“Ask and you shall receive,” Jesus said. That’s what I did after reading Mark Thompson’s cold email challenge . I reached out to four writers I admire and shared how they had inspired me. I also sent them a digital copy of 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life and asked for a review. One wrote a LinkedIn post about it. His words pushed me to keep going. I don’t know if others will…
Yesterday, I found a comeback post after a 14-year pause. 14 years! OK, I didn’t read the full post. Maybe the author explained why. But it made me think of my burnout story : Work burnout made me stop exercising, eating well, and writing. It only made everything worse. The cure was simple : do something I love every day. Resurrecting my blog was part of the recovery. It gave me a reason to get…
Hey there. Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Too Long; Didn’t View, the AI meeting notetaker, left over 100K meetings in the open. Here’s the full disclosure (8min). Someone who vibe-coded an app forgot to harden it. #2. Just in case, AI finally takes over our jobs… Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer’s (7min). #3. Need a rule to reduce your phone use? Don’t use it…
I recently watched Codie Sanchez’s video on 10 upgrades to make once you have more money. It reminded me of a 10-idea list I wrote. Here it is. Healthcare. No more ER waiting lines. Shoes, mattress, and chair. No more back pain. Diet and food. No more cheap fast foods. Library. No more ebooks or pirated books. Dedicated reading room. No more reading on the couch. Air conditioning in common areas.…
My days feel different when I start with email, book sales, or social media. Daniel Miessler wrote in Creativity vs Consumption : If there’s one metric to watch for managing your happiness level, it’s Creativity vs Consumption. After a 1-week detox , I learned screens don’t energize me, even when used for inspiration. To put limits on my consumption time: I set a timer for 15 minutes to read blog…
A friend’s WhatsApp status showed a tech YouTuber giving him a warm shoutout. It made me think of my heroes and mentors in my coding and writing career. #1. I’ve had role models, but I’ve never called them mentors . Someone you want as a mentor is usually too busy to accept the title. #2. At one of my early jobs, I worked next to my team architects. One of them helped me become a senior coder .…
Being a bilingual speaker, Joel wrote about his struggle to read books and their translations : I just can’t decide what to do when it comes to translated works at all. Be it old books in English translated to Spanish—or modern ones to be fair. And what about Spanish books that I could read in English, or picking between Spanish and English for books that are in a completely different language?…
This 2-hour interview made me reconsider what a good story is. I don’t know how, but I ended up watching an interview with Matthew Dicks on storytelling. Here’s what I learned: #1. A story is about change over time. It’s about a transformation or realization. I believed this, then something happened, and now I believe this . Unlike an anecdote, a story is something you will remember for days,…
“Hey, I was thinking… Many years ago, I don’t know how, but my mom had to meet your mom…“ he said, leaning closer with a beer in his hand. I’m at my nanny’s 70th birthday party. She took care of my sister and me as kids—and still does. Her son sat next to me. Most guests had left, and only family stayed. “… All that had to happen, so you can be here with us now. Life is already written.” I nodded…
Hey there. Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Here’s an alternative to avoid cognitive debt (5min). #2. With AI, almost everyone is euphoric but nothing works (4min). #3. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is wrong. That’s what covers are for. But what if you could judge a book by its first page instead ? (1min). #4. Last week, I discovered makestopmotion . A free,…
Every disappointment, breakup, or failure turns into inspiration. A disappointment becomes a short story. A breakup becomes a poem. A failure becomes a lessons-learned post. Writing helps you revisit, process, and reframe. Nothing is wasted. It’s all material . I share some of my life lessons in 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life .
After tuning the radio, the taxi driver found a station broadcasting a presidential speech. The president was just days away from leaving the office. I had finished my weekly groceries and was heading home. It was raining, and I rushed home after forgetting to close the windows. So I didn’t put my bags in the trunk, but on the front seat. “That guy talks a lot… He was born to be a politician,” the…
Yesterday, I came back home after a 3-hour road trip. With no phone reception or WiFi, I had no other choice than to sit with my thoughts, watching the passing trees and road signs until I fell sleep. It was the longest “do nothing” moment I’ve had in a while. If you think you can’t leave your phone aside , take a road trip or a flight. Not just for the traveling part, but for the unplugging time.
