Which side are you on?

Or tend to spend the most time

Hey there friend.

Welcome to the last edition of March.

This time is a short one, so let’s get into it!

Main quest 🛡

Learning gives you options and opens up new opportunities.

For people who’ve had few, that’s awesome. It can improve their lives for real.

But there’s a downside to that.

Some of us, who have unfortunately been into the “hustle mode”/“grindset” for quite a while… we tend to overdo it.

You tell someone who doesn’t like to word as hard “Hey, if you learn this skill(s), you can make $50 an hour”.

That person would be like “Ohh cool, I can only work 4 hours a day and make $1k a week!“

Tell that to someone who’s not afraid of the hustle and it’ll be instead “Ohh wow, I can now make $600 a day!“

(I’m more in the second camp…)

But if I’ve learned something over the past year and a half, it’s that not every activity needs to be productive. Not every hour in the day needs to be overoptimized to get the “maximum output”.

Learning more can allow us to do more so we can earn more.

But not everything is about “more”.

You know the saying: “Less is more“.

There are people you don’t need to tell them this. They will gladly work less hours as long as they can keep earning the same.

But for us overachievers, we’re tempted to use our Supercharged Learning skills to get more done in less time.

And then use that extra time for… getting more work done!

As I have to remind myself often, rest & recovery is as important (if not more) than getting work done.

There’s actually a level of discipline & grit needed to respect the time for rest.

The time that we need to recover and be back to peak status.

But… It doesn’t end there.

That “non-working time” isn’t only for rest. It’s also to be present for our loved ones.

Or to have some dedicated “me time”.

Or to just take some guilt-free time-off.

When was the last time we went to a park to sit around and observe the flowers blooming? or the birds chirping? or the kids running around?

When was the last time we spent some time in nature doing an outdoor activity or just contemplating the landscape?

We don’t have to fall into the trap of thinking that the world changes so fast and if we’re not constantly working or producing results, someone else is doing it and leaving us behind.

Depending on how we compare ourselves, we are always ahead or always behind.

If you think you’re “super productive”, there’s an Asian guy somewhere who has achieved more than you have and is way younger.

We don’t need to be striving for more every single day to “beat the competition” or because if we don’t do it we’re “falling behind”.

That’s just taking things to an unrealistic extreme.

We can carve a space for ourselves and others around us and just be.

Maybe it’s not always possible. But it’s not a “once in a blue moon” type of thing either

We can take the time.

Even if the world seems like it’s changing faster and faster or getting crazier and crazier by the day.

It’s up to us to be intentional with our use of the few hours we have every day.

Not letting ourselves get caught up in the rush and the need to be always productive.

After all, like I said at the start, learning give us options.

And it’s our responsibility to choose wisely.

Experiments 🧪

This time I’ve experimented with AI most of the week.

Partly because I was working on an application for a “generalist engineer” role but also partly because now that I’ve had a little more time this past month for online work, I want to make the most out of it.

That means learning about automation platforms and open-source AI tools to have extra helping hands in recurring tasks.

And since the HQ is growing and I’m working behind the scenes to make it much better and useful, I can no longer do everything myself.

It’d be great if I can have some “agents” I can delegate tasks to and check the results.

(Also I don’t want to depend on a external platform. That’s why I’m going the open-source DIY route.)

To consider 🤔

What end of the spectrum do you find yourself more often, the “overachiever” or the “slacker”?

It’s good to know this about ourselves so that we can balance things out.

---

That’s it for this week.

Thanks for your time.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday (and the rest of the month).

Catch you next week!

Cheers,

Juan.