Productivity

How I Work – 2019 edition

This is the 2019 version of a How I Work post that I wrote in 2016. Wrote this as an email to a colleague who liked the system I used.

I often get asked how do I do all the things I do. My reply is almost always the same – I dont do a lot. I just pretend. But even with that, I have a system. In this post, I will try to talk about the system that I use.

The system is made of a few philosophical ideas and some tools. Here is a list of the two.

Tools

So, this is a list of tools that I increasingly use to rely on things.

1. The Brain

www.thebrain.com (freemium)

What does this tool do?
This tool mimics how the human brain thinks and make connections.

What do I use this tool for?
I use this to dump EVERYTHING I have in my head. Each night I narrate a voice note to my EA. He then transcribes the notes and puts on the brain in threads that he thinks is relevant. Once I open it, in case I find a thread that is not in the right place, I do it. This reinforces things in my head as well.

Brain does not have the ability to store longer notes and thus those go in Evernote / Google Drive.

2. Airtable

www.airtable.com (freemium)

What does this tool do?
This is like excel sheet but on steroids. The key difference is that on excel, all data is numbers and on this, each row / column could have different data types (numbers, images, links, tables etc).

What do I use this tool for?
I use this for CRM. Each meeting I have, each call I make is logged into this. Again, I make voice notes and send to my EA. He transcribes and enters the details in this. For CRM, this piece will be useful for you to set this up.

Other tools for CRM
Apart from these, the other tools that you could try and experiment with are:

Notion – notion.so – a better notepad.
Monday.com – a team / task management tool
Hubspot – gold standard in how the world manages its CRM

3. Asana

www.asana.com (freemium)

What does this tool do? What do I use this tool for?
This is a task manager. For each thing I am working on, I divide it into tasks. And then I get my EA to put those tasks in this. Each task has a person who’s directly responsible for it, a deadline, a priority and an impact area (what does that task help me achieve – money? connections? brand?).

This is my lifeline. If this stops working, I’ll die.

You may want to try Trello, Wunderlist etc. All these are task managers essentially and allow you to log what you work on.

4. Miro

www.miro.com (freemium)

What does this tool do?
This is a virtual whiteboard. You can pin things, make notes, link to stuff and others.

What do I use this tool for?
This is where I chart and plot where I want to be in life.

***

Philosophy

All these are dependent on a few things…

Google as login. Its SUPER easy to save files, move them around with logins and all that if I use Google as the backend. Of course I have concerns on the privacy piece but I am not as important to be hacked.
Device / location independence – I want to be able to access these things from anywhere in the world, on any device, as long as I have internet. So, all is on the cloud.
Ownership of time – I own my time. I value my freedom and time more than anything else.
Trial and Error – these things are very personal and you will have to try multiple iterations and variations before you find a system that works for you.
People. I have a team of 2 to manage my life. One is my EA – the most important piece. I am super lucky to have found someone young that I trust and can mould into the way I work. I don’t know how long he’d stay with me but I will try and ensure that when he moves out, I have a replacement in place. The other is a BA – a business analyst that does all my homework. I just got him onboard and I am experimenting to see how it works out. The guy does not manage my time per se but saves me time by doing research etc. Think of it as an outsourced brain.
Brains are meant for thinking and NOT for storing. The day I realised this, I “outsourced” all the remembering to The Brain and to my EA. Now, when I need info, I use the tools to retrieve and in case tools fail, I call the EA and that guy’s job is to remember anyway! Saves me brainpower.

That’s about it. Shortish post.

Like I said, this is the 2019 version of the post that I wrote in 2016. My methodology and madness has remained the same – the tools have evolved (from excel to Airtable etc.).

Hope these help. In case any of you wants me to set these up for you, please do let me know. I am one email away 🙂

Notes from a Maker Day

Today I stayed at home. I tried to make this a Maker Day (ref here). Here are some observations from the day so far.

1. The world did not come to an end, because I was not at work. In fact, I realized that people at work don’t need me. Work = consultancy gig that pays my bills. This also means that I have more time on my hands than I believe. This means that I can pick a new project. Or finish one of the old ones. This also means that I may not have the gig (they dont need me, why would they pay me?). This means I need to find a new cash flow thing soon.

2. I am not lazy. I still started the day at 7. I was on my computer, planning, plotting, creating things by 730 max. And then I took a break at 11. And then I slept and was back working at 2. And as I write this, its 5. In the last 3 hours I have got a lot of things done. So, I work better when I am by myself. And I think better when I am with people. So, the manager days, when I am in office, I need to divide those into meeting times and non-meeting times.

3. Last few days I’ve been thinking of work. And I realized that I am little less anxious about money. I am fucked in the head because of the lack of impact of what I do. But I am little more sorted. Probably the realization that I am not as great as I thought of myself as and thus I need to settle for whatever I have.

4. The other minor thing is that while I cant seem to work from home, I need to find a better solution than Starbucks. Thing is, it’s expensive – Rs. 200 per hour (no, they don’t ask me to buy coffee, I feel guilty about not paying). And B, I need change of location every now and then. So I need the flexibility of coming and going. May be there is some coworking space that is in Powai that I can use? Buy time there personally? Need to think more on this.

5. I need to fill this maker day with some activities that add to my health. May be a run. I know I cant run in the morning. I love that time too much to mix it with running. So need to add an evening run.

6. Also, there is no pattern to what I work on. So, I may be mistaking being busy with getting things done. I need to evaluate with a critical eye. Today, as I write this, I have done the following tasks. Lemme see if they add to a larger thing. Here is a list…
– Transcribed the podcast with MK – reputation, give back, pay it forward
– Pushed the ball ahead on xT – money
– Various admin things done on a client for AWSL – money
– Wrote this blogpost – writing, reflection
– Initiated a new project with SG – money, pay it forward
– Connected two acquaintances – grow network, pay it forward

So, in all, looks an ok day. I did not work on health or book2. I’d try to see a pattern and then take a call.

