The Sunday Summary

💂🏻 London event of the year

Open House Festival

The programme for Open House Festival has just gone live (13th-21st September). If you don't know what Open House Festival is, it's a chance to see inside many exciting buildings that are normally closed off to the public throughout the year, it’s also FREE!
Not only that, there's plenty of guided walks and tours that are put on by various boroughs and institutions across London. Last year I missed out on many of these as it coincided with the same weekend as Disneyland.

Pro tip: Sign up for an account now, pick your favourites and when all the bookings go live on the 20th of August, you can be ready to book them all.

Additional pro tip: You can book as many of these as you like and then go into your account and cancel them afterwards.

🔋 An essential I should have bought sooner!

Magsafe 1200mAh Power Bank

A solid battery pack is a must when travelling, but fumbling with cables and juggling pockets? No thanks. This MagSafe charging pack has a built-in kickstand, perfect for seat-back trays on flights. No wires, no faff this one’s quickly become a daily essential.

🧪 A health experiment I’ve been running

Lingo Blood Glucose Biosensor

I’ve had off-and-on sleep issues for a few years now, so I’ve been trying to get to the root of it. I even built my own app on Replit to track patterns and triggers.
One area I hadn’t explored until recently was blood sugar. The theory? If levels drop too much overnight, adrenaline might kick in to rebalance things, possibly waking me up.
I tested this by using Lingo (not sponsored — I just bought the 2-week plan). Applying the sensor looked intimidating, the needle’s huge, but honestly, it was completely painless. Within minutes I was tracking my blood sugar in real time.

Rather than suddenly eating “healthy,” I’ve been testing my regular go-to meals fish and chips, coffee, the usual because I wanted to see how my actual diet affects me, not a curated version of it. While I don’t think blood sugar dips are the root cause of my sleep issues, the experiment has been eye-opening. The biggest surprise? Fish and chips caused massive sugar spikes (more than a white baguette and a cake!). So, sadly, that’ll be less of an occasional treat from now on.

📺 What I’ve been watching

The Money-Making Secrets Behind Hotel Design | WSJ Pro Perfected (YouTube)

Why are there no wardrobes or mini bars in hotels now? Why does check-in often take place at a bar? There’s often multiple reasons for these decisions, but why? all explained in this video.

📺 On YouTube this week

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'd love to know what you're up to or what you might be working on!

Have a great week!

Tom

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