Elon Musk’s 6 rules to improve productivity

20 November 2022

This is a bit LinkedIn but it's good advice. Taken from: @LiamKircher's Twitter thread

1) Avoid large meetings

Large meetings waste valuable time and energy.

  • They discourage debate
  • People are more guarded than open
  • There’s not enough time for everyone to contribute

Don’t schedule large meetings unless you’re certain they provide value to everyone.

2) Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing

If a meeting doesn’t require your input, value, or decisions your presence is useless. It’s not rude to leave a meeting, but it is rude to waste people’s time.

3) Forget the chain of command

Communicate with colleagues directly, not through supervisors or managers. Fast communicators make fast decisions.

Fast decisions = competitive advantage.

4) Be clear, not clever

Avoid nonsense words and technical jargon. It slows down communication.

Choose words that are concise and easy to understand. Don’t try to sound clever.

5) Ditch frequent meetings

There’s no better way to waste everyone’s time.

Use meetings to:

  • Collaborate
  • Attack issues head-on
  • Solve urgent problems

But once you resolve the issue, frequent meetings are no longer necessary. You can resolve most issues without a meeting.

Instead of meetings:

  • Send a text
  • Send an email
  • Communicate on a discord or slack channel

6) Use common sense

If a company rule doesn’t:

  • Make sense
  • Contribute to progress
  • Apply to your specific situation

Avoid following the rule with your eyes closed. Don’t follow rules. Follow principles.

productivity

Galls Law

11 November 2022

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: a complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a simple system.”

– John Gall, Systems Theorist

quotes

Useful Web Dev Links Mega-Post

10 November 2022

I will attempt to keep adding all of the useful links I find to this post rather than have them scattered across various notes and tabs.

Layout and components

every-layout.dev
component.gallery
csslayout.io – patterns
every-layout.dev – css components
web.dev – building a sidenav component
css-tricks.com – styling comment threads
web.dev – lazy loading images
web.dev – building a multi-select component
height.app – context menus
css-tricks.com – add to calendar button
ishadeed.com – position sticky css grid (admin layout)
ishadeed.com – building real-life components
dev.to – css only components
freecodecamp.org – recreate Medium's article layout with css grid
freecodecamp.org – back-to-top button and page progress-bar
smashingmagazine.com – complex web tables
css-tricks.com – perfect table of contents
adamsilver.io – where to put buttons on forms
uxdesign.cc – designing text fields
matuzo.at – html boilerplate
codeburst.io – how to create horizontal scrolling containers
web.dev – common UX patterns
benmyers.dev – description lists
smashingmagazine.com – complete guide to accessible front-end components

CSS

simplecss.org
smolcss.dev
moderncss.dev
bansal.io – pattern css
patterns.helloyes.dev maintainablecss.com
simonhearne.com – preventing layout shifts with webfonts
daily-dev-tips.com – css attribute selectors
speckyboy.com – creative hyperlinks
egghead.io – dark mode with css variables, calc and hsl
csswizardry.com – writing tidy code
csswizardry.com – your logo is an image not an h1
fvsch.com – base stylesheet
moderncss.dev – custom select styles
moderncss.dev – popular website heroes created with css grid
css-tricks.com – your css reset needs text size adjust
css-tricks.com – block links
css-tricks.com – consistent fluidly scaling type and spacing
joshwcomeau.com – full bleed
ishadeed.com – aligning content with different wrappers
ishadeed.com – tiny enhancements in css
ishadeed.com – defensive css/
ishadeed.com – fit-content
ishadeed.com – conditional border radius
fluid-typography.netlify.app
calibreapp.com – css performance

CSS Resets

joshwcomeau.com – custom css reset

Buttons

getcssscan.com – css button examples
css-tricks.com – a complete guide to links and buttons
web.dev – building a split button component
fvsch.com – styling buttons

Gradients

larsenwork.com – better gradients (easing gradients)
css-houdini.rocks – corners gradient
joshwcomeau.com – beautiful gradients

Shadows

joshwcomeau.com – designing shadows
joshwcomeau.com – shadow palette
getcssscan.com – css box shadow examples

Icons

iconic.app lucide.dev iconoir.com
remixicon.com
heroicons.com
tablericons.com
feathericons.com
icons.radix-ui.com
phosphoricons.com

Fonts

fontpair.co

Javascript

gomakethings.com – automatically expand textarea as the user types

Django

snyk.io – Django security tips
openfolder.sh – Django speed tutorial
rockandnull.com – custom user model
engineertodeveloper.com – dynamic formsets
spookylukey.github.io – Django views the right way
valentinog.com – how to handle multiple Django sites
mattsegal.dev – how to make your project easy to move
untangled.dev – retrieving related data in Django
chris-lamb.co.uk – GeoDjango and the UK postcode database
openfolder.sh – keeping logic out of templates and views
levelup.gitconnected.com – optimising Django queries
pythoncircle.com – adding an email subscription feature
stackoverflow.com – how to automatically login a user after registration
mattlayman.com – secure apps
medium.com – performance problems in the Django ORM
rajasimon.io – Django Channels for real-time updates
levelup.gitconnected.com – What I learned from building a Django appointment scheduler for my school
djangodoctor.medium.com – CharField or TextField

Working with APIs

dev.to – how to populate your database from an external API
medium.com – how to seed a Django API with data from an external API

Django general advice and tips

rajasimon – Django project structure
brntn – six things I do every time I start a Django project
reddit – multi-tenancy discussion

Django project tutorials

engineertodeveloper – how to build a photo gallery
dev.to – how to build an email newsletter subscription service
freedjango.com – generate a QR code

Django uploading files

djangocentral.com – uploading images
soshace.com – upload multiple images
dev.to – upload multiple images simultaneously using dropzone.js

Database design

simeongriggs.dev – designing a more complete recipe website

HTMX

htmx.org – file upload/
github.com/spookylukey/django-htmx-patterns
blog.benoitblanchon.fr – modal form
justdjango.com – dynamic forms
andytwoods.com – modal popup
rockandnull.com – freedom for html input elements using htmx
saaspegasus.com – htmx and alpine.js
betterprogramming.pub – full page reloads with django and htmx

Email

mattlayman.com – testing email designs

Examples and inspiration

dannpetty.com/

Misc

ubiq.co – preventing image hotlinking with nginx
marcysutton.com – links vs buttons in modern web applications
uigoodies.com
copybook.me
technology.blog.gov.uk – why the gov.uk design system team changed the input type for numbers
dev.to – productive tools for web development
blog.datawrapper.de – which colour scale to use in data vis
devhints.io
pexels.com – nice photos
logoipsum.com – placeholder logos
colorpalettes.colorion.co – colour palettes
ahrefs.com – meta tags

Updated on 10 Nov 2022

django, building, html, css, javascript, email, htmx, tools

HTMX - Create responsive web apps with ease

6 November 2022

HTMX is a new library that allows you to create modern responsive web apps without writing loads of custom javascript or using a bulky frontend framework like Vue or React.

From the HTMX website:

HTMX gives you access to AJAX, CSS Transitions, WebSockets and Server Sent Events directly in HTML, using attributes, so you can build modern user interfaces with the simplicity and power of hypertext.

Here's a good series of videos from BugBytes on YouTube which shows how to integrate HTMX into your Django project and all of the great things you can do with it: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-2EBeDYMIbRByZ8GXhcnQSuv2dog4JxY

django, htmx