Category: post

The next time someone points out something you have done wrong – a loved one, a boss, a coworker – Own it. Don’t deny it, don’t try to defend it, don’t make excuses. If there is any truth whatsoever to the accusation, take the blame.
Owning up to our shortcomings actually puts us in the more powerful position. By facing them, we assume the power to correct them. By denying them, we deny ourselves this ability, thus leaving ourselves powerless.
Also, admitting fault and expressing an honest apology and desire for improvement, more often than not, immediately renders the temper and ill will of the accuser moot. If someone is angered by something that you have done, and they approach you with that anger, that anger is much harder to hold when met with “You are right. I am sorry. Let’s all learn from this.”
I often think about how many corporations could improve their customer service experience by simply training their employees to make “We’re sorry” be the first thing that leaves their mouth when met with a customer complaint. Combining that with giving those workers the power to correct any issue is what separates the companies with unmatched service from the rest.
The bottom line: Mea culpa. Assume the empowerment (and responsibility) that comes from being the one who is actually in control of the situation and the only one who can do something to correct it. Be the hero, not the zero.
This post was inspired by a comment made by my lovely and brilliant wife, who is often burdened with way too many excuse makers in her life.

I think we often times put too much faith in reviews. We put too much trust in the reviewer, as if they are an accredited source free of personal experience that may cloud their judgment. Here is the thing about reviews that I always try to keep in mind when reading them, they are the opinion of the author. It is for this reason I generally take them with a few grains of salt. It is also why I generally avoid doing them.
With this said, this is the first of what will, hopefully, be regular reviews of books I am reading. I will be writing these from my perspective and, therefore, approaching the books based upon my own personal experiences and desires. I think it is important to state such things, up front, so that you will understand that if I give either a glowing or less so review, your milage may y. In fact, I encourage you to read each and every book I review, regardless of my take, in order to form your own opinion. In other words, I would like you, gentle reader, to not “read” too much into it (and yes, I am aware of the very “metaness” of the pun I just executed as well as my proclivity towards both parenthetic asides and “quote marks”).
Here was my problem with Making It All Work, the long anticipated follow up to Getting Things Done, by David Allen: I have heard it all before. You see, I was one of the many people who really dug deep into the Getting Things Done philosophy. Not only did I read the book several times, as well as practice the system, and try every GTD application, I also attended his GTD: The Roadmap seminar when it came through town here a couple of years back. I really fell deep into line with the program. Because of this, there was not much more for me to get out of the book. Don’t get me wrong, there were some useful nuggets of wisdom that I found. It was just not the further enlightenment I was hoping for, largely because I was already there.
He spends the first half of the book digging a bit deeper into the concepts that he lays out in Getting Things Done. This deeper exploration does turn up an interesting take or two. I especially enjoyed his “What is true now?” approach to getting “unstuck” and deciding exactly what one thing, out of the many, you should be doing right at that time. For someone who is new to GTD, or never really grokked the principles and meaning behind the methods, this stuff is invaluable to helping to cement the concepts.
The second half of the book he uses to discuss, in great detail, the idea of the Vertical Map. I have written about this concept before. A vertical map is basically how your actions and projects are part of and work towards your entire life’s roles, goals, objectives, principals and values. The thing is, this is what the GTD: The Roadmap seminar I attended, led by David Allen, was all about (another aside, this seminar has now been retitled GTD: Making It All Work). We spent the better part of the day immersed in, and doing the beginning work on, these ideas. In other words, this was all well worn track for me. Vertical mapping is something I engage in as part of my review process. That said, if it is not part of yours than this is where the real value in this book lies for a GTD practitioner who wants to take things to the next level and see that there are actually reasons to get things done beyond their own sake.
So, in summary, if you are brand new to Getting Things Done, start with that book. If you are familiar with Getting Things Done but are seeking a bit of deeper meaning then this book will be a good one for you. If you are a black belt GTD ninja with your special org-fu merit patch, you will likely be left unenlightened.

Here is yet another installment in my unexpected series of posts about travelling light. This time, I’m taking a three day business trip. My plan: Pack everything I need, clothes and gear, into one small backpack. Check it out.

Three Days. One Backpack. from Patrick Rhone on Vimeo.
P.S. I also think this is the first video I have done for this site that does not mention my Levenger Circa (though you can see it if you look close).
Update: I have gotten several requests for links to the items mentioned in the video. Here they are:

• The North Face Mainframe Backpack – No longer being made. The Recon is probably the closest thing to it now.
• Waterfield Cableguy – Used for cables.
• MSR Pack Towel – For wringing out clothes and other great uses(like, you know, as a towel)
• Marmot Ion Windshirt – Use as a light jacket and raincoat.
• Ex Officio Boxer Briefs – Very comfortable and quick to dry.
• Horny Toad Patron – I did not make the name up. Good shirts though.
• REI Adventures Pants – These are on sale right now. Good bargain.
• REI MTS Undershirt – Cool, comfortable, durable and quick dry.
• Kiva Keychain Duffel – They make other similar keychain bags as well.

