Mind Palace · Your question
I want to become better
Skills, communication, habits and AI at work.
Playbook · Professional Life
The first 90 days, seen from your manager’s chair
New hires ask what they should learn. Managers are asking a different question: can I stop checking this person’s work? The gap between the two explains most rocky starts.
11 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Explainer · Professional Life
Burnout is a system signal, not a character flaw
The research describes burnout as three things happening together: exhaustion, cynicism and a sense of ineffectiveness. Reading it that way changes what you do about it, and what you ask your manager for.
10 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Playbook · Skills & Capabilities
Writing at work: the one-page memo that gets a decision
Most workplace writing asks the reader to do the thinking. A memo that leads with the answer, states what it needs, and fits on one page is the single most transferable skill we see.
9 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Explainer · Professional Life
Working across hierarchy: sungkan without silence
Respect for seniority is part of how Indonesian workplaces run. The cost comes when deference turns into withholding, and the senior person never hears the thing they needed to know.
9 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
Explainer · Skills & Capabilities
Learning how to learn: three findings that survive the lab
Rereading feels productive and teaches little. Three well-replicated findings from memory research, spacing, retrieval and interleaving, turn the first year of a job into a curriculum you actually keep.
7 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Playbook · Professional Life
Managing up in one page a week
Your manager has less time, more pressure and worse information than you think. A short weekly page fixes the third problem, and the first two improve as a result.
7 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
Playbook · Skills & Capabilities
Spreadsheet fluency is the quiet superpower of a first job
Before anyone lets you near the real systems, they will hand you a spreadsheet. The person who can clean, structure, summarise and sanity-check one in an afternoon becomes useful in week one.
5 Oct 2026 · 7 min read
Explainer · Skills & Capabilities
Feedback literacy: how to receive it so you actually get more of it
People who handle feedback well are given more of it, earlier, and in more useful form. The skill is not thick skin; it is a short protocol for the first thirty seconds.
3 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
Playbook · Professional Life
The first salary: six habits that outlast the number
Your first salary is small and your first money habits are permanent. The six below are boring on purpose; they are what people a decade ahead of you wish they had started in month one.
1 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
Explainer · Skills & Capabilities
Prompting is a writing skill, and judgement is the part that stays yours
The useful half of working with AI tools is the half that was always yours: stating the task precisely, supplying the context, and checking the answer against something true.
18 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
Playbook · Skills & Capabilities
Public speaking for people who will never love it
You do not need to enjoy presenting. You need a structure that holds when your hands shake, and a rehearsal method that makes the first minute automatic. Both are learnable in a month.
15 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Playbook · Skills & Capabilities
AI at work: what to actually learn (and what to skip)
"Learn AI" is advice shaped like a shrug. The learnable, provable, durable version fits in three layers, and none of them require a computer-science degree.
16 Aug 2026 · 6 min read
Playbook · Professional Life
The unwritten rules of a first year, written down
Nobody fails a first year on competence alone. The habits that quietly build or burn trust, made explicit so they stop being a lottery.
6 Aug 2026 · 5 min read
Perspective · Skills & Capabilities
Two pieces of demonstrated work beat 0.2 of GPA
A perspective on where marginal effort actually pays: the portfolio line most students never build, and how to build it without an employer’s permission.
5 Aug 2026 · 5 min read
Explainer · Skills & Capabilities
What entry-level hiring actually tests
Read enough hiring processes side by side and a short list of tested capabilities emerges, shorter, and stranger, than the skills lists in most vacancies.
20 Jul 2026 · 5 min read
Playbook · Professional Life
Networking for people who hate networking
The transactional version deserves the cringe. The working version is specific curiosity plus light bookkeeping, and introverts are often better at it.
18 Jul 2026 · 5 min read