Author: Joshua

What we do with what we have

We don’t always have the option to choose between the options presented to us, but we do have the choice in how we react to those choices, how we let it control us, how we let it fill our minds.  My heart goes out to those who are suffering, struggling, trying to figure their way […]

Voice memos

Years ago my brother started texting me with voice messages. It drove me crazy. I couldn’t process the audio as quickly, had to pause and listen to it, and it in general disrupted the flow of communication. It started up around the time he got into the Apple Watch. It was easier for him to […]

Amateur presenting

This article from Seth is on pointe. I recently hear a great presentation from someone, and was amazed at how well it was put together. There were even decently timed jokes, and a valuable message tied together. I thought after that I didn’t feel I could pull off that type of presentation, but I do […]

Writing daily

For a couple of years I wrote 1,000 words per day. I did that six days a week and wrote out hundreds of thousands of words. It was one of the best practices for unlocking my brain and removing the fear of a blank page. Now if I need to say something I let loose […]

Sleep on it

Some days I spend an innordinate amount of time trying to perfect a design. I wrestle with the tinest details, go over it again and again, iterate, and try to get it to a point where I’m happy with it.  Then I sleep on it, and in the cold light of the morning have a […]

Listening to my books

I like to write. I’ve written a few novels for fun and plugged away at them each day with a thousand words. For years I’ve tried to figure out a way to listen back to the words I wrote each day. Maybe I’ve missed something obvious, but nothing up to this point was working. That […]

Nobody knows what they’re doing

We’re all kind of figuring out life as we move through it. In my experience those who are the most brazen about their superiority and feigned understanding of all things are often the ones most uncertain themselves. I recently chatted with a friend, a generation older than me, about her own experiences on a topic […]

Firing and hiring

My friend, Michał, just posted a fantastic piece touching on what it feels like to get fired, or to use the corporate speak term, “laid off”.  Those tens of thousands of folks being fired from big techs aren’t just numbers. They are names and faces. It’s a known truth that the mass is easier to […]

App Defaults

Continuing on from the article Robb Knight posted. Here are the apps I use in each category.  Mail client: HEY web app Mail Server: HEY custom domains Notes: Notes.app, Bear To-Do: Things 3 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera Photo Management: Photos.app Calendar: Apple Calendar Cloud file storage: iCloud Drive RSS: n/a Contacts: Contacts.app Browser: Safari […]

Hidden Stakeholders followup

As a followup on my article about hidden stakeholders, my co-host and I chatted about this topic on fractional today. Highly recommend giving it a listen if you’ve ever tried to navigate working for one boss, but realized you had another one lurking in the dark. You can listen to the episode here. 

Mars Edit

I’ve written on WordPress for years, and long bemoaned the lack of a great Mac first writing experience. I finally tried Mars Edit and this app is fantastic. I’ve doing all my blog writing on it now. At some point I may share out a proper review, but so far this is great and I’m […]

So you wanna start a podcast?

Here’s the guide I wish I could have found before I started making a podcast. This is by no means comprehensive, but it does have all the basics you’ll need to get started.  It’s also my current understanding as of Fall 2023. I still feel like a complete baby at this, so please share any […]

Hidden stakeholders

My first design project went ok. I was a teenager working toward a spec from my stakeholder and trying to understand the point of what I was making. I was quite green at creating the thing they asked for, but I spent time understanding why they needed it, poked around with the how, and iterated […]

Independence and autonomy

I’ve thought a lot about motivation over the years. When I was younger I thought my struggle to get something done was connected to not knowing enough, or being lazy. As I’ve gotten older though—and last week was my week on my 35th trip around the sun—I realize there’s more to it. My motivation ties […]

AirPods are smartish

Next year is going to be interesting. I’m hoping to save up enough to buy a Vision Pro and experience a new world of audio and visual. Until then, I get the sense (and hear from those who have tried it) that AirPods are the first true dip into an augmented reality world; at least […]

Not so smart app defaults

I loved reading Michal’s take on tools, and how so much of it tends toward the defaults offered by Apple.  I’ve talked about this at length with my friend, Saadi recently, and again appreciate his desire to focus on default system apps first.  My take is a little different.  There’s a spectrum of following the […]

My Wanderlust

I look forward to Apple events.  It’s a fun time of year for me where I can imagine how new hardware and software will improve my life in small or large ways. In some ways this feels silly to talk about, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But I find delight in it and […]

Podcast intro sounds

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts over the years, and as an exercise I wanted to collect the intro sounds from some of my favorites. This is for my own purpose as I try to figure out what I want my podcasts to sound like in their intros (fractional.fm for now, and more […]