Productivity

Productivity

IFTTT adds an email digest channel

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If you read that heading and knew what IFTTT stands for, you've just understood the entire story. Move along. Nothing more to see here. (But check out IFTTT's own announcement for the details.)

I do know that it stands for If This Then That and I do use the service but at such a low level that I forget it's there. If I mark somebody's tweet as a favourite, for instance, I know that If This Then That has been set up to automatically save that tweet to an Evernote note of mine. But I can't remember how I did that, I don't remember when I set it up, and I hardly remember that it's there: I just tap that Favourite button and forget about it.

So I'm not the best guy to tell you about any new IFTTT channel – any new thing you can control via IFTTT – and I don't usually try. But this one looks good:

“We’re thrilled to introduce a powerful Channel that everyone can use — no activation necessary. The new Email Digest Channel collects the content you care about and delivers it on a daily or weekly basis.

IFTTT Blog

The examples include getting the service to email you the weather report every day. Or if there's a new free app on the App Store, email you about that. (Somebody's really done that. Are they mad?) Take a look at the short IFTTT announcement and then follow its links to what people are already doing with this. If you see something you like, a few taps and a sign-in get it working for you. For free.

Urgent – Calendars 5 free today only

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Just learnt this and am rushing to tell you because time is ticking: the app Calendars 5 is free for the rest of today only.

I don’t know much about it except that when I was researching calendars for myself, it came up in features and reviews a lot.

I chose Fantastical instead but I’ve grabbed this and will check it out properly at my leisure. Go do the same, would you?

Download Calendars 5 now – but check the price is still free before you tap that button. It’s worth paying for,  I can see that already, but free is nice.

You’re on your own – and it’s necessary, it’s good, it’s great

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Thinking about this morning’s story that Experts are wrong – says expert, I’m minded of a Self Distract post I wrote last year.

I wrote about how we naturally turn to our friends when we have something big to tell them like you’re starting a company and they cheer you on, yet:

Only, there is also this unconscious part of them that says you’re not the one… who starts a new business, you’re not the sort to do anything they haven’t already seen you do.

Consequently, unless they are very unusual people – and you hang on to them if they are – you will forever find them holding you back. Their concerns for your wellbeing coupled to this locked perception of what you are and what you do means your friends will invariably hold you back.

You’re on Your Own and it’s Necessary – William Gallagher, Self Distract (December 2013)

If you can’t rely on your friends, who can you rely on? Sorry, did you really just say ‘family’? You might’ve said experts until you read this morning’s story. But there are other reasons to distrust experts. So, no friends, no family, no experts. You would think this piece would be a depressing read but I took some heart from writing it and I’ve had a lot of people tell me they found it encouraging.

Probably because it also includes the answer. You’ve got to look now, haven’t you? I hope you like it: that Self Distract piece meant much more to me than I realised before I wrote it. The act of writing it to you formed it better in my head, made me think more coherently. So ta for that.

Experts are wrong – says expert

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I’ve often thought about this: experts say this or that can’t ever happen and then it does. Or they say it must but it doesn’t. I’ve just concluded that there is always another fact or another element that you don’t know or don’t see the significance of until it’s happened.

It has scared me a bit, actually. You know that Titanic wasn’t strictly speaking called unsinkable but few people seem to know why the term ever came up. It was to do with a new system of watertight bulkheads that meant if one was holed, it couldn’t flood the others. But these holds were open at the top. Nothing could flood enough to go over the top, of course.

So I spend some time, distressingly regularly, wondering what gaping hole I’m not seeing, what questions I’m not asking:

There will always be a wealth of experts arguing a number of sides to any given issue and most will be proved wrong. Yet we still seek them out because whenever there is uncertainty, we listen to anyone who professes to know more than we do. By looking for easy answers, we’re just asking for trouble.

Why Experts Always Seem to Get It Wrong – Creativity Post

The full post has more examples, better ones than my Titanic thing, plus more detail on why this all seems to be true.

This is how to pitch yourself to a magazine

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I had 200 unsolicited submissions when I was features editor on a magazine and I rejected 199 of them. This one would’ve made it 198: this is so much how a terrific writer should and did pitch that I’m recommending it to you even though it failed.

Eighty-one years on, I hope The New Yorker magazine is ashamed of its stupidity.

March 15, 1933

Gentlemen,

I suppose you’d be more interested in even a sleight-o’-hand trick than you’d be in an application for a position with your magazine, but as usual you can’t have the thing you want most.

I am 23 years old, six weeks on the loose in N.Y. However, I was a New Yorker for a whole year in 1930–31 while attending advertising classes in Columbia’s School of Business. Actually I am a southerner, from Mississippi, the nation’s most backward state. Ramifications include Walter H. Page, who, unluckily for me, is no longer connected with Doubleday-Page, which is no longer Doubleday-Page, even. I have a B.A.(’29) from the University of Wisconsin, where I majored in English without a care in the world. For the last eighteen months I was languishing in my own office in a radio station in Jackson, Miss., writing continuities, dramas, mule feed advertisements, santa claus talks, and life insurance playlets; now I have given that up.

