Larry and I finally got our act together and produced the first New Work Order podcast of 2008. I think its our best yet, but I am biased. We discussed language and how its used effectively and ineffectively in today's political playhouse.
Check it out on iTunes and, as always, at the New Work Order home page.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Vote for Barack
Until now, I've been undecided between Hillary and Barack for the Democratic nomination. They're both pretty damn close together on policy issues, but there are fundamental issues that differentiate one from the other. This video from Lawrence Lessig swayed me toward Obama. Check it out and decide for yourself.
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Weekend Productivity Roundup
I'm rehabilitating my daily routine to introduce some efficient discipline into how I get things done. Consequently, I've been paying more attention to tips and tricks from the denizens of the blogosphere who have achieved success in this area.
- Leo Babauta of ZenHabits gives us his 17 Unbeatable Ways to Create a Peaceful, Relaxed Workday. Leo has become my favorite web writer of late, and he again delivers quality stuff with this post. I intuitively know I should be doing most of the things he mentions (like Create a morning routine or Create a clutter-free environment,) but his recommendations come across as gentle reminders that everyone can do better.
- Scott Young (via LifeHacker) shares his tips for waking up alert and ready for the day without caffeine. Aside from the obvious (commit to a sleep schedule,) Scott recommends simple adjustments like turning on all the lights in your room right after waking and committing to staying awake for the first 10 minutes after you get out of bed. Young says that staying out of bed after that should be easier.
- Even though this link is a bit older, I just found it this weekend so I'm including it in the list. Kavit Haria posted his 10 Morning Rituals for the Healthy Entrepreneur on Lifehack.org sometime last week. Some of his tips overlap with Leo's, but I love the ideas of drinking a pint of water first thing in the morning and cuddling your kids. I think I'm often dehydrated when first waking. The pint of water would go a long way toward helping me wake up and lessening my caffeine dependence. I love cuddling my kids any time, but its much harder to do in the morning when my cranky 4-year-old won't put on his pants or my 6-year-old doesn't like what I've made for breakfast. More cuddling and less frustration would be a nice change to the morning routine.
- My fitness routine needs as much of an overhaul as my work routine. The 11 Hot Tips to Get Your Furnace Burning from Laurensfitness.com has some great ideas for ramping up your metabolism. My favorites include Eating Breakfast and Avoiding Alcohol. I've made a concentrated effort in the last two weeks to eat a full breakfast every morning that includes some kind of carbohydrate, a protein, and a fruit smoothie. I can really tell a difference in my energy levels as a result. Contrasting that, I know that the 1-2 beers or other drinks that I have every couple of nights goes a long way in negating any metabolism gains I've made during the day. I've been considering an alcohol fast until I get myself back on track, but haven't taken the plunge yet.
- Bringing things full circle, I just found this older post from Leo called Lazy Productivity: 10 Simple Ways to Do Only Three Things Today. He recommends picking out three tasks the night before you want to work on them based on their impact, not urgency. The next day you should immediately start working those tasks. Leo doesn't even check his e-mail until the first is completed, and he rewards himself with breaks between tasks and a nap when all three are complete. I like this system. If I finished three big tasks a day, I could probably have my to-do list cleaned up in a couple of weeks. To hope, to dream.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Free Ideas
I referenced Lawrence Lessig in my last post about Mental Bankruptcy. A longtime admirer of Lessig's I decided to subscribe to his blog and discovered this gem about how his publisher, Random House, has decided to make Lessig's "The Future of Ideas" free for download. This means that you can now obtain all four of Lessig's thought-provoking books on the nature of ideas, innovation and copyright in a free-market society. For information on his other books, check the following sites:
Mental Bankruptcy
For those few of you following my business exploits, I'm not going in the poorhouse (yet!) Like many professionals nowadays, I'm instead on the lookout for books, tools and processes that will help me ramp up productivity while decreasing the chaos in my life. I should look inward to resolve most of this conflict, and yet I still troll the business section of Barnes and Noble every chance I get.
