Remote working tips and strategies we've learned over the years, plus asides on self-employment and staying productive with little kids at home.
Will Vincent 0:06
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Django chat, a weekly podcast on the Django web framework. I'm Will Vincent joined as ever by Carlton Gibson. Hello, Carlton. Hello. And we are recording this Tuesday, March 17 amidst the rotavirus pandemic. So we thought we talked about remote work, which is an episode we had planned for a long time anyways, and is perhaps a bit more timely. But first, a little bit of news. I'll start with some Django news. So the Django Software Foundation Board approved a new governance model for Django, there'll be a link in the notes that removes the older core, there's now a technical board in the DSF. And the gist of it is it makes it easier for new contributors more accurately reflects current contributors. And so this is a win overall most people feel for Django itself. So that's something we talked about in the meeting last week. The Software Foundation, anything you want to add Carlton, or how that impacts the work of the fellows.
Carlton Gibson 1:05
It doesn't really pack the work of the fellows. I think it more recognizes in the structure of the Django Software Foundation and the Django project, how it's been run for quite a few years since the federal project began. So you know, since since that began, first it was Tim Graham, he was there doing it. And he was he was the merger, he was doing all the merging all the PR reviewed all the PR review, but you know, putting it into the thing itself, and there were this Django core, which had commit rights from back in the day, but no one was using any of that. So the with the change in the governance model, that kind of recognizes the structure as it is, and it's, you know, the hope is that it gives us a nice foundation for the next, you know, period in jangles life.
Will Vincent 1:51
Yeah. And a shout out to James Bennett, who has been leading this for several years and doing a lot of the work to make this happen. So thank you, James. What else? in personal news, my wife and I had our third baby 16 days ago, so. So that's wonderful. I'm pretty sleep deprived on top of everything else. So this might be meandering, but certainly gives me extra perspective about, you know, thinking about the world holding a little kid for 12 hours a day and ways in which, you know, tech can help people generally and specifically with this health stuff, because I know that you Carlton, certainly I've sometimes a feeling of, you know, I know people who are frontlines you know, to hospitals and everything else. And you know, I have to remind myself tech as a part of that, right, we're all competing remotely and, and there's going to be more and more ways in which technology and you know, Django can and will be used on to help so
Carlton Gibson 2:48
I was just telling you about the doctrine, the monka type doctrine on demand type model, you know, where they call it, the remote app and you you know, you talk to a doctor online that that kind of thing is perfect for the current outbreak. I don't know if they've got enough capacity. But, you know, it's
Will Vincent 3:03
Yeah. It's the way they'd be going. Right. Right. And also for education. I mean, so all the schools are closed here in the States as soon as sane. So, you know, lots of things and then I'm Yeah, and I think I'm also you know, all these things bring out the best in the worst in people. But there are so many helpers out there. You know, a small example is the schools are closed the United States Child Nutrition is linked to the schools. There are people in my hometown in many towns who are working extra time shifts who are making meals sending them to families in need. So even though the headlines are pretty bad, there are all these micro examples of people doing amazing stuff. So that's about all I'll say on that. And if you want to add anything, Carlton,
Carlton Gibson 3:46
no,
you know, it's here. It's kind of totally locked in, you're allowed to go out to go to the supermarket, but that's it. They're the only shops that are open so it's really, you know, when you're if you're out and the police will be like, Well, why are you out and if you haven't got a good And you can be fined and, you know,
Will Vincent 4:02
yeah, that's not here yet probably by the time this airs it will be. So let's look working remotely. And I think part part of that is I have realized that you know, both you and I, Carlton, we've not only worked from home for many years, but also are basically self employed. So we'll try to separate those two. So to me the kind of areas I think about in action, think back to when I first started working remotely. The first one, the biggest one is discipline. And part of that is, as we both Well, I don't now but as you do, having a dedicated space and time to do your work, or just that acclamation of the first I would say the first two weeks. It's really interesting to me how even people who are in an office environment are really go getters can really struggle with the discipline of not turning on Netflix getting a snack. It's really you kind of have to get through that and you have to
Carlton Gibson 5:01
You know, the walking thing is like a procrastinate this procrastination, right? You go to the office and you sit at your desk and you know there's other people and there's kind of a
Will Vincent 5:11
structure Yeah,
Carlton Gibson 5:12
you know, if you go and spend too much time hanging out at the watercooler, you get a bad name but then you're at home right and then you're on your laptop and then you you know, your Twitter's open all of a sudden, or you know, just go make a put the coffee pot on and, you know, all of a sudden the entire day kind of disappeared and you've you've done 25 minutes work, but you're exhausted because you've spent the entire day procrastinating and that's mentally draining.
