Abhisek Mishra — Notes

#Weeknotes: September 15th-30th, 2026

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Lot of updates on the blog!! I added an image component to my blog notes such that the layout can change across multiple vs single images.

My current workflow for uploading images was a bit cumbersome because I was exporting a few images from Figma, then compressing them using an online tool, and then using yet another online tool to convert them to WebP. So, I built a mini tool using Grokbot, which can take any image, compress it, and then convert it into WebP - all in one click. It’s amazing how, just with few commands, we can build a tool with a decent icon, all under 1hr. What times do we live in!!

Worked on the itinerary viewer of my trip notes and I’m pretty happy with the results. The idea was to have a tactile booklet format, which feels inviting to tap, and the booklet can open into the itinerary details view on the left side and a corresponding map view on the right.

Now for the map, it took few attempts with Claude to come up with a decent map view. I’m thinking probably I should build a mini map tool for myself where I can customise the maps and change the colour, styling, etc., on the go.

On the work front, it’s been decently hectic but I can’t complain. This is one of the biggest projects of the year that my team and I are working on, so fingers crossed. Hope the users resonate with it.

We also got the appraisal season going on so that’s another added task: to write documents and review the performances of all the reportees.

During one of these stressful days at office, when I had to complete the document before the meeting, I took my Blue Tokai iced coffee from the ground floor cafetaria and walked straight into the glass door. Needless to say, it was a mess. It almost felt as if a bird had crashed onto that glass pane. Throughout that entire meeting I smelled of Spanish latte. Now I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing but thankfully no one else could smell it. I was wearing a jacket so was able to button it up & hide the coffee marks on the tee. The appraisal discussion went well, that was the only saving grace I guess.

On the personal front, hosted Anjali & Rishabh last weekend. It was a nice afternoon with coffee, followed by a game of UNO, and a heavy Nagarjuna meal. I struggled with the latte art… to be honest, latte art might be too big of a word here:P Getting the perfect texture with milk is such a tricky task, but I have got to keep trying.

Thanks to Rishabh, we used the PS5 a bit. This is probably the only purchase which I got out of FOMO and I’m yet to make use of it. I think I have played three times and I bought it almost 1.5 years back. Someday I shall play more of it.

I started making cold foam based coffees. I made one with Diet Coke + Coffee where the cold foam flavour mostly vanilla with a little bit of salt. It’s apparently called fridge cigarette and I’ve no idea why. But it tasted decent. I made another one with Orange juice & Coffee, or Mont Blanc as we call it. This one was pretty refreshing with the orange zest on top adding a nice aromatic touch but I think the consistency of the foam could have been a little thicker.

Made Aglio Olio for back-to-back 2 days. Loved it. It was so comforting. I was also craving the creamy Gordon Ramsey-style scrambled eggs, so made that Monday morning with sourdough toast. It was so good.

My passport got renewed and the police verification happened on the same day so that’s a huge huge relief. Excited for the Japan trip this year!! I’m hoping I should be ready for the trip by the 29th of October but let’s see. The timing might be a little tight.

Went on a trip to Pune for delivery partner research on 30th. That was one hectic trip, since I had to take the early 5:30 am flight and return on the 6pm flight. We did a few focus group discussions with delivery partners and got some pretty interesting insights. Even in the short span of time, managed to savour some of the best of Pune, starting with the Panama Geisha at 729 Grams Coffee Roasters, followed by the Mont Blanc at Grey Soul Coffee Roasters. During the lunch break, we ordered Vada Pav from Garden Vadapav & burgers from the legendary Burger King. Now, this Burger King happens to be a local burger joint which was established in Pune long before the global chain came along. Talking about the burgers, I think it was one of the heaviest burgers I have had. We divided it into four parts & it was still heavy, but man, the patty was so crispy. Coming to vada pav, nothing beats Maharashtra. The pav specifically is so soft, I don’t think you’d be able to get anything of that quality in Bangalore. This trip also gave me the opportunity to start reading the book Butter, in flight as well as at the airport waiting areas. All in all, tiring trip but well worth it.

#Weeknotes: September 1st-14th, 2026

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

First week of September has been balanced at work. The back-n-forth of opinions on my current project are finally resolved & now my team is in a flow state. We also bade farewell to two of our designers, Vishnu & Jeevanshu. Instead of two cakes for farewell, we went with a single cake, samosas and chai. It was raining heavily that day & people enjoyed the atmosphere with the right snacks.

