Good on you for reaching out. Burnout can be draining and not having someone that understands/doesn't judge makes the experience harder to deal. There are different types of burnout which can affect everyone differently. Slow down and start making changes in small increments to improve your mental health.
A few changes that helped me (that are more generally applicable for you/others)...
- Make friends with yourself and then support yourself - I mean, wouldn't you cut your friend some slack and offer this kind of advice if they were in a similar situation? Forgive yourself for feeling scared. It's OK. Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself when you indulge (no matter if it is procrastination, retail therapy, ice cream, media consumption, or whatever).
- Remember that not every day needs to be 'productive'. So, slow down and take some pressure off. This can take a bit getting used to because you may feel you're cheating yourself or your client/employer. Break work into smaller chunks. Remember, not everything needs to be done right away, in one fell swoop, or at all.
- Segregate work and play, times and places. Try to set some office hours for your support work. Might be easier to physically step away from the B&B during those hours, if explaining your need for private time is difficult.
- Sleep, wake, eat, and exercise at regular times everyday. Don't surf/watch/read in bed and screens off ~30 minutes before lights out. Follow a healthy and balanced diet (more fruits and greens, less meat). Introduce a schedule slowly.
- Add an exercise regimen. Even light exercise such as a daily 45 min stroll will help (and Maui should have some beautiful views). Cycle, run, hike, or swim if you can.
- Develop some regular social interactions and find a supportive community/group/individual. Talk to a therapist/counseller and/or a supportive partner/friend. Talking, letting it out, helps.
- Do more things that do not involve computing/screens. Fulfill a new creative urge or rekindle and old, long cast-aside interest. Read a book; volunteer - even a little helps others and helps you; meditate - I found guided gratitude-focused meditation was helpful. I still watch plenty of stuff, but I'm now more aware when I'm doomscrolling or experiencing video fatigue+mesmerism.
- If you have interests in cycling, dancing, painting, writing, board games, wood working, etc., now is a good time to seek out groups or places that organise casual events without major commitment. They will afford you conversations and social interaction that is helpful.
- I found fulfilling non-computing interests made a positive impact and helped me deal with exhaustion, anxiety, and depression. Don't worry about being good at these other interests. Start small, at whatever level you are comfortable with.
- If you feel good/bad on a particular day, consider your activities, food consumption, media consumption, for the last 48 hours.
Recovering from burnout takes time - I have been making changes in the last 18 months, and it has not been easy. That spark is relatable, and it will come back (perhaps in a different form).
OK. That was quite a bit more than I expected to write. I hope some of it is helpful and I haven't come off as soapboxing.
I really like that you've added second ticks and a starting countdown.
Will's version has a nice whistle to start and pause & stop buttons. He also has a small 'info' link that explains the exercise routine. Please consider integrating these as well as a skip button.
Unfortunately, neither version works with sound on my phone.
Checkout LifeSlice by Stan James (https://github.com/wanderingstan/Lifeslice) for OSX - the script takes a screenshot, picture of the user and tracks web browser usage. The sample report leaves much to be desired from a design aesthetic but the data is available.
That strikes me as curious. While I'm certain there is a reasonable explanation, i.e., "This is a report on foreign governments.", it would make sense to include themselves. Why do you suppose that is?
Because the American government could not care less about those violations in other countries, and they just issue those papers as propaganda?
In fact, if you read your modern world history, America was behind tons of the worst violations in the first place, supporting the regimes that perpetrated them as long as they catered to the US interests. They have setup lots of dictatorships in Latin America for example, they had armed Bin Laden and co, they have best terms with Israel and Saudi Arabia, the had Noriega as their puppet man, they had supported Saddam Hussein (yes, that Saddam) against Iran, they had toppled the democratic government of Iran to install a dictatorship in the sixties, etc etc.
If I had the mass genocide of Native Americans, the slavery of blacks, segregation till the '60s, concentration camps for Native Americans and later Japanese, McCarthyism, 2 atomic bombs on civilians, Agent Orange, and medical experiments without their knowledge on latin populations on my hands, I would be too ashamed to publish anything about any other country's "human violations".
Don't forget that much of Iran's ire against the US is fallout from the US-backed coup overthrowing Iran's democratically-elected government in the 50s.
o/t dabblet.com is a really wonderful concept (and would be even better if I had a larger-than-13"-screen :-)
Reminds me of the editor used by Bret Victor in his presentation https://vimeo.com/36579366
on-topic... the technique is interesting. What kind of real-world applications can we expect?
My two bits:
It's great that you're having fun developing apps. I can't say much as to the robustness of the app. But, you should not discount the user experience when developing an app.
What does the site do? Why is this easier/better/nicer than X/Y/Z? I have no idea.
What need or issue are you trying to address? Why should I use this over other services?
A reader for the lazy would ideally do something like NewsBlur (which is fabulous, BTW) and pick up my feeds from a competing service. Consider providing an 'import from Google Reader' option.
You're asking me to add sites one by one, in a non-intuitive manner - if there's only one feed, just let me click 'subscribe' - don't bother giving me a (non) choice.
I like that you're loading the actual site within your app.
However, I have a 13" screen at 1280x800 and there's all sorts of scrolling required, which makes for a messy experience. Gets worse when that lower frame is pulled up to view the site. Design for multiple resolutions.
From a usability perspective, the site is confusing. I've spent more time crafting this response than using the site because of this.
I could possibly click on things and see what they do, but that's 'risky' and not lazy. For instance:
1. What do the up & down arrows do?
2. What does pull up mean?
3. I clicked on a link in a feed and nothing happened. Oh no, this site doesn't work! (If I hadn't scrolled down, I would not have realized the site had loaded in the lower 'box', which I also had to then 'pull up'. This process is not obvious or easy.) Consider an email inbox view - just titles to click on, and full previews in lower 'box'.
4. Keyboard shortcuts?
5. Why is the default post count only 3? Once read, a post remains in my view instead of minimizing itself. Infinite scrolling would be great to load more posts.
6. UI-wise, what happens once I have 30 feeds? How does your horizontal nav handle that?
There's more obviously, but this hopefully this is a start.
It's always easier for someone (me) to criticize, so keep this in mind with my comments.
This type of thing is my biggest complaint with OSX.
I've been using OSX as my main desktop OS for about a year now, and it's unbelievable how many simple customizations require third party products. To make it worse, a lot of them cost money.
Coming from Debian and Fluxbox I'm used to almost any possible configuration or customization being possible via /etc, the files in ~/.fluxbox/, or utilities installed using synaptic.
Thanks for the tip! I didn't know about RightZoom.
Here are some little known Mac utilities I like:
* MutableCode's Breakaway let's you configure separate audio volumes (including silence) for with and without headphones.
* Stereopsis' Flux adjusts your display's color temperature to match the type of lighting in your room (e.g. daylight, halogen, fluorescent) to avoid the blindly blue glare in a dark room.
