Archive
2026
- 2026-01-01 — Letter to Oli: On How I Consume Podcasts and Take Notes (Zettelkasten)
- 2026-01-01 — Letter to Sopha: On Job Searching, Not Feeling Enough, and The Inner Game
2025
- 2025-12-31 — Letter to Oli: On Craft, Quality, and Founders Podcast
- 2025-12-17 — How I Chose My 2025/2026 Annual Review Format: The Criteria I Use
- 2025-12-02 — My Takeaways From Amp It Up (Surprisingly Not About Hustle)
- 2025-10-01 — I Was Terrible at Conversations. Here's the Tape.
- 2025-08-29 — From Employee to ALG to Self-Employed in Germany: Everything I Learned About Registration, Insurance, and Taxes
- 2025-08-02 — I miss the Blogger/LiveJournal days
- 2025-07-27 — I miss sleepless nights
- 2025-04-12 — I just reached 23 kyu on OGS - here are some techniques that actually helped
- 2025-04-04 — 2025Q2 Quarterly Quests
- 2025-03-30 — 5 early lessons from 9x9 Go / Baduk
2024
- 2024-12-02 — Gemini in Google Workspace: A first look and initial thoughts
- 2024-10-22 — Day 30 of Ship 30: 3 Unexpected Lessons from Writing Every Day for 6 Weeks on LinkedIn
- 2024-10-21 — Day 29: Networking Feels Uncomfortable? Here Are 3 Ways to Reframe It
- 2024-10-08 — Day 23: From Cringe Emails to Career Success: How to Network Your Way into a Job in Germany
- 2024-10-07 — Day 22: Don’t Just Apply: 3 Game-Changing Strategies for Expat Job Seekers in Germany
- 2024-10-06 — Day 21: Walking the Line Between Gratitude and Overwhelm: What It’s Like to Run a Job Search Coaching Business
- 2024-10-04 — Day 20: The Power of Networking: How My Friend Landed a Hidden Job in Germany’s Tough Market
- 2024-10-02 — Day 19: Job hunting is like dating.
- 2024-10-01 — Day 18: How to Stand Out in a Brutal Job Market by Developing Your Personal Niche Positioning, in 30 Minutes or Less
- 2024-09-30 — Day 17: 6 Biggest Job Search Problems Facing International People in Germany, and How to Overcome Them
- 2024-09-27 — Day 16: How to Find Jobs in Germany That Don’t Require German Using the 3-Circle Connection Framework
- 2024-09-26 — Day 15: 5 Skills New Entrepreneurs Must Prioritize Learning to Build a Financially Viable, Mentally Healthy, and Pride-Worthy Business
- 2024-09-25 — Day 14: How I Landed a Job in Germany in 6 Months Without Knowing Anyone in Europe
- 2024-09-24 — Day 13: The 3 biggest mistakes immigrants job searching in Germany make:
- 2024-09-23 — Day 12: I’ve Landed Jobs in Germany, the U.S. and Beyond -- Why the German CV Format Isn’t as Important as You Think
- 2024-09-20 — Day 11: Making a career change? Here’s the exact email I used to secure an offer and transition roles in one year - steal it
- 2024-09-19 — Day 10: Lost in Your Job Hunt? Here’s How to Analyze Your Job Search Funnel, Identify the Bottleneck, and Fix It
- 2024-09-18 — Day 9: My Most Important Tip For Job Seekers Looking to Change Careers
- 2024-09-17 — Day 8: Why customer success is priority #1 in my business
- 2024-09-16 — Day 7: The Best Piece Of Advice I Was Given About Interviewing
- 2024-09-13 — Day 6: The Grass Isn’t Always Greener: How I Learned to Appreciate My Existing Skills Instead of Chasing New Opportunities
- 2024-09-12 — Day 5: 3 faulty beliefs that drag out a job search
- 2024-09-11 — Day 4: How I got interested in job searching as a skill
- 2024-09-10 — Day 3: The Best Book to Learn About Job Searching
- 2024-09-05 — Day 2: 3 Topics I Am Exploring In My Life Right Now
- 2024-09-04 — Day 1: Why I'm Starting To Write Online
- 2024-03-22 — Learning Graphic Design
- 2024-03-09 — Chiara’s Personal Operating System v1
- 2024-02-24 — Are you seeking love... or status?
