From a035d48b24f4d3f7cf10b61c10c3a404986e523b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Daniel Gibbons Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2024 17:17:19 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] add initial articles --- CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md | 128 ------------------- _config.yml | 6 +- _posts/2022-02-13-balanced-overtime.markdown | 56 ++++++++ _posts/2022-03-11-example-post-01.md | 8 -- _posts/2022-03-11-indie-hacker-journey.md | 82 ++++++++++++ about.md | 37 +----- categories.md | 2 +- 7 files changed, 148 insertions(+), 171 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md create mode 100644 _posts/2022-02-13-balanced-overtime.markdown delete mode 100644 _posts/2022-03-11-example-post-01.md create mode 100644 _posts/2022-03-11-indie-hacker-journey.md diff --git a/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md b/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md deleted file mode 100644 index 18c9147..0000000 --- a/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,128 +0,0 @@ -# Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct - -## Our Pledge - -We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our -community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body -size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender -identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, -nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity -and orientation. - -We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, -diverse, inclusive, and healthy community. - -## Our Standards - -Examples of behavior that contributes to a positive environment for our -community include: - -* Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people -* Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences -* Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback -* Accepting responsibility and apologizing to those affected by our mistakes, - and learning from the experience -* Focusing on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the - overall community - -Examples of unacceptable behavior include: - -* The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or - advances of any kind -* Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks -* Public or private harassment -* Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or email - address, without their explicit permission -* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a - professional setting - -## Enforcement Responsibilities - -Community leaders are responsible for clarifying and enforcing our standards of -acceptable behavior and will take appropriate and fair corrective action in -response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive, -or harmful. - -Community leaders have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject -comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are -not aligned to this Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation -decisions when appropriate. - -## Scope - -This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces, and also applies when -an individual is officially representing the community in public spaces. -Examples of representing our community include using an official e-mail address, -posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed -representative at an online or offline event. - -## Enforcement - -Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be -reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at -. -All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly. - -All community leaders are obligated to respect the privacy and security of the -reporter of any incident. - -## Enforcement Guidelines - -Community leaders will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining -the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct: - -### 1. Correction - -**Community Impact**: Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed -unprofessional or unwelcome in the community. - -**Consequence**: A private, written warning from community leaders, providing -clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the -behavior was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested. - -### 2. Warning - -**Community Impact**: A violation through a single incident or series -of actions. - -**Consequence**: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No -interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with -those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This -includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels -like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or -permanent ban. - -### 3. Temporary Ban - -**Community Impact**: A serious violation of community standards, including -sustained inappropriate behavior. - -**Consequence**: A temporary ban from any sort of interaction or public -communication with the community for a specified period of time. No public or -private interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction -with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, is allowed during this period. -Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban. - -### 4. Permanent Ban - -**Community Impact**: Demonstrating a pattern of violation of community -standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior, harassment of an -individual, or aggression toward or disparagement of classes of individuals. - -**Consequence**: A permanent ban from any sort of public interaction within -the community. - -## Attribution - -This Code of Conduct is adapted from the [Contributor Covenant][homepage], -version 2.0, available at -https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/0/code_of_conduct.html. - -Community Impact Guidelines were inspired by [Mozilla's code of conduct -enforcement ladder](https://github.com/mozilla/diversity). - -[homepage]: https://www.contributor-covenant.org - -For answers to common questions about this code of conduct, see the FAQ at -https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq. Translations are