This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004
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It's Tuesday, April 8, 2008 5:17:01 PM US/Pacific. I just looked at the Coffeeblog and learned that my last post was March 20: Purim. It's over. It's been over for 17 days. And yet, until this item, I haven't posted anything to the Coffeeblog. Seventeen days. Two weeks and three days. And that troubles me. I experience it as stressful. The stress of not blogging. And that brings me to a recent meme purveyed in the dead tree medium known as the New York Times. As their recent headline (April 6) trumpeted (in part) "Writers Blog Till They Drop."
Now it turns out that this was a kind of follow-up on a January 7, 2008 NYT item concerning Om Malik's heart attack, which occurred a few weeks earlier. The Times quoted Paul Kedrosky, whom they described as a friend of Om Malik: “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”
OK. That makes sense. I too feel a huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with my name on it. But let's get a few things straight. I'm not a CEO of anything. And the Times referred to "brand-name" bloggers, and I'm not even a Brand X blogger. My little Coffeeblog doesn't even show up on one of those Alexa charts. So I wouldn't dream of putting myself in the same league with Om Malik, Michael Arrington or any other of the surviving big-time bloggers mentioned by the Times. Could that be why I haven't had a heart attack yet?
Concerning the Maliks and Arringtons of the blogosphere, is the Times on to something? Is blogging at the root of the deadly stress the Times describes? Well, maybe, in the sense that the sheer overavailability of breaking news over newsfeeds creates a situation where the puny human brain can't keep up with the machines. The metaphor that occurs to me is a human runner in a foot-race with a locomotive.
But frankly, and obviously, humans have had heart attacks and succumbed to stress for eons before blogs existed. The sheer productive power of information technology could tempt a productive person (and the brand-name bloggers are very productive people, unlike, well, me) to push himself (or herself, but funny, the Times didn't mention any women) a little, or a lot, too hard. As for women bloggers, Virginia Postrel, whose blog The Dynamist I have mentioned before, is now a breast cancer survivor. Was her cancer stress-induced? From blogging? Harrumph.
It seems to me that the species Homo sapiens is hard-wired for productivity at some level, not always Om Malik level, and for telling stories. Blogging is a way of telling stories. And for brand-name bloggers, blogging is a very productive way of telling stories.
So here's to dead, lamented bloggers Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, who, the Times tells us, died of heart attacks. They went out in a blaze of glory. If I were in a bar I'd drink to them. But I'm in a cafe and I already finished my Capuccino. As I look into my sad, empty cup, I think, defiantly: "Keep on blogging, people. Keep on blogging."
[Does the Bermuda Triangle have a branch in Cupertino?]
Since 2004, Apple has had a nifty product called Airport Express, a $100 wireless router with an audio jack that works with iTunes. Run an audio cable from the gadget to your stereo system or TV sound system, and you can play back iTunes from any computer in the house that has wireless access. It's a great way to listen to your MP3's and purchased iTunes over your best speakers. For years I've coveted Airport Express, but held off buying one, making do with a wired connection from an old iPod.
Last week, however, I finally decided "what the heck," and sauntered into an Apple Store to buy one. Guess what. They were all gone, and they didn't know when they would get some more. I tried other (non-Apple) stores, and was told of a rumor that Apple would be coming out with an new model very shortly. Today I called back the Apple Store and they were still all out, though the online store said they were available in "3-5 days."
I searched online forums and found no confirmation, just echoes of the rumor that Apple was coming out soon with an updated product. The Apple store told me that the new Time Capsule devices, coming out "in February" had no audio port.
Now, much as I want to get an Airport Express, I don't want to buy one immediately if Apple will be coming out with a new version soon.
Since the disappearance of the Airport Express from store shelves is mysterious, I began to imagine all kinds of scenarios, ranging from the most likely to the most paranoid:
There was a sudden unpredicted increase in comsumer demand which overwhelmed the supply.
Apple will soon announce a new version and is waiting to get rid of all their inventory of the old model.
Apple's contracted manufacturer has stopped production temporarily in order to meet the February deadline for Time Capsule, which they also manufacture.
Apple has stopped supporting this product, having wafer-thin computers, Apple TV, and other fish to fry.
The enemies of Western Civilization, Christianity, and/or Rugged Individualism have discovered that the Airport Express can be used as a cheap detonator for weapons of mass destruction, and they have bought out the existing supply.
