Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 198 // Week 34 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

As I’ve been learning more about habit-forming and consistency, I’m also learning about the other side of things, entropy and related things.

EntropyA measure of disorder is not just one state, it indeed is the default state of the universe. If we want to bring some order, you have to apply force to reduce entropy and increase order. Entropy is universal, but it is also personal.

We are struggling every day to bring order in our lives, make everything better. But Entropy is like a time’s arrow, it will always be there. You like it or not. You handle this situation, that situation will come. You may have one moment of peace and the next moment you find that entropy pushed that domino and everything is a mess.

That’s where things like being consistent and building habits, help. We can’t predict everything, but what we can do is – reduce the mess or recover fast from the entropy moments.

I’m constantly finding myself fighting against entropy. That’s why I’m constantly doing more to better on my habits and being consistent. James Clear’s book “Atomic Habit” which I finished last month was a good help.

Moving forward to the newsletter, here is my weekly creative progress –

  1. I’m crossed my 50th (consecutive) streak of a new language learning class (on Duolingo), next target is to reach 100 days of learning.
  2. My book reading progress – (added another interesting book to reading list this week – 3rd one)
    1. The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons in Creative Leadership from the CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Progress 35% (Audible)
    2. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes – Progress 20% (Audible)
    3. The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry – Progress 15% (Audible)
    4. World War Z by Max Brooks – Progress 10% (Audible)

That’s it for personal and creative updates.

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

Issue 198 // Week 34 // 2020

A product which got me excited —

fanttik Electric Screwdriver-Power Meets Precision – For my DIY projects I was looking for an electronic drill which can do “jack of all” kinda work. I found this amazing product on IndiGoGo. It has those little things which makes distinguish the product from good to best –

  1. One Hand easy drill bit pull-off.
  2. Precision for very delicate drilling and high power for drilling a wall.
  3. Digital Display (this is the first time a drill has a digital display)
  4. Ergonomics! (I think this is one of the key selling points)

If you are a DIYer, you might love this product as well. It’s shipping soon, so book while you can.

A (unix) nerd fact I discovered —

Apple replaces bash with zsh as the default shell in macOS Catalina – Last year (Jun 2019) Apple replaced the main shell from bash to zsh (called may be zeesh or zish?). Well, this point may only be relevant to you if you are a developer using a mac or may be you are a nerd. If not, then you can move on to the next point.

With zsh basically, you’ll have to link your z profile to your main bash profile (.profile) to be able to access to your normal shortcuts and aliases. Plus there is much more difference in zsh and bash. Here is a link for further reading between zsh vs bash comparison.

Here is why you should move from bash to zsh, if you haven’t yet.

A newsletter I’m loving —

Indiepod Bulletin by Sonologue – If you are a podcaster or aspiring to be one or maybe you love audio (audio engineer? producer?). This is one newsletter you should subscribe to.

My dear friend Chhavi who is a podcasting coach and producer herself started publishing her newsletter few moons back. (BTW she’s been in my podcast too!)

Here is the third issue of her newsletter. Check it out!

You can subscribe to it here.

A song I loved —

You & the Cockroach – This song by Hobo Johnson stole the show last week, Amazing lyrics and a very alternative style for a song. Storytelling, sarcasm, politics, comedy and what not! All in one song.

Check it out.

Quote which I found meaningful –

Plant a bitter crop and guess what you get when it’s the harvest time, it’s Karma Bitch!

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

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 198 // Week 34 // 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 193 // Week 29 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Welcome to another edition of Saturday Pentacle.

Last week was a reflection week for me. I conducted a half-yearly review of my yearly goals. As it is important to work hard on things you care about, it is more important to reflect on your progress in short and medium periods. For me, these periods are weekly, monthly and 6 monthly. It made me rethink about course correction and realigning my energies towards things that actually matter.

Otherwise, it was a productive week for me on the work side, on the creative side it was more of consume week than create. Next week is going to be a create week more than consume.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I listened to the Sherlock Holmes some more this past week and finished the Atomic Habits –

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 75% done (Audible)
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 100% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 193 // Week 29 // 2020

An new material I’m exited about —

Pentadiamond – A new addition to the carbon family, Pentadiamond, is predicted to be light like graphite, hard like diamond and semiconducting like silicon.

I can’t even imagine, how many use cases are there for this kind of material. I’m excited to think about – how it might be used (i hope not as a weapon).

Here is the original research publication link.

