Category: Productivity

  • A guide to working by the pool

    Being a Florida Man in a past life, I absolutely crave the water. Not the beach per se, I can do without the sand. I’m talking about that sea breeze, the salt in the air, and of course the angry seagulls. Being landlocked in Texas the past few years has…

  • Always find the time

    The last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle. Deadlines, unexpected server problems, support duty. And that’s just been at work. I’ve mentioned it in the past, but I have a ton going on. Family time, running this blog and freelance writing as well as running a few…

  • Save time by not locking your computer

    Okay, so this is one of those topics that I know may seem pretty fucking dumb, but I’m telling you, it’s completely legit and isn’t nearly as insecure as you are probably thinking. Yes, I’m fully aware that it’s counterintuitive to leave your computer unlocked, especially in more public settings…

  • 5 tips to help you find the confidence to start blogging

    Spent some time catching up with my buddy Will this past week. We both started new chapters in our lives around the same time last year and he had was curious if I had any input on things he could do to help him get to where he’s going. Starting…

  • Using goals to create habits

    Goals are absolutely worthless if they don’t help you to establish habits or virtues. That said, I love goals and consider myself somewhat of a goal-centric individual. Goals give me something to work towards and a wonderful sense of accomplishment when I achieve something I’ve set out to do. But…

  • Effective use of screen real estate

    I’ve been secretly judging really hard recently as I’ve been observing how people, specifically developers, use their available screen real estate. I’m a huge proponent of using 100% of my screen and like Jeff Atwood, I don’t care about having some flashy wallpaper because I don’t intend to ever see…

  • You should totally blog about that

    Hate to say it, but I am a broken record. If it’s not “OH, I actually wrote a blog post about that” then it’s “that would make a great blog post, you should write about it”. When I mention my own posts, I follow up with a link and maybe…

  • Leveraging the power of the right-command key in OS X

    Not too long ago I was singing the praises of creating hotkeys to switch between apps, a method I consider to be far superior to using CMD+TAB and having to cycle through open apps. I mentioned taking things a step further by utilizing the right-command (and/or right-option) key to reduce…

  • Fastest way to switch between apps

    I am on an eternal quest to optimize the way I work with the computer. I do things like jacking my mouse/tracking speed all of the way up (thanks Noah). I am trying to use Zapier more because “you should never do something twice on a computer” (thanks Nat). I…

  • The true cost of meetings

    Meetings suck. It’s a pretty universal sentiment across many companies and industries. “Meetings are toxic” is the war cry of the “Getting Real” generation. It’s not just the time it takes to attend the meeting. It’s the prep time. The time it takes you to get to the meeting. The…