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00:00:01
Navigating Workloads and Priorities
0 Plays2 seconds ago
This one has nothing to do with front-end! Rather, I ramble a lot about how I might be doing too much, and spend quite a bit of time talking about what I wanted to do, and what I might be doing with my HTML & CSS Tip of the Week.
🔗 Links
✅ HTML & CSS Tip of the Week: https://html-css-tip-of-the-week.netlify.app/
✅ DevTools for Beginners: https://devtoolsforbeginners.kevinpowell.co/
✅ CSS Demystified: https://cssdemystified.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, my friend and friends, and welcome to my podcast, General Musings. My name is Kevin, and here my podcast, I talk about whatever is front of mind for me in any given week, usually in some way that's related to front-end development, though this week is going to be more of a ramble than anything else, but just don't say i didn't warn you ahead of time.
Summer Break and Busyness
00:00:19
Speaker
Because, ah yeah, I have a few different topics that i want to talk about that...
00:00:23
Speaker
more about me than they are at about front-end development specifically. And part of it is because, as you probably know, if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, um as I ramped down over the summer, because I just took like a reduced workload for myself for about two months, so I could spend more time with my family. My wife's a teacher, so she and the kids are all off. And we also had just had some like things we needed to take care of.
00:00:50
Speaker
And the podcast was a casualty of that. So ah we're back in action now and we're on a regular schedule again. But as I've been bringing this up and the other things up and just ramping everything up in general, it's made me realize how much I was doing.
00:01:08
Speaker
if That makes sense.
Content Creation and Workload Management
00:01:09
Speaker
ah It's like I'm realizing now, i don't know why it's taking me so long to realize this because it's happened to me multiple times, but I'm realizing now that it's kind of funny how when you're in the middle of a grind, it can feel very normal.
00:01:23
Speaker
ah The time this really hit me hard in realizing this was when this is quite a while ago. At one point I was doing two long form videos a week on YouTube, plus a short, plus I had the newsletter.
00:01:35
Speaker
And I was doing course stuff and a few other things too. And when I decided to go from two videos a week to one video a week, I was like, how was I making two videos a week? um Part of the reason I even went to two videos a week was because that was part of my plan when I went full time with content creation, because I had a full time job and was making one video a week. So it only made sense that If this was my full time job, I could do two videos a week.
00:02:00
Speaker
And then eventually i was like, OK, I need to focus on some other things. I was working on a course at the time that needed more attention. So i'm like, I'm going to drop down to one and eventually go back up to two.
00:02:12
Speaker
And when I went down to one, I was like, holy cow, I have so much more time now. ah Two long form tutorial style things per week was a lot. And I don't know, even looking further back, how I had a full time job and was doing one video a week. I did that for a long time.
00:02:28
Speaker
ah So yeah. And even during all that time, including the two videos a week, I was editing all my own videos at the time. Now I have an editor I work with. ah That does probably about 80% of my stuff.
00:02:40
Speaker
But then it was, yeah, I was doing everything. It was kind of nuts. but And I only realized it once I stepped back a little bit.
Challenges of New Projects
00:02:49
Speaker
And thinking about it now, because seeing now as I'm ramping back up in things, going, oh wait, I have this other thing and this other thing and this other thing that I'd taken a break from.
00:02:58
Speaker
This a lot of extra stuff to pile back on. And it's i sort of think like I should do like a quarterly, am I doing too much check-in with myself or or something like that.
00:03:10
Speaker
Or maybe at the very least, a more regular check-ins just to remind myself what my priorities are and focus on the things that I need to be focused on. Because I definitely have a bit of ADHD when it comes to...
00:03:26
Speaker
uh, distracting myself by starting new projects. And I always start them if it's something I'm excited by or no, sorry. I'm trying to think. I won't start a project that isn't high priority, like a course or something like that. and Uh,
00:03:41
Speaker
If I think it's going to distract me from the other things I'm doing. And so whenever I do find something else to add in, this podcast is a good example of this.
Struggles with Weekly Tips
00:03:50
Speaker
Whenever I find a new thing to add in, it I always tell myself it's going to be low effort.
00:03:56
Speaker
I went through this cycle with the podcast or I went from very low effort to minimal effort to more effort. to maybe a bit too much effort. And then at one point I'm like, okay, no, we're doing these unedited or they're, they're not on edited now, but they're very lightly edited.
00:04:10
Speaker
um And I have my tricks where if I make a mistake, I just don't talk for like 10 seconds so I can find the cut that I want without thinking about it. I make my little fix and then I keep going. These are minimal editing at best, ah which you probably have missed if you've been listening to them. So I do apologize for that a little bit.
