The Feed

  • February 13, 2025

    I rearranged my office! [Joe’s Audio Notes]

      
    This weekend, I completely rearranged my office—and I couldn’t be happier with the results. What started as frustration with my camera framing turned into a full workspace transformation. In this episode, I break down:  

    • Why I moved my desk and how it improved my video setup  
      – The changes I made to declutter and improve cable management  
      – The unexpected number of extra USB cables and extension cords I found (seriously, where did they all come from?)  
      – Why I finally got rid of my massive softbox lights  
      – My ongoing whiteboard dilemma and plans for even more optimization  

    Timelapse of my Office Rearrangement
    https://youtu.be/H8Ar19kSBjE

    Got questions or office setup tips? Let me know!


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  • February 10, 2025

    Homemade Pizza and Building Systems: When to DIY and When to Delegate

    Americans ate an estimated 12.5 million pizzas during the Super Bowl (according to a quick Google search).

    Most people ordered them from pizza joints, but some likely baked at home.

    I decided to be one of those people.

    Now, I had never made homemade pizza before. But since we didn’t have anyone over and had a late lunch with leftovers, I figured I’d give it a try. I was basically just making it as a snack for my oldest, my wife and me (my littles, predictably, did not want to try it).

    The stakes were low.

    It didn’t go particularly well. I didn’t leave myself enough time or space to really flatten the dough, so it was thicker than it should have been.

    That means I didn’t cook it long enough, so it was half-baked.

    I also didn’t have the right equipment, like a pizza stone, so when I tried to slide the pizza into the oven, the sauce, and the cheese moved, but the dough did not.

    Luckily, because the combo of dough, sauce, and cheese is good, and the dough wasn’t raw, it still tasted OK.

    But I learned a ton for next time:

    1. I need a bigger surface to roll the dough out flatter
    2. My small bamboo pizza paddle won’t cut it—I need a bigger paddle and a pizza stone
    3. I’d also like to try a different dough

    Over time, I’d like to:

    1. Make my own dough
    2. Make my own sauce
    3. Experiment with different cheeses and seasonings
    4. Get better equipment, like maybe an Ooni Pizza Oven

    I’m sure you see where this is going.

    It’s unlikely you’re going to do something very well the first time. There are a bunch of unknowns, even if you follow a recipe.

    I followed the instructions for making a pizza, but because I didn’t roll the dough thin enough, the recommended 15 mins on 400 degrees (F) wasn’t long enough.

    So you iterate over time. You learn the process that works best for you, and make adjustments each time.

    Once you really understand the process, you can put a system in place to make the process as smooth as possible.

    …or determine that you’re better suited to do other things, and have someone else perform those tasks instead.

    The truth is, while I’ll make a pizza here and there, I’m still going to order pizza most of the time.

    It will free me up to do other things, like play with my kids…plus clean up is a lot easier.

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  • February 10, 2025

    Automation 101 for Busy Solopreneurs

    Automation can feel overwhelming, but it all boils down to four simple components: triggers, actions, conditions, and timing. Once you understand these, you can start automating repetitive tasks, saving yourself hours of work and mental energy.

    In this episode, I break down these components with real-world examples, like home automation and business workflows, and share how you can use them to create seamless systems for your solopreneur business.

    Then, I’ll tell you how you can start thinking about your tasks in terms of these components.

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  • February 6, 2025

    How Coaching Changed My Relationship with Meetings

    Baseball in its current form (“the modern era”) has been around for 124 years — hosting roughly 300,000 games.

    Did you know that out of those roughly 300,000 games, only 24 have been perfect—meaning no batters reached base through a hit, walk, or error?

    The point being, perfection is extremely rare. In this case, it’s around 0.008% of regular season games. And if we hold ourselves to a standard of being perfect, we will constantly set ourselves up for failure.

    I’ve seen countless cases where a pitcher loses a perfect game or no-hitter, then gets rattled and gives up a run, losing the shutout as well.

    Last week I told you how 2025 starts this month for me — it’s been a crazy year so far, and the weather is ensuring even fewer school days for my kids, making it crazier.

    And while I’ve been able to get my most crucial work done, there’s still more I want to do — I just don’t have the space to do it right now; it’s being filled up by other, more important aspects of my life.

    However, throughout the month, I’ve been compiling a list of automations I’d like to build, either for myself or as part of a live stream.

    That list got longer yesterday, when I discovered Google Docs has added tabs.

    So how am I supposed to manage this increasingly growing list of stuff I need to do, when things don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon?

    There are a few ways.

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  • February 3, 2025

    My Startup and Shutdown Routines

    It’s been nearly 15 years since Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending film Inception came out, and I still think about it regularly.

    If you’re unfamiliar, it focuses on a man named Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s known for stealing secrets from people’s subconscious by entering their dreams.

    He’s hired to do the opposite — plant an idea in someone’s mind. This is called “Inception,” and since the movie came out, I’ve been using it as a verb.

    If you’re in the dream world too long, you may forget and lose yourself in it. So Cobb has a token to keep him grounded in reality: a top. If it falls over, he’s in the real world. If it keeps spinning, he’s in a dream.

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  • February 3, 2025

    2025 Starts Now for me — here’s why

    January was chaotic for me, with family time over the holidays, snow days, travel for Podfest, and a house full of sick people. Despite all that, my business kept running smoothly thanks to the systems and processes I’ve built over the years. Instead of stressing over a “lost” month, I decided to start 2025 in February, reframing my timeline and giving myself permission to adapt. This experience reinforced the importance of creating margin—not just in your weekly schedule but as a core part of your business—to handle unexpected disruptions while still moving forward.

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  • January 28, 2025

    DisplayLink is making Elgato Prompter Unusable

    I’ve always been bad at using teleprompters — they are big, clunky, and the consumer versions usually require a separate device and app.

    Until Elgato released the Prompter in late 2023. It seems like an answer to my prayers — and it was for a while. It worked seamlessly with my Stream Deck, and while the “voice advance” feature was a miss, it still makes eye contact on calls and recording much easier.

    But over the last 6 months, it’s gotten nearly unusable, and unrecommendable. That’s all thanks to the DisplayLink software the prompter requires.

  • January 23, 2025

    20 Years of Casabona.org

    It’s hard to believe that 20 years ago, I was sitting in my Sophomore year dorm room at The University of Scranton (Redington Hall, bay bay!) when I bought this domain.

    And naturally because I was 19 years old, I didn’t keep some record of why I made the decision. I did “officially” announce it 6 months later.

    I suspect part of it was because I owned domains with words like “sugarbob” (a Homestar Runner reference) and “Joey.” If I was going to be taken seriously, I should have a professional-looking domain.

    While I wanted casabona.com, that was registered 8 years prior by a woman named Helen, who still owns and operates it to this day.

    I’ve tried many times to purchase it from her, but now I’m excited to see it hit 30.

    In any case, I got the .org instead.