7 . I restarted on the daily track. Context here. Made an excel sheet. I know my goals. Everest. And 1 billion dollars. Here is the sheet. You will have access if I want you to have access. As on today, I have 3145 days left. Looks like a lot. But it isnt. I have been here for give or take 12500 days and I have nothing to show for those days. So there’s a lot to be done in the 3000 odd that I have. I can not rest. Each minute has to be spent towards something larger than me.

8. I am meeting a classmate from MDI. Trying to help him with his business. Hopefully getting some help back on what I am upto. Met him. Rather than I helping him, he was more help!

9. Looked at my cash flow statement. Two things stare at me. A, I have been spending a lot lately. I need to control it. B, there is outstanding payments on end of all clients. Not a good thing because I am getting into the rut of cash flow cycles. VG gave me a great advice. Either I need to invest money back in the business. Or skim from the top and invest somewhere.

Thats about it for the day. More updates on the next Maker Day. Oh, and tomorrow is a Manager Day. Will catalog it. And here’s the song for the day…

Maker and Manager Schedule

Continuing my rants on work, here is another. But first, as always, context.

1. Read Maker and Manager schedules. Copying from a post that I wrote in 2016, in one line, he says that you need to split your days in two kinds – one where you “make” things and other where you “manage” things. Make is where you get real work done. Manage is when you are on the call and get others to do things.

2. I straddle way too many things and I refuse to become master of just one.

So lately I have found myself putting in too much time in meetings. Meetings in general are wasteful but often things get done if there are clear agendas and there’s a great moderator. I try and do that with most meetings I attend. And while its great to be able to take decisions and move the ball forward, truth be told, I for one don’t achieve a lot in meetings. I dont add any value. I dont do anything that makes me happy. That makes me feel alive. I dont add no real value. I am like the gatekeeper that has to push pesky kids all the time to do things. And that is one of the worst soul-sucking, thankless, energy-sapping work that you can ever do!

Actually, if I look back at the last 2 odd years and someone asked me to make a list of things that I have achieved, I am proud of, I will have nothing! I mean, who says on their CV that in the biggest achievement of the last two years is that you have enough money to pay your bills – something I could’ve done if I did not quit GE. Or CLA. Or Gravity. Or Mirum! To be honest its no mean feat to deliver good work and find ways to stay afloat in this time and economy. But is that what my epitaph would say?

Thing is, as a creator, creative, expressive, ambitious, lazy, thinking, individual, I have this innate need to create. And ship. In fact I think the mindfuckery that has plagued me over the last few week (apart from muck at work) is because I am not creating anything new (no new writing, no new businesses, no ridiculous daydreams, no new side projects, no moonshots). To me, the allure of starting something is greater than anything else. In fact if I reflect on the times when I have been the happiest, they have been times when I was creating things – 5×5, book, blogs, side projects etc. I get into the flow super easy when I do that.

Lately I’ve been getting less and less opportunities to do so.

In an ideal world I would do nothing but create. May be I am ideally suited for a career as a painter or an artist or a photographer. But then I dont have the talent to be one. So, I need to settle for the second best – a career where I get to make some money by doing boring things and then use that money to create things that give me happiness (aka Hugh’s Sex and Cash Theory).

So maybe, I need to get active on side projects. Or maybe, I need to get to the Maker / Manager schedule and use dedicated chunks of time to make!

. . .

The other thread here is learning. I recently heard Elon Musk say,

People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually it will, I think, by itself degrade, actually. You look at great civilizations like Ancient Egypt, and they were able to make the pyramids, and they forgot how to do that. And then the Romans, they built these incredible aqueducts. They forgot how to do it.

James Altucher says that minds muscle atrophies if you dont use it. There are countless others that have extolled the virtues of doing things regularly, one day at a time. Each one gives a different name but the intention is the same – do things if you want to improve.

Or, in simple words, more I write, better I get. Better I get, more audience I get. More audience I get, more encouragement and appreciation I get. And that means I write more. Its a simple (but tad long) feedback loop. And with each iteration, the writing becomes better, faster, easier.

May be by being a manager, the creative cells in my head are dying. I mean I will never know but this sort of makes sense. Look at this post for example. I am almost two hours into writing this I am not even halfway there. Compare it to a time where I could write 2000 words in an hour. And now, I cant get mere 500 words! I can blame it on too many distractions and thoughts running astray. But I know that I am losing my mojo. It used to be super easy for me to get into flow while writing but lately I find it tough. May be I need to reinvigorate.

I can crib that I dont get time to write. Or read. But I know that I know that this is not true. The only reason I dont write more is because I have just too many things that take away the energy and time. No, I am not saying am straddling too many boats. I am saying that the things I am involved in, they are wasteful and I rather do things where the time is spent in doing actual work. And creating something new.

And one easy way to do it, is by dividing time in Maker and Manager schedules.

May be. May be not. Any thoughts?

How do I work?

In this long-ish post I talk about how I manage my increasingly complex work life. Thanks to Monica for prompting me to write this. And more importantly for all the follow-up.

So, for the context, I do ~~three~~ four things.

A, run an events agency;
B, work as a freelance marketing / brand / digital consultant;
C, actively seek start-up ideas.
D, working on my second book (buy the first one here)

On top of these, I have a million active interests.

A small list will be writing (am a published author, working on my next one), travel (if I dont hit the road at least 3 times a month, I get hibbie jibbes) and meeting new people (takes me to weird places like Race Course — where they denied me entry because I dont wear shoes — and like five-star hotels — where they ask me to furnish my credit card before I place an order — and so on and so forth).

A long list will have things like trying to run a marathon (though I am unfit and fat), learning to play a guitar, create “interesting” experiments (read businesses with whatever limited money I have).

Now, whoever I talk to, they say, I am trying to do a lot. I know I am. And yet I want more. I want to juggle as many balls as I can and yet walk on a tight rope. It’s one life. And I want to do it all. And I cant afford to drop any of these balls and I of course dont want to trip over the tight rope and plunge into the bottomless ravine that has an angry mountain river running through it.

