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I actually wrote a tool that takes a screenshot of my desktop every five seconds: https://github.com/JesseAldridge/screen_recorder https://github.com/JesseAldr

I actually wrote a tool that takes a screenshot of my desktop every five seconds: https://github.com/JesseAldridge/screen_recorder https://github.com/JesseAldridge/screen_recorder Once in a while I go back and review some of the work I did that day and look for ways to improve.

inimino 9y ago
How do you use this tool? What have you learned from it?
- JesseAldridge 9y ago
  The tool is launched on boot via launchctl on OS X and runs all the time. (https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/launchctl.1.html https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Dar...) It automatically deletes screenshots older than four days. I use it in conjunction with Workflowy and a web app I wrote called Task Ranger (http://taskranger.com http://taskranger.com) to keep track of how I spend my time and to come up with improvement plans. Task Ranger gives me the big picture -- e.g. learning new things is my biggest time sync and takes 25% of my working hours. The screenshots + workflowy give me the micro level view -- e.g. studying unfamiliar codebases is 1/3 of this 25% timeslice. So now that I know learning new codebases takes a lot of time, how can I get better at that? Well one thing I've started doing is creating a txt file containing basically a manually generated tree of the function calls made by a program. It might look something like this: /new_user validate_form create_new_user User(...) send_welcome_email load_email_template pass_to_email_service That's a toy example of course -- real-world call trees are huge. After I generate this once I can quickly see how the whole program fits together. And I can use it with this feature in Sublime Text where you right click on a function name and then pick "jump to function". That's just one small example of something I'm trying. It's an ongoing improvement process that I try to allocate time for. The screenshots are just a helpful view toward understanding where my time goes in more detail.

inimino 9y ago

How do you use this tool? What have you learned from it?

JesseAldridge 9y ago
The tool is launched on boot via launchctl on OS X and runs all the time. (https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/launchctl.1.html https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Dar...) It automatically deletes screenshots older than four days. I use it in conjunction with Workflowy and a web app I wrote called Task Ranger (http://taskranger.com http://taskranger.com) to keep track of how I spend my time and to come up with improvement plans. Task Ranger gives me the big picture -- e.g. learning new things is my biggest time sync and takes 25% of my working hours. The screenshots + workflowy give me the micro level view -- e.g. studying unfamiliar codebases is 1/3 of this 25% timeslice. So now that I know learning new codebases takes a lot of time, how can I get better at that? Well one thing I've started doing is creating a txt file containing basically a manually generated tree of the function calls made by a program. It might look something like this: /new_user validate_form create_new_user User(...) send_welcome_email load_email_template pass_to_email_service That's a toy example of course -- real-world call trees are huge. After I generate this once I can quickly see how the whole program fits together. And I can use it with this feature in Sublime Text where you right click on a function name and then pick "jump to function". That's just one small example of something I'm trying. It's an ongoing improvement process that I try to allocate time for. The screenshots are just a helpful view toward understanding where my time goes in more detail.