Seven Places Where You Shouldn't Keep Your Todos
Quick test: think of something you promised a colleague last week. Where is that commitment written down, right now? If it takes you more than one guess, keep reading.
Tobias Sjösten
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The Personal Branding Playbook
Amelia Sordell built an agency on the back of her own personal brand, and this book is her attempt at sharing how she did it, and has since done the same for her clients. I came away with a handful of golden nuggets and some frustration over how deep I had to dig for them.
The Worst Architectural Decision I Ever Made
Back in 2009, I wanted to build a web-based strategy game. I had a vision of a sci-fi universe where players could colonize planets, extract resources, build fleets, and wage interstellar war.
You Are The Brand
Mike Kim opens by asking himself what feeling a reader should get from his book. His answer: “Finally!” He nailed the target. This is the book I’ve been looking for on personal branding. I picked the book up while wrestling with a familiar problem: my interests sprawl across software, sports, philosophy, coaching, writing, podcasting, leadership. Kim compares such a spread to a…
Platform
Michael Hyatt has been on my radar for years. His name keeps surfacing in my world, and I was curious. I’m interested in personal branding, and right now is a good moment for me to build my own platform, so reading his book on the subject felt like the obvious move.
Superstition
I’ve always had a split feeling about superstition. I get the allure of the magical and the mysterious, the extra layer of wonder over an otherwise ordinary world. I also get annoyed when intelligent, rational people quietly switch off their critical thinking and start believing nonsense. I picked up Stuart Vyse’s short introduction to understand that second part. Vyse is a…
Leaving the Best Job in the World
After eight years at STIM — helping hundreds of thousands of music creators get paid for their work — I’m stepping down as Head of Software Engineering.
Ethics
I picked up this book because I wanted to understand how to think about right and wrong, and whether there’s any solid ground beneath our moral intuitions. Simon Blackburn’s Ethics turned out to be one of the most thought-provoking reads I’ve had in years. The book’s central argument struck me hard: ethics is the glue that holds societies together and enables cooperation…
Accounting
I didn’t expect to enjoy reading about accounting. I picked up this book thinking I’d slog through another dry technical manual, but Christopher Nobes writes with the kind of enthusiasm you’d expect from someone who finds satisfaction in reconciling accounts. His passion for the subject came through, and I found myself smiling at his obvious delight in the details.
The First 90 Days
I wish I had read this book a long time ago. I would have avoided so many rookie mistakes as a new leader, from bringing habits that didn’t fit my new context to misreading what kind of situation I was walking into. The First 90 Days is a framework for the critical transition period when you step into a new leadership role. Michael D. Watkins structures the book around ten core skills:…
Making Work Visible
I’ve spent decades working in and around software teams, and one of the single most persistent problem I’ve seen is teams drowning in work they don’t fully see. Dominica Degrandis wrote this book to address exactly that, and her prescription is deceptively simple: if you want to manage work, make it visible first.
Fixing Outlook's Calendar Export
I use a variety of calendars to organize my life, my family, and the many projects and businesses I’m involved with. Most of them use Google Workspace, but at work we use, for some unfathomable reason, Office 365.
2024 Annual Review
This is my 9th public, annual retrospection, where I summarize the past year and set some structure for the coming year. I find it an incredibly useful practice and, since I love reading others’ reviews, it’s nice to be part of that movement.
The E-Myth Revisited
Most small businesses fail because their founders wanted to create a better job for themselves, not to build something independent. I didn’t fully grasp this until I read The E-Myth Revisited, and the insight explained so many challenges I’ve faced in my own ventures. Michael E. Gerber’s central argument is straightforward: you need to design your business systematically, as if…
Meeting Notes
I do a lot of meetings. Some more useful than others. A sure way to make them needlessly useless, however, is to disregard my notes for them; either the ones I write in order to prepare, or the ones I write during the meeting.
Looking for Problems
A while ago, I wrote about how I’m starting a business and with which criteria I’m entering that journey. A month has passed, and I wanted to give an update on that!
Exploring Business Ideas
Last year I read a series of book on personal finance, some of which made quite an impact on my life. Especially Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The Psychology of Money (also The Richest Man in Babylon , to some extent).
Podcast Recording Software
I’m currently exploring the world of podcasting, with the goal of starting one myself in the near future. Having consumed them for ages, I want to check out the other side of it.
2023 Annual Review
Another year has passed and it’s time for my annual review! As usual, I reflect on what went well, what didn’t go so well, what I learned, and what I’m working toward.
The Psychology of Money
Money is one of the few areas where being “reasonable” beats being smart. That’s the quiet but persistent thought I walked away with after reading The Psychology of Money, and it’s why the book stuck with me longer than most personal finance writing. This isn’t a book about how to optimize returns. It’s about how people actually behave when money is involved, and why that behavior matters more…
Engineering My Family's Spending
One of the areas for improvement I brought up in my 2022 review was finances. I have very specific goals for my family’s financial future and, in order to reach those goals, we’ll have to optimize three aspects of our finances: earning, spending, and investing.
Engineering My Reading List
My “Want to Read” list on Goodreads currently tallies 1'513 books. With my current pace of reading 34 books per year, it’ll take me 45 years to go through them all. That’s ignoring the fact that I keep adding to the list.
2022 Annual Review
I’ve been doing public, annual reviews for over a decade. First on my old tech blog ( 2011 , 2012 ) and then on my fitness side project ( 2015 , 2016 , 2019 , 2020 ). While it hasn’t been super consistent, with half the years missing, I do enjoy the process of reviewing and I find it beneficial. So here’s another one, looking back at 2022.
Writing Is Learning Is Growing
I began writing publically back in 2010 when I first published an article on the pros and cons of using the www subdomain. While my writing has continued virtually uninterrupted since then, it has changed profoundly during this time.
