---
title: Slow Productivity, Write The Docs
slug: slow-productivity-write-the-docs
published_at: 2024-05-27 15:00:00 +0000
updated_at: 2024-11-18 21:17:16 +0000
summary: In this episode, you'll hear about the Write the Docs conference in Portland, a must-attend for anyone in the tech writing community. CJ and Colin chatted about the unique, community-focused vibe of the event, which was akin to RailsConf or RubyConf, and shared some standout talks. One highlight is Calvin Fung's "Beyond Words: Strategies for Leveling Up Your Tech Writing Career," where he details practical tips for documenting your work and aligning it with your job description to advance your career. They also discuss creative ways to enhance documentation using interactive elements, and offers tips on how to get involved and meet people at conferences.You'll also hear about "Slow Productivity," Cal Newport's book that has us rethinking how they manage their workloads. We'll discuss the book’s core principles: (1) doing fewer things, (2) working at a natural pace, and (3) obsessing over quality. This leads to a deep dive into managing distractions, the anxiety around being constantly responsive, and the value of deep, focused work. Plus, they share updates on fun projects at Craftwork, like organizing painting crews with a drag-and-drop interface and rebuilding a pricing engine. Finally, they touch on their DIY approach to calendar management and Colin’s adventures in learning Unity for game development. This episode is packed with insights and practical advice for balancing productivity and creativity in the tech world.ResourcesAfford Anything podcasthttps://affordanything.com/495-cal-newport-the-shocking-secret-of-productivity/Write The Docs https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2024/speakers/ Slow Productivityhttps://amzn.to/3UNP0qT 
description: <div>In this episode, you'll hear about the Write the Docs conference in Portland, a must-attend for anyone in the tech writing community. CJ and Colin chatted about the unique, community-focused vibe of the event, which was akin to RailsConf or RubyConf, and shared some standout talks. One highlight is Calvin Fung's \"Beyond Words: Strategies for Leveling Up Your Tech Writing Career,\" where he details practical tips for documenting your work and aligning it with your job description to advance your career. They also discuss creative ways to enhance documentation using interactive elements, and offers tips on how to get involved and meet people at conferences.<br><br></div><div>You'll also hear about \"Slow Productivity,\" Cal Newport's book that has us rethinking how they manage their workloads. We'll discuss the book’s core principles: (1) doing fewer things, (2) working at a natural pace, and (3) obsessing over quality. This leads to a deep dive into managing distractions, the anxiety around being constantly responsive, and the value of deep, focused work. Plus, they share updates on fun projects at Craftwork, like organizing painting crews with a drag-and-drop interface and rebuilding a pricing engine. Finally, they touch on their DIY approach to calendar management and Colin’s adventures in learning Unity for game development. This episode is packed with insights and practical advice for balancing productivity and creativity in the tech world.<br><br><strong>Resources</strong></div><ul><li>Afford Anything podcast<ul><li><a href=\"https://affordanything.com/495-cal-newport-the-shocking-secret-of-productivity/\">https://affordanything.com/495-cal-newport-the-shocking-secret-of-productivity/</a></li></ul></li><li>Write The Docs <ul><li><a href=\"https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2024/speakers/\">https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2024/speakers/</a> </li></ul></li><li>Slow Productivity<ul><li><a href=\"https://amzn.to/3UNP0qT\"><strong>https://amzn.to/3UNP0qT</strong></a><strong> </strong></li></ul></li></ul>
duration: 2423
keywords: []
author: CJ Avilla
co_author: Colin Loretz
url: https://www.cjav.dev/podcasts/slow-productivity-write-the-docs
embed_url: https://share.transistor.fm/e/4f1d7bfd
share_url: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4f1d7bfd
image_url: 
podcast_show: Build and Learn
type: podcast_episode
---

# Slow Productivity, Write The Docs

*Published: May 27, 2024*
*Duration: 2423 seconds*
*Podcast: Build and Learn*

## Listen

[Listen on the web](https://share.transistor.fm/e/4f1d7bfd)
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## Show Notes

<div>In this episode, you'll hear about the Write the Docs conference in Portland, a must-attend for anyone in the tech writing community. CJ and Colin chatted about the unique, community-focused vibe of the event, which was akin to RailsConf or RubyConf, and shared some standout talks. One highlight is Calvin Fung's "Beyond Words: Strategies for Leveling Up Your Tech Writing Career," where he details practical tips for documenting your work and aligning it with your job description to advance your career. They also discuss creative ways to enhance documentation using interactive elements, and offers tips on how to get involved and meet people at conferences.<br><br></div><div>You'll also hear about "Slow Productivity," Cal Newport's book that has us rethinking how they manage their workloads. We'll discuss the book’s core principles: (1) doing fewer things, (2) working at a natural pace, and (3) obsessing over quality. This leads to a deep dive into managing distractions, the anxiety around being constantly responsive, and the value of deep, focused work. Plus, they share updates on fun projects at Craftwork, like organizing painting crews with a drag-and-drop interface and rebuilding a pricing engine. Finally, they touch on their DIY approach to calendar management and Colin’s adventures in learning Unity for game development. This episode is packed with insights and practical advice for balancing productivity and creativity in the tech world.<br><br><strong>Resources</strong></div><ul><li>Afford Anything podcast<ul><li><a href="https://affordanything.com/495-cal-newport-the-shocking-secret-of-productivity/">https://affordanything.com/495-cal-newport-the-shocking-secret-of-productivity/</a></li></ul></li><li>Write The Docs <ul><li><a href="https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2024/speakers/">https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2024/speakers/</a> </li></ul></li><li>Slow Productivity<ul><li><a href="https://amzn.to/3UNP0qT"><strong>https://amzn.to/3UNP0qT</strong></a><strong> </strong></li></ul></li></ul>