2023
- 2023-12-01 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Nov 2023)
- 2023-11-26 — Why copywriting might be the most underrated skill for product managers
- 2023-11-22 — Sam Altman on Risk
- 2023-10-06 — Review: Lalia German courses
- 2023-09-07 — You don't need to ask Google for permission to feel something
- 2023-01-27 — German Permanent Residence aka Permanent Settlement Permit for EU Blue Card Holders
- 2023-01-09 — Top 4 insights from Borderless Economics
2022
- 2022-11-30 — "Confidence, not perfection, is the goal" and other insights from Scott Berkun on public speaking
- 2022-02-11 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Jan 2022)
- 2022-01-30 — Learning SQL with The SQL Murder Mystery
- 2022-01-14 — How I manage my time and energy while job hunting (and working)
2021
- 2021-09-22 — My most used keyboard shortcuts in Craft
- 2021-08-27 — Sorry, you're not Dave 😅
- 2021-08-26 — aText and Google Drive
- 2021-08-25 — Rocket German Walk + Anki
- 2021-08-24 — YouTube Comedian?
- 2021-08-23 — Skillshare course intro v2
- 2021-08-22 — My handwriting is illegible - something I knew for sure that just ain’t so
- 2021-08-22 — My ideal Skillshare intro, lessons learned from studying three Skillshare classes
- 2021-08-20 — Learning visual note-taking with Verbal to Visual
- 2021-08-19 — Using Craft Docs for narrative project planning
- 2021-08-18 — Giant Swarm observability stack, finally :)
- 2021-08-17 — Resources: First 90 Days for Product Managers
- 2021-08-16 — Ask for testimonials, always.
- 2021-08-13 — Project 100 origin story
- 2021-08-12 — Gen Propel Skillshare course: Introduction
- 2021-08-11 — YouTube Success with MKBHD and the value of an MBA in 2021
- 2021-08-10 — Talking about yourself
- 2021-08-09 — Follow up is everything
- 2021-08-08 — What I'm Reading (Aug 2021)
- 2021-08-07 — Milestone: Short back and forth in German with a barista in Berlin
- 2021-08-06 — Currently Writing: “Are you good enough to find work abroad? It's likely you are. You just don’t know it, yet.”
- 2021-08-05 — Planning the intro video for Gen Propel's Skillshare course
- 2021-08-04 — Caveday
- 2021-07-18 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Jul 2021)
- 2021-07-16 — Health and fitness should be public goods
- 2021-06-28 — My terror of phone calls: A story
- 2021-04-18 — Tiago Forte on Procrastination
- 2021-04-09 — How I invest
- 2021-03-24 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Mar 2021)
- 2021-03-20 — The product challenge of creating Tools for Thought
- 2021-03-19 — Finding scenius in Compound Writing
- 2021-03-17 — How to save a tweetstorm to Craft Docs
- 2021-03-10 — How to automatically group all todo items in Craft Docs
- 2021-03-06 — How I use Pages vs Blocks in Craft Docs
- 2021-03-04 — What's it like to be a Product Manager in a very technical domain you're not familiar with?
- 2021-02-20 — Job hunting in a new country? I'm starting a cohort-based course 👀
- 2021-02-14 — Just-In-Time Reading: How to smash through books to solve problems
- 2021-02-10 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Feb 2021)
- 2021-02-02 — Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want
- 2021-01-26 — Getting to Plan B
2020
- 2020-12-20 — How to get an English-speaking job in Germany, from abroad
- 2020-12-12 — Cognitive Distortions
- 2020-11-28 — Churchill cried a lot, too.
- 2020-11-27 — To get to the good stuff, get it all out and purge the need to write self help
- 2020-11-26 — Should you focus on process or results?