Clean Architecture
Clean Architecture is a must-read for anyone working with software systems. Robert C. Martin delivers a dense but rewarding exploration of how to structure software that remains adaptable over time. The book articulates something I’ve felt intuitively throughout my career: that good architecture isn’t about picking the right framework or database, but about enabling future change.
Meditations
Meditations is one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. It sparked something in me that has only grown stronger over the years. I’m happier, more focused, more resilient, and more at peace because of what I learned from Marcus Aurelius. This is the only book I keep re-reading every few years, and it sits at the top of my list of mandatory reading for my children.
The Slight Edge
The Slight Edge argues that success and failure both come from the same place: small, everyday choices that compound over time. Eating one healthy meal will not make you fit. Eating one unhealthy meal will not make you fat. But string together enough of either, and the results become obvious. Olson’s point is that we underestimate how much these tiny decisions matter, precisely because their…
Starting Strength
I came to Starting Strength with some skepticism. With a solid background in CrossFit, Rippetoe’s approach seemed too narrow, too focused on a handful of barbell lifts. But I kept seeing people get stronger on his program while I was spinning my wheels. So I tried it. After several months on the program, and after coaching hundreds of others through it, I consider picking up this book one of…
Refactor Your AFK Interface
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a complete geek. When I find something that interests me I’ll go down the rabbit hole 100%, no matter how little it might interest others.
By the Flip of a Coin
The coin takes air and spins around in suspense before landing for the hundreth time in your palm. The ninetynine times before, by some freak accident, ended up in tails. So surely this time it must be head — for what are the odds of one hundred tails in a row?
Experimental Outbound Marketing
As part of building my tool for remote teams I’m exploring ways to market it. I want to try a bunch of ideas in small scale and see how they perform, so that I can calculate how it could work once I scale it up.
Who the Hell Am I?
Finding your first business competitor can be scary. At least for me it often brings out my worst demons and I start questioning myself worse than a high school kid.
Comparing Apple and Apple Pie
I have been doing CrossFit here in Edinburgh for about four months now and I feel myself getting stronger for every passing week. I can tell from the weights and repetitions but also from the fact that every workout is timed, so to give you a way to compare yourself to others and your previous workouts.
The Problem with Remote Teams
This February I packed my bags, said goodbye to Sweden and moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina. 12'000 kilometers removed from friends and family, in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language and didn’t know a single soul. I found myself finally living a long overdue dream of mine.
Trading Required for Easy
I’m always looking to improve and learn new things. Right now one such thing is the Spanish language and so when I recently walked past a stall with books on different languages I quickly picked up two good candidates.
Zero Multiplication
I often describe myself as highly analytical and as someone who works very systematically. To be honest that’s just CV code for saying I’m a world class procrastrinator. If something needs to be done you can trust me to find a way to work hard doing anything but the actual thing. Often accompanied by the words “if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing correctly”.
Principles of PHP Package Design
I’ll start at the end and say that this is one of the most useful programming books I have ever read. Principles of PHP Package Design should be required reading for anyone writing code for a living, independent of one’s programming language. Matthias Noback is a well known figure ( and blogger ) in the Symfony world, where he’s been pioneering the concept of hexagonal…
Charge Your Clients Like a Boss
Being worth a certain value does not equate to being payed the same amount. But it can be a tangent!
Packt Summer Reading
Stepping away from the computer doesn’t mean you have to stop tuning your skills and sharpening your tools.
Tracking with Purpose
Modern technology enables a lot of really cool tracking possibilities. You can easily keep score of your personal finances with Tink , use one of many phone apps to oversee your nutrition or register for Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic.
Autocompleting Language Searches
Google is a great source for finding answers. One overlooked feature though is using the search engine to find questions! Like for example “Why is JavaScript so slow?” .
Extending Symfony2 Web Application Framework
The introduction of Extending Symfony2 (Web Application Framework, phew) explains that it’s for developers “already using Symfony2 and PHP” and its online description says you are expected to “have a good understanding of how Symfony works” . I can attest to its truth — it’s definitely not for newcomers to Symfony2.
What Do You Think of Chaps?
I recently pushed the initial commit for a new project of mine. Say hello to Chaps !
My Professional Worth
I used to believe that, as programmers, our professional worth is directly tied to the code we produce and the technical knowledge we are equipped with. It kind of makes sense. Similar to how proprietary software vendors draw their worth from their existing software, formats and protocols, fighting tooth and nail to keep it hidden away.
Announcing November Camp 2013
Me and the rest of Symfony Sweden will be hosting a PHP conference in Stockholm this coming winter. Mark the 22nd for November Camp !
PHP In Action
“Objects, Design, Agility” — the subtitle sums the book up quite well; PHP In Action is all about object oriented programming in PHP. I owe its authors a lot for having introduced me to the wonderful world of OOP. PHP In Action starts off with an introduction to classes, objects and inheritance. For the beginner programmer this is vital reading but if you can already tell an interface…
DrupalCamp Göteborg 2013
May 25th will see the second ever DrupalCamp Göteborg and I will attend it. Following my talk at DrupalCamp Stockholm 2013 , where I gave an introduction to Symfony , this time around I have been invited to hold the keynote.
Ingress
Today I found, applied for and was invited to Ingress . Just a few hours of playing has already gotten me hooked and if you are frequenting this site, chances are you will like it too.
Sunrise and Sunset from Google
Google seems to increasingly try and answer our more simple searches directly, rather than showing a list of websites that in turn might answer the search. It think it makes a lot of sense when it saves me time and clicks.
Someone Will Test Your Code
You often hear testing proponents (such as myself) lament their non-testing peers with an almost religious fervor. That is often counter-productive but more importantly; the case can be made way more tangible than just promoting The Right Way™.