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Joshua Wold

Designing calm software

Collectively, these three features are explorations in the idea of software explicitly designed around taking breaks. Break and holiday mode let you disable your reader while you are away. Catch-up mode helps you catch up after you have been away for a while. Night mode lets you configure your account

The year I outlived my father

This morning I rewatched Steve Job’s Stanford commencement address. It’s as good as I remember, and even hits better as I get older. If you’ve never seen it, today’s your lucky day. I’d highly encourage you to pause and watch it. If it’s been

Embracing the rhythm of days

Last month I felt worn out. I’d completely filled up my time with numerous tasks. In hindsight, all of them were things I wanted to do, each worth consideration, and having earned a right to be on my todo list. But taken together it was too much. And if

Earnest over brash

When you first join a new team it’s hard to figure out how to connect well. You’re trying to understand your the dynamic, where your strengths fit in, and what weaknesses need to be shored up. When you first start with a team—or frankly at anytime; you

Ryan Gosling nails the tone of Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir is one of my favorite writers. He doesn’t put out books at the pace I’d prefer (we can’t all be Brandon Sanderson), but boy does he nail it with every book. The Martian was a perfect story. It’s the sort of book I go

Losing yourself in the story, telling your story, design chaos, making it all fit, finding your crazy

Here are my five top articles this week. Thank you as always for reading. * Lost in worlds, found in our world - Reading fiction opens up how we see our own world. If you haven’t found a great novel recently I encourage you to try again. I’ve got

Finding your unique crazy fans

There are no new ideas. Instead there’s riffing and adding to existing ideas. Austin Kleon lays this out beautifully in his book series, starting with, Steal Like An artist, which obviously steals its title from earlier references. Part of the magic of ideas is taking them from multiples sources

Fitting in all the tiny things

Last week I wrote about saying no. It’s a lesson I’m constantly re-learning. The problem is there’s so many things that I want to do. Even when I’ve managed to cut my tasks down to a tiny list, I inevitably look for ways to add in

Wrestling through design chaos

Do I go with a table view, or a card layout? Do I make this page of the dashboard as a parent, or a child? Should a selected row on the table allow for deep filtering, multiple dynamic actions, or simply changing a single status? Questions like these, and dozens

Each person has a story

Fog rolled across the windshield as we parked our car against the driftwood. We got out, zipped our coats all the way to the top, and fastened the buttons over the zippers. Waves lapped against the shore as we moved from the hard surface of the asphalt to the squishy