Day 4 / 100 of the 1000WADv3.
So its 7:40 PM and I am staring at a mile-long todo list. And I have to do all those before tomorrow morning when I have a really important meeting that I cant miss for anything. If there is a day when I am going to miss my 1000 words, its going to be today. And this is when I chose to prioritize and put everything on hold till I got these 1000 words out of the day.
The other thing is that I dont know what to write about. I dont lead a very exciting life and apart from the two Uber rides to and from work, all I do is stare at a computer screen and sleep. And there’s as much I can fill in.
So let me call this untitled and just vomit my thoughts. Let me use bullet points.
A. The highlight of the day is a ten-minute long chat between Shekhar Gupta and MDA (cant embed and thus just the link). I am told that the man and the company are manipulative and all that but the interview is such an eye-opener into how that man thinks. The entire thing is not online but I am super impressed with the way the man thinks and the kind of people he is connected to. In ten minutes of the interview, it was clear that he is very methodical, very particular, very articulate (he did make some mistakes and all that). No wonder he’s THE MDA!
B. I just got a new tnks sticker on the new laptop. And today at a meeting, a client asked me about the next book. In last few days, the number of people asking me for the book has gone up considerably. I need to get the writing game going. And I think these 1000 words a day will go a long long way in helping me do that.
C. I’ve rediscovered my love for the music of film Taal. The entire OST is super amazing and super conducive to work. The music helps you get to flow faster. Try it.
D. I spent bulk of the day in the meetings. The mile-long todo list that I spoke about is a side effect of that attempt to meet as many people as I could. I thus get stuck with delivery and the client that cries harder and or pushes shoves me farther gets his things done faster. Of course this is not a great way to get things done. I need to hire people. And for that I need budget. And for that I need money. And to make money, I need people. Vicious circle you see.
The point of D is that I need to be able to put a team that helps me deliver. Or may be, if delivery is my thing, a team that can get me work. At C4E, I am trying a bit of both. There are people that I am paying to get my leads and intros. And there are people I am trying to get on board to deliver on projects that we are on. Read this longish post I wrote yesterday. And to make it clear, I mean EVERY word of that. I stand by all the promises I’ve made in there. Of course, time shall tell.
E. Continuing to talk about work (have you noticed that I talk of work lot more these days), I made two hiring blunders and I dont know how to fix those. I dont want to fire. I know that the said person is not capable of delivering what I expected them to. I dont know about others but a business has to fundamentally make monetary sense. MDA even acknowledged it on a public forum that you have to sense for shareholders to invest time and all that. So, while the obvious way to go is to let go, the non-obvious way is to let the mistake linger on, let it fix by itself and then evaluate after a while. I dont really know the right way to go about it. But thats the point of doing your own shit – you learn each day. And you better do – or else these 100-week hours are meaningless. Oh, I got the 112-hour week from this amazing advert by Ram. I can watch this all day long – I often do!
F. Just looked at the watch. Its 9:52 and I am still on this. The mile-long list is still around. Staring at me in the face. And in the last two hours I have called a friend, chatted with a couple of colleagues, posted 10-odd tweets and opened and closed 20 old browser tabs. I’ve ordered my dinner, gossiped with a colleague, heard some Backstreet Boys (yeah, am a dilliwallah like that), saw a few YouTube videos (cant post links here), discussed a business idea with a friend and then, checked 200 times about the length of this post.
And this is where I will end this. If the purpose of writing it to get the word count going, no point doing it. And on the contrary, thats the purest chase. The chase of a deadline and chase of a goal. It helps instill dedication, confidence, goal-orientation, focus and all these positive things.
So yeah, this is it for today. May be tomorrow I will write that will add value to you as a reader. Till then, over n out.
P.S.: I am still accepting “invitations” to be a part the list of people that I send these blog updates to. All you have to do it, tweet at home, write me an email. Either works. Preferably before 7 – thats the time I try to read all my mails from the previous night.