Author: Joshua

Jonas Downey, from Basecamp, shared an article this morning about his experience in creative work. I agree 100%. You can read his full article, which I highly recommend.  “Start thinking about productivity in terms of quality time instead of clock time. You might end up making the same progress with only 20 energetic hours that you would…

When you enjoy your work there can be a natural bent towards encouraging it to become all absorbing. This can also happen if things are going very wrong at work.  Last week I was really inspired by a book from the guys at Basecamp. This, along with the writings of Cal Newport, has given me…

A few months ago our team at XWP was tasked with the challenge of building AMP Stories in WordPress. We began working with the team at Google to come up with an initial minimum viable product. Following are some of my messy sketches showing our process and what it took to move from the initial…

Tomorrow I’ll be turning 31. Instead of writing about being 30 at the start of the year, I want to share my thoughts on the last day of it. I could speak directly to experiences in my life (I’ve had many wonderful ones!), things I’m thankful for (the list is long), or people who mean…

Anxiety doesn’t generally come from making decisions, but rather from the time spent deliberating on whether to make a decision.  At a certain point there’s enough information gathered, and a choice should be made. That choice isn’t always Option A vs Option B, but could include Option C all the way to Option Z.  If…

You can tell someone what you’re thinking, and convey that in a way that you believe is correct. But that’s only a very small part of what it means to communicate something.  Communication happens through the words you choose to say, the words you leave unsaid, the way your words are shared, and the language…

Writing down an idea is a way to gather your thoughts and think through a problem. It’s also a way to decompress after a long day.  I’ve found over the years that I need to get out what I’m thinking in some form. Sometimes that comes down to sharing with a close friend how my…

You run into an interesting situation the moment you introduce more than one person into a project. Whereas at the start a project may have been from the mind of just one, now you have a few folks weighing in. At this point multiple opinions enter into a discussion, and you have to make decisions…

There are times when you’re presented with two opposing views. Surely two sides of something can’t both be correct at the same time, right?  Life usually isn’t black and white on everything. If you’re trying to figure out the best way forward on something, and are looking at multiple options that seem to have no…

Five projects are due next week. You’re a blocker for two teams across four of those projects. You need to hire three new team members to handle all the work going on, but you have no time to find that hire.  What do you do? You could work 12-15 hour days. You could find a…

On Friday I stepped away from work. Lots going on, but I had done what I could to get things in place for Monday. And with that, for the most part I was off until Monday morning.  On Saturday our family spent some time in the afternoon hiking with friends out in nature. Part of…

If you’ve ever try to build something, at some point you’ll need to figure out what it should look like. As a result you’ll probably turn to creating a wireframe or prototype. That’s a good thing. Try to get it into a visual medium (a sketch, a cardboard prop, a whiteboard diagram). However, as you…

There are times where we may feel that we have a bit too much going on. That might mean having a bunch of unactioned emails, unmarked todo list items, unread Slack messages (marked that way after taking a peak), or handful of text docs floating around. At these times it’s easy for paralysis to set in.…

Sometimes there are days where you’ve done it. You accomplished a herculean task. You got all the way through and by applying every last bit of energy you pulled off the impossible. Days like that are magical, and unfortunately, can be rare. If you’ve reached that point in a day where it’s all come together…

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working with our team on several design related projects. Since we’re all remote, and only get a few opportunities a year to spend time in the same room, we need to find a way to work in collaboration.  While it’s not quite a perfect system, remote paired designing…

It’s a bit of a circular game. You’re available to do stuff, so you say yes, and yes, and yes some more. Then pretty soon you’ve taken on too much, and things start to slip. At first it’s just a little, barely noticeable.  Then, over time you get used to it. The slipping becomes normal.…

You’re generous, understanding, and forgiving of your best friends. You understand when they mess up and aren’t able to meet everything they thought they could. You’re there for everyone else, you’re making a difference for others, giving consideration for when things just couldn’t quite come together, and recognizing the frailty of humanity.  So, why aren’t…

My son is five years old. I’m busy. Life gets in the way. Work is always there, another conference call, another task, just one more email. It never stops. It’s easy to keep going, to tell yourself that an extra couple of hours in the evening will make a difference. But then my son sits…

Is there something you care deeply about?  Do you regularly find yourself frustrated with how things work? Are you constantly thinking about ways to make something better? Your voice should be shared.  Even if you don’t feel that you’re the most qualified (hint: you rarely feel qualified), the impact you can create by sharing cannot…