01 Jan 2026 #misc
I’ll remember 2025 as the year I became a writer—and the year I lost my mom.
The saddest moment
After five years of fighting a chronic disease, she left.
It was the saddest, loneliest moment of my life. It led me to my toughest post ever.
To honor her memory, my sister and I wrote a book: Nuestros Recuerdos (Our Memories in Spanish).
We compiled my journal entries and her poetry. A friend drew some illustrations. And we found some pictures of her when she was young.
That was our therapy and way to keep her alive in our memory.
2025 was a year of achievements and melancholy, winning and losing, endings and beginnings.
Some victory dance moments
#1. My first viral post. One post about testing private methods got syndicated or reshared. BOOM! A traffic spike and some ebook sales.
#2. My first interview. Well, it wasn’t exactly an interview.
The LAX community invited me to a QA session with their coding students. They’re building the next generation of coders and leaders in Africa.
Their community manager found one of my posts and reached out. Another victory for writing.
That interview was the perfect excuse to ask for feedback on my communication skills. A coach taught me this 4-step framework for interviews.
#3. My first book, Street-Smart Coding.
It took about 4 months, from idea to typing the last word. Writing taught me plenty, but promoting taught me more.
I adopted a simple marketing strategy and passed the $1 test.
I translated it to Spanish and published it on Amazon.
And with a book came my first hater. Someone called me “b1tch” for promoting my book and left a sarcastic comment elsewhere.
The book was a real challenge.
#4. My first appearance on Hacker News. Yes, my blog got syndicated on HN. I didn’t make it to the first page. But hey, it’s progress.
My most read posts
In 2025, I wrote every single day, hitting the 400-post mark.
Among those daily posts, here are the top 10 posts by reads:
- 9 Subjects I’ve Changed My Mind About as a Software Engineer
- Six Proven Principles to Learn Any Skill Faster (Without Spending 10,000 Hours)
- 5 Lessons from My Team’s Architect That Helped Me Become a Senior Developer
- Don’t Write the Next Atomic Habits. Write Mini-Books
- 12 Hard Truths About Coding I Learned the Hard Way After 10 Years
- 7 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life (And Could Change Yours Too)
- 10 Ways to Stand Out at Work—Other than Work Hard
- What Frustrates Me the Most as a C#/.NET Developer
- I’ve Replaced My Second Brain With a Simpler Method
- 20+ Signs You’re a Real Programmer (Using 2 Monitors Isn’t One)
For 2026, apart from working on my health daily (simple idea #2 from the post #7), I’m making simplicity my intention. And I started decluttering my digital life. That intention will impact my content system too.
Thanks for reading, and happy coding in 2025!
Don’t miss my best of 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.
31 Dec 2025 #books
YouTube changed how I read books.
One day, the YouTube algorithm showed me one video on reading one book per week.
That video made me read two books at once. Now I keep a book on my dinner table and another on the couch. Those are my reading spots after meals.
And binge-watching Ryan Holiday’s YouTube channel made me change my reading habits.
I went back to reading on paper and writing in margins. That used to feel like a capital sin.
With those two strategies, here are the books I read and one takeaway from each:
Books I finished
#1. Skip the Line by James Altucher: Forget about the 10,000 hours to become an expert. Instead of accumulating hours, run 10,000 experiments: quick actions that teach you something.
#2. Steal Like an Artist by Austen Kleon: Originality is overrated. Find who to copy. Then find what to copy. My favorite line: “Hands first, then computer.”
#3. Mini Book Model by Chris Stanley: In 2025, I redefined what a book is.
These days, the real challenge is to make people finish books. Social media has ruined our attention spans.
The solution? Write shorter books.
James Altucher planted a seed with his “10-paper book” challenge. Building on that idea, Chris’ book gave me frameworks to title, outline, and write “mini books.”
I’m following the mini book principles to write my next coding books.
#4. Writing to Think by William Zinsser. My favorite line: “Writing is learned mainly by imitation.” That felt like permission to explore and develop my own voice.
#5. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Making predictions is hard, especially about the future. With the uncertainty of what AI could bring, the sole skill to master is the ability to learn and adapt.
#6. Writing for Developers by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop. My favorite line? You’re not writing enough. The book shared it for engineering blogging, but the advice applies everywhere. Write more!
Books I didn’t finish but I’m still reading
#7. Mastery by Robert Greene. Some masters knew their Life Task as children. Others discovered it through experimentation and exploration, at the intersection of fields.
#8. Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspé. My sister picked up this one first. I started to apply some concepts to keep my glucose spikes under control. That’s my secret productivity hack to avoid the afternoon crash after lunch.
30 Dec 2025 #writing
“If I had more hours, I’d build more things.”
Anyone else feel that? Or that’s just me?
I’ve wanted to quit my day job more times than I can count.
I stopped thinking about quitting when I discovered the idea of a daily creative block.
