Roughly a year ago, I was in the ICU for a week. It was a physical crash from a mix of dehydration, Delhi NCR heat, travel exhaustion and some more. Luckily, family, colleagues, friends were there to take care of me. When I got discharged, my body was slower, lost smell & taste but my thinking was sharper. I wrote this blog two weeks later.
I mostly treated my day like something I could design & shape. From that week onwards, I put that practice that on steroids.
On Netflix, you could ’skip intro’ to jump past the title sequence and get straight to the story. I wish I could do that for things that I didn’t feel connected to. Small talk for the sake of it. Mindless engagement in rants. I wish there were a lot of things I could ‘skip-intro’ to the parts that deserved my full attention instead.
What if you skipped the ‘autopilot’ intro of your day?
If you don’t interrupt your defaults, your day will be filled before you even show up to it. Living on autopilot is the fastest way to forget what you actually want.
I turned off most notifications on my phone except family
Only timed notifications from work
I check Slack after 11 AM
I started skipping default meetings just to see if they mattered
I set my browser homepage to a blank screen
I say no to things I can’t defend in one sentence
I noticed that I didn’t miss any of it
What if you rewrote your ‘intro scenes’ with slow rituals?
Designing for depth means choosing where you would put your energy, not just what is in your calendar. Without intentional rituals, speed will always win.
I stopped optimising my calendar
I drink tea/coffee with my wife every morning without any screens nearby
I take the stairs all day at work, even if I’ve already exercised.
I listen to the same few songs every morning to work
I just write without calling it meditation
What if you cut the ‘filler scenes’?
Choosing what to fail at frees you from pretending everything matters. Dropping the non-essential give some clarity.
I let go of inbox zero. It never mattered. I have 37K+ unread emails.
I no longer respond to every message
I removed recurring calls from my calendar I didn’t initiate
I gave up daily tracking apps. I was working out regularly.
I don’t correct people’s assumptions about how busy I am
What if you noticed the parts of your life no one else sees?
Paying attention makes the day. Practicing it daily is how you shift from reacting to shaping.
I stand on our terrace for long minutes looking at Kites
I write down one thing I noticed most don’t
I keep an observation log in my notebook
I walk with the goal of seeing something I’ve never seen before
I treat observation like strength training
What if you ‘previewed’ three alternate openings before you pressed play?
When you allow more futures, the present gets lighter.
I imagined 3 versions of my next 5 years
I chose one experiment from each and did it that month
I try to keep repeating that made be feel better
Try one. Try five. Try all. Doesn’t matter. Let me know how it goes.