17 May, 2026 and now, 18th May.
Starbucks
So, after Claude wrote the first draft, I realised, I still had to put in effort. A lot of effort at that. So, I think I should give the final doc to Claude to learn how I actually write.
Anyhow. The weekly review.
The week gone by took me to Colombo. And for a change I tried to live the influencer life by posting pictures / videos of my time there. I was hyper active on Instagram and I posted many photos and videos. And no, I didn’t enjoy it.
Reaffirmed that the influencer life is not for me.
The other thing that got reaffirmed is, even in a city like Colombo (more on Colombo in a bit), is that I want to live in a city that’s walkable. In India, I cant think of a single city that you can walk without stumbling upon broken footpaths (if they exist in the first place), hawkers, traffic and random construction work. Even in global cities that have a very high population density, I’ve not had to encounter what I navigate in India! The “call” to move out is stronger than ever. Come on, universe!
Oh, the track of the week is this version of Ye Tune Kya Kia…
I am told that this is AI but I dont know. What do you think?
The other honorary mention is this track. This one’s a blast from the past but I am glad that I rediscovered this.
With that, let’s go!
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Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the week gone by.
As always, in no order…
1/ Colombo
Spent four days in Colombo.
Most of it was scoping a potential project.
Met some new people.
Met a classmate from MDI.
Met a young person who runs a community piece in Sri Lanka.
Overall, was interesting. People are warm, things work (not the internet though) and I was lucky to be there when it was raining and weather was pleasant.
The best part, walked about 8K steps on average without trying. Like I said in the beginning of this post, I really would like to be in city where I can walk.
So, is this a city where I see myself move?
No.
Dont get me wrong. People are nice. They are polite. They speak enough English. There is old-world Brit charm, the kinds you see in Delhi and Kolkatta and all. Things work. There’s good food. Felt safe. There are some interesting things to do. But not for me.
Would I want to go back?
I am not sure.
Is it a one-time see?
Not sure.
If you have the money and time, rather go to other places. At best, Colombo is a checkmark on the world map (been here earlier as well).
PS: The only large negative about Colombo? Well their Internet sucks. I was on a roaming plan with Dialog and despite my best attempts I couldnt get good connection. And Vodafone India on roaming, well, it sucks so bad that it’s not funny.
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2/ Claude Use Cases – Cold Calling, Leads, Content
Many things in this one.
a, I showed off my prowess with Claude to Krishna and showed him how to build a cold-calling engine. It’s not an agent per se yet (I will make it into one) but it does the job of scouting for leads for a tech product that Krishna wants to send. It identifies the potential companies. It filters people that we want to reach out to. And them composes an email to them. Saves that in your drafts folder. Again, a great thing.
b, I then showed Claude to another friend who’s a VC helped him setup his outreach for his outreach. He wants to talk to folks who’ve raised their series A and support them with outcomes.
c, And then I helped a friend scout for jobs. See this post. Again using co-work and wow!
It struck me how few people in my immediate ring have actually seen this stuff in flight. People know Claude exists. Few know what it does at the limit. The demo itself is the unlock.
Damn the powers of Claude.
I wish I discovered Claude when I was younger!
In fact, if you are a young person and you are NOT on Claude (or any other AI tool), well…
Oh, while we are at it, I have an important submission to make as well.
I think I am addict to this AI-productivity porn. I wake up with my Claude. I sleep with my Claude. And I think I am in the middle of a loneliness disease caused by this excessive use of AI. I am not talking to people when I can. I use search as the starting point to even think (earlier, I would be the sparring partner). I wrote about it here. And I mean to implement the suggestions as well. See this chart as well…
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3/ The Ghostwriting Project
For the uninitiated, I am in the middle of a ghostwriting project. I am helping a senior leader write a book. More experiences, less biographical, the book is to help other people learn leadership principles from this gent.
As of today, the first draft of the book is ready. And people are reviewing it. Some reviews have started to come in and I am glad to report that most of those are positive. So, yay!
On this project, I used a different methodology to ship things. I used a lot of voice notes, async conversations (the gent I am writing for is busier than most heads of states), transcription. I didnt lean onto public sources as much (this one didnt need me to) and then wrote multiple iterations before shipping it.
And since this is done, I want to scout for the next writing project. Help me with it? More details are on sgwashere.com.
PS: note to self and to my AI agent. Add #todo to build an engine to reach out to potential clients for sgwashere.com
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4/ 56 Hours
The update on 56 Hours is that I wrote nothing new. Lol!
However, I took help from Naman to visualise it.
Here’s a sneak peak into how another character looks like.
Oh, I am gonna use the next two weeks to focus hard on writing. I will not pick up any “work” apart from whatever is absolutely necessary. I will ensure that I build 56 Hours into a sharable piece. Most likely, a film script. And if I fail at it, a book for sure.
And when I am bored of it, I will work on Caravan Serai. That’s been open for ages!
