My last long-running weekly newsletter was named The Friday Newsletter (TFN). On February 7th, 2025 I sunset it to focus on growing my firm.
You can check out the full newsletter archive at the bottom of this page.
And what about writing?
I shifted to publishing Sisyphus Notes. Unlike The Friday Newsletter, these notes do not follow any weekly or monthly goals.
TFN Archive
The full archive of all letters sent under The Friday Newsletter.
đȘ(Part-2/2) Increasing the surface area of luck
I love science. Iâm sure youâd have noticed that. So, whether you love science, you have to listen to this incredible thing. Our digestive organâsmall intestine is 3-5 meters long, with a diameter of a mere 2-3 cm. Thatâs like a normal PVC water pipe in our home. Thatâs not...
TFN#80: đȘ(Part-1/2) Why focusing on upskilling may be dangerous to your career?
Reader, donât get me wrong. Iâm a believer and practitioner of life-long learning. In this two-part letter, Iâm talking about âupskillingââit is far from âlearningâ. Itâs a deceptive term. So, I hope I donât confuse you by mixing the two. Now thatâs out of our way, we can focus on...
TFN#79: đȘBetter Zoom meetings, heart-to-heart
I used to detest the âkeep your video onâ dictum often thrown during Zoom meets four years back. It left a bad taste. You may feel my anguish and contempt for mass Zoom meetings in WFH: How much worth from home? article that I penned down two weeks into covid...
TFN#78: đȘRules to work by: Manual first, automatic later
Most things in our lives are now automatic: We donât go fetch water, it automatically reaches us. We donât need to generate electricity, it reaches us. We donât need to assemble blocks to print on paper, the laser printer just prints it. And oh, manual printing reminds me of these...
TFN#77: đȘ(Part-2/2) Deep clean your PC: Bleaching
Hi Reader, Howâs your Diwali week progressing? I hope you had a good one. Wishing you a happy Diwali week. Today, I wonât take long. Because Iâve got to be somewhere and youâve got to relax. I hope you began cleaning your PC as per last weekâs conversation. It is...
TFN#76: đȘ(Part-1/2) Deep clean your PC: Find out heavy files and folders
Since my childhood, the Diwali season has been the season of cleaning. Itâs like the Spring season. Every corner of the home should look new, dusted, and organized. âRejuvenatedâ, thatâs the word I was looking for. Although the necessity of cleaning has decreased over the years, I can still feel...
TFN#75: đȘNonviolent communication in work and relationships
Some time back, I came across the practice of Nonviolent Communication. Since then, I have constantly thought about it when I hear myself and others communicate violently. Since the practice has stayed with me for a sufficiently long time, I feel comfortable and authentic in sharing with you now. Before...
TFN#74: đȘThe problem with averages and dashboards
Tell me something, would you step into a river that is on average 4 feet deep? Take a pause. If your mind shouted NO right away, you donât need to look at this illustration: See? Averages are tricky. Most of the time, they play with our intuition and lead us...
TFN#73: đȘMouse testing 1..2..3..Mouse testing 1..2..3..
Thatâs what I do almost every year. As a regular user of PC, I use mouse and keyboard a lott. And thatâs why I have to replace my mouse often. (No, not the keyboard, I go gentle on the keyboard.) Multiverse model effect đ If you know me, youâd know...
TFN#72: đȘBacking up work regularly
Reader, You might have experienced the loss of data or a few important edits in a document at least a few times in your work. Everyone experiences that. I donât know why we tend to forget to either save our work or back up regularly. The gruelling part is the...
TFN#71: đȘCreate your personal intellectual assistant
Who doesnât like a little help in their work? Traditionally, people hire personal assistants. And we know it is so difficult to hire one: it costs money, theyâre inefficient and they donât get it our style from day one. In short, hiring personal assistants is as tough for us as...
TFN#70: đȘToday we create a tiny folder-generator software using Notepad. You can do it. Trust me.
Trust me, it is worth spending 5 minutes of your life. All you need is Notepad on a Windows PC and NO programming knowledge. You may wonder, why we would go to the length of creating our folder-generator when we can create as many as we want using a mouse...
