Lifelog

I saw this tweet the other day and thought it was a brilliant way to find new product ideas to work on:

> how to get a your first mrr
> clone chrome extension with bad reviews but has users
> make it actually work
> have it pay your rent
> – [@codyschneiderxx](https://twitter.com/codyschneiderxx/status/1668015337969778692)

Stepping back, it's not just about Chrome extension, but any sort of software or apps on any app store or marketplace! Go on any marketplace, there's always apps that's popular or used to be popular, have lots of users, but working poorly, have lots of negative reviews about features not working, or simply no longer developed or maintained. Find these apps, add your own spin to it (never clone one for one), publish, and profit.

I did a quick search for Twitter Chrome extensions and found this emoji extension [EmojiPanel](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/emojipanel-for-twitter-pr/jfjmncmbmpnaljmmcmeefmkmionkojmd) with 4000+ users and over 250 reviews:


And it was last updated in 2016!

Their lapse is our opportunity.

The beauty of this approach is that the 1-star apps are the junkyard where we can find treasure. One man's meat is another man's poison. The product's already validated, the users are already there, and it just needs a fresh update (by you). And you're doing a service to the existing users by providing a working alternative!

*What 'junk' apps or app categories did you find that's providing opportunities like this?*

Feeling it with [Dago's raw and honest sharing here](https://twitter.com/dagorenouf/status/1668615338395865089?s=20):

> My wife and I decided to give up on our startup @logologydesign. It was a tough decision to make, especially after spending 5 years and almost all of our savings to bootstrap it. But the reality is that despite our best efforts, we never found a way to grow beyond survival profitability... But after 5 years of fighting, we're exhausted, out of motivation, and out of money. So we decided it's better to call it quits 😞
>
> I feel ashamed to not be one of the "successful founders" I see on twitter every day. I feel stupid that all the time and money spent wasn’t enough to make it. I also feel silly for celebrating that we reached profitability a few months ago... then a couple of months later it was already back below survival level 🤦‍♂️ I stopped tweeting this past few weeks because I feel like a loser and a failure. I’m afraid people will lose interest in me if I stop sharing motivating tweets. But at some point, I had to face the truth that I just can’t do it anymore.
>
> Somewhere on the way to chasing our dreams, we got lost. Instead of trying to live the life we wanted, we started sacrificing everything we cared about just to reach “success” at any cost. The burnout I had was a wake-up call that we can't keep going like this. The glasses I wear will forever remind me of the limits of my body. On my end, I decided to go back to a job. I never thought I'd do this but I really need to put a stop to the crazy hours and constant financial pressure. I hope working on a product without having to worry about money will make work enjoyable again.

A sad day for Indie Hacker Twitter 😔 But from the replies it's clear Dago is well loved. That's no failure, in my books. That's *something*. Strike that – that's *more* than something. And making that decision in itself is an act of courage. It's never an easy decision to call it quits. Painful, in fact. But when health is destroyed to this point, I like to think it's a right one. Health and sanity is always more important. Besides, there’s always an opportunity to come back to building again in future.

I think this experience is a lot more common amongst indie hackers than we realise. I was close to this point myself during the pandemic. Consulting gigs dried up, new baby in the house, money running out in 1-2 months. I actually started looking for job, applied for many jobs. No one called back. Not even a "Thanks for your application" email. It's clear that after being self-employed for a decade, and hitting mid-forties, I'm no longer employable. My products then didn't earn much either (it still doesn't now too). Things got pretty desperate. I was so stressed out, my body started showing signs of giving way. I got injured and sick easily. My sleep was poor as hell. I gained weight, and struggled to keep it off. I was anxious all the time. So I ended up working all the time. I seldom took days off. It was a viscious loop. All signs pointed to an eventual burnout and breakdown, like what Dago went through.

But in the end, I was 'saved' by a consulting gig, just in the nick of time.

I never really talked about it on Twitter then. It was too raw. Too vulnerable. It still stings to share it. Because while not in a survival crisis, I'm not totally in the clear yet. Finances and opportunities aren't back to pre-pandemic levels. That scenario is still a probable reality, if I take my eyes off the wheel. I can't completely relax... yet.

The plot twist is that back then I still appeared jovial on Twitter. Nobody knew.

My point?

That it's a good reminder for us to be nice to one another, support each other. We never know what kind of demons someone is fighting in silence.