Started my passport renewal process and got to know from friends on the expectations from rental agreements - around attested copies, two eye witness signatures etc etc. And the owner doesn’t stay here. I almost panicked but thankfully, she was in town over the weekend & helped with the paperwork.

I went to Dali & Gala Thu night with a friend & loved every drink. We had 4 cocktails & each of them were super well-crafted. Good vibes over some great company. Last I’d enjoyed a cocktail this much was at Jigger & Pony, Singapore.

Tried out few layout changes to my blog, especially around moving the horizontal nav to a vertical sidebar & sticky note content in About section, but didn’t quite like any of those. Fixed a good number of layout issues in mobile view, but I would still prefer reading a blog on desktop. There’s something about reading on a larger screen/space that makes it feel more intentional.

Travelled to Mumbai for consumer research on second week of Sep. We’re expected to travel to a new city once every 3months to understand consumer behaviour & sentiments better. We had a lot of new team members doing on-ground formative research this time, so that made it even more exciting.

And what’s a trip to Mumbai without exploring the food scenes. We went to Shiv Sagar for their comforting pav bhajis. After some spicy food, it was customary to go to Bombay Sweet Shop for their insanely good Rasgulla Tiramisu. One of the days, we went to Araku Colaba for their brown butter icecream, which was equally delicious.

I extended my trip over the weekend, & ensured to wake up early at 6am & spend some quiet time by Marine Drive. There’s something about the vastness of sea that makes you slow down & contemplate life.

After spending some time by the sea, I went to Sassoon docks for some photography. It was super crowded and quite muddy, which made it a bit diffciult to shoot but hey, good practice. This was also the very first time a cat came to me & curled against my leg!! My heart was full 🥹 🥹

I checked into NMACC to experience the immersive exhibition & artworks. It was fun to decode how some of those installations might have come to be, since I’d tried similar stuff with p5js. A tiny bit of validation that I’m learning along the right path:)

Before flying out on Sunday, I went to the Siddhivinayak temple to get the fresh ukadiche modaks. Sooo good🤌

Back in Blr, attended Ganesh Puja celebrations at a friend’s home. They had made the ganpati statue themselves, and it was beautiful! Good way to start the second half of the month, I must say.

#Weeknotes: August 17th-31st, 2026

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a bit hectic at work but in a good way. One project required some novel interactions around tab grouping & state maintenance and it was fun jamming around it. Gotta make a prototype to get a realistic sense of the feel.
Friday evening, I attended the AI Design Nights event at Underline Center, Indiranagar. It was a chill evening with some cool demos & side projects by designers.
It was nice meeting face-to-face some of the folks I knew only from Twitter (It’s called X now but I’ll continue calling it the former)
After staying in Indiranagar for about a year & seeing so many event notifications being hosted at this venue, finally realised it’s in walking distance from home.
Was craving rava prawn fry & rice, so got it made over the weekend. Ohh the joy of a simple filling lunch after gym!!
A friend & I were planning barhopping but that plan got cancelled. So, we ended up going to Araku to experiment with some concoctions. I generally don’t get the high from caffeine but this time was different. We left at 12 but ended up being jittery & awake till 2. Is this what 30s look like?
I spent Sunday morning watching Japan vlogs & “doing research” for the trip I’m planning mid-Oct. Also learnt some coffee terms - anaerobic fermentation, washed vs natural.
Sunday noon, caught up with another friend over coffee at Sunday Farmer, Ashok Nagar. It’s a tiny spot but they do have some good coffee. We were glad to know they actually smoke the cinnamon barks and put them in coffee vs using the powder. We then jumped to Muro for some cream cheese dimsums over a drink and then to Subko for sandwiches.
We ended up discussing careers, properties around Whitefield, and why I should get a credit card instead of using UPI.
Talked to mom over call & got to know how dad & her have gotten attached to a pup near our house in Bhubaneswar. He has been following dad around, stays & dines inside our gates during the night. The other day, he wasn’t in by 9pm, so dad went around searching for him. I am delightfully surprised to see them transition from not exactly being pet persons to this:D
Started playing around with Grokbots and it’s quite fun. I like how the form factor & interaction paradigm makes it feel so much more inviting & easier to use compared to agents.
Asked Claude about the best tips around Grokbot & it took offence. It literally went “what’s the issue with using my prowess. I can do anything that grokbot can & more since I’ve more context around your projects”. Honestly, wasn’t expecting that emotional outburst. Phewww.
I had Mont Blanc recently & was raving about it to my friends. And not-to-my-surprise, I’ve been getting a lot of Insta reels on cold foam. The funda is simple - 3:2:1 ratio of heavy cream to milk to flavouring syrup. Should make it at home over a weekend.
This last week of the month has been intense at work. A lot of opinions and superless time to close the designs. On Thu, I ended up staying at office until 11pm with my product counterpart. The project deadlines are pretty tight, and we needed to stitch an end-to-end flow for leadership. I was hoping Figma AI to help with image replacements but it did terrible under stressful conditions. On the bright side, the metro was still operational during that time, which made the return journey to home easier.
I fell terribly sick on Sat due to food poisoning and puked and slept throughout the day. Had to take Vomistop tablet in the evening which finally stopped this rhythm. Sunday was mostly recovery & dosa at Ondu Plate (counts as part of recovery).