TFN#69: đȘ My go-to site for symbols
Do you remember the late 2000s when mobile phone adoption was on the rise and people had just begun using texting? Forwarding and communicating over sms all the time. Some of my friends used to be pro at texting different smileys. For example, đ for laughter, đ for winking. Look...
TFN#68: đȘPrinciple of Least Privilege
I should have named last weekâs letter âStaff or Admin (Part 1/2)â. Because todayâs is kind of Part 2/2. Yes, kind of. I could have shared this independently, but sequencing helps us connect the dots better. And this one is directly related to most peopleâs work. So⊠So, we talked...
TFN#67: đȘStaff or Admin?
Reader, I donât know what it is. But in the past few months, I have been thinking more about online safety and privacy than before. Maybe it is the news I read or the general state of the world. You would have also noticed it, right? For example, a few...
TFN#66: đȘFraming effectively
Dear Reader, The months of August and September are full of long weekends and holidays in India. I hope you enjoy them and make the most out of themâand I guess you wonât be opening your mailbox this weekend. But if you do, donât forget to watch this heartwarming book-readingâ...
TFN#65: đȘGoogle? Google who? Try perplexity and forget Google like I did
Remember the old Google Search Result Page? â Did you know that the word Google is based on the word âGoogolâ, a mathematical term for the number one followed by a hundred zeros? Crazy, right? I remembered all this for most of my adult life. âBut I have forgotten about...
TFN#64: đȘRules to work by: A little variation in process leads to a little variation in output
Reader, have you ever prepared dosa? I mean dosa batter? If you have prepared it, you know that no two peopleâs dosa batter comes out the same. Even with the same ingredients! (And letâs not get into the effect of different seasons.) Why?â Because of the recipe. The recipe differs,...
TFN#63: đȘWrite in Dillinger, Export as file, andâŠyouâve learned Markdown!
Last week, you saw my love for Markdown. And this week, I recruit more comrades! đ If you missed last weekâs letter, quickly skim through it so you know what we are discussing in todayâs letter. We will talk about a web app called Dillinger. Dillinger helps us write and...
TFN#62: đȘThereâs something about Markdown
Have you tried ChatGPT? One of the things that I love about it is the way it organizes its responses. The cleanliness it shows. Take this ChatGPT response for example, ignore the content, and look at the info organization: As you can see ChatGPT uses headings, ordered/unordered lists, highlight commands...
TFN#61: đȘMaintaining a layer of separation: Spiritual quest through work
A few years back, I learnt about Vipassana Meditation. No, I didnât go for it, and shortly, I will explain why. But some of my friends recommended it, while a few were already practising it. If you donât know what Vipassana meditation entails, from what I have heard from my...
TFN#60: đȘConvert loong links into tiny, personalized ones
A few days back, I received this Experiential Education conference Google Form link in an email: âhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScRkN-dnFrE_uIpPyKV410P2Oz5SFYMu3DYG_iAyhMyJMqu7g/viewformâ Itâs a Google Form, like this: Imagine, if I wanted to provide this Google Form link in posters or audio marketing to spread the word, it would be useless. Because, as the charactercounter.com...
TFN#59: đȘHighlight your mouse pointer during presentations and video calls
All of us have been there. Standing in front of the audience in a conference hall, moving our mouse vigorously, asking everyone âSee this? Here?â ââŠâŠâŠâŠummm..â âNow?â âSee the mouse pointer?â It breaks the flow of our conversation and our connection with the audience. The solution is so simple: having...
TFN#58: đȘHow understanding project and organization debt helps us work and hire better
A few days back, I came across this job listing by Gumroad. And it is something important that we need to talk about. It doesnât matter whether you work in the software industry or not, it is not at all related. But we will start with this easy software example...
TFN#57: đȘThe key skill in Getting Things Done (GTD)
Reader, sometimes you look at your work and wonder why it isnât moving at a fast pace. Your team and you might be giving your best and still, you canât get things done.â These things could be anything: Data analysis reports Software development Teacher training Student assessments Data collection Project...
TFN#56: đȘBlock annoying ads on the web and YouTube
Imagine, you wake up in a 9 square meter room. There are screens all around you. You go to some physical labour work in the morning and come back to your room, which is also your home and spend the rest of the day playing video games and watching TV...
