Here are a few bits about being or feeling finished that have been circulating around the blogs recently. First, Shawn Blanc on The Mental Office and creating a text file at the end of the day to jot down your ideas. A brain dump, if you will.

It can be hard to call it quits for the day when there are still things whichcould be done. And so my text file is my way of admitting that yes the day is done and yes there is still work to do, but there is always tomorrow.

Then, the always quotable Seth Godin on Dancing on the Edge of Finished:

Now, of course, there’s always one more tweet to make, post to write, words with friends move to complete. There’s one more bit of email, one more lens you can construct, one more comment you can respond to. If you want to, you can be never finished.

To which Cameron Moll followed with:

Balance is a process, not a final resting state. I’m constantly juggling, shuffling, and re-prioritizing life’s demands. And I’m learning to be okay with that.

Back to Shawn Blanc on what finished means to him:

One thing I have done in my dance to find that balance is to set a new standard of what finished looks like for me. And that standard no longer means my inbox is empty, but rather it’s about budgeting my time and attention.

I’ve struggled with this feeling for as long as I can remember. I never feel done. I’m always thinking of what to do next. However, it takes a long time to come to grips with that. To step away from the office and think – it is OK that I’m not done – and go on living.

This is why it is so important to choose wisely what you spend your time on. The more you take on the more this feeling will build up. Believe it or not by doing less you’ll get more done.

At MetaLab, everyone is responsible for their own schedule. No bunk beds in the office or ramen-fueled overnight programming melees. We usually clock between four and six hours a day, and most of us don’t even get to the office before noon. We believe in working smart, not hard, and having lives outside the office. It might sound wimpy, but it’s working.

I agree with Wilkinson here however I’m more of a work hard and smart kinda fella.

I believe there is a mixture of working smart and hard from which great things can be accomplished. People are at their best when they are happy and usually happiness stems from loving what you’re doing, being given the chance to do it well on tools you love to use in an environment you like being in, having a good life full of friends, family, some traveling, and a little bit of money. Combine all of that with a little sweat and you’ve got something.

Day one: My heels are hurting some, knees hurt some, and I find myself leaning on my desk every now and then.  Not when I’m completely focused on what I’m doing but when I’m watching a video, reading email, or otherwise doing a passive task.

Day two: Because I worked for the morning at Zummo’s Cafe, while I was waiting for my car to be repaired, I stood for only about 4 hours in the afternoon. Which was a really great balance I think.  So, no soreness today really and not much leaning either.

Day three: I stood for most of the morning and then had some errands to run in the afternoon. I’m finding that while I don’t mind standing and, in fact, I feel good about standing – I’m noticing that I am able to focus less. An interesting side effect to standing is that, at the end of the day when I’m finished working, it feels really good to sit. Almost as good as it feels to sit after a workout or mowing the lawn. Feels good.

Day four: Standing is nearly second nature now. (Wow, that is an odd sentence, isn’t it?) I’m not leaning and my overall alertness for the day is higher than it used to be. Typically I have an daily alertness and productivity curve. I start off on fire early in the morning, lull around lunch time, and really pick up again right before stopping for the day. During this standing experiment I’m finding that my overall alertness stays at a much more steady height with no lulls.

Day five: I think I’ve found that there are times when I like standing and times I’d rather sit. An example of when I’d like to sit is when I’m tasked with fixing a bug in some bit of software I support. When I really need to “hunker down” and dig into the application to find out what could be happening – for whatever reason it feels more natural for me to sit down and focus on the problem-at-hand. I can’t seem to get the same level of focus, the same level of “digging” while standing. I don’t know why.

I’m back to sitting this week and I really think it is all because of this focus issue. I do find it much easier to focus on code (and I don’t code too much at work anymore) when I am sitting. If I had a desk that could raise and lower at the touch of a button (rather than using a series of allen wrenches like I need to use now) I’d probably stand in the morning while doing email, conference calls, and web browsing and sit in the mid-morning or after lunch while I’m really trying to concentrate.

