Good morning from my pretty little blue couch in Powai. It is 11:01 AM. I am working from home home. Breakfast was cut and ready before I opened my eyes. Lunch is waiting and I’m still on breakfast. I’ve got Keratin treatment in my hair. My insane size TV is playing Lika’s Morning Coffee Grooves. There’s one singular active pimple on my face this morning. Claude has fixed up my calendar for the rest of the day. All in all, looks like a good one.

With that, here are a couple of things I can tell you.

One. As of yesterday, I am a morning person.

I mean, I tried to be. Off-late, no matter what I do, I open my eyes between 8:45 and 10 AM. The person I want to be wakes up at 6. This is not a huge deal but I’d like to go hit the gym + write this blog before the world is up. And then, Claude anyway has a calendar for me.

This is Day 3 of trying. (20 mins later) I had a huge spiral to solution distraction. The plan from today on is to — well — wake up at 6. And do my life around it. While I do this, I hope to not give into notifications. Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Emails, anything. Till my breakfast. I reach for my feeds first thing in the morning, and I don’t see anything great coming out of it. Other than some guilt at times.

There is nothing insanely different I shall be doing other than morning gym and early dinner. Hopefully, that will help!

If not, I will pay someone to get me out of bed for a week. And then, my circ-rhys would have adapted. What’s frustrating is: I have never had a problem waking up early. Not at least for the first 20 years of my life. This is fairly recent. And I don’t want this to stick.

So that.

Two. I didn’t know what to do. Then, I did.

I am now writing this at 3:24 AM. This is not at all ideal but I am committed. The thing is — when I write this later in the day, a lot of notifications happen. Most of them feel urgent because someone might be waiting for me to do their things. And I lose track.

Two ways to fix this: Answer something and then come back. But then, there’s the cost of context switching. The other is part one of this blog.

Anyhow, yesterday, I chose to meet up with Lalitaji and PK. So, I packed two hot-girl-bags and left for Powai. Gym, pool, work and a brilliant to-do list. I did some of those things. Some I did not. Good thing is: it was not a mental list. Or on my WhatsApp notes. So, I can easily move those blocks around.

I stayed longer than I planned. In the greed for Ragi ki roti. And raita. And your good old ghar ka khana. That’s when I started this. During lunch, I was lounging with mummy watching Kapil Sharma when she asked me Tumhe kaam nahi hai kya kuch? Monday dopahar ko TV dekh rahi ho? Which brings me to my #400061 Starbucks. On the way back, I had a 100 things on my mind I that I had to get to. Now that I am here — I can’t find any.

So, I did what any sensible knowledge worker would do. Made a list. And now I know.

Two lessons for me are:

1/ Do not hold reminders in your mind. Put them somewhere. Find a better system.

2/ Fill in your trackers so you have your daily list. I don’t know why I don’t do it. I make a written TDL far more often. But even then, that’s not a daily thing. My processes demand more consistency from me.

Three. What am I working on.

If I put it here, I can keep coming back and updating. As always, the answer is multiple things. But all for Decoding Draupadi. Which is a great focus bit. Something I learnt yesterday: The more you know, the less you diversify.

But here are a few things I am trying to do:

1/ Building Draupadi on the Dais: The discovery solution for women’s expertise. DotD is a platform for women speakers, experts and public figures to find more speaking gigs and media opportunities. This week, I want to have 500 people listed on this. Automate the blog content AND start profiling our members. Make content around so we have more inbound than outbound. But doing both for now. But the number you ask me for updates on is 500.

2/ Season 2 of the Decoding Draupadi podcast: I have multiples threads for what the podcast stands for. We have done some episodes in the past. Sporadically. I am building the Season 2 for it. As a more adult person with more perspective and betters questions, I hope. This week, I aim to record 3 of these and publish 1 end-to-end.

3/ Lose 2.5kgs in the next two weeks: Which is a tiny bit more aggressive than normal. But it’s just a wee bit. So we good. The smaller parts of this are: hit my protein/fiber/calories. get my 8 hours. follow my supplements. go to my gym. do my 10k steps. all that.

4/ Clear up my skin: This is VERY slow. Post Bangkok, I had a terrible flare-up. Thanks to my dermat, I only have one singular active acne on me. Once this goes, we can add my next retinoid. I’ve been good with my antibiotics and sprays and treatment for one week. BUT, we have at leat 14 morw days to get to normal levels. My current challenge is not picking on whatever is uneven on my face. Or avoiding touching it in general.

5/ Find out what Decoding Draupadi can be doing. For business. In the next 2 weeks <3

Bas itna hi!

Ciao 💌

Anshika – on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Ps: I share interesting links and stories that tickle my brain through the day on this WhatsApp group. Most of it doesn’t make it to these blogs, but should you like to join — here. And oh, write back. I love getting messages 💌

Pps: I ordered my first ice-cream in Marathi yesterday. Thanks to Rutu primarily, who uses the most Marathi around me. And then Om for translating it for me. Srushti + Aanchal + Nikita to whatever crap I ramble 🙂

Ppps: Did you know your shoulders droop because of weak neck and back and chest muscles. And if you train them well, your natural posture also fixes. And that upright shoulders are actually a visible sign of stronger muscles. Amongst other lifestyle factors. And is actually a great thing? Don’t quote me, but this is basically true.