rules.md

Rules

Some simple rules to follow when doing things.

Life

• Set goals. Plan. Execute.
• Don't waste time. Build ideas. Learn. Experiment. Take risks. Ask questions.
• Share. Write. Be honest.
• Simplify. Never repeat myself. Remove friction.
• Use only what's needed. If something doesn't provide any value, get rid of it. Cut out noise (analytics, likes..).
• Value time. Filter input. Maximize impact.
• Learn from mistakes. If things fail, learn from it and move on. Let past go.
• Be mindful of my actions and thoughts.
• Don’t eat animals, don’t hurt any person. Don't waste anything.
• Don't compare myself to other people. Surround myself with people that inspire me.
• Be consistent. Make friends with imperfection. Enjoy the process and don't fixate on the goals.
• Don't judge anyone. Attempt to see another person's point of view.
• Don't lie to myself nor anyone else. Be confident in my thoughts & actions.
• Embrace change. Never complain about anything. Be proactive. Be bold & fearless.
• Build & enforce good habits.
• Adjust these rules and my workflow to match what I learned.
• Follow these rules. Take it easy. You only live now.

Health

• Exercise. 50+ min cardio/weights daily.
• Eat whole food, plant based diet.
• Drink lots of water & tea. Limit coffee consumption (1 cup / day max). No added sugar in drinks/food.
• Sleep at least 8 hours every day. Don't limit sleep, ever. Try go to sleep at same time.
• Always have good posture. Sit properly and upright, don't bend my back/spine.
• Take essentials daily supplements as well as daily food mix.
• Everything in moderation. Avoid alcohol and any damaging drugs (like opiates). Health above all.
• Lead a happy, mindful, stress free life. Clean up.

Focus

• Aggressively cut out any kind of distractions when working. Pure focus on task at hand. Have timed breaks.
• Don't context switch unless it's necessary. Don't visit blocked sites and apps when focusing. Don't touch the phone unless necessary.
• Spend mindful time on the phone. Listen to podcasts/books. Read/chat. Don't waste time on things that can be done better/faster on mac.
• When focusing, do the task at hand and nothing else. Break problems down. Solve them.
• Be mindful of my habits and temptations. Don't succumb to them and keep my focus. Do things with purpose.
• Do quick exercise bursts during the day to regain focus. Move around & explore new environments for inspiration.
• On weekly reviews, observe time I spent in Timing and restrict wasted time with Focus.
• Use one screen on mac. It's easier to context switch and keep focus.
• Don't listen to distracting music or sounds when focusing. Use Noizio & Dark Noise and listen to Rain, Fire or similar sounds. Or play a song from Focus playlist. Or have nothing playing at all.
• Use noise canceling headphones to minimize distractions.
• Only have essential notifications setup. Be in Do Not Disturb mode by default.
• Take mindfulness breaks and breathe when distracted. Or exercise.
• Create and consume art. Meet people. Be inspired. Reuse work & ideas.
• Make decisions based on data/experience. Be decisive, bold & right. Collect meaningful experiences & data points for problems I am solving.
• Say no to things. Set constraints & limits.
• Never give up if problem's worth solving. Optimize for long term growth over short term gains.
• Always breathe fresh air. Have proper lighting.
• Invest in learning/using/building new tools.
• Wear comfortable clothes. Limit choice in clothing. Wear same clean clothes.
• Use standing desk. Never sit for long. Sit up right.
• Only use the bed for sleep ideally. Be purposeful in any environment I am in. Start days quickly.
• Don't overthink things to the point of not doing anything. Clear up any confusion.

Ideas

• Share all ideas I have. Add relevant description and links to describe the idea clearly.
• Start building early. Validate ideas. Move fast. Ship often. Iterate.
• Let ideas evolve. Listen to feedback.

Learn

• Always learn new things but be purposeful. Dig deep into fundamentals of whatever problem I want to solve.
• Document everything. Don't repeat things. Link instead.
• Ask questions. Don't be afraid of not knowing something and ask for help.
• There are no dumb questions. Do some research first though.
• Go deep. Specialize. Be great at some thing and branch out.
• Learn fundamentals first.
• Build things from scratch to understand. Minimal version that works.
• Draw or sketch to distill complex ideas. Think through problems together. Discuss.
• Watch videos at 2x speed, unless it hurts comprehension or it's entertainment.
• Listen to podcasts/books at fastest speed I can comprehend. (Podcasts: ~ 2x + smart speed, Books: 1.5x).

Write

• Be clear in what I want to share. Be concise. Cut out everything that’s not surprising.
• Use proper punctuation and capitalize things appropriately. Use simple language.
• Use imperative tense for briefness when making tasks (2Do, Trello, GitHub issues). Be clear.
• Remove unnecessary and filler words. Use adverbs sparingly, they often undermine your point. Instead of really like, say love. Say more with less.
• Hyperlink words/phrases appropriately.
• Use headings to separate sections in articles/docs.
• Fix mistakes with spell checker.
• Format text to focus attention. Bold = strong emphasis. Italic = soft emphasis. Syntax highlight Code blocks.

