Productivity

Productivity

You just tell yourself you’re entitled

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Generally considered a negative trait, entitlement, in small doses, can actually have the positive effect of boosting creativity, according to a new study to be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Various studies have found that those who feel entitled are less likely to help others or apologize and are more likely to want special privileges, break rules, treat their romantic partners selfishly and make unethical decisions.

Entitlement boosts creativity – Jim Patterson, Vanderbilt (18 November 2014)

Read the full piece.

Via 99u

So it’s been done before, so what?

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I wish I thought that. I’ve a project now that I want to do more than anything but it has been done somewhere else before and that is killing me. One of the people backing me points out that it’s also been done in Paris and Vienna and doubtlessly America too so it’s not like I’d be stealing from this particular somewhere else.

You know how when something is on your mind, it’s like the world or at least the internet seems to gather relevant stuff and throw it at you? Usually when you’re trying to avoid thinking about it. But sometimes when you need it too. So today I found this:

Just about every successful initiative and project starts from a place of replication. The chances of being fundamentally out of the box over the top omg original are close to being zero.

A better question to ask is, “have you ever done this before?” Or perhaps, “are the people you are seeking to serve going to be bored by this?”

Originality is local. The internet destroys, at some level, the idea of local, so sure, if we look hard enough we’ll find that turn of a phrase or that unique concept or that app, somewhere else.

But no one is asking you to be original. We’re asking you to be generous and brave and to matter. We’re asking you to step up and take responsibility for the work you do, and to add more value than a mere cut and paste. Give credit, definitely, but reject vemödalen.

Of Course It’s Been Done Before – Seth Godin (18 November 2014)

Find out a touch more – including what vemödalen means – in the full piece.

More Black Friday software details

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So this is the year that Black Friday hit the UK. It’s a thing now. But here’s a benefit of the whole shebang: more cheap software. MacLife has a bigger list than I’d seen before and it includes many I’d recommend:

Well, the big Black Friday sale day is upon us. If you’ve been out this morning beating back hordes for physical bargains on flat screen TVs and whatnot, this will come as a welcome respite. Cheap prices and no lines, no shortages, no riots. And if you skip the whole retailer madness on principal or for other reasons, you can still grab some sweet deals right here still.

Price Drop Black Friday Edition: The Weekend’s Best App Deals, November 28 | Mac|Life

Read the full piece.

Don’t be happy, worry

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From a Brain Pickings piece on how trying to be happy all the time is bad for our creativity.

To be clear, I myself am deeply opposed to the Tortured Genius myth of creativity. But I am also of the firm conviction that access to the full spectrum of human experience and the whole psychoemotional range of our inner lives — high and low, light and darkness — is what makes us complete individuals and enables us to create rich, dimensional, meaningful wo

In Praise of Melancholy and How It Enriches Our Capacity for Creativity – Maria Popova, Brain Pickings (28 November 2014)

Read the full piece.

Writers’ Notes: when you can and when you can’t link to someone

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Easy. You always can. The end.

By chance, I’ve had several conversations this week with people who either wanted to link to my blog or were asking what I thought of them linking to others. Link away, I said. Always. There’s no permission needed and no endorsement implied.

At least, there isn’t from the site or person you’re linking to. If I were to tell you that Brain Pickings is the most amazingly absorbing site I read – which it is, by the way – then I believe I am actually beholden to give you a link. I don’t have to ask the site’s owner Maria Popova and my linking to her site doesn’t mean she’s happy for me to. It doesn’t mean she even knows about me.

It just means that I am sending you on your way. I have a thing: I can’t write anything online without including a link to take you somewhere else more interesting afterwards. I feel that is my duty and also that if I do it, I’ve earned a bit of your time to do some things with and for you.

The site owner you’re linking to do does find out, by the way. They have to look at their traffic but they can and so if a tonne of people click through you to them, they’ll know about it.

And what are they going to do? Multiple choice answer: a) be pleased, 2) be very pleased or iii) one of the above. I suppose if the Ferguson police force linked to me I might be a bit irked but they never will and nobody would click through there to me if they did.

So link away. You’re doing a service and I think this is actually part of the bedrock of the web, that we share sites amongst ourselves.

In this week’s newsletter… November 28, 2014

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What to do when you get things wrong. Say so. Right away. Such as me, for instance, I got a big thing wrong and I admit it right at the top of this week’s newsletter.

Sorry? A man getting something wrong – and admitting it? Songs will be sung of this day.

Also, a couple of Black Friday deals that shouldn’t really happen in the UK but do plus a terribly absorbing video summarising Steve Jobs’ advice about business. Recorded the day after he died, it’s a speech by Guy Kawasaki who abandoned whatever regular talk he was supposed to give and instead talked about Jobs. It’s very Apple-centric as you’d imagine but each word is useful for us whatever our work is.

Plus, it has a comparatively off-the-cuff feel about it so rather than a studied presentation, it feels like a chat.

All that in the newsletter which you can read here and then sign up to get your own copy each week.

Future You

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I got this idea from a woman I’m mentoring in all this creative productivity. That’s a thing now: I do The Blank Screen sessions one to one and it is the most hair-raising fun I’ve had since writing the original book. There are so many great things about getting in so deep with an individual and their work and one of them is that I learn things back.

Such as Future You.

