Tag: Routine

Wk 15-26 – Weekly Note

Notes, thoughts and highlights from Week 15 of 2026.

April 12, 2026
Hotel Room at Siam, BKK
Round 2, at a coffee shop. Again, Siam, BKK.

This note comes from a hotel room in Bangkok. And a few more locations around the hotel room. Am here till about the 20th. At least. Could be longer. But as of today, till the 20th. I love this ambiguity!

Anyhow.
Let’s go.

So, truth be told, I have mixed feelings about being here. I love that am at a new place and building newer neural networks. And I don’t like this temporariness. I also dont like the inability to find a rhythm and a routine to get things done.

Oh on that.
I am a creature of habit and routine. I live such a predictable life that if someone had to map my movements, they could get it to last meter and last second and I would be like a sitting duck.

In Mumbai, you can predict when I would be at a Starbucks. And the seat I am on and the time I am and the order am having. In case I move from Andheri West, I will find another one at a walking distance. And I will find the same 10 things to work on.

I must mention that this tweet really made me think hard about life and work. To a point that I want to change how I operate. I see the merit in the arguments being made in this tweet but I also see the benefits in my approach. Lemme talk about it in a bit.

Right now, it’s the time for the weekly note.

The track of the week is music from Khudgarz.
I cant pick one specific track.
I would link the one that’s playing as I write this.

Tbh, I am so familiar with this one that I can predict the next song they’ll play in the medley. I love this so much that I want to create an ensemble band. I know there are many bands like this in the market but I would love to have my own.

Sigh.

So many ideas.
Such less time.
So few people that I can trust. On that note, if you are a young person who wants to get their hands dirty with life, by helping me do these “projects”, please do reach out. I am on sg@c4e.in. Or use this.

Ok, let’s go…

Lets get to the review.

💭 Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the last week

Last week I made these in an order. This week, I dont have an order.

1/ Travel

I have to start with this.

Ofc.

I’ve been on the road for almost a week now. And I will be travelling for another week, at least. While I love it, I also have some not so love-ful notes and thoughts. Lemme try the good and bad of each thing.

Garmi and Walks
For starters, I dont like the garmi here.
It’s way too hot for my liking. And humid. And muggy. And I dont like it at all. But I think this is better than India. I dont know why.

The good part?
I’ve walked about 15K steps on an average since I’ve come here! Maybe cos there is no dust? Maybe cos the city is very walkable with clean footpaths and shaded areas? Maybe the malls and stores are interconnected with large parts airconditioned?

Either way.
I am not complaining.
I cant tolerate the garmi but I’ve been able to rekindle my love for walking.

Fancyness and Belonging to the Streets
While I was here, I realised that I belong to the streets.

This means that I dont like places that are overtly plush or expect you to operate in a certain manner. I dont like fancy restaurants or needlessly boujee things. Ofc, I love attentive staff and tiny details to things but I dont like the randomly snobbish behaviour.

I also am not the kinds to queue up for anything.
I avoid queues if I can. Unless they are at an airport. And some day I would like to skip those as well. Or maybe someday I will walk in to the empty Benne and relish it so much that I want to queue up. But till that time, I dont think am doing that.

So, I belong to the streets. To the things you can touch and feel that are not behind glass walls. To the grime and dust and hustle that get through your skin and bones to your soul.

Exploration and Focus
Since I’ve been on the road, I’ve been using less and less of my phone. There is so much to do, see, experience IRL that I dont want to be be trapped in a 6.1″ OLED screen. If nothing else, I am sleeping better (may be its the walk?).

I know that I need to have a GREAT digital presence to attract opportunities but I see the merit in not being online.

The fact that my screentime is like 5 hours?
I love it!

I am now thinking, do I completely disown the mobile phone? I love the convenience that I get with a mobile phone in my hand. Its unparalleled luxury but then so is uninterrupted, peaceful sleep.

I want to experiment with not using mobile phone at all. Only use a dumb one. In fact, this month, I’ve been away from Insta and X and all that. And I will be, till end of April. May be I will do one month of insta and twitter and linkedin, one month of abstinence. Or maybe 15 days of guilt trip and then back to sanity for a month? I dont know yet. Lets see.