Anyhow, I will talk about how I make sense of my day. The prerequisites for being able to read and make sense of this post are…

Familiarity with cloud computing. In one line, cloud computing refers to software and data that “resides” on the Internet (distributed servers). Everything is “on the cloud” and you can manage without a hard disk on your computer. Think of Gmail. You can login to Gmail from anywhere, any computer and your mailbox looks the same.
#hashtags. If you spend time on twitter, you will know what are hash tags. Simply put, these are textual labels that you can append to any piece of text. Since these labels are often NOT common words, you can search for these labels and identify pieces of texts marked with these labels. Helps in putting things in context. You may use same hashtags (words, not links) across various tools to help you! To me, hashtags are as powerful an idea as sliced bread is.

Then, you will have to read the following pieces

PG’s Maker / Manager Schedules. In one line, he says that you need to split your days in two kinds – one where you “make” things and other where you “manage” things. Make is where you get real work done. Manage is when you are on the call and getting others to do things. Of course if you are the CEO kinds, you could be on the manage mode all day long!
Mindmapping. Apparently ~~created~~ popularized by Tony Buzan, the technique allows you to store and retrieve information the way your brain does. This is one of the strongest techniques I know of.
On the 7th day. A day in the week, I dont work at all!

So the tools I use are

Microsoft Excel (works for me as my todo list / scratch pad)
Evernote (is an extension of my brain)
E.ggtimer.com (helps me track time while I am working)
Workflowy (my long todo list)
Google Calendar (manage time, deadlines, meetings etc)
Toggl (track time while I am working)
iTunes + Headphones (get work done)

Lemme take each in detail.

1. Excel.
So I have this excel workbook that I use as a scratch pad. Everytime I have my computer switched on, I have that sheet on. If I am on a call, I make a new sheet and put notes from the calls there. I used to do it on Evernote (especially the Evernote desktop plugin) but then my Evernote reached a point where I had way too many notes on it that I dont really need. So while I figure out the best way to do it, I use this excel sheet.

Apart from using this as scratchpad, I also have this one workbook where I list things to be done. This is not my todo list per se but this helps me get a glimpse of all the things that I am supposed to do. You may want to use Trello for similar actions. In fact I know of a startup that uses Trello for exactly this purpose.

Screencap of my excel sheet.

Please do note the heading of today, work, people, misc tasks and most importantly, improve self. And yes, do note that long list of things that I need to do today. There are three columns of work because I did not want the columns to spill over than one screen. And to schedule these tasks, I put these in workflowy. I know there is redundancy in what I do to manage my life. But this seems to work for me and like all other creatures of habit, I am used to this now.

So this is where my love with Excel ends. Oh, and the document resides on Google Drive. With the new version of office, you could sync files to Office 360 account anyway.

2. Evernote
I can not begin to tell you about the brilliance of a note-taking app. Especially Evernote. Evernote allows you to create, save and retrieve notes in a very intuitive desktop app, a very usage mobile phone app and a sucky online interface. The great part is that everything comes together without too many issues and I can use hashtags to sort things. Its like parking things in the brain and then forgetting about those. And then getting surprised as you stumble onto something totally unrelated while you are looking for something else (read serendipity). Its like outsourcing the archiving function of your brain.

I love that I can save things on evernote and forget about forgetting. So I know that I have saved a note about all active VCs that are still funding non-IIT, non-IIM students. I may not recall the names but I know I can fire evernote and retrieve it.

You know that thing about “things you know you know”, “things you know you dont know” and “things you dont know you dont know”? Evernote is your companion for “things you know you know”).

I can NOT recommend an alternative for Evernote. If you want to take away two things from this blogpost, Evernote has to be the one. The second? I will come to it in a bit. Oh, and since Evernote went mad and starting charging for great features (email to evernote, offline access etc), I have been thinking of finding an alternative. Recently started using OneNote. Not enjoying it so far. Lets see where it goes. (If you are curious, for the transition, I am using OneNote exclusively for one big big project – so I am forced to fire if often as I work)

3. E.ggtimer
Its like a countdown clock app. There are thousands of these. You may pick any. I find E.ggtimer.com to be the best and easiest to use. I have dragged the link of a 25 minutes clock (http://e.ggtimer.com/25minutes) to my shortcuts bar. One click on it, I am taken to a screen that starts counting back from 25 minutes.

Why 25 minutes? Studies after studies have shown that 25 minutes is an optimal time to reach / remain / deliver with your best concentration. And then apparently a 5-min break helps you recharge your attention and get back to more sessions of 25 minutes.

Also, I can plan my life. I plan all tasks to last in either 25 minute bunches. Or in 5 minute bunches. So if I know that I have to get into a longish phone call, I know that that 30 minute slot is gone. If I want to do pee, I force a 5-minute time frame for it. If I have to respond to email and its going to be a one line reply, I can do it in 5 minutes. Or I can club all my emails and replies in a 25-min slot. And so on and so forth. Imagine that you have just two units of time. 5 minutes and 25 minutes. Everything else is no longer valid. In fact I would love to buy a watch that has 5-min and 25-min units on it.

If 25 doesn’t work for you, EggTimer allows you to choose your time windows. But trust me, 25 is optimal. Well, you may argue. But I think this is a philosophical thing. You want to have a discussion? Lets do it over a drink 😉 Also, you may also want to read about Pomodoro. And Flow.

4. WorkFlowy
Remember I said that if you could take two things away from this piece, Evernote is one? Workflowy is the second. And come to think of it, there is a third as well. Come to that in a bit.

So, before anything, love the way they market themselves. They say, “make lists, not war.” Remember “Code is Poetry” on WordPress / Automattic? Apart from make lists, workflowy, on their home page say that Slack was started with Workflowy, Twitter’s co-founder uses Workflowy everyday and so on and so forth. As a guy who lives on the fringes of the tech industry, this is awesome. I mean how cool is that that you use the same tool as Ev?

