stevenwoodson

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

@andy

Whoaaa, how exciting! Can't think of anyone I'd want to learn about scalable CSS from more.

🙌 to some focus going to communication and planning skills as part of it too, understanding the code is important but so is everything else that goes on around it.

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

2/5
〰️ I've got enough in the pipeline to stay optimistic.

Here's a brief rundown:
• I just got a couple small (a week or less) projects for some great people, more to come on some of that!
• One qualified lead currently in progress, that'd be about a solid month of work
• A half dozen other potential leads of various confidence and timelines
• About two dozen conversations with fellow freelancers, agencies, and company reps that may be interested in the near future.

Not bad, right?

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

3/5
〰️ It also could be better.

Here's some of what I'm doing:
• Keeping up with outreach, social, volunteering, and meetups. Blogging about process as well as technical deep dives.
• Using my homegrown lead tracker to stay organized with follow ups. I find that people genuinely get busy, forget, and appreciate reminders.
• Investing effort in bringing more requested features to https://beinclusive.app More to come!
• Streamlining processes, learning, and curating a reusable component library

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

4/5
〰️ On that note...

Am I the Web Dev you've been looking for?

I have a ton of fun building accessible, performant, and future-proof marketing web sites & custom web applications that enhance your brand, streamline your processes, and improve customer engagement to help you scale your business.

✨ Let me add a bit of humor, experience, and attention to detail ( 👋 hi designer friends, I won't let you down!) to your next project ✨

🖥 Services and contact details at https://stevenwoodson.com/services/

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

I’m a productivity “enthusiast”. There are lots of other words I was considering here, but I am choosing to be kinder to myself.

Professionally, I often slip into the habit of measuring my worth against the tasks I’ve completed. I know that’s not a great metric, and yet I still subconsciously do it anyway.

For better or worse, marking something off my list is a really effective motivator for me. So I need regular reminders that “the list” doesn't define me or my worth.

So here it is…

2/5

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

There’s so much in life that’s not captured in a todo list.

For example, this week I:
• got a lot of yard work done
• washed the car
• enjoyed a handful of walks both alone and with others on some unseasonably warm days (that photo below is from one, lookit that tree!)
• read most of a book
• had several really nice virtual meetings
• published a case study
• did a whole lot of outreach pursuing connections and leads

None of that was on my list, does that make them less important?

3/5

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

There’s so much to life that makes tasks less doable or less desirable in the moment.

For example:
• I was so tired I couldn’t focus for a couple days. I actually fell asleep at my desk mid-day, no amount of coffee helped.
• We had an unseasonable 80°F (26.6°C) Fall day, who can focus when it's that nice out?
• Was exceptionally social (LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, Mastodon) following leads & making connections.

All these made it less ideal for long-term focus tasks like blogging & coding.

4/5

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

TL;DR

• Just because it wasn’t “on the list” doesn’t mean it’s not still something important to do.
• Just because it is “on the list” doesn’t mean you’re going to be ready and able to do it when you planned.

I’m very tough on myself, and I’d imagine many of you are too.

So here’s your permission to do what has your attention, what matches your available energy, and what the current weather calls for.

If anyone complains tell them I said it was okay, I'll take care of it.

5/5

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

I ended up expanding on this in a blog post at https://stevenwoodson.com/blog/fighting-back-against-toxic-productivity/

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

@Jbasoo Absolutely agree, how was it received by folks at work?

When I was in a position of leadership where I mentored and was directly responsible for others, I mentioned this to my direct reports all the time. Hopefully convincing them it's okay to not be at 100% all the time and to feel free to take breaks and talk about things that are slowing them down.

Having the same conversations up the ladder was often more difficult.

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

@sophie @janl

So many wonderful repeat recipes from Smitten Kitchen, here's another that never fails to impress and is super easy to make

https://smittenkitchen.com/2016/09/magic-apple-plum-cobbler/

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

2/4

Modern CSS in Real Life by @chriscoyier

https://chriscoyier.net/2023/06/06/modern-css-in-real-life/

stevenwoodson, 7 months ago

3/4

How I structure my vanilla JS projects by @cferdinandi

https://gomakethings.com/how-i-structure-my-vanilla-js-projects/

stevenwoodson, 8 months ago

@sophie OMG I gotta have these! Trade for a one-of-a-kind business card? 😂

stevenwoodson, 8 months ago

@lene @andy I'm so pleased you enjoyed it! If you have suggestions for improvements please do keep in touch!

stevenwoodson, 8 months ago

@danjac Yes! Absolutely agree with you on this.

Depending on the team and how far along the project is, it's notoriously difficult to get a design changed. What do you do to navigate that push and pull?

It's not always successful for this particular scenario, but I've found design teams (and client teams in general) are a lot more receptive to change when the work has gone into setting a foundation of collaboration and good will first. That's where the best work comes from, in my opinion.

stevenwoodson, 8 months ago

@danjac Agreed, it doesn't happen all the time but when the stars align and a project is more collaborative like this the end result is almost guaranteed to be better.