available at -https://www.contributor-covenant.org/translations. diff --git a/_config.yml b/_config.yml index 1a2a0bc..4dc80c8 100644 --- a/_config.yml +++ b/_config.yml @@ -17,15 +17,15 @@ # You'll be able to call these different parameters via {{ site.yourparam }} (e.g. {{ site.title }} to retrieve the title of you site on any of your page). # You can add to this list any new parameter you wish, and access it anywhere in the templates. -title: "A site made with Simply Cyan" # The site title +title: "Dan Maung" # The site title lang: en-GB # The site language encoding: utf-8 -description: "An amazing website" # The description of the site +description: "The personal blog of Dan Maung" # The description of the site copyright: "© It belongs to me." # The mentions that appear in the site's footer url: "" # The base hostname for you site, e.g. http://mysite.com baseurl: "/simply-cyan-theme" # The subpath of your site, e.g. /blog repo: -email: youremail@something.com # The owner's email +email: danny8friend@yahoo.co.uk # The owner's email # google_analytics: "" # google_analytics_anonymize_ip: "" diff --git a/_posts/2022-02-13-balanced-overtime.markdown b/_posts/2022-02-13-balanced-overtime.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30f1e77 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2022-02-13-balanced-overtime.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +--- +author: Daniel Gibbons +title: "Improving work-life balance" +--- + +# Intro + +Depending on your job and your personality, working a little overtime might actually be a net positive to your mental health and life quality overall. You owe it to yourself to experiment with your hours, but how do you make sure you find a balance that works for you without the (rather obvious) drawbacks of too much overtime? + +It's a good question, and it's something I've got better during my career as a software engineer. Here's the ways I've tried to approach it in the past, and my current **balanced overtime** system that leaves me doing my best work when I feel like it with the freedom to enjoy what I love outside of work. + +# Too cold: No overtime + +Back when I was starting out at my first software engineering job, I was adamant not to work any overtime. I had read endless articles about people burning out in software engineering. I wanted to start my career with discipline and built good habits, so I could create an amazing work-life balance for years to come. + +Every day at 5:30, I'd clock out and head home, no matter what was going on at work. At most I'd work ten to fifteen minutes longer, and that would always mean I'd be finishing 10-15 minutes early the day after. + +I call this approach **no overtime** (no points for guessing why), and it's quite simple: +- Get all your work done during your workday. +- Work _hard_ for all of your workday. +- Knowing you did a good days work, relax until tomorrow. + +While I still think having a good work/life balance is important, this strict approach was not always healthy, and sometimes ended up causing me a few problems: +1. **When I was unproductive at work, I'd get stressed.** Negative thoughts would play out in my head, "Why can I not work? I'm wasting time, I need to get something done or I won't feel good when I get home" . + 2. **When there were busy periods at work, I'd get stressed.** I'd be eating dinner, thinking about the work I'd have to do the next day. Hardly the work/life balance panacea I was looking for. 🤦 + +This is not to say I did not get a lot done, or felt terrible all the time. Most weeks I was perfectly happy and productive, and I loved my job. However, these little bits of friction caused me to search for a better approach. + +# Too hot: Unlimited overtime + +In my second job, I decided to throw my rule out the window and see what happened. In the first few months I found myself pouring a lot of my evenings into work with the hopes of getting the hang of things faster, and making a big impact. + +I experienced a bunch of benefits by working overtime. I'd often feel less stressed if I got a good piece of work done in the evening, leaving me a lot calmer and sleeping better. I'd also be able to get into the zone due to a lack of distractions. Lastly, I actually found myself enjoying releasing lots of exciting features. Good for me, and good for our team! + +However, I'm a person who values their free time for hobbies, self development, and relationships. I could feel my pace was unsustainable. It was chipping away at my morale, interfering with other areas of my life, and even starting to make the hours I was working less productive. + +Working with my manager I decided to try make one more tweak, and came up with an approach that combines the best of both worlds. + +# Just right: Balanced overtime + +What I've found worked best for me in my current role is a pretty simple system: +1. I track all long sessions worked outside of normal hours in an "overtime bank". +2. If I'm having a really unproductive session, I cut myself some slack, make a cup of tea, and subtract that time from the overtime bank. +3. If the bank grows too large (5-10 hours) I take the opportunity to raise it with my manager. + +Doing things this way had some really positive effects: + + 1. I'd no longer feel bad when I worked extra hours, because I felt it would come back to me on those days when my energy was low. + 2. I stopped feeling guilty if I'd not made enough progress during the work day. If I had the time I could always attack the problem in the evening without sacrificing my work life balance. + 3. I procrastinated less, as I knew that time would come out of my banked time. + +It's not a huge change, but this small system has contributed to me procrastinating less, feeling less guilty about taking breaks, and not beating myself up for working overtime when I want to. + +# Conclusion + +Not every day has to be a nine-to-five, and it's worth trying different strategies and schedules to try and find what works best. Work with your manager openly and honestly to try and find the best performace you can maintain over the long term that maintains your personal happiness, because at the end of the day, that's what everyone wants! If you're looking for a place to start, I'd suggest my current strategy of **balanced overtime**. Discuss with your manager, try it out, and see if it works for you. 