I know I toot my own horn all the time on this but look at my website. It is pretty much nothing but content. Why is that? Well I figure it is the reason my readers even care to be here in the first place. Therefore, why give the reader anything else? I believe online publishing should, at it’s heart, be about the content. You are visiting to hear what the writer has to say about a given topic. You are seeking to be informed and enlightened, or sometimes even enraged by a particular point of view.
This brings me to todays thought: If I were a visitor from another planet, and had no idea what a weblog or “blog” is, or even online publishing in general, would I be able to tell by looking at one? For most, I am afraid, the answer is “no”. Here is what most online publishing seems, to me, to be about just by looks alone:
* Advertising.
* Selling eBooks.
* Affiliate linking.
* Page views.
* Your Twitter feed.
Do you notice what is missing from that list? Where is the content? How do I separate it from the rest of the noise that is going on? How to I get straight to the reason I came to the site – what the writer has to say? To borrow one of the most famous pop culture advertising lines of all time, where’s the beef?
Let me tell you how I am going to do it (since most out there will not likely do it for me):
Instapaper |fdata|referrer|afsee
– This is where I stack up longer posts that I may not have the time to read now but want to read later. It is especially useful for, and originally designed for, formatting this reading list of long blog posts and articles for the iPhone. Of it’s many wonderful features, the one I love, love, love, is that it can take almost any page and strip it down to just the content. Just text on white background. No ads. No comments. No Twitter feed.
Readability – Is new and experimental but, man, it has captured my heart like few other new things do. It basically allows you to create a configurable bookmarklet that, when clicked, strips away the clutter (see bulleted list above) and gives you just the content. It works so well that, the first time I used it, I nearly cried at the sheer beauty of the new page that appeared before me. It was as if someone came and redesigned the web just for me.
The bottom line is this. Load your page up with everything in the bulleted list above. I don’t care. People just like me are building the tools to get the web the way we want, with nothing but the content. Besides, if that does not work we can always execute the “nuclear option” – not reading what you have to say.

Let me state, up front, that I am not really sure where I am going with this post. This is just a general observation I have noticed lately. Something that peaks my interest. I am sure that this is, in large part, driven by my recent attempts to actively exercise my visual thinking.
As we continue to share information about ourselves on the web, the things we can do with that data and the cool ways we can visualize it, becomes really compelling. Here are just a few examples I have come across:
FitBit

FitBit is a product and service that is not yet released but I am really looking forward to it. The product is a wearable Tracker with a motion sensor that senses your motion in three dimensions, converts this into information about your daily activities, wirelessly transmits it to a base station attached to your computer and then uploads it to a web app which tracks and visualizes this data. It can measure the intensity and duration of your physical activities, calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, how long it took you to fall asleep, the number of times you woke up throughout the night and how long you were actually asleep vs just lying in bed. This is not to be confused with a simple step counter or a more advanced tracker for runners. This is designed for regular people with regular activity levels to be more conscious of your health.
Daytum

If you are seeking a bit more of a manual and ad-hoc way to quantify your life data, give Daytum a try. Inspired by the Feltron Annual Report, Daytum is a way to take all of the mundane data sets of your life – How many pizzas your have eaten, length in miles of hot dogs consumed, plants watered vs. plants killed – you can create virtually any type of data set you can think of and easily track and quantify it.
Dopplr

Dopplr is a social network for travelers. Not only does it allow you to keep details about your own past and upcoming trips, it also allows you to share this information with friends and followers. This year, they introduced the Personal Annual Report which visualizes your travel data. You can see what your personal velocity was compared to a giant tortoise, compare the miles you traveled to the distance to the moon, even see what your carbon footprint is in “Hummers”.
You. Visualized.
What does this all mean? I’m not really sure. I just think it is cool. I do think that the information age continues to give us ways to quantify, share and visualize vast amounts of personal data about ourselves. The possibilities of this are as compelling as the privacy concerns are frightening.
With that said, I think that simple knowledge often gives you all the tools you need to make modest changes. How will knowing that you are not that active cause you to be conscious of being more so? Will a tool that allows you to quantify how much Diet Coke you consume cause you to drink less? How will knowing that the trip you want to take will increase your carbon footprint by two Hummers affect your travel plans? Perhaps it wont but at least you will have the data at your disposal to help with the decision.

