DeveloPassion's Newsletter - The right time

DeveloPassion's Newsletter - The right time
Hello everyone! I’m Sébastien Dubois, your host. You’re receiving this email because you signed up for DeveloPassion’s Newsletter or the Dev Concepts project. Thank you for being here with me ✨
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Welcome to the 53rd edition
Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩
Life sometimes takes unexpected turns. This week marked the beginning of a new chapter of mine. I don’t know what the future has in store for me, but I’m eager to discover it all.
My attention was split between the War in Ukraine and the big upcoming changes in my life which explains why I didn’t produce all that much. But it’s all right; I’m not a machine and it’s okay to breathe ❤️
Alright, let’s goooooo! 🚀

The Lab 🧪
I’ve decided to work on a new experiment: a starter kit for Obsidian. My idea is to create an Obsidian vault pre-filled with my recommended structure, and accompanied by a guide explaining how to use it. Perfect for PKM newcomers and people who want to get more serious about note-taking and note-making.
This is a little project that fits perfectly with my “lab” idea: limited scope, achievable with reasonable efforts, and contributing to my existing flywheels. I hope to be done with v1 sometime next week. I’ll tell you more about it once it’s out of the oven 😅
Aside from that one, I’ve decided to put the second brain experiment on hold. I didn’t get enough interest to justify further efforts at this point. I’ll give that idea another try later on.
Things I've learned
A few of the things I've learned this week
This week I’ve learned and written about:
  • Emotional burnout
  • The similarities between Technical Debt and Community Debt
  • Systems Thinking and designing for emergence
  • Business concepts like TAM, SAM and SOM
Personal Knowledge Management News
I’ve added many more tools to the PKM Library (25!). I’ve also shared quite a few articles and videos on the PKM subreddit.
By the way, the videos for the Second Brain Summit 2022 are now available on YouTube.
focusd: Zen productivity news
André and I have resumed working on focusd last week. We’ve used our time together to explore the Remix full-stack framework.
We both have high hopes about Remix as a solution for building full-stack applications. We’ll see how that goes!
The mythical right time
Often in life, we’re tempted to wait for “the right time” for various reasons. We wait for the right time to buy a new car, a new house, replace equipment, go on vacation, ask for a raise, start a new project, etc.
Unfortunately, in most cases, the right time is nothing but an illusion. Actually, as the saying goes, reality is just an illusion that we all agree on.
Waiting for the right time sometimes makes sense, but more often than not, we’re just afraid. We create narratives to justify our indecision, but deep down we know the truth. We’re afraid of making the wrong decision. Afraid of change. Afraid of spending too much. Afraid of sharing our feelings. Afraid of letting go. Afraid of what others will think, etc. There are countless examples. Those fears can end up paralyzing us and preventing us from growing and achieving our goals in life.
> If you aren’t living your dreams, then you’re living your fears (Daymond John)
Everything we do or don’t is the result of a decision. If we move forward, it’s a decision. If we push back and keep waiting, it’s also a decision.
Over the years I’ve realized that chronic indecision can lead to regrets, pain, and suffering. That’s why I try to avoid stalling for the “right” time and instead prefer making conscious choices, even if it hurts and/or bears a lot of uncertainty. Gut feeling is key, as Malcolm Gladwell explained in Blink!
Here’s my advice: avoid fear-driven decision-making like the plague. If you’ve already taken the time needed to objectively evaluate the pros/cons as well as the associated risks and still can’t make up your mind, then you’ll have to trust your guts. Make the call that feels right.
Whatever happens, don’t have regrets; it’s meaningless. Mistakes are all right. Nothing is perfect. Start before you are ready. Don’t wait for perfect opportunities to come by. Start small. Make small bets. Learn from your mistakes. Move forward. Grow.
Recent articles
No new articles this week.
How cool is that?!
Amazon's new role-playing game can help you build your AWS skills | TechRadar
Tips of the week
Ask HN: What's your learning strategy? | Hacker News
Books corner
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Quotes of the week
  • “I think you should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side” — Elon Musk
  • “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me” — Bob Dylan
PKM Links of the week
Second Brain Summit 2022 - Full Session Recordings
“Speed Reading” That Works: How to Intelligently Skim a Book
Why Knowledge Workers Shouldn’t Obsess About Choosing an App for Their PKM for the Long Term
How I record tech notes using the Zettelkasten method
Tech Links of the week
Remix Stacks | Remix
Learn how to design large-scale systems.
Patterns.dev - Modern Web App Design Patterns
GitHub - WardPearce/paaster: Paaster is a secure by default end to end encrypted pastebin built with the objective of simplicity.

About Sébastien

Hello everyone! I'm Sébastien Dubois. I'm an author, founder, and CTO. I write books and articles about software development & IT, personal knowledge management, personal organization, and productivity. I also craft lovely digital products 🚀

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