Last Friday I got a new 4K monitor in after 10 years with an HD Dell UltraSharp. I figured it was a good investment as I have been doing more video work and that’s all in 4K. I also had a child spill hot chocolate all over themselves while wearing white…twice in the same night. The second time also had the middle child’s favourite blanket and doll covered in dark chocolate mess.

Oh, I had a kid sick at the same time. The short story for me is that I wasn’t the parent I wanted to be while I tried to start dinner, clean chocolate off white stuff and mop the floor now covered in chocolate.

It actually made me think of the quote I had planned for today already.

Children are better off having a parent who works into the night in a job they love than a parent who works shorter hours but comes home unhappy. – Leaders Eat Last Page 38

Right now the email list is reading about attitude and parenting. You should subscribe at that fancy link thing above if you want to join them.

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

I Shipped

On Monday I reviewed my current desk keyboard, the Keychron K2. It’s a much better purchase than the Akko 3068 was, maybe not my keyboard for the next 10 years, but certainly I’m not in a rush to find something I can use regularly.

Over on the Nexcess blog I had a post published about breaking through the holiday clutter with your eCommerce store marketing efforts. One of my favourite parts of this post was heading out and stealing a shopping cart to take the shopping cart picture in the post. Yes I returned it, but it was fun to envision what I wanted in a photo and then go take it. I also took the image of the camera, but that was just in my garage.

Friday Five

1 Performance Reviews Kill Culture

From Farnam Street on performance reviews killing culture.

The problem is that ranking someone against their peers is not the ranking that matters and is counterproductive in terms of building an exceptional corporate culture.

Makes me think of what I read this morning in Leaders Eat Last about it not being the people that are a bad fit, but the processes in your business.

I much prefer doing what’s described in The Coaching Habit. Spend time working with your employees to help them identify where they need to grow and then help them get there.

Forced ranking and 99% of performance reviews just create a toxic work environment.

2 Notifications Slice Into the Family Cocoon

Although the barrier between work and the-rest-of-life has been eroding steadily, it’s taken the smartphone to shatter it altogether. Her incessant buzzing — Check me! Check me! It just might be important! — slices into our family cocoon. – For Better or for Work

I’m starting to do research into a new book project and came across this quote from a book I never got around to reviewing (it was decent and worth my time).

I like the imagery of a cocoon around your family and the phone/distractions/notifications tearing into it.

I write this on US Thanksgiving, and how many of you are going to get a notification this weekend that pulls you out of the family time you wanted? That notification likely doesn’t matter, and if you think it does, you’re probably wrong about how much it mattered and how fast you needed to know about it.

PS: The book is about the rules I’ve learned that help me survive freelance life of 10-years. If you want to learn about it first then subscribe to the email list

3 On Getting Kids Out Playing

Lena Aburdene Derhally writing for Washington Post

Because we have become such a work- and results-driven society, free, unscheduled play for children has taken a back seat. In fact, since 1955, free play has been declining.

She goes on to talk about some good tips for getting your kids outside. One thing I think she misses is that we need to start trusting our kids and those around us. Despite being safer than ever, we are more afraid that someone will hurt us and thus we don’t let our kids go do anything.

That has to change.

4 Ryder Carroll on Adding Journaling to Your Bullet Journal

I use a Bullet Journal and include long form journaling right inline with my tasks for the day. In fact, it’s mostly a log of what I’ve done that day and how I felt about it.

If you’re interested in doing some journaling in your notebook here is a good video one way to do it.

5 Add WHY to Your Bullet Journal Tasks

I like the why question in this Bullet Journal video.

Do you ever ask yourself why you’re doing the things you do in the day?