Joe Buhlig | an analog mind in a digital world

I've known the value of setting aside dedicated work sessions for a while. But it wasn't until I read Deep Work and discussed it with Mike that the importance of disconnection and extended focus on a task fully struck me. It is within those times that my most valuable work emerges. Newport does an excellent job explaining the how and why behind deep work sessions.

The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield

Regardless of whether we realize or confess it, we are all creative in some way. The degree of creativity within us varies, of course, but it's there. The trouble is fighting the voice in our mind that tells us not to create and keeps us from doing unique work. Pressfield calls this Resistance and he carefully picks apart the tactics Resistance uses to stop us. I consider this a must-read for anyone who is a maker or who uses knowledge to do their work.

Daring Greatly By Brené Brown

Being vulnerable is not something most of us do voluntarily. And for some of us it invokes fear. The last thing on our minds is being open, honest, and willing to endure rejection. But as Brown points out, that is exactly what we must do in order to achieve and build meaningful relationships. It's also the key ingredient to accomplishing the big and the impactful. It helps us take a chance and do something important.

Managing Oneself By Peter Drucker

Over the last two years I've been on a journey of self-awareness. The value of understanding myself, how I think, and what makes me a good worker is invaluable. Despite having started this adventure previously, Drucker drives the point home in this quick read. It's packed full of insights that will make you slow down and process the words. This book changed my view of myself and helped me ask the necessary questions that prompted a plethora of personal insight.

The Checklist Manifesto By Atul Gawande

http://joebuhlig.com/search/?q=

I've been a list maker for years. I know they have a lot of value, but I had never realized why they help and their importance in everyday projects until I read this story by Gawande. As a surgeon, he explains his journey and continual discoveries that led him to the creation of a "safe surgery" checklist. It's the process and the volume of stories that reveal the power of the simple checklist.

Bonus: God's Smuggler By Brother Andrew

Amazon

Brother Andrew has quite a story about his life of taking Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. It's one of encouragement and brings with it motivation and a call to action for the Christian. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a story about the power of the Bible.

Time Tracker With Running Status

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I've been tracking where I spend my time for a while now. In the majority of cases it has been purely for personal use and decision-making, but since I have now taken a part time IT position, I need to know exactly how many hours I spend on the job and calculate whether or not I've met my expected quota for the week.

In theory, it's simple. I work 20 hours a week as Director of IT at my church. But how do I know if I'm under or over my allotted time? I could go off a feeling, but I'm certain I'll always be wrong in my estimate.

Instead, I did what I always do: set up a system to track it for me. And with the power of IFTTT, Launch Center Pro, and Workflow, I'm able to let Google Sheets do all the hard work. In the end, this is what I see when I check my status:

Getting the spreadsheet set up is easier by copy-paste than it is by explanation. The formulas are simply too much and too involved to explain. So I created a copy of my tracker for you to view and replicate.

The part you'll need to edit is on the Report worksheet. You can manually adjust the Available Hours per week and it will take care of the rest.

As for data entry, I do it all through IFTTT. There are a lot of ways to do it but setting up applets to add a row to a Google Sheet is fairly straightforward.

Using a Cloudfront CDN for Jekyll Without S3

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 18:00:00 -0600

On occasion I find myself with a sliver of free time. And it seems inevitable that I use it to tinker with this site. Given my latest obsession with page load speeds, this time I directed my attention towards the implementation of a CDN.

This is an idea I stole from Brett Terpstra who has an article about his method of doing the same. My case has some slight differences and if you do a search for how to use Cloudfront with Jekyll, you'll be hard-pressed to find an explanation of how to do it without using S3 for your hosting. Which is why I felt compelled to share my process with you.

I chose Cloudfront because I'm a fan of AWS (Amazon Web Services) and they are fairly cheap in comparison to the other big names in industry. I've worked with AWS enough in the past to trust it. But here's how I set up Cloudfront to work with Jekyll:

Setting Up Cloudfront

Once you have an account with AWS, open Cloudfront from the management console and create a new web distribution. There are only three settings I changed from the default.

Origin Domain Name - This is your site homepage. I entered joebuhlig.com

Origin ID - This is merely a description you want for the origin. I used joebuhlig.com Resources.

Alternate Domain Names - This becomes the new base URL you'll use to serve the files from Cloudfront. I was very original and used cdn.joebuhlig.com for this.

With the settings in place and the distribution created, you'll be given a domain name for your distribution that looks similar to this: abcdefg123456.cloudfront.net We'll use this to set up our DNS record.

Setting Up DNS

I'm not going into each registrar here, but the idea is to create a CNAME record on your domain with the host as your subdomain (in my case cdn) and the target as the domain name given for your distribution in the previous step (abcdefg123456.cloudfront.net).

You want to give this some time to populate and to allow AWS to do its magic. I left it alone and went to work on converting the URLs within Jekyll to accommodate the new CDN URL: cdn.joebuhlig.com.

Setting Up Jekyll

As a Jekyll user, you are probably familiar with using the Liquid tag {{ site.url }}. That variable is coming from the _config.yml file and we simply want to add cdn_url to it. Mine looks like this:

baseurl: ""
url: "http://joebuhlig.com"
cdn_url: http://cdn.joebuhlig.com

With cdn_url in place, you need to go through your static files and image references and change the base URL from a relative reference or {{ site.url }} to {{ site.cdn_url }} instead. I recommend previewing this before you deploy it just to make sure it's working correctly and that Cloudfront is fully up and running. You can also test this by navigating to the base cdn_url itself and check if a copy of your site is available. If not, you need to wait for the DNS changes to populate.

