02.24.15 |
∞
I’m a huge podcast fan, usually listening to several during my work day, especially when I’m cranking out code or debugging. Yet I’m also very picky – I have my favorites I listen to religiously, but rarely venture into new territory.
Yet even with that backstory, about twenty minutes into my first Design Details episode, I was hooked. It’s got solid guests that get asked a diverse set of questions. And unlike most podcasts, the show notes are time stamped and very detailed.
02.16.15 |
∞
Wunderlist designer Timothy Achumba:
As designers it’s our responsibility to create an environment that encourages open communication with developers, as early as possible in the design process as to avoid problems like this. We need to let them into our world, help them understand what we’re trying to achieve and allow them help us to achieve it in the most efficient way. This constant stream of communication should continue right up to the launch of what you’re building. It keeps everyone involved aligned with the vision, it helps to form a strategy best for achieving the goal and creates a friendly, open and honest culture in the workplace.
Words to live by.
12.06.14 |
∞
Writer Shawn Blanc on smart custom perspectives in Omnifocus:
In short, you should create your own custom perspective for “Today”. And let that list show you all the tasks which are either Due today or which are Flagged. When you are doing your daily review and scrubbing your list, don’t think about what’s due — because it should already be given a proper due date — instead, just flag the tasks you want to get done that day. Then, go to your Today perspective and now you’ve got a list of items which are both urgent (i.e. due today) and important (i.e. flagged).
Bingo. When I started using Omnifocus, virtually everything had a strict due date, which became maddening after time. When everything is “due”, it’s hard to manage what is really important. Overall, be less aggressive with real due dates unless it’s really due.
09.29.14 |
∞
If there’s something I do frequently at work, it’s take screenshots and send them to coworkers. There is your usual stable of options like Cloud and Droplr, but my storage live mostly revolves around Dropbox, and I wanted to stay in-house. Enter this great workflow by “Carlos-Sz” on the Alfred forums. I run a simple global keyboard shortcut, take a screenshot, and it’s saved a public folder in Dropbox, along with an auto generated short bit.ly link copied to my clipboard.
09.22.14 |
∞
Like many other developers and designers out there, almost every day I make the rounds of Designer News, Hacker News along with occasional forays into Sidebar and Dribbble.
Usually that involves a lot of Safari tabs and context switching. Panda aims to change that: it’s a simple, well designed web app that puts many of these popular sites side by side. As a Chrome extension, it can be the default state of any new tabs you create. There’s a few minor customization issues that keep me from diving fully in but it’s worth a look.
08.12.14 |
∞
If you love the ultra-fast keyboard launcher Alfred like I do, it’s worth checking out this post to set up your theme to closely mirror the look displayed out of the box in the new OS X Spotlight. I ended up downloading the provided Yosemite theme as is, along with the Blur workflow. My only change was increasing the default text size slightly.
07.30.14 |
Work |
∞
I usually give my students and junior developers two pieces of advice: practice your skills and work on strong side projects. Practice is a given, but projects on your own time are a greatly underrated and often forgotten asset.
Strong projects challenge you in at least one way. If you’re focusing on development, maybe you’ll target a framework or an aspect of a programming language you haven’t used yet. If you’re a designer, it could be a new tool or workflow. Remember, the side project needs elements of the familiar to make regular progress so you do not get frustrated and give up, yet remain achievable over time.
Great side projects are a mix of what you can execute quickly but are also somewhat foreign and difficult. It’s a twist on your existing point of view, not one that’s completely coming from left field. One personal example: a refresh of this very site (familiar), but undertaken with a fresh set of responsive design tools and Sass underpinning the styling (foreign).
It’s not an accident I generated my latest project after work hours; the best side projects are almost always outside the day job. Because you’re free from work interference, it can and should move at your own pace. It’s ok to be disorganized too. You don’t even have to finish; the project can flounder and die days, weeks or months down line. As long as you grow from it, it’s still a success. And above all, side projects should be fun.
Shouldn’t a good job nullify the need for side projects? Not exactly. Even with the best jobs, your personal growth goals are never perfectly aligned with the company you work for. And some work, even with the best intentions, can get stuck in a boring, repetitive rut. A strong side project provides an opportunity to escape that.
At the very least, even a so-so side project teaches you something new on your own timetable. And at its best, side projects can establish your “niche” as a designer or developer, a critical way to stand out from your tech peers. They did for me; three years at Gucci, my first formalized web job, pushed me most of the way. However, it’s my Hacker News and Rdio browser extensions on my own time, along with some minimal Tumblr themes, that confirmed my interests as a web developer on the very front of front-end development that often drifts into UX and aesthetic design.
Good jobs push your career far. Good side projects push it further. Make time and a commitment to both.
07.29.14 |
∞
Developer Mark Llobrera over at A List Apart gives advice for successfully integrating new web design and development techniques on new projects:
Look at the projects you have on the horizon. Think about the portions of your workflow that you want to improve, and pick just one of those things to introduce into your project. Why just one? It allows you enough space to experiment without endangering your project.
A mentor of mine once told me that programming (and especially programming for the web) boils down to reducing the number of “unknowns” on a project to a manageable number. One is fine, two is a stretch, and three is asking for trouble. If you think exploring HTML/CSS wireframes could have a positive impact on your work, introduce just that one thing. Most projects have enough built-in friction without adding or changing multiple processes at the same time.
07.28.14 |
∞
I share code snippets all the time with both coworkers and students in my classes. The main Gist page on Github makes it easy, but there’s no substitute for the raw speed of this Alfred extension. I just copy the code block in question, type my Alfred shortcut, and a moment later a link to the Gist is copied to my clipboard. Very useful.
05.15.14 |
∞
In the last year I’ve worked more from home than I have in all my previous roles combined. It’s a move that comes with both a lot of freedom but also new challenges. Tech writer Matt Gemmell writes about the subject at length in this post. There’s plenty of smart advice that’s worked for me as well in practice, especially sticking to a schedule and scheduling blocks of time for email.