They're actually used in quite a few countries (e.g. France, Switzerland), but depending on the country, you actually switch them up (only learned this recently).
I use them for my fantasy writing because I find them aesthetically pleasing, but I do it this way: »Hello.«

If you’d like to get future issues straight to your inbox, subscribe here: buttondown.com/robinweser

Also, if you want to join our book club, we'll be reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" next.

Just ping me and I'll give you an invite!

If you want to give it a try, I’ve built a free tool to make it super easy. You can personalise the areas of life that matter most to you, rate your satisfaction, and download a clean visual to reflect on or revisit later.

Feel free to give it a try here: robinweser.com/tools/wheel-...

And the best part?
It also highlights where you’re already thriving.

It’s a chance to feel gratitude for what you’ve accomplished and see how close you already are to your ideal life.

For me, it was an eye-opener to realise how much I was neglecting certain areas, like relationships and fun, while over-investing in work.

Once I saw that clearly, I was able to take actionable steps to restore balance—and end up feeling more fulfilled and happy.

Of course, we don't get to decide that every time (e.g. being pulled into a meeting). But it's still useful to reflect on it.

If this happens frequently, maybe share your thoughts with your colleagues or manager to find better solutions together.
As a manager, I was looking for such feedback!

This is why being intentional about your yes is so critical.

Every time I'm faced with a decision, I ask myself if it's really the most important thing I can do right now.

If it is—great.
If it's not—think of better solutions or say "no".

For example, saying yes to every incoming meeting might mean saying no to focused time on a project.

That's the essence of what's called opportunity cost—our time is limited and we can only walk one path at a time.

Here’s something you can try:
Tomorrow morning, take two minutes to ask yourself:
What is the most important thing I can do today?

Write it down and let it guide you.

What’s your top priority right now?

When you embrace this, everything gets simpler. It cuts through the noise, reduces the overwhelm, and lets you focus on what truly matters.

Here’s a different perspective: priority is binary.

One thing is the priority—everything else isn’t.
There’s no scale, no ranking, no in-between.
At any given moment, you can only do one thing at a time.

We’ve created systems, frameworks and rankings to manage "priorities" and deal with the complexity of modern life. But does it actually help?

What if we’ve been thinking about priorities all wrong?
What if priorities (plural) don’t exist?

Thought the same when I first used it.
I usually only need a simple key-value store (similar to localStorage). Have this very thin abstraction layer to get an almost identical API (async though):
github.com/robinweser/w...

PS: Don't quote me on the param names, I had no idea what I was doing 😅

Nice one 🎉
But I‘m not surprised given all the „Erik finished a workout“ notifications I get on my watch. Definitely amongst the most active buddies I have!

Does it produce a type that is too complex to represent?
I constantly ran into that when trying to implement dynamic style object types based on a list of plugins that alter the shape of the style object 😅
The implementation was beautiful, but had to opt for a more "stupid" solution in the end 🥲