All productivity advice can be summarized into one single tip: Follow your energy levels. Not in a woo-woo sense, but be aware of your energy levels. Tackle your most important work when they’re at its highest. Learn to rise them: exercise, laugh, or walk. Keep your glucose spikes under control . Notion dashboards, todo lists, and weekly goals aren’t useful if you don’t have any energy to tackle…
Eight years ago, I published my first post—without any idea what I was doing I was starting my coding career, and one day I googled “how to get better at coding.” I kept finding “start a blog.” So I did. I built a blog on top of my GitHub account. I still host my blog there, after all these years . The early days My first post was a tutorial to compile hours of googling. OK, “tutorial” is a strong…
I didn’t mean it, but last month I ended up participating in JulyReply. Here are my replies: #1. re: You’re Born to F*cking Create . A simple cure for burnout. #2. My Favorite Seth’s Riffs . Seth Godin published his best lines. I wrote my reactions. #3. re: I Started a “Dirt Notebook” . Beautiful notebooks hold back my bad ideas. And often what you need is bad ideas. #4. re: “Who Is Quitting?”…
Hey there. Here are 4 links worth sharing this week: #1. I didn’t use magazines, but I learned coding by typing examples from textbooks. It isn’t as fast as using an LLM. It was something else entirely (3min). #2. One of the lessons from Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is to work on your communication skills. Here are 10 comm rules nobody teaches you (10 min). #3. Productivity isn’t about IDE…
For weeks, I’ve been struggling with a personal decision. I’ve come up with scenarios, built a decision tree, and used AI to analyze my options. It’s made me so anxious, it’s often the first thing I think of when I wake up. Yesterday, wanting a different perspective, I called my best friend to ask him what he would do in my shoes. Among other things, he told me, “you can’t think like an engineer…
I don’t want to write the same book twice. I challenge myself to make every book different. So far, I’ve experimented with formats: a choose-your-own-adventure, a 10-point list, and a one-idea-per-chapter book. For my latest books, 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life and Street-Smart Coding Manifesto , I’ve skipped the prologue and the introduction. From Write Useful Books , I…
Street-Smart Coding Manifesto Crafting clean code alone won’t save you or make you stand out. That’s not the real edge. Why this book? When I started, I thought my only job was writing code. I obsessed over syntax and lines of code. I ignored meetings, calls, and emails. I only wanted to code, code, and code. But I was wrong. After trial and error, and even getting fired, I realized: Code alone…
Nik wrote in Make Your Mentors Ageless : Make your mentors ageless, and, at minimum, you’ll gain one awesome new trait: the humility to learn from anyone, no matter their relative position to you in this life. I don’t like the word “mentor.” It scares people away. Someone you want as mentor is probably too busy for that role. Don’t ask anyone to be your mentor . I’ve never had official mentors,…
Almost everybody In my first AMA asked the same thing: What helped you overcome burnout? The answer is simple: Bring back a sense of joy to your life. Tim Denning wrote about it in You’re born to f*cking create : If you feel stuck, the easiest way I know how is to start writing publicly. If you’ve got other creative goals, then do those. But make sure every day you are creating things and putting…
This month, my blog turned 8 years old …and my dev.to account turned 7. To celebrate it, I ran an AMA session on dev.to . For some moments, it felt I was talking to bots. Most likely true, if you also believe in the Dead Internet Theory . I didn’t take too much time to answer questions that sound like AI. Here are my favorite questions: Before vs Now What changed in your perspective and what makes…
Hey there. Quick update: Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is almost done. No more hunting for typos. If you preordered, I’m sending a preview next week. And as usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Google search (if that’s still a thing) and LLMs are great for quick facts. When was America discovered? But the real problem is offloading our thinking to AI (10min), even…
In 2023, I burned out. It was the darkest moment of my life. It was a long process on the way down…and a longer one on the way up. It took me about a year to wake up with a sense of purpose again. What helped me can be summarized into one line: Taking care of my health (by doing something for my mind, body, and spirit every day) and bringing a sense of joy and fulfillment to my life every day (by…
It’s sales day, and the whole grocery store is crowded. “We have to be patient, right?” a guy said to me. I’m in the butchery section. The guy is frantically walking from one side of the aisle to the other, phone in his hand. “I have 70,” he said when I asked what turn he had. “I have 94, and I only need one chicken breast,” I told him while taking my U-shaped ticket out of my pocket. The display…
Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is almost here. This past month, I’ve been writing a book to help you become a street-smart coder . It’s my case against syntax obsession to stand out as a coder. This week, I heard back from my awesome beta readers: Ricardo Cardona and Darren Lin . Their feedback helped me simplify chapters and cut duplication. Here’s some of their feedback. “What I liked the most is…
