It's close to a couple of months now since I stopped being an active user on App.net. The only time I'm posting updates now is when I want to reply to any mentions I get about my blog posts and shared links. That's as active as my timeline gets these days. I'm still getting notifications of people unfollowing me as they realise that I'm not that active there anymore. In the past that might have been a big deal but not anymore. I'm just not spending as much time on social networks anymore.
App.net isn't the only social network I've chosen to distance myself from. I got fed up with the Twitter service over a year ago and decided to stop tweeting. At the time I was questioning the value I was getting from Twitter and whether I could afford the time to participate as often as I could.
The problem I have with any social network is the incessant checking of your timeline that becomes an hourly ritual. With every spare few minutes I had I was checking timelines, replying to people, favouriting posts, posting pictures and everything else that social networks bring.
Being active on any social network and getting work done requires discipline. I just don't have that discipline and rather than fight a continual battle against getting stuff done, I've opted to simply stand by and observe. I still have my App.net and Twitter accounts that I share links to, but that's all they are for.
I guess being a software developer I already spend enough time with my head buried in technology and being online during the day that when it comes to outside of the work day, I prefer to distance myself a bit from things like social media.
It hasn't been all bad though. In the last few weeks I've managed to read a lot more, both online and offline. I spend more time with the kids and I've even had time to build an idea for a daily email service. It's still under wraps, but progress on it is going well.
If I don't "socialise online", then where am I getting my daily dose of interaction? Well, I share content daily on my blog, writing for it as often as I can and have even become part of a small circle of bloggers that frequently refer to each other with links. You know who you are gents!
So being a distant observer of social media has its benefits. I might not have my finger on the pulse of what's trending, but I'll happily trade that to get the time do other things.
Is Success Only In Your Head?
Curtis McHale asks if success is only in your head?.
Well worth reading if you've failed in the delivery of a product or service and are second doubting yourself.
Stairway to Space
Space, stairs, butter, motorcycles and slinkies.
And they say education is boring! I got my oldest to start reading these. He struggles with some of the words, but he gets the gist of the explaination.
One Year On With My YNOT Gulper
Just over a year ago I noticed that working from home eradicated my need for two separate messenger style bags. In the past I've used a North Face bag for commuting to work on the bike and a Fossil bag for shorter journeys off the bike. The North Face bag is great for the bike but it is bulky, even when it's empty. My Fossil bag was over five years old at the time and was starting to show signs of wear and tear. I needed a single replacement for both.
I needed something that could take the volume I needed for errands on the bike but also be comfortable enough to sling on my back if I was visiting a client or working away from home and needed something to carry my MacBook and a few other things.
This time last year I took delivery of a new YNOT Gulper roll top backpack. I had my eye on the bag for a few weeks, but when I found out that it was on sale, I took the opportunity to buy it. Over the last year it's been my go to bag for biking and day trips for when I'm working away from home.
The roll-top style of opening means that the bag can effectively expand to carry a few more extra items or can roll back down for minimal loads. Two deep side pockets offer spacious storage for things like lights, locks and a tool bag and there's a front pocket for smaller items.
Over the last year this bag has proved itself time and time again. It's main use is as my go to bag for when I'm not working from home. I use it to carry my MacBook, a notebook, a smaller bag with a mouse, cables, and a few pens. I don't have a Swoop compatible laptop sleeve to clip my MacBook in but my own laptop sleeve offers enough protection.
It's secondary use is for running errands on the bike. I've taken to using my bike rather than taking the car, especially when the weather is good. The roll-top feature of this bag helps when I've got a lot to carry. In a matter of seconds I can expand the volume of the bag. I did initially have a concern about how much weight the back will take and while I have done a number of runs with the bag full loaded, it's thankfully still in one piece.
The Gulper has been rock-solid in its use as a bag for both on and off the bike and it's massive volume makes carrying even the biggest loads easy. With more biking planned for this year, it will be put through its paces again.
Fixie Friday - Treshombres CLASSY
Less Listening, More Learning
Podcasts and screencasts can eat up a lot of time. I've started to see a swing towards listening to podcasts and watching screencasts and less time spent putting what I get from them into practice.
