Content Recommendation for Feburary, 2026

Hey there! Thanks for subscribing to my content recommendation posts. In this series, I share articles, videos, projects, and ideas that I recently found interesting, insightful, or genuinely helpful.

This edition includes content I curated during Feburary, 2026. I wanted to post this at the end of the first week of Feburary. But as you can see, procrastination and other life/work stuff stopped me from completing it. This second post is almost a month later after the first post. I am sorry about that and will try my best to continue the weekly content recommendation.

ONE open-source project to look at for the week

DesignPatterns by legendPerceptor, which is, me😄. I developped a systematic way to remember all 23 design patterns and have implemented them in C++. I will continue to finish the implementation of all design patterns using Rust, Python, and Golang.

The 23 design patterns consist of 5 creational patterns, 7 structural patterns, and 11 behavioral patterns. The 11 behaviroal patterns can be further divided into 5+4+2 patterns. The detailed method to remember every single pattern is written in readme.md and feel free to explore it.

THREE YouTube Videos for personal growth

Success Is Hard Until You Build Systems Like This by Ali Abdaal. Ali elaborated the importance of building a system for any professional work or personal growth. With a system, you need some additional efforts at the beginning and gradually need less and less effort but more and more efficient growth. He mentioned five systems to build for yourself.

1. Goal-setting system: Setting clear goals is crucial for success, as it provides direction and purpose, even if these goals change over time. Many people lack a systematic approach, leading to inconsistency and frustration in achieving their aspirations. Implementing a structured goal-setting system, like the GPS method, allows for thoughtful planning and prioritization, ultimately fostering intrinsic motivation and clarity toward achieving meaningful objectives.

2. Time management system: To effectively achieve goals, individuals must consciously work towards them rather than just following societal norms. A robust time management system is essential, encompassing time blocking, prioritization, and reflection. By structuring their time intentionally, individuals can maximize productivity and align their actions with their aspirations. There are three requried things in any kind of work: time, energy, focus. We only have 168 hours a week, and we have 100 hours except for sleep. If we have a job, we probably need to spend 60 hours on the job, leaving us only 40 hours to do our personal stuff.

3. Health operating system: Creating a health optimization system—covering sleep, diet, and exercise—can significantly improve your well-being. Implementing strategies like consistent sleep schedules, meal planning, and structured workouts reduces decision fatigue and fosters healthier habits. A reliable system turns health management into an automated process, allowing you to focus on other life aspects while ensuring your health needs are met. 8 hours of sleep like 10 - 6, 11 - 7, no phone in the bedroom or no screen time before bed. Systemizing the hosuehold diet is very helpful. Exercise schedule!

4. Relationship system: Systematizing relationships can significantly reduce decision fatigue and enhance the quality of interactions with loved ones. Regular practices, such as weekly date nights, monthly relationship reviews, and standing social events, create intentionality and consistency in maintaining connections. Simple actions like sending annual Christmas cards or setting birthday reminders in a calendar illustrate how these systems foster deeper bonds and ensure relationships thrive even amidst busy lives.

5. Personal finance system: Developing a structured system for handling paychecks is crucial for successful personal finance management. By automatically allocating portions of each paycheck to savings, investments, taxes, and bills, individuals can avoid emotional decision-making and ensure their financial health. Automating these processes allows for consistent financial growth and reduces the guesswork, enabling people to focus on their goals without overwhelming their decision-making capacities.

How I trained my mind to create instead of consume by josh czuba. It is important to de-stimulate yourself for a bit and disconnect from technology from time to time, have some sleep, drink some water, and reset your brain to refind the basic human instinct of curiosity.

Disconnection from technology: Technology is making people mentally lazy, and constant digital consumption reduces our ability to focus and engage deeply.

De-stimulation as the first step: To reset your mind, it’s essential to take breaks from consuming information, rest, and nourish your body with sleep, water, and healthy food.

Intrinsic motivation over external rewards: Creativity should be pursued for personal fulfillment, not for external validation or perfection. Embrace playfulness and curiosity.

Facing discomfort: Starting something new, especially creative activities, comes with discomfort, but it’s a healthy part of growth. Over time, this discomfort becomes enjoyable and addictive in a positive way.

Impact on humanity: Reclaiming creativity and focusing on personal growth can help humanity overcome distractions and create a better world.

