Life Hacks

"Right Now, What Are You Doing?"

Merlin Mann — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 16:18:17 -0400

I’ve started to become a lot pickier about where my attention goes as I observe what it means to my work when it drifts. But, I still have a long way to go. Long way.

Like a lot of people I have a bad habit of CMD-Clicking tab sets in my browser, which then spawns a dozen or more new panes of potential distraction, pointless horseshit, and 10,000 excuses not to focus on what I really want to be making right now.

I whipped up this (rather plain and inefficiently coded) page this morning, and stuck it into every tab set that I tend to abuse: as the first tab I see.

It’s not a new idea, it’s not particularly interesting or sophisticated, and it’s certainly not anything you couldn’t whip up for yourself (and better) in about 30 seconds. So, why share it?

Because, your brain needs a Dad. If this can help you, awesome. If your immediate reaction is to think, “Oooo…I know how I can add way more features like a social network and procrastination stats!” hang it up; you’re already screwed.

Catch the drifting as it happens, refocus, then repeat as necessary. That’s it.

Happy Labor Day, friends, and may you find yourself seeing that little page as seldom as possible.

”"Right Now, What Are You Doing?"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 01, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Lunch Poems

brianoberkirch — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:04:26 -0400

Guest post from our pal, Brian, on how one of my favorite poets of the 60s captured interstitial time to make art. —mdm

At the late late party after party we were talking about how you know if you're a writer. I suggested that actually writing routinely was the tip off. Then someone had a better idea: that writers are those who feel guilty about not writing. A first-world problem, to be sure, but if you know any working writers, one of their most beloved hobby horses is that they just don't have time to write. Students, money, speaking engagements, lint, bacon, the Cubs, morning sex. So many things between them and great sentences.

Frank O'Hara didn't seem to have this problem. He made it a point not to be a professional poet, but to write poems and essays and catalog introductions and letters and his own life in the due course of long days he filled equally with chatter, lunches, working at the MOMA, talking on the phone. Kenneth Burke called literature equipment for living, and O'Hara never put his away. He was always making. Sometimes poems, sometimes friends.

He has a slim book of work called Lunch Poems, and you might think of that as his primary mode of composition. While out walking from the museum to get lunch, he'd do a poem. Maybe he'd type it up and stick it in a drawer later. I'm pretty sure that one of my favorites of his (Lana Turner Has Collapsed!) was drafted during a ferry ride en route to read with Robert Lowell. That is balls. And it's also a better lesson than maybe any one of O'Hara's works: your creative life is part of your life. When making things is just another open window, you've won.

Here's O'Hara reading Lana Turner.

”Lunch Poems” was written by Brian Oberkirch for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on August 06, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Motivate yourself with "loss aversion"

Merlin Mann — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:28:11 -0500

NPR: Put Your Money Where Your Girth Is

I really enjoyed this Morning Edition story on “Prospect Theory,” or the idea that loss aversion can be an effective motivator in goals related to health improvement like weight loss and smoking cessation:

“What we know about incentives is that people work a lot harder to avoid losing $10 than they will work to gain $10,” explains Ayres. “So something that’s framed as a loss is really effective at changing behavior.”

Related to that question I was asked at Macworld: I wonder if a gym membership might be even more motivating if you received a daily email updating you on the wasted dollars you’d spent by not working out in the last n days.

When I started paying most of my own college tuition, I remember realizing that every class I skipped was equivalent to throwing away about a day and a half of the money I’d earned from waiting on tables. It was very motivating for me, and I started missing a lot fewer classes as a result.

”Motivate yourself with "loss aversion"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 06, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Working In Close

brianoberkirch — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:15:57 -0500

“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.” — Chuck Close

It may be that I like hearing about the work habits of writers and artists I like almost as much as I like their work. How do you force yourself to do work no one (really, like, no one) is clamoring for, in addition to doing the long apprentice work you need to do to build your chops? As most of our work gets less structured and more creative, it might prove helpful to take a look at how artists get their stuff done.

And, sorry, all those romantic notions you have of absinthe spoons, manic episodes and Kerouac-like rambling on a long roll of butcher paper really aren’t operative. Creative work is mostly showing up every day and enduring a million tiny failures as you feel your way to something a bit new.

Let’s look at Chuck Close. This interview with Terry Gross has all sorts of good things to think about (esp. if you like talk about technique), but I was especially struck by the way Close talks about evolving his method of working to overcome his own personality.

I’m a nervous wreck. I’m a slob. I have no patience. And I’m rather lazy. All those things would seem to guarantee that I would not make work like I make. But I didn’t want to just go with my nature.

So instead of painting overwrought, expressive things when the mood struck, he committed to making his epic, close-up portraits by breaking the work into tiny pieces and hewing to a grid. Not only did the grid make technical sense, it forced a lifehack on Close that would help him deal with his own tendencies. It helped get the work done, sure. It allowed him a style that might not have been ‘natural’ to his disposition. & it also had other side benefits.

