Week 26

Here’s another weeknote, exactly after another week!

• This week was a first-time for me at work — I spent more time writing and reading than designing. I wrote a bit on learnings from working LLMs in the last ~9 months for Obvious University. Here’s the one about building with LLMs (for ze PMs thinking about implementing AI features), and here’s the one about crafting LLM experiences (for ze product designers). For reading, I devoured everything by Maggie Appleton, Every.to, and a bit of Mia Blume.
• I continued tinkering on the OpenAI Playground for this Figma Plugin idea I’m working on. This week’s learning is that prompt chaining is significantly better than a single prompt. On my way to figure out prompt chaining, I was also intercepted by Google’s foobar challenge. It was funny to experience as a product designer. I will absolutely never be re-visiting data structures and algorithms.
• I didn’t miss a single workout session this week, despite how poor my sleep had been (anyone got solutions to dealing with a blocked nose as soon as their head hits the pillow?). I did reschedule one session, but I didn’t skip it. I’m going to attempt another 5K tomorrow.
• The plants are doing well. The spider grass continues to produce plantlets. I’ve been binge-watching Benji’s plant videos and I’m very inspired. I’d also taken a cutting of a Purple Tradescantia a week ago. The propagation is doing well, but the roots have some fuzz on them. I was worried it was rot or fungus initially but after some extensive (single) Google search, I figured that was normal. It does look strange though. I’m also on the fence about non-green plants. Something about them doesn’t feel right. Almost alien. I also have a new bud on my wild grass, so that’s nice.
• I’ve been re-watching Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1, before I can start watching the new releases. I’ve really missed the intense emotions and absurd humour of anime. Maybe I should only watch anime for a year now. I don’t think I find it as addictive as I did when I was 16. But I enjoy it just as much.
• I’ve been working on building my understanding, and intuition for product strategy, and I’ve been enjoying the Acquired podcast. I actually started out listening to their Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version) episode, and I’ve been hooked because of how well they do storytelling.