I was reading through Vito's post about VSCode shortcuts that he'd tell himself if he could go back in time with very limited time (btw you should totally check his post for awesome VSCode tips), and made me think, what if I had a quick call with my past self, and very limited credit.

— 📱🎶

— ¿Hola?

— Lucas, it's me! Mario You! From the future, I don't have time for your, erm, my..., no... our many questions! Your productivity is very questionable, so I'm gonna give you a few things you need to do with your work environment ASAP. Also we are going to talk in English so most of the world can read it.

— Erm... okay sure... this is so sudden and I'm very busy right now, so please, make it quick!

— You are playing videogames, so you better pause it and listen to me carefully.

— Man... I know myself way too much...

— Duh, of course! Ok so, stop tinkering around with the themes, they take you too much of your time, just go with Dracula🧛‍♀️ every time you can, you will develop a love relationship with this theme.

— Dracula? Love relationship? Why would I love a Halloween themed color scheme? This seems rather mu-

— Just. Use. It.

— Ok! Okay! I, will us-

— Also, we both know you wanna learn to use git, but it's too daunting from the command line. Luckily for you there is this amazing extension called Git Lens. It will ease so much of your git journey, letting you have a look at your branches, commits, tags, among a few things right in VSCode. Even cherry picking 🍒 will be a breeze.

— That actually sounds very useful, you seem to know your st-

— Let's talk about the terminal, you need to learn to use it fast, it will save you a lot of time, and a lot of software is only available for terminals, so get your hands dirty with it fast. Is it WSL 2 out yet?🐧

— N-no I've heard news about something called WSL, but not that two version thing.

— Shoot! WSL 2 is amazing, you can have a Linux distribution running inside your Windows, virtually and very well integrated. Nevermind, add Powershell⚡ or cmder to your VSCode and start using it. You will thank the practice you've earned with those once WSL 2 is out.

— What about the WSL 1?

— Don't bother, go straight to WSL 2. It's way, way better. Also, as soon as it's available download Windows Terminal, it will let you run multiple terminals in tabs.

— I've been using cd and touch in the terminal to change directories and create files easi-

— That's good and all, but we need more. I'll give you this tiny bookmark for your future reference: ExplainShell🐚. This will help you learn more of those pesky shell commands. Think it as a Google for commands.

— More? How many more do I n-

— Speaking about more, you'll spend ages trying to theme your terminal (of course) just right. Leave that to Starship.rs🚀, it's exactly what you want and more, having a lot of modules you can turn on and off, and it's written in Rust, so it's fast keeping the performance of our console pretty much the same.

— Erm o-okay that sounds good but I want to customize the prompt with erm... you know...

— Yes, you can add emojis to the prompt.

— Sold! But... what about the theme?
— DRACULA of course!

— Wow, okay! I mean, chill man, you clearly have strong feelings for our blood thirsty friend, I didn't expect I'd become such a fan of vampires... is emo cool again in the future?

— No, but dark interfaces are e v e r y w h e r e. That said, you'll need to share your code effectively and quickly. Average screen grabbers aren't really good for code, go with CodeSnap📷. It's very customizable and you can take nice pictures of your code just by selecting it. You'll want to hang those awesome hotfixing snippets on the wall now.

— Ok, mhm, okay, hang... in the wall. Mhm.

— Where are you writing these things out?

— In a few Sticky Notes on my desk. Why? Does the future me write things down in a better w-

— As a matter of fact, yeah, I've been using Notion for the past months, and it's the perfect tool for us, you know how messy our desks and mind are; the way we always forget things... Well, no more! That's a thing of the past, erm your present, my past!
I've been organizing everything I can in Notion it's been such a joy. YOU NEED TO USE IT. You'll never become filthy, filthy rich if you keep forgetting you forget those million-dollar ideas 🌈.

— HOLD UP A FILTHY SECOND. I'LL BECOME... FILTHY, **FILTHY RICH?**

— Of course! I've already told you how we pulled it off. Haven't I...?

— No! I'd totally remember such special little piece of information.

— Oh, silly me! You know, it was actually a very unexpected journey, let me te-

— ...
— You there?

If you've found the post helpful or do you want to discuss/ask any of the things I've sent to my past self, please feel free to do so!
If you are feeling shy just let me know with a 🦄 or a ♥ you've enjoyed it and I might just call myself a few times more. Thanks again Vitor Paladini for the idea.