Author Archives: David Truss

Notifications are interruptions

For the past few months I’ve been turning off most notifications on my phone. I tend to keep my phone on silent most of the time. I still get banner notifications for a few things, but most of my notifications only go to my Notifications Center, they don’t pop up and interrupt what I’m doing. What that results in is a phone filled with red notification dots, every time I look at it. I know this would drive some people crazy, but I don’t mind.

I use the dots to remind myself that I’m in control. I don’t need to see what’s on social media, it will still be there when I choose to look. I will see all my email, but I won’t let email determine my schedule. I won’t let email interrupt what I’m doing now. I let my staff know that I will frequently look at Microsoft Teams, and that this is a faster way to connect with me than email.

This shift to MS Teams allows me to prioritize my staff over the last 10 emails that came in after a staff member asked me something on email. It allows me to contextual the conversation rather than letting outsiders determine what distracts me, simply because they were the most recent item in my email inbox. This shift has reduced my total daily emails, and it has also reduced my time on email further because I’m not getting emails I wish I saw hours before from my staff, and my staff know what to, and not to, add to my email.

I’m the first to admit that I probably still spend too much time on my phone, especially at home. It’s where I read my news, listen to audiobooks and podcasts, consume social media, and even create these daily blog posts. But I also know that reducing notification interruptions has helped me stay more focussed on the tasks I’m trying to complete both at work and at home.

Sometimes features are actually bugs

I am not a fan of vertical (portrait) video. It’s not just an aesthetic, it’s wasted real estate. Seldom does more room above and below a subject being filmed give you as much information as more room to the left and to the right. That said, we will end up watching vertical videos that people choose to take. If you are one of these people taking vertical video, please do me a big favour: Do NOT use the Apple iMovie ‘feature’ that fills the black sidebars on a vertical video viewed horizontally with a magnified, blurry copy of the video.

This is a bug, not a feature. It actually takes away from the video. It’s a distraction. Worse yet, it creates a horizontal video with the side bars out of the vertical video so that even if you watch the video vertically, then the video is even smaller.

Here is a vertical music video:
Billie Eilish – bad guy (Vertical Video)

It was an intentional choice to film the video this way. Here is a horizontal screenshot of the video:

And since she left the video as vertical and didn’t fill the sides, or worse fill the sides with distractions, here is a screenshot of the video viewed vertically:

And here is the video vertically if she had forced the video to be horizontal after the fact:

I didn’t share any images with the sides blurred, but just know that this is even worse. Sometimes features that are added are actually bugs, they don’t make things any better no matter how they are used.

Here are some public service announcements regarding the tragedy and horror of using vertical videos! 😜

And one more short one, but the cover image has a swear word not seen in the video, so I’ll just link to it.

The Netflix Trap

Despite the fact that I grew up in the era of Seinfeld and Friends being sitcoms that were on the air, I haven’t seen all of the episodes. My daughters have seen every episode in order, and my youngest daughter is on her 3rd round of watching Friends through all 10 seasons, or 236 episodes, on Netflix.

When I watched these shows, they were on TV, with commercials, and we didn’t have a VCR set up if we missed the time slot. By the time the reruns were on, I was already not a fan of waiting through commercials to watch a show.

This weekend I got sucked into a drama on Netflix, and still nursing an injured knee, I found myself in front of the television for hours. I fell deep into the Netflix trap watching the next episode, after the next episode, after the next episode. ‘OK, just 1 more,’ I’d tell myself, then just one more after that…

I do this sometimes on longer breaks like summer and Christmas break but it’s very rare that I sink into a series like this on a regular weekend. The appeal is strong when there are no commercials and the opening/closing credits can easily be skipped. There is no waiting until next week’s time slot on TV, no waiting for commercials either. Just show after show, with each ending designed to hook you into the next one.

Watching television has changed significantly. I can see how easy it is to stay trapped in front of it now in a way that wasn’t possible when I was younger. YouTube and Facebook can be the same for some, with the next video automatically playing after the one you are watching is done. Blink and several hours have gone by.

