Spark, my 1 year old baby, is now officially "crawling".

We have multiple customers evaluating and testing it right now. Product feedback, bug reports, feature requests..are now coming in from multiple quarters simultaneously.

Considering that this is what I've craved for (after iterating through many failed ideas), I'm on cloud nine now 🙂

Why? Because people are too busy to share any feedback on most new things that they come across. So, if smart people are taking their time to pause and engage in a meaningful way, it means we're on to something.

But it's also quite exhausting. Just tracking a 100+ items - big and small takes a lot of energy. Each one of them needs to prioritized, worked on, and tested, while also communicating and providing updates to all stakeholders involved.

And by the time we've knocked off 5 items from the list, there's another 5 waiting for our attention :)

The burnout trap

A friend told me, with the best of intentions: "Make sure you don't burn out, Vaidy"

My immediate thought was..."Burn out? No way!"

I've always seen my work as my vehicle for expressing myself.

I sometimes get pleasantly surprised by what I zoom out and observe myself creating..."This is actually cool!"

The real satisfaction is to see people using our products with delight and knowing that their life has gotten better because of the work my team and I are putting in.

Of course there are hard days. When the dots just don't connect. Where it seems like an endless tunnel with no light in sight. Where almost anything I try falls flat like a damp squib.

But even these kinds of days aren't so bad. After an hour or two, the work just takes over and before I know it, the day has ended. And most importantly, I've made progress.

So..where's the question of a burn-out..right?

Well..here's when it does tend to happen to me: It's when I start treating choiceless-state tasks as choices.

Choice-less state tasks

What are choice-less state tasks?

Here are some tasks I think should be choiceless for most of us:

• Exercise

• Meditation

• Writing

• Reading

• Practicing gratitude

• Quality time with loved ones

• Rest

• Recreation

You get the idea. All of these would fall into the "not urgent but important" quadrant of the Eisenhower matrix that Steven Covey made famous.

What I've observed is this: As long as I give a higher priority to the choice-less state tasks, my energy levels remain high - irrespective of how much hard or long I work.

But the moment I start choosing between work and my choice-less state tasks..that's the beginning of a slippery slope. My energy starts to dissipate, I'm less optimistic.

The worst part? The work which is supposed to be fulfilling and energizing in itself, starts to suck energy out of me.

I guess that's when "burn-out" starts to happen. Work starts becoming an addiction - "One more task and I'll feel better." Inefficiency sets in, I make more mistakes and overall…I'm just not happy.

Peaceful progress

What started with a seemingly simple "burn-out" comment from my friend that I shrugged off initially, took me on a very useful review into the idea of long term sustainability with respect to work.

My Yoga teacher Vikas has this beautiful phrase: Peaceful Progress.

Peace without progress is boring.

But progress without peace is burn-out.

To sum things up, I'll end with a quote from my Guru, Mahatria (paraphrasing): "Success as a means to happiness is a useless paradigm. Make a paradigm shift that success will be an expression of your happiness".

Onward!

PS: It's been 4 weeks since the last post. So, I'm glad to have restarted writing. Not just because this helps me externalize my thoughts and share them with you. But also because this is one more choice-less state activity that helps me to keep going on with gusto.

PPS: If you deliver online presentations on Zoom and are itching to convert them into interactive courses, reply to this email. I'll set you up with early access to Spark.