Tomas Vik

Posts

Focus on strategic and outsource utility work

This article explains the concept of utility and strategic software and how it easily translates into everyday life. Originally, the concept has been used by large enterprises to decide how they should divide their development efforts. Now, it can help you prioritise your side project just as well. My parents aren’t rich. Growing up, I had to think about money and scarcity. My dad would always prefer building or fixing something himself over getting a tradie to do it.

Easy-going work doesn't provide much value

The whole day of work can feel great, but not provide value to the outside world. This article explains that the time spent at work isn’t necessarily directly related to the value produced. This is especially true for children of middle-class parents (myself included). Parents who worked nine to five jobs and got paid a fixed salary for a fixed time. Predictable tasks feel great I got reminded of this concept last month at work.

Zettelkasten note-taking in 10 minutes

Reading is hard and books don’t work. Zettelkasten aka slip-box note-taking is the new cool kid on the block. Don’t go down the same rabbit hole as I did, researching the method for tens of hours. This article should be enough of the introduction to get you started. Illustration by Ljubica Petkovic Why Slip-box method promises to prevent your notes from piling up deep within your note-taking app and being forgotten.

Why do you forget most of what you read?

Reading books takes time and in the end, you’ll forget most of what you’ve read. The ideas are not getting transmitted to your brain and the concepts seem clear only until you try to explain them. You are not alone. This article explains this phenomenon and provides useful tools to improve information retention and understanding. Last year, I read more books than any other year, 28. Roughly half of them are non-fiction.

Optimize your personal energy

When I was young, I never paid much attention to how much energy I had at any given moment. I never tried to schedule really demanding activities before my meals or avoid difficult tasks just before going to sleep. In this article, I want to have a look at what I mean by my personal energy and how I optimize it to be productive and to enjoy my day without an unnecessary struggle.

Give it to me: A polite request for feedback

Today we’ll have a look at how you can give me feedback for these articles. I’ll explain my motivation for writing, why is your opinion important to me and how you can share it. I guarantee I’m going to read every single comment.

What would you do if you lost your Google account?

I was reading horror stories in the past about people getting locked out of their Google accounts. If you are anything like me, half of your digital life is stored in Google. Losing access to all this data would be traumatic at best. In this article I’m researching what happens when you forget your password or lose your phone. What information will Google want to know about you and how can you best prepare for this situation so you don’t lose access to your account completely.

Using text passwords for encryption is safe enough

I had a creeping suspicion in my head lately. I’m using a text password as a key to encrypt all my other passwords. I started to worry that the text password is not safe enough and I’m only placing a minor obstacle between my passwords and a curious person. Let’s have a look whether I was right.