Today I am writing an intimate publication. I won’t share this article in my social networks as I usually do. This is an exclusive piece for those of you who are subscribed to my newsletter and have accompanied me week after week in my quest to learn new things and share them with the world. You are the ones who are really impacted by me not delivering for you today, the rest of my readers are opportunistic ones who get on the train of my good articles, unlike you who are always here, in my best articles and in my worst. I am extremely grateful for this. Every new subscriber is a boost of energy that encourages me to keep writing and stick to this extremely entertaining, useful —and at times sacrificial— habit.

Today is one of those weeks when the sacrificial part of the habit won the entertaining one. After more than a year writing every single week, without missing one (even on vacation, at Christmas, or in one of my brief summer breaks), this week I couldn’t find the time to write a proper piece. All of the topics I currently have in my “writing backlog” required more than an hour of uninterrupted writing to be ready. Unfortunately, I’ve been only able to find this half-an-hour I am using right now to write this piece. So instead of finding a shallow topic to write something fast and dirty, I chose to take the chance to thank all my incredible readers who make this newsletter possible week after week.

Throughout my life I made several attempts to start a blog of different themes, but after a few months I always ended up quitting. This time instead of starting a blog I chose to start a weekly newsletter. Every Sunday I would have to write something. If I made a habit of the newsletter it would be easier for me to stick to it in the long run, and newsletters have a better format than “traditional” blogs for this.

With that cleared up, I started the newsletter with a double-fold intention: on the one hand to force myself to write a new piece in English every week (after some years were all my social interactions were in English I came back to a comfortable environment where my use of the English language was pretty limited, and it was a skill I was not willing to lose); and in the other hand to force myself to learn something new every week and “teach” it to the world through the newsletter (you know, the Feynman way to learn, also as Jack Ma suggests what makes you outstanding is not what you do 9 to 5, but what you do out of your 9 to 5 time, and I wanted to make good use of my out of my “9 to 5 time”).

At the end of last year I did a review of what I had achieved so far with the newsletter. I see the numbers from then and my numbers today and I wouldn’t EVER have expected what I achieved. I am extremely happy with the results and, again, all of this is only possible thanks to you. 

So far, these are the number of my TOP 5 publications. You see what I mean? Who would’ve expect this one year ago?

• Software should be designed to last - 24,778 views.

• What does happiness at work mean? - 18,053 views.

• How to make your web app work offline - 17,731 views.

• Immutable databases - 12,128 views.

• I have been underestimating JS - 11,879 views.

To be honest I would love to be able to continue reflecting on the newsletter, thinking of ways to improve it, and share them with all of you to collect feedback, but I am running out of time and I have to get ready to attend to a wedding in COVID times (I know, how irresponsible, but it wasn’t my call have it). Anyways, thank you for your support, and send me any feedback or anything you would be eager to see in this newsletter in the next few years. See you next week!