Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 186 // Week 22 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Week 22 has passed by. We are at 41% of the year. I didn’t know I’ll wish a year to pass faster, but here we are.

This year has given us so many surprises already. Mostly the bad ones. But this week is special. After a decade a crew mission to Space is launching from American Soil in an American built Space Craft (which is a first in history). I’m really excited to see this mission progress. (more on this in the second point of the newsletter)

[Next up is my book reading progress, which I’m sharing publicly every week for public accountability so that I reach my goal of 24 books a year this year. If you don’t want to read about the books, skip to the first point from the 5 awesome things below]

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –

  1. Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – Finished
  2. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 30% done only (Kindle and Audible)
  3. “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 80% done (Audible)

No progress on below ones this week –

  1. Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
  2. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 60% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)

As my goal was to read at least 24 books in the year 2020. So to just summarize and reflect for this year till now, as of writing this newsletter on 30th May I’ve read 5 books completely –

  1. Why We Sleep
  2. Homo Deus
  3. Sherlock Holmes: A Study in Scarlet (Book 1)
  4. Highly Productive Remote Work
  5. Nonviolent Communication

Below are the ones I’m progressing on –

  1. Becoming a Category of One (20%)
  2. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World (60%)
  3. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (30%)
  4. Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of the Four (80%)
  5. Truck de India (20%)

Below are the ones in the reading list till Jul 2020 – (have a new book to recommend me? Let me know, in the comments) keeping a few extras than 12 books –

  1. Atomic Habits
  2. Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
  3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  4. The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie

This is the plan until Jul 2020. In mid of Jul 2020, I’ll be selecting the books to start with for the second half of the year. I’m looking forward to that.

That’s it for the personal updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 186 // Week 22 // 2020

A new word or expression I learned from one of the recent books I’m reading (Breaking Smart) —

sine qua non – a thing that’s absoultely necessary

Use example – “Grammar is the sine qua non of language teaching and learning.”

A historic event which is happing and has got me excited —

SpaceX and NASA’s manned demo flight to the ISS (2020) – This is a historic moment for the whole world and especially for the US. The US Government space Agency NASA is doing the demo flight of commercial spacecraft of SpaceX with their Astronauts on it. SpaceX is founded by Tesla founder – Elon Musk.

NASA and SpaceX targeted 4:33 p.m. EDT Wednesday, May 27, for the launch of the Demo-2 flight, however, due to the bad weather that didn’t go through and was postponed to 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday, May 20. (as of writing this newsletter on Saturday morning in 10 a.m. IST)

For the first time in history, NASA astronauts will launch from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is going to carry NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley and will lift off at 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock to the International space station at 10:29 a.m. Sunday, May 31. NASA Television and the agency’s website are going to provide live coverage of the Crew Dragon’s trip to the orbiting laboratory.

I’m really excited to see this mission taking shape in reality. If this mission is successful, this is going to be the start of a new era of Space Exploration. More commercial companies may come into this race and especially SpaceX will move forward to their plans to land their spacecraft on Moon and Mars.

Goodspeed the Dragon.

A video I found useful —

How to Set SMART Goals – Becoming productive and effective at the same time is the goal everyone should strive for. Here is a great formula to set and achieve goals. It’s S.M.A.R.T.

This video made me recollect the famous Peter Drucker quote –

What gets measured gets managed.

— Peter Drucker

Music I’m loving —

Innerbloom by RÜFÜS DU SOL – Man! I stumbled upon this song from YouTube Algorithm and this just blew my mind. I could resonate with one of the comments on this video that said –

When I listen to this song it makes me feel like I am an observer of a world completely different from ours.

– YT Comment Citation

I really felt this somewhere in between the song. Like floating above the surface of the earth and watching it from above. It sounds psychedelic but it was more like meditative and healing.

A Quote I found symbolically true from the book I’m (re) reading (The Fountainhead) –

It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank—to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning, it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.

Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 186 // Week 22 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 185 // Week 21 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

After a previous couple of hectic weeks, this past week was a little better (except for Monday, Tuesday where the residue work of the previous weeks was being cleared up). I meditated on 4 days last week and stretched as well to calm my mind and body. The previous week, I was almost about to freak out with stress.

I was able to write more this week and finished up a few pending copywriting pieces for my blog and also finished an introduction and editing of the guest post of this past week. You can read it here.

I’m working more to improve my writing and specifically writing online. Because I’ve slowly understood that writing for different platforms is completely different. For example –

  1. For twitter, dense ideas with clear thoughts in fewer lines.
  2. For How to blogs – medium form simple writing with clear bullet forms which are easily consumable.
  3. For an essay or article on a specific subject – Spend your time properly on researching on the idea, it should reflect clarity of thoughts but also the deepest knowledge about the subject.
  4. For a book – fast and imperfect writing in your first draft, and then 2-3 edit iterations.

