In life, many of us crave comfort. Whether it’s a favorite food, warm blanket or our ideal work environment, we feel at our best when comfortable.
Yet, there is a case to be made that we can become too comfortable. OK, maybe not when it comes the food or blanket (there can never be too much snuggling up and eating pizza, am I right?). But definitely so when thinking about our careers.
In web design, getting too comfortable inevitably leads to becoming stale. If you do things the exact same way day after day, year after year, you’ll fall behind the times. A continual evolution is necessary to find long-term success.
So, how do we fight this menace? By doing the opposite, of course. There are some great benefits to putting ourselves into uncomfortable territory once in a while.
Today, we’ll look at why this works and even suggest some things you can do to shake up your career (in a good way).
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Being Uncomfortable and Miserable Are Not the Same Thing
On the surface, we may associate a lack of comfort as a really bad thing. That may be true in certain instances, like sitting on a couch with a spring poking you in the backside. But that doesn’t hold up for every situation.
For web designers, we might be made to feel uncomfortable by a number of things:
Working with a tool we don’t like or know much about;
Using a different programming language;
A client that requests a feature you haven’t built before;
Collaborating with a colleague you deem to be better skilled;
Of course, there are other scenarios, but you get the idea. The great thing about each of the above uncomfortable situations is that they also serve as a terrific opportunity to expand your horizons. And, with the right attitude, any misery they cause will be only temporary.
Unlike the aforementioned faulty couch, these types of situations can actually get better with time. Often, it requires getting past some initial fear or uncertainty. Do that and things suddenly become more palatable. The skill that once was beyond your grasp is now a valued part of your repertoire.
Ways to Be Uncomfortable
Now, it’s time to become better a web designer by letting yourself feel just a wee bit uncomfortable. Let’s take a look at some activities and situations that, while challenging, can help us be our best selves. Of course, we’re all individuals, and what brings discomfort to one of us may be just fine for others. Therefore, the suggestions below aren’t one-size-fits-all. But hopefully, one or more will do the trick.
Dive into Your Weakest Link
Are you struggling to learn JavaScript? Or maybe one of those new-fangled CSS layout techniques (like CSS Grid or Flexbox) has you perplexed.
Whatever part of your design and development toolbox makes you cringe the most – dedicate some time to improving. However, don’t feel like you need to become a full-on expert, either. So often we put off learning because of how vast a particular subject is. There might be a fear of not measuring up to others, as well.
Every skill has its own unique learning curve – not to mention our own individual learning styles. Regardless, even incremental progress can make a positive difference in your career.
Socialize (In Person)
Web design can be a bit of a lonely profession, especially for freelancers who work at home. Thus, getting out can be a big deal. And there can be great benefit to getting to know others in the industry.
Where you go doesn’t matter so much. It might be a small meetup or a large design conference. The point is in simply interacting with fellow web professionals in a different sort of environment.
For many, meeting people can be stressful. But it’s an important step in breaking out of your own echo chamber and learning about others. You can gain new perspective, find out about different tools and commiserate with those who have faced the same types of challenges.
Conduct an Experiment
This one can be both a bit scary and, at the same time, fun. Think of a project that you haven’t attempted before – maybe one you’ve never even considered – and build it. It can be related to your niche or not – it’s totally up to you.
For instance, if you’re a WordPress developer who wants to stay in that lane, try to use it in a new way. Perhaps you could build a “headless” install to generate a static website. Want to go completely the opposite direction? Craft a fancy JavaScript UI with a library such as React.
The process of creating something in a whole new way can be intimidating. But it can also be the great motivator you need to get those creative juices flowing.
Put Yourself out There
Want to really shake things up? Share something with the design community. This can take a number of forms, including:
Posting your design work on a community site such as Behance or Dribbble;
To a degree, this makes you a more vulnerable person. With that comes the risk of not liking all of the feedback you receive. But the experience can still be very rewarding.
You’ll have the opportunity to interact with some interesting people and it might even spark a desire to keep on contributing.
Keep Moving Forward
It’s important to keep in mind that the whole point of making yourself uncomfortable is to inspire progress. This doesn’t mean that you have to spend every day doing something that makes you squeamish, though.
The types of activities mentioned above can be done within any timeline you choose. Even if you only tackle one or two of them a year, it can provide you with a much-needed break from the everyday grind.
This, in turn, will help to keep your skills, creativity and enjoyment of web design at its peak.
The first day of taking the diet pills and I have not dropped a pound, I am already thinking refund…just kidding. You are required to take two pills per day. I will try to stay on the same schedule as much as possible, taking one in the morning and one in evening.