I've started including a new tool in my productivity-guru-inspired arsenal. A tool of last resort, this atomic bomb of productivity tips instantly cleans your desk and frees your mind of distraction. When I feel myself drowning under the weight of my to-do list, e-mail inbox or some other part of my life, only after careful consideration I throw my hands up in the air and blow it all away in an act of bankruptcy.
Harvard Law professor and creator of the Creative Commons license, Lawrence Lessig first popularized this concept back in 2004 when he sent the following automated message to anyone sending him e-mail: "Dear person who sent me a yet-unanswered e-mail, I apologize, but I am declaring e-mail bankruptcy." According to Wired, Lessig had spent 80 hours sorting out e-mail from the previous two years in the week prior to sending this missive. Lessig had become an Internet celebrity since the days he led the Justice Department's case against Microsoft for monopolistic practices. This reputation coupled with his crusade for fair use vs. excessive copyright laws had created a large and loquacious fanbase whose many members had created an untenable backlog of e-mail from which Lessig could not reasonbly respond. After declaring bankruptcy, Lessig promised to respond to anyone sending him e-mail (although he did not promise to do so in a timely manner.)
I've not had to obliterate the contents of my inbox, but I have been known to print out my to-do list (which at its worst grew to five pages of single-spaced type) and cross out any items that don't need immediate attention in the next week. I usually find that several list items have already been completed but not crossed off the list. The sheer length of the list often intimidates me and pruning away any completed and outdated items immediately lifts tension from my shoulders.
I then take off any valid items that lie too far in the future. When I'm struggling to write every day, construct freelance pitches and solicit new corporate writing contracts (not to mention do the laundry, shop, walk the dog and cook,) worrying about the home maintenance project that can't start until summer does me little good. I try to follow the process outlined by David Allen in his Getting Things Done and place these future-flung items in a folder for the month or day in which the activity should take place. This should take the task out of my daily mental landscape while guaranteeing that I still see it when I need it (as long as I remember to check the folders every day.)
Forgiveness is perhaps the biggest component of my bankruptcy strategy. An anal-retentive overachiever in a slacker's blue hoodie, I kick myself everyday when tasks slide. I eventually just give up and refuse to go in my office when the mess has taken over. When I clear the decks, however, I have a chance to breathe and admit that I can't track everything everyday. Joel Johnson on 43 Folders (hat-tip to Lifehacker) put it best recently in his Economy of the Heart:
But instead of trying to browbeat myself back to productivity—You’re so far behind that you must do double the work!—I just let go...We are imperfect. And loathing yourself or bemoaning your lack of work ethic isn’t actually doing anything, either. It’s just another way to do what you really want to do, which is obviously to do nothing.
Forgive yourself for losing focus. Then forgive yourself for worrying about losing your focus.
I recently nuked my old to-do list and started fresh on Remember the Milk. RTM has been working quite well. I'm still working on the personal forgiveness -- every day.
I've started including a new tool in my productivity-guru-inspired arsenal. A tool of last resort, this atomic bomb of productivity tips instantly cleans your desk and frees your mind of distraction. When I feel myself drowning under the weight of my to-do list, e-mail inbox or some other part of my life, only after careful consideration I throw my hands up in the air and blow it all away in an act of bankruptcy.
Harvard Law professor and creator of the Creative Commons license, Lawrence Lessig first popularized this concept back in 2004 when he sent the following automated message to anyone sending him e-mail: "Dear person who sent me a yet-unanswered e-mail, I apologize, but I am declaring e-mail bankruptcy." According to Wired, Lessig had spent 80 hours sorting out e-mail from the previous two years in the week prior to sending this missive. Lessig had become an Internet celebrity since the days he led the Justice Department's case against Microsoft for monopolistic practices. This reputation coupled with his crusade for fair use vs. excessive copyright laws had created a large and loquacious fanbase whose many members had created an untenable backlog of e-mail from which Lessig could not reasonbly respond. After declaring bankruptcy, Lessig promised to respond to anyone sending him e-mail (although he did not promise to do so in a timely manner.)
