Author: William Gallagher

Pattern Weeks part 4 – did it work?

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Previously…

Last year I cracked getting up at 5am every weekday to write and it was a boon. It was bigger than that, it was huge. This year I want to stamp some kind of structure on my weeks, a base pattern for how Monday-Friday should go. It never will: no week is ever going to stick to a plan. But by having one, I hope to be aware of what I should be doing and have each hour be more of a conscious choice to do the plan or go off it.

Six days ago I told you my plan was finally ready for you to see, albeit a bit redacted. Now, read on.

Day 6.

I stuck to the plan perfectly for Monday to Wednesday, inclusive. Then Thursday was a day of meetings and a talk in the evening that ran late into the evening. I can't ever just go to bed when I come back from one of those so it was a late night and that had its impact on Friday.

The best thing from the pattern week is easily that it got me to make calls. This is, for some reason, a real weakness with me: I'm far better yapping face to face and I can write a crackin' email, but cold phone calls are tough. I do go in phases, though. There's a bit about this in my book, The Blank Screen, (US edition, UK edition) where I mention that my most successful calls happen between 11am and noon. That's quite true: I don't understand it, I can't see a particular reason, but I've noticed it. When I was writing that chapter, though, I think I was on a high for some reason because I said I had five calls to make and that I'd just whack through them. I did have them to do and I did whack through them.

But it was unusual. And I have to be aware now that while calls are a difficulty, I do seemingly have these highs and so it's far too soon to tell: did I make my calls this week because of the pattern schedule forcing me to or did I just happen to be good at phoning people? We'll see next week, I suppose. But for now I'm choosing to think it was the pattern. I made sixteen calls and perhaps seven of them were successful.

If you've ever worked in sales – and I haven't so I'm just guessing here – then I imagine the figure of sixteen doesn't impress you but the success rate might. It's certainly encouraging.

There was one other thing that was good about working to this pattern instead of my usual chaotic plate-spinning. And it was also a bad thing. That's great for having something to tell you about, it's ace that I can have a natural bridge between the good and the bad, but I didn't want any bad.

Here's the thing. At 10:59 on each day I was making calls, I would rush to start and then at 12:00 I would stop it and feel great. So far, so excellent. But that happened with each hour that I had planned and the pattern has huge, giant gaps which is where I'm supposed to be doing the work and instead, I'd look at that and think phew, I can relax a bit now. And I did. Too much.

As a result, I don't feel I got enough done in the week and that is exactly the opposite of what this was all supposed to do.

So I'm just going to have to work harder, aren't I?

Gasp as one twitter user unfollows another

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This is either a very slow news day or a sign that some people keep checking the twitter follows list of – who? Celebrities? Industry figures?

Nonetheless, it's a slow news day and I didn't do the constant monitoring of lists so let me take you live to the scene:

BREAKING NEWS – TWITTER – Apple's Phil Schiller unfollowed Nest's Tony Fadell after the latter sold his firm to Google. DETAILS AND ANALYSIS FOLLOWS

But not here.

Free online storage, small catch

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For the next couple of weeks, you can get 50Gb of online storage space for free by downloading the new iPhone and iPad app Box.

That's the small catch: it's 50Gb alright and you don't have to pay for that, but it's another place to have more storage. I've got 9Gb of space on Dropbox that I pummel, I've got 15Gb of iCloud space that I strain, I've apparently got some more on LogMeIn's Cubby.com. Does Evernote space count too? I would like more of it and I would certainly use it to the hilt if I did, but I'm spread everywhere.

I might have a Skydrive too. Never looked.

Box is nearer Dropbox and Skydrive than it is iCloud and if you've just nodded then you may well be in the market for what the company calls “the best content viewing and collaboration experience available today for your iOS device”.

Box is free and you can download the iOS app here.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Jm0eQ1INgcg/grab-50gb-of-free-storage-for-life-on-box-by-downloadin-1501956228

The myth of nerves being good for you

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I have the very best time talking with people, leading a writing session, meeting folk, yapping away. The very best time. But I get nervous beforehand. Seriously nervous.

I've only vomited once but it's been close a fair few times. And every time, every time, every time, I am so nervous that my body chemistry alters. I think my mind chemistry takes a beating too because you probably wouldn't like me as a big event gets closer. It's not that I'm mean suddenly, but you'll quickly conclude that life is too short, whatever you want can wait until I've returned to planet Earth.

