43 Folders

Back to Work

Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.

Join us via RSS, iTunes, or at 5by5.tv.

”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Elsewhere

The Merlin Show: Quicksilver proxies for application menus

008: HOWTO: Quicksilver: Application Menus | The Merlin Show

Many of the most diehard Quicksilver fans don't know "proxy objects" even exist. Proxies are a sexy way to build actions and triggers around abstract QS items such as "Current Application," "Finder Selection," "Album Now Playing," and even meta-stuff like "Last Command" and "Quicksilver Selection."

By making a trigger to "Show Menu Items" in the "Current Application," you can get Quicksilver-based access to almost any pull-down menu in a given OS X app. In today's demo, I show you how to bring this fast access to any of the bajillion drop-down menu items in Macromates' Textmate.

If you enjoy The Merlin Show, please consider subscribing for free via iTunes or Democracy, or just point the "podcatacher" of your choice at http://feeds.themerlinshow.com/TheMerlinShow.

The War of Art, and JoCo on becoming a "true person"

007: Interview: Jonathan Coulton, Part 2 | The Merlin Show

I first heard about The War of Art from David Allen during our GTD podcast series last year. I finally picked up a copy a couple months back and read it in an evening. Like a lot of self-help books, it's longer than it needs to be (and it's not actually very long to begin with), but it does make some great points about what its author calls "resistance."

Resistance can be thought of as anything that pulls us away from doing the work we know is most important to us. It takes many forms (including procrastination, fear, distraction, and negative self-talk), but the effect is often similar: we find or permit all kinds of barriers to keep us from becoming the person we want to be, or from completing the thing we really want to make. Whether that's being a published author, a composer, a playwright, or a painter, our impulse to create constantly battles an impulse to do something else, or to do nothing -- to not upset our weirdly comfy stasis.

This book came up twice in my recent interview with Jonathan Coulton; both in part one and today's recently released part two. Jonathan strikes me as someone who has, so far, succeeded at talking down the resistance he'd faced, and now he's doing what he's great at, and, in his words, he's working hard to become the kind of "true person" that he wants to be for his daughter.

read more »

The Merlin Show: Chris Wetherell; High-res feed

We're wrapping up our launch week of The Merlin Show with a terrific interview and a new feature announcement.

First, don't miss today's interview with Chris Wetherell, in which we hear how our favorite drumming Google engineer has learned to embrace email mediocrity and has created a "walled garden" using his Treo. Great stuff (and viewable from this page, after the jump).

Next, I wanted to announce the High-resolution podcast feed for The Merlin Show. It's available for subscribing at http://feeds.themerlinshow.com/TheMerlinShowHi (or just subscribe via iTunes).

read more »

The Merlin Show: Two JVs and more

Two JVs & a Nick

No, I haven't yet interviewed Nick Mirov, but The Merlin Show's launch week juggernaut rolls on with interviews featuring two "JV"s: Google's Jeffrey Veen and San Francisco indie rock institution John Vanderslice (the latter of whom also has a show tonight at The Independent at which you should say hi if you see me). Clickable versions of both episodes provided after the jump.

Also, I've posted my first in a series of credit highlights, beginning with John Roderick, the man behind the wonderful music you hear over our credits (it's called "Blue Diamonds" and you can download it here).

Finally, if you haven't yet subscribed for free, it's a great time to hop in. Also, kindly note that, if you subscribe via iTunes, you can help me potentially overtake several popular public radio shows. Which would be really cool.

read more »

The Merlin Show: Interview with Jonathan Coulton

002: Interview: Jonathan Coulton | The Merlin Show

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

Coming Monday: The Merlin Show

The Merlin Show

The Merlin Show arrives Monday, February 26th, at thirty theoretically productive frames per second.

Subscribe for free via the iTunes

Blogs: Watching passionate thoughts evolve (in public)

cover of 'The Blogging Church' by Brian Bailey

The Blogging Church
by Brian Bailey

A few months back, Brian Bailey asked me to contribute a short essay for his new book, The Blogging Church: Sharing the Story of Your Church Through Blogs (neat idea for a book).

As I'm sure Brian realized at some point, a lot of the advice in the book (creating an online image, deciding who the blog's for, and improving your blog over time) will also be of interest to small business and garden-variety bloggers. I enjoy Brian's writing and think he has a sound grasp on what makes blogs work (or not). Good stuff, and red meat for anyone thinking of taking their church (or their business or their kittens) to the web.

Here's an excerpt from what I sent him.

read more »

Merlin on TWiT 88: Batteries Included

TWiT 88: Batteries Included

>

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Tom Merritt, Wil Harris, and John C. Dvorak

>

Quantum computing, teraflop chips, and iPod bans...

In which I definitively address the origin of my oft-discussed username for Skype, AIM, Twitter, etc...

Download MP3 file

Merlin & MacBreak @ Macworld: Cocoalicious, Yojimbo, BBEdit, MacUser's Dan Moren, Entourage, MemoryMiner, Pen-it, and Luiza the

Here are the final 5 episodes of MacBreak I reported from the Macworld Expo floor this week:

Here are the previous 4 segments and here's a pointer to all of MacBreak's Macworld coverage.

Thanks to everybody at Pixel Corps who put this together, and most special thanks to everyone who talked with us, came to the meetups, or just said hi on the show floor. It was a really fun week for me.

You can ensure you never miss an episode of MacBreak by subscribing for free.

 

Merlin & MacBreak @ Macworld: Omni Group, MailTank, AppZapper, Pzizz, Cha-Ching and Flip4Mac

A few more of my MacBreak segments from the Macworld Expo floor are now available for download:

More episodes coming later today. Never miss an episode of MacBreak by subscribing for free.

 

 
EXPLORE 43Folders THE GOOD STUFF

Popular
Today

Popular
Classics

An Oblique Strategy:
Honor thy error as a hidden intention


STAY IN THE LOOP:

Subscribe with Google Reader

Subscribe on Netvibes

Add to Technorati Favorites

Subscribe on Pageflakes

Add RSS feed

The Podcast Feed

Cranking

Merlin used to crank. He’s not cranking any more.

This is an essay about family, priorities, and Shakey’s Pizza, and it’s probably the best thing he’s written. »

Scared Shitless

Merlin’s scared. You’re scared. Everybody is scared.

This is the video of Merlin’s keynote at Webstock 2011. The one where he cried. You should watch it. »