The most important aspect of improving your writing is sitting daily and churning out words on the screen or paper. Daily! there is no other way. I’m continuing to schedule writing every day.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I moved forward on below books –

  1. Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 80% done (Kindle)
  2. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 60% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
  3. “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 70% done (Audible)

No progress on below ones this week –

  1. Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
  2. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% done only (Kindle).

That’s it for the personal updates.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 185 // Week 21 // 2020

An article I found useful —

How to rewire your brain to beat procrastination – This is a great article which shares the idea that as humans we are now prone to procrastination more than ever. In the world of information overload when we have to focus on a task, we have 100s of distractions ready at your palm (in the mobile phones).

Procrastination wasn’t there in ancient times. as humans evolved and reached the information age, our mind evolved and the procrastination came to light. But the way it came to be, the same way it can be overcome. Our mind can train itself to overcome procrastination, through the process called Neuroplasticity.

This article shares the definition of Neuroplasticity and how to rewire your brain to beat procrastination with different techniques like S.M.A.R.T. goals and much more.

Great useful read which anyone can start implementing in their lives.

A show I loved —

Upload – This Amazon Studios’s original show – Upload is really good. It shows that in the near future a person’s consciousness can be uploaded into a digital space and they can have a digital afterlife which is dependant on the data plan you take from a service provider. So eventually in your afterlife also your monetary value will define the quality of the place you live in. (that sounds sad and capitalistic).

But the human element in this show and all the CGI wizardry is just astounding.

I totally recommend the season 1 (season 2 is yet to come).

Here is the trailer –

A video I loved —

The Toxic World of Self Help – I resonated well with this video. James Jani (The video creator) didn’t say that everything is bad, the way it looks from the title of the video. But he put out quite a good points which one should be aware of.

Here is the summary of the wisdom from this video –

  1. Be aware of fake gurus, which are a million in this digitally social world.
  2. Keep yourself aware of social media and self-help rabbit-hole.
  3. Don’t allow yourself to consume more than you take action on.
  4. Don’t just keep on following the self-help advice like a robot, it’s ok to be human and take time for recovery and healing as well.
  5. Focus on what your task/business needs right now. Ignore the fluff. (Action Faking – that’s a new term I learned from this video)

To learn more on this, check out the video –

Music I’m loving —

Know Your Worth by Khalid – This amazing upbeat song by Khalid kept me going this past week.

Beautiful lyrics and great music. Must listen (on repeat).

Quote which I found meaningful –

Believe in yourself. Under-confidence leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy that you are not good enough for your work.

— Dr Roopleen

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is the second story of my Lifestyle Design in Action – Story Series which I published this past week –

Craving – The state of mind

Also posted this photo on Instagram. You can check it out here or go to my Instagram for the whole story and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.

Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 185 // Week 21 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

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Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 184 // Week 20 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Last week was quite hectic from the work perspective. Work from home has now become like working double hours because of multiple factors like –

  1. Anyone can call you anytime.
  2. Networks are slow because of overload traffic due to everyone working from home.
  3. Even machines are becoming slow because they are constantly being used 50% more than usual.

Physical and mental exhaustion is taking toll.

So didn’t get much time for the reading this past week, but still i dedicated a half of my Sunday to reading. I also worked on defining my core values (check point one of today’s newsletter), that exercise is still going on. Hopefully I’ll finish it this weekend and most likely will publish a blog post around this topic as well.

Coming to the book progress, I moved forward on below books –

  1. Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 60% done (Kindle)
  2. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 40% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)

No progress on below ones this week –

  1. “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 40% done only (Audible)
  2. Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
  3. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% done only (Kindle).

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 184 // Week 20 // 2020

A life exercise I’m doing —

Defining my Core Values List – As one of my favourite writers – Darius Foroux tells in this essay –

Just like a healthy root system is essential for a healthy tree, core values are essential for a healthy life. They define our character and the way we live. Without values, we lack clarity about who we are and what we want in life. 

— Darius Foroux

I think that until we know our values we sort of become a person who either lives without values or adapts other’s values unknowingly. Until we don’t define our core life values we actually don’t know who we are.

So I’m taking some time from past few days and writing down my values and why I resonate with those values.

For example – Curiosity is one of my values – cause I’m natively very curious about things and why they are the way they are.

I’m currently referencing the list shared by Darius. (Essay link above) to think about many other values as well and drilling down to my top 10 values.

