3 tricks to start working despite not feeling like it

What coffee taught me about building products?

You have probably been asked about your hobbies at some point. I never had a good answer to that question. Tbh, I still don't. A few years ago, while reading Designing Your Life, I realised something slightly uncomfortable. I did very little just for joy. Most things I spent

Making Slides

I was asked to give a short talk in my Departmental Proseminar yesterday on the topic of giving presentations, and specifically about making slides effective. There is more than one way to give a good talk, and there is more than one way to make “good slides” or—better—make good use of slides and other material you might want to show people. So the things I’ll talk about and especially the specific techniques I’ll discuss are selected from many good ways to present yourself and your work. Presenting is a two-sided process, where you should be comfortable with what you are saying (and how you’re saying it), on one side, and where your audience should be able to follow along and understand your message, on the other.

Please stop multitasking. I’m begging you. Please.

The greatest trick we ever pulled on ourselves as knowledge workers was convincing ourselves we could juggle multiple projects with no consequences.

Unintuitive Things I’ve Learned about Management (Part 1)

I first started managing people seven years ago, three years after I graduated and got my first design job. At the time, I was woefully…

How to Get Things Done When You Don’t Feel Like It: Five strategies for pushing through: Queue: Vol 16, No 4

If you want to be successful, then it serves you better to rise to the occasion no matter what. That means learning how to push through challenges and deliver valuable results.

Finding Flow: Escaping Digital Distractions Through Deep Work and Slow Living

Learn how to achieve flow state and defeat digital distractions through environment design, mindful breaks, and deep work practices for a more focused life.

Finding Fulfillment

What creates a fulfilling existence? Exploration leads to a framework I've used for years for myself and the people around me. I hope it helps you too.

Feeling unproductive? Maybe you should stop overthinking.

In order to get something done, maybe we need to think less.

Harnessing Frustration: Using LLMs to Overcome Activation Energy

One of my biggest weaknesses as a software engineer is procrastination when facing a new project. When the scope is unclear, I have a tendency to wait until I feel I’ve “felt out” the problem to start doing anything. I know I’ll feel better and work much faster when I get “stuck in” but I still struggle with that first step, overcoming the “activation energy” required to engage with the details. LLMs have been a game-changer for me in this respect: I can just throw a couple of sentences at them with the shape of the problem. This leads to one of two outcomes: The LLM comes up with a good solution, usually in a slightly different way than what I was thinking. I realize “oh wow the solution is much simpler than I thought”. Straight away I start thinking about the consequences of implementing and improving what the LLM suggested. The LLM comes up with a solution that I intuitively recognize as “wrong”. My immediate reaction is frustration (“How could it get it so wrong”) which leads me to go back and forth with the model, explaining to it why its solution could not possibly work. But in the process of arguing with the model, my brain is churning away and generating variations or different approaches that could work. After a while, even if the AI is still on the wrong track, the debate will trigger a moment of inspiration where suddenly the solution will come to me. I’ll excitedly start up a new conversation and start working through it with the model. The key is the emotional reaction I have immediately to the LLM’s response, either excitement or frustration. By harnessing this immediate feedback loop, I get my brain out of its passive, procrastination mode. It’s almost like a jolt: either I’m thrilled because it’s simpler than I thought, or I’m spurred to action by the urge to correct a perceived ‘wrong’ answer. This forces me to engage with the problem in a meaningful way.

Three Presentation Styles

Three Completely Different Ways to Pitch Ideas

Some Thoughts About Work

I think there are three things that can make work rewarding: working with cool people, working on cool things, and working in cool ways.

Minimum Viable Demos

An evening showcase of ambitious projects exploring technology, art, and science.

Developing creative identity

I was a theoretical physicist from 1992 to 2007. It was a romantic activity, exploring the fundamental nature of the cosmos! I became a university professor, wrote papers and books, and got to explore some of the most beautiful ideas ever discovered. In parallel, I also developed a fascination with the social systems humanity uses to make knowledge. Systems like the university or peer review are immensely deep inventions: our discovery system is itself one of the great inventions of humanity! But I believed a radically better discovery system must be possible. I became obsessed with this idea, eventually giving up tenure to work on it1. My first big project was to write a book helping develop and spread the fundamental ideas underlying the modern open science movement.

Working Through the Fear of Being Seen

A personal essay about returning to writing, navigating visibility, and rebuilding confidence after years of second-guessing.

Feeling of Computing — Conversations