11 Hacks to Getting Work done Every Single Day

I was supposed to post this two weeks back. I should have drafted this by tuesday, edited by wednesday and posted by thursday. Yes that was my grand plan. Irony, O Irony , a post on how to get work done everyday failed before it was ever written or read.

"Jason struggling against himself."

It is a daily struggle to make sure that I get my work done for that day. I am not in school neither I currently have a job. Hence, working on my personal projects and educating myself everyday is a battle that I wage everyday with myself.

Read ahead and ask yourself if you have ever felt like this :

• First, comes the bargaining I do with myself. “ It’s just one day. I can get it done tomorrow, when I'm feeling more inspired or when I'm not feeling so tired. I am at a difficult place in my project and I just don't want to deal with it right now.” Or maybe I'm just not feeling it and the ideas are not coming as easily. “My work sucks more than usual.”

• Then because no one is holding me accountable, I think I can get away with not getting the work done.” I’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning. See I'll even put at the top of tomorrow’s to-do list. I’ll just push back the deadline just for one day. I’ll do some more research and my work will be better.”

• Then, comes the guilt of missing the deadline. Anxious and not knowing where to go from there, I start to think maybe this project itself sucks and is not worth my time. It is too hard and the idea wasn't that good to begin with. There are too many obstacles and I don’t have the time. I need to focus on this other thing. And that is the untimely death all my businesses, art projects, blogs, programming and korean courses have seen. The End.

If you are nodding your head and feel that this is eerily similar to how you feel, then read on.

Recently I was reading this article by Ryan Holiday where he talks about how , to get ahead in life, you have to voluntold. :

"There's a voice in your head that takes optional instructions, good advice and general best practices and makes them mandatory. That looks for extra, additional things you can do. These opportunities may just be "put out there" for normal people, but not us. We, like the soldier, know that saying "NO" is a trick option. 
We've been voluntold. "

You have to get the work done even if no one is looking over your shoulder. So here are a few things I have found helpful:

1. Do the barest minimum:

I will devote at least 5 minutes to each task on my to -do list . This way once I overcome the initial resistance due to inertia, I get into the groove and I am able to get a decent amount of work done. It’s 10 at night, I had a grueling day with almost no rest, but to tick this last thing off my list I am here writing even if it is for 10- 15 minutes.

The biggest obstacle in your path is your mental barrier, thinking that you just can’t do it. Once you do even 10 minutes of work, you see that it’s not as bad as you think and you can push through. Probably, after this you won’t even feel like stopping.

2.  Write ‘em down:

Every month I have 3 things I want to accomplish by the end of the month and each day before going to sleep, I break up my monthly goals into daily targets and write them down. Act as if you are the dumbest person and write everything down. Trust me it will keep you accountable.

So each day I just have 3 things I need to get done. And after I am done, I cross out the item and write a small note beside it on how much time it took, how I felt or what else needs to be done. Look at this list at least thrice a day so that what you need to achieve is at the front of your mind.

3. Know your disruptive habits and replace them:

I have this habit of watching Korean dramas while I eat breakfast. That’s all fine and well. But 30 minutes turn to an hour and by the time I know it, it’s mid afternoon and I haven’t gotten any work done. We all have those early morning habits that break an entire day. Either you check your email or go on instagram first thing in the morning. So what do you do while you eat breakfast. Replace the habit. Now either I’ll work while I eat or watch small 5-10 min stand up comedy clips. 

You can watch motivational videos, read , listen to music or sit outside in the sun and just enjoy your breakfast. Even doing something else for a couple of days, will help you break your habit and focus.

4. Read and reread a book or article that inspires you :

Some days are just bad, period. You are uninspired, work feels like a drag and you question the point of all of this. You are scared about whether you’ll be able to get paid for doing work that you love. What if it was the wrong decision to drop out of college or leave your well -paying job and venture out on your own. Somedays you just lose faith in yourself to see yourself through all the ups and downs that are inevitable. On top of that most people around you are skeptics and its starting to get to you. So what do you do on those days?

