Absent

You know that phase when you have started exercising, eating healthy and being on the good path for months and then you skip a week? Then another. And yet another - till it becomes couple of months since you were on the good path?

A break from writing... ?

Well, for last about 2.5 months now since mid-April, I’ve not been writing morning pages. Or any new pieces here or on EarlyNotes. I have not been keeping up with Substack or most of my earlier newsletters either. Instead I’ve been writing a lot of outreach emails, applications, bootcamp notes and some code (for code, I’m largely relying on LLMs). This recent flurry of other activities started with focus on CareerMap and Orbit which then expanded to deep dives into impact-sector networks. Also, parallelly, I have been trying to get back to active learning in AI space - primarily Agentic and AI Safety space.

But I have always believed that not having the time for something is hardly ever the core issue. Instead, it’s almost always about priorities.

Besides, I also stopped using “Guide” (my own daily focus app I built) around the same time. I found myself cycling through familiar reasons for not writing or using Guide, similar to the ones that tend to surface whenever any regular practice starts to slip.

Here goes:

Morning page skip-reasons

Let’s start with the pages. Know that these are all hypothesised reasons; I haven’t really “proved” any of this. And some might not be reasons so much as feelings about why I keep skipping them for so long.

(a) Routine: The morning routine these days has been walk/gym, utensils, watering the plants, coffee and chat a bit, maybe breakfast too, the garbage etc. And then the newspapers - I sit at it for 30 mins or so. And then open my laptop for HN / Google news. The last two are not particularly good habits. Pages have gone out of the morning routine. That’s the biggest reason, I suppose. Why have I not been regular at it.

(b) Not quite feeling like any other time of the day is the right time for morning pages. I’d be scrolling or reading but I still would not write the pages at those hours. Although I’ve done exactly that in the past - written pages at all hours of the day.

(c) There’s always something “better” or “more important” to do. At least that’s the first feeling. Even though, logically, that doesn’t hold - given the benefits I’ve seen from pages and the 40 mins they actually take. I’m sure I can easily find double that time any day if I really want to.

(d) Feeling of creating a backlog of “insights” to consolidate and record if I write the pages. And the “ughh” feeling I get these days, thinking about all that backlog management as another task. Although this hasn’t really been top of mind when I decided not to write. But I’ve been happy realising I don’t have much to document since I’ve not been writing.

(e) Can only write so much every day/week. Sometimes, when I’ve been working on an essay or so, I’d feel too tired - like I’m all “written out” - to do the morning pages too. And when I have to choose on whether I want to write another essay or pages. The essays win. (this list was created a while back; since then emails, code, applications - they have been winning over essays as well).

(f) Maybe also a bit tired of these inner reflections.

(g) Outward-focused activities/projects or even books, could be taking more time.

That’s it. Probably a mixture of some of these is what’s been my excuse not to do the morning pages.

Guide: Reasons for not really following it myself these days

I built Guide for structured daily progress towards larger life-goals. And I used it as well for almost an year over its multiple iterations. But I have been off it since around the same time I went off the morning pages. The reasons partly overlap with the above, but the last one is personally most interesting to me.

a) That “ugghh” feeling thinking about it - the routines, the backlog, and the constant “reminders” from the AI that I haven’t really been following the approach I’d decided to take: focused on one or two things in an action-oriented, disciplined manner. So opening Guide feels intimidating for all those reasons.

b) Shifting priorities. The big-ticket tasks these days have been CareerMap and Orbit; But I don’t see how these fit into my 2026 goals as documented in Guide. If I look at those goals, focus areas, and next steps, I’d have to face the reality that how I’m spending my time right now isn’t the most important allocation.

c) Some of this work can be aligned to Guide goals. But revising the goals to keep them updated feels like extra administrative overhead. Especially the daily tasks - even if Guide kind of automatically breaks larger goals into tasks as well.

d) I think I’m kinda happier without Guide right now. And that’s fine. Guide is for when you’re lost and seeking a path. It’ll be there when I need it again. For now, maybe I’m just having fun.