest by 12 AM everyday
Topics to read this month - Project documentation in its entirety, Azure Storage paper, Jordan's Kafka videos.
I'm sure there'll be plenty of failures to stick to this demanding schedule along the way, but keeping on trying is what I can't stop - that's what keeps me excited about what's in store for the future.
[Tuesday, Oct-29-2024]
My Memorable Trip To Bannerghatta National Park
I took my son to Bangalore's supposedly "prime" attraction, which is the Bannerghatta National Park and here's how it turned out. I am partly to be blamed too for having picked the worst possible day to visit this park. But holy goodness, check out how bad it got!
I thought of posting this on the Bangalore subreddit, but they won't allow links to YouTube. And neither did I wish to open a pandora's box, with an army of butt-hurt Bangaloreans starting to troll me. So it goes here, in my safe space.
This city never fails to disappoint. So much so that, whenever my wife and I make plans to go someplace new, we say - "why don't we check this new place out and get disappointed?" That's how cynical we've gotten.
Yeah sure, you have great malls, restaurants, pubs and resorts. And we do enjoy these places no doubt. But goddamit, I need nature. I want my kids to be well-acquainted with nature and not just grow up to become consuming and polluting spoilt brats that only know how to blast money at malls and restaurants. And this city is a bad, bad place to be in if easily accessible nature is what you're looking for.
I'm still keeping an open mind and will try visiting Bannerghatta on a working weekday morning to see if things would be any different. But I'll go prepared to be disappointed.
And now, I anticipate with dread the arrival of Diwali - The Festival of Air, Water and Noise Pollution. We just got done with a very noisy Ganesh Chaturthi and before I get a chance to recover from the overwhelm, the king of noisy festivals is already here! My baby daughter is in for some scary times as she'll wake up startled to some chapri lighting up a bomb at 12 in the midnight.
Sigh! When will I escape this urban hell?
[Wednesday, Oct-2-2024]
Today was a good day. I wanna make sure that I'm grateful to get to share days like these with my darling kids and a loving family. Life is short and the time you get to spend with your kids is even shorter. Before you know it, they'll have flown away from this nest you're raising them in.
A day is a good day when I strike a balance across the 5 C's that define the framework for a well-rounded life. The 5 C's are - Craft/Constitution/Community/Contemplation/Celebration. And here's how I hit them all today.
Craft:
Today was a holiday on account of Gandhi Jayanti. I got to spend a couple hours this morning getting some coding work and technical studies done. Whether it's a working day or a holiday, my mood is always negatively impacted on days when I don't get some deep focus-time in. A session of deep-work always nourishes my soul, so I was glad I got that in today morning.
Constitution (aka Health) / Community (aka Family):
My son and I spent some real quality time at our apartment swimming pool today afternoon. It had been a while since we had gotten into the pool. It was a joy splashing around with my boy and I was glad to see his confidence about being in the water steadily growing. I got a little bit of cardio workout as well swimming a few small laps.
Contemplation:
My favorite 'C'! Our apartment on the 15th floor has great views of both sunrise and sunset. Every morning our living room is flooded with the golden rays of the early sun, and in the evening, the bedroom in our house turns orange with the rays of the setting sun. I love basking in those sunrays.
It's also a great time for contemplation and reflection - Today evening, I held my baby daughter and we both watched in silence the orange-red sun sink below the horizon, while I reflected upon life and pondered over how I want to shape it for our future. Watching the sun leave us for the day and head west is also of symbolic importance to me. It inspires me to chase the sun and go west in pursuit of my ideal lifestyle in a new place.
The sunsets lately have been gorgeous. I've set a daily reminder on my phone everyday at 6 PM to get up and get away from my damn laptop and go enjoy some sunset and silence.
Celebration:
My daughter turns 11 months old today - just one month short of turning one. I'm speechless about how quickly our first year with our daughter has gone by. Today is the last monthly birthday that we'll be celebrating of hers, which makes my wife and I kinda emotional that there won't be anymore monthly birthdays, only yearly.
The grandparents are here, and I now close the day by celebrating my daughter's 11th month birthday.
Life is good and here's a reminder to deeply appreciate it with gratitude while the good times last, because these moments are fickle and fleeting.
