So I was thinking that I haven’t really had a post where I am adding value. So I am going to try to state the obvious and make a post about what I think is going to be up in 2014 for Dubai (Or UAE in general).

1) Rents Go UP UP UP: The Expo 2020 has kick started the same vicious loop of 2008. The landlords have just got the opportunity to increase the rent by 20-30% citing the huge increase in demand due to Expo 2020. Its all Bull Shit. It will go up further next year as construction starts and the construction hiring really kicks in.

2) More People Will Move Away From Dubai: People living in Dubai will go Sharjah, People living in Sharjah will go to deeper Sharjah, People living in deeper Sharjah will go to Ajman. Everyone is going to trade down just to keep the rents in check and survive through this bubble.

3) More Highway Traffic: All inter-Emirates road should see even higher rush as a lot of people have moved away from Dubai but still work there. Say Hello to Early Mornings and Shitty ‘Stuck-in-the-Traffic’ Evenings. Its just going to get worse from here.

4) Government Fees will go Up: All this constructions need to be funded from somewhere. They are going to try to source it from internal revenue. The government fees have already increased a lot year on year. Now, its just going to go BOOM. Anything & Everything is going to cost you.

5) More Radars, More Fines : Going along the point 4, RTA being the biggest revenue generator will try to maximize income by placing more radars and asking cops to be more strict with their fines.

6) Higher Cost of Living: With rents and other operating expenses going up companies will increase their margins to cope with the pressure which will lead to further increase of overall cost of living. Say Bye Bye to savings.

7) Self Serve Petrol Stations: They’ve been trying to introduce this since forever. I strongly feel they’ll try to roll out phase by phase this year.

8) More & Better E-commerce: Increase in operating costs for offline retailers will prompt the online competition to be even more aggressive. More and more companies will identify opportunities in the online space and startup.

9) Telecom will get cheaper: With the Number Portability kicking in both Du and Etisalat will try its best to acquire as many customers as possible from each other as possible which will initiate a price/value war for various packages. This will be interesting.

I really tried making the post look good with having the conventional 10 points. But 2014 is time to break the norms and I am going to go ahead and end it with the odd 9 points. Do drop in comments if you have some more predictions

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.

It failed. Apparently, drastic changes are not sustainable. Its those baby steps you take every day that make drastic changes sustainable. I haven’t reach my goal but 4 kg lighter after the 30 day challenge.

So the idea is to make gradual changes. Like:

• Walk atleast 5000 Steps ( Based on s4)
• Ditch the Lift.
• Drink More water.

That is the small but concise plan this week and weeks to come. I’ll let you know how it works out.

First week has been hard. All that biryani and fried chicken is taking its toll. I have been eating fairly less and exercising more. Due to less food intake, the energy level is not at its best. But drastic situation requires drastic actions.

I have reduced 2 kgs in the first week. I intend to keep the rate consistent  for next weeks. I have been letting the diet slip by a bit due to the weakness. But hopefully, I ll be better when I am occupied at work.

I’ll keep you people updated.