Staying on this exploration and focus thing, I have realised long ago that I am unable to work while I am on the road.

I had imagined that if I get couple of hours in the morning, I am mostly ok. But this trip has (and many others have) proven to me that I work best when I have my life defined by routine. If I have to embrace a truly nomadic life, I MUST find a way to balance work.

City Centres and Groups
This trip is with a group.
And these are people I love.
And ofc people I work with.
And a couple who’re not current colleagues. And each of us is eclectic AF. And as different as chalk and cheese. And yet we are together. I love it!

So, I’ve been the planner-in-chief of this trip. Which means I chose the part of the city we’d live in. The things we’d do. And who all will do what. Today’s day 3 of the trip and so far, I think I’ve done a pretty good job, considering all things and all the people. But I am sure there are many opportunities to do better.

Here are some…

  1. I booked a hotel and not a BnB. I think the decision was a blessing in disguise. Now that I’ve lived a few days, I think a managed place like a hotel was a good idea. We dont have the flexibility of the bnb but thats ok.
  2. I didnt book breakfast. I dont eat breakfast and I assumed others wont eat either. Big mistake. Next time I do a group trip, I will 100% book breakfast.
  3. I didnt define a budget. The trip has gone 40% over my expectations. Which is ok. I will live in the eco mode for a quarter and we’d be ok. Next time, I will inform this upfront.
  4. AK says that booking tickets and planning travel is my zone of genius. May be there’s something there?

There are more lessons but I think I will park it for the time being. Maybe I will wrote more of these once am back from the trip.

So that was travel.
Moving to the next thing.
People.

2/ People

A lot of notes about people.
Lemme list some.
I will remove names. For obvious reasons. I will create anonymous initials for them.

Lets go…

AB
This person is about 25.
One of the most talented, smartest people I know. To a point that I am envious of their talent. And ambition. And drive.

However, this person is inspired more by fame (than by creating impact) and aims to get famous and chase vanity metrics. And not delivering value. And not growing or learning.

And its not wrong. It’s just that at this age, you rather build something tangible. I wish I could put sense into them.

If youth knew…

CD
This person is my age.
One of my oldest friends.
Am grateful that he reads my notes and gives me honest, unfiltered advice. The kinds that you typically dont get from anyone. Love that I’ve got some real estate in his head. I nee to find more like him!

EF
This person is like AB above.
Young. Ambitious. And yet wants to take it easy. You know, make money. And chill.

I understand how this person wants to live life in a certain manner. However, my thought is, why would you throw away your gift in chase of an easy life? And your very life could become a role model for the rest of the world to follow. Why would you not do that?

GH
I know this person for 12 years.
And he’s been a mentor of sorts. And he and I spoke at length about where I am headed and how I would go there. Grateful that I have him. He’s promised that he would try and hook me up with some. Let’s see.

3/ Ego

This past week I let go of a client. Or maybe the client let go of us. The point is we are no longer working together.

Now that I am sitting by myself and thinking about it, I realise I made a mistake. It was a 100% salvageable situation. Many people were at fault. Starting at me. I was wrong. So was my team. And my collaborator. But it was not something that we couldnt have fixed.

I could’ve been strict with my team and told them to pull their socks up. I could’ve mentored them better. Heck, I could’ve replaced my team. May be I need to work with project orientation. In fact I had decided earlier as well that I need to think about projects more than I think about people. But I didnt pull the plug on that. Maybe I should’ve.

Anyhow.

What’s done is done. Lesson learnt. I hope to do better with the next ones.

The silver lining is that the client went away while giving us full marks for our effort. I just wish I wasnt spoken in a tone I was talked in.

4/ Routine

I started this week’s note with this tweet and I want to rethink how I operate.

I see the merit in the arguments being made in this tweet but I also see the benefits in my approach.

So I’ve always believed that luck is something that we can create. And I want to maximize my luck surface area. But then, I dont really do a lot of unfamiliar things. Like I said above, I go to the same cafe, at the same time, meet the same people, eat the same things. To a point that I am the most boring man.

I will change this.
Though, I need to first figure where my work will take me.

So that.

PS: I had imagined I would have a lot to say about this. But I dont. Lol!