00:04:28
Speaker
um But yeah, I always tell myself they're going to be low effort. And that's definitely happened with the HTML and CSS tip of the week. If you don't know about that, I started the HTML and CSS tip of the week as a low effort way to add something, you know, a thing that I was interested in and wanted to. And like, it's going to be really short, really simple.
00:04:48
Speaker
And really the point was let's make this as low effort as possible, but it's something that would be useful. But it's sort of become a bit of a chore. I've taken a break from it.
00:05:00
Speaker
I wanted to get back into it. i was just like, Oh, do I really want to start this again? And I think part of the problem is I've diverged from my original plan. Like I did with the podcast and like I do with other things. There's a trend here that I probably should be picking up on.
Maintaining Content Standards
00:05:14
Speaker
um But yeah, when I'm, Part of the problem with it was i always like having like a minimum level of quality. I'm not like, you know, it's not like a Josh Coma blog post or something. It's like, I'm not going all in, but I do like having sort of a minimum level of of quality and expectation for myself if I'm going to be publishing it in the public.
00:05:37
Speaker
And so these quick examples that I was putting together for the tip of the week, i was like, oh, this would be helpful if the person reading this had an example. And I could have just used code pens, but then I made this, I was already had this interactive code thingy that I was doing for another project. I'm like, I'll start putting those into them as like these little interactive examples people could play with. And then those can have toggles and other things on them. And suddenly it went from being something that ideally would have been like a five minute time to write it and maybe 10 minutes to then edit and make sure everything's okay. Title, description, et cetera, to just taking way too much of my time every time I had to write one.
00:06:16
Speaker
And it's hard to go back to the original concept when I've added in the interactive code thingies. And this is myself. Like nobody would probably criticize me if they came across a post in three months that I put out that was very minimal, but gave them the tip that they wanted.
00:06:33
Speaker
But for me, it feels like I'm regressing if I do that. And instead of regressing, I just let the project go dormant, which is maybe be worse. Maybe, I don't know.
00:06:45
Speaker
The idea with the tip of the week in the first place was that I'd noticed just in like peak comments on videos or things on blue blue sky or Twitter or whatever, um, that when I would post something, a lot of the times the things people would pick up on would be like features I took for granted.
00:07:09
Speaker
Right. So it's like a CSS feature that's been there for five years now has really good support. that people were like, oh, I never had heard about that.
YouTube Planning and Strategy Changes
00:07:17
Speaker
So the idea was to take lesser known but well-supported features to help raise awareness about them.
00:07:24
Speaker
And I've already diverged bit from them. There's some that are already progressive enhancements and we're like 25 posts in there or something. um The other part of the problem is things got a little bit boring. So when I first started it, when I had the idea for it, I'm like, I'm going to make 52 ideas. So that's ah one year of posts planned out.
00:07:42
Speaker
at least the titles like the subject not the titles the subject for each one planned out and i have that list in notion so i have 52 things planned out uh the problem would be as i'd be going through them it'd be okay i'm i'm doing my month of writing now like i i have one day or one morning usually where i try write as many as them as many of them as i could and what was happening at the beginning it was fine but then The next time I'd come, I'd get into some and i'm like, I don't feel like writing about that. i'm going to push that one further. i'm going to promote this.
00:08:14
Speaker
I've just been using this cool other feature. I'm going to write about that instead. I was going off of my original plan. Uh, and I've done this with YouTube as well. So I should have learned this. This episode is all about just, I should be learning from my mistakes, but I don't.
00:08:27
Speaker
Um, With YouTube at one point I plan, I was planning like quarters at a time and then I'd get to the sixth video in there. And I was just like, no, that's so boring. I'm not going to record that. I'm going to do this other more fun thing instead.
00:08:41
Speaker
Uh, so for YouTube, I don't do full quarter planning anymore. I do at most a month. And when I do a month of planning, I tend to work on all four videos right away. And within the week, I try and make them.
00:08:52
Speaker
So I'm trying to like, right, like they're, they're actively being worked on. It's not things I'm going to be working on in two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, ah because planning those out, then my ideas shift. I don't feel like doing it anymore. The idea I had just fizzles a little bit for me. So oh I move on.
00:09:11
Speaker
My way with tip the tip of the week also, though, because there's more to it was, Not only is this going to be my tip of the week, but I'm also going to use these as a script for my shorts on YouTube.
00:09:23
Speaker
Shorts on YouTube, i enjoy doing them. ah I see there there's value in having them. So I'm like, I can kill two birds with one stone. people who i know there's a lot of people who don't like shorts, but they are probably some of those people who don't like shorts anyway, will like little short form blog posts where they can get the tip without dealing with vertical video and all of that stuff that they don't like about short form content.