I see Shawn Blanc is grabbing the torch from me (whether he knows it or not) and so I recommend subscribing to his blog to see how it works out for him.

/via the speechless Justin Blanton.

“Work for free
or for full price.
Never for cheap.”

/via we(heart)it.

37signals’ Job Board

The 37signals’ Job Board is probably “the best one” right now. Currently there are offerings from such companies as Apple, Sony, Amazon, Best Buy, and Flickr.

I actually know a few people that have gotten jobs they’ve really loved through 37signals’ board.

Authentic Jobs

An offering by Cameron Moll, Authentic Jobs, covers both full-time and freelance jobs. So if you are a freelance developer or designer, there is a lot of opportunity just waiting here for you.

If you are a company/person looking to fill a position or get a project done, I think Authentic Jobs is your way to go – being that they have a money back guarantee (maybe the others do too).

The Crunch Board

From the hard working people of TechCrunch, the Crunch Board is a lot less personal the the two sites I mentioned above – but these guys are all about business. I think I would check this site last, which is why I’ve ordered it as such, but if you need work – you’ll want to look here.

Why am I linking to Job Boards you ask? Believe it or not, I have people ask me if myself, Viddler, or any other company I know has work. And sometimes I’m able to oblige, but – most of the time – I can’t. So, for all of you reading this, if you need to find some work it can’t hurt to look through the above Job Boards first.

Do you know of any other good Job Boards? List them in the comments and I’ll add them to the post!

A note to 37signals, Authentic Jobs, and the Crunch Board… you may pay for this link via Paypal.

List of recommended boards

Below are boards recommended via email, instant message, Twitter, and/or through the comments on this post.

• Freelance Switch – Recommended by Jay Francis Hunter.
• Live near Philadelphia? The Indy Hall Job Board might be a place to look. Uses Google Groups and is free. — Recommended by Alex Hillman of Independents Hall.
• Do you know JavaScript? John Resig, creator of jQuery, has recently opened a completely free Job Board for JavaScript Ninjas such as yourself.

While I’m going to reserve judgement on any of the recommended boards, I will say that with the Job Boards I listed – the price point seems to be high enough to make sure that the company is very serious about filling the position and/or getting the freelance work done. With the recommended boards, your mileage may vary.

To be continued…

I have a few reasons for really liking this particular day of the week.

• LOST
• New DVDs from Eliza
• A chance to see what you’ve already done for the week, and what is left to do
• Recently: A day at the gym

Obviously those aren’t really in any order though the list probably reflects closely how I would order the reasons.

LOST is easily my favorite show on television right now and so waiting for each new episode is painful. Yet on Wednesday just knowing that a new episode awaits in the evening, makes the entire day enjoyable.

As Eliza mentioned, she brings home new DVDs from work on Wednesdays. Its really cool to have an early look at upcoming DVD releases, and so Wednesday is enjoyable for that reason as well.

I really like my work, and so being able to assess what has been accomplished for the week, and what still needs to be done, is quickly becoming a really nice way to break up the week. Many people call Wednesday “hump day” since they have to “get over it” in order to slide into the weekend. I suppose this is a good way to look at Wednesday too, since you’re one step closer to being out of work. This just doesn’t apply as much to me is all.

Today there is a fairly large group of us joining the local gym. Eliza and I have been planning on joining for awhile, and slowly but surely others are following suit. Wednesday will definitely be the day that I go to the gym with two other visits during the week being slipped in for good measure. Oh, but we gotta be done with our workouts before LOST comes on, of course.

As a side note: Why Eliza doesn’t write more on her blog is beyond me. Her stories are always entertaining and, especially if you know her well, you can definitely feel her coming through each post. I can’t convince her to hop back into it, but maybe some of you can.

[tags]eliza devroe, wednesday, lost, work, dvd, blockbuster, favorite[/tags]
[slug]wednesdays-good[/slug]