Lifelog

Naval’s roadmap for life:

First… get out of your parents’ basement
Then… get your own place
Then… ditch the commute to work
Then… ditch the alarm clock
Then… ditch the calendar
Finally… get away from email & text messages

https://podclips.com/c/its-better-to-do-nothing-than-work-on-something-youre-not-excited-about

Now that’s an interesting roadmap there. What I like about it is how progression and success is a series of letting go, of getting out of stuff, rather than gaining or accumulating more things to own or do.

A via negativa approach to winning at life.

Where success means asking myself, “How much have I let go of so far?”

Can’t wait.

With my purchase of a second mechanical keyboard, I’m officially a mechanical keyboard hobbyist now. Yes, you need at least two keyboards to count as an enthusiast. Because who needs more than one keyboard? Nobody. Only enthusiasts and hobbyists want more than one keyboard because it’s…well, a hobby.

The best part this hobby? It’s fun but also productive. Totally mixing business with pleasure here.

Right up my geeky, workaholic alley.

It’s important to have strong goals, but hold them loosely so that you’re not blind to trade-offs, opportunities, creative detours, course-correction.

Strong goals, loosely held.

"Never set goals without cost constraints:
• I want to make something… without spending more than a week on it
• I want to make $100K… without working >10hrs/wk
• I want to get promoted… without sacrificing family time
… and so on
Else you become a slave of your goals"
– @dvassallo

Here’s the ideal cost constraints to my goals:

I want to hit $5k MRR without:
• compromising my health in any way, mental or physical. That means prioritising my workouts, rest, sleep, stress hacks alongside work.
• sacrificing family time and important occasions
• working more than 4h per day (maybe per week in the future!)
• compromising ethics and my integrity/conscience/values

I want to get fit af without:
• getting injured
• spending more than 3 sessions a week
• spending more than 30min per session
• having to go to the gym

I want to have great sleep without:
• compromising family/social time
• having to sleep a lot (>8.5h)

Finally decided on the Twitter tool I want to settle on - Zlappo, made by an indie hacker @therealjayber

Got it at a great deal from Appsumo. Usual LTD is $449, on Appsumo it's ~$100

So I finally caught everyone’s favourite virus. Next steps: Manage the symptoms and recover.

• Salt water throat gargle multiple times a day.
• Supplements top-up - quecetin, vitamin c, gluthathoine
• Traditional Chinese medicine - Lian Hua Qing Wen (a herbal concoction in capsule form for expelling ‘heat’ and alleviating symptoms for bad flu)
• Doctor’s meds where applicable - paracetemol for headaches, dextromethorphan tabs for cough
• Sleep enough and nap more to aid recovery
• Bonus: Quantum energy healing using the Leela quantum HEAL capsule

Anything else I should try?

A friend on twitter @PeterHolzer16 and I hand-shook on a deal today:

Share one failure story.

Any story from the past. A genuine failure. Something we can all learn from one another.

Some context:
The genesis story for how this came about: We were chatting about failure, about we wished more people shared their failure stories versus wins. I definitely get more utility and insight from learning from the failures of others than a “We hit $10k MRR!” win.

So here’s mine, about that one time when I set out to earn a million dollars, and failed spectacularly......

Overrated: Hard work

Underrated: Finding the right game to play in

(Average execution + right game) > (excellent execution + someone else’s game)

The question is: How do I find the right game?

Some observations and guesses on what other indicators there might be to know you’re in the right game:

• You defined the category, no matter how small/niche.
• You’re setting your own rules in the game, and others are copying you, playing by your rules.
• You’re having too much fun while making money.
• You’re operating within the optimum ratio of competency versus unknown.
• You’re growing and learning a lot in the process.
• You’re able to operate as your authentic self, and your customers pay you for that.
• You feel a growing sense of joy, purpose and clarity that this is what you do.
• You’re totally in your element while playing the game. Flow, deep work comes easily.

The next question begging for an answer is: Have I found my game yet?

The thing is, I don’t find myself going “Hell yeah!” when it comes to writing for creators and personal development. It’s what I do, I enjoy it, I’m getting good at it, and it seems to solve something (though probably more as a vitamin than a painkiller). It’s my game for now, but I’m not totally sure to be honest…

I see folks like @levelsio, @yongfook, and I see them operating in their element. And they are being rewarded for it. I’m not feeling like I’m in my element, and the (low) revenue is an indicator.

The good thing is, I could be just one product away from that.

And that makes me feel optimistic about the future.

Hard work is both overrated and underrated, and both are not in conflict.

