Doing is a state of being

I have been obsessed with the idea of being for quite some time now. I have spoken about this in some of my posts and have had some understanding of this concept. But, it is only recently that I have realised that I understood it all wrong. 

Poster in a friend’s room. 

Earlier, when I thought of ‘being’ as a concept, I imagined a life where I am not doing anything, just lying around engrossed in my own thoughts and observing the world around me. I did that for some time and enjoyed it. But, soon I realised that this is not the idea of being. Make no mistake, for others, what I just described could be a perfect way of existence, but its just not for me.

For me, ‘Doing’ is a state of ‘Being’. I like being in the midst of action, being aware, making things happen, producing more than consuming. I realised this the hard way when I wasn’t particularly happy with the state of affairs. I procrastinated, dilly dallied on the things that needed to be done. Feeling productive is a great feeling, it almost makes you feel as if your existence has a purpose. And that is why I wrote this post - to remind myself when I am feeling lazy that beyond the laziness, beyond the comfort zone, there is a much better feeling. 

Of course I am saying this right now because my mind seeks conflict. It might happen that after a few months of doing, I might feel like going back to not doing anything and being. But for now, I am good with ‘Doing is a state of being’ principle.

Illusions | Haiku

Richard Bach is a master at weaving simple stories into something deeply profound and moving. Illusions was also in my list of the best books I read last year. 

You can swim through walls,

Walk on water,

And everything that is taught in this book could be wrong.

#BookReviews in Haiku

On Illusions - Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

6 Productivity Hacks that work for me

1. Eat That Frog

Do the most difficult or the task you hate the most first. I guess this is against popular advice but this truly works. Your mind is the most fresh when you are starting out, and getting that one tough thing out of the way leaves you with much more motivation to carry forward with the other simpler ones. The frog analogy comes from the assumption, that people hate eating frogs.

2. Wear a cap

This is something that I have just discovered. There is no better work setting than putting on a low set cap, with your headphones over them. The idea is to restrict your field of view and focus on the task at hand. If only there was something which could tune out the multiple opened tabs #wishful thinking.

3. Ambient noise is good

Believe it or not, moderate ambient noise is proven to boost creativity. An environment like a coffee house is proven to increase your productivity. And this app called Coffitivity does just that.

4. When you are tired, push yourself to do one more thing

It’s the end of the day and you just want to wrap it up. Or it’s the middle of the week and you don’t feel particularly inspired to work and want to just leave. A simple hack is to push yourself to do just one more thing. More often than not, you will find yourself back in the zone. One more thing works magic for a few people, so why not you.

5. Just start doing, it is OK for the first draft to be crappy

The writers among you would probably agree with me on this one. The first drafts are always crappy - they don’t have to be grammatically correct. My first drafts usually are just random keywords joined together. The first drafts are more like an empty playground for your ideas, let them play around and mingle with each other.

6. Keep your goals to yourself

Derek Sivers has delivered a very solid TED talk on this. The idea is that when you tell someone what you want to do, say lose weight, more often than not they would congratulate you for taking it up. That is the validation and ego boost why you wanted to lose weight in the first place. So, your plans and resolutions are best kept to yourselves.