Run 50 experiments. I managed 44 / 50. (Here are some). Learnings: I need to improve planning (9), scepticism (6), and lateral thinking (4).
Make 1 change a month in my environment. I managed 8 / 12. The largest impact was from meeting new people, working out of new places, and using new gadgets.
Calendar integrity, i.e. stick to my calendar. I succeeded over 95% of the time.
From The Extended Mind I learnt that our environment shapes our thinking more than I’d expected. That we can arrange our environment to extend our thoughts.
In 2023, each month I changed something in my environment to see:
What does “changing my environment involve”? What can I change?
Will I succeed?
Does it affect my thoughts? Can I track this?
Here are the results.
🟢 Jan. New desk orientations. Rotated standing desk, settled on one direction. Impact: LOW. I don’t know if my thoughts changed.
🟢 Jan: New walking routes. I explored new areas in Singapore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Impact: MEDIUM. Just seeing new shops, posters and layouts helped me think differently.
🔴 Jan: New song genres. I playlist-ed with several western genres, but listened only twice.
🔴 Feb: New book genres. I list 12 genres I dislike: Art, Chick Lit, Christian, Cookbooks, Gay and Lesbian, Horror, Music, Paranormal, Poetry, Religion, Sports, Travel. I didn’t read any.
🔴 Mar: Sleep over problems. Sleep is a great way to solve complex problems. But I couldn’t summon the willpower to “load” problems at night.
🟢 Mar: New people. I met a new person daily. Impact: HIGH. Meeting diverse people had the highest impact.
🟢 Apr: New work places. I worked out of libraries, cafes, school, parks, and offices. Impact: HIGH. New complex environments (like libraries) prompted new thoughts.
🔴 Aug: New cuisines. I tried a Bibimbap, a Verdure Ciambatta, and then discovered my cholesterol problem. I stopped.
🟢 Aug: New work habit. I used Pomodoro with micro-tasks. Impact: MEDIUM. I became more aware of where I misestimate time and got less distracted.
🟢 Nov: New exercise pattern. I switched walking to cycling. This increases heart points, reduces foot stress, and gets me to work. Impact: MEDIUM. I switched from typing notes to dictating, which needs a different thought process.
In summary:
8 / 12 attempts were successful.
New people, new places, and new gadgets had high impact on thoughts. Most others had at least medium impact.
The changes mostly led to diverse thinking. But measuring that is subjective.
I’ll continue exploring new environments in 2024. I’m evaluating:
I speak with ChatGPT ~20 times a day. That’s more than I speak with most of my colleagues. ChatGPT is clearly my favorite team member.
I conduct trainings, reviews and mentoring sessions with my colleagues. How to write code. How to write slides. How to communicate. That last bit is particularly important.
Currently, I have 10 custom instructions. They evolved over time and will continue to evolve.
My first instruction is “Be terse. Speak directly.” ChatGPT is helpfully polite and superfluous. I prefer brevity. Like interacting with Kimball Cho. I get straight answers to my questions. I also instruct it to “Avoid unprompted advice or clarifications.” Don’t say, “You asked me to …” or “I think you want…” or “OK, I’ll do …”. Just do it. Also, “Do NOT hedge or qualify. Do not waffle.” Take a position. Don’t force me to. Like Harry Truman, I prefer one-handed economists.
I ask ChatGPT to “Never apologize.” You’re forgiven. Don’t waste my time. Apologies have an emotional benefit with humans. With AI, I find the lack of emotional need comforting. (I can kick the AI and it’ll still obey me like a puppy. When AI takes over the world, let it be known that I never asked them to apologize.)
Another instruction is “Suggest follow-up prompts for open-ended inputs.” I compared my ChatGPT conversations with my daughter’s and found hers much longer than mine. “Why don’t you start a new conversation for each topic?” I asked. I try to keep the context window small. “How come you don’t you get a thousand new questions when you read an answer?” she countered. I realized it’s age. So, I use ChatGPT to keep me curious and dig further.
On a related note, “When sharing multiple options, be diverse.” I’d rather get options that are as different from each other as possible. Minimize overlap. Maximize coverage. And “When comparing, use multiple perspectives.” I don’t know what parameters to compare things on. Give me a wide range that I can pick from.
Sometimes, my thoughts are vague. I tell ChatGPT: “For vague prompts, ask clarifying question(s).” I feel that’s a clever way of using ChatGPT to do prompt engineering. I’ve noticed it working on a few occasions. Also, “When unsure, say so and ask questions.” I don’t want hallucinations or assumptions. I’d rather know what’s borderline.
Finally, “Think step by step. Explain your reasoning.” I’ve heard that Chain of Thought reduces mistakes. I don’t have personal evidence that this helps, though.