Overrated because of expectation of linear rewards.
Underrated because it’s uncommon.

Hard work is… hard.

What freedom really means to me when it comes to my indie hacking journey:

💵 Financial freedom: Having enough money/assets to not have to be employed if you choose to. The higher level of financial freedom is to not have to work if you so choose to.

🗓 Time freedom: Disconnecting time from money, essentially. You no longer need to sell your time in exchange for money.

🗺 Location freedom: Disconnecting having to stay in one location to earn money.

🎨 Creative freedom: Full autonomy in how you wish to work, the creative direction, the strategy and vision, the mission and tactics.

🏋️‍♀️ Health freedom: - a fit body, a health that free of ailments.

🕊 Ethical freedom: - integrity and a clear conscience.

Did I miss anything? What other freedoms do you think are fundamental and should make it into the list?

- long threads are out, tweets short threads. 3-tweet atomic threads. Creds: https://twitter.com/dickiebush/status/1502987821975494659

Stoic practices 101 from the Daily Stoic:

• Is this within my control? If no, don’t bother.
• Perceive no good or bad
• Memento mori - meditate on death
• Visualize setbacks
• Amor fati - Embrace everything that happens

So as a writing-to-think exercise, what if I applied that to my product journey now? What would be my reflections or thoughts?

https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg/status/1502645608947060741

—-
$83,333.

If you know you know. 😉
—-

My little sleep biohacking community had been growing slowly but steadily for about 7 months since it’s inception on 14 Aug 2021, and it just hit 90 members! 10 more to 100!

What’s working
• Collective learning
• I really enjoy the social aspect of pursuing my goal of 5am and sleep biohacking
• Kept me reading and learning
• Tweeting my wake times daily seems to be the best distribution tactic.
• Tangential traffic to Lifelog
• Learning about community-first product development

What’s not working
• Bored of tweeting wake times daily
• More proactive participation

What can be better
• Track the streaks for wake times for the folks who post on Telegram, e.g. how Makerlog does it. Anyone knows how to code a Telegram bot using Vue.js?
• Grow to 100 members then switch to occasional tweeting
• Too many pinned resources - might need a directory soon
• Thinking about how else to give more value to the members

Those who are in the 5am club, any feedback or comments on what’s working for you, what’s not working and/or how it can be better?

It’s finally here. Everyone’s favourite virus is now in my house. First it hit my dad. Now my mum seems to be infected too. Can imagine it’s just a matter of time for the rest of us in the household, even with self-isolation.

It’s like coming face to face with the boogeyman. After 2 pandemic years of playing hide-and-seek, and bracing ourselves for this eventual showdown.

Crazy as it sounds, I’m kind of relieved.

Sure, I’m worried for my elderly parents. But they are vaccinated, and thankfully this isn’t the original boogeyman we were worried about, but it’s milder but more transmittable successor. So far it’s just a bad cough for my dad. No fever, no breathlessness, no fatigue or any pain. Singapore’s omicron peak is now waning, and hospital bed capacity is doing fine. Seems like, if there’s ever a good time to get infected, it would be now.

Time to get this over with for real.

- the most efficient way to reply to replies to my own tweets is going to my own profile, clicking on the tweet and replying from there (not clicking on each notification of the reply)
- the most efficient way to open all profiles of accounts you want to engage with daily is creating a Chrome Bookmarks folder containing links to each profile page and clicking open all

Saw a funny meme on my social media feed the other day about bullshit jobs:
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"If you can’t describe your job in 3 words, you have a bullshit job.
❌ 'I’m a SaaS-based fintech sales analyst.'
❌ 'I develop and maintain automated capabilities.'
❌ 'I create systems to record blockchain data.'
✅ 'I catch fish.'"
------
Describe your job in 3 words” is a also great exercise to get some clarity on what exactly do I do.

The format is this:

“I .”

For me: I create tools.

What do you think? How would you describe your job in 3 words?

- Looks like the most efficient way to engage other accounts is opening all their profile pages and replying to their tweets there, rather than using Lists or Turn On Notifications (too much noise from their reply tweets)

Here’s a product idea: Investing as a subscription.

• Take a mobile app for investing.
• Subscribe to it at $5, $10 or $100 per month based on your investing appetite.
• Set up a portfolio - select a few stocks, ETFs, crypto or bonds that you want to buy.
• Let the app automatically choose from your portfolio and buy the these assets every month, using the Dollar Cost Averaging approach.
• Watch your investing compound. Or not.

But the old ways of investing and trading makes it too difficult to navigate. Why can’t investing be as simple as buying groceries from Amazon?

Who’s with me on this?