May 15th 2008 / shared, taught
I was tele-communicating with a co-worker today, and we got on the topic of “Inbox Zero” and being on top of things, or trying to be.
I’m not a fan of “Inbox Zero” or “E-mail Bankruptcy” or “Getting Things Done“. I feel they all add an extra unnecessary step/series of steps to the end goal of accomplishing things. Maybe, I’m too old school, or too efficient at multi-tasking but the idea of writing a list of things to do before actually doing those things causes my brain to start doing increasingly dangerous stunts without a stunt coordinator.
I want to introduce you to a new name for a concept I’ve been using forever, I call it.
Procrastination Zero.
It’s the simplest plan of all time, it has a single rule and it works. I’ve been utilizing it for seven years now—albeit without a fancy name.
The Rule: When something needs to be done, do it.
“Well Jim.” You say, “That sounds too easy to be true, I can’t just do things as they come up. I’m a busy person!!”
I know. Me too. Always. Yet, for some inexplicable reason doing things when they come up always keeps me ahead of the curve. Crazy-talk I know!
As I said earlier. You just do things as they come up. Simple. You don’t write things down, you don’t put things off until tomorrow. You just do them. Right away.
Which means you don’t have a task then. Isn’t that odd? Basically if someone tells you about something they need done, but they can’t get you all the info/stuff to do it until Wednesday, then you have not been assigned/given a task at all. And it can wait until Wednesday when the task is actually available to do, but do it as soon as it’s ready to go.
Right… Two things are happening here. One; You’re a liar and probably a dirty procrastinator as well (only slightly kidding). Two; You’re honest, but also have a problem saying no. Which is why you’ve accepted more tasks than you can actually accomplish (I still do this with personal projects, sorry Brad and Greg).
To solve this problem, simply stop lying and procrastinating. Or in the second more probable use case, start saying no. Firmly but, politely. It’s real easy, the work still needs to get done, it’ll just be more graciously distributed, easing your mind and work load quite a lot.
Really? You sure? Try using a junk filter. If in the very uncommon case that you are buried in legitimate e-mails, try answering them as they come in. You’re not required to write a novel or even a novella for e-mail communications. The point is to be fast, if your correspondents need to wait a week or longer to hear back from you they’d have been better off using traditional mail.
The average e-mail can be answered in less than 30 seconds, and 3 sentences. Anything that takes more thought or a longer response should have the following reply sent; “Hi Name, Let’s schedule a phone call to discuss this. When is good for you?”
Phone calls can cover a lot of info in a short period, plus a real voice and tone go a long way to squashing time-wasting miscommunications. Is the other party too busy for a phone call? Link them to this article, they need it.
So that’s it. Start today!
Procrastination Zero! Guess what you’re done!
May 13th 2008 / shared, taught
Everybody writes about how to be better at their job, how to make more money and be more productive. Nobody ever writes about client responsibilities and how to be a better client.
This is not optional. If you don’t have enough money to cover the full budget of the project, don’t get me started on the project. I’m a freelancer, which means I live off what I make. I can’t wait 30 days to get paid for work completed and there is no reason I should have to. Paying on time is respectful and should be a top priority.
If you ask me to complete something by a certain date, you need to cooperate to help me make that happen. If I ask for a specific asset, get it to me yesterday.
I know you’re busy, so am I. Busy working on your request and about a million others. If you can’t fulfill my request today, then let me know. A one-line email is enough. And always be understanding of my new found inability to fill your original request.
Additionally, don’t disappear for six months, then show up one day and ask me why development has stopped and the project isn’t completed. This actually happened once.
Seriously, don’t hire me to make something that’s description is “I’ll know when I see it”. I don’t have time for that, and neither do you. You don’t need a one-hundred page project brief, but you do need to know what styles and ideas you like/dislike and what the overall project is going to entail in general.
I’m a professional, and I have an expertise that you sought out. Don’t try to do my job for me. It’s disrespectful and a huge time waster for both of us. This is pretty much common sense, but happens a lot.
If I do a good job, use me again. If I keep doing a good job, keep using me. If you feel I’m too expensive lets talk about it, don’t hire someone else then say I’m too expensive, ’cause for a loyal client I’ll always drop or discount my price, it’s a perk of being loyal. Try it out, you’ll like it.
November 19th 2007 / learned, taught
This is a note to myself more than a real post, so feel free to ignore it or use the info if need arises.
When using vmware fusion for MSIE testing on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard through a MAMP based localhost. WordPress sites acts weird and won’t let you view sites on the localhost through MSIE.