Jekyll Development

A problem you'll quickly run into is doing development of CSS and JS when your assets are being served from a CDN. In my workflow I run two commands: jekyll s --future to test and preview my site and JEKYLL_ENV=production jekyll b for a production build right before deployment. This allows me to use the Liquid variable {{ jekyll.environment }} to test if I am in production, like so:

{% if jekyll.environment == 'production' %}{{ site.cdn_url }}{% endif %}

If you use this in conjunction with the cdn_url, it means that when I'm building for production, the cdn_url is added and empty if it's for development. I'm left with relative and local URLs in development and the full CDN URL in production.

Cache Busting

The last step here is adding a version number to the static assets that change fairly frequently. There are a number of ways to do this but I prefer the tried-and-true query string: main.css?v=5

Just like the cdn_url, I added version: 1 to my _config.yml file. That allows me to append any asset URL to look like this: /assets/main.css?v={{ site.version}} When used at the same time as the cdn_url, I'm left with this:

{% if jekyll.environment == 'production' %}{{ site.cdn_url }}{% endif %}/assets/css/main.css?v={{ site.version }}

Now, I'm lazy and don't want to manually increment this version number every time I want to bust the cache so I again stole a page from Brett Terpstra's book and wrote a rake task to do it for me:

desc "Bump version number"
task :bump do
content = IO.read('_config.yml')
content.sub!(/^version: (\d+)$/) {|v|
ver = $1.next
puts "At version #{ver}"
"version: #{ver}"
}
File.open('_config.yml','w') do |f|
f.write content
end
end

Now all I need to do is run rake bump after I've edited static files and it will take care of the rest.

A Baby Time Checklist

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:00:00 -0600

As I write this, my wife and I are expecting our third baby girl to join us within the next week. I wish I could say there is nothing but pure excitement in our house, but as anyone who has kids knows, there are a number of things to do once you know it is "time." Depending on your situation, which you can't predetermine, you may not have much time to accomplish everything and get out the door, so most of us put together a checklist to help us remember.

I use checklists all the time. They are a prominent fixture in my life and it is inevitable that others see me using or creating them. In most cases there is one of two responses: an agreement that the checklist is helpful or a joke about its worthlessness for them.

But despite the reaction, I know I'll stick by my list. I'm all too aware of the shortcomings of my memory. Even if I remember an item the first 50 times through, eventually it becomes second nature and I'll be unable to recall if I completed a task or just think I did. It's much like trying to remember if you closed the garage door. You've done it so many times that the task is automatic and there's nothing to trigger your memory to indicate that you actually did it this time. So you're left wondering if it happened at all, or turning around to make sure it's shut.

In the case of going into labor, I want my focus to be on helping my wife. But I still need to make sure all bags are in the car, the hospital is aware that we are coming, that someone is home to watch our girls, and on and on. The situation could be one of extreme urgency (at least to me) and yet I want and need to be attentive to my wife. Thus, a checklist to spell out these mundane but important tasks.

I have a list of things to do that kicks off the moment my wife starts having contractions. It doesn't make me a robot, it gives my mind the freedom to be attentive to situational needs without worrying about what comes next. The potential for urgency and stress is high. In that moment I want to be there for my wife and not wandering the house trying to make sure I have everything in place. This checklist is far from impersonal. It allows me to be present.

Creating Custom Web Searches in Alfred

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 27 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Searching is one of the most technically complicated processes to build and yet the simplest to use. And it's almost universally accepted that every website has a way to search the entirety of their content. Connect this with the ability to search websites directly from Alfred and you can create a one-stop shop for searching all your favorite sites.

Alfred can do searches in Google and many other websites out-of-the-box. But if you notice yourself searching a specific website repeatedly, it makes sense to set up a custom search within Alfred. If you continually repeat this process, you'll end up using Alfred for all your searches instead of going through the multiple steps required to open a site, find the search bar, and type your query.

To set up a new custom search, you first need to know how the site handles search queries from a URL standpoint. For joebuhlig.com, this is what that looks like:

Once you have that information, open Alfred preferences, go to Features, then Web Search. At the bottom-right you'll see "Add Custom Search." From there, simply fill out the details you want for the search. Here's the full example for this site:

To make it even easier, you can click here to install it directly.

Using this search is quite simple. Invoke Alfred, type "joe" followed by your query. It'll look like this:

Using Discourse for IT

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I'm a fan of Discourse. That should come without surprise at this point. As a fan, it's natural for me to see the potential for Discourse to solve communication problems and create selective visibility within an organization. So it was easy for me to gravitate toward it for the IT communication structure at my church.

To the best of my knowledge, there are four areas that need to be clearly conveyed and accessible to those I support: technology needs, how tos, structural upgrades, and technical documentation. In my case, I have two groups of people to work with: staff members and tech volunteers. The staff needs to share their support requests and have access to the knowledgebase, while the tech team handles the infrastructure and documentation.

In Discourse, this translates quite well. I can create four topic categories (Support, How To, Infrastructure, and Documentation), and two user groups (staff_members and tech_team). Distinguishing by user groups, I can restrict access as needed in each category.

In my case, there are some end users that will likely struggle if I require them to use Discourse directly. I don't say this to be mean but to acknowledge that their strengths are outside of computer systems. Understanding this, I take advantage of the email-in feature of Discourse as well as reply-via-email.