Will Vincent 5:36
Right. And I think you know, in a way you know, you and I both have hoards of children and and their schedules, forces a discipline that you know if if right if not for that, it would it would be harder in a way I wouldn't have
Carlton Gibson 5:48
all that we've got to do. We got to divide this into things like what is working from home, when you're like not got kids with you and then is working from home, you win this case. So let's talk about working home if like you when you're by yourself because for me The trick is, you've got to find out when you're productive, you got to find the bit of the day because a human body, it can get, you know, three, four hours worked on maximum need to break and then another two, three hours work, you know, possibly as well, but that that second period isn't going to be as high productive as the as the first bit. So you've got to find the part in the day where you've got that three hours, three, four hours. That's, that's yours. And then you've got to work it.
Will Vincent 6:27
Yeah. And I've, it's so true that when you when you work from home, you really realize all the time that's wasted with the rest of the nonsense, you know, the commute the watercooler. And so let's say you've got an hour commute each way, right? That's two hours a day. That's like, that's like half of the gold time. Well, right. So I was gonna say that on the one hand, you realize how productive you can be when you remove all these distractions. It's amazing how much you can get done in an hour or two. But but to what you were saying it's also true that I was certainly guilty of this. I was just like, I need to work all the time. And I quickly realized, you know, I do hit, you know, I have these mental physical, mainly mental limits. So I can't code for more than three hours at a time, I do need to have these blocks. And certainly now, what am I seven, eight years into my more or less remote journey, the way I structure my day is the I'm a morning person gave me to go to school. So I try to do technical deep thinking coding in the morning, and then in the afternoon, do email and all the rest of it. I'm not always successful at that, you know, if I start in on, you know, an email or something in the morning, it's kind of blown up. But that is my ideal day is doing that three, four hour block. And of course, you know, and also, you know, your brain is always working, or certainly ours are. So even if I'm playing with my kids or something else, you know, I'm still thinking of the problem. And you know, in the same way if you sleep on it, if you if you do timebox things and you do say I'm going to try to be present for dinner, and this and that, you know or pick up you know, thoughts will come to you, right you Can't kind of force that. So certainly I, you know, I had to learn the hard way that, you know, I felt like I had to sit at a desk for eight, nine hours a day, or more actually. And I just that wasn't getting the best out of me. No, you got to be realistic, you know, you work for 15 minutes, take a 10 minute break. And that 10 minute break can be like putting the washing right, so you can get the house jobs done,
Carlton Gibson 8:20
as well. Right. But But while you're that putting the washing or let's say put in the washing, right that that occupies your sort of left brain a bit that needs something concrete to do. So that's that's distracted and then your creative, right brain site is going hey, you know, that problem you've been struggling with is the answer for free and it's like, Ah, you win, you win. All right, I got the Washington I solve this really hard algorithm that I've been
Will Vincent 8:42
there is that balance, right? There's like taking 15 minutes and then there's taking an hour to, you know, make an elaborate lunch or something. Yeah, there's a balance. That's where the discipline that's where I think it's really requires so much more discipline. But you know, once you get used to it, you, you get these wins of you, you know, it's kind of you I know like, I know what I need to do to get a great day's work done. And I also know that I can get more done, you know, in a day, remotely than I could, you know, in a week in an office setting where all this time would be burned.
