Newsletter #2: Fri, May 2, 2025
Theme: Is It Really a Blocker?
For the longest time, I told myself that to write, I needed to schedule time on my desktop, with good editors, a good keyboard, and good music. I've delayed writing due to environmental setup or, most recently, because I told myself I needed to know more. I needed to pull research papers to back up my thoughts.
That's the trick. That's the blocker.
Some blockers are real. Most are fear in disguise.
New Post
From the Firepit: Is It Really a Blocker?
What do we do when we stall on projects, writing, or self-growth? Not because of a real obstacle, but because of fear disguising itself as a "knowledge gap" or suboptimal conditions? This Firepit entry invites you to name the real blocker and move anyway.
Read it here → keysandquills.com/from-the-firepit-is-it-really-a-blocker/
New Templates: Build & Reflect
This week’s drop includes three free templates to help you track your progress and make your thinking visible:
- ✅ Career Growth Log — Track your successes, mistakes, lessons, and impact.
- 🧠 Design Notes Template — Capture design intent, tradeoffs, risks, and decisions.
- 🔍 Weekly Reflection — Surface your systems thinking and improve visibility.
Use them in Markdown or Notion. Customize. Remix. Make them yours.
From the Community
Notes from Our First Club Event
We talked about:
- The impact of AI on code design, quality, and system structure
- The power of Miro and Figma in design and communication
- Empathy and interfaces — designing for real users and future developers
- Peer review and feedback as tools for skill-building and shared learning
We brought insight and honesty. The notes and video will be shared in Discord. Some highlights:
"We need spaces where people can practice technical communication without fear."
"Interfaces are communication tools. They should explain the shape and the reason."
"Read more code than you write. That's how you learn what's good."
Free Resources You'll Like
- Strategic Curiosity: The Quiet Skill That Shifts Attention
- Build Your Own Web Server (Theory + Foundations)
- Message Queues Explained With a Café Analogy
- Skilled Coder: Personal System Reflections
📅 Upcoming Events
- Thu, May 15 – 7:00 PM CST
🧠 Real Talk: Design, Decisions & Tradeoffs - Wed, May 28 – 7:00 PM CST
💬 Club Discussion #2
Next Up
- New Firepit: “The Hidden Victory in Quitting Systems”
- System Builders Series begins: “You Have to Build Your Own System”
Thanks for being here. This week was a reminder that progress starts with naming the truth:
Not all blockers are real. And not knowing everything is not a reason to do nothing.
See you next week.
— Tish
