Lifelog

This founder's journey is a f**king rollercoaster 🎢

🤩 Exhilarating highs
😖 Depressing lows

Staying stoic through all that is hard

But I found the right response that truly helps - in just ONE word:

"Maybe."

How does it work? Here's a story

- my pinned tweet is from Dec 2020 = outdated! I need a new and better one, that best describes what value I bring on Twitter. A thread just for the pinned tweet? Or an existing thread I sent?
- improve on design of Twitter banner image? Add more text.
-

Setting goals and targets is important.

But your trajectory is more important than your target.

Yeah, by all means, set a target. But it shouldn’t be the only thing that matters. Certainly not the only metric you should worry over. The system for your trajectory matters more. A lot more.

📈 If you’re trending up - you good.
📉 If you’re trending down - bad.

Because in both cases, you can have the same targets. Someone trending down can even look successful.

But only one gets there.

Thinking about trajectory got me thinking about my own MRR growth journey. I might have targets for $200 MRR now, $5k MRR in the near term, and $10k for my endgame.

But how to I ensure I trend up? What’s my systems for ensuring that?

Here’s how, w.r.t. habits, mindsets, people, vision

- write alt text for images. Hunch is the algo bumps your tweet up, plus it's great for accessibility!
- what if I drew the usual consultant frameworks that I'm familiar with, but for Twitter?!
- how about repurposing old visuals for new tweets?!

So I think got Achilles tendonitis from my standing desk.

Yes, a workplace injury.

From my standing desk.

What a loser. 🤦‍♂️

Looks like I took it too far too fast (again).

It sucks being old. But gotta live and learn.

Some remedies:

• Take breaks every 30-45min
• Regularly switch between sitting and standing desk mode throughout the day
• Time my total standing hours for each day. Keep to about 2h for a start.
• Shift my weight around often even when standing.
• Use an anti-fatigue mat or wear support footwear.

Any other remedies and solutions you know?

- went back to black & white ASCII progress bar for better editing, as Twitter doesn't support yellow square emoji
- new idea from @Winkletter: occasional but regular 'hardcore days' to push on the limits of a goal/habit like tweeting/writing threads/engaging 80x, especially when I'm feeling inspired/strong/motivated.

Anger is telling you where your boundaries had been breached, where you felt powerless.

Anxiety acknowledges something in your life is missing, is off-balanced, is not moderated.

Fear betrays what or where you care most about, what you do not want to lose.

Apathy reveals where you had done too much beyond your own capacity, over-reached and (on the verge of) burned out.

Sadness is showing you what makes you unhappy, and by inversion, what makes you happy.

Disgust is demonstrating where you need more compassion and empathy.

Shock or surprise is signifying the level of your expectations, prompting you to re-examine if you should lower or raise them.

Self-criticism is the part of you that recognizes your full potential, that you are capable of so much more.

You get my point.

Your feeling’s aren’t meant to be ignored, suppressed or overcome. They aren’t the evil twin of your rationality. Most definitely, they are real. Feelings aren’t random; they have a purpose.

Feelings are useful.

Sure, don’t react reflexively to them. Don’t be their slave.

Respond rationally, as their master and owner would.

But acknowledge them, listen to them, and hear what they have to say.

Feelings are messengers.

A 2nd compilation of all the tiny Twitter hacks I learned and love.

Part 1: https://golifelog.com/posts/tiny-twitter-hacks-i-learned-and-love-1640567252125
Part 2: https://golifelog.com/posts/tiny-twitter-hacks-i-learned-and-love-part-ii-1642293081196

- had been tweeting benefits of writing for creators but very little practical, actionable tips on how to do it. Decided to start tweeting more how to tips, frameworks, writing prompts, etc
- decided to switch to using tld.rip instead of Typeshare for my scheduled posts, since it has auto-RT (which I can set to 13h post-tweet)
- tld.rip also has swipe files which are great, and I can build my own swipe file too
- considering doing 1 high quality thread per week for all 52 weeks of the year
- changed progress bar back to yellow and grey emoji squares to bring some colour back to my profile page

Did some research on whether it's normal to wake up once at night. So it's actually common!

