I’m in North Carolina tonight speaking at a conference. I hear that today, NC passed the amendment to ban gay marriage. It just makes me happy I live in a place that believes in equality and has evolved past institutional and political hatred toward gays. Because if you ask me, NYC is its own entity. We exist somewhere between America and the best country in the world— and it’s called NYC.
Virginity by Major (At Wellesley)
New York’s hottest brunch spots, Edi and the Wolf is definitely an east village favorite!
(via New York’s Hottest Brunch Spots, Spring 2012 - Brunch Heat Map - Eater NY || Percolate - Image source )
A lot goes into the clothes that make you look good. Tonight, when your suit catches an eye, know there was a lot of passion and work that went into making you look that good. Go be Extraordinary.
I’m not normally a fan of Cocktails with just one spirit in them, especially brand made cocktails. Hell, I even hate cranberry juice. But I imagine this to be quite tasty :)
Having a big monitor means having a lot of workspace, which in turn means higher productivity, right? WRONG! I’ve recently came back from nearly 2 months long trip abroad, where I was working full-time remotely with the rest of my office, located in Scotland and I wanted to share my observations with you.
My productivity during that time increased, despite working on small laptop, so I started analyzing how this experience changed the way I work now. I hope we can get a good conversation going on Hacker News and create a list of useful tips for staying productive.
TL;DR
Get yourself a 12” notebook and move your ass out of the office! Now!
Screen
First, look at your monitor, the one you use for work. There’s a chance that it’s a big fat 27” Mac screen or at least something in the neighborhood of 24” compatible with PC. Now look at your favourite editor that you use for work. How much of this space is really taken by the code you’re working on? 1/3rd? 1/4th?
Having a big screen is a good excuse to stick a Twitter client here, mail client there, have list of files pane constantly open, and in general keep every window at some random size, definitely not full-screen. In best-case scenario you’re just lost in open documents and you’re juggling windows, dragging them to the left, to the right, pushing out of visible workspace etc. More realistic scenario: everything above + each open app takes a bit of your attention, which is counter-productive and annoys you in the longer run.
Back in the office I have 27” Mac workstation that has been replaced by 12” laptop while I was abroad. Having screen resolution (and physical dimensions) over 4x smaller than usual, forced me to change the way I work - every window is always maximized (preferably full-screen), every element of app’s interface that is not extremely useful is hidden. As a web developer I’m constantly switching between text editor and browser and frankly, having everything maximized, the amount of code that I can see without scrolling is just slightly decreased comparing to what I had on 27”.
Takeaway:
Replace your screen with a smaller one.
This one needs separate paragraph. Twitter is an amazing tool to communicate with others, especially for us, geeks, but it’s also a very big source of distraction. I’ve spent 2 months without Twitter client, using only their website to occasionally tweet something or reply to tweets where I was mentioned. Movement on the side of your screen caused by new tweet can easily destroy your focus built over last half hour and you have to start again from square one.
Takeaway:
Keep Twitter client off, or at least hide it.
Skype/Email
Skype and email are both great tools to communicate with your colleagues if you do it the right way. Working remotely forces you to communicate clearer, plan better and keep track of your work. Try to cut all the crap from your Skype and email conversations. Filtering fluff and leaving conversations about lolcats is a good start to better focus on task at hand.
It’s also a good idea to set up email notifications to, let’s say, once every half hour. If there’s anything urgent, people can always call you, right?
Takeaway:
Reconfigure your email client and don’t let others drag you into pointless conversations.
People around you
It’s really nice to work with others in the office and I enjoy it quite a lot (is it just me?), especially if you have a good, friendly atmosphere at work, but usually people == distraction.
If you’re away - your colleagues have to call you on Skype or send an email to contact you, which means an effort for them, so they are less likely to do it if they don’t need you that badly. If you’re physically in the office, all it takes is just leaning over monitors and asking a question.
Being away also reduces your ability to attend meetings, which means you will be forced to Skype-attend only important ones - that can save quite a lot of time.
Takeaway:
Find location, where people can reach you only when they need you.