[Saturday, Sep-21-2024] (Latest checkpoint)
Every once in a while, it's good to consolidate all your past plans and resolutions into one central place so you don't lose track of things. For the developers out there, this is what they call checkpointing/snapshotting in the world of databases.
So here's my checkpointing exercise on this pleasant Saturday morning.
Broader Framework
Strive to maintain Monk Mode - Do few things, do them well, and obsess over quality. Your only two major areas of focus are your workplace project, and learning German.
Don't be distracted by all the noise at your workplace to upskill on AI. Do not be a technical-trends chasing sellout. I'd rather be an extremely competent generic backend developer than a very average AI bootcamper. Either be all-in or all-out, and don't indulge in half-assed dabbling. I don't see myself spending countless hours of study and effort required to become even decently competent with AI technologies. So for now, choose to stay all-out.
Keystone Daily Habits
Start your workday by 9:15 AM everyday. Take a quick glance at your work-messenger to see if anybody's waiting on your response. Then get on with a session of deep-learning. Pick something relevant that you aren't familiar with and study/practice until 10:30 AM. Your first email check happens at 10:30 AM.
You have the bad habit of making quick distraction-checks in the morning - a loop through Reddit/Gmail/Whatsapp/StockMarket (RGWS). This has to completely stop if you wish to make scholarly progress in your areas of interest. Get your RGWS fix only at 6:30 PM. Be done with them all in 15-20 minutes and then drop off from the online world again - except for mindful consumption of Netflix and YouTube.
40 minute workout session every Mon-Wed-Fri afternoon between 1 PM to 1:40 PM. 20 minutes of running and 20 minutes of weights.
A ritualistic work shutdown at 6:30 PM after which you're a fully present, fully mindful family man that spends quality time with his darling kids without a phone in his hand. The phone stays in the proverbial foyer.
Be done with dinner no later than 10 PM. Hit the bed by 12. 10-15 minutes of reading your ebook and then submit to the void of darkness.
Saturday is partially open-ended. Schedule some priority work for Saturday. Sunday should be completely unscheduled and open-ended.
As always, avoid reading the news. Absolutely nothing good comes out of it.
German
It's time to step-up my German learning efforts and build more structure around it, else my progress won't be note-worthy. I need to treat this like a serious part-time job and have to clock upto 15 hours of study/practice every week. For that to happen, I need to schedule learning German during working hours, because I really don't have the luxury of time to do this outside work hours. And I don't feel that is morally unethical because I'm already saving a ton of time not having to commute, or waste away at work making small-talk with coworkers, or being distracted with Internet surfing and social media.
So here's my German studies schedule. (Target to meet 15 hours/week)
Tuesday 4:30 - 6:30 PM (+1 hour later if there's opportunity)
Friday 4 - 6:30 PM (+1 hour later if opportunity)
Saturday 3 hours (spread out over the day whenever there's opportunity)
Sunday 3 hours (opportunistic)
I'll throw in a tracker table here in a separate comment to keep a count of the number of hours I'm clocking with German. And that YouTube channel to document my German progress is definitely happening sometime!
[Sunday, Sep-15-2024]
25 minutes of my time very well-spent drinking up on the stream of wisdom that my hero Cal Newport had to impart this week. The 10-year rule was once again a gentle reminder that worthwhile attainments in life take time and sustained effort. While I'm no stranger to all this advice, it's easy to lose sight of bigger goals such as these as you get caught up in the mundane day-to-day busyness of life. A weekly visit to Cal's channel always helps me realign my focus and priorities. And as a bonus, I never get tired of his relentless tirade against excessive smartphone usage and instant gratification seeking behavior.
I need to sit with pen and paper sometime and try to dream up how I would apply the 10-year rule to my own life. Someday soon hopefully..
Sunday! It's the day of getting chores done. I finally got around to wrapping up all my pending income tax work for this assessment year. It was exhausting carrying the mental baggage of this pending work all these days/months. I finally don't have to think about taxes until next year.
I however have a big list of other pending todos. Here's some: (✅ for the things I could finish)
File revised tax return with all the corrections made. ✅
Prepare a box of miscellaneous items that you don't need to be shipped as donation to St. Broseph. With this box shipped out, it'll be my third box of donation sent to Broseph. It feels great to get rid of the clutter of all the unwanted stuff in the house while also sending them away to a place where they'll be put to better use. ✅
Invest all that money just lying around in my savings account. Throw it all into Nifty-50 index funds.
