1 00:00:05,294 --> 00:00:06,014 All right. 2 00:00:06,014 --> 00:00:06,474 What's up? 3 00:00:06,474 --> 00:00:06,994 How's it going? 4 00:00:06,994 --> 00:00:07,404 Colin? 5 00:00:07,964 --> 00:00:08,694 Welcome back. 6 00:00:08,714 --> 00:00:09,354 Doing pretty good. 7 00:00:09,354 --> 00:00:09,734 How are you? 8 00:00:10,234 --> 00:00:10,724 Great. 9 00:00:11,324 --> 00:00:13,054 there was a conference this last week, right? 10 00:00:13,054 --> 00:00:13,754 The docs 11 00:00:14,254 --> 00:00:15,784 I've heard really great things about it. 12 00:00:15,834 --> 00:00:21,374 And a lot of my docs writing friends, have given talks and recommended going before. 13 00:00:21,374 --> 00:00:24,254 And I think, it was one of those that I've always wanted to go to. 14 00:00:24,434 --> 00:00:25,474 so yeah, how was it? 15 00:00:25,849 --> 00:00:26,789 Yeah, it was great. 16 00:00:26,909 --> 00:00:28,309 this one was in Portland. 17 00:00:28,359 --> 00:00:34,219 There is an Atlantic one that's virtual and then an Australia one that's dates 18 00:00:34,229 --> 00:00:35,709 and stuff are going to be coming out. 19 00:00:35,709 --> 00:00:39,919 So for our global audience, if you want to check out the Australian version 20 00:00:39,919 --> 00:00:44,179 or tune into the virtual one, all the talks, thankfully go online too. 21 00:00:44,179 --> 00:00:48,249 So even for the Portland one, they'll be coming up, but it was really cool to have 22 00:00:48,259 --> 00:00:53,119 such a, Specific niche topic instead of it being like a generic tech conference. 23 00:00:53,149 --> 00:00:56,319 Or I think a lot of tech conferences lately are like 24 00:00:56,339 --> 00:01:00,149 product announcement conferences for the companies that run them. 25 00:01:00,749 --> 00:01:04,789 so like Stripe sessions is next week and it's fun, but it's 26 00:01:04,809 --> 00:01:07,189 very much, big feature launches. 27 00:01:07,494 --> 00:01:12,374 thought leadership bringing in, open AI to come chat, for interviews and stuff. 28 00:01:12,754 --> 00:01:16,754 What I liked the most about write the docs is it felt like community 29 00:01:16,754 --> 00:01:22,204 conferences like RailsConf or RubyConf very community focused, 30 00:01:22,214 --> 00:01:24,944 very just lovely community smaller. 31 00:01:25,084 --> 00:01:25,894 So you actually get to 32 00:01:25,904 --> 00:01:26,594 meet people. 33 00:01:27,194 --> 00:01:30,124 and they had a bunch of really good talks and like an unconference 34 00:01:30,194 --> 00:01:31,664 lightning talks, things like that. 35 00:01:31,664 --> 00:01:35,164 So I, I actually was a volunteer for this one. 36 00:01:35,554 --> 00:01:38,304 So I was helping, speakers get miked up and make sure their 37 00:01:38,304 --> 00:01:39,444 slides are working and everything. 38 00:01:39,444 --> 00:01:42,834 And a little hack if you're going to a conference, to get involved. 39 00:01:43,124 --> 00:01:46,984 I think this is because I've run too many events, but I can't really just enjoy. 40 00:01:47,404 --> 00:01:51,734 Sitting in the audience, I need to be like doing something and it 41 00:01:51,734 --> 00:01:53,994 helps me to then meet the speakers. 42 00:01:54,224 --> 00:01:58,124 going from getting them set up to, talking to them afterwards and then 43 00:01:58,724 --> 00:02:02,594 adding them on LinkedIn and hanging out, at the, at lunch and stuff like that. 44 00:02:02,594 --> 00:02:07,064 It's just, it's a good way to meet people if you don't know who's going to be there. 45 00:02:07,464 --> 00:02:08,694 so free little tip for you. 46 00:02:09,194 --> 00:02:10,124 That's a great tip. 47 00:02:10,184 --> 00:02:10,644 Yeah. 48 00:02:10,684 --> 00:02:12,464 were there any talks that really stood out 49 00:02:12,564 --> 00:02:16,874 so I was still aware of all the talks cause I was in the wings. 50 00:02:16,884 --> 00:02:20,284 So I was there in case like Mike's died and stuff like that. 51 00:02:20,284 --> 00:02:21,504 So I was listening to all the talks. 52 00:02:22,014 --> 00:02:25,464 a good friend of the show, Calvin Fung, he was one of the speakers. 53 00:02:25,964 --> 00:02:26,434 And he 54 00:02:26,434 --> 00:02:33,874 did a really good talk that was focused on how to document and track your work 55 00:02:33,974 --> 00:02:38,724 and tying it to your job description and levels so that when you have a 56 00:02:38,724 --> 00:02:43,904 conversation about getting to the next level or getting a promotion it's not 57 00:02:43,904 --> 00:02:47,824 left to chance like And how to work with your manager to prove that like 58 00:02:47,824 --> 00:02:51,844 the list that you're following and the artifacts you're creating to prove 59 00:02:51,844 --> 00:02:55,054 that you're ready for a promotion are the ones that they agree with. 60 00:02:55,444 --> 00:02:56,734 so there's no surprises. 61 00:02:57,314 --> 00:03:01,084 If you're a single writer on a team and you don't have a really well defined 62 00:03:01,084 --> 00:03:05,439 job description, then Like basically like you, you make one for yourself and 63 00:03:05,449 --> 00:03:09,189 you track it and you're using like a progress tracker, like in a video game. 64 00:03:09,479 --> 00:03:12,909 that talk we'll definitely share when it comes out, but I think it was very much 65 00:03:12,909 --> 00:03:16,049 appreciated by the audience where it seemed like a lot of people were either 66 00:03:16,049 --> 00:03:20,909 looking for work or trying to figure out how Break into that next level of, 67 00:03:21,369 --> 00:03:25,739 I've been doing everything right, but I'm getting passed up on promotions 68 00:03:25,819 --> 00:03:27,869 or new projects, things like that. 69 00:03:27,889 --> 00:03:29,879 sometimes the things that are happening in our head is not 70 00:03:29,879 --> 00:03:33,159 necessarily what's happening in reality, or we just do the work. 71 00:03:33,179 --> 00:03:34,339 I'm very guilty of this. 72 00:03:34,339 --> 00:03:38,799 Like I'll just do things because it's my job and I don't necessarily 73 00:03:38,809 --> 00:03:42,259 go shout it out there and then nobody knows that it happened. 74 00:03:42,589 --> 00:03:45,239 I take those for granted because they're easy for me. 75 00:03:45,749 --> 00:03:49,569 But you should document them and have that little like brag document 76 00:03:49,569 --> 00:03:51,989 that you can use for reviews. 77 00:03:52,489 --> 00:03:52,689 Yeah. 78 00:03:52,689 --> 00:03:54,819 This is something we've talked about a couple of times in the show, having 79 00:03:54,819 --> 00:03:58,889 a brag doc or a set of five 15s or some sort of, documentation or just 80 00:03:58,889 --> 00:04:00,259 writing down what you're doing. 81 00:04:00,279 --> 00:04:03,729 Journaling what you're doing week to week can be super helpful. 82 00:04:03,909 --> 00:04:07,079 Super helpful to just like in terms of motivation, but 83 00:04:07,079 --> 00:04:08,759 also to make these arguments. 84 00:04:08,759 --> 00:04:13,429 That looks like an awesome talk, from Calvin and it is called beyond 85 00:04:13,439 --> 00:04:16,319 words, strategies for leveling up your tech writing career. 86 00:04:16,789 --> 00:04:18,229 So I'll have to go watch that. 87 00:04:18,339 --> 00:04:18,769 it was good. 88 00:04:18,799 --> 00:04:21,449 That one, honestly could apply to any job. 89 00:04:21,559 --> 00:04:25,599 but I think for documentarians, especially like they don't always, 90 00:04:25,969 --> 00:04:26,979 they're already writing a lot. 91 00:04:26,989 --> 00:04:30,399 So writing about the writing or writing about what they're doing is not always 92 00:04:30,399 --> 00:04:31,789 the first thing that they reach for. 93 00:04:32,354 --> 00:04:36,544 there was a really good talk about using this one's pretty, relevant 94 00:04:36,544 --> 00:04:41,824 to you, which is having, you've done so many great videos on programming 95 00:04:41,834 --> 00:04:44,554 and Stripe and how to build things. 96 00:04:44,594 --> 00:04:48,244 And it was a lot about like how to use other things than just 97 00:04:48,254 --> 00:04:49,704 words in your documentation. 98 00:04:49,764 --> 00:04:51,294 So how to include. 99 00:04:51,419 --> 00:04:56,769 illustrations, graphs, videos, but they are big thing because we've always talked 100 00:04:56,769 --> 00:05:02,179 about on the show how maintaining video based docs is like extremely time heavy 101 00:05:02,219 --> 00:05:04,499 and expensive at the end of the day. 102 00:05:05,009 --> 00:05:07,599 And they actually made the call out of it's boring. 