Self Improvement Framework

2026-08-31T00:00:00Z

Sometimes we need to pause and rethink our life. Whether we are making the right choises, whether things should go the exact same way they are going, or there are things to change. I have made some drastic changes in my life just like you may have made in yours. And so far, I have enjoyed making such changes. And I feel, it's now time to change a few things for good again.

# Time to Think

Waking up in the morning, and thinking is a privilege for most. Almost all of us are chasing the clock starting from the moment we wake up, till we go to bed, even on weekends. So, if you got this priviledge, you are one of the luckiest ones, like me 🙂. I tried many different things to utilize this precious time to the fullest. One attempt was GTD, which I couldn't follow in its fullest form, but it taught me note taking, a habit I truely enjoy. Other times, I made lists of what I want to do, align with my values and interests, what are the immediate action points, what I want to achieve in the long run etc. But I eventually realized, I don't actually enjoy following "the plan", rather the moment a bit of "unpredictibility" becomes "the plan", I lose interest in it. Plans are boring. And they change, making the entire boring grind pointless. Most of the time, I have to choose between Planning (predictability) and being able to discover new things (unpredictability). And that's a big problem with these "get yourself organised" methods... they rely on planning too much. So I won't waste this precious thinking time on planning anymore. I'll do the other parts instead which I enjoy very very much.

# My Own Framework

Even if there are powerful frameworks out there, learning and following which I could probably meet most of my goals efficiently, I always found inventing something of my own more effective in the long run. First of all, I get to learn what are core problems I'm trying to solve using the famework in a practical way. Above that I get to learn by making mistakes, seeing how other frameworks try to tackle those problems, and then trying to improve upon them. And since it's my own framework, I can make it as simple or complex as I want.

While frameworks like GTD, PPV etc. are highly customizable and probably very effective for many, I feel I'll be more productive creating my own super customised framework, probably on top of these frameworks, eleminating things I don't like, including things I enjoy, and finding fun hacks to make the unavoidable boring things enjoyable.

# The Core

Habit, naturally is the core of this framework, just like all the other frameworks. All other properties of my framework depend on this single property. But habit is boring. It's very predictable, just like planning. But unlike planning, it's permanent (ideally). It doesn't change (shouldn't) unless you want it to. Today's schedule can get interrupted, so can tomorrow's. But it can't keep getting interrupted forever. If it does, it's not habit, it's just planning. We need habit as the bare minimum if we want to bring positive changes to life. If it still feels boring, I can and should make it more interesting. It only requires a bit of thinking, which itself should be a daily habit. As per Jeetu Bhaiya, it takes 21 days to form a habit 🙃.

Personal Values is another important property of the framework that defines who I am. It may or may not have shaped my past, but I want it to shape my future. I want to remember my personal values everytime I make a decision, and also everytime I avoid making one. That's why it should be a habit to remember my personal values on a daily basis.

Religion is the above two combined. Re-iterating one's core values to themselves everyday, in some cases, multiple times a day, is the fundemental task of a person dedicated to their religion. It's difficult to admit for an atheist like myself, but religiously dedicated people have a lot of things figured out for themselves, even though, they were not the ones who did the thinking and figuring out. They probably have other higher priorities than wasting time re-thinking the centuries old tried-and-tested way of life already debated by capable people millions of times and written down on that scripture. But we atheists need to figure things out for ourselves, and more important than that, make a habit of re-iterating them to ourselves, so we don't stray away from our core values.

# Problem 1

Evil devils could have been the enemy of religion in the past (maybe present too), but today, IMO the primary evil we need to fight, every individual second, actively, is the dopamine dose being offered to us through the colorful screens, in the form of always available, never ending entertainment.

We all know the reason of our decreased attenition span. We all know what's most likely to interrupt us the moment we start focusing on something. We all know what can get us so hooked before sleep that we end up pulling an all-nighter. We all know what we end up spending our fresh morning energy on, turning habit into a failed plan. And yet we can't avoid it. We need it and it will be with us forever.

It's easy to blame a piece of technology, a business, an industry, and even the collective human nature, but in the end, it's only me who takes up on that offer of dopamine dose.

# Solution 1

The only ally we need to tackle this problem is our own consciousness and judgement. The framework should make sure that I am conscious and able to make that judgement at the right time. While others can call their "goal" or "ambition" their other allys, for me personally, judgement is the only and most reliable ally I'll need. It helped me single handedly avoid all the other addictions so far.

# Problem 2

Mood is another factor we need to get a hold of. Core values and judgements often stop working when emotions are not normal, or when we simply just want to stop being ourselves for a moment. Unfortunately it happens, and most of us can't simply control our mood always even if we practice meditation regularly. Unlike dopamine addiction, our mood often depends on external factors, like how other people treat us, which is entirely out of our control.

# Solution 2

When the problem comes from external factors, out of our control, we need help from external allys too. People often hurt us, but people also heal us. If we have dependable allys, we can stay positive and healthy.

I'll keep updating more problems and solutions here as I encounter them.