If You Want to be Wealthy & Happy… by GrindBuddy. This is a timeless message from Jim Rohn. In 1981, Jim Rohn held his seminar ‘The Challenge to Succeed,’ which later became one of his most watched. This video is a re-edit of the parts of this seminar about personal development.

Three steps: 1. Find out how things work. 2. Take action! Don’t let your learning become knowledge, you will become a fool. Let your learning become action, you can become wealthy. 3. Don’t try to beat the systems. Find out how it works best and do it the right way.

Become a good reader — at least 30 minutes a day! Every successful person is a good reader and they can self-educate. A lot of successful people have written down how they did it but people just do not read the stories.

Listen — Learn from both the negative and positive. Find out what poor people read and don’t read it. Get around successful people and listen to what they say and how they say it.

Observe — Get around succesful people and watch. Success leaves clues. Sight — see with your eyes; Insight — see with your mind. Pay attention. Don’t miss anything. Whereever you are, be there!

FIVE global news to know for the week

1. SpaceX + xAI. Elon Musk’s net worth soared past $800 billion this week after he merged SpaceX with xAI in a deal that valued the combined entity at $1.25 trillion. Read Elon Musk wants to be a trillionaire — here’s how SpaceX may get him there by CNBC. Elon Musk became the first person ever to top the $800 billion mark this week, and he is worth more than the next richest people - Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg - combined.

2. China’s Economy is Expected to Grow 4.8% in 2026 Amid Surging Exports by Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs Research expects export growth to remain solid in the coming years. According to Shan, the expected resilience of Chinese exports this year is linked to three factors: (1) the rapid expansion of exports to emerging market economies; (2) limited ability for other countries to impose significant trade barriers against China in the face of its dominance in critical minerals; (3) the potential for greater growth in high-tech exports.

3. Panama’s court decision stripping a Chinese-linked company of key port contracts in the Panama Canal has triggered a backlash from Beijing, thrusting the strategic waterway back into the spotlight. Read Port dispute thrusts Panama Canal back into heart of US-China rivalry by France 24 and U.S.-China power struggle thrusts Panama Canal back into the spotlight by CNBC.

4. I Just Returned From China. We Are Not Winning by New York Times Opinion section. While China still lags the United States in terms of cutting-edge semiconductor chips, it has an abundance of another key ingredient of AI success: power. China has more than twice as much generating capacity as the US do.

5. The Television Show Every American Should Watch by Frank Bruni in The New York Times Opinion section. He talks about the TV series The Pitt Season 1 released in 2025. It’s the medical drama, streaming on Max, that won a bunch of Emmy Awards lst year and has an intriguing real-time conceit. It’s an empathy exam. It’s a civics lesson. Above all, it’s a study of people under intense pressure.

SEVEN English words to learn for the week

I recommend visiting Merriam-Webster Dictionary to understand each word better and find more examples.

backlash: a strong negative reaction by a large number of people, especially to a social or political development. Example: “The backlash against the law marks the strongest show of dissent since they were first elected”. “The Republican president’s Thursday night post was blamed on a staffer after widespread backlash, from civil rights leaders to veteran Republican senators, for its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady.”

curb: a raised concrete or stone edge separating a street from a sidewalk or median, designed to provide structural support, manage water drainage, and delineate traffic areas. Example: “China has been experiencing deflation in its producer price index (PPI) for more than three years, prompting the government to roll out a series of “anti-involution” policies designed to curb price competition among manufacturers.” In the example, curb is used as a verb to check or control with or as if with a curb.

formidable: causing fear, dread, or apprehension, very difficult to deal with. Example: “China is just too formidable as a rival — as well as a critical manufacturing powerhouse — to be reinedd in by diplomacy or an aggressive shift in policy.”

intriguing: engaging the interest to a marked degree — fasinating. Example: an intriguing concept that should engender much debate among climatologists.

conceit: favorable opinion, a fanciful idea. Example: the landlord’s conceit of his own superior knowledge.

commotion: a condition of civil unrest or insurrection. Example: The need to do so is only growing, because the commotion of Mr. Trump’s first year back in office has set America back.

colossus: a statue of gigantic size and proportions. Example: That adds up to the fact that there are two Chinese economies: a sluggish domestic economy and the colossus that dominates global manufacturing.