I have two books that I turn to. One is The Letter from a stoic. It talks about how to accept both the good and bad with open arm. And just as the bad comes uninvited, so will the good. Second, I read the Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon. It’s a treasure trove of advice on what can you do immediately to get closer to your goal. These two books have always picked me up from my darkest hours. 

Have books that speak to you, mark the specific paragraphs and pages and reread them when you need.

5.Meditation and Yoga for focus and setting intention:

Every morning after I wake up I meditate on what I want to achieve during the day and try to get myself pumped up for it by thinking all the exciting work that I will be doing. And then do I 30-50 minutes of a mix of Yoga and Pilates, followed by 10 minutes of breathing exercises while listening to Weightless by Marconi Union. This song is scientifically produced to lead to 65% reduction in overall anxiety and bring the resting pulse to 35% of the usual resting rates.

It helps me set a routine for myself so that I can stop wasting my limited mental energy on making useless decisions and focus my mental energy on things I actually love. A fit body is a necessity for doing good work.

6. Environment that makes you energised :

Make sure where you work, has a comfortable place to seat and work table at the correct height with enough space or you can be like me and make the floor your work space.

Also make sure the room gets enough sunlight, that is you can see the sky and get enough fresh air. I am very sensitive towards the weather. Any day that the Sun is not out ,I feel sluggish and down. So I try to get as much sun as I can. I feel happier and more energetic and refreshed.

7. Listen to white noise:

For me, there is one sure way to get into the zone while I work, and its by listening to music I don’t understand. Instrumental music is fine but it just doesn’t cut it for me. I listen to k-pop, thai pop rock, soca , dancehall, reggae, french,african, latin, anything that has words which I don’t understand.

Find music that has the correct energy level for you and that won’t distract you but will pump you up to get your work done. I swear by 8tracks( we don’t get spotify or pandora in india).

8. Make yourself accountable to your Mom:

or your Dad or a friend or a nemesis. Everyday, if I finish the day’s work, I tell my mom so. It makes me happy and excited to share the joy of getting shit done. You can pair up with a friend and check up on each other.

Another important aspect of this is having my mom tell me off if I don’t sit down to work when I’m supposed to .Having someone who will hold you accountable is important on those very frequent bad days.

Frequently talking about your plans with someone who supports you will get you excited and, their excitement will also push you. But don’t talk about it with everyone. Have just one person and that is more that enough.

9. Put a date on everything :

Everyday whatever work I do, I put a date on it. So that after a week , a month when I look back, I can flip through and see how far I have come. It gives me a sense of achievement. It makes me proud of my consistency. Sometimes I will go back and compare the work on the same dates of different months and see how doing each day’s work is adding up to months and years worth of work. It is amazing. Try it.

10. Be aggressive about protecting your time:

When you are working on your own, its easy to be fluid about your schedule and when one of your friends wants to hang out , it’s hard to say no. But since no one’s gonna do it for you, you have to be super aggressive about the time you work. Say no and set boundaries around your time . Take your work as seriously as if you have a boss and you will be reprimanded for not doing your day’s worth of work. 

Be military with your time.

11. Accept  good and bad days but be scared of inertia:

Just accept that some days will be good and some bad but each day you have just one purpose, and that is to try and suck a little better than yesterday. If you can do it everyday, one day you will stop to suck.

And be very afraid of missing a day. Inertia caused by missing days is the number of cause of death of project.  In words of Austin Kleon :

“Do the work everyday, no matter what. No holidays, no sick days. Don’t stop.”

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I still struggle everyday but I think I’m getting better at pushing back the temptation to be lazy. What do you do to get work done everyday? Share your wisdom with your fellow warriors and comment below.

Good Luck with your battles.

NEW post : How get work done EVERY DAY.......Thursday 28th August.

Ode To My Mentors : Part 1 Austin Kleon

Interesting stories are those which have crushing lows and soaring highs. I am not yet at my lowest point, but it is getting harder everyday. Most days thinking about my future leaves me shit scared.  So here I am trying my hardest to take it day by day.