# The Actual Method

The entire framework in its most simple form looks like this:

Define how a successful positive day looks like based on personal values. Then make a habit of living up to that definition as closely as possible. Minimise the control of enemies, depend on allys when needed. Don't forget to recite personal values and re-think what to change.

Personally, for me A successful positive day would look like this:

Weekdays:

Recite my core values, rethink changes - 6am - 6:30am.
Prepare food + breakfast - 6:30am - 7:30am.
Exercise + bath - 7:30am - 9:30am.
Cleaning - 9:30am - 10am.
Working hours + lunch - 10am - 5pm.
Learn something new / personal projects / music - 5pm - 8pm.
Shopping + dinner - 8pm - 9pm.
Post an update to my blog - 9:30pm - 10pm.
Keep doom scrolling to a minimum - 10:00pm - 10:15pm.
About 7:30 to 7:45 hours of sound sleep - non negotiable.

Weekends:

Recite my core values, rethink changes - 6am - 6:30am.
Prepare food + breakfast - 6:30am - 7:30am.
Exercise + bath - 7:30am - 9:30am.
Meet up with friends / family.
Explore something new / take wife out for a date.
Learn something.
Keep doom scrolling to a minimum - 10:00pm - 10:15pm.
About 7:30 to 7:45 hours of sound sleep - non negotiable.

Well, that's a lot. But the point is to follow the definition "as closely as possible".

The more of these I'm able to follow, the more deserving of a reward I become. A reward is can be doing anything that requires me to cheat on the habits for a specified amount of time. I'm yet to work out the exact details of this, but the idea is that success deserves rewards. There's no punishment on failure though. Well, maybe 10 more pushups... I don't know 😏.

# Tracking & Rewards

Tracking is important but boring. So I need to make in fun. Rewards should be worthwhile. As already mentioned, rewards allow me do things that would otherwise require me to cheat on my regular habits. I'll make a list of rewards that I want, and everyday will earn points by following the habits. The more cheat time a reward allows, the more point it requires. Yet to work out more details.

Hello World (About this Blog)

2026-08-31T00:00:00Z

So here I am, again, trying my hand at blogging. I tried blogging multiple times before, but the more I wrote, the more I felt exposed and pointless. And I ended up deleting them eventually.

However, a few years back, through public note taking I found a hack to collect and share my interests without exposing much about myself. Now I feel a bit more comfortable, and hence, I'm giving it another try.

# Why blogging?

People have different reasons to blog. Mine is a pretty common one. I want to try, learn, re-visit and re-learn cool things and personally share with like-minded people. "Personally" is highlighted here because that's the entire point of blogging for me.

# Why not private journaling?

Being introverted by nature, I guess keeping a private diary/journal would make more sense for me. But from my perspective, it would add one more thing to hide which would become a mental burden. I don't feel comfortable spending effort to share too much about me, but I don't like spending effort to hide things either. Moreover, I like participating in conversations that lets me learn new things, specially if those things intersect with my own interests. And I definitely love sharing things I enjoy myself or find interesting.

# What have I tried so far?

My first blogging attempt was when dev.to newly launched and was getting popular as a more dev-friendly medium alternative. I think I also tried medium before, but I don't remember anything about that now, so that doesn't count. But yes, since dev.to was new, I was getting a lot of interactions on my posts and I was enjoying it initially. I posted multiple tutorials and shared my personal projects there. I gained an un-deserved number of followers there. But I soon started feeling that, beyond adding to the hype and popularity traction of the platform, while satisfying my own knowledge validation, it wasn't adding much value, neither to my own personal growth, nor to my readers. The things I was posting, were either redundant or self promotion of some kind. I eventually deleted my posts, and now my dev.to account sits there, empty, enjoying the solitude.

After joining stck.me, which was more of a content writing platform back then (than story/book publishing like now), I tried writing again. But this time, I tried writing more personal - "stories" - as I would call them. Some were my own personal experiences, some were stories with fictional setup that reflected my personal thoughts. The stories had humors and (probably) some thought provoking elements. However, after publishing a few, I realized I was actually venting. My stories were more negative than positive. I was actually abusing a writing platform to offload my mental burden onto my readers. So... yes, here's my stck.me account also sitting in solitude enjoying the bliss. Although, I'm maintaining a separate blog for one of my personal projects - blog.xplr.dev on the same platform, which mostly contains promotions and tutorials about a tool I maintain and use. But it's... not personal.

# What's different this time?

I'll write personal, but vent less... ...I'll try to 🙂.

Joking aside, I want to add more than my personal thoughts and experiences this time. I hope to bring positivity into my own (and probably my readers') life through this blog. This is an experimental attempt at self-improvement through writing.

In order to achieve that, I'll be posting a lot of... experiments & learnings. We all want to try and learn new things, not only things we find interesting, but also things we have no choice but to learn. I also want to re-learn forgotten lessons. So, I'm writing this blog for my own personal reference more than you readers. I'll also probably occasionally vent a bit, like a normal human, but I'll be sure to not let it overtake the positive vibe of this blog.

Arijit Basu's Blog