Author: Matthew

  • Standing desks improve productivity

    I’ll admit it: I’ve been coveting a standing desk for years. The idea of escaping the uncomfortable prison of my 10-year-old desk chair is compelling. But standing desks are prohibitively expensive for many people, and up until recently that included me.

    My new standing deskIt finally got to be too much, though. A few weeks ago I bit the bullet and, after doing extensive research on the various options available, finally settled on the NextDesk Terra. There are many companies that manufacture standing desks, but NextDesk seems to offer the best quality-to-price ratio. I also appreciate the built-in Belkin power strip. And let’s face it, their bamboo desk surfaces are downright gorgeous.

    And the motorized raising and lowering is definitely the “wow” factor. Is it necessary? Not really. I guess the argument could be made that the motor is saving my back from having to manually crank the thing up and down, but this being my first standing desk it’s hard to say how much more difficult a manual lifting mechanism would make things. But I’m happy with the motor.

    How often do I find myself standing now that I have the correct equipment? Almost all the time. I easily spend 80% of my work day standing. What’s nice about leaving the desk in its raised position is that it’s so easy to just walk up to the workstation and get something done. My office is in my converted dining room right next to my kitchen, so I’ll often find myself wandering over to get something done while I’m waiting for some water to boil on the stove, or waiting for the microwave to finish warming a bowl of soup.

    Eliminating the need to sit before using the computer has lowered a psychological threshold that was preventing me from handling small tasks when a few minutes of free time suddenly appeared in my day. When I had to sit, I wouldn’t bother because my brain was telling me it would take longer to perform the action of sitting than it would to get something done once I did sit.

    If you’re considering upgrading to a standing desk, I recommend glancing over this article which was instrumental in my decision. Do you already use a standing desk? Comment below and let me know which model you chose and what you like best about it.

     

  • Dieting, productivity, and the Whole30

    Dieting, productivity, and the Whole30

    Many of you know I’ve been following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for the past 3 months due to some mild GI problems I’ve suffered from since late 2011. Among other things, the SCD controls the types and quantities of certain difficult-to-digest carbohydrates that are common in the modern food supply.

    SCD has been, in a word, amazing. I began seeing improvement in my symptoms almost immediately. My initial goal was to spend 90 days on the diet and evaluate at that point if I wanted to continue. Well, I hit my 90 days on Friday, January 9th and am still doing SCD. Not only have my symptoms improved, but I feel so incredible that I can’t imagine going back to the SAD (Standard American Diet) at this point. I wake up every morning with plenty of energy that lasts through the entire day. I’ve lost weight without even trying. And my productivity at work has soared.

    This eating plan has been a big win. However, I’ve struggled to communicate with my friends about why I’m not eating the way they do any more. Part of this is a marketing problem. The SCD was developed by Elaine Gottschall and explained in her book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, published in 1994. Now I enjoyed reading her book, but it does have a lot of science in it and frankly, it makes the diet seem very complex. So it’s not a book I find myself recommending very often.

    Not only does it present the SCD as being complex, it doesn’t describe just how darn amazing a person can feel by eating whole, unprocessed foods and focusing on healthy fats and proteins instead of carbohydrates. This is a shame since I didn’t realize how lousy I was feeling eating the SAD until I changed my diet.

    Enter the Whole30. I recently finished reading It Starts with Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig where they introduce a 30-day plan for eating whole, unprocessed foods. It’s essentially the SCD but with better marketing. Now this is a book I can recommend wholeheartedly! The authors do a great job explaining the science behind the Whole30 in an easy to understand way, and they go even further by describing the myriad benefits of eating this way. They also include plenty of practical advice about how to eat whole foods in a world where processed is the norm.

    Now sure, there are foods like pizza and doughnuts that I find myself longing for at times. But the fact is, there is so much real food that I can eat that doesn’t make me feel lousy, and it’s downright delicious. I was never much of a cook and I worried about having to become one if I changed my diet, but this hasn’t been a problem either. It’s been fun learning a new skill, and it didn’t take long to come up with some basic dishes that I enjoy fixing on a regular basis.

