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I started Developer Tea in 2015 to help engineers find clarity, perspective, and purpose in regular short bursts of high-value content.

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Solve Specific Problems by Composing General Solutions

Almost every complex problem can be broken down and solved. Thinking from the other side - learning general solutions and how to compose those will give you the ability to build against the broken down complex problem.

Published: 8/19/2022
Length: ~6m
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Common Excuses for Not Setting Goals

Today, we'll dismantle a few common excuses often provided for not setting goals. We also briefly discuss the SMART goal-setting framework.

Published: 8/15/2022
Length: ~18m
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Better Process to Match Intentions to Actions

Your time is full of intent, but if you reflect back - how often do you do what you intend? Our actions are usually trying to reach some outcome, but are haphazard and habit-driven. What if we made that outcome explicit, and made our calendars reflect specific processes instead of vague outcomes?

Published: 8/12/2022
Length: ~11m
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Change Through the Lens of Adjustment and Maintenance

Change is inevitable, but it's not always what we think it will be. Our framework for change should be ready for change we don't expect as much or more than for change we do expect.

Published: 8/10/2022
Length: ~10m
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Built to Change

The flow of change is inevitable. Are you building with it, or ignoring it in vane?

Published: 8/6/2022
Length: ~6m
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Deconstructing Status Meetings

What if status meant something different? Your status meeting overload is probably a symptom of a more important problem: you're not sure what you're measuring against.

Published: 8/3/2022
Length: ~12m
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Lower Cognitive Load - Pick Your Tools, Then Do Your Work

Lower cognitive load by picking your tools, and then using them. Avoid the constant evaluation of tooling; it's an intuitive response to the amazing leverage you experienced when you first picked up the tools you have, but now your highest leverage activity is focus.

Published: 7/27/2022
Length: ~10m
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Lower Cognitive Load - Primary Activities, Modes, and Cues

Lower cognitive load by looking at your primary activities and modes, and creating cues that help you shortcut to those modes. This importantly gives you a better signal and a spike in cognitive load when something comes up that doesn't match your primary activities and modes.

Published: 7/25/2022
Length: ~12m
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Lower Cognitive Load - Limit Everything In Progress

Cognitive load will destroy your productivity. In this mini-series, we talk about ways to reduce your cognitive load. In this episode we talk about limiting work, and everything else, in progress.

Published: 7/22/2022
Length: ~12m
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Lower Cognitive Load - Principle of Least Surprise

Cognitive load will destroy your productivity. In this mini-series, we talk about ways to reduce your cognitive load. In this episode we talk about the unexpected effects of surprise on cognitive load, and what you can do about this in your work.

Published: 7/20/2022
Length: ~10m
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Applying Systems Thinking for Better Thoughts

The systems that play a role in producing your thoughts are a huge leverage opportunity in your work and life. If you pause and examine those systems through a lens of systems-thinking, you are likely to identify opportunities for improvement, even if only as a byproduct of that investigation.

Published: 7/13/2022
Length: ~12m
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Outside View or Anecdote? The Right Answer is Both

If you only look at your experience, you fall prey to anecdotal evidence and a whole host of other biases. But, we should be learning through iteration and empiricism. So how can we? Seek the outside view, without abandoning your experience.

Published: 7/11/2022
Length: ~8m
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Protect Transparency On Your Team

Your organizational efficiency is directly related to how you manage information, and information is lost when your organization is chronically lacking transparency.

Published: 7/8/2022
Length: ~10m
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Meeting Red Flags - Problems In Your Meetings That Signal Issues In Your Culture

Once you have the right meetings with the right people, it's time to look at the content of the meeting itself. In this episode we discuss possible red flags that may show up in your meetings, and what kinds of problems these flags may signal.

Published: 7/7/2022
Length: ~15m
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Better Meetings: Who Is the Audience?

Defining your audience is critical to a good meeting. If you haven't defined your audience... who is the meeting even for?

Published: 6/30/2022
Length: ~9m
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Better Meetings - What Kind of Meeting, What Kind of Goal?

Better meetings are not a myth, but it starts with deconstructing how you got to where you are today. A hectic calendar and meetings showing up like popcorn. What can you do to improve this? Managers and individual contributors can start by focusing on what the goal of the meeting is. If the goal of the meeting is to solve a problem, that's a yellow flag.

Published: 6/27/2022
Length: ~12m
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Your Career Growth Doesn't Just Depend On Your Competency

Competency is not the only way you can grow your career. If that was the case, then every engineering manager would be technically more proficient than their reports, and I can guarantee (from many experiences) this is not only not the case - it's not even the norm.

Published: 6/23/2022
Length: ~11m
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Two Questions Focused On Unearthing Hidden Information In Yourself

Sometimes a small question can change the course of your career. It doesn't have to be complicated, and it doesn't have to be detailed. A well placed question might unearth information you didn't realize was in you.

Published: 6/21/2022
Length: ~11m
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Asking a Taboo Question

In today's episode, I give you one question that is considered taboo (for some unknown reason) often in the workplace: What Do You Want? Amazingly, this diverse question is at the root of some of the most important conversations you'll have in your career. You are, after all, a human working with other humans - each with their own unique desires.

Published: 6/15/2022
Length: ~9m
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Reframe Play as a Principle

Play isn't just for kids. In today's episode we'll reframe what play means, and why it's a principle for great work and lifelong learning.

Published: 6/13/2022
Length: ~10m
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Developer Tea was a part of Spec and is hosted by Jonathan Cutrell, engineering manager at Guild Education.