103 00:05:07,659 --> 00:05:11,289 your videos are not boring CJ, but it's boring to just show code on screen. 104 00:05:11,919 --> 00:05:12,399 And it 105 00:05:12,399 --> 00:05:16,049 comes out of date so fast that like video should probably be used for 106 00:05:16,049 --> 00:05:18,029 concepts that don't go out of date. 107 00:05:18,709 --> 00:05:23,589 And then those are evergreen and you can update the words around it maybe every 108 00:05:23,589 --> 00:05:26,739 now and then you might need to come in with a new voiceover or whatever, but they 109 00:05:26,739 --> 00:05:29,339 actually use drawings instead of onscreen. 110 00:05:29,644 --> 00:05:34,304 Because you do have a little bit of, called like key man risk when you have 111 00:05:34,304 --> 00:05:39,184 a certain person who's known as the face of the docks or the face of a company. 112 00:05:39,584 --> 00:05:42,954 we saw this a little bit with planet scale and, Aaron Francis 113 00:05:42,954 --> 00:05:44,274 too, with everyone thought. 114 00:05:44,534 --> 00:05:47,444 you know that he's the face of planet scale to the point where people thought 115 00:05:47,454 --> 00:05:48,984 he was the owner of planet scale. 116 00:05:49,434 --> 00:05:49,754 Yeah. 117 00:05:50,254 --> 00:05:52,054 but, yeah, so pretty cool. 118 00:05:52,054 --> 00:05:53,684 Just, different ways of thinking about that. 119 00:05:54,284 --> 00:05:59,964 One of the talks was on tool chains for authors where, we have things like open 120 00:05:59,964 --> 00:06:04,434 API specs and all these great tools like Markdown, but man, some of the 121 00:06:04,434 --> 00:06:08,174 tools out there, like a lot of authors still do their work in Microsoft word, 122 00:06:08,234 --> 00:06:13,944 And having labels and tags in a word doc that then get generated into a schema 123 00:06:14,074 --> 00:06:15,864 that then get turned into a printed book. 124 00:06:15,894 --> 00:06:20,614 Like that talk, I was like in pain watching the stuff that 125 00:06:20,614 --> 00:06:21,984 you had to do for Microsoft. 126 00:06:22,344 --> 00:06:26,464 but then she had also done a bunch of more, online first tool chains too. 127 00:06:26,524 --> 00:06:31,044 some of these companies you're documenting things and it gets really, Printed out on 128 00:06:31,044 --> 00:06:33,434 paper delivered to a manufacturing floor. 129 00:06:33,904 --> 00:06:37,484 And anytime there's a change to it, it has to be reprinted and put back on the floor. 130 00:06:37,884 --> 00:06:41,384 We take this for granted that we can just push and merge, PR and it's done. 131 00:06:41,914 --> 00:06:44,644 but yeah, working in the physical world is, it's always 132 00:06:44,644 --> 00:06:45,484 a little bit more challenging. 133 00:06:45,514 --> 00:06:45,884 So 134 00:06:46,384 --> 00:06:46,874 Totally. 135 00:06:47,444 --> 00:06:51,224 one of the talks that looked really interesting in terms of the title that 136 00:06:51,244 --> 00:06:56,104 I would love to go back, and check out is the one about, interactive 137 00:06:56,174 --> 00:06:57,944 code snippets, like in the docs. 138 00:06:58,194 --> 00:07:01,564 It looks like it's called code in content using dynamic interactive 139 00:07:01,564 --> 00:07:02,914 elements in your technical writing. 140 00:07:03,569 --> 00:07:03,919 Yeah. 141 00:07:03,969 --> 00:07:06,989 So that one was from Taylor from Redockley. 142 00:07:07,489 --> 00:07:09,109 They talked a little bit about Mark doc. 143 00:07:09,129 --> 00:07:10,399 They talked a little about MDX. 144 00:07:10,999 --> 00:07:12,239 they talked a little bit about redock. 145 00:07:12,239 --> 00:07:15,299 Lee, it wasn't like a sponsored session, but it was cool to see, 146 00:07:15,299 --> 00:07:19,399 like, how do you verify and validate that like your code samples work? 147 00:07:19,399 --> 00:07:24,159 And, I would say that this conference I think was more writers than coders. 148 00:07:24,659 --> 00:07:28,129 So a little bit more mysticism around. 149 00:07:28,369 --> 00:07:30,989 Docs is code a little bit like I 150 00:07:30,999 --> 00:07:31,969 think like a git for 151 00:07:31,989 --> 00:07:36,509 technical writers would be a big hit with this crowd well, so maybe that'll 152 00:07:36,519 --> 00:07:38,549 be a talk submission for next year. 153 00:07:38,619 --> 00:07:38,899 But 154 00:07:39,399 --> 00:07:39,879 sweet. 155 00:07:40,379 --> 00:07:40,639 Yeah. 156 00:07:40,639 --> 00:07:45,269 It, I was curious what the composition was at least, or your perception of it 157 00:07:45,279 --> 00:07:51,099 in terms of dev rel versus docs, writers versus engineers that build docs products. 158 00:07:51,549 --> 00:07:54,139 yeah, it was a pretty good mix It was a lot of 159 00:07:54,139 --> 00:07:54,839 writers. 160 00:07:55,339 --> 00:07:55,909 I like that. 161 00:07:55,909 --> 00:07:56,819 They had this term. 162 00:07:56,819 --> 00:08:00,694 I don't even know if it's a real world, but that dot documentarians 163 00:08:00,954 --> 00:08:01,244 Okay. 164 00:08:01,374 --> 00:08:06,394 writers, because you have ops and CI and CD, you have 165 00:08:06,544 --> 00:08:10,854 dev rel, who sometimes writes the docs, sometimes doesn't, in our case, 166 00:08:11,304 --> 00:08:13,264 we wear the technical writer hat. 167 00:08:13,284 --> 00:08:15,574 We also are the editor and the deployer 168 00:08:15,604 --> 00:08:17,694 and, we'll do videos and stuff. 169 00:08:17,724 --> 00:08:21,214 But, There were some people who work on open API stuff. 170 00:08:21,224 --> 00:08:24,144 There were all sorts of across the tool chain. 171 00:08:24,194 --> 00:08:26,944 So from that perspective, it was cool because you're going to be 172 00:08:26,944 --> 00:08:30,494 meeting, it's not just, Oh, I'm a software engineer at X company. 173 00:08:30,504 --> 00:08:35,664 It's, I'm a tech writer for a life sciences tool that you've never heard of. 174 00:08:36,164 --> 00:08:41,294 And there's a high bar for getting that Because tooling spits out 175 00:08:41,294 --> 00:08:42,734 information that needs to be right. 176 00:08:42,874 --> 00:08:43,604 So it 177 00:08:43,654 --> 00:08:48,574 Some of my favorite colleagues from Stripe were docs writers so I might have 178 00:08:48,574 --> 00:08:51,684 to go to the next write the docs just to try to bump into some old homies. 179 00:08:52,244 --> 00:08:52,714 We'll see. 180 00:08:52,894 --> 00:08:55,774 I think we should take a build and learn goes on a road show. 181 00:08:55,794 --> 00:08:56,404 We do a 182 00:08:56,984 --> 00:08:58,464 live at ride the docks. 183 00:08:58,964 --> 00:08:59,604 Yeah. 184 00:08:59,714 --> 00:09:00,044 Yeah. 185 00:09:00,084 --> 00:09:00,784 It'd be a blast. 186 00:09:01,384 --> 00:09:09,104 so last episode you teased this book called Slow Productivity by Cal Newport. 187 00:09:09,634 --> 00:09:10,604 And, uh. 188 00:09:11,204 --> 00:09:14,814 we agreed that we were going to read it by the next time we were recording. 189 00:09:15,324 --> 00:09:17,244 And I was like, you're ready. 190 00:09:17,274 --> 00:09:20,764 And this is like a meta realization while trying to listen to a book 191 00:09:20,774 --> 00:09:24,514 about productivity, or about like slow productivity in particular. 192 00:09:24,694 --> 00:09:26,384 I recognize that I don't have. 193 00:09:26,884 --> 00:09:31,294 Seven hours or whatever in a week where I'm like, just free to chill 194 00:09:31,294 --> 00:09:34,184 and listen to a book or listen to podcasts or whatever, like between 195 00:09:34,184 --> 00:09:35,474 walks and like all this stuff. 196 00:09:36,054 --> 00:09:38,244 And I found myself listening. 197 00:09:38,274 --> 00:09:41,344 We'll get into the content of the book, but I found myself listening 198 00:09:41,344 --> 00:09:42,724 to sections that were like. 199 00:09:43,164 --> 00:09:46,674 if you're multitasking and, here's an example, like the person is doing this and 200 00:09:46,674 --> 00:09:49,694 they're filling out these documents for HR and they're doing that and whatever. 201 00:09:49,694 --> 00:09:52,674 And they're doing all these tasks poorly and slowly, and 202 00:09:52,694 --> 00:09:53,654 it's causing them all the stress. 203 00:09:54,074 --> 00:09:57,794 And I'm like, listening to that while I'm trying to multitask myself, 204 00:09:58,174 --> 00:10:01,674 like submitting or like reviewing a PR and responding to something 205 00:10:01,674 --> 00:10:04,164 on Slack and doing 10 other things. 206 00:10:04,164 --> 00:10:05,074 I'm like, wait a second. 