Jason Fried and David Heinemeyer Hanson's Rework just set my world on fire when I first read it. My whole outlook on work changed, and it continues to be a book I return to, and the one I most recommend to others. Naturally, I'm a regular
When you build something with a lot of angles like a picture frame, precision matters. If one angle is off, the whole frame is out of alignment. The glass doesn't fit. The mat is off center. Mistakes compound, and it isn't until you assemble all the
November is national novel writing month, or NaNoWriMo. I've always wanted to try it, but I always end up a bit too busy, a bit too unprepared for the work required. It's not like I have some great dream of becoming an author. I think I&
I use the highlighting and notes feature of my Kindle a lot. Even physical books I tend to write in the margins, dog ear pages, and underline passages. Especially for non-fiction, this process helps make reading a more participatory activity for me, and helps me retain the material better. After
Penny Arcade, a web comic about games just reached their 20th anniversary. They've been posting a new webcomic every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for twenty years. Since then they've started a few other projects, but the core site and comic haven't changed much all
When we traveled to France a few weeks back, we were both worried about not knowing enough of the language to get by. Neither of us studied the language much beforehand, and in the end, we downloaded the Google Translate app. After all, we could look up anything we needed
The cooperative brewery down the street from me holds quarterly homebrew competitions, and this quarter was an "Iron Chef" style competition requiring use three of six "secret" ingredients (Basil, Sage, Spruce Tips, Berries, Hot Peppers, Cinnamon). Since brewers weren't restricted by style, the variety
DemandGen Report just put out a study that revealed a third of marketers don't see any difference in the performance of their nurtured vs un-nurtured leads. This seems shocking at first, but if you look at the way most nurture programs get built, it's no surprise.
1. Document while building your project, or making changes. If you treat documentation work as a post-project step, it'll never get done. 2. A Word of Powerpoint doc is okay to use for one-off pieces of documentation, but consider building a documentation knowledge-base in an internal wiki or
It's easy to convince yourself that you need a $1,500 Festool miter saw from Germany to build your next woodworking project. You tell yourself it's going to make the most precise cuts. It's going to save time. It'll make the end
It's surprising to me how few employers do these as part of their interview process. In my experience, most job interviews (for marketing functions) go like this: 1. Screening (usually phone) interview with a recruiter to ensure core job description needs are satisfied 2. Phone interview with the
It's easy to lean on technology to organize your to do list. You can dump every item, urgent, or otherwise, into an organized, tagged and perfectly prioritized digital list. You'll never forget again to take check a report, take out the garbage, or change your contact