2025 Week Notes

Collection of weekly reflection in 2025 covering tech notes, business insights, homeschooling milestones, and spiritual growth.

# Week 20 (2025-05-17)

  • Glad for the ceasefire. While many questions remain unanswered, I’m relieved this chaos has paused, if not stopped.
  • Wrote 20 more meditations for In the World, Led by the Word: Daily Devotions for Founders, Leaders & Executives.
  • Celebrated another trip around the sun with a new Amazfit Balance as a gift.
  • Swam 40 laps (25 meters each) on the last day before a break—pool’s getting crowded with summer holidays.
  • Sunday outing at Pirates of Grill; loved the Fish in Lemon Butter Sauce.
  • Began teaching "data" to kids as part of homeschool curriculum.
  • Blogged Should You Read Business Books? as reply to a HackerNews thread. It became to read post this week.
  • Preached Between the Promise and the Possession

# Week 19 (2025-05-10)

  • We are experiencing complete blackouts every evening from 7 pm due to the ongoing war with Pakistan. It's a scary discussion with the kids, educating them about the reasons and what to do. There are no power cuts, but markets are closed and roads are deserted. First COVID, and now this.
  • Watched the movie Conclave. Superbly directed. Loved it.
  • Created my digital store in lemonsqueezy: https://store.jjude.com
  • This week's Sunday out: Café Nomad; We had kebse, hummus with meat, and baklava with ice cream. Delicious. Loved it.
  • Attended a NASSCOM virtual session on crisis management and business continuity planning for these times. Lots of useful tips, but now comes the hard task of putting them into practice.
  • Published What Are AI Primitives? — I enjoyed thinking it through and writing it.
  • Registered Josh for the Model UN Program at Chitkara University, but later they said they don't accept any homeschool kids. Too bad.

# Week 18 (2025-05-03)

  • Josh swam 43 laps (25m, breaststroke). Just a month ago he was in the hospital with low SPO2 from the flu. Wild how fast he bounced back.
  • Finished writing the first 30 meditations for "In the World, Led by the Word" – daily devotions for founders and execs. When I get into focus + flow mode, I can get a lot done in a week. But it’s mentally draining to focus only on one thing. You can check it out as a PDF. Used Texifier to convert from markdown.
  • Finally bought a new dining table and sofa. We’re updating furniture in about 10 years.
  • Last Sunday was amazing. Got 7.5 hours of solid sleep (score: 94!). Went for a jog, tested my VO2 max with the Gabit ring—scored 44, which is apparently excellent for my age. Ended the day playing driver-uncle on a youth trip where Jerry gave his first sermon.

# Week 17 (2025-04-26)

  • Highlight of the week: I swam multiple 25-meter laps in all four styles! Considering I almost drowned when I was 12, it feels amazing to be able to swim like this now. Definitely a feel-good moment for an old man.
  • Bonus: we swim as a family! Honestly, what’s better than Family + Fitness + Fun = real wealth, right?
  • Preached on How the resurrection of Jesus challenges us
  • Got back into networking this week. Had a great chat with a good friend from the UK about his business and how both of us are adapting in the AI era. Also met two techies at Cafe Nomad—we ended up diving into GenAI, product architecture, and the art of debugging complex codebases. Really fulfilling conversations.
  • On the work front, I’m now regularly presenting to CEOs of big companies and heads of partnerships at major product firms. Not gonna lie, it’s scary and I do get anxious—but I’m pushing through because that’s how growth happens.

# Week 16 (2025-04-19)

  • We returned back from Bangalore. If you're at the airport, don’t miss the delicious thali at Tiffin Express—it’s reasonably priced too. Be sure to get it from the main restaurant, not the quick-service counters.
  • We've resumed our daily swims, and everyone is enjoying their time in the water. The boys have even started training with a coach to learn diving and the butterfly stroke.
  • Gabit ring doesn't track swimming; but when I add a workout manually it tracks other parameters like heart rate, body temperature etc.
  • Cleaned up ChatGPT memories.
  • Posted Why I believe
  • Watched The Hurt Locker. Maybe it was groundbreaking 20 years ago, but after seeing so many similar films since then, it didn’t feel as impressive compared to some of the others I’ve watched.