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5/ Cash Mode, Eco Mode
Two related experiments this week, both on money.
A/ I committed to a month-long cash-only experiment.
₹20,000 in physical notes, tracked daily on an Expenses app. And despite my aversion for friction of keeping cash. Today (monday) is day 1 and I am as hassled as you can imagine someone to be.
Unrelated, I will also be on a Nokia phone for this week. Starting today.
B/ Eco Mode.
I’ve spoken about it and I think I am gonna activate that. Today on, I will stop making any unnecessary expenses.
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6/ Rejection Stings
If I could have an alter identity / biography, I would say that I am a professional Rejection Chaser. I’ve got myself rejected so many times that it’s not funny. And yet I continue to send cold emails and texts. And yet I continue to think of things and find ways to building grand visions and getting shut out.
And yet, each time I am rejected… I feel odd and weird and bad.
And these rejections could be from anything. A potential client, a crush, a waiter refusing to serve me, a rick refusing to ply me.
And I am at the funny space where I want to be stoic and not let anything impact me or affect me. And yet on the other side, I get mindfucked each time I am rejected.
I dont know a way out. If you have any, please lemme know.
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7/ The ability to live in ambiguity
This is one of the greatest epiphanies of this year. That your ability to survive and operate in ambiguity is one of the greatest flags for your character. I have a strong opinion (loosely held) that people who grow up in safety, structure, predictability grow up to be weak people. Their brains get trained in a manner that operates from a higher level in Maslow’s hierarchy. So while they can think of large things that go beyond self, they can’t operate when left without the basics.
A case in point?
Young people and their sense of direction. I want to make a bet that the average young person today can not navigate the city they live in without Google Maps. They will not know what is North and what is South. And how to use that information.
Remember that chart of hard times and strong people? See this…
Now extrapolate this to people who grow up in good times. They expect things to work. And they operate in certainty. And thus they would not know when the tide turns.
So that.
I am lucky that I grew up in the events business and that taught me how to operate in ambiguity. And I wish each person I get to work with has had to live an ambiguous life. I often think of that Chinese proverb, may you live in “interesting” times.
I wish all of us interesting times hereon. And in case you want the taste of interesting times, see how you operate / react if you dont have internet for a day. And this means, no mobile, no netflix, no swiggy, no nothing!
Game?
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8/ Other things worth noting
- Saw Will Trent on the flight to Colombo. Loved it. To a point am gonna go binge on it.
- Sreemita is here. I love that I have another young person to give gyaan to.
- At a whim, I decided that I will want to re-learn Uke / Guitar. I know am not good at it. I know I cant practise. I know its not for me. But I still want it. Such fickleness. Sigh.
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📷 Photos from the week gone by
Stopped this a few weeks ago. As always, in case you want to get photos from me, DM me.
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📈 Trackers…
1/ Here’s my weekly one…
I dont know if it was a good week or bad. I didnt track. Lol! But I can vouch that I was in ok mood mostly. What do you see?
2/ Here’s the summary…
Some good numbers on this – Average mood, YT lives, screen time (I had imagined this would be more).
Must figure the workout thing.
So that!
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✅ Action on LARGE objectives for the year
In this section, I will capture my progress on large objectives for the year.
In 2026, I plan to do the following three things…
- Book2
- Human Flag Pole
- Save a million dollars
Book2 — Caravan Serai. Not touched this week. End of May draft is still the target. I did nothing in the week gone by. And if I can get the first draft ready by end of May, I will reward myself with a trip to Singapore to meet M&m.
Human Flag Pole — no action.
Save a million dollars — no action.
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📌 So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?
This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.
So, this year, I want to track the following…
- Health. Sleep, food, movement. Bad. Many weeks running.
- C4E / Work. Pick a thing to apply myself to. No action. I had taken the decision to try events and Claude enabled action but I havent taken action.
- Brand SG / Distribution. No large movement this week.
- People. Some action.
- Book2. Nothing this week.
- Shauk. Saw a couple of live shows (one of them by Tanzila). Still no action on poker 🙁
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🏃➡️ Health
I added Health as a key section last year. I read somewhere that you need 4 things to live long — sleep, exercise, diet and community. I will track all four. And then some more variables that I feel are important to me.
No large actions.
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⏲️ Reminders from last few days
This section captures things that I want to not forget. Ofc, I’ve used Claude to build an entire system. This is how it looks like…
I will work more on this and make a sharper version.
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🗓️ So, one thing that defines the past week?
Flow.
I didnt do anything else but went with the flow.
The other words for this year have been: Excitement, Embarrassment, Blur, Whiling, Movement, Blur, Activity, Movement, Regular (again), Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime.
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Phew!
Lemme know what you think.
See you around.
Oh, and this too shall pass!
PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. Previous editions from 2026 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (missed these three), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
PPS: Please do point typos.
PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.
PPPPS: This one was again written by Claude and edited heavily by me. This one was not as good tbh.