Google

Gmail Outage or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love GTD Contexts

Merlin Mann — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:46:17 -0400

Like thousands of people yesterday, I was annoyed and inconvenienced by Gmail’s unexpected 2-hour dirtnap. But, wow. Apparently, it just irrevocably hijacked the whole day for some folks. And even sent a few into a Dark Afternoon of the Soul that most 19th-century Romantic poets would have found a bit histrionic.

Now, as a user, polemicist, and nemesis of Apple’s MobileMe problems, I’m not here to criticize the frustration about a broken cloud service; I know that feeling all too well and have the dents in my wall to prove it. But, I do want to talk about some strategies you can choose to employ whenever a change in access to anything unexpectedly rearranges your day. Because things do break, and there’s no reason you have to break with them.

One of the things that’s most helpful about a system like GTD is the way you learn to think of your work as something that can and should be viewed from multiple angles.

A 90-second GTD primer:

Project. Any desirable outcome that requires more than one physical action in order to be considered complete.
- “Present a persuasive pitch to Henderson’s group on 2008-10-03” is a Project.
Next Action. The next physical activity I could perform that moves a Project nearer to the outcome I want.
- “Call Henderson to schedule time and location for 10/3 presentation” is the next action for my Project.
Context. Any limitation, opportunity, tool, or resource that lets me do one of the physical actions in my Project.
- “@calls” is the Context for my Next Action
- in this case, “@calls” serves as a list of all items I could do on any Project, so long as I have access to a phone.
- (See? Different angle.)
The Four Criteria Model. The notion that Priority is only one of four criteria in deciding what to do at a given moment.
- The other three are “Time Available,” “Energy Available,” and (you guessed it) “Context.”

Got it? Contexts are a way to horizontally slice across all of your Projects in a way that lets you do what you can do at a given moment — even if it’s not the thing you want to do or most need to do. Because that’s life. And, sometimes, life is a huge dick.

Like a famous religion and a handy bit of Psychology, Getting Things Done acknowledges that, while you have little or no control over the interruptions and unexpected change in your life, you DO have the power to decide what you want to do about it right now. So, while you can’t run your life by Priority alone, you always have plenty to do. If you’ve learned to think in terms of Contexts. Get it?

So if you forgot your phone, skip “@calls,” and move to anything else. Boss out to lunch? Skip “@Boss,” and move to anything else. Internet went down? Skip “@web, “and move to anything else. Gmail is down? Yes! You’ve already guessed it! Skip “@email” and move to anything else. Anything else. Anything. Else.

Sure it’s insanely frustrating and annoying to not have access to something you depend on. And, yes, it’s natural to whine about it and even burn a few cycles on a fast, cathartic tantrum. But, friends, if you’re so mad about an uncontrollable change in your life that it takes you off all your work for half a day, then you’re still playing in the minor leagues of GTD. And you’re not doing yourselves and the people you produce work for any favor in the bargain.

Plan in Projects, work in Contexts, and strive to not let anything stick to you more than you’d like it to.

And, seriously. Guys. When one door closes, just open a freaking window. An hour without email is a great time to dive into sixty guilt-free minutes of writing, reading, or even pencil-sharpening. Work the time.

Because it ends up being a lot more fun and useful to ride the wave than to yell obscenities at it for four hours.

”Gmail Outage or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love GTD Contexts” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on August 12, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Google Docs Adds Over 300 New Templates

Merlin Mann — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:57:46 -0400

Google Docs Templates

Google Docs recently added over 300 templates for a variety of business documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Need templates for a calendar, a letter, a resume, or even Avery-compatible labels? You’re good to go.

My favorites are in the eclectic “Miscellaneous” section, where you’ll find templates for athletes, parents, wedding or event planners, wine nerds, screenwriters — even “animal guardians”.

Cool new resource and a neat idea. Yet another reason for MS Office to keep an eye on its dwindling lunch.

I’m looking forward to spending some time with these, because I’m a huge GDocs nerd. Can’t wait until you can edit Google Documents via your iPhone. That’s when the game really changes.

”Google Docs Adds Over 300 New Templates” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 17, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Philipp Lenssen's excellent AdSense tips

Merlin Mann — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:06:52 -0500

Google AdSense Tips

Having noticed Google’s new “Newbie Central” site, Google Blogoscoped’s Philipp Lenssen posted a swell pile of his own best tips for improving AdSense performance on your site. Linked here because (at least IMHO) it’s depressingly rare to find useful, non-douchey advice about making money with a website.

