Matt Heerema

Working From Home

Michael Boyink has a great post with tips for working from home. Worth a read if you are fortunate enough to be able to do so. He has a nice summary paragraph at the end:

If you’re lucky enough to be able to work at home, don’t make it just a little mini office away from the office. Life’s too short to replicate the creativity and soul-sucking office environment in your own home. Work in your PJ’s, work odd hours, play music at high-volume, have a movie on while you work—do anything just to remind yourself that by being at home your life is a little less like Dilbert everyday.

Otherwise what’s the point?

Great post Mike.

Getting Things Done: Make Time to Make

I’m not sure how many times I’ve recently told people that “my job has changed dramatically” and “all I do” now is answer e-mail and attend phone calls, whence my comment on twitter about being able to do 90% of my job on my new iPhone 3G (which continues to amaze me).

I have definitely felt off my game, unproductive, and am staring down the barrel of managerial irrelevance. If I’m not able to continue sharpening my design and development skills, and spend all of my time on project management and people management, then very soon I will no longer be a Web designer.

Having read Merlin Mann’s recent series “Make Time to Make”, I don’t think my problem lies in the phone calls and project-related e-mail. It’s all the e-mail requests for help and ideas, Twitter, and incessant IMs that keep me off my game.

Now I just need to figure out how to manage that.

Constant, short, queries from my team via e-mail and IM are a constant part of my day, and an important (?) part of my job. Many of these require a near immediate response. Maybe I need to accept my fate as a manager. Thoughts?

Mid-April GTD Links

After having my head down with the Engadget / AOL Tech launch for the last month, I’ve been neglecting organization and pretty much… everything else except for my family. It’s been refreshing to get back into the groove. The inbox is cleaned out, my desktop (computer and physical) is clean again, and I’m starting to communicate with the outside world :)

There were some very good articles backlogged in my feed reader from that time. (most via Lifehacker, Unclutterer, Diethack, and Zen Habits)

• How To Cope With A Stressful Life - very helpful read to me :)
• 8 Little-known techniques to help you burn more fat and calories - going to try and start incorporating these into my diet
• From 10000 to 0 e-mails in an inbox in 24 hours - It is possible. Do it.
• Bringing your bookshelves back to order - constant point of difference between the wife and I :)

Big News Coming Soon (And I’m Still Getting Things Done)

(In case you missed the other big news going on right now: we’re expecting again :) This will be #2 for us. Due in October. We’re very excited and incredibly blessed. We’d appreciate prayers, if you’re the praying type.)

I’ve been pretty quite on the Internets recently. Been “heads-down” on a huge project ever since SXSW. I’ll get to talk about it towards the end of the week :) I can vouch for the absolute productivity boost of remaining off twitter, out of Facebook/other soc.net sites, and staying invisible or offline of your IM. I wonder how people used to work in the days before these things…

I’m still continuing to study and practice “getting things done” methodology. Focusing mostly on staying de-cluttered. This has had the effect of vastly freeing up a part of my brain I didn’t know was occupied. Here are some recent good links along that line.

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GTD: Discardia, Controlling Cravings, Insomnia, and more

So I’m on my way to becoming a full out Lifehack link blog. Sweet. Maybe someday I’ll get back to writing about Web design. There is much to be said. Until then:

12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk

Living like a Zen Monk is not a big deal for me, however, some of these rules would definitely seem to make for a nicer, more productive life, I think.

Insomnia and Productivity

Turn your insomnia into ultra-productive time. It is easier to get into a state of “flow” (or: hack mode) when no one and nothing is bothering you late at night. I did this for quite awhile about a year ago, out of necessity, not insomnia. Use carefully, however, as it lead to burnout for me.

Interview with Gina Trapani

Some good Q&A with the founder of lifehacker.com.

10 ways to control your cravings

Tips for overcoming your hunger cravings (and thusly, losing weight, or sticking to diets).

Discardia

A holiday season for getting rid of stuff. Awesome. I think I will start celebrating it. Some of the more philosophical aspects of it however: guilt, etc, can only be gotten rid of by what we are celebrating in this current season: Easter, and Jesus’ resurrection and victory over death.

Happy Easter, everyone :)