New Year Resolutions - Week 2 Achievements & Failures #TheLifesWay

Hi Friends, 

Week 1 was a success in all its ways and as you know the energy is huge at the start and I need to carry out the same throughout the year. Week 2 thankfully continued on the high-spirited self-aware where every minute was costly and planned for. I really loved week 2 overall as I could finish a lot of items which I wanted to do/read/listen etc. 

Week 2 - 8 Jan 2022 (Sat) to 14 Jan 2022 (Fri)

 

1. Walking was still on my mind and I took a giant leap to do it with some days doing more than 6.5kms in one go. It really motivated me to finish the intended 20KM so fast but with some rest, I relaxed too so that the tiredness from walking is divided and have no impact on the coming week.

2. Entertainment - I did watch some movies like Velle and Pushpa and also a web series called Kaun Banegi Shikharwati? starring Lara Dutta, Soha Ali Khan. I really loved Allu Arjun in Pushpa - The Rise. It's really an interesting movie full of action. In future, I plan to do the review posts of all these web series and movies I invest my time in. 

3. Daily Prayers - I was able to complete the 34 Years of Hanuman Chalisa this week and this has been a success in itself as it was only in some days I finished the whole year of chanting. It definitely needs focus, attention and concentration. I felt really happy about it and was at 12500 counts at the end of week 2 on Friday. 

4. Daily Commute - The school also started for Reyansh and Keisha and the daily commute began again to drop and pick them up. Again the division of responsibilities started to emerge else it takes one person's a lot of time which can't be found every day. Also, a lot of petrol station journeys are starting to begin too but that's part and parcel of life. If you have to enjoy life, some charges/rent needs to be considered as a necessity. 

5. Books/Audio Books - I started reading Retire Rich (Invest Rs 40 a day) and finished The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It's really a must-read book and I plan to read it in 3 months time again. I also completed listening to The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey. What I have observed is that all the productivity champions these days are telling the same central theme to focus on one thing at a time. 

6. Thank You - I almost finished the week on the verge of completing 100k for the month but delayed it for some days to take it in Week 3 too. As I write this my counter is missing and I am unable to find the same. I will have to make a run to the China Mall this weekend for sure. 

7. Consistency - I posted a daily Facebook post and Instagram feed post on my social media channels and really felt good about it. Consistency is the key and there have been slow and gradual improvements in the rate of engagement and likes are also increasing. 

Affirmations, Meditation and the rest of all the items on the menu took a back seat this week. That's fine as I can always pick them up on this beautiful journey of myself. How are you making your own journey worthwhile? Do leave a comment on any of the social media platforms. 

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

New Year Resolution #5 - 25 Books To Read & Listen To In 2022 #TheLifesWay

Hi Friends, 

I already wrote about the habit to inculcate reading books and magazines into your daily life as this is one of the ways to learn these days and has been a truth always. I can still recount that Warren Buffet read all the books on finance and stock markets from his local library if I can remember correctly at a very young age. 

In this digital age where you have a kindle, iPad, Audible and other various modes to read books and magazines which medium is great always remains a question to ask and consider? I can certainly put down my viewpoints as I thought over the years and have been using all these mediums from time to time on a daily basis. 

I have a Kindle Keyboard which one of my friends bought in the USA for me and I paid him in Rupees and I got it in 2012 and since then I have been using it on a weekly basis at least. I really love that this can convert any book into an audio translator using a built-in text to audio converter. I still feel that the eyes don't get hurt while reading on Kindle and I am using software named Calibre - eBook Management to manage all the books on the same. 

Secondly, coming to the iPad 3 I have which has a great retina display as compared to my earlier iPad mini used by my dad is not working anymore and is being replaced by iPad 8 by my brother on their trip to the USA last year. I love the kindle app on the same and because it has a backlit screen, you can read it during your bedtime too. Also reading news articles or magazines is really good due to the bigger screen size and touch panel makes it easy to move between the pages. Zooming in and out is also really easy and you can finish the magazines so fast using your iPad. 

Audible is an Amazon app for listening to a big list of audiobooks which comes at a premium membership where you need to pay some monthly subscription and receive 1-2 books per month for free and the rest then you can buy as per the rates. This is an app that saves your listening history and gives you badges for every minute of listening to keep you motivated. The audible app is really nice and I totally love it. 

Coming to my personal list of books that I plan to read for the first time will be shared here as well as some of the books I want to re-read again this year. 

