Second big week of sun here that means sunscreen for the kids and an impromptu snowball fight outside the local skating arena while one of the kids skated.

Big thing I’ve been thinking about this week is “what is my story”. See, we do things because of our stories. My story has a dad that was great, but worked away from home lots. He was gone 6 – 6 most days of the week, certainly weekdays.

The reason I want to help men be as focused on their family as their work is because I want men to be there for their kids and spouses. This is why I work as I do, so I can be there for my kids and my wife.

So, what’s your story? Why do you do the things that you do?

What I Shipped

Monday I gave you tour of exactly how I use a notebook to make sure I’m on track with my work.

Tuesday I looked at The Success Grower by Mark Schinnerer. I did an interview with Mark a few months back if you missed it.

Wednesday I talked about celebrating your achievements. Minimizing when you accomplish something only devalues the work you did to get there. Celebrate when you win.

Thursday I worked through H3 Leadership. You can enjoy this fine book in audio format with Should I Read It, or in written form.

Freelance Friday Five

5 good articles to help you run a business

1. Enough already – Paul Jarvis

I very much like that Paul spends time defining what enough is. For me it’s always been more about time with kids than money or external success measures. Getting to sit and read while one kid figure skates and the other two have May snowball fight in the arena snow is worth a lot to me.

What is your enough?

2. The Most Successful People Are The Ones You’ve Never Heard Of (And Why They Want It That Way) – RyanHoliday.net

Another one on enough. We don’t hear about the people that were successful but stopped before they became a household name. They still made lots and likely had more time to put in to the relationships that lettered to them. That’s what I love doing, helping you be as intentional about what enough is as you are about building some crazy big business.

3. A bad equation

While Kleon questions creativity and parenthood (specifically fatherhood is the topic) I think that this extends to any labour intensive work. Developers could probably have the same saying around shipping plugins or client work. I think that kids (and constraints in general) are a great forcing factor. They force you to make choices so that you can have a more profitable business with the limited time you have. They force you to get better at what you do.

4. Outsourced Triage – James Shelley

Yup. Hence I ignore email lots.

5. Unit Testing and tight timescales | CGCSoftware

Stephen talks about why we stop doing unit tests in the face of a deadline. I think you need to look at Scrum or Extreme Programming here as well as a process so that quality is not one of the things that get affected. Years ago I gave a talk on Unit Testing as well and if you’re talking about whether or not you do tests with clients, you’re having the wrong conversation. Tests are part of your process and your clients are purchasing code that solves their problems through your process.