5/ Work

Again, many threads in this.
Lemme try and articulate.

Deliberate life.
I was talking to SM yesterday and I told her that I want to live a deliberate life from here on. I dont know the shape it would take but I know some variables. I will try to articulate those here.

  1. I dont have a distinction between work and life. There is a significant overlap between the two and I will not have any other way.
  2. I want my work to a global business that takes me beyond borders and allows me to a “richer” life full of many experiences.
  3. I want to find many many ways to intersect with (and cross paths with) interesting people. This means
  4. I want to be very selective with what I work on and who I work with and what I charge for the same. More importantly, I want to do things that I enjoy. With good people who I really want to be with for the long-term. And some of these must challenge me and push me to do more.
  5. I want to use my time here to do things that I enjoy. And the act of doing those things must make meaning.
  6. I want to be a part of a cult where all of us have a similar mindset towards life. If I am unable to a part of some cult, may be, make one.
  7. Operate from trust and faith and freedom

I know this wont be for everyone.
I know a lot of these will sound vague.
I know most people wont relate to this.
I know this is extreme. But at the extremes is where you make things that are not ordinary.

Lessons from Pritam
Pritam has shown up many times here in the last few months. This week is no different.

This week, he taught me that I need to take hard calls and if need be, fire people who are closest to me. If I have to. And once I’ve tried everything.

And “incentivize” more people to do more. Even if I dont want to.

I also need to be more “real” with people. I must give negative feedback fast. Learnt this from Mihir as well.

He also told me that I need to be sharper and demand more from people. And if that means I need to do more to earn the right to demand more, I must. I also must go closer to outcomes and not stick to just inputs and outputs. Unrelated, when I delegate, I must implement this.

Lessons from Routine, Travel and The Client I lost
I MUST ask for more.

For me and C4E, this is as war-time as it gets and I MUST start to operate like a war-time CEO. And I have to be the warrior and not a gardener. And not create easy times. See this…

And this means I would change the shape of how I operate and work.

Wait and watch.

PS: I’ve been talking about this for a while but I havent acted on this. I guess time’s come to show myself what am capable of.

.

6/ People Connector

I need to be a people connector.
There.
I said it.

It’s my zone of genuis. It’s my play while others find it exhausting. I can do this for the rest of my life without thinking about it.

There are many examples that I can cite – Interesting People, NS, DMC. HT and Sanjay Mehta often talk about their annual trip with their friends. I’ve also attended one by Ajeet Sir. Bux talked about doing something similar. And I can see a GREAT value in it.

I must do this. For self. My own version. With my people. For all of us to live a deliberate life. And then, offer it to other people. For them to see the magic that such networks can create. Filing it in #someday column of notes.

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📸 Photos from the past few days

Stopped this from the last week.
In case you want to get photos from me, DM me.

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🈺 Trackers…

Here’s my trackers.

Tell me what you see.

I love how everything is in green.
And there is a lot of coffee.
And ofc I hate that I am back on coke.

Also, here’s the weekly one…

Again, I love how steps is higher, screentime is lower and mood is consistent at 1. Yay!

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🈺 Action on LARGE objectives for the year

In this section, I will capture my progress on large objectives for the year. 

In 2026, I plan to do the following three things…

  1. Book2
  2. Human Flag Pole
  3. Save a million dollars

No action in the last week on any of these goals.
So, no progress and no update.
Hopefully from May onward, I will have something to show for.

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☑️ So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

So, this year, I want to track the following…

  1. Health. I will work on sleep, food and movement. Better than last week. Walked a lot. Slept ok. Did some pushups as well.
  2. C4E / Work. I want to shortlist some idea that I want to work on. I am still not closer to an answer. The deadline of 30th April 2026 stays.
  3. Brand SG / Distribution. No action on this.
  4. People (Family, Friends, Strangers, etc). No action.
  5. Book2. I want to start with this. No action.
  6. Shauk (Music, Films, Poker etc). I took some of my people to a trip to Bangkok. I love it. I wrote a part of this from a breakfast table where two of my kids were eating. Yay!

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🏃🏻‍♂️‍➡️ Health

I added Health as a key section last year. I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long – sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me. Let’s see what comes out.