That all goes the second I begin talking. The instant I step on stage. The instant. I have this very clear visual image of many, many times when I've looked at the microphone, taken a breath – and boom, I'm off. I truly cannot overempathise how exciting it is to meet people and bring them something I know they'll enjoy. I can say that last bit with huge ease because I'm sure I've stolen everything from cleverer people.

But I'll do confession another time, we're here to talk about nerves. Since I talked at LitFest Birmingham, a literature festival in Birmingham, back in September 2012, I've counted the talks I've done. Talks, workshops, writing sessions, radio interviews, television, anything. I'm not sure why but I note the date, the event and the number of people present. If I had any brains at all I would also jot down what I spoke about so that I don't repeat myself, but I haven't so I don't so I might.

Last night I did my 42nd since then – so that's what, two or three events every month. That's not a fair estimate as it's all trending upwards, but typically I've always got something on the horizon and so I always have nerves.

If you take nothing away from me today, make sure it isn't this: the only way I cope with nerves before a big event is to have a bigger event scheduled before it.

That's not my biggest mistake, though. My big one and the thing I would actually like you to take away or perhaps argue with me about, is that nerves have no connection to the quality of the event or of the work you do.

I came to believe they did. I've always believed that if you're blasé about a talk, you shouldn't be doing it. But I came to find that the opposite was the terribly seductive idea that the more nervous you are, the better you'll be on the night. It's this business of the instant transformation when I reach the stage. That change feels the bigger when you've vomiting in the car park.

But.

I've done 42 talks. Nervous before all 42. I'd say that roughly 20 went brilliantly and I know that means 21 went merely superbly. Because I know that I died on exactly 1.

I deserved to, I was crap. But it wasn't because I was less nervous. It was because I wasn't well enough prepared. (I need to tell you that it wasn't for want of trying. I spent a lot of time on that gig and it was just somehow eluding me, I didn't nail the material until the morning of the event and I was wrong to think I'd manage to master it in time.)

You can't really base any science or true statistics on one person's 42 experiences. But you can try. And concluding that nerves have no connection at all to whether or not one succeeds, if concluding that success is entirely dependent upon your material, that's ultimately better for your stomach, for your audience and for the poor people who had to clean up the car park.

Incidentally, if you dare, I am available to talk about writing, technology and productivity. Just don't ask me to talk about nerves because that would be just far too meta for me.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/The99Percent/~3/L8x1MY7Fu_8/feeling-anxious-dont-try-to-calm-down-get-excited

Over on Self Distract this week

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If you've come to me through any connection with my book, workshops or lectures on The Blank Screen, well, hello. But now let me tug your arm a bit and lead you to a couch where we can have a cup of tea, a biscuit and a natter. It's a couch called Self Distract and as I run out of steam with this metaphor, it's a more personal blog than The Blank Screen and it is not about productivity.

Actually, it is. Often. It's me and Self Distract was very much part of the route to the book and suchforth. But it's official aim is to cover what we write about and what we write with – when we get around to writing. It's unofficial aim is to bend your ear a bit, have a chat and, seriously, biscuits. Always the biscuits.

Self Distract comes out every Friday morning and this week's one came out of a talk I gave last night and a right stumper of a question someone asked me. This new post is called There are no rules in scriptwriting, but if you break them, it doesn't work.

I hope you like it. Your turn to bring the tea next week.

First world problem solved: copying between Mac and iOS

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Short and simple: buy Scribe and thereafter you can type something on your Mac and it'll just be there on your iPhone or iPad when you turn around. Scribe is free in iOS and US$2.99 for Mac.

Slightly longer and less simple: isn't that what iCloud is supposed to do? Yes, kinda, and it is definitely true that you can and that I do use Evernote for exactly this. I also use Pages for it. And Numbers. But Scribe is meant to be like the clipboard: just as quickly and effortlessly that you copy something and paste it somewhere else, that's Scribe. It's just that you're copying it on your Mac and pasting it on your iOS device.

Hat nod to 99U which says more.

If you must use email as your To Do list…

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…well, you're going to go spare with confusion and the effort you put into managing it all will be achievable but wasted. I'm all for To Do lists but I want to spend the least time on the list and the most time doing the things I have to do. Email just doesn't cut it – but many people disagree and one group of them has also done something about it. Mindsense has released a Mac version of its iOS app Mail Pilot.

