Top all-time · #3774
Mike Crittenden
Personal blog · critter.blog · on HN as mcrittendenproductivitycareer
Mike Crittenden's personal blog at critter.blog covers productivity and career. Since 2019, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 135 times, most often “Write 5x more but write 5x less”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-23, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Mike Crittenden's blog for work and writing advice, including wiki bankruptcy for stale documentation, a 1:1 meeting format, and the idea of atomic blog posts.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Call me Critter
Most-linked posts?
- Write 5x more but write 5x less5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-10-02
- Declare bankruptcy and don’t be ashamed of it3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-24
- Atomic Blog Posts2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-01-06
- Learning technology you don't need right now is a waste of time2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-08-14
- Parenting doesn’t do what I thought. “It’s all genetics”2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-23
What Hacker News says?
It surprised me too. I started charging a few months ago after it was free for ~7 years. Now I'm making $600 a month off of it. Paying users seem to be part productivity nerds who maybe aren't technical enough to grok installing from the repo, and part people who just choose to pay for the automatic upgrades or to support the developer. Also, lots of users are web gamers who use it for in-game automation. I wrote a…
Comment linking /2020/01/14/week-1-of-monetizing-my-chrome-extension/
on “Unable to deal with Chrome Extension Team, Kozmos is shutting down”Submitted If it will matter after today, don't talk about it in a chat room as a story · 751 points
HN discussionAn interesting way to approach the documentation issue discussed in this article is 'wiki bankruptcy': when a wiki goes stale, simply tell all devs to save what they think is important before deleting the whole thing outright. Then, they can recreate those pages into a new wiki. Read more about it here: https://critter.blog/2020/08/10/wiki-bankruptcy/ He also talks about using this 'bankruptcy' philosophy in other a…
Comment linking /2020/09/24/declare-bankruptcy-and-dont-be-ashamed-of-it/
on “On navigating a large codebase”Submitted That coworker who never stops refactoring as a story · 363 points
HN discussionThis post may clear things up a bit (disclaimer, I wrote it): "Utility classes vs. inline styles": https://critter.blog/2018/05/04/utility-classes-vs-inline-st...
Comment linking /2018/05/04/utility-classes-vs-inline-styles/
on “Why I Love Tailwind”Submitted Wiki Bankruptcy as a story · 168 points
HN discussionFor what it's worth, I built something very similar to this and it ran for 7 years until Google shut it down for violating the terms of service. Here's a blog post I wrote with specifics, I case it also applies to your service. https://critter.blog/2020/08/04/a-farewell-to-toogles/
Comment linking /2020/08/04/a-farewell-to-toogles/
on “Piped: A privacy-friendly YouTube front end which is efficient by design”Submitted 90% of Everything Is Crap as a story · 154 points
HN discussionFascinating! It was a really big realization for me in terms of how day to day choices of how to spend my time. Here's the post that I was referring to, if you're bored: https://critter.blog/2020/10/27/am-i-an-extrovert-or-an-intr...
Comment linking /2020/10/27/am-i-an-extrovert-or-an-introvert/
on “Write More, but Shorter”Submitted Five Second Feedback as a story · 152 points
HN discussionI read a good bit too. I highlight the interesting bits ( https://critter.blog/2021/04/01/the-evolution-of-my-ebook-hi... ) and if something really stands out then I base a blog post on that thought. Here's a small example of that: https://critter.blog/2021/06/28/ignoring-the-reactionaries/
Comment linking /2021/06/28/ignoring-the-reactionaries/
on “Write More, but Shorter”Submitted Plan the Sprint, Not the Project as a story · 89 points
HN discussionOh hey, I'm the person mentioned in the first sentence of this post. I was wondering why my stats went up today! I've published a blog post every weekday for over a year now (today's was #280). It's been life changing for me. It's now my go-to method for figuring out what I think about something and for crystallizing those thoughts and finding links between them. - I figured out that I wanted a new job while writing…
Comment linking /2021/02/10/blogging-as-a-zettelkasten/
on “Write More, but Shorter”Submitted I schedule my friendships like I schedule my meetings as a story · 59 points
HN discussionThe linked original source in the article has a more clear phrasing... "Write more often, but make each thing you write shorter." https://critter.blog/2020/10/02/write-5x-more-but-write-5x-l...
Comment linking /2020/10/02/write-5x-more-but-write-5x-less/
on “Write More, but Shorter”Submitted Your calendar should be an allowlist, not a blocklist as a story · 39 points
HN discussionThe article cited by this post is at - https://critter.blog/2020/10/02/write-5x-more-but-write-5x-l...
Comment linking /2020/10/02/write-5x-more-but-write-5x-less/
on “Write More, but Shorter”Submitted Your calendar should be a whitelist, not a blacklist as a story · 31 points
HN discussionI am a new manager (around 5 years of non-continual experience). I stole this format from Mike Crittenden [1] and made some modifications to it. It has worked wonders for me and my team. It helps us to create our Brag Document [2], introduced by Julia Evans, together. 1 - https://critter.blog/2022/03/25/my-new-and-improved-1-1-form... 2 - https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/
Comment linking /2022/03/25/my-new-and-improved-1-1-format/
on “Ask HN: How do you have effective 1:1s with your manager?”Submitted The “You Get One Diagram” approach to architecture documents as a story · 17 points
HN discussionThe whole post is the same short thought repeated over and over. My recommendation to the author is to read and reflect on “Atomic blog posts”¹, by Mike Crittenden. I’ll reproduce it here in its entirety: > There’s no law that says a blog post needs more than one idea or more than one sentence. ¹ https://critter.blog/2021/01/06/atomic-blog-posts/
Comment linking /2021/01/06/atomic-blog-posts/
on “A career is a pie-eating contest and the prize for winning is more pie”Submitted Negotiate Your Dang Salary as a story · 14 points
HN discussionI recently discovered Mike Crittenden’s blog[1]. “Atomic blog posts”[2] (posted here in full) might resonate: > There’s no law that says a blog post needs more than one idea or more than one sentence. [1]: https://critter.blog/ [2]: https://critter.blog/2021/01/06/atomic-blog-posts/
Comment linking /2021/01/06/atomic-blog-posts/
on “Ask HN: What are your favourite micro blogs?”Submitted Write 5x more but write 5x less as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThe way I see things, the bar is lower than ever to be a good engineer. You put in some minor level of effort and you're 80% above everyone else. Now, if you scope it to the top 20% of engineers and ask the same question, I'll give you a much different answer: After you became a decent generalist, I'd refer you to concepts like "invest in yourself, not your job"[1] and just-in-time learning[2]. 1. https://critter.bl…
Comment linking /2020/08/14/learning-a-technology-you-dont-need-right-now-is-a-waste-of-time/
on “Ask HN: Is it increasingly hard to be a good engineer?”Submitted Quotes about how nobody knows what they’re doing as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI built a very similar thing to this [0] in 2013 which no longer works because Google shut it down just this year. I wrote about that here [1]. Summary: YouTube API terms and conditions forbid using it to create an alternative UI for YouTube. Specifically from these docs [2]: > You and your API Clients must not, and must not encourage, enable, or require others to use YouTube API Services to create, offer, or act as…
Comment linking /2020/08/04/a-farewell-to-toogles/
on “Show HN: Layluh – Minimalist front-end for YouTube”Submitted Spend your money where you spend your time as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted The only reasons to attend a meeting as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Write 5x more but write 5x less (2020) as a story · 6 points
HN discussion