Carlton Gibson 9:14
More so I have been remote so long that you put me in an office, it's like, I'm alright, for the day. I'll come and visit the office for the day. But no way. Am I there, say all week, that would just be Yeah,
Will Vincent 9:25
well, you prioritize your time too. I mean, even you know, partly in an office setting, you have to be available for things but you just come much more stringent of even you know, I live or normally I live in a city. And if people want to get coffee or something like that's half the day and if it's the morning like that's my whole day. So I'm much more can and do say no, a lot more than I would in a, you know, office environment where there's open spaces and people tapping you all the time and it's just so hard to get into any kind of flow.
Carlton Gibson 9:51
Yeah, no. Part of that is I don't have things like slack or WhatsApp or you know Facebook or Twitter available during the day. Because if you were there, then you know, a direct message can come in. And so massive distraction. So those things are off. And yeah, you know, I use Twitter. That's the only thing I actually am on, but I'll check that periodically. And it's like a quick response. And then back to work.
Will Vincent 10:14
Yeah, and it is. I mean, social social media is exhausting. I typically only use Twitter and pretty, you know, once or twice a day, but, you know, recently with a with an infant in my arms, I kind of have, you know, him in one hand and my phone and the other, getting updates in the state of the world. And it's exhausting. You know, just looking at it, you know, and for what, right, so, but it's got that addictive thing to it as well. You know, it's like, oh, you find find yourself checking your phone again. Again, again? No, that's the time when the phone has to be moved and put away and not touched. Yeah. So another piece of this, and maybe this veers more into if you're doing your own thing is around creativity. Or perhaps I just want to get this in there, which is john Cleese of Monty Python fame has these incredible talks on creativity and business and how to have open enclosed mines, we'll put a link to one of his talks. Because maybe, I guess in all, you know, whether you're self employed or not, I often struggle with those transitions. That mean it helps me if I say is I did you know, the morning is code. And then the afternoon is sort of contemplation when I try to think about what to do and how to do it. I often muddle about and it doesn't feel good. So at the same time, I, I'm, I have a planner, and I think you do as well. And I'm very specific on what my goals are. I usually have three, you know, three a day, three big ones. And I try to do that thinking the night before and I do weekly and daily so that when I come in in the morning, instead of blowing an hour, getting my brain revved up, it's like right, boom, boom, boom, I've already decided what to do and that's an employer thing.
Carlton Gibson 11:46
I call that the downhill start right so that when you get early morning, you've got this set of like it can be made a major task and a few bullet points just on how it's how it's done. So you get to the desk in the morning, you look at the planner, I have it Sort of weekly diary with us notes on the side. I look at the notes and Okay, yeah, get on with that. And then that first 30 minutes at first hour is just super and then you're in the zone. And the great danger of being at home is that you just can't find I can't get in the zone I can't get in so let's get you on Twitter get off Twitter and do some work. Like if suddenly find during the zone is that this is those those first three minutes first five minutes,
Will Vincent 12:24
right, it's, I read a study that back the steps, but I don't know if it's placebo or not. But I often tell myself that the first five first 10 minutes it's never gonna feel easy, even if I've had you know, perfect night's sleep and everything is great. I show up there's still a part of me that's like, what's one of those? Yeah, well, exactly. You know, but so in the same way that I like to run, you know, the first couple minutes of running is often a little bit uncomfortable, but then it feels nice. And I just know that if I just put in that 1015 minutes, just go right, I'm attack the hard problem first. I know I'll get into that state and I don't sit around thinking like, Oh, where's my muse? Or you know, a writer's block, right? I mean, slight tangent. I used to be a book editor. So you know, with writer's block, I always loved the idea of like, you just don't allow it to be an option. You're like, I just can't have writer's block, write paper has to get done code has to be done. Well, Cody, if it's a
Carlton Gibson 13:16
general product, you know, you can get started, you can, I don't know what code to write today. Okay, open up your terminal file, activate your virtual environment, run your test suite. Right, look at some logging errors that pop up like dig into. And you're there all of a sudden you're there and all you did was actually begin.