1. Do Epic Shit - Ankur Warikoo (Reading - Wk-2)

2. One Minute Millionaire - Mark Victor Hansen & Robert Allen (Re-reading in Wk1-2)

3. Retire Rich: Invest Rs. 40 a Day - P V Subramanyam (Reading in Wk-2)

4. Keep Going/Show Your Work - Austin Kleon 

Some of the audiobooks I plan to listen to 

1. Yes My Accent is Real - Kunal Nayyar (Completed in Wk-1)

2. The Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel (Completed in Wk-2)

3. Shoe Dog - Phil Knight (Planned for Wk-3)

4. The Productivity Project - Chris Bailey (Listening in Wk-2-3)

I will keep on adding to the list as I find more and more books to commit to. It's like a continuous decision to find the right ones and find the time to read them too. So far I have observed I can listen to some of the books and complete them during my daily walks. I am sure my audiobooks list will be around 20+ and other books will be around 5. I am committed to reading much more than that but let's break them week by week. The first week I completed a book by Kunal Nayyar and the second week of the year I will be finishing The Psychology of Money which is a really nice book. 

Though the count of books seems to be really small as compared to the productivity gurus on Youtube saying 100s of books in a year or so what we need to realize is that my only task is not to read books. We have jobs, kids, family, our own entertainment, rest and sleep which gives us some time to keep up with books. Hence, I will only target to read books I really wanted to pick up consciously and go through and can drop them too if I am not deriving any value out of them. It's all about your return of investment of your personal time to books. I recently wrote another post on inculcating reading habits from the start which my father did in us. My brother is much more of a voracious reader and reads all kinds of topics as compared to me to a limited set of books. He even has a policy in his company to gift every employee a Kindle of his own choice as well as Kindle Books fund to buy books from his company's expenditures. I hope you will have your own book's goals if not, you should definitely have some at least 10 in a year or 12 in total - 1 per month. Happy Reading! 

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!

A Memoir - This Month Last Year - Sep 2019 www.thelifesway.com #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra

Hi Friends,

September starts with the birthday of my little one who is now going to become a teenager in 1-2 years and already have a love-hate relationship with me based on my responses of her asks. This is really difficult as now I need to focus on her to take care of her and don't waste my time on things that are not giving anything in return like press releases posts which are not bringing me any benefits. Let's focus on bringing the best in you by going back to school and relearning all the techniques to study and work on all the skills which can help me for the rest of my life. 

1. #TheLifesWayReviews - #Technology in #Shuffle Mode Play in MP3 Players - This remains one of the biggest pain points to date as the Shuffle keeps playing the same songs again and again. It can be in the car entertainment system, iPod, and even the music player in smartphones. Maybe the software developers in any of the audio players' sector will be working on the same currently or there must be some audio player which can help me in this feature. 

2. A Memoir - This Month Last Year - Sep 2018 www.thelifesway.com #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra #1800thPost - Last year it was my 1800th post but now I have reduced the same to just less than 1500 posts and more I will reduce in the days to come and only keep those written by me and none of the press releases anymore on my channel. It doesn't matter to me if the traffic is coming to my channels or not as I am enjoying all the content I can create in my limited time here on Planet Earth. This will be my 1455th blog post just as a reference to how much I will reduce them from here.

3. #TheLifesWayReviews - The Spy @NetflixSA Mini-TV Series #Thriller #TrueEvents #TheSpy - I really love watching Web series and this one was really great which was based on the true events of a Spy who really sacrificed himself for the love of his country and saved thousands of lives in the process. Netflix alone doesn't offer a range of series as most of the people completed all the favorite ones during this lockdown and started looking for other OTT platforms too and now a lot of companies in India are offering all the OTT platforms contents as a part of the packaged deal if you take their fiber network connection which is really good. 

In September 2020, I have finally reached the 2x speed to listen to audiobooks reducing the time to complete books in a faster format. What I observed is that you do need to keep listening to the particular sections of the book or may be referred to the paperback or kindle editions after listening to the same once. Maybe I can write a blog post or shoot a video explaining what I learned during the process of lockdown and achieving all my goals which I always wanted to do.

Cheers!!!

Support me if you like reading this blog post by buying me a cup of tea or coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheLifesWay Contact at thelifesway@gmail.com to collaborate and promote your services and products. Subscribe to my YOUTUBE Channel for giveaways, product reviews and mystery unboxings. #TheLifesWay #9YearsofTheLifesWay. Namaste!