Screencap from Workflowy.com

So, without further ado, Workflowy is an outlining tool that helps you make nested
lists of things that you want to do. Think of it as a decision tree
visualized as a list. Like trees, there are nodes and childs and you can
collapse / expand, mark them as read, unread etc. You can’t really set
deadlines per se but I use hashtags to get things done. You can use it on your phone, you can use it on your laptop.

Screencap from my Workflowy

Anyway. I can extol the virtues of Workflowy for three days. Coming back, my workflowy has 4 key sections.

Todo – things that I need done.
Life goals – things that interest me and I want to do something tangible with those.
Projects – things that give me money.
Personal – things important to me. I have cropped those out.

Each of these 4 can be expanded to show more items under that list. Once I finish things I strike them off. I can easily toggle view to see things that I have done already. Or are open.

Using Workflowy, I have outlined by next book already (which is late by a year). I have a list of things that I want to work on. I have a list of people to pitch for work. I love how everything is contextual and comes together neatly. I love how its convenient to see things in one glace. Its like I am able to see the big picture and the details. And it suits my personality perfectly.

Workflowy is brilliant. If I could also add dates in it, I could replace all my tools. But then Workflowy is expensive (I think 49 USD for a year). I got lucky to get free one-year subscription from an offer on AppSumo. And as someone who has hardly paid money for software, I am willing to renew the subscription!

Also, do read Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto. Also, do read http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/workflowy-to-keep-organized to know how other people use Workflowy.

5. Google Calendar
I do not know of a better calendar app than this. There are people who talk about Sunrise and Fantastical and I dont know what else. For some reason I haven’t had the need to find an alternative. May be because I am averse to change? May be because I am comfortable operating out in the Google environment? Or may be I dont expect many frills from the app. I dont need directions, reminders and other integration. And may be I hardly use my “work” tools on phone. I need a laptop, a computer to operate.

Side point: I know of many people who have moved / migrated to mobile for work (from creating pitch decks to making excel sheets to project management to calendars), I am still old school. I need a laptop for “work.” Also, my mobile habits are very unlike most people I know of. I hardly watch video on my mobile (when I say hardly, I mean one / two videos a day), I dont use FB on my mobile. In fact the only apps I use on my phone are Google Maps, email, Firefox, WhatsApp, Twitter, Pocket, Uber, Tinder and Instagram. I dont read news on my phone, I dont check Facebook, I dont order food, I dont call a plumber, I dont book airline tickets. I am lazy. No news, no Facebook, no food ordering apps, no airline tickets. I dont know the global average but I reckon my usage of my mobile device is skewed.

Screencap from my gCal

So back to Google Calendar. I am anal with its use and I plot and plan even dates with Tinder matches on the Calendar.

Of course, for each thing (client 1, client 2, dates, Cyntax etc.) I do, I have a separate calendar. It helps me keep things color coordinated and all that. I can also share tasks and deadlines with a specific set of people if I have separate calendars.

Finally, the entries in the calendar help me reconcile the amount of work I have done for a specific client. Ideally I should be able to track costs and raise bills from within Google Calendar. But for a free software, it does a lot anyway.

So, lemme talk about a tool that I have to use to maintain timesheets (and in future, raise bills as it has a billing module).

6. Toggl.com
I use Toggl to keep track of timesheets. Since I work for multiple clients in multiple organization and my billing is time based (rather than project based), I need a system to keep track of time I spend on something. Toggl is yet another Freemium cloud-based tool that gives me access to a large part of its functionality without paying any money.

I have been toying with it over the last few months. Starting today, I will use it lot more often. Lets see how it goes.

Just that if Toggl could incorporate features of an e.ggtimer.com, they would help me save more time!

7. iTunes + Headphones
While I love working out of coffee shops and love to have activity around me, there are times when I want to focus. Music helps me do that. No, not the white noise or meditation music or something like that. Good old regular Bollywood, Indipop and a bit of international selection does the trick for me.

So that’s it! Pretty simple and yet gets shit done for me! And here is something that Steve Jobs loved to say, and I remain committed to it…

I had to ship this. Thanks to Monica for pushing me to write this. Hope this helps. Hope this was worth the wait. In the spirit of making this a comprehensive post, some other tools that the world uses are…

Slack – For communication. I tried using it but it was a
pain in ass to get more people use Slack for communication. It ended up
becoming yet another messaging tool. So I stopped it. But I know a lot
of people who cant live without Slack.
Feedly – All my news reading (of passive kind) from sources that I want to read news from happens via Feedly.
Dropbox – For files that I have to send to client. I dont use weTransfer or YouSendIt etc. Unless clients specifically ask for these.
Pocket – All the active reading (where someone recommends a link) happens over Pocket. I push links into Pocket queue and continue to read through when on the go. To me, there are two kinds of reading. Three actually. A- Pleasure – fiction, blogs of friends, twitter crushes, things like serial etc. B – Mandatory – news and other things that I have to read and see and listen to stay relevant in the world. C – Play – things that interest me and may or may not be relevant to my work. Things like which Diet regimen is better – Paleo or Keto or Lo Carb or Slow Carb or Vegan? You get the drift.
Producteev – Producteev is your todo list + calendar +
project management all rolled into one. And that is what makes it so so
powerful. You can further divide tasks into projects, add labels (read
hashtags), allocate to people and share the links. I used Producteev a lot, before Workflowy. Not anymore. For reasons mentioned above.

That’s all folks.

In the end, thanks once again to Monica for the prompt and multiple reminders. And here are few standard disclaimers…

No animals were harmed in the making of this blogpost
If something works for me, does not mean that it will work for you. Use at your own risk
If you do end up using advice that I have dispensed here, please do share this with others
If this post is brilliant, please give me work. Drop me a line at saurabh.garg@gmail.com
If this is better than sex, please do drop me a line ;P
If you want me to write for your publication on productivity, I would be happy to do so, in exchange for a review of my book

Disclaimer: Few links have my referral codes embedded into
those. Trying this for the first time. Lets see if it works. Please do
know that referral codes no NOT fuck around with your experience or
pricing. Thanks!