## Full Transcript

  All right.  What's up?  How's it going?  Colin?  Welcome back.  Doing pretty good.  How are you?  Great.  there was a conference    this last week, right?  The docs  I've heard really great things about it.  And a lot of my docs writing friends, have    given talks and recommended going before.  And I think, it was one of those    that I've always wanted to go to.  so yeah, how was it?  Yeah, it was great.  this one was in Portland.  There is an Atlantic one that's virtual    and then an Australia one that's dates  and stuff are going to be coming out.  So for our global audience, if you want    to check out the Australian version  or tune into the virtual one, all    the talks, thankfully go online too.  So even for the Portland one, they'll be    coming up, but it was really cool to have  such a, Specific niche topic instead of    it being like a generic tech conference.  Or I think a lot of tech    conferences lately are like  product announcement conferences    for the companies that run them.  so like Stripe sessions is next    week and it's fun, but it's  very much, big feature launches.  thought leadership bringing in, open AI    to come chat, for interviews and stuff.  What I liked the most about write    the docs is it felt like community  conferences like RailsConf or    RubyConf very community focused,  very just lovely community smaller.  So you actually get to  meet people.  and they had a bunch of really    good talks and like an unconference  lightning talks, things like that.  So I, I actually was a    volunteer for this one.  So I was helping, speakers get    miked up and make sure their  slides are working and everything.  And a little hack if you're going    to a conference, to get involved.  I think this is because I've run too many    events, but I can't really just enjoy.  Sitting in the audience, I need    to be like doing something and it  helps me to then meet the speakers.  going from getting them set up to,    talking to them afterwards and then  adding them on LinkedIn and hanging out,    at the, at lunch and stuff like that.  It's just, it's a good way to meet people    if you don't know who's going to be there.  so free little tip for you.  That's a great tip.  Yeah.  were there any talks that really stood out  so I was still aware of all the    talks cause I was in the wings.  So I was there in case like    Mike's died and stuff like that.  So I was listening to all the talks.  a good friend of the show, Calvin    Fung, he was one of the speakers.  And he  did a really good talk that was focused    on how to document and track your work  and tying it to your job description    and levels so that when you have a  conversation about getting to the next    level or getting a promotion it's not  left to chance like And how to work    with your manager to prove that like  the list that you're following and    the artifacts you're creating to prove  that you're ready for a promotion    are the ones that they agree with.  so there's no surprises.  If you're a single writer on a team and    you don't have a really well defined  job description, then Like basically    like you, you make one for yourself and  you track it and you're using like a    progress tracker, like in a video game.  that talk we'll definitely share when it    comes out, but I think it was very much  appreciated by the audience where it    seemed like a lot of people were either  looking for work or trying to figure    out how Break into that next level of,  I've been doing everything right, but    I'm getting passed up on promotions  or new projects, things like that.  sometimes the things that are    happening in our head is not  necessarily what's happening in    reality, or we just do the work.  I'm very guilty of this.  Like I'll just do things because    it's my job and I don't necessarily  go shout it out there and then    nobody knows that it happened.  I take those for granted    because they're easy for me.  But you should document them and    have that little like brag document  that you can use for reviews.  Yeah.  This is something we've talked about    a couple of times in the show, having  a brag doc or a set of five 15s or    some sort of, documentation or just  writing down what you're doing.  Journaling what you're doing week    to week can be super helpful.  Super helpful to just like    in terms of motivation, but  also to make these arguments.  That looks like an awesome talk,    from Calvin and it is called beyond  words, strategies for leveling    up your tech writing career.  So I'll have to go watch that.  it was good.  That one, honestly could apply to any job.  but I think for documentarians,    especially like they don't always,  they're already writing a lot.  So writing about the writing or writing    about what they're doing is not always  the first thing that they reach for.  there was a really good talk about    using this one's pretty, relevant  to you, which is having, you've done    so many great videos on programming  and Stripe and how to build things.  And it was a lot about like how    to use other things than just  words in your documentation.  So how to include.  illustrations, graphs, videos, but they    are big thing because we've always talked  about on the show how maintaining video    based docs is like extremely time heavy  and expensive at the end of the day.  And they actually made the    call out of it's boring.  your videos are not boring CJ, but it's    boring to just show code on screen.  And it  comes out of date so fast that like    video should probably be used for  concepts that don't go out of date.  