Don’t plan ahead

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On the one hand, this feels related to the idea that you shouldn’t make resolutions. But it also reminds me of a poster I used to see on the London Underground. It was an ad for something ostensibly philosophical but actually was more a promo for a religious thing. It went on and on about how we repeat our dreadful days over and over, we keep doing the same things again and again, and we needed this course of philosophy to make us do new things.

The last line said “Classes every Monday and Thursday”.

Anyway Steven Farquharson from a a blog called 2HelpfulGuys has this to say about planning:

When you are looking too far forward into the future the uncertainty can seem daunting.

But every marathon is finished step by step, every wall is built brick by brick and every life is lived day by day.

If you live your life trying to get as much out of each individual day as possible, you can rest assured that you have done all you can to achieve a life that makes you proud.

You have to design your days to design your life.

Design Your Days to Design Your Life – Steven Farquharson, 2HelpfulGuys (19 October 2014)

Read the full piece where you’ll see the final section says “As usual, I’ll see you next Sunday.”

Making a space to work in

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I did a thing on Saturday, running a little writing session for some children in Birmingham, and for the first part of it, I got us all hiding under the tables. “I don’t want Santa to hear this,” I said. And I was in full-on performance mode, loads of ideas, all ready to fire, when I realised that the tables reminded me of something.

When I was the age of these same children, Blue Peter used to have a regular feature about toy trains. Even then I used to wonder what could you say in episode 2. And I’m not into trains. All power to you if you are, or at least all steam power. But I loved the desk they had it on.

It was big and enclosed: you had to clamber underneath and pop up in the middle. That’s what I was minded of on Saturday.

And it made me realise that I have lived with how much I loved that idea for all these years. Because my office may not have this circular desk but it has half of one. The desk goes down one wall and curves around the side. I work mostly in that curve. And admittedly the rest of the desk is a mess. But that curve matters to me.

Mind you, so does the iMac.

But the space you work in matters. I used to believe I could write anywhere and in fact right now I’m writing to you from my living room when I really should be in my office on a deadline. So plainly it’s not so wonderful that I’m drawn back to it irresistibly. Still, at 5am tomorrow morning I will sit on my Captain’s Chair (it’s a thing, that’s a type of furniture, it’s not a Star Trek reference) and I’ll pop headphones on and I will feel like I’ve climbed into my writing space.

All of which comes up chiefly because of Saturday but also now because of two completely different podcasts that just happen to cover this topic. They cover it in completely different but interesting ways. First up, MacPowerUsers interviews ex-Macworld writer Jason Snell on how he set up his home office now that he is indeed ex-Macworld. Listen to MacPowerUsers.

But then there’s 99U which was devoted an entire edition to Building the Perfect Workspace.

Opinion: Don’t be more productive in 2015

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I see his point, but.

Here’s the problem: you’re not Superman or -woman, and even if you are, you’ve got it backwards. Have you ever seen Superman embark on twenty adventures at once? Nope, he doesn’t. He only takes on the most badass thugs that nobody else can deal with and goes at them one-by-one. He’s not multitasking to fight one villain at 7 am, save a cat at noon and then yet another villain at 3 pm. Neither should you.

If you want to get more of the great stuff done in 2015, try doing less. That doesn’t necessarily mean working less hours (though that wouldn’t hurt), but spread yourself less thin across a gazillion different commitments. Focus only on those rare activities that really make you happy and truly move the needle, everything else is just noise and wears you out. Trying to do too much at once is what makes you fail at all your good intentions. It’s what throws you right back into your old habits, before you can say “merry Christmas and a happy new year”.

Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Be More Productive in 2015 | Tim Metz | LinkedIn

Read the full piece.

In case Christmas dinner makes you very sleepy…

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Virgin Media has teamed with a couple of schoolboy inventors to come up with KipstR wristband, a 3D-printed device that will automatically set a Virgin Media TiVo box to record when the wearer falls asleep.

Designed as part of Virgin Media’s Switched on Futures initiative by 15-year-old Ryan Oliver and 14-year-old Jonathan Kingsley from Manchester, the KipstR uses a pulse sensor to tell when the user has fallen asleep. It then sends a signal to the TiVo box to pause or record a show automatically.