A poem I loved —

I would like you to be still! read by Eva Green – I recently discovered the Eva Green has an Instagram page and man! isn’t it filled up weird but fresh stuff, I hadn’t been exposed to before.

This is Pablo Neruda’s poem “I would like you to be still!” in Eva’s brilliant voice –

The poem and the narration both are wonderful.

A show I loved —

Homecoming – I was excited to watch the Season 2 after an amazing Season 1 with Julia Roberts as the protagonist. Homecoming series is about how a private company authorized by military runs a program to make the PTSD veterans forget their past. But it becomes much more than that eventually. It’s a great drama and the way it is shot, kudos to the DOP.

I loved the season two as well, even though the protagonist is different in this but she’s a refreshing change.

You can check it out on Amazon PrimeVideo – Season 1 | Season 2

A Podcast episode I re-listened —

How to Become a Psychedelic Therapist – This episode of the Tim Ferriss show was amazing. Marcela’s story, the conversation about the psychedelic therapy and MAPS were out of the world.

A must listen. This was the second time I listened to it this week.

Quote which I found meaningful –

Once we let go of every thing, everything remains.

— The Minimalists

Before saying “see you next week”

I’m really excited to share the new Lifestyle Architecture Lab interactive community on Vibely app! 💙

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

Why vibely? Basically it’s a place where we want to make the group and our content interactive. There are daily interesting challenges like –

  • Reading for 1 hour everyday and posting your progress
  • Doing one act of kindness every day
  • Journaling prompts for you
  • Travel writing for 500 words

and more such creative challenges.

It’s a really fun place to be. You’ll get gamified rewards and recognitions for completing the challenges. We are trying to make it a safe place for all the like-minded people to join in the self-growth journey. If you are already working on your passion projects then you’ll get all the support you can and no bashing or judgement for being who you want to be.💡

Join today with this special invite link to the group.

P.S.: Our Facebook group is not going anywhere, we are just adding an interactive branch to it.

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 193 // Week 29 // 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 192 // Week 28 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Last week went fast for me as I had been working on multiple creative works. My first short podcasting course is out! (Check out the playlist at the end of this page), a new podcast episode is launching in this week and another story coming soon in “Lifestyle Design in Action” series.

Plus I’m really excited about the interactive community we just launched on Vibely (app). Where we are starting up with Daily creative challenges for you all. So join in the fun (here is the special link for you to join)

Moving further, this year couldn’t get worse with all the unexpected things. Jagdeep (veteran actor) passed away this past week. I share about him in the 2nd point of today’s pentacle.

I focused on some exercise and meditation again this past week and tried centring my energy and focus. I’ve started going on long walks in night time (safe distance and when fewer people are there). The monsoons are here but we are just sitting home, it’s all that we wished for when we were in offices, but now as we are home, all we wish for is to go out! Life is such.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I listened to the Sherlock homes some more this past week and some of Atomic Habits –

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 70% done (Audible)
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 70% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 192 // Week 28 // 2020

A tweet I found really insightful about meetings —

In the Work From Home era, meetings have increased drastically. But as an employer you should focus on how to reduce unnecessary meetings and as an employee you should think on the below points to make a meeting useful (if at all it was) –

A beloved veteran Bollywood actor who passed last week —

Jagdeep (Soorma Bhopali) passed away – A veteran actor famous for his roles like Soorma Bhopali passed away. I loved his Sholay performance so much.

His real name was Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jaffrey and he’s the father of actor, voice actor, dancer, comedian, impressionist – Javed Jaffrey.

May he rest in peace.

A new service I’m curious about —

Hey.com – It’s a fresh take on one of the most important communication mediums EMAIL.

Did they reinvent it?

Not exactly, but they considered all the thing wrong about the current email services and tried to fix them and it took them over 2 years to get most of the things right.

I loved all the subtle nuances it has, but it got a hefty price tag of $99/year! But if you are considerate of privacy and time and less frustration weighs more for you then money, then this is it. It’s a great email service.

Here is a detailed demo of the service (loved how the CEO himself gave the entire demo, shows that how passionate a founder CEO can be) –

Music I’m loving —

Songs of Innocence by U2 – Sifting through my iTunes playlists from 2014, I found the U2’s album which they launched in a big surprise at Apple’s fall event in 2014, Apple presented a free copy of U2 album ‘Songs of Innocence’ to everyone with an iTunes account. I still have that album on all my Apple Devices.

