Consistency

A friend recently reached out to me over the phone. He asked me for some weight loss advice since I've had some success in that area.

My advice was simple, and it dumbfounded him:

• Eat less
• Eat healthy
• Exercise more

He started asking various advanced questions - how many minutes do I exercise, which app do I use to exercise, what do I eat, when do I eat - questions that, frankly, I didn't feel I had the expertise (nor the patience) to answer, so I modified the advice to something slightly more actionable:

• Eat only three times daily and be hungry for at least 12 hours.
• Eat home-cooked whole foods and fruit. Do not order from a restaurant or open a packet.
• Brisk walk for at least 30 minutes every morning before eating anything.

I told him to do this for the next few months without missing a single day, and he was still amazed that it was so simple. I am still waiting to hear back from him, so I assume he figured it out or didn't follow the rubric.

Although it sounds counterintuitive, success is often a result of simple things done consistently. The reason why simple and consistent things work is because of compounding. In compounding (A = P(1 + r/n)^t), the exponential growth comes from t (time), which obeys the power law. A small amount of money could grow into a behemoth corpus, a person with the proper eating and exercise habits can live relatively longer and disease-free, and a person reading on a topic daily could become an expert. This heuristic appears in so many different areas of life.

Finance

Rather than chasing complex instruments that promise a high return, consistently saving each month and investing in simple instruments (PPF, EPF, NPS, Index Funds, FD/RD) leads to a sound financial portfolio.

Work

The tip to improving daily is to invest extra time in honing our craft. The idea is to do complex and challenging work consistently and rest only when we finish it. This does not mean not asking for help—on the contrary, ask for all the help we can, but have the grit to get it done.

Relationships

The simplest way to keep relationships healthy is to communicate often. There is no secret sauce here. Everything else stems from regular communication. The relationship begins to decay if we cannot find time to talk.

Knowledge

Invest time to read daily and take notes about what we find interesting. The medium is unnecessary - it could be blogs, books, newsletters or videos. We could try many things, and eventually, we'll continue what works for us and stop uninteresting things.