New Year Resolutions - Week 37 Achievements & Failures #TheLifesWay

Hi Friends,

Week 37 - Sat 10 Sep 2022 - Fri 16 Sep 2022

The week started with a party at one of my friend's houses and then the whole week as a merry-go-lucky charm kind of quality attached to it. Why I am saying this so you will be able to know if you read the whole blog post. 

1. Thank You - The counter reached from 19913 onwards to close at 33322 counts. I didn't take it to my daily walks hence the count increase was very slow. 

2. Daily Walking - I only did 12.21 kilometres this week against my weekly target of 20 kilometres. I am getting a little worried about my 1000 km target that seems really far at the end of the year. I think I started marking the total kilometres for the week in my BuJo which led to the decrease as I am always afraid of the final target. I never wrote the same earlier in any of the months. The mental pressure of doing it is much more than the actual effort to do the thing. Don't think just do it!

3. Entertainment - I watched the weekly episodes of the regular web series I am seeing every week. I also watched the movie Brahmastra - Shiva part 1 of the trilogy. I totally loved the same but didn't love the dialogue written for the movie. Never thought that Amitabh Bachchan will be questioned in a language in this much-hyped movie whereas he was properly respected in the movie named Jhund where the actors were from slums or representing slums. The visuals and everything looked really cool and the introduction of characters like Deepika Padukone and Shahrukh Khan was amazing to watch too. I don't know if the language representation of Allahabad is true in terms of being straight forward but in real life, I see that they do respect and language too is soft even if it can be direct. 

4. YouTube - I earned my biggest day earning in terms of YouTube Adsense of USD 2.88 but since the first time, I have never even crossed USD 3 in a single day thereafter. I have also observed that YouTube shorts decrease your earnings for the main long-form video as well so it's better to form a new channel for YT shorts as then you can experiment with your videos. The subscriber though gets increasingly fast on YT shorts so for a small Youtuber like myself with less than 2k subs, I should not plan to introduce a new channel as my channel have only 1500 subscribers. I also attended the first virtual YT Shorts event which was part of 3 series of events scheduled for South Africa. 

5. Contest Wins - I won the Sandton Central Alto 234 contest to go to the Leonardo building and enjoy a drink on the top of the 54 floors. I will surely book the same. I also attended a Lego Launch Event and you can enjoy the video too. I also attended some conferences at Sandton Convention centre and got some goodies from all those events which I shared on my channel. Do check out the random goodies from all these events. I also won the Incredible Connection Jabra contest on Facebook and the goodies will be received in future via courier. 

I also tried the food at The New Delhi Darbar restaurant after a gap of so many years as earlier I never liked the food at the restaurant when I came to South Africa in 2013.  This time the food was really good and also loved the whole experience with the new management. You shall definitely try the same and it's near Benmore Gardens Shopping Mall. I also posted the imaged on Google Maps if you search for the restaurant and already it has crossed many thousand views. 

Cheers!!!

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Stone Paper Notebook #agoodcom @agoodcom #ProductReview

Hi Friends,

Journal writing is something that will definitely bring you a lot of satisfaction and with the popularity of the Bullet Journaling method, everyone is creating a unique personal experience to take control of their lives in a great way. I read the book The Bullet Journal Method some days back and since then I am also going through the process of learning to do the same. I have been doing daily journaling from the past many years and there have been variations of stuff I have done on the same. I have always been of the opinion of not sharing my ideas and plans to anyone but now I am seeing the world is opening up to the ideas of others and taking them up too without any judgments. 

I received this amazing Notebook from A Good Company last year when I first came to know about the same which aroused my curiosity as this notebook was made from re-used stone. I immediately showed my interest in the company and they gratefully sent me one which took some time to reach and soon was in my hands. I took it to my Garden Route trip to take some of the photographs of the notebook but somehow the writing was not coming to share in terms of the blog post. This thing irritated me to the core as I was not able to complete this unfulfilled promise and it kept on as a task moved from date to date. I think a lot about doing it a particular way but then the execution never happens and that delays the whole process. 

What is a Stone Paper Notebook? 

As per the website of A Good Company, ''A5 Stone Paper Notebook is made from recycled stone, it’s the world’s first climate-positive notebook. This isn’t just another notebook as this one is water-proof, naturally white stone paper has no grain direction, resulting in the silky-smooth writing experience.'' My personal experience was when I held the notebook, it felt really heavy as compared to any other notebook and as soon as I opened the same, I immediately fell in love with the silky smooth pages and the fragrance of those pages was awesome. 

Let's delve deeper into what it means by Stone paper and what features this gives us? 

This notebook is said to be the world's first climate-positive notebook as there are no trees cut to make this, no water used to make this, no acid - no bleach and totally made with 100% solar energy in the factory. Moreover, the paper is waterproof and tear-resistant, and just like we see on some of the smartphones - the box and the diary is printed with Soy ink. I am so in love with this book that I am just touching it every day without writing anything in the same till date. Also, every diary comes with a benefit of 500 points or a 15% discount on your next purchase and that happens only if you upload the review on their website.

The notebook is around USD 23 each and comes in Lined, Dotted, and Blank page setup. The colors available are Charcoal Black, Dusty Pink, Pomegranate Red, Snow White, Stone Grey, and Grass Green. I received the Stone Grey version and the South African customs charged me the same amount of money too as the price of the notebook as it came via DHL express worldwide which has an admin fee of around R150 per package. I paid DHL around R342 as the package was valued at Euro 35 which meant in rands equivalent to R570 so the overall cost of this single notebook will be around R900 which was extreme in my case. But it won't be that much if you order it online because of the various discounts you will get and choose your delivery partner for the same but be aware that it will at least cost you R600. This will bring it equivalent to the price of Moleskine A5 notebooks but I have seen those and this one is still better to touch and feel. 

I totally loved the texture and the feel of the pages and the cover of the diary. For every diary purchased it's written on the box I got that the company planted a new tree in Zambia, Africa. Also, you get one sticker from the company and I also got a kind of hard paper that is not likely to be a sticker in the logo shape which I think I can cut and make it into the bookmarks to keep in the notebook. Overall the build quality is really good and I am sure it will last long even if after finishing the pages with ideas and all - it will still last in my bookshelves for years. And if I am able to order more of these then there will be different colors of the covers to mark several stages of my life. 

In the end, a notebook is just some blank pages until you spent some time with the same and make it worthy by capturing all your ideas, dreams, things and people you are grateful for and anything that catches your attention for future use. I am sure that I am really going to love writing my ideas in this notebook whenever I start using the same. It's really the execution of those ideas that will become the main theme of my life going onwards. With that idea, do enjoy the overall process of ordering these notebooks, and mines came from Estonia, Europe. 

Sawubona!

Contact Aashish Rai Jain at thelifesway@gmail.com or editor@thelifesway.com to send your products, launch event invites, and services to be consumed. #TheLifesWay #PhotoYatra #7YearsofTheLifesWay. Follow me on www.instagram.com/thelifesway for all travel-related photo posts. Namaste!