2020: Year in Review
One of the most unusual and surreal years in memory has finally come to an end. It feels slightly selfish to post an internal reflection during a year where there was so much collective suffering. Most of us in tech have had the benefit of WFH and have escaped unscathed.
With several promising vaccines being rolled out as I type this, here’s hoping that 2021 brings some level of normality back to everyone’s lives.
Reading
My goal for 2020 was to read 15 books which was the same as 2019. I also wanted to increase the breadth of my reading- too much non-fiction/self improvement is suffocating.
I read eight books (Three of which I’ve tagged as must read) and skimmed through another 6. This is a drop from last year due to two reasons, one is that I started reading a lot more articles on Kindle before bed (which was a goal from last year). The second reason is that I abandoned my bedtime reading habit for the last three months of the year.
For 2021, I will stick to the goal of reading 15 books in a wide range of topics with healthy mix of blog posts, long form articles etc.
Writing
I sent out a couple of posts on Substack — these were a summary of interesting links along with some commentary. Substack is a platform enables you to curate posts as newsletters that folks can subscribe to. Everyone keeps bashing on Medium and maybe for good reason, but I have not really found a good reason to leave it — it’s still better than Wordpress. Going forward, I will migrate/crosspost on both platforms.
I wrote a total of 3 posts on Medium this year, the one that got a bit of traction was on how to prepare for PM interviews in India. One lesson I learned with that post, you have to optimise the titles for SEO — I would have spelled out Product Management rather than abbreviated it to PM (where it could be misinterpreted as an interview with the Prime Minister). I will continue to optimise my posts for an Indian audience, that niche is still underserved.
For 2021, I will post my thoughts on articles on Twitter, book and link summaries in Medium and plan to double my output of original content to 6 posts.
Products
I continue to use a combination of Google Docs and Notion for my needs. Notion has removed the 1000 blocks restriction on the free tier, so I have moved more of my notes onto it. I have also created a ‘Razorpay’ workspace on Notion for my to-dos and meeting notes from 1–1s. I was intrigued by Roam, however there is no free tier and I’m also feeling a bit of fatigue with new note taking apps. Unless there is a dramatic improvement, Notion will continue to be my mainstay.
An app that am using in place of Pocket is “Send to Kindle” — anytime I see interesting articles, I use the browser extension to send it to Kindle for bedtime reading rather than reading it right away and hurting my focus.
I deleted Facebook — I don’t miss it.
Gadgets
On the gadget front, I made a few purchases for a budget WFH setup. I also purchased myself an Apple HomePod which was on sale for Rs 17000. The sound is stunning especially compared to my 2nd generation Echo. I also went ahead and purchased a Blue Snowball Ice microphone so that I could keep my laptop closed while working.
Was intrigued by the Apple 12 Mini, since I have smaller hands and have not been a fan of the ever increasing size of the flagship smartphone. However, I was slightly underwhelmed when I played with it in the store, it did not feel premium and I didn't like the colours. Hence, I will try to eke out yet another year from the iPhone X.
I am getting tempted by the Apple Watch series 6, mostly for the step tracking (currently I carry my phone around on walks). It’s also got the U1 near field chip which will be useful for HomeKit. I think I would prefer the Oura ring, it also does sleep tracking in a much more suitable form factor, sadly it is not available in India.
Health
One big positive for me in 2020 was my sleep which had been a problem for over a decade. Once WFH started, I found that my sleep quality increased — not having to wake up early to start my commute, helped a lot. I noticed this year that going to bed at a consistent time, diet, earplugs and eye mask help a lot in sleep quality, limiting screen time does not have a big impact.
My step count dropped closer to 8500 steps a day which is 1000 steps lower that my 2019 average. Being confined during the lockdown and in Chennai during the summer did not help. As always I continue to aim for 10000 (it’s a nice round number) and would like to incorporate some aerobic and strength training as well.
On the dietary front, I’ve managed to scale back coffee to once a day. I discovered and switched from Nescafe Classic to Gold Blend which as the name suggests uses a blend of Arabica and Robusta beans. Managed to cut back on Alcohol, and switch to brown rice and break. We’ve also switched to antibiotic free chicken and organic milk.
Travel
Travel understandably took a back seat this year, we were fortunate to be able to travel to Chennai to attend my Dad’s 70th birthday before the lockdown began. In 2021 as the restrictions start to lift, I would love to unwind on a relaxing beach vacation.
