Five things I learnt from: 2021

So I am keeping up with my ritual - annually I feebly attempt to pen (or key?) down what I learnt in that year. It is an ‘I centric’ blog, but this format has been my most popular. Again, maybe we are not our best judges!

Confidence is overrated

I will be honest with you, the next couple of lines will look like I am quoting straight out of Adam Grant’s book. And that would not be far from truth. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they actually are.

A lot of people when they get from novice to amateur, get overconfident. This ‘make you feel good’ perspective can be dampening. Instead when we are mildly underconfident, we tend to look for ways to improve ourself. So this acceptance on the things that I am not so confident about, has been a pure blessing. Confidence, need not be competence and some uncertainties are friendly.

Using lesser words

This was an astonishing one. I learnt that I could communicate better if I try to use fewer words. It is tough to explain unless you try it yourself, but let me give you some ground on why I think it works:

1. People have the attention span of a Goldfish. We need short one-liner e-mails, just to skim through the writing once and get the jest. If your e-mails are long, or has links you want the reader to follow, most probably they are gonna skip it. Unless you are their boss!
2. Reducing words in your speech means, getting your vocabulary up. You now have to use better words to express the same thing. This palpably means, what you utter will be will be more ornamental.
3. This is my shortest ‘Five things I learnt’ blog.

Growing laterally

Allow me to bore you with some of my professional life rumbling. So this year, I got to expand my resume into tech stack that are drastically different from my forte. From C#, I teased around with Vue Js, hopped into a Golang while also juggling C/C++ parallelly. Each of them are both, philosophically and syntactically different. This does not make me a pundit. But working with such laterally different stacks has helped me build a better context of computer systems in general. And that context is hard to find.

Our brain works by firing up hives of neural regions to give us an understanding. The wider the experience, the better equipped it is to generate novel ideas and get some understanding (more dense hives). You never know how your poker skills might improve your negotiations, how your chess techniques improve your driving. Your brain builds context of new things using existing experiences. So maximizing these experiences can make you grow laterally. I have a whole blog devoted to this idea.

Managing work

This entire year I worked from Home, like everyone else. The volume at which I was able to work, would not be possible if I was a office goer. Now, that I look back, I have spent a significant section of my life in traffic and getting ready for office. I want things optimized (as any CS engineer would say). And I am pro remote work. But this comes with its own baggage, but couple of steps have made it worthwhile.

Since we are all over long calls, which go over in circles too, I try to be mindful of what I am saying. Sometimes, I am quite and just type over chat. I try to push meetings to post lunch (with little success so far). Meetings are draining activity, fresh morning hours are meant for creative and high focus tasks. Reduced reliance on caffeine. Coffee has withdrawal symptoms. Coffee has a half life (like radioactive substances) and it can hinder the natural functioning. Look up for Mathew Walker if you are yet curious. Make use of my availability status. Instant messaging is in a hunt for your attention. When you are focusing on something, that blinking icon, is nuclear. I have blocked hourly chunks in my day, where I don’t check my messages, and trust me, no hell broke lose. But I guess, this also is subjected to your workplace culture. For mine, I cannot be more thankful. One of my favorite investments this year has been a pair of earbuds from Samsung, a Mx Master mouse and a UPS for my router. These are things that I use daily, unlike the tuxedo hanging in my wardrobe. It is worth the money. Keeping my work desk clutter free. And I mean keeping the very essentials, only for their utility. On surface, it does not sound much but stripping way everything but the essentials from your peripheral vision is immensely productive. Anything more than six hours a day has diminishing returns.

Taking Chai Seriously

A year of staying at home, has kind of bestowed upon me a micro-mastery in Chai making. I know! where are my standards, I am making you read about the recipe of the most common beverage in India! But I bet, I am here to up your Chai game.

1. Choosing the tea leaves is the first step. While there is a myriad of varieties starting from white tea to fermented tea, we are only confined to the tea leaves used for making Chai.
2. (Loosely speaking in Indian subcontinent) Leaves from Darjeeling impart great aroma, they tend to give a lighter brew color but lack in strength. Leaves from Assam are on the stronger and bitter side but missing on the aroma. So the most common brew is a blend, the ratio is up-to taste.
3. Also the size of tea grain is a crucial factor. Shorter grain give you more bitter and full bodied feel, they taste horrible if boiled for too long. Longer grains give more citrus flavor and is supposed to be seeped longer in comparatively low heat.
4. I know, that it is just four ingredients but the order of adding those is where the magic happens. Start will just getting the water to boil. I like a 50-50 ratio of milk to water.
5. This is step is where you can experiment as per your preference. I take a pea size amount of fresh ginger, not grated, not diced, but crushed. Add green cardamom (green; no the dried colorless stuff) and fennel seeds and crush them too. With ginger being the most insignificant note. Watch the masala brew in water on high heat.
6. As we keep adding to water, it’s solubility decreases and it can extract lesser and lesser flavors. So we want to add the tea leaves next to get the maximum out of them. But on a lower temperature. We don’t want to make it bitter by simmering too long.
7. On a separate utensil get milk to boil parallelly. Try using full fat milk, add sugar and keep stirring. We want the milk to be frothy and thicken slightly. Use medium heat here, don’t let the milk burn. This can simmer long, no problem.
8. Now sieve the tea liquor into a cup and the add the milk from a height into it. These small attention to detail will make a big difference in outcome.
9. Don’t be hesitant to get experimental a bit, like adding a dried rose petals, it will keep your guests in wonder. About coffee, maybe next year.