Ideas That Are Changing My Life

Less is More

A year back, I set out with highly ambitious goals for 2023. I had goals for each aspect of my life and I expected that by the time I finished the year, I would be - a very satisfied human being, excelling as a software engineer, on point with my investment portfolio, extremely fit, would read 30 or more books and some more. However, when I reflected upon these goals in the last couple of weeks, I realized that trying to pursue so many things in a short period is not just unrealistic but also counterproductive. Most of it just became background noise for me leading me to retreat to my comfort zone and engage in the same repetitive habits and actions. This constant push to do more overwhelmed me, diminishing my decision-making capacity significantly. Consequently, I've chosen a guiding theme for the year that embodies a simpler approach: LESS.

LESS, in my perspective, doesn't mean a reduction in my aspirations or priorities. Instead, it's a deliberate choice to minimize activities that don't contribute significantly to my personal growth, team dynamics, or genuine joy. One area I've identified for cutbacks is my screen time, particularly in activities like watching TV shows or movies or spending time on social media. I got caught up in what I now realize is "positive procrastination". I spent a lot of time planning, watching self-help content, and diving deep into things. Sometimes, I wanted to stop but couldn't. I realized I lacked intention because I was overly focused on the idea of doing more. When I learned about new productivity hacks, it felt gratifying, but I understood that the real value lies in putting in the hard work.

Another example from my past year - despite accumulating an overwhelming amount of saved content on Instagram, neatly organized into categories like Productivity, Household Utilities, Dance, Sports, Games, Parties, etc., the truth is, most of it remains untouched. This collection is a testament to the significant time I spent on Instagram, often subconsciously convincing myself of its usefulness by saving content that I seldom revisit. It's a realization that simply gathering information doesn't equate to meaningful action, and LESS is about breaking free from this cycle and redirecting my efforts toward tangible, impactful pursuits.

Doing less doesn't mean taking away the joy from life or replacing it with a constant focus on productivity. It's not about rigidly planning every moment for growth. Instead, it's about recognizing what truly energizes us and what leaves us feeling low. This shift isn't just about saving time; it's about making the most of our money and energy. Take, for example, my frequent orders from a handful of restaurants. Not only did it deplete my finances, but I found myself eating food that left me bored and unexcited. A good meal should bring satisfaction and happiness, but in my case, it would result in dissatisfaction and disappointment, affecting both my body and mind. Hence, I've made a change in my food habits – now, I order only a couple of times a month, down from the 20 times I used to order before. LESS outside and junk food is helping me stay more energetic through the day, it's better for my body, and there's the bonus of saving some dollars too! :) So, doing less is about being intentional in our choices, not just to save time but to optimize our resources and ensure that our activities contribute positively to our overall well-being.

Now, I see these habits were taking away from what truly matters to me. So, LESS is about stepping back from these distractions and focusing more on what aligns with my goals. For this year, my primary intention is to focus on doing less. By intentionally reducing activities I don't want to engage in, I aim to naturally create more time for the things I genuinely want to do—whether it's on a daily, weekly, or yearly basis. The objective isn't to overcrowd my calendar and to-do lists with endless tasks but, rather, to be deliberate in my choices. It involves not just prioritizing what I do but also consciously avoiding tasks that act as obstacles to the things I truly want to accomplish. In the upcoming newsletters, I'll share the strategies I set up for tracking my progress on this journey towards doing less and living more intentionally.

Weekly Reflections

Things I Did Right This Week

• Spent a lot of time with my grad school friends, it was one of the last times we would all hang out as a group for the next several months at least since some of them who I am very close to are moving to Canada soon, one of them already did :'(

• Was able to get in 4 strength workouts each week even with a big holiday break.

• I reflected and identified some mistakes that I made in the last year. Identified things that I could do better in terms of planning and how I can avoid making the same mistakes again.

Things I Am Looking Forward To In The Coming Week

• My work in the past month or so has taken a hit due to the festive vibe and me just letting loose and enjoying so it was difficult for me to get back and hit the ground running straight away last week so I am hoping to make significant progress on that front in the coming week.

• My reading habit has also been affected so looking to improve that too

• Creating an action plan for the goals I have set for myself for this year

Things I Loved This Week

I want to leave you with this small snippet that I came across in a Productivity newsletter. It was a beautiful reminder for me and I am never letting go of this thought ever again in my life.

Question #1: What’s more valuable, time or money?

Ans: Most people would say time.

Question #2: Would you ever throw away money?

Ans: Of course not.

So, why does the idea of throwing away money seem insane, yet we carelessly throw away time - our most precious resource - every day?

We're already in the second week of the year (only 50 remaining). We must realize the importance of time and how we would like to use it. One of the ways that I’m planning to stick to and I’ve already shared with you above is to do less of what I don't want to do, so I can automatically do more of what I truly want to do. I will leave you with that thought and ask you to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

See you next Sunday!