I feel if one sticks to their core values, one can build a strong character which resonates with who they actually are.

A page I couldn’t get enough off —

Animals about to drop album photos – This BoredPanda page was hilarious where the staff shared the amazing photos of Animals who look like they are about to drop the hottest music album of the year.

My personal favourites from this page –

#6 The Band With The Twin Guitarists
#7 The Pop Trio Owls

These made my evening in these stressful times and I laughed.

A video I loved —

Should You Specialize or Be a Generalist? – Many of us are often in this dilemma that should I be a generalist or develop a specialized skillset. In this video, Tim Ferriss answers this question and his awesome answer resonated with me. He suggests being a Specialized Generalist. New word? Huh!

He also shares that the following three skills are essential to be anything in your life –

  1. Public Speaking
  2. Writing
  3. Negotiating

Check out the video to learn more.

Music I’m loving —

Grace of Silence – In the search of some soothing soulful music, I stumbled upon this Handpan Duo. They are just amazing.

Handpan music is just so much pure and blissful. This duo’s chemistry is just fantastic.

Quote which I found useful to declutter –

Loneliness is when you’re missing people, aloneness is when you’re enjoying yourself.

— Anthony de Mello, author of Awareness

Before saying “see you next week”
Here are a few pictures I posted in the past few days on my Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

About Author

I’m Himanshu Sachdeva, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories.

Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 184 // Week 20 // 2020

What to do Next?

If you are not signed up to my email list, go ahead and do it right now so that you don’t miss any new weekly SATURDAY PENTACLE post and more interesting emails on Lifestyle Design, Productivity and Creative Entrepreneurship. (plus new podcast episode announcements).

Just enter your email address below and click “Subscribe!”

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Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Another week passed by. Now as this is becoming the way of life for foreseeable future, I feel the focus from the news has to be reduced a little bit. There is a lot of chaos in the world right now; if we keep focusing on the chaos while being in the limited square footage of our home. It starts feeling like a prison very quickly.

So to avoid that, I’ve decided to provide things of calmness and serenity through my Saturday Pentacle newsletter as much as I can.

I recently published the latest podcast with Indian Tabla Maestro Aditya Kalyanpur. If you want to listen to a conversation around how to pursue what you love and how to hon your craft so much that it takes you places, here is the Podcast episode.

I’ve also started getting back to meditation more, listening to the chirp of sparrows in the morning (yes sparrow’s are back as the humans have stopped venturing out). The inward journey is not very calm though, all the things which I have stopped being sensitive about, as I sit without the ignorance armour in my meditation, they start to come up. But these unresolved thoughts (something from the work or somebody said something and things like that) start to come to the surface and through meditation one can resolve them just by thinking about them. That’s what I’ve been doing in my meditations.

I’m also focused on movability exercises a bit more nowadays which include stretching the core, hamstring, hips and spine mobility. More than the cardio I’ve been working on these and also the posture of my body while sitting for work trying to maintain the straightness of spine.

To improve my focus, I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique. Where I focus for 25 mins and take a quick break. I found that it makes it easy to churn out one single mid-tier task into 1 of the 25 mins session and that way I can actually accomplish better. An app which I’m using for Pomodoro sessions is one of the points in today’s newsletter.

Coming to the book progress, I moved forward on below books –

  1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% read on kindle.
  2. Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 30% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
  3. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 30% finished (an amazing book recommended by David Perell)

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to listen to audiobooks in these past few weeks, so the below two books are on pause –

  1. “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
  2. Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway.

But happy to be back to reading. Some way or the other books have to be read. That’s it for the talk.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

An app I’m loving —

Forest App for Pomodoro Technique – This app has been really amazing, suggested by Ali Abdaal, it is actually a Pomodoro timer plus much more. It grows virtual trees in a virtual forest as you keep focusing every 25 mins. It provides you virtual coins, if you collect enough coins (like 2000) it provides an option to plant a real tree! (What! No way!!! but it’s actually true) via a Non-Profit, they are integrated with. We are living in an amazing world, where just by focusing on your work you can plant and grow virtual and actual trees. That’s what keeps my excited to focus more now.

A podcasting product I found awesome —

Riverside.fm – This new product just blew my mind, Create a podcast (not exactly a podcast but sort of a link), then share the guest link with your guest. You both login into your links and boom you are on a video call. Press record and your video+audio (in separate tracks) start recording. Once you stop record, you can immediately download your side, guest side audio and the video from the dashboard.

Riverside CEO Nadav Keyson, himself gave the demo to me. Super smart guy. The company is based out of the Netherlands. I think this is going to be a product to watch out for. Especially if you are a podcaster or a live streamer. (Yes you can live-stream your video podcast as well! How cool is that!).

