Fresh Starts & Modest Changes

Earlier this month I began a short series of posts and podcasts called "Fresh Starts & Modest Changes." It was meant as an antidote to the pressure that many of us feel to upend our lives with poorly thought-out new year's resolutions. The idea was to get you thinking less about the unlikelihood of success in mounting sudden, ginormous change, and more to suggest some subtle adjustments for making life just a bit more pleasant, productive, and your own. Tweaking as you go, instead of trying to treat your mind like some kind of a microwavable corn dog.

We're getting to the end of the month now, so I wanted to wrap up with a few thoughts on the value of small changes, but I'd also love to hear about any of your own fresh starts and modest changes -- particularly hoping you'll share the ways you've had the best success keeping on track with the adjustments you've chosen to make.

In the latest episode of MacBreak Minutes (subscribe), I talked about a favorite PreferencePane of mine called LiteSwitch.

GTD 'cult'

Web 1.0 Summit: My Garage, San Francisco
Originally uploaded by merlinmann.

Web 1.0 is just around the corner, so iron your New Media Blue™ shirt and recharge your ginormous cellphone, because we’re going public, bitch.

• Yes, this is an actual event
• Yes, there may very well be one or two beer-fueled presentations from Web People You’ve Heard Of
• No, the day and location are not finalized (shooting for House of Shields on Wednesday the 5th)
• Yes, you have to wear whatever name tag I give you
• Yes, we probably will pass the hat soon to buy us a waitress and a round or two (as with the meetup of yore)
• Yes, if your company wants to co-sponsor it (along with 43F and the year 1998), it can (coughAppleAPBloggerOdeoSixapartcough).

So. What remains is to nail down the coordinates. I’m going to a big blow-out on Thursday (the 6th), but I wonder if actual Web 2.0 attendees can clue me to any other major evening events on whose toes we mustn’t step. Spill, please.

Post thoughts and ideas here; watch the Upcoming.org page for news on the final happs.

Like I say, let’s try to make this one better-attended than the last one.

Many thanks to our Web 1.0 sponsors

Beenz.com-Level Sponsor Adaptive Path		MyCereal.com-Level Sponsor Mule Design Studio
Pets.com-Level Sponsor WordPress		Kozmo.com-Level Sponsor Blogger
Boo.com-Level Sponsor Flickr		Webvan.com-Level Sponsor CentralDesktop
Flooz.com-Level Karass Partners
RebeccaBlood.net, Bar Camp, Laughing Squid, PVRBlog, 5ives

As I've mentioned before I like using iCal's invitations to share appointments with people -- especially since this lets them easily respond to let me know whether they 1) will attend, 2) won't attend, or 3) are just "tentative." Unfortunately, there's no analogous tentative flag for the (seemingly endless) number of appointments and event I want to just pencil-in -- you know, those times when you want to make sure to block out time for a call or lunch, but are waiting on confirmation from folks who don't use iCal (or for whom it makes no sense to pester with an invitation). My workaround -- yes, like many of these things -- is really simple.

002: Interview: Jonathan Coulton | The Merlin Show

Click To Play

My new video podcast launches today with an interview I recently did with Jonathan Coulton.

JoCo is an internet troubadour and former developer who may be best known for wonderful songs like "Code Monkey" and "Skullcrusher Mountain," although he also has gigs podcasting for Popular Science as well as playing guitar for his best friend (and sworn nemesis) John Hodgman.

We talk about life as an independent artist, including how Jonathan captures ideas and may or may not be similar to Michael Jackson.

We'll have a new episode of The Merlin Show every morning this week, then slide into an (approximately) once-a-week schedule for new episodes.

Please consider subscribing via iTunes or Democracy, or just point the "podcatacher" of your choice at http://feeds.themerlinshow.com/TheMerlinShow

How to Be a Productive Procrastinator : NPR (Talk of the Nation)

The Talk of the Nation that's on right now (available for streaming later) is on the topic of procrastination.

Why do today what you can do the day after tomorrow? Procrastination expert Timothy Pychyl and self-professed "structured procrastinator" John Perry discuss the latest research on this type of behavior and how to prioritize what's really important.

If you've been around here for a while, you'll remember John Perry for his excellent piece on "Structured Procrastination." Great stuff.

Advice for clearing literary clutter | Ask MetaFilter

There's a thread on Ask Metafilter about book-centric clutter that's getting lots of good comments right now. It started when matildaben asked for "practical and creative systems for reducing the number of books I own," saying:

The vast majority of my possessions by weight and volume consists of books. I would like to develop a system for getting rid of them that will have a very practical, behavioral, methodical approach to the emotions that compel me to keep them...

The solutions people offer are thoughtful and suggest that many of the better ideas are coming from fellow bibliophiles who've struggled with The Book Problem.

Like several folks in the thread, I think this comment from occhiblu gets to the heart of what makes clutter such an emotionally complex problem:

You probably already know about Instiki. It’s is a terrific, elegant, beautiful wiki that I personally use for half a dozen of my own projects. I’ll probably run a longer post on Instiki some time in the future, but I can especially recommend the OS X install for Mac users. If you have a server that can handle Ruby 1.8.1, I can equally recommend the regular Ruby install. The app is gorgeous and works swell either way.

One of my favorite things about Instiki is how attractive and simple it is to use (PHPWiki, you’ll always be my first love, but sometimes, you’re just too high-maintenance). Instiki even lets you apply your own custom style sheets without having to change any actual code (Dear Typepad: Please steal this idea. Love, Merlin.). Here’s a quick tip for adding your own styles to your Instiki wiki.