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As many a reader of this journal knows, I am a big fan of Levenger’s products. I love them. Covet may even be a more apt word. I recently noticed, while placing yet another order with them, that they are celebrating their 20th anniversary. It was then that I realized I have been a customer for almost 18 of those. My first order from them was a Lap Desk which I still own to this day. They happened to be running a promotion at the time that gave me a free pack of their Cornell ruled pads with my order. While I was more than happy with the Lap Desk, the Paper Pads were a revelation to me. I was a young man of 22 years old who had never even thought about the satisfaction that could come from writing on nice paper. Let’s just say, I never looked back and have been hooked ever since.
In addition, I have been on paternity leave from my main job since the birth of my daughter last Month. As anyone with children knows, at this stage, your to-do list mainly consists of “Feed baby”, “Change Baby” and, perhaps the hardest item “Baby is sleeping. Now what?”. It is that “Now What?” where the methods espoused in Getting Things Done really come into play. You see, you have about one hour, maybe two, before she wakes up. When she does, you will really be unable to pay attention to anything else. The house may be a wreck. There may be calls to return or errands to run or doctors appointments to be made. It is in these moments that having been capturing these items into a trusted system and organizing them by context gives you the best insight into how to use that “free” time.
How do these two things relate? Well, since I am not “working”, the number of things I have to track has become more simple. That being said, there are still many things I have to stay on top of, and some brainstorming for my consulting business I have been trying to take the time to do. Also, these days I often only have use of one hand (since the other has a baby in it). This makes using the computer for capture, notes and project tracking difficult. Paper on the other hand is faster, only requires one hand for writing and therefore is just plain better. One Levenger product has really helped me stay on top of my Org-fu in the last few weeks is my Junior Sized Circa Notebook. The Circa Notebook system is designed so that it is highly customizable and pages can be moved around and mixed and matched with a ton of add ons and such. I wont go into a long detail about that here. Levenger has plenty of that information on their site.  Here is how I have mine organized…
I have the notebook divided into three sections using some of the plain white dividers available from Levenger.
* Action: The front section is for Action Items and Capture. I keep things open to this page most of the time while on my desk and a pen at the ready.
* Notes: The notes section is for notes and where I flesh out projects. I also have a page marker for my Circa that gets used here. Active projects and notes go in front of the marker, non-active go behind. This way, I know that anything between the section divider and the page marker in the notes section is in play.
* Archive: When my Action items pages get mostly complete, I start a new one free of completes items. I move the old pages to the Archive.
* Back Section: In the rear of the book I have a clear pocket to hold loose items and ephemera such as stamps. I also have a 3×5 dock that I, in all honesty, have not really sussed a good use for yet. Finally, in the built in pockets of the leather cover, I keep a stencil and some extra 3×5 cards (will cover my use of these in a future post).
So, is there anyone else out there reading this using a Circa? I would love to hear in the comments about how you have yours set up and what you use it for. Share it people!
Click here for more pictures of my setup.

Based largely on my friend Ryan’s urgings, I finally made a visit to a pen store here in the Twin Cities called Ink. Three words… Completely Blown Away! Proprietor Barry Rubin has created, what has to be, one of the most amazing shopping experiences I have ever had. It is something I will remember forever.

There are a few unique things about shopping at Ink. In order to shop, you must make an appointment. Barry explained that he does this to give each shopper the personal service he strives to provide. When in the store, he is at your sole serivce, ready to answer any questions or grab any pen you wish to try.

Another thing is the selection. He has a vast assortment at every price point. You could walk in and spend $20.00 or $20,000.00 or anything in between. There really is something here for everyone. For me, I walked away with a Taccia Staccato (pictured above). Words simply can’t explain what a big beautiful pen this is. Extremely smooth to write with. As the Ink tag line says, this is “Art. Five inches tall.” (although this one is a bit larger than 5 inches).

Finally, the view. Ink is located on the 45th floor of the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis. One of the tallest buildings in the state. When you walk in the door of Ink on a clear day, you are met with a jaw dropping southward facing view that stretches for miles. It takes several minutes to simply take this all in before you even notice the store.

Barry has a true passion for pens. His passion shows in every detail. From the location, to the business model, to the hand written receipt. He provides not just a shopping experience, but an owning experience. He made me, the customer, feel like an old friend and gave me a true sense of ownership in a shared passion.

If you live in the area or plan to visit soon, you must make an appointment if for simply the view alone. Be warned though, it is hard not to get lost in the beauty of the fine five inch art that surrounds you. You will want to take home a work of your very own.

For those who are not aware, Beatrix Camille Gladhill Rhone, our first daughter, was born on February 9th, 2008. Mother and baby are doing very well. All updates, pictures and pronouncements can be found on her blog (yes, Beatrix already has her own blog). Link is below.
TeamTrixie.com

Instapaper is a new online bookmarking service from the creator of Tumblr (which drives my side project The Random Post). Unlike other popular online bookmarking sites, like del.icio.us, Instapaper has no social component, no tags, no bells and whistles. It just allows one to quickly bookmark a page for later reading.
Those who know me know that I am a sucker for any tool that does things in a simple, minimalist way. I love applications that do one thing, do it very well, give you very few features beyond what you absolutely need, thus providing little distraction for the task at hand. Everything about Instapaper is simple. Sign up with an e-mail address or username (no password necessary), drag the “Read Later” bookmarklet to your browsers toolbar, that’s it. Then, as you are surfing, click the bookmarklet while on any page you want to catalog for later reading. When you are ready to read, go to Instapaper, log in with your credentials, and there is everything you marked in a simple, orderly list. Reading an item on the list causes it to drop down to a “Recently Read” list. There is also a button beside the item to “skip” it and read it later (which then creates a “Recently Skipped” list). Brilliant!
The page also looks great on mobile devices like the (coveted) iPhone or the (beloved) Nokia N800/810. Therefore, when you find yourself stuck waiting somewhere and you have some internet access, you can whip open Instapaper and have something to occupy your time.
After using it for only a few hours I must admit what a revelation this is to me. Previously, I spread such things across multiple services with no real system of followup or easy from anywhere access. I have since, gone through all of those other places and added those items to Instapaper.