#Weeknotes: August 1st-16th, 2026

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Here goes my first weeknote:))

Been working on a project with my team for the last one & a half months. Finally, had the much-needed meeting with the CEO on the direction. It went fine, I might say, as majority of the changes got aligned. But on the approach towards AI, we didn’t have an alignment. So, back to drawing board on that.
Got alignment on converting one of my reportees on contract to fulltime & conveyed the news to her. She has been waiting for it for quite a while & was super happy about it. Felt good seeing her excitement:)
I have been feeling tired & low on mood for quite sometime now even after adequate sleep & proper food. Decided to get my bloodwork & fullbody checkup done. I knew it’s a good habit to do it yearly but I finally got around to doing it. To be honest, I was a little nervous coz I feared diabetes since I’ve a history of it in my home. But was glad to find the glucose levels normal. Phew!! As it turns out, I have superlow Vitamin B12 & D. Googled the symptoms & the internet gave back all the issues I’ve been feeling for a while - from tiredness, to low mood, to the tingling sensation in my fingertips & toes at times.
As with many firsts, popped up vitamin suppliments for the first time and I, for no reason, imagined it would make me feel better instantly..like a cold breeze hitting my face and the fog lifts. But no, nothing of that sort happened. I’ll report back next month.
Gym has been consistent and I feel happier with the weights I’m lifting. I remember struggling with 10kg inclined dumbbell press 2months back, to now that being my starting spot. Our body’s amazing at adapting & I’m glad the routine is helping. Now, the struggle is with 16kg.
Three friends came over to Indiranagar Wed 10pm coz they wanted to have the parathas at this newly opened cafe, Khao Aur Khaane Do. It’s barely 600mtrs from my house but I was yet to check it out. I had gone there once with a friend but we shifted to another cafe coz there was no seating available & it was super crowded. Thanks to these folks, I finally had my chance with the tasting and boy oh boy, I loved it. I’ve been craving cold badam milk for a while now & they had it. Needless to say, it made my heart happy. Last I had it was during college days 10years back, so the added layer of nostalgia made it even better.
I also got to try the malai toast for the first time & it was yumm. Got to know from two of my Punjabi colleagues it’s a typical breakfast when you’re running out of time. Take a slice of toasted bread, lather it up with butter, add malai over it, sprinkle some sugar, caramelise it a bit with a hot spoon if you’re feeling a bit of fancyness, and sandwich with another slice of toasted bread. Delicious!!!
I have been meaning to setup my website & blog for a while now but something or the other pushed it out of priority, majorly procastination. Last week I spent some dedicated effort & that got me fired up.
Spent this weekend tinkering with the footer & trying to make it feel more expressive. Explored different ideas and happy with the parallax approach.
Met a friend over brunch at Lavonne. It has almost become a ritual for me to go to Lavonne atleast once a month and order the scrambled eggs with a side of mushroom. To be fair, they’re super consistent with their food & that helps.
After brunch, we wanted to try a new place for coffee & landed on Project Possible by Beans of Bodhi. The vibes of the place was neo-brutalist and the designer in me loved it. We ordered the Mont Blanc and the Tiramisu Latte. The Mont Blanc was creamy, subtly tangy and not sweet, the way I like it. The Tiramisu latte was on the sweeter side, but as the name suggests, you shouldn’t expect otherwise. I’ll go again to try their pourovers.
Was craving Picante but most of my friends had already made plans for the weekend. Ended up ordering in some ghee rice, dal, raita, papad from Empire and prawn fry from Meghana as a comfort meal.
Got some much needed fertilizers for my planter babies and I hope they’re happy. I have delayed it for almost 2months now. Proud that they’ve survived well but I should be doing better here.
Called up a friend and we ended up chatting about relationships, the kind of people we’d want to date, the life we’d ideally want, the dreams we’d in college and how it has changed over time. We discussed the idea of multi-directional vs uni-directional goals with hobbies and how both lead to pretty different lifestyles. I certainly like the idea of having a routine with a fixed study space but I also have this internal need to try a lot of things beyond my work. But for any given period of time, I would identify with unidirectional goals since that gives me time to focus on one thing and go a little deeper into it. I have tried doing multiple things at the same pace & have always fallen short of my expectations. So, picking a unidrectional goal with some hobbies for variety works better for me.
Got to know about this company Serendipity Space successfully testing pharma manufacturing in nearspace conditions. It was a good feeling to see something like this happening in Bhubaneswar, the city I grew up in. Deep dived a bit into it to understand why it matters. The idea is to grow better drug crystals which require zero gravity conditions. This cannot be done in zero gravity simulations on Earth because true, continuous weightlessness does not exist here. Earth based zero-G methods only last a few seconds, which is too short to grow pure medicine crystals. Now, this has previously been done in International Space Station but under human supervision and not autonomously.
I’ve been thinking of travelling to Japan in Oct-Nov. So that needs to be planned & passport needs to be renewed!! Will get the process started this coming week. My Instagram reels have started recommending me places!! Can’t wait.