I've not had to obliterate the contents of my inbox, but I have been known to print out my to-do list (which at its worst grew to five pages of single-spaced type) and cross out any items that don't need immediate attention in the next week. I usually find that several list items have already been completed but not crossed off the list. The sheer length of the list often intimidates me and pruning away any completed and outdated items immediately lifts tension from my shoulders.
I then take off any valid items that lie too far in the future. When I'm struggling to write every day, construct freelance pitches and solicit new corporate writing contracts (not to mention do the laundry, shop, walk the dog and cook,) worrying about the home maintenance project that can't start until summer does me little good. I try to follow the process outlined by David Allen in his Getting Things Done and place these future-flung items in a folder for the month or day in which the activity should take place. This should take the task out of my daily mental landscape while guaranteeing that I still see it when I need it (as long as I remember to check the folders every day.)
Forgiveness is perhaps the biggest component of my bankruptcy strategy. An anal-retentive overachiever in a slacker's blue hoodie, I kick myself everyday when tasks slide. I eventually just give up and refuse to go in my office when the mess has taken over. When I clear the decks, however, I have a chance to breathe and admit that I can't track everything everyday. Joel Johnson on 43 Folders (hat-tip to Lifehacker) put it best recently in his Economy of the Heart:
But instead of trying to browbeat myself back to productivity—You’re so far behind that you must do double the work!—I just let go...We are imperfect. And loathing yourself or bemoaning your lack of work ethic isn’t actually doing anything, either. It’s just another way to do what you really want to do, which is obviously to do nothing.
Forgive yourself for losing focus. Then forgive yourself for worrying about losing your focus.
Forgive yourself for making unrealistic goals. Forgive yourself for making goals that aren’t big enough to keep you interested. Forgive yourself for doing work that’s not your best. Forgive yourself for comparing your work to the work of others. Forgive yourself for thinking something other than your work might be fun. Forgive yourself for any single thing you find yourself feeling guilty about.
I recently nuked my old to-do list and started fresh on Remember the Milk. RTM has been working quite well. I'm still working on the personal forgiveness -- every day.
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Brother, can you spare a billion?
Superbly illustrating Google's domination of webspace, Microsoft last week offered a staggering $44.6 billion (that's right - billiong with a "B") to buy web search pioneer Yahoo. While it hasn't yet accepted the offer, Yahoo is "carefully and promptly" studying it.
The offer translates to $31 per share, a hefty premium over Yahoo's closing share price of $19.18 on Thursday afternoon. At 8:57 (EST) this morning, the share value has already increased to $28.98 in pre-market trading as a result of Microsoft's offer.
Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo last year, but the search giant declined. Neither company has successfully challenged Google's various offering in search, advertising or online productivity applications. I guess Microsoft thinks that together the two companies will have the horsepower to innovate themselves past Google. I'm a big fan of Google, so I'm not counting them out yet. I am pretty excited, though, about a more competitive marketplace in Web space. Simply having another player in the game should push Google to even more greatness.
The offer translates to $31 per share, a hefty premium over Yahoo's closing share price of $19.18 on Thursday afternoon. At 8:57 (EST) this morning, the share value has already increased to $28.98 in pre-market trading as a result of Microsoft's offer.
Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo last year, but the search giant declined. Neither company has successfully challenged Google's various offering in search, advertising or online productivity applications. I guess Microsoft thinks that together the two companies will have the horsepower to innovate themselves past Google. I'm a big fan of Google, so I'm not counting them out yet. I am pretty excited, though, about a more competitive marketplace in Web space. Simply having another player in the game should push Google to even more greatness.
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