- continuous sleep experienced in childhood/teens is not typical for adults
- most people wake 2-3x during the night
- historically, humans don't sleep 8h. The terms "first sleep" and "second sleep" is hundreds of years old.
- industrialisation / electric light made waking activity encroach further into the night
- we wake in night due to sleep cycles, a normal sign of body's internal clock and sleep mechanisms working well

https://sleephub.com.au/wake-up-at-night/

Try this goal setting exercise:

Instead of a typical goal that starts with “I will do X…”, phrase it as “I want to see what happens if I…”

I love the slightly different spin on the usual goal-setting frame. Just a change of a few words, and they invite a vastly different way to think and plan for your goals:

Instead of being definitive and specific, you leave things open.
Instead of setting hard metrics, you entertain possibilities.
Instead of setting it to be attainable, you leave room to expand as things unfold.
Instead of being realistic, you dream big and think about the future you want.
Instead of arbitrarily setting a hard deadline, your time is flexible.

- retweeting older tweets on schedule provides material for new tweets too. Don't be afraid to rehash old content in new ways - rephrase, expand, add in new learnings

Perhaps I was too enthusiastic with my Fit AF goal.

Or perhaps I was really too sedentary for the past two years.

But I injured my left Achilles tendon on Tuesday. And I’m not even sure how I injured it.

Now I’m limping along. I can walk, but forced to slow down.

Injury is feedback.

Injury is a body’s whisper wrought into a scream over time.

Listen, for god’s sake.

- started posting a Lifelog link for my 5am wake time tweets, to distribute it even more

Cultivating joy is so underrated, and something I want to do more of. The first step is to be aware of what brings me joy in work and life, so writing it down is a good first step. Knowing them means I can try to repeat them more often. Even better, write down what doesn’t bring me joy. Removing joy inhibitors is also a great way to cultivate joy!

https://twitter.com/jasonleowsg/status/1480449339839459330

—

My next product will be a boring product, a sweaty startup.

No need to be innovative, disruptive or cool.

Something emotionally unimpressive
But empirically profitable.

Here's why:

//thread//

1) Go to a review site like Yelp or Google Maps.
2) Mystery shop: Call services like plumbing, washing, cleaning, landscaping. - @CSMikeCardona
3) Mature to less mature markets. - @ClimbRideRunner
4) Usual SaaS suspects - website builders, form builders, job boards, web scraping
5) Biz with recurring income (like a regular done-for-you service) or sells consumables (leading to repeat purchases) - @Kon_Theo
6) Go hyperlocal. - @fannin_seth
7) Look up Microacquire / Flippa for SaaS biz ideas - @VicVijayakumar
8) Excel is every SaaS’s competitor but also muse
9) PDF forms that you got to download, sign and send back
10) Replace in-person physical trips

My perfect morning routine:

⏰ 4:45am wake
🧘🏻‍♂️ Meditate
☕️ Coffee
✍️ Write
🏃‍♂️ Run
🥪 Breakfast
🚿 Shower

My tweet swipe file is adding up real fast! Need a good Notion template for it asap!

I keep coming back to this idea recently – create a boring product for a well-understood problem within a saturated market.

Something emotionally unimpressive but empirically profitable.

Some obvious benefits here:

• It’s a well-understood problem, so no need to guess if people will pay for it.
• It’s a saturated market, meaning there’s definitely demand for it.
• It’s boring, so unlikely that you’ll get competition from the smarter folks.
• Not so bleeding edge that nobody understands it, so less risk and marketing is easy.
• Sweaty entails even less people/competitors are inclined to do so.
• Not tech-savvy means I can get some advantage by bringing in some tech to automate the space

Right now, this, year, I just want to make good profit and a good living off of it. Create a comfortable life for my wife and kid, and my parents.

It’s boring yeah.

But nobody’s going to say that when you make $10k every month off it.

Going back to build mode in 2022!