🙂 \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_posts/2022-03-11-example-post-01.md b/_posts/2022-03-11-example-post-01.md deleted file mode 100644 index 2efda72..0000000 --- a/_posts/2022-03-11-example-post-01.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8 +0,0 @@ ---- -layout: post -title: "Example Post n°01" -date: 2022-11-11 -category: - - "P_Quod" - - "Another P_Quod" ---- diff --git a/_posts/2022-03-11-indie-hacker-journey.md b/_posts/2022-03-11-indie-hacker-journey.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd362cd --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2022-03-11-indie-hacker-journey.md @@ -0,0 +1,82 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "My indie hacker journey" +--- + +Title says it all really! After falling in love with the idea of indie hacking and creating a few small projects, I have paused being an indie hacker to focus on other things in my life. + +Rather than feeling like I've somehow given up on "the dream", this decision has been a painless and positive one, and I wanted to share why. + +You see a lot of amazing success stories about indie hacking, and a few scary failure stories. I'm hoping that this kind of "average guy" story helps round out the picture a little, and helps with the problem of Survivorship bias. It's the kind of perspective I'd have wanted to see if I was me a year ago. + +First, a lightning quick rundown of my projects, none of which got more than ten users (hi Mum!). + +### Zenkettle - a Zettelkasten style note-taking app +I decided to make a note-taking app (how cliché). It was based on the now popular zettelkasten style of note-taking, where you can form a rich network of ideas and connected concepts. + +I told myself that it was to learn new programming techniques, but in the back of my head I dreamed about making it big and having tonnes of paying users. I did zero customer validation, zero market analysis, and never even released the app. + +I did however learn that I can create something cool on my own, and that I don't hate the process. + +### BjjGymFinder - find BJJ gyms in your country + +When going on holiday I found it very time consuming locating Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gyms. Their websites are often missing pricing, out of date, and not written in English. My aggregator site kept all the basic data (timetable, cost, contact details) in one easy place, and was easy to search by city and country. + +This time I wanted to actually ship something. I still had no business model, but at least I was scratching my own itch and keeping the scope small. I started by adding all the gyms in London and Poznań (I was going to Poland at the time). + +It barely got traffic (like 20 organic views, and 100 impressions). Not quite enough to slap some ads on and leave the day job... This was maybe because it was built bang in the middle of the covid lockdown, and flights were banned to almost every country. I decided to pull the plug and try something else. + +### Sell by weight - zero waste store plugin + +Getting slightly smarter, I picked a market and a niche! Zero waste stores who were driven online during covid had pretty bad websites. I decided to build a plugin that could solve (what I thought at the time) was a real pain for them. + +I was going to create a slider plugin for Shopify stores to let people sell by the gram. One of the best things about zero-waste is that you can cut down your spending by only buying the exact quantities of ingredients. However, most online store builders don't let you do this. Zero waste stores were having to sell in 50g batches. + +It took me five hours to build out an MVP (two weeks of real time on a busy schedule). I then contacted store owners, pitching the idea and asking for feedback/payment. I got tonnes of feedback, but nobody was interested. + +Turns out, most zero waste stores actually liked having 50 gram increments as it lets them pre-package batches of ingredients for delivery without weighing them on request! So much for reducing waste... + +Another valuable lesson about validation, another discontinued project. + +## Deciding to stop + +In my own mind, none of these unsuccessful products were big failures in the grand scheme of things. During each one I learned something new, and got a little closer to creating a solo project that generated income. + +So why did I decide to stop? There were two reasons: +1. A big new life project that requires huge amounts of time +2. I found ways to get what I wanted from indie hacking out of my day job. + +### Big project: Learning a language + +At the same time as I started indie hacking, I started learning Polish very seriously. My wife and her family are Polish, and I wanted to be able to communicate with them in their first language. + +The method I found (Comprehensible input) was quite unlike any I'd tried before. It requires that you consume a lot of content in the language (3 hours a day minimum), and let your brain's language learning mechanisms do the bulk of the work. I found huge progress unlike anything I'd experienced dabbling in language learning with Duolingo, and made the decision to keep at it until fluency. + +This however meant that my hour before work, lunch break, and hour before bed were now needed to meet my daily immersion time, and I found myself with only 1-2 hours a week to work on side projects. I decided it was best to take a break from indie hacking, at least for three years, maybe more. + +### Changing my job + +I wanted to become an indie hacker to: +- earn more money +- become location independent +- become financially independent (work less) + +In order to fulfill those same goals while learning Polish, I was lucky enough to find a remote job with a higher salary. I also