Month: November 2006

Tuesday, 21 November 2006

How I’m Getting Things Done – Part 2

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on How I’m Getting Things Done – Part 2

It’s been 3 months since my concerted effort to be more organized and productive. Some pretty good progress.

  • Email Inbox: 0
  • Flagged Emails: 0
  • Flagged Newreader Items: 0
  • ‘Clean Out’ directory contains: 12 items
  • Physical Inbox: ignored
  • 43 Folders: ignored

As I mentioned in my previous post, every next action is goes into the stack of index cards. Works pretty well. The trick I’ve found is being specific, start with a verb, use between 5 and 10 words. If the note doesn’t start with a verb, too much thinking when you get down to doing. Fewer than 5 words is too few to be specific and more than 10 and it’s probably more than one next action.

Overall, the big a-ha is to be liberal with what defines a project. Again, as David Allen recommends, if it has more than one Next Action – it’s a project.

Once I made that shift in my thinking, filing email and cleaning out my other inboxes goes extremely quickly.

Coffee Snobs Move on to Homemade Roasts

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Coffee Snobs Move on to Homemade Roasts

I’m finally making my home office more comfortable, so I can spend more focused and productive time without getting distracted by the rest of the house.

One of the things that crossed my mind was installing a small batch coffee roaster. Then friend of the show Pete T. points me to the NYTimes article on home roasting.

“At the end of a meal at a restaurant I’d like a cup of coffee. But it’s pretty rare that I’ll order it anymore,” he said. It just won’t taste right.” – Chris Becker

I’m with Chris, pretty particular about my coffee. But you know that.

Monday, 20 November 2006

Blog this House

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Blog this House

Julio‘s Saturday column was about selling your house by blogging.

If you recall, I did a little of that earlier this year. While the blog had no impact on the direct sale of the house (contractor down the street bought it), it had much indirect impact in my thinking about my house and the home purchase process. What blogs do best.

It helped me understand a couple things:

  1. All houses should have blogs (or similar) – to pass down owner to owner.
  2. Realtors involvement in the sell or purchase of a home will continue to dramatically shrink.
  3. The real estate world will look dramatically different the next time I go through the process.

Cherishing the Unrecorded Moments

by Garrick van Buren 1 Comment on Cherishing the Unrecorded Moments

As many photos we take of the little guy, none of them capture his laugh. As many times I try to record his laugh, it never captures the joy in his eye. Handing him the phone to talk with Grandma is the surest way to make stop talking.

I have a memory of playing with a reel-to-reel recorder as a kid, maybe 6 or 7. Just the memory. Not the tape or the player.

Perhaps all our recording devices are really good at is capturing the special moments, the big moments, the when-we-know-something-will-happen moments. Freeing us to really enjoy the wondrous banality of the unrecorded moments – when things really to happen.

Inspired by: Eric Rice’s chilling thoughts.

Rediscover Your iTunes Library with Tangerine

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Rediscover Your iTunes Library with Tangerine

Like everyone else, my podcast listening (and publishing) has an inverse relationship to how busy I am at work. I’ve cut back to only the gPod – bookending the day – with music in the middle.

A couple weeks back, I found Potion Factory’s Tangerine, a great little app that generates iTunes playlist based on BPM and beat intensity and a handful of different patterns (think treadmill workout patterns).

I’ve got 5 Tangerine playlists right now – each a couple hours long with a different random selection of music that falls within specified BPM and beat intensity ranges. I’ve found it a great way to shake up my favorite tunes with others that I’ve neglected for too long.

Sunday, 19 November 2006

Joe Urban on Denver’s Public Transit

by Garrick van Buren Comments Off on Joe Urban on Denver’s Public Transit

“The bottom line is that good transit is frequent, affordable, easy to use and takes you where you want to go.” – Sam Newberg

Sam really likes Denver. Unlike some other friends of mine.

Personally, I’ve never been. Just around. Airport, Boulder, Broomfield. Though I’m always happy to hear when public transit works. I’m optimistic, but walking or bikes always seem to make more sense.

(disclosure: Sam’s a friend/client)

Wednesday, 15 November 2006

Doc and Hugh, To the Rescue

by Garrick van Buren 2 Comments on Doc and Hugh, To the Rescue

Because I’m such a Doc Searls and Hugh MacLeod fan, I re-subscribed to a podcast I long ago dismissed (only because I couldn’t download the individual files from the podsh** website.)

Looks like I’m not the only one regretting this decision:

“Attention Doc Searls: if you ever create your own podcast, please let us know. I’d take an hour of you reading recipies from a cookbook over listening to the roundtable from hell.” – Craig Maloney

Same goes for Hugh Macleod.

Tip to everyone else in this situation: the roundtable from hell starts after the 4 minute mark.