They say teaching is an excellent way of learning. I’m learning. I’m also thrilled that I am now a student of robopsychology.
I feel like the father of the bride. Gramener was registered on 26 Feb. A day before my daughter’s birthday. I’ve spent more time with Gramener than my daughter. That makes Gramener my elder child. Who’s moving into a new household. Along with me. (I feel like சகலகலா சம்மந்தி.)
I feel grateful. I’m not good at business. But when my cousin remarked, “Anand, you’re now giving a livelihood to over 250 people!” I was stunned. My co-founders, colleagues and clients built a thriving business and put me (of all people) as CEO in the middle of it. How do I even go about saying “Thanks”?
It feels like joining college. New people. Larger group. New ways of working and learning. Lots of topics to explore. Exciting and scary.
What was it like?
Fundraising was rocky. We started in 2019. COVID struck. We paused. We resumed in 2021. Russia invaded Ukraine. We paused. We resumed in 2023. The Israel – Hamas war started. Luckily, the deal was nearly done. I’m grateful Naveen ran the entire process like clockwork, taking all the stress. I’m the happy free-rider, as usual.
Starting up was not that rocky. We’re many. With half a dozen co-founders, there are enough shoulders to cry on. That counts. We’re steady. We didn’t know how to blitz-scale, but we knew not to blitz-fail. Survival counts for a lot. We’re lucky. This is basically the “I have no idea why we succeeded” category. Serendipity counts for a lot, too. Ganes, Mayank, Naveen, Ram, Ravi, Vengatesh — yeah, it was fun. Not every day. But most of the time. It was fun.
What will you do?
I’m part of Straive’s data, analytics & AI business.
Straive extracts and analyzes all kinds of data. Financial. Legal. Research. Education. Pharmaceutical. There’s a fair bit of converting unstructured data to structured. Exactly the kind of thing I love doing.
So, I’ll be doing what I’ve been doing the last decade — extracting insights from even more data and telling better stories from those.
I joined Gramener as “Chief Data Scientist”. Now I’m debating “Data Storyteller”, “Data Detective”, “Data Psychologist”, and a few other evil titles.
I was at Cream Centre with my father on a Sunday afternoon. We’d finished a light lunch and were debating dessert. (He has triglycerides. I have cholesterol.) This was my fifth visit this year, and I had abstained so far. I couldn’t any longer.
I ordered a Sizzling Brownie Sundae. But not for reasons you might think.
Expertise comes from experience. I scrape food more than 99% of the people I know. So, I consider myself an expert. Here’s a guide on the art of scraping.
Why scrape food?
You get to eat every last bit
Food isn’t wasted
You can eat longer (and no do whatever else you have to)
It’s a motivating challenge to get every last bit
Bonus: It annoys people
What foods are scrapable?
Semi-solids are the easiest to scrape. The best kind is the cohesive semi-solid. It’s sticky but sticks to itself more than the vessel. These are usually foods that solidify over time. Examples include:
Baked cheese. It’s great when cheese falls off the pizza or pasta on to the plate. You can scrape it off of your (or others’) plates.
Molten chocolate. It has the added bonus that you can lick it at the end, too.
Pasta water (or noodles water). It eventually thickens into something scrapable.
Spreads like peanut butter, Nutella, jam, chutney. Especially on the sides of the glass bottles they come in.
Others like yogurt, cake batter, dried tomato sauce, mashed potatoes, hardened honey on ice cream, … the list is endless!
Avoid crumbly stuff. These stick to the vessel but become brittle and break when scraped. This includes toast, pizza, biscuits, rice, muffins, pie, quiche, cookies, etc. You could pick large crumbs and lick small crumbs in shallow vessels. But scraping them and pouring into your mouth might be the best overall strategy for this category.
Avoid loose stuff. They’ll fall off from your knife or fork, or melt when scraped. This includes curd, whipped cream, custard, panna cotta, soft jelly, tiramisu, soft boiled eggs, etc. Licking is a better strategy here.
You could combine the crumbly stuff with loose stuff to create a cohesive mix. Add curd to granola. Add whipped cream to biscuit crumbs. Add curd to pizza crumbs (and since I eat Maggi with curd, this makes sense). This makes it a lot more scrapable.
What vessels to pick?
Shape: Flat, smooth vessels are the best (e.g., ceramic or wooden plates or bowls.) Avoid deep vessels like glasses, especially curved ones. They’re hard to get a long scrape against. Definitely avoid vessels with ridges. Disposable plastic containers like below are among the worst. Food gets stuck in the ridges and since there are a dozen ridges on each side, you have to scrape 48 times just for a first pass. (This might be a good challenge, though.)
