Hasty Treat - How To Refine Your Process

Welcome to syntax.

In this Monday, Sanity Treat, we're gonna be talking about refining processes and how we come up with the ability to make ourselves consistently better in our systems, in our processes by evaluating and making them better. Because chances Yarn, when you said something, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd iteration of it might not be the best. We've learned this from code. This is like refactoring lesson straight out of code into productivity hacks. So my name is Scott Tolinski. I'm a developer from Denver, Colorado. And with me, as always, is the Wes Bos. What's up, everybody? What's up, Wes?

Oh, you know, just hanging out in the woods, enjoying the nice warm weather out here in Canada.

Hey. That's cool.

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Use the coupon code Sanity treat, all lowercase 1 word, and you're gonna get 2 months for free. So thank you so much for Century for sponsoring this podcast and being a great sponsor to us for so long. So I think the genesis of this episode to me came about when I was thinking about some processes that I've had and how, you know, I set things up and I just do things for a little while and maybe they become messy or maybe they become less effective or maybe I stray away from the actual process itself. And building systems in your life is one of those things that's going to take you, to the next level of productivity. Right? You have to make less decision. Things just happen, and the things happen the same way every single time.

And I began thinking a little bit about functional programming. Right? When you do functional programming, you run a function that gives you the same thing back every single time. There's no, like, side effects. There's no decisions to be made. It's just this thing that does a thing. It's done. Okay? So, like, to me, it got me thinking about refactoring my processes, refactoring my productivity things to become more productive, to become a better communicator, to have all sorts of personal processes, and and we all have been experiencing a time crunch with the current situation.

I have 2 kids and my wife is at home, so, she needs to work. We both need to work. Sometimes, it's impossible to find 40 hour work weeks for both of us. So what do we have to do? Well, we have to have systems in place to allow us to be as productive as possible, that time that you do get.

So let's talk a little bit about refactoring our processes in terms of productivity.

So okay.

First, I think you need to identify slow processes just like your your computer, your task manager. You have to identify what exactly is, the the slowest, worst thing that you could possibly, have on your plate right now. I know for me, email's a really bad one. Sometimes, it's even just like making appointments or things like that. Wes, what are what are some things that are are slow in your processes nowadays?

Oh, yeah. Definitely email, processing my inbox, getting through it.

More comes in than I can handle, and I'm not very, like, I I do have processes for support, but the emails that are related that need me to reply, definitely definitely an issue on my end. Cleaning my desk is is another pain point of mine right Node, where I just put things on it, and then it it builds up. And before you know it, there's tools and, wires and cups and stuff all Vercel. And that's not really web development related, but it it is related to how I am productive. And it's just a process that obviously, there could be a process where I I clean it up and whatever, but I just don't have that in place right now. And, it's a issue that I've been sort of looking at. Yeah. Me too. You Node, there was 1 I I I take Node, like, a ton of medication, but I do take medication. And there was, like, things that was, like, I'd spend this, like, cognitive

little bit every single day trying to remember if I took x, y, and z or not. So I got one of those those grandparent pill containers. I buy that thing, and every single Sunday, I fill it up. I set up that process that was, like, something that was, like, a minor inconvenience in my life, and I've turned it into something that's not even inconvenience whatsoever.

I can definitely relate to the desk. I think it progressively JS the month goes on, as we get closer and closer to each of my deadlines, because I have a deadline every single month, as we get close to that deadline, my desk gets progressively worse looking, and I think you could probably take a photo of my desk and have it be like a progress bar based on, like you could tell, like, how far along my course is based on how awful my desk is.

And so I think a good thing is just identifying what are the processes in your life that are not good. Wes what what could be using a tune up? Then you wanna set some clear goals. Like, for me, I would like to start each week with a clean desk.

K? Not too bad. I think that's a a pretty good goal. Right? That's a a clear goal that you can can identify, and maybe you can give yourself a little, like, check if you did it or not. Sometimes, I I like to use an app called Streaks to do make sure I I do things when I do them so that way I can look back and and have a good understanding of it.