Last week, I did do any deliberate action per se but I did walk a lot more than I would typically do. So that counts something. Rest nothing tbh.

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🧠 Reminders from last week

This section captures things that I want to not forget. I add those to SG’s Office. I will copy paste these week on week and track updates.

A few things.

1/ Update C4E’s Culture Book. 
This is still WIP.
I have a suspicion that this list will grow and will become unmanageable in a few weeks. I will find a solution when I get to it. For the time being, here’s a sheet where I track my actions.

2/ C4E’s website
I may not want to work on C4E per se but it’s about time we fixed it. And I have taken it upon myself to do that. So, added this here.

Here are the things that I’ve closed previously…

  1. Start a podcast with C and AK. This remains open and will probably get shut. I dont see the excitement in the three of us. 
  2. Storytelling presentation for the session on the 7th March. I missed this. And I will do this in March. Maybe on the 28th or the 29th? I missed this again. I dont think am doing this. So closing and moving on.

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🥡 So, one thing that defines the past week?

Movement.
Not the kinds that I would like but the one where I was moving.
Physically.
Which is ok.

The other words for this year have been: Blur, Activity, Movement, Regular (again), Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime.

—
Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.

Oh, and this too shall pass!

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. Previous editions:

  • 2026: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (missed these three), 12, 13, 14

PPS: Please do point typos.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

3 Jul 2024 – Morning Pages

Here’s an attempt to get back to morning pages. Read, point gaps in my thinking and lemme know what I can do better.

I am back with Morning Pages. Let’s go.

I don’t know why I ordered this book. But I did. I normally don’t read a lot. But I read some pages of this book. I tend to like business books – this is anything but that and I spotted myself refusing to put the book down. 

One of the things that the book talks about is that the author’s father would be up at 530 and writing for 2 hours every day. And then he would go about his day. This is similar to the advice by Julia Cameron. And this is what Anjum Sir talks as well. Riyaz.

And I must. And I will. And why writing and why not my single largest goal? Well, because most of my work needs to move people, shift opinions, and persuade and if I am good with my words, it would become easier. Plus at this time, writing would help me get some clarity on my thoughts and open doors. Once I know what I am going to work on, I will follow Mochary’s advice on spending the first two hours of the day on key tasks.

Coming back to this habit of writing every day. There was a time when I wrote every day in the morning. After a while, I didn’t know what to write about.

Now I think I can write about work – after all that’s my biggest thing at this point. No, I will not send emails. I will not make presentations. I will write them and then shoot them out after the first 2 hours are over. I know I will get distracted when I write. And I will thus lean on the iPad to write. I am writing this on the iPad. On Google Docs. I don’t know if I will publish this. But I am writing here because I can’t open multiple tabs. I am writing here because I am not giving in to my habits of checking news, scrolling Twitter timelines, responding to emails etc. It’s 645 and I plan to do this till 730 today. I will try to wake up at 5 tomorrow and then write for 90 mins. I don’t know what I would write about, may be I will make a list and get into the habit. 

Ok, lemme talk about the habit I want to build. And the habits I want to break. 

Lemme give you a gist of my day. 

I wake up without an alarm on most days – typically between 6 and 630. I put on some music. Am listening to a rock music playlist today on my laptop (I picked the mouse to copy and paste the link – but no – no other devices shall be touched). I open my mailbox and reply to things that I think are important. On some days I open my trackers and fill those in. Some days I will open Asana. And then I would open WhatsApp – that’s where all of my work happens. I will reply to any conversations that need my attention, I would give yes or no to things and I would pick up whatever comes to my mind at that time.

Typically things that come to mind are typical tasks that need attention at work.

Here, I want to change my wake-up time to 5 AM. And then write for 90 minutes and then get some sort of yoga / workout in. Maybe I will join Cult – I will check this out today. I will also get myself a Keto meal subscription. Expensive but I will get it. 

I then putter around the house, get ready and leave for Starbucks between 745 and 815 – depending on when I had woken up.

Once at Starbucks, I’d get myself any black coffee and do more “work”. 