Microsoft, after their hostile takeover of Yahoo, will perpetrate an even more hostile takeover of Apple, of which a buy-out of Airport Express devices is a planned maneuver to turn loyal Apple fans (such as myself) against Apple. (But no, I don't have an Apple logo tattoo.)
The Bermuda Triangle has a branch in Cupertino.
Meanwhile, I've still got my old iPod hooked up to my even older stereo system, and I'm waiting for Apple's announcement of the new, improved, faster, more stylish, eco-friendly glass and aluminum $75 Airport Express, available in March.
It's not even a month since I shelled out 600 smackers and an obscene amount of tax for my iPhone, and it's already changed my life. Could it change yours? If you avoid computers, email, and mobile phones, probably not. But then, you wouldn't be reading this. For me, however, things have already changed. I'm no longer tethered to Wi-Fi. I can access websites, send and receive email, check in with my Twitter buddies, and do text messages anywhere where my old cellphone worked. Since the iPhone has a speaker, I can play podcasts in the car while driving, then walk off at my destination without interrupting the program. (Audio podcasts, dammit! Watching videos while driving could change your life by ending it. It's more tempting than you think.) The iPhone camera is easier to use and captures better images that my old cameraphone, so I'm taking more photos than ever (here are some).
As a kid I was called a "walking encyclopedia." Somehow I never took it as an insult, though it was meant as such. Now, the walking encyclopedia can walk with an encyclopedia in his pocket. I'm referring to Wikipedia, of course. And if Wikipedia lacks the information, there is the whole fershlugginer Internet at my disposal. Whereas Superman once dashed into a phone booth to change, Superbrain can now dash into his iPhone booth (it's called a car) for rapid enlightenment, on, say, the full bio of an artist whose work I have just seen in a museum or gallery, or the filmography of a director whose movie I am about to see. (Of course, Superbrain, if he is really smart, will not show off this instantly gained knowledge in conversation, especially with women, if he wants to keep the few friends he has left.)
Given some of the iPhone's current technical limitations, I've changed my use of the Internet somewhat. I bookmark a lot more RSS feeds than I used to, and use them on the iPhone instead of overly complicated websites. (Sadly, this is essential with Flickr. Trees grow faster than a Flickr page downloading on an iPhone over AT&T's Edge network.) Apple has created a great feed reader at http://reader.mac.com/mobile, viewable only on iPhones. I've also created a bookmarks folder called iPhonics where I keep my favorite iPhone links.
Since I am an amateur website designer, who never got a penny for creating a website, i have always preferred the "less-is-more" approach (no need for a zillion links in the front page, although I admit that the Coffeeblog has too many already.) All of a sudden, some of my old creations like this one are lookin' real good on the iPhone. I was at a gallery opening last Friday evening and, to my surprise, a crowd gathered around to look at my iPhone. The gallery's own site was, er, hard to navigate (to be kind), so I switched to the above-referenced site and knocked a few socks off among my iPhone's admirers.
The iPhone's calendar currently lacks to-do items, but I frankly don't use iCal to-dos very often because they stay there, undone. However, I found some new ways to do to-do's with much ado (am I making too big a to-do about doing to-do's?) I use email. The iPhone touchscreen keyboard makes it very easy to write a one-line subject which can then be mailed, and deleted when the to-do is done. My emailed to-do list is never farther then my pocket, because I carry my iPhone everywhere.
But it gets even better. I use paper for to-do lists. Paper? Paper. This is for when I want to brainstorm a topic and list all the incomplete tasks hanging over my head, and being a putzer and an ornery cuss, i have many. I can get them all down on one sheet of paper (usually the back side of a spam fax I have received), fax it to myself c/o an old computer, whence it is automatically emailed to me as a pdf. The iPhone displays pdf's magnificently, and once can enlarge the contents for readability.
And finally, there's video. The boob tube is fighting back. I once though I was rid of it forever. How naive. I should have seen the handwriting (giant LCD screen?) on the wall when I wrote this. But, you know what? There is so much to write about how iPhone video has changed my life that I will postpone it for another post to Jonathan's Coffeeblog.