207 00:10:05,204 --> 00:10:08,094 I like, I'm literally being told in my ear that this is bad for me. 208 00:10:08,104 --> 00:10:09,824 Like I should slow down a little bit 209 00:10:10,324 --> 00:10:15,824 honestly, some of these books, they, you could be reading it when you have all the 210 00:10:15,824 --> 00:10:22,164 time in the world and you're like, this book is so like obvious to me, but books 211 00:10:22,164 --> 00:10:27,494 like this, and I would say essentialism and atomic habits, like you can read them. 212 00:10:27,494 --> 00:10:30,454 And if you don't have this problem, you don't get it. 213 00:10:30,954 --> 00:10:34,554 And if you are doing what you're talking about, it's like a lightning bolts. 214 00:10:35,054 --> 00:10:35,564 Yeah. 215 00:10:35,694 --> 00:10:37,434 like, what am I doing with my life right now? 216 00:10:37,934 --> 00:10:38,344 Yep. 217 00:10:38,494 --> 00:10:39,284 Absolutely. 218 00:10:39,934 --> 00:10:40,234 It's a good 219 00:10:40,234 --> 00:10:40,844 wake up call. 220 00:10:41,344 --> 00:10:42,514 it was, yeah. 221 00:10:43,014 --> 00:10:46,654 so I guess like, the first thing you shared was a podcast episode. 222 00:10:46,874 --> 00:10:49,434 and so I went and listened to that first and I thought that it 223 00:10:49,434 --> 00:10:52,084 did have a pretty solid overlap with the content in the book. 224 00:10:52,644 --> 00:10:54,524 I can't remember what the name of the podcast 225 00:10:54,719 --> 00:10:59,379 Yeah, the podcast was the afford anything podcast, which I think it was a good 226 00:10:59,379 --> 00:11:04,089 foil to talking to Cal because, Paula pant is like in the fire community. 227 00:11:04,099 --> 00:11:09,939 She's a real estate investor and she's very much would self describe 228 00:11:09,939 --> 00:11:14,819 herself as a, hustle or, In the best, in the good way of describing 229 00:11:14,819 --> 00:11:16,369 that, like she's go all the time. 230 00:11:16,369 --> 00:11:19,309 She's got lots of big things she's trying to accomplish in her life. 231 00:11:19,839 --> 00:11:22,199 and you can actually see it in that interview and we'll relink 232 00:11:22,209 --> 00:11:25,399 it as well, if you don't have time to listen to the whole book. 233 00:11:25,709 --> 00:11:30,269 Cause you can see her struggle a little bit with the idea of not being on 234 00:11:30,269 --> 00:11:32,869 Twitter, or not being on social media. 235 00:11:32,919 --> 00:11:35,119 And he does make a big case for the fact. 236 00:11:35,119 --> 00:11:36,099 It's that's wasting your time. 237 00:11:36,159 --> 00:11:36,949 if you really want to. 238 00:11:37,389 --> 00:11:41,679 do these large tentpole milestones in your life to produce books 239 00:11:41,699 --> 00:11:43,259 of, great work or whatever. 240 00:11:43,979 --> 00:11:48,729 you can get distracted in the small really easily of I need to do 20 different tweets 241 00:11:48,729 --> 00:11:50,409 this week and see which one goes viral. 242 00:11:50,809 --> 00:11:52,649 And it's is that really your audience? 243 00:11:53,004 --> 00:11:53,684 Or is it 244 00:11:53,684 --> 00:11:56,934 just, spending time and I saw this with bootstrap web too. 245 00:11:57,494 --> 00:12:00,664 one of the guys over there was talking about how he'll just, he's spending 246 00:12:00,674 --> 00:12:05,334 every morning now crafting like a bunch of tweets and hoping one of them hits. 247 00:12:05,834 --> 00:12:08,824 And I was like, that's Half of every day that you're spending on Twitter. 248 00:12:09,444 --> 00:12:12,464 And I find myself spending less and less time on Twitter. 249 00:12:12,964 --> 00:12:15,694 I don't know that's the best place to put all that energy. 250 00:12:15,704 --> 00:12:18,394 maybe your blog, your newsletter, things like that, where you control 251 00:12:18,394 --> 00:12:21,614 that makes sense, but ultimately just like the title of the book, 252 00:12:21,634 --> 00:12:23,344 it's going to be a slow climb. 253 00:12:23,344 --> 00:12:27,794 Like when you look at Cassidy Williams, newsletter subscriptions over time, I 254 00:12:27,954 --> 00:12:29,674 guarantee you, it's not a hockey stick. 255 00:12:29,674 --> 00:12:33,004 It's probably the slow March of putting out a newsletter 256 00:12:33,054 --> 00:12:35,574 every single week for years. 257 00:12:36,099 --> 00:12:39,559 And just getting more and more subscribers and she's writing 258 00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:41,599 thoughtful content each week. 259 00:12:41,599 --> 00:12:45,479 It's not like a bunch of little pithy tweets that you hope one of 260 00:12:45,479 --> 00:12:49,706 them gets viral for some, clickbait reason or something like that. 261 00:12:49,706 --> 00:12:53,706 the connection that I only made after listening to the book was that slow 262 00:12:53,706 --> 00:12:59,416 productivity is named after a lot of other phenomenon that came before it. 263 00:12:59,466 --> 00:13:01,836 one of them was slow food. 264 00:13:02,176 --> 00:13:03,066 or something like that, right? 265 00:13:03,066 --> 00:13:06,926 Like instead of fast food, it's like being super intentional and slowing 266 00:13:06,926 --> 00:13:08,566 down and really enjoying the meal. 267 00:13:08,566 --> 00:13:11,386 And you sit down and there's all these different like courses that come 268 00:13:11,386 --> 00:13:14,976 out and you're enjoying each of the different flavors and things like that. 269 00:13:15,006 --> 00:13:20,503 And there's been a bunch of other quote unquote slow, movements, but, yeah, 270 00:13:20,503 --> 00:13:22,213 slow productivity is really interesting. 271 00:13:22,213 --> 00:13:26,773 There's three different core tenets, One is do fewer things. 272 00:13:27,273 --> 00:13:29,463 Two is work at a natural pace. 273 00:13:29,963 --> 00:13:32,513 Three is obsess over quality. 274 00:13:33,123 --> 00:13:38,953 And, I think part of it that struck me the hardest too, was like, it's something 275 00:13:38,953 --> 00:13:39,903 I've been struggling with a little bit. 276 00:13:39,903 --> 00:13:42,413 I can't remember how much we've talked about this on the show is that, we've 277 00:13:42,423 --> 00:13:46,343 done a couple of personality type tests at Kraftwerk just to figure 278 00:13:46,343 --> 00:13:49,133 out where people are on the team and how they fit with each other. 279 00:13:49,203 --> 00:13:53,613 And one of the results from the tests shows you basically like what 280 00:13:53,613 --> 00:13:55,403 you think a good employee should be. 281 00:13:55,643 --> 00:13:59,363 Versus what you actually are or something, or like what you think, 282 00:13:59,413 --> 00:14:03,253 someone should be doing versus what you think would be like good for you to do. 283 00:14:03,853 --> 00:14:07,663 And that mismatch in my head has been becoming more and more obvious that 284 00:14:07,713 --> 00:14:14,143 I think a good employee should be hyper engaged on Slack or discord or 285 00:14:14,143 --> 00:14:16,573 email or like all of these places. 286 00:14:17,078 --> 00:14:22,048 And, your personal SLA should be super, super low. 287 00:14:22,048 --> 00:14:24,808 And you want to respond to everybody and unblock and make sure that you're 288 00:14:24,808 --> 00:14:29,928 not the reason why anything is slowing down and also be checking off lots of 289 00:14:29,928 --> 00:14:32,798 different tasks and committing tons of code and writing, like shipping 290 00:14:32,798 --> 00:14:35,838 PRs and shipping content and shipping this and shipping that like, that's 291 00:14:36,508 --> 00:14:40,828 what I've painted in my head is the picture of what a good employee is. 292 00:14:41,308 --> 00:14:44,298 But the reality is Oh, in order to do good work, you've really got 293 00:14:44,308 --> 00:14:49,028 to like, Slow down, pick one major project that is actually going to 294 00:14:49,028 --> 00:14:50,438 move the needle for the business. 295 00:14:50,998 --> 00:14:56,258 Even if that means like ignoring slack or ignoring other things 296 00:14:56,278 --> 00:14:58,848 in lieu of your big project. 297 00:14:58,958 --> 00:15:02,768 and yeah, so that, that kind of struck me as okay, shoot. 298 00:15:02,818 --> 00:15:07,338 I, I want to have really impactful work. 299 00:15:07,568 --> 00:15:12,198 But I'm not able to do that if I'm spending most of my time, being hyper 300 00:15:12,198 --> 00:15:18,138 reactive, hyper responsive, and also on the like treadmill of trying to just check 301 00:15:18,138 --> 00:15:20,788 off as many tasks as possible per week. 302 00:15:21,178 --> 00:15:26,418 And so it's Oh, it's actually better if instead of shipping 20 features a week. 303 00:15:26,668 --> 00:15:31,278 You ship half of a feature per week, but that feature ends up being like a really 304 00:15:31,278 --> 00:15:33,318 big, important feature or something, like, 305 00:15:34,028 --> 00:15:34,248 think the 306 00:15:34,248 --> 00:15:37,278 challenge with that is, are you actually shipping 20 features? 