Still living in Fort Collins and loving it. Winter is always a great season for productivity and I’m programming at least six days a week. Daily programming usually consists of adding features to my new client platform, small enhancements to other parts of this website, or trying some entirely new tech thing to keep life fresh. I’ve been loving this style of work in the afternoon and late at night. On days that I don’t have to leave the apartment, I’ll start off drinking yerba mate and reading The Onion’s Our Dumb Century. It’s absolute nonsense and puts me in a fun mood before sitting down to work. Also, if time permits, I’ve been trying, (and failing constantly), to build a daily writing habit. Most days though, I’ve been going out into the world and when I get back I just try to get something done. Anything, to make it a good day. I’d love to be more active on my blog and other channels this year.
New client platform
You may have noticed this site has a little user component at the top right now. I’ve added a suite of platform features that allow authenticated users to manage websites and other software they’ve gotten through me. It’s been fun to think about client collaboration and build features around it. The need stemmed from my new product, which is a dead simple landing page that my users can customize and deploy right from this site, and blossomed into providing all these interesting project management functions that continue to grow. I have a couple of guinea pigs using it which is pretty motivating. And, I’m constantly dreaming up new features to push out and working through whether they would be useful or not. Next up is all things DNS and domain management.
Going out into the world
The rest of my productive hours have been going towards networking and business engagements. I’ve been setting up 3-6 of these a week just to get to know my local business community. I’m also newly unemployed, so I’ve been using that opportunity to start putting myself out there as an independent software agency. Mostly I just have a lot of one-on-ones with local business owners to feed my business curiosity. It’s fascinating, and developing the connections always puts me in a great mood. One of the reasons I’ve become interested in buying local businesses is this newfound urge to be known in my community. I like it here and want to participate all of a sudden, so loitering around small biz water coolers has been a nice way to start integrating.
Additionally
I’ve been on the caffeine grind, which is great, but tiring. Abstaining now and then is always a well-deserved break. I’ve been taking it easy in the gym and sticking to full-body workouts 3-4 times a week. Cardio is just walking these days. Two things I’ve taken a break from are rucking and the assault bike, but they’ll be back. I’ve sort of taken a break from music too. Numbers were down on the Spotify wrapped last year. That, of course, will be back as well. I could never escape music, but I’m loving silent work sessions right now so, it must be a natural downturn.
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