Who's sorry now? Well, I'm sort of sorry that I'm even writing this. It's not like nobody has ever written anything on any weblog about backing up data. That topic, moreover, is certainly not in the same league as, for example, Ismail and the Safavids, or Robert Bechtle's Religious Art. Nevertheless, I feel a sort of duty to write about it because I recently passed the anniversary of the time I was able to pull off a last-minute rescue of everything on my laptop's hard drive. The gods, assuming that any of them exist, were good to me, and it's payback time.
My laptop started to act up about a year ago, and I took it to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. We talked about backing it up, they gave me some advice, and I went and bought a huge external hard drive. I backed up all the essential files before erasing the laptop's hard drive in an attempt to fix it. Ultimately that laptop had to be sent back to Apple four times until they got it working again. In the meantime I got a new one. So, you see, although I'm sort of sorry now for writing about such as dull subject as backups, I would have been a lot sorrier if I had not backed up my own drive last year.
In the year since then, I learned something. Us Apple fans will have a feature called "Time Machine" when the new operating system called Leopard comes out, presumably next October. As I understand it, Time Machine does the backing up automatically for you and when you want to find data that got erased (photos, music files, emails, whatever) it supposedly will make it easy to find it.
While waiting for the Leopard Time Machine, one can back up to CD's (they don't hold much, they sometimes fail, and it's a nuisance) or back up one's smaller files to Apple's iDisk, which costs a hundred bucks a year. Or we can do what human nature tells us to do, which is to forget about backups, which are in the same category as rotating our tires, making estimated tax payments in advance, or writing to Aunt Clara. Sure, some of us do all of that stuff on schedule, and scrupulously. Others, like me, are ornery cusses, and don't, or do it late. Meanwhile there is a bright spot on the otherwise dull gray backup horizon: Amazon's Jungle Disk. (The logo is a hard drive icon covered with leopard skin. Hmmm…) Backing up to the Jungle Disk is incredibly cheap. Yesterday I backed up all my iTunes and all my photos and it cost me $1.40. (There's also a monthly charge of fifteen cents per gigabyte.) It took many hours, it slowed down my laptop, and it took a little low-grade geekery to figure out how to do it right, but hey, the price is right. When Leopard comes out, will we able to back up Time Machine to the Jungle Disk? We'll find out. For the time being, it's good to know sometimes, that there's a jungle out there.
In my last post, I made a timid foray into the vast topic of chaos. Now I am ready to tackle the subject for which I prepared by exploring chaos: mindmapping. There has been plenty written on that topic on the Internet already; what follows is my own opinion, and a description of how I use mindmapping. First of all, what is it? I describe it as a hierarchically structured diagrammatic method of recording ideas.
Why bother? This is where chaos comes in. The human brain appears capable of retaining only a few ideas at a time, but is often confronted with juggling many complex ideas in order to solve a problem, or simply to find one's bearings in the daily grind of life. Although a brainful of ideas may not be chaotic in the mythological sense, it feels chaotic to the owner of the brain. That's where mind mapping can be useful.
What I recommend goes beyond the common technique of brainstorming, which is usually done with a goal in mind, the goal of collecting ideas about a specific problem or task. What is more useful than mere brainstorming, in my opinion, is getting as many ideas as possible out of the brain onto a piece of paper or a computer screen. Commentaries on the comments should be welcome. For example, thoughts like why do this? is this stupid? do I hate this? why do I hate this? and what do I want for lunch? are as legitimate in my kind of mind map, as more writing-oriented or task-oriented ideas, say, 13 notes on the topic of the future of blogging after 2017. Mind mapping can become the remedy, or the first step of the remedy, for any state of confusion or merely a vague psychological malaise, as well as a challenging productivity task.
How do I do it? A favorite method is pen on paper, usually the blank back side of spam faxes folded in half and gathered on a mini-clipboard. I draw circles starting from a central hub (often the date and time), loosely organized by connecting lines. I often fax the completed mind maps to my computer, where they can be reviewed and reorganized. Just yesterday I was directed to a new website, bubbl.us, which makes it very easy to do the same technique online and onscreen. There is also some great software out there, of which I have purchased licenses for NovaMind and Eastgate's Tinderbox. in another post I will write more about how I use these programs for mind mapping.
