No. 45 | Seven places to go by yourself
I know a lot of people who are nervous about going to things by themselves. In my experience, it gets easier with practice, and some situations are more comfortable than others.
I have blogged intermittently since the mid 90s. Thankfully, much of the early teenage angst is lost to time. This collects my writings from this site, an earlier personal website, and some newsletter projects over the years, in mostly chronological order. I also publish new writing here. I publish somewhat more formal writing about content strategy and design careers at Content Career Accelerator.
The Website of Theseus
A ship is more than the wood it’s made of, and a website is more than code, content, and design. It’s the ownership, policies, history, even the culture of the organization that publishes it.
Show up on time and have your stuff work
Clearing out some old notes and found this card from a Nels Cline lecture at Music University back in 2013: “Show up on time and have your stuff work.” Nels Cline He was speaking in the context of being a studio musician but pretty good advice for just about any gig (especially public speaking).
A small breath
From a 2014 journal entry: One thing that worked well today, at work especially, was taking a simple breath before every decision. Every one. Even deleting an email. “Pause. Breath. Think. What’s happening here? What’s important? Let’s let it happen slowly.” This is a habit that’s stuck with me. I don’t do it all the … continue
Just delete me, please
This is such a desperate look. If an ex-boyfriend did this you’d be embarrassed for them. If I haven’t used your app in over a year the next email I want to get is about how you’re proactively initiating a process of deleting my account and purging all data in order to protect my privacy … continue
No. 44 | Seven ways to remember
After finding myself exhausted with the “I read an article the other day” culture of forgotten references, I made a resolution to somehow keep track of the tangled mess.
A week of working iPad-only
I was at my parents’ place all week last week. My iPad was the only computer I brought with. I did a lot of work on personal projects —mostly writing, editing, and planning — and kept up on email, Slack, and a few small tasks for work. It was the most intense use I’ve made … continue
Sometimes it works out exactly how you plan
More or less, anyway. I passed the lists from Des Moines Content Nerds on to Quentin for Experiencing UX. He invited me back to keynote World IA Day Des Moines in February. The Kristina Halvorson invited herself to present to our meetup group when it was still Content Nerds, and now I work for her. … continue
Falling asleep to comic books
I’m not good at going to bed. It got really bad a couple of months back. I’d sit on my couch scrolling social media on my phone or watching dumb stuff on Hulu right on through 11pm, midnight, 1am. It’s not like I have to get my nonexistent kids off to school at dawn or … continue
Make iCloud backup free
Chris Welch, writing for The Verge on iCloud storage limits: 5GB makes things way more difficult for those people than they should be. Fundamental tasks like backing up your device become cumbersome chores. If you never upgrade, you’re likely going to have a worse time using an iPhone. Full stop. It surprises me that Apple … continue