Hey friends,

Welcome back to another issue of Thought Caffeine, a weekly newsletter where I share my favourite productivity tips, random party facts, and other interesting finds throughout my week.

Looking back on my crazy busy week in Dermatology, I definitely found certain moments quite overwhelming. Piling tasks and uncertain rotas are just two of many. However, the week also served as an insightful window into the life of a dermatologist -- which actually isn't all that bad.

💻 Macbook shortcut: spacebar to preview documents

I discovered this shortcut a while back from my computer scientist brother — who by the way, doesn’t use a Macbook but knows his way around a Macbook better than I do — and it has been a complete game changer.

I'm slightly obsessive-compulsive with keeping open windows and tabs to a bare minimum, so life was quite stressful before I discovered this shortcut.

Pressing spacebar on a selected folder previews it, allowing you to navigate the inside of the document without having to open it. I find it terribly useful for images (which with the addition of the up & down buttons lets you preview consecutive files), PDFs, and presentations, but it literally works on everything else too.

Apologies for the GIF's abysmal resolution -- Sendfox allows a maximum of 2MB on their uploads but it should illustrate the big idea.

🗺 Travelling by Google Maps

Is an idea proposed by one of my favourite modern thinkers, David Perell. Whenever you’re in a new city, open the Google Maps app and pay attention to the areas colour-coded by orange. This signifies that a place is busy enough to promise interesting and novel experiences. Starting your walks from there and let the sights and atmosphere whirl you to your next destination.

The beauty of this idea is that it strikes the perfect balance between planning and serendipity - a concept most travellers I know struggle with.

📱 Unconventional Big Talk questions

I stole this list from one of Tim Ferriss' podcast. He's arguably one of the most talented interviewers in the world, known best for his unconventional questions - which often takes the conversation into exciting twists and turns. The thing about such questions is that (1) You make yourself stand out from other interviewers, and (2) Your interviewees will love you for that.

• What book have you gifted the most to people in your life?
• What was your best purchase under $100?
• Do you have a favourite failure?
• If you could put anything on a billboard, what would it be?
• What is the best investment you've ever made in life (money, time, etc)?
• What is one unusual thing you really love / an absurd habit?
• What new behaviour / habit has recently changed your life?
• What advice would you give college students about life in the real world?
• What are bad recommendations you hear in your area of expertise?
• In the last 5 years, what have you become better at saying no to?
• When you’re feeling overwhelmed or you’ve lost your focus, what questions do you ask yourself and what do you do?

👨🏻‍⚕️ My first week in Dermatology

Was my most stressful week as a medical student so far. I've begun captaining a team of 15, including a select few less grateful colleagues, and wrestling with uncertain rota schedules for mixed online-offline rounds. Oh and not to forget a paper I needed to finish and present in 3 days as well as many patient discharge summaries to top it all off.

It's already Friday now, which means week 1 is done. I've got 2 weeks of Derm left - which hopefully isn't as maddening as this one, fingers crossed.

To be fair, it's tough for everyone, including the hospital's education coordinators. We're all navigating these unprecedented times together, and we're all just as equally confused and uncertain.

✍️ Article: Fasting vs Caloric Restriction - Which Is Better For Fat Loss?

Actually, I did not publish a new article this week. I wrote the weekend off to help out with a friend's charity project and spent the scant hours of free time on Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning and my ANKI flashcards.

I published this article on July, and it has since raked over 10k reads. The contention is very understandable, as calorie-wise, there should be no difference between the two. In this article, I provide scientific evidence to contrast between these two dieting tactics and reveal which one deserves the crown.

Click here to read more

📖 Quote of the Week

"We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good?"

From The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday. Resurfaced via Readwise.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

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Have a blast of a week! 🦾

John