This post was originally posted at 2020-12-04.
Hi there,
I use 2 systems to plan and stay focus every day. They are my own Focus Session system and Forest app.
I divide every day into 4 focus sessions. 2 morning-sessions, 1 afternoon-session, and 1 evening-session. The evening sessions are mostly for my teaching activities. Otherwise, I will stay at home playing with my two sons.
I avoid scheduling two things in the same focus session unless it is a “Batch” session. So there are only 3 sessions per working hour. These are the 3 most important things I have to do that day.
You may be wondering, what if my focus session doesn’t take that long time? Do I really do only 1 thing in the afternoon? The reason they are called focus sessions because our mind needs time to warm up. We need time to think. We need a long enough time block to think thoroughly to get the task done.
It is not about scheduling my time minute-by-minute to get the most tasks done. It is about reserving my attention and energy at that moment for a single task. Before and after the focus sessions, I often have half an hour to batch working on the misc. stuff.
My focus system is for me to plan the focus sessions. Each session is hours-long which I may still get distracted during the session. Here comes my second system, the Forest app.
I had installed this app in 2015 but somehow I forgot about it until recently. Forest app uses a count-down timer which encourages me to stay focus and avoid distractions.
So here my two systems for the same purpose. Focus sessions to plan uninterrupted time ahead and Forest app to execute the uninterrupted time. One for the big picture and one for micro-management.
Links worth sharing
→ Accessing Healthcare and Insurance Websites – or not! – When You Are Blind
https://www.levelaccess.com/accessing-healthcare-and-insurance-websites-or-not-when-you-are-blind/
Barrier 1: Login Forms without Field Labels
Barrier 2: Search Engine with Unlabeled Controls and Other Issues
Barrier 3: Reading through the Search Results
Barrier 4: Misuse of Alt Text
→ 5 most annoying website features I face as a blind person every single day
https://bighack.org/5-most-annoying-website-features-i-face-as-a-blind-screen-reader-user-accessibility/
Unlabelled links and buttons
No image descriptions
Poor use of headings
Inaccessible web forms
Auto-playing audio and video
→ Rails 6.1 RC2
https://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2020/12/1/Rails-6-1-rc2-release/
Additionally, Rails 6.1 adds support to Active Storage for permanent URLs for blobs. Implemented by Peter Zhu from Shopify, this feature allows configuring your attachments to use a private or public URL and ensures that public URLs will always use a permanent URL.
→ SuperTinyIcons
https://github.com/edent/SuperTinyIcons
Under 1KB each! Super Tiny Web Icons are minuscule SVG versions of your favourite logos. The average size is under 465 bytes!
→ Self-hosting Google font to make loading faster
https://tryblackbird.com/blog/self-hosting-google-fonts
We found self-hosting Google Fonts can improve Largest Contentful Paint by as much as 1.3 seconds
→ Apple Silicon M1: A Developer’s Perspective
https://steipete.com/posts/apple-silicon-m1-a-developer-perspective/
The apps currently work through Rosetta 2, however building via Gradle is extremely slow. Gradle creates code at runtime, which seems a particular bad combination with the Rosetta 2 ahead-of-time translation logic.
I am using an M1 Mac Mini, and the major software I cannot use yet is to install Homebrew and Docker. Otherwise, most applications just work and I don’t even notice they are Intel binary.
Code worth sharing
→ JavaScript optional chaining on function call
By @SimonHoiberg:
Until next week,
Thomas Mak
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