Even though the pricing is there for this and it’s a bit on the higher side at the moment, but still if you want ease and one-click production. This is going to be the way to go.

Here is a demo –

A podcast I loved —

The Random Show (part of the Tim Ferriss Show Podcast) – This is one of my favorite aspect of the Tim Ferriss Show, where Tim and Kevin Rose come together every few months on boozie trip (sometimes) and over drinks they talk about life and all things in between. In the latest doze of the Random Show, they talked about –

  1. What are they reading in the lockdown (some good book recos)
  2. How to shape your investment strategies in these times.
  3. Why Tim is so much troubled with the whole pandemic situation, even though he has got it all.

And much more. I loved the conversation, hope you’ll find it awesome too.

Playlist helping me focus again —

Study Playlist by Thomas Frank – As I was not able to focus much in the early past week, so I came back to this playlist, which is really good for calmful focus (that weird right? Calm and Focus together? but I think spiritually they are very similar).

This playlist has a rhythmic tone to it and sort of calmness with instrumental music which doesn’t bother your brain to process further information about lyrics. Good one by Thomas Frank.

Quote which I found useful to declutter –

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

— Peter Drucker

Before saying “see you next week”
I’m gonna mention my recent podcast episode again here if you missed it in the top section. Episode 21 with Aditya Kalyanpur (Indian Tabla Maestro).

Also, watch out for the next story in “Lifestyle Design in Action – A Story Series” this Thursday.

Lastly, here are a few pictures from my Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 183 // Week 19 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Weeks are passing by slow and fast at the same time. Losing focus and getting into anxiety is very easy at the moment. But I’m finding pouring my mind over a journal page every day and meditating 10 mins every day especially useful to distress. As the lockdown is getting extended it’s still difficult to sit inside, but at the same time, we have slowly gotten used to the whole situation. Even though we are alone at homes but still as connected humans species (thank the internet) we are moving through the rough waters.

Moving on to the book listening progress, I didn’t make any progress on below two books, this week–

  1. “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
  2. Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway.

But I moved forward on below books (added 2 new ones) –

  1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 10% read on kindle.
  2. Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 10% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
  3. Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 20% finished (an amazing book recommended by David Perell)

So making small progress.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

An interview I loved —

Pretty Big Deal by Ashley Graham- Casey Neistat – This was a really casual looking interview but Casey opened up with Ashley in a great way about his process, his journey and I got three big takeaways from this interview –

  1. What should be a deal-breaker? – when a collab/deal collides with your values/social values.
  2. What should you seek with your creativity? – Find the coinciding point between the two circles of exponential growth and longevity of your creation.
  3. What’s the biggest point of growth on any platform? – Honesty and being yourself is the biggest content anchor for any platform.

An article I found really useful —

Lockdown relationship advice – Coronavirus-related anxiety is real and causing serious damage to our partnerships. This NYT article gives great tips to ease the strain.

If you care about your relationship with your partner or your family, then the first and foremost important thing is to take care of your self. Read the article on how to do that. Good Advice.

An info I accidentally found while doing research on a photo —

Health benefits of a Torch Ginger Flower – Recently when I posted a picture of a Torch Ginger Flower which I had taken last year in Kerala. It made me learn more about this flower and I found some really good info about it. Especially the health benefits. Hence sharing the key points here (for full detail click the article link) –

Better known as Bunga Kantan is a popular ingredient in Malaysian cooking (like tom yam soup) that could also have health benefits.⁠ It’s also known to reduce inflammation, treat a loss of appetite, reduce diabetes and hypertension.⁠

Music which made me feel alive —

Vex Oh by KAYTRANADA – This artist was suggested to me by Stuart in our podcast episode recently.

But I discovered a lot more songs when I checked this artist out, he’s specialized in low beat (115 BPM) music. I think this music will be amazing while cycling (when we can do cycling! Ermm).

Quote which made me feel grateful again (literally) –

“If I quit now, I will soon be back to where I started.
And when I started I was desperately wishing to be where I am now.

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”
Last week, I started a new series on my blog – Lifestyle Design in Action – A Story Series. In this series few of the people who have worked on their Lifestyle Design are sharing their stories as guest posts, The first story I published is of Sumersingh Rajpurohit (from LastMomentTuitions.com), check it out –

More stories to come every week as move along.

I also posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 182 // Week 18 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 181 // Week 17 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

It’s been 7 exact weeks since I’m inside my home. Lockdown seems to be extending and there is no clear sight of the remedy to this till now. But I’m keeping my eyes on the research and also the political weather around this, as things might be going towards a political storm as countries are calling out China on this blasphemy. Good to keep your eyes and ears open.