The routine of life is full of much "dead time"—seconds, minutes, or even hours or days when one feels like time is being wasted and lost: nooks and crannies in the flow of the day. Dead time is different from dolce far niente, when the pleasure of laying back and being idle can be savored and relished. Dead time feels like a waste, and is annoying. Examples of dead time include waiting for a traffic light to change or stalled traffic to start moving again, waiting in a dentist or doctor's waiting room, waiting for a plane to board, waiting for the plane to reach its destination, waiting for a scheduled event to start, etc., etc.
The gadgetry, paraphernalia, and widgetry of the high-tech life make it possible to use dead time for something which is, or feels productive. Probably the most useful gadget for that purpose is the mobile phone. There is always one more phone call to be made, SMS to be sent, or (if the phone is a cameraphone) a photo, audio message, or video to make and send. Context is king: it is obviously unsafe or at least rude to key in an SMS text message while driving or make a phone call during a chamber music concert.
The third most useful dead time gadget is probably the laptop, which has its own limitations: you can't use one if you don't have one, when your hands are busy, or when you're walking down the street; and if there's no wireless connection (as during a plane flight), it can be frustrating and much less information is available. So what's the second most useful dead time gadget? The iPod and its ilk of course. That's why the gods (or was it Dave Winer?) created the podcast. Anything audio, whatever and whenever, through headphones or car speakers, and maybe even a little video.
As for me, I find that dead-time use of my high-tech gadgets has taught me to use lower tech tools during dead time too. Of course, there are Moleskines, cocktail napkins, and the backs of business cards for taking notes. My latest innovation is using the backs of faxes and other paper which would otherwise be thrown away, folded in half and stored on a mini clipboard, which I keep in my car. I cam make the resulting notes high-tech by faxing them to my email. I even use them for art projects, as the Photoshoppery shown above will attest.
If idleness is the Devil's workshop, then Web 2.0 must be the Devil's workflow. Previously I've written how it's possible not only to use one's computer for Getting Things Done, but as a powerful tool of procrastination. The enhancements that have been loosely categorized under the "Web 2.0" tag have just reach a higher threat level. First there was Internet news itself, then there came blogging with its links to news items, then news aggregation software, then news aggregation sites like Digg and Netvibes. An hour ago I learned of a highly seductive addition to the Web 2.0 arsenal, newsmap, created by Markos Weskamp and Dan Albritton. Newsmap represents the headlines aggregated by Google News in a visual format, with brighter colors for more recent breaking news, and larger size for headlines related to a larger number of articles. With one click, national news including news of India and Austria can be accessed. Mindblowing. And, of course fascinating, time-consuming, and distracting.
Well, I'll give Newsmap credit for getting me to accomplish at least one item on my task list: posting something new to the Coffeeblog. Yeah, yeah, I already have a list of interesting blogposts to write in due course, but Newsmap was so interesting that it inspired me to actually write the item.
The triangle of productivity, distraction, and creativity is complex. Is that something interesting enough to post to the Coffeeblog? Maybe it is. Or maybe not.
This is another one of those Coffeeblog entries which began with a cold start. I really don't have a clue at this moment about what I'm going to write about. Yes, my laptop is back from its second trip to the Apple Depot. Yes, it's still working after about two days. But I don't want to write about laptops. One thing that is coming to mind is that I am immersed in the weird feeling about the Summer Solstice. I wrote about that last year. Tonight the sun here in Berkeley is going to set at 8:35 PM. In Seattle, sunset won't occur until 9:11 PM. The extra few hours of sunlight are nice to have, but they also pose a challenge: how can I make the best use of the extra daylight? And what if I do? And what if I don't?
Uh-oh. It looks like this is going to be one of those productivity blogposts. What productivity blogposts, you might reasonably ask. For a while I have categorized some of my Coffeeblog articles under "Productivity," but I never got around to adding a Productivity Page, with links at the top and bottom of each page, and in the sidebar. OK. That's what I'm going to do. Right now. The brilliant western sunlight, reflected off the East Bay hills is streaming into my window as I write this. I certainty don't need the light to tinker with my software and add another page to the Coffeeblog. Somehow, however, it seems to be fitting to do that little task, to make hay, as it were, while the sun is still shining.
And so, dear Coffeeblog reader, I present the Productivity Page. You can see it by clicking the navigation links, but you don't even have to do that. You can see it by clicking here.