00:09:48
Speaker
ah So it's like two birds with one stone. can sort of cover two audiences and all of that. Uh, and that was the idea. Every one of those was just going to be directly turned into a short.
00:09:58
Speaker
I wanted to offset them a little bit. So like three weeks after the tip of the week, the short would be coming out. ah But I think out of about 25 to 30 tips right now, and out of all of those, I think I've made one or two shorts based on the tip of the week.
00:10:14
Speaker
And then actually, yeah, anyway, maybe a bit more, but it's been very few. It was two or three, one or two that were intentional. And then I've made a few shorts not realizing had a tip of the week on it. And I could have used that as my script.
00:10:28
Speaker
And I didn't. And so now, yeah, it's it's been a bit of a mess. um But I think I might have thought about it backwards.
00:10:40
Speaker
And now to try and revive the tip of the week, my idea is to do the inverse. I'm going to turn my shorts into written tips of the week. ah Because shorts...
00:10:51
Speaker
I don't always, but I tend to have a script for them. And even if I don't, I can get a transcript of it very easily and then rework that into something that would work as a written blog post a bit easier. And I always have demos for those. So the, the code is already written for them. So that helps. Right.
00:11:08
Speaker
Uh, and so i think that's going to be the plan going forward and then I'll see what happens, uh, where I'll take my shorts and, and, know, we're going to work backwards from what my original plan
Debating the Future of HTML and CSS Tips
00:11:17
Speaker
was. Uh,
00:11:20
Speaker
I've also been thinking, i guess the other thing that I'm thinking about through all of this is do I just scrap it, right? Like I've stopped for a little bit. It was, i enjoyed working on it, but might scrap it. I don't know because I'm also like, I was thinking of it. I'm like, why did I make this standalone site? This is completely unrelated to everything else I've been doing. So do I, if I i am going to revive it and I am going to base shorts on it,
00:11:46
Speaker
should it just be this thing that's floating off on its own or should i wrap it into everything else i'm doing which is kind of hard because everything i do is on youtube we're going to tie it in with the shorts maybe uh that's the idea but then i'm like should i bring that into like my site kevinpowell.co which is like the needs of refresh and is dead essentially because i have articles there but i haven't posted an article in forever Um, so like, I wanted to revive my long form articles there, but I know for me, writing takes a while outside of the really short form stuff. I'm doing something right now. I'm just like, oh man, I haven't written something like this in quite a while. And it's hard. It's not hard. I just, I'm, I edit so much and moved. i don't know. It takes me so much longer to do a written article than it does to, to do a video. So anyway, I'm,
00:12:35
Speaker
I like, do I bring the shorts form the tips of the week into my main site a little bit like Piccadilly. So Andy Bell Piccadilly has like the main articles, then there's links, which aren't direct like, he'll like, if he comes across something cool, he'll like a little comment about it. It's a bit like CSS tricks too, right? They do similar things.
00:12:53
Speaker
At least they used to when Chris was there. I don't know if it's still a thing they do or not. I think so, though. I think Jeff brought it back. But, you know, Chris would be like, oh, there's this cool thing. Have a really short commentary and then link to it.
00:13:04
Speaker
And it's good in a couple of senses because it can help that site out too, right? Because you're giving a little bit of um validation from the SEO side of things if ah SEO is still a thing because apparently people don't click on Google search results anymore because AI answers their question. And anyway, I'm not going to get into that. But do I revive my site a little bit? I do want to rework it anyway. And do I wrap the tips of the week into there?
00:13:28
Speaker
And then of course the other thing is maybe I don't do it as a tip of the week. I kill that side of things and just make it the HTML and CSS quick tips. And that's an option.
00:13:43
Speaker
But at the same time, i think if I do that, because it's already going to be kind of low on my priority list, then it will probably just die eventually.
00:13:55
Speaker
don't know.
Consistency with YouTube
00:13:56
Speaker
I have a feeling it would get forgotten if I didn't say it's a weekly thing. That's... A little bit. I'm surprised I still make YouTube videos, to be honest with you. um This is what I do. I start things, I get excited about them.
00:14:07
Speaker
They're cool. And then I just never do them again. And the way I kept up with YouTube was to commit to making a weekly video. And I actually did it. It's the only thing in my life, I think.
00:14:21
Speaker
It will not be only thing. Obviously, that's i have a family I take care of and everything else. I think I'm pretty consistent with that. um But that was a weird way to say that. No, I take care of my family.
