Designed an office — We moved into our Urban Company Bengaluru Headquarters earlier this year. This is the first time I designed a space. Lots of telephone booths, greenery, board games, brainstorming rooms, and breakout spaces. I'll write about some tips around it later this year.

Launched a hardware product — Designed a RO water purifier from ground-up for the first time in 2022, and after lots of work put in by the entire team, we experienced the super proud moment of launching it October 2023. Also, got an amazing gift by Ganesh Deherkar in my team for the RO designing journey.

Got a PS5 gift on my birthday from Nandini, my wife. Along with a lot of other gifts. I switched it on for a week in March when I got it. Switched it back on last weekend. I love playing games. Always have. I plan to play more this year.

Tons of domestic travel — Averaging about once per month to either Gurgaon (UC's Gurgaon HQ) or Pune (our water purifier manufacturer).

First international travel with my wife — We visited Stockholm, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Prague. Stockholm and Prague were our favourites. Copenhagen for the architecture. Here are some recommendations I have.

First China visit — Went to meet manufacturers, understanding details for developing the next generation of UC's smart door locks.

Drove one of my favourite cars — Polestar. Mind blowing. Fuck what the sales numbers say, when you drive a car that's made with utmost dedication and love, it shows in every stitching, every corner of the build. I have the same feeling for Ather. I hate when people counter my love for Ather with business numbers of Ola. I got a bunch of posters, their official Polestar 2 book as well!

Bad year for Snow — Our car went to the garage four times for wire damage 'coz of rats. Tried to fix the problem. Hate rats for life.

Revamped the personal website — You're on it.

Got the Ultrahuman Ring Air. Love the product. Highly recommend it. The app definitely needs a major design uplift.

Gave customers house painting quote as a UC painting consultant.

Took 69 services from Urban Company — One of them was trying laser hair reduction for underarms too during our trials!

Replaced existing water purifiers (PureIt, Mi, and Livpure) at our places in Bangalore, Udaipur, and Kolkata with the one we made.

Took 11 sessions with a chiropractor for my RLS and Sciatica problem. It's still a problem but the body cracking felt great. I try to walk straight & tall, keep a tennis ball below my thigh whenever I get pain.

Bought a massage gun. One of my best purchases of 2023. Gifted it to a few friends as well!

Gifted a lot of books to folks at work and friends. There was no one book that gifted a lot. I picked one for each that were relevant for them at the time, in work context.

I was not regular with reading. 2023 was a year of application of books read earlier. This year, I want to have more writing goals (output) than reading goals (input). A hundred blog posts to clean the faucet (watch this 45s video) would be good.

However, I want to read a lot of fiction (mostly, graphic novels) and deep subject books (on industrial design, psychology, company culture books, and design). I'll keep blogging the non-fiction book notes here.

Three design team hackathons in 2023. One for great office design, one to release the UC merch store, and one to launch a mini coffee table book. Will continue to do so this year as well.

Designed an appliance testing device with the team that built it. And sketched a bit as well — hardware, wireframes of apps.

Finished 72 days of co-journaling with Nandini using this. Highly recommend for couples. We plan to finish the book this year. It'll be a book of us.

Had only 4 parties at our place. Massive win. We hosted 32 parties at our home in 2022 and were exhausted by the end of it.

Drew some stickers. For checking out the artsy stuff I create, follow me on Instagram.

Bought a big size Chinese Checkers board. This size isn't available in India. Most proud purchase of 2023. Nandini and I play it almost every night before hitting the bed.

Nandini gifted my most expensive sneakers (Nike SB Dunk Polaroid 🌈). I love them.

2023 was our lowest with outside ordering and dining. We plan to curb it even further this year.

Forced Nandini into a challenge to get her website live. She did. I'm proud.