I want to let people know, this is not a gimmick or publicity for this brand. It has been a product that I saw on Dr. Oz and read about in Women’s Health Magazine where one of their editors tested it out as well.
So far, I haven’t felt anything out of the normal such as headaches or nausea but feel somewhat hazy an hour after taking one.
Also after the first pill while I was driving on my way to work, I saw a McDonald’s sign and instantly craved a cheeseburger. Now I haven’t wanted to eat a burger since my college days which has been quite some time ago. I am beginning to wonder, am I the anti-dieter?!
We will see next week, if I shed any weight from a week of taking the pills or this is will turn into the documentary “Super Size Me.”
Disclaimer: these are my own thoughts and feeling about the pills, it does not reflect the station. I do enjoy making fun of myself to get a laugh.
WOULDN’T it be great if weight loss was so straight forward that you could even do it in your sleep?
Well, it kind of is.
Drinking some teas before you go to bed could improve your sleep – and your weight loss ability. But we’re not talking about downing mugs of builders’ brew before bed!Credit: Getty – Contributor
For most of us, the thought of shedding body fat is a daunting one with complicated diets and exercises needed to achieve the end goal.
But it doesn’t have to be that hard – it’s simply a matter of re-balancing our lifestyles.
Sleep really does affect weight loss
We tend to store a lot of fat around our middles if we’re exposed to high and prolonged periods of stress.
Stress comes in many different forms but the effect on our metabolisms is basically the same.
If you’re disproportionately storing more fat around your lower belly, then you need to start thinking about reducing your stress levels and getting a good night’s sleep.
Pre-bed tea time
An easy way to start improving the quality of your sleep and boosting your weight loss is by drinking a cup of tea before bed.
We’re not talking about the kinds of dubious diet teas that promise to help you shed a stone in a week.
And we’re not talking caffeine rich builders, which could keep you up at night.
Instead, try these herbal teas to satisfy sweet cravings, calm the mind and prepare the body for rest…
Cinnamon tea
Cinnamon has tonnes of health benefits.
It’s naturally anti-inflammatory, meaning that it’ll help you de-bloat and reduce your overall physical stress load.
It’s also said to increase insulin sensitivity and decrease blood sugar – both of which are vital for losing weight.
The spice is also thought to boost metabolism because your body uses more energy to process it.
“Though it has a slight metabolism/thermogenic effect, it is more about balancing blood sugar and insulin resistance, which in turn aids weight loss and can lessen food cravings,” nutritionist Helen Bond told The Sun.
“Again, this does not replace the need for dietary changes. A far better way of balancing blood sugar and insulin resistance is to follow a sugar-free, low-carbohydrate diet.”
Dr Sally Norton told The Sun that cinnamon can be added to desserts or hot drinks as a healthy alternative to sugar, as it can have a subtle sweetness.
So if you want something sweet after dinner, a cup of cinnamon tea might be the ideal solution.
Cinnamon tea can help to balance out blood sugar and minimise cravings, aiding weight lossCredit: Roger Crump – The Sun
This stuff is traditionally drunk black and has actually been directly linked to weight loss.
A 2016 study found that the fat-burning effect of daily tea drinking helped 59 overweight or obese people to reduce their BMI and shift a significant amount of weight.
In just four weeks, they were found to have cut fat from their arms, legs and bellies.
And they also reported having a smaller appetite after drinking the stuff.
Have a go with Dragonfly Skinny Dragon Pu’Er tea, £1.87, Waitrose
“Firstly, it’s going to interfere with your thyroid – meaning it’s going to be very hard to burn fat when your cortisol is high. In fact, you’re going to be more likely to burn muscle.”
And secondly, “too much cortisol can also lead to an over-stimulation of the brain during sleep causing an increase of ghrelin – the hunger hormone, which is going to make it impossible for you to control your appetite and stay away from simple sugars and high-fat foods.”
Weight loss more likely after 8 hours
A 2011 study found that people who slept between six and eight hours a night had a greater chance of achieving their weight-loss goal than those who slept less or more.
It also found that lower stress levels were associated with greater success at weight loss, particularly when combined with between six and eight hours of sleep.
Sleep has all kinds of miraculous effects on our bodies.
It can help us fight cravings and stabilise our insulin levels.
Excess insulin makes you more hungry and tells the body to store more calories as fat – so you want to make sure that you’re as insulin sensitive as possible.