My users can send an email to the system and have it handled automatically. Whether it's a new ticket or a reply to a support update, they can interact solely from their email. Outside of setting up their accounts, they never have to access the system directly. They can stick to what they know: email.

Here's a breakdown of how each category is used:

Support

This is used primarily for issues and support tickets. Both the staff and tech team can access it and users can send an email into this category. When one of these is completed, I simply close the topic.

How To

These topics are checklists or videos explaining how to accomplish a specific task within our building and structures. These can range from website updates to installing printer drivers. Again, this is viewable by both staff and the tech team, but currently I have it restricted so only I can create new topics. I want to vet these before they're posted.

Infrastructure

Only the tech team can use this one. It's designed to capture and discuss system upgrades and migrations as well as the little things we need in order to improve the reliability and functionality of our hardware and software. I think of it as a technical version of the support category.

Documentation

Again, this is tech team only. And most of these topics are wiki-fied so that team members can update them as changes are made. These can be descriptions of VLANs or they may list the base computers we use when a replacement is needed. Anything that helps describe the infrastructure so that others can step in should go here.

I'm aware that there are a lot of software options available that are specifically designed for these purposes. And the number of communication methods is endless. But after having worked with and for multiple companies, I've seen the pros and cons of using many of them. In most cases the IT team ends up hacking them together to do what they want. Or worse, they lose track of a request in the stream of posts.

What I love about Discourse is its flexibility and configurability. I can dial up or down individual pieces and even allow end-users to avoid it entirely. Telling my staff members that they simply need to send email is tremendously more effective than training how to navigate a new piece of software.

Hybrid Productivity

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

There's a common misconception in the productivity world that when you develop a new process or system it needs to be entirely digital or entirely analog. Or the more common version of this dilemma: to work toward the use of a single database for your tasks. That may be nice, but it's far from necessary.

In one week, I join the staff of our local church as Director of IT. As a part of that role, there needs to be a way to track the projects I have going on at the church. A handful of other folks will also be participating in the collection of those projects, as well as taking ownership of them.

For this reason (and many others), I set up a Discourse forum to help me manage the work I do at the church. I can try to duplicate tasks and projects across Discourse and OmniFocus, but why? Yes, this creates two systems to maintain but they serve completely separate purposes. They need to be broken up.

The key here lies in boundaries and hard lines. OmniFocus manages the work I personally need to do and Discourse will track the work I need to do at the church. But this only works if I treat the church as its own context. I work off of Discourse when I am "on the clock." I shut it off when I'm on my own time.

The same process works with digital tools combined with analog. As long as there are clear lines where one drops off and the other picks up, all is well. It's when you try to mix systems, duplicate tasks, and create sync methods that issues arise and unnecessary problems surface. It's okay to use multiple systems.

Auto-Archiving Emails in Gmail

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

In the midst of reading for Bookworm, I discovered my habit of quickly checking my email throughout the day. It's a simple habit on the surface, but try to break it and you'll find that willpower alone may not be enough to win.

I set out to create resistance to checking my email from my phone. I can remove it entirely but I have legitimate scenarios that dictate the checking of email on the go. Since I can't remove it, I decided to force difficulties when opening an email in any scenario.

Instead of removing email on my phone, I wrote a Google Apps Script that moves any read message in my inbox to the archive. And it does so once every minute. It's basic and seems to not accomplish much since the messages end up in my archive anyway. But what if I need to reply? What if I need to act on that email? If I open it and don't reply immediately or don't capture in some way, it's gone. Not completely, but it's moved out of sight. And I will likely drop the ball since there is no placeholder in my inbox. That by itself is enough to keep me from opening mails on my phone. I can't have them disappear.

I should warn you that if you decide to set this up, it will be frustrating at first. I failed immediately and checked my email shortly after installing the script. I saw a message I wanted to read but knew I couldn't touch it or it would be gone since I didn't have time to act on it. I spent a lot of time trying to get around this setup and quickly found that I couldn't check a mail without a lot of extra steps. It's a lot easier to not check it at all.

Warning: Before going further, make sure read messages are ready to be archived. They will be moved.

To set this up you need to go to your Google Drive and created a new Google Apps Script. Here's the code to paste into that script:

function autoArchiveGmail() {
var threads = GmailApp.search('label:inbox is:read');
for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) {
threads[i].moveToArchive();
}
}

To run it the first time, click the debugger icon and give the script access to your Gmail:

Once the script is in place, set up a new trigger for it:

I wish you all the best in checking email from your phone.

Food and Productivity (From a Farm Boy)

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 13 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

We all need to eat. The consequences of rejecting that fact are far from pleasant and none of us would argue this reality. The problem comes when choosing which foods to consume. It's not enough that our supermarkets are overflowing and options are endless; we have corporate marketing schemes, dietary standards, and fear mongering to battle.

I was raised on a large crop farm and I have worked with, for, and around farmers and agricultural companies my entire life. In my journey I've helped raise crops and animals, develop new seed varieties and hybrids, and aided the marketing efforts of all the above. I understand what goes on behind the scenes of our food system quite well. And it's this understanding that has given me clarity in choosing what to eat.

Some of these choices are purely for health reasons. Some are made out of a concern of the unknown or the constantly changing science of diet. But regardless of the rationale behind these decisions, they all lead me to an increase in energy and mental precision. And you could argue that these two results are the foundation of productivity, which means the justification I've developed for what I eat is tied not only to a healthy diet but also to my ability to complete tasks.