Make a blog post detailing all your tax learnings, scrub all your personal details from your filed IT-return and share it with the world on the blog.
Respond to blog comments. ✅
Create a new YouTube channel and upload tax and traffic videos.
I'll try to get through as many of these as I can today.
[Saturday, Sep-14-2024]
I took my 5 year old son to finally watch the movie "Despicable Me 4". This was a long time coming, with either the movie screening time not working out with my son's sleep schedule, or because of conflicts with other plans. Glad we could finally make it happen!
And boy, does 4DX movie experience suck! My son seemed to greatly enjoy the moving, poking and prodding seats and the blinding flashes of overhead lights, but I hated the sensory overload so much that I stopped caring about the movie plot and just waited for it to finish. This was also my son's first movie-in-a-theatre experience and another lesson I learned along the way is that 5 year old kids probably don't yet have the attention span to sit through a 90 minute movie. My son was excited by the novelty of the experience at the beginning of the movie, and he was invested in all the action toward the end, but he was bored and distracted during the middle and was asking that we leave. We somehow stuck it out through the entire movie.
I'll hold off on taking him to the theatres for a while, and will definitely not be setting foot into a 4DX theatre ever again. The sensory overload is a total buzzkill.
[Thursday, Sep-12-2024]
Wow, when you keep a close watch on how you spend your days, you begin to realize how quickly time flies. The days just shoot past you. You write about your plans for the day, and before you know it, the day is over and it's time to make plans for the next day again.
I've been fairly happy with how I'm doing this September. There's plenty of room for improvement when it comes to discipline, time management and getting 8 or more hours of sleep. But I continue to make steady progress in these areas.
My news glances haven't happened in the last many days. I don't do Whatsapp during work hours. I infact go so far as to uninstall Whatsapp from my phone during the day and reinstall it back again in the evening. My phone wifi and data remains turned off during the day. There's no other social media I use (No Instagram, Twitter, FB, Discord, LinkedIn, etc, etc). All my entertainment after work purely comes from Netflix, books and blogs. My time on Reddit is negligible too.
I spent a good couple hours this last Sunday writing a post on how to be a successful developer (link). It was kinda sad to see that the post did not get any traction. I guess people these days just want everything in easily digestible bullet points. Very few have the patience to read long-form articles. Well, the good thing is that we knowledge-workers with longer attention-spans have a huge advantage in the field of IT because we have the capability to stick through reading and digesting hard ideas, while the distracted masses remain lost in their world of reels and shorts.
My German studies have been going along at a decent clip, but I need to build more structure and rigidity around this endeavour. I'll probably spend some time this week to build a rigid German learning routine. I've also been thinking of starting a YouTube channel where I document my progress in the German language. I'm currently reading through kids-stories in German at this link. Kids stories are better suited for learners because the language and vocabulary is much simpler.
The one major area of improvement I need to work on is to start my deep-focus work windows earlier in the day. Right now, I don't get down to deep-work until 10:30, or 11 AM. Until then it's about catching up with email, chat and other shallow low-effort office work until 10:30. Sometimes, I also spend 15-20 minutes making a Reddit journal update (like now!). All this has to stop and needs to be pushed out to later in the day. So the promise I'm making myself as I write this is to get into the zone of deep-focus by 9:30 AM and to stay in that state until 10:45 AM.
[Saturday, Sep-7-2024]
During the Friday morning standup, I confidently promised to deliver my work-item by end of day, and then procrastinated throughout the day telling myself I'd quickly knock it off later in the evening. I then ran into a few unexpected hurdles to completing my work and before I knew it, I was bent over my laptop at 1 AM in the morning, my weary face drenched in the disgusting late-night glow of the screen.
I don't feel proud to say this late-night procrastination-attributable work session isn't the first time it has happened. And this can't go on. I'm 39 years old, a husband and father of two young, beautiful kids that need my time. More importantly, I am NOT a work drone. I don't want work to consume my life like this - that would mean failure. To avoid this from repeating, I need to establish a very clear, quantifiable separation between work and life, where work absolutely doesn't trespass into the zone of life.
This clearly defined separation between work and life has served this professor well. It should serve me even better since I'm doing optional work anyway and wish to build a slow-paced European way-of-life as I enter my 40s.