TFN#55: đȘAsk for a written word, I mean save yourself from headache and heartache
So, I was scrolling through social media and this comic from Marketoonist cracked me a few weeks back. đ€Ł It is soo true. If you think about it, most of the work that we get, the amount of clarity varies. Sometimes we get complete clarity about what is expected, but...
TFN#54: đȘInstant use-and-throw email ID using 10minutemail
Reader, have you felt the uneasiness when youâre shopping and the checkout counter guy asks for your contact number? For some elusive membership benefits? Now, my uneasiness turns into a permanent frown when Iâm in a checkout queue. Because I know my contact number is going to change 100s of...
TFN#53: đȘHow strong is your password? Check and generate memorable passwords
The first time I came across the concept of a real computer password was when I was around 16 years old. That password set by my father, got so popular in our family that we still use some version of that password even for our home WiFi. And that password...
TFN#52: đȘWhatâs your power distance?
And..this is the 52nd letter! â1 letter/week52 weeks = 1 year! Can you believe we have been conversing for a year now? Incredible! âNo matter when you joined this circle, Iâm grateful for your support.â Thank you so much for reading, replying and sometimes just skimming through the letters. đ###...
TFN#51: đȘRename 100 files for 100 team members under a second
I should have shared this letter last week, immediately after Do you right-click to rename? Seriously!?. But no problem, better late than never. In that letter, we talked about using the F2 function key on your keyboard to rename files in day-to-day work. But sometimes, you might need to carry...
TFN#50: đȘApplying DRY principle in your work
I have always been fascinated by programming languages. There are so many of them: python, C, C++, Java, SQL, VBA, etc. Donât worry, Iâm not going to bore you to death talking about programming. But what I want to talk about is the DRY (Donât Repeat Yourself) principle used in...
TFN#49: đȘDo you right-click to rename? Seriously!?
No, Iâm not judging. But Iâm curious. When you rename a file in your PC (assuming itâs a Windows machine), do you point at the file icon using the mouse, then right-click (or double-click) to ârenameâ the file or folder? Isnât that, too much effort? I mean think about it....
TFN#48: đȘ5 mistakes I avoid while designing my dashboards
Reader, If you tell me you havenât seen a dashboard in your career so far, I wonât believe you. You wouldnât believe yourself. The ease with which data visualization tools are available, it is impossible to believe that you would be spared from a dashboard. Mostly, this is how the...
TFN#47: đȘ Adventure Wave: Facilitate unforgettable workshops
âLetâs begin with an icebreaker activity!â If youâve been to work-related âteam buildingâ meetings, youâd have heard this a zillion times. Iâm that guy who makes the gloomiest face possible upon hearing those words. (OR I used to be. Now, I run away at the first indication of such activity.)...
TFN#46: đȘ Six-monthly reading roundup | 13 out of 47
So, I got the idea of sharing a reading roundup in August when I was traveling and trying to write a letter. And couldnât write anything. Thatâs when I came up with My Swades movie moment and reading roundupâ So, it has been approximately 6 months, and here we go...
TFN#45: đȘOne Ring to rule them all, One Tab to manage them all
Reader, I want to ask you something. Does your browser window look like this: If it does, donât worry, mine used to look the same until a few years ago. We are all addicted to a secret disease called âtabbed browsingâ. Mozilla introduced this feature of âtabbed browsingâ somewhere around...
TFN#44: đȘDonât despair, find text inside files like a pro: SeekFast
Reader, sometimes, we come across software applications that we didnât know we needed. A few weeks back I sent you a letter titled: Instantly search your whole PC using Everything Search It focused on finding files and folders with matching names. But today, we will go a step deeper and...
TFN#43: đȘHow to use Eustress to delight people at work
Recently, I published my idea of facilitation on LinkedIn: We are all facilitators. Many readers and friends found it relatable. That got me thinking. What is a running theme of the people I enjoyed working with? What exactly is it that I cherish about some of the people I worked...