To be honest, I don’t work anymore. The team at C4E manages most work. I only pretend. But I want to change this too. I will start putting in the work for the following things… 

  1. SoG Network
  2. Networking 
  3. Design capability 
  4. International Expansion 
  5. Distribution 
  6. Startup idea 

While the focus is these six things, these could take the shape of emails, writing posts for LinkedIn, or connecting with folks. Let see.

May be I will edit these morning pages and put them on the blog (doing it as we speak) – after all an iPad can only do limited things. Maybe I will fill these trackers? Or maybe I will find someone else to do this and put it on WordPress and make a LinkedIn post of highlights and a thread for X – I think I will outsource this – do you know any kid who can do this for me a tiny sum? Lemme put a call out and see where this goes. 

I am trying to avoid coffee – haven’t had it for two days. Let’s see how long this lasts. Also, since I need to order something when am there, I have started to buy sparkling water. And that means I will have a lot of glass bottles around. And I will start putting flowers in those. 

Then around 12, I get bored of Starbucks and I want to go somewhere else. I either go back home (I have started to call this house home) or The Clubhouse. I order myself lunch / snack. I eat and I sleep. I really want to change this. Actually no. I will not change this. I will read if these naps are a good idea – if they are, I’ll continue. If they are not, I will quit. If naps are not good, I will stack meetings around lunch.

I put an alarm if I have important calls. In case I don’t, I leave the house and step out. I don’t have a specific destination in mind. Starbucks mostly. Some days, Infiniti Mall. Some days Blue Tokai, some days Jamjar, some days Clubhouse. Somedays random new place. I need to break this habit and find a place to go to – may be a coworking place. Maybe Clubhouse. Maybe work from home – I do have a table that I can work on. So, I don’t know. But I need to get out of this habit of whiling time. Maybe I will stack all my calls in this time. I can mould my team and most clients to accept that calls can only be done post-12. 

Post that I try and go to the beach. I want to add a habit of taking a picture each day and putting it on Instagram. Oh, I will remove Instagram from my phone and put it on the alt phone that I will not carry with me. 

And then I come back home and as a matter of habit order some kachra (I am deleting Swiggy also from my phone) and then eat it while I play chess (which I recently deleted) and watch reruns of FIR (I will quit this too). And then I while some time on Instagram and then sleep. I want to add some meditation before I sleep. My life goal is to have more meditation minutes than AK. 

Most days I sleep after 10:30. I want to sleep around (if I have to get up at 5). To be honest, I have it all that allows me to do so. Most times I can control my work. Most times I can push dinners to 730. And I must. 

I think if I can run this routine for a month, we should be ok. I don’t have any travel plans for the rest of the month. I need to be in Delhi for a meeting but that is towards the end of the month. So all is well there. If I can get a routine going for even 25 days, starting today, we would be ok. 

So that.

Lets see where this goes. 

Wish me luck. 

PS: Here are some gaps.

  1. I haven’t allocated time for thinking (deep thinking) here. 
  2. I am not sure if I will follow this routine. If I can do this from today till the Delhi trip, I think I would be ok. Let’s see. 
  3. Original note here that I have edited.

060121 – Morning Pages

I missed writing a piece in the morning. Here is an attempt to cover up.

11:05 AM

I am late for this one. Bummer.

And this is not the first thing I am doing today. Bummer.

So I am writing this at 11 AM from a hotel room. Been a while since I stayed at one. This one is in Goa and am with a friend who’s here to manage a wedding. Yeah, events business is back! The world has more covidiots than I imagined.

And as I write this, I have to admit, I miss being in hotels even if they are the most impersonal places in the whole world.

Anyhow, so, today is the first day since I missed the morning pages, since I started a few weeks ago. Wow! Been few weeks!

Which is ok.

I have learnt to prioritise things and this was more or less impossible. So I am ok.

So to come to this hotel, I had a long cab ride (about an hour and half long; this hotel is in South Goa) and while in cab I realised that I love seeing the empty roads and the rising run and life puttering to, well, life. And this is what I probably miss about life in Mumbai when I am not there.

Lemme explain.

At Mumbai, I wake up and in the next 30 minutes, I am out of the house. Even if I am up by 5 AM. I am then either walking to the nearest Starbucks or I am on my way to whatever meeting I have planned for the day.