learned about the financial independence movement and started saving more aggressively. + +My new work has good work life balance. Not quite the 20 hour work week I dreamed of, but no crazy overtime. More importantly for me, it was a salary increase, and has allowed me to travel. I'm writing this article in a coffee shop in Porto! + +As the first employee in a self funded SAAS business, I also have had the privilege of helping us grow from 0 customers to over £3000 MRR in the last eight months. Needless to say, I'm taking notes about what works and what does not. + +Due to saving more, I'm also still on my path towards financial independence. When I do start working on solo projects again I'll do it knowing that a big chunk of money required for my ideal lifestyle has already been saved away. + +## When all is said and done + +I feel that I'm still on the same journey, but I've slowed down due to shifting priorities. I could maybe buckle down and grind, but I have decided that's not for me. I like my life now, and I want to use my time to take advantage of different opportunities that contribute towards my overall happiness (which is what this should be all about in the end). + +I have time for my hobbies, I'm valued at work, and I'm growing my income. At the same time I'm I'm building skills and a safety net that'll make my journey easier if/when I choose to go back into indie hacking more seriously. I'm also over two thousand hours into learning Polish, and I'd not trade the conversations I've had with my new grandfather and grandmother for the world. + +This is not a success story, or a failure story really. I just hope it's been useful to hear a somewhat un-inspiring story about someone who fell in love with the idea of indie hacking, but chose to put it down for now to focus on other things. 🙂 + +In survivorship terms, I'm one of those planes that did not make it back. I've not been shot down though, I just disappeared into the sunset. + +Happy hacking, and wishing you all the best, regardless of where your journey takes you! \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/about.md b/about.md index 4be3137..2c1fc1b 100644 --- a/about.md +++ b/about.md @@ -5,39 +5,14 @@ nav_header: true #If you want the page to be displayed on the nav menu on top of permalink: /about/ --- -## Simply Cyan +Hey there! My name's Daniel 👋 and my favorite emoji is 🙇‍♂️ (at your service). -Simply Cyan is a [Jekyll](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll) theme dedicated to text and reading. This theme focuses on readability and clarity. Different available functions are at work to facilitate the reader's experience. +Edinburgh is my home, but since the pandemic, I've spent a lot of time traveling around, living out of a suitcase with my wife Abi. We're currently situated in Istanbul. 🇹🇷 -You can view the demo of the theme [here](https://pquod.github.io/simply-cyan-demo/) +Outside of work you'll most likely find me learning either Spanish (by trying not to cry laughing at Betty la fea) or Polish (by trying not to cry pronouncing Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz). -The design of Simply Cyan is sober and elegant, yet pop with its bright colorful oblique stripes punctuating the screen. +I love to read! Last year I read or listened to over 40 books in Polish and Spanish, if you're curious you can find my book list here. -Symply Cyan can feature a multitude of authors and/or categories and it offers a page to display their description, as well as an archives page to display all the site's posts. +The M. as my middle name stands for Maung, I'm half Scottish, half Burmese (all business). I started using it more often for a very serious reason and not at all when I realized that Samuel L. Jackson sounds way cooler than Samuel Jackson. -## Features - -- Available as a theme gem and Github Pages theme -- Compatible with all major browsers -- Sober and elegant design you can use directly from how it is served or you can use as a boilerplate for something custom -- Dark/light mode -- The size of the fonts can be enlarged by the visitors -- A toggle allows the visitors to switch between serif and sans-serif fonts to help with people experiencing dyslexia -- Configurable colors and fonts in a setting file with detailed description -- A single page regrouping all the categories of the site and a page by category displaying a description and all the posts concerned by them -- Documentation - - -## How to start and use Simply Cyan - -Visit the readme.md file [on the theme's repo](https://github.com/PQuod/simply-cyan-theme) to know more about how to get started with a Jekyll theme and how to customize Simply Cyan. - -## Contact - -If you have any questions regarding this theme or if you have ideas about how to make it better, new functionalities to add or new ways to display things, feel free to contact me here: l.desaubliaux@gmail.com, I'd be happy to hear from you! - -## Thanks - -Simply Cyan is a public theme adaptation of a theme I made for a creative writing website, **Internet Exploreur**. - -The site is no longer active but an archive can be found [here](https://pquod.github.io/InternetExploreur/). A big thank you to Candice Labrousse, Quentin Leclerc et Robinson Lacotte, who contributed to its design and had lots of useful advices in order to make it beautiful, accessible and enjoyable by the most people possible. \ No newline at end of file +I hope you have some fun or learn something new from reading my blog. In fact, nothing would make me happier \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/categories.md b/categories.md index e24b70a..a083800 100644 --- a/categories.md +++ b/categories.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- layout: categories title: authors -nav_header: true #If you want the page to be displayed on the nav menu on top of the site, leave "true" here. If not, you can leave it blank +nav_header: false #If you want the page to be displayed on the nav menu on top of the site, leave "true" here. If not, you can leave it blank permalink: /authors/ ---