Learning Log, April 2026

Life~Work

Life: I finished my first full 5k run on April 18th! It changed how I think about running. Now I feel like I’m the type of person who can run a 5k on a Saturday. Shorter runs feel even easier. I look forward to the days I run – I think that’s a form of a runner’s high? Another motivation – noticing things. Like wildlife. Mostly squirrels and common birds – robins, cardinals, chickadees. But sometimes, deer, ducks, turkeys, great blue herons (a whole nesting site!). One time, an owl. Another time, a tiny dog in astroller, pushed by a dude and his partner/wife/girlfriend. Seeing everything turn green. Seeing what changes the day after a thunderstorm. Anticipating what I might notice is a motivator when I’m on the fence. And trying to finish more 5ks – I have a second under my belt and I’m looking forward to the third.

Work: tl;dr busy, busy, busy. Switched to a new track of product work and I’m acting as an interim product manager for my squad, which prompted me to rethink my productivity system… more on that below.

Projects

• Bookshelf updates - I stumbled across an old reading list with 16 books that weren’t on my bookshelf. Claude helped to quickly backfill the missing titles.
• At work, I’ve added ‘interim PM’ to my duties. My productivity system wasn’t scaling to support product design, product management, and a new track of work. I used Claude to help me plan and automate a better system. It’s based on tools workflows I’m already using, so I was able to start using it right away and it’s already making me confident nothing is slipping through the cracks.

Digital gardening

Bookshelf

• What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan. – borrowing a great summary from this post: “The book is a wonderful meditation on the relationship between past, present, and future. It is dystopian cli-fi, all undergirded by the plot of a psychological thriller.”
• The Wedding People, by Alison Espach. a rec from Chris Glass prompted me to read this next. I enjoyed the dark humor and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it adapted as a limited series.

Other reading

• How I learned to just f###ing write — by Kieran Cutting – how paying attention inspires writing. Resonated with my running reflection above.
• Getting Started [running] Super Coach Greg McMillan – Possessed Magazine – re-read this now that I’ve found a running routine. There’s a question—‘are bad knees real?’—that hits different now. I found simple knee strengthening warmups that made running longer distances possible.

MEMEX

A few favorite visuals that I’ve added to MEMEX, my swipe file:

• Fred Again.. posted photos from his recent USB 2.0 tour – love this shot featuring a beautiful fabric installation by Boris Acket
• Designer and artist Matthew Curry has been posting work from his archives – this work from 2016 still hits
• nogood.studio – love the illustration style and whole aesthetic of the site
• 😍 NES-inspired tour posters for Open Mike Eagle’s European tour. On tumblr, no less
• Micro site for TryAlcove, an app for macOS that makes the notch into a dynamic island. So many nice touches.