Like I always do, I turned towards my mentors to pick me out of this slump. Today Austin Kleon's "Steal Like An Artist " came to my rescue. I have wasted three years of my life, I neither have a degree nor any viable skills and all my friends have jobs, while I am the one who needs a job the most. My family has very little money. I have very few friends. So what do I do, I asked.

 So Austin answered :

    " Whenever you're at a loss for what move to make next, just ask yourself, " What would make a better story? "

So what can I do today to make my story a better one. What can I do today so that I can find an interesting job or learn some new skills? HHHmmm.....

What  now?
1. Pick 1 Kickstarter project you are interested in and put it in spreadsheet with all its specs.
     ( Credit : Charlie Hoehn)
2. Pick 1 mentor and fill out his specs in a speadsheet

Thank you Austin for being the support I need now.

High School Cliques and World Politics

The heading does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

I went to a racially and to a very large extent , religiously,  homogeneous school. Although there were cliques at my school but it wasn't severe. But anyone who has been to a racially, economically or religiously diverse high school knows that like attracts the like. But imagine this happening on a larger scale, like a city which will have racially affiliated gangs or like a entire country where people will be segregated on the basis of their religion. And this is exactly what is happening in Syria.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a jihadist group that wants a rule based on their interpretation of Islam and the Sharia law. They have set up court in Ar-Raqqah,Syria. Justice is dealt on the basis of the Sharia without any consideration for the actual law, where even the smallest infraction can lead to death. And all this for the Sunni Muslims but Syria also has a large number of Shia Muslims and Christians. The Shia and Christians can either convert or flee. So what was before a religiously diverse region , is now only a land of one people one law. Imagine having to leave behind everything you love and hold dear , just because your own state can't or won't protect you.

Religion is like any other weapon , dangerous in the hand of the wrong people and people who have the ability to influence other impressionable minds. So what can I do today? I will practice tolerance, tolerance towards anyone who doesn't have the same belief, race or culture as I. I will not only respect them but will also stand up for them when the need arises. I will educate myself about other religions, races and culture and will always keep an open mind.

So What will YOU do today?

What does Freedom mean to you?

I live a very protected and sheltered life. Even if I want to , I can only get a very tiny glimpse of the world around me. There are so many things I want to change in the world. But right now I have nothing. So this is where I attempt to do something today about the things that scare me or make me angry. Also, this is my attempt to develop empathy in my self towards the world I live in. Just like most kids of my generation who are well off, I am self-centered and have little care beyond the restaurants I eat at, the computer or phone I own or the clothes I buy. And I sincerely want to change that. So maybe I can't do anything today, but atleast I can be conscious about my environment, the choices I unconsciously make everyday and the way I react and process everything around me.

I believe I have been very fortunate with the kind of education I have received. Most kids with options will not utilise it and would rather follow their parents or peers. On top of that the cost of education is so high that even if the student wants to , the option is just not there because the most important deciding factor is the job you can get with your degree. You got to pay back that massive student debt you got yourself into. Information and knowledge is democratised , atleast to some extent. But why don't then more kids refuse to go to college and study independently. A big cause is , teenagers and young adults in their early twenties live off their parents. And as there is no free lunch in the world, you gotta keep your parents happy, if you want to make sure your that your gas tank is full and that you can use FB on your phone.

So what do I propose. I propose that you rethink what freedom means to you. Is it the freedom of being able to purchase whatever your heart desires or the freedom of being allowed to build whatever sort of life you want to build for yourself. And yes these two choices are somewhat mutually exclusive. You gotta cut back on your material things, so that your parents and peers will get off your back and allow you the space to grow.  I want you to think and question the choices you are currently making. Are you making those choices based on what you want or are you doing it to keep your everyone but yourself happy.

WTF am I doing with my life?

