Five newsletters. Three podcasts. The morning headlines.

You feel informed. You feel like you’re “staying on top of things.”

But what did you do differently last month because of something you read?

If the answer is “nothing,” that wasn’t learning. It was an expensive form of entertainment.

We confuse consumption with competence. Information that never changes your behavior is just mental clutter.

Herbert Simon, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, saw this coming in 1971: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Today we’re information-rich but focus-poor, wide but shallow.

The fix isn’t reading more. It’s shifting from Consumer to Operator.

A Consumer asks: “What else should I know?”
An Operator asks: “What will I do with this?”

Try this for a week: for everything you consume, name one action you’ll take because of it. If you can’t, ask whether it deserved your attention.

What’s one thing you read recently that changed how you work?

You’re not learning. You’re being entertained. was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everyone is asking which jobs AI will take. It is the wrong question, because it treats the job as the thing that survives or disappears.

The better question is which skills become more valuable when everyone has the same AI. A tool available to all stops being an advantage. What you bring to it becomes the difference.

I count nine such skills.

Identify

AI works on the problem you hand it, so the first advantage is seeing the right problem.

Pattern recognition. The useful insights sit between domains: a support ticket that explains a sales dip, or a habit from one industry that solves a problem in another. AI finds patterns inside the data you give it. Deciding which data points belong in the same room is your job.

Systems thinking. Every output lands inside a system of people, incentives, and side effects. Knowing how the pieces interact lets you set the right constraints on AI, so it delivers the outcome you need and not just the one you literally asked for.

Customer empathy. AI can summarize 1,000 interviews in a minute. It can’t sit across from one frustrated person and care what happens to them. That care is what tells you which of the 1,000 comments matter.

Decide

AI has made options abundant, which makes choosing the scarce part.

Judgment. Ask for ten approaches and you get ten plausible ones in seconds. None arrives labeled as the right one. Judgment is choosing with incomplete information and standing behind the choice.

Strategy. Strategy is deciding where to play and, harder, what to refuse. When anyone can build anything, the temptation is to build everything. A clear strategy protects you from that.

Prioritization. When building was expensive, cost forced focus. Now that building is cheap, nothing forces it but you. Knowing what not to build has become the skill.

Make it happen

An idea counts only once it changes something for someone.

Ownership. Owning a task means finishing it. Owning an outcome means noticing when the finished task did not fix the problem, then charting a path to something better. AI completes tasks. Outcomes still need an owner.

Sales and marketing. Shipping is easy now, so the world is filling up with products nobody uses. Getting people to try, adopt, and pay for what you built is the half of the work that AI has made more important.

The skill underneath

Learning and unlearning. The other eight skills have a shelf life. Tools change, markets shift, and the playbook that earned your last promotion quietly stops working. Picking up something new is the easy half. The hard half is letting go of what made you successful, and noticing early that it no longer does. Everything above stays sharp only if this one keeps running.

What is not on the list

No tool, prompt trick, or certification made this list. Those change every few months, and the nine skills above do not.

AI makes execution cheap. Knowing what is worth executing is what makes it valuable and irreplaceable.

Which skill would you add?

The Skills That Survive the AI Apocalypse was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With zero prior experience in mobile development, I never thought I’d be able to publish an iOS app — let alone do it in a single day. But thanks to a few modern AI tools, I did exactly that. Here’s how I built and shipped Slowflo, a simple mindfulness sorting app, in less than 24 hours using AI tools like Bolt.new, VS Code, and GitHub Copilot.

⚡ Step 1: App Idea & Using Bolt.new

I started with a simple idea — a minimalist app to help people slow down and relax on the go.

I had heard about Bolt.new, a tool that uses AI to turn prompts into working mobile apps. I typed a short description of what we wanted:

“Build a mindfulness sorting app that lets people sort colors, shapes and numbers to help them slow down and relax. The UI should be modern and minimalistic.”

Within minutes, Bolt.new generated a complete React Native project.

(Pro tip: Bolt.new’s “Enhance Prompt” feature can help you refine your input for better results.)

