Author: William Gallagher

In this week’s newsletter…

Posted by

0

There’s a new productivity tip that isn’t in my book and hasn’t yet appeared on this site (though, full disclosure, I can’t keep it secret, I may have to say it later today). But you can read it right now in the new weekly email newsletter which also features a productivity buy of the week, more technology news and a daft video. I wasn’t intending to make the daft video a regular feature but so far it’s proved irresistible.

Take a look at the latest issue right here – and if you fancy getting it delivered right to your doorstop each Friday, just let me know by signing up here.

That was April 2014

Posted by

0

Previously… I used to have someone I would account to for what I’d done in the month and it helped me enormously. Now I’ve got you. As I always said to them, you don’t need to read this but I need to write it. Knowing that I am going to tell you these things means that I do more things. So thanks.

Writing/editing: 56,00 words
Magazine tutorial feature: circa 800 words
Approximately 12,000 words novel
Thirty-minute stage play “Murder at Burton Library”
The Blank Screen: 79 news posts totalling approximately 33,000 words
Self Distract: 4 posts totalling approximately 5,000 words

Presentations/workshops:
2

Pitches:
Successful: 3 (1 accidental, 1 face to face, 1 ongoing)

Press and Publicity:
Stonking review in Doctor Who Monthly: “Seductively gripping”
From Croydon to Gallifrey podcast interview aired
Newspaper coffee shop meeting

Calls:
17 (target was 30)

Attended:
Royal Television Society committee meeting
On The High Road by Chekhov, Rada Theatre
Open Door: Bold Text at the Birmingham Rep
Had my first publisher’s stand at the Birmingham Independent Book Fair
Meet the Agents Writers’ Guild event
Writing West Midlands meeting re Young Writers

What to buy the man or woman who has everything

Posted by

0

A book on humility. Or a pair of $350 sunglasses that go beep when you leave them behind. From the makers – who handbuild each set so give them a break over that price – comes this explanation:

Never lose your eyewear, or your phone. We embedded custom designed beacons into every pair of Tzukuris. This means your iPhone will alert you if you leave them behind and the app can show you where you left them. Using the iPhone’s motion sensor, the app recognizes if your phone is left behind and will ring extra loudly to alert you.

Screen Shot 2014-05-01 at 04.24.00

They’re called Tzukuri sunglasses. Read more on the official website and also at Time magazine which has more to say about them.

New app: Mingle

Posted by

0

mingleNow out in the iTunes App Store: a new contacts app that’s – short version – quick and rather nice to use. The slightly longer version is that it feels like LaunchCentre Pro or Drafts in that you can use it to rapidly do sequences of things.

Mingle calls itself Action-Based Contacts and the idea is that you can hold down on someone’s name in your address book and swiftly slide them over to icons for phone, email, text and so on. Let go, and you are phoning them, emailing them, texting ’em.

I saw it in beta and my entire contribution to the beta program was mentioning that I’d like to see favourite contacts listed. Currently you get your entire address book and since mine is fairly large – 881 contacts it says here – that takes some scrolling. The maker, Samir Ghobril, says Favourites are coming.

Look at the screenshots in the App Store and if you fancy it, buy now: currently it has a launch offer of half off, which makes it 69p.

But do use that link: if you search for the word Mingle in the App Store, the first one you get is a dating app.

Just tell me. (And I’ll just tell you.)

Posted by

0

When I’ve got to brief someone or I need to effectively recruit them to work on a project, I will do the news approach of telling them what I need them to know. But most of the time, I am off doing something for them and they are off doing something for me. And in that case, just tell me.

Always tell me, always make sure I know what I need to know. Er, this is making me think I should’ve used “one” instead of “me”. Whoever you’re dealing with, never leave them hanging. Some people need to be told every inch of something, others are happy to let you get on with it – but every single person worries.

Just like you do.

When you’ve delivered a piece of writing to someone, you cannot fail but go in to the Writer’s Trap:

I hit Send forty seconds ago, why haven’t they replied?

Everybody is the same. I got a call last Friday from a fella who’s doing a thing for me and the entire purpose of his call was tell me that he hadn’t done it. I thanked him – and I meant it. He’s not late, he’s doing what he said he would, he just hit a delay and wanted me to know.

I thanked him and I meant it. Eventually he’s going to have to do the thing or I won’t be thanking him so much, but I am completely relaxed about it just because he called to tell me.

Use the news approach to get people listening

Posted by

0

Nobody’s rude. Okay. Not many people are rude. Alright, the people you talk to and who get to work with you, they’re not rude. But they are all as busy as you are and it’s hard to get them to do what you need even if they need it to. Even if they want it too. (Hopefully you’re not spending a lot of time forcing people to do things they hate. You know that. I just had to say it.) Without trying to criticise the whole of humanity in one massive generalisation, here I am criticising the whole of humanity in one massive generalisation:

Faced between a massacre in a foreign country and stubbing your toe on a door frame, people fixate on the toe.