Reality is a lot harder and rougher than the polished facade we see often on Twitter.

Watch out for each other, friends.

This tweet got me thinking more favourably of the amount of time I spend on Twitter and other social media channels:

> every time i’m close to shutting myself out from my twitter account because it’s a huge distraction - i remind myself of all the serendipity i have gained from the hours "wasted" on here. god damn. – [@chburdett](https://twitter.com/chburdett/status/1668280169470083078?s=20)

I think social media has a bad rep. Unfortunately. People blame it for lack of productivity, distraction, noise, bluelight, sleep deficiency. It's the poster child for mental health problems. The black sheep of the internet.

Yet, if we recognize it as a tool, we will realise that we can use a tool for distraction, or for serendipity, to bring about more connection, opportunity, learning. Yet no one talks about the latter.

Every phone now has screentime app to track how much time you're on your phone, yet no metric can tell you if that's time well spent or not. It's not about absolute screentime. It's about the quality. If it's time spent on connecting with people you love or want to learn from; if it's for learning and growth; if it's to access more opportunities and capital; then those hours are worthwhile.

If you're using it well, for serendipity, the more screentime the better (of course, within reasonable limits)!

In fact, that's how I've been using my social media lately. All the platforms that I used to use for distraction, are now 99% used for productivity, for my goals. I use Facebook, Reddit for providing informal Carrd support. Telegram groups to form good habits like keto, sleep biohacking. LinkedIn for consulting. Twitter and Substack for building in public, and collective learning from other indie peers.

The only barrier is: The platforms are built for distraction, not serendipity, not learning. It takes effort to curate your feed full of people you can learn from than people you want to argue with or show off to. That alone puts most people off, as they see and use social media for entertainment, not education. They let the algo use them, not use the algo. Most do not even consider it as a useful tool. It's a shame, a huge wasted opportunity.

Use social media for distraction, or for serendipity: The choice and power is yours.

Jason Cohen wrote an thought-provoking post about ["Satisficing vs Maximizing"](https://longform.asmartbear.com/maximizing/):

> “Maximizing” means finding the best solution. It requires exploration and analysis to ensure “the best” option hasn’t been overlooked, and that we have confidence in our evaluation of the options. “Satisficing” means picking the first or easiest or least-expensive option that satisfies the requirements. Preferring a faster decision to the best decision. It means not getting paralyzed by the pursuit of “perfect,” but as a result, rarely results in the very best solution. People naturally tend to be Maximizers or Satisficers, although it depends on the subject. For example, you might maximize your career, but satisfice your diet.

It's interesting as an indie hacker reading this because you'd think we're all impatient Satisficers shipping scrappy MVPs, launching on Product Hunt on impulse, and leveraging on an opportunity that a viral tweet gave. I definitely thought that way about myself as an indie for sure.

But that's misleading. It's not either/or, it's not all the time everytime. It "depends on the subject", as Cohen said. We could be Satisficers when it comes to shipping fast, but Mazimizers in other things, like say customer support.

So what's some things indies should satisfice, things that indies should maximize? It always depends on context, but I can imagine these generally fall into either:

Satisfice:
- Launch many small bets to find a good one to double down on.
- Shipping fast when you're building something new, unsure of product-market fit.
- Business admin details can wait – logo, business plan, brand, accountant, business plan.
- Tweeting daily. For something that lasts only 48h max, you shouldn't be taking days to write one.

Maximize:
- Shipping slow when you got many customers already, high MRR, and you're way past the scrappy solo startup image.
- Be authentic and thorough in your engagement with customers, especially in customer support.
- Find one repeatable, positive ROI distribution channel, get good in it, before moving on to other channels.
- Write good SEO blog posts, and repeatedly edit them to bring in more traffic.

*What other things do you satisfice vs maximize?*

Saw this on my social feeds:

> "You're not lazy, you only have a certain amount of energy and right now you are using it all to survive."

Reading it, can't help but feel validated for the lack of productivity for the past few months. I wasn't lazy. I wasn't unproductive. I wasn't ill disciplined. I was dealing with stuff. I was just trying to survive and get through the day. And the next day. And the day after.

One long freaking day at a time.

But now I feel better. Thankfully. Realising that it's not due to [anything in my mind that's broken](https://golifelog.com/posts/mind-that-magnesium-1685414275146) was doubly assuring. I can move on without fear and trembling.