But still, keeping our optimism up and being safe at home for ourselves and the people who can’t be at home, should be our priority.

Over the period of this time, my “work from home” situation has kept me well occupied. I was working like a mad man for many days until I decided to have clear cut-off timings a few weeks ago. Start at 10 am and go up to 7.30 pm, keep a transition from work to personal life. I’m going to write a proper blog post about the tools and techniques I’m using to be productive at home. (Expect it soon in your inboxes).

Coming back to the newsletter and to the book listening progress, While I was not making much progress on the audiobooks till last week. – “The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series and Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway. This week I inched further and the sherlock book is about to come to an end very shortly and I read Joe Calloway’s book 25%. Plus I also started reading one of my old half-read book – The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand since last week on my Kindle. So last week was better from reading perspective. So good to progress, even if it’s not huge.

Anyway, without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 181 // Week 17 // 2020

An useful resource I found —

Flickr Photo Album of Obama’s time in WhiteHouse – I loved the Obama Administration since I read about Barack Obama himself and then I read the book Becoming by Michelle Obama and felt more close to both of them.

Recently I found this collection of photos of the Obama Administration in the Whitehouse (posted by the US govt long ago) and it gave me a lot of new visual stories about this amazing couple.

I just loved the photo album. You can check it out too.

An article I found useful —

How To Create Products That Sell For Decades – I love the writing of Darius Foroux and have been following him since the past 4-5 years.

Here is an article he wrote about Ryan Holiday‘s strategy on making timeless products that sell.

Here is a piece from the article itself to give a hint of the entire thing. But I recommend you should read the whole thing, it’s well written and useful.

Ryan’s process for making a perennial seller goes like this:

  1. Adopt the mindset of a creator that makes classics
  2. Create a great product that stands the test of time
  3. Perfect, package, and position into a compelling offering
  4. Promote it through different marketing channels
  5. Capture an audience and build a platform that stands the test of time

A how-to guide I found really useful for making my DSLR into a webcam for awesome quality —

How to use a DSLR camera as a WebCam – In the lockdown as we are finding it convenient to get on a video call and get in touch with colleagues and friends. Usually, our laptop PC / Mac webcams are not as great.

What if we could use a DSLR lying around in our home as a webcam, awesome right?

But it’s not very easy to do if you don’t have a USB to HDMI cable. So this particular method helped me to be able to use my Nikon DSLR as WebCam.

If you are struggling as well, this video might help you. (Plus I’m making a simple blog post about this the process I took, few additional steps to remove the inconvenience.)

A song I loved —

Serenity by Mallika Barot & Asxem Dlean – Found this really beautiful piece done by Mallika and Asxem. Made me feel at peace.

To be noted that Mallika Barot is the daughter of Ranjit Barot, who is a renowned musician and has worked with Coke Studio projects and even with A.R. Rehman.

Please enjoy the song.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Write like you speak. Then improve how well you speak.

— David Perell

Before saying “see you next week”
I posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for the whole stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 181 // Week 17 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Hope you are holding up like everyone else. I’m optimistic that the cloud of uncertainty will lift soon.

But I must share my vulnerability here. To be honest, this last one month has filled up so much anxiety in my mind. Not just because we are stuck at home and doing work beyond our required hours, but because this period has taken away the biggest freedoms of human beings, to meet with other people and to travel.

Well, one could argue that we are still able to socialize, but to be honest, not being able to be in the presence of another human being in real life, slowly starts haunting. Loneliness starts hitting you hard.

If you are lucky and stuck with people (family, friends or roommates) you are still far better than stuck home alone. Because this may be the longest social isolation we would ever see.

Coming to the good part, we are still alive. You (of course, you are alive, corpse don’t read – well that was dark) and Me. So let’s keep holding on to the interactions on virtual social worlds, let’s write letters to our loved ones and give them those when this thing is over. This time won’t be coming ever again in our lives (i hope not).

Ok. Coming back to the newsletter.

Book listening progress- This week was bad, I didn’t read even one single day.

Still on the book “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (80% same as last week). 2nd book – Becoming a Category of One – How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison (2nd Edition) by Joe Calloway. (10% same as last week).

But still, I was able to post a few good photos from my collections to my Instagram feed which you’ll find at the bottom of this newsletter.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

A Lightroom tip I found useful —

Why EVERY PHOTOGRAPHER should use Smart Previews! – I am a sucker for organization – digitally and physically both. For all my photography work I use Adobe Photography plan which includes Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom.

In recent few weeks, I tried to build up my Lightroom catalogue from scratch and the below video helped me a lot.

