davidscolgan

12 ms·

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by davidscolgan 7y ago
This is super cool, well done OP! It looks like you've got some pretty in depth and interesting articles around the rest of your site too. Big props to you and everyone else who puts themselves out there and works to create something
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by davidscolgan 7y ago
My site www.lessboring.com is running on Pelican, a Python static site generator. It's great for writing in a text editor and deploying with Git. Fairly easy to hack custom functionality, and no backend to get hacked.
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by davidscolgan 7y ago
The kind of website that Squarespace can build for you is definitely a commodity. What isn't a commodity is custom full stack application development, which I have been doing very well with for the last 8 years and see no sign of slow
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by davidscolgan 7y ago
Hey, I also dislike large company politics and have managed to more or less accomplish what you've described here with freelancing. You'll never get 100% away from interfacing with fellow humans, but I've found that a couple
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Absolutely, I see two avenues of attack. As an individual, I see that Slack exists and is widely used in tech. I can't really say no to using them, but I can do what I can to protect myself. If a company requires bad online hygiene,
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Whether or not Slack encourages workflows (and I can see how it would), I think in order to be an effective human in the modern era _requires_ thinking critically about technology choices and how to use them. Cal Newport's new book Di
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I agree. As a remote freelancer, I'm currently in (checks the app) 5 Slacks. I have explicitly told everyone in each of those Slacks that I treat it as async only. I sometimes have it up, and sometimes don't when I'm crank
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
There is so so much good stuff in this article. A++ content. Incidentally, my hunch is that one way to build trust with clients is to write articles like this. I can tell you know what you are doing if you can write something like this.
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I've been using Django since I started 10 years ago. I argue that it was a great choice back then and it's _still_ the right choice even with the advent of the modern everything. If you are writing a website for a business, I se
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I tried changing the date and time to defeat some active blocks and it didn't seem to affect anything. Also it made Chrome complain about SSL certificates due to the clock being wrong, so I'll at least consider that to be enough
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I wouldn't say I've exactly "solved" this problem, as I do still think relaxation and getting new information are valuable. But making Reddit more than just a ctrl+t -> r -> enter away is helpful. A great book abo
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I recently found that nearly all of my procrastination problems in life could be relatively straightforwardly traced back to internet surfing on sites with infinite sources of novelty. As the meme goes, one nacho cheese Dorito has more ext
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This right here. But a key aspect of using the expected value idea is that you have to be able to make lots of these bets. If you have a good expected value decision but only make it once or twice, you could just get burned by luck. Only
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Recently read this book in a business book club. It's A++ and is a great mindset shift for business. Make high percentage decisions, and don't discount a decision if it was a good decision but the outcome happened to not work ou
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
Welcome to the wild world of consulting! I hope you enjoy your stay, it's the only way to live in my opinion. What's helped me in my freelancing/consulting journey more than anything else has been building one on one relatio
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
SEEKING WORK - remote Hi I'm David Colgan. Yes, I do freelance web development. But so does everyone else. You've tried Upwork, you've tried local developers, you've tried your cousin's brother's cousin. Wh
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This is honestly one of the things that most stresses me out as I get older. I don't use my insurance much now because I'm pretty healthy, but I know my cancer risk will just go up over time. I've considered that if somethin
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I'm in Kai Davis's Freelance Camp ( http://freelance.camp ). It's a wonderful group of people.
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I've been able to more or less "conquer" my smartphone by using the nifty little app called AppBlock on Android. Since the phone is not rooted, I can make it literally impossible to use certain apps unless I wipe the phone (
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
If you figure out a way to solve this problem, please let me know - as someone who works from home, internet distractions are the biggest thing that stand between me and success. I've heard the advice for writers of "turn of your
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I love this and it's not really as dangerous as it might sound. If the project goes badly, you are going to have a bad time regardless of if you offered a guarantee, and you might end up just refunding them anyway if it really went tha
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This is wonderful! I love the personality that shines through in your site. In my experience at least, more personality is always better than less personality in freelancing.
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
There is an extended discussion about this in Cal Newport's excellent book So Good They Can't Ignore You. In short, build up "career capital" by making yourself valuable to the company, which you can later use as leverag
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
My site was designed by my friend Elise who has a super neat freelancing website: http://itmustbee.com She does Shopify consulting for beekeepers and is a CSS master.
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
My site is https://www.lessboring.com The site is purely Markdown crunched through Pelican, a nifty Python static site generator. I've been a freelance Django developer for about 8 years and always wanted to build a softwar
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
If you want to avoid having to compete with literally everyone Upwork, you have to think like a consultant instead of an employee. If you can take responsibility for the success of the project, that's noteworthy and you'll stand
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
The golden handcuffs are real. From my own experience feeling trapped in a job that makes significantly less than $500k, and those of several friends, sure it may be a privileged position to be in, but the human mind doesn't care wheth
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
I have the highest respect for people like you who can make comments like these. It takes a lot of maturity and mental creativity to see things from others' perspectives, and if everyone had your mindset the world would be a better pl
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
The best way to freelance that I know of for stability, low stress, and freedom is to get a regular ~10 hour a week gig doing remote contract development. Change $100/hr+. No hustling really required after you find them since in my e
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by davidscolgan 8y ago
This mindset is so hard to get away from. Still working on it myself as a freelancer of 8 years. I'm starting to think that happiness, work/life balance, and relaxation are all basically a mindset shift that has to be consciousl

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