Besides, by being "lazy/unproductive" assumes I'm racing to get somewhere... Whose race am I running in? Where am I rushing to? There's no one else in this race other than myself. Everyone's running their own race, with themselves as the only runner.

Wait, it's not even a race. Not even the too-often-used word "journey". It's just me manifesting, unfolding in time and space.

I am enough.

Probably the hardest self-limiting belief any indie entrepreneur can have:

The belief that you need to suffer to succeed.

I saw this on my social feeds the other day and it got me thinking:

> "...Making things hard, believing we need to suffer to achieve or succeed are all signs that we may be unconsciously living out patterns of self-punishment." - @sheleanaaiyana

Do I have a self-punishment tendency?
Is that why the success I seek eludes me?
Or why I always feel I won't achieve without some epic struggle?

An example:

I work hard for Lifelog. I do #100daysofmarketing. Write 100 blog posts in 100 days. And more. I chose the hard challenge, thinking with it, success will come. But most of the time, going hard on distribution makes sense if you're sure of the ROI. When in early stages, it's good to experiment and see which channel works. Smell around for the opportunity first. Be lazy, be opportunistic, be a flaneur. Yet I presumed whichever requires an epic struggle is the solution.

I don't know why, but I'm beginning to see patterns of self-punishment. At least for myself.

And the successful folks whom I look up to, seem to land on opportunities left right centre, like it's nothing. They work hard too though, but I never get a sense that they're seeking to struggle. In fact, very often it's the opposite – they seek to get away with less.

They don't require suffering to succeed.

On the other hand, I seem to get drawn to suffering for success.

*Do you feel this way too?*

I just bought my first Google Ads campaign. It's a scary new channel to get into, and the complexity of it had always held me back. But I had a rush of inspiration yesterday, so quickly went and create an ad account and my first campaign. Sometimes, acting on inspiration is better.

As we're speaking, it's now live on Google, being shown to folks who are searching for "carrd". And I'm already past the daily estimated budget. Hopefully it will stay within the monthly budget of $100.


What's an interesting observation about myself to myself is how I'm now doing what I wouldn't usually do when I just started indie hacking. I distinctly recall having such thoughts:

*"Buying ads? That's lame. Or even annoying. I hate ads myself, why do I want to inflict that on others?*

That's my thinking then. And after indie hacking seriously for a few years, I can say that's pretty naive, definitely some form of youthful rebel idealism going on. Fact is, I've clicked on ads myself, *when they are done well, timely and relevant*. Those times I actually like the ads. I remember recently I clicked on an ad for reMarkable tablet. I wasn't looking for it specifically even, but was curious and clicked on it. Now i feel like I want one.

So ads is not the problem. It's just a tool. It's a problem when bad actors overdo it, spam ads in your face when you least expect it. Like a knife – you can use it in the kitchen to prepare a delicious meal for your family, or use it for murder. Same tool, different actors, vastly different use. When it's relevant and not done in a slimey, hardsell way, ads can be pretty useful.

Stepping back, I realised I've been trying many other things I wouldn't have tried. Like newsletter sponsorships. I once tried Twitter ads for Lifelog too, Facebook ads for my Grant Hunt social good project. I'm also trying other channels and platforms, like setting up a new Tumblr page to try it out as a distribution channel for my Carrd plugins. Or creating an affiliate programme on Lemon Squeezy and Gumroad to try affiliate word of mouth. Stuff that I never saw myself doing last year.

So it this personal growth (as an entrepreneur)?

Sad fact is... Hypish products get attention. Boring products don't.

The peer pressure is a real thing. It's a daily struggle to ignore the influence.

[Dmytro](https://twitter.com/DmytroKrasun/status/1665720633441894400) about sums it up for everyone else without an AI product but too scared to say out loud:

> I didn't think that I could say it in public. But let it be. I join a party. They ask what I do? I am building a screenshot API. But everybody is building AI apps. They leave the chat... Not immediately, but you see it in their eyes. I don't understand why this emotion of zero interest from others drives me and what I do daily. Do you understand what I mean? It feels like I need to build an AI thing to impress people, not to solve problems but to get attention and show how "cool" I am. I am a bit ashamed of my current business. It is not hypish, not changing the world, and not super ambitious. One side of me says—it is terrific, keep going 🔥 Another side says—you are not ambitious enough, it is terrible 🫠 I keep going and don't quit 💪

AI is definitely doing the typical hype cycle through Twitter and the news. But anyone remember web3? NFTs? Clubhouse? Nope. Will it still be as hyped without the marketing machine pushing it? As it is, the hype seems to be burning itself out a little now. If it's on such unstable grounds, makes me wonder if all that effort going into building something is worthwhile, especially now that any sort of first mover advantage on the hype train is gone, and everyone and their mother is building wrapper apps for AI.