You read your email through it as normal but then mark it as if it is a task. So a previously-accused Email To Do-Er would read a message, see that the sender needed them to do a thing, and then they'd mark it as unread. Now in Mail Pilot, you instead have the option to mark something as Incomplete. Later, when you've finally remembered to do the thing buried deep down in last Tuesday's email – and checked that it only needed you to do one thing, not a dozen – you can mark it as Complete.

I sound like I'm knocking Mindsense and their new software but if I worked this way, I would use Mail Pilot. It has quick keystrokes for marking things up, it can set various reminders for you to alleviate the Last Tuesday Syndrome, it's been working popularly on iOS for some time.

I just think it's Occam's Razor: do you use a stylish-looking, well-made app to try managing your email To Do list or do you stuff email and do this properly in a real To Do task manager?

Mail Pilot is on sale for an intro price of US$9.99

Beat this – the ‘proven’ ultimate workout playlist

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Sometimes you have to look at the data and just say no. That's not right. Spotify has released what it calls the ultimate workout playlist which has 20 songs scientifically proven to be the best ones to get you going and keep you exercising. There's a real scientist involved – Dr Costas Karageorghis, read his Brunel University bio – and the claim is that 6.7 million tracks were analysed.

You're unthinkingly assuming that there aren't 6.7m songs in the world, though you're not sure, and you're also unthinkingly presuming that it isn't that they listened to one song 6.7m times. There is no doubt in your mind that it'll be something in the middle of those two extremes and you're right. But possibly it's just a wee bit slanted toward the one song 6.7m times.

Easily the most respected and revered peer-reviewed science journal in the world, Britain's Daily Mail explains:

The team analysed 6.7 million Spotify playlists containing the word ‘workout’ in the title and compared the different beats per minute (bpm) to those used in certain workouts. For example, a person’s typical stride rate while jogging or running is 150 to 190 strides per minute. If these figures are halved it gives a range of 75 to 95 bpm – the beat range found most commonly in urban music, particularly rap.

There's your skew right there. They looked at the music of people who already go to the gym enough to make playlists and to give them names with the word 'workout' in them. It's not fair or statistically proven that the age of these people will tend toward the younger end of the scale but you know it's true and at least I used the word statisically instead of SCIENTISTS PROVE YOUNG PEOPLE USE GYMS.

And still I can't quite accept the findings of this research because Spotify has published the playlist. I'm 48 and I haven't heard any track on the list. I haven't even heard of any of the tracks on the list.

Tell me Spotify wants a playlist of current tracks, I'll believe you. But tell me that it is scientifically proven that no piece of music of any kind ever beats these twenty released since last Wednesday and I have my doubts.

I'm just not willing to go to a gym to prove it to you or to affect the statistics. Or listen to the music.

But other than that, we're good, right?

The Roommate Agreement – on your iPhone

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There’s a new app called Legitimo that lets you rapidly knock up a contract. We’re not talking international co-financing, more a way to divide the dishes if you ask me but reportedly at least one happy customer is using it to create sublease agreements.

But tell me you didn’t read all that and immediately think of Dr Sheldon Cooper’s Roommate Agreement in The Big Bang Theory. If you didn’t, it’s probably best to ignore the entirely free Legitimo app and go enjoy The Big Bang Theory immediately. I’m all for being productive, but there are limits, you know.

OmniOutliner 4 released today

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The short take on this is that if you bought OmniOutliner 3 from the Omni Group's site any time since January 6, 2011, wait.

Wait for an email that is reportedly heading your way with details of how exactly you can get the new OmniOutliner 4 for free. Free. Nothing. De nada.

Similarly, if you bought version 3 of this extremely good outlining application from the Mac App Store in that time, you'll also get it for free and you also have to wait a bit. The app has yet to work its way through the Apple approval system but when it goes live, it's yours.

But otherwise, go to the Omni Group site now with a credit card. If you've ever bought a previous version of OmniOutliner, you'll find you don't have to spend a huge amount to get the new one. And if you never have, wait a second: watch the introductory video about the new version.

And then whip out the card or tap whatever dangerously handy keystroke you have to make 1Password enter your CC details into online store forms.

Full price is $49.99, paid upgrades start at $24.99 and if you're eligible for a free upgrade, you'll never guess how much it will cost you.

I can't say I have a on/off love affair with outliners, it's a bit more of a tepid relationship that that. But I used to loathe them, I still get edgy, but OmniOutliner just got me through so many different and difficult projects that I am a fan.