How to? For the lazy ones.

No, you’re not the only lazy person that you know of. There are more. So many that there is this entire corner of the world wide web reserved for them. Trust me. Ok dont. But just search for procrastination, getting things done, to-do lists, productivity, life hacking and more. Each sounds like an interesting buzzword with a million interpretations. But all of these are essentially talk to the same set of people. Lazy ones. Like me. Like you.

I have always had a million ideas that could possibly put a ding in the universe. But since I have always been lazy, I never pursued any idea. But with Nidhi Kapoor, somehow I got lucky. Despite my legendary laziness, I could work on it for more than 9 months and actually finish it.

Someone asked me how did I do. And since I am all for sharing, here is a list of things that I did to make it happen.

1. Create a large measurable output.
A novella of 30 posts, each post with 1000 words.
Lose 2 inches in a month. Takes 10000 steps every day.
Money? 10 lakhs a month. Health? 6 packs. Travel? 100 counties. So on and so forth.
I try to create a large audacious goal that I want to achieve. And then I try to make it measurable. A goal that is not measurable is not a goal at all. Its just wishful thinking.

2. Divide things into tiny, measurable and tangible goals.
20 minutes of yoga. 1000 words a day. 10000 steps a day. 1 country per month.
Key words are tiny, measurable and tangible. Without these three, all goals are meaningless. There is nothing like “few” or “some”. Moment you make a tiny task that has “few” in it, please know that its doomed. It wont happen. I can bet my ass on it.

There’s a simple test to know if the goals you set are correct. If you can see, notice and talk about the progress you’re making against the goal, you are on track.

For example, over a period of time, 1000 word everyday get compiled into a nice thick book. Use some app on your phone and you would have a nice chart with all the steps you’ve walked over the days. So on and so forth.

3. Share the large goal and tiny tasks with the world.
Subject yourself to public ridicule.

If possible, get a couple of likeminded people and do it with them. You can write from the comfort of your home. They could walk on a track close to their place. But report to each other. Be each other’s boss and subordinate at the same time. Help each other. Remember that standing on the shoulders of giants?

Public ridicule is probably the most powerful motivational force that is ignored. Make a commitment on Facebook and then ask your closest friend to take your happiness on FB if you don’t do things. I promise you would do things just to stop your friends from posting things on FB.

If your friends refuse to help you by ridiculing you, I volunteer to do so. What say?

4. Celebrate. Every day and when you achieve the large ultimate goals.
The way daily tiny goals are important, you ought to celebrate the achievement of those goals. For example, everytime I write those 1000 words, I go and buy myself a Diet Coke. You may buy yourself an icecream. Or one hour of Internet. Etc.

Get addicted to these rewards. The goal thus become like a precursor to these rewards. More you crave for the awards, more passionately you’d chase your goals.

Same for that large goal. Make the award so big that you want it at any cost. When I finished my book, I told myself that I would go travel at a firang destination. And I am going in June. Fingers crossed.

Thats it! When you do achieve your goal, do share with me. Would love to see what you cook up!

All the best! And do “like” the FB page for my book ;P Its at facebook.com/TheNidhiKapoorStory.

P.S.: Please note that this is not scientific at all. This is something that has worked for me and may or may not work for you. But do try.

Credits
Thanks to SG26Jul for the idea.

(not) working from home!

Today is day 8. And its a busy day ahead. If I don’t write now, I would not be able to write. I have a choice between writing and going for a swim. You now know what I chose. There are schools of thought about it. No point writing everyday if I am going to ignore my health and die sooner. On the other hand, no point staying healthy and fit if I am not going to write. Its like the chicken and the egg. Anyway, onward to the post of the day. Like I said, today is day 8. On the trot. Power to me.

So all my life, ever since I did my MBA, I have craved for a job that allowed me to work from home. Where I decided my own time and I worked out of the relative comfort of my home.

To me, the greatest advantage of work from home was all the time that I could save if I did not have to negotiate traffic en route to office. And since I lived in a godforsaken corner of Delhi, roads were bad, traffic was maddening and it took forever to reach some place.

I was under the impression that if I am work from home, I would be more productive. I’d be able to do more work per hour spent working and the quality of work would be better. I also thought that since I would choose my time, I would have enough time to indulge in these side projects that I kept cooking. And finally, stay at home and work meant I would spend a lot more time with my family, something that I have largely ignored while I was working out of Delhi.

Not to mention all the money that I would save. My last office was 50+ KM away from home and with the petrol prices skyrocketing, every day I went to office, I spent about 700 bucks, just on the drive. Multiply it by 20 days a month that I went to office and it was a whopping 14K a month. On fuel alone. Just to reach office. So while I was travelling, I was wasting time, money, energy and keeping everything on the back burner. Not a good thing. No?

I tried really hard to negotiate a thrice a week policy. Or work from home thing but my boss was adamant that it does not work in the events business. If I was a consultant or something, I could have lived in Honolulu and worked from there but I was expected to meet clients, get work done from my team and generally stay on top of everything. I hated him for it. Work from home was like a elixir that I needed to stay alive. I fought and fought and fought and nothing came out of it.

So, when I came to Mumbai to work on the book and work on the startup where I made my first angel investment, I thought that since I would be working out of home, I would have more time, do more work, do better work, create those side projects, focus on health and so on and so forth. It looked like an ideal scenario. I couldnt have imagined a better life.

I was wrong. So so wrong.

So.

Very.

Wrong.

Its been three months since I quit and rather than becoming a productivity ninja with superpowers to get things done on a deadline, I have become a lazy (ok, lazier), fat (fatter), procrastinator that just wants to eat and sleep. That lure of the comfortable bed is just too tempting to not indulge in. I tell myself that I would lie down for just a few minutes and then I would be back to work. And when I get up, I realize that its been more than two hours since I went to bed. I decide that I would only have home cooked meals and that too at regular intervals. But no, I am consuming Maggi, omelettes, Coke, Red Bull et al at a speed faster than a light travels. I thought I would get up early and learn swimming. But no, I have ended up programming my system for 12 hour sleep cycles. Remember I could sleep for four hours and still be in my senses? I decide that I’d take a small break. But no, I end up watching hours and hours of Big Bang Theory. oh, this has to be the bestest sequence from the show. Here, lemme embed it.