    Saturday has become my big cooking day. I do my shopping early in the morning, cook all my veggies for the week, and stick them in the fridge. I’m usually done by noon. Then all I have left to fix each evening is the meat. I fix a double portion which I use for dinner than night. Leftovers serve as lunch the next day. That way I’m only cooking once a day during the week (excluding breakfast but my breakfast lately has been Bulletproof Coffee which doesn’t require any cooking).

    I can say without reservation that, after experiencing what it’s like to be on a whole foods diet, I will never go back to eating the SAD again. If you’re curious and want to experience these incredible results for yourself, I encourage you to at least read through the book once. You don’t have to follow the plan if it seems silly to you. But at least read the material. I guarantee you’ll learn something you never knew before.

    Have you tried the Whole30 or a similar diet? How did it work for you? I’d enjoy hearing what your experience has been. Please feel free to leave a comment below.

  • 2015 goals (part 2)

    I met with Susan Hand last week to convert my incredibly long list of goals for 2015 into an actionable plan. By the end of the hour, I had a spreadsheet categorizing my goals into 3 main areas:

    • Consulting (currently my core business)
    • Programs/Products (things that will replace my consulting income eventually)
    • Personal (basically everything else)

    Susan also had me rank each goal according to whether it would generate revenue immediately or later, and whether it was mandatory to get done this year or merely optional. It was a good exercise since it forced me to think deeply about each goal and consider what would need to be done to declare the goal “complete.”

    We also did some preliminary scheduling of goals for each quarter of the year. It’s a great start to assembling a comprehensive business plan for the year. Susan helped me transition from my “brain dump” into something organized, prioritized, and understandable.

    The next steps I’ll need to take to continue developing this plan are:

    1. Using the worksheet we started, spend some more time documenting my “ultimate” 2015 goals and activities for my core business, programs, and personal growth.
    2. Start a 12 month calendar and start blocking out holidays, vacation, travel plans and events. These are the days that I already know I’m not going to be working.
    3. Once I’ve completed the 12 month calendar it’s time to start laying in my quarterly, monthly and weekly plans. I’ll start with what goes in each quarter and then break it down by month. If I’m not sure what month I’m going to do something, I’ll leave it in the quarter list until the quarter gets closer and move it down to the month at that point.

    I want to thank Susan for sharing her time with me. If you’re looking to develop a similar business plan for 2015, get in touch with her. I’ll be posting periodic updates as I continue building out my own plan and executing on it. In fact, I may dedicate a entire post to executing on goals in a few weeks. It’s something I struggle with. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but in my experience it’s much easier to come up with goals than it is to actually bear down and start doing the work necessary to achieve them. Procrastination springs eternal.

  • 2015 goals (part 1)

    I established some general goals for 2015 in my 2014 annual review, however I’ve since become convicted about being more specific about these goals and describing them in a bit more detail. Fortunately, my friend Susan Hand is a project manager and has graciously offered to donate some of her time this week to assist me in refining and organizing my goals.

    Here’s my not-so-short list of things I want to accomplish this year. These aren’t in any particular order and they aren’t categorized very well. Realistically, many of these probably can’t be accomplished in 2015 (if at all). I’m only one person and don’t have infinite time and resources (though I wish I did). But the first step to accomplishing something is establishing it as a goal. So here we go:

    • Establish realistic quarterly goals for the year
    • Maintain my existing monthly revenue from consulting
    • Finish building my 7 Days to Kick Sugar email course
    • Finish building my How to Build a Transcript email course
    • Hire a contract writer to improve copy for Teascript, my SaaS app
    • Hire a contract writer to create a companion eBook for Teascript
    • Aquire and execute a marketing plan for Teascript
    • Double monthly revenue from Teascript by the end of the year
    • Put Teascript on “autopilot” by automating or outsourcing time consuming tasks
    • Move my blogs from AppFog to Linode
    • Write a new post on my personal blog each week
    • Write a new post on my distance education blog each week
    • Put up Facebook/Google+ pages for my company, Adeptware
    • Put up Facebook/Google+ pages for my consulting services
    • Assist with organizing a local tech conference
    • Present at the Triangle Ruby meetup
    • Present at the Agile RTP meetup
    • Attend Triangle Startup Weekend
    • Build a web site “health check” SaaS app
    • Build a SaaS app to establish, track, and achieve life goals
    • Write an eBook about how to manage variable income as a freelancer
    • Write an eBook about nutrition for developers (or more generally, freelancers)
    • Revise and re-release the Career 2.0 eBook with Jared Richardson
    • Exercise consistently 3 times per week
    • Select and hire a good financial advisor
    • Rollover my old 401(k) to an IRA
    • Pay off my home mortgage
    • Learn more about real estate investing
    • Start attending a real estate investing meetup
    • Find a real estate investor who can be a mentor
    • Aquire a piece of investment real estate
    • Learn more about investing in privately held businesses
    • Invest in a local privately held business
    • Continue on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet

    Yes, it’s a lot. I’m sure Susan will help me whittle this list down to something more manageable. It should be interesting comparing this list with whatever comes out of my meeting with her. Check back next week for those results.

    Have you established any goals for 2015 yet? Is your list as crazy as mine? Post a comment and let me know what you’re planning.

  • 7 days to kick sugar

    I’ve been pondering what my goals in 2015 should be. There are many things I want to accomplish this year. I plan on writing about them next week. But this week I want to highlight a product I began working on over Christmas break. It’s called 7 Days to Kick Sugar.

    I’ve been learning a lot about the damaging effects of sugar in my diet. Dr. Robert Lustig’s book Fat Chance has been an eye opener. Apparently, fructose (found in table sugar, fruit, and 99% of the processed food items you’ll find at the grocery store) is a metabolic poison when over-consumed. It makes the liver sick and fatty and causes metabolic syndrome (obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc). It’s not hard to over-consume fructose either, especially given the overwhelming presence of High Fructose Corn Syrup in the modern American diet.

    Dr. Lustig explores the reasons behind our overconsumption of fructose (besides the fact that is tastes amazing). He also suggests some ways that we as a society can solve this massive problem. One of his recommendations is to only consume fructose in its natural form: whole fruit. Apparently, fiber is critical to “blunt” the impact of fructose on our liver which is why fruit juice is not a healthy option. And even when consumed from fruit, our fructose consumption should be limited to 15g per day or less.

    I’ve been limiting my sugar consumption for the past couple of years. I only consume whole fruit. I never consume HFCS or anything with added sugar. I’ve cut soda and fruit juice out of my diet completely. And I feel fantastic. I wake up each morning full of energy, and this energy sticks around the entire day. I used to get very tired after eating lunch, but this doesn’t happen any more. In short, cutting sugar out of my diet has increased my productivity and my enjoyment of life. And I want others to be able to experience that too.

    That’s why I started building this email course over Christmas. My first few weeks without sugar were pretty rough. It’s an addictive substance and it can be very hard to stop consuming it. I literally had withdrawal symptoms. The intention is for this course to provide a daily dose of encouragement, as well as a single actionable step you can take that day to eliminate sugar. By the end of the week, you’ll be feeling amazing.

    I’m roughly 50% finished writing the course. The pre-launch page live. I’d very much appreciate feedback on the content. Additionally, if you sign-up to be notified when the course launches, you’ll receive a free infographic listing 56 different names for sugar that often appear in ingredient lists. It’s going to be a fun ride. I hope you’ll join me.

  • 2014 in review

    I’m always trying to develop better habits in my life. But sometimes it’s hard to determine which new technique will give the most benefit for the least investment. Often it’s helpful to learn from what others are doing. Take Nathan Barry and Brennan Dunn for example. Both of these guys routinely summarize the good and bad in any given year. I’ve decided to emulate them. The result is this, my first annual review. It’s mostly for my own benefit, but read on if you’re curious.

    The good

    For both my business and my personal life, 2014 was a good year. Not great, but good.

    The year began with some interesting consulting work for Medaxion, a company I’ve been working for off-and-on since mid-2011. They’ve built up a solid development team since then and their success in the medical software marketplace has been gratifying to watch. Their software has a heavy iOS component and while I’ve only dipped my toe into iOS development so far, it’s something I want to pursue more aggressively at some point. That being said, I learned plenty from the Ruby API work I did for them in 2011 and 2012, and the EHR certification work in 2013 and 2014. In particular, I took what I learned from the API work and put together a presentation I’ve given in multiple venues, including Triangle.rb.

