Tech Productivity Issue #338 (I Deleted My Second Brain)

Issue #338 (I Deleted My Second Brain) 08/04/25

Build Software Teams That Manage Mistakes Proactively
"We just need to be more careful about quality" … 💥 Famous last words from leadership everywhere.

You can't solve systemic problems by expecting developers to be perfect. Even AI hallucinates and needs human review. So why do we keep designing systems that assume perfection?

You need systems that manage inevitable mistakes, not reject them. Systems that lead to automation, better processes, and actually sustainable software delivery. Systems that help you avoid high-intensity incidents because your team is better able to deal with issues quickly.

Read the Guide 🡺

I recently came across the Work Chronicles Substack, which you may want to sign up for. It's "a webcomic that showcases the joys and frustrations of the workplace."

This is the comic that got my attention:

Work Chronicles Comic on Fast Paced Environments

It does seem as though the 'dynamic, fast paced-environment' is always assumed to be a good thing. It certainly can be, but as the comic implies, it's not always the case and in some instances can be detrimental to a good work environment.

Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!

Tools & Apps

Ephe — An open source task-friendly Markdown app to organize your daily todos and thoughts, giving you a single 'page of paper' to write down and deal with what matters today.

ShortReps — An iOS app that gives you short bodyweight workout routines you can do anywhere, e.g. between meetings, at home, or while waiting for coffee.

Build Software Teams That Manage Mistakes Proactively — The software industry shares a pervasive assumption that expert developers don’t make mistakes. Developers are only human. They will make mistakes. Ignoring that means any mistake can lead to a high intensity event. There’s a better way. sponsor

Cogency — An all-in-one scheduling app that offers custom layouts, seamless routing, team syncing, group scheduling, video conferencing, collaborative whiteboards, and more.

Kairu — A time tracking app that helps you stay focused with structured sessions and meaningful insights into how you spend your time.

Hyprnote — An open source AI notepad for private meetings that transcribes and summarizes your meetings all locally, currently available for Mac with other platforms coming soon.

Linkwarden — A self-hostable, open source bookmarking tool that helps you collect, read, annotate, etc., providing full page preservation, AI-powered tagging, collaboration tools, and more.

Articles & Resources

Self-Taught Engineers Often Outperform — An argument made for the value of being self-taught, which results from learning from real-world mistakes, something the author doesn't believe happens as much in formal learning.

On Doing Hard Things — This is literally just one writer's short history of learning kayaking, but it's a neat little anecdote that mirrors a lot of difficult things we do, which we sometimes have to learn in front of others.

Refind: Brain Food, Delivered Daily — Every day the team at Refind analyzes thousands of articles and sends you only the best, tailored to your interests. Loved by 540,000+ curious minds. sponsor

New Manager Essentials: A Practical Guide to Your First Months in Leadership — If you're in a new management role, this is a helpful walk-through of some of the early challenges the author faced when transitioning into engineering management.

No One Likes Meetings. They’re Sending Their AI Note Takers Instead. — First time I've heard of this trend – a virtual meeting held by a CEO had more AI note-takers in attendance than actual humans.

I Deleted My Second Brain — If you've been obsessively building your own knowledge base with little to no benefit, this bold move from Joan Westenberg may inspire you to do something similar.

Skip the Exit Interview When You Leave Your Job — From 2017, summed up in this sentence: "There is absolutely no benefit for you to gain by talking in an exit interview, and plenty of negative consequences to come out of it. At best you’ll be remembered as a complainer, and you may make enemies."

Suggestions?

Have a suggestion for a productivity-related tool, article, or other resource? Send me a direct message via X or chat via Bluesky and I’ll consider including it in a future issue.

Stay productive!

Louis
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