Highly productive remote work by darius foroux Archives

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

June 20, 2020 No Comments

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 –

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – 40% done (Audible) – I was on a binge listening spree on this one.
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 –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 50% done only (Kindle)
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.

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

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!”

Saturday-Pentacle

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

June 13, 2020 No Comments

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 –

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

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World – 70% done (an amazing book recommended by David Perell) (Kindle)
Truck de India – 20% – (Kindle)

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

How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein
Atomic Habits by James Clear
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 –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on Jun 1, 2020 at 10:26am PDT

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!”

Saturday-Pentacle

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

May 30, 2020 No Comments

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 –

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

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
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 –

Below are the ones I’m progressing on –

Becoming a Category of One (20%)
Breaking Smart: Season One: How Software is Eating the World (60%)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (30%)
Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of the Four (80%)
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 –

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!”

Saturday-Pentacle

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

May 23, 2020 No Comments

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 –

For twitter, dense ideas with clear thoughts in fewer lines.
For How to blogs – medium form simple writing with clear bullet forms which are easily consumable.
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.
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 –

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

No progress on below ones this week –

Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
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 –

Be aware of fake gurus, which are a million in this digitally social world.
Keep yourself aware of social media and self-help rabbit-hole.
Don’t allow yourself to consume more than you take action on.
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.
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 –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 4, 2020 at 12:30am PDT

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!”

Saturday-Pentacle

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

May 16, 2020 No Comments

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 –

Anyone can call you anytime.
Networks are slow because of overload traffic due to everyone working from home.
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 –

Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 60% done (Kindle)
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 –

“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series – 40% done only (Audible)
Becoming a Category of One by Joe Calloway – 20% done only (Audible)
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 –

Public Speaking
Writing
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 –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 2, 2020 at 3:59am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 2, 2020 at 11:30pm PDT

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!”

Saturday-Pentacle

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

May 9, 2020 No Comments

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 –

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – 20% read on kindle.
Highly Productive Remote Work by Darius Foroux – 30% (found it via Darius’s newsletter, finding it very useful right now in this situation)
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 –

“The Sign of the Four” of the Sherlock Holmes series
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 –

What are they reading in the lockdown (some good book recos)
How to shape your investment strategies in these times.
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 –

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 1, 2020 at 12:36am PDT

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A post shared by Himanshu Sachdeva (@sachdevahimanshu) on May 1, 2020 at 5:30am PDT

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