Issue 7

This is now day 49. Not too far from two months writing every day. I was reading today that doing the same thing every day is easier, compared to doing it a couple of times a week. It is counterintuitive, but it works. There’s no excuse, there’s no “I will do it tomorrow”. There’s no tomorrow, there’s only today, the present. Above all there’s no negotiation. Which has happened to me a lot lately with running. This sentence is quite powerful:

When willpower is lacking, routine takes over.

I am trying to be more lyric in my posts. I am purposely avoiding jumping directly to the topic. If I am succeeding or not, that’s a different matter. On Expectations and Talking with customers are attempts at that.

A memory that keeps me alert comes from Captain Fantastic with Viggo Mortensen. At some point during the movie, the main character shows his disdain for the word “interesting”. It’s an overused word that means nothing, adds nothing, and does nothing to people who hear. And this thought stuck with me. Imagine when someone says “This book is interesting”. Ask yourself what do you now know about this book? Absolutely nothing. And this equality applies to anything blessed by this word. I did a search across all my posts and found a grand total of 8 matches. An opportunity to do better.

The newer posts I wrote are quite small in comparison to older ones. There’s a mix of laziness, and lack of time, and trying to make them dense. I am meticulously trying to keep them lean. And share my thoughts without repeating myself, or feeling that I am wasting my readers time. I often read truly talented people that hammer the same idea multiple times. A page that should be condensed to a sentence. Perhaps to make the point across, it has to be viewed from multiple angles. I am quite certain my opinion on this subject will change.

Asking for help - meta - Some thoughts on a couple of communities I am part of.

Talking with customers - A disservice that so many engineers do to themselves.

Expectations - A concept to be aware, before one is taken advantage of.

Moods - My inner struggle to be disciplined.

Receiving feedback and Feedback going wrong - Birds of a feather. Knowing how to receive feedback is a skill. And a pretty good one across both professional and personal contexts.

I am thinking about moving away from Notion, to some other platform to host this blog. Any idea of what I could use?

Until next week.