And then those are evergreen and you can    update the words around it maybe every  now and then you might need to come in    with a new voiceover or whatever, but they  actually use drawings instead of onscreen.  Because you do have a little bit of,    called like key man risk when you have  a certain person who's known as the face    of the docks or the face of a company.  we saw this a little bit with    planet scale and, Aaron Francis  too, with everyone thought.  you know that he's the face of planet    scale to the point where people thought  he was the owner of planet scale.  Yeah.  but, yeah, so pretty cool.  Just, different ways    of thinking about that.  One of the talks was on tool chains for    authors where, we have things like open  API specs and all these great tools    like Markdown, but man, some of the  tools out there, like a lot of authors    still do their work in Microsoft word,  And having labels and tags in a word doc    that then get generated into a schema  that then get turned into a printed book.  Like that talk, I was like in    pain watching the stuff that  you had to do for Microsoft.  but then she had also done a bunch of    more, online first tool chains too.  some of these companies you're documenting    things and it gets really, Printed out on  paper delivered to a manufacturing floor.  And anytime there's a change to it, it has    to be reprinted and put back on the floor.  We take this for granted that we can    just push and merge, PR and it's done.  but yeah, working in the    physical world is, it's always  a little bit more challenging.  So  Totally.  one of the talks that looked really    interesting in terms of the title that  I would love to go back, and check    out is the one about, interactive  code snippets, like in the docs.  It looks like it's called code in    content using dynamic interactive  elements in your technical writing.  Yeah.  So that one was from    Taylor from Redockley.  They talked a little bit about Mark doc.  They talked a little about MDX.  they talked a little bit about redock.  Lee, it wasn't like a sponsored    session, but it was cool to see,  like, how do you verify and validate    that like your code samples work?  And, I would say that this conference    I think was more writers than coders.  So a little bit more mysticism around.  Docs is code a little bit like I  think like a git for  technical writers would be a big hit    with this crowd well, so maybe that'll  be a talk submission for next year.  But  sweet.  Yeah.  It, I was curious what the composition    was at least, or your perception of it  in terms of dev rel versus docs, writers    versus engineers that build docs products.  yeah, it was a pretty    good mix It was a lot of  writers.  I like that.  They had this term.  I don't even know if it's a real    world, but that dot documentarians  Okay.  writers, because you have    ops and CI and CD, you have  dev rel, who sometimes writes the    docs, sometimes doesn't, in our case,  we wear the technical writer hat.  We also are the editor and the deployer  and, we'll do videos and stuff.  But, There were some people    who work on open API stuff.  There were all sorts of    across the tool chain.  So from that perspective, it was    cool because you're going to be  meeting, it's not just, Oh, I'm    a software engineer at X company.  It's, I'm a tech writer for a life    sciences tool that you've never heard of.  And there's a high bar for getting    that Because tooling spits out  information that needs to be right.  So it  Some of my favorite colleagues from    Stripe were docs writers so I might have  to go to the next write the docs just    to try to bump into some old homies.  We'll see.  I think we should take a build    and learn goes on a road show.  We do a  live at ride the docks.  Yeah.  Yeah.  It'd be a blast.  so last episode you teased this book    called Slow Productivity by Cal Newport.  And, uh.  we agreed that we were going to read    it by the next time we were recording.  And I was like, you're ready.  And this is like a meta realization    while trying to listen to a book  about productivity, or about like    slow productivity in particular.  I recognize that I don't have.  Seven hours or whatever in a week    where I'm like, just free to chill  and listen to a book or listen to    podcasts or whatever, like between  walks and like all this stuff.  And I found myself listening.  We'll get into the content of the    book, but I found myself listening  to sections that were like.  if you're multitasking and, here's an    example, like the person is doing this and  they're filling out these documents for    HR and they're doing that and whatever.  And they're doing all these    tasks poorly and slowly, and  it's causing them all the stress.  And I'm like, listening to that    while I'm trying to multitask myself,  like submitting or like reviewing    a PR and responding to something  on Slack and doing 10 other things.  I'm like, wait a second.  I like, I'm literally being told    in my ear that this is bad for me.  Like I should slow down a little bit  honestly, some of these books, they, you    could be reading it when you have all the  time in the world and you're like, this    book is so like obvious to me, but books  like this, and I would say essentialism    and atomic habits, like you can read them.  And if you don't have this    problem, you don't get it.  And if you are doing what you're talking    about, it's like a lightning bolts.  Yeah.  like, what am I doing    with my life right now?  Yep.  Absolutely.  It's a good  wake up call.  it was, yeah.  so I guess like, the first thing    you shared was a podcast episode.  and so I went and listened to    that first and I thought that it  did have a pretty solid overlap    with the content in the book.  I can't remember what    the name of the podcast  Yeah, the podcast was the afford anything    podcast, which I think it was a good  foil to talking to Cal because, Paula    pant is like in the fire community.  She's a real estate investor and    she's very much would self describe  herself as a, hustle or, In the    best, in the good way of describing  that, like she's go all the time.  