I loved this article studying how the voices of women can be better fostered and heard: When Women Don’t Speak.

The bottom line, if you want to empower women, apply majority rule when women have the numbers and unanimous rule—or at the very least, an underlying principle of unanimous rule, hearing from everyone—when they don’t.

As a father of four girls, I find myself thinking a lot about gender roles and how to teach them, and my three boys, how to confront bias, whether conscious or not. As a manager of a software team that is 77% male, I spend a lot of time considering this as work as well. I was thrilled last week when my wife found and shared this article with me because she knew how much I care about this.

The answer to improving the gender gap is not necessarily always in raw numbers. The solution for my team is not to fire three of the men and hire women to have equal representation. I can’t change every department or every team at my company, or anywhere else.

But that doesn’t mean I am powerless.

There are subtle, and overt things that I can do to make sure that the voices of the women around me are encouraged and heard. I loved finding out in this article that one simple change—working in a unanimous instead of majority-based approach can have the effect of empowering everyone on the team to be heard, regardless of personality or biases.

Whether it is to address gender bias, or just to treat everyone as people that truly matter, I love that the effect of working for unanimous consensus is fewer negative interruptions, and more opportunity for everyone’s opinions to be heard.

I hope this is something I can implement on my team, and that it will make a difference. And I hope it doesn’t stop there.

I loved this delightfully written article by Craig Mod: Who Would Have Thought an iPad Cursor Could Be So Much Fun?

This is where the iPad’s support for the trackpad comes in—a middle ground between laser and potato, and a reinvention of Engelbart’s pointiness. Apple has taken the desktop cursor’s familiar thin arrow and replaced it with a translucent circle. This circle has the ability to change form not only with context but with the “physicality” of the object beneath it.

Move the pointer above a button and the circle morphs into the button itself, “snapping” into it, enveloping it like an amoeba, causing it to glow in a pleasing way. What this means is that the usual precision of a trackpad isn’t required to get exact hits on navigational elements. If you own an Apple TV, you’re already familiar with this vibe—it’s how the cursor on the TV “jumps” from icon to icon with a kind of sticky momentum. Similarly, on the iPad home screen, you can “lazily” slam the cursor around and have it lock onto applications with an eerie telepathy not experienced on a desktop OS.

I have used an iPad Pro as my primary machine for nearly a year now. I usually only go to my MacBook Pro when I need to work in Xcode, or do serious work in Jira. That’s the life of a software manager.

I actually have enjoyed using the Smart Keyboard Folio available with last year’s model of iPad Pro. But when I saw the new Magic Keyboard announced last week, I was ecstatic. Alas, like everyone else, I have to wait until May to really try it out.

But I installed iOS 13.4 yesterday and immediately connected a Bluetooth trackpad to try out the new support. I remember last summer when mouse support was announced as an accessibility feature. At the time, I dismissed it as something that I wouldn’t really need or use. When I saw the new demo video, my interest was piqued, and I gave it a try.

All of my doubt was swept away in an instant. In a way that I never expected, the cursor feels right at home. It appears when I touch the trackpad, and disappears when I type or touch the screen. Hovering over buttons or apps is intuitive and delightful. I never wonder where the cursor went or what is happening. As Craig Mod said,

And yet somehow, the overall effect of using a trackpad with an iPad is more convincing than direct manipulation, less exhausting, and simply more fun.

I look forward to using the newest Magic Keyboard in a few months. Until then, I will happily use my iPad with a trackpad sitting next to it.

I was intrigued by this article by Fiona Voss: My favorite way to run a retro:

The leader sets up the Trello board with four columns:

• Celebrations
• Gripes
• Topics to discuss
• Actions

Then everybody has 5-10 minutes to write Trello cards in the first three columns, working from their own laptops. You’re allowed to move a card somebody else wrote from Celebrations or Gripes to Topics to Discuss if you want to talk about it.

When all the cards are written, use Trello voting to vote on cards. When voting is finished, the leader sorts the cards by number of votes (descending).

One of my favorite aspects of this is how it facilitates different personalities and allows for everyone to have their voice heard. As a manager, often my biggest concern is that certain people may be marginalized and I am always looking for ways to improve our group communication. Whether the cause is unconscious bias, different thinking styles, or something else altogether, this sounds like a great approach to address the issue.