00:14:32
Speaker
I don't know. I guess hey I, know. It feels like that's me. Like it's it's a community affair. That's the wrong way to say it too. But anyway, you know what I mean? I'm not like this overlord or something. I don't know That's how it felt. Like I said it, I don't know if that's how it came across, but it doesn't matter at all.
00:14:53
Speaker
The, but yeah, I guess in terms of like, personal projects and hobbies. It's one of the only things I've been consistent with forever. And now it's become a job, so I have to be consistent with it. But even before that, like for five plus years, it was something I managed to do. And I was like, I committed to it weekly that worked. So I think but if I do that with these other things that could work, and obviously it didn't, because I'm struggling with that.
00:15:19
Speaker
But again, I'm, I'm struggling with it on two fronts, because it's low priority. And then I'm like, am I just trying to revive it? Because it's this an idea I like? Or is it something that I think could be useful and valuable? But that's the other part of it is I think it can be valuable to people.
00:15:33
Speaker
So I also don't want to let it die because i see value in it and that people could get stuff out of it. So that's the part that's a little bit hard there,
Collaboration on Dev Tools Course
00:15:44
Speaker
I guess.
00:15:45
Speaker
um Yeah, I'm sort of rambling a bit now. And another thing I want to talk about in speaking of priorities and projects and new things and starting new things, ah something I started and finished is...
00:15:57
Speaker
Uh, I start, um, just I teamed up with Amit Sheen. I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast yet or not. It's possible. I I'm very bad at remembering what I've talked about on here in previous episodes.
00:16:08
Speaker
So I might've mentioned this before, but we teamed up to create a free five part dev tools for beginners course. And the easiest way to find it would just be to find the link in the description. But I'm curious if it shows up in Google or not. I haven't looked.
00:16:24
Speaker
um But it's devtoolsforbeginners.kevinpowell.co. I think it's on my courses page. I'm going to look after I post this i and see if I added it to my courses page. And if not, I'm going to add it there.
00:16:36
Speaker
ah But it's it's really for beginners that you don't have to be a beginner developer, but it's for people who haven't been using the CSS dev tools at all, just to make you aware of the different features that are there that can really help out.
00:16:49
Speaker
If you've been using your dev tools a lot, might be a little bit too basic for you, but um Definitely, if you're interested in learning a little bit more about those, you can. and um speaking of working with Emmett, it's a good thing to stay motivated is when you have a partner or something. So we are working on another small course as well, ah diving into all the new math stuff in CSS and the old stuff too. We're not only looking at the new things, but we do suddenly have trig in CSS. And as someone who doesn't know anything about this, it scares me anytime I see it.
00:17:22
Speaker
And Amit is somebody who does crazy math stuff all the time. And so I'm having Amit help me understand it all from how it works to the purpose of it and why we might want it in CSS.
00:17:35
Speaker
And we're recording him teaching it to me. Uh, so, and, and turning all of that into a small course that, uh, I'll keep you posted on anyway, we're, we're in somewhat early days of that, but it's coming along pretty well.
00:17:48
Speaker
And so, yeah, as, as that makes more progress, I'll let you know about it if you're interested in it, because there's some cool stuff that you can do now. And some of it, I'm still not a hundred percent sure if I would use it regularly, but there's definitely a few of the new things I'm like, Oh,
00:18:02
Speaker
I get it now. um But yeah, in it's intimidating having some of the math stuff. If you're not, if you didn't learn that or use it regularly, um it can seem really strange. But there's definitely actual use cases for a lot of it, which is kind of cool, I guess, so once you once you know about them. um And I guess since I'm talking about courses, wasn't planning on talking about it, but the big one right now, and again, I think I've mentioned this in the podcast already, but I am reworking CSS Demystified.
00:18:31
Speaker
And speaking of priorities, that's like top of the priority list right now. and I have talked about it. I don't know how much I've talked about it. So I won't go in too deep into it. But just in case we're doing a general update on my priorities and everything I'm up to this week.
00:18:45
Speaker
ah So I've actually finished module one and I'm getting close to finishing module two and there's going to be. Three modules with an asterisk. I'm not going talk about that now, but I do need to record all the videos and other stuff. But the hard part of writing the lessons has been done.
00:19:00
Speaker
Speaking of writing, ah there's a lot of written content in the course as well, but ah which is slowing things down. I've been doing lots of reshuffling, but I've even i had my original plan that has been blowing up.
00:19:13
Speaker
And the original plan was based on the original CSS Demystified because I really think that still the one that is existing now is very good. ah But I think with CSS coming along so much since I made that one, it did need a big refresh.