She's got lots of big things she's    trying to accomplish in her life.  and you can actually see it in    that interview and we'll relink  it as well, if you don't have    time to listen to the whole book.  Cause you can see her struggle a little    bit with the idea of not being on  Twitter, or not being on social media.  And he does make a big case for the fact.  It's that's wasting your time.  if you really want to.  do these large tentpole milestones    in your life to produce books  of, great work or whatever.  you can get distracted in the small really    easily of I need to do 20 different tweets  this week and see which one goes viral.  And it's is that really your audience?  Or is it  just, spending time and I saw    this with bootstrap web too.  one of the guys over there was talking    about how he'll just, he's spending  every morning now crafting like a bunch    of tweets and hoping one of them hits.  And I was like, that's Half of every    day that you're spending on Twitter.  And I find myself spending    less and less time on Twitter.  I don't know that's the best    place to put all that energy.  maybe your blog, your newsletter,    things like that, where you control  that makes sense, but ultimately    just like the title of the book,  it's going to be a slow climb.  Like when you look at Cassidy Williams,    newsletter subscriptions over time, I  guarantee you, it's not a hockey stick.  It's probably the slow March    of putting out a newsletter  every single week for years.  And just getting more and more    subscribers and she's writing  thoughtful content each week.  It's not like a bunch of little    pithy tweets that you hope one of  them gets viral for some, clickbait    reason or something like that.  the connection that I only made after    listening to the book was that slow  productivity is named after a lot of    other phenomenon that came before it.  one of them was slow food.  or something like that, right?  Like instead of fast food, it's like    being super intentional and slowing  down and really enjoying the meal.  And you sit down and there's all    these different like courses that come  out and you're enjoying each of the    different flavors and things like that.  And there's been a bunch of other quote    unquote slow, movements, but, yeah,  slow productivity is really interesting.  There's three different core    tenets, One is do fewer things.  Two is work at a natural pace.  Three is obsess over quality.  And, I think part of it that struck me    the hardest too, was like, it's something  I've been struggling with a little bit.  I can't remember how much we've talked    about this on the show is that, we've  done a couple of personality type    tests at Kraftwerk just to figure  out where people are on the team    and how they fit with each other.  And one of the results from the    tests shows you basically like what  you think a good employee should be.  Versus what you actually are or    something, or like what you think,  someone should be doing versus what you    think would be like good for you to do.  And that mismatch in my head has been    becoming more and more obvious that  I think a good employee should be    hyper engaged on Slack or discord or  email or like all of these places.  And, your personal SLA    should be super, super low.  And you want to respond to everybody    and unblock and make sure that you're  not the reason why anything is slowing    down and also be checking off lots of  different tasks and committing tons    of code and writing, like shipping  PRs and shipping content and shipping    this and shipping that like, that's  what I've painted in my head is the    picture of what a good employee is.  But the reality is Oh, in order    to do good work, you've really got  to like, Slow down, pick one major    project that is actually going to  move the needle for the business.  Even if that means like ignoring    slack or ignoring other things  in lieu of your big project.  and yeah, so that, that kind    of struck me as okay, shoot.  I, I want to have really impactful work.  But I'm not able to do that if I'm    spending most of my time, being hyper  reactive, hyper responsive, and also on    the like treadmill of trying to just check  off as many tasks as possible per week.  And so it's Oh, it's actually better if    instead of shipping 20 features a week.  You ship half of a feature per week, but    that feature ends up being like a really  big, important feature or something, like,  think the  challenge with that is, are you    actually shipping 20 features?  If you look at things.  Yeah, exactly.  And like when  20 features  and shipping  none?  Yes.  Or are the, are the 20 features like,    small things like bug fixes and, oh,  now we can order the list this way,    or, now we have some other like really  simple CRUD interface to do X, Y, or Z,    or we have this simple API integration  versus a whole new product area  or something that's very particular    to our business or something.  Yeah.  I think some of this is a little at    odds with startup culture too, right?  We're like obsessed over    quality and this natural pace.  It's okay, if we only have so long to    prove this out, can we really obsess  over quality if we're like, maybe we're    working on the wrong thing and we need  to do a few, hits a bat type of situation    where we need quality to a certain point?  And natural pace is fine.  But like at the same time, if we showed up    and said, we're going to do all a hundred  things at once to see which one works,    like your team is going to get burnt out.  So  it's a give and take for sure.  And to your point there, if I    didn't defend my time and there  are some days that feel like this    very easily, I could be playing  whack a mole on pings and emails.  And alerts and other    people demanding my time.  And so I've been trying to figure out    like this, like poll, polling or poll,  like pulling work off of the thing where    it's like maybe at certain times of  day, I'm going to go check all the pings    and then write down what I need to do  later instead of doing it right away.  