# Week 15 (2025-04-12)

  • In Bangalore with family since it's my niece's holiday week. Last time when the kids were together, they couldn't spend much time together since Josh fell sick. Since my bosses went on a US/UK roadshow, I would've worked from home all the time anyway, so I decided to work from Bangalore.
  • Sister gifted me a Gabit smart ring. It's so relieving that I don't have to charge it every day and I don't have to wear something bulky on my wrist. Still getting used to the different metrics though.
  • She also gifted me a Freestyle Libre Glucose Monitor. Though I don't have diabetes, I wanted to understand how glucose spikes after meals. Been using it for a few days and I understand, to a certain extent, how it works.
  • Attended Sunday service at FGAG church in Bangalore. I've heard of this church and watched it on YouTube. Glad to attend in person for the first time. The sermon was about sharing the gospel in a practical way. Loved it.
  • Met three of my college-mates for lunch. Since we studied in a residential hostel for four years, we developed strong bonds beyond the classrooms. So it's always fun to meet and chat.
  • Later in the evening, I met some members of the Gravitas WINS community. Most of the discussion was around Trump's tariffs and GenAI.
  • On Thursday, we left for Chikmagalur. We stayed at Java Rain Resorts. It's a luxurious resort.
  • We trekked to Mullayyanagiri peak and later drove to Baba Budangiri. We couldn't go all the way up to the Mullayyanagiri peak since there was road construction (later we heard that the route was closed from the next day).
  • But most other times, we stayed at the resort itself — taking rest and chatting as a family.
  • On the way back to Bangalore, we stopped at Hoysaleswara Temple. I never get tired of Indian architecture. We seem to have lost that capability.
  • Later we stopped for lunch at Hoysala Village Resorts. They had a variety of regional sweets. I had so many that my glucose levels took five hours to come back to normal.
  • Met with Mahendran. His elder son has joined BBA course in St. Joseph's college. He has sparked an idea about Josh's college course. Collecting more details other similar colleges too.

# Week 14 (2025-04-05)

  • As part of homeschooling, taught wild & tame problems & cynefin framework to boys. They blogged about them. Here is Jerry's, and here is Josh's.
  • Posted Tech as a Sales Multiplier Season. After so many iteration, have come to this title and I love it. Now I need to get feedback and see how I can turn this into reality.
  • #insights Why distribution matters: As of 2024, Teams has run away with 320M active users vs Slack's 38M daily (65M monthly) users.
  • In Bangalore for about two weeks.
  • Posted I'm a war horse on LinkedIn. The "war horse" metaphor seems to resonate with many. A G Danish extended the metaphor in his post "War horse or show horse".

# Week 13 (2025-03-29)

  • Delivered Three Types of Storms in Christian Lives; shared with many christian friends and almost everyone resonated with it. I talked from my personal experience.
  • Implemented "lite youtube plugin" for this site by following the tutorial from Deepak.
  • Delivered "Fall in love with problems" as part of faculty development program at Chandigarh Group of Colleges. Loved preparing for it and even delivering it.
  • Thinking of restarting podcast but for a season focusing on "tech driven sales". Researching about topics, types of guests and so on.
  • Using chatgpt more and more for everything at work: creating quick architecture diagrams for lead calls, creating proposal ideas, and so on. The more I use chatgpt it stores the context in memories and the responses are becoming relevant.
  • Started learning Data Warehouse Fundamentals course.
  • Hosted AI for product differentiation webinar. Getting better at hosting live webinars. But there is still a lot of improvements to make.
  • Got an award for completing 10 years at work.

# Week 12 (2025-03-22)

  • Josh was discharged on Tuesday. Since I had a meeting at the office, I returned on Monday, while wife and Josh came back on Thursday. I can't recall ever waiting so anxiously for anything as I did for their return.
  • Jerry helped me so much. He became default chef — making tea often, dosa for breakfast, and so on. Happy about it.
  • Pastor & family took care of us with dinner.
  • Went to a photography exhibition along with Jerry. It was an evening to refresh my tired soul.

# Lessons

  • You truly recognize your friends when you're in trouble. If you've stood by your friends in their joyful moments, you'll find support when you need it most. Often, the help may not come from the same friends you once assisted, but there will always be friends who step up to support you in your time of need.

# Week 11 (2025-03-15)

  • Went home for first year death anniversary of mother
  • Josh got so sick that we had to rush to emergency.
  • Spent the weekend in hospital
  • Already was so sad and disturbed from going to the grave and remembering everything about ma. Now this.

# Week 10 (2025-03-08)

  • After I got better, kids and wife got sick. Josh's platelet count is 127000 (mildly lower than required).
  • When everything goes fine, you don't realize all the good things. When things don't go well (sickness, financial difficulties), you realize how much these can affect you psychologically and how much it can affect other areas of life
  • I managed to be a host of a live webinar on Data-Driven Personalization 101.

# Week 9 (2025-03-01)

  • Biggest win of the week: Developing Read To Reflect in about 20 hours across three days in something like a self-hackathon
  • Finished an introductory course on Shopify
  • Fell sick; age is catching up, even if I don't feel it.

