This is a stream of consciousness blog, I’ve just written down whatever popped into my mind as I meandered through several topics and thoughts on a Monday morning…
There were two subjects which I never liked in school. One was biology and the other was history. I admired Sujatha teacher who taught us history. She did her best to make it interesting and in some ways, I must admit that I studied for her. However, over the last 29 years of my professional life, getting the opportunity to visit places I had a grasp of a little bit of Roman, Greek, German, and our histories. In fact I got the location of the Mt. Vesuvius volcano wrong in my exam but I am happy to say I landed correctly in Naples later when I was in Italy. So these days history is one of my fascination. So when I saw the below quote in the mail it was serendipitous.
History is a compendium of all of the most incredible human mistakes ever made. It’s a compendium of human stupidity. There’s so much to learn from that. And to ignore that incredible wealth that’s sitting before you is, to me, kind of tragic…
When I saw these phrases in a newsletter ( thanks to Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic), the next thing I was on that link that he had embedded in the newsletter. Two gentlemen I admire the most for their writing prowess are Ryan Holiday (who ships every year one book) and then his mentor Robert Green who writes a book every five years. The two were onto a free-wheeling discussion on a myriad of topics including productivity. They mentioned their work ethic and I was fascinated with their discussion around note cards productivity. Ryan Holiday follows the note cards system to the T. I immediately jumped onto Amazon and ordered a set of note cards “Turron Flashcards” (3X5 inches) to implement a system for myself in writing and giving speeches for this year. I am working on improving my productivity this year.
Over the last few weeks, I have been rearranging a set of books in my library around the topic of Productivity. The latest book from Ali Abdal was bought with the intention that I will be able to make some changes this year on productivity. I also noticed that I have a plethora of books bought over the past decade on mainly two topics, one is productivity and the other is personal development. The idea of productivity has always fascinated me working in leadership roles and working with mentors over the last 29 years of my professional life.
As I was going through the book, ” Indistractable” I found some great insights and some stories. The three pages I read gave some ideas about the poverty of attention we have with the abundance of information. That is also one thing I am trying to deal with when it comes to what to consume and what to resist in your feed. The pings, dings, and the rings. My intention with this blog is to share some insights from the books I am reading on productivity and how self-management is such a critical area in our day-to-day lives.
The story was about Tantalus in the book I never knew that the word tantalising had a history linkage to modern Greeks. The ancient Greeks immortalised the story of a man who was perpetually distracted. We call something that is desirable but just out of reach ‘tantalising’ after his name. The story goes that Tantalus was banished to the underworld by his father, Zeus, as a punishment. There, he found himself wading in a pool of water, while about his head dangled a branch ripe with fruit ready for the picking. The curse seems benign, but when Tantalus tried to pluck fruit from the tree, the branch moved away from him, always just out of reach. When he bent down to drink the cool water, it receded so that he could never quench his thirst. Tantalus’s punishment was to yearn for things he desired but could never grasp.
I told my wife when I was hitting the bed that today I felt great and I was relating it to the morning walk and the disciplined way I consumed food. I was curious to Deconstruct, Decode, and Demystify that Monday. After all why wonder about the Monday blues when you have some hacks? Let me say, ” Thank god it is Monday”.
As I sipped that hot coffee looking over my balcony I was pretty serious this time around to execute the following set of things which was planned for the next one hour. Starting with journaling, reading, writing in your favourite book with your favourite pen, meditating, and finally walking outside around the apartment. After completing a couple of rounds I was feeling bored and I wanted to push myself. That’s when you need a self-signal. I immediately went into my Spotify library and looked for my playlist. As I was searching for songs from the collection, I found the Spotify wrap-up songs list of 2021. I started with Alan Walker’s version of ” TIME” a time classic by Hans Zimmer from Inception. That was just the beginning. I went along with Cloud Nine from Bryan Adams and I then heard the original score of TIME by Hans Zimmer. Whoever has said that music makes you change your mood was right. I had a goosebump at 2.01 minutes in the song segment where the note changes from one level to the next level. Time is both poignant and inspiring — it’s a masterpiece that is ingrained in modern pop culture. You only need a few seconds to recognise the theme. That day I finished 4.5 km after a long gap. That Monday morning was the perfect start for the week and I was ready to hit the road running for the rest of the week.
I sensed that even if we have less time, it is important to start noticing things that can work wonders for us. It might be hidden inside, in my case, it was in a Spotify playlist. A curated playlist worked for me. A well-laid-out set of stacked habits worked wonders for me as well. The very fact that 3 minutes of song can change you momentarily speaks so much about how we have a technological time machine in our heads. Your brain and your mind can make you do and do not do things. Unless and until we decide it will take a path of least resistance. So catch yourself when you are spiralling down. That is the key.
Believe that it takes ‘less time to have a timeless experience‘ and so have the ‘hacks ready and habits steady‘
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