what i learnt from 60 days of journal ?
i’ve been keeping a journal for last 60 days and these are some of the stuff based on the data
I got some fight in me
almost everyday I felt resistance and I keep going on. sometime the work was more challenging and frustrating but still not only i kept going on but also maintained momentum. kudos
resistance
there something great when I beat the shit out of resistance. at the first day when i worked from BAL i was feeling sleepy, resistance was at it best could not focus on work and whatnot. next thing i know is 2 solid hour of work before any rest ( this was again a common trend ) . now this is a benchmark i can always look back.
there was also some times when resistance kicked my ass but surely i am winning the fight.
energy
one of the common trend in my journal was if the work was challenging ( which was again a common trend ) the third gatka (sitting) was very hard almost everyday i tried to pull it off but I couldn’t focus and left within 20 minute. this has nothing to do with resistance or my interest for sure. The only way i can describe it was, i didn’t had enough energy to pull it off.
again from the data the first approach i tried was to watch some video in you tube many time inspirational. but didn’t work. the later part i took a break went back home, did exercise bath sleep and meditate, had my evening snack ( all in all 2-3 hours of cutt of from work) and then come back and work and i was even more productive than before.
another approach i tried was to facebook a little and after that felt even more sucked ( just checked facebook, man this thing is addictive).
i would need to observe it more carefully and find that sweet spot
meaning of rest
one scenario when i look for rest was out of habit a lot of time i felt this urge of opening facebook/gmail/linkdine/youtube in the middle of the gatka. not because i am tired or bored just out of habit. surely it fectures the attention and it’s not fun, break or benifical in any sense it’s just a habit I installed unconsciously which is doing a lot of damage. it has to go. i should be putting some deliberate effort to not open any of this in between gatkas and even better i can assign a daily time like 6o'clock in evening when i check all my account once a day.
when i work for the week i could clearly feel depletion in energy. and it is very hard to sustain intense work without taking day or 2 off everyweek. data clearly shows spike in productivity when I come back after 2-3 days rest.
but I wasn’t able to take these days off skillfuly. one way i did was to stay home and watch TV and whatnot, it was horrible experience i didn’t enjoy it at all or lets just say i hated it. another thing i tried was attending 1 day meditation session. almost always very helpful. but the way i see I should have some plan for weekend always like trek, movie hangout or meditation whatever i should never spent this at home ever.
there is also recreation period in between work gatkas which was to go for tea ( the best one )/ watched you tube/ facebook( worst one ). tea break was great and relaxing everything else was mirage. when ever i take break i should always be closing my system and go out chat with someone or have tea.
somehow i develop this idea that watching some TV show like daVinchi’s demons is recreational but it is not. some time even work is more fun than watching shows ( true detective ). it is not much fun ( unless it is something like GOT) infect i find reading book or meditation more relaxing.
work uncertainty
when the work i was doing is very uncertain for example starting angularjs learning. i need to figure out how i need to approach it. resistance shows it’s colour. i felt sleepy it’s hard to focus. the point is it is expected and this is where i need to be in samatha more
cleaning code is not fun
some time for the sake of progress i wrote code which was pain in the ass to refactor.
socialising
I am an introvert and socialising is not my good trait. I am not bad in it either. but I found several point in journal where it clearly confused and bothered me about why i didn’t participate in that conversation. or should I?
facebook is keep opening by itself throughout the journal, some sort of subconscious habit. I am not looking for any updates from anyone but still somehow I typed facebook in browser and totally fracture my attention span.
i will be blocking it from now on. doesn’t mean i won’t visit it.
sneak peak
there is another anti-pattern whenever I was reading book i quickly sneak peeked the table of content to see how much more is ahead in this chapter. now it is not very bad but certainly the outcome after that is I just take rest some weird phycological effect