For the last year I've been a healthy listener of a variety of podcasts. They are centered around software development, programming and freelancing. Every week I listen to about five or six different episodes on these topics. While they're entertaining to listen to, I'm starting to see that I'm not getting as much value from them. Sure there's sometimes a glimmer of programming language knowledge that you didn't know about, but is it worth putting in a good half hour of your time for that one little morsel of knowledge?
Then there's the screencasts. I had a few of these going last year, again on the topic of software development. Screencasts definitely need more of your time as you can't watch them when you're out on the bike or in the car, they need you to both listen and watch. In terms of getting time to watch these, I simply didn't have the time available. And then every few weeks I would simply declare screencast redundancy and remove them from my list to watch.
Since removing these from my list of intakes I'm seeing more of a move towards reading online, books and RSS feeds. They can be more easily consumed on the go and using smaller blocks of time. This in turn has allowed me to spend a bit more time learning those things that I only listened to in podcasts or watched in screencasts.
Learning isn't simply about consuming as much information about the topic that you're interested in, you need time to apply what you have consumed and seeing if you can in fact you use it correctly. I hope to be doing that a lot more this year and re-address the balance of learning.
Back on Track
Minor setback this week as a couple of viruses knocked me and Jen out of contention for a couple of days. Last day and half has been me trying to get back on track with work.
Almost there.
Learning with Rust
I'm always reading about other topics in software development. Over the last few years I've read about web design, JavaScript, Ruby, agile methodologies and practices, Go and even Objective-C. Reading books on these topics has provided some insight into their respective topics but with the exception of Ruby and agile methodologies I haven't been able to take what I've read and use it in a practical exercise.
A couple of years ago I read about the Go language from Google. So I started reading a couple of books about it. Since then I haven't written more than one hundred lines of code in Go. Was that time spent reading about Go a waste? I think so.
More recently the Rust language has peaked my interest but I haven't started reading about it yet. I've been asking myself if there's something I can work towards using Rust that will let me learn the language. Using Rust in a practical use hasn't been something I've been able to come up with until a couple of days ago. There I was reading Hacker News over the weekend when I seen an article about writing a shell in C. Well, why not write it in Rust?
Building a shell in Rust should give me the chance to explore and learn the language but also give me the chance to try out something other than web development. I've been working with Ruby on Rails for over four years now and while I enjoy the work, I have been looking at a systems programming language to learn. We'll see how it goes.
Writing is a Habit
I've noticed a lull in my posting frequency here. Towards the end of last year, my posting frequency shrank to just one or two posts a week.
Despite attempts to re-ignite the spark, I haven't been able to return back to that time when I was posting more frequently.
It's only in the last couple of weeks that I have noticed the source of the problem. It lies in the fact that I define each post I am writing as a single task.
Writing Isn't a Task
I've learned this the hard way. Since collecting all my writing ideas in Todoist, I've struggled with writing on a regular basis.
In Todoist I collected ideas as tasks and worked on them when I could. The writing process isn't simple case of hitting a word count and being done. It is for the first draft of anything you write but self-publication involves a continual loop of writing, reading and reviewing. It only ends when we feel that what we have written is ready to be published.
Instead of using Todoist, I'm going back to using Trello to mange my content funnel for the blog. From a list of ideas, I'm hoping to be able to gradually move cards across my board until they're ready for the blog. Writing is a process, not a task.
Writing Takes Time
Another hard lesson learned. In the past I would outline posts and write them on the day of publication. That might be okay if you have a couple of hours a day to review what you have written, but I don't have that time. I'm lucky to get an hour a day set side for this. So I need to use this time in a better way.
Rather than writing one post a day, I'm going to start writing parts of different posts each day. I might work on one or two posts, review another post and ready another post for publishing, but in no way should I be writing, reviewing and publishing in the one day. If I want to get the most from my writing then I need to give ideas and drafts more time to incubate.
Whether you're writing, reading, reviewing, editing or publishing, it's all starts with a simple habit of getting those words down on the page.
I'm hoping that by the end of the month, I'll be back to at least four posts a week. Let's see what happens.