Math is awesome. A formula in mathematical notation might offer a fresh perspective on the relationships between its constituent terms. For instance, in geometry, the $ a^2 + b^2 = c^2 $ formula represents the relationship of the length of the hypothenuse to the other two sides' lengths in a right-angled triangle. In physics, the famous $ E = mc^2 $ formula represents the relationship between the mass and the energy in a system’s rest frame. Read more

We all have big goals in our lives. Some have to write their thesis; others work on a big project; others prepare to run a marathon. Be it related to health, economics, technology, or any other domain, and regardless of the scale of impact (a personal goal or one that impacts a group of people or a company), accomplishing one big thing implies completing several tasks. And those tasks can be further split into smaller assignments. Read more

How many times have you heard about a college dropout who made millions with an idea they had. I bet you have heard a lot about such people. Among the most prominent are Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and a couple of others. Some people decide to follow a similar path, hoping they can repeat the successes of those people. But how many times have you heard about college dropouts who didn’t make it at all and barely make ends meet? Read more

Efficiency. It is sought after by many people and companies. You might have heard, watched, read, talked, or thought about it recently. And that is understandable. Efficiency defines the ability to get the best possible result with the minimum waste of energy and resources. It directly affects ones own (or a company’s) time and money. However, there is another concept that is not that popular and discussed, but that defines far better the ability of a person or team to achieve its goals, and that is efficacy. Read more

Problem-solving is an increasingly necessary skill for knowledge employees these days. For instance, software engineers have to deal with problems of various complexity on a daily basis. If you have the proper experience as a developer, you can quickly solve the problem by implementing the right solution. However, sometimes you deal with a problem that is novel to you, and you don’t have the relevant experience to solve it. The good news is that the problems are rarely unique and never encountered before by anyone else. Read more

Sometimes it looks like the world is going crazy. All the unimaginable events happening in different parts of the globe trigger various movements: some positive, some negative, some adequately useful, and some extreme. Try to recall the most recent event that you know when a person went into an extreme, and I bet that wasn’t more than two weeks ago. Generally speaking — making the right choices and decisions is hard, especially when the concepts you reason about are abstract. Read more

There it is — the end of 2020. The year is slowly but steadily coming to an end. It was a challenging and, overall, a very unusual year. It is time to look back and analyze it, as there were some nice things and some lessons to learn. Read more

The end of 2020 is near, and soon, a lot of people will make resolutions and set their goals for 2021. Sadly, some of those goals will stay just that — a written intention on a piece of paper abandoned in the first weeks of the new year. There are many strategies and tactics for goal setting, and in this article, I’d like to describe one such approach. The Habit That Chases You Sometimes, we set a goal to get rid of a bad habit. Read more

Recently, I had a discussion on Twitter about how a developer becomes senior. The main idea is a paradox, though. To be considered senior, a developer (or some other worker type for that matter) should have experience in a set of areas required for the job. However, to get that experience, the developer should be given a chance to work on projects that provide that kind of experience. And here is the tricky part — nobody wants people who do not know how to do their job. Read more

Take a moment and think about one thing that you do not do, but you wish you started doing 5, 10, or some other number of years ago. Think about all the things you would have learned and all the experiences you would have had in those years. And you would naturally acquire all that knowledge and expertise because you have put in the effort during an extended period of time, even though you might not see any difference on a daily basis. Read more