Or do I have an office    hours of some sort, right?  And I love how some of this is    people will make these demands of you  because it doesn't cost them anything.  But the moment they have to come    to office hours, or they have to go  add it to your list, they sometimes    just are like, just kidding.  I'm not going to fill this out.  Unfortunately they might go ask    someone who is not defending their  time, or they go figure it out for    themselves, which is what we hope.  There were a couple of different tactics    that I thought were really interesting.  one of them is having a    docket clearing meeting.  So you just have a standing meeting.  Once a week or something where you    and your team, your, the people  you're collaborating with, you    run through, discuss anything that  needs to be discussed, hash things    out that need to be hashed out so  that everyone can get back to work.  another one was simulated    pull, which is yeah, just,  everything goes into some queue.  And then when you are free from your like    deep work, you can break out and then  pull the things that need to be pulled.  And then the other one, yeah, it    was like holding office hours.  And what I thought was really interesting    is that Cal Newport, he like his  software engineer by training, right?  Like he's his computer    scientist by training.  And a lot of these things are things    that tech companies do, right?  Like the docket clearing meeting to    me is let's have a standup, a weekly  standup where we're going to run    through and do like ticket triage  and see like, where's the tickets.  And then the poll based simulated    poll is okay, all the tickets go  into linear or JIRA or whatever.  And you don't assign    them to anybody until.  The there's like free time for    them to like, actually do it.  The office hours is something that    the support team at Stripe used to do  where it was like, to avoid getting    hit up all the time by account managers  or product teams or whatever, they    would hold office hours so that.  on a weekly basis, folks could show up    for that one hour and ask any questions  they want and get direct help, on    the things that they need help for.  And I think that really    streamlined a lot for them.  Did people  use those office hours?  they did.  And I think part of    the key to it was that.  Justin Michael, who's like amazing    engineer for each office hour, he would  create a custom like presentation.  That was really fun.  And like a, an infographic type situation    that would show a Stripe workflow.  And so it would seed the    office hour with a discussion.  So it wasn't just like,  all right, I'm around during    this time for you to come.  Yeah.  So it's like a lightning talk, almost    like a weekly lightning talk about  the Stripe API for internal folks.  And  Cause that's the pushback I've    gotten so far when I've said I want  office hours to no one, there'll    just be you sitting here by yourself  because and their argument was    like fires don't happen when  you schedule your office hours.  I'm like, yeah, the point is this    is not a firefighting session.  And  Yeah.  Exactly.  what is it?  I know that there will    be fires, so that's fine,  but it doesn't happen.  Everything should not be a fire.  It's the important thing.  Yeah.  and I think the book really    focuses on this idea that.  They went through a lot    of historical figures.  If you zoom in on any one day, you might    find them in a park or out in nature.  And there was actually a    lot of focus on nature.  Granted, a lot of these    people also were pre computer.  Uh, some would argue we should all    be spending more time in nature.  Nature, but that when you zoomed out    that there are these big, Nobel peace  prizes and big discoveries and work,    but they had that deep work time.  And then they had that time to    go away and think and let things  run in the background process.  Like thinking about, radioactivity,    but I'm not done yet.  And I'm going to go off and think about    it and something that you do just clicks  while you're out doing something else.  Totally.  Yeah.  One of the things that we're    doing right now at Craftwork is re  imagining how we handle pricing.  And one of the things we're planning    to do is rebuild our price engine.  And.  I, like when I started thinking about    this is when I started reading the  book and then I've realized that, I,    if I really just slow down and think  about pricing and pricing engines and    data models for pricing and things,  then stuff starts to click into place    and I started to make discoveries.  Like a lot of times when I'm not at    the computer, so I'm like, chopping  wood in the backyard or I'm out    walking the dog or I'm, driving to  the dump or, just random times where    I'm like, Oh, what if it did this?  Or what if you could, build a rule    engine that had certain conditions  that apply this way or whatever.  It's huh, it's like a paint by    numbers where each of the little cells  are getting filled in with color.  In the background when you're not    even thinking about it on purpose.  And yeah, you've just got to wait until    it's a full, bright, vibrant picture  before you sit down and do the work,  or do the like production    of the work, I don't know.  That's the same with sleep.  Like we need sleep and we need time    away to let garbage collection go.  It's like your brain's gotta let    go of some things and then discover  some new things and make some new    connections to other things and  chopping wood in the backyard.  you can't really focus on anything    else, but your brain's still chugging  away on something back there.  That's right.  Yeah.  Yeah.  I don't know.  It's a great recommendation.  I, yeah, I took a lot    away from it and I think.  There are likely several    adjustments I'm going to make to  the way that I think about stuff.  is there anything you've already put    in place or you're thinking about?  I'm trying to figure out,    I want to do office hours.  So I'm trying to figure out    how we can pull that off.  