Writing is thinking (2020, year in review)
I’m holding my diary reflecting on what happened in 2020 in my life — code, books, conference, remote work, community, break up, new product launch, failures, wins, etc.… But one thing that sticks out is
I wrote daily-diary throughout the year
And if I have to pick one learning of the year 2020, that would be to - write daily.
The fundamental idea behind the daily-diary that inspired me
Our brains change every day
Every day, we experience something new, learn something new. This means that my future self may solve the challenges that I cannot right now. My future self can answer questions that I don’t have an answer to yet.
What if I can delegate the task of solving some of my tough challenges and questions to my future-self effectively?
There’s a way to that — write daily.
By virtue of “writing daily”, you can,
- Document the lessons of today and apply them in future
- Remember your thought process so you can start from where you left, thus helping you achieve deep thinking which wouldn’t have been possible in one go because of our limited cognitive capacity
In short
Writing is thinking
I would take the liberty to say — if you’re not writing, you’re not thinking. So write daily. That’s what 2020 taught me.
Having covered the most important part, let me read some of the highlights from my diary but before that, in case you don’t know
Who am I
$ whoami I am Pradeep. I live in India.
I’m a developer and I run Invide, an invite-only community of developers. I promote remote work & inclusion 24*7.
I’m a “nice guy”
This review is personal and brutally honest. Forgive me for my biases.
Places I traveled to
This year, the most travel I did was to the park next to my home. But I was lucky to witness sunrises at 3 places(in India) just before Covid happened
- Punjab
- Gurgaon
- Rajasthan
The books I read
Ones that inspired significant change in my life
- Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
A must-read for every developer and creative person. Deep Work is a skill that can be learned and is the most valuable skill in the modern economy. - Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving
A good read that emphasizes the importance of having a plan while solving a problem and different tools of problem-solving. - High Output Management
A must-read for every experienced professional. Meaningful insights on planning, decision making, motivation, delegation, meetings, modes of control, etc.
Chaos and big decisions
I like to remember the moments that bring chaos into my life, because
“Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of chaos, and sometimes in the middle of chaos, you find yourself” — Boonaa Mohammed
- Getting engaged and then breaking up
Breakups are hard and harder when your family is involved. I got engaged, later discovered something that I expected to hear from her instead, and decided to break up. One thing I figured about myself was that It’s tough for me to accept someone lying to me or not being upfront about their past. I guess this is true for everyone but this particular thing has consistently become a deal-breaker for me even when it affects me negatively in the short term. I am glad that I took that decision and saved time and mental headache for everyone in the long term. - Going radically transparent at Git Commit Show and the wonders of Internet
This year, we took one big step in making Git Commit Show radically transparent.
(Note: Git Commit Show is an annual online dev conference I started in 2019)
We made all team meetings public allowing anyone to attend, review the meeting notes, plans, goals, team conversations, etc. We saw great support from the tech community in making the show a success. I am proud of the team of 30 awesome people who contributed to Git Commit Show open-source, helped in creating great content, and delivering good live experience to attendees in Git Commit Show — Season 02. I’d like to take the approach of radical transparency to the next level this year. - Training & mentoring students
While working on Git Commit Show, I saw first-hand how training students gives them confidence and motivation to achieve their career goals. So I dedicated significant time to train 12 students via a 3 month Full Stack Development training and mentoring them personally. Great learning and fulfilling experience, I’ll try to do more of that.
Software I built
Top 4 most useful software I wrote
- Developer Diary
A minimalist privacy-focused journal that applies Deep Work principles to bring work-life balance. Markdown-supported, works offline, has smooth shortcuts.
2. auth-jwt (Open-Source)
A demo for developers to learn about JWT via reverse engineering
3. Whatsapp-anywhere (Open-Source)
A browser extension to turn any phone number on web into a clickable whatsapp link
4. Programmable Video Editing (Open-Source)
A bash script to automate frequent video editing tasks. With existing tools, editing lots of long videos means you need to know the tools, you need to make sure you perform repeated steps correctly and then wait for hrs to finish the processing. Use the script instead.
