This week has been a big content week. I wrote a few posts for Liquid Web, and one for Godaddy. I also started to dig into DEVONthink 3 more for macOS and it’s a highly compelling piece of software for storing your notes and other files you want to keep track of.

Check below for an article on The Sweet Setup on using DEVONthink as my read-it-later service and I’m starting to work on one for them all about the best long-term research application.

Finally, something I talked with my Patreon supporters about was how your business runs if you’re sick or otherwise out of the loop for an extended period of time. For me, I’m going to keep writing books and I’m looking at doing a course on DEVONthink as a piece of software. Maybe part of something bigger than also involves Scrivener and book planning, so a course for people that want to write books? Love to have feedback on via a reply.

If you’ve found my content helpful then new in 2019 I’ve opened up a Patreon page. You can help ensure that more helpful content keeps coming.

I Shipped

Monday I did a video on upgrading the RAM in my Mac Mini to 32GB. Do you enjoy videos like this? I’m planning to build a PC/Linux box this summer so I can test out more software and look at divorcing myself from macOS if I feel like it.

I don’t always share my writing for clients, but this week I wrote about Digital Minimalism and App Design over at AppPresser. I think it fits the interests of ya’ll, and applies outside of just mobile app design.

I also wrote over at The Sweet Setup about how I use DEVONthink as my read it later service. The main things I love about DEVONthink are the AI to find related content and that I can file a resource in my research collection app at the same time as I read/write about it. I’m also very happy that they used all my photos for the content instead of taking better ones than I provided.

Friday Five

1. The myth of flexible self-employment hours

Many company founders believe self-employment will allow them to control when and how much they work. Theoretically, being your own boss gives you flexible hours. But how flexible can hours be when you’re working 16 of them every day? For Better or For Work

I think that for many business owners the “flex” is that the work hours just take up the whole day all the time. There is little flex in the other way as even on vacation you put a few hours in early and call it vacation.

2. I Make a Point to Have Friends Now

Kelly’s boyfriend refused to talk to other men or a therapist about his feelings, so he’d often get into “funks,” picking pointless fights when something was bothering him. Eventually, Kelly became his default therapist, soothing his anxieties as he fretted over work or family problems. Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden

I admit I did this to my wife for a while early in our marriage. Now I take most Friday afternoons to have coffee with a friend, or take a walk along a local river with a friend.

Not all the conversations are deeply emotional, but they are all great conversations about life, work, family, and everything else.

Guy’s it’s okay to be open. It’s okay to have feelings and then express them with your friends. If you’re friends aren’t into that, maybe it’s time to find some new friends.

3. The deferential Wife/boss

When the wife is the boss, she’s apt to be overly deferential to her husband, fearing that he’ll balk at taking direction or mischaracterize leadership as bossiness. The fact that these days more men act as helpmeets does not mean they feel tranquil in that role. – For Better or For Work

Unfortunate that woman still have to deal with this. You see this also with an “assertive” man, where a woman would be called a bitch for the same behaviour.

With my wife’s job taking more and more time, and us splitting daily child care so I’m off at three I’m worried that I’m falling into this trap. I don’t want to be the man that holds her back because I’m jealous.

I’m not sure I win that battle every day, but I hope that the fact I think about it a few times a week means I’m winning more than loosing.

4. Purposeful Productivity

The problem with an efficiency-focused approach to productivity is that as soon as we get the space we so desperately seek, we tend to fill it with one more thing. At some point, you have to say, “Enough!”

That’s from Mike Schmitz over at Faith Based Productivity off his email newsletter based on his book The Case for Purposeful Productivity. You can get it at that link in trade for an email.

I downloaded it and it’s worth the email trade. Especially because Mike’s newsletter is worth your time on it’s own.

Mike has also opened up a community for those that are faith minded and want to talk about productivity alongside their faith. You can find that community here.

5. What does traction look like Or Know When to Fold em

From Justin Jackson:

What does traction look like? Early on, you can evaluate your idea’s potential by looking at:

• How many people respond
• How enthusiastically they respond

Seth Godwin talks about this same subject in The Dip. It’s a hard call. Most of the success I’m seeing now was sowed by almost 9 years doing something different and 2 years of almost tears as I wondered how I wouldn’t fail my family financially.

Even thinking about that financial trouble now makes me almost cry.