This is not to throw shade on AI makers, though. An opportunity to make money is an opportunity to make money, hype or not. If it's short term, it's a chance to get rich off it quickly and move on to something else later. No saying it's bad *per se*, just whether it's worthwhile for me personally to pursue.

One thing I find solace in is the Lindy effect. The longer something is around, the longer it will be expected to be around, like how Nassim Taleb defined it in his book *Antifragile*:

> If a book has been in print for forty years, I can expect it to be in print for another forty years. But, and that is the main difference, if it survives another decade, then it will be expected to be in print another fifty years. This, simply, as a rule, tells you why things that have been around for a long time are not "aging" like persons, but "aging" in reverse. Every year that passes without extinction doubles the additional life expectancy. This is an indicator of some robustness. The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!

The ones around longest are usually “boring”, yet they are still around because they provide long term value.

*Short term hype vs long term value – which is your preferred approach?*

Here's a dopey idea:

**A micro-SaaS to help you regularly archive your favourite projects and websites in the [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/).**

### The problem
This had happened to me before: I write blogs on platforms for a time (e.g. the now-defunct xanga.com). I stop blogging. I don't care about the blog. Platform shuts down. I lose all my writings. I start to care about the blog, but too late.

Another scenario: I wished I remembered to take screenshots of my earliest MVP versions of a website or app, so that I can look back and reminiscience, or share/tweet about it. But once past, you can't retrieve it, unless you roll back the website to that state. Or it's a project you're shutting down, or a domain you're giving up, but wished there was a way to reminiscience about it for free without needing to pay for domain or web hosting to keep the website up.

Third scenario: Maybe this isn't your own project but another website which you're a huge fan and want to archive it for memory's sake.

Right now, to archive it you got to go the the Wayback Machine website and paste the URL in to save it. Manually. I wished there's was a way to set and forget. Kind of like third party automated offsite backups of your database where you don't have to remember to do it.

### The solution
So what if there's a micro-SaaS that provides regular archive snapshots? Three pricing plans - daily ($10/m), weekly ($5/m) and monthly (Free). Login, pay and save the URL you want to archive, and forget. You get to toggle on or off a monthly email update of how many snapshots it captured.

### The tech stack
I could do the archiving manually at the start. So all I need for an MVP would be a landing page, payment link and a form. If I get more than 10 customers, then start creating automation around it. Apps like [Browserbear](https://www.browserbear.com/) and [Crontap](https://crontap.com/), or even Zapier, could be the services I use to build it quickly, rather than coding up my own.

*What do you think?*

Talked at a [Twitter Space](https://twitter.com/Christintweets/status/1664402831372349440) with Christin about the intersection of indie hacking, entrepreneurship and spiritual practice, mindfulness and growth.

Not something I talk about much, but definitely underlying all my actions and decisions on my indie journey:

- Having to unlearn unhelpful beliefs and narratives I have about the world and about myself. For example, unlearning my relationship with money, hard work. I've never had a 'job' that constantly challenged me and my belief system more. The personal growth is 1000x over the any valuation or revenue.

- Right livelihood and practising empathy and compassion in the workplace. This started from my last job as a designer in government, to bring about public policies and services that are more citizen-centered. At the root of that work is helping public officer generate empathy for citizens. I think I still bring some of that into my work in indie hacking, by having empathy for my customers and incorporating those insights into the features, during support requests.

- Marketing reframed as helping others succeed. I never liked marketing. But that's because I mistook bad actors and encounters in the past as the entire stage. Ever since trying it out and learning that I can do marketing if I do it as helping others succeed, as being helpful to a fault, as acts of kindness it all aligned inwardly. Practising generosity.

- Last but most important, is the daily mindfulness required to be building an audience and being online. [Mindful consumption is not just food but also food for the mind - media, conversations, people I follow](https://plumvillage.org/mindfulness/the-5-mindfulness-trainings/). Practising loving speech and deep listening. Not engaging in toxic arguments with toxic people.

