Book · Design
The Design of Everyday Things
Don Norman
Still the cleanest argument that the interface is a model of human error, not decoration.
03 / Studio
A designed environment, not a second résumé.
Work is systems. Home is also systems: animals, a balcony garden, a bike, and a shelf that keeps changing what I notice. This is the room around the work.
A week
Faridabad mornings start outside when they can — water the balcony, a short ride, then a reading block before the first call. The rest of the week is remote product work; the garden and the animals are the operating system that is not on a laptop.
Library
A working shelf — books, essays, podcasts, and a few objects that changed how I work or live. Replace as the shelf changes.
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Book · Build & product
Thinking in Systems
Donella Meadows
The book I hand people who want more screens. Leverage points beat more artefacts.
Book · Design
The Timeless Way of Building
Christopher Alexander
Pattern language as a way of seeing. Useful far beyond architecture.
Book · Productivity · Currently reading
Deep Work
Cal Newport
Not a productivity hack shelf. A reminder that attention is the scarce material.
Book · Self-awareness
Four Thousand Weeks
Oliver Burkeman
Finite time, without the optimisation theatre. Keeps the garden and the job in one life.
Book · AI
The Intelligence Illusion
Baldur Bjarnason
A useful counterweight when AI products start sounding more intelligent than they are.
Article · Design
Stop designing screens. Start designing decisions.
Raghvendra Singh
My own field note — the library should include the argument I actually use at work.
Article · Build & product
A design team does not need more meetings. It needs a critique system.
Raghvendra Singh
How judgment becomes a practice, not a calendar event.
Article · AI
AI products do not earn trust by sounding intelligent.
Raghvendra Singh
Trust is a product surface. This is the public version of that argument.
Article · Productivity
How to Do Great Work
Paul Graham
A long essay I return to when the work gets noisy. Curiosity over performance.
Podcast · Design
99% Invisible
Roman Mars
The show that treats infrastructure as a story. Listening while watering plants is allowed.
Podcast · Build & product
Lenny's Podcast
Lenny Rachitsky
Practitioners talking about the actual job, not the slide version of it.
Podcast · Self-awareness
On Being
Krista Tippett
Slower conversations. Useful on a long ride when the week has been only delivery.
Podcast · AI
Practical AI
Changelog
Keeps the AI conversation in the realm of what can actually be shipped.
Tool · Lifestyle & fashion
Muji notebooks
Muji
Grid, no theatre. The same reason the site uses a Swiss page.
Tool · Tech & workspace
A quiet mechanical keyboard
Desk
If the tool is loud, the thinking gets loud. Prefer keys that disappear.
Tool · Tech & workspace
Bicycle lights and a simple lock
Kit
The unglamorous stack that makes the ride happen on a work morning.
Tool · Lifestyle & fashion
Good indoor shoes, one decent jacket
Wardrobe
Fewer pieces, better materials. Fashion as maintenance, not a feed.
Things I keep alive
A dog, a cat, fish, birds, and a small garden on the balcony and the outside strip. Care is a daily cadence, not a weekend project. It is the same muscle as product work: notice, adjust, do not abandon the living system.
This household also includes my parents. They are not a gallery. They are why the house is a house.
Dog
The one who decides when the day actually starts.
Cat
Independent operations. Supervises the desk.
Fish
A quiet tank. Water quality is a product spec.
Birds
Sound in the apartment when the city is loud.
Garden
- Balcony herbs and greens
- A few flowering pots that have to survive Faridabad summers
- Outside-strip plants that get the leftover attention after the ride
Cadence, not trophies
I cycle because it clears the queue in my head before I design anything. Sport is the same idea at a different intensity: a body that is not only sitting in Figma. No Strava theatre here — just a bike, a route, and the habit of going out.
Objects
What stays on the table, in the kit, or by the plants. Not a store.
Analog
Notebook and pens
Decisions get written before they get slides. The sketchbook is the first system, not a prop.
Workspace
Desk machines
One primary machine for making. Secondary screens only when the work actually needs them.
Motion
Bike
The commute that is not a commute. Kit stays simple so leaving the house is not a project.
Garden
Watering can
The most honest tool in the house. If it is dry, the system failed.
The classroom is a lab
Teaching design and AI is not a side lecture. It is another place to test methods, frameworks, and judgment — the same questions as a critique, with different stakes. The notes live on Knowledge.
Work with Singh