The Blog of a Chronic Content Creator
A colleague and I are creating a Discord server to discuss psychology and all things related (Technology, community, academia, culture, etc…) We’re hoping to use it with our students, and our colleagues and friends. If you’d like to join in, head over to https://go.jonwestfall.com/psychout and jump in. Right now just a few channels in there …
A few days ago, my MacBook Pro had to go on a quick trip to Texas for a doctor’s appointment (a.k.a. Some service work on a misbehaving main board). With my “spare” MacBook mostly used by my wife these days, I figured “I wonder if I can survive on my 2018 11’’ iPad Pro and …
I use Siri fairly often when walking, biking, or just when my hands are busy. One of my frustrations is that Siri hates playing the music I ask for. I used to have a playlist named “Essentials”, and I would frequently say “Hey Siri, shuffle Essentials”. That didn’t work 99% of the time – she’d …
Continue reading “Listen Siri, I Didn’t Ask for John Sanchez!”
In my classes I’ll often have students give short presentations, and recently I wanted to allow my students to also rate each other. Here’s a very quick and easy way to accomplish that while also having the data analyzed to tell you who is the ‘winner’ Create your rating forms in Google Forms. I made …
Continue reading “Easy In-Class Presentation Ratings Using Google Forms, Sheets, and R”
I made this in about 5 minutes… sometimes having the right tool means pay a bit of money to speed up your workflow. Could I have done it for free? Yes. As accessibly? No.
It’s been awhile since I’ve talked productivity on this blog, but recently I’ve had a number of people point out to me that I’m extremely busy. If you don’t know, I have a few different roles professionally and personally – if you’re really curious, here’s the list as of today. But without boring you, know …
Continue reading “I’m Busy – My Best Tips and Tricks for A Productive Professional Life”
If you ask around the internet about rest days, you find a debate between the “be active every day” crowd and those who insist that your body needs recovery time. And honestly, the answer is somewhat in the middle. If you’re doing something that requires regeneration, such as strength training to build muscle, than yes, …
Continue reading “Rest Days that Don’t Break Your Apple Activity Streaks!”
I’ve always been an Inbox Zero kind of guy, although lately with the whole pandemic thing, that idea has gotten less attractive to many. Yet here I am, still throwing replies out there as quickly as I can, searching for the all elusive “0 messages” banner at the top of my email client. Why? Well …
Continue reading “On Accessibility… or why I answer emails as they come in.”
I have 2 offices, which means that when someone makes an appointment with me, they need to be aware which office I’ll be meeting them at. My appointment provider (YouCanBook.Me) sends an appointment request to both myself and the person making the appointment, and I then update my copy with the location. This then sends …
One of my classes this semester requires me to track how often students speak in class, and evaluate each comment. I also have students leading discussion, and I need to be able to generate completed rubrics easily for them so they get my feedback. I’ve found that I can keep track of all of this …