00:19:28
Speaker
And then in doing that, I'm like, oh, man, I'm going to change a lot of how I'm doing this. It's one of those things where it's a different approach than I've sort of taken to teaching CSS. It's a lot of the things that I already talk about, but I don't know. I'm just sort of reshaping it a little bit in terms of the progress going through with the real purpose of it. Obviously when you're done, I want people to be like, yes, not only can I do all these things, but really like the main purpose of this one when people are done is like, yeah, we're going learn some cool stuff. There's features and everything else. You get better at knowing the different things you have, but the goal of the course is I get CSS now and
00:20:09
Speaker
I think the approach I'm taking to it is
Self-Promotion Challenges
00:20:12
Speaker
going to work for that. But anyway, that's enough like self-promotion of my own things. I hate talking about things like this. I don't know why. I'm very uncomfortable saying like, oh, I have a course that you should go buy. And even now I'm mentioning two courses you can't even purchase. Well, CSS demystified the original you can.
00:20:26
Speaker
But yeah, it's weird in that sense. And actually I talked to Sarah Suedain, which she's going to be a guest on here soon. I interviewed her. I just had to edit that. Um, and I know she was highly recommended by lots of people over the last while. So I'm very glad, and I've been planning this with her for quite a while. So I was really happy to get that together.
00:20:42
Speaker
And at one point during our conversation, i asked something. And her answer was like the best thing you can do with accessibility. Once, if you're getting to the point where you're sort of like, you're past the very basics, but it's like, you can't figure it out. It's like find a structured course. And there's lots of good courses out there. And at that point in the talk, we hadn't mentioned that she had a course yet.
00:21:02
Speaker
there's this like, Sarah, you're allowed to mention you have one and yeah and it's a good one and people should get it. And she's like, oh, I can't do that. That's just like, you know, like she's like, I'm, you know, I'm like, at least mention like, I have one, but there are others out there. But she she didn't even want to do that. And I was like, on one end, i thought it was very endearing, but I also complete like 100% relatable, right? Where it's like, yeah, I feel weird marketing, even if it's my own thing that I think is really, really good.
Guest Appearance on Shop Talk Show
00:21:32
Speaker
um But I will say her accessibility course, practical accessibility is very, very good. So if you are looking for one, ah you can go check that out. But we'll be talking more about just, it's ah like a super long conversation we had together. And I mean, be keeping almost the entirety of it together um for my longest ever podcast episode, probably in a week or two, depending on when the edit is finished for that one. So something to look forward to there.
00:21:55
Speaker
um And while you're waiting for that, if I'm assuming you like podcasts or at least listening to me talk since you're you got to this far into this one, which has just been a ramble of me talking about things I'm up to, which I don't know how interesting that is. were We're not, you know, anyway, we're here. And if you're still here, you probably don't mind listening to me at the very least. And so you might be interested to know if you haven't already listened to it. I was on the Shop Talk show with Dave and Chris this week.
00:22:23
Speaker
And for me, that was a really big moment. I started listening to the shop talk show when I was still a teacher and before I started making YouTube videos. So probably like 10 years ago, which I don't know how long they've been doing it.
00:22:35
Speaker
It felt like when I started listening, they'd already been doing it for a while. But when you jump into a podcast, they just already have their flow. I don't know. I should look at when I started listening to it and see if I can find roughly when it was. But maybe I'd started the channel.
00:22:50
Speaker
I don't think I had, though. and anyway, it doesn't really matter. It's been at least eight years, probably longer that I've been listening to it. And so it was pretty cool to be a guest on there.
Conclusion and Listener Encouragement
00:22:59
Speaker
Like a really, for me, like a big moment, even though whatever, it's like, oh, I was a guest on a podcast, but like, it was such an influential podcast for me for a really long time. And I'm still a listener of it. So it's always cool for that. And I will say that I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. It was really, really fun.
00:23:19
Speaker
ah I mean, they're already fun guys, but we, we, we, i heretherther it was a fun one. So ah yeah, if you, if you're looking for something to fill up some time after you're done listening to this, I would encourage you to go and check that one out.
00:23:33
Speaker
And with that, I'm going to leave you there to go and check that out. So thank you so much for listening. And until next time, don't forget to make your corner of the internet just a little bit more awesome. And I just realized I still, I thought my weight balance was fixed and it's apparently not fixed.
00:23:48
Speaker
If you're watching the video version of this, I am very red and I'm going crazy. I can fix the weight balance on my camera, but I have to do that every time I turn it on. And it never used to do this. It used to work properly. So I need to figure something out. Anyway, thank you so much again.
00:24:03
Speaker
Until next time. Bye.