Weekly Notes - 2
This was a little hobby-works week. I got to play on some new toy projects.
Major Developments
Created a custom Django starter template.
Deploying and setting up a new Django project takes 3-4 days. Most of the time I am copying my setup and deployment scripts from other projects. This starter template reduces the setup time to 10 minutes.
It mainly splits up the setting and requirements files for different environments, sets-up pre-commit hooks, has a deployment script for Uberspace and set-ups 12-factor authentication (using Django-environ).
Started another toy project: get-things-done.com.
Last week I started reading David Allen's book Getting Things Done. It had 4 major concepts:
Deploying and setting up a new Django project takes 3-4 days. Most of the time I am copying my setup and deployment scripts from other projects. This starter template reduces the setup time to 10 minutes.
It mainly splits up the setting and requirements files for different environments, sets-up pre-commit hooks, has a deployment script for Uberspace and set-ups 12-factor authentication (using Django-environ).
Started another toy project: get-things-done.com.
Last week I started reading David Allen's book Getting Things Done. It had 4 major concepts:
- Capturing: a to-do list should capture everything. We should note down all the pending tasks into a tickable list.
- Planning: Next to every task, we should write down the next actionable step. What is the next thing we need to do for that task. This gets us into "doing" instead of just thinking and worrying about all the pending work.
- Open-loops: Our pending tasks keep worrying us. Whenever our mind diverts, it is usually because we are remembering some pending task. These are open-loops. Capturing them brings peace of mind. This is why we should capture all the open-loops.
- Reviews: Most to-do lists don't work because we don't review them. If there is only one thing that we should do, it is to review our task lists once a week. Go through all the pending items. Update the actionables.
The above points made total sense. Just writing down all the pending things + their next steps reduced the chaos. Capturing open-loops when idling brought peace. I tried to do the above on paper. But it soon became too hotch-potch. Also, I didn't have that paper all the time.
Hence I thought of creating a simple to-do app where I can capture the tasks + write the next steps. I also wanted a "snooze" option. Plus full keyboard support. That's where I started working on get-things-done.com. This is also why I created that Django starter template.
It is around 60% done with the proof-of-concept ready. Need to work on snoozing and re-ordering. Code is available on Github.
Audit Log in Screener
Handling user queries take up a lot of time. Many of these queries are for transactional things. Things like merging accounts, modifying old invoices, resetting user limits and handling spam reportings. Having an audit trail for these would make it easier to delegate these tasks and bring more transparency for users.
We are still working on the module and hope to complete it this week. It is mostly based on Django's admin log implementation.
Hence I thought of creating a simple to-do app where I can capture the tasks + write the next steps. I also wanted a "snooze" option. Plus full keyboard support. That's where I started working on get-things-done.com. This is also why I created that Django starter template.
It is around 60% done with the proof-of-concept ready. Need to work on snoozing and re-ordering. Code is available on Github.
Audit Log in Screener
Handling user queries take up a lot of time. Many of these queries are for transactional things. Things like merging accounts, modifying old invoices, resetting user limits and handling spam reportings. Having an audit trail for these would make it easier to delegate these tasks and bring more transparency for users.
We are still working on the module and hope to complete it this week. It is mostly based on Django's admin log implementation.
Playlist Additions
Heropanti 2's full album was released this week. I loved the "Rehnuma" qawwali. It has been on repeat for the last 3-4 days. I also liked Mauka Parast and Miss Hairan from the same album.