I was recently discussing some of the money making strategies used by Tim Ferriss, blogger and author of the very popular book “The 4-Hour Workweek“, with a friend of mine. Despite the fact that some have questioned whether it is possible to really achieve the level of anti-productive zen the book espouses, there are still many take away items that can be employed to one degree or another in our own lives. The idea of creating sources of constant income that require little to no maintenance for instance, but I digress…
The upshot of what my friend responded back with was that they did not believe that even Tim himself was able to truly walk the walk. The basis for this theory was (paraphrasing here), “I wrote him an e-mail once and got back a very long personal reply from him.”
My response, “It was probably not from him directly. I bet he outsources that too.”
Well, true enough, Tim outlines exactly how he does that in a recent post to his blog. His strategy:

“For the last 12 months, I’ve experimented with removing myself from the inbox entirely by training other people to behave like me. Not to imitate me, but to think like me.”
Not only does he outline the strategies he uses to achieve this, he also includes the actual set of rules he gives to his Virtual Assistants to help them process almost any e-mail as if he were doing it himself.
Just like the book, you may not be able to do exactly what he does. That being said, there are still many smaller time saving strategies one can take away from this. Here are some of my favorites
* Pre-written replies for commonly asked questions – Are you are in a position where you often have people ask you the same questions. Why reinvent the wheel for every reply. Have the same one always ready to go.
* Send social networking requests straight to the trash-bin or archive – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other friend requests can all be handled the next time you log into those services. No need to have them clutter up your Inbox.
* Cluster tasks via context – GTD folks will be familiar with this idea. Set aside times of the day for dealing with e-mail, returning phone calls, etc. and only those times. Cluster like tasks together via context. Be Pavlov, not the dog.
This is just the start. There are so many thought provoking ideas in here that it is really worth the time of reading it all. Then, if that has you going, delve into some of his other posts. There is so much nougaty goodness inside the candy shell.
The Holy Grail: How to Outsource the Inbox and Never Check Email Again

Here we go again. Yet another rundown of some of my cool finds as I drift away on the internet…
Proving that you can implement the Getting Things Done system with anything, Kelly Forrister of DavidCo shares an Excel template for GTD that she designed for a client. My little Excel addict, Princess Bethany, would be quite proud.
Are you using Jott yet? Why not? It is the greatest invention since the delete key. I mean, you can make voice notes and have them translated into text and dispatched off to you e-mail inbox, friends or a iety other services. And it’s free! It is truly every kind of awesome. Not only that but Dustin Wax at Lifehack.org has an excellent tutorial on using it to get your GTD on.
Merlin wants to remind you that, while you are doing that capture, via Jott or any other method, make sure you give as much context to that capture as is needed to remember what it is about.
I have to say, it is nice to see Gina at Lifehacker catching the Levenger Circa bug. Addiction LOVES company.
Speaking of Gina and GTD, she practices a much simplified version of it that may just be a revelation to you.
Finally on the GTD front, if you are having issues with getting on board and staying on board, perhaps you need to follow Brett Kelly’s advice and learn that this is about getting into a habit. Getting a system down and working it. Capture, Process, Do, Review, Rinse, Repeat.
Oh, and don’t forget my three favorite productivity tools – The Trash Can, The Delete Key, and The Word “No”.
David Seah has updated all of his print-it-yourself task planning forms for the new year including his wonderful Emergent Task Planner. I use this at work frequently when I want to drill down and focus in on getting a few tasks done. I use them enough that I bought some of the pre-printed version. Good stuff.

For those not familiar with my little side project, The Random Post, now is the time to check it out. Being a tumblelog, I post all manner of content and small infochunks there. It is a fun little site. I have just refreshed the design using a ever so slightly modified version of Bill Israel’s Easy Reader. The new theme gives it more of the “newspapery” feel I was looking to have.

Just thought I would take a second to call attention to the blog of my friend Sue, SpeakerSue Says… . Not just because she is a friend, but because she is also an expert on using e-mail, and other forms of written communication, as a powerful sales and business tool. She has trained some of the most well known name brand organizations all over the world.
Her new blog has started out very nicely with several great posts. Here are a couple of my favorites with short comments:
* The Etiquette of Email Productivity – Even an e-mail expert can struggle with that Pavlov response many seem to have to the new mail sound.
* Thank someone today – On the importance of a handwritten thank you note.
* Blue Man Group = Presentation Mastery – What silly guys painted in blue can teach you about giving great presentations.
These are a few of my favorites but all of them are great. Especially if you are in sales or business, this is a must add little gem to your RSS feed.
Link: SpeakerSue Says…