For years I've been naming my hard drives after the gods of ancient Greece: Dionysos, Hermes, etc. My iBook hard drive, the same one that ceased to function properly, as described in my last Coffeeblog post, had been called Pan after the horned god of the ancients, the goat-legged god of wild vegetation who was reputed to give hunters luck in finding and bagging game.
As it turned out, Pan has been replaced twice by the Apple Depot in Tennessee with "new" hard drives, erased six times (I am now on my seventh as I write this), and had Apple's Tiger software reinstalled after each erasure. Interestingly, the international ship and aircraft distress code uses the French word "panne" to communicate a breakdown: "Pan-Pan." Add to that the fact that the word "panic" was named after the god Pan.
During the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, a sailor Thamus was sailing past an island named Paxos when he heard voices crying in distress, "The Great God Pan is Dead." This incident took on enormous significance when it was reported by the Greek historian and biographer Mestrius Plutarchus, known as Plutarch. Pagans pondered whether Pan, unlike the other gods, was actually mortal. Christians, in a later era, interpreted the lament to mean that the era of the pagan gods, as personified by the ancient horned god Pan, was over. It is now said, of course, that a horned, goat-legged devil named Satan is alive and well in Christian theology. What, however, of my computer? Will the great hard drive Pan die once again of directory corruption? My experiences of the past two weeks remind me of the Garden of Eden legend, in which Eve tempts Adam with the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, knowledge, that is, of good and evil. In Western Christian art, that fruit is often depicted as an apple. Unfortunately, my recent dealings with Apple the Cupertino computer maker, and their repair depot, has brought about persistent thoughts of good and evil in terms of another fruit: the lemon.
[An irreversibly essential extension of the human body]
That's right. for the next week or so, I have no laptop. I only bought it last July. Like a two-year-old with a teddy bear I carry it everywhere. Yes, the screen is small, but that makes it lighter and easier to carry. Yes, the screen is kinda dim, so I stay away from the harmful rays of the sun. And now my laptop is in the hands of the folks at the Apple Depot. Earlier this week it started doing weird things, and I ended up taking it to the Genius Bar three times after progressively more drastic reinstallations of the system software. Fortunately I bought a large hard drive during my first trip to the Genius Bar, and was able to back up all the important data.
At the same time my laptop went down, I developed a recurrence of a foot disorder, which my shoe guy called "metatarsal overload." It hurts to walk, so I don't walk much. The funny thing was that the worst thing about the pain in my foot was that it slowed down my progress getting to and from the Genius Bar. It appears that a laptop will get me through times of a poorly functioning foot better than a foot can get me through times of a poorly functioning laptop. What does this all mean? Just as shoes make my feet work better, a laptop (for me, maybe not everyone) makes my brain work better, and that makes me work better. As far as I am concerned, the laptop computer, like fire, the stone axe, good footwear, the wheel, agriculture, pen and paper, and the printing press, has become an irreversibly essential extension of the human body.
Some of you may ask what a Genius Bar is. It's an Apple computer store thing invented by geniuses to be run by geniuses, or at least well-trained technicians. The deal is, you make a same-day appointment to see a Genius at the Bar, the Genius tells you how to fix your computer, if you can, and you come back only if you need to. What's in it for Apple is obvious: a lot of simple repairs can be done by the computer owner/user, reserving the hard stuff for the repair depot. What's in it for the user: he gets to meet with a real human being immediately or soon after the problem appears, and maybe the Genius or the user can fix the problem. If not, the Genius can expedite the repair. Of course, I am writing all of the above because I have every expectation that Apple will return my computer to me in good operating order, in two weeks or less. If they don't I have a great place to complain about it. After all, I am a blogger.
Permanent Link to This Entry | | |Technorati Tags: (NOTE: Technorati has not been picking up my tags recently. They also don't answer their email. But I understand, what with thirty or forty million blogs to catalog, who can blame them? They also need to learn Japanese and Chinese fast, because blogs in those languages are really big now in the blogosphere.) Oh yeah, the tag. Whatever, I'll give another shot: Laptop
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While doing research for Jonathan's Coffeeblog, I came across many references to Merlin Mann's superb productivity site, 43 Folders. As I mentioned in another post, I had the good fortune to meet Merlin in person at the last Tinderbox Weekend San Francisco. I learned that 43 was the number of folders needed for a GTD tickler file according to David Allen, comprised of 12 monthly folders and 31 daily folders. The 43 Folders site, with its mystical prime number of 43, has given rise to a whole spate of "43" sites, such as 43 Places, 43 People, and 43 Things.