I am making a resolution not to make any new years resolutions. There is enough going on in everyone’s lives right now, mine included, to take on any major commitments or promises that even to oneself are difficult to keep. Who really needs that kind of self induced stress anyway?
Instead, I am committing to some modest goals. Small, achievable, meaningful goals that will add just a small bit of personal satisfaction to my life. I will not stress about them nor beat myself up should I not achieve them. That being said, some will be things I normally do anyway (this is partly to remind myself and partly to ensure success) Here are a few I am setting forth on. It is my hope that those who know me will keep me accountable to them.
* I will learn and use keyboard shortcuts more and use the mouse and/or trackpad less. I have downloaded a little program called KeyCue to help with this. This also means getting in a little deeper with Quicksilver.
* I plan to be much more mindful of the signal to noise ratio of my online life. This means I will be doing some trimming of my Twitter follows, my RSS feeds, etc. Basically, if the signal is not adding real tangible value to my life, then it is simply noise and I do not need it. I also hope to increase the quality by seeking new signals that I should be listening to. For Twitter, Mr. Tweet will help with this.
* Of course, the signal and noise argument cuts both ways. For this reason I will continue to post here according to the following criteria and schedule – Only when I think I have something of real and original value to add to the greater internet conversation. My personal promise to you, the reader, is that I will not fill your eyes, head, or RSS feed with anything that I consider to be repetitive, noisy or otherwise less than useful.
* In addition, I will be adding regular and more reliably scheduled content over at my other project, work.life.creativity. Myself and the other founders recently got together on a conference call and recommitted ourselves to making this project into something really great. The past few weeks has seen a virtual explosion of new activity in the forums and fantastic new content added to the blog. I am very proud of the things happening over there.
* I will continue to seek ways to grow my consulting business into something that can reliably sustain me and mine. This includes finding new ways to get the word of mouth spreading as that is where the vast majority of my business comes from.
* As is the case with many a couple, Princess Bethany’s resolutions and goals are, by proxy, mine as well. Towards that end, I also will work towards a better appreciation for our home. We have started the renovation work on what will become our new bedroom and also on a library/den area. Our vision may be a bit ahead of our grasp and means but I am sure once it is all finished it will provide an even deeper love for our beautiful house.

My own reflections on this past year has revealed many voices that inspired me in some way shape or form. I think that far to often we read an insightful blog post, a thought provoking “tweet” on Twitter, or great comment in a forum thread, and don’t give it the proper due or take into account the lessons learned. These little transformations help to shape us.
That being said, here are some of the voices that inspired me in no particular order:
Jared Goralnick – I just love this guy. He is an incredibly giving person who lives life in a way other people only dream of. So many of the things I have read on his blog have made an impression on me. Most recently, his post on information overload helped to relieve me of the guilt of several unfinished books.
Clay Collins – Once again, a young man a really respect and admire. Someone who is living life according to his own rules and trying to inspire others to do the same.
Jane Quigley – I have to admit to a bit of an internet crush on Jane as part of a little mutual admiration society we seem to have fallen into. She has been incredibly supportive to me and my family through small but very meaningful deeds, actions and regular check-in’s. A truly compassionate person. Not to mention, whenever I want to know what is hot in the social networking space, I see what she is up to because she is always ahead of the game.
Merlin Mann – This should come as no surprise to regular readers here. That being said, this year his voice spoke to me even more so than before (and I know I am not alone). Mainly because, as one of the leading voices in the realm of personal productivity, he had the courage to stand up and call out the entire personal productivity movement that had descended into nothing but list posts and click through fodder. Most importantly, he inspired me to try to, especially with my own site, try to be just a little bit better.
John Gruber – Gosh, where do I even begin? First of all, no one writes about the Apple ecosystem with more honesty, depth and skill. You may not always agree with him but you have to respect him. Even when he decides to write about something like the movie E.T. it is like he jumped inside my id and expressed my ideas better than I could ever dream of. Also, I don’t think any of my web work would even exist without Markdown.
Rands – When I dream of what I wish this blog was like, in writing and content and style, my aspiration is Rands in Repose. There is not a single post that has not inspired me in some way or simply caused me to take a moment to think in a new and exciting way I had not done so before.
Brett Kelly – This year, Brett made the brave move of handing over the fairly popular Cranking Widgets blog to Andy Parkinson (see below). Brett has since been posting regularly to his own blog site and some mighty fine writing to be found with lots of other fun random content. Thanks to Brett for your example shows me how to admit when I am no longer giving something my full attention and move on without guilt and gracefully.
Andy Parkinson – Has taken the reigns of the Cranking Widgets blog, admirably filling the shoes of Brett Kelly. Andy, out of the gate, has shown an interest in taking the conversation of personal productivity to a new level. He has also been incredibly warm, open, and generous to me. It has been a pleasure getting to know him and I know he has great things in store for all of us in the coming year.
I know I am likely missing many I will later regret after I publish this post (this is what updates are for so perhaps you may want to check back again later)