One study forced 11 men to have only four hours of sleep for six nights. After this, their bodies’ ability to lower blood sugar levels decreased by 40 per cent.
Poor sleep also slows down your metabolism, increases your calorie intake and increases your appetite.
So anything we can do to promote a much better sleep is going to result in greater fat burning ability.
Work on an 80:20 approach
Don’t think that drinking tea is going undo eating badly and doing no exercise.
Think of tea as the cherry on top of a cake that you’ve been building with good lifestyle habits.
No one is saying that you have to ditch the evening wine altogether.
But if you want to lose weight, you’re probably best off trying to minimise the amount you drink and saving it for those weekend nights.
Try to drink tea five nights a week and then treat yourself on Fridays and Saturdays when you can catch up on sleep the next morning.
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Ever had a string of a data URI image and you want to see said image? Simple: type data:image/png;base64, followed by the base 64 string. Except... it's too much syntax to remember. I mean c'mon: colon, semi-colon, comma. And you probably don't do this often enough. A bookmarklet is called for to aid the memory. Here goes:
p.s. Doesn't work in Chrome, because you're "Not allowed to navigate top frame to data URL". If it's that important to you, maybe change the bookmarklet code to do something like:
var i = new Image();
i.src = 'data:image/png;base64,'+prompt('dataURIplz:');
document.body.innerHTML = i.innerHTML;
p.p.s. Yup, some of us write up a whole thing about a chunk of code and only then test it in that other browser that peeps seem to use.
This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend running it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.
Accessibility bugs fixes and enhancements on the interface changes introduced with 5.3 beta 1:
Iterate on the admin interface
Reduce potential backward compatibility issues
Improve consistency between admin screens and the block editor
Better text zoom management
Support rel="ugc" attribute value in comments (#48022) – this particular ticket shows the WordPress project ability to integrate quick solutions to things that are changing unexpectedly – like Google new features.
Developer notes
WordPress 5.3 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac where you can also find a list of known bugs.
Triggered by Marco Pivetta who apparently said during his talk at Symfony Live Berlin: "If you still don't have tests, this is unprofessional", I thought I'd tweet about that too: "It's good for someone to point this out from time to time".
I don't like it when a blog post is about tweets, just a...
Recently, Garcinia Cambogia has been getting a lot of attention for its apparent ability to help people lose weight. Many physicians and consumers alike have praised the supplement as a safe and natural way to help the body burn fat and shed pounds quickly. According to Zen Health Labs, Garcinia Cambogia Extract contains an active ingredient called hydroxycitric acid (HCA), which prevents the body from producing fat by inhibiting a key enzyme that helps to turn carbohydrates into fat. In addition, the company notes, the weight loss supplement has been found to increase the levels of serotonin that are in the brain. Because serotonin can have a direct and positive impact on the mood, increased levels may cause people to be less likely to binge eat.
Zen Health Labs’ announcement could not have come at a better time—summer is here, swimsuit season is in full swing and many people are currently trying to lose weight. As Zen Health Labs states, Garcinia Cambogia can help compound weight loss efforts, leading to quicker results.
“Our Garcinia Cambogia extract dietary supplement is formulated using the very best all-natural ingredients in a GMP certified facility,” the company notes, adding that the Garcinia Cambogia offered by Zen Health Labs contains 60 percent HCA—which is higher than many other brands—and also comes in a large bottle count. In addition, the product does not contain any fillers, binders or artificial ingredients, and it is certified to be allergen free. To help the HCA absorb into the body as efficiently as possible, the supplement also includes potassium and calcium. These important features, Zen Health Labs states, help to set their product apart from some of the other less expensive forms of Garcinia Cambogia that are available online.
In the short time Zen Health Labs’ Garcinia Cambogia has been available on Amazon.com, it is already receiving positive reviews from customers. One reviewer named Natalie wrote that the supplement helped her to lose 10 pounds in just over four weeks.
“I really feel like I have more energy and my appetite has noticeably decreased. Obviously because I’m less hungry I eat less and that’s why the weight’s been dropping off.”
About Zen Health Labs:
Zen Health Labs was founded with a goal in mind: to provide the highest quality, natural supplements to support a healthy mind, body and spirit at a competitive price and with an exceptional level of customer service. For more information, please visit
In Episode 24
Eric, John, and Oscar discuss some of the articles in the September 2019 issue “Master of Puppetsâ€Â.
Topics
History of PHP, celebrating “25 Years of PHPâ€Â, and the Impact Awards at php[world]
Using Puphpeteer to automate Chromium browser tasks and testing.
Code s...