-Mehul

Warm wishes from the cozy Woods Coffee in Bellevue, Washington. As the holidays unfold and a new year peeks around the corner, I've got an extra sprinkle of joy to share with you. I will share with you some reflection ideas for 2023 today so please continue reading beyond my first idea as I ask you to do something I feel is very important for yourself before we begin the Year 2024!

Ideas That Are Changing My Life

Self-Acceptance vs Self-Improvement

Since 2017, I've immersed myself in a myriad of self-help books, videos, and blogs. Through this journey, two common perspectives have echoed from the people around me: Self-Acceptance and Self-Improvement - many advocate finding contentment in the present, while others find perpetual self-improvement as the cornerstone of a fulfilling life.

Often, there can be some confusion around - self-acceptance and self-improvement. They can appear to be not merely different approaches but even opposed to each other. Self-improvement focuses on making an effort to change oneself positively whereas Self-Acceptance seems to imply not changing anything at all. But are these truly opposed or incompatible? Is one approach right and the other one wrong? Or is there a room for harmonious blend?

The Dual Nature of Self-Improvement

The essence of self-improvement lies in acknowledging that we all possess areas in our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that could be refined. It's a natural inclination to seek progress rather than stagnation. Yet, this journey has a negative side to it. Self-improvement, if not approached with mindfulness, can accentuate or inflate negative beliefs about our self-worth. It might reinforce the pervasive feeling of not being good enough, potentially leading to shame and self-judgment. These sorts of underlying beliefs can become the very thing that prevents us from actually improving and in some cases can cause us to feel even worse.

One pitfall lies in setting unattainable goals or creating an image of perfection. Instead of becoming a source of inspiration, it can feed our source of inadequacy because we never quite measure up to that image, reinforcing beliefs of brokenness or incompleteness. And so if you want to improve, often the place to start is to address these kinds of limiting beliefs, to improve the very way in which we perceive ourselves as we are currently and that's where self-acceptance comes in.

Importance and Drawbacks of Self-Acceptance

No amount of self-improvement can make up for a lack of self-acceptance. Period. Self-acceptance doesn't negate the fact that you may have areas that require improvement. It doesn't mean being inert or inactive, it doesn't mean passively resigning to unhealthy habits and behaviors and making no effort to change. What it means is dropping the judgment that we tend to have about ourselves and embracing yourself with kindness and compassion, with patience and forgiveness knowing that you aren't perfect.

In simpler terms, if you're trying to become a better version of yourself, it's crucial to accept and appreciate who you are now. It's like trying to grow a plant. You wouldn't constantly tell the seed it's not good enough; you'd nurture it, give it what it needs, and watch it grow naturally. Self-acceptance means recognizing where you are in your development and giving yourself the right environment to grow and improve. It means recognizing that you have within you all the potential to grow, improve, and blossom. The more you accept yourself as you are, the more possibility there is for growth, and that growth will often occur quite naturally and effortlessly.

Similarly, an exclusive focus on self-acceptance might lead to complacency and inadvertently resist positive changes. If the desire for self-improvement arises from a genuine aspiration to lead a healthier, more fulfilling life, an overly accepting stance may hinder the motivation to strive for positive change. Hence, instead of seeing these two in opposition to each other, the key is to create a harmonious balance between the two.

Yearly Planning

I feel a certain ease in the air these days that I've never experienced before, an air of satisfaction about how this year has turned out for me. As I look back on the past couple of years, I've experimented with various things—some stuck, some faded away, and a few evolved into indispensable tools.

It all began with a whimsical list of identity goals that I shared in my inaugural newsletter (attached here for a quick revisit). Now, as I meticulously craft a fresh set of goals for 2024, infused with additional refinement, I extend an invitation for you to embark on a similar introspective journey and encourage you to engage in this reflection exercise.

Reflect with Insight

Take a moment to think about your goals, weaving them with insights into your habits, strengths, and weaknesses. Before you start with the reflection, I want to share with you some ideas that resonated with me a lot through some varied content from Ali Abdaal that I watched recently.

1. What does it mean to make a given year the best year of your life?

   1. Progress - Making progress towards things that truly matter to us

   2. Balance - We are not screwing one life area due to another

   3. Enjoy - While working and being on this journey, we manage to enjoy ourselves.

2. "The Wheel of Life" Method

   Visualize a wheel with 3 components (Health, Work, and Relationships), and each category has 3 sub-components. The idea is to rate our alignment on each of the 9 sub-components by answering a simple question: Are your actions in this area of life consistent with where you want to be? Alignment means - even if you are not successful at it currently as long as you are putting in honest efforts, you're aligned with that area of life. These sub-components are:

   1. Health - Body, Mind and Soul

   2. Work - Money, Mission, and Growth

   3. Relationships - Romance, Family, and Friends

3. Key Reflection Areas

   1. Most Memorable Moments

   2. Major Obstacles You Overcame

   3. Personal Growth (Changes in Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors)

   4. Unfulfilled Goals

   5. Relationships

   6. Career or Academic Growth

   7. Gratitude Moments For People, Experiences and Opportunities

   8. Self-Care Journey on All 4 Dimensions (Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual)

By undertaking these steps, you pave the way for a more meaningful and intentional approach to 2024. In the January 7th newsletter, I'll also provide some insights into how I plan to make 2024 my best year yet. Together, let's set the stage for a year of purposeful growth and accomplishment.