Tools

• Only use what is necessary. Experiment with new tools/apps but never keep things I don't need. Applies to everything.
• Establish good mental models of what I need and what I use as I approach modifying my workflow and tools.
• Run less software. Only run what I use and need. Keep all systems clean & purposeful.

Share

• Share everything I know and made.
• Submit bugs and feature requests as soon as I encounter problems I can't solve. Twitter, email, in-app or feedback assistant.
• Say things that contribute to the conversation. Be honest.

News

• Filter consumed information. Reduce noise. Only follow high signal people & content I am interested in.
• Separate information into two levels of quality if necessary (ie Twitter Follows/Other).
• Subscribe to Atom over RSS feed if possible.

Compassion

• Value each animal’s life as equal to that of my own. Don't eat or hurt anyone.
• Minimize suffering caused to other people. Be conscious of other people's feelings.
• Strive to empower everyone around me to be better. Show compassion and care.

Finance

• Mindfully spend money. Make sure not to support practices I don't agree with.
• When paying online, make sure payments go through.

Solve problems

• Aggressively research everything I don't understand. In solving problems, think about it in terms of models I can validate.
• For programming, think about the data model and operations. Always keep in mind the problem being solved.

Code

• Write clear code. Explicit over implicit. Readability Matters More Than Correctness
• Make code run first. Then make it fast (if necessary).
• Read docs. Update docs where needed.
• Function name should describe what it does. Good function names summarize what happens inside.
• Make sure to copy things I understand. Copy correctly.
• Delimit files with spaces using - instead of _.
• Use switch cases over long ifs.
• Open draft PRs for WIP changes, saying what should be added or considered in Notes for reviewers or the related issue. Ask for feedback.
• Minimize distractions in text editor.
• Comment over unclear code. Be as descriptive as necessary.

Design

• Minimize decision making done by users. Good design leads.
• Impress users with great landing page.

Photos

• Only keep good & memorable photos. Clean up the rest. Sort into albums.
• Don't over edit photos & share freely.

Email

• Keep email inbox close to 0 at all times.
• Pin emails that need attention.
• Archive important emails accordingly. Delete the rest.
• Filter incoming emails. Separate personal emails from the rest (newsletters/other).

Git

• Version control all projects. Commit often. Squash branches into one good commit.
• Respect existing git workflow of projects.
• Prefix branch names with fix/ or feat/ appropriately.

GitHub

• Add appropriate topics to each repo (languages used, problem space, ..)
• Use relative links instead of hard wired links (ie ../issues/ refers to issues of repo).
• Don't append #readme to GitHub repos that are not curated lists or simple readmes.

README

• Use HTML for rendering images if control of size or position is needed.
• Add appropriate quote to briefly describe the repo (often is the same as description but with links).
• If README is long enough, add a Contents reference table.
• Add a way to visually show the project if possible.
• Add Related section linking to similar projects if possible.

Wiki

• Treat wiki as my digital brain. Share everything I know or need to reference. Reflect on my life.
• Have unified structure for all pages.
• Interlink pages to guide the reader.
• Don't repeat myself. Link. Keep files lowercased.
• Only keep links that are private in bookmarks. Everything else is shared either in wiki or curated lists.

Share files

• Temporary shares with Transfer. Permanent with Dropbox. Can use jsDelivr to link to GitHub raw files.

Social

• Meet new people. Go to seminars, talks, conferences.
• Respect my time. If going on dates or meeting people, make it worthwhile or not go at all.
• Use same profile picture across all social networks & websites.

Alfred

• Use descriptives lowercased names for external triggers.

SnippetsLab

• Upload all non personal snippets as Gists.
• Create smart groups for new prefixes I add.
• Add correct language syntax to every snippet.

2Do

• Only have tasks I need to get done Today in Today. Important tasks are stored in Starred sorted by priority. Keep Today list manageable (< 15 tasks).
• All tasks need to be actionable.
• Work on tasks based on priority. Strive to keep Starred list close to 0.
• Add context of task as tags.

Ask questions

• When posting an error or an issue, give as much relevant information as I can to help debug it.

Feedback

• When asking for feedback, never ask people if they like the product I built. Ask them whether they don't like anything instead.
• Welcome any feedback. The more critical feedback, the better. Internalize all useful feedback, make it actionable.

Read

• Make notes as I read books & papers.
• Review read books on Goodreads & add it to wiki.
• Star articles I liked on Reeder. Transfer likes to wiki later.

Licensing

• License OSS code under MIT or Apache 2.0.
• License curated lists and everything else under CC0.

macOS/iOS

• Only run software I need. Quit everything else or delete entirely.
• Have full control over what is going on my OS to reasonable degree.
• Yellow arrows & text is nicer to read when annotating images.
• Don't play games on mac/iOS.
• Automate backups.

Trello

• Order of importance for cards: Watching -> Next -> No label.

Travel

• Buy transport (plane/train) & accommodation for future events/conferences/travels as soon as possible (when I am sure I am attending event/place).
• Proof check dates before buying tickets. Don't prepare large liquids (> 100ml) in planes.
• Check in online as early as possible.

Giving talks

• Link to a page where people can get the slide deck + recording of talk given after giving any talk/presentation as a final slide. Can reuse the final slide for all talks.