Three Areas of Focus for the Next Quarter
- Tarasekhar Padhy
- Dec 28, 2024
- 6 min read
I am at that age of my life where I am constantly finding myself worrying about the future. Not worrying per se, but wondering if the path charted is correct and whether the effort will fall short of my expectations.
Whether it is career, relationships, or entrepreneurship, I am catching myself fully immersed and almost lost in my visualizations and thoughts. Simulating how the future might be and imagining how happy I’d be when I get the rewards down the line.
Of course, a part of this overthinking is getting anxious and doubting whether you are good enough. It is the worst because it tanks my productivity and ruins my energy level.
Panic also affects how calm I am while going through my typically hectic weeks that demand me to perform at a higher level at all times.
As a result, I am indulging in distractive habits to feel ‘calm’ but it always backfires because scrolling social media to spot baddies and ‘finishing the job’ in the hub costs time and energy that I could have spent working.
It makes me more anxious about my future and the vicious cycle continues.
Finally, I thought it was time to put it all to rest by solving this problem of worrying about too many things. If there are only a few things I need to think about, life would be simple.
In this journal, I talk about what those three things of focus are and why I chose a period of three months.
Three areas of focus for the next quarter
Content: One book per month. Roughly translates to 15 articles. Two to three videos per YouTube channel. All articles published on my website will be promoted via Medium.
Workout: Need to boost up those reps to start building in the stoic or monk strength. It’s also known as dad strength in some cultures. The extra edge is necessary to handle life.
Work: I reached the ceiling at my place of work. Of course, I can always get better, but that crispy professionalism is there. Now, I will only apply for corporate writing jobs for their safety and status. Unless I get a nifty promotion at my current place of employment.
There will be more pressure at work in the new year considering the lack of hands on deck toward the end of this year. It translates to me working longer and spending more energy, leaving little for after.
The only, and probably most significant, area of work here is to ensure tasks are assigned beforehand. Additionally, I have to put my foot down when inefficient workflows are initiated.
If I start work on time and wrap things up by 1500 hours, then life’s good. There will be days, though, when I will work more because of the unprofessionalism of some folks, but that’s life.
Another challenge is balancing work and content. The best solution is that for videos, I will record the thing as soon as I wake up and edit it after finishing work.
Why a Quarter
1. Hiring happens at that time
My long-term goal is to increase my income, like most logical individuals. The easiest way to do that is by switching jobs, ideally to an MNC, considering I have agency experience. At the same time, I wouldn’t say no to a bumper salary hike at my current office because the team is great to work with.
Anyway, regardless of whatever hike my superiors have planned for me, I can’t switch to a better place in the dying moments of this year. Companies typically hire new talent in Q1 and Q2.
It’s better to make the jump in Q2 because I want the bonus arrears for the first three months and the pending leave encashments.
2. Need a Decent Following on YouTube
I’ve been working hard to ‘make it’ as a YouTuber because it will open up opportunities in the content creation space. That niche of employment is rapidly growing and is quite ludicrous.
Since last month, my content creation workflow and process have improved drastically and I am constantly releasing videos that get decent attention from the general audience on the internet.
Posting at least ten videos in the upcoming quarter can take my subscriber count to a few thousand. This will be a great way to demonstrate my skillset to take advantage of the increasing demand for well-researched videos.
Moreover, I will also write three extra books on my website. By focusing on academic and career-related topics, it can serve as a dope portfolio for my writing career too.
The challenge here is to remain consistent in the face of disruptive days. It is hard af to say no to friends on certain occasions and traveling demands rest. Furthermore, there are weeks when it’s too much at work, which means my content creation endeavors take a back seat.
Maybe I need to burn the midnight oil on some days.
3. Allows to Focus On One Day at a Time
Three months is a decent enough timescale. It’s not too long to test my patience or too short to deliver any respectable results. Just right in the middle.
This enables me to have the right peace of mind to attach each day. From sunrise to sunset, I operate in ‘go’ mode. There is respite but the things I tackle are mentally demanding, so everything needs to be milimiter perfect.
The calmness is also a result of eliminating any attention on the potential results of my actions, long or short-term. If you think about it, the three things — content, work, and workout — are all I do, every day.
My mornings begin with a workout. Then I dive into work. After wrapping things up, I transform into a content entrepreneur.
The stress, anxiety, and panic I was experiencing was from overthinking whether I was doing enough, well enough. Penning it all down and setting a deadline shifts that attention from the potential rewards to the sincerity of the action.
Additional Incidents That May Occur
As you already know, life has a habit of sprinkling a little bit of chaos into your weeks every now and then. The only thing you can do is be prepared. Have a little bit of extra bandwidth to deal with the unforeseen complexities.
The most likely incident that could happen is me learning how to drive a car, getting a license, and buying a car. I have been delaying it, despite being the only person in my friends’ group not knowing how to drive a manual, because of financial reasons.
But now, the candy syrup has reached the elbow and things need to be taken care of.
Another thing that could happen, but is a bit less likely than the car thing is moving to a different city after accepting a good job offer. This puts more pressure on me to learn driving because doing it in a new city can be tougher.
The least likely thing that could happen is nothing sort of a miracle (hence least likely). Me hitting a 100k subscriber count on one of my YouTube channels and receiving a job offer from abroad that I can’t refuse. The chances of this happening is the lowest, but a boy can dream.
Looking Forward to Enjoy the Journey
As much as I am tired of the difficulties and challenges I face on a daily basis, these are the days I will fondly look back to. This is when I am tinkering around in my lab, mentally and physically, and making the ‘me’ that I’ll be proud of.
The reward lies in the grind.
Many years ago, I dreamt of this very moment. I wanted to be in a position where I would have a good physique and a respectable job. I yearned for a time when I could spend my leisure creating content to become an entrepreneur.
I’ve been living that for over a year.
That’s the part that sucks. As per my predictions, I should have ‘made it.’ It is taking a lot of time and energy than I anticipated.
Now, I just don’t know, so I stopped making any predictions about success. I am not sure if I will ever ‘make it.’ I don’t know if I am on the right path. I am completely unaware if all of these endeavors will end up fruitless. I wonder if I will end up as a nobody that did nothing.
All I know is that I have to keep going.
I guess that’s why it’s called the ‘grind.’
Because you never know when or if it will end.
