Author: Matt

  • Lessons From 253 Days of Consecutive Freecoding

    My recent camping vacation is what broke an epic 253 day streak of github commits.  Overwhelmingly this activity was a daily practice of freecoding to see first hand just how effective it could be at getting better at programming. Freecoding is based on a writing technique called free-writing which is supposed to get the juices…

  • More Swift

    Since Apple announced Swift was going open source and coming to Linux by the end of the year, my interest was peeked again to dive in and start learning it. With Swift running on Linux servers the race is on to create a compelling web framework so that it will be possible to write iOS…

  • House work

    This past weekend started with the goal of painting the fence with a fresh coat of paint.  To make it a bit less manual I got a pressure washer to help with scraping off the old paint. Things went sideways when we realized that one of the fence posts was rotted and cracked and would…

  • Why You Should Find Time to Play

    Play is one of the more undervalued activities we can undertake as an adult, yet it is one that differentiates many of the worlds top performers from the rest of us.  Playtime could be considered to be the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  When you are intrinsically motivated and enjoy what you’re doing  you…

  • Investing More

    Amazingly we’ve been living in Calgary for 5 years now.  The time came to renew our mortgage and while I was doing that I started the process of opening a HELOC so that we can use some of the equity in our house to invest. With today’s low interest rates it has become pretty attractive…

  • Have a Lab Instead of an Office

    The space to create new innovation is dearly missing from today’s work environments.  Creating a space to really encourage great leaps in innovation requires a few things: Space and time to think. Freedom to implement or test an idea quickly Collaboration to help get over hurdles Recently I had the opportunity to work in a…

  • Reading about Solar

    I’ve been reading and doing some math on the feasibility of Solar electricity. Turns out that costs have dropped significantly over the last few years due to the scale of production in China that actually is currently over-supplying the demand, and new manufacturing technology that is making it much cheaper.  You can find panels for…

  • The Single Most Effective Productivity Tip

    What do you believe is the single most important thing that will affect your productivity?  Time management? Software tools? Calendars? ToDo Lists?  No.  The most important thing that will affect your productivity is your expertise. Knowledge is the baseline for almost all work that we do in today’s information economy.  We simply cannot produce good…

  • Book Reports

    For the last couple weeks I have been trying to catch up on my goal for reading 36 books this year.  Progress so far has been good and I have gotten through a decent backlog of books that I have wanted to read.  With the new morning routine of  reading before the day starts I…

  • How to Maintain Momentum

    The main lesson from a handful of recent books that I have read has been focus on fewer, more important things if you really want to make progress.  Less but better.  And that the best way to maintain the momentum on the projects you do want to take on is to make small steps and…