Blog

August 26, 2024

Greg Thomas

Time vs Accomplishment

I’m more of a task-based person – I like to check boxes on things I’ve completed. I did this task, I accomplished something, Huzza I got an achievement. Measuring success by time accrued is harder for me to work through – I did some stuff, I didn’t figure it out, but I made progress, am I closer to the end, I don’t know, when will this end, I don’t know, how long does this go on for? Writing the two out is exactly how I feel when accomplishing work by time or by task – I’m sure I just gave

August 25, 2024

Greg Thomas

Less Superficial Tickets, More Implementation

You know the question, go find the answer. Tickets are good for work that is going to take more than 30 minutes to an hour. Anything else? Do you need a ticket? Don’t get me wrong, I’m big on describing my work so people can know what I’m doing.  If it’s anything less than 30 mins, I group it together. I don’t create tickets that say – “Apply Bold”. If I’m working on Task X, and I get asked a question, I’ll answer the question, not create a ticket to answer the question at a later date.  Presumably, you need

August 24, 2024

Greg Thomas

What Timers Really do

Timers are great, they give you a unit of time to get work done, and then you break.  You zone in and you focus in on that work to be delivered and voila you get it done. It’s incredible that the productivity hack of our lifetime boils down to tomatoes and timers that give you a block of time to get work done (I have a few of my own and I use the Google timer at many a project). But here’s the real value in all these timers (and it’s not the break) – it’s when you go over.

August 23, 2024

Greg Thomas

If it Doesn’t work the First Time

When you don’t know what you’re doing, I mean, quite honestly, you have no idea what you’re doing and you’re doing it for the first time – you have no idea what will happen when something goes wrong. “I didn’t realize – EVERYTHING – was using that component I was working on and now everything is down” (Never happens). But the more first times you go through, the more you think on your actions, the more you ponder the outcome and the more you worry, yes worry, about what happens when something goes wrong.  It can become paralyzing as you

August 22, 2024

Greg Thomas

Assuming you have No Ads

How would you generate revenue for your product? What’s the value it would deliver? How would you pay your employees? How would the company grow? If you have a great idea for an app and the money side ends with “Oh and we’ll sell ads” – you’re missing the most important part of what your product could be – the value it could create. Don’t end a great idea with ads (unless you’re an advertising company).