Between Thinking and Doing

Building Ethical Recommendation Systems
They Start With Who They Serve
 • Hodman Murad
I Get Stuck on Work Tasks But Not Laundry
Your friction isn't random.
 • Hodman Murad
Parent-Child Relationships and Database Design
Most engineers would have built this differently. Here's why we didn't.
 • Hodman Murad
Finishing One Step Unlocks the Next
One click shouldn't send you back to square one
 • Hodman Murad
Generic Motor Actions vs. Task-Specific Guidance During Executive Paralysis
The neuroscience behind why ‘stand up’ works better than ‘write first sentence’ when Mental Demand exceeds threshold
 • Hodman Murad
Vague Tasks Break Brains
Why ‘write blog post’ causes paralysis and how decomposition fixes it
 • Hodman Murad
Building Friction into Productivity Software
Building a feature that locks users out of their own task list is a terrifying design choice.
 • Hodman Murad
The Day I Worked Myself Into a Breakdown
Using objective metrics to end the cycle of self-inflicted burnout.
 • Hodman Murad
Stopping Rules: Solving the Cognitive Deficit of Endless Work
Continuing to work past the point of diminishing returns is a structural failure in productivity design.
 • Hodman Murad
Building Three-Layer Architecture Without Destroying User Trust
Every product decision creates debt.
 • Hodman Murad

February 2026

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