Will Vincent 13:33
Right? And part of that too, is I am the giant you know already or sometimes I'll read two articles about Django or there's the Google Groups there's the Django newsletter that I have now so it's a little bit of a cop out but it's still kind of Django related where I'm you know, slowly rolling into a downhill Yeah, that's better for like for me for afternoon evening time.
Carlton Gibson 13:57
Yeah, no, exactly. I do that kind of thing even because say I say down to a nice, juicy article in the morning. That's it. I'll just write Oh, hold on, I'll have to do some notes on it. And I'll look that times disappeared. So I'd save that for the afternoon on the evening.
Will Vincent 14:10
Yeah. And if you, you know, it's a function of getting older and kids and this and that. But, like, if you actually count up the amount of thinking time that you have in a year in your life, it's so small. I'm kind of like, how do humans do anything when you think about all the nonsense we spend our time with, right? Like and one analogy is there's this famous skier, Mikayla shiffrin, who used to live near I do and she calculated she spends her entire year trying to ski she spends less than 24 hours on the snow. And in a way, if you think about how much time you actually spend thinking about coding, or like these problems, it's so small, right? But it's because it requires all this other, you know, work right, like athletes, talk about how they, you know, even when like resting is part of the work right? So like being rested having these focus zones, even though it's only four hours. You can only get that four hours. By the The other 20 you're trying to spend the right way.
Carlton Gibson 15:02
Yeah, self care is part of the work. Yeah,
Will Vincent 15:04
absolutely. Yeah. So I guess that's what I'm kind of getting at. Now even Totti. So another piece is a big one is socialization for working remotely. So I, you know, even the most introverted programmer still finds that they need some human interaction. And you you know, when you strip out the commute, when you strip out the daily this and that, if you lose that, right, so you lose that both into and that manifests itself a number of ways I found so one would be if you have a partner, right, you, you're suddenly you're home with them all day. And you don't have anything to talk about, because you don't have that like, Oh, you know, someone did something at the bus stop or this and that. It can be a strain on the relationship. And it can also, at least for me, I, I was guilty of finding myself wanting my wife to fill that void of like shadiness and other things that I have. That was just sort of presented to me when I had a workplace and I was out in the world. And so I had to make steps. I de recognize that and be be a little more specific about and deliberate about my steps. So trying to go to meetups trying to schedule online calls with people making more of an effort to, you know, do social things. I mean, this this is I think, especially, you know, men as they get older, there's, they don't aren't always great at maintaining kind of friendships and stuff like that. That's there's a, um, this is a tangent, but whatever. JOHN Delaney is a comedian who hosted SNL recently, and he had a little bit about the most amazing thing about Jesus is he had 12 adult friends who weren't friends of his wife, his wife's husband, cuz, you know, like, All my friends are my, like, my wife's friends, husbands. Yeah. So anyway, so that's, that's a big thing. And I think and, and I think there is a little honeymoon period for especially for introverted people who, you know, it takes a little more work to be social, but even they find like, you need to make that important. So, don't think you can just be a hermit it forever. Yeah, no, I mean, maybe you can, but I can't Well,
Carlton Gibson 17:04
well, I'm no I get out I go to Tai Chi, I meet people. I have a coffee. I, you know, I made space in the week by I agree entirely, you know, if it's like, it's too easy to spend just the whole week, I was just in house. I didn't go I didn't
Will Vincent 17:18
do anything. No, right. You have to be more deliberate about it. It's almost like this. It's almost a discipline in a way of saying like, this is important. And, you know, I it's not just part of the daily flow of things, and it enriches your life. Yeah, it's you mentioned that he
Carlton Gibson 17:31
wrote about the ideal day. Yeah. And one, one exercise that I do periodically, as I get like a planner of the week. So it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and I block out areas where I'm like, Well, now I'm working. And this is lunchtime, where I go pick up the kids and this is the afternoon where I do this. And this is where my two years and this is where I might meet someone or and then you find where the gaps are. And then where those gaps are. You can say oh, well actually I'd like to do this or I'd like to do that. And that's where you can fill in bits of your life that missing and you can do that. Periodically?