It’s just this:

Do it now so that Future You doesn’t have to.

And maybe:

Do it now so that Future You loves you – or at least thinks you’re okay

My mentoree (is that a word?) says she uses it for simple things like making the beds in the morning rather than leaving it until she gets back from work. She uses it in her work, getting things done while they’re fresh so that her Future You isn’t stressed out with a deadline.

She also says she falls down a bit on that last one.

But the idea is simple and sound and I’m using it right now. I haven’t got a lot on today but they are important to me. And they’re occupying more time than they should: they are events of a certain quite short duration yet the time I’m spending planning and churning and rehearsing means I will lose the whole day to them. Which is fine and even very good, but I wanted to write to you. So right now, rather than holding my head and clutching a hot mug of tea, hello. Future Me will be pleased I did this now because Future Me would be very narked if I missed a chance to chat.

In a mo, I’m off to a school for the last of four sessions about scriptwriting. I was up for hours last night worrying about this, about what we have left to do, what they can get done, what we can make together. And then around 5am – no, wait, I get up at 5am, it was exactly 5am – I went from my bed to my Mac to write down all I needed for the morning.

I wrote that naked at 5am and have you seen how cold it is out there? I was shaking by the time I’d finished. But Future Me then got to stand in a hot shower and let the worries and the plans soak away.

To be replaced by nerves about tonight. For tonight I’m performing at the launch of an anthology of short stories. It was my first commissioned prose fiction and so far it has gone down stormwards. Tonight’s the big presentation, though. It will be the 120th time I’ve presented or spoken or done something with an audience since I moved back to Birmingham two years ago. But it’s a worry.

Future Me is currently discussing with Present Me why in the world Past Me invited my family.

There are two types of scanners in this world

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Those that work and those that don’t. Wait. No, I’m thinking of printers. Let me try again. There are two types of scanners in this world: Fujitsu ScanSnap and Doxie.

Apparently others are available and that’s nice but you want one of these. If you can afford it, go the Fujitsu route. I won’t say those are more expensive because I believe the price is only part of that calculation: an item that cost a lot of money but you use is not expensive. Not compared to an item that’s cheap but you never use it.

But Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners cost more than many and enough so that I don’t have one. It is on my budget list for a particular project, though.

Instead, I have a Doxie. Cheaper, lighter, slower, but so handy. And now the Doxie company has brought out something new:

We’re extremely excited to announce two brand-new Doxie Go models this week – Doxie Go Plus and Doxie Go Wi-Fi.

First, about the new Doxie: building on our best-selling flagship portable scanner, Doxie Go, both new models deliver 3x the battery life, higher quality images, one minute setup, the ability to charge and scan at the same time via wall power, and the latest apps.

What we’re most excited about is Doxie Go Wi-Fi. On top of the aforementioned features Doxie Go Wi-Fi also has built-in Wi-Fi for syncing to Mac, PC, iPhone, & iPad (no third-party SD cards or helper apps needed), a native Doxie iOS app for iPhone and iPad, an open developer API (available next quarter), and 4x the memory capacity with Smart Memory™ (store up to 1,800 documents before needing to sync).

Hi: Your Doxie Go Wi-Fi upgrade voucher – email from Paul Scandairato, Doxie (25 November 2014)

Nicely, this came in an email because so did a voucher to let me upgrade to the new Doxie for a pretty considerable discount. Whether you have a Doxie already and so qualify for this or you don’t and you’re just looking for a good speaker, take a gander at the Doxie site.

The thirty-minute quick win

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When I say go, I’m going to set a timer for thirty minutes and make a pitch. I don’t know what yet. But a friend has sent me a bundle of things that are so interesting, I want to do them all. And I’ve felt a bit blinded by which to pitch to first. Plus I’ve been a wee bit busy. So the result is that I’ve had the list for few days now and nothing is happening.

Let’s make something happen. Especially as today was a rubbish day. Got barely anything done and if I can whack out a pitch now, in front of you, I’ll feel better. I like feeling better.

So, here goes:

ME: Set a timer, thirty minutes
SIRI: Okay, your timer is set for thirty minutes. Remember, a watched iPhone never boils.

(It really said that.)

Go.

And… stop.

With 15 minutes and 28 seconds to go, I’m done. Read the pitch list, found one I fancied – it didn’t have to be the best, it just had to be there and be one I liked. No selection, or at least as little selection as I could manage. (There was one about poetry, for instance. Nice opportunity, lovely idea, completely outside my capabilities. So I moved on. But only a bit.)

Read the detail, did a swift email to them, gone.

And it worked, I feel better.

Be told when anything happens online

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If you visit a lot of websites all the time, stop and ask me about RSS instead. You’ll have plenty of chances as I rarely shut up about it. But as well as this tool for making websites send you their new articles, there are ways to get all sorts of information without schlepping off to site after site. One new way involves IFTTT and a tool called TrackIf:

TrackIf helps you track the web and alerts you if anything you want changes online, helping you be the first to know when anything happens online. Track price drops on any product at nearly any shopping site. Something you want out of stock? No problem, TrackIf can alert you if it’s available again.

Connect TrackIf to anything – IFTTT

Read the full piece. It’ll either bore you or awaken a brilliant interest in automating te web for you. A brilliant interest that becomes all consuming, but there you go.