22 Jun 2025 #productivity
For a long time, I was a note-taking freak.
I spent hours trying to find the perfect note-taking system. I tried a bullet journal, a simple A-4 sheet of paper folded twice, and an endless .txt file. I probably have an old comparison table of note-taking buried in my old computer.
Starting a second brain
Years later, probably scrolling on Hacker News, I found out about the Zettelkasten method.
It fascinated me so much that I read How to Take Smart Notes to learn more about the method and started my own “zettel.” But recently I realized that I barely revisit most of my notes. I’m not interested in the same topics anymore.
Simply writing 10 ideas
And after reading some of James Altucher’s books and recovering from burnout, I’ve changed my mind about productivity and to-do lists.
Instead of to-do lists and goals, I’ve started to write 10 ideas a day to become an idea machine. It has changed my note-taking habits too. Now, after every book, podcast, or course, I write down 10 key lessons. It forces me to recall the main ideas from the content I consume. I don’t need to write every single detail but rather remember the 10 points that resonate the most. That effort makes the learning stick.
I still write down the quotes I like the most from books I read. But I’ve stopped chasing second-brain systems and testing every new AI-powered app. I simply write 10 ideas. It’s simple and more useful than any system I’ve tried.
21 Jun 2025 #misc
In 2019, I started my first attempt at running a freelancing business.
I had started freelancing for a company I had just left. I thought I could do the same for other companies. My strategy for finding clients? Cold emailing any software agency I could find.
I even emailed every recruiter I found on open applications on LinkedIn. Those days, LinkedIn was flooded with “life-changing opportunities.” Sorry, I meant job listings.
I don’t remember how many emails I sent. But I remember getting just one reply. When I followed up, I only heard crickets.
Here are 15 ideas to reduce chances of getting ghosted when cold emailing clients or anyone else:
#1. Send 10 ideas for free. Don’t expect anything in return. This is James Altucher’s idea to become an idea machine.
#2. Don’t give your reader homework. “Fill out this application form to apply.”
#3. Make an offer simple to say yes. “For $x, I do XYZ.”
#4. Don’t make your reader look or feel bad. “Your YouTube video thumbnails suck, but I’m here to rescue you.” Good luck with that!
#5. Show real interest. “Hey, I’ve been following your content and liked your take on XYZ” or something like that.
#6. Start with a genuine compliment. Probably an idea I picked from “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
#7. Sound like a real human being. Write using your own words.
#8. Don’t copy pitches from the Internet.
#9. Don’t use classical sales tactics. “Hurry up! Only X seats left. Limited offer.” Think you’re reaching out to help, not to close.
#10. Don’t just ask for something in exchange for nothing. “Let’s do a collaboration. You do something for me, but I don’t do anything for you.” Yeah, I’ve received DMs on LinkedIn in those lines.
#11. Interact with your reader’s content first on social media.
#12. Use a catchy subject line in your email.
#13. Spell your reader’s name or title correctly. You don’t know how many emails and DMs I’ve ignored simply because they started with “Hello, coach Cesar.” I don’t have a coaching business and I don’t have “coach” next to my name anywhere online. Somebody just use a template, got you!
#14. Tell them how you found their contact details. “I found your email on your LinkedIn profile…“
#15. Include your own socials or portfolio as proof you’re real. Nothing fancy, you could try adding them under your signature.
Last year, I found a job listing I liked. They were looking for people on-site in a different country, but it didn’t stop me. I reached out to the CEO sharing 10 ideas to improve their product landing page. My mistake? I misspelled the company name. Maybe that’s why I never got a reply.
20 Jun 2025 #mondaylinks
Hey,
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to flip the conditions inside an if. Maybe not my trickiest bugs, but still… Anyway, here are 9 lessons from a coder’s trickiest bugs (8min).
#2. This coder doesn’t use AI and explains why (8min). One of his main concerns? Speed.
#3. Google Translate hasn’t killed translators and interpreters (6min). Maybe AI won’t kill coding either. At the end of the day, we as coders are translators too.
#4. It feels like coders will be AI’s first victims. But this might be the best time to learn software development (8min). Well, some time ago it was with textbooks, StackOverflow, forums, and instruction manuals.