Because it’s closer.

Also, we’re horrible human beings, so, you know, there’s that.

But faced with everybody focusing on themselves and faced with the certain fact that you need people to work with you, do this. Do what every single television news bulletin you’ve ever seen does. This is a mantra for broadcast news:

Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em

Tell ’em it

Tell ’em what you’ve just told ’em

Why do you think news bulletins start with the headlines? If the top story is so important, why aren’t they just beginning with that? You can say it’s because the headlines are a quick way to see whether you want to watch the entire bulletin and I can then say aha, got you. That opening is how you get attention.

But look at the next bulletin that comes along or look at rolling news stations at the top of the hour. They headline the major stories yet they also headline smaller ones. Weather presenters now appear in the headline block saying things like “Will there be rain to spoil this weekend? Find out later on”. What is that doing in the news? Not in the headline block, why is it in the news at all? It’s weather – and they’re standing there refusing to tell us what it is. What is point teasing the weather?

The point is that they tell us what they’re going to tell us.

Then we get the news stories, we finally find out whether it’s going to rain.

And then we get “The headlines again”. Why?

Because it gets us watching and then it keeps us watching and finally it makes us remember. Three times’ the charm.

If you have to tell someone something or you know the work can’t be done, won’t be achieved, find three ways to tell them. Three ways and three times. You know it makes sense: you have seen it in action eleventy-billion times.

Finally – work offline with Google Docs

Posted by

0

Previously on Google Docs and spreadsheets: you really had to be online to use them. There was a Google Drive app that let you work on this stuff in, say, your Dropbox account. But from today, you can get Google Docs and Google Sheets for iOS and work whenever you like.

I'm not a fan of Google Docs: I revise my opinion every time I see the price – it's free – yet I've found it clunky to use. And clunky to have online all the time.

This could change my mind – and I am shocked at you for making the connection that Microsoft Office for iPad just came out. Total coincidence.

Get Google Docs here and Google Sheets there. A presentation app is reportedly coming soon.

As ever, by the way, do go via these links to get the apps: going straight to the App Store and searching for them by name does not find them. Ridiculous and hopefully changing soon, but true.

Stroll on

Posted by

0

Look, I made certain career decisions and I made them early. I refused to go into banking because I didn’t want to be forced to take all those bank holidays. (This is not worked out as well as I hoped.) And I became a writer because I could spend my life sitting down.

(I fully believe Dorothy Parker: “Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.” And I fully love Dorothy Parker for being so clever as to call me an ass yet make me enjoy it.)

But.

There is an argument for going outside. Yadda yadda yadda. Walking. Yeah yeah. The Huffington Post is the latest to make this case and it’s argued well. I could only believe it more if the Huffington Post paid its writers.

Firefox: 29’s the charm

Posted by

0

Firefox works on everything. When it came out, it made Internet Explorer look embarrassing. (More embarrassing.) Firefox was the darling of every serious technology-minded geezer because it worked better, it worked faster.

I just didn’t like it.

It’s a funny thing. I like Safari and I swear to you that it feels light, that it feels like you just get on with things instead of having chunky buttons and options to slog through. What’s funny is that this is precisely, to the letter, what fans of Firefox say is wrong with Safari.

So, plainly, your choice of browser is surprisingly personal. (As long as it isn’t Internet Explorer. You can go too far.)

I’ve always kept a copy of Firefox around because there is often a site that just doesn’t work in Safari – or doesn’t work in Firefox, I don’t know why I keep finding picky websites. Each time I start up Firefox it irritates me by feeling heavy, kludgy and for CONSTANTLY telling me it is updating itself. I just want to go to a site. I want to go once, I want to go now, I want to get the hell out of Dodge and go back to Safari but, no. UPDATING.

It’s been worse since 2011 when the company announced it was going to update every six weeks or so. I applaud them for not doing the dots: Safari is currently on version 7.0.3. But at first it was wearisome seeing an entirely new version of Firefox coming down the chute: version 6, version 7, version 8… and on and on. I’m sure the developers intend this to seem like they are truly on the ball, at the cutting edge, bringing us the latest technology faster than anyone else. Version 9, version 10, version 11… I just think “Again?” or often “Already?”

My current copy of Firefox is version 26 and it is practically prehistoric: apparently I downloaded it on 14 March, a whole 47 days ago. I don’t even remember using it 47 days ago but I imagine I did and that it updated itself. Hang on.  Yep, I’ve just opened it and it’s just updated itself.

To version 27.

I have no clue why it isn’t 29. I do have a clue that I could, with a wee bit of effort, go off now to already get versions 30 or even 31 in beta.

You can tell I’m not going to. But many will and they have very good reasons to find that version 29 is a great one. It’s very customisable, it’s got oodles of features. Hear what from someone who is far more of a fan than I am:

And then read more plus get a download at the official site.