Time for Deep Work ⇒

February 22nd, 2017 by Erin with tags Personal & thoughtful

I just finished reading Cal Newport's Deep Work and I have a new commitment to improvement.

This book, more than anything else I've read, highlighted not only how prone to distraction I am, but also how harmful that is to my personal and professional growth.

For a while now I have felt a little "lost". Nothing major but a feeling that I should be "better" at "stuff". This book explained to me why I felt like this and gave me ways to fix it.

This quote really hit home for me:

...efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don't simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction...

Key components of doing more Deep Work:

  • understand the value, or lack thereof, of your shallow work
  • quit the distractions cold turkey for 30 days to bring their (potentiel lack of) importance to the forefront
  • schedule your entire day in at least 30 min blocks
  • use the new boredom to train yourself to think deeply

I am going to start by:

  • removing Twitter from my iPhone
  • quitting Instagram
  • Reviewing the books I want to read and creating a priority list
  • blocking social media sites on my Mac
  • creating a complete daily schedule, everyday, starting tomorrow. There will be time in my schedule, probably in the evening for 30-60 mins of news review, which is what I use Twitter/RSS mostly for.

It will take some time, probably over a month, to train my brain to not crave those distractions, but I will do this and get more productive.

Come join the conversation!

I'm not getting better at Crossfit ⇒

January 14th, 2017 by Erin with tags Health & Fitness

I have been doing Crossfit for 4 years and I've noticed over this last year I have not improved very much.

Today I figured out why. When I am doing the workout and I feel I am too tired to continue, I stop and rest for a few seconds. This is not how one gets better.

What I should do, of course, is do at least one more rep. Always push myself to go one further or for a few more seconds.

My mental weakness stops now.

Come join the conversation!

Statamic Addon Development Course ⇒

November 7th, 2016 by Erin with tag Statamic

I use Statamic to power this site. It is super powerful, flat-file CMS built on Laravel with a great community, great support and very accessible team members.

One of its great powers is that it is very extensible via Addons. I've written several free ones and one paid one.

In the Slack group I've both helped people write their own or done contract work to build what's needed.

There is a subset of people however, that would like to learn how to build addons themselves, but don't know how to start.

As I know how to build addons, and really enjoy coaching/teaching, I decided to create a series of courses to walk people through building the various different types of addons. My first, Addon Development 101 is in a couple of weeks.

You can register here: https://silentzconsulting.com/courses/addon-development-101.

I'm very excited to help people learn.

Come join the conversation!

The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen ⇒

September 30th, 2016 by Erin with tags Links & Sales

A brilliant & persuasive way to present value. Currently adapting this to EDP.

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