Will Vincent 18:00
Yeah, well, I think I've also, again, with this idea of when you work remotely, you can really squeeze as much out of yourself is, is also for me, I can be a bit hard on myself just trying to be kinder when I have days where it's just not coming to me, like I try. So I try to focus on that the effort and the input rather than the result. So I can say, you know, some days I'll get so much done in an hour and some days, I'll I'll do all the right things. I'll try for three, four hours, I'll get stuck on something. And I have to remind myself that the process is what's important and not focus on the result, which you know, yeah. So there's that saying, like, don't, you know, don't let your successes get to your head and don't your failures get to your heart. That's true in a lot of realms, but especially with something very thoughtful like like coding, where it does go in these kind of leaps or feels like these leaps, but when in fact, it's all the process. If you're sat at a computer and you're getting nothing done, and
Carlton Gibson 18:55
you know, all of a sudden that procrastination tools come out and you're on Facebook. Looking refreshing, doing all these? You know, I've checked the news 45 times in the last hour and nothing's changed, you know?
Will Vincent 19:06
Why would the New York Times update a little bit? Yeah,
Carlton Gibson 19:09
at that point, stop working just get off the computer because as much as anything, it's probably a sign of burnout or tiredness, you know, burnout to be much more substantial thing of being tired that one day, but you know, back away, take the space that you know you're at home, just go and go and cook a result or something, do something fulfilling, do something different, go for a walk, spend some time with your spouse, go and see a friend, whatever it is, but get away from the beauty. Don't just sit there banging your head against the
Will Vincent 19:35
machine. Yeah, that sometimes happens.
Carlton Gibson 19:39
So just nothing you get more tired.
Will Vincent 19:42
Yeah, so really, all this comes down to you have to self manage, you know, if you're working in a company because they care about your, whatever your deliverables are, and in a way they don't. You know it as long as you get them done. I mean, part of that is
Carlton Gibson 19:55
probably even even for Marx right? The subsistence labor the subsistence wage for Wait for labor was the included enough to get them there the next day to be able to do it again, you've got to, you've got to be sustainable. You can't just burn yourself out on a given day or a given project, you've got to go the next day and the next day, the next day.
Will Vincent 20:14
Right? Well, I was gonna say that, you know, Google used to have this 20% time and I certainly at least cancel that because I thought that was fantastic. I don't think they've had that for a long time. Okay. Who knew Google Yay, old Google pretty sure that that's been gone for a long time. Oh, come. But I was gonna say personally, I, again, I try to time box this where and I've started doing this on Fridays, where, you know, because creativity oftentimes comes out of sometimes procrastination or boredom. So I will. I've started trying to have Fridays be days where I, you know, I put the time in, but I let my my brain go a little bit. So I have all these side projects I work on, like I have started projects, and I have all these various things that are kind of interesting, but not they're important, but not urgent, I would say and so I think I found it rather than constantly feeling like I don't have time to like be creative or play I have to just, you know, drill on, you know, my responsibilities. I do have an outlet for it, I say okay, on Friday, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna take you know a couple hours and play around with this tutorial or you know, keep learning these things that are easy to kind of forget doing when there's just so much of a you know, constant stream of things in my to do list sometimes I just really need to say a while I'm still gonna do stuff related to this, you know, in a way like, I don't know, like a rock musician playing jazz or something I like a theater actor, you know, movie actor doing theater, like you need that. But it also needs for me it needs to be kind of time boxed. So it's not just like a progressed procrastination ish scratch
Carlton Gibson 21:42
exactly time to kill. I allocate exactly this amount of time. And perfect. Yeah, so we should talk about kids, right? Because it's all very well, saying I'm gonna do my three, four hours solid in the morning when you've you got three or four children at home who are running around and
Will Vincent 21:57
I'm done with three cars and you're a madman.