    Contract work was light over the summer due to a flare up of a health condition I’ve been suffering from since mid-2012. I ended up making some pretty dramatic dietary changes by dropping grains, dairy, nuts, eggs, sugar, and artificial sweeteners from my diet (essentially, the Whole30 diet minus the potatoes). These changes dramatically improved things for me and I plan on continuing the diet into 2015. What excites me about this is that I can undoubtedly use what I’ve learned to build some new information products one day.

    In October I began consulting for Candle Science, a locally owned company that sells candle making supplies to customers all across the country. It’s been a positive experience. I’ve enjoyed learning how their warehouse works (99% of the software systems running their Morrisville warehouse were built from scratch). To developers who focus on SaaS apps, mobile development, or APIs, e-commerce can seem like a boring, unchallenging area to be working in but it’s actually quite complex. Ensuring orders get packed and shipped properly, from the correct location, to the correct address, with payment being processed successfully, and with inventory levels being appropriately updated, is extremely challenging. It’s an interesting business domain to be working in and I look forward to continuing to learn more about it in 2015.

    Teascript, my SaaS app for homeschoolers, had its best year yet. People continue signing up for the service despite my complete and utter failure to promote it in any meaningful way last year. Aside from a $30/month AdWords campaign, it’s been word-of-mouth driving this growth. I’m hoping to change that in 2015. In December I managed to deploy a massive redesign (the first since the app launched in 2007). This brings the app into the modern age with an attractive Bootstrap template. The previous design was extremely difficult to build upon. My hope is that switching to Bootstrap will give me a better foundation for future growth.

    Sadly, I didn’t attend any national conferences this past year. RubyConf was tempting but was just too far away. I also didn’t participate much in the local meetup/user group scene, which was to my detriment. This is something I intend to correct since both attending and presenting at meetups has been an incredible source of personal and professional growth for me in the past. The last time I presented anything was March of 2013. That’s just too big a gap for my taste.

    My EMS job continued being a source of interesting stories this past year. I’m required to work a minimum of 48 hours each month to retain my status as a part-time EMT. The sense of satisfaction I get from this job is well worth the time spent away from my (much higher paying) software work. I also learn so much, both from the patients I care for as well as the other EMTs and Paramedics I work with. Wake County is privileged to have such a competent, professional EMS system and I’m proud to be a small part of that.

    On a personal level, I joined the choir at my local church. Singing is something I really enjoy, but haven’t had an outlet for until now. Our choir director, Aaron, just earned his doctorate and does an incredible job leading both the choir and the orchestra. Performing in December’s Christmas concert was a phenomenal experience that I will never forget.

    I had experimented with CrossFit in late 2013 and continued that experiment into the first part of 2014 but ended up dropping my membership, primarily due to the high cost. I was definitely starting to see some changes, and overall felt much stronger than I did before I started the program, but even with the first responder discount it was still twice as expensive as my current gym membership. I still run occasionally but have been focusing on training with free weights and resistance bands which seems to fit much better with my lifestyle.

    The bad

    Not everything that happened last year was good, unfortunately.

    I did nothing with my Lord of the Rings movie site and my distance education blog last year. Google ads on the distance education blog actually have a phenomenal click through payout so I have incentive to drive more traffic there, but it’s just not something that has interested me like it did in previous years.

    My company web site also stagnated and I freely confess I’m just not sure what to do with it at the moment. I can’t seem to make up my mind about what my brand should be: myself or my company, Adeptware. My name is more recognizable in the software community, but I also like the idea of divorcing myself from my brand so I can eventually hire other people to run the thing for me.

    Despite multiple opportunities to build information products last year, I neglected to make any forward progress whatsoever. This is something I’ve already started changing in 2015 with my new 7 Days to Kick Sugar email course. I’ve learned a lot about health and nutrition this year and figure this is a good way to share what I’ve learned with others.

    I’ve owned a home since 2007 and until mid-2014 hadn’t had any huge maintenance problems or major expenses. That changed with the discovery that my front porch roof was rotting away due to a mistake that had been made in its construction. Neither the builder nor the warranty company were willing to accept responsibility so I had to cover the repair entirely out of pocket. This was a frustrating experience and a timely reminder that builders and insurance companies can’t be trusted to do the right thing in a pinch. Best to “hope for the best but plan for the worst” when it comes to these types of situations. Fortunately I’ve always kept an emergency fund so covering the expense didn’t require me to incur any debt.

