22 Learnings of 2022
Like previous years, I am continuing the tradition to share some life lessons that I gained this year. 2022 is a fascinating year personally and professionally:
Here are my 22 learning from 2022:
Buy the products that you use the most
This year I took the cloud storage from google and bought a subscription to Spotify and some other useful apps. The annual charges of cloud storage or Spotify are just pennies when it is compared to other expenses(~115 rupees per month). There’s no harm and great benefit in buying such subscriptions to Apps.
Google One: ₹1,300 / year - 100GB
Spotify: ₹119/month after offer period = ₹1,300 / year
If you want to be a good leader, stop being right and arrogant about being right all the time. Be humble.
Another great learning of 2022 is - even if you’re right, you have to tone down your opinions and experiences to make things work. There’s no contest running for the smartest person in the room. I changed my approach from being a problem creator/complaint-maker to a problem-solver and working towards it.
You won't know the real meaning of health until you hit your 30s.
I hit my 30s this year. for the last 2-3 years, I am seeing a lot of physical changes due to a lack of physical activities, not following a good diet, stress, and work. Due to this, I had a lot of body aches, and skin and body issues. Planned to hit the gym and reclaim my good shape from last year. So, I joined the gym and tracked physical activities in the mid of this year and all that efforts felt great. My body felt better, my face got better and fewer cases of aches. At the end of the day, I feel more energy and strength. though, I left the gym at the end of this year but will continue once things settle down.
Don't be a victim of your diseases, conquer them
For years, I was a victim of many diseases. This mindset shift from being attacked by diseases to attacking your diseases felt great. This mindset of the destroyer of a destroyer changed things for me. I gave a lot of effort into visiting doctors, following do’s and don’t. Reduced many of them at some level.
FDs are as important as other investments.
FDs are great assets. It acts as an emergency fund or buffer fund, and first aid for investing. Easily liquidate-able. Save your money to FDs consistently to fund all other investments.
Priorities are how you're motivated to do things.
Priorities matters. I cut down a lot of pending projects and learning because it acts of no use. The priority of family, work, and yourself motivates you to do things accordingly.
Life becomes easier and easier if you rely on God.
There are some situations in my life where I was really confused even after doing lots of calculations and deep analysis. The only things missing from these decisions are - a leap of faith. I have to rely on God that I am true to this situation and I am doing this in good faith, Please help me out. This will console you, gives you mental peace and you won’t feel stressed about the future.
Learn to say - “No” only if you have better things to say "yes" to.
When I started my professional career, I quickly learned to say - No. but this doesn’t bring me a lot of opportunities and sometimes, I feel I would be better off if I said “Yes” to things that bring me a lot of learning.
Lo-fi/Ambience music is best to work with. Rap is the worst. Everything works if no lyrics are involved and the music/instrument/beats are repetitive irrespective of tempo.
I have a habit of listening to music while working. When I started analyzing what works for me and what not - It made me realize that Rap or lyrical song acts as a distraction while doing work. Lo-fi, Ambient, or beat-y music in general where a lot of repetition happens and no lyrics involves - works well. The mystical or hymn music is average.
Keep your mind curious. Think cross-sectional, creative, and funny. Think about the big picture.
Curiosity is one of my character traits. I won’t dig deeper but wants to have an idea about things. Unknowingly, I always think cross-sectional in what-ifs, or second-order thinking, or seeing the big picture. Seeing the big picture always helped me to think clearly.
Smell good. People won’t be hesitant to compliment you if you smell good.
Last year I started exploring the art of smelling nice. It’s the easiest thing to get compliments. People rarely compliment you for your oratory or dressing skills but the smell is the quickest way to attract people.
Started keeping - A good perfume for general occasions. A good itr for attending any function. A perfume for the gym.
Take care of yourself, your mind, and your family. In order.
You need time to take care of yourself - your mind first. Keep that in order to make everything work.
Stay away from political news. Understand politics, and political trends but read news like a drug addict.