Enough of the groundwork, let's jump in with an easy one: processed foods. Most people I encounter understand that these are best left alone. I like to think of them in terms of natural and manufactured complexity. In its natural state, a potato has a lot of complexity to it. There are a lot of nutrients in the skin as well as the heart. But it's the combination of the two parts that allows it to achieve its dietary value.

But when you remove an element of the potato and introduce a foreign element, you have now manufactured a new complex arrangement of nutrients. Or in some cases, an element is removed and then replaced with a theoretically identical element that comes from a different, cheaper source. In either case, we've created a food item that doesn't exist naturally in our environment. Some scenarios indicate that this is perfectly fine. But most lead to health issues due to a lack of understanding in how to create a food that is perfectly digested and beneficial to the human body. Or, as in most companies, the desire to create a healthy, processed food is secondary to profit.

One of the most difficult and hotly debated conversations you can have about food revolves around GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms. These are crops that have received a DNA alteration in order to enhance or add a trait within the crop. This usually leads people to seeing them as "frankenfoods" but that's an exaggeration of the facts. The traits being added are typically found within the same species, just not the specific strain that's being altered. This isn't always the case, but generally speaking it holds true. The idea of pulling traits from strawberries and combining them with corn is mythology and typically used by fear mongers.

That said, there are tremendous benefits to GMOs. They've enabled food producers to grow exponentially higher yields and feed the world with fewer resources and less land. And it is true that they've helped farmers cut back significantly on the volume of chemicals used on their land. I've seen this transition first hand and I can tell you that the numbers you see on this are conservative. GMOs have proven highly beneficial to everyone raising crops.

However, there is a growing concern over the safety of GMOs. Despite there being a small number of GM crops they have been approved, it is true that they make it into our food system. Which begs the question, are they safe for me to eat?

You can answer this question one of two ways: scientifically or with cautious reasoning. If you read the studies on GMOs, you'll quickly conclude that they are perfectly safe. But to land at this conclusion you have to trust the source of the studies. In most cases, that source is either the company selling the GM crop or the company selling its processed form to you and me. Personally, I'm not convinced they're able to do these studies with a completely unbiased approach. And knowing that some of these researchers (I've worked with them) will repeat a study multiple times looking for a particular result, I'm often skeptical of their findings.

The other way to answer the GMO safety question is with cautious reasoning. We know that eating whole fruits and vegetables is good for our bodies. There seems to be a perfect relationship between our physical needs and the offerings of these whole foods. If we intentionally alter the makeup of these foods genetically or with post-harvest processing, we are breaking this existing relationship and introducing a new one. It also means that how our bodies react may have unwanted effects on our energy and overall health. This new relationship could work out to be fine. But we're introducing risk, since there's so much about the human body we don't know. We can't truly comprehend the full impact this new relationship has on our long-term health. I don't understand why I should voluntarily take this risk. Why would I choose the unknown when the known has a long list (and history) of benefits?

Just to be clear, I'm not saying you should completely avoid and vilify GM foods. They do have a place and save lives daily. But if given a choice and available resources, I err on the side of caution.

Given my experiences, I have learned that eating healthfully has a major impact on my ability to think clearly and creatively. And the better I feel, the better equipped I am to be productive. So to be wise with my time and energy, I need to eat well. For me, that means the consumption of simple, natural foods.

Stop The Should

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

One of the strongest fears I grapple with is that of rejection. Like most, I want people to appreciate the work I do and me as a person. My struggle develops when I sense a dislike or underappreciation directed towards me in some way. Red flags start flying and I find myself searching for ways to get out of the scenario.

Over time, I've learned who to trust and when. And although I rarely follow through on my thoughts about running away, I still have this nagging sense about what is expected of me. Instead of acting on my fear, I try to weigh it and pay attention to what the other person expects me to do.

However, this presupposition of actions can also rear its head in situations involving only myself. There are times when I feel the need to incorporate something new into my daily schedule. The latest case here is my need for more sleep. Rather than sleep longer at night, I've felt that an afternoon nap would better suit me. The fear and "should" that creeps in is telling me that I don't have time for a nap everyday. I have enough to do. I can't pull more time away for "leisure."

Here's the problem with these scenarios: they leave me feeling like I should say or do something because unspoken expectations have been placed on me. I'm expected to go along with a conversation I don't agree with. I'm expected to maximize my time perfectly every day. I'm expected to utilize every app or tool to its fullest potential.

These are all things I should do. And when I stop long enough to notice when a "should" has been placed on me, I often find myself asking why. Why should I do this thing? "Because Joe expects it" or "because I paid decent money for this app" aren't always the best answers. It's taken time (and I'm still learning) to put a stop to the "should" that is placed on me and gain the confidence to think for myself.

A Roller Coaster Relationship With Books

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I was an avid reader in grade school. Any program the school put in place to encourage kids to read, I completed as fast as I could. That trend continued until I made it to junior high.

It wasn't that I didn't have time, but my rationale and purpose for reading changed. In grade school, I was encouraged to read but it wasn't a requirement. In junior high, it became homework. Books were selected for me and I hated it. Maybe it was the timing or maybe it was my rebellious side showing its face, but either way I avoided reading as much as possible.