I encourage you to put down some thoughts like what are some of your goals for the next year or what are some of the things you did this year that you’re proud of? Whatever you feel like :)

Weekly Reflections

Things I Did Right This Week

Newsletter on time - This is the first time I finished and published my newsletter on time and I hope I can stick to it.

Focus on Physical Health - Continued focusing on both - my workout and diet, as a result, I have gained a little more than a kilo in the last 4 weeks. Hoping to double down on this.

Broad List of Books in 2024 - Finalized a long list of 40 books, need to trim it down further to have a final list of books that I will be reading in 2024, so will be doing that as part of the next week.

White Elephant Party - An amazing time with a group of friends and lots of food (cheat meal :p). Had a Christmas gift exchange and followed these White Elephant Rules and it was super fun. A must-try alternative for your Secret Santa Party.

Things I Am Looking Forward To In The Coming Week

Reflection on 2023 - Will be reflecting upon my past year using some of the exercises I mentioned above and find more that resonate with me. This would help me in better planning for my next year which I would be doing in the first week of January.

Lots of Reading - I am currently reading 3 books (The Art and Business of Online Writing, Building a Second Brain, and How to Win Friends and Influence People) which I want to finish before the year ends so looking to invest time towards that.

Secret Santa Party - Have another get-together with a group of friends this week to celebrate Christmas. Looking forward to it :)

Things I Loved This Week

Atomic Habits (Shortform) - Got done with this book on Shortform again after reading it in January last year, and loved it. Plan to follow up with some exercises mentioned as well.

How Discord Stores TRILLIONS of Messages - A crisp introductory video on how Discord migrated from CassandraDB to ScyllaDB and they did all of that in just 9 days.

That's all in this week's newsletter! Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below and please subscribe for more exciting ideas every week.

See you next Sunday!

-Mehul

Greetings from my cherished spot near home in Bellevue - the cozy Woods Coffee. This place has a fantastic vibe, with everyone engrossed in work or immersed in a good book on this lovely Sunday afternoon. It's the ideal spot for me to settle in and tackle two crucial tasks of the week: weekly planning and crafting this newsletter. Now, let's dive into today's topic - the art of reading more!

Ideas That Are Changing My Life

How To Read More

Ever wondered how long it took me to finish my first book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"? Take a guess—2 months? 4 months? Well, think again. It took me a whopping 11 months. Fast forward to today, and I effortlessly consume the same amount of content in just about 10 days.

Reading has been a transformative force in my life, unlocking numerous potentials for me. More than that, it stands as the cornerstone of my journey toward greater security, satisfaction, and continual self-improvement. Recently, some friends have approached me, curious about how to read more effectively. So today, I'm sharing a few crucial tips that have turned reading into an integral part of my life. Although I mostly read non-fiction, what I'm sharing today applies to all types of readers. Let's dive in and discover how you, too, can make reading a powerful catalyst for personal growth.

Identify As A Reader

I'm inspired by the concept of identity-driven habits from the book "Atomic Habits". Unlike system-driven or goal-driven habits, those rooted in identity tend to endure. When you identify as a reader, picking up a book becomes a natural inclination, unlike the struggle that comes with seeing yourself as someone who merely wants to read but struggles to make it happen.

For instance, life's inevitable interruptions - whether it's travel or other commitments - used to disrupt my reading routine. However, after embracing the identity of a reader for the past 2-3 years, it has seamlessly become second nature. Even during periods of low reading activity, reigniting the habit is no challenge. It's a simple equation: because I am a reader, reading is an integral part of who I am. This shift in perspective has transformed reading from a task into a fundamental aspect of my identity, making it a lasting and fulfilling habit.

Stop Making Excuses - Make Time For Reading

According to ChatGPT, the number one reason people often give for not reading is a perceived lack of time. However, it simply boils down to priorities. If reading is something you truly want to incorporate into your routine, it's about making it a priority. Find different ways to integrate reading into your life.

Always Start With What You Like

Start reading with something that truly resonates with you. Try introspecting a little and understand what you're inherently curious about and follow that natural curiosity as you establish reading as a habit and start to see yourself as a reader. Gradually, expand your horizons and explore different topics and genres to keep yourself satisfied and keep making progress until it becomes a part of you.

Habit Stacking

This game-changing idea is also from the book "Atomic Habits". Habit stacking is a productivity and behavior change strategy that involves integrating a new habit into an existing routine by "stacking" it on top of a current habit. The idea is to leverage the momentum and consistency of an established behavior to make it easier to adopt a new one.

I have applied habit stacking to many things in life, temporarily and permanently and it has worked wonders for me. You could use habit stacking to improve your reading habits as well. One of my friends has stacked reading a book on Kindle while having a meal. You could also stack it with your wind-down routine before sleeping or listening to audiobooks while working out or reading on the toilet seat. Identify the behaviors in your life that you are consistently doing and just simply stack reading to one of those behaviors and see the magic!