The cause and solution of this issue is the following;
On the mac, with a MAMP based localhost, sites can be accessed via a url similar to:
http://localhost/~sites/
Whereas the same localhost setup viewed through vmware fusion using MSIE has to be accessed via a url like this:
http://mac's-ip(127.0.0.1)/~sites/
This causes a problem for WordPress based builds, because WordPress stores the full absolute URL to the install in it’s MySQL database in the table wp_options there are two rows that store the URL you need to change. They are siteurl and home. Just modify them and change the localhost bit of the URL to your mac’s localhost IP address.
Now WordPress will work fine through both vmware fusion’s MSIE install and your own mac browsers, because the mac doesn’t care if you use localhost or the IP to access your localhost sites.
Now you’re cooking with gas my friends.
June 21st 2007 / learned, shared, taught
I’ve been working in the web development industry for five years now. For five years I’ve been able to sustain a specific lifestyle, working solo. Working in an industry I both love and admire. I’ve seen designers, programmers, ideas, businesses and so on, come and go, come again then leave once more. I’ve heard just about every conceivable pitch for projects from one page brochures to one-hundred page social networks. I’ve been offered partnerships, equity, free hosting and heard promises of more work to come. Basically I’ve heard it all.
There is one thing I do above all else that keeps my business running and my mind clear. Keeps me riding the karmic bicycle in the right direction if you will.
That thing. That one, simple thing is; Respect.
April 18th 2007 / taught
I’ve been working with WordPress off and on for the past year and one thing that really bothers me—there are others, but for today just this one—is the fact that the previous and next page links that appear on the index, archive and search results pages still display even if there are no other pages to be navigated.
This would not normally be a problem, unless you want to wrap the links with some css styling. Out of the box with Kubrick the links don’t show, but if you put any exterior css styling on them it will still show even when the actual previous or next links don’t.
June 22nd 2006 / taught
One of the most annoying things I run across when running a web-site is the theft of bandwidth, my bandwidth. This is most commonly done through the direct—or hot, if you will—linking to images on my server. The perpetrator is usually someone who thinks that all Internet content is free to use as they see fit. Unfortunately for me and you, we get stuck with the bill. There are some very simple ways to prevent this, unfortunately there is no ultimate solution that will prevent it entirely all the time.
May 8th 2006 / taught
Something I take very seriously when it comes to web development and design is the precept of doing something once, and using it over and over. I call this “write once, use twice”. In reality I’ll use it more than twice; it just sounds better than “write once, use it thousands of times”. This theory can be put into practice in every aspect of developing for the web—or even running your business.
February 2nd 2006 / taught
Adobe Photoshop is an extremely powerful program for the graphic designer and photographer alike, another great—although overlooked—way to utilize its power: coloring illustrations. I use Adobe Photoshop to color all of my cartoons; it’s quite easy to do once you understand how. The main issue is being able to color your drawing without losing your line drawing in the process and allowing your custom ink work to shine. In this article I am going to show you the light and dark sides of coloring in Adobe Photoshop.
December 24th 2005 / taught
Graphic design is an important and time consuming element of web development and design. One of the best software programs for creating graphics for your web-site is Adobe Photoshop. With its wealth and depth of features it’s the single most powerful program I work with on a daily basis. I know for a fact that a lot of my peers use this program as well. What I’m not positively sure of is, if they use the program as efficiently as is possible, I know often I don’t, even though I know better. In this article I’m going to discuss and explain one of Photoshop’s most incredible and awesome features, but also one of the—I believe—most overlooked and under touted features. Quite simply, “Actions”.
December 20th 2005 / taught
I’ve often been asked, “Hey Jim, What kind of obstacles did you have to tackle, and how did you solve them when you first started out designing web pages?” or “How does one get started designing web pages for a living?” While both these questions are good, and completely fair I’ve yet to answer either in a fair or good manner. My usual response has always been “Uh, just start reading and doing it.” A—I’m too busy to answer—cop out. To those I’ve left pondering with this menial answer; I sincerely apologize and now offer to you a real answer, hopefully a helpful answer, maybe even—dare I say it—a good answer.
this dude's a real star
I’ve been working in the web development industry for five years now. For five years I’ve been able to sustain a specific lifestyle, working solo. Working in an industry I both love and admire. I’ve seen designers, programmers, ideas, businesses and so on, come and go, come again then leave once more. I’ve heard just about every conceivable pitch for projects from one page brochures to one-hundred page social networks. I’ve been offered partnerships, equity, free hosting and heard promises of more work to come. Basically I’ve heard it all.
There is one thing I do above all else that keeps my business running and my mind clear. Keeps me riding the karmic bicycle in the right direction if you will.
That thing. That one, simple thing is; Respect.
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