Building IFTTT into our product, finishing July with 50 kilometers & getting addicted to Seedhe Maut! | Report

01 Aug 2021 . category: report . Comments
#radicali #startup #singapore #fitness #music

Welcome to #240!

Everytime i sit down to type out this blog on weekends, i’m impressed by how poor my memory is and how strong the recency bias is. Trying to remember my feelings/emotions from last Monday is like trying to remember who my class teacher was in fifth class! Anyways, we shall proceed.

At work, i spent a heavy portion of this week building out the orchestrator backend for the IFTTT(if this, then that) module on our app. It was a good education as i explored open source solutions like Airflow and Temporal, but decided to build out a simple implementation in-house. Writing recursive functions is an activity of joy, and i thoroughly enjoyed things working out in real time when the production deploy went through. Earlier in the week, we had to take some decisions around maintaining/pulling the plug on certain parts of the product, and we’re still in the process of collecting data points to take the final call. In the last few months or so, i have learnt the real value of constraints and resourcefulness when it comes to building businesses and product, and how targeted focus on only the important projects can drastically change the outcome.

Taking a non sequitor, this week was beautiful for us Desi Hip Hop fans, as i looped Seedhe Maut endlessly. Kr$na also dropped a few hard verses, and now i’m gonna be stuck with the DHH playlist on Spotify for quite some time :)

Earlier in the week, i made sure i was meditating in the mornings as i tried to maintain a good sleep routine. However, things fell apart soon enough as i reverted to 3AM nights to meet our deploy timelines. i continued reading through my current book stack, and came across a quote from Carl Jung today – “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves”. This resonates because i have realized that i tend to get annoyed and frustrated on certain external events, but taking some time and reflecting on the frustration teaches me something about myself. Especially, when i encounter someone with opposing political or fundamental beliefs, i can now disassociate and aim to listen arguments on merit rather than tribalizing myself.

On the fitness front, i put in a couple runs, a couple easy yoga sessions, three BJJ sessions and one bodyweight workout on NTC. i hit my 50K running target for July, the highest month mileage in 2021. For August, i commit to hit 60 kilometers - including a half-marathon sometime midway through the month. i wish to include some exercises for my forearms as well, as i came to the realization that my elbows are at a high risk when grappling at high intensity. Currently, i’m icing my right elbow - slight pain that originated because of an armbar that i didn’t really notice in the moment. i came across a few skateboarding videos in the Tokyo Olympics, and also saw a few guys hitting the skatepark near my running track earlier this week - this has prompted within me a desire to take my skateboard out and practice. Slotting some time out for the coming weekends, fingers crossed!

i have noticed decision fatigue affecting me in the most obvious situations, and how i can improve the quality of my life by minimizing it actively. One trivial example is how i receive my meals every weekday, but not on weekends - and i can notice that the act of ordering/getting meals on weekends introduces significant friction in my day. Earlier in my startup journey, i used to live my weekends in a slight state of anxiety but now i time-slot my calendar with pending work - and even though i might have six hours of work remaining in a day, i can enjoy my time off because i don’t have to worry about when/how i’ll finish my work. Off late, i have been sticking to a steady 7-day nofap streak and that routine makes sure i’m still maximizing my testosterone through the week while eliminating wasted energy on resisting cravings in longer streaks. Motivation is limited, and that’s why to-do lists and the calendar are the saviours. As Umberto Eco has said, “We like lists because we don’t want to die”

i have been thinking about how i should build my personal brand, and how i might be underselling myself right now. This is still a vague idea in my head, but i need to think about what is it actually that i want my brand to represent. i’m thinking of building a Content Calendar, where i automate the deploy schedule of certain content pieces through the different days in a week. Newsletters, podcasts and YouTube vlogs are what i’m leaning towards - this still needs some thought!

i didn’t have time to work on investment planning this weekend - aim to get cracking on it this coming week. The lockdown in Singapore has eliminated social obligations, which is good and bad - i can focus on my todos entirely, but i feel that having meaningful conversations with people in real life is an important activity. Especially, hard conversations that open my mind to external perspectives, and something that keeps my mind sharp. i admire Lex Fridman’s style of having conversations with smart people on his podcast, which builds his network as well as keeps him sharp on a multitude of topics. Shubhankar Srivastava Podcast has a nice ring to it, no? Shit, there’s so much to do.

Keep hammerin’

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