🔄 Step 2: Iterate and Fine-tune App Functionality

Using a few more prompts, I could iterate on the app’s functionality and get it closer to my vision. Bolt.new’s built-in preview feature made it easy to verify changes as I made.

Some of the tweaks we made:

• Switched to a tab layout
• Ensured consistent and visually appealing design across all tabs
• Added support for Dark Mode
• Fixed minor issues with layout, design, and sorting logic

🔄 Step 3: From React Native to Flutter

Bolt.new has a “Deploy” feature for publishing apps, but it’s still in development for App Store submissions. When I clicked “Deploy,” it redirected me to a guide detailing the manual deployment process.

I had always been curious about Flutter, and wondered if it could make the submission process easier.

Since I wasn’t tied to any framework.

“Can you convert this React Native app to Flutter?”

Bolt.new helped generate a Flutter version of the app. Since previewing Flutter apps isn’t currently supported on Bolt.new, I downloaded the code and switched to VS Code for further edits.

The conversion wasn’t perfect, but it was surprisingly solid — a great starting point.

🛠️ Step 4: Debugging in VS Code with GitHub Copilot

I opened the converted Flutter project in VS Code, installed the Flutter extension, and relied on GitHub Copilot to help me debug and polish the code.

Whenever I hit a bug or compilation error, I’d simply hover for suggestions or add a comment like:

// fix this layout issue

… and Copilot would do the heavy lifting.

I used the iOS Simulator on my Mac to test everything. The feedback loop was quick—fix, save, run, repeat.

🚀 Step 5: App Store Submission

Once the app was stable, I followed Flutter’s iOS deployment guide. This was definitely the most tedious part — dealing with provisioning profiles, certificates, and App Store Connect — but Apple’s documentation and GitHub Copilot helped us navigate it.

After a few tries…

✅ Slowflo was live on the App Store.

📲 Try It Out

If you’re into mindfulness, or just want to see what’s possible with no experience and the right tools, check out Slowflo on the App Store.

🧠 Reflections

• Bolt.new got me started — the AI-generated React Native code saved me days.
• VS Code + GitHub Copilot were essential for debugging and development.
• Flutter made the build and submission process manageable.
• My CS background and product management experience helped streamline the whole process.

This project reminded me that building apps today is less about knowing everything and more about knowing how to ask the right questions and leverage the right tools.

💡 Final Thought

If you’re sitting on an app idea and feel like you’re “not technical enough” — trust me, you are. The tools have never been better. Go build something.

And if you’d rather let experts handle the development and want it done quickly — feel free to reach out. I’d love to help.

How I Built and Published an iOS App in a Day — With Zero Mobile Dev Experience was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the course of years, as I worked on different products and projects in different capacities, I realized that the quality of communication always plays a key role in arriving at a successful outcome.

“Communication works for those who work at it.” — John Powell

In the current work culture, meetings have become a de facto way of communicating anything important. But, they’ve also become a huge time sink impacting our daily productivity and leading to frustrations and sometimes boredom. As teams around the world explore remote working options in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, it becomes critical to bring back efficiency into meetings. The following essentialist approach helped me optimize my time in meetings.

Before the Meeting

Agenda

Put together a high-level agenda for the meeting with the purpose of the meeting, brief context, and outcomes.

Examples:

• “To discuss proposals and finalize architecture for XYZ project planned for Q3 of this year”
• “To discuss and prioritize critical issues coming from the field”
• “To discuss feedback and strategy for upcoming roadmap items”

People

Identify the set of people essential for the meeting without whom you wouldn’t be able to accomplish the goals/purpose for the meeting. If you’re unsure about someone, leave them out.

Material

Compile all the relevant details needed for the meeting. This could include

• Context (because not everyone will have all required information)
• Topics for discussion (proposals, ideas, feedback, questions, issues, etc.)
• Expected outcomes

Meeting Invite

Now that you have everything you need for the meeting, find a time that works for everyone, and send out an invite with the agenda and relevant material. Do remember to include a note asking the invitees if the tentative time works for everyone and if there’s anyone else that needs to be in the meeting.

