Category: post

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…

Author, blogger, and self-described note taking addict Tim Ferriss shares some of his best tips for becoming a note taking Ninja. I myself have been trying to be better about the notes I take and making sure I do so as often as is needed. Therefore, I find much of this very compelling. Here are some of my favorite take away bits:

”Put page numbers on the upper-right of each right-hand page but not on the left (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.)… Whenever you complete a page, put the page number in an index on the inside cover (front or back) and a few words to describe the content. If it’s on the left-hand page, just take the prior page and add “.5” to it. Thus, if you flip over page 10, for example, and write on the back, that second page is “15.5” in the index.
I love this idea. Some notes one takes may span half a page, some multiple pages. This is a numbering scheme that can accommodate them all without having to number every single page.
”Not all notepads are created equal… This doesn’t mean that one is better for all things, just that you should match the form factor and durability of a notepad to the content.”
Not to keep being a Levenger pimp but this is one of the reasons I am loving the Circa system. Some notes cry out for a cornell style page while those with sketches may require a grid style. Some may need a letter sized page, others a smaller one. With the Circa, I can mix and match the sizes, rule types (lined, grid, cornell, etc), colors that fit the topic and put them all into the same notebook.
There are many other good take away items in the rest of Tim’s post, well work the read.
_How to Take Notes Like an Alpha Geek _

I know it has been a while again since my last post. What can I say, I am busier than you <smile>. Once again, I give you the roadside attractions I have captured while driving around the intertubes in my big truck…
David Seah takes a turn with the Inka Pen, a highly portable pen that can attach to your keychain. He seems to like it a lot, despite the fact it gets him stopped by theTSA because it looks like it could be part of a bomb makers toolkit.
Looking to lead a “paperless” life? Well, that is impossible but you can reduce, digitize and organize it better. This is the best article/whitepaper I have seen thus far on how one person gets their paper on, and off. It’s 43 Folders so you know it’s legit.
Dustin Wax at Lifehack.org has some neat index card hackery. The main thing is how to make the ever-so-hard-to-find vertically oriented ones. Of course, that is another reason I just buy the Levenger brand.
Along the same lines, my friend Ryan is rocking it again. This time, he is mashing up Field Notes Brand notebooks with Levenger Pocket Briefcases. Anyone who has seen my well battered Field Notes cover will understand how much the speaks to me.
Lifehacker has a good rundown of how to use the nifty new To-Do features Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) Mail.

Been a very busy day so far and is only getting more so. Therefore, just a quick post for now…
Had the great pleasure of hanging out for a few with Ryan Roossinck from Brassing Adds Character last night. What a treat it was. We spent hours geeking out over his massive collection of Pens, my hefty collection of notebooks and our mutual eclectic music tastes. I honestly think this kid (yes, I am enough his senior to use that term) is my brother from another mother because we have so much in common it is scary.
The highlight for me though was having the chance to play with a ton of different pens, nibs and ink types. Ryan is a real serious pen freak and has many custom nibs and rare models. He is a deep abyss of knowledge when it comes to pens and their histories so it was fascinating to just sit back and listen to each story behind the pens. His writing is even smaller than mine so he is also a fan of very fine nibs making each pen absolutly drool worthy to use. By the time it was all said and done, Imanaged to fill up a nice sized page of test doodles. Good times…
If I have not said it firmly enough before, Ryan’s blog is a fantastic read and there are more great things to come. If you have any fascination at all with analog capture tools, this is a must add to your daily web reads list.

As I have mentioned before, I have been really enjoying a new list management product called TaskPaper which has been in development for a little while now. It is officially released as of today and it is a decidedly simple but stunning effective little app. Not too hard on the wallet either.
What I love about it is that it is basically just an simple interface wrapped around a text file. The features are minimal but effective. It has everything you need and nothing it does not (which seems so rare these days). There are just tasks and projects. Items can have context tags. You can open those contexts and projects in tabs and/or narrow them down with a search. Being that it is basically just a text file, you can easily change the extension and then open it up with any text editor which makes it highly portable.
Larger projects require more levels of detail, so I have not entirely given up on OmniFocus (still in alpha but also very good). I have a couple of “Big P’s” with “Sub P’s” and “Baby P’s” that I still manage there. But for the basics, TaskPaper is just what I need right now.

This past weekend, I was in Chicago for the wedding of a good friend. It has been many years since I was last in Chicago and being there with Princess Bethany was even better. Now, we did not have much time in Chicago proper but there was a nice gap in between the wedding, which was near Irvine Park and the reception which was downtown. This gave us a good hour or so of time to wander around downtown for a quick sightseeing. During this little foray we decided to walk through the famous flagship location of Marshall Fields ( note: I refuse to call it by it’s current name so don’t bother correcting me). I was not quite prepared for the treat that laid before me upon entering the door and what a treat it was. There, in Chicago, in Marshall Fields, was a fully stocked and staffed Levenger “store-whithin-a-store”. How did I not know about this before?
I was just floored. Astounded. Dumbfounded… For me, this was Mecca.
The store was stocked with, from what I could tell, the full catalog of Levenger goodness. The staff was amazingly knowledgeable and helpful. They even had a table where they helped you build a free Circa notebook. You could choose which page types, ring colors and add ons you wanted in it. Obviously this is simply a gateway drug to get you hooked on the product (as I already am) but it sure was effective. I built one in the Junior size (half letter size) with a nice mix of gridded pages, cornell style pages, some daily agenda pages and a pocket in the back. The staff person who helped me even mentioned that, if I called him directly, he can ship me anything in the store. Thereby avoiding Levenger’s onerous shipping fees. So, basically, I now have a personal shopper at Levenger. How cool is that!?
So, if you are in the Chicago area, and have a fetish for fine paper pr0n as I do, make a stop by. It will be well worth the time and may even be as religious of an experience as I had.