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slow down

i spent the good part of 10 hours yesterday working a technical problem on a website (not a live one thankfully). i tried everything in my arsenal to fix it and nothing worked. i built and rebuilt the site and it’s content many times, in various ways, and the bug wouldn’t go away. i was at my wits end, and ready to give up web development completely to go live in the forest with the other hippies in tofino.

then i went to the grocery store, came home and fixed the bug in 30 seconds. and immediately felt both relieved it was fixed, and frustrated that i hadn’t thought of the right solution sooner. after all, i’m a professional and should have known how to remedy the solution and move on.

my gut reaction when something breaks or goes wrong is to immediately rush to fix it... which rarely works out well. instead i should have stepped back and not done anything at first, except think about the problem. or stepped back, had a deep breath (or three) and not done anything but focus on being calm.

how many times in your life have you rushed to fix something, only to become caught in a downward spiral of things going less and less the way they should? when we get stressed, we tend to speed up, which seems like the opposite way to go. when you’re cool and collected, you can focus better (i’m sure it’s a scientific fact).

next time i get stressed out about a problem i’m having (with work or anything else), i am going to really try to focus on stepping back for a second and breathing.

and only once i’ve rooted myself will i proceed.


#misc / permalink

fuck being cool

high school is over, but we all still want to be thought of as “cool”, myself included. why is that? especially since the people in my high school that were considered cool happened to be total assholes.

cool people are cool because they’ve got their schtick down to a science: not actually doing anything (in case it makes them look stupid), not trying new things (in case they fail) and not putting themselves out there (in case someone else who is cool thinks “out there” isn’t cool).

trying to be cool can be exhausting. but then, it’s not cool to try... the whole thing is rather confusing. it’s as if we’ve all become so scared of judgement, we sometimes let it rule us.

we’ve either got the word cool mixed up with something else (perhaps with “uncool”) or our collective societal cool-meters are all broken. there’s either got to be a radical redefinition (can word definitions be radical? heck yes websters dictionary!) or we need to scrap the word from our vernacular and work more at encouraging without judging.

so...

i’m going to continue to try and fail at a whole shitload of things, on a regular basis.
i’m going to try new stuff, even if i look like a total “kook” doing it.
i’m going to do what makes me happy, even if someone else thinks it’s dumb.
and i’m going to tell cool to fuck right off.


#misc / permalink

your responsibilities for your web project

one of the most common misconceptions about hiring someone to design and program your website is that there’s not much for you to do, except review mockups and say “take this website live!”.

this just is not true.

content
unless you’ve hired someone to do the writing for you, content is going to take you just as many hours (or more) to write as the website will take to design and program. even if you have hired a writer to do all the writing, you’ll still need to review, revise, and approve everything from each page’s content to the naming of menu bar, the footer, and the sidebar. think about how long you assume content will take to write, then double it, then add a couple more hours to that. that’s actually how long content will take.

client assets
before a web design project can start, a designer will need a lot of details from you. have handy items on your end that they will need (see the “be prepared” section on this post): your logo in vector format, any/all photos (in high screen resolution), your username and password to your domain registrar, your username and password to your hosting account (both the server and the control panel), and your list of what elements go on what pages (or wireframes).

approvals
for most projects, you need to be available to approve every step of the process. so if you’re going on a 10-day meditation retreat half way through the project, you’re holding the project up for 10 days. be there to review and make change requests on wireframes, typography choices, colour schemes, mockups, navigation nomenclature, user flows, programming, and functionality.

testing/debugging
prior to launch (see my launch guide), you’ll need to go through and click everything to ensure things are hooked up, linked up and flowing correctly.

—

on many projects, i’ve finished my deliverables before the client has the content ready. in writing this i’m hoping to drive home the truth about what you need to do, as a client in a web design project, in order to get the site from concept to launch. so before you plan out and hire someone to create a new or redesigned site – ensure you’ve got a lot of time on your end to make the process smooth and timely. and the more wisely you budget your time, the better you can get to the amazing thing known as “launching”.


#business / permalink

unconsuming judgment

i have a problem with judgmental people. although i’d like to work through this to get some sort of understanding from it, if i’m being perfectly honest with you, it just makes me mad and i almost wish i didn’t publicly announce this experiment of unconsuming.

so far it seems that the overwhelming response to my idea to not buy anything for a year has been one of judgement on the specifics of what i am trying to do. why aren’t i giving up “x” as well? why is “y” considered necessary? why aren’t you taking into account environmental aspects of travel? so and so gave up such and such, why don’t you? what about this loophole/item/idea that i thought of and you didn’t? and so on, and so on...

because i apparently wasn’t clear in my unconsume post (which honestly and unsarcastically is my own fault), let it be known that the point of this exercise is not being deprived or to force myself to live by a strict set of rules for a year. i am simply trying to gain insight into what i value in my life, and how i can grow from that wisdom. the “unconsuming” of specific things is almost irrelevant in that it’s just a means to an end. i care a lot less than everyone else about the specific rules i need to follow, and i’m not interested in justifying my decisions about what i feel is ok to consume and what isn’t to judgemental people.

i didn’t set out on this endeavour to outdo any other minimalists, and i know i’m not the first person to do this. i’m just stoked to be part of a conscious movement away from shallow consumerism, and am definitely clear i am not leading the charge. i’m not stacking myself up against others who are doing or have done similar. their journey is their own, as is mine.

absolutism is a vapid pursuit, and i’ve never to let a single tenet, mantra, word, idea define who i am (or guide my life’s direction). life is change, and my ideas change with it. i’m also too much of a nonconformist type to blindly abide by rules (even if i was the one who made them).

ultimately, i’m accountable to myself and only myself. and at the end of this, i don’t want to look back and think about rules i broke or stuck to, i want to look back and figure some deeper stuff out.


#unconsume / permalink

writing a vegan cookbook

i’m pondering the idea of writing a book. more specifically, a short and sweet vegan recipe + information ebook that i’ll self-publish as a PDF.

i spend a lot of time emailing recipes and information to folks who aren’t vegan but are curious about the way i cook, what i eat and how i can make well rounded meals without meat. i think there might be a market for “vegan curious” folks who might not want to go full-on vegan (or maybe they do), but are interested enough to try eating a little more in that vein. i’m not sure how i feel about using the word “vegan“ but i have come to terms with the fact that it might need to be used, since it might be the most accurate descriptor (although i’m hoping i can get away with “plant-based”).

the ebook would be a quick/short guide (with recipes and photos) to eating a: well balanced, whole foods, gluten free, plant-based diet (enough descriptors eh?).

you can follow along with my mostly-food related photos on my instagram, where i’m @mojave.


#misc / permalink

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