Carlton Gibson 21:59
Well, I We had to we said, let's have a third then we got twins. So you know.
Will Vincent 22:04
Yes. Let's talk about kids. We can talk about whatever we want. What are your thoughts? How do kids
Carlton Gibson 22:09
I think they're crushing it right? You got to look at how old they are, right? Because, yeah, so if they're babies, then you know, there's a quite simple routine they eat, they do three things at and they sleep, right. So the activities, probably changing their nappy or look, looking out the window or playing with a teddy right? And they sleep and they've got this routine, they do it all day, all night, and you've just got to fit in with it. So if you're going to work, the only time you can work is when they're asleep. So you can feed them, you can play with them, you can put them down and then you can do maybe an hour's work before you've got to start thinking about Hey, they're gonna wake up soon, they're gonna want some food. You know, and you just got to be realistic with that. You can't, you know, you can't expect to do you know, 4840 hours a week you get you're going to do get what you get, get done, what you get done.
Will Vincent 22:54
And you're also if they're little kids, you're gonna be severely sleep deprived and, you know, That's sort of the self care piece. I mean, I'm in the middle of that right now. Right. I know, when you see coronavirus nonsense, I plan to take a month a little bit easier knowing that it's an intense period of time and, you know, rewarding time. But, you know, I need to just remove thoughts of all these projects or things like I won't do that, you know, I mean, and part of that is because coding is coding is fun, it's fun to focus on a problem and kind of block out the rest of the world, especially when you're got little kids and you're just constantly reactive. You know, so building in some self care there is good as well. Yeah. And I will say, Good. Well, I was just gonna say, so are my kids are spaced out a little bit seven, four and zero as my kids say? So it's amazing and I, I grew up with multiple siblings. We're all around the same age. Seeing a seven year old who can soothe and take care of the baby is amazing. I just didn't even think that was
Carlton Gibson 23:56
like outsourcing. That's brilliant.
Will Vincent 23:58
Yeah, I mean, even this morning You know, she was she came down helped. And yeah, so it's just a really beautiful thing. But we got to be realistic about, you know, if you're going to be a present parent, yeah, it takes. And really, it's, it's sleep, I think, you know, until you sleep regularly through the night. I mean, you know, I'm up four or five times a night, my wife even more, it's just unrealistic that I'm going to do any good work, I'm probably going to cause more harm.
Carlton Gibson 24:26
If I try to that's independent from working at home, you know, even if you were doing the commute going into an office, you would expect that your company would know you had a newborn and be sympathetic of the fact that your productivity is going to be down for six months or 12 months or 18 months. It is
Will Vincent 24:41
I would say this is part of being the self employed bit of you have the additional burden of you have to be your own boss, and you have to recognize that in yourself. Maybe we'll just do a slight tangent on self employment, if you'd like. Why not? I think it's just you just have to I have to build in all this additional time to think about what to work on, think about, you know, self care. Like I can't just assume I can just execute 40 hours a week, there is a huge component of, you know, both in my remote work having those, those two big blocks of time where I can be productive. And then being self employed have a lot of time to contemplation, which really funny, you know, it's planning which I don't find that as
Carlton Gibson 25:23
it doesn't feel as good as execution. No, but planning always feels like wasted time. It's like design work software design, you know, we sit there drawing boxes and arrows and paper feels like a waste of time. But I tell you what, when you sit down to the hard work of coding, all that time comes back in, you know, when in spades with dividend Yeah, it comes back with the Express payment on it. It It feels not as good and it's not as rewarding to that dopamine receptor bit of your brain that like say, I've solved a problem, solve the problem. solve the problem cookies.