My practice ain't perfect, but I do hope to try everyday.

Today I woke to yet another sleep score in the 60% range, feeling groggy, unrested, grumpy, and wondering why I slept so late at 10:45pm. I was of course, doomscrolling on the phone waaay past bedtime.

*This needs to stop.*

My sleep's all over the place, and I've either been too tired, too stressed or too busy to do anything about it, fueling a vicious cycle of poor sleep, poor coping, poor bedtime sleep hygiene, which then results poorer sleep, poorer coping... you get the picture.

I need a sleep makeover.

I need to get back to the sleep routines where I woke up to 90+% sleep scores, feeling rested and ready. I've done it before. I know how to do it:

- last coffee at lunchtime
- topping back up my magnesium levels
- active movement throughout the day
- light or no dinner
- no phone screens after dinner
- bedtime at 9:30pm latest
- meditate before sleep
- keeping thermal comfort (20ºC)

So it's not a lack of knowledge but a lack of motivation. That's the problem with slumps – they suck the life and energy out of you and all the powerful habits that were easy before becomes hard now.

That's the only reason sleep is an infinite game. The infinite part isn't that the knowledge gets forgotten but life throws seasons at you where you might struggle with time, effort or discipline.

Those are the real challenges, and I have no ready answers on how to solve it, other than (try to) resolve the root issues, and after due diligence is done, we just have to wait it out till motivation returns.

Maybe the acknowledgement "This needs to stop" is the signal I need that it's now returned, or at least, returning...

For Side Project Weekend this week, I managed to fix a bunch of minor bugs on Lifelog. No new features.

- Fixed window jumping to bottom when typing a long post.
- Added auto-scroll down to keep typing input at vertical center of screen.
- Fixed position of snackbar editor blocking typing input of textarea.

From today's build sessions, I found myself pondering... *Is that it? Are these features all to it?* I think the initial burst of joy from building and launching anything at all, after a two-year hiatus, is now waning. I want to continue building on Side Project Weekends for sure, but I also want to be more intentional. I don't want to just build features willy-nilly, but features that will push the product ahead.

Because not all features are created equal.

And I feel the ones I've been building so far since I started Side Project Weekend were "quality of life improvements" as @therealbrandonwilson would say, and great fun to build, but doesn't push the envelope enough.

What would make Lifelog special or surprising?
What can people remember it by, other than just for daily writing?
Other than being a writing platform and community with streak counters, what else could it be?

Do I want it to be a habit building platform?
Or more for writing for the long game?
Or is it more social, about the community?

Many questions, no answers.

I've always said I wanted to pivot Lifelog. But to what... I don't know yet.

Perhaps the answers lie in how I use it, how the folks here currently use it, what makes them stay or come back time and again...

Time to rethink and research and re-explore!

Being an indie parent means we could never ship as fast as we expect ourselves to. This gets especially hard when you see other indies shipping their MVP in a weekend. Not withstanding they might be senior software engineers in their day job before, or have honed their coding skills and tech stack to the point that they can do that.

But assuming all things being equal, there's just no way for an indie parent to catch up, let's be honest.

And it's frustrating sometimes.

Because to compare is human. I want to acknowledge that inevitable aspect of life, not just on Twitter but in real life, even while I understand that comparison is the thief of joy. I don't want to make excuses for myself, but I also don't want to be unkind to myself either.

Sometimes I wish I can hear more from indie parents struggling to ship, yet shipping anyway.

Maybe it took them 10x longer.
Maybe they had to sacrifice their sanity and sleep more than they would like.
Maybe they never thought they could make it to the finish line.

But they did it, and that to me is more inspiring than hearing from the outliers.

As it is, being a parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world already. We don't need to feel worse for not being able to live up to our expectations of ourselves outside of that.

Let's normalise shipping slow, even while we want to ship fast. Let's affirm, but not make it an excuse.

Being an "indie hacker" is a label. But as with most labels, there's pitfalls of over-identifying with it, and the limiting beliefs/narratives that we unconsciously allow to live rent free in our heads.

One of the most common limiters is "I'm a builder". Most say that as self-defence on why they hate or struggle with marketing, why they build and don't share or distribute. But truth is, you can say to yourself "I'm a builder" but still get good enough at marketing to be dangerous.

Both can be true, not either/or.