Notes on managing a team

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been 5 years since I started managing people. From being a reluctant IC wanting to do everything by themselves, to making peace with losing control, to enjoying the process of nurturing talent, here’re some reflections along this journey.

This is a running list and I’ll likely modify parts of it as I learn more:) If you resonate with parts of it or have a different opinion, do ping me on Twitter. Management is an artform & I would love to learn different POVs here.

you’ll do a lot of context switching, get used to it. Block your hands-on work time in advance to ensure you’re not constantly jumping meetings. Take that 20mins walk break, you’ll do better!
somedays will feel like a mess, with everything seemingly urgent. Nothing is as urgent as it seems & people are more understanding than you realise. But you gotta communicate it right.
when reviewing work, be fully present. When there’re too many things on plate, the instant reaction is to overlook certain aspects to save time. Never do that – that’ll come back to bite you in future.
you’ll absolutely shape the culture of your immediate team – try to be as much aware of the good & the bad!
praise others’ work in public – nothing energises more than recognition. Let them know if someone praised them while they weren’t around.
have hard conversations in private – all while assuring them with psychological safety.
protect your team in large critiques – it can get overwhelming for those new in the job. Own up the bad, & pass on credits for the good!
end every meeting with clear action items – that’s not enough, assign people to each right away.
identify people’s obsession & nurture it – that’s where they’ll shine through.
give your reportees control in meetings, allow them to showcase their work – let them know you trust them.
when giving your own pov, start by acknowledging their pov – it’s a confidence booster.
somedays you’ll end up with no tangible work, but just making decisions & unblocking teams. That’s as much a part of your job – get comfortable with it.
be as articulate as possible while giving feedback – rely more on first principles & analogies while explaining something.
abstraction is a powerful tool – but rarely helpful if the person you’re communicating to doesn’t even know what to do with it. Always explain with examples.
be your vulnerable opinionated self in 1:1s – that’s what your peer is blocking time for. Don’t give typical org-level answers, everyone knows that. Acknowledge the issues, suggest solutions, let them know you’re figuring it out as much & ask for support.
be a good listener – sometimes people just want emotional support. They already know what to do next.
while giving feedback, never compare your peer’s progress with someone else’s.
sometimes you wouldn’t know answers to certain questions – acknowledge it & let them know you’ll come back with an informed answer later. And, do follow up on it:)
perception matters as much as outcomes – constantly talk to other teams to get a sentiment check.