Another month flew by! As the year and the decade (!) closes in, there seems to be a growing unease and urgency to get stuff completed. Well, at least for me. So, quick wrap-up first:
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Quick recap of the past month and stuff done:
? Reached my health and weight goals from keto, and body feels fat-adapted and more stable at 3 months.
? Learnt a lot of contrarian insights about nutrition via the keto diet, and wrote them all down.
? Secured first sponsorship deal for Keto List Singapore! Just US$120, not much, but it pays for the whole year’s hosting on Table2site. Happy to be able to get some affirmation via B2B channels (B2C was dismal), and will continue to iterate on the product.
? Created first JAMstack site for a friend’s business, to learn if it’s even possible. It does!
? Created Sweet Jam Sites, a productized services to build JAMstack websites for other productized services.
✨ Quite proud to have came up with my aspirational hourly rate - important metric for grasping priorities and getting perspective when things get hazy.
✈️ Went to Bali for vacation with wife for a week.
? Retro motivational books month! Books completed:
- The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime, by MJ DeMarco
- Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination, by Hugh MacLeod
- The Magic of Thinking Big, by David Schwartz
? Books still reading:
- Think And Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill
More Code November
This month, I wanted it to be a More Code November, a month of more coding. In summary, only managed to achieve 2 out of 3:
- ✅More JAMstack
- ✅More nocode
- ❌More Rails
Some learnings:
Lots of JAMming, not enough Railing
I definitely spent quite a lot of time figuring out JAMstack tools and trying out all the different headless CMSes out there. I literally created around 20 sites using each headless CMS - NetlifyCMS, Contentful, Sanity, Forestry - and played around with the files and admin interfaces to understand the limitations. That took a lot more time than estimated, hence eating into the time I wanted for my Rails project. But truth is, my priorities are evolving as we speak, as I follow my curiosity, and currently, banging my head against the Rails wall just feels……not very meaningful. Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate if my Rails project is the right one to keep my interest to learn Rails going, or should I change things up? ?
Killing 2 birds for #nocodevember - JAMstack X nocode
I managed to weave my nocode plans with the JAMstack goals this time. I wanted to create a productized service around JAMstack and nocode, and managed to get 90% done on Sweet Jam Sites. It’s basically a productized service for building websites for businesses, but specifically, JAMstack websites with free hosting for productized service businesses. So it’s for productized services, by a productized service. The value proposition (so far) is the free hosting component and the fact that it’s a done-for-you service instead of DIY web builder. I built the JAMstack site basically without code (ok with some HTML and CSS, but 95% nocode), and I’m in the process of hooking up the onboarding and payment workflows using Airtable, IFTTT/Zapier/Integromat, and Stripe. An all-nocode mashup. Just right for #nocodevember.
The dance of joy vs deadlines
This was the most important lesson this month. Because I set something pretty ambitious for November, I then had deadlines and deliverables to meet. Which was something which I didn’t have in October - remember Play October? It was all about injecting play and joy into work, and following my energy and curiosity instead of setting artificial deadlines and work targets. I really, deeply enjoyed October. Not so much for November, because I was too preoccupied with trying to reach my ‘artificial’ deadlines. There’s also a mounting background anxiety around needing to make some money soon to keep my indie maker runway going, since my heart’s no longer in it for doing consulting work. So, it looks like there’s still lots more for me to learn around how to nurture joy in work, follow my energy, and keep my cool in the midst of having deadlines. I believe one can have deadlines but still work with joy. Just that I’m now in apprenticeship to learn just that tightrope walk. It might probably turn out to be the most important lesson yet for my work……
Coming up tomorrow: Deep December__……