It's a fine difference between affirming what's your core versus letting it become an excuse that limits you. Beliefs are like tools. And like every tool, first we shape our tools, then they shape us. The catch is to be self aware enough to stay as a master of the tool, not slave.

Other indie hacker limiters to be mindful of, and it's possible alternative perspectives:

- I hate receiving cold emails, so I don't send them (there's ethical, less slimey ways to send them that's valuable and engaging)
- Ads are annoying, so I don't use ads (Ads aren't annoying if they're what you're looking for)
- MRR is the one true revenue, all else doesn't count (Most businesses in the world are built on one-time payments)
- Focus only on one thing (Plenty of folks who did well juggling multiple projects)
- Do only multiple small bets (Plenty of folks who did well doing just one project)
- Build and they'll come (Thinking pure technical prowess is sufficient is a form of naive and elist narcissism)
- VCs are evil (I've seen startups like Carrd take do a hybrid, non-equity type of VC that doesn't affect how the founders run things and it's like the best of both worlds)
- Solo founder means working entirely alone (Who cares what solo means as long as it works for you?)
- It's faster if I do it myself than to delegate or outsource (Delegating or outsourcing takes more upfront effort setting up but pays for itself downstream)

*What other limters are there?*

It's my birthday month. As with personal tradition, no specific goals for birthday month. But I still want to set broad intentions on how I would want to go about celebrating this month of my birth. Just 2 things this month:

- Relax (different from rest)
- Recalibrate

I'll be busy with consulting in June. So the last thing I want on my birthday is to stress-rush around like a headless chicken juggling consulting, indie products and family. I've done enough of that in the past few months (and years). I want to be more directed and purposeful in starting my new birth year.

Mindfulness, essentially.

I miss that calm and centered self-assuredness. I want to get back to living that way. So first thing is to relaaaaaax. Not resting physically *per se*, because I'll still be busy with work, but to *stop*, inwardly. To relax I first have to stop.

Stop stress-rushing around mindlessly.
Stop feeling like I'm never enough.
Stop expecting more and more.
Stop wanting myself to stop.

Stop, so that I can let go, let loose, and let it relax.

Then I can recalibrate. I can come back to myself. No more feeling disembodied. Back to mindful presence. Mind and body aligned.

So that I can truly live. So that I celebrate this gift of yet another year of being alive and well.

Another year of life.

*Onwards to June!*

May metrics
- Current MRR (all from Lifelog): $109 (↑$10)
- One-off revenue: $974 (↑$67)
- Total revenue: $1083 (↑$77) 🎉🎉🎉
- Total costs = $190
- Total profit: $893 (↑$52) (excl. consulting revenue)
- Profit margin: 82%
- Tweet impressions: 982k
- Followers: 7066 (↑268) 🎉 Passed 7k followers!
- Emails: 216 (↑21) subscribers

Third month in a row where my revenue is above $1k (at $1061)! The thing about my revenue is... it's mostly based on one-time payments. So I never know if the next month's taking will be the same.

---

I've been in a slump for the past 2 months, and only just discovered a few days ago what's likely to be causing it. It's probably a [magnesium deficiency](https://golifelog.com/posts/mind-that-magnesium-1685414275146). Like what?! *I know right.* On this last day of May, I'm writing like that slump never happened. It's a weird feeling, to realise that in the end there's probably nothing broken about me or my mind, but just a chemical imbalance.

Which is perfect timing because things are starting to get real busy. My consulting projects are full-on now, and I'm working on 2 concurrently! Schedule's packed for the entire June, so no vacation even for the school holidays.

I started the month of may with the broad intention to follow my energy, to trust it. Looks like I couldn't be more wrong about the cause and solution. Now that I feel 'normal' again, and my energy and motivation levels slowly picking back up, I can

Onwards!

I just 'discovered' the link between magnesium deficiency and mental wellness, and it's mindblowing (to me). Tl;dr – low magnesium means low moods, as this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled [trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28241991/) concludes:

> "Daily consumption of 500 mg magnesium oxide tablets for ≥8 wk by depressed patients suffering from magnesium deficiency leads to improvements in depression status and magnesium levels. Therefore, assessment of the magnesium serum and resolving this deficiency positively influence the treatment of depressed patients."