As I made efforts to implement productivity techniques as described by Merlin, David, and others, I came to the distressing realization that I personally do not have the temperament to implement easily their helpful suggestions. For example, if I actually had a tickler file (see below), I would be very likely to resist doing a task that gets "tickled" any given day, preferring to do something else, anything else, or nothing at all. Why? Because I'm an ornery cuss, that's why. Merlin spoke at Tinderbox Weekend about having a trusted system, a system that works, that a productive person can rely on. Well, why have only one trusted system when you can have, two, three, or even 43 trusted systems? If you stop trusting, say, system #13, there are still 42 others you can trust, maybe. And if you can't trust them, hey, life is not always a bowl of cherries. I know, I know, as soon as you bring in duplication of trusted systems, and anything else, for that matter, you are increasing the chance of overlooking some important task and of increasing rather than decreasing the chaos inside your skull. Unless you are an ornery cuss. Like me.
Perhaps I am the only ornery cuss in the universe who fights his own tickler file, or who would fight it if he had one. But I suspect that, as they say in the extraterrestial research field, we are not alone. So I had decided to start a website. I wouldn't call it "43 Trusted Systems" because that's awkward, but I think, "43 Inboxes" catches the spirit nicely, don't you? Not that I have exactly 43 inboxes, but in at least one of them I will enter a task, "@computer: End Entropy > count your inboxes." Let's see, there's my email which has a smart folder for tasks (anything that says "Do -" in the subject line), several NovaMind mindmaps in constant evolution, various and profuse paper mindmaps, some of which have been faxed and emailed, and last, and definitely not least, at least three (count 'em) three Tinderbox files whose primary raison d'être is to assist me in manifold ways to sharpen my focus on tasks to be done. And many, many more trusted systems. And I actually get things done. At least this blogpost is done. Almost. Anyhow, today I got so gung-ho about the "43 Inboxes" concept that I decided to create a whole new weblog, perhaps using Eastgate's Flint weblog template. Realizing that a whole new weblog is a big project, I decided that I really need a tickler file for each step of the project. I already have the software for project planning, but when I looked for folders at home and in my office to create my new tickler file, I could only find 42. Sure, I could run out to the Office Depot and buy more folders, but instead I said to myself "Screw it." I have a perfectly serviceable weblog, this one, Jonathan's Coffeeblog, and so I will be posting on the topic of 43 Inboxes right here from time to time. Unless I decide that it wasn't such a great idea after all, in which case, I won't. I have other stuff to do including looking in my inboxes every once and a while. BTW, I was born in 1943.
For the past few weeks I have become obsessed with personal productivity, because a long-threatened day-job paperwork meltdown finally caught up with me. I have had to narrow my focus to that of a Cro-Magnon hunter in pursuit of a wooly mammoth during an Ice Age winter, and other activities, including blogging, have briefly fallen by the wayside. I am just now able to come up for air, having decided that there is no better topic to blog about today. Granted, the Internet does not lack for productivity gurus, including David Allen, and 43 Folders' Merlin Mann, whom I had the good fortune to meet in person at Tinderbox Weekend.
I have five recommendations of my own (I'm sure they've all been said before by someone else) to supplement those which have acquired meme status on the Internet: 1) Don't panic, 2) Organize your priorities and daily goals on-screen and on paper, 3) Get started on everything that really, seriously needs to be done, 4) Remind yourself that haste makes waste, and 5) Temporarily narrow your focus. Number 3 sounds like a no-brainer, but a lot of deferred tasks can be so intimidating that it's is hard just to think about them, let alone get started. (Or is is it just me who has that problem?)
Panic, should it occur, leads to haste and risky avoidance, not just mere procrastination. Haste, in turn, a response to the fear of not meeting a deadline, can lead to errors that nullify the work being done. The human brain by itself cannot remember all the projects, actions, and priorities that need to be organized, hence the need for GTD tools, of which there are many. I prefer mindmapping with software and on paper, Tinderbox map views, and use of emails and faxes to myself to keep the priorities crystal-clear. A narrowed focus (such as: pay those bills and get those checks in the bank) can help, but the risk of a narrowed focus is that it can become a way of life, which leads to resentment, procrastination, and ultimately even lower productivity. BTW, I have not had to give up my cafe time to get things done, now that I have a laptop. Americano in hand (see photo) I can get a clear view of the day's priorities which makes it more possible that I will get as much done as I can. In Italian I could call it dolce far molto, but the Americans say it best: Getting Things Done.
