Maggie Appleton had just revamped her website that she refers to as a digital garden and two clicks later, I’ve read her essay entitled A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden and took notes. And, I’m inspired. But instead of letting myself get overwhelmed by the sheer number of things that I…

LRU = least recently used. An LRU cache is supposed to have a maximum size and when the user tries to insert the (max+1)th item, it is expected to evict the least recently used key-value pair to make space for the new insertion. All requirements: When the max size is hit, and an item is being…

When it comes to learning, always choose to do what works for you. But if you don’t know what works for you yet, then choose what can be done either daily or weekly. My simple rule for learning is to always prioritise regularity over all else. Yes, even quality. Why is regularity important? Because…

This blog is run on Gatsby.js, a decision I made 1.5 years ago and haven’t looked back on. Well, until recently. I’m not planning to change the CMS behind this blog any time soon (who has time for that after only less than 2 years?), but I do want to pause and reflect on this idea of a Technical vs…

I started to use Instagram again, prompted by the entry of my daughter into my life. Before becoming active on IG this time, I had left the platform for a year and a half because I didn’t like the person I was becoming as I used it. Whenever I posted, I pegged too much of my self-worth to the…

About a week ago I sent out a letter to my subscribers asking them to tell me one question: Why are you subscribed? I wanted to find out what kind of people were on the receiving end of my nascent personal newsletter: What drew them to subscribe? What did they like so far from reading the newsletter…

This is going to sound utterly self-congratulatory, but it’s rather the complete opposite. Since our daughter was born a little over a month ago, I’ve received messages from a few people saying how happy they were to see that I’ve been a present father. For example, our midwife said to me, “it’s…

How to be a great employer/manager? You need to understand that people want to be useful and they want to grow (sometimes this means trying new things). The best illustration of this is a Venn diagram I saw at Smartly.io. It looks something like this: The Employment Sweet Spot This diagram depicts…

A nice & warm batch brew. Mmm… I realised something this morning when buying coffee at my local café — the person who pumped the batch brew coffee into my mug was not the barista, and she didn’t pre-heat my mug with hot water before pumping coffee into it. It didn’t bother me much; it was simply…

In a few days it will be my second full year having relocated to Berlin. A lot has happened. A full year of grappling with covid, for one. And our first child was born here last month! Here are some of my learnings from the past year. You can read my first year reflections here. 1. A welfare system…

I have an apartment with a roof and plumbing and this is the bubble I have lived in for the last two weeks since my first child was born. A newborn bubble. I don’t sleep much and I don’t do very much other than feed, carry, coax, assist in burping, changing diapers, launder, cook, wash, eat, and…

I’ve decided to stop using social media indefinitely. Specifically, I’m not going to use it for engaging in “personal” conversations. That means I’ll not be tweeting at anyone to reply to something they’ve said, or commenting on people’s life updates on IG or Facebook or LinkedIn. I will be keeping…

After nine months of being a team lead, I’ve learned that having 1-1s (one on ones; i.e. a private meeting between a direct report and their manager) is fantastic for many reasons: It builds trust, lubricating work. It multiplies productivity by helping identify work-blockers ahead of time (e.g. I’m…

This is part II of Types of Notes in a PKM explained with a Gardening Analogy (Part I of II). In part I, we talked about how everything in a personal knowledge management (PKM) system is focused on building atomic notes through various stages of maturity. We also talked about how other types of…

If you’re new to PKM, I recommend starting by reading What is a Personal Knowledge Management system (PKM)?. A skeptic would call a PKM a glorified set of notes the same way I used to call an SQL database a glorified Excel sheet. It wasn’t until I realised just how much more an SQL database provides…

Dear Charlotte, You are days from exiting your mum and entering this whole wide world and I want you to know this: I am very much looking forward to meeting you. When we meet, I will look straight into your blind eyes and put into your little hands the key to my heart. (I copied the one I gave your…

Imagine this situation: Your dog has been vomiting regularly for the last two days so you visit the animal clinic. There, the veterinarian asks you a series of questions: Have you changed his diet recently? Has he started behaving in unexpected ways recently? What was the consistency and colour of…

Zu verschenken? (Image: tip-berlin.de) I currently live in Berlin, a city where thrift culture is incredibly strong. It is one of the many reasons why I love this city. I’ve received a lot of pieces of electronics, kids clothing, and furniture for free or at very low prices. By a lot, I mean more…

After years in the “working world,” I’ve learned one of the core tenets of communicating in a group: before speaking, always first convince yourself of what you’re about to say. Always remember that you are Audience Number 1. From my experience working in tech for the last five years, I’ve noticed…

1. I am not writing notes when reading books anymore. This is bad because knowing myself, I am not able to remember most of what I read! Most of what I read, therefore, fades into the ether in a short time. 2. I write a daily note but don’t refer back to follow-up on ideas. This means that I leave a…