2021 March. Learning, Stress, Feedback, Performance Reviews and Purpose.
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New posts #
Purpose. I've found a handy definition of purpose. Instead of looking for ideas inside yourself, you can look around and notice what matters to the people around you.
Non-Sleep Deep Rest — my notes to make it easier to access resources recommended by Andrew Huberman.
Stress Inoculaton. How can you increase your stress capacity?
Books I've read #
How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 by Joanna Faber & Julie King. How can you treat your kids a little bit more like adults but acknowledge that their problems are significant for them? What do you do when you get angry? How do you approach tantrums? The most important lesson is that parents aren't perfect, and it's worth reading how others have struggled—highly recommended. Five stars must read from me.
Elsewhere on the Web #
Andrew Huberman Lab. It's a YouTube channel and podcast that I recommend recently to everyone I know. Highly recommended. Especially:
How to Be Happier Without Really Trying. It is related to some other things going on for me, but I can honestly recommend this post by Eric Barker. What you think about and how makes a big difference in how you feel. If you're not feeling that good, then maybe it's worth investigating what do you think about. What though have caused your emotions? But, there are more techniques that you can use: don't refer to yourself in the first person if you're thinking about anything negative. Use your name. For example, instead of saying "I've made a mistake." say "Kris has made a mistake.". It will give you a little more perspective. Just remember it's about what you say to yourself in your head. I don't recommend you start talking like that out loud.
Self-determination theory. Steven Kotler mentioned it in The Art of Impossible by and is something that reminded me of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. In short: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose are the three big internal motivators. But, when you read Wikipedia instead of popular books, then it gets more nuanced.
Measures of engineering impact. I'm trying to figure out how organizations measure developer impact that is fair for the employee and the company. Some useful links and references here, but it's far from the complete picture for me. I'm adding The Many Faces of a 10x Software Engineer for another perspective.
Why Your Company's Documentation Sucks. Some excellent observations of what works and what doesn't in documentation. I'm not sure about solutions, but it should be helpful to avoid mistakes. Sometimes it's enough.
Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns. Worth reading for Java and Object-Oriented programming fans.
Updates #
Unicorn Developer. How does being a generalist affect your career? What about growing companies? Some notes about that.
Keystone routines. Adding more notes about my current habit tracking efforts.
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