So, I essentially see the city come to life.

I like new things taking shape. I like new beginnings. I like when I see people doing new things with life.

This is what I miss when I am in Delhi. I am at home and thus after I wake up, I have nothing to do but stare down from the balcony. At Goa, I wake up and I look at the trees that hide the rising sun and the sun tries to peak through. I then write my morning pages before I even take a dump.

And at both places, by the time I am done and I am out in the world, its like mid-day and life is all around us. I miss the beginning. I don’t see it springing out. And I don’t get to feed of the energy of the world coming to life.

Maybe I need to add a morning walk to my routine? But I don’t like the fuckery of sweat, shit and shower after that. When I am in Mumbai, this morning walk to the Starbucks worked perfectly alright. Maybe I need to find a location like that in Goa that opens early and allows me to work for a bit?

So yeah, that.

The other thing that happened is that I got to talk to a native Goan about what he thinks about people coming to Goa and making it their home. The guy was so full of angst that I did not know how to tame it (in general, am able to manage most such people). He was sore about all the tourists that come for a few days, all the people that come for long-stays, all the ones that are even thinking about spending anytime in Goa at all. He had valid things to so – people leave filth and dirt behind, people spoil the ecology, people are disrespectful.

But he missed two large points IMHO. A, what about all the money that flows into Goa because of these immigrants (permanent or temporary). And B, who is he to say that Goa is his home? Agreed he was born here and his parents bought some land. But they would have come to Goa from some place for sure. What if the natives at that time did not approve of them being immigrants?

Of course, I am just about a month old here and not informed at all about such issues. I am trying hard and I hope at some point, I get enough wisdom to either accept or rebuke such arguments. And I am definitely no one to pass judgements. But I do think that his opinions are misplaced and he’s fighting a battle that he would lose for sure.

What do you guys think? Is he right? Are my arguments ok? Help me make a thesis please?

And with that, over and out. More tomorrow.

Morning Pages – 201220

In today’s morning pages, I talk about how I miss my routine and a Starbucks outlet as I start getting comfortable in Goa.

Hello Morning Pages!

I slept late last night. About 3 if I am not wrong. And as I write this, its not even 9. I am back to those ways where I would sleep and wake up at ungodly hours and I would be perpetually devoid of sleep and I would have unhealthy food and drinks to make up for the loss in cognition caused by all this erratic sleeping. It sucks. And I need to get out of this.

I think the best way to snap out of this is to get back into a routine. I am probably the biggest creature of routine ever. I do my best work once I know where I am supposed to be at certain times. I am a Type A creature where I want to have control over things. I don’t like depending on others. When the lockdown happened, I was reasonably sure that I would be able to get the book out, write like a MoFo, get fit and I don’t know what. I could not do a single thing. While it’s my laziness to blame, the deeper reason, I think, is the lack of routine.

Of course, I could have created a routine while I was locked down. In fact, it would have been the easiest – there was nothing to disturb me, you know. But I could not. and I think a large reason is that I did not have anywhere to go to. Ok, lemme park this here. Let’s call this A.

So, the point is, I need to get back into a routine. Of course the routine I had in Mumbai and the one I had in Delhi and the one I will try and create in Goa are all going to be different. But that’s ok. As long as there is a predictable routine I follow, all’s cool.

As I think about this, this disruption in routine has been caused by two things – lack of Internet and, believe it or not, lack of Starbucks. Lemme park this as well. Let’s call this B.

While writing this, I realized that I have now been away from Mumbai for almost 45 days. Do I miss Mumbai? I am not sure. But I do miss a few things – My routine for starters. And then, Starbucks. And the sight of others rushing around all the time, at all the places to God knows where. And of course. M.

Lemme talk about each.

M. Not that I meet her every day. Heck, I don’t meet her even once a month and when I do so, I am with her, its with a million people around and for like 10 seconds. Of course, if I met her by myself, I’d get bored in 7 seconds. She’d get bored in 3. Anyhow. Rant. Point is, I miss the thought that I can call S / V and hop over to their house to see her putter around. Now I can’t.

The other thing that I miss? The other lady love of my life. Siren!