Typical of the sage stuff from PL:

Even if you get huge traffic, the AdSense income from the site is more dependent on the site type and audience. Google targets AdSense ads automatically to the site content. Or at least, it does so ideally – but some types of content fare better than others with this targeting. I noticed for instance that AdSense does better on a games site than on a technology blog.

Totally true.

I haven’t tried every one of these, but I will say “hats off to Philipp” for sharing such sound and cheese-free insight on a noisy, hard-to-research topic. Figuring out how to make dough with your site can be a slow and painful journey, so if you’re trying to make a go of it with AdSense, I’d definitely give this one a read.

”Philipp Lenssen's excellent AdSense tips” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 02, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Gmail IMAP Settings, Straight from the Google's Mouth

wood.tang — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:55:27 -0500

This may not count as a real find since it’s on the Google’s own support site, but this list of recommended IMAP client settings is interesting in that it differs from many of the Gmail IMAP how-to’s I’ve seen so far.

Regarding Sent mail:

Do NOT save sent messages on the server. If your client is sending mail through Gmail’s SMTP server, your sent messages will be automatically copied to the [Gmail]/Sent Mail folder.

…and Junk folders:

Do NOT enable your client’s junk mail filters. Gmail’s spam filters also work in your IMAP client, and we recommend turning off any additional anti-spam or junk mail filters within your client. Your client’s filter will attempt to download and classify all of your existing messages, which may slow down your client until the process is complete.

I adjusted my Mail.app settings and noticed some marginal improvements. A big difference is that their advice for Trash results in archiving every single message in All Mail, whether you delete it from your client or not.

”Gmail IMAP Settings, Straight from the Google's Mouth” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on November 19, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Google releases iPhone-friendly gCal

Merlin Mann — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 15:08:30 -0400

Updates from Google Docs and Google Calendar

Whoa, check this out:

The Google Calendar team, along with the mobile team, released an upgrade to the Calendar interface on the iPhone. It is now tailored for the iPhone, and you can now see your different calendars in distinctive colors. You can see the new Calendar interface by going to http://calendar.google.com on your iPhone browser.

As an iPhone user and recent convert to gCal: Daddy like.

”Google releases iPhone-friendly gCal” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 25, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

gDocs and Apple would taste great together

Merlin Mann — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 13:23:05 -0400

I’ve become an ardent Google Documents fan over the past few months — especially as its support for Safari has improved (didn’t say perfect; just improved). I use it for collaborating with clients and 43f guest authors, as well as for managing small projects and keeping various small teams organized. Personally, I find it simpler than a wiki and a lot more powerful than using a static .doc.

My favorite use right now is to use a single shared document as a common space that 4 or 5 people have access to and that they can use to give each other to-dos, ask questions, etc. I know stuff like Basecamp does this better and certainly with more sophisticated features, but I’m really attracted to the simplicity of the one-document approach — especially for informal, remote teams.

I think my gDocs cincher was the first time that it occurred to me to see if I could even look at my documents on my iPhone; I was gob-smacked to see that it actually worked. Obviously it’s not optimal for doing lots of editing, but you can see and perfunctorily edit your documents without a laptop, and that’s just pretty mind-blowing to me.

As I’m wont to blather on about on MacBreak Weekly, I just can’t rid myself of the suspicion that Apple and Google will eventually formalize a relationship around the suite of Google tools and the iPhone. It just seems like such a great fit — especially if they can work up some kind of conduit for .Mac syncing that lets you keep everything humming along without manual updating. The idea of combining iPhone portability and style with Google ubiquity and power could pose a small but fascinating challenge to conventional big business apps.

Finally, the thing that got me thinking about all this in the first place this morning is this adorable video explaining how gDocs works (thanks, Mike). As far as I’m concerned, there’s just not enough use of string in modern demonstration videos.

”gDocs and Apple would taste great together” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 22, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Free MP3 of Inbox Zero talk

Merlin Mann — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:45:46 -0400

43F Podcast: Inbox Zero - Google Tech Talk

A lot of folks with slower connections (or who just aren’t crazy about internet video) have written to request an audio version of the Tech Talk on Inbox Zero I gave at Google last Monday. Google has very kindly permitted me to share that with you, so here you go. Thanks to everyone who wrote to request it.

Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here:

”Free MP3 of Inbox Zero talk” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on August 03, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Vox Pop: Managing actions from list emails?

Merlin Mann — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 06:43:49 -0400

Inbox Zero Tech Talk
7/23/2007
00:58:38

During the Q&A portion of my Inbox Zero presentation at Google the other day, an audience member stumped me with a question about how to manage action around mailing list distributions (the question starts at about 48:22).