So, where was I?

Yes, I have come to a conclusion that work from home, for me atleast, does not work. I really need a place where I am expected to show up at 9 every morning and have to login 8 hours. And I want the freedom to step out when I want to. You know what I am saying?

To sum it up, I think I am not programmed to be able to work from home. In last three months, I have gone fatter, I have worked lesser and none of the projects is off the ground. Who is to blame? ~~Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Dr. Sheldon Cooper and Howard Wolowitz~~ Me! And my obsession to find work that requires to be done from home.

Damn.

But then thankfully, Nidhi Kapoor Story is moving forward. Tottering actually but its still moving. However I am not getting as many likes on the FB page, as I would want. Any social media analysts want to help?

And to end this note, I still have a few months to go before I start working again. And I need to find an office close to where I live. This means somewhere in Powai. A cheap co-working space. You know of any?

And when I do resume working, if I get into a job that requires me to work on a desk, I really want an inspiring office. A place, a desk, a cubicle, something to keep my computer on. I want it to be comfortable, airy, air-conditioned, with an unlimited supply of water, clean loos and approval to play music of my choice at an hour of my choice. And I want it to be as close to where I live. Ideally, walking distance.

What I am ok without having, is a corner office or a view or a secretary or a carpet or expensive furniture or a pool table or a membership to the club or fancy things like those. Basics are just fine with me. I am that kind of a person. I think people like me are called externally-motivated or something. Whatever, I want these things, if I am to work.

And no, I will not work from home.

P.S.: If you plan to hire me, please do read this and other posts in this series.

Four Months of Frugal Life

Credits: This Link

Update. This post that you are reading was made in end of July. Since then, here are the updates on how I fared on living a frugal life. Here is the update from August.

Now that I am probably the most expensive city in the country with no stable income, I need to somehow stop spending as much I used to once upon a time. In fact lot of my gurus in life (Warren Buffet, VS, VK etc) are proponents of Frugal Living. I never understood the importance of the same before this. Now that I am jobless I will try an experiment with it. It cant really hurt more than a bank balance of Rs. 3417. No?

So first things first.
At any given point in time, I have had just one stable job. And that has been my only source of income. So whatever I make from that job, I survive on it.

I have used buxfer and a custom made excel sheet (mail me if you need the sheet) in the past to track my spends. And the categories where I spend the most are petrol, travel, flights, eating out, gadgets and gifts. Apart from petrol, I could have avoided pretty much all other expenses. When I had a steady paycheck, it did not matter much, now they would. I would work on not spending money like I used to when I was earning.

My spending policy has been, its one life and rather than saving money to help you when you are old, save experiences that you can recall when you are old.

Second.
Thanks to my attempts at tracking where money goes, I can clearly see there are few areas where I could stop spending immediately. Gifts for example. I have always given expensive gifts, even when I couldn’t afford them) to friends, family and strangers. I was like the secret “secret Santa” that I even I wasn’t aware of and even the recipients did not realize that they have been on the receiving end of pseudo-largesse. I dont know why was I doing it. Now I will stop it all. Family and friends would understand. If they don’t, good, Id know who to avoid. Strangers wont care anyway.

I can completely avoid eating out. I can reduce it to bare minimum if nothing else. I would stop working out of coffee shops and make my desk my best friend. I would spend more time at home and thus reduce the cost of intra city travel.

I can live without buying any more gadgets. I have the best smartphone in the market and I think I dont need to change it for another year or so. I have a decent laptop that I am ideally supposed to return but I wont unless my office calls for it. And I dont really need anything else. I would want a large television and a playstation and all that but no. I would give it all to younger cousins etc and try and live a simpler life. More on it later.

Having said all this, I will not compromise on

Cost of living. I would continue to stay at my current place, expensive by all standards and continue to maintain the same lifestyle (food etc). I dont booze so that saves a lot of money and heartburn.
Travel. This is my biggest passion in life. I would not let travel opportunities go by. Even if they are expensive, I would take up loans if required.
Internet. Whatever I am and whatever I am not, is because of my excessive exposure to Internet. I would not stop it. But I would change the consumption pattern. More on this later.
Time. And finally, I will save time, rather than saving money. So if this means taking a flight to Delhi, rather than train, I would take a flight.

Baby steps to Simpler Life
I read somewhere that its better to err on the side of action. Its been a few months and I have taken it to my heart. So before I wrote about a frugal life, here are the things that I have actioned already

One of my two phone connections is a Blackberry. It translates into a fixed bill of Rs. 399 per month. I stopped using it. Although this is not a big number, its more of a symbolic thing. I am thus no longer connected on email 24 x 7. Also this would mean that I am no longer stuck in the rut of immediate replies that push emails demand.
No to long phone conversations that I am dearly fond of. I dont know of an alternative but maybe less talking would help me save money, energy and time that I could use on other pursuits.
Reduce the amounts I spend on coffee shops and eating out. I would ration em out. And Even when I am forced to wait a ta coffee shop, I shall do so by ordering the cheapest thing on the menu, without any add on. I am ok with facing the wrath of social proof but I wont spend money. In last three days, I have spend some 300 bucks on coffee. If I was not jobless, I would have spent atleast 5 times than this.
When traveling I would try and use public transport (read local trains) as much but I would not compromise too bad on this. Its expensive and I would live with it. I would thus walk a lot more and try and spend time close to home only. No more extravagant travel bills to meet random people. This also means that I handpick people that I meet and thus avoid all unhappy, depressed, sad people. I would ofcourse spend on meetings that can get me work et al. I would maintain a separate account for it. Last two days, I have walked lot more, compared to what I would have done in regular situations.
And no more expensive gifts. Period.
And no more gadgets, like I mentioned already. Except one. A music dock. I dont really need it (I evaluated it on this flowchart by Vishal). I WANT it. Dont know why. I am in that waiting period of ten days that Vishal recommends

On Internet and On living a simpler life.
When I say Simpler Life, I mean a life where I am completely free and I dont get emotionally attached to objects and hoard them in closets. Probably to never open them again. Us humans have that stupid tendency to attach ownership and names to stupif things like books, gadgets, objects. I have been guilty of that. I never give my books to anyone, not even to VG. Starting now, I will start parting with these lifeless objects. They would hopefully free my head of conversations about ownership et al and let me think of other things.