307 00:15:37,888 --> 00:15:39,028 If you look at things. 308 00:15:39,558 --> 00:15:40,318 Yeah, exactly. 309 00:15:40,318 --> 00:15:41,098 And like when 310 00:15:41,268 --> 00:15:42,208 20 features 311 00:15:42,538 --> 00:15:43,098 and shipping 312 00:15:43,098 --> 00:15:43,508 none? 313 00:15:43,908 --> 00:15:44,198 Yes. 314 00:15:44,828 --> 00:15:51,198 Or are the, are the 20 features like, small things like bug fixes and, oh, 315 00:15:51,198 --> 00:15:56,148 now we can order the list this way, or, now we have some other like really 316 00:15:56,158 --> 00:16:00,358 simple CRUD interface to do X, Y, or Z, or we have this simple API integration 317 00:16:00,368 --> 00:16:02,938 versus a whole new product area 318 00:16:03,608 --> 00:16:07,808 or something that's very particular to our business or something. 319 00:16:08,013 --> 00:16:08,318 Yeah. 320 00:16:08,368 --> 00:16:11,708 I think some of this is a little at odds with startup culture too, right? 321 00:16:11,708 --> 00:16:14,578 We're like obsessed over quality and this natural pace. 322 00:16:14,578 --> 00:16:20,318 It's okay, if we only have so long to prove this out, can we really obsess 323 00:16:20,318 --> 00:16:24,428 over quality if we're like, maybe we're working on the wrong thing and we need 324 00:16:24,428 --> 00:16:29,788 to do a few, hits a bat type of situation where we need quality to a certain point? 325 00:16:30,133 --> 00:16:31,343 And natural pace is fine. 326 00:16:31,343 --> 00:16:35,173 But like at the same time, if we showed up and said, we're going to do all a hundred 327 00:16:35,173 --> 00:16:38,493 things at once to see which one works, like your team is going to get burnt out. 328 00:16:38,823 --> 00:16:39,463 So 329 00:16:39,783 --> 00:16:41,553 it's a give and take for sure. 330 00:16:41,553 --> 00:16:46,653 And to your point there, if I didn't defend my time and there 331 00:16:46,653 --> 00:16:50,473 are some days that feel like this very easily, I could be playing 332 00:16:50,483 --> 00:16:52,653 whack a mole on pings and emails. 333 00:16:53,178 --> 00:16:56,358 And alerts and other people demanding my time. 334 00:16:56,988 --> 00:17:02,508 And so I've been trying to figure out like this, like poll, polling or poll, 335 00:17:02,518 --> 00:17:06,158 like pulling work off of the thing where it's like maybe at certain times of 336 00:17:06,158 --> 00:17:11,328 day, I'm going to go check all the pings and then write down what I need to do 337 00:17:11,398 --> 00:17:13,893 later instead of doing it right away. 338 00:17:14,393 --> 00:17:18,853 Or do I have an office hours of some sort, right? 339 00:17:19,093 --> 00:17:22,853 And I love how some of this is people will make these demands of you 340 00:17:22,853 --> 00:17:24,133 because it doesn't cost them anything. 341 00:17:24,133 --> 00:17:27,813 But the moment they have to come to office hours, or they have to go 342 00:17:27,833 --> 00:17:32,233 add it to your list, they sometimes just are like, just kidding. 343 00:17:32,233 --> 00:17:33,273 I'm not going to fill this out. 344 00:17:33,713 --> 00:17:36,233 Unfortunately they might go ask someone who is not defending their 345 00:17:36,233 --> 00:17:40,263 time, or they go figure it out for themselves, which is what we hope. 346 00:17:40,763 --> 00:17:43,883 There were a couple of different tactics that I thought were really interesting. 347 00:17:43,983 --> 00:17:46,713 one of them is having a docket clearing meeting. 348 00:17:46,723 --> 00:17:48,443 So you just have a standing meeting. 349 00:17:48,658 --> 00:17:51,498 Once a week or something where you and your team, your, the people 350 00:17:51,498 --> 00:17:54,508 you're collaborating with, you run through, discuss anything that 351 00:17:54,508 --> 00:17:57,728 needs to be discussed, hash things out that need to be hashed out so 352 00:17:57,728 --> 00:17:59,078 that everyone can get back to work. 353 00:17:59,688 --> 00:18:03,208 another one was simulated pull, which is yeah, just, 354 00:18:03,458 --> 00:18:04,888 everything goes into some queue. 355 00:18:04,888 --> 00:18:11,018 And then when you are free from your like deep work, you can break out and then 356 00:18:11,338 --> 00:18:12,848 pull the things that need to be pulled. 357 00:18:13,328 --> 00:18:15,638 And then the other one, yeah, it was like holding office hours. 358 00:18:16,138 --> 00:18:19,858 And what I thought was really interesting is that Cal Newport, he like his 359 00:18:20,128 --> 00:18:21,688 software engineer by training, right? 360 00:18:21,838 --> 00:18:23,688 Like he's his computer scientist by training. 361 00:18:24,098 --> 00:18:28,188 And a lot of these things are things that tech companies do, right? 362 00:18:28,188 --> 00:18:31,758 Like the docket clearing meeting to me is let's have a standup, a weekly 363 00:18:31,758 --> 00:18:34,338 standup where we're going to run through and do like ticket triage 364 00:18:34,338 --> 00:18:35,988 and see like, where's the tickets. 365 00:18:36,528 --> 00:18:40,468 And then the poll based simulated poll is okay, all the tickets go 366 00:18:40,468 --> 00:18:43,418 into linear or JIRA or whatever. 367 00:18:43,798 --> 00:18:46,228 And you don't assign them to anybody until. 368 00:18:46,728 --> 00:18:49,268 The there's like free time for them to like, actually do it. 369 00:18:49,688 --> 00:18:53,328 The office hours is something that the support team at Stripe used to do 370 00:18:53,688 --> 00:18:58,388 where it was like, to avoid getting hit up all the time by account managers 371 00:18:58,388 --> 00:19:01,938 or product teams or whatever, they would hold office hours so that. 372 00:19:02,363 --> 00:19:06,253 on a weekly basis, folks could show up for that one hour and ask any questions 373 00:19:06,253 --> 00:19:09,653 they want and get direct help, on the things that they need help for. 374 00:19:09,653 --> 00:19:12,193 And I think that really streamlined a lot for them. 375 00:19:12,653 --> 00:19:13,193 Did people 376 00:19:13,193 --> 00:19:14,393 use those office hours? 377 00:19:14,893 --> 00:19:15,533 they did. 378 00:19:16,063 --> 00:19:18,663 And I think part of the key to it was that. 379 00:19:19,163 --> 00:19:25,003 Justin Michael, who's like amazing engineer for each office hour, he would 380 00:19:25,003 --> 00:19:27,253 create a custom like presentation. 381 00:19:27,483 --> 00:19:28,433 That was really fun. 382 00:19:28,433 --> 00:19:34,283 And like a, an infographic type situation that would show a Stripe workflow. 383 00:19:34,373 --> 00:19:37,003 And so it would seed the office hour with a discussion. 384 00:19:37,003 --> 00:19:37,893 So it wasn't just like, 385 00:19:38,263 --> 00:19:40,273 all right, I'm around during this time for you to come. 386 00:19:40,283 --> 00:19:40,523 Yeah. 387 00:19:40,523 --> 00:19:43,183 So it's like a lightning talk, almost like a weekly lightning talk about 388 00:19:43,813 --> 00:19:46,503 the Stripe API for internal folks. 389 00:19:46,503 --> 00:19:46,673 And 390 00:19:46,723 --> 00:19:49,903 Cause that's the pushback I've gotten so far when I've said I want 391 00:19:49,903 --> 00:19:53,343 office hours to no one, there'll just be you sitting here by yourself 392 00:19:53,733 --> 00:19:57,383 because and their argument was like fires don't happen when 393 00:19:57,383 --> 00:19:58,383 you schedule your office hours. 394 00:19:58,413 --> 00:20:01,863 I'm like, yeah, the point is this is not a firefighting session. 395 00:20:02,083 --> 00:20:02,353 And 396 00:20:02,643 --> 00:20:02,933 Yeah. 397 00:20:03,013 --> 00:20:03,573 Exactly. 398 00:20:04,013 --> 00:20:04,503 what is it? 399 00:20:04,643 --> 00:20:07,433 I know that there will be fires, so that's fine, 400 00:20:08,033 --> 00:20:09,713 but it doesn't happen. 401 00:20:10,083 --> 00:20:11,393 Everything should not be a fire. 402 00:20:11,918 --> 00:20:12,788 It's the important thing. 403 00:20:13,528 --> 00:20:13,918 Yeah. 404 00:20:14,038 --> 00:20:16,648 and I think the book really focuses on this idea that. 405 00:20:17,198 --> 00:20:19,368 They went through a lot of historical figures. 406 00:20:19,768 --> 00:20:24,898 If you zoom in on any one day, you might find them in a park or out in nature. 407 00:20:24,978 --> 00:20:27,058 And there was actually a lot of focus on nature. 