Sleep early to keep sane
Below I am sharing some of my sleeping experiments as I have tried all combinations of sleeping time -- from sleeping at 2 AM and waking up at 6 AM to sleeping at 10 PM and waking up at 4/5/6/7 AM, and a few variations in between and some of my key observations are as follows:
- If I sleep at 10 PM, I can wake up at 5 AM and later without any fatigue in eyes or mind. I perpetually feel fresh like daisy and surely that helps in maintaining a very good health.
- If not 10 PM, sleeping at 11 PM is equally good provided you wake up at 6AM and any later than that is basically a luxury which I won't be having for next few years. But work out regime is delayed a little and weather gets hot as the sun pops out completely.
- Sleeping at 12 Mid night (00:00 hours) is worse as whenever you will wake up, you will wake up with fatigued eyes and mind and even waking up at 8 AM won't make you feel fresh.
- Sleeping beyond 1 PM will lead to all the negatives of sleeping at 12 Mid-night and moreover one may develop health issues which can be of thousand kinds.
Moreover, I try having a screen time cooling period of 30 minutes before sleeping to not wake up with dry/ fatigued eyes. Always hydrate your eyes as eye must be hydrated all the time while using screens excessively tries them.
Wrapping up my 20s
In the past decade, I have grown so much. From the castles in the air to getting a glimpse of the life I always had wished to live.
From being a grad from a Tier-C college to scoring not so great grades to actually working on some of the high impact works, my startups and the experience which I gained from them was utilised in my stints with some of the largest firms in the world. From being a keen explorer to an idea-hopper would suffer largely from shiny ball syndrome to sticking to just few things and goals, to live a minimalistic life which has served me greatly.
From perpetually seeking motivation and inspiration to do something to becoming an action oriented person and focusing on immediate deliverables, from becoming not so thoughtful in writings to now, a much more thoughtful writer who thinks through before speaking and writing.
Thanks to all the lords who have been blessed me so far that I got myself some of the best minds as the mentors -- Bishal Sir, I owe him almost my career as quite frankly one needs a gods hand who can give you a right opportunity at the time when you need it the most, that's what he offered me when I was looking for a job after my first switch and 3 months of job hunt. Left the job again for a stint in my startup but couldn't materialise much so joined the firm again. Working with him and the firm was transformational for my career as he wasn't the micro-manager and he trusted me well enough to let me explore and execute the tasks on hand. He would know all the topics which would become trend eventually -- one of his skills which I admired the most. Thanks so much for the endless opportunities that you have given to me.
Ashish - He's one of the mentors of mine who hired me to the firm and gave me all the opportunities an employee can dream of. His eloquence in technology and speaking is unparalleled, the skill which I have to work even more devotedly from now on. I still remember how I climbed up 8 floors for my interview at 7PM (after my office) and he brought me a glass of water to let me calm down. Such down to earth managers/ senior leaders of the firm is what an employee can dream of working with.
Devin - I never thought I would end up joining the firm (even as a contractor) but since I did, I worked, extremely hard to learn everything I could, to prove myself as an useful resource to him and the firm. He's smart, so smart that he would pick my mistakes instantly and would wait for me to come up (which I did, mostly!). Worked there for 19 months and I can't thank him enough for the opportunity I got, it surely was transformation for me. The goal of my 30s is to join the firm again and I will leave no stone unturned to achieve it.
Pratul - He was two years seniors in my bachelors college and I am grateful that I met him and he introduced me to the world of OpenSource and Drupal. I really don't know what I would have done/ achieved in my life if I wouldn't have come across these. One person can surely change the trajectory of the life, for good in this case.
I did about 120 flights in total, all of them domestic as I haven't been to anywhere else but India, Mumbai a dozen times and god, I love that city -- will be making it my home in next 2-3 years.
Completed my NMIMS NGASCE PGBMM finally and I am so glad that it's completed before entering my thirties.
I haven't been very regular in writing blogs/ content on my websites but from now I definitely will write a piece everyday.
Bought one of my favourite cars days before ending the glorious decade. More to come on this.
More action to follow in thirties.
Have you ever thought of becoming a frequent flyer?
Have you ever thought of becoming a frequent flyer? Following are some inspiring videos which will fuel your dream:
Technical secrecy
Technology/ Tech stack differentiates your business. As much as possible, hide whatever best stack you have.
How to handle the information load in the information age?
We all are surrounded by countless source of data in the form of videos, texts, voices, images and perpetual thoughts in our minds. To ease off and to productivity process them we need to have mental models in place on how to manage them, how to extract useful actionable items out of them and how to successfully store them for future reference.
I was reading a blogpost written by the CEO of Evernote and some of my key learnings and thoughts are:
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Have a theme workday - On one day, you can take on all leadership/ business facing tasks which makes you see things in macro/ bird eye-view manner. Mondays are ideal for that as following days you can work on the execution part. Tuesdays can be spent on mobilising your team towards achieving the goals as finalised on the day prior. Also, acknowledging efforts of the top-performers so that they are motivated to maintain the momentum during the rest of the week. Wednesday can be spent on Marketing strategy which will take form and executed in following days. Thursday can be spent on other facets of business such as recruiting and product development/ enhancement. Friday can be spent on retrospecting the week, what were the achievements, fronts where improvements are needed. By following a thematic workweek regime, your work won't be much monotonus and there will be sense of adventure and fun while working which would keep you full of energy and creativity while on work.
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Plan ahead, prioritize and execute - Different facets of your life should be mapped in such a way that you can focus on the present moment/ day to day activities as well as what your quarterly goals are and are the activities going to help you in achieving the quarterly goals (for yourself as well as your team/ family members/ friends) and make long lasting impact.
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Don't let e-mails dictate your workday - Start your day with the Priority list which you prepared on the last night. Those are your top 3 priority tasks. Try taking on the hardest problems first which needs your absolute attention and good amount of cognitive resources. Once done, move on to less demanding tasks. Filter the emails in such a way that tasks which tasks minimal time can be taken over immediately and others can be checked in night when you will be prioritising the tasks (feel free to delegate that task if you have PAs). Don't keep on checking emails round the clock as it takes away a lot of time and contributes to mental fatigue as well. Instead, stick to whatever you had planned a night before.
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Don't go gaga over meetings - Meeting drains out a lot of time and are often unproductive. Have meetings with strict agendas and actionable. There must be a person who meticulously takes MOMs/ Notes of the meeting to ensure that every stakeholder knows about what was agreed and what were the actionable items.
