Why write Clichés?
Inspired by very sane and level-headed advice from multiple sources (julian.ac, nabeel.qu), I decided to write my own set of battle-tested principles, advice that I would give myself, and anything that would inspire me. There are multiple benefits to this: it gives me social accountability to be true to the many words on this page, helps me reflect by actually writing and thinking (rather than just thinking and forgetting), and, above all, may help someone on a bad day.
Battle-tested advice
Practice/Active Learning: As one transitions from a full-time college life towards full-time jobs and more responsibilities, it’s hard to be a dedicated full-time learner. In such a scenario, what works very well for me is identifying the subjects or topics I want to learn and creating an ambitious goal or project around them. It works very well for research topics, sports, and even cooking food. There is still a lot of merit to reading textbooks and learning for the sake of it, but if you are faced with decision paralysis when faced with a daunting new skill, approaching it as a project and clashing with the ambitious goal head-on at least breaks that paralysis. Others have also noted this.
Writing: Write about everything you think. If it’s a technical topic, write it as a lecture. If it’s something random, write on Substack or as a Blog. On bad and good days, write in journals. It helps you add structure to your thoughts, identify gaps, and minimize the cost of context switching when juggling multiple tasks. But occasionally, get bored and forget you have digital devices. That Boredom is an excellent way to introspect and come up with new ideas. Then write again. Don’t be a Finite Automata, be a Turing Machine.
Principles
- Enabling Others: I am fortunate to have met people who have opened doors I couldn’t even see. Whenever one can, one should reciprocate. It doesn’t take much time or energy, and the positivity is very uplifting. If you are very confident that two people in your network should talk, connect them. If your way of understanding the material isn’t currently available online, write it down. Teach people the tricks of the trade.
- Just politely say No: You are bound to get sucked into a lot of groups, committees, and activities where you are hesitant and worried about your time commitment. Unless that hesitation stems from a place of self-doubt about your ability to handle that new project or activity, and you are pretty sure that you may not be able to dedicate your promised effort, decline. It will save everyone a lot of time and energy, and may even preserve professional and personal relationships.
- Knowing your Multitasking limits: Over the last many years, I have had the safety net of trying to work on anywhere 2-4 related and non-related professional and leisurely threads, which may include a new research project, training for a new sport, actively diving into a project, or both. These kinds of ‘productivity’ experiments have helped me understand how much I can handle and switch contexts, and have improved my ability to say ‘No’ to a certain degree.