Highly productive workweek, beating the instant grat monkey! | Report

13 Jun 2021 . category: report . Comments
#radicali #startup #singapore #meraki #fitness

Welcome to Report #235 - a highly productive week where i lived by my calendar, and beat the instant grat monkey more often than not.

The monkey is always present, ready to jump and dance at the click of a few keystrokes. Endless YouTube rabbitholes at dinner, endless scrolls on Instagram, and endless podcasts on Spotify. It takes discipline to beat the monkey, but the results are outsized. i’ve started to use Focus Mode on my phone that blocks all distracting app notifs and doesn’t allow me to even open these apps when i’m working in the daytime. Sadly, i can’t really do the same with Slack/Email but i plan to do this when i’m going into deep work time chunks. i’ve realized a good sound system with an energetic playlist on Spotify could get me through up to three hours of deep work, no problem!

At work, i focused my energy on aligning the team on our current sprint deliverables. i would like to believe i’ve gotten better at planning, now i recognize the mythical man-month and try to break large projects down into workable chunks with better time estimations. However, i am still not great with estimations of my coding tasks as i tend to overestimate my capabilities, and begin to lag on my timelines. On the strategy front, we are validating some hypotheses with user research calls and trying to zero down on the exact MVP to build out.

i became a bit of a visual learner and communicator as i started using Miro for mind-mapping big projects this week - we’ll start integrating it as part of our tech scoping processes from now onwards. i also made some progress on my volunteering efforts for Meraki, where i mindmapped our future plans for designing the Python curriculum for students and presented it to the team for reviews. Soemtimes i feel like if i’ve picked up too much, but then i look up to my idols and realize that i should never run away from working hard at things which i feel good about. Planning to include a couple hours of consistent work through weeknights on Meraki in my schedule - and a couple hours on Saturday morning, all in all adding up to 4-6 hours per week.

On the fitness front, i put in two home workouts, one swim session, one easy mobility workout and 3 BJJ classes. My jiujitsu classes have become more like private lessons from Coach(because of covid restrictions), which has been great at ironing out my movements and building self-confidence. One of these nights, i had a dream of knocking out a guy in a street fight which is a stark difference from the scary nightmarish dreams i would occasionally get - i think it’s a subconscious understanding of how i am getting better at self-defense. Unfortunately, i couldn’t get in any runs - need to change this!

Recently, i got into the rabbithole of the simulation theory(made famous by Elon Musk), and started thinking about the optimization problem of life with that constraint in mind. Had a few interesting conversations about this with friends & family. i recorded an EarlyTwenties podcast with the boys this Sunday, and we started it off with the discussion on existentialism and the meaning of life. Good things to talk about!

i’m currently going strong on Day 10 of my NoFap streak and feel a definite difference in energy levels this time round. This weekend was a good mix of work and rest, as i caught up with friends and chatted for long hours. Got myself a mug that says ‘It could be worse’, another version of Memento Mori.

Keep hammerin’

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