Here is the entire album’s playlist. If you are up for it! (I love it btw, it was my companion on my marathon training sessions in 2014~15) –

Quote which I found meaningful –

In matters of style swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

— Unknown

Before saying “see you next week”

I want to share my first short course on Podcasting in collaboration with LMT (Last Moment Tutions). If you are curious about podcasting, you should check it out. I share a beginners guide to podcasting in this 5+1 part video series.

Here is the YouTube Playlist of it (because short course is FREE, main course coming soon!) –

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 192 // Week 28 // 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!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 191 // Week 27 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

I hope your health is good and you are holding up.

Another week passed by and with so much happening in the world right now, news has become the worst form of media. So I’m not actively listening to the news for many days now. If something is important it still reaches, you. Instead, I focused on my first-course creation (Psss..Podcasting for Beginners) and also focused on consuming targeted content on skills I wanted to acquire (like a new language learning) or the content I really loved (yeah I binge-watched POI for few days).

Getting your mind away from focus is also as important as to focus. Between focus and not focus there is a subtle balance. If you walk that line then you cop better with your own physical and emotional states.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I listened to the Sherlock homes some more this past week, and some of Atomic Habits –

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 60% done (Audible)
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 50% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 191 // Week 27 // 2020

An article i found interesting —

How A Love Of Nature Makes Your Kid Smarter, More Creative, And Less Distracted – This article is basically a summary of Richard Louv’s 2005 book Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.

If you are a parent you should definitely read this and if you are not, still it will make you feel nostalgic about your childhood.

A Good summary to read.

A podcast episode I loved —

Hugh Jackman – Tim Ferriss sits down with The Wolverine in this episode (pun intended) and talks about Best Decisions, Daily routines, reading first thing in the morning as a couple.

This was one of the good interviews I listened to in long time, which i really enjoyed!

Check it out!

A book I added in my reading/listening list —

The Overstory: A Novel – This book is recommended by Hugh Jackman in the podcast in the second point. He mentions that what you are done reading this book, it basically changes how you notice nature around you and look at things.

P.S.: This book turns out to be on Trees and it has won the Pulitzer price as well. (you can get your hopes high)

Music I’m loving —

Ocean by Native – Discovered this song last week on YouTube, what a gem of a song!

Beautiful lyrics immediately fell in love with it.

Few lines to get you curious –

“I’d rather see the ocean once in a lifetime
And miss it for the rest of my days
Than never feel the sand beneath my naked feet
And never hear the sound of breaking waves“

Quote which I found meaningful –

when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

— Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

That’s it for this week.

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 191 // Week 27 // 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!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 190 // Week 26 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

I hope you are well and adjusting better to the situations compared to previous weeks.

Last week was more of a mindf**k for me because of office work stuff but eventually, it all came to resolve and I caught up with my peace.

I had been working on my first online course (coming soon! Yay!!) in the past week and slowly getting better at seeing myself in front of a camera and communicating more clearly than before. But it’s an ongoing process as of now.

Anyway, not much to share on the creative side this week.

Coming to the book reading/listening progress, I didn’t move much further this week but still, small progress is progress –

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 50% done (Audible)
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 30% done (Audible) – This audiobook is like a page-turner version for audio (I don’t know if there is a specific word for it for audiobooks, let me know in comments if there is).

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 – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
  3. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 50% done only (Kindle)
  4. Truck de India – 20% – (Kindle)

Current Yearly Tally – [Yearly goal – 24]

Read – 6 | In progress – 6 | Pending in Reading list – 4 | Yet to discover for reading for yearly goal – 8

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 190 // Week 26 // 2020

An app I loving again —

Duolingo – I’ve been playing around with Duolingo since way back half a decade ago. But didn’t see through my language learning until the end because of my own priorities.

This pandemic has given us unfathomable situations from getting weird news every other day OR being stuck in our homes for more than 3 months OR finding it difficult to maintain our relationships with family and loved ones. It all started to go south. But then I realised that even though I can’t control what’s happening in the world at large but I can control my own peace and sanity, it’s all in my head, If I can put my mind to new and constructive stuff, of course, I can get through these tough times.

Content Creation on scale, learning guitar and learning a new language became my main focus for good since past many weeks.

In the language learning part, Duolingo became my friend and I’ve been loving to learn a new language which is not a native Indian language. I’m loving the app’s implementation of gamification and cool ways to help you memorize the common words, phrases instead of normal language learning approaches like starting from ABCD of any language.

