Tags: working

Jessica and I spent last week working remotely. We always work remotely in the sense of not being in an office, but I mean we were remote from home too.

We’ve done this twice before. Once in Ortigia, Sicily and once in Cáceres, Spain. This time we were in Turin.

We had one day at the start of the trip to explore the city and do touristy things, checking out museums and such. After that we hunkered down in a very lovely and cosy AirBnB working each day.

I found it very productive. Maybe it’s a similar effect to going to a coffee shop to write—something about the change of scene encourages more of a flow state. The apartment was nice and quiet too so it wasn’t a problem when I needed to be on a call.

Best of all was what awaited at the end of each working day. We were staying in the Quadrilatero neighbourhood, famed for its aperitivo scene. Heck, there was a wonderful Vermouth bar literally across the street.

And after an aperitivo? Time to sample some Piedmontese cuisine. Bagna càuda! Vitello tonnato! Agnolotti! Panna cotta! We had some wonderful meals at restaurants like Consorzio, L’Acino, and Pautasso (a neighbourhood spot we went to on our last night that had the most perfectly convivial atmosphere you could imagine).

They say a change is as good as a rest. I certainly enjoyed this change of scene.

There’s something about going somewhere for a working week that feels very different to going somewhere primarily as a tourist. You get a different flavour of a place.

August was a month of travels. You can press play on that month’s map to follow the journey.

But check out the map for September too because the travels continue. This time my adventures are confined to Europe.

I’m in Spain. Jessica and I flew into Madrid on Saturday. The next day we took a train ride across the Extremaduran landscape to Cáceres, our home for the week.

This is like the sequel to our Sicilian trip. We’re both working remotely. We just happen to do be doing it from a beautiful old town with amazing cuisine.

We’re in a nice apartment that—crucially—has good WiFi. It’s right on the main square, but it’s remarkably quiet.

There’s a time difference of one hour with Brighton. Fortunately everything in Spain happens at least an hour later than it does at home. Waking up. Lunch. Dinner. Everything is time-shifted so that I’m on the same schedule as my colleagues.

I swear I’m more productive working this way. Maybe it’s the knowledge that tapas of Iberican ham await me after work, but I’m getting a lot done this week.

And when the working week is done, the fun begins. Cáceres is hosting its annual Irish fleadh this weekend.

I’ve always wanted to go to it, but it’s quite a hassle to get here just for a weekend. Combining it with a week of remote work makes it more doable.

I’m already having a really nice time here and the tunes haven’t even started yet.

Before The Situation, I used to work in the Clearleft studio quite a bit. Maybe I’d do a bit of work at home for an hour or two before heading in, but I’d spend most of my working day with my colleagues.

That all changed three years ago:

Clearleft is a remote-working company right now. I mean, that’s hardly surprising—just about everyone I know is working from home.

Clearleft has remained remote-first. We’ve still got our studio space, though we’ve cut back to just having one floor. But most of the time people are working from home. I still occasionally pop into the studio—I’m actually writing this in the studio right now—but mostly I work out of my own house.

It’s funny how the old ways of thinking have been flipped. If I want to get work done, I stay home. If I want to socialise, I go into the studio.

For a lot of the work I do—writing, podcasting, some video calls, maybe some coding—my home environment works better than the studio. In the Before Times I’d have to put on headphones to block out the distractions of a humming workplace. Of course I miss the serendipitous chats with my co-workers but that’s why it’s nice to still have the option of popping into the studio.

Jessica has always worked from home. Our flat isn’t very big but we’ve got our own separate spaces so we don’t disturb one another too much.

For a while now we’ve been thinking that we could just as easily work from another country. I was inspired by a (video) chat I had with Luke when he casually mentioned that he was in Cypress. Why not? As long as the internet connection is good, the location doesn’t make any difference to the work.

So Jessica and I spent the last week working in Ortygia, Sicily.

