Tag: Productivity | Tom McFarlin

April 1, 2019

Time Off 2019: Part 1 of 4 of Social Media Sabbaticals Since I won't have my usual social channels to talk about what's up, I'm going to do so in this post.

It’s been a while since I’ve published anything on a Monday (I don’t know if that’s notable or not but, as I’m writing this, it came to mind 🙃).

But since today officially starts the second quarter of the year it’s that time in which I also opt-out of social media, for the most part, and recap some of the things I’ve done and plan to do over the next month.

For those who haven’t read about this stuff before, you can see what I did last year in the following posts:

Every time I end up taking time off of social media in general, I never regret it. At the same time, I also find new things I want to do during that time.

And, this time, one of the things (among others I’ll discuss in a moment) is I want to work on really slimming down on the number of applications I have installed on my mobile device.

I’m already pretty good with managing my time (thanks to Screen Time and turning off notifications), but I have a good friend who said it like this:

I’m trying to Marie Kondo the number of apps on my phone.

And I liked that. So that’s part of what I’m planning to do over the coming month.

But that’s not all.

Continue reading “Time Off 2019: Part 1 of 4 of Social Media Sabbaticals Since I won’t have my usual social channels to talk about what’s up, I’m going to do so in this post.“

November 30, 2018

The Third Social Media Sabbatical of 2018 So here it is: My final social media sabbatical for 2018 starting today.

Back in February, I opted to take a social media sabbatical which is nothing more than a fancy way of saying “time off of social media.” This was a continuation of something I did last year, too.

Then, back in December, I took the month off of pretty much every social network of which I was a part and thoroughly enjoyed the time away. But it wasn’t because of anything such as removing myself from something bad.

Over the year, I’ve begun to question what I think about social media as a whole, but I think that time away from it serves me well (that is, me personally – I don’t pretend nor attempt to make this prescriptive for anyone else).

Anyway, with us heading into the final month of the year and with the success that I’ve had in months past, I thought it might be time for me to do this again to close out the year.

Social Media Sabbatical of 2018: Episode III

This time, though, I might remix it a little bit.

Continue reading “The Third Social Media Sabbatical of 2018 So here it is: My final social media sabbatical for 2018 starting today.“

September 26, 2018

How to Set a Goal, Part 2: We’re Writing Code Setting a goal is one thing, making a plan to achieve it is another. And that lends itself precisely to what we do for a living.

In the first post in this [two-part] series, I talked about the idea of what it means to set a goal. Specifically, I said it was more nuanced than just setting a goal and aiming for it. Instead, I said I thought of doing this:

set a goal,
make a plan.

And, if you read the first, you know that I gave an example outside of programming (because I tend to do that sometimes).

But why not also look at what this would look like regarding programming? I mean, the whole point of the site is to talk about how to handle WordPress development from a practical perspective.

And this seems like something that intersects with that whole idea, right?

Continue reading “How to Set a Goal, Part 2: We’re Writing Code Setting a goal is one thing, making a plan to achieve it is another. And that lends itself precisely to what we do for a living.“

September 25, 2018September 25, 2018

How to Set a Goal, Part 1: We’re Not Writing Code Setting a goal is one thing, and it's admirable. But I think there's more nuance to it than that.

I’ve talked about productivity and similar resources various times, though sparingly, since writing consistently for the past eight or so years this October (can’t believe it’s been that long).

Though I try to stay true to the whole slogan that I pronounce (that is, Practical WordPress Development), there are times that I like to share things that I think can’t help those involved in the industry that is tangentially related to software or web development.

Writing

And in this case, that’s what this post is about; however, I’m going to try to break it into two short reads. In short, the purpose of this is what it means to set a goal, how to go about achieving it, and how to do so both regarding working on self-employment, fitness, or otherwise, as well as how it relates to side-projects (and specifically programming).

I’ll start with the former, first.

Continue reading “How to Set a Goal, Part 1: We’re Not Writing Code Setting a goal is one thing, and it’s admirable. But I think there’s more nuance to it than that.“

July 24, 2018

The Second Social Media Sabbatical of 2018 I'm taking a month off of social media again. This time, for different reasons than earlier this year.

As I’ve been writing this post, I’ve felt so pretentious when it comes to using the word “sabbatical” as it relates to something like social media.

I mean, I’ve always associated sabbaticals as something that professors, academic types, religious leaders, and higher-ups take. Not just an average dude who makes a living on the Internet.

Sabbatical or a sabbatical (from Hebrew: shabbat (שבת) (i.e., Sabbath), in Latin: sabbaticus, in Greek: sabbatikos (σαββατικός), literally a “ceasing”) is a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from one month to a year.

But I suppose, by that definition, it makes sense, right?

Anyway, I started the trend earlier this year, it went well, and I want to keep a consistent theme going at least for 2018, so why stop it during just the second time through?

Continue reading “The Second Social Media Sabbatical of 2018 I’m taking a month off of social media again. This time, for different reasons than earlier this year.“