Technology – Matt Lawrence

Confessions of a Barefoot Cobbler Rebuilding my website and workflow

Matt Lawrence — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 03:00:39 +0000

Cobbler’s Paradox is a specific irony where one’s professional expertise in a field leads to the total neglect of that same thing in one’s personal life. A cobbler spends all day crafting footwear for customers, yet doesn’t have time to do the same for their own feet or their children’s feet. This has applied to my website for years; it was often used just to play with alpha and beta software…

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Next Week Fallacy

Matt Lawrence — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 14:47:50 +0000

Have you ever been to a bar with a sign that promises Free Beer Tomorrow? At first you’re like this is amazing, I’ll be back tomorrow for that free beer. However each day you come back the sign does not change… Your initial excitement over the prospect quickly turns into realization that you aren’t ever going to get that free beer are you? That realization quickly turns into…

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WP CLI on WP Engine Engineering Blog

Matt Lawrence — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 21:03:36 +0000

WP CLI had a huge impact on my career, I had the opportunity to chronicle some of my favorite commands on a now archived engineering blog at WP Engine (resurrected the content with Wayback Machine). WP-CLI changed the game for working with WordPress by providing a command line interface that allows you to quickly and efficiently do WordPress things to WordPress sites. Long ago, doing any of this…

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Getting Things Done with Things 3

Matt Lawrence — Thu, 06 Dec 2018 20:52:40 +0000

Getting Things Done was recently recommended to me. If you want to be more productive with much less stress go read it now! The premise of the book is that you have open loops, ideas that you’re constantly remembering over and over. Instead of the replay you should write these down, not just the idea, specifically an action that needs to be taken. I have done something similar for years…

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Intentional Smartphone Notifications

Matt Lawrence — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 00:36:23 +0000

When watching the Walking Dead I often wonder if smart phones are the real Zombie Apocalypse. People wandering sidewalks aimlessly with their heads down… The vast majority of us have all fallen into a trap, looking to our cell phones for satisfaction. There are plenty of articles on smartphones and unhappiness. When did smartphones become more than a useful tool to help us manage our lives?

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