Category: post

I have a guest post today at my longtime friend Ryan’s excellent site, Brassing Adds Character. Ryan has been doing a series of posts that shore up the many great pens available at several price points. My post weights in with my single favorite pens picked from his excellent lists. It was a hard choice in many cases but I took my best shot. I really feel I ended up with the best of the best. Wanna see what I picked? Click the link below and find out:
Brassing Adds Character – Guest Post: Patrick’s Picks

Today I am proud to take the vale off of a new project – Work. Life. Creativity. As I mentioned last week, it is an online community devoted to discussing the topics of personal productivity, self growth, work/life balance and creative solutions. I am really excited and proud of the work that was done to get it to the point where we can have a “soft launch” and ask folks to take a look.
The centerpiece of it all is really the forums. Expect lots of chatter about lots of interesting topics there. I have been spending a lot of time in there lately and plan to continue doing so. Also expect some cross posting of topics between here and there. I expect as interesting stuff comes up in the forums at WLC that I would like to opine further on here.
Head on over and take a look. You will not be disappointed.

My first ever video review and, boy, am I excited. This features a new Levenger product that I have been waiting to be released for some time now. Here is the thing though, it is not yet on their website. It is that new! My friend Eric Senf was kind enough to pick it up for me from the Levenger Store on a recent trip to Chicago.
Give it a look and let me know in the comments if you would like to see more of this kind of stuff.

Levenger Circa Steno Review from Patrick Rhone on Vimeo.

It has been a while since I did a remainders post (or any post for that matter) and have a lot of stuff saved up. That being said, due to aforementioned time passage, you may have seen some of these already. Yet, into the breach I go…
Stepcase Lifehack has been doing a good series called Back to Basics about getting back to the bare bones of GTD. Here is a sampling:
* Back to Basics: Capture Your Ideas
* Back to Basics: Your Inbox
* Back to Basics: Processing
I personally find these sorts of little refreshers helpful in staying on the right path. I never tire of reading them.
I also will never tire of Merlin Mann dropping the mad science on the troubles with e-mail overload as he does in the post NYT: Businesses Fight the Email Monster They Helped Create.
Here is a post that resonated with me from Unclutterer… What to do if you are organized and your partner isn’t. Luckily, Princess Bethany and I deal pretty well with this issue (and I will leave it to you dear reader to decide whom is who in this equation).
Kelly Forrister of DavidCo recommends using that too-late-to-start-anything 4pm Friday slot in your workday for a context she calls @BrainToast. That is, regular maintenance type things that we all seem to forget way too often.
Linda Stone asks – Is it Time to Retire the Never-Ending List? Hmmm…. Princess Bethany has regular fantasies about completing everything on her “Big List”.
Perhaps you are stuck getting through that list. Well, here is a good primer on How to Jump Start a Listless Action List at Tool for Thought.
By now, I am sure you are aware of my affinity for the simple daily todo list. Here is one take on how to format such a list.
Finally, my beautiful and brilliant wife, Princess Bethany, offers up her Top Ten List of How to be Productive With a New Baby.

I was recently approached by my friends at Black Belt Productivity to offer some thoughts on metrics in the realm of Getting Things Done – how to measure productivity and ensure that it is driving you to specific goals. Those who have read my work here for a while may already know what my answer is going to be. All the same, it may be worth while to check out my guest post on their excellent site. If you do not already follow Black Belt Productivity you really should. Excellent writing and a bunch of mighty fine guys who are deep in the Org-fu:
Patrick Rhone: Metrics and GTD? It’s Baked Right In

