Weeknotes #20: switching ALL the gears!
Week of Nov 15
Thinking and doing
- Overtime work this week is really cutting into my Pokémon Sword time.
- Chipping away at some adjustments to my upcoming 24 Accessibility article (thanks to Sarah Higley for editing!)
- Thinking about how not everyone needs a five-year plan. If following your fancy has worked for you, who’s to say it can’t continue working for you? #abundanceMindset
- Fixed and closed a TWO YEAR OLD issue on my personal site. Feels good.
Draft Jam
(Original context on Draft Jam)
When I worked at Fuzzco (design studio) and on MS Edge as a combo dev/designer, switching back to design after a period of dev always felt slow going at first. Now that I’m full time Program Managing on the web platform, context switching to design feels—I’m not going to lie—a bit excruciating. On Saturday morning I tried working on some brand options for Draft Jam, really disliked everything I came up with, and ended up bouncing over to some dev work instead.
I think this is okay, because I can get as far as I can on dev without having a design in mind, then switch back to design and spend some more time there. I’m trying out Eleventy (static site generator) for the first time on this project. Digging how it feels lightweight, and fascinated by how un-opinionated it is on what types of files you use.
Week of Nov 22
Ended up abandoning the Chemex Timer project because I found a way to work around limitations I was running into in iOS Shortcuts.
Quick note:
- The built-in timer on iOS does not support concurrent timers, ugh.
- The Chemex Timer utility would’ve kept time on the various phases needed to brew coffee in a Chemex.
Basically, instead of trying to chain together uses of the iOS timer and then running into a race condition where I couldn’t stop the first timer fast enough, I used the Shortcuts “scripting” feature to play a sound after waiting for given intervals of time to pass.
I could’ve continued building out this utility for funsies and practice, but eh, I have plenty other side project ideas to get my hands on.
Reading
Design and development
The web
- 50 years ago today, the internet was born in Room 3420
- I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too.
Work and productivity
- For Women and Minorities to Get Ahead, Managers Must Assign Work Fairly
- If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?