And on Internet, I have been the connected kinds. I have million updates all the time.
From facebook, twitter, foursquare, emails from five email accounts that
I have, membership to multiple groups (MDI Alumni, Mensa etc). When my phone doesnt ring, I tend to get jittery and am scared to know if the world was falling apart. I always wanted to be the first one to know about anything happening anywhere in the world. Now that I dont have a BB and I have disabled all push notifications, I select times when I login to Internet and check everything. This is keeping my mind at peace and I am not in that constant state of living multiple lives – one in present and other on the TL. Someone said on twitter, “life is what happens to you when you are refreshing your TL”. Its a brilliant insight. I would live in the moment lot more. With no notifications to drag me towards them, I would have only one thing to focus on. The present.

Plus I believe if there is something that I need to know, it would permeate through my network and reach me irrespective of my use of Internet or not. So, if the world does fall apart, I would get to know about it. Sooner or later.

Thats it.

What next?
I would spend these four months chasing frugality like its nobody’s business. I would try and write about it as well because I have realized that writing makes me structure my thoughts better, apart from helping me hone the craft. I would also continue to make changes in my lifestyle to help me get fitter, calmer and happier. Of course I want to get richer as well.

Do help me if you think I must know of something that would help me in this “project”.

The keywords for next four months are freedom, frugalily, life-hacking, simplicity and action. More on these in the next post. Dont know when, but soon.

Summary!
Yesterday I called up my mom and I have never been happier while talking to her. Its probably toughest to mask real feelings when we talk to our folks. My mom, despite all the distance between us, she could sense and see that I was happy. Happy as in the Pursuit of Happyness happy. And I was totally loving it. Never before I have been so relaxed and happy.

And, do pray for me. This time, for a change, I mean it.

Personal Email Policy

So here is my mail policy. I would divide my emails into two. Things that can be finished in a minute or two. And things that would take longer than five minutes.

For everything that can be done in less than 2 minutes, I would do those, at the moment I get the email (thanks to push mail). This could include delegating things, forwarding messages to people, allocating tasks, replying to quick requests etc. I reckon that these would be about 80% of emails that I get in a day. I also assume that for these emails, since the replies would be short, I wont have to be at the mercy of a laptop as I can use my phone to get these done.

The tasks that would take longer, replying to long emails, emails to friends and family, guest post requests etc, I would take them up in one sitting. For these tasks, I would check my email twice. Once at the morning and other towards the evening or before I sleep. Each time I would allocate as much time it takes to get done with them.

Everyday, I would sleep with my mailbox empty with all requests.

And along with, I would need a system to track the followups since I would start delegating a lot more things and experience tells me that people are generally lazy. I have been trying to do the followup using tasks with Google Calendar. So far it looks nice and easy. Lets see how it goes and how I use it over a long term.

The new email policy would also mean that I would have to unsubscribe from all those newsletters that I love reading (Gapingvoid, Seth Godin, Vimrod, Jason Calacanis etc). And subscribe to those from a regular feed reader or something. Finally, the bigger picture (of having an email policy) behind all these changes, is to try and simplify life over the next few weeks. And reach a point where these things dont clutter my head and I am free to think and work on larger issues.

Originally posted on Sandbox.

Airplane Mode

Last few days have been hectic and I have been forced to work a lot of on the planes. And I think I like the entire concept, except my motion sickness and a 3 second long attention span. Its surprising that how much work gets done on a plane. I wish I could duplicate the airplane mode while I am on ground.

Thing with working on the flights is that there are no distractions. You don’t have internet, there is no phone and there is no one to bug you with odd requests of booking tickets for them, making a presentation, getting an approval from a client etc. You get all the time you want. You can concentrate on the task at hand. There is nothing that can distract you. Not even music!

Except that the flights are full of kids and the airlines keep paddling things and try and squeeze every penny out of your pocket. These are minor aberrations and tolerable since these are not your kids and you can ofcourse yell obscenities at them.

Anyways, can you create an airplane mode in your daily routine? A time of the day when you switch off the wifi and turn off the urge to check twitter and facebook every second minute? A place where no one can disturb/distract you?

Originally posted at Sandbox.

Anatomy of a productive day at work

Today, unlike all other days, at almost 8 PM, I am slightly content about how this day has gone by. I reached work at 11ish. Did most of the things on my todo list (that I made at around 9 before I left home for work), killed lot of time (on random tweets, reading and writing), listened to my favorite music, ate a good lunch, spoke to Neo and my sis and finished the bplan for WML that I had been meaning to write for three months. Like they say, I was totally in the zone and I was loving it. Of course I got bored of all the work and took long and generous breaks. But I always came back to do more things and get more things done.

Anyways, so what happened today that does not happen on all the other days that I am in office? The answer is surprisingly simple! There was no one in office, on my floor. Not even my bosses. Everyone was travelling and I had the entire 800 sq ft of floor to myself. I had no one to get engaged in gossip with. There were no distractions. I could sing, swear, shout, play music, sit anywhere, put my legs up on the chair, roam around, have my tea and do everything with complete disregard to anyone and anything. And most importantly, I realized, there was no one who I wanted to prove to that I was working and adding value to the company. I was on my own! And this I think, did all the magic. I need to be on my own to be able to do things. Merely putting the headphones and listening to loud music does not help!

