Matt Heerema

Interesting Web Cites for May 29th

Sites and articles that I found very interesting today…

• Anxiety – Lightweight To-do Management – Not a new thing, but new to me. Great lightweight Mac task management app that integrates with Mail and iCal
• jQuery Performance Rules – Best Practices for Speeding Up jQuery – Great tips by a coworker, Dave Artz

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.

Two-Way Syncing Google Calendar and iCal

Oh wow, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time! Built in syncing of iCal and gCal. It’s been possible to do it third party apps but I’ve always been a little suspicious of their efficacy (I have no data, only superstition there).

Christian Warren posted about it on TUAW. Ahhh TUAW, not only do I like working on you, I like reading you.

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 :)