So you're gonna wanna be able to set a goal that you can track. So whether or not this is a clean desk or it's a clean inbox or something, you wanna say like, oh, I wanna have no no more than 10 emails in my in my inbox, whatever. You set up this clear goal, and then you get to work on refining and refactoring that process. Now sometimes, the solution is a tool that you're not using. Other times, it's it's a very clear thing. Right? So for instance, the desk. If if I were to take that time and maybe spend I don't know. How long would it take me to clear off my desk? 15 minutes max? If I were to take 15 minutes on a Sunday to clean up my desk every single week, think that would that would just about do it. So I would go ahead and then schedule that time in on my calendar or something like that and give it a try. I like that. So for me, if I'm going to start these things, this is productivity hack sort of stuff territory, I'm gonna give it a try as long as the investment isn't too high. Sometimes you have to sign up to a new service and move all your emails over and do whatever. Like, that to me, that's a too much of an investment to just try. But if it's something like cleaning my desk off every Sunday, I'll try it for a month and see if I can stick to it. And then maybe I'll look back on it and see, hey. Did this thing this go as well as I was hoping it would? And it's important at the end of just giving it a try for a week or try for a month or whatever to take a look back and evaluate whether or not that actually made your life more productive, better, whatever. Because if it's not ending that value, then, you know, is it worth the 15 minutes that you're giving it? I like that. I like that a lot because, like, you could do anything for 30 days.

I remember what was that? Matt Cutts. He he worked for Google.

And this is probably 5 5, 6 years ago, but he did, like, a 30 day challenge where every every month he would he would take on a new thing, whether that's trying to write a blog post for 20 minutes every single day or not eating meat for the entire month or whether like, you just like or whether it's not using your car and biking everywhere that you need to go for 30 days. Like, you can impose these challenges on yourself and say, I'm just going to try it for 30 days. And you take a look back at it after 30 days and say, okay, what did I learn from that about myself JS well as, like, can I keep doing it, or is it worth doing it, or is it not?

Yeah. In that reflection period, it's definitely, like, an important part of the process because if you don't reflect on it, chances are it either means that you forgot about it, you didn't do it, or it, like, fizzled out or whatever. And sometimes, like, I think that's, like, the easiest mode for us is to, like, try this new thing and, you you know, you're excited about it for a week or two, and then you forget the 4th week, you just don't even bother.

And then at that point, you're like, alright. Just back to life JS normal. Yeah. But if at the end of that 4th week, you did, okay, let's do a little breakdown and talk about what worked about then, what didn't, stick to to creating these kind of systems in place. Now another thing I like to utilize is to, like, ask around people that I trust and know and just talk what kind of tools they're using for various things. Right? Is it like time blocking or or or batching or eating the frogs or even like actual tool, like applications, whether it's Todoist or I mentioned Foam in the next coming the next episode. I think code planning for with GitHub or using Notion or whatever, Whether or not it's like a strategy or it's a actual physical application, I like to ask around to see what people are using because chances are everyone's on their own sort of systems journey and people that you are know that are really into this stuff, they they do a lot of research and people come up with some really great things. That's how I heard about Foam. I I I heard it from I don't it's a, JavaScript Joe on on Twitter. JS his name Wes? He was Rusty Joe for a little bit. I don't know. He used TypeScript Joe for a little bit. I'm not quite sure what he where he currently is. Let me see, if he's back to JS Joe. He's back to JS Joe. That's where I hear the phone from.

And and and just ask around what people are using. Give one of these things a try, whether it's batching, time blocking, frog eating, setting a whole list of priorities, doing those kind of systems, and then evaluating.

So, I I personally have found that there are several systems in place that work really well for me. 1 to do list works really well for me. Calendar works really well for me, but I have a hard time sticking to them. So now what I need is to refine these processes to figure out how exactly I can stick to them better. Okay? How can I give less overhead to myself? I less ESLint spend less time thinking about email, spend less time thinking about my to dos, and more time just actually, you know, getting things done, so to say.

I don't know. It's a deep topic. There's a lot here.

So what are these people using and why? So I mentioned time blocking, batching, and eating frogs. Now these are are definitely things that can make you more productive. Right? They can solve a bunch of your calendar issues. They can solve your to do list issues and whatever, but not all of our productivity issues are around calendars and whatever.