- 2020-11-25 — Customer Service is overrated
- 2020-11-24 — Why I replaced Bear, Obsidian, and Roam Research with Craft
- 2020-11-23 — When does one learn ethics in technology and business?
- 2020-11-22 — My implementation of Zettelkasten in Craft
- 2020-11-21 — How to not waste your youth while you are young
- 2020-11-20 — 3 Rules on How to Be Happy, according to Alexander Green
- 2020-11-19 — I Have Met the Enemy (And It Was Never My Job)
- 2020-11-18 — Why I moved to Germany
- 2020-11-17 — The last time I cried
- 2020-10-26 — Notes: How do I prepare for my German B1 Exam?
- 2020-10-12 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Oct 2020)
- 2020-07-18 — Monthly-ish Personal Update (Jul 2020)
- 2020-07-16 — Meetings can be the best type of work.
- 2020-07-07 — How I change careers so "easily"
- 2020-06-27 — Don't make a hundred (product) decisions when one will do
- 2020-06-27 — Platform Product Owner as vehicle and storyteller (and not domain expert)
- 2020-06-01 — That’s okay. This is the game I choose to play.
- 2020-05-09 — Sparring above your weight class
- 2020-05-09 — Thesis: Infrastructure Product Management is a unique category of PM-ing and needs its own best practices
- 2020-05-06 — A mini enlightenment
- 2020-04-26 — How do you measure if your product is providing real value? It’s enough to measure if your user is using it.
- 2020-01-06 — [H] Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics) by Peter Ferdinand Drucker
2019
- 2019-12-25 — Decade in Review: 2010-2019
- 2019-12-09 — Q&A to: Filipino’s Guide to Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC) for Direct Hires
- 2019-10-26 — No one is coming to save us
- 2019-10-25 — Book: Gateless by Sebastian Marshall and Kai Zau
- 2019-10-24 — Job Hunting Directives from Knock 'em Dead
- 2019-10-23 — A meditation on operations
- 2019-10-22 — How I’m evaluating if I can use Bear Notes as my “Second Brain” again
- 2019-10-16 — @DeutschChiara
- 2019-10-13 — Tip: Keep a "Smile File"
- 2019-10-12 — True learning requires doing
- 2019-10-11 — How I organize my commonplace book in Notion
- 2019-10-10 — How strongly does business leadership correlate with extraordinary financial success?
- 2019-09-27 — Book Review and Notes: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil
- 2019-09-26 — Is the altMBA worth it?
- 2019-09-03 — Predicting Your Future by Believing in Statistics + The Hallway Test
- 2019-07-26 — Confidence
- 2019-07-25 — What are business and self-help books for?
- 2019-07-12 — Should you stay at home and take care of your parents, or move out and live independently?
- 2019-06-28 — How fast to make change as the new person
- 2019-01-24 — What I'm reading (January 2019)
2018
- 2018-11-02 — How to account for Alexander’s rise to the top? It’s more than just being nonstop
- 2018-08-18 — Q&A with Jeffrey Wan on Turing School, Flatiron School, and coding bootcamps — reasons people fail, how to prepare, minimizing regret, and more
- 2018-07-23 — Be OK being misunderstood
- 2018-03-15 — Being nice as the opposite of being truthful
- 2018-01-03 — Saying no to the things that don’t matter
- 2018-01-01 — My reading year, 2017
- 2018-01-01 — Sometimes, to take control means asking for help
2017
- 2017-12-14 — Books and highlights - Week of 4 December 2017
- 2017-11-25 — Reminiscing a four-year friendship with Sebastian Marshall
- 2017-08-15 — Why I quit my first job
- 2017-08-14 — Why I quit being an Olympic hopeful
- 2017-08-13 — My three words for 2017
- 2017-08-13 — Favorites from the Archives: 2015-2016
- 2017-08-11 — On good management with Paulo Ribeiro
- 2017-08-08 — Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by George Horace Lorimer
- 2017-08-08 — The Godfather by Mario Puzo
- 2017-05-26 — How to find the answer when it’s not on Google
- 2017-05-20 — The day you become happy
- 2017-04-15 — If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly by William J Bernstein
- 2017-01-13 — I am participating in Book Riot’s 2017 Read Harder Challenge
2016
- 2016-12-28 — Should you start reading “great” books in 2017?
