productivity – Page 8

Thinking Space

Where is your ‘thinking space’? The place where you order your thoughts; think things through; where the creative juices flow?

If you don’t have such a space, I recommend that you find one. Whatever it is that you do, it’s important to take the time to pause and reflect. This process can result in improved focus, increased productivity and greater creativity. Finding the space in which you do this best is therefore worth doing.

As well as becoming an early riser I have also learned to be more mindful. My interpretation of what this means is skewed, influenced by the interpretation of others, including: Patrick Rhone and Merlin Mann. However, what I have taken on board so far has really helped me to be a more focussed and creative person.

Being mindful (for me) is about removing distractions, whatever they may be, and taking the time to be at one with your thoughts; allowing ideas to percolate.

What has this got do with finding your ‘thinking space’? As I began to understand what it meant to be mindful, I began to realise that there were certain times and places in which I was able to better focus on the myriad of thoughts swirling around my mind. The first time and place where I realised this was in the shower. Free of distractions, completing a relatively mindless activity, I can sift through my tasks for the day; think through a lesson I’m going to deliver; even write (in my head) an entire blog post. The latter, resulting in a rather rushed drying of one’s body in order to get to my laptop and write it down.

Having found one space to be at one with my thoughts, I then started to actively look for others. As such I don’t have one ‘thinking space’ but rather a number of times and places where I choose to be mindful. These include:

Making a cup of tea: As demonstrated by Dave Caolo, the time it takes to brew and enjoy a good cup of tea is perfect for sitting and reflecting.
Doing the dishes: An activity I previously did not enjoy, I now actually value the thinking time that it offers.
Waiting in line: Rather than playing with my mobile phone I now observe my surroundings, taking in the place, the people…
Taking a walk: As many will attest to, taking a walk remains one of the best ways to clear your mind, clarifying things.

As with becoming an early riser, it took time for me to develop habits. Resisting the urge to check Twitter, Email, Google Reader while standing in lines or during a train journey was particularly hard. However, it has certainly been worth it, improving my focus, productivity and creativity.

Do you already have a ‘thinking space’? If so, please share it by commenting below.

Why I Became an Early Riser

During the past academic year I have become an early riser. No mean feat for someone who loves the warmth and comfort offered by a well-constructed frame, firm mattress, cotton-fresh sheets and a plush duvet.

I have trained my body to rise at 5:30 every morning. What have I gained from this you might ask? In short: Time.

Time is perhaps the most important commodity that exists. I call it a commodity because in 2011 it is just that. Something that we can choose to value and savour or as with many things something we can easily waste and fritter away. The thing is, you can’t replace time like you can replace wasted food or damaged goods. When time has passed it is gone for good. People, say I’ll make time but that’s a fallacy, you can’t make time. The truth? You need to make the most of the time you’ve got.

I try to savour every moment. The time that I get to spend with my wife is precious; the time I have with my students when they enter my classroom is so important – why would I want to waste it? The hour I have gained in the morning is as precious as any other time I can define. It is my time… a time when I find focus.

My routine is simple. I pick one thing to do and use the hour to do only that. I drink a glass of water, make a cup of tea and sit down at my MacBook Air. I then decide what I want to achieve that morning and set to it. It could be to write; it could be to catch up with RSS/Instapaper; it could be to achieve Inbox Zero (or get as close as I can); it could be to read from whichever book I am reading at that moment; it could be to update my Calendar and sort my ToDo List.

It does not matter which activity I choose, as long as I dedicate the time and energy to doing that one thing. I know that I will do the task and do it well because I have the time… free from distractions, free from noise (I love the early morning quiet), free to focus my mind.

Using that hour in the morning has not only improved my productivity but it has made me a happier and healthier person. I start the day with far more oomph; not sluggish from over-sleeping. Having had that quiet time in the morning, I am ready and raring to go… ready to get on with the rest of my day knowing that I have already accomplished something and it’s only 6:30.

What I felt was going to be a tremendous struggle has become the most important feature of my day. Occasionally, I slip… those days where I didn’t manage to get up and out of bed, those are the days where I get little accomplished, where the ills of procrastination take over. I’ve learned to not beat myself up about it though. Those days serve as a reminder of how much I gain from all the other days where I did get up, where I did make the most of my time.

Getting to this point did not happen over night though. It took effort and still does, particularly during the holidays. I found this advice from Leo Babauta helpful as I strove to become an early riser.

In the wild and extended!

Brett and David (Elastic Threads) have just released nvALT 2.1, the latest version of their Notational Velocity fork. A number of updates have been included. A particularly useful addition is the auto-pairing of matched characters. David has also developed extensions for Chrome and Safari, enabling you to create notes from a snippet of text or a whole page.

