Category: Productivity

  • Excel Sorting and Grouping

    I had two tables downloaded from Amazon: Items Order Date Order ID Title Category 1/26/14 102-4214073-2201835 Everyday Paleo Family Cookbook 1/13/14 115-8766132-0234619 Awesome Book A 1/13/14 115-8766132-0234619 Awesome Book B and Orders Order Date Order ID Subtotal 1/6/14 102-6956821-1091413 $43.20 1/13/14 115-8766130-0234619 $19.42 1/16/14 109-8688911-2954602 $25.86 I’m building our Q1 2014 taxes and needed rows…

  • Practical Cutting Stock Problem

    Warning. This post is for an audience of close to zero. My technical friends will find this pretty basic, and my non-technical friends will find this too technical. Welcome to the middle space that I occupy between these two worlds. I wanted to build this series of retaining walls to replace the overgrown ivy and…

  • “I’m Busy”

    As we enter the Christmas/holiday season, I’m asking lots of friends how they are doing and how their year has been. Almost everyone says “it’s busy”. This takes many forms, from “crazy busy” to “absolutely busy” or “scary busy”. Since words often lose their meaning, I’ve thought about a scale we could use to better…

  • WordPress Development Workflow

    When I work with WordPress, I am still a ruby coder in a PHP environment. I spent several years doing PHP only and have watched the language develop nicely, but still like to focus on Concept/Design, CSS3, Ruby and JavaScript when I’m doing web development work. In the hope that someone might benefit from my…

  • Daily Morning Routine

    One of the most undervalued skills is the ability to set a routine and stick to it. Modern workflow is constantly inundated by distractions which can knock us off our game. I know a lot has been written about email, how to shut it off and keep tasks and priorities aligned, but phone calls, and…

  • Workout Tracking Solution

    I love to exercise. It gives me an excellent chance to relax and preserve my overall goal of maximizing my physical strategic margin, or keeping maximum function as long as I can. (I want to be able to wrestle with my grandkids as long as I can.) I also love data. I love to track…

  • Work Life Balance for a Dad and Husband — who loves His Job

    In a meeting last week, I had a moment of clarity that put a question directly in front of me that I’ve been dreading to answer: How much of my heart should I put into my work and at what cost to my family and other work interests? You see, the meeting ended abruptly at…

  • Information Dieting Plans

    Read not the Times; read the Eternities. Henry David Thoreau I’ve always struggled with how I process, manage and output information. I am basically an information junk food addict. I love consuming new and shiny bits of history, philosophy or modern commentary. A teaching company course catalogue is like a smorgasbord to a junk food…