408 00:20:27,108 --> 00:20:30,198 Granted, a lot of these people also were pre computer. 409 00:20:30,638 --> 00:20:33,898 Uh, some would argue we should all be spending more time in nature. 410 00:20:34,203 --> 00:20:39,083 Nature, but that when you zoomed out that there are these big, Nobel peace 411 00:20:39,093 --> 00:20:44,203 prizes and big discoveries and work, but they had that deep work time. 412 00:20:44,203 --> 00:20:47,433 And then they had that time to go away and think and let things 413 00:20:47,433 --> 00:20:48,853 run in the background process. 414 00:20:48,883 --> 00:20:52,453 Like thinking about, radioactivity, but I'm not done yet. 415 00:20:52,463 --> 00:20:56,023 And I'm going to go off and think about it and something that you do just clicks 416 00:20:56,023 --> 00:20:57,893 while you're out doing something else. 417 00:20:58,443 --> 00:20:58,893 Totally. 418 00:20:59,563 --> 00:20:59,963 Yeah. 419 00:20:59,993 --> 00:21:04,223 One of the things that we're doing right now at Craftwork is re 420 00:21:04,263 --> 00:21:06,543 imagining how we handle pricing. 421 00:21:07,043 --> 00:21:11,553 And one of the things we're planning to do is rebuild our price engine. 422 00:21:11,563 --> 00:21:12,273 And. 423 00:21:12,773 --> 00:21:16,023 I, like when I started thinking about this is when I started reading the 424 00:21:16,023 --> 00:21:20,273 book and then I've realized that, I, if I really just slow down and think 425 00:21:20,273 --> 00:21:24,113 about pricing and pricing engines and data models for pricing and things, 426 00:21:24,493 --> 00:21:27,903 then stuff starts to click into place and I started to make discoveries. 427 00:21:28,333 --> 00:21:32,293 Like a lot of times when I'm not at the computer, so I'm like, chopping 428 00:21:32,293 --> 00:21:35,883 wood in the backyard or I'm out walking the dog or I'm, driving to 429 00:21:35,883 --> 00:21:39,353 the dump or, just random times where I'm like, Oh, what if it did this? 430 00:21:39,383 --> 00:21:43,123 Or what if you could, build a rule engine that had certain conditions 431 00:21:43,123 --> 00:21:44,093 that apply this way or whatever. 432 00:21:44,093 --> 00:21:48,183 It's huh, it's like a paint by numbers where each of the little cells 433 00:21:48,233 --> 00:21:50,053 are getting filled in with color. 434 00:21:50,633 --> 00:21:54,083 In the background when you're not even thinking about it on purpose. 435 00:21:54,403 --> 00:21:59,203 And yeah, you've just got to wait until it's a full, bright, vibrant picture 436 00:21:59,203 --> 00:22:00,853 before you sit down and do the work, 437 00:22:01,033 --> 00:22:04,083 or do the like production of the work, I don't know. 438 00:22:04,583 --> 00:22:05,703 That's the same with sleep. 439 00:22:05,703 --> 00:22:10,583 Like we need sleep and we need time away to let garbage collection go. 440 00:22:10,733 --> 00:22:14,223 It's like your brain's gotta let go of some things and then discover 441 00:22:14,223 --> 00:22:17,033 some new things and make some new connections to other things and 442 00:22:17,533 --> 00:22:19,023 chopping wood in the backyard. 443 00:22:19,153 --> 00:22:23,093 you can't really focus on anything else, but your brain's still chugging 444 00:22:23,093 --> 00:22:24,393 away on something back there. 445 00:22:24,893 --> 00:22:25,393 That's right. 446 00:22:25,723 --> 00:22:26,263 Yeah. 447 00:22:26,763 --> 00:22:27,053 Yeah. 448 00:22:27,103 --> 00:22:27,373 I don't know. 449 00:22:27,373 --> 00:22:28,443 It's a great recommendation. 450 00:22:28,473 --> 00:22:31,523 I, yeah, I took a lot away from it and I think. 451 00:22:32,023 --> 00:22:35,643 There are likely several adjustments I'm going to make to 452 00:22:35,653 --> 00:22:36,963 the way that I think about stuff. 453 00:22:37,063 --> 00:22:40,143 is there anything you've already put in place or you're thinking about? 454 00:22:40,463 --> 00:22:42,943 I'm trying to figure out, I want to do office hours. 455 00:22:42,983 --> 00:22:45,513 So I'm trying to figure out how we can pull that off. 456 00:22:46,013 --> 00:22:49,133 I think the big one is like the days where I find myself playing whack 457 00:22:49,133 --> 00:22:53,493 a mole with pings and hunting down things That's how I don't want to 458 00:22:53,493 --> 00:22:57,923 feel so I'm trying to figure out like does that mean scheduling deep work? 459 00:22:58,423 --> 00:23:03,703 The problem is when you schedule it Sometimes it gets derailed by a thing and 460 00:23:03,703 --> 00:23:08,193 like I don't have control over When some meetings happen like if they're my own 461 00:23:08,193 --> 00:23:12,833 meetings sure, but all hands You know, most of those have been scheduled for 462 00:23:12,833 --> 00:23:14,563 the year, so I can move around those. 463 00:23:15,033 --> 00:23:19,463 We try to do no, no Thursday meetings and we record this on Thursdays, which is 464 00:23:19,533 --> 00:23:21,033 how I get away with that pretty easily. 465 00:23:21,573 --> 00:23:24,143 but there's always still some meetings that sneak in. 466 00:23:24,143 --> 00:23:25,603 So scheduling. 467 00:23:26,053 --> 00:23:26,843 Deep work. 468 00:23:27,393 --> 00:23:31,143 and ideally going and checking all the pings, like only when 469 00:23:31,143 --> 00:23:34,583 I need to, like right now I can see discord has a red dot on it. 470 00:23:35,003 --> 00:23:36,573 Maybe I should turn off the red dot. 471 00:23:36,803 --> 00:23:37,323 I don't know. 472 00:23:37,373 --> 00:23:40,293 Like then I won't know unless I go check it. 473 00:23:40,363 --> 00:23:43,813 And it's not telling me it's time to check it whenever there's a dot there. 474 00:23:44,313 --> 00:23:44,583 Yeah. 475 00:23:44,583 --> 00:23:50,563 One of the, one of the things that also like, became obvious to was 476 00:23:50,593 --> 00:23:54,263 the anxiety around response times. 477 00:23:54,263 --> 00:23:57,913 And I think part of this is working remote, because you can't just go over 478 00:23:57,913 --> 00:24:01,793 to someone's office and if you see the doors open, you go over and Poke your head 479 00:24:01,793 --> 00:24:04,143 in and have a conversation in real time. 480 00:24:04,203 --> 00:24:08,843 And there is this, again, going back to the, what is a good employee, right? 481 00:24:08,843 --> 00:24:11,213 are they always going to be responsive and reactive? 482 00:24:11,613 --> 00:24:12,123 It's yes. 483 00:24:12,323 --> 00:24:15,953 And so you start to build up this certain anxiety around your own personal SLA. 484 00:24:15,963 --> 00:24:19,703 Oh, since I'm remote and most of the team is not remote, if someone pings me on 485 00:24:19,703 --> 00:24:22,193 Slack, then, and I don't get back to them. 486 00:24:22,743 --> 00:24:25,903 within five minutes or whatever, then are they going to think that I'm just like 487 00:24:26,243 --> 00:24:27,393 out chilling on a beach? 488 00:24:27,433 --> 00:24:28,193 Yeah, exactly. 489 00:24:28,193 --> 00:24:29,343 Or not working or whatever. 490 00:24:29,343 --> 00:24:34,233 And so you start to build up that anxiety and that also ties directly 491 00:24:34,313 --> 00:24:36,803 to those like little tasks, right? 492 00:24:36,803 --> 00:24:40,983 Oh yeah, you're shipping PR, shipping, PR, shipping, PR, but really. 493 00:24:41,498 --> 00:24:44,368 If you have something that's big that you're working on, that's massive, 494 00:24:44,398 --> 00:24:48,558 you could continue pushing branches or whatever that show differences, 495 00:24:48,568 --> 00:24:51,838 but that doesn't necessarily reflect okay, I'm thinking super 496 00:24:51,838 --> 00:24:54,248 deeply about this for three days. 497 00:24:54,668 --> 00:24:58,568 And like in between meetings, it's a lot of like brainstorming 498 00:24:58,568 --> 00:25:00,068 and design type work. 499 00:25:00,488 --> 00:25:05,628 And how is that reflected relative to squash and bugs or like responding 500 00:25:05,628 --> 00:25:10,178 immediately to someone's pings on Slack with questions or whatever. 501 00:25:10,588 --> 00:25:15,998 the other side of this is it did also shine a light on my own behavior 502 00:25:16,088 --> 00:25:17,718 and ways that I could change. 503 00:25:18,078 --> 00:25:21,718 The way that I interact with people, just being a little bit more thoughtful 504 00:25:21,718 --> 00:25:26,938 about when I DM somebody or ping somebody on Slack, is this something 505 00:25:26,938 --> 00:25:30,448 that can be an email or should this be a linear ticket or should this 506 00:25:30,458 --> 00:25:33,028 be posted in the general channel? 