Tag Archive for: Philosophy

I Deactivated My Twitter Account

A screenshot displaying a social media profile error message. The profile header shows a placeholder for a profile picture and the username "@hearmikeburke." Below the username, a bold message states "This account doesn’t exist" followed by a suggestion to "Try searching for another." The background gradient transitions from red to blue, indicating a possible error or inactive status on the social media platform.

I was hoping there were enough checks and balances, systems, and/or public pressure for Twitter to weather the storm of a megalomaniac. I was wrong.

I “deactivated” my account a few days ago, and while I appreciate the 30-day cool-down period where I can recover my account, I don’t see that happening.

While I know many are moving to Mastodon; I am not currently planning on joining the herd. Instead, I’ll be here, on my YouTube channel, and on my newly created Tumblr.

I look forward to continuing the relationships I have built on Twitter. I am experimenting with Reeder and RSS, so if you have a blog or other RSS feed for me to keep up with you, please post it in a comment below.

OmniFocus vs Things

One of my favorite ways to procrastinate is to change my task manager. It’s fun and feels super productive, but it’s a trap. An equally fun and falsely productive pass time is debating with strangers on the internet about task management apps.

This post is not a salvo in that war, just the documentation of a decision I made for my specific circumstances. I am a huge fan of both OmniFocus and Things; they are both excellent apps. However, I recently switched over from OmniFocus to Things, and I wrote this post to organize my thoughts. Hopefully, it helps you too.

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The Checklist Manifesto

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Project Planning Grid

Because of some structural changes at my work, my team was moved to a different department. This new department is full of subject matter experts who are very good at their technical work; however, they do not have much skill in transferring this knowledge to others.

Enter my team!

This week I had to work with one of these experts to prioritize a list of projects she wanted us to work on. As part of the preparation for this meeting, I decided to articulate my method for prioritizing training creation. She found the visual I made very helpful, so I figured I would share it here and explain my thought process.

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The Meeting Gauntlet

Surprisingly, no one I have ever worked with has canceled a meeting unless there was a significant attendance issue. Meetings have inertia that people seem afraid to impede as if the default position of the working universe is to have meetings.

I argue that the opposite is true.

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