TFN#42: đȘSkill Cards: How to truly assess your skills and plan career path
Every time, in my resume, when I had to choose what to write about my strengths, I used to feel claustrophobic. I felt as if I had just a handful of words that I knew, and beyond thatâŠthere was a dead end. Now imagine, what would happen when managers and...
TFN#41: đȘ The easiest way to explain visually: Murder Maps
If youâre a fan of suspense thriller movies like me, youâd have seen one of these murder maps in some scenes. (I didnât know it is called that until now) What I love about those boards is, how easy it is for a viewer to understand what is going on....
TFN#40: đȘ How to find out and paint your docs & ppts with your brand colours?
Reader, if youâve been on the internet for the past 10 years, youâd recognize TEDTalk and Conferences from a mile away. Most of the time, you would just âknowâ that a video, photo, or website is from TED! âBrand identityâ your mind would tell you. Youâre right. It is a...
TFN#39: đȘ There are more comfort zones than you think, use them effectively
âHe is a bright guy, but seems like he is in his comfort zone.â âShe is great, but as soon as you ask her to step out and talk to the customer, she loses her shine.â Reader, havenât all of us either overheard or participated in similar conversations? In fact,...
TFN#38: đȘ The secret sauce of delighting people, clients, investors or customers
In 2016, one of my friends introduced me to a Hair Salon chain named Green Trends. This is when I was residing in Hyderabad. Green Trends set a benchmark of what it means to delight someone. There were many things that they were doing right, but I will give you...
TFN#37: đȘInstantly search your whole PC using Everything Search
Okay, so todayâs letter is specifically for Windows users. Because anyone using a Mac, has been blessed with an in-built instant search. So, if you want to be as blessed as an average Mac user, read on. The day I stopped using the Windows Search box I donât remember that...
TFN#36: đȘ Five styles of responding to conflicts | Which one is yours?
If you tell me you never had any conflict with anyone in your work, I wonât believe you. It is just impossible. By conflict, I donât mean punching people in the face. Street-fighter style. Not that. But conflict means subtle disagreement in the team or a fiery debate on what...
TFN#35: đȘ I missed sharing this with you last week: The Paper Calendar
Reader, Tell me something. Have you ever sent a WhatsApp message andâŠfelt an instant regret? In our case, I felt this regret a few days after sharing last weekâs letter: Finally! A free, clean, online PDF editor + password-lock. Nothing was wrong with it. But I realized it would have...
TFN#34: đȘ Finally! A free, clean, online PDF editor + password-lock
Yes, thatâs what we are going to talk about today: PDF editor. But before that, I hope you kicked off your new year with renewed zeal. As for me, I have already explained my absurd reason why I have stopped making New Year resolutions. But one thing is sure, I...
TFN#33: đȘ The absurd reason why I stopped making New Year resolutions
Before I dive into explanations, wishing you a blockbuster New Year! I hope you get to fulfill your promises and resolutions by the end of 2024. And that allows me to share my reason â which you will find absurd. My reason behind ditching the whole New Year resolution thing....
TFN#32: đȘ The triangle of conflict and how to break it
If you remember, in my letter From Conditioning to Consciousness: Why People Do What They Do, we discussed the circle of conditioning. Few of the readers expressed the usefulness of that discussion. So, thanks for the feedback. In that letter, this was the key image for our understanding of why...
TFN#31: đȘ A Tiny Extension to Supercharge Copy-Paste Command
Tell me Reader, do you know anyone who doesnât use the Copy-Paste command? I canât think of anyone who uses a computer and doesnât use it. Copy-Paste command is: Ctrl+C, followed by Ctrl+V In case of Mac OS, it is Cmd+C, Cmd+V So, it is quite ubiquitous as we know....
TFN#30: đȘ How to create a user persona? [Template Inside]
The other day, my friend told me about the latest online scam tactic. In this tactic, the scammer poses as a police/CBI/Narcotics official and grills their victim for hours. Eventually, their victim pays some heavy amount of money and gets scammed. But this one never gets old: Thatâs one of...
TFN#29: đȘ Simple 3-2-1 data backup strategy
Have you watched the 2012 superhit movie OMG â Oh My God? If you have, youâll certainly remember this scene: Kanji is flaunting his Godrej Locker key in the aftermath of the earthquake. Because the locker had his insurance papers in it. There wouldnât be any movie if he hadnât...