I think the big one is like the days    where I find myself playing whack  a mole with pings and hunting down    things That's how I don't want to  feel so I'm trying to figure out like    does that mean scheduling deep work?  The problem is when you schedule it    Sometimes it gets derailed by a thing and  like I don't have control over When some    meetings happen like if they're my own  meetings sure, but all hands You know,    most of those have been scheduled for  the year, so I can move around those.  We try to do no, no Thursday meetings    and we record this on Thursdays, which is  how I get away with that pretty easily.  but there's always still    some meetings that sneak in.  So scheduling.  Deep work.  and ideally going and checking    all the pings, like only when  I need to, like right now I can    see discord has a red dot on it.  Maybe I should turn off the red dot.  I don't know.  Like then I won't know    unless I go check it.  And it's not telling me it's time to    check it whenever there's a dot there.  Yeah.  One of the, one of the things that    also like, became obvious to was  the anxiety around response times.  And I think part of this is working    remote, because you can't just go over  to someone's office and if you see the    doors open, you go over and Poke your head  in and have a conversation in real time.  And there is this, again, going back    to the, what is a good employee, right?  are they always going to    be responsive and reactive?  It's yes.  And so you start to build up this certain    anxiety around your own personal SLA.  Oh, since I'm remote and most of the team    is not remote, if someone pings me on  Slack, then, and I don't get back to them.  within five minutes or whatever, then are    they going to think that I'm just like  out chilling on a beach?  Yeah, exactly.  Or not working or whatever.  And so you start to build up that    anxiety and that also ties directly  to those like little tasks, right?  Oh yeah, you're shipping PR, shipping,    PR, shipping, PR, but really.  If you have something that's big that    you're working on, that's massive,  you could continue pushing branches    or whatever that show differences,  but that doesn't necessarily    reflect okay, I'm thinking super  deeply about this for three days.  And like in between meetings,    it's a lot of like brainstorming  and design type work.  And how is that reflected relative    to squash and bugs or like responding  immediately to someone's pings on    Slack with questions or whatever.  the other side of this is it did    also shine a light on my own behavior  and ways that I could change.  The way that I interact with people,    just being a little bit more thoughtful  about when I DM somebody or ping    somebody on Slack, is this something  that can be an email or should this    be a linear ticket or should this  be posted in the general channel?  Instead of, or in a public channel,    instead of a DM, so that maybe someone  else who has context can jump into it.  should this be a scheduled Slack message?  Like maybe it's 7 PM my time and I'm    wrapping something up and I don't  need to ping the whole team and.  At 7.  00 and said I could schedule it for 9.  00 AM the next day, to just    be respectful of their time.  Yeah.  and yeah, it's it's about respect, but    it's also about like productivity, right?  Like you don't want to    interrupt their flow.  So I don't know.  Yeah.  I wish discord had the    ability to schedule messages.  but we can, we have the ability    to send silent messages so they  don't trigger notifications, but  some people still check their dot, Right.  Like it'll create a    dot, but it won't send a  Mm  with Slack, I've.  we use Slack for the coworking space.  I do try to schedule    things for the next day.  If I'm, cause I don't really think about    I'll be like, Oh, I have this thought  about something we should do tomorrow.  I'm not going to send it at nighttime    when Kristen's not working because she  will check it because technically quote    unquote, her boss is messaging her.  And it's I don't want to be    the boss messaging after hours.  so scheduling for nine, I love the whole,    Or even just remind me about this later.  But then you end up with a whole    bunch of to dos that are just in  this ether that are going to pop    back in to, to annoy you later.  So I still write, like I    use these note card things.  They're just like index cards, but.  I still write down so much of my stuff so    that I don't go into a sauna and then find  four other things I could also be doing.  it's more of like it, if it    doesn't fit on the index card,  then there's also a problem.  if I can only do no more    than 10 things in a day,  even if I think I can.  So some of that is nice in a    sauna, you can create as many  tickets as you want forever.  and you're going to sign them to    yourself and you can be, Super confident  that you're going to get to it all    and you're probably not going to.  So  yeah.  Are you able to pull it    up, to pull up Asana?  I'm just curious how many    tasks I have assigned to myself  Yeah.  Let's see.  I have 69 to-dos four triage,    and 204 in the backlog.  Oh, wait, no, that's not just  So yeah, I was gonna say, we do a    pretty good job of not assigning  things to someone until it's    theirs, like Cal Newport recommends.  So in Asana, I have five,    which is very small.  There is a list I can go look    at that is the DevRel inbox, and  there are way more than five.  But, I also, in our public    repo, there are 50 open PRs.  so those have been open    since 2022, some of them.  So that's still going to be open,    but those are things I think about.  And I just need to schedule  like an hour a week to go at least make    a dent in them versus even thinking  about them and carrying them around.  there's that.  I don't think it comes up in the    book at all, but there's this idea.  Yeah.  Of carrying things around in a backpack  and a lot of stress and anxiety is    stuff that you carry around with you  that you don't need to like, write    it down, schedule it, whatever it is.  