Back to writing blogs again… and hoping to continue the tradition going forward.
Back in 2023, I had a bet with many of my friends. The deal of the bet varied with different people, but the core was this.
Both the parties involved will write a blog once every month (published on the first full weekend of the month). If one of the parties involved doesn’t write a blog, the losing party gives the winner a 10 rupee note with an apology note written on that.
The winning notes look something like this.
In December last year, I found myself completely burnt out, overwhelmed by the list of pending tasks that seemed to grow by the day. Each morning, I woke up with a sense of dread, knowing that I was falling further behind despite my best efforts. Weekends were even more intense, trying to balance work (like hiring and writing code) and hobbies (like hiking and gardening). What made the situation even worse was the impact it had on the team. They were relying on me, counting on my contributions and leadership to help us achieve our goals. Yet, I was letting them down with excuses many times. They were accommodative, but still that didn’t help me. I had to figure this one out by myself.
Another possible reason (the one I shared with everyone to explain the reason), I wrote about this at https://sp2hari.com/minimal-motivation/. I wondered if I wrote only once (exactly on the first weekend) because of the bet. I naively assumed that if I didn’t have the bet, I might end up writing more. Little did I know, I’m born lazy and won’t do anything unless I have.
The six-month break helped. Writing a blog, even if it is once a month, is a lot of pressure. Throughout the month, it was tiring come up with something blog-worthy.
But I believe the blog break is temporary. In the long run, writing is a habit I want to improve and share with others. Funnily, many folks also stopped writing once the blog bet stopped.
The only exception to this experiment was Vasudha. She wrote more than once a month (actually between 8-12 times every month), so she probably has a lot more self-motivation than the rest of us in the blog bet group.
If you want to read all the blogs part of this bet, you can check the list here – https://sp2hari.com/bets/july24.html