Make It Easy, Obvious, Attractive and Satisfying

I am sorry - this idea is also borrowed from Atomic Habits. I promise this is the last one :D But I can't help it, "Atomic Habits" is a brilliant piece of work from James Clear and I 100% recommend you all to read the book if you haven't already. Coming back to how you can make it more easy, obvious, attractive, or satisfying, I will jot down some things on top of my mind that could help you make reading a habit.

Make It Easy: Keep your books in a visible and easily accessible place. Begin with short reading sessions.

Make It Attractive: Pick books that genuinely interest you. Pair reading with something you find attractive, such as a cup of tea or a cozy blanket. Make it an enjoyable and relaxing experience.

Make It Obvious: Establish a consistent reading time, making it a part of your daily schedule. For example, designate 15 minutes before bedtime for reading. Place your current book on a visible surface as a reminder. Use bookmarks or leave your book open to easily pick up where you left off.

Make It Satisfying: Acknowledge your reading achievements, whether it's finishing a chapter or completing a book. Share your thoughts with others and enjoy the social aspect of reading. Discussing books can make the habit more satisfying and enjoyable. Make it a little bit of fun by adding a review on Goodreads, giving a rating, and compiling a list of books you have read and want to read.

Shortform And Kindle Are Life-Changing; Try Audiobooks too.

Get yourself a Shortform subscription right now if you haven't. Shortform provides you with concise 1-page summaries of books including detailed summaries of each chapter. I subscribed a couple of months back and am currently revisiting "Atomic Habits" and "Deep Work". It is an incredible tool not just to refresh your memory on the books you love but also to overcome the inertia of starting a new book. My strategy involves using Shortform for every new book on my list. First, I check out its quick summary to get a quick overview. If I'm hungry for a more in-depth exploration, then I commit to reading the full book. It's a streamlined approach that adds flexibility to my reading routine.

Similarly, buy a Kindle if you haven't already. It's very lightweight and easy to read. There's something about Kindle that makes reading very seamless and rewarding. Kindle is easy to carry, it's something you can keep on your bedside table and use right before you sleep. Its convenience is unmatched.

Audiobooks are another way of consuming the content in the books of your interest. Listening to an audiobook while working out or walking or driving could be extremely convenient and worth a shot. I am pretty new to this too and use Audible for it.

Don't give a shit about numbers

Quality trumps Quantity. It is fine even if you read only 1 book in a year, nobody gives a shit about how many books you read. Yes, it could be fun to see your number go up when you are starting to build a habit. But the important thing here is to enjoy the process so stop caring about your numbers and just go with the flow.

Weekly Reflections

Today, I am introducing this new section and I would like all of you to take out 5 minutes every week and do this little exercise for yourself too. It's a thing that I have been doing for a while now and although I did it in a disorganized fashion before, from now on, with each newsletter I am trying to make it more organized.

Things I Did Right This Week

Morning Workouts: One of the things I have always wanted to get into my routine - get into the habit of working out in the morning. This helps free up a lot of time in the evening and I can do other things I want to pursue like reading, watching movies, or anything else. And for the first time in my life, last week, I was able to get four morning workouts. Hope to continue this momentum in the coming weeks :)

Intermittent Fasting: I have been very intrigued by the idea of intermittent fasting and giving the stomach a long enough fasting window for improved digestive health and improved nutrient absorption. And I managed to get in a 2800+ calorie diet into a 10-hour window on most days, giving my stomach a 14-hour fasting window. Once I am off the high-calorie diet and achieve my weight gain goal, I will probably try to give my stomach a 16-hour fasting window in the future. For now, I hope I can stick to this!

Early Christmas Pasta Party: Invited a bunch of friends to my place and made Pasta. We played 7 Wonders and had a wonderful time chit-chatting.

Face Skin Care Routine: I had been trying to get to this for a long time, and explored all kinds of things like cleansers, toners, serums, moisturizers, sunscreen, and retinol - ordered a few of them which I think would be most suitable for my skin type and finalized a skincare routine for myself. Let's see how this goes ;)

Things I Loved This Week

WTF is Health? by Nikhil Kamath - Loved this episode around health - a very free-flowing and organic discussion on things like the importance of a balanced diet, how hormones impact our lives, binge eating, and the importance of health in general.

How to be Effortlessly Disciplined: 5 Mindset Shifts by Ali Abdaal - A nice video about developing discipline with some interesting new concepts like Mental Contrasting, Implementation Intentions, Reducing Environmental Friction and more.

That's all in this week's newsletter! See you next Sunday!

