My way of working
Being better at anything takes time and is hard. I try to enjoy the process rather than celebrating the achievement of goals. If I forget everything else, I just try to remember to work against resistance.
One must imagine sisyphus happy. - Camus
Although I am not productive all the time or even want to, I still try to use my time efficiently. With this in mind, I came up with a process. According to Atomic Habits, following a process and creating habits slowly is the best way to improve. Creating a habit requires that the task is obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying. The opposite should be done to break bad habits. Any changes I make I should be willing to make permanently. I am motivated when I am learning something or delivering something of value. I approach my life both top-down and bottom-up.
Top-Down
A top-down starts being identifying areas of improvement every year and creating SMART goals for each area and achieving them via time bound projects. This needs to set at a sustainable pace. I let people in my life know about this so that I can be accountable. The projects need to be either hell yes; or no and projects don’t always need to be completed. I try to block at least 5 slots of 2 hour at minimum to work on projects that matter to me deeply. I try to limit active projects to 1 or 2 and maintain a list of next actions for each of them. Tasks don’t all need to be done by me; I do not mind delegation if possible.
Bottom-Up
While working, I try to store information either via this blog or being documenting projects. I also try to study something new or refresh something from my past experience to keep myself up to date. Studying more doesn’t help; studying effectively leads to better results. I try to learn conceptually; facts can be looked up. I start with a quick-read to create an overview of what I am learning. I follow this by fully reading what I am studying without stopping and do a third pass while taking brief notes. I then expand them with my own words and then summarize what I have learnt in my own words. I also try to connect them to things I already know. Some key learnings:
- Remembering things and recognizing them read are not the same. Test yourself.
- Using mnemonics instead of rote memorization provides better results.