I’ll highlight recommend it to anyone trying to learn a new language (even just for fun! but I’m serious).

A movie I’m excited to watch —

Motherless Brooklyn – This is one movie which I was excited to see since it came out but It wasn’t available in India earlier. But recently I got to know that it’s coming on Amazon Prime Video in India. Now it’s already here. I got to know about this movie from Tim Ferriss podcast with Edward Norton sometime ago and it got me really curious that how much efforts Edward had to put to make this movie, even being a Hollywood Star. But as it was his dream project he took the road and made additional efforts to see it through.

This is a neo-noir drama based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Jonathan Lethem, assumed in the 1950s and Oh my god!! the Brooklyn bridge from that era is visualized very beautifully in this movie. Kudos to the DoP of the movie.

If you are in India and have Amazon Prime Video, you can watch here right now. I’m going to watch it this weekend (may give my review in next week’s post).

If my write up didn’t have you excited this trailer will –

A video I loved —

Sushant Singh Rajput’s Home tour – You can get a great idea about the man by seeing his house but you can get a deeper idea by conversing with the man and find how intellectual and thoughtful the man is (or rather was).

In this video, both his home and his conversation show how brilliant of an artist and an individual he was.

P.S.: If you loved Sushant and can get triggered by seeing him again on screen. Please skip this video. I love him too, but this is just my way of remembering him.

Music I’m loving —

Passionfruit by Drake – This song and the beat has been playing in the loop this past week. In my cycling rounds and runs. Love this beat.

Sometimes when you re-discover a song you loved but had forgotten, it gives a different kind of joy. This is one of those songs.

Check it out on YouTube –

Quote which I found meaningful –

Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.

— Wayne W. Dyer

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is a video I made on WWDC2020 and iOS highlights (Psss…it’s in Hindi and yeah I’m in quarantine haircut!) –

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 190 // Week 26 // 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!”

Continue Reading

Saturday-Pentacle

Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 189 // Week 25 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

This past week had been a rollercoaster again for the entire nation. Sushant Singh Rajput’s death came as a real shocker. An actor who was doing so well, or so we thought from the outside. He might have been doing well on the monetary level but at an emotional level apparently he wasn’t.

It was a shock to me personally as well, as I liked him as an actor, his movies like Kai Po Che!, his portrayal of MS Dhoni (the ex-Indian Cricket Captain) in M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and many more. He would get into the character so much that you couldn’t tell him apart from the character he was doing. Plus he was a really intelligent human being, his keen interest in astrophysics was really rare to see in any of the Indian Artists. In fact, he was one of the person in my interview dream guest list for my podcast. Gone too soon. I surely am going to miss him as a human being.

On the other side, tensions on Indo-China border are increasing day-by-day. I just hope things settle down. But if chinese forces keep on intruding, I don’t think India will stay with hands folded. War is the least we all want at this moment, where we are are in the middle of a historic pandemic. So I really hope that things calm down on border and China gets their shit together now. It’s high time.

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

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 40% done (Audible) – I was on a binge listening spree on this one.
  2. Atomic Habits by James Clear – 25% done (Audible) – finally started out on this book, I really wanted to read it since it launched last year. So many insights. I’ve been following James from 4-5 years now and love his actionable writing.

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 – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
  3. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 50% done only (Kindle)
  4. Truck de India – 20% – (Kindle)

Current Yearly Tally – [Yearly goal – 24]

Read – 6 | In progress – 6 | Pending in Reading list – 4 | Yet to discover for reading for yearly goal – 8

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 189 // Week 25 // 2020

An event I’m looking forward to —

WWDC 2020 (Virtual Event) – For the first time in the history of Apple, WWDC is going virtual this year due to the Pandemic. I’m so pumped about this virtual event. Updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS are awaited. I hope they live up to the expectations of customers’ feedback.

Not sure if they’ll be launching any new hardware in this event. But big software updates are for sure awaited. Fingers Crossed.

If you are as excited as I am, click the link in the title to go to the WWDC page, for following up on updates and on the WWDC days the event can be tracked here.

WWDC 2020 (Virtual Event)

A podcast conversation I loved —

Ali talks to his roommate Molly – Ali Abdaal is one of the rising YouTubers who talk about productivity and lifestyle design. In this video he has a conversation with his long time friend and roommate Molly, where they talk about Molly’s cancer survival, being a doctor and going through the situations to be where they both are.