TFN#28: đȘWhy Iâm convinced we can change our brain tissues
So Reader, this really happened to me. And Iâm not making it up. In 2016, I purchased a book named The Prophet. Mostly because I had heard a lot about the author Kahlil Gibran. In fact, during my schooling, we had a Gujarati-translated prose from this book. So, I thought...
TFN#27: đȘ Help people remember your event by generating âAdd to Calendarâ links
Reader, How many times have you heard âsend me the calendar inviteâ? It is such a liberating feeling to invite other people and receive their acceptance. It is comforting and reassuring to know that theyâre most likely to show up. But sometimes you would not be able to send an...
TFN#26: đȘ Your Diwali Homework!
Reader, I donât know about you, but I used to hate Diwali homework during my school life. Whoever invented it, must have a natural talent to suck joy out of leisure. My Diwali homework assignments used to carry things like âwrite the answers to the selected questions twiceâ or/and âprepare...
TFN#25: đȘ From Conditioning to Conduct: Why people do what they do?
Interesting question, isnât it? Especially in the workplace, we ask this a lottt. âWhy is he like that?â âWhat does she think of herself?â âWhy does he chicken out at the last minute!!â Mostly, the answers are generic: âentitledâ âpower hungryâ ârudeâ blah blah⊠A better answer lies in this...
TFN#24: đȘ How I use wireframe.cc for quick ideation
Reader, Have you been in a situation where you want to quickly draw a couple of things on the computer and share them with your colleague or team? To give some idea of what the output should look like? Output such as: where to place elements in a poster, how...
TFN#23: đȘMastering âForm Follows Functionâ
Reader, if it was a matter of life and death to win a Formula-1 race, which car would you choose? Okay, what about choosing a gift for King Charles III if you were to pay him a visit? Both of us know each otherâs choices. And the choices are the...
TFN#22: đȘ Google Docs, MS Wordâs simplicity: the most ignored feature
Reader, If I start counting how many documents I have come across that have hand-made Table of Contents, it will take me a couple of days to finish counting. But it is not their fault. Because there is something inherently soo simple about text editors such as Microsoft Word or...
TFN#21: đȘGetting insights: What? So What? Now What?
Reader, did you know that you can derive pretty good insights from any data using just three questions: What? So what? Now what? Data can be anything. A fact. A conversation. An incident. A story Or A database! Data doesnât have to always look something like this: Data means information....
TFN#20: đȘ How to safely share confidential info like passwords using 1time?
I donât know Reader, whether you got a chance to go through the Golden Ratio newsletter last week, but I want to share something that I always love sharing: a tool! A tool for sharing confidential information with one or more people. No, itâs not WhatsApp. Let me share with...
TFN#19 đȘHow to beautify your work using Golden Ratio?
Tell me something Reader, Do you believe that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder? I believe sometimes it is true, sometimes not. There are some natural laws that apply to everyone, across the globe. Since the beginning of the time. Laws of what we find beautiful and what...
TFN#18 đȘ When you talk to someone, there are always two tokens lying on the table
Hi Reader, Festival season has already begun in India. So, Iâm sure you wonât be able to read each of my weekly emails, but thatâs fine. Theyâre already in your inbox, take your time and relish. One of the best things about the festive season is shopping and holidays. And...
TFN#17: đȘ Watch and learn fast: Easily change video speed
Did you know YouTube releases a Culture and Trends report every year? I didnât know. I recently read its 2023 report. Fascinating! Almost everyone who has an internet connection consumes some or the other type of video content. I learned that there are four major formats of videos: Long-form, short-form,...
TFN#16: đȘ Negative space, white spaceâŠwhat is it?
Hi dear reader, In my last letter, we saw the comparison of different online writing platforms. The internet is full of so many options that it is easy to get lost while deciding where to begin. I hope it has been useful. If you remember, two months back, we had...
TFN#15: đȘ Thinking of writing online? A quick comparison of platforms
What a great time last few days have been! Iâm back to Ahmedabad after a week and ISRO successfully landed đ Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon. What a time to be alive! Also, one of our readers Prachi pinpointed a dead link in one of my past letters. It was posted...