Now I have a good Lightroom workflow that I can easily churn out photos on daily basis.

If you are a photographer I recommend Lightroom for sure and If you are new to Lightroom, make sure to check out the below video –

An article I found intriguing —

Why plague doctors wore those strange beaked masks – Recently when I was doing some research for my video on Corona Virus and I was trying to co-relate historical pandemics with Corona situation now. I found that in In 17th-century when the plague hit Europe, then doctors who were treating patients wore strange beaked masks. It was believed that these outfits could purify poisonous air. But eventually, they were wrong.

Photo – NatGeo

A profound video by Tom Scott —

This Video Has <real-time-number> Views by Tom Scott – This is the first time I saw a person who’s a coder at heart teaching the way life works and how nothing lasts forever. Even the title of this video that he says, can’t stay static. He coded a script which changes the title of the video to show the real-time view number in the title itself. It’s like a little RPA (robotic process automation) he made.

Amazing how he tells all this in a very profound way standing on the White Cliffs of Dover.

Just watch this video you’ll understand the feeling.

A Song/artist which/who made me feel like I’m nothing (in a good way) —

Jacob Collier: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert – This artist was recommended to me by Stuart DaCosta (recent podcast guest).

As soon as I saw this video I was in a constant state of shock and admiration for some time. This particular video is a set of three songs.

I loved all three but the second song – Feel was especially awesome.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Suffer less and be able to help others suffer less.

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I published a podcast episode for which I waited 2 years!
Episode – 20 with Stuart DaCosta who is a music composer and the bassist of The Yellow Diary Band (Loved recording this one).

Check it out on Spotify –

I also posted a few pictures on Instagram. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for full stories and more –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 180 // Week 16 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 179 // Week 15 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

So Lockdown has been extended in India till 30th April in most of the states. Because the new cases are still on the rise, even though in a controlled manner, but still rising.

I think until the whole nation is tested with rapid test kits in large scale, we won’t know the scale of the spread. Even though it’s still contained because most of the Indians are obeying the stay home rule. But still, people who are out of job and food are forced to come on the streets to collect food from the NGO people.

In the past week, Cadila healthcare India who is a major pharma company announced that they have made the vaccine and it’s in animal testing phase right now. Even though the US also has some companies working on vaccines and Bill Gates is supporting parallel manufacturing of 7 strong US candidates for vaccine making, let’s see who wins the race.

This also makes a window for people to buy stocks of these companies and the underlying companies who are making the masks, ventilators. As they will eventually pop on the stock market. So we should look out for that as well.

Coming back to the newsletter and to the book listening progress, I didn’t progress much in this past week on the books front and “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (85% now) just made 5% progress. Another book – Becoming a Category of One – I just started that and wasn’t able to finish even the first part under 10%. Batching the audiobooks with workouts (non-running) didn’t work as well, as I anticipated. So I need to carve out at least half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening to progress on this front. I’ll work on it this week.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 179 // Week 15 // 2020

Interesting info about Bees I found —

How do bees make honey? – While posting one of my Instagram macro photos of bee extracting food from the flower, I was intrigued by how exactly they make the honey? So I found this article on The Guardian where I found this simple but useful info about this –

“Bees start making honey, which is their food, by visiting flowers. They collect a sugary juice called nectar from the blossom by sucking it out with their tongues. They store it in what’s called their honey stomach, which is different from their food stomach.

When they have a full load, they fly back to the hive. There, they pass it on through their mouths to other worker bees who chew it for about half an hour. It’s passed from bee to bee until it gradually turns into honey. Then the bees store it in honeycomb cells, which are like tiny jars made of wax. The honey is still a bit wet, so they fan it with their wings to make it dry out and become more sticky. When it’s ready, they seal the cell with a wax lid to keep it clean.

So that’s how bees make honey. They don’t make very much of it, though. It takes at least eight bees all their life to make one single teaspoonful.“

An interesting person I started following on Twitter —

Through one of my favourite online writer – David Perell I found Matthew Kobach last week. Matthew is the Head of New York Stock Exchang’s (@NYSE) Social Media and one of the first people to ever pursue a PhD predicting how people use social media.

On his Twitter account, he shares his tips and tricks to for increasing your traction on Twitter. Very interesting personality.

A time management video I really enjoyed —

How I Manage my Time as a Doctor + YouTuber – 9 Time Management Tips – I really found this video by Ali Abdaal who is a Junior Doctor in the UK and also a famous productivity YouTuber. He’s videos have really popped up in last one year. I precisely remember a year back watching one of his iPad video – How students should use the iPad for better performance. I’m a fan of his videos since.