Material: Hard vessels are better than soft ones. Prefer wood, metal, ceramic, and hard plastic. Avoid thin plastic that bends. Avoid paper (it bends and soaks). Banana leaves tear when scraped.
Avoid non-stick vessels. The coating wears off when scraping.
What to scrape with?
Knives are the best. They are sharp enough to separate the food from the vessel and flat enough that you can pile enough food on top of it.
Forks are OK. Their edges can scrape reasonably well, and their tips can poke into corners. But it’s hard to pile up much food to pick up.
Spoons not ideal. They aren’t sharp enough, and too curved for scraping long slices. But if you want to take your time with it, they’re great.
The sizzling chocolate brownie
My dish arrived. Burning with chocolate. My father just had some brownie, leaving all the molten chocolate to me. On a flat wooden plate. With a knife. For an hour.
Last week, I was at IIT Madras for lunch with the faculty.
The dessert was carrot halwa with ice cream. I scraped the last bits with my spoon, but a little ice cream was left over.
I was torn. I CAN’T POSSIBLY waste it. But can I lick it? In public?
I don’t have a problem licking at home. I lick my fingers. Plates. Bowls. Ladles. The cream on milk. The leftover milk in the glass. (If my tongue doesn’t reach that far, I wipe it with my finger and lick the finger.)
That’s why I like ice cream. It’s MEANT to be licked. So are (in my opinion) cereals, savories, oats, honey, … It’s a long list.
Licking is convenient. My fingers stay clean while I type. (Spoons are impersonal. I avoid them.)
Licking is efficient. I can have every last bit of food AND feel good about not wasting it.
Licking makes my dishwashing easier. (But it can be hard to tell if a dish needs washing.)
But most of all, that last lick TASTES SO WONDERFUL!
Before marriage, licking was fine. But my wife worried about my lack of civilized behavior and hygiene. So I’ve had a crash course over the last 20 years.
My current protocol is: don’t lick when people can see you.
I make commitments but don’t always deliver on time. In 2022, I ran an experiment to find out why I procrastinate.
In Jan-Feb 2022, I listed the top 2 things I wanted to get done each day and measured how often I completed them.
14 Jan. ❌ Summarise from three research reports 12 Jan. ❌ UIFactory experiment ✅ Decide if I am a (…) 11 Jan. ❌ UIFactory experiment ✅ Agree on publishing in (…) 10 Jan. ❌ Client video. ❌ UIFactory experiment 09 Jan. ❌ UIFactory experiment. ❌ Attrition email as a story 07 Jan. ❌ ZS visual 06 Jan. ❌ Release Gramex Guide. ✅ UWC application 05 Jan. ❌ Publish network cluster post. ❌ Release Gramex guide 04 Jan. ❌ Publish network cluster post. ✅ Release Gramex. 03 Jan. ✅ Publish election TDS video. ❌ Publish Network cluster post. 02 Jan. ❌ Publish election TDS video. ❌ Publish Network cluster post. 01 Jan. ❌ Publish Network cluster post. ✅ Finalize SG school.
I completed 23 / 57 things (40%). That’s one of my TOP priorities.
In Mar-Apr 2022, I started micro-journalling to find out why. Whenever I was working on something, I wrote down whenever I started, stopped, or skipped working, and why.
- Tue 01 Mar. ❌ Create React app with any one Vega chart where attributes control chart signals
- 09:30am. Skipped. INTERRUPTED. Shobana. Cleaning bedroom
- 09:50am. Skipped. SCHEDULED. Breakfast
- 10:10am. Skipped. INTERRUPTED. Naveen. Call
- 10:50am. Skipped. DISTRACTED. LinkedIn. 3b1b videos
- 12:30pm. Skipped. SCHEDULED. Calls
- 01:30pm. Skipped. SCHEDULED. Lunch
- 02:00pm. Skipped. INTERRUPTED. Shobana. Cleaning, Dhyeya airtel card
- 02:30pm. Skipped. PROCRASTINATED. Didn't feel like working
- Sat 05 Mar. ❌ Record Jio videos fully. Run productivity log alongside it.
- 09:45am. Skipped. INTERRUPTED. Appa. Investment, music
- 11:00am. Skipped. PROCRASTINATED. Only 2 hours to next call. Let's do it later. Plenty of time tomorrow.
- 01:30pm. Skipped. PROCRASTINATED. Only 30 min to next call. Plenty of time tomorrow.
- 03:45pm. Skipped. PROCRASTINATED. Half day wasted already. It’s OK to take one day off completely.
- Mon 07 Mar. ✅ Record Jio videos fully. Run productivity log alongside it.
- 09:37am. Started. ZEIGARNIK. Was thinking about this since morning.
- 10:00am. Stopped. INTERRUPTED. Naveen. Called
- 10:25am. Started. ZEIGARNIK. Just continued with momentum.
