015 One Hundred Days
Hello! Hope you're having an amazing weekend! Here's your weekly Amazing Things & Ideas Newsletter. Find one original idea from my side followed by the List.
One Hundred Days
Last week marked 100 days (and articles) from the day I started my blog. Starting a blog is probably on the list of one of "the best investments I've made in spending my time" till now.
Read my thoughts on hitting the little milestone through my 100th article (which also specifies some good changes coming to the blog) here.
The Amazing Things & Ideas List
Recommended Productivity Technique:
This week I tried something new for one whole day. I would make a calendar/schedule boiled down to the minute. And do whatever, whenever I had planned to do, on my schedule. So, if I had reading for an hour on there, that's what I'd do. Nothing else, just that for one hour. That way, I had a mental barrier. I just had to do what was on the schedule. No more, no less, no other. It was easy for me to follow that schedule because I really wanted to do all the things listed there. But allotting specific times to specific tasks made things very easier.
- Minimizing task switching. There's a concept known as cognitive bandwidth. Basically it means that every human brain has a limited amount of attention. And when you keep switching from task to task, you leave some of your attention; you leave a valuable amount of your cognitive bandwidth on the previous task. That means you'll be going on to the other task with a little less focus. Doing this all day, you'll have no good focus remaining by the end of the day. Task switching destroys flow and all creativity.
The goal of this technique is to reduce task switching. Even checking your phone for 30 seconds spends some of your limited attention on something irrelevant to you.
Following this scheduling technique I discovered that I could really do the things listed on my time-bound schedule better and more easily.
Maybe you already have a weekly calendar. But do you have a weekend calendar? Do you have a distinct weekly calendar boiled down to specificity and precision (for whatever task there may be)? You're free to list anything, even "Netflix" time allotted on your schedule. When you do that, you'll be more mindful of your time and how productively you really spend it.Book I'm reading this week:
The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
This was probably the most knowledge per word book I've ever read. Ever. Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur and investor and philosopher. Founder of AngelList. Early investor in companies like Twitter, Uber, Clubhouse and many more. He now has his own podcast where he shares wisdom on pursuing wealth and happiness.
This book contains "Naval's wisdom from Twitter, Podcasts, and Essays over the past decade."
I agree with Tim Ferris (who wrote the foreword to the book): "Naval is broadly followed because he is a rare combination of successful and happy."
This book showed me that.
Naval is sensational. And his "Almanack" contains the principles guiding his life.
You can read the PDF version of this amazing book for free (no strings attached!) on navalmanack.comQuote of the week:
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible."―Albert Einstein
Here are all the articles published on (my blog) arjunkhemani.com this week:
Thanks for reading!
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