🧠 Self Reflection

I did 13 Pomodoros in April. I had lots of things going on, especially with wedding planning, helping family move and participating in my first ever 5k marathon over the weekend with my partner.

I recently rebuilt my portfolio at kien.dev and set up a landing page at kiendang.ca as a placeholder for my professional email domain. I’m proud of how I’ve improved my digital hygiene by using Fastmail and catch-all domains. This setup ensures that if any service is ever compromised, the impact is isolated to a specific alias under the catch-all domain, keeping my personal and professional accounts secure and organized.

🪴 What did I learn this month?

• Nailing down Arrays fundamentals and completing the easy questions. I had to re-evaluate my progress and felt overwhelmed with how much theory I felt like I needed to do before practicing any questions. After speaking with my co-workers, it was recommended to take it one section at a time before moving on to the next theory.

🍅 Pomodoros?

• 13 total which equates to 325 minutes of pure focus to NeetCode

☕ Focused?

My energy management needed a reset—I wasn’t tapping into the focused flow I used to hit during Pomodoros, and it boiled down to a few key factors:

1. I’ve been working out fasted and not fueling my body properly, which makes it harder to sustain deep focus.

2. I’m pushing an aggressive caloric deficit, and it’s catching up—leading to physical exhaustion and mental burnout.

3. I’m still working a full-time job, which demands focus during the day. That means I need to be strategic about preserving energy and creating space for focused study sessions after work.

At the end of the day, if I want to optimize my career trajectory, investing in my energy and focus is the path forward. It’s not about doing more—it’s about doing what actually moves the needle and investing in a system that will reward my career growth to be a senior developer.