Matt Haughey shares some tips on how to use Slack in a manner more respectful of your team members. Things like: > Use emoji, bulleted lists, and bold and italic text styling to make your titles and key points stand out in longer messages. This is especially useful for announcements or meeting recaps. That applies to any kind of digital communication, but sure. However, the more I read the article, the more it made something obvious: Slack, and other instant chat tools like it, are not the best…
The Wildbit team focused on focus for the month of June. We went through the exercise of being super mindful of our time with the goal of getting in 4 very focused hours of work each day. Before we started, I spent some time tweaking RescueTime so that it would automatically show my overall productivity and how much focus time I was getting. As part of that process, I subscribed to their email newsletter and quite enjoyed some of the articles they referred to. This was one of them. In this pie…
It’s been one month since I turned my phone into a device that, for the most part, does not give me any new content. No email, no social media, no RSS, and not even any work communication. A few people have asked how it’s going. In a word, lovely. Absolutely lovely. Since iOS debuted Screen Time, our family has reviewed the numbers for anyone who owns a device (4 out of 6 of us). I’ve been tracking this since October and we mostly use it for talking about screen usage and addiction, not tellin…
I must confess that I’ve finally succumbed to the world of Fortnite. And I'm enjoying playing with my kids.
Dan Cederhom recently announced that he is leaving Dribbble, the company he started over 10 years ago. It’s one of those 20-things-I-learned kind of posts, but hang in until the end where he makes a great point that hits close to home. Under point 19, aptly named Take care of yourself first, he shares a little about his experience with anxiety. > Anxiety is a medical condition—it’s biological. A chemical imbalance where our primitive “fight or flight” response kicks in at times it shouldn’t. I…
The act of replacing one’s smart phone with a less capable version is a growing trend. As digital decluttering and internet detoxes become more popular, so too is making the more permanent change of having less capability in your pocket at all times. Some people will pull out an old Nokia from their drawer, some will pick up the latest flip phone (they still make these?), and some will try one of few new options available in this category (i.e. the Light phone [https://www.thelightphone.com]).…
Derrick Reimer shares the story of his last year. He had left Drip [https://www.drip.com/] and started working on Level [https://level.app/], an alternative to Slack (reminds me a lot of Twist [https://twist.com]), before choosing to walk away. His desire to build a calmer chat tool is laudable and the story is interesting. But one point leapt off the (web)page and grabbed my attention. After building an early prototype and sharing with interested users, the results were not what he had hoped:…
My thoughts have turned back to independent publishing on the web of late.