Hey, friend!

Welp. I definitely didn't expect the response I received to the last newsletter. This certainly validates for me that, despite how scary it is, it's very often helpful to talk about what you're going through, because you're never the only one.

For me, self-care over the last month has been focused on my body. I've started getting massages regularly (not cheap, so I spread it out and also have bartered for massage a few times, but so worth it), I found a bunch of used gym equipment on OfferUp and have a good weightlifting and boxing setup at home, and I'm trying something called FightCamp that's like Peloton but for boxing and a lot more affordable. I'm also doing a lot of free yoga on YouTube--if you haven't, check out Yoga With Adriene. My sister and I FaceTime and do one of her videos almost every day.

Also, it turns out that sleep is super vital to your mental, emotional, and physical health. Who knew, right? I learned recently that folks with ADHD (yah... I was diagnosed with that a year ago, more on that some other day... maybe) are likely to feel like they aren't tired when their bodies are actually tired, which explains so much of my inability to sleep. So I've been setting a timer for a 11:20 every night reminding me to go to sleep. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.

Do you have any favorite tricks or practices for getting enough sleep? Any other self-care you've developed during the pandemic that's been particularly helpful for you? Let me know, I'd love to hear it.

What else has been happening?

A few updates:

Laracon Online Scholarship Tickets

Tighten and Laracon joined together again to facilitate donating tickets to folks who want to attend Laracon Online and can't afford it, especially if they're members of groups traditionally underrepresented at tech conferences.

If you'd like to attend but can't afford it, check out the Scholarship site. And if you'd like to donate, you can do that as well when you buy tickets.

LaravelVersions: update

After I released LaravelVersions, my friend Povilas Korop reviewed the codebase on YouTube and soon after I received pull requests for many new language translations. Don't see your language? PR it, or at least add an issue requesting it!

What Else?

Links

• Using composer patches | Rias.be
• SVG Crop: remove blank space from around your SVGS instantly
• conwnet/github1s: One second to read GitHub code with VS Code online
• Free onramp to vim
• Nuno Maduro ✨ on Twitter: "Starting @laravelphp v8.29.0 (released today), you can easily seed Parallel Testing databases using the "setUpTestDatabase()" hook. 🌱

• Adam Wathan on Twitter: "You know when you're building some weird part of a design that just doesn't play nicely with your design tokens? *cough* background graphics *cough*... Soon you'll be able to deal with all of that stuff easily, responsive and

• APIs You Won't Hate: Secure your APIS or why so much data was available from Parler

Laravel Podcast

• s4e23: Security, with Rizqi Djamaluddin
• s4e24: Queues, with Mohamed Said

​Popular Tweets

• SHARE THE FREAKING SHINE! Whether it's someone you manage, someone you work with, or whatever else, you don't lose *anything* by being the sort of person who always goes out of your way to give credit where it is due. https://fiveminutegeekshow.com/episodes/95
  ^^ Talked about this in 2017.

• I really enjoyed getting to talk to Chris about the history of @tightenco and my partnership with @dsheetz, what I think makes Tighten special, and a bit of what we do to ensure we're delivering the best work possible for our customers and clients

• If you're trying to make a healthy working environment for Black folks, especially if there aren't very many at your org: Recognizing this year has been even harder on them than the rest of us will go a long way to making good HR decisions.

• If you're not sure how to get started with 2FA or if it's felt overwhelming, Authy by @twilio is by far the best 2FA experience I've ever had. Your logins persist if you switch phones, and I just learned (thanks @benholmen!) that it also has a desktop app

• THIS IS SO FREAKING GOOD. (See: A graph of how to measure success)

• I got many responses to my latest newsletter from folks who: 1. Didn't know that I have/experience depression & anxiety 2. Were grateful to have someone else to talk to, as they do also A short thread about that, to make sure everyone hears it, not just newsletter folks. (1/11)

That's it for now!

Until next time...

Your friend,
Matt Stauffer