I’ve been playing with Copilot recently. It’s already saved me hours of repetitive work. And in case you missed it, I’ve written about the tasks Copilot has helped me with here (3min) and here (2min).
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Check my Gumroad store to access free and premium books and courses to level up your coding skills and grow your software engineering career.
See you next time,
Cesar
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19 Jun 2025 #coding
This week, I’ve been running a coding experiment.
Every time I sit to code, I open Copilot (on a browser, not inside my IDE) and look for tasks to delegate.
Yesterday, while migrating a legacy Visual Basic application, I found myself doing some mundane and repetitive work. So I hired Copilot as my junior coder. And here are the tasks it helped me with:
#1. Populate an enum.
I had a large While loop full of If statements on the VB side.
It used magic strings for the comparisons. I gave the original VB code and asked Copilot to populate an existing C# enum with the missing magic strings.
A method with dozens of parameters isn’t that weird in a legacy app.
To make it easier to port, I gave Copilot the signature of a method and a code block that invoked it, and asked it to use comments to document each parameter name.
Later, I found out VB has named parameters. Arrggg! Anyway, that wasn’t code I was planning to commit. It was just to make it easier to read and port to C#.
#3. Avoid jumping between files.
Why create constants when we could use magic strings, right? Another common mistake on legacy apps.
In a unit test, in the Arrange part, I needed to generate identical objects, except for the values for a pair of properties.
The problem? I needed to look at three VB files to come up with the right combination of values for each object. So I gave Copilot the three code blocks and asked it to generate a 3-column table with the values I needed. No more jumping between files.
#4. Convert stored procedures into Entity Framework Core queries.
I’m not going to discuss which one is better. Stored procedures or ORMs.
But I found myself migrating stored procedures with fairly simple queries to LINQ-like queries with Entity Framework. So I gave Copilot my entity classes and asked to generate the equivalent queries.
This might not work for large and complex queries inside stored procedures.
#5. Review a patch looking for typos.
Before opening PRs, I asked Copilot to look for typos and suggest more descriptive class, method, and variable names.
Naming is hard and it always generates a lot of back and forth in code reviews. To avoid long discussions, I gave Copilot a git diff of my changes and asked it to be my code reviewer.
I’ve found Copilot shines at text-heavy processing tasks and filling the blanks of well-defined tasks. I’ve already tried these five tasks. But it’s not great at vague instructions like “migrate this to C#” or “refactor this code block.” With clear instructions, it’s the best intern for tedious tasks.
18 Jun 2025 #productivity
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “productivity?”
Eisenhower matrix? Eat that frog? Pomodoro technique? Listing daily and weekly priorities?
We often mistake productivity for choosing the right tools and techniques. And we procrastinate by tweaking tools instead of doing actual work.
I was one of those people. Multiple to-do lists, constantly syncing them between devices. But since last year, I’ve ditched my to-do and goal lists. Instead I’ve been focusing on my energy levels and working on my mind, body, and spirit every day.
Yesterday, I stumbled upon a webinar by Leon Castillo, “an entrepreneur, investor, and university professor obsessed with peak performance & entrepreneurship.” He helped me confirm some of my ideas and made me realize what I was doing wrong.
Here are 5 lessons I learned from him:
#1. We aren’t wired for focus. I guess our primitive brain developed to look for small clues in our environment. A slight movement behind a bush could mean we were a fierce predator’s dinner. So we need to create the right conditions for focus.
#2. Reduce the amount of information you consume. Everything and anything around you competes for the same reserves of attention and energy. Use them wisely. For example, don’t use your cellphone first thing in the morning. Instead use it at lunch or at night if you’re a morning person. Take the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) to find out if you’re a morning person or a night owl. “Moderate morning” person around here.
#3. Have a clean and organized environment for work.
#4. Batch focused work on 90-minute sessions, followed by 20-minute rest sessions. Our brain works best in periods of high intensity, followed by periods of low intensity. And the best type of rest activities? Meditation or napping.
#5. Meditation doesn’t have to be complicated. Sit in silence for 15 minutes, with as little sensory input as possible, and notice your breathing.
After watching that recording, I felt the urge to audit my daily routines. I need to protect my mornings. No more social media until afternoon.
And if I could summarize his talk in one single line, it would be: It’s not how hard you push, it’s how well you rest.