I resonated a lot with this video’s realness and totally recommend for watching –

A video which made me understand things at a deeper level (after Sushant Singh Rajput’s Death) —

Parents Who Have Lost a Child – Call it serendipity or something, the below video surfaced on my YouTube feed after I had been hit hard like others (after Sushant’s death).

I was amazed at the ease with which some of the parents spoke about losing their child. It shattered my heart to listen to the mother when she was telling the story that how his son was sitting on the dining table and crying in front of her maid (caretaker) that “Mom, I’m Sorry”, “Mom, I’m Sorry”. Then he jumps out of a high rise building and dies.

But listening about their pain and how they have gone through it all, made me realise not to take things for granted. I felt grateful in a weird way.

Check it out.

P.S.: If you are someone who’s in depression and can be triggered to see people talk about suicide in detail. Please don’t watch this video.

Music I’m loving —

The Important Song (Live) by Joe Anderson – I stumbled upon this song via an Instagram Story. This is from a 2009 album from Joe Anderson. He put out an important topic in the son literally named “The Important Song”. The idea is brilliant.

Quote which I found meaningful –

Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.

― James Clear (Atomic Habits)

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is the latest story from my Lifestyle Design in Action Story Series where Tanistha Arora shares her story. Check it out if you haven’t –

Living the Middle Path

and if you haven’t checked out my podcast episode yet with Shashank Murali (Co-Founder and CEO of Tapchief), then what are you waiting for! Check it out now. Here is the YouTube link –

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 189 // Week 25 // 2020

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Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 188 // Week 24 // 2020

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hello!

Another week passed by. Week 24th to be exact. Even though cities have started to open up here in India and in many other countries, but the vaccine is still away and the virus is still here. So we should all be cautious when going out. I know this is what we all know, but just trying to put it out as a reminder to everyone.

As promised earlier, I want this newsletter to become a getaway for you from all the news and the chaos.

Last week was productive for me, I got a good amount of things done at work. On the creative side, my “Lifestyle Design in Action” story series (on my blog) is also being liked by you all (my readers), so I’m continuing to post these guest posts from various people living alternate Lifestyles. In other news, I’m doing a collaboration and exciting news is coming up mostly in the next week. So watch out for that.

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

  1. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 30% done (Audible) – I was on a binge listening spree on this one.
  2. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 50% done only (Kindle)

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 – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
  3. Truck de India – 20% – (Kindle)

I added below books in my reading list as subsequent reads –

  1. How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
  2. The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein
  3. Atomic Habits by James Clear
  4. The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger

Current Yearly Tally – [Yearly goal – 24]

Read – 6 | In progress – 5 | Pending in Reading list – 5 | Yet to discover for reading for yearly goal – 8

That’s it for the personal updates.

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

Issue 188 // Week 24 // 2020

An article I found useful —

Go From Chaos to Clarity in 30 Minutes – In this article (or rather how-to with personal experience) Tiago Forte shares his process of going from total Chaos to Clarity in 30 mins.

He shares how he does weekly review and how he has refined this process over the years to make it so that it aligns him to his goals when executed weekly.

Interesting approach and a good read.

A podcast episode I loved —

Tim Ferriss Show – Rick Doblin – Loved this interview of Rick Doblin by Tim Ferriss where they discuss the origins of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and how MDMA and psychedelic drugs are being a promising cure of PTSD.

There are a lot of nuggets in this episode. I finished it in just one sitting.

Here is the YouTube link (or click the title for the rest of the platforms) –

A video I loved —

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man – Episode 2 with Matthew McConaughey – This video was the highlight of the last week’s intellectual consumption and sort of eye-opening in a very subtle way.

This is why I love Matthew McConaughey because he has this capability to listen as well.

Totally recommend watching this as it will educate you too –

Music I’m loving —

Garden Concert by Jubin Nautiyal – My sister introduced me to this Garden Concert from Jubin Nautiyal (A Hindi Singer from the mountains). In the pandemic situations as everyone is stuffed in their homes and feeling anxious. This was a really amazing and unique concert he put together at his home garden.

If you have the will to do something you can put together things and do almost about anything and beautifully. That’s what this Garden Concert symbolised to me. I loved his music as well. Such a buffet of great Hindi songs.

Quote which I found meaningful –

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

— James Clear (Atomic Habits)

Before saying “see you next week”

Here is a throwback photo I posted 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 188 // Week 24 // 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!”

Continue Reading