Blogging for 8 years hasn’t been unicorns and rainbows. I abandoned my blog for months. I’ve also wanted to quit more than once. Even when I preach to write like nobody is reading , my last 100 daily posts made me question if I should keep a blog. Maybe YouTube, Substack, or a social media platform aren’t that bad after all. Then I remember Seth Godin sharing about his 10,000 posts . That’s 25…
Like an 8-year-old boy, my blog has grown and changed. In case you missed it, yesterday my blog turned 8 . The project and habit I’ve kept for the longest. Here’s what I’m doing differently: #1. No more SEO-optimized posts. Google killed blogging as a business. Then LLMs put the last nail in the coffin. I wrote my first posts to rank high in Google search results. I chose subjects and headlines…
Eight years ago, I wrote my first blog post. I didn’t know what I was doing. After googling “how to get better at coding,” I found start a blog. That’s what I did. By the way, that search inspired Street-Smart Coding , my first coding book. I spent days choosing a Jekyll theme and a name. I turned hours of googling into a post and hit publish. OK, I vomited some words onto a page. That first post…
Hey there. Quick update: Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is almost done. No more hunting for typos. If you preordered, I’m sending a preview next week. And as usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Google search (if that’s still a thing) and LLMs are great for quick facts. When was America discovered? But the real problem is offloading our thinking to AI (10min), even…
Since 2024, I’ve kept ideapads to capture bad ideas. Back then, by pure chance, I found the concept of becoming an idea machine . That’s writing 10 bad ideas about anything. Every. Single. Day. That habit has helped me write books and keep my creative juices flowing . It’s been so helpful that I made it Idea #5 in my book, 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life And Could Change Yours…
While catching up with ex-coworkers, the conversation inevitable turned to the future of coding. By the end of the evening, “You’re absolutely right!” had become an inside joke. That’s what ChatGPT seem to say when it’s wrong. Each time someone asked a question, they got an “You’re absolutely right!” AI answers aren’t 100% reliable. Coding’s short feedback loops make AI mistakes evident. Now…
Binge-watching TV isn’t exactly productive. Books are better. But recently, I’ve binged Brilliant Minds. Think a less dramatic version of House M.D. with wilder patients. Near the end of season 2, Dr. Wolf, the protagonist, said: “We’re all just doing our best to hold ourselves together.” A little reminder that: Nobody is normal. We’re all figuring out life as we go. We’re all just holding…
Last week, I found this question on a dev.to post : “Is it just me, or has anyone noticed that articles on dev.to don’t get as many reads/views as they used to before?” Yes! On dev.to, Medium, and on the Internet overall. There’s no point in writing how-to tutorials anymore, unless you’re starting your coding or writing journey with TIL posts . For step-by-step guidance on coding tasks, there’s a…
Anne Lamott has written over 20 books. Among them, Bird by Bird , one of the most popular writing memoirs. I just devoured her interview on David Perell’s YouTube channel. Here are my quotes, extracts, and lessons: #1. “The point is not to try harder, it’s to resist less.” #2. “If it’s literary, you can’t use it.” This line reminded me of Smart Brevity ’s beach and bar test: If you wouldn’t use it…
Yesterday, I found Seth Godin’s riffs : a collection of his best quotes from his blog. He’s one of the writers I’ve stolen from . Here are my favorites: “Seek out the smallest viable audience, not the largest possible one.” The smallest viable audience is you: who you were years ago or who you are now. Write or create for your younger self. And if you make something just for you, at least one…
Hey there. Quick update: 4 people have already preordered Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. A small win I’m celebrating. If you want to grow beyond syntax, this book is for you. As usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. The new profitable coding gig seems to be to clean up vibecoded apps. Here’s a team already doing it (3min). It’s time to change our LinkedIn bios to “AI…
As a creative practice, I write 10-idea lists every day . Here are 7 interesting ideas I found recently. I’m writing them as I go, so I’m missing sources. #1. Have a list of alternative activities to scrolling. Instead of grabbing your phone, have a default activity for when you’re bored. That might be opening your journal or reading a book . Or have a creative date with yourself. #2. Rest isn’t…
These days, I’ve been fighting my inner voice and its self-doubt. I needed to reread my own advice: From change starts in your mind , I remembered, action alleviates anxiety . From write like no one’s watching , I remembered, signal takes time and there’s always a chance tomorrow. From do nothing , I remembered, when overwhelmed, pause instead of doing more . A blog leaves breadcrumbs and success…
Some days, the daily post is a piece of cake. Other days, not even walking seems to help to hit publish. But just a few lines count as writing. Anything longer than a tweet works to mark the day in the calendar. Better a small rep than a broken habit . Like a high-performance sport, every day you don’t write you’re practicing not writing.