Fiona said this, talking about using lightning rounds to address an issue:

People who want to be heard, but have trouble jumping in to unstructured group discussions, get a turn to speak without having to fight for it.

Many people, developers in particular, think better when given a few quiet minutes on their own, and then the nudge to write out their thoughts. There are others who think better out loud. In a meeting, the latter group tends to overpower the former, and I love this simple approach to balance things out.

I look forward to trying this approach on my team. It is always an exciting challenge to pursue the delicate balance between too rigid structure and not enough structure to allow people to truly thrive.

As I finished reading this article this morning, I said out loud, “That was beautiful!” And then I thought maybe I could share it so others might have that same experience. The article is from Zen Habits: Working with the Ebbs & Flows of Your Resistance. He points out that feeling resistance to new or good things is normal, but we can learn to work with it.

It can also get stronger. But it can’t maintain its strength for long. You can breathe, stay with it, wait it out. Bring curiosity to it. Give the feeling a little compassion and kindness.

The key is develop more mindfulness. Instead of shying away from hard thoughts or feelings, sink into them for a moment and get to know them better. Over time, as we become more comfortable with them, we can notice them and acknowledge the message they are sending us and them make our own choice about what to do.

This was a fantastic article on Zen Habits: How to Be Kind to Yourself & Still Get Stuff Done:

[T]he truth is, most of us are judging ourselves, beating ourselves up, looking harshly at our shortcomings and flaws, a lot of the time. It’s why we’re stressed, anxious, frustrated and disappointed so often.

A different path might be kindness to ourselves. When we see a flaw, we might see the beauty in it. Instead of always striving to be better, we can find gratitude for how great we already are. Instead of beating ourselves up, we can be kind to ourselves and see that we have tried our best, that we had good intentions, that we have a good heart.

As someone whose OCD manifested as a pathological compulsion to beat myself up for even the smallest infraction, I know how crippling this can be. I am certainly not perfect at being kind to myself, but even learning the skill has been life-changing.

I love his reminder:

So here’s the rule: kindness to yourself, always. Even when you fail at the rule, be kind to yourself for failing to be kind.

We could all benefit from learning and practicing this skill. I hope that I will continue to work on it, and that I will be gentle with myself along the way.

I loved this article from the Art of Manliness: Sunday Firesides: I Have Kids.

Then one day, for reasons unknown, I suddenly saw the open printer drawer not as an impertinent annoyance, but as the inescapable evidence of a simple fact: I have kids.   

I have kids, and kids inevitably come with some vexations. Yet they’re exactly what I want in my life, and a source of inexpressible joy. Because I have this privilege . . . I also have to accept its aggravations.

This is such an easy thing to forget and so important to remember. Our lives are not meant to be blissful, they are meant to be meaningful.

I loved this article from the Art of Manliness: Sunday Firesides: Marriage Isn’t a Game of Russian Roulette

But rather than being the kind of unmanageable risk found in Russian roulette, the risk of marriage is more like that of driving a car. While you can’t 100% eliminate the chance of a crash, nobody lets that stop them from getting behind the wheel every day. Because despite the risk, that mechanical vehicle, like the vehicle of marriage, will take you places you couldn’t otherwise go.

We can allow risk to inhibit us, or we can allow it to help us. When we notice that something feels risky, instead of shutting down, we should recognize that this is something that is more important to us. We need to step up and engage fully and make sure that we meet the risk head on.

I loved this article from the Art of Manliness: Your Life Explained Through Dopamine.

The key is to toggle between these two sets of chemicals, as appropriate — allowing yourself to be satisfied, but never wholly so; content, and yet eager for continuous growth. You have to be able to enjoy the excitement of the conquest, and be able to hold onto what you secure.

Understanding the function of brain chemistry has been a huge part of the last few months for me. This precarious balance is crucial to master in order to find true happiness in life. One thing that I especially appreciate is the normalization of the ebb and flow. When we understand that force, we can work with it instead of fighting against it.

I loved this article from the Art of Manliness: Sunday Firesides: You Are Not Responsible for Other People’s Feelings

But when your decision doesn’t carry moral import, and you make it with all the politeness and respect possible, then you’re not responsible for how the other person deals with your choice. Whether they deal with it resiliently or not, rationally or not, generously or not, is up to them. You cannot control their reaction. And you cannot make your own decisions based on their expected response.