It's like that appointment that    you're like, Oh, I need, I know  I need to do this and you keep  writing it down for days and you don't    do it, like just do it and you can put  that thing down and you don't    have to carry it around.  And so those PRS are something that.  They weigh on me, but they're always,    they're not going to go anywhere.  So I don't have to carry    them around with me.  when I was trying to get out    of my IRS debt that I paid like  years ago, it's funny cause the box    is actually sitting right next to me.  I physically carried the IRS letters    with me, which is the most unhealthy  thing you could possibly think.  man,  so now I have a box of them that I    need to go have a bonfire with because  they're here to be shredded But I  think fire is gonna be a faster    way of dealing with those  and more entertaining and probably    more cathartic in a way, right?  yeah,  don't carry things around.  You don't need to carry around with you.  Yeah, I'm going to go unassign a bunch    of these things that have, I probably  assigned to myself eight months ago and    it just we're not getting around to it.  and, yeah, the mental overhead of    just knowing, or like trying to keep  track of those tasks is immense.  And.  I think every time, the last times    that I've left jobs, the last several  times I've left jobs, there's been like    this huge, like release of stress and  anxiety right when you leave the job.  And it's Oh, that's because I was carrying    around in the back of my head, 45 tasks  that like I knew had to get done at some    point and then just was never doing them.  and.  Now that I don't work there anymore, it's    not my problem and not my stress anymore,  but, yeah, I think writing it down for    us, it's linear, just like creating a  ticket and not having it assigned to me.  yeah.  And then when the day comes that becomes    the number one priority, then we'll  figure out who's best suited to do it,    who has an open, who has openings in  their schedule, et cetera, et cetera.  And we can ship it.  nice  yeah,  Cool.  Well  those lines,  Oh, go ahead.  Yeah.  We recommend it a hundred percent.  we, built a fun feature this last    couple of weeks where we can organize  teams of painters into like crews.  And there's a bunch of drag and drop, so    you can, whatever, like we're all used to  it, but it was fun to build with stimulus    and hot wire and all this like railsy  stuff.  And it was a fun project because it was    one where one of us built the data model.  And get stubbed out like a rough UI and    then someone else took it and cleaned  it up and added some features to it.  And then someone else took it    and polished it up even more.  And then it was just like this ping pong.  It was a PR where everyone had    commits like in the same PR, and  then you ship it and release it    to the team and share the updates.  And, it was well received.  So it was just like one    of those really fun.  Satisfying features to release that was    like very well contained and didn't have  a lot of like unnecessary complexity    and, or scope creep and everyone got  to get in and get their hands dirty.  And it ended up being, yeah, as Mike    would say, greater than the sum of  its parts, in terms of contributions,    which was, yeah, it was super fun.  Was that all in one PR    or is it a series of PRs?  It was, this one happened    to all be in one PR.  It didn't, it shouldn't have been,    it ended up being like a thousand  lines, but by the end of the day we    had all touched it and seen it and  talked about it.  It's always tricky when you're    like, the API is in this other  PR and the UI is in this other PR    which relies on this other one, so  sometimes it's easier to just do that.  yeah, in hindsight I would have shipped    the data model and a bunch of things first  and then the controllers and then we could    build on top of it and do whatever we  want later and make incremental changes.  But,  always go that way.  Nope.  Yeah.  You know how it is.  I was gonna say, that's okay too.  Yeah.  Nice.  All, I'm curious about the calendar stuff.  Cause we've been also fighting calendars.  So  Yeah.  So I have not had any time to play with    the cow wind idea that I had, but I  went, I don't know if I mentioned it last    episode, but I was like, you know what?  I'm just going to pay for    Robin and we're going to do it.  And  I went to go pay for it and it was    more money than I thought it was.  So it was 1500 it is now 5, 000  and that number apparently    is enough to make me.  Code enough on an airplane while I    was on the way to write the docs.  uh, we now have a react app    that is aware of all of the  events that is happening today.  You cannot book it yet, but that's    going to be the next step is you  can tap a button that will book that    room for that time, if it's available  for 30 minutes.  So there's not any user logins.  There's no who booked it.  It's just, it's booked or not booked.  If Kristen or I add events to    the calendar, if someone messages  us and says, Hey, can we get    the room for a certain time?  Then we'll add it to the    calendar and it will show up.  there's some things that like,    these are all little rough edges  that I'm building it in react.  But I want to wrap it in react native    because there's some fun features that  you don't think about when you run an iPad    24 seven for years, which is screen burn.  so Robin has a feature where at    nighttime it dims the screen and  then on dims it in the morning.  So I'll probably do the same thing    with react native and just do that.  The cool thing is I don't    need anything in react native.  It'll just be the app will be, Running    the react app and then in the background,  it's just going to check the time.  And then if it's a certain time    range, the fun thing is I don't  need to build any admin tools.  I don't need to make it a setting.  Like it's just going    to be, is it nighttime?  Dim it.  Is it daytime?  Don't dim it.  you don't get to change it    unless you change the code.  so yeah, it turns out.  5, 000 is the price at which we're    just going to build it ourselves.  