Well its been a while, more like years and a lot has changed. Before we get to that, I’ll be blogging much more often this year than I have done in the past 2 years.

Lets start with a summary update on major buckets of life:

Health: Perhaps could be a little better. I have way more white hair and have put on some ‘more’ weight over the years. I have started taking steps and making small changes in my lifestyle to bring things under control before I start my journey backwards.

Business: I have started investing time again into my side hustle again and its bearing fruits. One of the projects I have always dreamed of getting of the ground is showing good traction and we are growing. Its broken even on a daily operational level but it will be a while before I recover all the money I put into the project. The idea is to get few more projects off the ground. A nice sidle hustle that keeps things interesting and supplements my income levels.

Personal: It seems the older I get the less trusting I am of new people. I always apprehensive of what a new person wants and if he has an hidden agenda. I have met a few new people but it will be a while before I really am comfortable around them. I guess this is normal?

Work: This bit is going as per plan and lot of new things here. Got a new boss, got a new role, new team and same company. I will be hiring more people to scale operations but that is one stable bit where not much has changed.

2017 plans?

The overall theme is to get procrastination under control and get more work done on all 4 areas of my life. Get more projects off the ground, manage relationships and people better, focus on health and have few good habits in place and kill it at work.

I already got a fitness tracker in place to tell me what my daily activity levels and I am trying to get a few routines in place to increase it bit by bit on a daily level. I have started leveraging podcasts on my way to work which helps a lot because I don’t get a chance to read. But there is still a long way to go, in getting my life together and aligned exactly with the objectives I am trying to achieve. Procrastination being one of the major pain in the bottom.

We’ll figure this one out.

As you are aware I have been trying to lose weight for a while now and have come pretty far. I recently heard of the Dubai Municipality initiative where they are rewarding participants with a gram of gold for every kilo lost. Whats the catch? You have to lose  minimum 2 kgs.

Not waiting any further, I went ahead and registered myself on their website. You are required to take few print outs and head over to one of their weight measurement centers for the initial weight down.  The attendant there checked my ID and I was good to go. I was asked to empty my pockets and step on the weight machine. I clocked in at 84KGs.

I intend to lose around 6kgs at the end of this program which should roughly get me 6 grams of gold (worth 900 AED). Good coin for some self control if you ask me.

I honestly feel countries should invest in programs like these. The overall ROI would be way higher in the long run when they compare with their current investment in healthcare. Its funny how far people would go for a bit of Gold.

The Idea for this post came today evening when I was stuck in the ‘World infamous’ Dubai-Sharjah traffic. I realized that the daily ritual for 4 years has had a greater impact on me as a person than I thought previously. As stupid as it sounds, there are a bunch of life lessons there.

Lesson 1: Idiots will Come

No Matter what you do, you’ll always have that one fucktard cut you off, drive at the speed of tortoise ahead of you or give every Tom, Dick & Harry way. Its a part of the ride and you’ll need to embrace it.

Lesson 2: Some Opportunities have to be made

No one is going to give you way in Dubai-Sharjah traffic, You need to tilt your car and put it in the first gap you find. This makes the driver stop and give you way. You can’t wait for some nice guy to give you way. You’ll never reach home.

Lesson 3: Salik doesn’t mean Less Traffic

Just because you are paying more for something doesn’t make it premium or high quality. You need to be smart where to pay the premium and where not to.

Lesson 4: You can’t have total control

You can’t control everything. You can’t control the speed of the car ahead of you. You can’t make the traffic move faster. You can either lose your cool and go no where or be patient and take it one stretch at a time.

Lesson 5: We are all the same

No matter if you are driving a sunny or a land cruiser. It gives you little or no advantage in a bumper to bumper traffic. We are all the same at the end of the day. (A little deep?)

This is the customary year end blog post where I discuss how the year has been and reveal what phase of my world domination plan am I going to execute this year.

The year started on a slow note. After the destruction of my website empire, I was forced to look for a job. I managed to get a digital marketing internship in a leading E-Commerce company last week of December. Initially, They were surprised how I knew so much about internet marketing coming with a Aeronautical Engineering major and I was shocked why would they send me to the warehouse to pack & pick on my second week with the company.  Apparently, It was just a temporary crisis caused because operations didn’t see the Holiday rush coming.

Things picked up from there. The way things were, the internship was more like a probation before the actual probation. There was never any ‘training’, I was asked/expected to deliver right from day one. I managed to turn the internship in to a full time job and take it from there. Its a nice to place to work. The environment is friendly. A lot to learn and very challenging.

On the health aspect of things, I managed to continue my ‘weight growth rate’ and add another 10 kgs to my total this year. I am not really proud of it but I do blame my lack of activity due to the nature of my work for that. But the plan this year is to eat less and exercise more and lose a considerable portion of the flab. This is just not sustainable.

On Social aspects of things, its a lot more different now. Friends from college are not really around that much any more. They are all busy doing whatever they do and don’t bother keeping in touch. I tend to hang out more with the office crowd. They are a bunch of awesome and smart people.

On the Finance side of things, I managed to miss my target by 20% this year. This was mainly due to the fact that, my sites are not doing well and I didn’t make much during the internship period of things. My sites are dieing and its painful to watch.

On the family side of things, I haven’t really been able to spend much time with them. I work quite late and don’t really see them much though we live in the same house. I am making a conscious effort to spend much more time

So Whats Planned for 2014?

Health :  This one thing makes it to ever over weight person’s new year plans. I intend to reduce weight by quite a decent amount and come back to normal or a little above normal. More exercise and smaller portions. I’ll be writing much more about this.

Finances :  I’ll be working on few of my sites and other side projects. I really plan to save much more than I earn. I want my secondary revenue streams to make me much more money this year. I have some plans in mind which I’ll be executing. Hope it turns out well.

Skills: I plan to acquire some new skills this year. Top on that list is to learn excel. Its a shame I wasn’t taught excel properly in college. Its a life saver. I intend to create models, forecasts & dashboards. I have an idea for a Dashboard for life. Its going to be awesome.

Vacation: I’ll be taking two vacations this year. One to Europe and one to India hopefully. I have taken 2 days leave and 4 sick leaves in 2013.

Write: I’ll be writing much more value driven content here and on my other blog where I ramble about internet marketing. Its going to be awesome.

Stay tuned. You’ll be hearing more often from me this year. Also, Don’t forget to drop in what are your plans for this year.

I have finally hit a phase in my life which I am not really fond of. Its one of those times when you feel you are up to no good. Everything is sluggish and you don’t have the motivation to do what is needed on a day to day basis. All the enthusiasm and zeal has just died off.

I am not really sure of the cause but may be it does have something to do with the routine I am currently in. May be its the extra long working hours to blame and the long commute that follows that. I am really not sure what is it. But the focus in the coming weeks is going to be to get as much work done with as less distraction as possible.

I haven’t really learned anything new in the past 4 to 5 months. I don’t get the time to read neither the opportunity to do anything new. Its a rut.

So What am I going to do about it?

Here:

1)Get some exercise routine going. It doesn’t need to be a work out. All it needs to be is some sort of walk/jog to start with. We can move to more serious stuff later.

2)Read some books. A book along that lines.

3) Learn Excel. Become a Guru. Do what it takes.

I’ll post an update soon about how it all comes togather.

Stay tuned.