I started the last report by recommending the High Agency blog. I received about ten messages from people who loved the concept.

So I am starting today’s report with another recommendation - A nonwriter’s guide to writing a lot. Lovely actionable insights plus great writing; for those who struggle to build writing as a habit.

More recs on my personal newsletter.

April was weird. I haven’t ‘wasted’ time but I haven’t used it effectively. Lots of my time was given to my clients. After I finished, I had no energy to work on any of my content or products.

Service Business

Starting with good news: In last month’s report, I mentioned I pitched an AI newsletter with 100k subs. I have closed them. I worked on their branding for the first two weeks, then wrote three deep dives.

For the first time in my career, I feel I am where I belong. I have helped small brands start newsletters from scratch and get to their first 1000-3000 subs, but scale is where I always wanted to be.

Plus, I get to make meaningful decisions and take actions that drive growth. Amount of direct access to impact makes me happy.

Working with a couple of newsletters - one at 30k, another at 100k.

This is the goal for the month:

Action points for May? I started tracking my time^[1] to identify patterns and why I feel so damn exhausted/unorganized. I must figure out a way to stay ahead of schedule.

Cognition

I planned to publish on 10th, 20th, and 30th of the month. It’s humiliating that I published only one issue. I consider this report as a part of last month’s content, so maybe two, but not on the committed dates.

It feels horrible to commit and not deliver. I identified the problem - I work on the deadline’s date instead of before it. I’ll eventually get the work done (for clients) but it stresses me so much that I can’t focus on any other high-effort task.

High-Effort Tasks: To better accommodate my work, I divided my tasks into high-effort and low-effort. Writing newsletters is high effort. Newsletter management is low effort. Vibe-coding is high effort. Social media is low effort.

So I am scheduling my days in a way I work on only one high-effort task a day and spend the rest of the day with low-effort, medium-to-high-impact tasks.

The numbers are, of course bad, and I underestimate the compounding effect of consistency.

This must change. Otherwise I am only a dreamer with no action.

*As of 30th April 2025 - applies to all numbers I mention in this edition.

Cognition Insiders

The community is growing steadily. We could be more proactive and feed on the momentum, but it is not in a bad place.

I was reflecting on the community principles and why I started it - I am just happy this is how I feel on day one vs now:

I have introduced Spidey 🕷️. For now, it’s only a bot that automates the messages I send every week. I have plans to integrate it with AI to meet some interesting use cases.

Vikra’s Café

I am happy I published three issues. There was a point where I could write only Cognition or Vikra’s Café, and I stuck with this one to ensure at least one project goes as planned.

I love this pre-set format - it makes it so easy to decide what to write within a month:

• Deep dive (Researched, long-form essay)

• Brain dump (Tiny thoughts on 3-5 topics)

• Monthly recommendations (from the best content I consumed in the month)

Btw, I quit sugar for two months. It is one of the best essays I published lately.

I should work on subscriber growth.

Caffeineletter

This took a back seat. We paused the current ad because it reached a point of saturation, but never got the next ad going. It slowed the growth, and we missed publishing for two weeks because Aravind was travelling.

Running Caffeineletter’s ads will be the first thing I fix this month.

As I mentioned last time, our plans are still the same. Expand marketing channels and build useful tools that drive traffic to our website. This is a niche I believe we can crack and make it big; it’s a shame I didn’t spend enough time on it.

As of now, revenue isn’t the goal. We are capturing as many readers as possible.

Assets I am building passively

• newslettercasestudies.com: Published only one case study. I have lots of ideas + structures ready; will compensate for last month’s inaction. Blog had 102 unique visitors last month.

• Newsletter subReddit: Mitesh and I plan on increasing frequency. Everytime I post and crosspost in relevant subs, we gain ~10 members. We are at 157 members now.

• Newsletter Directory: I didn’t add any new newsletters. I am vibe-coding a new directory with a better user experience, user profiles, and the feature to add your newsletter. This is the model: I will handpick and add 30 newsletters a month to drive traffic. Folks who want to add their newsletter directly can do it by paying a lifetime fee.

• Telugu Playlist: At 150 unique saves now. I love how I do zero marketing and still someone shares this playlist with their friends.

Footnotes:

[1] In case you’re curious, I use a Mac app called Daily to track my time. I use the paid version for $30 yearly, but the free version works for basic tracking.