So  Now it's okay, 5, 000 is an    actual number that you can work  backwards from and be like, okay,    how much is my time actually worth  and how long will it take and how    much am I going to invest in it?  And yes, that is actually    smaller than that number.  So,  the MVP for this week has been a piece    of paper put over all the iPads that just  say first come first serve and everyone's    getting around, using the rooms and.  We'll see.  I'm going to just keep working on it.  I do want to add like user    logins so that you can pre book.  I think that's one where people just    aren't always in the space when they  want to check to see if a room is    available, but, that's scope creep  and that will go over 5, 000, it's  fine.  Like I'll use, Jumpstart rails    for that most likely and do that.  So yes,  Yep.  so begins the, the coworking space    software that you've been fighting  against building That's just    starts over here at the calendar.  yes.  If it  becomes more than that.  once I have a user login, I could  see us just adding the stripe    IDs because people can't  cancel themselves right    now, which is good.  Like it's nice.  They have to come talk to us.  We never are going to say you    can't quit like we're never pulling  anything like that.  It's just sometimes they're    quitting because they can't  get a room or it's feedback  that we want to have.  And if it's, Oh, I'm moving,    it's the beginning of the month.  We'll refund them.  We'll work with them to    figure out how to leave.  So it's more like a white glove, exit.  You don't get  to cancel yourself.  It also means I don't wake up To    a bunch of people having canceled  without us knowing any reason why.  So we'll see if we do that.  It'd be nice to show like their    receipts and their invoices  and all that in there too.  But we've been doing this    for 15 years without that.  So I think it's okay if we don't.  The customer portal will    probably give you quite a bit  too, if you wanted to use that.  True.  Just launch it from the ID.  But,  Yeah.  that's the collective stuff.  And then in discord land, I'm been    playing around with unity on the side,  just trying to see what do developers    have to do to make unity a possibility?  And  I am successfully getting all the events.  So like I can see the events,    but I don't see right.  My, my game is just a cube    that spins in 3d space.  So the next step is to get the game    to actually show up, and then start to  do some multiplayer so that every new    person who joins will be a new cube.  and then we'll see about moving    around, as the next step.  But it's like a really weird line of is    this a unity problem or a discord problem?  Moving around as a cube, as a unity.  Tutorial, not a discord tutorial.  but getting that communication going back    and forth will be a little bit of both.  Okay.  Cool.  I have no background for Unity.  What's it like, relative    to like web development?  It's cool.  some of the things like it felt pretty    heavy, like you have to download this,  like unity hub, which then installs    the software felt like Adobe but I've  downloaded other projects and it's    almost root, like environment managers.  It was like, Hey, this was made    in a different version of unity.  Would you like to install    the other version of unity?  And is aware and launches    it and stuff, which is cool.  A lot of C sharp, which I do not know.  So I am, I was like, this    looks like JavaScript or,  C, it's.  net stuff.  yeah, picking that up, figuring that out.  there's probably some unity things    like, a lot of people say doing  things the rails way or whatever.  I don't know if there is a    unity way or what it is, but I'm  still figuring those things out.  I feel like when I started learning a    little bit of mobile development and  just the patterns of okay, this is a    screen that's being like pushed onto a  stack and then it's being popped off.  Like the navigation contexts and the    navigation controllers in mobile was  just such a different paradigm from    web that it was interesting to try  to build my mental model around that.  And there's just so much in the gaming.  Space that I can't imagine how you'd    go about like writing code that,  uses different shaders and different,    whatever, like stuff to display things  in 3d, what does that even look like?  Yeah.  these tools definitely have.  Looked at that, like with unity    to make this shape spin, like you,  you drop the shape into the scene    and you have cameras too, right?  So you not only move yourself,    but also do you move the cameras?  Does moving the keyboard mean the    camera moves or do you move or both?  And, you can write a script.  So like to spin the cube, I wrote a    script and then I dragged the script onto  the cube and it just started spinning.  So there's some of that like  magic of the IDE that's going on where    you're getting the tools matter here.  And some of it's okay, once I figure    this out, I also want to figure out play  canvas and some of these other engines.  and I'm sure they're all going    to be a little bit different  and some of them a little bit.  The same, but, there's also, for    what we're doing, you need to think  about, can this run inside the web?  Like we can build  a game in unity and it    will not run on the web.  If you do like crazy shaders and    lighting and stuff like that.  So  right.  Interesting.  Sounds like fun.  Sounds like a lot of good stuff to learn.  Should we wrap it  I think let's do it.  we're  at time.  Thanks for joining us.  As always, you can check out our    notes for the show at buildandlearn.  dev.  We'll have links to all the    resources that we talked about.  You can go check out the book,    join our little book club, and  we'll see you next time for 45.  Nice.  Bye friends.  All audio, artwork, episode descriptions and notes are property of CJ Avilla, Colin Loretz, for Build and Learn, and published with permission by Transistor, Inc.  [**Broadcast by**](https://transistor.fm "Broadcast by Transistor.fm")

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