507 00:25:33,473 --> 00:25:37,823 Instead of, or in a public channel, instead of a DM, so that maybe someone 508 00:25:37,823 --> 00:25:39,853 else who has context can jump into it. 509 00:25:40,563 --> 00:25:44,073 should this be a scheduled Slack message? 510 00:25:44,073 --> 00:25:49,683 Like maybe it's 7 PM my time and I'm wrapping something up and I don't 511 00:25:49,693 --> 00:25:51,107 need to ping the whole team and. 512 00:25:51,678 --> 00:25:51,868 At 7. 513 00:25:51,868 --> 00:25:53,238 00 and said I could schedule it for 9. 514 00:25:53,238 --> 00:25:57,098 00 AM the next day, to just be respectful of their time. 515 00:25:57,173 --> 00:25:57,463 Yeah. 516 00:25:58,138 --> 00:26:01,208 and yeah, it's it's about respect, but it's also about like productivity, right? 517 00:26:01,208 --> 00:26:03,248 Like you don't want to interrupt their flow. 518 00:26:03,428 --> 00:26:04,828 So I don't know. 519 00:26:05,328 --> 00:26:05,618 Yeah. 520 00:26:05,618 --> 00:26:08,658 I wish discord had the ability to schedule messages. 521 00:26:08,938 --> 00:26:12,658 but we can, we have the ability to send silent messages so they 522 00:26:12,658 --> 00:26:15,268 don't trigger notifications, but 523 00:26:15,468 --> 00:26:17,998 some people still check their dot, Right. 524 00:26:18,008 --> 00:26:19,708 Like it'll create a dot, but it won't send a 525 00:26:20,159 --> 00:26:20,783 Mm 526 00:26:20,833 --> 00:26:21,798 with Slack, I've. 527 00:26:21,908 --> 00:26:23,818 we use Slack for the coworking space. 528 00:26:23,858 --> 00:26:26,028 I do try to schedule things for the next day. 529 00:26:26,028 --> 00:26:29,188 If I'm, cause I don't really think about I'll be like, Oh, I have this thought 530 00:26:29,188 --> 00:26:30,478 about something we should do tomorrow. 531 00:26:30,488 --> 00:26:34,718 I'm not going to send it at nighttime when Kristen's not working because she 532 00:26:34,718 --> 00:26:39,028 will check it because technically quote unquote, her boss is messaging her. 533 00:26:39,028 --> 00:26:41,968 And it's I don't want to be the boss messaging after hours. 534 00:26:42,598 --> 00:26:47,038 so scheduling for nine, I love the whole, Or even just remind me about this later. 535 00:26:47,058 --> 00:26:49,588 But then you end up with a whole bunch of to dos that are just in 536 00:26:49,588 --> 00:26:53,408 this ether that are going to pop back in to, to annoy you later. 537 00:26:53,568 --> 00:26:57,608 So I still write, like I use these note card things. 538 00:26:57,608 --> 00:26:59,078 They're just like index cards, but. 539 00:26:59,483 --> 00:27:05,203 I still write down so much of my stuff so that I don't go into a sauna and then find 540 00:27:05,493 --> 00:27:07,403 four other things I could also be doing. 541 00:27:07,773 --> 00:27:11,303 it's more of like it, if it doesn't fit on the index card, 542 00:27:11,873 --> 00:27:13,033 then there's also a problem. 543 00:27:13,123 --> 00:27:17,003 if I can only do no more than 10 things in a day, 544 00:27:17,353 --> 00:27:18,523 even if I think I can. 545 00:27:18,533 --> 00:27:21,813 So some of that is nice in a sauna, you can create as many 546 00:27:21,813 --> 00:27:23,413 tickets as you want forever. 547 00:27:24,063 --> 00:27:27,258 and you're going to sign them to yourself and you can be, Super confident 548 00:27:27,258 --> 00:27:29,778 that you're going to get to it all and you're probably not going to. 549 00:27:29,778 --> 00:27:30,208 So 550 00:27:30,708 --> 00:27:31,083 yeah. 551 00:27:31,098 --> 00:27:33,488 Are you able to pull it up, to pull up Asana? 552 00:27:33,988 --> 00:27:37,168 I'm just curious how many tasks I have assigned to myself 553 00:27:37,603 --> 00:27:37,893 Yeah. 554 00:27:37,893 --> 00:27:38,493 Let's see. 555 00:27:38,993 --> 00:27:47,103 I have 69 to-dos four triage, and 204 in the backlog. 556 00:27:47,778 --> 00:27:48,708 Oh, wait, no, that's not just 557 00:27:48,873 --> 00:27:51,673 So yeah, I was gonna say, we do a pretty good job of not assigning 558 00:27:51,683 --> 00:27:56,213 things to someone until it's theirs, like Cal Newport recommends. 559 00:27:56,583 --> 00:28:00,123 So in Asana, I have five, which is very small. 560 00:28:00,503 --> 00:28:04,843 There is a list I can go look at that is the DevRel inbox, and 561 00:28:04,853 --> 00:28:06,123 there are way more than five. 562 00:28:06,623 --> 00:28:11,093 But, I also, in our public repo, there are 50 open PRs. 563 00:28:11,803 --> 00:28:15,313 so those have been open since 2022, some of them. 564 00:28:15,323 --> 00:28:19,003 So that's still going to be open, but those are things I think about. 565 00:28:19,113 --> 00:28:20,433 And I just need to schedule 566 00:28:20,433 --> 00:28:25,733 like an hour a week to go at least make a dent in them versus even thinking 567 00:28:25,733 --> 00:28:27,723 about them and carrying them around. 568 00:28:27,773 --> 00:28:28,083 there's that. 569 00:28:28,333 --> 00:28:31,343 I don't think it comes up in the book at all, but there's this idea. 570 00:28:31,343 --> 00:28:31,373 Yeah. 571 00:28:31,723 --> 00:28:33,983 Of carrying things around in a backpack 572 00:28:34,493 --> 00:28:38,563 and a lot of stress and anxiety is stuff that you carry around with you 573 00:28:38,563 --> 00:28:43,253 that you don't need to like, write it down, schedule it, whatever it is. 574 00:28:43,263 --> 00:28:45,333 It's like that appointment that you're like, Oh, I need, I know 575 00:28:45,333 --> 00:28:47,233 I need to do this and you keep 576 00:28:47,233 --> 00:28:51,763 writing it down for days and you don't do it, like just do it and you can put 577 00:28:51,763 --> 00:28:53,613 that thing down and you don't have to carry it around. 578 00:28:53,683 --> 00:28:55,723 And so those PRS are something that. 579 00:28:56,223 --> 00:28:59,323 They weigh on me, but they're always, they're not going to go anywhere. 580 00:28:59,413 --> 00:29:01,943 So I don't have to carry them around with me. 581 00:29:02,493 --> 00:29:06,553 when I was trying to get out of my IRS debt that I paid like 582 00:29:06,553 --> 00:29:10,123 years ago, it's funny cause the box is actually sitting right next to me. 583 00:29:10,613 --> 00:29:15,333 I physically carried the IRS letters with me, which is the most unhealthy 584 00:29:15,333 --> 00:29:17,073 thing you could possibly think. 585 00:29:17,573 --> 00:29:18,153 man, 586 00:29:18,653 --> 00:29:22,813 so now I have a box of them that I need to go have a bonfire with because 587 00:29:22,893 --> 00:29:25,543 they're here to be shredded But I 588 00:29:25,543 --> 00:29:29,043 think fire is gonna be a faster way of dealing with those 589 00:29:29,543 --> 00:29:33,733 and more entertaining and probably more cathartic in a way, right? 590 00:29:33,793 --> 00:29:34,313 yeah, 591 00:29:34,658 --> 00:29:35,708 don't carry things around. 592 00:29:35,708 --> 00:29:37,018 You don't need to carry around with you. 593 00:29:37,518 --> 00:29:41,348 Yeah, I'm going to go unassign a bunch of these things that have, I probably 594 00:29:41,358 --> 00:29:44,648 assigned to myself eight months ago and it just we're not getting around to it. 595 00:29:45,198 --> 00:29:49,398 and, yeah, the mental overhead of just knowing, or like trying to keep 596 00:29:49,398 --> 00:29:51,688 track of those tasks is immense. 597 00:29:51,738 --> 00:29:52,288 And. 598 00:29:52,958 --> 00:29:57,658 I think every time, the last times that I've left jobs, the last several 599 00:29:57,658 --> 00:30:02,778 times I've left jobs, there's been like this huge, like release of stress and 600 00:30:02,778 --> 00:30:04,528 anxiety right when you leave the job. 601 00:30:04,568 --> 00:30:09,468 And it's Oh, that's because I was carrying around in the back of my head, 45 tasks 602 00:30:09,488 --> 00:30:13,528 that like I knew had to get done at some point and then just was never doing them. 603 00:30:13,528 --> 00:30:14,078 and. 604 00:30:14,618 --> 00:30:20,098 Now that I don't work there anymore, it's not my problem and not my stress anymore, 605 00:30:20,098 --> 00:30:25,338 but, yeah, I think writing it down for us, it's linear, just like creating a 606 00:30:25,338 --> 00:30:27,748 ticket and not having it assigned to me. 607 00:30:28,348 --> 00:30:28,568 yeah. 608 00:30:28,568 --> 00:30:31,478 And then when the day comes that becomes the number one priority, then we'll 609 00:30:31,478 --> 00:30:35,698 figure out who's best suited to do it, who has an open, who has openings in 610 00:30:35,698 --> 00:30:37,198 their schedule, et cetera, et cetera. 