TFN#14: đ My Swades movie moment and reading roundup
I wonât lie, dear reader. 5 days back, I had thought I will write this weekâs newsletter on the go. While traveling. I tried typing the first draft in a crowded local bus on my way to a project I recently undertook. After a very long time, I traveled in...
TFN#13: đ© Challenge by choice: inviting people to set their own mark
So dear reader, the last few days have been quite testing for me. I guess this is the season of flu and other diseases across the globe. I hope you and the people around you are well. Anyways, have you heard about this beautiful 1989 movie named Dead Poets Society?...
TFN#12: đŠ 5 things Photoshopâs Firefly update tells us, even if we donât use it
Dear reader, can you carry out some âFind & Replaceâ in your head? In the headlines below, find the word âcalculatorsâ and replace it with âAIâ. âDigital Calculators Threaten Traditional Math Skills!â â The New York Times, 1972 âCalculator Invasion: Will It Put Accountants Out of Work?â â The Wall...
TFN#11: Highlight and take notes from any website, like a proâĄ
Dear reader, for years, I have struggled to organize whatever I read online. There is no single app/software that can solve all of my reading material in one place. Now that I read a variety of things on a regular basis â especially on a PC â I needed a...
TFN#10: Change your mind about this and đȘđ»10x your judgment
Dear reader, thank you so much for sticking around and reading this letter week after week. This is the 10th edition of this letter. When I started, I didnât know I will continue for even 10 days! But thanks to your support, looks like this will go on for a...
TFN#9: Do you look at the keyboard while typing?
Do you remember â the speed of your nod would reveal your age đâ when there used to be courses on âtypingâ? Type classes, as they were known. Then we saw the personal computer revolution, so fast that âtyping classesâ became a distant memory. In fact, film director Basu Chatterji...
TFN#8: The 7 sins we commit during Thrashing + Paul Grahamâs essay that I loved
[Dear reader], have you been in a situation where you have to brainstorm with 4-5 other people? Even worse, a room full of people? It may have been related to anything. From organizing a workshop to designing a project. Yes? Great, you will empathize with me on what Iâm saying....
TFN#7: The Power of Outline + Early access to my mini handbook!
Finally dear reader, I finished working on a handbook thatâs ~50 pages long. And now it is ready for download! So, I thought to cover the main technique of outline in todayâs letter. This technique helps me complete all the projects that I take on hand. Also, as a token...
TFN #6: The surprising power of touch-point Maps + My fav retreat Video
So dear reader, I received voting from most of the readers on the Reads of the Week last week. Thank you so much for voting to keep the long-read suggestions on. I will keep sharing the long articles in that section. Thank you so much for voicing your opinion. Last...
TFN #5: Like most people, do you also think youâre not a designer?đ€
I mean think about it, dear reader. If someone is working as a manager, engineer, or accountant. And we asked him for a list of 10 skills that he is proud to have. Would he include âdesignâ? Whatâs your guess? He would hand us some version of this: Subscribe
TFN #4: Reading on social media is full of pain-InoReader
Reader, do you also feel that social media â whether it is LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter â is hard to follow? I used to feel that. As I increased my engagement with social media. It is so difficult to keep up with a few of the gems that I like...
TFN #3: Using questions as tools
âNooo..no..no..first, you answer me this!!â If you were there Reader , youâd have laughed your guts out. During a quarterly council meeting of the society, one of the uncles â you know the type who wears a tight T-shirt, heavy metal wrist-watch and a pair of sports shoes â was...
TFN #2: Nobody likes to eat ugly food OR ugly Fonts
So, Reader, in the last edition of The Friday Newsletter, we talked about how to use Hemingway App to write better. In this edition, I want to stress on the impact of right Font Type on your audience. Just like most people, I used to think âWhatâs there in a...
TFN #1: A knowledge workerâs secret weapon: Hemingway App
Earlier this week, I published a Powerful lean-mean writing system for anyone. Based on my readersâ overwhelming response, expanding more on the free Hemingway Tool I had covered under step-3 of the guide. Weâre all writers. Whether you write text messages, emails, presentations or business reports. Youâre a writer. Writing...