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- May 12, 2013
The Procrastination-Energy-Time Continuum
May 12, 2013Read more
Here’s a rambling story about my Sunday that culminates in mysterious diagram I’ll call Productivity Time and Space. It sprang from a note I scribbled down early: “as one approaches a task near the do-ability event horizon, resistance-over-time increases exponentially”. Or something…I wouldn’t take it too seriously :) (more…)
- May 11, 2013
A Day Grid Balancer Customization by Frank Magnotti
May 11, 2013Read moreBack in 2009 I was preoccupied with “life balance”, and tried to visualize the hours as a kind of funny grid, which resulted in the Day Grid Balancer concept. I released it as Creative Commons, unlike my other forms, to see what would happen. Would I get any feedback at all, or see any mashups come back? It took a few years, but recently Frank Magnotti sent me a great breakdown of how he made the DGB his own. After I asked if it was OK to publish them, he went through the trouble of writing them up as a formal article; here’s his approach to modifying the DGB to suit his needs:
Frank’s article appears after the jump. (more…)
- May 10, 2013
CamNote: A Notebook for Digitizing Notes with a Smartphone Camera
May 10, 2013Read moreI’m intrigued by CamNote, which purports to be a special notebook with markings that allow smartphone cameras to digitize your notes. I haven’t tried it, but I will be getting some samples to try. I’ve tried to use those Logitech I/O pens, and I’ve tried the LiveScribe, but the need to have a battery-powered fat pen + special paper + desktop app proved irritating. Perhaps this combination will be better!
- May 10, 2013
Laying Down Process 2: Environmental Cues
May 10, 2013Read moreYesterday I did massive braindumps to get myself oriented. In hindsight, I am looking for a simple algorithm to help me have creative, productive, and stress-free days.
Rather than emphasize working hard, I made a sign that distilled the essence of working lazy:
The bar on the left is a 24-hour day. It expresses my desire to have mostly unstructured creative time scheduled (my so-called Happy Bubble Time). For must-do tasks, I’ve scheduled a minimum of 15 minutes per task area; the gym gets 30 minutes because that is the minimum time with driving factored-in. I’ve also allowed for 8 hours of sleep.
While the amount of time is very low, I’m figuring that once I get that pre-requisite 15 minutes going, I’m very likely to keep going. The theory is that if I’m engaging projects daily, even for short periods of time, productivity nevertheless ensues.
The trouble with forming new habits, of course, is remembering that you’re trying to form one. Because I want to be reminded that this is my ridiculous, self-centered, and irresponsible goal, I taped it to the side of door so I could see it prominently.
By flying a giant sign in my living room, I am both planting a defiant flag and making it impossible not to see it. Booyah! We’ll see how it goes.
[xpr-2013a]
- May 9, 2013
Sqwiggle: Always-On Remote Workplace
May 9, 2013Read moreSqwiggle appears to be a way of managing a virtual workplace through real-time, always-on video conferencing. This might not sound new, to date most attempts at this have sucked due to cumbersome interfaces, server bandwidth limiting quality, connections problems with network address translation, and high cost. To date, only Google Hangout has proven reliable in that once you’re up and running, it stays running, but it leaves a lot to be desired for workflow. Matt Boyd sent me a link to Squiggle’s introductory video, which I watched with great interest; it promises to be more elegant. Keep an eye on this! I wonder how it will work for group coordination next time I’m playing Star Wars: The Old Republic :-)