I had a good dose of this on the weekend, and I’m done for now… At least until the March break. The series I was watching has one more season and I’ll probably watch most of it in a two to three day span. I force myself to wait for an extended break. But when I start, I don’t pretend that I’m not easily sucked into the trap of binge watching, like many others.

‪Incessant reminders are an annoyance, not a service.‬

I’m sure that I’m not the only Apple user fed up with the repeated ‘invitations’ to use iCloud for backup.

I know I’m not the only one that opens an app and gets the request to rate it, and the choices are to rate it or click ‘Not Now’ only to have to face this question again in the near future.

These ‘reminders’ and ‘invitations’ are annoying when they keep coming up. I understand an initial invitation for feedback. I’d be ok if I got another one 6 months later, after I’ve used the app for a while. But the window of time before the next time I’m asked is too short… Well here is a solution I just found after starting to write this little rant:

You can go into the iPhone settings under ‘iTunes and App Stores‘, scroll down and toggle the ‘In-App Rating and Reviews‘ radial button off.

This won’t stop the annoying iCloud reminders but it will go a long way in making my app user experience better!

If you are an app developer, or someone that is creating a service, remember that asking for feedback or selling a product are interruptions, so use these sparingly. Or, imbed these options in a way that isn’t a pop-up that forces a break in the flow of using the app. For example, 3 highlighted features/buttons to click to use features, and 2-3 more that are greyed out, but still work, taking you to a page to upgrade to use these features. (Take note Apple iCloud.)

Incessant reminders are an annoyance, not a service.‬

Adding a little extra

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a recipe where the amount of garlic ‘recommended’ wasn’t less than I wanted to (and probably did) put in. My whole family loves garlic and despite adding more garlic than suggested, in our house a meal has never been ruined by too much garlic. You can’t say the same for salt, or dill, or oregano.

Some things you can add a little extra, some things you can’t:

You can add some genuine compliments, be careful how much criticism you add.

You can add generosity generously, but just a pinch of selfishness.

You can add copious amounts of love, but only a sprinkling of animosity.

There isn’t any one recipe for living a good life, and so the ingredients we choose to put in can be played with… if we are thoughtful and liberally creative with the right ingredients, we can end up with delicious results!

Share your work in the open

I already shared this quote that helped me decide to blog daily:

“For years, I’ve been explaining to people that daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit. Even if no one reads your blog, the act of writing it is clarifying, motivating and (eventually) fun.“ ~Seth Godin

As a result of blogging daily, and having it also post on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, I now transmit a lot of posts about my own work, and I’m sure that for some, that can feel like too much.

Last night I was chatting with Jonathan Sclater and, like me, he has some healthy living goals he is working on. One of the things he now does is share his morning runs on social media. Here is his Tweet from Monday,

My #health #oneword2020 keeps me moving forward. 5 hours of sleep last night, so I felt like sleeping in instead or saying “maybe tomorrow”. But I got up anyways and put in the work. Won’t stop pursuing my goals. Don’t let anything get in the way of yours today!

#runlap

#health

I love to see sharing like this. Jonathan questioned if some people thinks he is over-sharing regarding his runs, and I responded that I think it’s great! We don’t have to worry about that. If someone doesn’t like it, they are free to unfollow, but sharing your passion and commitment are inspiring.

Similarly, Kelly Christopherson has been sharing Exploring Personal/Professional Learning One Day At a Time. Here is an example from Twitter:

Every day is a new opportunity to try something new. Each one of us is capable of doing great things if we only give ourselves permission to try without limiting ourselves to what we know we can do. Every day is a PD day. #myPDtoday @DomenicScuglia @dteneycke1 @LoriMeyerMseJaw

Sometimes he tags me in the Tweet and I appreciate it, and actually asked for it. Kelly’s regular reflections on living a life of continual thinking and learning ‘out loud’ is inspiring.

It’s not for everyone watching and reading, and that’s ok. It doesn’t have to be daily, but share your work. Share the things you value, or simply share your love for writing, or taking photos. Have fun, enjoy the process, and know that others can be inspired by what you share.