Will Vincent 25:53
Right? Right. Well, ah,
Carlton Gibson 25:56
it's part of the work you know, there's some the mythical man month. I think there's that You know, quite an old book now, but I think I think it's in it could be one of those other old books. But, you know, they say that a programmer even in then sort of old school enterprise environment would only spend 10 to 15% of their time actually coding, the rest of it is meeting planning. You know, testing the bug. I don't know what they're testing Kansas coding to me, but who knows, I don't want to get coffee water cooler. Well,
Will Vincent 26:22
maybe just a pro tip, I, you know, testing is always under done. And I find testing a great procrastination tool. If I'm stuck on something, there's always more tests that can be added. And usually that's a little more low level or a little bit easier to do than you know, in architecture kind of thing. So that's something I'm, I look to instead of Twitter, like write some tests somewhere,
Carlton Gibson 26:44
you've got a you've got a little alert pops up. We've been writing tests for two hours now you sure you're still adding value?
Will Vincent 26:50
Yeah, well, and again, this is, you know, this is the thing about remote worker, especially being self employed. You just have to have all the discipline like nobody Nobody sees the test. I write on stuff if it's a solo project, right? So no one's no one. No one's clapping me in the back being like, good job and the test coverage, right? It's you can kind of punt that. So but so I allocated in the just like good cleaning and health, right, just like I shave occasionally, like writing tests is important and valuable. And, you know, I do it for its own sake also, because I tell people the test. Right, but
Carlton Gibson 27:27
Okay, let's turn turn into a testing episode. But like, the writing test is how you can make changes later, right? So for me, when I call you when I come to untested code, it's like, but how can I change anything? And it might be because it's untested, likely, it's highly coupled. And that's kind of why it's fantastic because it's already covered. It's vicious circle. But it's like before I can start changing this before I can start fixing this. I have to write these harnesses around so that I can put some tests in place to know that when I make this cut over here, I didn't break it.
Will Vincent 27:56
Right. Well, and I think, too, I've realized that I can justify have started projects and I find myself you know, everything is crud with a ListView and a detail view and you know, some off, you can reuse test too. So it's not like this is I have, I will be doing a, at some point, a deep dive on Django testing course, because I always think of tests is really hard to write at first because you don't really know where you're going. So it's hard to write tests for it. And then I don't know of great canonical guides for it, but then it becomes quite boring, because you're just doing the same kind of tests, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I sort of seek out the boredom. Like, if I'm getting bored writing tests, I'm like, Okay, good. You know, like, this is kind of where I want it to be. And you can, you know, you can copy and paste Bradley your tests in the same way you can do that with, you know, your URLs or whatever else if it's a similar type of project to something you've worked on before. But when this when this board and there should be an obstruction, right, so I'm right, am I reading this test
Carlton Gibson 28:57
before? Well, that means there's a
Will Vincent 28:59
well that's what To switch to pi tests you know you kind of did not lamb.
Carlton Gibson 29:04
Anyway kids kids at home so you've got little ones little ones you've just got to look after because eat activity sleep but like say they're older say they're like 10 1112 year secondary school kind of thing. What do you call secondary school in their state
Unknown Speaker 29:15
middle school, high school,
Carlton Gibson 29:16
high school, high school, a bit older that anyway, but they can work, they can sit down with the with some work and they can read, they can write for an hour, they can work on the computer for an hour. So they can actually sit in the same room as you because they can do it in silence. And then it's like you're working together with your kids. And that's kind of really rewarding. That's like, oh, wow, you know, we can get some work done and they can be in an environment where it makes them feel like empowered and big. And you know, and you spend some time on bit Can you help it out? Yeah, okay, to me, no problem. Like, that's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. So they're kind of taken care of. It's the middle ones that are trouble likes. 345678 years old. They are you've got no choice.
Will Vincent 30:00
Because my for my seven year old, that's what you're saying? Well, and you know my two seven year olds, right? Yeah, you have them till yet
Carlton Gibson 30:06
it's absolutely fatal because they basically they can't do in 30 seconds mom, dad and it's my job. Okay, we say we spend 10 minutes getting you settled, you will say to the hearing, you're entirely I'll just sit down.
