Why does reading make your brain stronger?
Learn how to read better, grow from senior to staff engineer and how to spin your "Wheel of Life" properly
I love reading books.
I believe reading books improves your brain better than other formats. I will try to explain why I think so.
Reading a book is harder than listening to an audiobook or a podcast. I believe the main reason is because it requires almost 100% focus. This is similar to meditation.
With meditation, you learn to keep your mind focused on a very specific thing (such as your breath or how your body feels). The skill of being able to control the focus of your mind is very useful. Imagine a person whose mind is constantly distracted. And now imagine a person who can keep their focus on whatever they want for long periods. Which of these two would you bet to be more productive?
When you read books, I believe that you are practicing the same “muscle” that you are practicing with meditation. The muscle that can keep your focus. The stronger this “muscle” is, the longer you will be able to keep your focus.
All of the above could be just bollocks ofc, as I am no expert in either reading or meditation. But it is what I think, so there you go.
With the rant on the value of reading out of the way 🤓, read on!
How I Read
If you landed on this newsletter, you must like reading at least a bit. This article comes from
, who reads 40-50 books annually. In addition to great advice for reading, Rob also shares advice for getting rid of distractions. I love his concept of “cocaine” and “kale” phones 🥬📱. Read on to become a better reader.
Audience: All readers
Value: Learn how to read better
ToT Rating: ⭐⭐🌟
How I'm advancing my career without neglecting my life. "New year's resolutions" done right.
shares very practical advice on how not to neglect your life for the sake of your career. And compared to other advice I read out there, he shares a very clear “why” based on the “Wheel of Life” by Jim Rohn. For the wheel to keep turning you need to “push” different areas of the wheel at different moments in your life. If you just push one part of the wheel, it will stop moving 🎡.
Audience: All readers
Value: Learn to balance your career with your life better
ToT Rating: ⭐⭐
5 skills to develop to grow from Senior to Staff Engineer
Growing from a non-senior to a senior IC level is quite different from growing from a senior to a staff level. Up until the staff level you are operating within the same scope/context, with better and better execution, skills, ownership, etc. Growing beyond the senior level requires something else. What got you here won’t get you there, as they say. However, I found this “something else” is often vague for seniors. This article attempts to give you 5 skills you need to have to grow into a Staff Engineer.
Audience: Senior Engineers
Value: Learn what you are missing to become a Staff Engineer
ToT Rating: ⭐⭐
How AI-assisted coding will change software engineering: hard truths
Last few years one of the most popular questions was “Will AI replace software engineers?”. This article dives deep into the topic and shares a view on that question with everything we know today.
Audience: Software Engineers
Value: Learn how AI will impact software engineering in the near future
ToT Rating: ⭐
Software Engineer's Playbook to Kickstart 2025
This article gives you five pieces of advice for starting your 2025 as a software engineer.
Audience: Software Engineers
Value: Set goals to improve as a Software Engineer
ToT Rating: ⭐
How to build an AI side project using AI in 2025
The latest Dora report showed a negative impact of AI on software delivery performance. This and some other research are raising doubts about the productivity impact of AI coding assistants. However, it seems that solopreneurs who want to bootstrap products quickly are hugely benefiting from AI assistance. In this article,
shares his experience with bootstrapping a product very quickly with AI assistance (Cursor specifically).Audience: Software Engineers
Value: Learn how to bootstrap fast with AI
ToT Rating: ⭐
Hope you enjoyed that, see you soon! 👋
Thanks so much for mentioning my article on using AI for side projects, Jovan!