Now, as I am having dimsums and Maggi (ya, together), reading Uncrunched and playing Poker, I am content about the way I spent this day. If I could chose, I would want to spend most of my working days like this. Remember Kwan? I just need to create more such opportunities where I am trapped in a secluded corner with no one watching me work. And get things done.

Once I crack the right formula, nothings gonna stop me baby. The work on the magic formula has started. Hopefully before 2012, I would get it out of the way. Talking about 2012, as we enter 2012, its time for all those resolutions that we make and conveniently forget by the 15th of January! I certainly have mine and this time, its not a list, but is a whole damn mindmap. So as we step into 2012, I plan to take a large printout of the mindmap and paste it at a place where I can see it everyday. I am even going to give a copy of the mindmap to VK (my agony aunt, mentor, friend, philosopher, bouncing board etc) and ask her to ensure that I do those things. And then, I would freaking go ahead and do those things. Of course I cant really control the outcomes but I can try and maximize my chances of success. And that is what I am going to do.

Like she says, its a sign, I can see the writing on the wall. Just need to get into the zone more often!

P.S.: I just lost 80% of my stack with pocket Aces! Arrrghh!

Evernote – Loving It

So once I got the ipad, I asked around for applications that I should be using to make the most of the tablet. One of the recommedations came from JFK and I was asked to explore Evernote. I had been using it sporadically but I hadn’t given it much thought. Post recommendation, I started using it and to be honest, I was skeptic in the beginning. I wasnt really sure if it would be of any use. Especially to me, where I tend to read about a million things and want to collect notes, people and contacts about each of those things. But then, as the new Tata Sky ad says, poochne main kya jaata hai, I gave it a shot.

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful logo. The elephant. Famous for its memory. And the use of green. Good design is probably 90% of the battle won. The UI on ipad was very impressive and once I logged in, I could see my notes that I had created on the desktop version. And then when I got to reading, editing and using those notes, I was mightily impressed. I knew I had struck goldmine. With notebooks, tags and easy accessibility from all the devices that I use (HP Mini, BB, iPad), it meant that all my notes, thoughts and links were at my fingertips. Since these are native applications, rather than browser based ones, they can store some data locally and it feels to me that I am working on a local application. And this IMHO is the killer feature.

Its been just a few days that I have started using evernote and I can already see that this would be one of those utilities that I wont be able to do without. The best part is the seamless syncing that happens on all the devices. I use it on iPad, BB and my laptop.

Right now, I have just been storing links, notes and memos. I haven’t had the need to retrieve anything so far. But in near future, I would have to. When that happens, lets see how it works out for me.

More than just using Evernote as an alternative to personal information manager, Evernote also marks a turning point in the way I treat files and think about storage and accesibility. With Internet getting fast and ubiquitous, rather than using a mere device to store documents, I now rely on (and trust) cloud services. With time, most of the things would move to cloud and hopefully all the services would have the sane head that Evernote guys have – to have a native application for most of the access devices. Though browsers are advanced and all that but the experience of an app is unmatched.

Cloud obviously comes with its set of challenges. Security for example. But since I dont really work with James Bond and I am no Paris Hilton, I am not really concerned about illegal access (and misuse) of my documents. I tend to keep things simple and so far, I am loving it. The other services that reside on cloud and I cant do without are Todoist, Delicious, Dropbox, and Google Reader. Do you recommend anything else?

And yes, I use the free version. Even at megre USD 45, the premium version of Evernote is still expensive for me. I recommend everyone to give Evernote a shot and share your feedback!

Aug 16: The 500 word conundrum

Hello dear regular readers of my blog (aka me!),

How are you guys today? Its been long since I write to you. I have been busy writing over the last few days and for one reason or the other, I could not address you guys directly. I sincerely hope that you are doing well. I always think about you when I am praying.

You would have noticed that over the last few days, I have become really active with posting on my blog. I dont really have a specific reason but I just wanted to restart my habit of writing. All this while chasing a bigger dream of writing a full length novel some day. Would it actually materialize? Only time shall tell (assuming that by the time I get around to publishing it, people would actually be reading books. I am not sure cos of the dwindling time and attention span in the 149 character era). But anyways, I made a promise to myself that I would write at least 500 words everyday for one entire month. I did know that it would be a bit hard but I had no clue that it could drive me crazy. With all the work, meetings, travel, I thought I can take out twenty minutes easily and sit down in quiet and write something. But then I was wrong. I have missed it twice already. Its like taking the Sundays off. When I first thought about it, it seemed as easy as walking on the beach with sun playing hide and seek with clouds. But as I progressed through the month, I realized that its no simple task. It takes a lot of effort to just show up and actually start writing.

The surprising thing is that I really love writing. I know I am nowhere close to publishing quality, yet, but I do love the feeling of writing things. I love the way thoughts come to my head spontaneously. I love the way my brain cooks up connections in my memory and prompts me to type a set of words. Most of them dont really end up making any sense, but the few ones that do, they justify all the effort.

So if I love writing, why is that I missed on those two days? Not that writing feels like a job to me. I really want to write and writing is play for me. I could give a limb if someone paid me enough to write. Enough to be comfortable, ~~drink all the coke~~, travel the world and play some poker. I love writing and writing actually helps. If nothing else, then at least its a nice conversation starter.

And then its not even that I dont know what to write about. I have tons of things that I want to write about. And I have more than 4 projects that I want to start. I have no clue where does all my time goes. May be its commuting across Delhi, twice, each day. Or its the nature of work I do where my time is not mine. It belongs to my office, my managers and my clients. And secret, since I get paid peanuts for it, I feel like a loser after I end most of my days. Writing post work, at least puts some sanity back in my head and I feel as if I have done something productive with my day.

Today, despite the fact that I havent done much work, seems like a day spent well. You know why? Because I am writing this piece. At 0100 hours. Just before I sleep (not really. Have to leave home at 0430 and catch a flight).

Oh, btw, does anyone wants any freelance writers?

This is day 16 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.