The first week of January every year I take the week off. It’s not a trip anywhere. It’s a week of reflection and planning. The perfect moment to look forward to the next year and set up objectives. The process is quite simple really. I read a letter I’ve written to myself the year before, and write a new one for next year. There’s som...

I work on many different things in a given week. I navigate between technical discussions, individual career growth, interviewing, and more. It's very easy to get lost and let the calendar happen to me. When that happens, I lose both my energy and efficiency. The key to good weeks, and good months, is managing my energy. Making sure I'...

We just finished the first quarter of the year. With that, I tried something new. I went through a performance review cycle for everyone in my team. In the past, I've been doing this twice a year. This time, I decided to do a formal one every quarter. I found this both easier to do, and more impactful. I recommend it to anyone leading ...

"How much time will this take?", this is a difficult question to answer. Difficult might be underestimating this. I never get the right answer to this question. There are many variables and unknowns that can impact the actual time a feature or project takes to ship. I always end up being either too optimistic or too pessimistic. Given ...

I picked up The Inner Game of Tennis last week. It was such a short read, I was able to get through it in about a week. I did not have any expectations around it, I picked it up in a tweet from Tobi. In there, he mentioned, "unstuck something you had already started". I'm still not quite sure what he meant by that, but it was definitel...

Writing has helped me clarify my thinking and it's a great way to reflect. I've never shared much of it, but now it just feels like I'm sending an email, so I'm trying it out. I mostly write on building software, and engineering management if you're interested. This first one is about personal goals in the context of a software team Di...