Matthew Lang

Is it April already? Where did March go? Yip, it's been one of them months where it's over before it's even began.

The last three weeks have definitely been like this. I've been busy working and we've been out and about a bit more now that the good weather is with us and getting the boys outdoors isn't such a problem.

Saturday was errands day. Heading to a few places to get some ideas for the garden. We invested some time and money into the garden last year and this year we're ready to finish most of the heavier work in the garden. I can't wait for the day that I can just put me feet up in the garden, fire up the grill and start on a couple of cold beers.

Sunday was Ethan's return to weekly medals at Paisley Golf Club. He's spent a fair amount of time over winter putting in extra practice and it's starting to pay off. Once the course dries out a bit more though and he's had a few more practice rounds he should start to see his handicap fall.

Easter holidays have started for the school kids. I took Ethan up to Paisley for a round of golf. Weather was favourable (it wasn't raining) and the course was in great condition. Ethan played very well as always. I was a little slower to get started and couldn't hack the pace at the turn. By that point my back and arms were tired. We're heading back out on Wednesday again, so hopefully I'll be a better playing partner!

Basics or essentials? Either way, these are the foundations for anyone looking to level up.

Bonus content at the Deep Productivity seminar in June for those interested. Highly recommended.

Great to hear that new iMacs are on the way.

Regarding iMacs, Schiller also said that new iMacs are in the works, slated for release some time this year (no specifics other than “this year”), including “configurations of iMac specifically with the pro customer in mind and acknowledging that our most popular desktop with pros is an iMac.”

— The Mac Pro Lives by John Gruber

I've been looking to replace my MacBook Pro for a while now. I do most of my work at home and it's rare that I do serious development during a client visit. While the MacBook Pro made sense at the start of my freelance career, I think an iMac would be better for myself.

The question of what to do on client visits though remains. Should I still keep the MacBook Pro for client visits? Unless I'm called on to write code during that visit (I never am) then I think it's safe to say that I can relegate the MacBook Pro to another younger member of the family who can use it for school work more effectively than I would use it as a second development machine.

I'm still debating the purchase of an iPad Pro to act as a portable device. I would use this more for admin, marketing and writing and planning tasks. Anything that isn't writing code essentially.

I'll get the desktop hardware sorted first before I go down this road though.

... gets a new curator in the form of volunteer Shawn Mihalik.

... with Annie Mueller.

Yesterday I attended the Nicholas Bate's Deep Productivity seminar in Oxford. It was a great chance to meet a fellow and much respected blogger and at the same use the course to gather up all the important bits about productivity.

The venue of the seminar was in the Magdalen College School. It was unlike any school I've ever visited and is also the oldest school that I've ever been in. If you like Harry Potter you will love this place.

I arrived a bit early being just around the corner for accommodation. I got speaking to Nicholas and a few other attendees to the seminar and then the hard work began at 9am.

The seminar was extremely valuable and it was a good opportunity to re-visit some strategies to help stay focused and productive. I also walked away with a number of books from Nicholas that have been added to the top of the reading list.

So what did I get from this seminar then?

Well, the whole point of this wasn't to learn something new. I'm a big fan of Nicholas Bate's blog and his material so I was already familiar with a number of strategies, but where I previously got this information over a long period of time, the seminar provided the opportunity to consolidate all of this information into a single form that I could digest more easily and refresh my brain.

It was also a great opportunity to meet Nicholas and other attendees.

All in it was a great investment of my time and I hope that it can yield some great results in the weeks, months and years to come.

Thank you Nicholas for putting on a superb event and it was great to finally meet you good sir!

For the attendees, I've managed to go my first 24 hours without bread as my first actionable item. Started yesterday during the seminar (thanks for the nudge NB) and made it to this morning by having cereal and a smoothie rather than toast. Yay!

Added Annie Mueller to the list.

Who's on your blogroll?

... over at Feedbin.

I love using Feedbin. Such a great RSS reader and the fact that they keep adding to it and improving it just keeps making it better to use.