Last month’s active lifestyle left me less time for reading. I was only able to read one full book. But what a book! Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert B. CialdiniI started reading this as it was recommended to me as one of the main books in the …| dr knz @ work
Last month, I explained how I am currently building an app, a “digital companion” that helps users pace the stuff that matters to them through their day. It’s a large project, so currently I am focusing on an MVP, but that is still a rather significant amount of work …| dr knz @ work
Here are the important short-form (and not-so-short-form) reads for this month. In Intentionally Making Close Friends, Neel Nanda shares their own best practices and routines for growing friendships. Some of this overlaps with my own experience; some I find distasteful, and some I am likely to learn from. I would …| dr knz @ work
Buckle up: we need to talk about serious stuff. ❦❦❦ First, some notes on short-form learnings this month. In Praise of “Normal” Engineers: A software engineer argues against the myth of the “10x engineer” (IEEE Spectrum), Charity Majors reminds us that when a company mistakenly focuses on “hiring the top 0 …| dr knz @ work
January saw me get back to reading. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - Greg McKeownOstensibly, this book guides the reader towards good use of their time—more towards things that matter, not just more stuff in less time. It’s easy to recognize in the style that the author …| dr knz @ work
In Lullaby language, Jerry Weinberg reflects on these problematic words that people add to their sentences to put the listener’s mind to sleep. For example, the word “just” severely discounts the actual complexity of tasks, as in “we can automate this process, we just have to design a spreadsheet …| dr knz @ work
Serendipitously, a series of fortuitous circumstances put me in touch with the CTO of a company in California who hired me as his mentor and coach. We’ve been at it for a few weeks and I am very happy to see him work through major obstacles with my help …| dr knz @ work
One news item is that I have started this “incubator program” that I was writing about two months ago. It is organized by the secretary for commerce of my city council, as a way to stimulate the local entrepreneur scene. It has four components: personal coaching (with a professional business …| dr knz @ work
Since health prevents me from reading these days, I transitioned to watching (and listening) to a bunch of people talking about their life path and experience. Of course, the large majority of content in that category is garbage: rich folk selling trainings to wannabee rich folk about avenues that are …| dr knz @ work
This month’s book reads: Rich Dad Poor Dad — Robert T. KiyosakiI read this because other books and things I was reading often referred to it. In hindsight, I understand why it is popular. The main thing it has going for itself is how it pushes the reader to …| dr knz @ work
Quite some reading happened. Let’s start with books. How to be Interesting - Jessica HagyThis is a short, illustrated inspirational handbook. I picked it up because it had been cited from a few other things I was reading. I think this would be OK to put in the hands …| dr knz @ work
This month (in fact, most of my time since I returned from Geneva in March) pretty much felt I was occupied with a full-time management job. My routine every day went approximately as follows: 07:30-09:00 kickstart my thinking in preparation for later action in the day:review current …| dr knz @ work
The irregular schedule and dynamic days left less time than before for reading. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future - Peter ThielI read this due to how often it was cited by other works I read before. A lot of it is certainly “rich …| dr knz @ work
Just a bit more than two weeks did not enable long reading sessions. I did not open as many books. I was also less lucky than last with regards to quality. I’m OK - you’re OK - Thomas Anthony HarrisWhere the author introduces and explains transactional analysis, a model …| dr knz @ work
An important thing that happened this month is a reboot of my reading habit. Thanks to a small technical investment, I found myself reading most days of the month. My reading was somewhat of a study program. Throughout the last six months, I had taught “The Algorithm” to provide me …| dr knz @ work
A thing that came through self-reflection is that my previous work projects were hyper-focused in one area, and that this focus came at the cost of giving up on my interests in other areas. I dedicated the last fifteen years of my life to an in-depth exploration of the most …| dr knz @ work