What I wrote
I started with big goals of writing this year as well. Experimented with different formats and most of my writing efforts were diverted towards two newsletters #OpenSourceDiscovery(41 posts) and Dev Career Hacks(9 posts)
Other than the newsletter, I wrote some useful blog posts(short to medium length)
What I recorded
I had recorded myself before and had gone live multiple times. In 2020, I recorded some videos to journal my learning on different topics. When I watched those videos right after the recording, I couldn’t help but feel awful. I didn’t like my voice and the weird accent, I see simple things that could have been improved in the delivery and I didn’t find the content to be insightful enough as well. I did it anyway and uploaded some of them to YouTube. Some people said that they found videos to be helpful and asked for more but I thought it is their politeness. I watched those videos today and I am in love with the guy in the video — the voice is crisp and clear, content is insightful and can help someone learn things that might take significant time to figure out on their own. Also, I find my accent interesting and don’t want to change it as long as it sounds clear.
The learning - we tend to nitpick ourselves when we watch our video right after the recording. For better judgment, either we should review our videos only after some time or ask someone else to give their honest feedback on the video. These are my top 3 videos
- Solve problems like a mindful developer
2. A day in life of Indian remote developer (my daily routine of working from home)
Skills I learned/improved
- Tech :
Authentication, Encryption, Cryptography, Modular Maths, Javascript, Electron, CSS, Node, Bash, React
My main sources of learning were
- A focused 2-weeks break just for learning
- Training some students with Full Stack Development skills
- Applying the learning in projects and helping people in support forums
- Communication & Management
People around me can notice the change. Thanks to intensive work at Git Commit Show where I needed those skills, reading “High output management” and watching Prof. Conor Neil speak. - Speaking and Video Making
I recorded lots of videos, taught live classes, and hosted multiple talks. I don’t fear getting in front of the camera & people anymore(well, a little but not as much as I used to at the start of the year). And most importantly, I find my voice interesting and the content insightful now(the same videos where I hated my voice and didn’t find anything new in the video right after recording).
Movies/Shows I watched
2020 was the year when I binge-watched most # of shows and movies in a year. These are the movies & shows I found most interesting
- Bohemian Rhapsody
Biopic of the rock band Queen’s lead singer Freddie Mercury. Queen playlist goes on repeat now. - Byomkesh Bakshi
A fictional show on a detective. It used to be telecast in the 90s. For non-Indians — this is Indian Sherlock Holmes. - Space Odyssey
A science fiction. The mysterious monolith. - Mirzapur
Achievements I’m most proud of
- Shipping Developer Diary
In 2020, corona-virus forced all the companies to work remotely. Which resulted in a surge of downloads of a productivity tool I created 4 yrs ago — Flow(it helps developers & tech teams with productivity in remote work environments). So we prioritized support & development of this product. We received feedback from Invide developer community on the product, and understood the need for organization, privacy & work-life balance, specially in times when the boundaries between work and personal life had been blurred.
Seeing some unprecedented need of improvements, we decided to fork the existing project to give a big upgrade keeping focus on people whom we care most about — developers. The name of this new upgrade is Developer Diary, a privacy-focused tool for developers to write a daily journal. I simplified the product, added advanced features with the help of Nischey’s Machine Learning skills, Praveen’s analytical skills. After multiple such iterations, we reached a stage where it is being appreciated by the users. I’m excited about what 2021 holds for Developer Diary.
2. Organizing Git Commit Show — Season 02
After pioneering the concept of a full-fledged completely online developer conference in 2019, we organized another season in 2020. We improved on content quality, live experience, started multiple open source projects, saw an increased # of contributors from multiple countries. I’m excited for Season 03 in 2021.
Miscellaneous
- I started playing chess for the first time and got addicted to it
- Started to love running - 12km run for the first time
- I followed the OKR planning this time, but could not keep up the track for every quarter. I’m thinking about how to make it faster to review and update OKR quarterly objectives. Hopefully, Developer Diary will help me do this faster this time.
- In 2020, I started meaningfully contributing to open-source
- Helped many people in the online tech & startup community
- Wrote 100s of appreciation emails to people who contribute to the tech community
Thank you for reading so far. In the end, I have a message to share
If you’re going through a rough patch or see no solution to the challenge at hand, remember…
Writing is thinking
And don’t be shy in asking for help or helping others.
Feel free to reach me out on Twitter and tell me how I may help you?
