What are you measuring? Want to write more? Want to lose weight? Want to earn more? What are the metrics that lead to your goals? Are you measuring them? As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” If it’s all in your head, you are probably not being as effective as
Leading myself. When we talk of leadership, we invariably think of others as followers: I am leading, they are following. The most important leadership, though, is leading oneself. There is a follower in each of us. That part of our mind that needs direction. That part of our mind that wants someone
Mental labour. The one that we do in the mind. When we think about a task, or a decision or anything for that matter. This includes discussions and deliberations. That mental labour is useless. Nothing comes out of it. Instead, it’s the fingers (that type or paint) or the vocal chords
Time and Focus. Time behaves differently. I am not talking about Einstein’s relativity theory but my assertions on Resistance. When we are indulging in Resistance activities, time rushes like anything. We don’t even realise that we have spent 4 hours on YouTube or watched the entire season in one day. On
Working through ambiguity. We almost always have two options: choosing the ambiguous path or choosing the path of clarity. The path of clarity has clear actions and clear outcomes. You want a job, make a CV and apply on a job website. You want a date, make a profile on bumble. But the
Resistance is not the enemy. I am the enemy. I, who listens to the voice of Resistance. That is the enemy. I, who believe that I still have time to get the work done, so I can open another app and check that. I, who believes the thoughts of self-doubt that comes in my head,
The half-baked idea... …is just like the half-baked cake. You can’t eat it. You don’t want to throw it away. So you keep it. Just like it is. And the longer you keep it, the worse it becomes. The half-baked idea is kept in the refrigerator of our mind. We keep
Irreversible forward motion. Seth Godin calls it “Turning the Ratchet”. It is the action that levels us up. Like the push-up. You can’t or won’t undo it. And it makes the second push-up much easier. The more forward motion we generate, the more we are likely to generate. Thinking is paralysing,
Making exceptions. In the War of Art, Steven Pressfield tells his friend Paul Rink that he finally finished his first novel. “Start the next one, tomorrow”, he replies. Creative pursuit is akin to Sisyphus’s struggle. First, to look at the boulder, then to go beside it, then to put the effort
The irony of rest. What does Sisyphus do when he has pushed the boulder up the mountain? He goes and gets a good night’s sleep. Hopefully. There’s a reason why the sky becomes dark in the night. It’s an indication from nature that you need to turn off and get the
Locking it in? I am not sure whether to do this or that. What do you think? Okay. Let me ask someone else also. What do you think? And so on it goes… Pick up any decision or action; add a bit of ambiguity and morality to it, and then you have this
Fear or confidence? The confidence that I will definitely right the blog today. Or the fear that I might miss today. Which one works? The first one makes me delay and procrastinate. The second one jolts me out of my slumber. The fear is real because you can’t repair the streak once
Are you predicting the future? Don’t. Career plan is a recipe for mediocrity. It means you are not going to do anything excellent. Instead, focus on what you can do this week. Not on what you’d be doing in 5 years. How can you possibly know that? Unless you are just not going
The list. Well, not the Schindler one. But yours. The brain, as marvellous as it is, has limited RAM. It’s not supposed to hold a list. Give it 3 items to hold onto, and it will generate an infinite loop using them. ABCBABCABCACBA… and so on. You get the idea. The
Where does the magic come from? A friend of mine recently started writing ‘dailies’ and shared with me. They are magical. They transport you to some other dimension. She says that she doesn’t know where it comes from. She is afraid it might not come tomorrow. What is the source of the magic? I have
Mental push-ups. Ignore the urges. The urge to leave your seat. The urge to check WhatsApp or Instagram or whatever. The urge to order from the food-ordering apps. The urge to call someone unnecessarily. The urge to not do your work. Every time you ignore an urge, add them to your tally
Something to hold on to. What is the difference between a job and a creative enterprise? In the job, you have to be in the office on Monday. There is no getting away from that. Whereas, for a creative enterprise, especially when we have not turned pro, we are either working 24×7 or we
The dichotomy of chasing multiple goals. In “Harry Potter and the deathly hallows”, there is a point where Harry has to take a decision. Should he continue his search for horcruxes, which is going nowhere actually; or should he change course and try to stop Voldemort from getting the hallows. Luckily for us, and the muggles,
Let gravity do the work. It’s okay to be okay. More expectations do not lead to more work. Rather, mostly it hampers the work. Sometimes, you just need to be in the right posture and gravity will pull you in the right direction. But you need to let gravity do its work. You need
Keep ploughing on. That’s all. That’s all we do. That’s all we can do. Nothing fancy. No big strategy. No big discussion. No big decision. Just keep ploughing. One day after the next. Do what you can do today. And then come back tomorrow. This doesn’t need to be
The importance of artificial urgencies. The worst, most debilitating thought is: I have time. When we think that we have time, then we do not come to the battle to finish it. We get distracted, we delay. And once we start procrastinating, either because of self-doubt or perfectionism or rationalisation, it becomes increasingly difficult to
Stuck in a dead-end job? Or a cul-de-sac as Seth Godin calls it in the Dip. What does a dead-end job looks like? You work and you work and it just doesn’t seem to end. You are burning the candle not only from both ends but also from the middle. You are expected to
Be human instead. Empathy: The innate ability of a human to understand what the other is going through. To act accordingly. Resistance makes empathy extremely difficult. When we cast ourselves as the victim, we lose our ability to contribute. We lose our ability to connect. We just want that thing that you are
The magic is in the fingers... When you are typing or painting, it’s the movement of the fingers that creates the magic. The more you move them, on the keyboard or on the canvas, the more magic takes shape. The brain, or the mind, frankly doesn’t really move and doesn’t really create anything.
One thing at a time. That’s all we can do. A lot of stress in life comes when we try to do more than one thing at a time. Our brain is not designed to work with instant messaging and social media and notifications. It just can’t function that way. Instant messaging is
