Lead Kindly With Textbooks! Every year.
12th edition
A bakers dozen, thanks for following along! I hope you enjoy this weeks article.
📚 Read This Week
Distracting software engineers is much more harmful than you think by
A great article that compliments my recent article on “No Meeting Days” very well! Anton talks about “deep work” or “flow state”, and goes into some lessons from the book Deep Work by Cal Newport (on my list but I have not read). I really liked the recommendation about having “meeting blocks” that force when meetings are allowed to be scheduled. I unfortunately can’t use this with my team (too many timezones to have a universal block), but I think it can be effective! I really appreciate that getting into “deep work” is a skill that can be practiced intentionally.
Your Best Work by
My Lopp article of the week happened to also be about Focus! This was completely by chance.
When your 1:1 starts, pay attention to the conversation and listen. A meeting with 20 people, half aren’t interested and your not part of the conversation? Listen and focus. Don’t check your email or have an unrelated slack conversation; give it your full attention. This is how you do your best work.
I can think of plenty of meetings where I let me focus be divided, and likely missed a key insight or place where I could have added real tangible value. If I can practice my focus and get better at that, I will only be more effective at as a leader, even if I am less responsive on slack.
How to build credibility in the engineering industry by
Credibility is an important part of growing into a leadership role, whether that’s management or a staff engineer+ role. It isn’t enough that you do good work; that is required. You need to be able to build up understanding in your organization that you do good work. This is not easy, but it is a skill that can be learned. Your manager can help with this, but you need to drive it.
🧠 Productivity Tip of the Week
One textbook a year.
I wrote this on a cue card that sits on my desk. It’s a reminder that in most vocations if you read 1 text book a year in your field, you are immediately in the top 1%. Most people stop reading and learning once they get the job.
What this means to me is that if I read and really study and understand the contents of at least 1 textbook every year, I’m going to do well. That doesn’t mean I stop at 1 book per year, but it takes the pressure off to read as many as possible. I feel more relaxed about reading and learning, and I can focus on quality reading instead of quantity.
What do you think about my claim? Am I underestimating how much people read/study?
💡 Quote of the Week
People see the trophies, not the training ground.
When you see a scene in a film, there may have been 20 takes to get that scene just right, by a group of highly skilled professionals. That also doesn’t include all the practice and coaching it took for the actors and staff to even get to that level. All the failed projects and false starts. All the blood, sweat, and tears.
The next time you feel envious of someones success, remember that they worked hard to get there, and likely had a lot of luck on their side. You’ll need to work over a sustained period of time to get there as well. Someone else’s success doesn’t say anything about you. The only person you’re truly competing against is yourself. Keep doing better than yesterday and you’ll eventually get where you want to be.
📖 What I'm reading
I finished $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid Saying No. I’m not a fan of the title, but I really enjoyed the book! I pulled some useful lessons for Engineering Managers, and really any leader trying to get things done. I need to process the book more so I have switched to fiction (Zoey Is Too Drunk For This Dystopia) for now, and likely I will write about some of these lessons once I put them into practice and see how effective they are (or not) for engineering management.
🏋️♀️ What I'm working on
I got an 8BitDo Ultimate Controller and I love it! It’s so nice to use a modern controller. Using it to play FFVII Remake and Eiyuden Chronicle. I was using an old Playstation 2 controller with an adapter that is literally decades old. It still works but I detest cords, this is much nicer! :D
Gym adventures go well! We are up to 22 dedicated workouts, without missing any! (goal is 3 every week). It feels very good to be this consistent and I’m feeling a lot stronger. We took photos on April 1st which was our 8th gym adventure, and we are due to take new ones May 13th (every 6 weeks). Excited to see the comparisons!
I don’t currently have any concrete gym goals besides keep being consistent, push myself while I’m there, and try to eat enough food.
📈 State of the Newsletter
We’re at 68 subscribers as of writing, and 2 readers have filled out my survey! Thank you! If you are reading this and haven’t filled it out, please do so! =D
I've got three for you!
"More Than Two" is an excellent read on relationships. It's meant to be a polyamory book, but it's useful for anyone who dates imo.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" was a very interesting made up model of the human mind. It's long and dense, very textbook.
"The Algorithm Design Manual" is my favorite actual textbook, and favorite computer science book. It's a masterpiece!
Any textbook recommendations?