I’m here winding down the day and I have just opened the “Tools of Titans” book by Tim Ferris.
This book is very cool - a collection of insights, quotes and great advice from a lot of very successful people.
Sometimes the advice is practical, sometimes it’s great advice to follow, sometimes it’s inspiring.
I read through some pages filled with highlights, to get a daily fix of wisdom. Then I open a random page I haven’t read yet and I find this.
What’s the worst advice you hear often? “Write what you know”. Why would I want to write about what little I know? Don’t I want to use writing to learn more?
This is just amazing.
I think I should have come up with this phrase. Like long ago, but somehow we don’t often think deeply about the things we do every day, right?
So let me tell you this. In the context of this little blog, in this little tech/programming niche I talk about, all my blogging has always been about learning, not talking about things I already know.
Since the early days: the whole reason this blog exists in its current form is that I started documenting my steps into learning Go, back in 2017.
Sometimes I discover something, and right away I write it before I forget about it. I leave a trace. Maybe one month from now I need to do the same thing and I’ll find my own post. If I remember I wrote about that thing, that is.
Sometimes I just go through one of the gazillion topics in my notes and write about it. I read all I can about it, and write my own take on the topic.
The things I enjoy writing about the most is things I am personally interested in. I think I never wrote about a topic I find boring. I have no obligations to pick a boring topic when I can choose a cool one.
There’s a chance your own writing will help someone that is struggling to learn things.
Now I often write for other people to enjoy the content, too, as I’m so lucky to have this blog being read by some people, so I strive to create something useful.
Sometimes when I write about a topic I become a temporary expert on the subject, because in order to write about something, I read a lot about it.
I think my memory is a LIFO (Last In First Out) memory, and I might forget the thing I am learning today, maybe next month, who knows?
But I don’t care, as I have it written down in case I need it in the future.
More lab tutorials:
- The stack I use to run this blog
- 8 good reasons to become a software developer
- SEO for developers writing blogs
- Review of the book The 4-Hour Work Week
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- Build your own platform
- As an indie maker, what kind of product should you build?
- Create your own job security
- Developers, learn marketing
- The freedom of a product business
- Generating value
- Have a purpose for your business
- The idea is nothing
- The niche
- Remote working for software developers
- Product / market fit
- The best podcasts for frontend developers
- Why should I create an email list?
- Disconnect time from money
- The scarcity principle applied to software products
- The social proof principle
- How I added Dark Mode to my website
- My notes on the Deep Work book
- The pros of using a boring stack
- How to estimate programming time
- On going independent as a developer
- How to learn how to learn
- Why interview questions for programming jobs are so difficult?
- Do I need a degree to be a programmer?
- Everyone can learn programming
- How to be productive
- How to get the real number of pageviews of a static site
- Have you filled a developer bucket today?
- How I record my videos
- All the software projects I made in the past
- Tutorial purgatory from the perspective of a tutorial maker
- Every developer should have a blog. Hereβs why, and how to stick with it
- Having a business mindset for developers
- How to write Unmaintainable Code
- What is Imposter Syndrome
- How to work from home without going crazy
- How I stopped worrying and learned to love the JavaScript ecosystem
- How I prototype a Web Page
- You should be the worst developer in your team
- How to start a blog using Hugo
- Write what you don't know
- How to block distractions using uBlock Origin
- Coding is an art
- I wrote 1 blog post every day for 2 years. Here's 5 things I learned about SEO
- Dealing with the fire
- On being a generalist
- The Developerβs Dilemma
- My plan for being hired as a Go developer. In 2017
- Productivity gains of using a Mac and an iOS device
- How to go from tutorials to your own project
- This is my little Digital Garden
- How to start freelancing as a developer
- Sharing the Journey Towards Building a Software Product Business
- Subfolder vs subdomain
- How I use text expanding to save time
- Software is a superpower
- I love books