This avoidance continued until late in high school, and the only reason I read a couple books then was because my English teacher assigned books I had a genuine interest in. I can only say this having reflective hindsight. At the time I would say it was due to me liking the teacher. So, as you can guess, it didn't stick. At the end of high school and early in college I still found myself getting clever at finding book summaries and honing my ability to skim the book for the high points.

Oddly enough, I've always enjoyed having finished a book, when I actually read it. That's a common thread with me; I enjoy the results of hard work but struggle to convince myself to do it. This certainly held true with reading books. I enjoyed being able to talk about a book I had read but didn't want to start another one. Talk about a weird paradox.

After college I read about a book per year. Because I was no longer reading as homework, I again found pleasure in the reading itself. I could enjoy reading what I wanted, but still didn't see it as something worth making into a habit.

And then there's Bookworm. An endeavor that has forced me into a reading habit. Bookworm took me from finishing roughly a book each year to completing a book every two weeks. And that has led to reading an extra book between some shows, which means I often read a book each week. This is easily the most reading I've done in my life.

Bookworm (and my new habit of carrying a book with me everywhere) has given me a chance to discuss the reading of books more frequently and it seems most folks I run into want to read more but don't make the time for it.

My point is this: I haven't always been a reader. It's something I've grown into over time. I can tell you that if you aspire to read a book every week, you'll likely struggle if you don't currently read at least one every year. Going 0 to 100 rarely works. Instead, find a page count you can read every day. Even if it's only one page every day, you'll end up finishing a book and a half each year. If you can do five pages, you'll land at about eight books a year. It doesn't take much to start a habit that quickly compounds itself. Start small and be consistent; let it build over time.

Using The Permanence of Paper as Resistance

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 19:00:00 -0500

The concept of resistance is getting to be common knowledge. In its original context as posed by Steven Pressfield, resistance is entirely negative. It is the internal and sometimes external force keeping us from doing our best work. As good brainworkers we consistently look for tactics, methodologies, and habits to remove and eliminate resistance.

But there's another side to resistance. You can take the inverse process and instead of removing resistance to doing the positive, you end up creating resistance to prevent the negative. In part, it's this inverse relationship with resistance that has me using pen and paper for my daily planning.

I appreciate uniformity and order. That's a piece of why I build and enjoy structures and systems. It's also natural for me to write my daily plans in the same format every day. And I don't like drawing lines through a plan I've already made to accommodate a change. Granted, things happen and I'm okay with alterations if it's an external input dictating the change. But if it's just me, I don't want to change it because it will destroy the cleanliness of the plan.

Type A, I know. But that's how I think. The beauty is that I can create my goal for the day and know that when I put it on paper it pains me to change it after-the-fact. And when I go through the day following the plan and don't feel like doing the next step, I know that putting it off requires a disruption in the cleanliness of what I've written on paper. Strange as it is, I would rather do the unwanted task than break up the structure I've created.

I find it interesting how big an impact these little habits can have on the outcome of a day. I may be doing the same process on paper as I can digitally, but because pen and paper have more permanence than an event in my calendar, I'm more prone to following the plan.

The Day On Paper

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I have tried numerous methods of managing my daily tasks digitally. But no matter the tool or the method, I am unable to replicate the clarity and motivation that comes from using pen and paper to plan and reflect on my day.

Don't misunderstand. I still rely on digital tools heavily for everything beyond today. OmniFocus and my calendar play a big part in helping me determine what each day looks like. And my Dashboard is vital to the execution process.

But planning the day out in my digital calendar doesn't work. I've tried it multiple times. There's something motivating and more permanent involved in pen and paper. I can't drag-and-drop a commitment to a different time of day when I used pen. And the longer I commit my plan to paper, the more I've learned about myself when the day is done. This learning process has shown me a need for putting three separate portions of my day on paper.

Budgeting My Time

I've talked about this in multiple places, but I find great value in planning each minute ahead of time. I list the date at the top and the hours down the side. While reviewing my calendar and Dashboard, I decide what I will do at each point in the day. This usually happens at night when I'm shutting down the house and prepping for bed.

Three Things

To the right of my schedule and on the same page, I write down the three things I need to get done that day (or if I'm doing it the night before, the next day). Above all else, these are my goals to complete. Having no more than three means I can easily recall them throughout the day. Committing to no less than three means I'm not taking it easy. Sometimes I draw a line under them and list a few nice-to-haves, but those are ancillary and I try not to touch them until my three are complete.

Journal Entry

My schedule for the day and my three things go on the left side of the fold in my notebook. The right side is for my reflection journal at the end of the day. Some people have a list of prompts they use for journal entry. That's too much for me. I look at my commitments left of the fold as compared to what I accomplished and write about how I did. Did I check everything off or come up short? It's the daily comparison of intentions to execution that keeps me coming back to pen and paper.

Behind The Scenes Of Working With Omnifocus

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

More often than not, I find myself surprised by the questions I get after releasing a new script or product. After releasing Working With OmniFocus I received more emails about how the site is set up then I did about the course itself. It's apparent to me that this is something different that others are interested in. So here's how I did it.

WordPress

The core is WordPress. It's fast and easy to set up and I knew going this route would open a lot of doors to existing code. I could build the thing myself, but never in the same amount of time. There's a lot of flexibility in WordPress and I'm very familiar with it.

A Small Orange

Anytime I build a new WordPress site, I turn to A Small Orange for the hosting. I can run my own server through Digital Ocean but the peace of mind from handing it off is worth it to me. And frankly, the set up time is much faster and more painless with ASO. Throw in fast, quality support and I'm sold.

