2026-03-23 19:03:00
A few years ago, I had a workflow for photos that I dreaded.
I love keeping my memories organized. But every few months, I’d sit down to sort through a massive backlog – hundreds of photos, videos to label, memories to organize. The task had inevitably grown so large it felt like a punishment. I’d put it off, which made it worse, which made me put it off more.
Then I changed one thing. Every weekend, clear the week’s backlog. That’s it.
The same task became something I actually looked forward to. A few minutes of looking at the best moments from the week, processing memories while they’re still fresh. It made for a lovely change.
I thought about this recently because I had the same problem with ironing. A pile would build up over a month, sometimes longer. Getting a steam iron didn’t help – it just meant the same painful backlog, slightly faster. So I finally applied the same fix. Every week, clear the backlog.
A few weeks in, it’s already transformed how I feel about ironing. I don’t even think about it anymore.
My late grandfather had a saying in my mother tongue – “Madiyan mala chomakkum.” It means – “the lazy person will carry the mountain.” Because when you avoid the work, the mountain keeps growing.
Carry it a few rocks at a time, and it never becomes a mountain at all.
It never gets old.
2026-03-22 19:06:00
Imagine something happened today that didn’t go the way you wanted. Or the way you’d expected it to go. Maybe it was a decision you made that didn’t work out. Or a decision somebody else made that impacted you. Your choice, your circumstance.
We have a range of reactions we can reach for. They range from curiosity on one side to frustration and anger on the other. We all have defaults.
But as we accumulate wisdom, the most worthy defaults are those that swing the dial to the side of curiosity.
As I was mulling this idea after a few experiences recently, I realized this is just another way of articulating the idea of a learner mindset versus a judger mindset – from Marilee Adams’ book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life.
It comes down to whether we habitually ask ourselves and others learning questions or judging questions.
And whether we do it when things are not going our way.
Especially when things are not going our way.
2026-03-21 19:22:00
An investigation into Meta’s AI Smart Glasses by two of Sweden’s most established newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten took them to Kenya where Meta’s data annotation partner Sama employs human data annotators. These workers help make the glasses “smart” by annotate/label the various images users see.
As part of this job, the annotators get a window into the lives of the wearers – except sometimes the window is much more revealing than the glass wearer might realize.
“I saw a video where a man puts the glasses on the bedside table and leaves the room. Shortly afterwards his wife comes in and changes her clothes”, one of them says.
“Someone may have been walking around with the glasses, or happened to be wearing them, and then the person’s partner was in the bathroom, or they had just come out naked”, an employee says.
“There are also sex scenes filmed with the smart glasses – someone is wearing them having sex. That is why this is so extremely sensitive. There are cameras everywhere in our office, and you are not allowed to bring your own phones or any device that can record”, an employee says.
One annotator sums it up: “You think that if they knew about the extent of the data collection, no one would dare to use the glasses”.
There’s a cost to smart glasses getting smarter. It helps to be thoughtful as to when we’re comfortable for our data to be training data.
2026-03-20 19:15:00
There’s nothing good that an “um” or a “like” adds to a sentence. Beyond making you sound less thoughtful.
I’ve known this for a while. Gone through phases where things got better. Then regressed.
But this is one of the projects I want to go after now. Sixth time (given at least five recorded attempts from the past) is a charm.
No new insight here. No clever framework. Just the recognition that it’s time to try again – and that the right system for me is simple: frequent check-ins and daily reminders.
Let’s see where it goes.
2026-03-19 19:42:00
In 2015, two geographers noticed solar panels popping up on houses in their small US state of Connecticut. Curious, they set out to see if they could figure out what predicted who had them. Would they be in richer homes? Or in areas with higher population density?
Early adopters of solar panels tend to be people who are interested in innovative technology, who find an installer they trust, and who think having solar panels will benefit them.
But once an early adopter made their choice, the geographers found, a cluster would spring up around them. Having solar panels on a house near you, where you could see them and talk to a real live person who had them, it turned out, was the biggest predictor of whether you’d get them yourself.
Soon the Connecticut study was being replicated – in Sweden, in China, and in Germany, where they actually put a number on it. Rooftop solar installations were most influential, they found, on neighbors who lived within one kilometer (source: TED ideas).
The truth, of course, is this applies well beyond installing solar panels. Solar panels are just physical manifestations of the proximity principle.
People who prioritize their health are more likely to have friends who prioritize their health. And so on.
We become like the people we choose to be around.
2026-03-18 19:02:00
At the end of every round trip around the sun, I write a summary of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt. They’re like software release notes and this is version 37. As I think of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt, I look for the biggest ways I’ve changed how I operate. To learn and not to do is not to learn after all.
On the face of it, this past year had a lot going on.
The craft of product management changed completely thanks to Large Language Models – both in what we build and how we build. I spent much of the year learning the new “what,” shipping two products that rank among the most meaningful of my career. I went through a full career exploration and made a significant change. Health stayed a high priority – walking more, eating better, being more thoughtful about what I put into my body and when. I made progress on some significant learning projects with my kids. And late in the year, I made a commitment to be the most patient version of myself with my wife – realizing, only 13 and a half years after marriage, that I’d had my priorities backward. Better late than never.
Any one of those could make for a significant year. All of them happened in the same twelve months. And of course, interspersed were all the expected fumbles, stumbles, and downs that are part of the day to day.
But when I look underneath all of what went well, there’s just one foundation – learning how to learn.
In every single case, the same process played out.
First, get clear on what I’m solving for – block out the noise, identify the real priority.
Second, break the goal into smaller commitments and make progress in daily increments, sometimes weekly.
Third, check in every week without fail. When setbacks inevitably come – and they always do – tune out the noise, focus on what I control, change what I need to, and recommit.
That’s it. That’s the whole system.
This blog started nearly 19 years ago from a simple realization – I needed to become a learning-focused person. I wasn’t one. And 19 years of daily writing later, I’m only now beginning to appreciate just how much learning how to learn changes a life.
I think it is the foundation of a life with agency. When you commit to learning in small, daily increments, the benefits compound in ways you simply cannot see when you start. You build proficiency through practice. You build insight through reflection. And slowly – thread by thin thread – you build the kind of quiet unshakeable confidence that flows from insight and proficiency.
Perhaps most importantly, you start to see yourself as someone who can make and keep commitments – the foundation of integrity. The kind that makes you a person of value to the people around you.
19 years in. Still learning that learning follows pain and that the obstacle is the way.
Still a beginner (maybe always a beginner?).
But finally, hopefully, learning how to learn.
(past birthday notes/version updates :) – 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23)