It was pretty much the perfect choice. It’s not a huge bustling city. In fact it was really quiet. But there was still plenty to explore—winding alleyways, beautiful old buildings, and of course plenty of amazing food.

The time difference was just one hour. We used the extra hour in the morning to go to the market to get some of the magnificent local fruits and vegetables to make some excellent lunches.

We made sure that we found an AirBnB place with a good internet connection and separate workspaces. All in all, it worked out great. And because we were there for a week, we didn’t feel the pressure to run around to try to see everything.

We spent the days working and the evenings having a nice sundowner appertivo followed by some pasta or seafood.

It was simultaneously productive and relaxing.

The sixth episode of season two of the Clearleft podcast is available now. The last episode of the season!

The topic is remote work. The timing is kind of perfect. It was exactly one year ago today that Clearleft went fully remote. Having a podcast episode to mark the anniversary seems fitting.

I didn’t interview anyone specifically for this episode. Instead, whenever I was chatting to someone about some other topic—design systems, prototyping, or whatever—I’d wrap up by asking them to describe their surroundings and ask them how they were adjusting to life at home. After two season’s worth of interviews, I had a decent library of responses. So this episode includes voices you last heard from back in season one: Paul, Charlotte, Amy, and Aarron.

Then the episode shifts. I’ve got excerpts from a panel discussion we held a while back on the future of work. These panel discussions used to happen up in London, but this one was, obviously, online. It’s got a terrific line-up: Jean, Holly, Emma, and Lola, all dialing in from different countries and all sharing their stories openly and honestly. (Fun fact: I first met Lola three years ago at the Pixel Up conference in South Africa and on this day in 2018 we were out on Safari together.)

I’m happy with how this episode turned out. It’s a fitting finish to the season. It’s just seventeen and a half minutes long so take a little time out of your day to have a listen.

As always, if you like what you hear, please spread the word.

Colin wrote about his typical day and suggested I do the same.

Y’know, in the Before Times I think this would’ve been trickier. What with travelling and speaking, I didn’t really have a “typical” day …and I liked it that way. Now, thanks to The Situation, my days are all pretty similar.

• 8:30am — This is the time I’ve set my alarm for, but sometimes I wake up a bit earlier. I get up, fire up the coffee machine, go to the head and empty my bladder. Maybe I’ll have a shower.
• 9am — I fire up email and Slack, wishing my co-workers a good morning. Over the course of each day, I’ve usually got short 1:1s booked in with two or three of my colleagues. Just fifteen minutes or so to catch up and find out what they’re working on, what’s interesting, what’s frustrating. The rest of the time, I’ll probably be working on the Clearleft podcast.
• 1pm — Lunch time. Jessica takes her lunch break at the same time. We’ll usually have a toasted sandwich or a bowl of noodles. While we eat, Jessica will quiz me with the Learned League questions she’s already answered that morning. I get all the fun of testing my knowledge without the pressure of competing.
• 2pm — If the weather’s okay, we might head out for a brisk walk, probably to the nearby park where we can watch good doggos. Otherwise, it’s back to the podcast mines. I’ve already amassed a fair amount of raw material from interviews, so I’m spending most of my time in Descript, crafting and editing each episode. In about three hours of work, I reckon I get four or five minutes of good audio together. I should really be working on my upcoming talk for An Event Apart too, but I’m procrastinating. But I’m procrastinating by doing the podcast, so I’ve kind of tricked myself into doing something I’m supposed to be doing by avoiding something else I’m supposed to be doing.
• Sometime between 5pm and 6pm — I knock off work. I pick up my mandolin and play some tunes. If Jessica’s done with work too, we play some tunes together.
• 7pm — If it’s a Tuesday or Thursday, then it’s a ballet night for Jessica. While she’s in the kitchen doing her class online, I chill out in the living room, enjoying a cold beer, listening to some music with headphones on, and doing some reading or writing. I might fire up NetNewsWire and read the latest RSS updates from my friends, or I might write a blog post.
• 8pm — If it is a ballet night, then dinner will be something quick and easy to prepare; probably pasta. Otherwise there’s more time to prepare something with care and love. Jessica is the culinary genius so my contributions are mostly just making sure she’s got her mise en place ahead of time, and cleaning up afterwards. I choose a bottle of wine and set the table, and then we sit down to eat together. It is definitely the highlight of the day.
• 9pm — After cleaning up, I make us both cups of tea and we settle in on the sofa to watch some television. Not broadcast television; something on the Apple TV from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, or BBC iPlayer most likely. If we’re in the right mood, we’ll watch a film.
• Sometime between 11pm and midnight — I change into my PJs, brush and floss my teeth, and climb into bed with a good book. When I feel my eyelids getting heavy, I switch off the light and go to sleep. That’s where I’m a Viking!

