Lifelog

You can be healthy but not fit. Likewise for your mental state.

I’d always thought mental health was important, and if I have it, I’m good and can cruise along. But hearing this distinction from @ShannVP on his My First Million podcast, I knew I had to shoot higher. It expanded my perspective on what was possible, what was desirable and aspirational.

I didn’t want to be just mentally healthy. I didn’t want to be just contented, satisfied, grateful. I didn’t want just less worries, more joy.

I want to be mentally fit.

Recent tiny epiphany: I realised why I don’t have a hobby, why I didn’t seem to need one and it’s fine.

Because “business entertainment” - I get my entertainment from the game of business.

For me, it’s great fun. Fascinating, even. I listen, get inspired by the business ideas they share, and sometimes try it out on my own. I often create products like it’s a hobby, just for fun. If it goes viral, great! If not, I let it lapse. No pressure. I also explore business ideas, play with concepts and opportunities through my writing here, and have fun daydreaming. Fun is also why I keep making new products even though there’s already so many on hand.

I’m in it for the game.

All that sure sounds like a hobby, albeit an over-achiever sort.

But well, if it works, it works.

• Scheduled "Good morning" tweets till end of Aug
• RT and commented on other high follower accounts
• Scheduled 3rd tweets till end Aug based on good tweets I was inspired by today

"There’s something about a physical artefact that lends more weight to the purpose you intended it for…An abstract intention actualised in a physical ritual, wrapped up with a sublime experience."

Because I too feel that with all my projects being digital, there’s a lack of tangible appreciation for it.

How I can create physical artefacts for my digital accomplishments:

• Print a custom notebook, t-shirt, stickers, pin buttons? - possible, but swags like t-shirts always becomes white elephants.
• Commission a medal/trophy? - effort needed, but if it can be like The Conqueror medals, will be awesome keepsakes!
• Start a Field Notes notebook or fancy journal for each of these projects - most feasible, can start today.
• Or follow @yongfook’s Moto Meter example on his open startup page and actually buy something I like/desire when I hit certain goals for each product!
What else can I do?

Add “…for now” to everything you say.

Instead of “I’m sad”, say “I’m sad…for now”.
Don’t say “I’m happy”, say “I’m happy…for now”.
Rather than “I’m rich”, say “I’m rich…for now”.

Who’s having the most fun being themselves and get paid for it at the same time?

"You can escape competition through authenticity, when you realize that no one can compete with you on being you. That would have been useless advice pre-internet. Post-internet, you can turn that into a career." ~ @naval

If I am to be paid to be me, what would I do?

The best sleep hack of them all... don't have kids 😂

Joking

A few days ago, I created 2 new communities in a day – Carrd Chat and 5am indie hackers.

But for Carrd Chat and 5am indie hackers, I’m trying something new. A community-driven product development approach. Truth is, in starting these 2 groups, I have no products to tag to the groups. But I know I’m interested to create something that that space, for profit or for free. Just not sure what and why…yet.

But seeing the value of of these groups from my previous products, I thought why not, let’s create the community first, then figure out what to even build. Just chat, and over time, perhaps needs and pain points will arise.

It’s exciting to try a different product development approach. Can’t wait to see how these groups pan out!

Usual mix: scheduled tweets, commented on other accounts, RTs

More points on why I think safedistancing.sg went viral...

• Something more &/or different
• Data legitimacy
• Co-creation

• tried inversion and reverse psychological tweets today - FUN!
• scheduled more tweets based on good tweets I saw today
• trying a different commenting approach - arguing back nicely
• tweeted out long thread on viral success of safediatancing.sg

• commenting and engaging
• RTs
• scheduled some tweets

Some numbers so far in just this first week of existence:

👥 ~2600 users on site at its peak on 8-9 Aug
📈 236k active users
👁 362k page views
🎉 1.06M event count
📰 Featured on 6 news platforms
☕️ 141 coffees received
💵 $705 one-off support
💳 3 new monthly subscription members for my social impact patronage
👨🏻‍💻 1 full stack developer job offer (what?!)

@keni asked that I do a retrospective on how it went viral. Here’s what I believed worked in my favour and contributed to its virality:

• Addressing a real pain point
• A descriptive domain name
• Timeliness
• Mass appeal
• For social good vibes

What are some things that would make the day a great day if you did it?

What are some things that would make a great week/month/quarter/year if you did them at least once a week/month/quarter/year?

What can the few things that you should aim to do as often as you can, to maximize joy daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly?

Here’s my own attempt at listing it out

• Scheduled more good morning tweets at 11am SG time due to good traffic
• RT and commented on other accounts

“We trust descriptive dotCOMs… especially dotCOMs that represent a niche or category.” ~ Peter Askew

Since reading about his domain-driven development approach, I’d been on the lookout for opportunities to try it out. Never found any, until now.

I knew I wanted to create a website to check the latest safe distancing restrictions in Singapore. It’s for the masses, and what better way than to use a descriptive domain name for it.

Just “safedistancing.sg”.

And bless the internet gods, it was actually available, even after more than one year of safe distancing measures.

It’s rare to build a product where the domain name is one of the key unique differentiator from competitors (which in this case, are alternative sources of information from news and government). Of course, the content matters too, but I was eager to see the effect a domain-driven approach had.

And it seems to be working! It’s getting shared around organically, at times making rounds back to the original sharer. The last I checked on my analytics, it had over 2000 users in the last 30 minutes, 73k active users, 95k page views. And it was launched just 4 days ago on 9 August!

I think I hit some sweet spot there.

...this whole marketing thing is really a craft. Like how music is a craft, an art. Something that you can bring a craftsmanship mentality to it.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t think that way about marketing previously. It was just work tasks, to me. In retrospect, that was probably disrespectful, and somewhat belittling. This story from Sam Parr opened up my eyes to a different way to look at this whole marketing game. A perspective that I’m really liking actually. The same way I look at coding and design as a craft, as parts of my work where I can be a craftsman at.

Marketing is a craft.

And of course I forgot to update immediately after the upgrade....! Hope some of my user don't assume there's another db upgrade today! 😓

Creation is life, and creating is life-giving.

I probably have way too many projects at hand right now for my own good, but somehow I can’t stop making something new from time to time. It’s not so much about revenue returns, high growth or going viral...I can’t stop making because it helps keep me motivated on this looong indie hacker journey.

There’s something about creating and creation that’s so magically life-giving to me somehow. Something I could never put into words...But like how the magic disappears if the magician reveals the trick, perhaps it’s best to just leave it unexplained this way:

I make, therefore I am.

• Email
• Telegram
• upon login on home page

So, I made a thing again. For safe distancing rules in Singapore this time.

I realised each time I want to check the latest safe distancing restrictions, I have to google it but end up getting confused by the outdated news articles and past gov press releases.

There isn't one constant, easy-to-remember link that I can refer to each time the rules are updated. So I made one myself.

https://safedistancing.sg

🚨Currently the site shows rules for 10 Aug onwards.

I really made this for myself, but figured maybe others might have the same problem too. Hope you like this birthday present, Singapore!

Happy National Day for all the Singaporeans here!

Heroku's documentation for this is super not clear. Stuff like this just gives me anxiety!

• leveraged on the viral opportunity and posted Lifelog on Reggit, a nocode clone of Reddit made using Bubble (which I saw on HN)
• posted/commented about Lifelog in various groups in Indie Hackers