Five Things Worth Keeping
Habits and tools that survived a decade of churn.
Most of what I adopt gets dropped within a year. These five did not.
1. Plain text files
Everything important I own is a file I can open in any editor, on any machine, twenty years from now. No export step, no account, no vendor.
2. A build you can run offline
If the build needs the network to succeed, it will fail at the worst time. A build that works on a plane is a build that works everywhere.
3. Boring databases
The interesting database is the one that pages you. Postgres has never been the most exciting thing in my stack and has never once been the reason something broke.
4. Writing things down
The version of me from six months ago is a stranger who happened to solve this exact problem. The only way to reach him is through notes.
5. Leaving early
Every system I regret was one I kept extending past the point where I should have replaced it. Knowing when to stop is a skill worth more than most.