-Mehul

Unfortunately, this marks the end of our Monday chats. It's been a good run, hasn't it? But fear not, I'm just switching things up – Sunday is the new Monday in my world, lol. I know, it happened faster than a plot twist in a movie, but I had to tweak my strategy as soon as possible. Two big reasons: Firstly, most of you awesome readers are in full Monday mode, juggling work and busy schedules. Secondly, I'm all about starting my week on a Sunday, setting the stage for what lies ahead in the week so doing this helps me start my week with reflection on my previous week and then plan from there. Now, let's begin:

Ideas That Are Changing My Life

How To Plan Better and Faster Than Ever Before

Today, I will share with you some key insights into more than 200 hours of my work in the past year which I have spent reading and watching a lot of content on how to take charge of the chaos and become productive almost instantaneously. A lot of these ideas are inspired by the books Winning the Week, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Ali Abdaal's YouTube channel, and more.

STRATEGY #1: Planning doesn't turn you into a machine; it makes you more human.

• Shift your perspective on planning. While some view it as dehumanizing or something that makes us more robotic, planning is, in fact, an intrinsic human quality - an essential element for staying organized, thoughtful, and intentional in life. If you're one of those who associate planning only with work or significant events, broaden your view. Normalize planning as a part of your daily and weekly routine to witness compounded results over time

STRATEGY #2: 2 hours of planning = 20 hours saved.

• Allocate a minimum of 2 hours weekly for strategic planning. Use this time to brainstorm and optimize various aspects of your life for better organization and planning including your work, hobbies, interests, etc.

• For the past 6 months, I have been allocating about 2-3 hours over the weekend to plan for my week ahead and identify any leveraged priorities. I plan for all kinds of things - work, household chores, social time, hobbies, and planning itself, haha.

• Leveraged Priorities, as outlined in the book "Winning the Week," refer to tasks that, when accomplished, significantly ease the completion of other activities. Take planning, for instance—it became a leveraged priority for me. By incorporating planning into every facet of my life, I gained control and streamlined my days. This shift not only made life more manageable but also freed up time for tasks that were just sitting on my TODO list forever.

• Identify your Leveraged Priorities and consistently work on them, week after week, and see how they positively impact various aspects of your life, enhancing your efficiency and satisfaction.

STRATEGY #3: The key is not to prioritize what is on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

The above line from Stephen Covey is from one of my most favorite books "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". While planning your week, keep these few things in mind so that you are not taken by surprise by things that appear in your week from nowhere.

• Ensure a 14-day review of your tasks and goals when you plan your week. Let's say you're planning on 10th Dec for the week (11th Dec to 17th Dec) and you have an important deliverable on 18th Dec - there is a chance you can get blindsided to this important detail and not allocate time for it. By looking two weeks ahead, you can proactively allocate time in the coming week for significant tasks in the next week as well, avoiding last-minute surprises and ensuring a well-prepared weekly plan.

• Maintain an ever-growing 'Someday List' by consistently adding new ideas or tasks that come to mind. Whether it's trying a new sport, learning to surf, planning a trip, selling all your stuff to move into a new apartment, or a new small finding at work that you can take on later to create a bigger impact, the list is endless so capture these thoughts promptly to avoid losing them.

  • The idea is to have two separate lists “Someday List” and “Active To-Do List” - The “Someday List” houses tasks not feasible at the moment but worth revisiting in the future. During weekly planning, review this list and transfer suitable tasks to the “Active To-Do List” based on your current bandwidth. Also, get comfortable with the idea that something can be completely worthy of your time but you still might not ever get around to doing it.

  • Use a Decision Tree approach for weekly task selection - Is it related to the leveraged priority? Is it incredibly time-sensitive? Can this task be terminated, automated, consolidated, outsourced or is it a someday task?

  • I use the Apple Notes app for immediate capture and the Todoist app for organization, but you can use any digital app that you're comfortable with. Digital Apps, purely because of their accessibility since it’s very difficult to manage to have a pen and paper everywhere you go all the time in my opinion, but if that is what works best for you, go for it!! I categorize my “Someday List” into 5 major categories - Health, Wealth/Work, Relationships, Personal, and Miscellaneous Someday Tasks, all of these have multiple subcategories within them. Below is an example of my Someday Task List for Personal Category:

• Calendarize your tasks - Use a calendar to time-box your tasks, I use Apple Calendar. Here are some guidelines when scheduling:

  • Begin by scheduling self-care, play, social, and creative time first; they offer instant gratification to your planning session.

  • Prioritize the most important and planned tasks at the beginning of your week and day. Research suggests our energy diminishes as the day and week progress, so capitalize on Monday > Friday and Mornings > Evenings for crucial tasks.

  • Always allocate a 20-30% buffer time for each task.

  • Dedicate specific time daily to focus on your leveraged priority and deep work.

STRATEGY #4: Either you run the day or the day runs you.

• Commit 15 minutes daily to planning your day—whether it's at the end of the previous day or the morning of the current day. I prefer doing it at night, right before I sleep. I also take a quick morning glance to accommodate any last-minute urgent items, setting the tone for the day. In my Todoist app, I jot down a list of tasks for the next day, which is essentially a subset of my weekly plan.

