Posts

Even when we start out with a clear plan, it’s easy to end up with rambling draft. We know there’s an argument lurking within, but we’re darned if we can find it. While every writer is different, nearly everyone benefits from the technique of reverse outlining. I think it’s the best way to improve the flow of your argument and produce a coherent manuscript or thesis. There are many different approaches to this technique and there’s no right way of doing it. I’ll share my approach with you, which you can then adapt. ...

When Apple create a new iPhone, they don’t spent years perfecting it. They’re not busily anticipating the needs of all their customers, hoping everyone will love it immediately. Instead, they create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and get it to market as soon as possible. They know there are thousands of people who’ll queue overnight outside the Apple Store and spend a month’s salary on a slightly flawed product. Those early adopters will give them almost immediate feedback on what the developers need to do to bring it up to scratch. Apple make those improvements, then release an updated version. ...

Although it only takes a minute to create a Jekyll site, you could easily spend a large chunk of your life installing the environment. A query on the Write the Docs forum prompted me to share an easier way. In this post, I’ll show you how to create a Jekyll site in three steps, using the free Docker Community Edition and Bret Fisher’s images. If you want to use Docker to preview an existing Jekyll site, take a look at my other tutorial. ...

Introduction In the olden days, it would take hours to install and configure a web server on a local machine. It was especially fiddly if you wanted to recreate a specific environment for testing purposes. Happily, Docker has made our lives much easier. In this tutorial, we’ll package a simple website and nginx server as a Docker image. Anyone with Docker Desktop installed can then run that site in seconds without having to set up anything. ...

Introduction Jekyll is a beautifully simple way to build and deploy a static website. Well, it’s simple once you’ve got everything installed and configured. Unless you’re already confident with Ruby, it’ll probably take you most of a wet weekend to get it running consistently. Although the local installation is working well for me, I’m nervous it’ll break. I’m already encountering a few Ruby conflicts with other projects. Resolving those issues isn’t my idea of fun. Given I’ve been doing a lot of work with Docker lately, I decided to see whether I could run my site as a container instead. Plot spoiler: yes, I could! ...

In this short tutorial, I’ll show you how you can create a checklist in InDesign that’s both interactive and printable. I’m assuming you already know the basics of InDesign. If not, I recommend the InDesign Essentials course on Skillshare.

If you’re anything like me, you consume all sorts of content: books, blog posts, newsletters, and podcasts. It’s hard keeping track of it all. In this short demo, I’ll show you Readwise, a web-based tool for collecting, organising, and reviewing your highlights. I’m not associated in any way with Readwise, I just love it!

There are lots of great note-taking apps out there, but sometimes you just want to scribble with a pen and paper. In this short demo, I’ll show how the Rocketbook gives you the best of analogue and digital.

We all have tasks we avoid doing. For some, it’s writing blog posts, while others struggle with keeping on top of email. Nearly everyone, though, will do anything to avoid accounts. In this short video, I’ll introduce you to the Pomodoro Technique, an effective way of conquering those boring jobs.

We spend a lot of our day typing the same stuff over and over again, sometimes getting it wrong in the process. Although it might only be 10 minutes of repetitive keystrokes, this really adds up. That’s an hour a week or more than 50 hours each year. You could do a lot more exciting stuff with those 50 hours. In this video, I’ll give you a quick demo of TextExpander, a great app for saving time and improving accuracy. ...