Hello from the first issue of the leadership newsletter I planned to start 2 years ago in order to promote my book!

The thing no-one tells you about writing a book is that it may leave you feeling like you have nothing to say (this is what I tell everyone about writing a book).

Anyway, I hope you've had a good holiday break if you got one. As is my ritual this time of year, I like to use it to think about my own career and goals, and set myself up to execute on them over the rest of the year - when I have much less strategic energy for my life. As usual I am emerging with a new Trello board, which I believe is the Answer.

This year my themes (columns in the Trello board) are Adventures (of course, for more on these see my other newsletter), Adulting, Human being, Development, and Promotion - putting things on the internet, basically, a thing I've been trying to fix my relationship with.

This year's Trello board is a variation on last years. Did I accomplish everything I wanted to? No. Did I come into December with a remaining list of the things I'd procrastinated the hardest on? Absolutely. But did I accomplish more than I thought I would? Yes, actually. The creative tear I was on through December helped, but I do want to think that I set myself up for it.

Jokes about productivity systems aside, I do believe that planning energy and execution energy are distinct.

Planning energy requires creativity and optimism, which requires space to think and break things down incrementally.

Execution energy is less complex, it's being able to see a task and cross it off. I don't have this every day after the day job is done, but if the task is clear it's a whole lot easier.

One change I'm trying to make from last year is how I approach goals financially. At the start of 2025 I checked a bunch of boxes, but I realised I was more booking and paying for things than actually doing things. I've labelled this the fake productivity of capitalism and am trying to be more discerning about it.

All of this is to say, I hope you're channelling your new year energy into something sustainable for you. New year, same you, but (I hope) with a little more optimism and energy that you can use to set a direction. Use it well.

Wishing you a wonderful 2026.

-C

What I've been reading

Life in Three Dimensions - I loved this book, the idea of a psychologically rich life resonates with me.

I appreciated this article about interviewing for leadership roles in this brutal market.

I shared with Camille a hatred of manager READMEs, and this advice on creating templates instead really resonated.

This newsletter is hosted on Buttondown, and I think their end of year review is a good illustration of why - principled and user focused.

This post on AI evals included a really useful nugget on the difference between how senior+ engineers approach code review compared to juniors.

1. Scope: Senior engineers consider system-wide and organizational impact, while junior engineers focus on individual features
2. Reasoning: Senior engineers explain the “why” with architectural context, while junior engineers describe the “what”
3. Proactivity: Senior engineers anticipate future issues and suggest migration paths, while junior engineers address immediate problems
4. Context awareness: Senior engineers reference external standards and long-term strategy, while junior engineers operate within current constraints

This piece on hard work for the sake of hard work has been living in my head since I read it. Too many people have learned this the hard way in this timeline with the rampant layoffs breaking the implicit promises of job security.

“Modern work operates on a simple transaction. You work hard, produce something, and get validation (money, promotion, recognition, impact).

This seems rational. It works fine until the day the outcome disappears and you realize you've completely outsourced your sense of competence to external validation.”

What I've been doing

• Jean and I have a course coming up about what it means to DRI Your Career. We've sold out for this round, but if it's interesting to you please sign up to hear about the next time we run it.
• I'm continuing to work with Twill as an advisor, and I'm so excited about what they are doing with referral based recruiting. Hiring seems fundamentally broken in this timeline, and I really believe Twill is the answer.
• I'm on committees for two events this year. LDX3 London (a repeat) and swiftCon at next.app Berlin. CfPs are open for both.
• I revamped cate.blog - new theme, fewer pages.
• Vibe coding. I will share the result of that soon. Early testers have described it as "unhinged" - aka exactly what I was aiming for.