• This daily list might occasionally deviate due to unexpected urgencies at work or in personal life. It's crucial not to be too hard on yourself on those days. Think long-term; life is a journey, and flexibility is key.

STRATEGY #5: Plan and Organize all important things in your life if it's possible

• Better planning and organization foster greater clarity, leading to improved decision-making. Lately, I've applied this practice to areas like reading and diet planning, aiming to extend it to other aspects such as travel, content creation, and even content consumption.

• As an avid reader, I like to capture key ideas and my interpretations for each book. To facilitate this, I utilize a Notion template I discovered online to track my reading progress. Within each book, I maintain a summary highlighting the most impactful insights. It's important to note that this system is still, a work in progress, with plans to refine and expand it into a more comprehensive system soon. Below are the screenshots of My Progress Tracker for Books, Articles, and Blogs:

  

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• Similarly, I have recently enrolled in a weight-gaining program with a health coach at FITTR. His customized diet plan involves a significant increase in my calorie intake and also, requires me to keep track of my macros. To streamline this on a weekly and daily basis, I found myself a Notion template online for my weekly nutrition planning and changed it to suit my needs. Below is a screenshot of My Online Nutrition tracker on Notion:

  

These strategies offer a glimpse into my planning approach, yet the world of planning is vast and varied. These are some of the things that work for me and I intend to double down on these going forward. I'm curious about your planning habits - do you prioritize daily or weekly planning? What key practices contribute to a productive week? Did any of the strategies mentioned above resonate with you, or did you find that none of them aligned with your preferences? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your insights in the comments below with your thoughts, sparking a constructive conversation on planning.

Things I Loved This Week

• Nikhil Kamath's episode on WTF Does It Take To Build Influence Today - One of my friends from UCI suggested this video around content creation and I loved this. The insightful 3-hour discussion on content creation prompted a significant shift in my approach. It made me realize that I was heading in the wrong direction with my current content creation strategy. As a result, I intend to pivot my approach, considering significant modifications or potentially abandoning my current Instagram pages—travel.with.mehul and read.with.mehul. The goal is to adopt a clearer strategy for my content creation efforts and that resonates with me a lot more. Stay tuned for more details on this soon!

• A Man Called Otto - Heart-warming. Recommend it if you're looking for a new movie to watch.

See you guys next week! Happy Planning :D

- Mehul

Before we delve into this week's discussion, I'd also like to extend my apologies for the lack of a structured format in my initial newsletters. I recognize the room for improvement and assure you that I am committed to refining it as we progress. I want to be fully transparent, and moving forward, I want each of you to have a clear understanding of what to expect from these newsletters hence, I want to set a deadline for myself and promise you all to have a better and more informative structure by Jan 15, 2024. Having said that, starting today, I have finalized two sections that you will see in most newsletters going forward (not an exhaustive list currently and I will most probably add more sections soon) and the names are pretty self-explanatory: Things I loved this week and Ideas that are changing my life. And now, let's dive into it:

Ideas That Are Changing My Life

How Intentional Living Is Changing Everything For Me

A year ago, I felt stuck in various aspects of my life—work, personal matters, and my ambitions. I lacked motivation and yearned for a sense of freedom, although everything was going well. Despite the apparent success, I felt disconnected from my life. That's when I discovered Intentional Living. By understanding what truly matters to me and what I want, I can confidently say I'm now moving in a direction that brings me more freedom.

What's Intentional Living and How has it impacted me? Simply put, it's a lifestyle that matches your core values and beliefs. It's about making choices that align with what truly matters to you. I have had to put in a lot of time into reflection to understand what matters to me and I plan to continue to do this for the rest of my life because I haven't felt more driven in my life than now, but more importantly, I feel like I am living a more fulfilling life than I ever had been and if I was asked to name one thing that helped me achieve this, I would most definitely say - Intentional Living.

How can you live an Intentional Life? It isn't a straightforward answer. You will need to start by reflecting upon what your core values/beliefs are, what things you like or dislike, the things you've been doing, and understanding whether or not they match your core values or beliefs. The key is to constantly push yourself for answers, urging introspection and self-awareness. However, it's equally important to grant yourself the time needed to unravel the complexities of who you are and clarify where you aspire to be.

For example, in the years 2021 and 2022, I traveled more than I ever did but not all of it was bringing me happiness or satisfaction. This realization challenged a preconceived notion that any form of travel would inherently bring joy, highlighting the importance of mindful decision-making. I understood all of this only in hindsight. To address this, I pivoted my approach for the current year. Instead of mindlessly agreeing to one travel plan after another, as I had done in the previous two years, I intentionally delayed my decisions. I adopted a more in-the-moment mindset—evaluating proposals when friends suggested plans or when travel opportunities arose organically.