I think it all started when I realised when I switch my daily magnesium supplement from magnesium citrate to magnesium L-threonate. I stupidly forgot to check the dosage levels, and the threonate version is three times lesser than the citrate one. I switched in Jan, and started to feel low moods by March. Maybe the deficiency needed time to build up, within 1-2 months. And with stress/anxiety triggers due to work in March, that brought about the low period. The real clicher was when when I upped my magnesium dosage recently upon realising my mistake. And almost immediately, my low moods disappeared. Like it never happened. I even tried to bring back some of those sad thoughts that circled in my mind, but nothing. So it's not emotional or psychological, not "something I need to work through".

Coincidence? A tiny possibility, but the personal observations, experience and studies seem to triangulate towards what this [article said](https://chandramd.com/magnesium-supplements-anxiety/):

> ...low magnesium levels have been linked with:
>
> - Higher levels of stress
> - Depression
> - Insomnia or sleep disturbances
> - Headaches or muscle pain/tightness
> - Fatigue
>
> Magnesium plays two important roles in the brain, which may contribute to these symptoms:
>
> - It blocks the activity of more stimulating neurotransmitters and binds to calming receptors, resulting in a more peaceful, resting state.
> - It helps to regulate the release of stress hormones like cortisol, acting like the brake on your body’s nervous system.

It really makes me wonder... is that why people love chocolate when they're sad? (Chocolate has high levels of magnesium). I've known my carnivore friends to mention that they would crave chocolate when they are low on magnesium.

That also made me think if my previous mild to moderate depressive episodes were due to undetected magnesium deficiencies! OMG was it all just a chemical imbalance? Generally I hate that perspective on mental health issues, but this might just be an exception to the rule...

*Mindblown.*

Next time you feel low, maybe try taking some dark chocolate, spinach, beans, cashews, or almonds. Who knows, it might just be a magnesium deficiency acting out, not a broken mind.

Coming full circle on my Twitter approach lately.

I used to schedule my tweets a few weeks ahead. And I'll sit down on Monday to write them all out in 1-2h. Just like any good content creator guru would advise. But since around the start of the year or thereabouts, after doing it for about 1-2 years, I got tired of it. It felt 'off'. It didn't align inwardly, didn't feel congruent to how I was protraying myself on Twitter versus how I truly felt on my indie journey. It felt forced, artificial. Even inauthentic sometimes. I was just "building an audience", not really building in public. I've now stopped doing that altogether, and instead just tweeted whatever I’m doing or thinking for the day. I'm having so much more fun chatting with other indie peers right now. I think engagement rate is better too. Or at least, the kind of engagement that I enjoy. And since the demise of all the Twitter tools I used to use, I'm even starting to consider not using any tool at all to auto-retweet my tweets, and instead just tweeting directly on the Twitter desktop app.

And I'm not alone. Just from this tweet by Jakob and the replies alone, I can confirm the shift in approach in many of the friends I interact with on Twitter:

> I’ve made the executive decision to start posting whatever whenever I feel like it. No strategy, no scheduling. Just raw thoughts. Let’s make Twitter fun again. – [@jakobgreenfeld](https://twitter.com/jakobgreenfeld/status/1662463404680814594)

I wonder what brought about this sea change. Maybe it's just fatigue at all the clickbait noise created by threadbois. All those templated tweets about"web3", "NFTs" and then now "ChatGPT". Or accounts weaponizing outrage for engagement.

Maybe with organic reach on Twitter being nerfed, people finally got cold-turkeyed from the dopamine addiction for followers and likes, and pivoted to what Twitter was originally for all along – connecting for fun, with cool people doing cool things.

For me, it's observing folks like @levelsio, @dannypostmaa and @tdinh_me do it. They don't retweet or seem to use Twitter scheduling tools. They just build cool stuff and tweet. The engagement will take care of itself if you're doing interesting things. In fact, Tony himself built a Twitter tool but he doesn't schedule anything at all:

> Highly recommend. Fun fact: even though I built @blackmagic_so, I have never used it (or any other app) to schedule my tweets 😂 – [@tdinh_me](https://twitter.com/tdinh_me/status/1662608639469981696)

Kinda reminds of of how drug dealers "don't get high off their own supply", but in a good way haha. But seriously though... seeing how they do it reminded me of my indie hacking roots, why I joined Twitter in the first place, why I want to build in public. Before I learned about building an audience, before the Twitter gurus spammed our timelines with "10 tips to get to 10k followers in 1 month".

I want to get back to that.

Full circle.