A new morning routine

Yesterday morning I decided to practice meditation and picked the morning gratitude single from my guided meditation app which is Balance. Yeah, it’s a cool app name.

My wife and I are a very lucky couple because our cats love to be around us and let us pet them for very long durations. While I was meditating, three of them crawled on me and made my session more gratifying.

After meditating, I went to the balcony to read a book on my Kindle as I do in the mornings but out of a bad habit, I ended up watching a YouTube video from Ali Abdaal. That might be because I had delayed that video the previous day and since it’s about books, actually four books about financial freedom, so I wanted to look at it briefly. All the books in the hook section of the video were already in my reading list but one thing was different. This time Ali recommended listening to the first one, which was Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco.

This wasn’t the first time Ali mentioned audiobooks. His other videos about learning and reading that I listened to before also had this advice. He even suggested listening to audiobooks fast, up to 2x, on your commutes when you’re exploring, as he said. I personally prefer to listen and watch media at 1x for several reasons. First, I want to increase my attention span intentionally. I can’t make people talk at 1.5x and I thought if I get used to listening at 2x I might get bored easily in real-life conversations which is not a nice thing. And second, English is my second language so it would be beneficial for me to grasp the words more gradually and as much as possible.

That being said, this time his recommendation clicked with me. I realized that I’ve already built reading my Kindle into a habit so it’s easy for me to start and continue, and in the meantime I can listen to an audiobook, which would also be easy to adopt. I was skipping my walking sessions for a long time but I tend to move as I listen to things like podcasts or books, so it might be logical habit stacking. I can start listening to an audiobook after meditation and it can prompt me to take a walk, which it did today.

This morning I made the bed, opened the window, fed the cats, brushed my teeth, drank some water, meditated, went for a walk by listening to the book. Yesterday I listened to it for about an hour and decided to keep it that way, at least one hour of audiobook listening. The book is about 13 hours so it’ll be finished in two weeks. In the meantime I’ll continue reading Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal and it might be finished by then too. For some, a book per week or every two weeks might seem inefficient but believe me, it is, especially for people who tend to not read any books in a year which was 37-year-old me, 2 years ago. So I am very grateful for where I am today in that regard.

When I got back home, I had this idea of starting to write morning pages after my walk, pondering my experience, what I learned, thought, and planned.

And then I fell into a familiar trap. My personal brand. My personal websites. My social handles. They’re all over the place and I am not very happy about them. Since it requires a lot of time and effort, I ended up delaying working on them every single time. Today was no different. I tried to make a change, I suffocated myself, and I gave up after a few hours.

But then I had an epiphany:

Let’s stick with what I have and just ‘show up’ the easiest way possible.

And then I unpublished my previous Substack posts, hid unnecessary sections, and started writing this post.

From now on, this Substack is where I write my morning pages, dump my brain, share my notes, thoughts, ideas, and document my life and work.

This is where I ‘build in public’ now.

It’s Sunday but I want to work on a client project. It’s way past due and it’s blocking me from working on my business. I have to do it asap.

Past few weeks were very loose on my end because I was fired from my last job after four months of trial period. The sad thing is I wasn’t looking for a full-time job since I already have a Webflow agency (of one) and enough clients to float my boat. But I wanted to feel what it’s like to have a steady income one more time after 8 years of freelancing. It felt somewhat good in terms of money and the new connections with the colleagues but there were things that were missing. I didn’t have the urge to force my work even though it wasn’t very demanding. My first guess is that I had to wear two hats for this role as a Designer-Developer in which I had to design the remaining pages besides the home page on Webflow (not on Figma). It’s a clever structure for an agency that wants to finish as many projects as possible in a short amount of time but heavily relies on individual talent, in my opinion. I’m interested in design but not on the Webflow interface. To me, all page designs should be finished on Figma and then it could be developed on Webflow. But this could be a slow approach so they won’t prefer it. My second guess is there was very little human communication between me and the team. I worked with them full time for over 3 months, and they didn’t know anything about me, and vice versa. This was not normal. I think they just needed a developer who can do the work without causing trouble, that’s all. But I need connection. I think humans need connection. To be honest, I lack urgency and discipline and that was the reason for them to end my contract but underlying reasons for this result include their system and culture, in my opinion. And my last guess, I might just not be suitable for the role, simply. These are my hunches.

I am grateful for the opportunity, by the way. They showed me firsthand that marketing and selling are crucial parts of an agency. I already know that but seeing a working mechanism in practice is something else. So, I am thankful for the long trial period and their transparency.

Where was I? Oh, what’s pulling my attention today?

It’s kinda late, but the evening is still young. I’m going to work on my client’s project and share an update with them tomorrow.

Here is a current list of things that I want to remind myself regularly:

• Do fewer things.

• Work at a natural pace.

• Obsess over quality.

• Hell yeah, or no.

• Breaks are a necessity.

• Celebrate the small wins.

• Don’t be serious. Be sincere.

• Observation doesn’t require judgment.

• No one cares.

• Show up.

Today is already a win with my new morning routine and my decision about writing on here without making things complicated. When I move the needle on my work, that will be the cherry on top.

Thank you for reading so far.

See you tomorrow.