Paid Memberships Pro

The membership mechanism I prefer is Paid Memberships Pro. I like the single, yearly cost of PMPro and the extreme flexibility made possible by their add-ons and codebase. It takes care of my restricted content, payment gateways, the affiliate program, and email newsletter. And buying their annual license allows me to use it across an unlimited number of sites, which is great for building multiple online courses.

Theme My Login

I don't know why more sites don't use Theme My Login. It seems very unprofessional to me when I am presented with the standard WordPress login screen on your site. TML fixes that and it's free. Use it.

Vimeo

I chose Vimeo for hosting the videos themselves for two main reasons: embedding control and their player API. I don't want the videos discoverable anywhere but on my site. That's how I can make it a paid course. And the API is what allows me to check for the amount of a video that's been watched by the user, which is important for VimPosts.

WP VimPosts

This is the part most folks ask about. VimPosts is a WordPress plugin I wrote specifically for Working With OmniFocus. It's what allows me to embed the Vimeo video by adding only the ID number to the WordPress post. It uses the Vimeo player API to decide when to mark a video as "watched" and gives the user the ability to manually trigger "watched" as well. It also creates a shortcode I can use within a WordPress page for creating a list of videos like you see here.

Currently, this plugin is dependent on the Working With OmniFocus website and will break anywhere else. But in my work on Working With Alfred, I plan to make it a standalone plugin. If you're interested in staying up with the development process, I have it on GitHub. I have some new features planned for it and have considered making it available as a premium plugin but I'm currently undecided. If it's something you're interested in using, let me know in the comments below.

Checking In on Dvorak

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 23 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

It's been about 10 months since I switched to Dvorak. It's been at least six months since I've written about it. In that six months, I have continued to make improvements but I've also noticed an interesting tidbit about my relationship with QWERTY.

First, I'm loving Dvorak. I didn't have RSI issues beforehand but I can tell there's less strain on my fingers now. I have no solid numbers on it but I like knowing I can feel the difference. And given the large amount of time I keep my finger tips on keys every day, I can't help but think this is smart in the long-term.

As for typing speed, I'm still climbing. I'm currently sitting at 118 words a minute. I keep thinking it will plateau but though the rate of increase has slowed significantly, it is still moving upward. I'm guessing it will peak somewhere around 125.

As expected, my QWERTY speed has dropped but lately it's been holding steady at about 40 words a minute. By my standards that's pretty terrible, but considering I rarely use QWERTY and am not trying to maintain it, I'm fine with that number. It's still high enough that I don't appear to be a complete fool when I use it. At least most of the time.

But here's the catch: I can't think about it too hard. If I just type, it works out great no matter which layout I'm on. But if I'm on QWERTY and I try to be intentional about the keys and focus on them, it all comes crumbling down. I have to watch my hands and really work at it.

Overall, I'm still really happy I made the switch. There are some difficulties with being "not normal" but to me it's worth it. I can deal with the slight setbacks for the sake of the benefits.

Discourse Commenting for Jekyll

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

For years, Disqus has been the commenting platform of choice. It's what I used when my site was on WordPress. When I switched to a static site generated by Jekyll, I pulled commenting entirely. But given the topics I write about, comments can be quite helpful and I realize that was a mistake. So I brought them back with the help of Discourse.

There are a number of reasons I chose Discourse, but suffice it to say that I just like it better than the alternatives, which are actually few in number for static sites. I have a unique way of doing the embed process that I thought other Jekyll users might find helpful.

The Discourse Side

Assuming you have an instance of Discourse running (not the purpose of this post) and you are an admin on said instance, you add the host site as an allowed host in the Discourse settings (Customize → Embedding). That will generate the code you need to embed on each page you want commenting enabled. You'll have to change the embed URL within the code to match the canonical URL of the page it's embedded on. This is what it looks like originally:

The Jekyll Side

This can't get more basic. Paste the code from Discourse to the bottom of the post layout in Jekyll. After I make the edit for the embed URL, this is what the code looks like:

Development Tweaks

Every change I make to the site is previewed before deployment. Each post is reviewed as well. So it's quite normal for me to run jekyll s --future. But I don't want any issues with the embed code when I'm in my development environment, so I tell Jekyll to only add the embed code when the site is being created for production:

{% if jekyll.environment == "production" %}

{% endif %}

Now when I'm ready to deploy my changes I run JEKYLL_ENV=production jekyll b. That sets the environment variable to production instead of development and means the embed code is only included when I'm building the site for real. I use the same trick for my Piwik tracking code. It keeps my external dependencies from creating issues while I am developing.

Digging Into Alfred Remote

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 16 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Alfred is a tool I use hundreds of times a day without realizing it. I'm not sure why it took me so long to pick up Alfred Remote for my phone, but I'm now seeing the potential for some really advanced triggering for my Mac.

I've written before about my use of Alfred for navigating applications on my Mac. Remote takes it another step by allowing me to show/hide a program from my phone. At first, I was concerned there might be a bit of lag in activating the action but that fear was immediately eradicated. It's an instant switch and often happens before my eyes make it back to the Mac.

As an app switcher, Remote is awesome. And given different pages of actions, I can set up different work modes since different tasks require different apps. Take podcasting as an example. Keeping my audio programs and notes a tap away makes recording seamless. But I don't use some of those applications at any other time, so I keep that set up as a different page in Remote.