He said he frequently receives email requests and questions that are also distributed to the other 20 people on his team. He describes a “waiting game” in which team members hang back to see if other people will respond first — at least partly out of not wanting to duplicate effort or flood the sender. I thought it was a really intriguing question, although I said (and still believe) that distributed email would not personally be my first choice to handle this kind of communication.

Well, based on the reaction in the room that day, I gathered that this is a common dilemma for Googlers. Funny thing is that, since the video went up, I’ve received a lot of email from people outside the Googleplex who share the same problem — a few of whom were aghast that I wasn’t aware what a huge pain this is for knowledge workers. And to an extent, I’ll admit those folks were mostly right.

I do know about the pain of being on multiple email lists, and it’s why I’ve spent the last ten years trying desperately to stay off of them. I also know and dread the poorly-worded action request that requires vivisection with a magnifying glass and tweezers.

But I suppose I never really thought about the cumulative effects that distribution lists can have across a company — especially given the geometric nature of their influence, and especially if some 500 emails a day must be monitored and processed for potential action items. That’s just stunning to me.

So: open thread for you email veterans to chime in…

How does your team handle these sorts of distributed requests? How are you personally managing possible actions that stem from email distributions? Are there success stories for the distributed email approach? Anyone found better media than email for managing this stuff? Do we all just need to make our peace with getting 2,000 interoffice emails a week, and move on? What’s the solution?

”Vox Pop: Managing actions from list emails?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 30, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Google Tech Talk: Today @ 2pm

Merlin Mann — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 10:16:22 -0400

A reminder to any Googlers out there that I’ll be giving a Tech Talk on Inbox Zero today at 2:00 pm in the Seville room on the Mountain View campus.

Hope I’ll see you there. (And many thanks to Dick Wall for the hook-up!)

Updated 2007-07-24 06:40:07 PDT

Inbox Zero: Action-Based Email » SlideShare

I’ve added my slides for my talk to SlideShare. Here is a PDF of the slide show, and there’s also a player:

I’m not sure how useful they’ll be if you weren’t at the talk, but the Google folks say they’ll make it available as a free video. And, I’ll definitely link from 43f once it’s up. Thanks to Dick and everyone at the Google for the amazing turn-out and enthusiastic response. Very fun talk. Please have me back soon.

”Google Tech Talk: Today @ 2pm” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on July 23, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Vox Pop: Google Desktop Day 1?

Merlin Mann — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:17:26 -0400

So far, Google Desktop for the Mac isn’t moving me.

I like the idea of it a lot. Integrating my Google and local searches and theoretically improving on Spotlight’s UI and indexing foibles are laudable goals and, to my mind, could be useful additions if they’re done properly. But, based on, admittedly, just 24 hours’ usage, it hasn’t provided a lot of new usefulness for my own purposes that isn’t better served right now by a combination of Quicksilver and Spotlight.

When people ask me (ad ~~nauseum~~ nauseam [mea culpa]) to explain why they would ever need Quicksilver if they already have Spotlight, I opine that, while the latter does a good job of indexing the contents of your Mac world, the former does an outstanding job of helping you access and manipulate it in theoretically endless ways. They’re actually very different things, and although they can and do work together, claiming they’re trying to accomplish the same thing suggests a lack of exposure to what Quicksilver can do (as well as a dearth of experience in what Spotlight cannot).

In my fiddling with Google Desktop, I haven’t seen anything that enhances a workflow that’s based around Quicksilver and Spotlight. What GD could be is a single (but, to my mind, flawed) way to combine elements of both functionalities under one roof. But, my goodness, what you don’t get with that approach.

As butt-sucking as the mystery-meat UI for Spotlight is (where in the hell does that Spotlight window live?), I do find it to be an understandable and nicely organized way to display a large of set of returns in an intelligent way. “Here’s all the containers that have what you’re looking for, organized by type, and by how closely we think it matches what you want.”

So far, my Google Desktop returns — both in the browser and from the Quicksilver-like search field — seem like a less intelligent dump. It seems convenient without being useful. Maybe I need to spend more time with it. Or maybe I need to hold out for the inevitable Quicksilver plug-in.

But what say you? Will Google Desktop change your workflow? Will it replace application launchers and Spotlight, or do you see a way for it to integrate alongside them? What’s Google Desktop doing very well that you’d like to see other apps and functionalities learn from? Does the integrated web search freak you out?

Comments are open for your thoughts.

”Vox Pop: Google Desktop Day 1?” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 05, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"