Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I'd like to share a concept and experience by Oliver Burkeman.

This is an observation that many people seem to feel as if they start off each morning in a kind of productivity debt. Which they must struggle to pay off through the day in hopes of reaching a zero balance by the time evening comes. It's as if you need to justify your existence by staying on top of things in order to starve off some I'll defined catastrophe that might otherwise come crashing down upon your head.

Many of us have a to-do list that we need to try to get done, what Oliver Burkeman shares is what if instead we had a done list. So instead of starting with a list that we are in debt off, instead we start to list things starting from zero. So that throughout the day we have small wins or big wins and it builds momentum day to day.

And so the counter thought of this is if you're working towards something you need to have a list of things to do in order to achieve and that is fair enough but I believe the power in this is also the reflection of what you have done throughout the day. Because if you're constantly doing and not reflecting that these are the things that you have achieved, it can often feel you're in a constant state of debt trying to balance things out. And that is an ongoing cycle versus reflecting at the end of the day thinking this is what I've done, this is what I've completed, no matter how small or big.

Reflection in terms of wins throughout the day, is way better than catching up to things that you still need to do.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I'd like to talk about the Eisenhower two by two decision matrix.

Lately I've been finding myself inundated with a lot of tasks and I've been getting lost in the process. So I recently revisited, the Eisenhower two by two matrix and that is grouping tasks into either: urgent and important, urgent not important, important not urgent and finally not important not urgent. And as a quick summary, important and urgent is something you need to do now. Important and not urgent is something you can reschedule. Urgent and not important you can try to delegate. And of course not important and not urgent try to eliminate.

This has really helped me take a higher level overview of my daily tasks that I need to get through and prioritise them.

Another element that I add at the end of the day is putting next to these task items that I do end up completing. If they end up using my unique ability or is it something I'm excellent at, but I don't have passion for it. Or am I simply competent at it and finally if it's something I am incompetent at. By adding this level of detail I'm better able to audit my week. By seeing how many important tasks I'm actually doing and if these important tasks aligned with my unique ability. The goal for me is to spend majority of my time doing important tasks that utilise or nurture and grow my unique ability.

Thank you everyone for listening

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I have a quote by author and screenwriter Ray Bradbury, "Action is hope. At the end of each day when you've done your work, you lie there and think, well, I'll be damned I did this today. It doesn't matter how good it is or how bad you did it. At the end of the week, you'll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I'll be damned, it's been a good year."

This reminds me of something I heard before. The job of a creator is to create, not to judge.

Despite the challenging times I feel like I'm going through at the moment. The only thing I can rely on is action, doing the best that I can with the conditions that I'm in, at least by the end of it. I knew I did the best that I could because action gives me hope.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I share a popular rule in the aviation industry, the 1 in 60 rule. Simply put the rule is that for every one degree you are off course, you end up being one mile off course after traveling 60 miles. Basically getting just one degree off course at the start will result you becoming farther off course the longer you travel.

Every week at the end of the week I make time to check in, to make sure that my actions have aligned with my goals. If what I've been doing over the past week is moving the needle forward towards my quarterly goals, which is based off my yearly goals, which is based on my three year goals, which is based off my 10 year goals.

This process helps keep me in check because I understand that if I don't regularly check in on what I am doing, it's very easy for me to get off course and do other things. And then eventually not end up where I wanted to be. This way it keeps me personally accountable by checking in regularly every week.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I have a quote by John Steinbeck, "Life is like an empty field. With intention it becomes a garden, without it weeds and debris will take over. Something will grow either way, but it's your choice what takes root."

Every day when I wake up I visualise my intentions. This gives me the strength, the confidence, the energy and more importantly, the reminder that this is what I want in my life. It helps me keep on track and through the rough times, remember why I'm doing what I do.

I hope with the beginning of the new year, the intentions are strong.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I'm getting married and so I wanted to share the concept of marrying up.

I'm very grateful and thankful to be marrying someone who's much more intelligent, smarter than I am. She is much stronger in ways that I am not. She excels in areas where my shortfalls are.

I am grateful and thankful that I have a life partner like her. As I know she'll continue to push me and we'll be able to support each other through thick and thin.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal

Today I have a quote from Tom Rath, "You cannot be anything you want to be, but you can be a lot more of who you already are."

I think that a lot of what society has brought us up to think is to work on your weaknesses, to work on your shortcomings and regardless of where you are at. If you put your mind to it you can achieve anything. Yes if you put your mind to it, you can achieve greatness in whatever it is that you wish or desire but I think everyone has their own unique talents. And if we had spent more time honing our own unique talents, we could reach much further than we could ever possibly dream of. And for our weaknesses, for our shortcomings, we can collaborate with others, with their unique talents that lies in that space. Giving them the spotlight to shine and together we'll achieve greatness.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I have a piece from Sahil Bloom's blog.

There's a quote attributed to Mark Twain that I absolutely love, " It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know for sure, that just ain't so.

We all walk through the world in a natural state of hard wired arrogance. It basically tells us that we are great and correct and everyone else is not so great and wrong.

It is easier for us to have a hundred percent certain view of the world, to allow every new fact to either:

Confirm our view of reality and be absorbed. Or refute our view of reality and be bounced off into oblivion.

But easy does not equal correct.

When we allow our arrogance to win, we are the prisoner completely unaware of our state of imprisonment. When we fight the arrogance. When we learn to question, some of our baseline certainties, we experience a richer, more complex and more dynamic existence.

I think from time to time, it's important to question our own beliefs, what we believe is certain. Because to hold on to certain beliefs without question can be naive. Be open, learn everything, take in different perspectives, understand the for and against and with as much information as you have on hand. Make your own decisions, build your own opinions.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I have one of my favorite quotes from Victor Frankl, " Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing: the last of the human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one's own way."

I believe I am quite lucky, I have my health, I have family, I have a loving partner, I have friends, I have work, I have a roof over my head. But still like everyone else, doubts still creeps in, anxiety still creeps in, stress still creeps in. It is a constant check-in of the circumstance that I'm in. Because you can't control your circumstances but you can control how you react to them.

Bring gratitude into your life and reframe your circumstance.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Hello everyone, welcome to my weekly audio journal.

Today I'd like to share a post by Alex Brogan, the inside outside view. We have a natural tendency to favor the inside view. Our own independent solutions to a problem that incorporates all of our hidden biases.

To make better decisions, we should favor the outside view. One that incorporates the best available data.

An inside view considers as a problem by focusing on the specific task and by using information that is close at hand and it makes predictions based on that narrow and unique set of inputs. These inputs may include anecdotal evidence and fallacious perceptions. This is the approach that most people use in building models of the future and is indeed common for all forms of planning.

The outside view asks if there are similar situations that can provide a statistical basis for making a decision. Rather than seeing a problem as unique. The outside view wants to know if others have faced comparable problems and if so, what happened? The outside view is an unnatural way to think. Precisely because it forces people to set aside all the cherished information they have captured.

Thank you everyone for listening.