Starting without a plan feels risky, so we gather requirements. We aim for certainty when we understand the least.
Great products are an art of discovery, not perfect planning. What matters most is building and learning quickly.
www.timcheadle.com/plan-for-lea...
Thanks Mike!
This week was wild, but I do have some good news: I'm not gonna go broke!
In an act of absolute stars-aligning kismet, I have a new job as ✨VP of Agentic AI✨ at Phaidra.com
I'm leading product and engineering, creating autonomous agents to help AI factories run efficiently. I'm so excited.
If you enjoy lessons like this, you might like my newsletter:
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For months, I asked myself if I was wasting this time. Was I failing at my break? It finally hit me that time off isn’t about success or failure or productivity.
Letting go of that pressure gave me the space to rediscover myself and to rethink how I want work to fit into my life moving forward.
Last year, I stepped away from work for a career break. I thought I needed to fill it with travel, new skills, and big plans. I did almost none of that. And it was exactly what I needed.
I wrote about what I learned from slowing down:
www.timcheadle.com/learning-to-...
30+ years into programming and I still just wasted an hour using a different library version than the documentation I was reading.
Writing code is really just practicing profanity.
LinkedIn, why does it say Remote Job when there is no Remote Job?
I swear to god, one of these days I kick this piece of shit out the window
Here's a working link! Hilariously I wrote this thread too fast 🤦♂️
www.timcheadle.com/dont-let-cri...
I write about engineering, product, and how to lead with skill and build with soul. No fluff, no hype, just hard-earned lessons, shared every week or two.
I dove deep into why we get addicted to urgency and how to build sustainable productivity in my new newsletter "Built to Last."
Read the full piece and subscribe if you dig it.
timcheadle.com/dont…
What you're actually seeing is a stress response that temporarily overwhelms the dysfunction that's always been there.
Crisis doesn't create great teamwork, it reveals what's been preventing it all along. If urgency is how you get focus, it's time to set a better course.
Why does your team only seem to hit their stride when everything's on fire?
The rush of crisis mode feels like peak performance. Decisions get made quickly. Priorities become crystal clear. People step up.
But that clarity is artificial. 🧵
In my experience, deep focus is already hard in offices. As companies push RTO while AI makes interruptions more expensive, it'll be interesting to see if office culture adjusts. I doubt it, as a return to office is really more about a sense of control.
At the Anthropic keynote, @mikekrieger.bsky.social made a great point about AI making inefficiencies more obvious. Hours of cross-functional alignment and planning meetings become bottlenecks when building no longer takes weeks.
Also, I wound up prepping a 20 minute talk about the story of building Simple.org
It was a lovely walk down memory lane. We solved so many weird and interesting problems, work I’m quite proud of.
If you’d like to hear this story, let me know.
Made it to the final round of interviews. Never prepped harder for one. Didn’t get the job I really hoped. It stings and that’s ok to feel.
But ya know what? Time to dust off, get up, continue to trust and bet on myself.
No reason to start doubting myself now.
Not sure who needs this, but I’m a grown man and I cry all the time. Tears of celebration, love, fear. It’s freeing, leaning into life’s fullness.
I once heard that crying is your soul taking a breath. That feels right. ❤️
Black excellence is the American dream.
Happy Black History Month ✊
The larger story matters. It was for and by Black folks, a reminder of experience and community and power. It told white supremacy: you can lock us up but you can't trap our minds. He also reminds Drake he's a leach, forever an outsider to all of this.
What I loved most about Kendrick's show is that it wasn't about Drake. It was a Black celebration, a testament to liberation and culture and resistance in spite of America.
Same. Her mannerisms were off from the jump.
My recent obsession is CrosswordJam+ on Apple Arcade. It gives you 5-7 letters and you find all the words you can. I turn all the sounds off and just space out.
It's SO calming.
(No, my 8 year old doesn't have a phone. She uses her iPad)
In case you’re wondering what it’s like to text your 8 year old daughter 🫠
- Mark *is* Cold Harbor. He's the experiment. (Maybe the test is severing deep emotional bonds, e.g. his wife)
- The other MDR folks are variables in the experiment. The work is a red herring
- They're raising goats for animal testing
2/2
Alright, here are my Severance theories.
- There is no Dieter. In the woods, Kier discarded the gentle part of himself he hated. This lead to the idea of severance
- What is Lumon doing? Severance is the product. A cure for mankind, "Remedium hominibus"
1/2
One of the best shows in the last 10 years!
Worst smells in the kitchen when you have kids:
- Ketchup on the plate they left out
- The lunchbox from last week
- Old yogurt
- The dishwasher you forgot to run last night
- Half eaten bowl of cereal