- Most Recent | Since 2004
- List View
- Archive
- June 14, 2013
Revision 3 and 3a of ETT 2013
June 14, 2013Read moreI received a comment about the vertical orange bubble columns, which I use to visually split the day into a morning, afternoon, and evening. The comment was that the reader’s day didn’t align with these periods for lunch regularly, and therefore implied a kind of structure. I didn’t want to add vertical alternating background columns because this seems very busy (see ETT2 Wide Color to see what I’m talking about).
So I made two new alternatives:
Revision 3 removes the orange bubbles and replaces the vertical dot lines around 12 and 6 with solid ones to help provide some structure.
Revision 3A adds explicit times to the form, which looks cool. The back side of the form still uses fill-in bubbles for the time, since people might want to use them to extend either the early morning or late evening.
You can download these revisions on the main ETT 2013 post if you’d like to try them out.
UPDATE: If you’re interested in printed products, take this survey and let me know what you’d like to see.
- June 13, 2013
Revision 2 of ETT 2013 Available
June 13, 2013Read moreReader Nancy solved a problem with the hour columns in the revised for 2013 Emergent Task Timer. The hours are now written in directly above each column, instead of over the hour boundaries; the image above shows the difference. It’s subtle, but I think it makes it a lot easier to make the connection between quarter-hours and the time. Thanks Nancy!
Here’s a quick link to the download on the original post if you’d like to check it out.
I also got a preliminary quote from my commercial printer, and I think I’ll take a chance and print 500 75-sheet pads for sale on Amazon. Once I’m happy with the wording and sure that the design is good, I’ll send it to press and see what happens! If you have any feedback or suggestions, now’s a good time to chime in! :-)
- June 9, 2013
The Emergent Task Timer: Revised for 2013
June 9, 2013Read moreI’ve been tracking my time to see if my “feeling unproductive” was supported by data; as I wrote in the Assessment section of last week’s Groundhog Day Resolutions Review, it seemed possible that I was over-emphasizing the number of negative moments and creating a false sense of slackness.
I’ve been using the Emergent Task Timer (ETT). This is the older cousin of the Emergent Task Planner (ETP), and it was originally created so I could see where my time actually went in the foggy early days of my productivity journey. After a few days of using the ETT again I was surprised to find it wasn’t as easy-to-use as I remembered, so I’ve made an enhanced version to match my current design thinking.
- June 8, 2013
Saturday Links: Cheesy Descriptions, Readme Files, and Principles of Perception
June 8, 2013Read moreSadly there are no cheese shops nearby that put Shakespearean effort into writing the cheese card descriptions like these stores in NYC.
Tom Preston-Werner suggests that writing the introductory Readme.TXT file first, before you do any other documentation / planning / even user stories, is the sensible way to start your software project.
I recently picked up The Neuroscience of Magic, which I’d wanted to read after seeing this informative article in Wired years ago; much of what I do in interactive design benefits from thinking in these terms. See 7 principles of magic video for an entertaining peek into the mechanics behind it.
- June 5, 2013
GHDR Review 4: Reducing Friction and Picking Winners
June 5, 2013Read moreTHE JUNE REVIEW
This is my 4th monthly look at my yearly Groundhog Day Resolutions, an ongoing quest to set some worthy goals and stick to them. Detailed review follows!