Last weekend was Tinderbox weekend in San Francisco, an annual event where users of Tinderbox software get together with Mark Bernstein of Eastgate, a Massachusetts company that sells cool and effective tools for hypertext, note-taking, clipping organization, and writing. In my opinion, Tinderbox is "Photoshop for Writers." Just as photographers and graphic designers may use Photoshop to perform just a few tasks for their images, they may not take the trouble to learn the many features the powerful Adobe product contains. Tinderbox is a superb note-taking tool, great for clipping info from the Internet, jotting down ideas, making outlines, and writing documents of any kind, with or without graphics. It can, however, do much, much more than that, and that is why Tinderbox users get together for Tinderbox weekends, to upgrade their skills with the program. I attended Tinderbox Weekend last year, and the result was this blog, Jonathan's Coffeeblog. Before then, I had not even given blogging serious consideration.
A theme which emerged in the meeting last weekend was refinement and focus of personal productivity, which has become crucial in a 21st Century economy with information overload and mass e-mailings. Merlin Mann, publisher of the 43 Folders website, gave a talk on his "trusted system" which keeps him focused and on-task. Frank Tansey showed us how to keep valuable documents organized and retrievable without having to pause to decide what folder category to put them in. Elin Sjursen, who works with Mark at Eastgate, gave us an overview (and detailed how-to construction hints) of Tekkalogue, a new weblog which complements Eastgate's famous subscription website TEKKA.
The theme within the theme was how to determine whether distracting activities (fiddling or what I have called "putzing") which can be very creative and lead to new skills and idea), or can just waste time and avoid getting the "important" stuff done. Aha! But what is important? You can use Tinderbox to clarify that for yourself. And clarify, and clarify, and clarify…
[Using the blog to distract yourself from Getting Things Done?]
This past week I reacquainted myself with a current trend towards Productivity on Steroids, as exemplified by the bookGetting Things Done, with its companion website, and the software implementation by Tinderbox user Ryan Holcomb. Did my interest in GTD, as it is known, help me get a lot more done? Well, maybe a little more. But there were two things that I did not get done: 1. Buy the book, and 2. Update this blog during an eight-day interval.
The second of these lapses in Getting Things Done, gives rise to a whole raft of questions, from the merely practical to the deeply philosophical: 1. Why didn't I update the blog for the past eight days? 2. What does it matter that I did not update the blog? 3. What, if anything, would have been more important than updating the blog? 4. How could I determine the relative importance of updating the blog and the other Things that I could have been Getting Done? And of course, 5. What, then is the meaning of life? The last question, comes full circle to the subject of this blog, which, Coffee, Cafes, the Arts, Mythology, and People, to the contrary notwithstanding, is really the meaning of life. And the question, therefore, begs begging: 6. What is the meaning of not updating, over a seven-day period, a blog about the meaning of life?
If you are still reading this, it is clear that you could be Getting another Thing Done but would rather be reading about this at the expense of the other Thing. And, if you have stopped reading before this sentence, or never started reading this post, you certainly would not be using the blog to distract yourself from Getting Things Done, but that would be no guarantee whatsoever that you have succeeded in Getting any Thing Done, least of all any Thing of any importance.
Astute and vigilant readers of Jonathan's Coffeeblog, and I would like to believe that there are many of you out there, will acknowledge that I have addressed many of these issues before, Blogger's Block, for example. As for the relative Importance of things, I refer you to my erstwhile lay Zen Master Keisuke, who saw clearly through the veil of illusion concerning that most important of subjects, Importance. Perhaps you think that all of the aforegoing prose is a mere joke, poking fun at Getting Things Done and deeper issues. Beware. The word in Yiddish for joke is "chochme" ("ch" as in Loch Lomond, not as in cherry.) Chochme, in turn, comes from "chochom", a sage or Wise Man, from the Hebrew haham, meaning the same. Put that in your GTD tickler file and smoke it.
