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InformationWeek story on Merlin's Macworld '08 presentation

macworld 08 talk

How To Take Back Your Time And Attention — Merlin Mann — InformationWeek

Wow. Mitch Wagner did an ass-kickingly thorough job of summarizing my talk at Macworld about wrangling your time and attention. Really nice work, Mitch — thanks, man.

“When the value of your times is set too low, or not at all, it leads to waste and abuse,” Mann said.

This is a particular problem for knowledge workers. (How do you identify knowledge workers? “Look for someone with girlie smooth hands who can go to lunch whenever they want,” Mann explained.) Knowledge workers have huge amounts of freedom in how they work, they aren’t micromanaged, they just have goals to achieve. That freedom is dangerous. “You can find yourself at two in the morning staring at Wikipedia covered in pizza crusts,” Mann said.

Up top is a snap of the slides from my talk, which I’ll try to get up on Slideshare when I get a chance to tidy them up.

[Pimp: here’s information on my speaking gigs and how to bring me in to speak with your organization]


update 2008-01-21 12:39:42: Okay, she’s up. As ever, I’m not sure these’ll make much sense without me standing there, yammering, but here’s a clickable version of my slides:

SlideShare | View

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icedsoul's picture

missed it

Its a shame couldnt see and hear it.

Is there going to be any chance of listening to your speech?

djol's picture

+1 vote for audio/video release!

Merlin, would love to hear (or see!) your talk appear in either the long-dormant 43f podcast or as a MerlinShow episode. If it’s at all possible, I’m sure it would be a very popular release…!

Merlin Mann's picture

Thanks, gang. My gut is

Thanks, gang.

My gut is that the Macworld folks prob wouldn’t make ‘er public, but I’d be open to getting it taped next time I do it and would put it out there. I’ll see what I can do.

Very cool of you to ask.

icedsoul's picture

Re: Thanks, gang. My gut is

and just as a further thought… wouldnt it be a “business idea” for you to make your genius thoughts downloadable content or maybe dvds and stuff… some free stuff some payable…

anyway cant wait for anymore input/output from you!

djol's picture

oh well

Understand entirely the issues - well done on what sounds like it was an excellent session! If you ever venture down South (and by that, I mean Australia, not Texas…) I’m sure you’d find no shortage of audience.

Brandon_Leedy's picture

In agreeance all the way

It sounds like it was a good presentaion, I agree it would be great to listen to on the podcast… Lol it’d be more productive than watching the keynote on Quicktime… “Wait, you announce 4 things that are fairly mediocre AND I get to hear how Randy Newman hates America? SWEET!”

Seriously though, did anyone know he was gonna sing that? My friends and I were all sitting together watching the keynote and when he started talking about hitler and stahlin we lost it… normally you want to end on a high note, but the Newman performance just left a bland taste in everyone’s mouth after the keynote I would imagine….

collatodo's picture

your colleagues/managers don't want to know how you work > Sure?

“your colleagues and managers don’t know how you work, and they don’t want to know.”

Maybe not! Maybe boss no. 7 would like to know the progress of a task and if it can be seen that the task might get delayed due to a more-urgent task from boss no. 3 - he will be more understanding of any delay !

Agree in total with your pajamas tip :-) What are your top parenting books recommendations ?

A story I heard from a medical rep many years ago.. Medical Rep to Doctor “I have this new (latest and greatest) cure for xyz: Do you want 2 strips or 4?”

Justin Chapman's picture

Listen & watch!

Macworld have posted an audio w/slide overlay Quicktime movie for download at http://www.macworldencore.com/. I don’t know the direct web link link but if you search “Living With data” that should take you there. The quality isn’t bad. You guys might already know about this but I hadn’t clocked it yet so here it is for others like me. Great talk by the way.

 
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