2020: Operating Principle & Plan

Not much fond of New Year Resolutions, this post is more for me to refer through-out the new year.

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I started having this kind of a post since 2018 and found it increasingly helpful in 2019. It gave me direction on the areas I want to focus my life on.

Let’s recap at what I wanted to focus on in 2019 and how much was I able to stay on track. I had broadly 4 areas —

1. Books
2. Health
3. Social Connection
4. Writing
5. Side Projects

Let’s go over each and what I intend to do in 2020 —

1. Books — DONE

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I was able to read 21 books against my target of 20. You can have a look at what I read here.

I love reading and hence the focus would continue to read at least 20 books even in 2020. I already have a few which I started in 2019 but couldn’t finish plus some more which I bought and would like to read in 2020.

Any interesting ones you want to recommend?

2. Health — status quo

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In terms of weight, I did lose close to 6 kgs in the last 2 months, which honestly I am surprised how I managed to do so. Except for sugar in the form of desserts which I cut down drastically, I am not too happy with my diet in 2019.

As far as exercise is concerned it was definitely much better than in 2018.

If walking is one measure here are the stats since 2018 —

2018–6329

2019–5993

I have marginally gone down on my walking. In 2020 this needs to come up by at least 10–15%.

So my target for 2020 will be to walk 6892 steps on average, daily!

As for other health-related focus —

1. Cut down on sugar as much as possible
2. Include Weight Training regularly

I had also started an initiative where-in for every KG I loose in weight, will donate Rs 1000/kg to charity. Lost 7 kgs! :)

Will continue this even in 2020.

Is health your focus for 2020? What are your plans and how do you intend to achieve it?

3. Social Connections — DONE

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Being an introvert this was difficult to have as a Goal and yet I achieved the Goal in half the time and went beyond to meet more new people than planned. People are super kind than I had thought!

This year I plan to attend 1–2 Conferences in my field of work and probably catch up with a few people whose work I admire.

4. Writing

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My love for reading complements this focus and encourages me to share my thoughts.

Last week I had 43 posts on Medium. Out of this —

13 was related to my side project “Research the Researcher”.

13 was related to my UX Writing skill learning

2 was about a family medical tragedy

4 was about Usability Audit series

Rest were across UX Research and other stuff.

Though not many were stand-alone posts in a real sense, I am happy with the presence I made through various posts.

This year I want to write at least one stand-alone post a month. That makes it 12 posts in 2020.

5. Side Projects

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Last year I resumed my UX Research Tips series and started a new project “Research the Researcher” where 12 UX Researchers from around the world share their stories and insights on UX Research.

Being passionate about UX Research, both the above projects are incredibly close to me and I had a great time doing it. I should probably do a summary post of Season 1 of Research the Researcher.

This year, so far nothing concrete in my mind. Will update here as and when something interesting comes up.

All in all, in the above 5 areas, it’s been a decent 2019.

This year want to add two more major focus areas —

6. Reinventing Myself

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When I used to see people in “position” — money being one parameter — likes of CEO and others, announced that they are leaving their current plush “envious” jobs to do something else, I use to be surprised! My reaction was these people are where I dream to be, what makes them leave and go in pursuit of something else.

While everyone has their own reasons, I suspect one of the core reasons may be to unlock their potential even more, to go outside their comfort zone, even more, to learn, even more, to try new things even more…in a way, all this leads to “reinventing” oneself.

Whatever said and done, every place of work has its limitations (to reinvent). Some may never reach and hence be a lifer, some reach early, some later.

Let me add, it’s perfectly fine to not have the need to “reinvent” yourself and stay where you are as long as you are happy.

In 2020 I want to pursue reinventing myself fairly seriously. If this involves a new job, so be it. If it involves a new role at my existing job, so be it. If it means pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, so be it. If it means cutting ties with people with whom I don’t align, so be it. If it means going back to school, so be it.

If you or know someone who has exciting opportunities to create impact at a scale, I am all ears and happy to catch up where ever you are. Primary areas of interest continue to be — Fintech, Retail, Healthcare, Transportation (People, Money, Goods), Communication & Productivity, Entertainment…as I feel these are the areas where there is ample room to scale and touch millions if not billions of people.

7. Travel

Photo by Natalya Zaritskaya on Unsplash

As a family, we love to travel and now with a 3-year-old son, we try to travel whenever we can to expose our son to various surroundings.

Unfortunately, due to other priorities, we couldn’t travel much in 2019.

This year I want to take my family to at-least 1 International holiday and 1 within India holiday. If you have a recommendation for both or either, would be happy to hear it out.