That’s a typical work day. My work week is Monday to Thursday. I switched over to a four-day week when The Situation hit, and now I don’t ever want to go back. It means making less money, but it’s worth it for a three day weekend.

My typical weekend involves more mandolin playing, more reading, more movies, and even better meals. I’ll also do some chores: clean the floors; back up my data.

Ambient Reassurance – disambiguity

Ambient reassurance is the experience of small, unplanned moments of interaction with colleagues that provide reassurance that you’re on the right track. They provide encouragement and they help us to maintain self belief in those moments where we are liable to lapse into unproductive self doubt or imposter syndrome.

In hindsight I realise, these moments flowed naturally in an office environment.

Robin Rendle ･ A Rocket-Powered Jumbo Jet

Before the hagiographical praise for working with an iPad Pro, Robin nails the fundamental shape of the design process:

I had forgotten that there are two modes of design, just as there is in writing.

The first mode is understanding the problem, getting a ten-thousand foot view of the land. It’s getting people to acknowledge that this really is the problem we need to agree upon. This work needs to happen in a sketchbook in the form of messy, back-of-the-napkin drawings or in writing. All this helps you to form a proper argument and focus your thoughts.

The second mode of design is taking that ten-thousand foot view and zooming all the way in to the hairs on the back of the rabbit; figuring out the precise UI and components, the copywriting, the animations, the everything else. This should be done in a design tool like Figma or Sketch. And this is when we should be talking about color palettes, icons, design systems, and consistency.

The problem with almost all design work is that first phase never really happens. People don’t take that ten thousand foot view of the problem and are focusing instead on the pixels; they’re trapped by the system they know too well.

Yes, yes, yes! Spot on:

I think people get stuck in that second mode because productivity in design is often tied to “how many pages or frames did I design today?” when productivity should instead be thought of as “how did my understanding of the problem change?

Why does writing matter in remote work? — Tim Casasola

Some good writing advice in here:

• Spell out your acronyms.
• Use active voice, not passive voice.
• Fewer commas. More periods.

Employee-surveillance software is not welcome to integrate with Basecamp - Signal v. Noise

Look, employers are always free to – and should! – evaluate the work product produced by employees. But they don’t have to surveil someone’s every move or screenshot their computer every five minutes to do so. That’s monitoring the inputs. Monitor the outputs instead, and you’ll have a much healthier, saner relationship.

If you hire smart, capable people and trust them to do good work – surprise-surprise – people will return the sentiment deliver just that! The irony of setting up these invasive surveillance regimes is that they end up causing the motivation to goof off to beat the very systems that were setup to catch such behavior.

It’s OK.

This is for everyone at Clearleft, but I’m sharing it here for you too.

A few years back, Zach Bloom wrote The History of the URL: Path, Fragment, Query, and Auth. He recently expanded on it and republished it on the Cloudflare blog as The History of the URL. It’s well worth the time to read the whole thing. It’s packed full of fascinating tidbits.

In the section on ports, Zach says:

The timeline of Gopher and HTTP can be evidenced by their default port numbers. Gopher is 70, HTTP 80. The HTTP port was assigned (likely by Jon Postel at the IANA) at the request of Tim Berners-Lee sometime between 1990 and 1992.