What is it that I miss about her and her home? Lemme try and put it on paper. So while a Starbucks outlet is different on different days (Baristas change, people change, the mood of the day changes), it remains the same. Here’s how. The “ritual” they’ve created that you use to order coffee is the same. The regular “kind of” patrons that go to each outlet remains the same (Powai has Startups, Bandra has rich kids, BKC has bankers, Lokhandwala has aspiring actors, Infiniti has writers, etc). Even though each outlet has a different decor and layout, the place is familiar with the brown and green, and grey colors. The people that work there are different but the experience they offer (the way they greet, the way they talk, the way they conduct) remains the same. I don’t know how they train people but they are probably the best set of people in the hospitality business that I have come across. No, the hotels don’t stand a chance. Hotels are fake. More on this some other day. Just realised. Such a powerful message on building experience-led brands. Can go as a post on Marketing Connect / Linkedin. May be.

So yeah. Routine. And coming back to A and B, the thing is, I need to have a routine if I want to do my best work. I need to “step out” from where I sleep at. And I need to get to a place that offers me things in just the right manner (wifi, table, and chairs, yellow lights, ambient music, others hustling hard, etc). I need a cafe, a co-working space, a Starbucks, if you will.

I know this sounds like an extravagent and irratioanl quirk of someone who is probably away from reality and is merely pounding on the keyabord to put some point across. May be. May be not. But I guess that’s all we are. Our quirks. Our whims.

No?

Mumbai life. In Delhi.

What is a typical day for me like when I am in Mumbai? And how did I try to ape that on this trip to Delhi?

My life in Mumbai is fairly simple boring. I wake up at whatever time. Wait till it’s 6:45. Get ready in 15 minutes. Out of the house by 7. And at the nearest Starbucks at 7:15. Lately, the one I goto (the new one under Versova Metro Station) opens at 8. So I’ve moved all those times by an hour. I get myself a green tea and from 7:15 till about 11 or 12, I am at Starbucks. On my computer. Some days I work, some days I plan to take over the world. Some days I just, well, surf.

By this time, I am kinda hungry. So, I grab either a sandwich or step out of Starbucks to eat something at some eatery. Preferably something South Indian. I then go back where I live. While time with something that’s been open at my end. And then catch a cat nap. Wake up at around 3 PM and then go back to Starbucks, repeat what I’ve done in the morning. And then stay till it’s 11 PM (when they shut their stores). Go back and sleep.

Been on this routine since these cafes opened up. I know I am being stupid and putting myself at risk but I’ve had enough of the four walls and I have to feed off the energy of other people. Oh, there are some days when I deviate from this routine when I have to meet some people or run some errands. But more or less that’s the routine I follow. This will change once I go back to Mumbai, will take up an office space. And no, I can’t work from where I live.

Since I came to Delhi for this break, while I have been on the road a lot, for work, I have essentially been holed up at home. And I HATE it. I am anything but a home-rat (if there’s a term like that). To a point that I cant work at all. Ideas dont come in. Words dont flow. Genreral lethargy takes over. I am sure this is evident in the posts of the last few days. Things that I can normally do in less than 5 minutes, at home, take me an hour to do. If I can do em.

So today, I did what I would do in Mumbai. The most accessible Starbucks to me (about 14 KMs away) opens at 9. I was out of my house by 8:20 and by 8:55, I was outside. When it opened, I was the first customer. And got myself an Americano. Yeah, I am back on coffee (see this post). I was there till about 2. I got more work done in these 4-5 hours than I did in the last week!

Then I walked to and ate at Naivedyam (a South Indian joint). Took a cab to go meet an ex-boss. Jammed on ideas for an hour. And then now, back home, where I am writing this post struggling to get the right words to express. Nah, I cant work from home 🙁

If not for time spent in commute and the general curtness of people I met today (Baristas, cabbies, etc), I could have very well been in Mumbai! And you know what? I loved it! Just that I wish I lived closer to a Starbucks!

With this, over and out!

This is part of 30 minutes of writing everyday challenge. Others in the series are at 3010, 3110, 0111, 0211, 0311, 0411, 0511, 0611, 0911, 1011, 1211, 1311, 1411, 1511.