I think about, like, especially in, like, code territory, like project management. And, obviously, that kind of thing, like, really grows based on your team. But if you're an individual and you're doing some project management, do you do anything to keep track of, like, ideas beyond I'm talking about, like, beyond bugs. Like, beyond fixing bugs, do you keep like, how do you keep track of the things you would like to add to your platform or maybe ideas or, like, feature requests, those kind of things? How far along things are? Like, platform feature request

platform feature Wes things, those go as, GitHub issues. Yep. So even if they're not a bug, I still stick them in there. But more ideas about course ideas, things like ideas that I wanna add to the the platform or just, like, dreaming in general, I'll I'll often do that. Sit in the hammock or something like that and sort of just kind of think of all kinds of really interesting stuff or just let my mind go wild. And for that, I'll usually pop it into a markdown.

I don't have somebody asked after the show, we talked about markdown Node, like what's the process for editing on your phone?

Yeah. I don't have a I don't have a good solution for that yet. I would like to figure that out. Deal, what would you use? Man, ever since I moved over to this Apple thing, I I I found out. So part of my grapes with the Apple phone is that things aren't as easy to do as they are on the Android phone. Right? The Apple phone. Yeah. Because I'm on, yes, the Apple phone. I'm on Google Drive for all my stuff. Once I I signed up for the Icloud the Icloud. Once I signed up for the Icloud and I had, like, files syncing between my desktop, it was way nicer. So I use iCloud to sync my markdown folder of notes to my phone, and then I use an app on my phone that allows you to set a a folder of markdown files. And it's all markdown. So as long as you find a markdown editor for the phone and sync that file, I I interchangeably write and create notes on my phone or within Obsidian or Foam or whatever, and it just works. Now granted Scott all of the features of Foam or Roam or any of those are going to work on your phone, but just simply having that ability to, edit a markdown file itself is really all you need. I use an application called OneWriter.

I've turned into the the person that I always hate, and I do not know if this exists for Android.

This is on Ios, but I can guarantee you that there is a markdown editing app for Android. And as long as you just keep those files synced, oh, it's easy peasy. Easy peasy.

I need to try that out. I don't I don't wanna pay for a iCloud.

I don't know what I have against Apple's services, but I just don't like just don't like them. I know. So I I think it's just I don't want another thing that I have to pay for. But I'm sure I could, like use Dropbox or something like that. So I actually I've been using this app.

I'm working on converting my entire beginner JavaScript course to text, And I'm working with somebody to do that, and they told me about this app called Notable.

And it is markdown.

It's got a little bit of a funky syntax for adding attachments, but it's all in a git repo. But we use Notable to edit it all, which is really cool. So maybe I'll see if they have, what's it called? Notable. Let's see if they have an iPhone version. So I bet I could use Dropbox for that. Although I want to get away from Dropbox

too.

Just get away from it. Unnotable. I they have an iPhone app, so I could probably use that.

Yeah. So okay. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff in this episode, and this was really just me pontificating a little bit on, you know, the processes that we need to to refine, what takes a lot of time. And the end result isn't necessarily that there's going to be one solution to all of your problems. Right? Node isn't going to solve all of your problems or whatever. It's going to, solve some of your problems used correctly.

So as long as you're willing to take a look at what is lagging behind in your processes in life and how you can improve them. And this isn't you'll be able to squeeze more out of that that toothpaste roll that is your day of hours. So just a thought. Take a look at what is slow right now for you and figure out how you can make it faster or talk to your friends about what they do for better email or whatever. But and and, hopefully, it's not, hey. Sign up for a new email. That would be a huge bummer. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that. You know?

Yeah. It's I I love hearing how people have attacked these things. And sometimes it's not like more complicated processes, but it's simply just like very simple rules. Hey. I don't I don't do this or I do this or I only reply to requests that come in through this email address, and you just don't do anything else. And I would love to hear what other people have for planning features and things like that. Make sure you tweet us at Syndax FM and let us in on that. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, we're developers here. And so many of these skills that we Node, whether or not it is

functional programming or whether or not it is creating interfaces, a lot of these skills that we're picking up, man, those same sort of skills can be applied to all sorts of areas in your life, including productivity and time tracking, all those sort of things. We Node and I don't mean physically coding up something. I'm saying, like, the stuff that you learned from making websites about dry code and making things efficient and whatever.

Hey. Try to see if you can, utilize some of those skills in in your day to day life JS well.

Alright. Thank you so much for tuning in, and Wes will catch you on Wednesday.

Peace. Peace.

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