"Today is the third or fourth day of spring and I am sitting at the Place Clichy in full sunshine." So wrote Henry Miller at the Cafe Wepler in his mysterious 1930's Paris book Black Spring. Here in Berkeley, today is the fifth day of spring and I am sitting at Monterey and Hopkins in full sunshine, sipping an Americano. Today is the Jewish Feast of Lots and the Christian Good Friday, a rare synchrony. The theme, of course, is death and resurrection, or as Henry wrote, "a chaos whose order is beyond comprehension."
In an earlier Coffeeblog post, I wrote about the winter solstice and the reindeer god who saves the tribe just when things get darkest. Spring, however, is something else.
"Inside me a terrifying gem which will not wear away, a gem which scratches the windowpanes as I flee through the night." was Henry's take on it. "We are that which is never concluded... There are huge blocks of my life which are gone forever... To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each gesture killing and recreating... "
Have you ever seen a baby born? Or had one yourself while fully conscious? A miniature human being emerges from another, and suddenly there is a cry and one becomes two. That is the unstoppable power of spring, echoed in the creative urge of the artist (Otto Rank's Schaffensdrang), and of course hinted at with bunnies, eggs, and chocolate life-forms.
For me, spring always passes too fast. When summer begins, I am always sorry that spring could not have lasted at least another few months. Experiencing spring is like kayaking a mountain snowmelt. Speed, adrenaline, terror, ecstasy, and then the days start getting shorter again.—JDL
The Italians call it dolce far niente, sweetly doing nothing. In the Ashkenazi Jewish diaspora it's called putzing around. Today is a good day for it. It's a preview of spring, the Espresso Roma terrace is replete with gay chatter (not that kind of gay, the other kind of gay), and, as I write these words, it's three minutes before 3:00 PM—the hour at which most of the day has been shot to hell.
Riddle: when is putzing around not putzing around?
Answer: When a blogger is writing his or her next post.
If the blog is not updated, the Earth will still rotate on its axis, the universe will still be expanding, certain quarks will still have charm, politicians on both sides of the aisle will still be planning to raise taxes, and the gods and goddessess will still be duking it out as to who is the most omnipotent, or in some cases, as to who owns the exclusive rights to godliness.
In college I had a Japanese chum named Keisuke, whose favorite expression, stated in English with a strong Japanese accent, was "It is of no importance." It was only many years later that I realized that Keisuke was the only Zen master I would ever have, or ever need. Ah so desu. To putz or not to putz? It is of no importance.
It is Saturday, now 12 minutes after three. In few days it will be Monday, and I as a loyal American, will again believe that paying and sending out my bills, answering my non-urgent phone calls, working on my many projects, will again be important, moreover of the utmost extreme importance. But it will all be illusion, will it not, the eternal cycle of birth and death? Won't it?
Ah, but on Monday such Far-Eastern mystical questions and doubts will be of no importance. (Written Saturday, March 5, 2005 2:55 PM US/Pacific) —JDL
Send a message to Jonathan: coffeeblogger (at) doublesquids (dot) com
Blogging has suddenly metamorphosed from something to aid and abet procrastination into something to procrastinate about. Not that I'm surprised.
But I know that the tough get blogging when the blogging gets tough, so what better topic than Blogger's Block?
It's not that I have run out of things to write about. There are more than ever. It's something else.
I think I have some idea what it might be. Terje Rasmussen, a Norwegian academic bloggmaven (he spells it with a double G) wrote a paper on blogging as a "technology of the self." (The phrase in quotes is from Foucault, from an essay of the same name.) The gist of what Terje says (or more precisely, the gist of what I think Terje says) is that blogs serve the bloggers by helping them clarify the eternal question, "who am I?"
As I see those words transformed from thoughts to print (another Terje-ism, I think, the role of the blogg putting speech or thoughts into print readable by others), I hear in my head echoes of anti-individualist authorities: "narcissist! self-absorbed! self-indulgent! the Me Decade!"
Notwithstanding, Ayn Rand's view of man is a self-made soul; Otto Rank's of the artist is that one's own personality as an artist is the artist's most fundamental work of art. I eat that stuff up. And therefore, dear reader, in the event that you might exist some fine day: as an aspiring artist and soul, I hereby assert that the blogg must go on. And it shall.—JDL
Send a message to Jonathan: coffeeblogger (at) doublesquids (dot) com
