Tag: VK_iZ

110921 – Morning Pages

A quick post about how I spent yesterday. And what I plan to do today. Nothing of significance. Random text, to be honest.

7:18. Home. Woke up a few minutes ago. Writing this at home is a struggle. I dont have a place where I could be in unobtrusive peace. Lemme talk more. At a Starbucks, there’s chaos, there’s life, there’s movement, noise, things that you expect at a coffee shop, and whatnot. However, not one of those is directed at me. Plus I am at a little distance from most of those. So the noise and movement and activity do not bother me. They are at the best background. And that helps me get in the flow. Really does.

At home, on the other hand, A, the space is confined. No, I dont have a fancy house that can offer space to each occupant. B, most of the background is directed at me. I will leave that your imagination about what it means. And C, I dont have a place that allows me to sit and stand and move and all that while I am working. So that.

An easy solution is, if I am going to stay here for long, is to find a house / office where I can sit and work out of. I used to, some 10 years ago. With Kunal. I remember we had rented a flat for 3K or something and we would work from there. It was really cool. If nothing else, we would go there every day. It’s insane that even back then I knew (or was it KG) that I needed to separate the spaces where I worked and lived.

Oh, I did meet Kunal. Went for a walk. Wore those trekking shoes. Got sore feet and boils but these were a little less pronounced and prickly than the first time I wore shoes. So, it does get better. Plus I wore shoes from about 7 PM till 10 PM. The longest I think I’ve worn shoes in a long long time. So, achievement unlocked.

Yesterday I also met Vivek. Someone I know off Twitter. He has to be one of the sharpest people I have come to known. Plus he’s insightful and is generally a likable person. I met him for the first time and to be honest, it did not feel as if I was meeting him for the first time. I think I must get more active on Twitter and try and interact with more people. I think that’s where my salvation lies – meeting people, learning from them, leaving them richer. Just need to find opportunities to make money that allows me to do this for the rest of my life!

So that.

In other news, continuing with the things I hate, today I need to finish shopping for EBC. EBC is great but I hate shopping. Takes too much effort. Requires tolerating too many pushy salespeople. But I have less than 6 days to go and I need to buy a few essentials. A couple of bags – a large one and a small one. A pant. I dont want to buy this at all. I can tolerate one of the two. But not both. And then tiny things like a water bottle, safety patches, etc. And then there are smaller things that I dont even know.

So the day would be spent on all this. I do have some work planned but let’s see when I find the time.

Guess this is about it.

I am realizing that if you remove work from your day-to-day thinking (like I have), and start expecting literally nothing from your friends or family (like I have), and stop thinking about leaving an impact, making the world a better place, and everything else, life starts to look simple. At least the last few weeks, even months for that matter have been like that. I have been able to abstract myself from various complex webs that we often weave in our heads. I think I should write about it sometime. Lol! This sometime list is like infinity!

Anyhow, here’s the streaks. Today is the 275th update. If I write till the 17th, it would be 281 posts. I will probably take voice notes when I am gone and then transcribe them. Let’s see how it goes.

Chalo. Over and out.

  • OMAD – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • #noCoke – 184
  • #noCoffee – 28
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • Money spent – 1334
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • Minimaslism Counter – -2 +1 (ease of shifting)
  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 274
  • NOFAP – 10

050721 – Morning Pages

Made a tiny change in how I write my morning pages. I am not sure if the output is better but I think I am more at peace. Read on.

8:15 AM. There’s been a change in programming. I woke up at 7. Got ready. Read for a few minutes. I am reading the book on sleep. Thanks, VK. And then I came to a Starbucks and chit-chatted with the staff here. And then got me a Green Tea (see pic here on my alt Insta account). And then I fired up the editor to write the morning pages. And here we are!

So, last evening I had this epiphany, this revelation that I just can not work from a non-office, non-coffee shop place. I mean I knew this for a while now but it got reinforced yesterday as I was struggling to find a good place to work. I even shuttled between houses of friends but to no avail. So here I am. With a big decision. That I will restrict all my work activities to the hours that these establishments open. Which as of today is between 8 AM and 4 PM. Outside of these hours is when I would do all my calls and all that. Let’s see if I can c convince my clients. Oh, and should there be another lockdown, will see what to do about it.

Apart from that for some reason, I am very very calm about all the general fuckery I have experienced in life lately. I mean life’s good. As good as it could be. I am still unhappy, discontent, aching for action and all that. I don’t know how I will find a solution or an answer but I know that as of right now, at 8:38 AM at a Starbucks, I am at peace. The kinds I’ve not felt in a long time. I don’t know what has caused this but must do more of this.

Wait. Maybe it’s the ice cream I ate last night?
Yeah, I did. I was stressed when I was fussing about my inability to work and get things done on time. I even snacked on chips and all that. If I had eaten these things in the eating window, I would’ve been ok. But I ate all these things outside of that. And thus I broke the 4-day OMAD streak. And I did not go for a walk. Or did yoga. The balls still hurt. Two days after I tried to jog 🙁

Wait. I am ok. Let me not cry about it.
Right now, I am in the God Mode and nothing can touch me!

Fuck! God Mode!
Damn, I miss the Q3A days with kAgE where each time I fragged him in a Q3DM6, I would get ecstatic and jump around in joy! In a typical 15-min tourney, I was like an easy bot for him. He could kill me at a whim. He could remember the clock like a robot and knew exactly when Mega Health or the Red Armour would come in. And no, he did not use scripts. He was good. It’s a pity he couldn’t make a career out of competitive gaming.