- 2016-12-24 — The battle against letting people manipulate us with guilt
- 2016-07-05 — A Fountainhead moment
- 2016-06-16 — Be a woman who wrestles
- 2016-05-27 — How was the Vipassana course? My response.
- 2016-03-31 — Break the opponent's balance before you attack
- 2016-03-22 — Are your problems worse than mine?
- 2016-03-21 — Why do you climb mountains?
- 2016-03-18 — The day I got it in my head to join the Olympics
2015
- 2015-11-20 — Book: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (8/10)
- 2015-11-10 — Why and how Coins.ph can improve retention in the next 60 days
- 2015-10-29 — Book: The six pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden (8/10)
- 2015-10-26 — Tried and True or New and Improved?
- 2015-10-21 — Book: No B.S. Trust Based Marketing by Dan Kennedy (10/10)
- 2015-10-18 — Book: Go to Market Strategy (10/10)
- 2015-10-09 — I got laid off from my startup job – here’s what I learned
- 2015-09-19 — Notes on leadership and strategy from Book: Ender's Game (9/10)
- 2015-09-18 — When to be a kid, when to be an adult
- 2015-09-16 — Stories download life lessons into your heart
- 2015-09-12 — Book: The Art of Racing in the Rain (9/10)
- 2015-09-04 — Book: Write it down make it happen (4/10)
- 2015-09-02 — Not recognizing the fear (is the dream-killer) part 1
- 2015-08-31 — The real reason you should write everyday
- 2015-07-15 — Book: Never Let Go by Dan John
- 2015-07-08 — Book: Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith
- 2015-06-03 — Unfashionable thoughts on death, grief, and dying
- 2015-06-01 — Review: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- 2015-06-01 — Review: Principles by Ray Dalio
- 2015-06-01 — Review: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
- 2015-06-01 — Review: Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk
- 2015-06-01 — Review: The Unpublished David Ogilvy
- 2015-06-01 — Review: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- 2015-06-01 — Review: The The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
- 2015-04-07 — Serendipity and other overrated things
- 2015-03-07 — You suck at meeting new people, and it's not your fault
- 2015-03-06 — 10 fears disguising as plain, old bad habits
- 2015-03-05 — Don't forget the human on the other side of the screen
- 2015-03-04 — Today, I am happy with myself
- 2015-03-03 — Things that scared me today
- 2015-03-02 — Recognize the fear keeping you stuck
- 2015-03-01 — The "little things" that cause most relationships to fail
- 2015-02-02 — The decision to be patient and build self first
2014
- 2014-12-18 — Sweat the small stuff
- 2014-12-12 — "So, you are alive, then, as you are?"
- 2014-11-18 — Finally reading 33 Strategies of War
- 2014-11-05 — Good at rationalizing poor behavior? Learn to ask better questions.
- 2014-11-03 — This is how motivated I am to go to the gym
- 2014-10-18 — Everything I’ve learned about the purpose of life
- 2014-10-01 — How to fail at almost everything and still win big by Scott Adams
- 2014-08-25 — No. B.S. Price Strategy by Dan Kennedy
- 2014-08-20 — My life from birth to 23
- 2014-08-15 — Fuck them
- 2014-08-12 — Richard Feynman - a guy worth reading
- 2014-08-09 — How to be grateful for vampires in your life
- 2014-07-27 — On becoming so good they can't ignore you
- 2014-07-22 — Business should be fun
- 2014-04-20 — How I'm quitting chocolate cake
- 2014-04-18 — Why people don't let you know how you can help
- 2014-04-18 — How to stop self-sabotaging in 3 easy steps (really)
- 2014-04-17 — Why aren't there mental gyms yet?
- 2014-04-14 — Why high expectations may lead to lower achievement
- 2014-04-14 — Should you join the Damn Fine Words scholarship contest? (free tips on how to win inside)
- 2014-04-07 — When stuck, ask "What's really going on here?"