Another great post by The Oatmeal: You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you - The OatmealThis is a comic about the backfire effect.The OatmealAnything that you take into your identity, any label you
My name is David Tate. I'm a freelance technology consultant and author based in Atlanta. Tune in here for best practices in the art and science of remote work.
Latest Posts
Twenty Minute Headstart
When you work alone (and on hard problems), you have to hack your own mind to battle procrastination. One of my tricks is to start a big task twenty minutes right before something large is about to happen. Let's say
Developers Need to Understand the Business
All I need to understand is the technology stack.I work on frameworks, I don’t even care what the company actually does.If the technology isn’t any good, the company can’t succeed anyway, so maybe I’ll
A New Definition of Work Ethic
When I was in college I was proud of how hard I worked. I started at 6 AM just as the coffeeshop opened, spending most of the day studying, then attending class before working a part-time job until late at
The Circuit
When you work from home, where you live matters more. When I used to work in Alpharetta [a nice suburb of Atlanta] I knew all the good bike trails, sushi restaurants, and gas stations that carried Sour Skittles. After all,
Can you learn anything from a vlog?
Vlogging, “video blogging” – fascinates me. Not the idea of me doing it – how it feels to watch a vlog, and what it might change long-term. I started watching vlogs after I saw my kids watching them. We let
Recent Items In Other Places
A few quick notes on recent activity outside of this blog that I’ve been involved in: Vetting People for Remote Work I wrote this article about some approaches for effectively determining if someone will mesh well with your
A Technique for Getting Unstuck When Working Alone
When you work alone you get stuck. Whether it be a hard problem, a heavy lunch, or just a bad interaction with resistance there are times when you find yourself in a rut and need to force your way out