Great that last year, I planned to stay away from political news. This year I completely detached myself from it. It felt great for my mental health. The political news especially on Twitter triggers every bit of me that I can’t control or resist. I stopped reading so much on the internet.
You need a good amount of deep work to get things done. Every day it ranges from - 1 to 4 hours every working day. (5x per week.)
This year - I finally read the book - Deep work. However, I understood the genuine need for deep work in our lives but failed to commit to it. You need some unadulterated, distraction-free time in your day to do things that required you to think deeply about complex systems. In our technology space, there’s a great need to go into details. You can achieve this if you allocate some time in your day to do such work.
If your expectations grow faster than your income you’ll never be happy with your money no matter how much you accumulate
Great piece of advice that I have been following for years but last year I have a fold of my income. This obviously increases my expectation and standard of living but I didn’t change myself after the raise. I was satisfied earlier, I am satisfied now. I have accumulated but am financially disciplined and free.
Too many metrics for personal tracking will screw up productivity big time
Three major processes you’ve to follow:
Tracking: There are a few things that are easy to track like: steps, expenses, daily phone consumption, and investments that include - Stocks, Crypto, and Real Estate but a few things are really hard like food and water intake, Cash related expenses, thoughts, daily routine. You have to avoid micro-level information. Keep tracking what’s really important. I recently cut down tracking - every stock transaction, however, I made a great stock portfolio sheet but there’s some manual process involved.
Auditing: Even after tracking so many metrics, you’ve to audit them weekly, monthly, or yearly.
Reflections: After auditing or compiling the data. I will start comparing it with earlier weeks/months and think about - it increases or decreases.
These exercises for some metrics are a clear waste of time. You’ve to be very clear about what you track and why are you tracking it.
Work on your mindset and neurobiology
Lately, after so many years pushed into productivity. What I need was a mindset shift. I am working on mindset as there is a lot of noise and information out there, what you pick and remain committed to it. If you work on something, you need to have a mindset, a clear mind, and an achievable goal. Great that you work towards a system but you still need a mindset like a chant within yourself and a goal. Neurobiology - how your body coordinates with your mind. You can hack or tip your mind to let the body work in a specific manner.
For example, I worked in (Pomodoro + Time Blocking + Sprint) combined method.
Pomodoro of 40 minutes and 20 minutes of break.
Sprints of 2/4 of those Pomodoro.
Time Blocking is allocating those Sprints into a single specified task.
These techniques make my mind work on a single specific task for some amount of time in a day. However, I got easily distracted. So, I put my phone on Vibration/Silent and Avoid keeping them on the desk but on soft surfaces like the Sofa or bed away from me.
Relationships need effort
You've to be there for people you care about.
Every relationship needs effort. One of my friends who doesn’t speak much and there are less common topics for us, is always there for me. That is his effort to our friendship. You’ve to be there for people who you care about. Give efforts to relationships to cherish. Involve them in your decisions, meet them, talk to them and rely on them for things.
I made a social connectivity plan to connect with friends periodically but failed to commit to it.
Understand yourself. Keep a watch on your mind patterns and how you act on different things. Once, you made you make yourself clear on what you want and understand what others want from you - that trade-off will make your life easier.
Diversify your assets
I am a great advocate to diversify your assets - keep them in stocks, FDs, Crypto, Bonds, and real estate. Diversification doesn’t mean taking risks - it works to minimize the risk.
< 3:30 hr of phone usage and 8 hours of sleep
I ruthlessly want to control social media - especially Twitter and Instagram. I waste a lot of time on such platforms, so, I ideally want to use the phone for less than 3:30 hours. great that I achieved it for weeks. Also, quantity-wise I took a great about of sleep but I need to work on the quality of sleep. These two things helped me a lot and gave me space to do other things proactively.
People will know you from the value you create
Every person is valuable to the family, and relatives but are you creating value for others? I started thinking about myself in a value-creation manner from the other’s eyes. People will eventually know you from that. Understand - what value you provide in terms of your skillsets, the product you created, or helping others with their problems, troubleshooting, network, or social status.