This app launching structure is invaluable for webinars and screencasting. It drives me crazy when I watch someone's screen and they need to search for an open document or program. Or if I'm recording a screencast, this allows me to eliminate the need for fades across screens and lets me jump right into the next window.

Outside of app switching, I use Remote for opening sites I have bookmarked and my most frequent file folders. This works the same way as app launching. Remote opens them immediately on the Mac.

Where I think Remote has power that I have yet to realize is in scripting. I do this with Spotify to get a play/pause button but that's as far as I've gotten. It's possible to create some sophisticated workflows that can then be launched from Remote. This means you could run some OmniFocus AppleScripts, hide unwanted apps, open other apps, empty the trash, and more with a single tap. Again, I haven't gone this route yet, but I can see a lot of potential for Remote that I hadn't considered.

Converting Drafts Text to Title Case

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Drafts is easily one of the most used apps on my phone. To me, it is the pinnacle of resistance-free digital capture. If I look through my list of processed drafts, the most common forms of text I capture are content ideas and book suggestions. This tells me I read, write, and record a lot.

I like my placeholders for these new ideas to be uniform. In this case that means each content idea - whether it's a blog post idea or a new video - is captured as the title I would use for the content itself.

But let's be serious, I hate hitting the shift key at the beginning of every new word and I'm terrible at remembering which words should be capitalized and which should remain lowercase.

Knowing the power of Drafts, I asked if it were possible for my capture tool to handle this for me. That question led me to an article about title case and JavaScript by the always excellent Dr. Drang.

Using his script as a base, this is what I landed on:

var small = "(a|an|and|as|at|but|by|en|for|if|in|of|on|or|the|to|v[.]?|via|vs[.]?)";
var punct = "([!\"#$%&'()+,./:;<=>?@[\\\]^_`{|}~-])";

this.titleCaps = function(title){
    var parts = [], split = /[:.;?!] |(?: |^)["Ò]/g, index = 0;

    while (true) {
        var m = split.exec(title);

        parts.push( title.substring(index, m ? m.index : title.length)
            .replace(/\b([A-Za-z][a-z.'Õ]*)\b/g, function(all){
                return /[A-Za-z]\.[A-Za-z]/.test(all) ? all : upper(all);
            })
            .replace(RegExp("\\b" + small + "\\b", "ig"), lower)
            .replace(RegExp("^" + punct + small + "\\b", "ig"), function(all, punct, word){
                return punct + upper(word);
            })
            .replace(RegExp("\\b" + small + punct + "$", "ig"), upper));

        index = split.lastIndex;

        if ( m ) parts.push( m[0] );
        else break;
    }

    return parts.join("").replace(/ V(s?)\. /ig, " v$1. ")
        .replace(/(['Õ])S\b/ig, "$1s")
        .replace(/\b(AT&T|Q&A)\b/ig, function(all){
            return all.toUpperCase();
        });
};

function lower(word){
    return word.toLowerCase();
}

function upper(word){
  return word.substr(0,1).toUpperCase() + word.substr(1);
}

draft.content = titleCaps(draft.content);
commit(draft);

To install it, click here.

From a practical standpoint, I set this up as an action key so I can use it easily. Now, all I do is type the idea, hit TI above the keyboard, and then action it off to where belongs.

Fear of the Weekly Review

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I'm all about reviews. I think their value greatly outweighs the time involved and energy expended. Most of the time it's easy for me to initiate a review and step through its checklist, but there are days when I see a weekly review coming up on the calendar and start dreading it immediately.

It's simple really. My dread is rooted in fear, which is a bit odd to say at first. There is a large group of GTDers who find no value in a weekly review and they often cite their hatred for the practice and the amount of time necessary to complete it. Or they do a smaller, broken up version of a weekly review on a daily basis because it's overwhelming to do it all it once. But if you look at all of these cases through the lens of fear, you can see surprising similarities.

When I start to fear the weekly review, it's often because I fell short of my goals for the week, feel overloaded, have to say "no" to projects I love, or haven't done my due diligence to empty my mind. Doing a weekly review will force me to do un-fun work and make decisions I don't want to make. But when I've achieved my weekly goals and faithfully captured my ideas, I look forward to the review because I know it will validate my success.

When GTDers (myself included) choose to put off the weekly review, it's often due to fear of what we'll learn as opposed to time constraints. If it's valuable, we'll make time for it. I would even argue that the weekly review is what allows you to trust your system and the foundation of its successful use.

If you've sworn off the weekly review or broken it down into smaller daily pieces, why is that? Is there a fear of what you'll see? Can you trust the system if you don't regularly validate its accuracy? When do you step back and look at the overall picture of your commitments?

If you're like me, the times when you fear the weekly review are the times it's the most important to complete.

Changing Prices On… Everything

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 06 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

One of my most hated tasks is setting the price for a new product. It's painful and it seems like I can never get it right. The bright side is that I've been able to learn a lot in the process and that has led me to a price simplification, effective immediately.

Let's start with the popular one, Working With OmniFocus. When I originally released it as a book, it was $17 at launch and moved to $22 dollars a week later. This worked well from a financial standpoint but it led to a number of emails from folks who missed the early discount. I have no issues with people asking about it, but it took time I wasn't expecting to give. And from a long term business stance, it also means that potential buyers may hold off on making a purchase thinking the price may come down again in the future. As opposed to playing these discount games, I'd rather it be set and consistent.