This particular video is for time management as he’s a solopreneur, Junior Doctor and YouTuber, so it was really useful to see how he manages his time. Check it out if you are also a one-person show, this video might be helpful –

A recipe (sort of) video I found useful —

How to make awesome cold brew with 3 different methods – This Starbucks helped me make my first batch of cold brew coffee this past week. In this one they are making it with 3 different methods. 1st and 3rd methods require proprietary instruments. But the 2nd method was the saviour. A 3-litre jar plus a cheesecloth or a cotton handkerchief plus the coffee will make you 3-4 days worth of cold-brew with this method.

I can totally recommend this to make cold-brew coffee. It was delicious.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?

― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Before saying “see you next week”
I posted a few pictures on Instagram in the past week. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for whole stories –

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 179 // Week 15 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 178 // Week 14 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

It gets worse before it gets better.

That’s the current situation we are in with this Global Pandemic. India is still in lockdown, like most of the country. I think the lockdown may get extended till May or further.

I know it is becoming increasingly frustrating, sitting at home for most of us. But again, we should be grateful that we are not away from home alone, or not out on the street, exposed. Well, some of us still are, as who are working in essentials services jobs or medical jobs.

For all those on frontlines, just know that we are deeply grateful for your service. For all my readers, here are a few links for any donations you would like to make towards the relief of front-line workers and for this pandemic’s relief fund –

Coming back to the newsletter and to the book listening progress, I finished the book Nonviolent Communication last week and did move a few bits further with the book “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series (80% now). Now the next book I started is (inspired by a podcast guest of one of my favourite podcasts) – Becoming a Category of One – How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison (2nd Edition) by Joe Calloway. Looking forward to listening to this one.

This past week I released few more short video on TikTok and started sharing consistently on my Instagram page again with the help of a Content Calendar via Later.com. As usual, you can check out the recent content at the end of this newsletter.

Without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 178 // Week 14 // 2020

An article I found useful —

7 Quick Reminders That Will Help You Slow Down by BeMoreWithLess – Courtney Carver who is a minimalist blogger and founder of the Project333, shares this article in the time when it’s much needed.

Check out this piece which has 7 quick reminders which will help you align back to life and help you get slow down a little if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

A podcast episode I really enjoyed —

Making Sense Podcast (with Sam Harris) – Episode 194 – The New Future Of Work (with Matt Mullenweg) – I really enjoyed this podcast where two of my favourite minds sat together and discussed – how remote work and the new future of work is going to shape the world.

Matt is the founder of Automattic which is the parent company of WordPress. WordPress powers one-third of the websites on the Internet. Matt’s companies including WordPress run on distributed remotely team structure. Means team members can work from home 100% of times, but they do have a physical office as well for people who require office as per their work profile. This way it balances the situation and team’s work productively on remote as well.

Enough said, Check out this episode where Matt shares all of this and much more –

A profound audio experience I listened to —

Mushroom Trip by Sam Harris – Sam Harris is an amazing mind and meditator. He is author of many bestselling books and founder of Waking Up app. In this particular audio experience, he shares his experience of going through a mushroom trip (a psychedelic experience).

The experience he shares is so much intimate as a human being and a must-listen. As a Sam Harris fan, I totally recommend it.

Music which made me feel calm —

432Hz – Healing Music – We all need a bit of healing in this time. So here is a beautiful piece of music which is looped in for 3 hours.

In the evening time, just calm down, put on this music and unwind.

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

The mind is an extremely large place in a very small space.

— Carl Sagan

Before saying “see you next week”
I posted a few pictures on Instagram from my Kerala trip from last year. You can check them out here or go to my Instagram for more –

Here is a quick Vegetable Maggie recipe Video I made on TikTok Last week –

@himanshu_sachdeva

Vegetable Maggie Noodles 🍜 in 1 min #quickbite #foodelicious #vegmaggie #featurethis #viral

♬ original sound – Himanshu Sachdeva – Himanshu Sachdeva

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 178 // Week 14 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 177 // Week 13 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello there!

Hope you are doing well!

I know this whole lockdown situation is getting intense and it feels like we are stuck or imprisoned. But I think everyone should take it positively that at least we are able to sit at home and avoid exposure to Corona Virus. Because trust me there are a lot of people, who are forced to go out in uncertain situations.

Secondly, while being home we can do the things which we actually care about, in the time that we save by not commuting to work.

I’ve created a small video as well on this on the TikTok platform. Yes! I’m experimenting with it and let me tell you this is like the Instagram in early stages, so you should also get on it if you haven’t. I’m trying out different videos like inspirational, funny ones, reaction videos and more. Need to learn which ones work out. But as with any platform – consistency is the key.

