Dec 2013

A note to start: this blog post is about sex. Or, to be more specific, the physiology of sex. If that’s not interesting to you, or if you’re offended by reading about genitals and the like, feel free to skip this one.

So, why am I writing a blog post about sex? Simply because I just finished reading an excellent book that explored the history of scientific study into human sexuality and there were some points in it that were so fascinatingly mind-blowing that I had to share them.

So this is just a wrap-up of my favourite parts of the book and some thoughts on what I learned from it.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

You can find this New York Times bestseller on Amazon. Mary Roach has also written books about other interesting taboo topics like digestion and cadavers, so if you like her style, you should check those out as well.

I read mine on...

I currently have an iPhone 5S. I really miss some things about Android, but after a year away from Apple’s walled garden I had to come back. The sub-par app experience of Android was too frustrating for me. A lot of the most exciting apps are released on iOS first (or only), and almost always look and feel more at home on an Apple device.

Since I’m such an app fanatic, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favourite apps as I add to my collection. To start off with, here are five of the apps on my phone that I use all the time right now.

Several of these are data-tracking apps, since I’m super excited about quantifying my life and collecting data to use with Exist. They’re also mostly apps that I’ve started using in the last couple of months, and don’t include some of my staples like Mailbox, Fantastical, Due and Reeder 2. But there’s plenty of time to talk about those later.

Dec 2013

This post is long overdue. When I joined Buffer earlier this year I did some “co-working space shopping” around inner Melbourne to find a place I’d like to rent a space in.

There are many more co-working spaces available, but I tried a few of the more well-known ones in the CBD and inner suburbs. Here’s a collection of my thoughts on the benefits of each one that might help if you’re looking to choose one for yourself.

Having said that, I’d definitely suggest trying them out. As they say, your mileage may vary. Most of these places are happy for you to drop in and work for a day or two to get a feel for it before you sign up for a permanent desk.

Inspire9

This is the office I ended up in. I also moved house during my shopping adventure so I now live barely a 10-minute walk from Inspire9, which definitely influenced my decision.

Apart from being right near my house...

Dec 2013

Right now Josh and I are both working on Exist around our day jobs.

On the one hand, this takes the pressure off Exist so that we can focus on making the product awesome without having a definite monetisation strategy in place yet. On the other hand, it means we don’t have as much time to spend on Exist as we’d like to, so we have to be mindful of maintaining momentum.

Here are some of the ways we’ve implemented so far to keep us on-track and in-sync.

Managing our tasks with Asana

We use Asana for Hello Code task management because of its collaborative features. We can add comments to tasks, assign them to each other and keep track of everything we’re working on via email.

Sharing links in Kippt

We’re still not settled on a link-sharing service but for now we’re using Kippt.

This is where we share links and discuss what we read. It’s a good way to collect and discuss...

This post was inspired by Startup Edition

My current job titles are Content Crafter (Buffer) and Co-founder (Hello Code), but I usually explain what I do by simply saying I’m a writer. It’s much easier when talking to those outside the tech industry than initiating them into the confusing worlds of startups and content marketing (I actually have a friend who was incredulous that I get paid for content marketing when I explained to her what it is. She works in sales and finds the concept unbelievable).

Writing is a pretty good descriptor, since I do it in so many different forms, for so many different reasons. I write this blog to collate, express and shape my thoughts. I write for Buffer to engage with and build our audience. I write on the Hello Code blog to engage with and build our audience for Exist. And I write on paper to remember things and organise my thoughts.

Expressing

I’ve never been one to look back at “where I came from” fondly. In fact, I don’t like looking back at all. I’m much more prone to cutting ties and moving on for good—no turning back, no second-guessing. But something prompted me to think about my past today, and I realised good things can come from doing this occasionally, even if it’s not something you enjoy much.

A few months after I started high school, my best friend lost one of her parents. We were 12 at the time, and had been friends since we started school, just before we turned five. In a lot of ways, her parents became mine when we were kids. I used to spend almost as much time at her house as I did mine, and our parents were well-acquainted.

My dad was writing a lot of music at the time, and he wrote a song about this when it happened. I remember him playing it for me and the two of us crying through it. I listened to that...

Time zones are hard.

From what Josh tells me of working on Exist, it sounds like programming around time zones is a nightmare.

For us regular folk, though, it seems that just meeting up for a Skype call can be quite a feat.

Since joining Buffer and pushing forward with Exist, I’ve been having lots more phone and video calls with people in different time zones to me—particularly in the U.S., unsurprisingly.

I’ve picked up a few things that seem to make it easier to work out time zones for your meetings and to get them right. Here’s a list, in case any of these can help you as well.

1. Bring it up early

I know not everyone is the same, but I hate to waste time on emails back-and-forth if I can avoid it. So when someone emails me to request a meeting or call, I like to respond with a couple of suggested times. This means they can pick one and respond, taking just three emails between...

I just recently joined the team of writers behind Startup Edition and I’m really excited to contribute. Right after I joined, I noticed I’d just missed out on the weekly topic “why are you working at a startup?” Reading everyone else’s thoughts got me thinking so much that this essay just kind of fell out of me, so I wanted to share it. You should definitely read the Startup Edition posts on this topic, too.

Do something—anything—else

When I was training as an actor and focussing on building a career in the theatre, I read and listened to lots of interviews with successful actors. In doing so I noticed a common theme in the advice they gave to younger, or newer, actors. Quite often they would say if you can do anything else in the world besides acting and be happy, go do that.

It seems like strange advice for someone who’s made a successful career in this very industry, but the more I...

I’ve had a Misfit Shine for a couple of months now, so I thought it would be interesting to look at what I like (and don’t like) about it and how it compares to other fitness trackers I’ve tried. But since I’m only going to cover the things that I care about, this isn’t really a review—it’s just some thoughts on my experience so far.

If you’re thinking about buying a Shine, or just want to get a better idea of how it works, hopefully you’ll find this useful.

Right now I’m wearing both my Shine and Jawbone UP on the same wrist, with a normal watch on the other. I’d love to replace my watch with a fitness tracker at some point but so far the Basis watch seems to be the best candidate, and since there’s no open API for the Basis we can’t integrate it with Exist (obviously this wouldn’t be a consideration for everyone, but at least having plans for an API, which the company behind the...

I recently changed the way I manage my daily tasks, and I’m finding it a much better way to stay on track. I tend to be one of those people who likes experimenting with productivity apps and task management methods, but this time I’ve actually just stumbled across something that happens to work. I designed it myself over time, based on how I already work, which is how I think most successful productivity methods are probably developed, since we all work differently.

Using a done list

Since joining Buffer I’ve been using iDoneThis, along with the rest of the Buffer team, to document what I get done each day. Although I’d heard of the idea of a done list before, I had never been drawn to try it myself. Now that I have, I can definitely see the merit in it.

As well as tracking what you get done each day, iDoneThis sends you a daily digest of what everyone else in your team has completed...