Freek.dev

Not all friction is bad.

Read more [carlbarenbrug.com]

Some nice thought by Aaron Francis

Read more [aaronfrancis.com]

At the end of each year, I usually write a full recap of everything I’ve done throughout the past 365 days.

This time, the recap will be much shorter as this year contained more days I’d like to forget than days I’d like to remember. Due to strain caused by events happening in my personal life, I’ve been struggling finding energy to do things I want to do well.

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"Were previous generations really better off because they merely watched TV, or listened to radio, or read books? All of these activities are passive. All of these activities involve letting external thoughts temporarily replace your own. Today’s smartphones differ from medieval books only in degree—all media is created to be consumed. I had to start creating."

So much this!

Read more [blog.tjcx.me]

Tighten employees share encouragement for anyone struggling through the pandemic.

Read more [tighten.co]

Yesterday, Matt Stauffer on Twitter was very open on some mental health issues he is coping with. In response Kai shared this older blogpost which resonated with me.

Read more [www.kai-sassnowski.com]

Zander Nethercutt provides some great insights in the mechanisms in play that can lead to burnout.

When we see long weekends and think “work before play,” when we see Friday nights and think “sleep before clubs,” when we see escalators as accelerators and not opportunities to “just take a second,” we’re nothing more than hyperrational prisoners making a decision that would be inaccurately characterized as a dilemma because the answer is obvious.

Read more [medium.com]

Every friend I have with a job that involves picking up something heavier than a laptop more than twice a week eventually finds a way to slip something like this into conversation: “Bro,1 you don’t work hard. I just worked a 4700-hour week digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screwdriver.” They have a point. Mordor sucks, and it’s certainly more physically taxing to dig a tunnel than poke at a keyboard unless you’re an ant. But, for the sake of the argument, can we agree that stress and insanity are bad things? Awesome. Welcome to programming.

Read more [www.stilldrinking.org]

In the beginning of the year people tend to compile lists with everything they want to achieve in the next 365 days. But sometimes, instead of wanting to learn or start something new, it's also good to leave an old thing behind.

A little over 2 years ago I started a weekly newsletter for Linux & open source users, called cron.weekly. Today, I'm sending the last issue in what is probably going to be a pretty long time. I need a break.

Here's why.

tl;dr: I've got a wife, 2 kids, a (more than) full time job, 2 other side projects and a Netflix subscription. For now, cron.weekly doesn't fit in that list anymore.

https://ma.ttias.be/im-taking-break-cron-weekly/

There's really no shame in calling it quits on some things to make place for fresh activities. The last couple of months I've seen some people close to me stop doing things they were once passionate about, but didn't fully enjoy anymore. And in each case it turned out for the better.

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Jack McDade, creator of Stamatic, designer of several Laravel ecosystem sites, on his blog:

I’ve been playing video games again. I feel fantastic and my head is clearer than it’s been in a while. Here are my thoughts on the topic and why I think video games are important and not even remotely a waste of time.

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Adrian Kosmaczewski shares lessons learned on what truely are the important things in your career as a developer. Even if you're not even close to approaching 40 years of life on the planet you should read this.

I have often pondered about leaving the profession altogether. But somehow, code always calls me back after a while. I like to write apps, systems, software. To avoid burning out, I have had to develop strategies.

In this talk I will give you my secrets, so that you too can reach the glorious age of 40 as an experienced developer, willing to continue in this profession.

...

As long as your heart tells you to keep on coding and building new things, you will be young, forever.

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