Project 42
Every birthday I write down a project "n+1". Last few years I haven't made this public. This time I'm planning to change that.
A week before my twenty ninth birthday, I sat down and wrote myself a “project thirty” - a list of things that I planned to achieve before I was thirty. These were only principles, and not rules (I’m always on the principles side of the rules-based vs principles-based argument). The only rule I set for myself was that between the time I wrote this and my thirtieth birthday, I “wouldn’t take up a full time job”.
That one constraint served me well, as my thirtieth year was among the most productive years of my life. I got a strong start as a freelance analytics and data science (that phrase was yet to make its way into public consciousness) consultant. I did a motorcycle trip of Rajasthan. I got my first (and, thankfully, thus far only) ever broken bone (when my speeding motorcycle hit a cow). I started delivering lectures and doing public policy research. Most importantly, I met a lot of new people and had a lot of interesting conversations.
That I didn’t have any revenue targets (and forbid myself from taking up a job) meant that I had made my time cheap, and indulged in stuff I normally wouldn’t have. And even though I didn’t finish half the items on the list I had made for myself (I'm not sure if I’ve published that), it was a good year.
And so after that every year on my birthday my wife asks what the “project N + 1” is, and what I plan to do then. I remember telling her sometime that my project thirty five was to publish a book, which I managed a few months before my thirty fifth birthday.
A day after my thirty eighth birthday, I started a “proper job” after many years and said that my “project forty” was to remain in that job. And so on.
So what is my project forty two?
On the professional front, I have a fairly exciting announcement to make, and I plan to make that on Friday. There are good reasons for that, and so I urge you to wait.
So what else do I want to do in this forty second year? Of course I’m not so ambitious any more to find out the answer to life, the universe and everything and all that. Also since I’m taking up something rather big on the professional side, I don’t want to be too ambitious with other ambitions. So, at the risk of sounding conservative, here goes:
I want to write more. This used to be an integral part of my life but something slipped over the last 3-4 years. Maybe I can blame my “proper job” for this, but ultimately I didn’t make an effort.
Across all my blogs and substacks, I want to average at least 3 posts a week. Quality might go for a toss in the next few months but I expect it to pick up with volume.I want to teach my daughter (now 7) to code. Now, this might sound a bit tiger parent-ish, but I want to see if, by the end of 2024, she can get the same kind of enthusiasm for coding as I did when I was 15.
I want to sort out my physical health. I haven’t got myself tested in over a year now, but my target for end of 2024 is to have blood sugar, insulin and cholesterol all well under control, to an extent that I can indulge in the occasional binge-eat guilt-free.
On a related note, I need to improve my upper body strength. Recently I hit a new personal record on my deadlift (180 kg - see below), but my upper body numbers have stagnated (bench press at ~65-70 kg, and overhead press at ~50-55 kg) for a few years now. I’ll be conservative and say that I want to bench at least my body weight (whatever it is; currently I weigh 86kg) by the end of 2024, and overhead press at least 85% of that
On a similar note I want to take care of my mental health as well. I’m not able to think of an objective metric on this, but I guess it’ll be highly unlikely I’ll hit my physical health targets without having good mental health as well
Recent family developments have meant that I’m not going to impose any travel targets upon myself (or my family), and hope to catch up on that later on. And with all the targets I’ve set myself above, I don’t see it being sustainable to take up a new hobby this year.