I will never forget our last conversation. It was only a few days beyond six years ago. He called me up to see if I wanted to “hang out, have some brew, see some girls” in that sly way he regularly did. We had both worked for a time for the same employer and had become fast friends. I enjoyed his irreverent style and his unabashed fanboy advocacy of all things Macintosh. He even went so far as always keeping a weekend job selling Macs at a largely PC retailer. There was nothing he loved more than “converting sinners on the floor” by introducing those coming in looking to by yet another Compaq to the Macintosh, thus, he felt, changing the rest of their lives for the better.
I also loved his writing. As a freelancer, he wrote for a number of the Macintosh related web sites that I followed. I loved his confrontational style. He really enjoyed pushing peoples buttons. Not because he wanted to piss people off but because he knew it caused them to think. Perhaps, for even a second, they would be introduced to something they had thought themselves but never had the balls to say. I mean, this is the guy who had the balls to write an article called “Macintosh Is the ‘Nigger’ of the Computer Industry“. He took a lot of flack for simply using “The ‘N’ word” and he ate it up. I loved the passion that he poured into every word, thought and action. This was a guy who really wanted to suck the marrow from the bones of life and did so with a big impish smile on his face.
He also had problems, heck who doesn’t. He had long suffered from manic depression. I had as well. Yet another thing we had in common to make us such fast friends. We often shared our struggles with staying on medication. Medication that, in an effort to keep you from “feeling down” or “feeling crazy” mostly makes you not able to feel anything very deeply at all. Psychiatry in this area is a “true science” in that there are no right answers or perfect drug combinations. Everyone is different and even then things can change. It is all a matter of constant playing with dosage levels and trial and error until a person is lucky enough to stumble upon the right mix for them. The trip to not being crazy is a rollercoaster ride of emotions so severe and intense for so long that one feels… Crazy. He and I commiserated on these subjects often – usually while having some brew and seeing some girls at the local gentleman establishments. He seemed to be managing the ride as well as can be expected.
This time, when he called to hang out, I was too busy. Between trying to manage being a full time single dad, my consulting business, and way too many other seemingly important things, I had to decline. “Give me a call in a couple of weeks,” I said, “I’ll even buy.” Looking back, I still feel like that was the worst decision of my life.
Rodney O. Lain passed away a few days later on June 15th, 2002 – six years ago yesterday. He took his own life with a gun to the head sometime in the late night/early morning of the 15th and lived for one day more (I imagine just as a final “Fuck you” to the gun – He was that type of guy). There is rarely a day or two that goes by that I do not think of Rodney. He was my friend. I miss him. I miss being able to share my life as it is today with him. My beautiful wife, the strong lovely young men my sons are becoming, my beautiful baby girl… I often think about how much fun he would be having right now with Apple enjoying such great success (I can imagine him writing “The iPhone is the Whitey of the mobile phone industry”). Not to mention the strong possibility of having a “Brotha” in the White House. What kind of writing about it all we are missing. Words that might make us laugh, or piss us off or bother to think.
Those words are hard to find now. Six years on the internet is a long time. Some of the sites he wrote for are now gone and his writing along with them. I even tried to do my part by reviving his old site a few years back but many behind the scenes complications kept it from staying live. Do a search on Google for him and you will find a number of loving tributes and obituaries and even still find an article or two written by him…
As for me, I still grieve. There is a hole in the world now that will never be filled. A friend that will never be replaced.
Update – Many of Rodney’s articles can be found archived at Low End Mac.

Things have been crazy busy here in Patrickland. Lot’s of travel. Lots of busy work. Lots of taking care of The Duchess. Who is The Duchess you ask? For those new around here, she is my little girl Beatrix and she has a blog – Team Trixie. The blog is a comedic outlet for me and I write it from her perspective. Of course, her perspective is that she is a Duchess from a mythical land called Heckofalot, her mommy is Princess Bethany and her daddy is The Butler. As I said, it is mostly a fun creative outlet for me and a unique way to share her with the world.
Well, that blog and it’s author (that would be me, The Butler) were featured in the June 15th edition of The Saint Paul Pioneer Press newspaper. They did a feature on Dad’s who blog and The Duchess and I were included. Check it out:
TwinCities.com: Daddy bloggers have stories to tell

