On November 11, 2018 I was able to speak at WordCamp Seattle  on my experience contributing to WordPress Core as a non-developer. In 2017 I wrote about my initial experience, and now now I’ll be planning to expand on what’s happened since.  Let me tell you, it’s been an amazing ride! For years I’d had interest […]

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 […]