Ooh, I can give you an exact date! It was January 24th, 1992. I know this because of the hack week in CERN last year to recreate the first ever web browser.

Kimberly was spelunking down the original source code, when she came across this line in the HTUtils.h file:

#define TCP_PORT 80 /* Allocated to http by Jon Postel/ISI 24-Jan-92 */

We showed this to Jean-François Groff, who worked on the original web technologies like libwww, the forerunner to libcurl. He remembers that day. It felt like they had “made it”, receiving the official blessing of Jon Postel (in the same RFC, incidentally, that gave port 70 to Gopher).

Then he told us something interesting about the next line of code:

#define OLD_TCP_PORT 2784 /* Try the old one if no answer on 80 */

Port 2784? That seems like an odd choice. Most of us would choose something easy to remember.

Well, it turns out that 2784 is easy to remember if you’re Tim Berners-Lee.

Those were the last four digits of his parents’ phone number.

Don’t quit your day job: the benefits of being a ‘bifurcator’ | Aeon Essays

Here, then, is my speculation. Work is something we struggle to get and strive to keep. We love-hate it (usually not in equal measure). Sometimes it seems meaningless. I’m told this is the case even for surgeons, teachers and disaster-relief workers: those with jobs whose worth seems indisputable. For the mere facilitators, the obscure cogs in the machinery of the modern economy whose precise function and value it takes some effort to ascertain, the meaning in what we do often seems particularly elusive (I should know). I contend, however, that while our lives need to be meaningful, our work does not; it only has to be honest and useful. And if someone is voluntarily paying you to do something, it’s probably useful at least to them.

UX Workshop | Trys Mudford

I’m so, so happy that Trys has joined us at Clearleft!

Here, he recounts his first day, which just happened to coincide with an introductory UX workshop that went really well.

Web Developer Representation in W3C · An A List Apart Article

This is an excellent initiative by the Dutch Fronteers group to have professional web developers represented in W3C working groups. In this particular case, they’re funding Rachel for the CSS working group. This sets a great precedent—I really hope the W3C goes for it!

Pair Programming

Amber gave a lightning talk about pair programming at the Beyond Tellerrand Düsseldorf side event. Here is the transcript of that presentation.

The fact that everyone has different personalities, means pairing with others shouldn’t be forced upon anyone, and even if people do pair, there is no set time limit or a set way to do so.

So, there’s no roadmap. There’s no step-by-step guide in a readme file to successfully install pair programming

Inside CSS | Clearleft

If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be a fly on the wall at a CSS Working Group meeting, Richard has the inside scoop.

The consensus building is vital. Representatives from all the major browsers were in the room, collaborating closely by proposing ideas and sharing implementations. But most fundamentally they were agreeing together what should go in the specifications, because what goes in the specs is what gets built and ends up in the hands of users.

Refraction Networking

This looks like an interesting network-level approach to routing around the censorship of internet-hostile governments like China, Turkey, Australia, and the UK.

Rather than trying to hide individual proxies from censors, refraction brings proxy functionality to the core of the network, through partnership with ISPs and other network operators. This makes censorship much more costly, because it prevents censors from selectively blocking only those servers used to provide Internet freedom. Instead, whole networks outside the censored country provide Internet freedom to users—and any encrypted data exchange between a censored nation’s Internet and a participating friendly network can become a conduit for the free flow of information.

1 month in to my first developer role – Zara – Medium

I love seeing people go from Codebar to full-time dev work. It’s no surprise in Zara’s case—she’s an excellent front-end developer.

whiteink — Tech lead: an introduction

A series of posts on the decisions and trade-offs involved in being a tech lead:

• writing code ⟷ not writing code
• decide everything ⟷ decide nothing

I think good tech leads spend a lot of their time somewhere in between the two extremes, adjusting the balance as circumstances demand.

Tim Berners-Lee ~ The World Wide Web - YouTube

There’s something very endearing about this docudrama retelling of the story of the web.