My name is Patrick, and I am a notebook addict. I have never really tried to hide my addiction. Many who know me well know of this “problem” (I am sill not sure I feel comfortable calling it that). Sometimes I am able to fight it. I convince myself that I really don’t need yet another notebook that will sit on a shelf and probably never be used. Sometimes they are given to me. Sometimes, I just can’t stop myself. The paper is too nice, the aesthetic beauty too compelling. The myriad of uses flood my brain and I become drunk with the elixir of possibility.
Here are just some of the examples of the times I have fallen:
* Black n’ Red Ruled A4 – Years ago I worked for a company that had an office in Brussels. These were the office standard issue notebook there. It was love at first sight so on a visit I grabbed two and I still have both. These are big euro letter sized bound books with 192 pages of bright white paper. One was used as a Journal, during a particularly miserable time in my life, for about a dozen pages. The other remained unused. Looking back, I figure that the misery did not stop but my will and desire to chronicle it did.
* Grey Sketchbook – This was a birthday gift sent to me by my friend Adeline in the U.K. I am not sure of the manufacturer, as there are no markings to indicate it. The book has a grey suede slipcover, blank pages with the following quote from Gandhi stamped into the cover ” You must be the change you wish in the world.” At my most recent day job, I gave it to one of my student workers who is a wonderful cartoonist and had him draw something on the first page. What he returned to me is a true work of whimsical art. That is what is linked to above since I can’t find the manufacturer of the notebook.
* Xonex Ru – Bought this in the Walker Art Museum Gift Shop after seeing a friend with one. I have the charcoal grey model. There was just something about it that I was compelled by. Perhaps it was the European sizing – A bit more flat and geometrically shaped than a Moleskine. It has a number of the same features though, an elastic closure and a pocket in the back. Also, here’s the thing, I generally don’t use notebooks without ruled lines or grids. My writing is far too messy and my art skills are like those of a two year old.
* Muji – I actually have two different Muji Notebooks, neither of which can be found in the US. They were brought back for me by a co-worker from Japan. The first is about the same dimensions as the Xonex Ru, has a beige craft cover and decent blank paper (did I mention I usually don’t use blank notebooks). The other is very much like a Large Lined Moleskine but with a bookcloth cover and without a pocket in the back. It does have the elastic closure though.
* Moleskines – Since they keep popping up, I will discuss the several Moleskines I have. I have a Pocket Lined (this was my daily capture for a long while). I have a Large Lined (use this as a personal journal). I have a Pocket Squared (unused). I have a Reporter Squared (A few mind and process maps but otherwise unused). I have a Barcelona City Book (The maps were indispensable. Wish I had written more in it and hope to return soon to fix that).
As I said, these are just a few examples. I have intentionally left out quite a few. Many of which I have written about recently here. The two Levenger Circa Notebooks. The several Field Notes Brand notebooks I have waiting on deck for me to complete the one I am using. The list could go on.
OK, I guess I may need an intervention.

Many who have been following along here know that I have become a recent convert to the cult of Twitter. For those not in the know, Twitter is a social networking site where you simply post updates, and see the updates of others, about what you are doing right now in 140 characters or less. Think of it as a giant chat room with your friends and people who would like to be. I have found it to be a great tool to keep up with my real world and online friends.
It seems that every Twitter addict has his or her own tools for posting and following their friends. Here are the ones I use:
* Twitterrific – I don’t think I could even use Twitter as much as I do without this wonderful tool. It is basically a desktop Twitter client that not only allows me to post and follow others easily, it also makes the ability reply to tweets and direct message others so much easier. There are many other clients like it out there, even for other platforms. Using a client, IMHO is the best way to interface with Twitter.
* A URL Shortening Service -Because you only have 140 characters, there is rarely enough room to paste a long web site URL. there are many web based services out there that take a long URL and make you a shorter one to post in these sorts of circumstances. I have been trying several of these – Tinyurl, Snipurl – my current favorite is URLTea. It does not matter though, the point is that if you are going to post a URL to Twitter, you will eventually need to use one of these.
* TwitterLocal – Find recent tweets from people in your area. up to a 20 mile radius. Great for not only finding people you know in real life that you did not know were on Twitter. Also good for seeing what is going on around you. I love to lurk here.
That is all folks. As you can see, I am no Twitter ninja. That being said, I tweet often and engage in intelligent conversation and that is the point. If you are on Twitter, please follow me. If not, you should be and when you are, follow me.