Will Vincent 30:18
No reason there is a light at the end of the tunnel, you're telling me because I
Carlton Gibson 30:22
know when they get older. That's really nice. But these middle ones are just like them, like, you've got no chance. So essentially, you just have to go with that as well. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve and you can't beat yourself. They're off school because there's a pandemic and the scores are all been shot. And you just have to be realistic about what you're going to achieve in that circumstance. And don't try and don't get crossed with them because they're kids. It's just age appropriate behavior. Right. And you'll I want to do some work tough, you can't do any work. You've got Yeah,
Will Vincent 30:54
you just have you know, parenting
Carlton Gibson 30:56
is Yeah, you can put you can put the telly on for a bit but you can do that. How long like half an hour an hour like a day, like, you can't just put them in front of the telly, let them watch it all day. So you have no choice. If you've got kids of that middle aged, middle period, you are going to the best you can do is Potter at your work. So we talked about the creative work and the notebook and the downhill stuff, trying to make notes, right, try and make notes. And so give yourself that down and start that to do with the bullet points that break down. So that let's say they they do get into something and that means you've got half an hour. Well, okay, that half an hour you can get on. Because you created that down here start but that's all you can do you like if these are, these are strange times, you know, all over the world, they're shutting schools, and we just have to be realistic about what we can achieve in that time.
Will Vincent 31:45
Well, that's helpful to hear about the age appropriate. I did have a minor victory yesterday, and I'll just mention that as a quick aside. So with dad jokes and parenting things, I used to think that parents didn't know that
Carlton Gibson 31:58
they were kids tell dad jokes. They're like Okay, gotcha. atrocious. So we like
Will Vincent 32:02
that joke. Well, when I was a kid, I thought that parents didn't realize they were, you know, wearing terrible clothes or telling bad jokes. Or you know, and now I realize they know they just don't care. Right? So that's why were anything nice. It's just gonna get stuff on it, you know? It's like, Oh, you don't want to see pictures of my kid. I don't care. I'm gonna show them to you. Like, that's my recent. I've totally lost the thought of what I was gonna say. But you had
Carlton Gibson 32:31
a moment with you talking about
Will Vincent 32:33
me? Oh, yes, yes. And I was gonna say my, um, so the curriculum they're sending teachers are sending links and teachers are just total heroes. And my first grader completed the second grade math assignment on her own, like a stallion. And I was like, Yes, that's my girl. So and then she needed everything else. Yeah, it's a glimpse of maybe High School, but I think also kids you know, kids model your behavior. So if they see you being disciplined and and enjoying things They'll pick up on that, you know. So, like already, you know, my seven year old has we gave her an old phone that is an airplane mode and she's constantly wants to be on it. And we're like, No, no, don't look at that. But you know, we're always on our phone too. So it's, it's a good push to be better. Yeah. demonstrate that. And I'll demonstrate the eyes I say. Totally.
Carlton Gibson 33:23
All right. All right. I just got one more thing on my my notes. It is basic rules. It says get dressed, have breakfast. When you're working from home, get up in the morning, get dressed, have breakfast, make your bed put the laundry on, do all the things that like make you into a normal human being and then do some work don't to say what
Will Vincent 33:43
is that there's there's this poster. Is it like the oatmeal that shows like the chronology of I'll find it and link the chronology of working from home. And yeah, you just it's self care and discipline, right? Like Yeah, you and you just gonna
Carlton Gibson 33:57
put his mental attitude as well like If you bother to get dressed, you know, if you bother to have breakfast, if you bother to take care of yourself, it means Yeah, I respect to myself and I'm respecting that I'm going, I'm going to do some work now. Just because you're at home doesn't mean it's a holiday.
Will Vincent 34:14
Yeah, well, yeah, I'll put the link. It's called why working from home is awesome and horrible. And part of that, I think that, you know, motivator is, I gotta get stuff done. Right? Like, I don't have the luxury of not being productive, right with the world. What else we were telling yourself. You know, you have a family. It's like, you know, I can't f around here. So, so that stress and anxiety is quite productive. Yeah. Okay, great. Well, that's our special episode. We will continue to have episodes on Django related things. Thank you, everyone for listening. Join us next time. Bye bye.