Now coming to the Corona Virus situation, as we all can see in the US the spread is pretty bad as the preliminary preparations seem to be not enough. I follow a lot of people based on New York and it is a jarring situation there. Healthcare workers are working tirelessly there but I think Govt need to do more.

On the contrary Indian Govt is doing a better job than other countries, they have initiated 21 days lockdown in time as compared to other countries like Italy, US, UK etc. We are completing the first week of the lockdown soon. But in many places like the Capital City Delhi, the situation has gone out of control as well. As many migrant labour workers have a rumour going on that the COVID-19 is spreading in cities only, so they are migrating to their villages in enormous numbers. This is a red alert for Govt. They really need to address the situation. Hopefully, they will soon. But apart from that, they have initiated huge relief fund, pension schemes and free food for the poor (1.7 Lakh Crore Package). But only the time will tell how effective these schemes are.

While at home, being optimistic about the situation is very necessary as one might get into depression due to this kind of situation. So working on a passion project or cultivating a hobby is really great idea to keep yourself engaged along with your usual work.

Coming on to the book listening progress. I actually didn’t make much progress in this past week. As my book listening was connected with my commuting earlier but then I tried to tie it with my daily runs. However, after complete lockdown on last Tuesday, it has become very difficult to make special time for book listening. So I’m at 95% with “The Sign of the Four” book from Sherlock Holmes series and with “Nonviolent Communication” I’m at 90%. Still better than zero progress. But I need to tie my book listening to a special time, otherwise, it’s gonna be difficult to achieve my target.

So without further adieu, please enjoy this week’s Saturday-Pentacle.

Issue 177 // Week 13 // 2020

An interesting find (which may be useful to implement in our ATMs) —

Holographic Buttons – A few days back I stumbled upon this tweet from Vala Afshar (Chief Digital Evangelist of SalesForce) and found that Holographic buttons are actually being used at some ATMs in China.

China started installing holographic buttons to combat current and future disease spreading. I think this is a great way to make the ATMs touchless to avoid any kind of contamination from the touch because this is a high exposure area. It may reduce the risk of ATM PIN capturing fraud as well where some fraudsters use a keyboard replica and implant it on the ATM and use the inputs to capture our ATM PIN. However, the Holographic buttons may also impose some unknown threat in future. But for now, this seems like a good implementation.

Check out below video tweet – (if you are not able to see it below, click on the link of the title).

A podcast I re-listened —

The Tim Ferriss Show: Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park – Making Art, Making Music, Getting To 60+ Million Albums (#21) – As I’m doing an episode with a musician (upcoming), so I wanted to have some inspiration. I found this episode of Tim Ferriss show with Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park’s co-founder) particularly amazing. They touch upon a wide array of topics on music. You can check it out as well.

Here is the Spotify link (if you’re reading from an email) and mini-player (for instant play) –

A video experience I loved —

Wim Hof Method & The secrets of successful entrepreneurs – This video is of an event organised by The School of Greatness’s Lewis Howes along with Wim Hof.

Lewis selected a few of his high achieving friends and successful entrepreneurs on this trip to Poland where they experience the Wim Hof method and found it very spiritual. Then they share their experiences in a round table. The whole sharing of experiences is pretty amazing.

Check it out – (if you are not able to see it below, click on the link of the title).

An old film I found amazing –

Lawerence of Arabia – This is a 1962 movie. This is a biography of an Englishman T. E. Lawrence who united Arab tribes in a battle against the Ottoman Turks during World War. The story is pretty complex with all the war scenes and so many characters.

Watching this movie I just wondered how was it even possible to make in 1962. But David Lean produced this splendid movie and it’s a must-watch for any cinema lover.

Check out the trailer below – (It’s available for rent on YouTube for Rs. 120, if you wanna watch, just click the rent/buy button on this trailer)

Quote I’m pondering on lately –

The trick is not avoiding hurt, but it is not minding that it hurts.

Matthew Hussey (School of greatness retreat with Wim Hof)

Before saying “see you next week”
Here are a few TikTok Videos I made in the last week. If you like the videos and want more please follow me on TikTok.

1. How to feel productive while you #stayhome

2. Age = Wisdom?

That’s it for this week. Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for reading.

Himanshu

Hey friends, I’m Himanshu, a technology professional working in Mumbai, India. I spend most of my spare time making Podcasts, YouTube videos and write on Lifestyle Design and sometimes stories. Every Saturday, I send out an email newsletter called “Saturday Pentacle”, a list of the cool stuff I explored in the past week, including quotes, photos, books, articles, movies, documentaries and so on!

No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 177 // Week 13 // 2020

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