Yesterday, a friend asked me, “How does writing a book feel?” She had just bought a printed copy of 10 Simple Ideas That Changed My Life . Well… The first days are full of excitement. I use 10-idea lists to come up with a title, subtitle, and outline. I come up with cover ideas. The next few days are full of doubt. It’s when the inner critic speaks louder . “Is anyone going to like this?” The next…
You know something is happening when Hacker News features a Who Is Quitting instead of a Who Is Hiring. Bad managers, unrealistic expectations, AI, toxic culture… Every response shared a different but similar story. I’ve wanted to quit more times than I can count. After a layoff in 2024 , I stopped coding for almost a year. That breaking moment came after a “good job” that broke me , left me sick,…
Yesterday, it happened again. I had an error message that made me scratch my head . For a moment, I thought, “God, why am I doing this? I should start a garden or something.” I copy-pasted the error message into Google. StackOverflow didn’t help that much. I was tempted to go to Copilot . But I held my horses. A few moments later, “Oooohh, here it is!” A one-line code change fixed it. Stupid…
Hey there. Before this week’s links, a quick update: After a couple of rounds of editing, I recruited a couple of friends as beta readers for Street-Smart Coding Manifesto . It’s not the first time someone’s read these ideas, but I like honest feedback before launching—to quiet the inner critic. As usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Keeping a blog showed me a…
Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham using only 50 words. Amazon limits team size to what two pizzas can feed. Virgil Abloh challenged himself to tweak only 3% of an existing design. Inspired by these examples and by this David Epstein’s YouTube video , here’s my 10-idea list of writing constraints—pair them with these fun blog post challenges : Write a book first draft in one month Share only 10…
From Derek Sivers’ Useful But Not True , you can always choose your next thought or reaction. But yesterday, I failed to choose my next reaction after a frustrating purchase over the phone. Then I hit a roadblock with a coding task. I felt how my energy was depleted. To change my mood, I switched to writing, something I enjoy . Hoping to find something to steal, I opened my RSS reader and checked…
My sister showed me her phone with some hotel Instagram accounts. “They all look the same. I wonder if it’s AI,” she told me. She was visiting profiles of two small hotels in our city. Same colors. Same layout. No way to tell one from the other. The day before, a friend showed us a thank-you note from a community campaign. It looked just like the hotels’ Instagram posts. It’s not just Instagram or…
“How many tables did you use?” “One or two…I don’t know.” A coder said that while demoing a feature to a client. C’mon! You wouldn’t forget that detail unless you had memory issues. While screensharing, I noticed he had Codex open—another coding agent. It wasn’t a memory issue after all. Someone has been prompting, right? I remembered that quick exchange when reading Yegor Bugayenko’s Couriers,…
In 2025, his book sales dropped by 46%. That’s what Tim Ferriss discovered when he looked at his spreadsheets. The smoking gun: ChatGPT’s release around 2022, when his sales started to decrease. And that’s the landscape for a best-selling author. Now imagine being a mere mortal without Tim’s reach. Here are some of the changes Tim is making—and how I’m stealing them: Rely on personal stories “For…