Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Productivity Pr0nNerdiest Interview Ever: MPU Workflows Part IIMerlin Mann | Mar 27 2011POSTED IN:
Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now)Merlin Mann | Oct 22 2009
Here's a video I made about a video I made. Consequently, it's also about writing a book, fake self-help, the long road to developing expertise, and the ups and downs of repeatedly asking the world to tell you who you are. The video is long. As usual. This is how it works. read more »POSTED IN:
Active Voice's free Hipster PDA templatesMerlin Mann | Feb 20 2007Active Voice Writing & Editorial Services in Baltimore -- Downloads Cool-looking collection of CC-licensed Hipster PDA templates include iconic "capture notes," research notes, and (here's a new one for me) a "yarn sorting card." Neat stuff.
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43f Podcast: Kung Fu, Meditation, and Sexual IntercourseMerlin Mann | Jan 15 2007Kung Fu, Meditation, and Sexual Intercourse
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here: read more »POSTED IN:
David Seah on wall-based productivity pr0nMerlin Mann | Nov 28 2006David Seah explores a treasure trove of lo-fi productivity pr0n, as provided by the vertical-surface-loving folks at Magnatag: read more »POSTED IN:
David Allen on GTD's future (and why it just works, as is)Merlin Mann | Nov 21 2006
43 Folders and The David Allen Company present the eighth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done. Summary
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen here (after the cut). Merlin's commentsIf you bend David Allen's ear for more than 30 seconds about GTD, you'll hear some variation of a phrase that I heard a lot over the couple days we hung out in Ojai: "It's all in the book!" Say what you will about The David, but he is not a man who suffers from The George Lucas Complex. Much to the consternation of his publishers, his fans, and -- one suspects -- even some of his colleagues, David feels like he has already written the complete and definitive work on the Getting Things Done system. And he very clearly has no desire to futz with that basic system without a good reason; it's sound and complete, as is, and there you go. Next subject. And, I have to say, in a lot of ways, I've come to really admire this. read more »POSTED IN:
Vox Pop: Sell me on manual email filingMerlin Mann | Nov 17 2006Lots of the kids are excited about the arrival of MsgFiler, which is a neat litte app for helping you file away your messages in Mail.app:
Zesty. But I'll just play devil's advocate on this one: if you find yourself inordinately excited about the arrival of this (admittedly clever) application, there's an excellent chance that your email archiving system is unnecessarily complex and, in fact, is in need of a major streamlining. Discuss. read more »POSTED IN:
Vox Populi: Best practices for file namingMerlin Mann | Oct 23 2006If it wasn't apparent from my pathetic cry for help the other day, even I -- one of your more theoretically productive persons in North America -- struggle with what to call things. Tags, files, and -- dear Lord -- the innumerable assets associated with making web sites, graphics, audio, and video projects; it's all a hopeless jumble unless you have some kind of mature system in place for what you call your stuff and its various iterations. Of course, if you're like me -- and I hope that you are not -- you still have lots of things on your desktop with names like " For prior art, I still treasure this Jurassic thread on What Do I Know where people share their thoughts on this age-old problem, but, frankly I haven't seen many good resources out there on best practices for naming. Anyhow, during a recent MacBreak shoot, I noticed that Alex and his team seem to have a pretty fly system for naming the video files that eventually get turned into their big-time IPTV shows. Thus, I turned to Pixel Corps' Research Division Lead, Ben Durbin (co-star of Phone Guy #5) for insight and sane help. And, brother, did he ever give it to me (see below the cut for Ben's detailed awesomeness). But, just so I don't lose you, do give me your best tips in comments: What are your favorite current conventions for naming files? How does your team show iterations and versions? Do you rely more on Folder organization than file names in your work? How have Spotlight, Quicksilver, and the like changed the way you think about this stuff? read more »POSTED IN:
Merlin on David Allen TechGTD PanelMerlin Mann | Sep 29 2006GTD Connect [TechGTD]
Members of David Allen's GTD Connect membership program can login to hear a technology panel that David conducted with tech über-geek Eric Mack, DavidCo CTO Robert Peake, and myself down in Ojai a few weeks back. We talk about all kinds of stuff related to tech in general, and how we use GTD and technology in particular. One nice thing you learn: Robert, who is the wildly gifted tech stud at DavidCo, is a big Mac user. Pretty cool. Note that this is made available as part of the GTD Connect for-pay service, so I don't have a way to preview this for folks who aren't a member. But for Connectors who are joined up, I think you'll enjoy the conversation. It was a lot of fun to do. POSTED IN:
Sloan get organized for new recordMerlin Mann | Sep 27 2006One of my favorite bands, Sloan, has a new record called Never Hear the End of It that just came out last week in Canada (currently only purchasable via import in the US; in Canada, you can buy it on MapleMusic). While recording the CD, Sloan also shot a bunch of short in-studio videos, including a couple that reveal their innately organizational side. read more »POSTED IN:
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