Slowly by slowly

In an email correspondence, my cousin, Lee, reminded me of a post I wrote in China, Slowly by Slowly. In the post, I quoted Rob Giebitz who “first heard this phrase from our Chinese production manager“. Rob went on to say:

“Those odd sounding phrases that often amuse the native English speaker, those Chinglish phrases, may offer a key to understanding our host culture. “Slowly by slowly” may carry some meaning absent from the more familiar “little by little” or “step by step” that a native English speaker would use. “Little” indicates size or quantity, “step” implies distance; “slowly” brings our attention to the element of time.”

As I mentioned Tuesday, I broke my patella. I got in to see an orthopaedic surgeon and he gave me good news. Luckily, the break was the ‘right way’ (vertically on the bone) and I can start putting weight on my leg right away. It’s still very swollen, sore, and stiff, but it could have been a lot worse.

So now comes a 4-6 week recovery. It will go slowly by slowly. This will be tough. I’ve been doing 5 or more cardio workouts a week since the start of the year, but now I can’t run or ride for a while. I’m also still doing Physio exercises to strengthen an injured shoulder that’s recovering well. So, I have to be careful with upper body workouts too.

What will my fitness regimen look like? I’m not sure? I was too achy this morning and still want to get into work today, so icing and elevating is my workout after an unsettled sleep. But I’ll be up early tomorrow, I’ll hobble down the stairs and figure it out. Sometimes we have to accept that slowly by slowly is the best approach, and save the sprints for another time.

Fear can paralyze

Imagine being legally blind, able only to see shadows in your peripheral vision. Now imagine needing to endure 10 rounds of fighting a new fresh black belt fighter, for consecutive 3 minutes rounds, to earn your black belt… Richard Turner did this. However I didn’t learn about Richard through his martial arts skills, but rather from his skills as a card mechanic… a close up card magician.

Here is where I first saw him, on Penn & Teller’s show ‘Fool Us’, where top notch magicians try to earn a performance spot in Penn & Teller’s live Vegas show. How do they earn this spot? They must do a trick that confounds Penn & Teller, and they are hard to fool!

Richard fooled them faster than anyone, and Teller was motioning to give him the trophy before he finished his trick.

I recently listened to Richard Turner — The Magical Phenom Who Will Blow Your Mind (#411) on the Tim Ferriss Podcast

Here is what Richard said at about the 1hr, 13min mark of the podcast (including opening commercials). I’m not adding anything beyond this quote, it’s brilliant and stands on its own!

“Fear can paralyze. We can be so worried about doing the wrong thing, that we do nothing.
There’s actually an English proverb that says, ‘A man who is afraid to make a mistake is unlikely to make anything… Fear of failure, when left unchecked, can actually lead to the failure we fear.” ~ Richard Turner

I didn’t ‘kneed’ this!

I wasn’t paying attention. I was at a friend’s house and took a shortcut off the front door path and across the driveway to my car, which was eye-level, 30 feet away from me. But it was dark and my friend’s driveway leads to a basement garage. What I thought was a 6 inch step to the driveway was actually a 4 foot drop. I don’t know if my right foot or my left knee hit the driveway first, but the pain was instant. I broke my patella (my left kneecap).

Careless? Yes. Unlucky? That depends, because it could have been my face. I literally took a step onto nothing and dropped 4 feet onto an asphalt driveway.

It’s almost 1am as I write this, in the emergency room, awaiting a tetanus shot. Tylenol 3’s tonight, and probably back to work on Wednesday… on crutches. I didn’t need this, but I’ll just thank my lucky stars it’s not worse.
https://youtu.be/byQrdnq7_H0

Starting with yourself

“To you love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Oscar Wilde

This quote was said in my daily meditation today on the Calm App. It struck me as something that is so easy to forget. We strive to be better. We are never satisfied with where and who we are. We want to be better, fitter, thinner, wiser, more in control, less wasteful, happier, kinder, more than we are.

This striving to be more than we are is good… as long as we are also happy with who we are right now. Without acceptance of ourselves we can’t be our best selves. Say that out loud and let it sink in:

“Without acceptance of ourselves we can’t be our best selves.”

Who admires you most? See yourself through their eyes for just a moment… Now let that moment linger for a while. Celebrate who you are. You don’t have to share that you are doing this with anyone, but if you honestly do this, you will be putting your best self forward into the world.