On April 19th, Naveen and I were on call recording a podcast on our attempts with productivity (which was an experiment and will never see the light of day). During the conversation, we came up with a wonderful idea that ended up as a key to keep me more focused over the next one month.

We were discussing about how external pressure completely changes people around. Virat Kohli on an interview talking about how he can be a complete vegetable when he’s at home, not even moving for hours together at home. (I have similar experiences when I’m back home with family, I’m quite lazy) We spoke about how external pressure is making Virat the most committed sport person in the world and being an inspiration to everyone else on how hard he works.

We came up with a idea that I think is wonderful and was (and am) super excited about, making a public scorecard to track how our routines go. It was like a competition between the two of us on who’ll stick to the routines better in the next one month. We created the sheet right away and were all set. You can see a sreenshot of the same on Naveen’s first blog on this topic.

When we posted the same on Facebook, more people joined the challenge and it was quite exciting. The final sheet is here with all our goals. The part1 tab shows how each of us fared. The challenge was completed just yesterday and I’m quite excited for the second revision.

My goals was to Consistently do deep work for 150 minutes each day, 6 days a week. I realized the reasons why I was missing my routines: lack of control over environment, travel; I have removed them completely for the next 30 days. Therefore, I’m up with a more ambitious goal for the next month of this challenge, Do deep work of 150 minutes before noon each day, no rest days. I’m quite excited and fully committed to having a complete streak on this one. Cheers! :)