This resonated with my value of living and deciding more in the present, based on my current circumstances, rather than just coping with a mindless travel schedule that I had unintentionally prepared for myself. It also resonated with my value of wanting to holistically view things in my life and make more informed decisions. In this case, I wanted to decide on the trip as a whole, this way I gave myself the option of sacrificing a trip if the destination didn't appeal to me, if I was crunched for time, if the place of stay wasn't where I wanted to live in or if I wanted to use the money for something else like buying things that would make my life more comfortable. Although I traveled less frequently—exploring destinations like Cancun, Hawaii, NY, Chicago, and weekend getaways around Seattle—I found immense satisfaction in each trip. I invested my time, money, and energy intentionally, ensuring that every journey contributed significantly to my well-being.

Another example from my life is my approach to reading. From the time I started reading, I've been purposeful about the types of books I choose at any given moment. I follow a simple principle—I don't pick up a book just for the sake of it. Instead, I select a book when I'm genuinely curious about the topic and when it addresses a current challenge or problem in my life. For instance, around October last year, I was keen on understanding how and where to invest my money, seeking a safe strategy to grow my finances. Having experienced gains and losses in trading stocks and options for over a year without a clear understanding, I dedicated the next six months to reading and re-reading some of the most renowned books on investing. Similarly, in the past six months, I've been focused on enhancing my productivity. Consequently, my reading choices revolved around books that explore and offer insights into productivity strategies.

I would have liked to share how intentionality has impacted my work life as well, but I chose the examples above for two reasons. Firstly, my journey toward intentional living is still a work in progress in my professional sphere. Secondly, I wanted to highlight that this approach can be applied to every aspect of our lives, not just significant areas like our careers. This intentional living approach has brought about greater satisfaction, demonstrating the transformative power of mindful decisions across various aspects of life.

My advice to all of you is to consider implementing the idea of intentional living in 1-2 aspects of your life, much like I did with travel, reading, or my lifestyle. Then, take the same methodology and apply it to other areas. You might be pleasantly surprised by how effectively it works across the board. It's essential to understand that intentional living doesn't have a one-size-fits-all formula. It's about discovering what suits you best and making deliberate choices that align with your values and comfort. The magic lies in finding your unique path to a more intentional and fulfilling life.

Things I Loved This Week

After discussing with you all the importance of planning last week, I thought I would find some content that encapsulates ideas that help in effective time management and I found some:

• How I Manage My Time by Ali Abdaal

• How to Plan your week effectively by The Art of Improvement

Also, some advice on How to Read More from one of my favorite authors, Ryan Holiday:

That is all I have for you today! As promised, I will iteratively improve upon this newsletter so please comment your thoughts below. See you next Monday!

-Mehul

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It's my 29th birthday today and in this week's email, I wanted to share with you one key idea that I have consistently pursued and has progressively shaped the past year for me so let's dive right in.

Building a Productivity System

For more than 15 months now, I have been investing a large portion of my time every single day towards building a system for myself that works in a robust manner, in a way where other external factors do not hamper my daily progress in any aspect of my life. There is a prejudice around being productive or having goals that I have come across from a lot of people in my life, where people directly or indirectly relate this to being good at your profession, at your workplace or doing well in your career, or becoming a machine or inhuman in your pursuit of achieving more material success. To me, being productive includes everything, as long as I am doing what I want to do and being intentional with my time whether it’s getting better at software engineering, playing poker, watching a movie with friends or just sitting idle doing nothing, it doesn't really matter. If I am doing what makes me happy for most parts of my day, I would consider it to be a productive day.

One of the things that makes me happy is getting better at whatever I am trying to do and I do want to pursue a lot of things in my life (like growing professionally, getting healthier and fitter, effectively managing all the household chores, reading, creating content, traveling, having an active social life where I meet my friends and family on a very regular basis, playing poker or cricket, learning a dance form or a new sport, painting, sketching and the list goes on for me as I become more and more aspirational). So getting better at all of them or even pursuing all of them becomes extremely challenging.

To overcome this, I realized it was extremely crucial for me to have some kind of system that I could rely on, and after drowning myself in many books and a countless number of YouTube videos around this, I have finally come up with a very simple system for myself that I think anyone can benefit from and I will share some of the key ideas from that with you along with a few examples.

1. Aspirational Goal Setting - Aim for the moon! I have always had high aspirations for myself and those aspirations are not just in terms of materialistic things, more success in my professional career, or more money. Of course, I want all of that, without a doubt but I also like to push myself for higher standards in terms of my habits and my relationships, and that contributes a lot towards my overall progress as an individual. About 12 months back, when I started on this journey, I wrote down a big list of identity goals for myself and the things that I would need to do in order to achieve each goal. I had created this on Apple Notes but have created a duplicate for you all, which you can find here: GOALS. I haven't really seen this in the past 8-9 months but writing this down did instill in me the direction I want to move in and how far I want to reach in the long run. And now, when I actually did see this list of goals after months, I felt so good because even though this was a very rough list, I did actually make progress on some of these in the past 1 year. Some of them are:

1. I have been able to take a lot of control of my work and delivered two major projects this year for eBay Ads.

2. I have been able to formulate an investment plan for myself in terms of how I want to invest, where I want to invest, and when I want to invest.