This sets the expectation for people to take the time to understand the purpose, go over your material, identify any gaps, prepare themselves with all the required inputs prior to the meeting and crowdsources the job of finding the optimal time and right set of people needed for the meeting in case you missed anything or anyone

During the Meeting

Since your invitees have already processed your material, you can get started with a brief context and spend most of the meeting time working towards items that require the identified set of people to pause their work, make time and get together.

Discuss ideas, issues, questions, and proposals that you’ve already put together and any additional ones other attendees might have come up with. If you think something demands more time, effort, or inputs, mark it as an action item and move on to the next item.

Check for understanding. If you are explaining anything, briefly check for understanding before you proceed to the next item.

Agree upon action items, outcomes, and corresponding ETAs on each item.

At times there could be cases where you need all the attendees for some of the topics and only a subset for the rest. In such cases, organize your topics such that you cover the ones that need a wider audience in the beginning. This gives you an option to relieve a subset of people once you finish discussing the first set.

After the Meeting

Make sure all the attendees have access to the meeting notes, action items, outcomes, and ETAs that were agreed upon in the meeting. Follow up on the items as planned and if a further meeting is needed, repeat the process. 😊

Currently Reading:

Goodreads

Recipe for Efficient Meetings was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Simple was the life,
When the days passed by without any strife,
The only thing alive in my mind was the drive,
To explore the world and be free like wildlife.

Curiosity would help me kill time,
Sometimes staring at the skies and listening to the wind chime,
Sometimes writing poems that rhyme,
And playing games overtime.

There were restrictions and rules,
Go to the school and stay away from the sharp tools,
The thought of growing up felt so cool,
I’d be free and wouldn't have to listen to these fools.

Never did I imagine the change in phase would be so drastic,
For I was very enthusiastic,
And hoped for experiences that would be fantastic,
Can’t blame the fate for being so sarcastic,
For pushing into a world filled with plastic and schedules so inelastic.

The mind that once would freely wander,
And pick some random things to ponder,
Now has to be forced to be free under a mindfulness spell,
To fly off into the wild blue yonder,
So I wouldn’t while away time seeking stories and experiences from the interconnected well,
And have my limited time squandered.

People say you go through your daily grind,
You build limitations around your mind,
And turn blind to the amazing pathways you left behind.

Enough have you confined and whined,
To yourself be kind,
And find a way to unwind,
For this isn’t the exciting future you once divined.

Date: May 9, 2020

Wandering through the ages was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was a snowy day,
Close to the salt lake bay,
I heard a woman say,
Oh god! I hereby pray,
Let my daily path be this way,
Even in the harshest season of May,
So that I could play,
Using the snow as my clay,
To make a sleigh,
Painted with the sun light’s spray,
And ride away.

Date: May 26, 2013

Snowy Dream was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m here to live and Live to be great,
I’m here to love and love to be loved,
I’m here to care and be cared for,
Everything I’m here for is all that I ever wanted.

Ignorance is not my life,
Vengeance, not my strife.
My daily hassles aren’t crimes,
Everyone has their own tough times.

I do have some nasty dreams,
Never loved to see people scream.
All I want is a tasty ice cream
And to stay away from the hasty stream.

I don’t want to be blown off like the steam,
But shine like a quirky light beam.
I’ve got friends that taught me trends,
I made amends and took sharp bends.

I’ve been rude and sounded so crude,
But I mend my mood and extend my good.
A broken heart and a shaky start,
I’m neither so smart nor want to dart.

Don’t have a speedy cart like the one at the mart,
But mine has a crazy chart that fulfills my part.
I have a crazy mind, mazy all along,
But I have a Lazy soul that draws a hazy prong.

Hit by love, that led me to a trove.
Want it to be more than for now and I never want to grow.

Yet I confess that I’m here to live,
Here to live and may the greatness outlive.
I’m here to love like a flying dove,
Struggling through the winds to reach all above.

Date: Apr 26, 2012

The VK Chronicles was originally published in Seekr_ on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.