My Favorite Articles of 2023

This year I’ve read over 500 articles for my newsletter, Arne’s Weekly. For this post, I’ve distilled them down to the ones I liked the most and/or that had the biggest impact on my life.

Here they are, in no particular order:

• “I’m On It”: Mike Fisher writes about their favorite response when given a task.
• The science of why you have great ideas in the shower: Stacey Colino has the neurological explanation for the reasons you get great ideas in the shower or find bug fixes when on a walk: The default mode network in your brain.
• Bricks of Love: create purpose and engagement with weekly updates: João Alves about purpose, motivation, and the magic of weekly updates.
• Visual design rules you can safely follow every time: Anthony Hobday has a list of design rules that you should remember.
• The Most Valuable Programmer: Arend van Beelen jr. writes about the feature that make someone an MVP (Most Valuable Programmer).
• There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically): Georgia Ray explains why most trees developed individually and other weird botanic quirks.
• 8 Ways to Read (a Lot) More Books This Year: Neil Pasricha writes a very motivating article with tips to read more books.
• You’d Be Happier Living Closer to Friends. Why Don’t You?: Anne Helen Petersen asks why people don’t live closer to friends (i.e., in the same street).
• Every self-help book ever, boiled down to 11 simple rules: Chris Taylor tries to distill the essence of hundreds of self-help books into eleven rules.
• Multi-layered calendars: Julian noticed that our calendars are stuck in the past and explores a more modern approach using different layers for different activities.
• How a startup loses its spark: John Qian explains what makes a startup intoxicating and how these qualities are eroded with more employees.

What were your favorites? Let me know!