Personal Updates

It's been quite some time since I did a less technical more personal post. This will be more of an informal post that mostly focuses on updates around me (kinda selfish huh?) and my personal life as opposed to tech.

I've tended to shy away from these types of posts because my negative self talk creeps in and tells me these aren't useful to anyone but me.

This time though, I've decided not to listen to those thoughts and publish this post anyway :) You'll have to let me know if I was right to do so haha

I've also sprinkled in some helpful tidbits here and there that have proven useful to me. Hopefully you'll get the same value out of them but as always I make no guarantees.

Alright, let's get started!

Life

Alright, let's start with a few life updates. If you follow me on social media (you can find all of my links on the home page of my blog) you've likely seen a few of these updates already.

My daughter was born - happy and healthy thankfully - thus making me the father of two wonderful children. My wife and I have slowly been learning how much we miss sleep.

We've started putting tile floors down in our home. If I can provide you with any advice on the home improvement front, it's to do it before or after you move - at least for larger projects like what we are currently doing.

The alternative is you end up living out of one bedroom for a few weeks and you learn just how much you can tolerate being in one room of your house for a while. Spoiler alert - it's likely not that long.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to get both rounds of the COVID 19 vaccine. We're hoping life can return to some sense of normalcy soon-ish. Stay safe and get the vaccine if you are eligible - that's my advice :)

Lastly, I'm going on almost 2 years at my first professional development job. It's hard to believe that nearly 730 days have passed since I was hired. If you haven't read about my journey, I invite you to read how How I Landed My First Development Job as it was a crazy ride.

Side note - Here's a sneak peak for you as well: I'm rebuilding my personal website (as well as this blog) in anticipation of eventually going full time freelance!

If you have a project/idea you'd like to talk about or are searching for a developer, use the form below to get in touch with me. I'd love to talk about how I can bring your project to life :)

Random Advice

It should be noted that I learn as I go - I learn by doing. Some of the lessons I've learned along the way have come to me the hard way and some have been easier to handle

You get what you pay for - this isn't true in every situation (I've had many great wines that were under $10 for example) but in this situation I should have known better.

This pertains to the reference above where I said my wife and I are getting tile floors put in our house. We decided to go with a cheaper option for an installer. Long story short, we've spent many thousands of dollars, 5 weeks of our time, and our floors still aren't finished.

I can directly relate this lesson to learning to code or building a project. Don't take short cuts.

Spend extra time to do things right up front and you will be rewarded. Cut corners by not testing your code or by not adhering to best practices and I promise you will pay for it later down the road (see technical debt).

Sometimes the hard lessons are the most important ones because they give you the opportunity to learn and grow.

You can manage your time or it can manage you - there will only ever be 24 hours in a day for everyone.

I have a thriving freelance business, a wife, two children, bills, a busy schedule, etc but I also want time to work on side projects and write articles. So I maximize my free time as we only get so much. Here are some things that help me and might help you:

• Batch similar tasks (this will not be the only article I write today)
• If something can be done in less than 5 minutes, do it now, don't put it off because it could become a much larger issue in the future
• Set your future self up for success - for example if you have a hard time getting up at a certain time, set your alarm and put your phone or alarm clock out of reach so you have to get up to turn it off
• Meal prep on the weekends and freeze those meals so you can have lunches/dinners ready on the weekdays when you have less free time (make use of that batching I mentioned above)
• Keep a time journal - write down everything you do, how long you spend on it, and in a week or a month look at where you can make changes in your schedule to cut out time wasting tasks
• Make a daily priority list with no more than 5 tasks- rank these tasks from 1-5 and focus on them ruthlessly
• Discipline will always beat out motivation - I am wholly unmotivated to write this post but I made a plan to increase my output of blog posts. Discipline > motivation
• Schedule everything - even downtime. My calendar looks like a garbled mess of events but I schedule everything in my day right down to the minute. Thus far it has helped me tremendously.

These are just a few of the tips I have that have helped me be more productive. They may work for you or you may find little value in them. Find what works for you through trial and error.

Allow yourself to take breaks for as long as you want or need - Breaks are just as important, if not more important, than working. Enjoy all that your life has to offer. Spend time with your family, go outside and walk around, play video games, veg out on the couch all day and watch TV - do all the things you want to do for your mental/physical health.

And here is the most important part: don't feel bad or guilty for not working. As much as we try to squeeze every ounce of free time out of our schedules for working and focusing we also have to have down time. If for nothing else than to avoid burnout. So go ahead, enjoy time with friends and family (socially distanced or virtually), go for an extended walk, or just enjoy not working. We deserve it!

This is something I struggle with but I'm getting better at it one day at a time.

That's a Wrap

If you've made it this far - thank you. I appreciate you sticking around for the personal stuff. These types of posts are few and far between from me so if you're looking for technical content I have you covered there as well.

I have posts covering large ideas like software development life cycles, negotiating freelance rates, and (if you're interested) more technical based content like TypeScript.

If those don't satiate your technical article needs check out my freeCodeCamp articles which cover a wide range of topics like SQL queries and JavaScript.

While you’re here don’t forget to sign up for my Newsletter – you can do that at the top right of the main blog page.  I promise I’ll never spam your inbox and your information will not be shared with anyone/site.  I like to occasionally send out interesting resources I find, articles about web development, and a list of my newest posts.

If you haven’t yet, you can also connect with me on social media! All of my links are on my main website or found on my profile here. I love connecting with others and meeting new people so don’t afraid to say hi 🙂

Have an awesome day friend and happy coding!