What I found that one of the nice things [about] working incrementally is that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single day. Today I did what I did. You can pick it up and put it down. I don’t have to wait for inspiration. There are no good days or bad days. Every day essentially builds positively on what I did the day before. … Given my nature, I believe it was very good for me to be able to add to what I already had and slowly construct the final image out of these little building blocks.

Of course, this approach also reminds me of one of my favorite pep talks, Bird by Bird, in which Anne Lamott tries to make us mindful of each intervening step we have to take on the way to realizing larger things. Here, Close compares his method to the way knitting or crocheting is done in small intervals over an extended period.

My paintings are built incrementally, one unit at a time, in a way that’s not all that different than the way, say, a writer would work. … Because I work incrementally, I push little pieces of paint up against one another. …. And I slowly build these paintings, construct them, in the way someone might crochet or knit.

If you believe in the process and you knit one, purl two long enough, eventually you get a sweater.

Not only do I love the hope in that sentence, I think it’s true. If you can create a process that short circuits some of your own worst habits, and you really believe in that process, eventually you’ll get a sweater, a nine-foot painting, chicken enchiladas, a Web site, a marathon.

”Working In Close” was written by Brian Oberkirch for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 11, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Laundry Hacking

wood.tang — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:59:34 -0500

Making life easier isn’t always about massive, miraculous changes in habit, or chucking vast quantities of your belongings. Sometimes, preventing just one little hassle can make your day.

You know how the little bit of soap left in the cup after you dump it in the wash always manages to leak down the side of the bottle when you recap it? Usually, you don’t notice it until the next time you do the wash, and have to pry the jug loose from a sticky, lint-colored pool. To prevent this from happening, toss the cap in along with the wash instead of recapping the bottle right away. It comes out squeaky clean, and you just have to shake off a little water before screwing it back on the bottle. I suspect this would work with the top of a dish soap bottle too, though you’d have to ask Ray, the gallant cleaner.

I wish I could take credit for this one, but apparently there are some life hackers working at the Tide detergent factory. I found myself reaching for a sock to wipe the soap out of the cap last week when I noticed it said “Toss in wash or rinse after use.” Nothing life-changing, but one less sticky pool in my house, the better.

”Laundry Hacking” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 07, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

The "Leave it by the Door" Trick, Ninja-Style

wood.tang — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:12:25 -0400

When we moved into a tall and narrow townhouse last summer, its advantages—more space, bigger rooms—came at the expense of having everything spread out on separate floors. Even though I’m quick to point out the bulbous calves and firmly sculpted buttocks I (further) developed from the all-day exercise of trudging up and down the stairs, I’ve also learned to avoid unnecessary trips.

I moved things I needed to pocket every time I left, like my wallet, keys, and cell phone, plus last-second weather-based decisions like hats and coats, to the ground floor to save me another Stairmaster session when I got halfway out the door without them. It’s an adaptation of David Allen’s “leave it by the door” trick, the practice of putting things like outgoing mail, important project files, the baby, etc., where you would literally trip over them on your way out so you don’t forget them.

After a year of living in a house where this kind of thinking is crucial to avoiding early arthritis, it’s amazing how much I’ve incorporated it into my daily habits. I use rechargeable batteries in my Bluetooth mouse in the office downstairs, but the recharger has to live upstairs next to my son’s room, so I can swap out TMX Elmo’s batteries RIGHT NOW, DADDY when he’s giggled one too many times.

Last night, the mouse batteries were dying when I decided to call it a night, so I took them with me on my way upstairs to put them in the charger overnight. But I also took the mouse with me and set it on the night stand, to remind me to get the batteries on the way back down in the morning. I knew if I didn’t, I’d walk all the way downstairs this morning, realize the mouse was dead, then have to go back upstairs for batteries again.

Some people would call it lazy, but I call it ninja-like economy of movement. And besides, you wouldn’t believe what a turn-on it is for the wife when her husband brings a computer mouse to bed.

”The "Leave it by the Door" Trick, Ninja-Style” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 26, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

David Brooks on his "Outsourced Brain"

Merlin Mann — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:19:04 -0400

The Outsourced Brain

NYT’s David Brooks on outsourcing memory, reference, and decision-making to things that theoretically do it better:

I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal mind. I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere, and entered the bliss of a higher metaphysic. As John Steinbeck nearly wrote, a fella ain’t got a mind of his own, just a little piece of the big mind — one mind that belongs to everybody. Then it don’t matter, Ma. I’ll be everywhere, around in the dark. Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there.

And, ironically enough, if you didn’t catch the Grapes of Wrath reference, it’s easy enough to find it. Because, if you’re like me, sometimes you also outsource your pop culture knowledge to Google, Wikipedia, and IMDB.

As for Brooks’ opening anecdote — using a GPS? A life-saver for me. Ever since moving from a state where everything orients on a north-south grid to a place where diagonals and seemingly non-Euclidean intersections rule, I’d be literally lost without my Nüvi.

Previously (and mentioned in Brooks’ piece): Clive Thompson on the downside of the outboard brain.

