Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 220 // Week 1 // 2023

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By Himanshu Sachdeva

Hi Friends!

Greetings from Mumbai!

A new year is here – 2023!

Wishing you a very happy new year!

These past few weeks I spent some hours on reflecting on the year gone by, what did go well, what didn’t go well and what I could have done better. Yes! A yearly review it’s in the making. I’ll be publishing it pretty soon.

Did you spend any time in last few weeks – reflecting, resting and with family? If yes, then good. If no, then you might want to meditate on that and next year end around do this activity.

It brings you a lot of insights, so many things happen during the day that we just take for granted or simply forget, if you look back and reflect on the months gone by, you get to know, how much was done and what you could have done better.

I wanted to read some fiction and you won’t believe how good children books are, I follow a YouTube channel where an audio book – Matilda by Roald Dahl (a free audiobook link here) was recommended. The presenter had read this book in her childhood and now when her kid arrived she is reading it to her. But the book is so good, that she is also enjoying it. So I bought that book on my audible and started listening to it. To my surprise the book is read by Kate Winslet (yes! the Titanic one). I’ll give a review on this book in upcoming newsletters.

Anyway, without further adieu, here is this week’s Saturday-Pentacle. A list of things and ideas I found Interesting.

Issue 220 // Week 1 // 2023

An article I found really useful

The Lingering of loss – The writer shares a beautiful story about her friend. When she died she left her laptop to her (the writer) in her will. Twenty years later, the writer turned it on and began her inquest.

Story worth reading.

A video I found really useful

Ali Abdaal’s video – How I failed in 2022 – Ali is one of my favourite YouTubers who really turned his passion into profession. This is the story of how he expanded his vision from his YouTube Channel to make himself a brand and then create multiple business out of it.

This is not exactly a failure which he is portraying, but rather a self reflection on how he could have done better in his business (spoiler alert he still made millions).

This is the video where who talked from his heart and shared a lot of insights. Really great video.

A weekly review process I’ve started using —

I’ve been doing weekly reviews from a long time but always wanted to make it a bit more structured, so while finding my footing back into Evernote in recent weeks, I stumbled upon a weekly review template which is GTD (Evernote link) process based. I’ve created an this Evernote link to share the same, in case you are interested to start your own Weekly Review process. It gives you structured ideas to do like –

  • Weekly cleanups of digital and physical inboxes
  • Clearing of Computer folders
  • Clearing of your desk
  • Clearing any mental mess with journaling section and more…

Weekly Reviews are great for keeping up with your larger goals which span though months or years. Daily we cannot track something, but a week is a good enough unit of measurement towards those goals. So check out the weekly review template Evernote Link, if you are interested

A productivity desk setup video I loved—

Liam Porritt’s productivity desk setup – This lawyer’s productivity setup is pretty interesting, double monitors, collar bone speaker set (something new I found) and a lot more masterful productivity accessories.

A great video, check it out, if you are interested in productivity improvements too.

Quote which I found meaningful –

“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.”

― John Dewey

Until Next Saturday!

Thanks for supporting and reading.

Himanshu

PS. – I’m on Twitter and Instagram. Follow for regular tidbits.


Saturday-Pentacle // Issue 220 // Week 1 // 2023

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