# Week 8 (2025-02-22)

  • Started reading Write useful books. Recommend it even if you only blog.
  • Very tiring week - juggling between marketing, sales, delivery tires me cognitively
  • Since winter has come to an end, started meeting people again. I like meeting people one-to-one.
  • Had an interesting conversation on chaotic thinking and linear writing. I might publish my thoughts soon.
  • Published I'm a war horse
  • Oren Ellenbogen included Power of a Morning Routine in his "Software Lead Weekly"
  • Josh got his Trinity Grade 2 certificate.
  • Josh completed HTML / CSS course via coursera.

# Blog stats

  • Y-T: 6569; 30 days pv: 5236 📈; 7 days pv: 1155 📈

# Week 7 (2025-02-15)

# GenAI Insights

# Blog stats

  • Y-T: 5351; 30 days pv: 4441 📈; 7 days pv: 857 📉
  • I didn't do much of promotions; been focusing on talks, internal training, and sales calls.

# Week 6 (2025-02-08)

Everyone liked your both sessions; We received overwhelming response in feedback for your sessions

Its inspiring the way you conduct the session and I always learn from you.
We thought there wouldn't be much for non tech teams. But it was an interactive session, and the exercise for next week has added a new energy and enthusiasm in the team.

Overall a positive week.

# Blog stats

  • Y-T: 4416; 30 days pv: 3936 📈; 7 days pv: 1337 📈
  • wanted to get to 30k blog traffic (last year was ≅15k); seems like I'm on a good start.

# Week 5 (2025-02-01)

# Blog stats

# Week 4 (2025-01-25)

# Insights

  • Grok2 generates much better images than ChatGPT
  • LLMs assist you in getting started—whether a blog post or a coding project—allowing you to validate ideas. From there, you can focus on producing higher-quality, more advanced work.
  • Deepseek releasing a cheap, open source model reinforces the age-old adage: it is better to sell shovels in a gold rush.

# Blog stats

  • Y-T: 1575; 30 days pv: 1849 📈; 7 days pv: 481 📈

# Week 3 (2025-01-18)

# Insights

  • BlueSky has a single RN codebase that powers web, native iOS, and native android apps
  • The word "secular" has 2 meanings: pertaining to the world; belonging to a long period
  • It is time to create a GenAI division in companies

# Blog stats

  • Y-T: 1041; 30 days pv: 1686 📈; 7 days pv: 357 📉

# Week 2 (2025-01-11)

# GenAI Insights

# Homeschooling

As part of homeschooling, today (11th) my boys had a essay writing challenge. They aced it.

They had to research, validate facts, write an essay, post it on their blog, and critique the sibling's essay, and post on their social media. The essay was: "The role of software in taking man to the moon".

They took help of my sister (who writes plenty of research papers and hold more than a dozen patents) in understanding the research process, taking notes, writing essay.

Today in about 3 hours they wrote the essay, posted on their blog, and critiqued the other one's essay.

Here are the links:
• The elder one's essay: https://blog.joshgarrett.xyz/the-role-of-software-in-sending-man-into-the-moon/
• The younger one's essay: https://blog.jerrygarrett.xyz/the-role-of-software-to-get-man-to-the-moon/
• Elder's critique: https://bsky.app/profile/joshgarrett.xyz/post/3lfhb5ocxjc22
• Younger's critique: https://mas.to/@jerryg/113808788373581982

# Blog stats

  • 30 days pv: 1524; 7 days pv: 391

# Week 1 (2025-01-04)

Promise of the year:

May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised! - Deuteronomy‬ ‭1‬:‭11‬

  • A wonderful start of the year: started the day in church; worked on my blog; went out with family for lunch; attended a tax planning session. Glad to start the year with momentum.
  • published If I play good cricket, I don't need PR, Embrace GenAI, Anantya Resorts By The Lake, GenAI Prompts
  • Integrated Plausible API with 11ty. If you go to homepage, you can see the popular and trending posts
  • Implemented search. Goto posts, and you will see a search bar
  • Implemented Obsidian callouts. If you go to GenAI Prompts, you'll see it in action
  • 11ty + obsidian + windsurf is so addictive & makes me so productive
  • NMDC's 2:1 bonus issue has made it my largest holding.

# What didn't go so well

  • Downloaded msty, gpt4all and tried using them to generate a twitter thread out of blog posts. The output was so bad. Didn't make any sense at. When I tried the same with windsurf or chatgpt the output was far better. Don't know what I'm doing wrong.
  • Tried running open webui via docker but I couldn't get it run at all. May be I should try via a different method.
  • Wanted to implement webmention. But dropped inbetween since it seems too many hoops with not much benefits

# Blog stats

  • 30 days pv: 1345; 7 days pv: 355
Published On:
Under: #retro , #insights