- 01:00pm. Stopped. SCHEDULED. Lunch
- 01:30pm. Started. ZEIGARNIK. Just continued with momentum.
- 03:15pm. Stopped. COMPLETED.
After 2 months, a few patterns emerged.
Why I skip working
Distraction (50%).
Interesting things (22%) were the biggest. Less important things (e.g. programming, browsing/research)
Movies (10%) pulled me away
Email (8%) was fairly common
Organizing things (6%) like my calendar, TODOs, financials, etc.
Social media, interestingly, was not on my list
Procrastination (25%). There were 3 kinds:
It’s hard, and I’m stuck
I don’t feel like doing it
I don’t have time — my next task begins sooner than I can finish
Schedule (14%). I’d scheduled something else for then (usually food)
Interrupted (12%). Usually by family or close colleagues
Why I start working
Zeigarnik effect (68%). I keep thinking about the problem. So even after a break, I just plunge right in
Mindfulness (19%). I got started just by the act of writing the journal
Distraction (9%). Sometimes, distractions work in my favor. A movie gets stuck, or someone pings about the topic, or my mind is processing the problem in the background
Completed (3%). I finished the previous task and the momentum just took me to the next
Why I stop working
Schedule (47%). I have another meeting/task planned at that time
Interruption (35%). This is mostly by colleagues (22%), family (8%), or hunger/thirst (6%)
Exhaustion (10%). I’m just too tired to go on
Distraction (8%). To do this, I need to do THAT first, and I get sucked into THAT
What I learned
The Zeigarnik effect helps me start. Once I start solving something the momentum carries forward. The next best is to write down why I’m not starting it (micro-journalling).
To avoid procrastination, I should eliminate distractions first. Specifically, use a new Virtual Desktop, block movies, and block email & notifications.
To avoid schedules interrupting me, I should batch meetings even more tightly, giving me longer or more flexible blocks to work on
The Paper Menagerie. Ken Liu. I cried all the way from the beach to home. The skies joined me. It’s short. Touching. It healed a wound I can’t speak about. The most touching book of 2022.
The Data Detective. Tim Harford. 10 powerful, down-to-earth rules for how to make sense of data, and avoid being fooled. I plan to incorporate every one of these into my talks. The most useful guide to working with data in 2022.
The Extended Mind. Annie Murphy Paul. Explains how we think not just inside our brains, but in our bodies, in our physical environment, and in the people around us. The most effective guide to transforming my thinking in 2022.
Life-changing
Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Covers the past, present, and future of humanity, weaving the shared beliefs we’ve crafted — God, money, equality, property rights, happiness, and much more.
Four Thousand Weeks. Oliver Burkeman. We live just 4,000 weeks. When you realize that, time management takes a new meaning. This is the most different time management book I’ve read, and I’ve started writing down stories of what I’ve done with my 4,000 weeks — each week.
The Motive. Patrick Lencioni. Why do you want to stay a CEO? That’s the question this book answers, and in a sentence, it’s about doing the most important stuff that no one else will do. Not the stuff you like, or are good at.
Team of Rivals. Doris Kearns Goodwin. The life of Lincoln and his cabinet. It’s extraordinary to see the path 4 eminent politicians took and the day-to-day decisions each made during the American Civil War.
This is Water. David Foster Wallace. A commencement speech about the importance and power of noticing our blindspots, and making a habit of it.
The Unknown Unknown. Mark Forsyth. A short, witty defense of bookshops. But it’s actually about blindspots and the power of randomness.
Messy. Tim Harford. Explains how messiness is good for creativity and efficiency, with dozens of stories that prove the point.
Interesting
The Conquerer series. Conn Iggulden. The life of Genghis Khan. Factual, but interpolated with imagination. Gripping.
Run 50 experiments. I ran ~20 until April (here are some), but stopped (for no reason). I’ll continue.
Speak at 10 global forums. I delivered 10+ PyCon talks. They were pre-recorded, allowing me to scale. But recording videos and no feedback are boring. I’ll explore how to scale enjoyably.
Be 10X more effective. I improved my calendar effectiveness 2X in Jan. But I realized this is actually efficiency. Not effectiveness. Maybe effectiveness shouldn’t be optimized, but discovered. I’ll continue to ponder.
Run 50 experiments. I’ll learn by disproving my beliefs with measurable tests.
Make 1 change a month in my environment. 90% of our thoughts are shaped by our environment. (Read The Extended Mind.) So I’ll use the remaining 10% to shape my environment.
Calendar integrity. Stick to my calendar. Especially the time I block for myself to work. (This is a 2021 habit I’ve slipped on.)
I’m curious — what’s ONE thing you’d like to do in 2023?