Surroundings
Working in the same location 40h per week, every week can be really boring. Changing place you work from can do wonders to your productivity and morale, as long as you have access to everything that you need. In my case it’s decent internet connection and power outlet, which gives me quite a lot of flexibility.
Takeaway:
Remote work allows you to change place as you please (depending on your needs).
Conclusion
All above comes from comparison between working on-site and working remotely. I enjoy both, and I believe that you need both to stay sane. Average human being is rather social beast, but sometimes you need few days without anyone else to get things done before deadlines. Working remotely off of 12”-13” laptop can give you a boost that you don’t expect and erases many “I’d like to, but…”.
And as a bonus, working from a different country (even full-time) lets you explore foreign cultures, learn new languages (much more efficient than language schools), meet a lot of new people, make friends with them and increase quality of your life!
Do you have good tips for productivity or stories about working remotely? Share them in the comments below.
If you read this far, you should follow me on Twitter.
You can also read:
How to Convert Bookmarklet to Chrome Extension
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Logging in with QR codes
A couple of people asked me where I was hiking yesterday that afforded this view an hour north of NYC without a car, so I thought I’d write a post to answer it. The short answer: Harriman State Park and Bear Mountain State Park.
The long answer: Yesterday for me was a training hike in preparation for a summer of pretty intense backpacking, so I started at the Harriman State Park entrance at the intersection of Rte. 17 and Arden Valley Road (where Short Line buses en route to Southfields will stop if you request it) and walked 18 miles across the Appalachian Trail to Bear Mountain to catch the 5:19 bus back to Port Authority. (Thanks to next week’s Appalachian Mountain Club backpacking trip leader Debbie for recommending this hike!)
The fine print: I got a ride on the way up (hired a Taskrabbit) in order to give myself an extra hour to make it to Bear Mountain, and as it turns out, I needed that hour. You need to be in really good shape to make it those 18 miles if you’re getting dropped off by the bus around 9:30 (which is when the earliest bus on a weekend will get you there), so I don’t recommend this unless you either 1) are in ridiculously good shape and know it, and aren’t planning to stop much at all, or 2) have a room booked that night at the Bear Mountain Inn (right off the AT), which seems to book up really fast.
That said: You can take the bus to Bear Mountain, too! There’s an 8:45 AM bus that leaves Port Authority and will drop you off right at the Bear Mountain Inn. Then, you can hike up Bear Mountain (steep, but most of the steep parts are in steps cut out of the rock that make it a lot easier) and then come back down, or if you’re up for more of a challenge, follow the AT further to West Mountain, the next climb over. It’s steeper and less well maintained, but there are great views and fewer crowds — the summit of Bear Mountain is accessible by car and can be really touristy. West Mountain has plenty of rocky outcroppings near the summit that are the perfect place for a quiet picnic. Then you can turn around and head back to Bear Mountain in time to catch that bus.
When people talk about day hikes that New Yorkers can easily get to without a car, most people seem to bring up Breakneck Ridge, which I love (especially if you take the trail that winds up in Cold Spring so you can enjoy some much-needed comfort food and beer), but it’s by no means the only option. You can do a lot of research on the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference site, or you can join the Appalachian Mountain Club for a full year’s worth of group hiking trips. There are a lot of groups in the NYC area that organize these kinds of trips, but I like the AMC because it’s cheaper, it’s no-frills, and it’s a non-profit that does amazing things to keep trails along the Eastern Seaboard in shape.
And I love the AT, something I’m reminded of every time that I see one of its trail signs that lets me know I could, technically, if I really wanted to, keep going all the way to northern Maine uninterrupted.
A Polaroid photo of Edwin Land with his SX-70 camera.
Read about the history of Land, Polaroid and instant photography.
Photo: Life
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James Webb Young, writing in his 1939 guide to producing ideas, articulates a timeless truth about the relationship between curiosity and creativity. (via explore-blog)
curiosity-the skeleton key to a life well lived. |
As if being home with the flu wasn’t defeating enough (Taken with instagram)