If the wearer wakes up, it can also tell the box to resume the programme from its paused state

Don’t worry if you nod off during Doctor Who Christmas special, this wristband will record it for you – Rik Henderson, Pocket-lint (19 December 2014)

Read the full piece.

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Google searching you

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The Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey writes:

According to Google, I am a woman between the ages of 25 and 34 who speaks English as her primary language and has accumulated an unwieldy 74,486 e-mails in her life. I like cooking, dictionaries and Washington, D.C. I own a Mac computer that I last accessed at 10:04 p.m. last night, at which time I had 46 open Chrome tabs. And of the thousands and thousands of YouTube videos I have watched in my lifetime, a truly embarrassing number of them concern (a) funny pets or (b) Taylor Swift.

I didn’t tell Google any of these things intentionally, of course — I didn’t fill out a profile or enter a form. But even as you search Google, it turns out, Google is also searching you.

Everything Google knows about you (and how it knows it) – Caitlin Dewey, The Washington Post (19 November 2014)

I just had a peek for myself and Google seems to know far less about me than it does Dewey. Also most of it was a bit rubbish. Apparently I boguht one thing via Google Walllet some time. I don’t ever remember doing that. But also my last Google group of any description was something related to the To Do app by Appigo. I haven’t touched that in three years.

Still, Dewey is interesting and raises points here that I’m pondering away about. Read the full piece.

Ulysses coming to iPad soon

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How soon is soon? Ulysses is a Scrivener-like app for Mac that, like the perhaps more famous Scrivener, is a kind of writing studio. The official site describes it thisaway:

Ulysses lets you focus when you need to concentrate. It keeps all your texts neatly stuffed in its intuitive library. With a few clicks, Ulysses can create beautiful documents from your manuscripts: PDFs, web pages, even iBooks-ready ePubs. With its simple, clutter-free interface, it will turn work hours into fun time. And mere thoughts into powerful stories. If you love to write, and write a lot, Ulysses is made for you.

Ulyssesapp.com

Now it’s coming to iPad and the company has begun a beta test. This could be enough to convert Scrivener fans because that app’s iPad version has been in the works for years. It may come out in 2015 but we’ve heard that before.

Take a look at the Ulysses iPad video and then check out the official site.

Ulysses for iPad – Coming Soon from The Soulmen on Vimeo.

App Santa is here

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Listen, I know you’ve dropped a few pennies on The Blank Screen book sale but there are other Christmas deals and I think the best is one called App Santa.

You’re used to deals where for a pretty good price you get one pretty good app and ten you’d never imagine using. But App Santa has genuinely excellent apps and you cherry pick the ones you want.

This year it includes several apps that I have recommended, most especially Drafts 4 for iOS, MindNode, TextExpander touch and Clear. Each of which is half price.

There are others and apparently some savings are up to 80% off so do take a look at the whole list.

Plan tomorrow’s first thing now

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Like laying out tomorrow’s clothes last thing at night – which I still never remember to do – make a short note about the first thing you’ve got to do. Well, the first thing after breakfast and all that. The first thing that needs to be done when you get to your desk.

Then do it. Get to that desk, do that thing. Do it before you check emails, do it before you look at the rest of the day.

Don’t write a very big note but do write exactly enough so that when you sit down and read that scribble, you can immediately begin the work.

This does a lot for you. It starts you off well, it means you’ve got something important done right off the bat, it means you’re deep into your day before you’ve properly woken up. And it also keeps you away from your email which is a brilliant tool but also a very destructive one.

I don’t care if you like it

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Read this from Tina Fey’s book Bossypants and then please go buy her book. I like it so much I might come with you to Amazon and buy another copy myself.

Amy Poehler was new to SNL [Saturday Night Live] and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start. There were always lots of noisy “comedy bits” going on in that room. Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and “unladylike”.

Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, “Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it.”

Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. “I don’t fucking care if you like it.” Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit. (I should make it clear that Jimmy and Amy are very good friends and there was never any beef between them. Insert penis joke here.)

With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear she wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.

I Don’t Care If You Like It – Tina Fey, Bossypants, Little, Brown and Company (2011)

Seriously. The book. Buy her book.