2019: Year in Review
Similar to last year, there was a big event that dominated the year — this time on the professional front. After completing four years at Freshworks, I was ready for a new challenge. I ended up moving to Bangalore to take up a role at Razorpay, as part of the RazorpayX product team.
Reading
My goal for 2019 was to read 15 books which was the same as 2018. I also wanted to continue to increase the breadth of my reading. I did well on both fronts, reading 13 books while skimming through 7 books. The topics ranged from biology, biography, economics, health, philosophy, India, and of course, a couple of self improvement books.
This was a great result especially since I spent 3 months intensively job hunting. What worked for me this year was to simply start reading anything I found interesting and discarding it the minute I lost interest. Not forcing myself to blog about what I read helped as well — I will simply tweet a recommendation if I enjoy a book.
Another thing that worked was to set apart a dedicated time for reading each day and sticking to it. For me 9–10 PM on weekdays worked great, allowing me to read for an hour while I unwind in preparation for sleep.
I plan to continue doing what worked this year with just one change — I will be dedicating some time towards quality longs reads (See “The Story of Us” for an example).
Writing
I did less well on this front, only managed 4 posts including last year’s review post. I had one post on books, one on travel and one on Stripe’s revamped API docs. I found a new format to write my trip reports in. One issue was that with the removal of the book summary, I had fewer topics to post about.
The bigger issue was that I simply kept procrastinating. After I found a new job, I thought I would write an update to my job interview post and about my trip to Bali, but neither happened. The new job and house hunting and then moving in kept making me delay.
In 2020 I resolve to spend more time blogging. I’m aiming to post at least 10 quality posts and reach a broader audience. Will try to set up a dedicated time to focus on this.
Career
As mentioned in the introduction, after four years at Freshworks, I moved to Bangalore to take up a new role at Razorpay. It was a difficult decision since Freshworks is a great company for PMs. However, moving to Bangalore was something that had been on my mind for a variety of reasons.
At Freshworks, I learned how to build a world class product for a global audience. At Razorpay, I will be building a neo bank for Indian businesses. I’m also keen to experience a different approach to product management.
Products
I purchased the Streaks app to use gamification to build good habits which was one of the action items from Atomic habits. It’s working well when the tracking is automatic (counting steps walked) and failing when it’s not (writing, reading).
I started using Notion for documentation, it’s got quite a few nifty features (visual bookmarks, share as website, tables) that I like. Since I am on the free plan, I’m continuing to use Google Docs for archival, while I keep all ‘living’ documents (book lists, job hunt tracker) on Notion.
This year, I didn't purchase any new gadgets for myself (got my wife a car). I was tempted by the iPhone 11 pro, but held off for another year. I did get a brand new Macbook Pro laptop at work. It also helps that I bought a high end camera, headphones, TV, watch, and e-reader, so they are still going strong.
Health
I’ve been paying more attention to sleep hygiene after reading “Why We Sleep” and my quality of sleep has been slightly better. A cold dark room, not using the cellphone an hour before bed, not working in the bedroom, avoiding large meals before bedtime all seem to help. My sleep issues are mainly due to an over active mind and I need to work on relaxation techniques like meditation.
I averaged close to 9500 steps a day in 2019, which was close to 1000 steps more than in 2018. Have also been taking steps to improve my diet by avoiding white rice and cutting down on meat. On the downside, I have been drinking more alcohol and coffee.
Other stuff
I travelled with my wife to Langkawi and to Bali for vacation this year. We both loved the Langkawi ocean villa that we stayed in and will definitely return. This year, will look to check a few more locations (Egypt, Japan etc) off the bucket list.
All in all it’s been a pretty eventful year. Happy with how it went and looking forward to 2020!
