Since December, I’ve published daily on this site. The WordPress app on iOS has encouraged me with streak notifications. A couple of weeks ago, I hit this milestone:
Shortly after, something in the app’s streak calculation went awry and it began displaying counts in the thirties, even though I was still publishing without a break.
The streak notification, for all these months a part of my life, has ceased to be accurate. I have since turned it off.
A few months ago I heard the marketer Seth Godin talk about his writing practice on Tim Ferriss’ podcast. He said that if you get over the initial hump, your mindset changes from ‘do I write tomorrow’ to ‘what do I write about tomorrow’, and something clicked within. It’s now gotten to where writing is a daily habit. The streak notification has served its purpose.
Now to make something of it. Some months ago I put together a framework based on what I have been writing about – a set of mega-trends and big questions that we will have to deal-with because they will affect all of us. The recent posts on this site have already been tagged with one or more of these trends and questions.
Last week, I published what I intend to make of this site for the forseeable future:
The Internet – the collective noun for email, the web, the ‘cloud’, wearables, AI, crypto, 3D printing and so much more – is a tool; ultimately it exists to make your and my lives better. But it is also orders of magnitude more powerful than any other tool, so we should expect our lives to get orders of magnitude richer as well, not just incrementally. How can we use it to transform our relationships, our health, our skills, our wealth? How can we lead much more fulfilling lives?
This is what I want to explore with rahulgaitonde.org.
I’ve already begun using technology deliberately to achieve specific, small goals in life. For example as you’ve read under ‘wellness when always-on‘, I’ve been actively using it to get better while also not letting it own me. While I’ll continue writing about what I see and think of these trends and questions, I’ll also add how I’m using that framework in my own life.
Look forward to me walking the talk.