Revelations in Review

Three months ago, I made a decision to spend more time on creative pursuits. There have been some startling, disappointing revelations.

To catch you up, I am doing two things:

1. Consciously reviewing time spent on tasks
2. Planning to make course corrections to achieve goals

I use Toggl Track for the former and Notion for the latter. My Notion setup is elaborate (read complex and confusing) because I’m trying to build it by watching the free videos of August Bradley about building a Life OS using his Notion Pillars-Pipeline-Vault (PPV) system.

General Observations

• I aim to do too much
• I don’t have enough rest time
• I prioritize reading and work
• I don’t prioritize music and creative writing as much as I should
• My idea of projects, tasks, and measurable goals is messy
• I don’t review as frequently as I should
• I don’t course-correct as much as I should

Changes Planned (Course Corrections)

• Scheduling/planning fewer things to do
• Prioritizing rest and sleep
• Controlling time at work
• Prioritizing music over reading
• Re-evaluating creative writing goals
• Better organization in Notion
• Frequent reviews and more course-correction

A day

What a day!

Making 24 pancakes after having not found flour for 15 minutes, and then meeting my friend’s wonderful kids in their airy, spacious Mumbai apartment, with the pancakes being received with little or no reception.

Spending about five hours in a police station trying to piece together the history and timeline of a phishing attack on Jay’s father’s bank accounts, ending up factory-resetting the phone and receiving glares and disgruntlement for having tried to help.

Exploring the best ways to prevent a similar attack on Jay’s phone, explaining the rationale, and then being met with anger and shouting while riding pillion, eventually being outraged at being treated like dirt, and finally finding myself on the way back home instead of being at dinner at his aunt’s.

Catching a train that is three minutes later than another similar one, assuming that it wouldn’t matter and then being stranded between stations for over fifteen minutes, making sure that the day could be more wretched than what it could have been.

What else could go wrong? There are two and a half hours left.

Unplugged Passion

It’s hard to assimilate bad news in general, but it is harder when it is bad news about something you are passionate about. I got to know about the plug being pulled off from a project that I’m creatively involved in, something that I’m creatively enjoying.

The reason it is on the chopping board is not because of anything that I’m doing wrong, but because of cost-cutting and reprioritization for revenue generation. And why it was brought to the decision-making stand was because, for the quality that we are hoping to achieve, too many people were taking too long to get the job done.

The decision is not yet confirmed, but as I was working on a task that I have to do for the project, I felt heavy. I felt like I should not let it die, even the decision for it to be killed is taken. And for that to happen, I need to allot it time, and I need to consider whether it is worth doing on top of all the things that I’m struggling with.

Maybe I should just consider it as a way to build skills that one can’t guarantee one will need. But then life is all about not doing things without knowing the consequences.