611 00:30:37,698 --> 00:30:38,518 And we can ship it. 612 00:30:39,778 --> 00:30:40,348 nice 613 00:30:40,848 --> 00:30:41,228 yeah, 614 00:30:41,708 --> 00:30:42,028 Cool. 615 00:30:42,088 --> 00:30:42,388 Well 616 00:30:42,548 --> 00:30:43,068 those lines, 617 00:30:43,698 --> 00:30:44,318 Oh, go ahead. 618 00:30:44,718 --> 00:30:44,978 Yeah. 619 00:30:44,978 --> 00:30:46,478 We recommend it a hundred percent. 620 00:30:47,078 --> 00:30:52,938 we, built a fun feature this last couple of weeks where we can organize 621 00:30:52,988 --> 00:30:55,678 teams of painters into like crews. 622 00:30:56,258 --> 00:31:00,458 And there's a bunch of drag and drop, so you can, whatever, like we're all used to 623 00:31:00,458 --> 00:31:04,338 it, but it was fun to build with stimulus and hot wire and all this like railsy 624 00:31:04,538 --> 00:31:04,978 stuff. 625 00:31:05,668 --> 00:31:11,258 And it was a fun project because it was one where one of us built the data model. 626 00:31:11,668 --> 00:31:15,908 And get stubbed out like a rough UI and then someone else took it and cleaned 627 00:31:15,908 --> 00:31:17,438 it up and added some features to it. 628 00:31:17,758 --> 00:31:20,388 And then someone else took it and polished it up even more. 629 00:31:20,808 --> 00:31:22,588 And then it was just like this ping pong. 630 00:31:22,598 --> 00:31:26,178 It was a PR where everyone had commits like in the same PR, and 631 00:31:26,188 --> 00:31:29,848 then you ship it and release it to the team and share the updates. 632 00:31:29,848 --> 00:31:31,968 And, it was well received. 633 00:31:31,978 --> 00:31:33,668 So it was just like one of those really fun. 634 00:31:34,168 --> 00:31:39,108 Satisfying features to release that was like very well contained and didn't have 635 00:31:39,108 --> 00:31:43,608 a lot of like unnecessary complexity and, or scope creep and everyone got 636 00:31:43,608 --> 00:31:44,908 to get in and get their hands dirty. 637 00:31:44,908 --> 00:31:48,458 And it ended up being, yeah, as Mike would say, greater than the sum of 638 00:31:48,458 --> 00:31:51,908 its parts, in terms of contributions, which was, yeah, it was super fun. 639 00:31:52,248 --> 00:31:55,518 Was that all in one PR or is it a series of PRs? 640 00:31:56,018 --> 00:31:58,418 It was, this one happened to all be in one PR. 641 00:31:58,548 --> 00:32:01,618 It didn't, it shouldn't have been, it ended up being like a thousand 642 00:32:01,618 --> 00:32:05,148 lines, but by the end of the day we had all touched it and seen it and 643 00:32:05,838 --> 00:32:06,458 talked about it. 644 00:32:06,793 --> 00:32:10,843 It's always tricky when you're like, the API is in this other 645 00:32:10,993 --> 00:32:15,293 PR and the UI is in this other PR which relies on this other one, so 646 00:32:15,313 --> 00:32:17,753 sometimes it's easier to just do that. 647 00:32:18,253 --> 00:32:23,583 yeah, in hindsight I would have shipped the data model and a bunch of things first 648 00:32:23,723 --> 00:32:27,053 and then the controllers and then we could build on top of it and do whatever we 649 00:32:27,053 --> 00:32:28,893 want later and make incremental changes. 650 00:32:28,923 --> 00:32:29,233 But, 651 00:32:29,833 --> 00:32:30,613 always go that way. 652 00:32:31,113 --> 00:32:31,593 Nope. 653 00:32:32,093 --> 00:32:32,453 Yeah. 654 00:32:32,513 --> 00:32:33,203 You know how it is. 655 00:32:33,423 --> 00:32:34,763 I was gonna say, that's okay too. 656 00:32:35,263 --> 00:32:35,713 Yeah. 657 00:32:36,213 --> 00:32:37,463 Nice. 658 00:32:37,963 --> 00:32:39,263 All, I'm curious about the calendar stuff. 659 00:32:39,283 --> 00:32:41,233 Cause we've been also fighting calendars. 660 00:32:41,243 --> 00:32:41,583 So 661 00:32:41,633 --> 00:32:42,133 Yeah. 662 00:32:42,263 --> 00:32:46,783 So I have not had any time to play with the cow wind idea that I had, but I 663 00:32:46,783 --> 00:32:50,703 went, I don't know if I mentioned it last episode, but I was like, you know what? 664 00:32:50,813 --> 00:32:54,293 I'm just going to pay for Robin and we're going to do it. 665 00:32:54,353 --> 00:32:54,493 And 666 00:32:54,493 --> 00:32:59,213 I went to go pay for it and it was more money than I thought it was. 667 00:32:59,223 --> 00:33:03,823 So it was 1500 it is now 5, 000 668 00:33:03,823 --> 00:33:07,213 and that number apparently is enough to make me. 669 00:33:07,598 --> 00:33:11,308 Code enough on an airplane while I was on the way to write the docs. 670 00:33:11,483 --> 00:33:15,933 uh, we now have a react app that is aware of all of the 671 00:33:15,933 --> 00:33:17,463 events that is happening today. 672 00:33:17,963 --> 00:33:22,403 You cannot book it yet, but that's going to be the next step is you 673 00:33:22,403 --> 00:33:27,163 can tap a button that will book that room for that time, if it's available 674 00:33:27,523 --> 00:33:28,363 for 30 minutes. 675 00:33:28,373 --> 00:33:30,953 So there's not any user logins. 676 00:33:31,073 --> 00:33:32,783 There's no who booked it. 677 00:33:32,783 --> 00:33:34,433 It's just, it's booked or not booked. 678 00:33:35,063 --> 00:33:38,733 If Kristen or I add events to the calendar, if someone messages 679 00:33:38,733 --> 00:33:41,403 us and says, Hey, can we get the room for a certain time? 680 00:33:41,413 --> 00:33:44,003 Then we'll add it to the calendar and it will show up. 681 00:33:44,113 --> 00:33:47,103 there's some things that like, these are all little rough edges 682 00:33:47,103 --> 00:33:49,203 that I'm building it in react. 683 00:33:49,413 --> 00:33:53,583 But I want to wrap it in react native because there's some fun features that 684 00:33:53,583 --> 00:33:58,963 you don't think about when you run an iPad 24 seven for years, which is screen burn. 685 00:33:59,583 --> 00:34:03,823 so Robin has a feature where at nighttime it dims the screen and 686 00:34:03,823 --> 00:34:05,153 then on dims it in the morning. 687 00:34:05,203 --> 00:34:09,423 So I'll probably do the same thing with react native and just do that. 688 00:34:09,433 --> 00:34:11,683 The cool thing is I don't need anything in react native. 689 00:34:11,683 --> 00:34:17,258 It'll just be the app will be, Running the react app and then in the background, 690 00:34:17,258 --> 00:34:18,448 it's just going to check the time. 691 00:34:18,448 --> 00:34:21,808 And then if it's a certain time range, the fun thing is I don't 692 00:34:21,818 --> 00:34:23,258 need to build any admin tools. 693 00:34:23,258 --> 00:34:24,418 I don't need to make it a setting. 694 00:34:24,428 --> 00:34:26,008 Like it's just going to be, is it nighttime? 695 00:34:26,338 --> 00:34:26,798 Dim it. 696 00:34:26,888 --> 00:34:27,818 Is it daytime? 697 00:34:27,898 --> 00:34:28,558 Don't dim it. 698 00:34:29,028 --> 00:34:30,918 you don't get to change it unless you change the code. 699 00:34:31,418 --> 00:34:32,693 so yeah, it turns out. 700 00:34:33,063 --> 00:34:37,343 5, 000 is the price at which we're just going to build it ourselves. 701 00:34:37,343 --> 00:34:37,733 So 702 00:34:38,283 --> 00:34:41,583 Now it's okay, 5, 000 is an actual number that you can work 703 00:34:41,593 --> 00:34:44,273 backwards from and be like, okay, how much is my time actually worth 704 00:34:44,883 --> 00:34:48,203 and how long will it take and how much am I going to invest in it? 705 00:34:48,233 --> 00:34:51,063 And yes, that is actually smaller than that number. 706 00:34:51,173 --> 00:34:51,633 So, 707 00:34:52,233 --> 00:34:56,653 the MVP for this week has been a piece of paper put over all the iPads that just 708 00:34:56,653 --> 00:35:01,593 say first come first serve and everyone's getting around, using the rooms and. 709 00:35:02,093 --> 00:35:02,553 We'll see. 710 00:35:02,613 --> 00:35:03,963 I'm going to just keep working on it. 711 00:35:04,003 --> 00:35:08,053 I do want to add like user logins so that you can pre book. 712 00:35:08,183 --> 00:35:11,393 I think that's one where people just aren't always in the space when they 713 00:35:11,393 --> 00:35:15,003 want to check to see if a room is available, but, that's scope creep 714 00:35:15,133 --> 00:35:17,483 and that will go over 5, 000, it's 715 00:35:17,483 --> 00:35:17,793 fine. 716 00:35:17,873 --> 00:35:22,753 Like I'll use, Jumpstart rails for that most likely and do that. 717 00:35:22,753 --> 00:35:24,373 So yes, 718 00:35:24,873 --> 00:35:25,233 Yep. 719 00:35:25,333 --> 00:35:29,043 so begins the, the coworking space software that you've been fighting 720 00:35:29,043 --> 00:35:31,893 against building That's just starts over here at the calendar. 