It's been a fun year and also a challenging year for me, and of all the things I've learnt so far, this year has been the best year of my life. So here are 10 things I've learned in the year 2021
1 Making daily highlights
At first when I read "Make Time" by John Zeratsky and Jake Knapp, I was so engaged by the method of making daily highlights. To simplify, its a thing or say a goal you've set for a day and you struggle all the odds throughout the day to achieve that goal. It can be anything you prioritise most for the day. Mostly my daily highlights seems like this:
Complete Molecular biology *****
Write practicals **
Study for end sem ***
Read a new book *
As you can see the stars I put there symbolize how much I prioritise these things in a day. Five stars says, that is the thing I should be focusing intensely today and so on. It helps me save a lot of time to do other works as well such as helping mom in the kitchen to do her dishes and run some errands for the house.
2 If this isn't nice, I don't know what is!
There comes many happy moments in our life and we forget to appreciate them in the very moment. We mostly don't pay heed to such random stuff but it feel really good to appreciate the happy moments in the very moment itself. It's been very long that I haven't got any chance to reunion with my cousins because I wasn't around most of the time and when I was around they weren't around back in the days but this time I was so happy to attend a reunion party. Thanks to our beloved uncle for inviting us all together in granny's house. At that very moment when we were talking about football and stuff since it was Euro Cup month, I felt so happy and I actually was enjoying the moment and exclaimed "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is". Since then I've been saying this or atleast thought to myself at some point that "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is". The energy you felt after that is amazing!
3 Be a window opener, not a door opener.
When you stand in front of the door, you don't know what's inside because you couldn't see whatever is at the back of the door before you enter. But when you open the window, you first see whatever is inside and you choose whether to go inside or not. Be a window opener, which metaphorically means, be someone who look out for things first rather than just dive into doing the thing. We don't know the consequences but if you look from the window first, you get to decide what to do next.
4 What's obvious about you is amazing to others
What's obvious about me is amazing to others and I've seen this practically which also motivates me to do more of what I always wanted to do and be more of myself. If I know reading "Making it stick" is obvious for me and I've been doing it then people around me who are not really my type feel amazed because my area of interest doesn't share theirs and it always amaze people. But when you share common interest with others, other people interest you.
5 The Flywheel
Flywheel is actually a kind of windmill where you need some energy to make it spin and over time it catches a momentum. We're also like the flywheel, it take some effort to start something new but over time we'll catch the momentum. It's always hard for me to sit and study even for an hour but I overcame. It was hard at the beginning but over time I've caught that momentum and it's lot easier now.
6 Choose to be wise rather than being smart.
Since childhood, we've been taught how to be smart, how to study smart, how live smart and kids with smart attitude always stands out. The era has changed and this is not about adapting the same old thingy anymore. Smart people make mistakes and learn from them but wise people have patience and wait for others to make mistake so he would avoid things not to do and be perfect without any mistakes. Thank you Jay Shetty for the wisdom!
7 Master the boring fundamentals
What comes to your mind when I say "boring fundamentals"? It's easy to guess! It's all the chores we took for granted, for instance like making your bed, cleaning the house, cooking, cleaning the bathroom and so on.. These are the boring fundamentals and mastering them boost me up with different energy and it improves my life to certain extent. I wouldn't have to argue with my mom to wash my clothes anymore, I wouldn't have to be dependent for silly little things that we all could do ourselves.
8 Type 1 vs Type 2 fun
There's two type of fun. The first type is the one we enjoy at the moment of doing something and the other is the one we sit back in nostalgia about the first fun! Say for instance if I'm having fun in the university being a university student and doing all the things that one university student suppose to do then that's Type 1 version of fun and when you get old and sit back somewhere in balcony remembering the fun you had back in the days, that's Type 2 version of fun. It's really enjoyable to feel nostalgic and also have fun in the present time so you could have double fun in your later life.
9 The reitoff principle
Sometimes I felt guilty for running behind my schedule and for certainly not making upto plans I've made for myself. But it's okay to take a day off and chill yourself. I've planned out this schedule of studying atleast 3 hours in the morning before online class. If not studying atleast sit in front of the table but that very day I felt guilty of not studying and not very obedient to my own plans, I was actually caught up watching Argentina vs Brazil Copa America final that day but then again I thought "why shouldn't I take a day off today and chill a bit watching sports?" I did take a break so I felt no guilt. This is called reitoff principle and it really helps keeping your mental health and emotions on check.. Take a day off and Netflix!
10 Inbox for your brain
There are moments in our day to day life where there's this shoot in our head, igniting with new ideas out of nowhere. But we mostly forget those ideas we had. The thing that I've learned to keep track of this new idea and burn them is by taking quick note at the very moment. I use notion mostly for taking notes from my phone because its easier and I can later log in my notion account from my lappy and start jotting down tons of information extracting from my head. So the point is, there should be a second brain where you can quickly store information for later use.
Note:
These 10 are actually the things I learned and implemented in 2021 and a big shoutout to Ali Abdaal for influencing me to write this blog. All the books I've read were recommendation from him and he plays a major role in shaping my life this year. There are also some books I've read and captured the message they gave but I haven't quite implemented them in my life because I'm struggling with it, for instance "The go first rule", it talks about- we should always take the initiative to break the ice in any conversation and I'm not quite comfortable with that as of now. It might be different in future but I haven't implemented so I didn't mention in my blog.
Thanks for reading my blog, I really appreciate that.
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