Hi nerds -

I salute you from Miami, where I just bought myself a nice vintage bike to roam around the streets. Two things are interesting about this:

1. Circular economy: I bought the bike on Facebook’s marketplace from a couple who came down from NYC during the pandemic and never used it. Bike was brand new but price was cut by more than half. Second-hand is not only cheaper, but also environmentally smart.
2. Future of mobility: The fact that such a car-centric city has invested in building bike lanes all around just reinforces that the future of mobility is inevitably bike-driven. Cars are unsustainable machines in the longer term.

​

3 brain farts

✍🏼 The Organization technique: Organization is the cure to stress and anxiety.

That’s why the moment we define a scope of work, a timeline, and small packets of goals to accomplish we feel a sense of relief; a weight taken off our shoulders, even if these goals haven't yet been achieved.

Organization is how we avoid getting burned out, how we can keep track of several items at once, and how we generate results without crazy anxiety. It’s how we put into paper (our in our second brain) the things we need to remember, so we can focus our energy on strategy and analysis. It’s how we scale up our lives without feeling overwhelmed and suffering from stress-induced diseases.

​

🙇🏻‍♀️ Creator-based education: The rise of the creator economy is the seed we’ve been needing to jumpstart the education revolution.

On one end, students are consuming informational content through TikTok, YouTube, and their favorite creator’s blog. Creators have become teachers kids align with, who are often providing them with educational insights in an entertaining and concise way.

On the other end, companies like Substack, Patreon, Gumroad, Etsy, and Cuanto are allowing students to be creators; encouraging them to put into practice what they’ve learned in school. These platforms are the infrastructure for students to build products, get feedback, iterate, and share their learning journey. Students are essentially able to do what entrepreneurs do, but since way earlier, at a significantly lower cost, and more instinctively than "adults".

​

⏰ On estimating projects: Estimating projects is one of the hardest aspects of working in the software industry. A Harvard study found that 1 out of 6 projects have costs of 200% and were late by almost 70%.

​The best estimators are able to:

• break down work into less-complex, manageable tasks,
• map out the levels of uncertainty in projects,
• track their own accuracy over time,
• and set up constraints right from the beginning to work within a feasible scope.

Being a good estimator is a career booster because it means you’re building compounding trust. Honoring our word means we don’t drift away from the main requirements for chasing away details. It forces us to establish accurate expectations for those around us and decreases potential misconceptions.

​

2 intellectual goodies

"The narrower you can focus, the more people you reach.

The more people you reach, the narrower you can focus."

~ Jack Butcher, @jackbutcher​

​

"The mind is like a parachute, it will not work unless it’s open."

~ Frank Zappa

​

1 funky audio

Without a doubt, my biggest rabbit hole of the week has been diving deep into beautiful German indie tunes.

To my surprise, these come in particularly handy when you want to listen to something chill, but don’t want to be loosing focus as you sing the lyrics.

​

& a featured snack

= Bi-weekly shout-out to cool products.

Problem: You want to reduce your carbon emissions but have a hard time changing your habits.

Solution: Become carbon-positive for as little as 3$ a week.

​Ecologi grows forests for you around the world, reducing carbon pollution and gamifying your carbon-footprint so you want to live a low-carbon life. Easily transferable and trackable for individuals and companies alike.

​

​

---

Thanks for reading.

As always, feel free to connect by hitting reply and sharing a juicy thought 💡.

We all help the curious community grow.

​

Best,

Jules 🤸🏻‍♂️