As to what I might do for you — I have seen an untoward amount of picture galleries and 15¢ movies lately, and could review them with my old prosperous detachment, I think; in fact, I recently coined a general word for Matisse’s pictures after seeing his latest at the Marie Harriman: concubineapple. That shows you how my mind works — quick, and away from the point. I read simply voraciously, and can drum up an opinion afterwards.

Since I have bought an India print, and a large number of phonograph records from a Mr. Nussbaum who picks them up, and a Cezanne Bathers one inch long (that shows you I read e. e. cummings I hope), I am anxious to have an apartment, not to mention a small portable phonograph. How I would like to work for you! A little paragraph each morning — a little paragraph each night, if you can’t hire me from daylight to dark, although I would work like a slave. I can also draw like Mr. Thurber, in case he goes off the deep end. I have studied flower painting.

There is no telling where I may apply, if you turn me down; I realize this will not phase you, but consider my other alternative: the U of N.C. offers for $12.00 to let me dance in Vachel Lindsay’s Congo. I congo on. I rest my case, repeating that I am a hard worker.

Truly yours,

Eudora Welty

From Letters of Note (UK edition, US edition) via Brainpickings

Vincent Van Gogh go go

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The artist and latterly Doctor Who star Vincent knew his onions about being productive and creative:

Get started: Don’t wait for everything to be perfect. “Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile,” said van Gogh.

Do the work: Commit to your goals and go through the motions to achieve it – whether the outcome is good or bad. Vincent van Gogh believed if you do nothing, you are nothing.

Work for yourself: The longer you work and figure things out for yourself, the more active your brain becomes. An active brain is a more creative brain.

The Importance of Doing – 99U

That’s paraphrased Van Gogh. Paraphrased twice over: 99U writer Stephanie Kaptein has a piece examining Think Jar Collective with creativity author Michael Michalko who in turn examined the work ethic of artist Vincent van Gogh. Do go follow the rabbit hole into more and more detail about this.

Waiting for something you don’t want to do

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I have a meeting in one minute's time. It's not a writing job, it's just a thing I need to get done and the fella is coming to my office so it's not like I've got to rush out. There's no reason to think he'll be late but equally no pressing reason to assume he'll necessarily be on time to the second. So right now, naturally, my mind is on that meeting and I am listening out for him.

But my mind has been on that meeting most of the day and I have been listening out for him since 5am. Even during a terribly entertaining tea room chat, I had it niggling away because I don't want to do it. Incidentally, no offense to him: I need him to do something, he's doing it, I'd just rather get on with other things.

There is always something you don't want to do and I am always losing a lot of time waiting for it. Waiting is death to me: I get nervous even when there is nothing to be nervous about. And I am sure those nerves then impede whatever it is I'm doing.

So today I've practiced doing something new. I'll have to build up for when I'm faced with things I really, really don't want to do. But today I wrote solidly for four hours and then went out to meet a pal for a coffee. And now I'm back, I'm writing again. My ear is out, I'm glancing at the window, but I'm also writing.

This, in fact. Specifically this. If you see a lot of pieces about writing a lot of pieces while waiting for people, it will be because I've somehow got a lot of these suddenly. I hope not.

But I'm distracted enough that I can't do much: I didn't think that I might be able to concentrate sufficiently to do anything at all. Yet here I am. So thanks for being my guinea pig and the next time you're doing something, have some small bits of other things to do as well. They take your mind off stuff and they also get done. He'll be gone in an hour and I'll have to race to catch up with work but if I can find a small short thing to do while I wait, that's something off the To Do list.

Some people included an anticipated duration for tasks on their To Do list: this is an all-day job, that is a five-minute one and so on. I never have and don't expect I ever will have the patience and dedication but finally I understand why they do it.

Be smarter: don’t apply for jobs when they’re advertised

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It can’t always be a good idea, but when it’s right, this could work well for you:

Introduce Yourself When They Aren’t Looking

What if you saw an ad for a job where you knew there was a fair amount of turnover. To add to this, let’s assume you are not desperate and unemployed. Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to allow the ad to run its course and send a letter a few weeks later to make it appear your interest in the company was genuine and not an opportunistic spur of the moment decision made because there was an enticing ad that sparked your interest? The point here is to get yourself noticed when they aren’t looking — and when there aren’t a hundred other candidates seeking their attention all at once.

8 Ways to Get Noticed During a Job Search – Wisebread (2 May 2014)

The other seven ways are pretty good too: read the full list. (And a nod of the hat brim to Lifehacker for spotting this.)

