What does the term hero mean to me? For me, it represents a person I want to emulate. It is a person whose attributes I want to make a part of my life. It is a person whose life I want to study and learn lessons from, so that when I face a situation that he/she faced, I have an idea and an inspiration about what to do. There is generally an entire tribe of heroes that you follow as they inspire you at different ages, situations and fields. And since stories of heroes can directly affect your decisions in life, it is very important to choose your heroes based on who you want to be and the identity that you want to carve out for yourself.
Harikrishna Natrajan
Harikrishna Natrajan worked for a decade in the software industry, really enjoying the field throughout his job career. A software developer with proficiency in multiple programming languages, he chose startups as his destinations and worked in a lot of applications (such as WiFi networks and Android car dashboards) before they became popular in the retail market. Thus he enjoyed being ahead of the curve. His commitment to work on open source solutions led him to explore a lot of options and get work done without being tied up by the whims of a single corporation.
With his love for travel, he found freedom and leaves scarce while working in jobs. With the full support of Priya, his wife, he quit his last job in the November of 2015 and entered the world of software freelancing full time, after trying it as a side gig for 3 months. Priya soon quit her job too as the two of them planned an ambitious, life-changing year-long self-planned trip around India.
Nowadays, he enjoys life with his wife, who also quit her job, and both are always on the lookout for experimenting with self-planned travels, ideas for entrepreneurship and passive income and how to get better at life. He writes about his learning experiences on this blog.
Here are Harikrishna Natrajan's blog posts.
How a calendar trumps a to-do list to boost productivity
Ask yourself the question, “What activities do I want to complete today?”. You will most likely whip out a pen and paper to start listing all the things you want to get done today.
Hmm, so should I write the blog post for this week? What about my bathroom with its white tiles no longer looking white? Oh, I am out of sugar and unless I buy it, I cannot have tea with sugar this evening. That reminds me, I am out of milk too. I have to get it if I want to avoid having last-minute black tea. Okay, so in summary, I must write the blog post, clean the bathroom and buy milk and sugar. Okay, my to-do list is nicely mapped with a list of things I want to achieve today. Good job! Okay, let’s check Facebook now for just 10 minutes. Then I will get to my to-do list.
Soon, I realise that my Facebook checking has gone on for a couple of hours, followed by a link in one of the posts which took me on an endless spiral of hyperlink-chasing until…… tea time!!! Oops, I want tea and I don’t have sugar and milk. Goddammit, not bitter black tea again!!! I knew it… I need something better than just a to-do list to keep me focused!
There is something better. A calendar.
Continue reading How a calendar trumps a to-do list to boost productivity
I learnt about: Cooling off in summer without an air-conditioner
Summer is taking its toll here in Mumbai and all over India. Sultry nights are keeping people awake and the flow from the ceiling fan is never enough to cool down the ambient temperature. If at all, the fan seems to circulate a warm flow at the peak of summer. I, for one, found my bed too warm to sleep on. Everyone was turning their attention towards keeping cool and investing a lot on air-conditioners, coolers and the like. But I and Priya, my wife, found a better and a less expensive way to keep our home cool this summer.
Continue reading I learnt about: Cooling off in summer without an air-conditioner