    I did very little to fill my consulting pipeline last year. Granted, there wasn’t much of a need with Medaxion dominating the first part of the year and Candle Science dominating the latter. But it still would’ve been good practice. Although ultimately I want to move away from consulting and into products.

    Finances

    Unlike Nathan and Brennan, I’m not comfortable sharing actual figures. Maybe this will change one day, but for now I’ll just give percentages for each category of income in 2014. I had 4 primary sources of income: software consulting, my part-time EMS job, Teascript subscriptions, and advertising on my blogs and web sites.

    Last year was my slowest for consulting since 2010. This was due to a variety of factors, but primarily time taken off for health reasons. Consulting income still dominated all other revenue streams at 79%.

    Teascript had a record year, coming in second at 19% of revenue. This is a 58% increase over figures from 2013 despite the minimal promotion I’ve been doing. That surprised me. It’s gratifying to know the app is proving useful to so many homeschool parents.

    Income from my job as a part-time EMT was 11%. This is not so surprising given the paltry wage we pay our EMS workers in this country. It’s really quite pathetic. I have a lot of respect for my Paramedic friends who have to work full time (plus overtime) to support their families. It’s a difficult, dangerous job and they should get paid more to do it.

    Advertising came in dead last at barely 0.2% which isn’t a surprise given that I have only a handful of Google ads running on a couple of blogs and my Lord of the Rings site. Still, it’s nice to be generating something from those web sites, even if it’s not going to cover retirement just yet.

    Conclusion

    Overall I learned a lot in 2014 and, while I could have taken advantage of more opportunities, I did end up making forward progress in some important areas. My goals for 2015 include:

    • Expand marketing for Teascript
    • Develop a new information product
    • Increase the amount of writing I’m doing
    • Increase the amount of speaking I’m doing
    • Attend one meetup per month

    This should keep me plenty busy. I never make New Year’s resolutions since I think they’re rather silly, but I’m hoping that by listing my goals here I’m increasing perceived accountability and encouraging myself, if only on a sub-conscious level, to make good things happen in 2015.

    What are your goals for 2015? What went well last year? What went poorly? I’d enjoy hearing from you. Feel free to comment below, and thanks for making it this far. I hope reading this motivated you in some way. And I hope 2015 will be an incredible year for you.

  • Muut for Octopress

    Muut (formerly Moot) is a lightweight, customizable commenting system. Octopress is a static blogging framework built on Jekyll. Mix the two and you have a delicious recipe enabling visitors to comment on static blog posts without having to resort to a database.

    My Octopress plugin makes this integration super easy. Install the plugin, edit 2 files, and you’re off to the races. You can even control which blog posts can be commented on.

    If you’ve never worked with Octopress before it’s well worth a look see. I use it on a couple of my blogs (The Teascript Blog and The Distance Learner) and have been very happy with the performance. Nothing beats static HTML for raw speed.

  • Slides from my API talk

    Thanks to everyone who turned out for my API talk at the Triangle Ruby Brigade. I wasn’t expecting such a large crowd and the resulting Q&A was really good. It was interesting hearing how other developers are using APIs in their projects, and what problems they are encountering and solving. I’ve posted my slide deck for those who are interested. I also recorded audio from the talk and will be posting a link here when that’s online.

  • Building an external HTTP-based API in Rails

    If you’ll be in or near Raleigh the evening of March 12th, consider dropping by the Triangle Ruby Brigade. I’ll be presenting on how to build HTTP-based APIs in Rails, including:

    • Creating an API controller
    • Wiring up versioned routes for your API
    • Protecting your API with authentication
    • Choosing a transport encoding

    The question of which transport encoding to use is critical. If your API will be consumed by iOS devices, choosing binary property lists over XML or JSON can give you a 30% performance boost as well as an associated reduction in bandwidth consumption. Building an API that generates plists is straightforward with the help of a couple of Ruby gems.

    I’ll be sharing code examples from a recent project that surfaced a large, multi-faceted API to hundreds of iOS devices using binary plists. I’ll also have plenty of resources for those interested in learning more. It’s sure to be a great time! Hope to see you there.

  • Quote of the Week: Benjamin Franklin

    “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the outcome of the vote.” –Benjamin Franklin