If you’ve already been using nvALT 2.0 you can up date from within the app, if not get it here. You can read more about the updates here: nvALT 2.1 in the wild, and here: nvIt – Chrome and Safari extensions for nvALT.

If you want to know why you should be using nvALT, read this: Perfect ‘Simple’ Note Making, and this: Notational Velocity – Freedom To Write!

Account Management

With Google+ adding to the myriad of online spaces in which I have a presence I am in the process of eliminating services and accounts that are offering me little return on my investment. So far, this has included:

Last.fm – If I’m honest I signed up because lots of other people were using it but it did little for my web presence and I ended up barely using it.

LiveJournal – I had a LiveJournal account for a long time which I actually never used as a journal but instead had signed up to access a bunch of communities that were sharing new music. I hadn’t logged in for a long time, so felt no pain in deleting that one.

Quora – I signed up for an account because I liked the concept, but I haven’t really used it. I can get the same sort of benefits out of Google search and now Google+.

Amplify – Google+ offers the same functionality and is likely to be better integrated with other Google tools that I regularly use. While the others have been relatively easy to get rid of, there seems to be no obvious way to delete an Amplify account. Quite worrying for someone who cares about his personal data.

[Update: 25.02.12 – This matter is now resolved due to the closure of Amplify.]

Twitpic – After the furore over Twitpic claiming ownership of your photos I cleared out my Twitpic account. I hadn’t used it in a long time any way having begun to use my Posterous blog as my Twitter photo service of choice. This keeps my photos within a space that I retain both ownership and control over.

Picplz – I’m adding this to the list in essence of full disclosure, even though to say that I used Picplz is a bit of a misnomer. In order to try the Android app you had to sign up for an account. I didn’t like the app nor did I ever upload any photos. However, every now and again I would receive an email indicating that someone was following me on Picplz. A short email quickly put an end to that.

Mobypicture and yfrog – Two other photo service that I used a couple of times when I began using Twitter was Mobypicture. Again, a short email saw the account closed.

If you have an account but don’t know how to close it, you should check out Account Killer. I came across the site via Doug Belshaw. Accounts and services are listed and then colour coded to indicate the ease with which you can delete them. Amplify is black listed as there seems to be no way to shut it down. Quora is grey as it involves sending an email requesting the account to be closed. Last.fm on the other hand is white listed as you can close the account yourself from the account settings page.

While I’m on this topic, there are two new tools that I have been using that I will be keeping as part of my (continually evolving) workflow.

Firstly, ifttt (if this then that) is an awesome way to push around and manage the various streams of information that you have coming in or are creating yourself. I currently use it to push a whole bunch of stuff out to Twitter including my Google Reader shared items, blog posts and Delicious bookmarks.

Secondly, Storify is a fantastic way to curate information and is super intuitive to use. Here are two ways that I’ve used it so far:

I would be interested to know how others are managing their incoming/outgoing information; work flows; and online presence.

Image courtesy of M i x y.

Why this Apple fanboy loves his Android phone

Some of you will know that I am quite the Apple fanboy. I currently own a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro (my second one) and an iPod touch. Having blogged twice about the apps I have installed on the iPod (during the early days of this blog), I felt it was time to confess to the fact that the iPod has been relegated to the status of ‘portable entertainment centre’. It now gets charged and used on long journeys mainly having been replaced by a HTC Wildfire – my ‘productivity centre’. Even with my deep love of all things Apple, I am not missing the iOS user interface one bit. The Android UI is just as pleasing and the phone was half the price of the iPhone 4.

Mobile phones and I

While I am a self-confessed technophile I resisted owning a mobile phone for a long time. I love technology but I felt that having a mobile phone would be too big a distraction and would put me in a situation where I am too contactable. I did not want to feel guilty if I was called and chose to ignore it. I knew that I would because I view my time as being extremely precious. However, I found myself frustrated using the iPod touch due to the lack of 3G connectivity. I didn’t want to text or make calls but it was highly frustrating to have to rely on finding a wifi signal when I was out and about. The Wildfire was my compromise then, not invoking a terrible cost to my pocket, I set up a PAYG account with Orange and away I went.

I have kept myself sane by putting in place a number of rules as to how I use the phone. All notifications are switched off so that I am not distracted. If I am doing something really important, I turn the phone off completely. I do not give out my number; only a small number of people have it. And finally, I only reply to text messages if it is really necessary. The people who do text me know this about me so I don’t feel any guilt if I forget to reply.