What would this require? It requires that I pour all my energy, will and determination into ensuring that I am at my productive best during my work hours. Taking a cue from Cal Newport's fixed schedule productivity, every minute of my workday needs to be scheduled and I do my best to adhere to the schedule, while being flexible and smart about handling the inevitable disruptions in that schedule.
And when the clock hits 6 PM, it's time to SLAM-DUNK!!! To slam my laptop shut and cross that line where work ends and life begins.
This is one of my goals to practice this coming week. Come Monday, I'll turn into a formidable force-of-nature during my work hours between 9:30 AM - 6 PM and at 6 PM, my work laptop gets turned off and stowed away until 9:30 AM the next morning. I'll report back on how this goes.
[Saturday, Sep-5-2024]
There's a reason why I try to avoid reading the news (paper, or online) in the morning. It's because it is pretty much guaranteed that there'll be something in there that'll make me incredibly sad while also making me feel angry and helpless that I can't do anything about it.
This morning I took one quick glance at Deccan Herald and there it was - headlines that screamed "India is world's biggest plastic pollutor". And then yesterday's headlines - "Road deaths due to wrong side driving and mobile usage on the rise". You won't be disappointed if you're looking to get your daily dose of shithole news. There's something for you every single day.
It's crushing to read on a daily basis how our country that's bursting with out-of-control population, filled with ignorant, undeserving masses and dysfunctional governing bodies is rapidly turning into one of the biggest shitholes on the planet. There's really no way you can start your day on a high-note when this is the kind of information entering your brain early in the morning.
I'm now old enough to have lost all my naive innocence about things ever changing in my lifetime. While I do my best about keeping my plastic and eco-footprint to the absolute unavoidable minimum, there isn't really much else I can do as a powerless, ordinary individual.
I have two choices - I can either choose to continue to read the news, stay informed about how my country is reaching new lows as the years pass, and one day find myself having become that mediocre old man sitting on a park bench reading the day's newspaper.
The other choice is to accept the fact that I can't make a difference other than on an individual level, and to very deliberately ignore all the depressing events around me and to relentlessly focus on my own personal development. To channel all my time and energy toward making something out of my own life, and chasing after fulfilling, enriching life-experiences so when I eventually turn into that old man, I'll look back upon my life and smile over the wild ride I've had.
That's the reason I prioritize personal development at the cost of being an informed-but-helpless civilian that spends his valuable time just passively following what's happening in the country. I feel the better option here is to conserve my time and mental well-being by abstaining from news consumption.
Life is a gift and I don't wanna waste it watching my country burn while I sit on the park bench - an old man with newspaper in hand.
[Wednesday, Sep-4-2024]
Thanks to my little daughter that slept an extra hour and did not wake up at 6:30 AM, I'm extra energized with restful sleep. Fueled with two egg whites, a slice of avocado and coffee, I'm ready to hit my laptop. I keep insisting to my wife to switch over to a high-protein breakfast, but she's content with her carb-rich south Indian breakfast of upma, rice-bath, tea and biscuits. It irks me, but well, it's her choice.
I have a big coding task ahead of me. Target to channel all your focus on this for today. When you're mentally exhausted, instead of turning into a social-media browsing loser, go for a 10 minute walk where you're just breathing and taking in your surroundings, or play with your daughter (I work from home).
Fit in a 30 minute workout in the middle of the day. The rest of the time, focus hard and be done by 6:30 PM. Keep in mind that you're off this Friday. So ensure that you make significant progress on your work so you can ease into your long weekend with a peaceful state-of-mind rather than unfinished work mentally weighing you down during your break.
[Sunday, Sep-1-2024]
Friday was acceptable. I got through 75% of the technical topics I wanted to cover. I overestimated how much I could get through, especially when you're trying to digest complex new ideas. This is despite the fact that I'm not the type that gets distracted with whatsapp, instagram and reddit every 15 minutes. If you do, you're already doomed and destined for a life of mediocrity. I try my best everyday to constantly keep pushing away the creep of mediocrity.
I snuck in a good 40 minute workout in the afternoon that gave me a much needed cognitive relaxation. A quick 30 minute workout in the afternoon is a habit I wanna make more consistent. I'll target sessions on Mon-Wed-Fri, or if I get a busy start to the week on Monday, then I'll change my workout to Tuesday and Thursday for that week. I'm making this 1-1:30 PM activity non-negotiable. This should be something I pause everything else and get to.
