Category Archives: Life

Double Edge of Tech Obsession: Finding My Focus

For more than two decades, I’ve had a daily ritual: scanning tech news to catch the latest trends in the web industry. Hacker News quickly became my go-to source—it’s by far my favorite daily read. Every day, an endless stream of fascinating articles gets shared, covering every imaginable topic. The sheer variety constantly fuels my curiosity, sometimes leaving me deep in thought during any spare moment—and, admittedly, occasionally a little lost in those thoughts.

This constant exposure is also a wellspring of creativity. The “Show HN” section, for instance, is where people put their passion projects and prototypes out into the world, seeking feedback or just engaging with the community. Watching these creators share what they’ve built is incredibly motivating. It keeps my outlook positive and sparks new ideas almost daily.

But there’s a flipside: news burnout. I’ve found myself endlessly consuming content, almost addicted to the flow of updates. Take a look at the weekly screen time report on my iPhone and Mac—my top app is NetNewsWire: rock-solid, lightning-fast, totally free, and always quietly working in the background. It’s almost too easy to get caught up in this constant feed.

There’s a parallel in how we use Instagram. Have you ever fallen into the trap—scrolling through Reels, only to look up and realize you’ve lost hours to random, forgettable content? I was always wary of Instagram for privacy reasons and its tendency toward overexposure. Still, a few years ago, my wife started sending me Reels—fun snippets about our projects or memories. Before I knew it, checking Reels became a routine, especially after I’d finished reading the day’s news. Sometimes I’d use Instagram to hunt for ideas, whether for house makeovers or just cool things to build—but their algorithm is engineered to keep you hooked. Two hours later, you come up empty-handed, with nothing actionable to show for it.

I’ve realized that being efficient in daily life relies on three things:

  • Allocated, focused time
  • A distraction-free environment
  • Regular breaks between tasks

For a while, I had none of these. I kept piling more onto my schedule. About six months ago, I made the decision to slow down, reclaim focused time, and breathe a little deeper. My goal: accomplish things in a more intentional, targeted way. Yet, I noticed another crucial factor—choosing what truly interests me.

Looking at my personal to-do list sometimes feels like peeking into an untouched storage box—cluttered, neglected, gathering dust. Holidays would come, and I’d tell myself, “This time, I’ll tackle those lingering tasks!” But routines would resume, and those ambitions drifted to the background, replaced by a mental loop of half-formed plans.

In recent months, I’ve started to face this cycle head-on. I’m learning to make clearer decisions about where to invest my time and energy, and giving myself space to actually create and finish things that matter to me.

What I’ve learned by being more than 2 years a SCRUM master

In my previous company, I’ve been a SCRUM master (in addition to my main job: project manager) for more than 2 years and as you know, we always learn from our own errors and success. That’s why I started to list of few thoughts and things that I’d like to avoid in similar situation/role:

  • Setup tools as soon as possible early in the project in order to automatize a lot of development process. The more you do before starting, the better it will be.
  • Force your team to have some pause during your sprint in order to cool down on stuff that are important to team eyes (update continuous environment, upgrade a library, research, etc.).
  • Team must justify the need of this time and not only in front of SCRUM master but also to product owner and even beyond to stakeholders.
  • When working with a deported team, meet as soon as possible the team in order to give them a perfect vision of the project and share PO & SCRUM Master charisma.
  • Give visibility with transparency to stakeholders on a sprint or release basis by giving:
    • Budget status
    • Global vision of the project (no features! Otherwise it’s taken as granted) usually give business value
    • Milestone /sprints
    • Backlog priorities
    • Risks
  • Challenge stories without bringing your knowledge but by confronting the stories from previous sprints
  • Get a commitment from the team
  • Resolve impediments as soon as possible
    • Anticipate backup plans (ex: someone working on another story) at the same time
  • Give as much as possible visibility to all the team on the upcoming sprints
  • Give time to SCRUM team for reading/studying PO stories
  • If building an online application, have at least 1 x UI/UX designer in the team
  • Don’t rush on cutting edge technology or if it’s required, team needs training on those new technologies or simply change the whole team

So far this is what I’ve encountered along my experience and personal suggestion. I can possibly update the list in the future.

If you’d like me to develop a specific topic enunciated above, please shoot a comment and I will do my best to have a post on it.

Memegif share and create meme based on existing gif

The buzzing world around meme gif are going crazy and creativity provided by users are also pretty impressive. One of my friend recently launched a great website for sharing and creating memes based on existing gif that could be easily found on the internet.

In france we have a few famous websites that is getting more and more welknown by geeks and nerds called les joies du code who provide daily fun sentences attached to gifs.

In a different maner, Memegif let you take back those existing memes and suggest new sentences to match those gifs.
Currently, it’s only in French but I know it will be released soon in English and with couples of new features.

Go submit your meme gif on memegif.com and share it with your friends.

Free my newsreader

Not Invented Here strip

Read everything and everyday or you're out!?!?

I know I’ve made several articles on this subject but it’s something that is really important for me. Newsfeed reader give you technical strength and make yourself like a software that is up-to-date!

New website done Neighbourhood Language Club 78

Logo of NLC78 Association

I’ve just done a new website for one of my personal client as an auto-entrepreneur. NLC78 is an association-profit organization that offers language courses and personalized support for everyone ! From the youngest to seniors. They also offer education support for disabled people. It was really interesting working for them and see how motivated is the team behind the scene. The particularity of this website was the fact it was totally localized to a specific area of France (Yvelines).

More to come about this website as it will be internationalized.

I’m pretty proud about this website as it’s my first one as an auto-entrepreneur. Thanks to my client who trust me all along the project !

Finally, this project will be added to my portfolio in a few weeks.

Job in the gaming industry

I’ve found a job beginning of November in the gaming industry which I thought never ended in such an industry.
When recruiter asked me about what video games I was playing on my PS3, I’ve answered only games that weren’t from the company I was trying to join.

Long story short, now I’m more an project & account manager than a lead web project manager. Higher vision of all big projects going on within the company.

On vacation

I’m currently in holidays and be back beginning in September. Good upcoming posts about e-commerce and Magento.