What are you working on?
I hear these words in my day-to-day.
And sometimes, when I hear them, there’s this little brain freeze that happens because my brain is probably trying to put into words the amount of things that have wandered through my head in the last 24 hours. 😂
So I thought, okay, let me try something.
I want to take some of those wandering thoughts, explorations, things I'm trying out and things I'm learning, and put them into writing.
This is going to be a series where I come and talk about what I'm working on — software engineering, product, work, people, faith, relationships, rest, and whatever else happens to be taking up space in my head at the moment.
So, what am I working on?
I recently started writing backend code, and there’s a bit of a backstory to that.
I built this frontend commerce store years ago where people can come and shop for furniture. At the time, I used a backend-as-a-service to handle the backend side of the application.
Now, I’m coming back to that same system and writing the backend myself with NestJS. I wanted to go beyond just consuming a backend and actually understand what is happening behind the scenes.
The learning process is a bit stretching at the moment because I’m getting familiar with a lot of new concepts. Tiring and frustrating? Yes. But the feeling when I finally understand the reason behind something is always refreshing. That has been really rewarding lately.
I'm also in the middle of launching a mobile application at my workplace, going through system design classes, figuring out how to get the best out of my engineers (AI sub-agents, by the way 😅), and occasionally imagining that dream job where you get to build products that serve millions of people and work with really brilliant minds.
Also, I discovered the productivity rush that comes with using large monitors. 😂
Then there's learning how to rest while also trying to close out all the open loops in my head.
Building reading habits.
Figuring out what to prioritize and, perhaps more importantly, what to drop.
Learning how to build healthier mindsets about life in general.
And sometimes, honestly, maybe all I'm working on is getting some rest or laughing about something ridiculous that happened during the week.
That's kind of the point.
I don't want this to be a series where I come here every week with a perfectly packaged lesson or pretend I've figured everything out.
I just want to document some of the things I'm thinking about and trying out as I go.
I also want to get better at something I've been thinking about for a while: when I see something I want to do, I want to find the closest point of execution instead of waiting for permission to move.
Sometimes we know what we want to do, but somehow convince ourselves that we need to go three levels up, get approval, find the perfect plan, or wait until we're completely ready.
Meanwhile, the closest point of execution might literally be the person sitting on the same floor as us.
Or, in this case, it might just be opening a blank page and starting to write.
So yeah.
Me starting this series is my point of execution.
Let's see how it goes over the next couple of weeks.
And I'd genuinely love to hear from you too.
What are you working on right now?
It could be software engineering or whatever field you're in. It could be something you're building. It could be something you're learning, something you're trying to figure out, something you're trying to let go of, or maybe just something funny that happened this week.
Drop it in the comments. Let's talk.
Also, yes, the last time I said I was writing something, it didn't ship. 😂 Long story.
But we're here now.
Let's try this.
Amen.
