Psychology

There’s a technique so powerful it feels like cheating. It requires no apps, no subscriptions, no complex systems. It’s been available since humans invented writing, and yet we constantly forget to use it. Write things down. That’s it. That’s the whole technique. Why Your Brain is a Terrible Storage Device Your working memory can hold roughly 7±2 items. That’s it. Seven things, give or take. Meanwhile, you’re trying to: Remember that bug you need to fix Keep track of your meeting at 3 PM Hold onto that brilliant idea you had in the shower Recall what you were supposed to buy at the grocery store Not forget your partner’s birthday (it’s this week, isn’t it?) Your brain is not a hard drive. It’s more like RAM that’s constantly being garbage collected by an overeager process that seems to prefer deleting important things. ...

Why Engineers Burn Out The engineer sits at their desk, staring at a screen they’ve stared at for thousands of hours. The code compiles. The tests pass. But something has broken—not in the system, but in them. Engineering burnout is not merely exhaustion from long hours. It is a particular kind of depletion: the erosion of meaning, the collapse of curiosity, the slow death of the joy that once made debugging at 2 AM feel like solving puzzles rather than serving a sentence. ...

Analysis Paralysis: The Burden of Overthinking in Decision-Making Introduction In the modern world, we are confronted with an unprecedented abundance of choices. From the mundane decisions of what to eat for breakfast to the profound challenges of career paths and life partnerships, contemporary life presents us with a dizzying array of options. Yet paradoxically, this wealth of choice does not always lead to greater satisfaction or better outcomes. Instead, many find themselves trapped in a state of cognitive gridlock—a phenomenon known as analysis paralysis, where the very act of deliberation becomes an obstacle to action itself. ...

Code review is ostensibly a technical practice. We review code to catch bugs, ensure quality, share knowledge. But after years of reviewing (and being reviewed), I’ve come to believe something different: Code review is primarily a psychological exercise. The code is just the medium. The real work is navigating human emotions, social dynamics, and cognitive biases. Why Criticism Hurts (Even When It Shouldn’t) When someone critiques your code, your brain doesn’t distinguish it from personal criticism. Neurologically, social rejection activates the same brain regions as physical pain. ...