Being conscientious. If you can fake that, you’ve made it

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I automatically resist claims that there is, for instance, one single thing that makes people successful/rich/attractive* (*delete as applicable) because there isn’t. But the Inc website makes such a claim (via Lifehacker) and it is persuasive. I’m sure there is more to it but I could be convinced that this one thing is an essential part of being successful:

The only major personality trait that consistently leads to success is conscientiousness.

This is the Personality Trait That Most Often Predicts Success – Inc

Besides, I like it. I like that this is successful trait. Read on for some statistical research and more detail.

It’s when an app fails that you realise how much you like it

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TripIt_icon_flatThere are bad apps that you either ditch or tolerate. There are good apps that you use a lot. Then there are great ones that you use so much you forget that you’re using an app, it’s just the way things are. (I would offer that there are then even greater apps that are melded into your DNA: if I’m being harsh then I’d say only OmniFocus is like that with me, but isn’t it great that a tool can become so much a part of your life?)

Right up there in the so-great category for me is TripIt and I only appreciated that this week when it failed on me.

This is what is supposed to happen:

  • Make any travel booking anywhere and get an email ticket from ’em
  • Forward that email to plans@tripit.com
  • TripIt parses the ticket and pops every detail into your TripIt account
  • When you’re travelling, see everything you need on your iPhone

That last doesn’t sound so great but, seriously, it is. I had a thing where I was travelling from Birmingham in the UK to a village in the deepest part of southern France and it meant a lot of train rides and a lot of connections. Many of them were easy and great – I especially loved that I got a couple of hours in Paris both ways – but some were very, very, very tight. There was one where I had six minutes to get across what turned out to be a giant train station on multiple levels and though the guard I asked turned out to speak fantastic English, he also told me the wrong thing. Please picture me running, running and eventually sliding, sliding, sliding Charlie-Brown-like onto my train.

I do remember stopping on the way to help a woman carry an enormous suitcase up some stairs. So, you know, give me credit there: I may have made a mistake booking trains too close together but I’m a mensch under pressure.

What helped me throughout the whole journey was that I could look at TripIt on my iPhone at any time and be shown exactly what I had to do next. What the next train was, where it was, where it was going, what my seat reservation was, any booking references I needed, all that. I could choose to look at any or all of the steps in my journey so if something came up I’d be able to judge if I had the time to do it.

I’m not going to say that it made the journey pleasant when in fact the whole journey was great anyway, but it was a help and a guide and it became automatic that I would check TripIt along the way.

However.

It gets all this information from your email ticket. It parses that ticket: goes through it looking for departure times, train or airline reference numbers and so on. Fine. It’s handy that you just forward your ticket email to plans@tripit.com. (And clever that it’s always that same address: I can show you that address. It’s not a secret one like Evernote or OmniFocus use to let you email details in, it’s a big wide-open for-everyone email address and the smarts are in how it also parses who sent it. If I forward an email to plans@tripit.com, the service sees it’s from me and the details are popped into my account.)

Ticket emails differ between companies, though. TripIt is really good at this parsing but it gets thrown by two things: firstly a company it hasn’t parsed before and secondly if a company changes the layout of its emails. TripIt is an American service and I’m based in the UK so I’m not surprised that I occasionally hit companies that it doesn’t know. When that happens, TripIt sends you a warning that it couldn’t do anything with this stuff and that it has instead kept a copy of that entire ticket email in your account’s notes section. So at least you can see that.

But this week I booked a flight via Tripster and TripIt fell over. It believed it had parsed the email correctly, I got the regular TripIt success confirmation rather than any warnings, but it hadn’t. It believed my flight was tomorrow, it believed there was no seat or airline or reservation number. It was as close to a blank item in my travel itinerary as could be.

But TripIt is so useful when you’re travelling, so very useful, that I’ve taken the time to enter all the details for this trip by hand. Man, it was boring. And the knowledge that I will rely on this detail later actually made me nervous of entering it all, of not making any mistakes.

TripIt usually enters all my details for all my trips and it usually never goes wrong. I know I’m telling you of a time that it failed and that it was a boring time because of that, but it’s made me appreciate how good this app and this service is.

Let me quickly tell you that you can join the TripIt website for free and that there is a free app. I used that free app for years even though I don’t like ad-supported ones: I’d rather pay than have ads, I find them that intrusive. For those years, the choice, though, was between an ad-supported free app or a Pro version that required an annual subscription. I seem to travel more and more, but it’s still not enough for that.

However, at some point the company caved and released an app that you pay for but only pay that once. No subscription. It’s got an ungainly name: it’s called TripIt Travel Organizer (no ads) but it costs only 69p UK or 99c US. When I bought it I paid £2.49 and I still paid up before I’d reached the end of the sentence telling me it existed.

So: I thoroughly recommend, verging on urge you to use the TripIt website and this particular TripIt app.