3. Very recently, I have also figured out a diet plan for myself with the help of a nutrition and fitness coach, and even though, not been up to the standards I have set for myself yet, I have started hitting the gym.

4. In addition to the goals mentioned in the doc, I did manage to travel to Mexico, New York, Hawaii, and some more places, overcome my fear of the ocean and snorkel freely, learn a lot about productivity, start this newsletter, plan some memorable events with my friends, bought my first car and many more.

The point is, even though I couldn't revisit that list of goals for a large part of the year, it did help me push myself in the right direction and it was somewhere in the back of my mind, always. I did not make any progress on some of my goals but I made really good progress in some of them and that is the key for me. I learned things on the way and I am now better prepared to move more aggressively towards all of my goals.

2. Clear-cut Planning - I cannot emphasize on how important this has been for me. I have always been a planner, I like to predict how things are going to happen and have a response planned in my mind for multiple situations that I can think of which are most probable, and this, I believe is also one of the things that helps me be calm in pressure situations at work or even in daily life. This year, though, I have taken my planning game to a whole other level, thanks to some of the books I read like 5 AM Club, Winning the Week, and videos from my current favorite YouTuber Ali Abdaal, Tiago Forte (author of Building a Second Brain) and few others. For an effective planning system, I have designed a 4-Step approach for myself:

1. Yearly - I tried to have a very comprehensive, bird's eye view of my goals at the start of the year. Since it was my first attempt at setting goals for myself, I didn't know where to start and what to include in a year-long list but nevertheless, as I said, it did give me some direction to start. But now that I have a better idea of how to plan one whole year for myself, I think I will do a better job at it with more precise goals for the coming year.

2. Quarterly - Tried this about 6 months back, to give me a list of goals to work on for 3 months. This kind of hits the sweet spot for me, where the duration isn't as long as a year where you can kind of lose track of your goals, or as short as a month where you can just get occupied with something more immediate or important and your actual goal has to take a backseat because the time is just not enough to achieve a medium-sized goal. The 3-month period hits the right balance of long-term and short-term planning for me, where the window is big enough for me to track 2-3 important goals in my life and also short enough for me to break it down into smaller subtasks and make significant strides in the direction I want to.

3. Weekly - In my opinion, this is the most important one and the one I still struggle the most with. Weekly planning helps me to focus on the high-priority items for me in the very short term. This includes all kinds of things ranging from my work, the books I want to read, all kinds of household chores, social events, workouts, and many more - all of them included in a weekly plan. In the weeks I am able to get this weekly planning done before the week starts, I see a significant spike in my productivity and I get done with a lot of things on my TODO List. I usually do my weekly planning over a 2-hour session on Saturday or Sunday. Some things that help me with my weekly planning are:

   1. Calendar - I timebox everything I can on my calendar with enough buffer time for each task.

   2. To-Do Lists - I have two lists on my Todoist app - "*weekly TODO* list" and "*someday list*". As the names suggest, the weekly TODO list contains only the tasks I need to look at this week while the Someday list is a never-ending list of things that I just keep adding tasks to. Whenever I sit for my weekly planning session, I go through the Someday list to check if I want to pick any of them for the coming week. You can also sectionalize your someday list based on some categories.

   3. Weekly Meal Planner - I have started using Notion to plan my meals weekly and track my daily macro intake.

   4. Daily - Every day, I take 15 minutes to plan my next day - including my work, workouts, reading, cooking, any social activity, and any other things that I might want to do, I also leave some spare time every day for ad-hoc things that come up during the day. The primary focus is maximizing daily productivity while maintaining a keen awareness to prevent any potential burnout.

3. Ruthless Execution - Since you have taken care of everything in the previous phases, all you need to do now is execute the day you have planned for yourself to the best of your abilities. A key concept here involves identifying one ruthless priority for the day and ensuring it’s completed consistently - for example on most weekdays, that involves something around work for me and for weekends - it includes weekly planning or having some social time with my close ones or special days like today - writing a newsletter :p. In addition to one ruthless priority, you would have a list of 5-6 tasks in your daily plan. In the execution phase, there are always some days when I find myself lacking the motivation to pursue the planned tasks or the day isn’t going exactly as I planned due to some external factors. The key lesson here is to recognize that it’s impossible to have each day go as per your plan and instead of getting disappointed, you need to embrace it with flexibility. I adhere to the principle of not allowing two consecutive days of setbacks. Even if one day deviates from the plan, I commit to trying harder the next day, and more often than not, I succeed in completing the tasks for both days—maintaining a resilient and adaptive approach.

With more ideas to share, I find myself exceeding the 2000-word limit I had set for myself, so I'll bring this to a close. The concepts discussed above are all works in progress, and I firmly believe that we will continually refine and improve them through iteration. Starting next week, the newsletters won't be as extensive; this inaugural edition was comprehensive due to the nature of introducing a complete system. I look forward to exploring more topics with you in the upcoming newsletters. Please leave a comment with your thoughts, ideas, and what you like/dislike about this newsletter. See you next Monday :)

-- Mehul