For the Pen & Notebook Lover In Your Life ...
... the perfect gift.
Fixie Friday - Father Tu's A2
Ask Yourself ...
.. are you being productive with the work tools you have?
On a day to day basis I'm providing a service to my clients based on the programming languages I use. In time though these programming languages will fall out of favour with clients and I'll no longer be attractive as a freelance service. What can I do to change this?
My one year old son Drew is trouble. I thought my oldest son who is now seven was trouble, but he's nothing compared to the mayhem that is his younger brother. Drew loves exploring round the house, hiding in corners and inevitably getting himself into trouble. If there's something he wants within his reach, he'll try and get it. Now I could move everything that he shouldn't be touching out of his reach but that just isn't possible in our house. We still have to live. So for the moment, we'll put up with Drew's antics until he is older to recognise right and wrong.
Watching him running around the house and raiding cupboards, drawers, my desk and anywhere else he can reach is nothing more than him exploring his environment. It's healthy for him to do this. He's a growing toddler. I wouldn't expect anything less from him.
As I watch though I realise he's doing something. In each case he'll try and grab something he wants. When we tell him no, he runs off and tries to find something else. When we say he can have what he is trying to grab, his faces lights up as he's found some new artefact that he hasn't seen before. It's exploring on a micro scale. It's his way of testing the boundaries. He doesn't know what is right and wrong and so he tries in his own way to see what he can and can't get. It's a hit and miss method for him.
As a freelancer I have a small number of services that I offer based on the trend of safe technology that is available in software development. I work with Ruby for a number of reasons. It's become a popular language with many markets and their's plenty of work out there for those looking for it. In a career where the technology landscape changes on a yearly basis , should I be banking on this safe language for the future?
Ruby was the last language that I invested anytime in. Back when I first read about it during my .NET days I was in fact reading about this new framework called Ruby on Rails. I think I first read about Rails in 2005 but it would be another three years before I decided to start learning about the Rails framework and in turn the Ruby language. Since then I've rarely invested any time in learning a new programming language other than the fringe languages and frameworks that are part of the Ruby and Rails communities.
The reason I haven't done this since then is that I don't want to waste time investing in a programming language that doesn't start to become mainstream. Why be afraid of investing some time in a new programming language though? The technology world changes on such a fast pace that it's impossible to predict when that next killer language will appear.
Just like my son though I need to start testing my own boundaries and explore the programming language world around me. It will be a hit and miss experiment for sure. Over time though, I should have invested enough time to familiarise my self with a number of different languages. It's at this point I can then decide if any of these languages are right for me to consider as an extra service that I can offer to clients.
It's been far too long a time not exploring another programming languages. It's definitely time to test my boundaries and see what is happening out there. Sticking to a safe programming language is easy to do, but there will come a point in time where I will need to pick up a new programming language out of necessity rather than choice. It's at this point where I would like to have the experience of already picking up new programming languages and reducing the friction in learning it.
Need to Improve Your Business?
Start here with Nicholas Bate's summary to building a better business.
Mountain Bikes from NAHBS 2014
Too many beautiful bikes here to recommend one.
Nice to see a few rigid singlespeed steeds in there.
Apps Are Not Solutions
A nice reminder from Productivityist that apps are tools just like other tools and need to be revised every now and again to see if they are working for you.
Fixie Friday - Rose City Fix
Does Freelancing Offer More Flexibility?
Working as a freelancer doesn't offer the flexibility that I first thought it would, but is that a bad thing?
I've been freelancing for over a year now. It's been a great journey so far and long may it continue, but when people ask me if I have more flexibility in my hours, they react with surprise when I say no.
When I first wanted to freelance, one of the benefits that drew me to it was the fact that I would dictate my hours as I would see fit. I would work when it suited me the most. If I wanted to work in the morning then I would. I could take the afternoon off and then do more work in the evening. That's not how it has worked out for me though.
I work four days a week doing client work. Typically my day runs from 9am to 5pm with maybe an hour or two extra done at night if needed. Sounds like your typical work day right? Well that's largely in part due to the fact that is the hours that my clients work. They have typical work hours like most other people so it suits everyone if I work to the same hours as well.
The flexibility doesn't then come from the hours that I work then, it comes from the fact that I work at home. I can do the school run in the morning and the afternoon as well as be home for deliveries coming to the house, giving trades people access for repairs and decorating when the need arises and because I am already at home, I can use my work hour more productively by running a few errands during my lunch break when I need to.
To a degree freelancing does offer me more flexibility. I work the days that I want to and take time off as needed, however it isn't the flexible career that I first thought it was going to be. Yes it is flexible, but only in the fact that I can do a few more things extra in the day as I work from home. Work hours wise though, I'm not much better off than many others but that isn't a bad thing. Keeping to a working day means that I've got time for the family when it comes to the evening and the weekend.
When I first started blogging I thought I could simply keep on writing and the ideas would come. For a while they did and I would keep future ideas on a backlog so that I could return to them another day. Now though it seems that those ideas are not coming as fast as they did in the past. It took me a while to realise what the problem was.
My problem was that I set myself the goal of publishing more often than I could write. Yes I could publish small posts that required little effort but is that what I want to do? Minimum effort? I won't learn anything from just simply firing out a barrage of poorly written blog posts.
What I want to do is improve my writing. That means spending more time writing, editing and proof reading. I want to review my writing a few times to ensure that I am completely happy with it. This takes time, not a lot of time but definitely more than the time it takes me to write a small blog post.
Writing takes time. Good writing I mean. The kind of writing where you write a draft more than once. You sweat over the little things like word choice and grammar. You spend time on each paragraph, sentence or even word.
Writing does take time, but the rewards of better writing far out weigh that of those hasty blog posts that I used to write. It's taken me a while to learn this but it's came at a good time. I'm hoping that this is a time where I can improve on my writing over the next few months.
We'll just need to wait and see.