In the past few days, some of my articles have really hit a chord on reddit and hacker news. I'm stoked to see them helping people. And they've led to a lot of new faces on the newsletter this week.

If you're one of them, welcome! Excited to have you all here on this journey.

I'm learning right alongside you, so feel free to bounce ideas around. I would love to hear your own takes on anything I share.

And now for your nuggets

What I'm writing

Taking my own advice

You’ve heard how the best way to learn is by teaching, right?

Wrong. Try grading instead.

The single best practice that improved my writing was reviewing other people's essays.

And now I'm realizing I can apply this at work. You can too.

Everything is an opportunity to learn

Read the full essay here

What I'm reading

Changing Minds

An excerpt from The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, by Richard Hamming

Want to change someone's mind? The direct approach may not work

Instead, try asking them to give advice to other people

They'll be happy do that

And they just might take their own advice

Try to over-communicate, I dare you

An excerpt from Rise, by Patty Azzarello

It's impossible to over-communicate

Think repeating a message five times is to much?

Try repeating it twenty one times instead! That's what it takes for a message to really sink in

The UX of Lego Interface Panels

This article is a quick lesson on how to design user interfaces to make the important things easy.

The six main ways to make the important functionality stand out:

  • Size
  • Shape
  • Color
  • Texture
  • Position
  • Operation (how it's used)

Lego used all of those when painting its toys

The Takeaway

I was amazed when I noticed how much reviewing other's works helped me improve my own.

It started with essays, but now I'm trying to notice how people deliver lectures, write design documents, and even bug descriptions. I'm certain I haven't yet noticed all the things I could be learning from.

Have you found yourself learning by watching others work? I'd love to hear about it. Reply back and share your story! I read every email.

Till next week

--Zain