A simple check I use: if I imagine myself a year from now, will I wish I had stopped doing this sooner?

Arpit Bhayani

Arpit Bhayani

Dec 01, 2025 • 1 min read


A simple check I use: if I imagine myself a year from now, will I wish I had stopped doing this sooner? If the answer shows up immediately, that’s a sign.

Maybe it is a side project you have been dragging around, or a job you already know you’re done with. Sometimes it’s a habit that drains you more than it gives back, or people you keep saying yes to out of routine instead of choice.

Your time is the one thing you can’t get back. Do not put it into something you know would go nowhere, or into something that is draining you for no reason. It is ok to drop commitments that do not fit who you are trying to become.

Put that energy into what will still matter (to you) a year from now - the work you actually care about, the skills you want to have, and the people you want to keep close.

In the end, it’s all about minimizing regrets.

Arpit Bhayani

Principal Engineer II at Razorpay - building Agent Studio, Ex-staff engg at GCP Memorystore & Dataproc, Creator of DiceDB, ex-Amazon Fast Data, ex-Director of Engg. SRE and Data Engineering at Unacademy. I spark engineering curiosity through my no-fluff engineering videos on YouTube and my courses