I couldn't get to my German studies on Friday. If I can snatch an hour and a half out today from the jaws of family commitments, I'll get on with deconstructing the fantastic tavern scene in Inglourious Basterds.
Plan for today - It's a Sunday. Keep things open-ended. Don't be selfish about your me-time. Exercise the patience and maturity to unconditionally offer your time for your kids. While it's common knowledge that they grow up fast and soon build a world of their own where you don't even figure much, it's easy to forget that in the moment and get frustrated when you find yourself stuck with them for long.
Knock off pending chores and other shallow obligations. Block time between 3 - 4:30 PM for German if the kids are asleep. Unwind and recharge for the week ahead.
[Friday, Aug-30-2024]
It's the last working day of August, and it's a Friday. My company designates the last Friday of every month as the "Day of Learning (DoL)". Looking forward to an intense day of self-driven learning today. A day of hard, focused, disciplined learning today will give me the perfect wrap up for the month as I slide into September - The month of focus.
Zero distraction schedule for today:
10 AM - 12 PM: Transcribe tech-talks and make notes.
12 - 12:30 PM: Sneak in a 30 minute gym run + workout.
1:30 - 2:30 PM: Consolidate technical discussions/details spread across multiple sources into one central place.
4 - 5 PM: Documentation study.
5 - 6:30 PM: Study German (study and deconstruct Inglourious Basterds Tavern scene)
I'll report back later how the day unfolded.
[Thursday, Aug-29-2024]
Disclaimer - I'm not trying to be a cringey influencer, or create a personal brand, or build a following. I couldn't care if my 100 or so Reddit follower base continues to grow or if it burns down to zero. This is only an attempt to set personal goals and hold myself publicly accountable, and document how well I'm sticking to them as time goes on, and also to show my process. This is my personal public diary.
As we approach the end of August, and also get closer to the end of 2024, it's of immense importance to me to make the most productive use of my time for the remainder of the year. This has been a productive year for me for the most part - I came out of a long voluntary mini-retirement of three years and started at a new software job. With that, I got one step closer to my aspiration to move abroad from my current home-base in India as I seek out a better lifestyle for me and my family. I've gotten a good start at my job. I'd like to keep the momentum going, and finish 2024 on a high note since I have big, ambitious plans for 2025!
With that, I'd like to start setting monthly goals and put them out here, and regularly report back on how well I've been staying on the path set forth.
Goals to pursue until September 30, 2024.
Broader picture: Practise disciplined monk mode. Do few things, do them well, and obsess over quality instead of the hours spent. September will be the month of focus.
You've neglected deep-learning at work. Caught up in the mundane obligations of daily work commitments, you haven't paid enough attention toward learning the intricate architecture of your software service (let's call it BT) at a profoundly deep level. September will be the month you rectify that. Set aside some time everyday to read through BT documentation and code. Preferably between 3-4 PM. Block your calendar and show up everyday.
Avoid distracting upskilling activities - You've been spending good amount of time learning Kafka. While Kafka is a great technology to learn and study, it's being done at the cost of time that should instead be given to gaining expertise in BT. Since September is the month of doing less, where you exclusively focus on acquiring a deeper understanding of BT, put Kafka aside and take it back up after September.
Whenever you have time and energy, study up on BT. When you've had enough of it and feel you can't take it anymore for the day, switch to learning German. Learning the German language is a pursuit you can't stop at any cost, regardless of whether it feels pointless in the given moment, or when the language feels impossibly hard. Three years down the line when you'll have gained sufficient command of the German language (and might possibly be living in Germany by then!), you'll be thanking yourself for sticking through with it. So, you'll essentially be focusing on only two pursuits for September - BT and German.
When you get to a point where your brain is completely shot for the day, and you can no longer take in anymore studies, switch over to deep relaxation with either quality time with family, a book, a show, music or physical work around the house.
Prioritize sleep very seriously. Whether you'll have a productive day at all totally hinges upon having had a good sleep the night before. You need to be in bed by 12, phone in hand max until 12:20, and dozing away by 12:30.
Things to avoid till the end of September - reading news (paper+online), social media that includes scrolling and shitposting on Reddit.
Here we go..