721 00:35:32,048 --> 00:35:32,698 yes. 722 00:35:33,168 --> 00:35:33,538 If it 723 00:35:33,538 --> 00:35:34,758 becomes more than that. 724 00:35:34,768 --> 00:35:37,228 once I have a user login, I could 725 00:35:37,298 --> 00:35:41,138 see us just adding the stripe IDs because people can't 726 00:35:41,138 --> 00:35:43,698 cancel themselves right now, which is good. 727 00:35:43,728 --> 00:35:44,558 Like it's nice. 728 00:35:44,608 --> 00:35:45,878 They have to come talk to us. 729 00:35:46,378 --> 00:35:49,308 We never are going to say you can't quit like we're never pulling 730 00:35:49,308 --> 00:35:49,988 anything like that. 731 00:35:49,988 --> 00:35:53,258 It's just sometimes they're quitting because they can't 732 00:35:53,258 --> 00:35:55,318 get a room or it's feedback 733 00:35:55,318 --> 00:35:56,758 that we want to have. 734 00:35:56,838 --> 00:36:00,178 And if it's, Oh, I'm moving, it's the beginning of the month. 735 00:36:00,248 --> 00:36:01,358 We'll refund them. 736 00:36:01,368 --> 00:36:03,668 We'll work with them to figure out how to leave. 737 00:36:03,668 --> 00:36:07,338 So it's more like a white glove, exit. 738 00:36:07,358 --> 00:36:07,678 You don't get 739 00:36:07,738 --> 00:36:08,698 to cancel yourself. 740 00:36:09,178 --> 00:36:12,508 It also means I don't wake up To a bunch of people having canceled 741 00:36:12,508 --> 00:36:14,628 without us knowing any reason why. 742 00:36:14,678 --> 00:36:16,608 So we'll see if we do that. 743 00:36:16,608 --> 00:36:19,138 It'd be nice to show like their receipts and their invoices 744 00:36:19,138 --> 00:36:20,268 and all that in there too. 745 00:36:20,268 --> 00:36:23,128 But we've been doing this for 15 years without that. 746 00:36:23,128 --> 00:36:25,768 So I think it's okay if we don't. 747 00:36:26,278 --> 00:36:29,108 The customer portal will probably give you quite a bit 748 00:36:29,108 --> 00:36:30,698 too, if you wanted to use that. 749 00:36:30,878 --> 00:36:31,188 True. 750 00:36:31,208 --> 00:36:32,818 Just launch it from the ID. 751 00:36:32,898 --> 00:36:33,208 But, 752 00:36:33,258 --> 00:36:33,528 Yeah. 753 00:36:33,548 --> 00:36:34,928 that's the collective stuff. 754 00:36:34,948 --> 00:36:39,868 And then in discord land, I'm been playing around with unity on the side, 755 00:36:39,878 --> 00:36:44,758 just trying to see what do developers have to do to make unity a possibility? 756 00:36:44,758 --> 00:36:45,008 And 757 00:36:45,598 --> 00:36:47,978 I am successfully getting all the events. 758 00:36:48,418 --> 00:36:52,268 So like I can see the events, but I don't see right. 759 00:36:52,288 --> 00:36:56,348 My, my game is just a cube that spins in 3d space. 760 00:36:56,348 --> 00:37:00,558 So the next step is to get the game to actually show up, and then start to 761 00:37:00,558 --> 00:37:05,098 do some multiplayer so that every new person who joins will be a new cube. 762 00:37:05,598 --> 00:37:08,628 and then we'll see about moving around, as the next step. 763 00:37:08,718 --> 00:37:13,368 But it's like a really weird line of is this a unity problem or a discord problem? 764 00:37:13,868 --> 00:37:15,968 Moving around as a cube, as a unity. 765 00:37:16,468 --> 00:37:18,408 Tutorial, not a discord tutorial. 766 00:37:18,968 --> 00:37:23,098 but getting that communication going back and forth will be a little bit of both. 767 00:37:23,158 --> 00:37:23,518 Okay. 768 00:37:24,198 --> 00:37:24,558 Cool. 769 00:37:25,018 --> 00:37:27,138 I have no background for Unity. 770 00:37:27,198 --> 00:37:29,828 What's it like, relative to like web development? 771 00:37:30,273 --> 00:37:30,873 It's cool. 772 00:37:30,873 --> 00:37:34,273 some of the things like it felt pretty heavy, like you have to download this, 773 00:37:34,273 --> 00:37:39,093 like unity hub, which then installs the software felt like Adobe but I've 774 00:37:39,103 --> 00:37:43,003 downloaded other projects and it's almost root, like environment managers. 775 00:37:43,553 --> 00:37:46,153 It was like, Hey, this was made in a different version of unity. 776 00:37:46,163 --> 00:37:47,993 Would you like to install the other version of unity? 777 00:37:47,993 --> 00:37:50,793 And is aware and launches it and stuff, which is cool. 778 00:37:51,343 --> 00:37:53,813 A lot of C sharp, which I do not know. 779 00:37:53,983 --> 00:37:57,733 So I am, I was like, this looks like JavaScript or, 780 00:37:58,373 --> 00:37:58,973 C, it's. 781 00:37:59,173 --> 00:37:59,663 net stuff. 782 00:37:59,673 --> 00:38:01,613 yeah, picking that up, figuring that out. 783 00:38:02,263 --> 00:38:06,383 there's probably some unity things like, a lot of people say doing 784 00:38:06,393 --> 00:38:07,863 things the rails way or whatever. 785 00:38:07,863 --> 00:38:10,663 I don't know if there is a unity way or what it is, but I'm 786 00:38:10,673 --> 00:38:12,353 still figuring those things out. 787 00:38:12,853 --> 00:38:17,173 I feel like when I started learning a little bit of mobile development and 788 00:38:17,173 --> 00:38:22,433 just the patterns of okay, this is a screen that's being like pushed onto a 789 00:38:22,493 --> 00:38:25,453 stack and then it's being popped off. 790 00:38:25,453 --> 00:38:31,123 Like the navigation contexts and the navigation controllers in mobile was 791 00:38:31,513 --> 00:38:35,483 just such a different paradigm from web that it was interesting to try 792 00:38:35,483 --> 00:38:37,293 to build my mental model around that. 793 00:38:37,293 --> 00:38:39,453 And there's just so much in the gaming. 794 00:38:39,833 --> 00:38:45,423 Space that I can't imagine how you'd go about like writing code that, 795 00:38:45,513 --> 00:38:50,513 uses different shaders and different, whatever, like stuff to display things 796 00:38:50,523 --> 00:38:52,563 in 3d, what does that even look like? 797 00:38:52,603 --> 00:38:53,043 Yeah. 798 00:38:53,083 --> 00:38:54,773 these tools definitely have. 799 00:38:55,178 --> 00:38:59,548 Looked at that, like with unity to make this shape spin, like you, 800 00:38:59,558 --> 00:39:03,788 you drop the shape into the scene and you have cameras too, right? 801 00:39:03,788 --> 00:39:07,118 So you not only move yourself, but also do you move the cameras? 802 00:39:07,588 --> 00:39:12,118 Does moving the keyboard mean the camera moves or do you move or both? 803 00:39:12,563 --> 00:39:14,073 And, you can write a script. 804 00:39:14,083 --> 00:39:17,893 So like to spin the cube, I wrote a script and then I dragged the script onto 805 00:39:17,893 --> 00:39:19,243 the cube and it just started spinning. 806 00:39:19,653 --> 00:39:21,313 So there's some of that like 807 00:39:21,623 --> 00:39:26,273 magic of the IDE that's going on where you're getting the tools matter here. 808 00:39:26,323 --> 00:39:30,773 And some of it's okay, once I figure this out, I also want to figure out play 809 00:39:30,773 --> 00:39:33,803 canvas and some of these other engines. 810 00:39:34,233 --> 00:39:36,513 and I'm sure they're all going to be a little bit different 811 00:39:36,613 --> 00:39:37,563 and some of them a little bit. 812 00:39:37,828 --> 00:39:42,158 The same, but, there's also, for what we're doing, you need to think 813 00:39:42,158 --> 00:39:43,808 about, can this run inside the web? 814 00:39:44,308 --> 00:39:44,948 Like we can build 815 00:39:44,948 --> 00:39:47,058 a game in unity and it will not run on the web. 816 00:39:47,058 --> 00:39:51,008 If you do like crazy shaders and lighting and stuff like that. 817 00:39:51,148 --> 00:39:51,438 So 818 00:39:52,033 --> 00:39:52,603 right. 819 00:39:53,053 --> 00:39:53,633 Interesting. 820 00:39:54,133 --> 00:39:54,763 Sounds like fun. 821 00:39:54,963 --> 00:39:56,903 Sounds like a lot of good stuff to learn. 822 00:39:57,403 --> 00:39:57,993 Should we wrap it 823 00:39:58,268 --> 00:39:59,438 I think let's do it. 824 00:39:59,498 --> 00:40:00,073 we're 825 00:40:00,073 --> 00:40:01,078 at time. 826 00:40:01,388 --> 00:40:02,598 Thanks for joining us. 827 00:40:02,848 --> 00:40:07,008 As always, you can check out our notes for the show at buildandlearn. 828 00:40:07,028 --> 00:40:07,468 dev. 829 00:40:07,878 --> 00:40:09,838 We'll have links to all the resources that we talked about. 830 00:40:10,258 --> 00:40:13,048 You can go check out the book, join our little book club, and 831 00:40:13,048 --> 00:40:15,548 we'll see you next time for 45. 832 00:40:16,048 --> 00:40:16,438 Nice. 833 00:40:16,938 --> 00:40:17,518 Bye friends.