dhawalbanker

There is a fresh energy brewing on the Eastern side of Pune. For a while now, a few of us have been working quietly but passionately to revive the  IITBAA Pune Chapter (East) . What started as a simple ritual—meeting every first Sunday of the month at  Vaishali Express, Amanora  for coffee and conversation—is now evolving into a vibrant, active community. Our vision is to move beyond just networking tables. We want to build a group that explores, celebrates, and unwinds together—planning everything from Hurda parties and musical nights to fruit parties and match-screenings. To kickstart this new phase, we organized our very first outdoor adventure yesterday:  A Sunrise Trek to the ADYPU / Khandoba Hill Top. The Morning of "Will We, Won't We?" The plan was ambitious for a Saturday morning: Assemble at 6:30 AM, start at 6:45 AM sharp, and catch the 7:09 AM sunrise. As an organizer, there is always that moment of anxiety before an event.  Will people actually wake ...

I've been thinking a lot about the power of compounding—the incredible results that come from making tiny, consistent improvements over time. The idea is simple, but putting it into practice can be tricky. How do you actually  get  1% better every day? To make this real, I needed a system. A mental model that was simple, quick, and could be applied to any task, from a deep work session to a daily workout. I’m calling it  The O.N.E. Protocol . It’s a three-step feedback loop that takes less than a minute to run, and it’s the engine I will be using to drive all my goals this year. It stands for:  Observe, Note, Execute. 1. O - Observe The first step is to simply look back at what just happened, but to do it like a scientist, not a judge. After I complete a task, I take a moment to observe the outcome without any of the drama of self-criticism. It’s not about grading myself with a pass or fail. It’s about gathering neutral data. "The first 20 minutes of my reading sessi...

As a new year approaches, I’ve been reflecting on what truly drives progress in life. For a long time, I focused on breaking down my big, ambitious goals into smaller, manageable chunks. It’s a powerful technique that I even wrote about after watching Steven Duneier's fantastic TED talk. It taught me how to start. But recently, I realized I was missing the second half of the equation. I knew how to break a big goal into 100 small steps, but I wasn't focused on making each of those steps  better  than the last. This year, my resolution isn't about setting bigger goals. It's about embracing a quieter, more profound philosophy:  the power of marginal improvement.  My goal is to get just 1% better, every single day. The Simple Math That Changes Everything The idea of a 1% daily improvement sounds small and insignificant. But the power of compounding is a force of nature. When I first saw the math, it blew my mind. Imagine you have two paths. On the first path, you improv...