Coming to terms with unnecessary and unhealthy guilt has been a huge part of my mental health recovery process. It is vital to learn how to correctly identify your areas of responsibility and neither shirk nor stretch them.

I served as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Romania for two years. During that time, we were allowed to send weekly emails, as well as periodic letters and packages to our family. We were also allowed two phone calls home per year—one on Christmas, and the other on Mother’s Day.

A major change to that policy was just announced today:

Effective immediately, missionaries may communicate with their families on their weekly preparation day via text messages, online messaging, phone calls and video chat in addition to letters and emails.

My wife sent me this article, and my first reaction was that I would have struggled with this policy. Here is an example of the flexibility being introduced:

We encourage missionaries to communicate with their families each week using whatever approved method missionaries decide. This may vary based on their circumstances, locations and schedules for that week. It is not expected that all missionaries will call or video chat with their parents every week. The precise manner of communication is left up to the missionary as he or she decides what will best meet their needs.

I am not sure that I would have been able to make judgment calls at that level. The official notice to leaders states:

When communicating with their families, missionaries should be wise in considering the duration of phone calls and video chats. In making these decisions, they should be considerate of their companions and keep in mind the purpose of their service.

This kind of decision-making requires a level of emotional maturity that is challenging to attain. As someone with OCD, which often manifests as excessive and unhealthy guilt, I would have had an extremely hard time making those kinds of decisions. I said to my wife:

I feel like this requires us as parents to teach our kids how to make decisions in a totally different way than I was capable of at that age.

I am excited to see the effect this kind of freedom will have on young people. (Missionaries from our church typically serve under the age of 25.) They are already in a formative period of life. Having the opportunity to learn the skills required for complex emotional judgment calls will be of great benefit to them. This level of ambiguity is a much more accurate reflection of the demands of real life outside of a sheltered environment such as a full-time mission.

I need to make sure that I become comfortable navigating these waters myself. Only then will I be able to pass these abilities on to my children.

🔗 Fantastic article by @annie on how to tell the difference between haters and critics.

Found this nugget of gold that is applicable to all of life:

Keep an ongoing log of praise and positive feedback. Read it when imposter syndrome comes swooping in.

Great inspiration on making small changes to set yourself apart: Sunday Firesides: The Slipstream of Comfort - The Art of Manliness

We often despair of finding success, and being noticed in a saturated field, feeling that we have to compete with everyone, and be many orders of magnitude greater. In reality, you just have to be a few degrees different to leave the masses behind.

This jumped out as being directly applicable to me as an iOS developer. It can feel like the App Store is overcrowded; that there is no room to distinguish my apps. But it really doesn’t require insane amounts of investment—just a steady commitment to make great work. Of course, that’s not a business plan, but it is a means of differentiation.

It’s also applicable more generally right now. This week I’ve been blogging more and have started a podcast. These are both skills that I want to develop more. It is easy to allow self-doubt to creep in and discourage me from pushing forward. “I’ll never be exceptional. I’ll never make a difference.”

The truth is—I don’t have to be exceptional, and I don’t have to make it big. I can make a difference to one person, even myself as I clarify my own thinking. In a world over-saturated with content vying for attention, a little authenticity goes a long way.

I loved this article this morning: Sunday Firesides: Dependence to Independence - The Art of Manliness

Unfortunately, many people don’t outgrow this phase of infantile dependence. They still primarily try to get what they want by manipulating others, by having a “tantrum,” by metaphorically quivering their lip or pooping in their pants and then waiting for someone to notice. They wait for a solution to their problems to arrive from the outside.

Maturing means growing in your capability to meet your own needs, as you become progressively more skilled, competent, and emotionally intelligent. And it means becoming less needy in general. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them oneself?”

I hope to improve this in my own life, and also to equip my children with these skills as they grow up.

🔗 Controller Hierarchies

Every design has a tradeoff. UIKit is optimized for iOS interface conventions. I believe most apps follows these conventions most of the time. Designing a more complex system to solve every edge case makes the common case harder.

Build with vanilla!

I don’t know anything about this site, but appreciated the perspective on self-care and having to make hard choices to get your life in order. This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake - Thought Catalog

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.