my thoughts on getting things done

detour

before we start, i would like to take a moment to pause and remember the people who are no longer with us. for me, those are my older brother, my uncle, and my grandfathers. life has a tendency to relentlessly march forward, but whoever i am today is deeply shaped by their influence and presence in my life. i am grateful to have had them in my life.

i have a childhood memory that has stayed with me for years. while at school one day, i was assigned some work that was due a month later. this completely slipped my mind until the day before. i rushed to do it as fast as i could.

my dad saw me panicking and asked me what was wrong. after listening to me, he said that i always leave the most important tasks to the last moment. he told me that i always do this. i thought my dad was being a bit unfair. i didn't intentionally wait for the last moment to do things.

this incident made me more reflective of my actions. i would like to have control over my actions and not do things unintentionally. i like to think that i can have a lot of control, but most of the time i operate in, what i think of as, autopilot mode.

autopilot mode is when i don't think about what to do. an example would be brushing my teeth after waking up. while planes fly on autopilot to save fuel and reduce pilot error, my behavioural autopilot was off the mark.

i wanted to create an environment for myself where i never have to think about rushing right before a deadline, because i don't do well in those scenarios. a naïve approach would be to do a task as soon as i become aware of it. this isn't always practical because i might become aware of multiple things at once, i might already be in the middle of something or some tasks have more priority over others.

so here is what i came up with initially:

1. i should start by thinking about the entire process of doing the task from start to end. thinking about what i might need to get started, what the result might look like after everything is done and all the nuances along the way. this will help me briefly step outside the autopilot.
2. i should ensure that i have ample time to do it or i should accept that i can only do part of the work to make it happen in time. in my experience an honest attempt was never received harshly, especially if expectations are in place.
3. if i don't see myself being able to do something, i should focus on getting out of the commitment entirely. and more importantly remove it from my mindspace completely. at the end of the day, i am going to be the one doing it. being honest here and not setting myself up for disappointment was the key motive.

after trying these out for a while, here is what i noticed:

1. thinking about the process, before starting was a great way to step outside the autopilot. i realized i could use that pause to tune the autopilot for that specific task, which actually made doing the work a bit easier.
2. while i rarely ended up doing less work to make it to a deadline, it kept me in a good mindspace knowing that i always had the option to do so.
3. being honest about tasks that i am not going to do is fine. but it soon became clear that there are some tasks i can't really say no to. i expected this and learned to fit them into my plans. however, this revealed a different type of task that i still struggle with. sometimes, when i try to get out of a task i don't want to do, i get the response: "do this when you are free, no pressure." it becomes incredibly difficult to reject something twice in a row and scream, "i will not even do it when i am free, ever." these kinds of tasks still put a lot of pressure on me.

along the way, i discovered a few unexpected things that helped build this environment.

1. oftentimes in the middle of tasks, i would find myself low on energy. i realised pretty quickly that my mental energy is very fragile and relies heavily on how much i sleep. i started aiming for a fixed schedule with eight hours of rest. i consider this one of the most important changes that have helped get my life in order.
2. the attention economy is real. multi-billion-dollar companies are openly admitting to fighting each other for my attention. they want to exploit my autopilot to make themselves an integral part of it. initially i was intimidated by this. but i have come to realise that i am not as helpless as it seemed. there is a lot of power in what sits right in front of me. a small action, something as simple as uninstalling an app from my phone or changing up the programs on my desktop helped me surround myself with things that help me do what i actually want to do.
3. coming back to the incident that led to all this introspection, the panic could have been avoided if i had just remembered to do the task. when trying to change, i started off pretty naïve. i was trying to hold everything in my head and somehow still doing them. but over time, i realised that my memory was not reliable and switched to writing my tasks down on a piece of paper. eventually switched to digital apps. currently i use tick-tick app (a recommendation i found here).

nowadays, i am very reliant on my digital list for all my tasks.

when i started, using the app did not feel natural. but i knew that i had to integrate this app into my autopilot mode. to start out, i added trivial things, that i was going to do anyway, like "drinking water" at regular intervals. i cannot emphasise enough how much checking off these "useless" items trained my behaviour.

gradually, i introduced real work, and soon the process felt seamless. the most important habit i built is simply checking the list every morning to view "today" and "tomorrow." this sets my mindspace from the get-go. i also ensure that when i add a new item, i attach a date to it (even a tentative one) so that it doesn't get lost in the sea of backlogged items.

this has been my journey so far.

detour

setting expectations

i hope you have already picked up this by now, but this blog leans heavily on my personal experiences. i like to describe it as "my inner monologue with context."

i am a software developer by profession, but i don't want this to be just a tech blog (though sometimes i might not be able to help myself). i aim to write about things i like, things i dislike, my take on trends, and what i am working on. along with detour sections like this, which are independent tangents that can't be a separate blog post.

also, i don't know how long or how often i will write. but generally something readable within five to ten minutes.

detour

Weekend Wednesday by CGP Grey

the video linked here suggests having wednesday and sunday off instead of the usual saturday and sunday. the idea is that having a break in the middle of the week resets you. it will lead to concentrated and higher quality work and the rest on the break days will also be of a better quality.

i was curious, so i tried it. what i love about it is how it puts you slightly out of sync with everyone else. you show up to work on a saturday, and you get to be out in the world on a day of your choosing.

i also tried it with different combinations. first wednesday + sunday, then thursday + sunday, and finally friday + sunday which ended up being the nicest for me.

i have always liked working on saturdays because they feel calm for no real reason. for me, monday and friday are the loudest and most tense, so avoiding one of them feels like a small win. and the nights before are great too. instead of just one peaceful friday night, i get a calm thursday night and another one on saturday.

in short, i recommend it.