In our 20's, atleast once all of us have questioned WTF am I doing with my life? Why am I taking this college course or why am I at this job which I hate with all my life? This is true more so of the people who take the courage to go against convention and choose to take the road less travelled. Ryan Holiday wrote an article "SHould I drop out of college". I chose not to go to college. I am not really questioning my decision but I am question how I could have prepared myself better for this. I should have made a plan on how I was going to utilise my time and what are the things are I would like to achieve. How should I motivate myself when no one is holding myself accountable? Since I have fumbled around for the last 3 years, I think better late than never to answer these questions.

1.   Am I dropping out of school because I have something better? Or is it because I      can’t cut it in school?

      Dropping out because not necessarily I can't cut it in school. I just never like the way things were taught         by the schools or universities. But also I don't have something better.

2.    What am I going to be doing outside of school that I couldn’t do inside?

         Freedom of time. Work on projects I like without the incumberance of thinking about other things.                Learn exactly those things that I want. 

3.    Have you fully taken advantage of the unique opportunities that are offered to        students? 

      I didnt go to college so I haven't exactly taken advantages of being a student. I feel this is a huge area I         have missed out on.

4.   What are your plans for continuing your education? 

       Every month I will take up a new skill and do one big project to apply that skill

        Read 4 books a month.

Update: I have not been able to read those many books but I am taking the CS50 course on edx and teaching myself to

Experiments in Simplicity

Like every other person, I have a strong desire to travel. I want to go to south korea because I love K-dramas. I want to go to Medellin, Colombia, because it's called the city of eternal spring. I want to go to Bali, Vietnam and Indonesia. I want to travel far and wide.
But being a 20 year old with hardly any money and high parental expectations, my options are close to none, at least at present. I may not have the means to travel now, but doesn't mean I can't do something about it. So in the spirit of being proactive, I went out and bought "Vagabonding" by Rolf Potts. It is one of the two books Tim Ferris took along with him when he went travelling. The other is "Walden", which is one of my favourites. In "Vagabonding", Potts inspires the reader to take up simplicity by saying " Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions."

The idea of simplicity attracts me. There is freedom in simplicity. There is desire to eliminate all that distracts you and stare life right in the face. No one says it better than Henry David Thoreau in Walden :
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms." 

Potts suggests three general methods of simplifying one's life :

a. Stopping Expansion - Not add any new possession to my life, no matter how tempting they might be.
b. Reining in my routine - Wherever you see a chance of eliminating an expensive habit, take it.
c. Reducing clutter- Downsizing what I already own.

Being young means that I don't really own a lot, but being a city girl means that I do have expensive habits. Buying clothes when I really don't need them, buying expensive make-up and the next-big cream, serum,mask, etc. Eating at expensive restaurants to fit in with friends and going to movies, which basically are thieves with popcorns. Even when I don't do a lot, it still is a drain on my funds. I want to try my best to follow this advice and hence, have drafted the following list of guidelines I have set for myself for the challenge. I will continue this experiment for the next 6 months and give you updates on this blog.

1. Technology -
Restrict time spent on the computer to 2 hours per day and restrict the number of tech I have and resist the desire to upgrade unless absolutely necessary. Usage allowed for study, work or music.

2. Clothing-
 Give away what I don't wear or is falling apart. Not buy any new piece of clothing, jewellery, bag, shoes or  makeup in the next 6 months, unless absolutely necessary like for a job interview, etc.

3. Books -
 Throw out useless notebooks, books, stationery and take good care of the ones I will keep

4. Food -
Eat simple home-cooked meals, eat only as much required to make you feel satisfied . No eating at restaurants, try to pack lunches.

5. Sleep - 7-8 hours at night and 30 minutes in the afternoon

6. Exercise -
 Yoga every morning for 15 minutes so that I can also get rid of all the unwanted fat I have in my body and can also keep away diseases.

7. Cleanliness - Keep whatever possessions I have in their proper places and keep my working environment clean and clutter free. Do a clean-up every Sunday afternoon.

8. Work on improving my relationship with my friends, family and myself.

9. Always try to restrict the number of obligations I take on at the same time, spend more time creating things, learning and taking chances.

10. If possible DIY the things you want

11. Every month on the last sunday-
 Do a check on whether you have unnecessary things and give away what you don't need.