Productivity

Sometime over the last year I stopped paying attention to Twitter. Between the political cacophony of 2016 and a growing list of people I was following, the noise ratio was just too poor to hold my interest. Twitter had become like LinkedIn to me, a service I used to have a professional presence, but not one that inspired or taught me anything. I had given up. A friend recently challenged me to find the interesting in Twitter again. He suggested declaring bankruptcy and starting over. While I liked his suggestion, I decided to apply another minimalist principle to my feed. Instead, I’ve been scrutinizing the people I follow looking for the “spark of joy” in what they post, things that make me grin, things that inspire me, or things that challenge me in some way. Anything that’s disingenuous, caustic (for no reason), or just consistently unintelligent can go. ...

I had a realization last week: How can it be more me? If I’m not in it, can I get into it? I’m an idea guy. It’s why I love designing software, both in terms of system design and user experience. I love designing and developing products too. It’s something that can get me fired up, keep me from sleeping, and keep me motivated through even the darkest, rainiest days. ...

As designers, software developers, and business geeks we thrive on a few things. We seek inspiration. We obsess over details. We work long hours. And we need focus. Computers and software have evolved to the point where nearly anything is possible. It’s an amazing threshold, as we are rarely limited by the hardware, OS, and languages. We’re mostly limited by our own ability to produce. We are the weakest link in our productivity. ...

Friction works against you. It exceeds your ability to progress. It deflates you, stripping your motivation. It’s the hill you see before starting a difficult project. It’s the gravity that pulls you away when interest wanes. I’m starting a small project for a client today. It’s a simple set of improvements to something I built for them last year, using a toolkit I wouldn’t normally use (but one that fit their uses well enough). I had forgotten a lot about the toolkit when quoting on the work, and by the time I remember it’s clear that there are challenges ahead of me. ...

You start the day finding consciousness. Slowly or quickly, it doesn’t matter … you become aware of the world incrementally. Maybe you hit the snooze button once? Twice? Or maybe you wish you did. If you’re like me, you’ll find some caffeine and make the trek to work. And if you’re lucky you will find yourself in your office quickly, alert, and ready to go. You work your way down your list of tasks until your customers, coworkers, or biology interrupt you. It may be minutes. It may be hours. The question is, what do you do when you’re interrupted? ...

I had an epiphany early this year: getting good at something isn’t about finding a groove or being especially clever, it’s about honing a method of doing something. Or lots of methods, meticulously crafted, carefully practiced, and well executed over and over again. That’s it. The problem is in discovering the method. It’s harder than you expect. It turns out that most things, while easier than you’d think, are much different than you’d expect. The process for making an excellent curry, for example, is nothing like what I had imagined, nor is the path to better photography, or art, or anything. Finding methods for things is in itself curious, and my methods for getting to good versions of things is always unexpected. ...

It’s not that these tools and techniques are bad in themselves, but our use of each should be fit into a well tuned approach to building software. An entire project delivery should be tidy, professional, and complete. There are a few causes to the problem of organizational buildup. Our software is limited, our methods need improvement, and the unseen pieces of our project pile up and are left a mess once we ship. categories: rants ...

So you can’t write. You’re empty, tired, and unfocused. You’ve tried exercise, meditation, caffeine, binge sleeping, and a dozen other cures–but nothing comes out. And when you do happen to squeeze out a few paragraphs, you stall, spiralling further into your uninspired daze. You are burnt out. Writer’s block and burnout are the same problem: undue mental exhaustion brought on by overuse, misuse, and other stress. It’s important to understand that you cause your own burnout, either directly through your actions, or indirectly through your lack of action. It’s your choice. ...

Merlin Mann asks us why we’re waiting to be awesome, as he remembers Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford address. It’s a good question: why do we wait? There are all sorts of reasons, of course, but in the end my simple philosophy is: just fucking do it. Sometimes I have to say it to myself out loud, in the voice of the Dude, when things like absurd politics or chunky technical problems get in my way. “Just do it, man.” I need to be reminded to carry on. ...

Merlin Mann asks us why we’re waiting to be awesome, as he remembers Steve Job’s 2005 Stanford address. It’s a good question: why do we wait? There are all sorts of reasons, of course, but in the end my simple philosophy is: just fucking do it. Sometimes I have to say it to myself out loud, in the voice of the Dude, when things like absurd politics or chunky technical problems get in my way. “Just do it, man.” I need to be reminded to carry on. ...