Developer Tea

If you can't focus, you are paralyzed. Everything you do in your career and life will be served better with clear and continuous focus. We revisit this topic after nearly seven years because it is profoundly true. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This episode is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly enables development and operations teams to deploy code at any time, ev...

It's hard to remember sometimes, but our priorities are our own. We have agency over our time. Even our obligations are more often determined by our chosen values than they are by actual survival. When we accept that we have agency over our priorities, we can start to reclaim time that we feel is being taken from us, eliminating a feeling of chaos and frustration and regaining a sense of calm and...

Mental models are very useful, and we tap into them even without knowing it. But just like any cognitive tool, our brain can play tricks on us when using mental models. In this episode we'll talk about three ways we can go wrong with mental models. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This episode is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly enables development and operations t...

Make your decisions easier by anticipating them. Determine systems for making decisions in advance, so you don't get caught making them on the spot. Determine models of opportunities so you can quickly pattern-match against them, and create systems that make your decisions for you when possible. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This episode is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. L...

In today's episode, we'll talk about two ways to improve your perception and perspective when making your new year's resolutions, or any other big decisions or changes in your life. These two tools will help you make adjustments to what you are paying attention to, and reduce the friction in your decision-making process. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: cord cord is the messaging tool that...

In today's episode, we discuss two tools that I believe will change your closest relationships forever. It can be awkward to intentionally work on communication with your closest relationships. But if you employ these tools, you're nearly guaranteed to see an improvement in your relationships. This isn't a gimmick or a hack; it's the hard work of communicating clearly with another human being. 🙏...

We had some gremlins in the audio processing of the first part of the interview with Ernie Miller. They've been banished! Sorry about the trouble, and thank you for listening. Today I talk with Ernie Miller. Ernie is the head of engineering at Monograph. (They are hiring!) We talk about the four-day work week, fragility of culture and the importance of taking care of it, and the differentiation of...

We have an illusion of control when things go our way, and a bias to shift the blame when things don't go our way. In retrospectives, we also believe we know all of the variables at play. In today's episode, we talk about these tendencies, and provide a model for thinking about our efforts as functions, and different variables as inputs. We categorize these inputs into four categories on a matrix,...

Today I talk with Ernie Miller. Ernie is the head of engineering at Monograph. (They are hiring!) This is the second part of my interview with Ernie. We talk about the four-day work week, fragility of culture and the importance of taking care of it, and the differentiation of culture and values. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Auth0 Auth0 is here to solve your login problems, for good. Au...

Today I talk with Ernie Miller. Ernie is the head of engineering at Monograph. (They are hiring!) We talk about the four-day work week, fragility of culture and the importance of taking care of it, and the differentiation of culture and values. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Auth0 Auth0 is here to solve your login problems, for good. Auth0 provides simple, secure, and adaptable login for...

The focus is the work. When anyone asks how they can be more productive, I give them the exercise I talk about in this episode. It's extremely simple, but not easy. What are you focused on, right now? If you can answer this question at all times, you will be productive. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Square Square has APIs for almost every aspect of running a business from employee manag...

Bugs are inevitable, but individually unpredictable. Trying to use a single strategy for dealing with these events will miss a huge number of the events, while requiring massive efforts. Instead, we should focus on building a balanced approach to dealing with problems like this. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This episode is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly enabl...

Most things are compositions of other things. Most problems are multi-factorial. Most opportunities have more than one selling point. Sometimes, it helps to realign your thinking to composition, using tools like matrices to make better decisions. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Square Square has APIs for almost every aspect of running a business from employee management, to order creation...

Substitute with better questions, and you'll have more insightful answers. Questions are a major contributing factor to behavior, and the way you ask questions is a habit that can have a high-leverage cascading effect on the rest of your life. Find better questions. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This episode is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly enables developmen...

Focusing on fundamentals may seem boring, or like a sports catchphrase used to motivate people to practice. The truth is, these fundamentals are still going to be the most important value-making activities of your career. But as you continue participating in them, if you engage with intention, you will not simply be repeating the same thing over and over; you and your environment will change, some...

Metamodeling is creating a model of models. Confused yet? When we use models, we often assume they are complete. But what characteristics could make all of our models better? That's the concept of metamodeling. We talk about creating metamodels and using steering feedback to derive value from one model to another. 📮 Ask a Question If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a questio...

Stress often comes from pressure. When we experience pressure, we usually respond by trying to relieve it - often to the detriment of our work. In today's episode, we talk about the dangers of pressure, and some strategies to employ in the face of pressure. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Square Try out Square’s CPOS APIs today for a chance to win $20k in the Build What’s POS-sible Hackat...

Confidence is often used as an artificial bluff, to help us feel less dread of failure. But this is problematic; when we put blinders on, we don't prepare adequately, often leading to blame-shifting and other techniques to maintain an inflated sense of confidence. Instead, choose bravery - the willingness to act in the face of uncertainty. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This...

What do you want to change? The things you do repeatedly have the most impact on your life. Focus on the systems that produce repeated behaviors. We talk about these as "engines" of behavior in today's episode, and help you figure out which ones to focus on the most. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: LaunchDarkly This episode is brought to you by LaunchDarkly. LaunchDarkly is hosting Trajec...

We continue talking about conducting a mindful job search in today's episode. The truth is, that next application you put in is probably not going to end in an accepted offer. Whether by your decision or theirs, most job applications go nowhere. In this episode we'll talk about how to deal with this reality, as well as some other myths of interviewing. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Squa...

If you've ever felt bad about looking for a job, or you're wondering if now is the right time because a bunch of coworkers or friends are on the move, this episode is for you. We talk about approaching making a career change decision mindfully, and considering how it will affect your internal happiness. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Auth0 Auth0 is here to solve your login problems, for...

Pick the right tool for the job. But who is picking? What tools can they choose from? And what is the actual job, anyway? This advice is important because it gives you a starting framework to answer some of the most important clarifying questions in any task of significance. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Compiler Compiler is a brand new podcast from RedHat where the hosts answer the mos...

You are much more likely to succeed with iteration than you are with a perfect first attempt. This is purely a function of probability, and is even more supported by the idea of progressive improvement. When you can iterate, it is a better route to higher confidence of success than perfect preparation. 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Auth0 Auth0 is here to solve your login problems, for g...

When you have to predict, you're likely to have error in your prediction. Sometimes that error is easily handled - other times, it can be catastrophic in effect. The next time you have the urge to predict into the future, ask yourself - what benefit do you gain from predicting this now? Can you avoid unnecessary prediction all together with a different route? 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you b...

Random choice may actually be your best bet. At the very least, starting with random is a good exercise in self control, and will help reveal information more easily than intuitive guessing might. Give random a chance! 🙏 Today's Episode is Brought To you by: Auth0 Auth0 is here to solve your login problems, for good. Auth0 provides simple, secure, and adaptable login for applications and business...