[via: rickroberts in the 43f forum]

”David Brooks on his "Outsourced Brain"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 26, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

The downside of the outboard brain

Merlin Mann — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:19:33 -0400

The fate of human memory

Clive Thompson writes on a phenomenon I think about constantly: if you really do start entrusting all your ephemeral memory work to external systems, might your wetware start to atrophy?

Apparently, yes:

This summer, neuroscientist Ian Robertson polled 3,000 people and found that the younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal info. When Robertson asked his subjects to tell them a relative’s birth date, 87 percent of respondents over age 50 could recite it, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. And when he asked them their own phone number, fully one-third of the youngsters drew a blank. They had to whip out their handsets to look it up.

Haha, big joke, right? Not for me. Between me and TextExpander, only one of us knows my new VoIP number by heart. Without TE to paste it anywhere on command? Yep, I’d have to look up my own phone number. Sad.

But, Clive goes on:

My point is that the cyborg future is here. Almost without noticing it, we’ve outsourced important peripheral brain functions to the silicon around us.

And frankly, I kind of like it. I feel much smarter when I’m using the Internet as a mental plug-in during my daily chitchat…

And, in closing…

At the very least, I’d like to be able to remember my own phone number.

Now thinking that’s something I might want to work on too.

”The downside of the outboard brain” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Toward a hygienic credit card

Merlin Mann — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:06:06 -0400

You’ve probably heard the advice to photocopy your wallet’s contents; in the event that you lose your wallet, this makes it easy to know what you need to cancel and replace. Smart.

I recently received a new credit card and had forgotten what a hassle it is to change the info across all my various online accounts. Here’s a few suggestions based on things I did this time around that should make it easier (or at least more interesting) the next time this happens.

Write it down now

Create an OmniOutliner (or text or Excel or Google Docs) document, and capture the name of every account, site, or other location where you needed to update your credit card information. Also, create a second column where you paste the exact URL for the page you had to visit to make your change. (I’m already up to about 15 of these).

I really wish I’d already done this one of the other times I’ve gone through this; feels like it’ll really be handy for the next time.

Related: consider also creating columns where you paste in URLs, email addresses, or phone numbers for each company’s customer service department — particularly in case you need to escalate your updating to a live human.

Get cheap

Feeling like trimming back your lifestyle? Try hanging back a day or two or ten, and just wait for vendors to contact you about your “invalid card.” It can be astounding how many accounts you have set to run or renew automatically, and, believe me, merchants will let you know when they can’t run your card for some reason. This gives you a nice opportunity to verify for yourself that you really want all that stuff people are running your card to buy. Hell, I’m feeling tempted to “lose” my card every six months, just for the personal audit it provides.

Obviously, you don’t want to get critical services accidentally cancelled, but, at least in my experience, merchants are accustomed to users with multiple cards that sometimes just stop working for non-nefarious (if sometimes seemingly incompetent) reasons. Still, use this one with care.

One card for online

I’m tempted by the idea of using one credit card just for online purchases. I’m not sure this buys me any particular protection over mixing usage, but I’m attracted to the idea of making it a little easier to track down where abuse might have occurred, and “life” versus “the internet” seems like a satisfying taxonomy to start with.

I suppose if you’re some kind of mogul, you could get really granular, although I’d stop at the point where you have, say, a dedicated “Thai food card,” or the like.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of “Be Prepared” ideas like The Sick Box and The Blackout Box, but what do you think?

The Question to You

What’s your best practice for safe and convenient credit card hygiene? If you’ve had to go through updating your accounts tomorrow, what would you do differently from the last time?

”Toward a hygienic credit card” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 11, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

Merlin at IDEO: "Know How" Talk with Scott Underwood

Merlin Mann — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:06:47 -0400

Scott Underwood from IDEO was kind enough to invite me down to their Palo Alto HQ for a tour of the renowned design group (they designed Apple’s first mouse!) and to participate with him in one of the company’s internal “Know How” talks. It was very informal (and — because this was during my recent “100-year sinus infection” — I was completely high on cold medicine).

We talked about Getting Things Done, life hacks, knowledge work, nostalgia for scarcity, and the problem of getting addicted to productivity advice, among many other topics. This one’s a tour de force.

Video runs about an hour, and yes: I am wearing a handsome Big Lebowski tshirt. Abide.

Click To Play

Mea culpa — this was an intimate little gathering held for the benefit of those in the room and wasn’t intended as a for-video talk show shoot. So audience members’ questions were not recorded on-mic. Apologies for you not being able to hear them, but I think you’ll mostly catch the gist.

Many thanks to Scott Underwood for inviting me in and for hosting the talk, and thanks also to Eric Stangarone, who shot the video and who was kind enough to permit me to share this with you guys, as well. Awesome company. Great people.

Update 2007-10-09 08:14:45 PST

Oooo…almost forgot — alternative media formats (thanks, Blip!)

”Merlin at IDEO: "Know How" Talk with Scott Underwood” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 09, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"