I miss those simpler days when all we had to worry about was a ping of less than 200. On lucky days we would get a ping of less than 100. We even got the same Internet service provider so that we could be on an extended LAN and play the game more often. Damn those days!

Ok, enough of reminiscencing. Time to move on and get some work done. I only have till about 4 PM today. Actually, not even 4 to be honest. I would be bored of sitting at this place by 1. Or 2. And then I would want to go back, eat something and probably while the time away and crib about how I can’t work from a house. Lol! damn this vicious cycle.

Chalo, time to start working. Here’s the streaks…

  • OMAD – 0. Was stressed about work and thus ate a lot. Even sugar-laden ice-cream.
  • #book2 – 0
  • #noCoke – 116
  • #noCoffee – 5
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 206

250621 – Morning Pages

I talk about sleep, luck, writing and electric toothbrush 😀

5:56 AM. Woke up a few minutes ago.
I am surprised that I even get these 4 hours of sleep. I am having too much coffee. I even had a Red Bull while I was recording a podcast!

Sleep = rekt!

So this sleep thing has been on my mind a lot lately! And it’s uncanny that someone I know via Twitter gifted me this book, without me asking for it.

If this is not a sign, I don’t know what is!

Actually lemme decode it.
How the gift happened.
And decode how we “spot” signs when they don’t really exist.

So I know that I’ve not been sleeping well. To a point that my work is getting affected. It’s a loop – get work done -> goto Starbucks -> compelled to order something -> unable to finish work -> stay up late -> get coffee -> can’t focus -> delay. Plus it’s too hot and the AC that I have makes so much noise that it could very well drown out the sound made by a drilling machine trying to poke through a rock!

In one word, my sleep is rekt!

Sleep thus is on my mind. A lot.

This is when VK put up a display picture on his WA about a piece that he’s read from the book. It talks about how caffeine is the second most traded thing in the world (after water or oil, I am not sure now). I was sipping onto coffee at that point and being the know-it-all jerk I am, I said, it’s not caffeine per se, but it’s tea. I was ready to go to war with that “knowledge”.

VK remained patient and told me to not get into semantics and get the drift of the argument. Which I did. But had to be told by him. After that, we got talking about the book. I asked for the name and while he did tell me, he said that he wants to send me a copy. He even said it’s probably the best book he’s ever read!

I, of course, said no.
He insisted.
And here we are.
The book in my mailbox.

Now, I have to read it and make changes.
And hopefully sleep better.

So that. It’s not a sign per se. I created circumstances that made me create these signs! I think we can do the same with life. Whatever you wish to get, acquire, own et al, you can create opportunities and signs for those to come true. You can, in one line, create luck!

Luck = Real

Ok.
Moving on.
And yet, staying on the course, the podcast that I recorded was with a VC and apart from other things we talked about, we spoke at length about luck. And how to create it. If I were to summarise what he said, he said that movement creates luck. Do things. Never pause. Act. And over time, get better at spotting how to create movement. You must listen to the podcast (it’s at least a month away from release). Sign up here and I would send you an email when it comes out.

This is such common wisdom and yet people miss it. This is similar to my theory of movement. And of throwing darts. In fact, one of the things that I would teach people, if I could, would be to be more open, take more chances and do more things. While the focus is great, the times we live in demand we are generalists and more rounded!

Focus -> Writing

Ok. The next thing I want to talk write think about out loud is, writing. Again, something that’s super close to my heart.

So, over the last few days, I have had multiple conversations with multiple groups of people about writing. There are many lessons and ideas and thoughts. But one thing is clear.

I need to take my writing more seriously.

I mean I was always serious about my writing. I’ve been writing this series of posts for almost 200 days now! I probably write publish more than 1000 words each day. In the last six months, I would have published 200,000 words on just this blog.

The problem (not really a problem per se, but a limiting factor) is that I write for myself. I don’t care if people read what I write. Writing makes me think better, center myself, get my thoughts in place, and all that. And thus I write.

I just need to make the pivot to writing for others.
And build an audience.
And let that audience work to create opportunities for me.
You know, get lucky!

Thing is, the life I’ve chosen for myself and where I am headed, I will have to connect with people at scale. And that means the ability to write well will come in handy. No, not just handy. It would become imperative. And will be the most important thing I’d do.

So, I need to now start thinking about what others like and how do I tweak what I write to ensure that others read. For starters, I dont think anyone is interested in these daily rants. I may not stop these posts but I need to find an avenue to write things that others would like to consume.

The biggest problem with that is that not everyone reads everything. So I will have to choose some niches that are wide enough to attract interest. For example, can I write about marketing for non-marketers? I am sure there is an audience for that. Can I write about insights from India? I am sure there is an audience for that. Can I write about how to get an unfair advantage in life? I am sure there is an audience for that!

You get the drift. I need to find a niche. SoG was a series to write for others. But then it saw very limited success. I could not grow an audience beyond friends and family. Even those people did not read what I wrote. Maybe I will restart those? And this time, write with a perspective of getting more people to read? And build a community?

Let’s see.

I think this is about it for the day.
Regular things from life continue to haunt me – too many things open at work, slacking at work, not eating well, etc.

The electric toothbrush experiment is going nice. I am getting used to it. Not sure if it cleans my mouth as well as manual scrubbing does. But it’s a new thing and thus keeps me interested. Time to go do that.

Meanwhile, here’s streaks…

  • Morning Pages / Meditations – 194
  • #aPicADay – 0
  • 10K steps a day – 0
  • OMAD – 0
  • #noCoffee – 0
  • #noCoke – 106
  • 10 mins of meditation – 0
  • #book2 – 0
  • Killer Boogie – 0
  • Surya Namaskar – 0