Two hours are enough to create evergreen content.
Mark Thompson works for 2 hours.
He’s a veteran marketer who now creates for a living. He replies, posts, and runs a community. All in about 2 hours every day.
About working for just 2 hours, he wrote,
Two hours of focus work today can create a lifetime of income tomorrow.
That was one of the lines that made me think recently.
A professional writer doesn’t write for that long.
Mark isn’t the only one with that routine.
Steven Pressfield, author of War of Art, follows the same practice.
In an interview in Huberman Labs, he shared that he only writes for…guess how long? Two hours. After that, it’s time for interviews, marketing, and promotion.
If pros write only for two hours, we don’t need to quit. We need habit and discipline first.
Austen Kleon said it in Steal Like an Artist, keep your day job. I stole his idea of checking a box every time I work on my projects. That’s my plan for 2026 and the years to come.
You just need two hours. Start today. The time to quit will come later.
29 Dec 2025 #productivity
I’ve tried resolutions. But they didn’t work.
On New Year’s Eve, excitement fills the air: holidays, dinner, and presents. But that excitement often becomes a to-do list we never complete.
Instead of resolutions and to-dos, I prefer to go with an intention.
Last year, my intention was “health.” I did something for my body, mind, and spirit every day. One simple idea that changed my life. A 15-min workout session, writing, and a moment of silence kept me sane.
For this year, I’m making “simplicity” my new intention. And to start, I’m decluttering my digital life. Here’s my decluttering plan:
Computer
#1. Before messing with anything, run a backup. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Plug in a USB drive and copy what you want to keep. I use FreeFileSync to automate backups.
#2. Keep the Desktop clean. All those temporary files looking for a folder: Gone!
#3. Clean the Downloads folder. Remove all those freebies you never read.
#4. Archive unused files from Documents.
#5. Uninstall unused software. If you haven’t used it in the last 6 months, it’s out.
#6. Delete old backups.
#7. Archive notes you no longer need or have already used.
#8. Remove screenshots you don’t need anymore.
#9. Clean your RSS reader. Unfollow dormant blogs or sites.
#10. Clean your password manager.
#11. Discard one-time coding projects or folders.
#12. Alternatively, run BleachBit, CCleaner, or similar apps.
For each browser…
#13. Remove bookmarks. I often use bookmarks as a cheap “Read for Later” app.
#14. Clear browser history, cookies, and saved data.
#15. Remove or change pinned tabs.
#16. Uninstall extensions you don’t need.
Online
#17. Turn off email notifications. I don’t need an email for every like, comment, or repost. Leave email for 2-factor authentication or security notifications.
#18. Unfollow people from social media accounts. If they haven’t published anything in the last 6 months, out. If their message doesn’t resonate anymore, out.
#19. Clear saved content from social media apps, like Medium, LinkedIn, or dev.to.
#20. Delete old email notifications. My bank sends me an email every time I buy something. If I still need them, I can generate a report from the bank’s website.
#21. Unsubscribe from newsletters.
#22. Archive reference emails.
#23. Clean Canva projects. Often I create multiple versions of the same design, but only the latest matters.
Phone
#24. Clean the homepage. Leave no apps or icons there. Group related apps inside folders on the second page.
#25. Remove social media and unused apps. Again, run the 6-month test.
#26. Remove memes and large files from WhatsApp groups.
#27. Remove “bad” photos. People in funny poses, with closed eyes: gone!
#28. Remove to-watch or to-read notes.
#29. Clean your browsers’ history.
#30. If you use YouTube, clean your search history and change Google’s Ads ID.
#31. Clear Cloud storage. I keep extra copies when sharing files between computers.
I thought about making a checklist on Gumroad, but that would just add clutter to your downloads. Instead, bookmark this post.
28 Dec 2025 #coding
It’s all over the headlines.
Every so often, someone reveals a model X% faster. A tech CEO makes bold claims about the future of coding. The stock market reacts with euphoria. Prices go up.
AI has also brought new buzzwords. Agents, prompts, workflows, integrations…
Pick your battles
FOMO is real.
Almost every week, I find tutorials about “MCP.” Whatever that means. I skip most of them. I’ve chosen my battles to stay sane in the hype cycle.
I’m still figuring out how to adopt AI without losing my skills and identifying the problems it brings.
That’s keeping me busy enough.
Some things haven’t changed
If you’re also experiencing FOMO:
Don’t worry. Fundamentals matter more than ever.
Plenty of codebases still suffer from N+1 problems, missing pagination, and SQL injection. Most were written before the AI hype. Now imagine the chaos inside vibe-coded codebases.
There’s still work ahead before (or if) AI shines at coding.
Don’t forget about AI. But build real skills first. Then leverage AI. In that order.
To help you build lasting skills beyond the hype, I wrote Street-Smart Coding. The roadmap I wish I had starting out.
Grab your copy of Street-Smart Coding here