What I have gained by owning the phone is immense. It is my personal productivity machine; fully integrated into my day to day life. To illustrate this I am going to talk through the 10 most used apps on the phone:

The five apps I can’t live without

Twitter for Android – The main reason I bought the phone was to engage with my Twitter PLN at any given time. I tried a few apps including TweetDeck and for a while Twidroyd but have happily settled on the official app. In my opinion as good as any third party and it’s OS and iOS equivalents. I can keep up with the various streams, tweet, retweet (new and traditional methods), DM, search, even manage my lists which you can’t do with Twitter for Mac.

Everpaper – As there is no native Instapaper client for Android, I experimented with a few third party apps. Everpaper is by far the closest in matching the experience of the web and iOS apps. It is feature rich while managing to maintain that all so important minimal UI. I save a lot of reading material to Instapaper – blog articles, essays, reports… the list goes on. If I am not reading a book I will catch up with my Instapaper during my journey to work. I will also read it while queuing at Costa Coffee or any other time where I am forced to be idle and do not have access to my laptop.

Kindle – I have been totally converted to the value of being able to sync the book I am reading across multiple devices. I mean, it makes so much sense right? So I now have the Kindle app on my MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Android phone. I don’t think it will be too long before I buy a Kindle as well. I use the Android app almost every weekday morning during my journey into work. So far I have read the entirety of the following books on it:

Focus by Leo Babauta
Poke the Box by Seth Godin
Keeping it Straight by Patrick Rhone
Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson

I am about to start reading Learning Futures: Education, Technology and Social Change by Keri Facer.

Calendar – This is one of the few built in apps that I use. Synced with Google calendar; all appointments, meetings and urgent stuff are added with ease. It is the only app where, when necessary, I have the notification reminders turned on for urgent deadlines, meetings and appointments. Things that it would be absolutely detrimental for me to forget. However, I do not add my ToDo list to my calendar. My ToDo list is a text file which I keep in nvALT; synced with Simplenote. As a highly organised and motivated person, there is rarely anything in my ToDo list that I would forget to do any way.

Gmail – Again synced with my Google account I rely on this app to check my personal email at lunch time. I designate times for a number of specific tasks and this is the case with email. I check my work email first thing when I arrive at work and again at the end of the day. I check my personal email first thing in the morning and at lunch time. I try to avoid looking at email in the evening unless I know there is something urgent I need to reply to and did not manage to do so during the day.

The five apps which are useful at very specific times (but not essential)

Internet Browser – I use the pre-installed web browser. I use it mainly on an ad-hoc basis, for example, if someone shares a link in Twitter, it kicks me out to the web to view the image etc. Other than that I rarely use it.

Google Reader – As previously mentioned I allot specific times to a number of tasks. Task number one every morning is to catch up with the RSS feeds I subscribe to. I read the short ones and save the longer articles to Instapaper. I only use the Android app if that didn’t happen for some reason and on the rare occasions I am not reading a book and my Instapaper is empty – i may save this activity for the journey into work.

Evernote – As eluded to earlier, I am using Evernote to maintain my organisation as I work towards an Masters in Education. The mobile app has been used for two specific tasks. Taking photos of long extracts from books where I have not been able to access and electronic version and to take photos of slides at meetings/conferences. With the auto-sync it is a fabulous tool. See Doug’s post here about how he has used it.

mNote – As with Instapaper there is no native Simplenote app for Android. mNote is my app of choice. I occasionally need to update something and so will do it here. My use of this app has decreased since I bought my MacBook Air. Due to the Air being so light, I am tending to now take it to meetings – using nvALT to make notes instead.

Dropbox – This one needs little explanation. I want access to my documents at all times. My most common use is to read PDF files which I can’t access from Instapaper or the Kindle app.

The one app that I could live without but I’m glad I don’t have to

Swiftkey Keyboard – The built-in keyboard to the Android OS was not very good and this was one of the first features that I changed. It is the only app I have installed where I have handed over money but it was definitely worth it. Swiftkey has (IMO) the most accurate and useful predictive text I have experienced between using the iOS keyboard on my iPod touch, an LG touchscreen phone, and the built in Android keyboard. Part of the reason it works is that the keyboard’s UI is so clear and not over-sensitive that it is rare to make mistakes when typing. This combined with excellent ‘learning’ algorithms, Swiftkey predicts correctly most of the time.

iPod touch with 3G?

I have been asked by a few close friends who have had to endure me waxing lyrical about the phone whether I would buy an iPod touch, should it be released with 3G. After all, I make little to no use of the traditional phone features. To be honest, I don’t think so. I have become accustomed to the Android OS and until Apple includes something in iOS that is so revolutionary, it makes the Android OS obsolete, I will be sticking with what works for me. Besides, I’m a firm believer in the ‘one thing well’ philosophy. My Android phone does productivity really well. My iPod touch does entertainment really well. I’m happy with that.