30 Dec 2024 #productivity
It wasn’t a time management technique. It wasn’t the Eisenhower Matrix, Eat That Frog, or the Pareto Principle.
It was an energy management technique: eating better.
Eating better. Eating for energy.
Eating better means no processed foods, no carbs, and no sugar. We all know we should eat better. Nothing new! Right?!
But from “Glucose Revolution” by Jessie Inchauspé, eating better means reordering how we eat, without sacrificing those delicious candies.
Salads first. Proteins and fats second. And carbs and sweets last.
Reordering how we eat keeps our glucose spikes under control
Glucose spikes are the reason why we feel tired all day and hungrier even after eating. We have too much sugar in our bloodstream.
Simply by reordering how I ate, I got my energy back:
- I don’t get sleepy after lunch.
- I don’t drag my feet to get through my afternoons.
- I lost ~4kg in two months without much effort.
Also, to control our glucose spikes, we could walk for 10-15 minutes after eating. The longer, the better.
Thanks to my new diet, my afternoons are as productive as my mornings. No more feeling like a zombie at the end of the day.
We are what we put in our bodies. And if we eat well, we think well.
29 Dec 2024 #misc
In 2024, I stopped being a serial book reader, keeping a tally of books I read.
I went from “let’s read anything and everything” to “let’s read what I need to read.” From just-in-case to just-in-time reading. I realized I had a long list of book notes, but I didn’t remember reading some of those books.
Naval Ravikant’s reading strategy helped me change my mind about books. And I adopted some reading methods into my own reading method.
Instead of reading a long list of books, I immersed myself in a single writer’s world.
By accident, I found James Altucher’s work and I’ve been following him since then. I reread “Reinvent Yourself” and read “Choose Yourself.” Those are the best ones I’ve read.
Reinvent Yourself
This was one of those books I didn’t remember reading, even when I had notes. Later, listening to James Altucher’s interviews, I made the connection and reread it.
We can’t rely on the same skills we learned 5 years ago. We need to reinvent ourselves every 5 years. And here, reinvention means finding new income sources.
To start a reinvention, we should read 500 books on any subject. That would take us around 5 years.
Choose Yourself
This is the best book I read this year.
Often, we’re waiting for someone to save us or choose us. Someone will see how smart we are and give us a job. Someone will see how attractive we are and choose us as life partners…The government, our boss, or a rich guy that doesn’t know what to do with his money. One day, someone will save us.
The truth is no one is coming to rescue us. We should choose ourselves.
We start choosing ourselves by taking care of our body, mind, and spirit every day: moving our bodies, doing something creative, and writing 10 ideas a day. Working on things we love and being surrounded by people we love.
And we don’t need anyone’s permission for that. The internet has created a world without permissions. The only permission we need is from ourselves.
Apart from these two, I read Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth, and I have on my pile to read “The Power of No” and “Skip the Line.” All of them by James Altucher. Yes, I’m immersed in James Altucher’s work these days.
Some honorable mentions: this year, I also read “E-Myth Revisited,” “You Are a Writer,” “Slow Productivity,” and “The Anxious Generation.”
I can’t say one book has changed my life. But, those two books gave enough ideas and inspiration to take care of health and get life on track after a season of burned out.
28 Dec 2024 #misc
The first moments show how you’re going to be treated for the rest of the time.
It applies when you go to a restaurant, call a customer service line, or go to a bank. And the same is true when joining a new team as a developer.
The first day I joined my last full-time job was awful.
I was speaking a foreign language for work for the first time. I was working from home for the first time too. My company laptop didn’t arrive that day. I was told to install the software project with long and outdated instructions. I was completely lost.
I got a call from my boss’s boss that day, promising I’d “be in trouble” if I didn’t install that project before the end of the day.
The funny thing is, I didn’t have to work with that project at all in the 5 years I was there.
Instead of making your new team members feel lost, set clear goals for the first day, week, and month.
For the first day, a new team member should:
- Install the right tools: email, VPN, chat clients, etc
- Introduce themselves in Slack or company chat
- Get to know their team lead
For the first week:
- Have 1-1s with all team members
- Have the working environment ready
- Complete a dummy task to understand the project workflow
For the first month:
- Complete a medium-sized task, with almost no guidance
Make it really easy for new team members to install your project and its dependencies. They should be ready to work by running a single script or pressing a button.
Make it really easy for new team members to follow existing rules and conventions. Don’t rely on outdated documents. Show sample code or work that follows those conventions.
Get your developers “up and running” as quickly as possible. Show them how you’re treating them for the rest of the time.
27 Dec 2024 #writing
Writing a book is a sign of prestige and a synonym of expertise.
A book brings interviews, talks, consulting gigs, and more opportunities. Sales don’t bring the most money, but the doors it opens do. That’s what I’ve heard.
If you think of publishers, pitching, and rejection when you think of publishing a book, there’s the self-publishing route. Amazon, Gumroad, or your own site are good options.
Writing a book can seem daunting.
But in an interview for Self Publishing TV on YouTube, James Altucher shared a simpler way to write a non-fiction book:
- Find a topic you’re interested in.
- Look up 10 scientific papers about it.
- Explain each paper in simple words and share a story.
Et voilà! You have a book: “10 Scientifically Proven Ways to …”
The thing is, scientific papers aren’t written for normal people. They’re impossible to read. Full of technical jargon and long paragraphs. Arrggg! I tried it when I wanted to understand phones reducing our cognitive capacities. I said, why they write like this?
Even if you don’t write a book, this is a great idea for a newsletter, series of posts, or email course.
26 Dec 2024 #writing
This year, and for the first time since University, I took a writing class for the Internet.
It was a webinar, to be precise. Tim Denning and Todd Brison ran it.
The main lesson? Write daily. Daily?! Yes, daily.
That was shocking. I was used to writing on my blog when I felt I had something to say. Usually, once a month. Later, when I gained some traction, twice a month. I only wrote daily when I challenged myself to write ~20 posts before Christmas in 2022.
To write daily, you don’t have to produce 1,000-word posts each time. A good headline and one main point are enough to hit “Publish.” Even a tweet, a quote, or 200 words are a good place to start too.
When you write daily:
- You make people notice you and remember you by consistently showing up in their feeds.
- You get closer to your future customers, bosses, and partners. Remember, people don’t buy from or do business with random people on the streets, but from people they know.
- You build a library of content that showcases your expertise. People will see you as an expert, or at least someone who knows about the subject you’re writing about.
Write your first piece to get ahead of those who never start, and keep writing daily to get ahead of those who quit along the way. Your future self will thank you for it.