When Working With OmniFocus moved to a video course it seemed logical to me (and friends in the business) that raising the price to $37 was easily justified if not a little low. That may be true if I'm trying to make it a more exclusive membership, but I'm not. I would rather it be in the hands of more people and have a broader impact. Following basic supply and demand principles, that means the current price needs to be reconsidered.

Working With Ideas was plagued with many of the same issues. It was a lot more intensive to develop and after consulting others who have done something similar, I landed on $72. Again, this creates the feeling of exclusivity that I'm not shooting for. Especially considering I've left it at the introductory price due to a lack of interest.

And then there's Working With Alfred. This one is extremely new on the horizon and has a long way to go yet. But the pricing discussion for this one is the same. Where should it land and how can I price it to be accessible to a large number of users while covering my costs?

One thing I've learned in my pricing adventure is that I love simplicity and consistency. I also place value in reaching higher numbers of people with the resources I create. So that means I want to bring everything to a uniform price, preferably at the lower end of my comfort zone. Based on my experience and trusting my intuition, that leads me to $17 for each.

So effective today, Working With OmniFocus and Working With Ideas are each $17. And I'm no longer doing discounts or release pricing. It's also means that when Working With Alfred is released it'll be $17 as well. I'm keeping it simple and dependable.

Multiple Lines in Drafts to Multiple Tasks in OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 19:00:00 -0500

One piece missing in my Drafts actions arsenal was the ability to create a single draft with multiple tasks and send them all to OmniFocus via the new URL schemes. This isn't something I use often but there are times when it would be useful and can be the difference between capturing everything and missing a vital thought.

So here we are. I made one. You can install it here.

For those interested, it uses a JavaScript step that breaks each line of the draft apart and reassembles them in taskpaper format. This new string is stored in a new tag that can be used in the URL step.

Here's what the JavaScript looks like:

var text = "";
var tasks = draft.content.split("\n");
for (i in tasks) {
text += encodeURIComponent("- " + tasks[i] + "\n");
};

draft.defineTag("OFTasks", text);

And here's the URL step:

omnifocus:///paste?target=inbox&content=[[OFTasks]]

Time For a Refresh

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

This past weekend my wife was gone on a retreat. That meant I took care of our girls on my own. They go to bed about an hour and a half before I do, and like any self-respecting web developer with an aging web design, I took advantage of the extra free time and made some major changes to the look and feel of my home on the web.

The biggest change here are the layouts of the header and article feeds. Headers are always a challenge because you want them to be unique but they need to follow intuitive interface standards. This one took me 20+ iterations to get right and to feel good about. In the end, I wanted it to be simple to understand and easy to find what you're looking for.

Compared to the article feed layout, the header was simple. I went through 40+ versions of the layout, colors, and metadata to show. I know that there are a lot of factors that I personally look at when deciding to read an article. And I understand the frustration of not being able to find that one piece of data you need to get the context of the post. So I did my best to call out the date, tags, and length of each post so it's easy to get the background of the article before you jump in.

To go along with the look and feel is the new ability to use a dark or light theme. I stole this idea from Federico Viticci over on MacStories. I love his implementation of it and built my own version. Since it's my blog and I'm a huge fan of dark themes, I made the dark theme default. You can switch back to the light theme with the theme toggle in the header. Though, I'm not sure why you would do that.

The last change worth noting is search. I moved over to lunar.js to calculate the results for the search. This is primarily due to my use of Jekyll as a site generator. Lunar makes it a lot easier since I don't have any server-side methods I can use to generate the search results. You can use the search box in the header or by visiting the dedicated search page.

Overall, I'm really happy with this new setup and excited to share with you. But I'm very aware that redesigns like this often come with unexpected bugs. If you find an issue, please let me know about it in the discussion below.

Zen & The Art of Work

Joe Buhlig — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I've always admired the thought and intentionality that Kourosh Dini applies to his methods of working and developing structures that help him accomplish his tasks. So I was excited when he gave me the opportunity to go through his video course, Zen & The Art of Work, prior to its launch. I must say that I think this is his best work to date.

Dini has a reputation for writing in-depth, thought-provoking books and those books were instrumental in guiding me to develop my own processes. But he's now taking another step in the creation of video modules that illustrate what I would call a combination of Deep Work and Getting Things Done.

I've been a practitioner of GTD for a long time and a recent convert to the concept of Deep Work sessions. Dini is able to use visual representations in conjunction with practical examples of how these concepts work together in real life scenarios. Because of this, Zen & The Art of Work is one of (if not the) best demonstrations of how these principles can lead to the calm, intentional practice of getting work done that matters.

I have to confess that I was surprised by the number of takeaways I had after completing the course. Some are simple, almost obvious. Others were completely new to me:

Pause before going onto the next task.

I have a habit of just working down a list. A simple pause between tasks can help me be more intentional about what I'm doing. It becomes a way to prevent any haphazard ways of working.

Be with the work.

Like most information workers, I deal with almost constant desire to procrastinate. Dini introduced me to this idea of just being in the presence of the work to be completed and doing nothing else. And I can tell you that the amount of self-control necessary to start the work, once you put yourself in the presence of the work, is much less with this practice in place.

Designing work sessions.

I had never thought about work being done in sessions prior to reading Deep Work. I had loosely practiced this but never intentionally. Dini is able to carefully articulate how work sessions can be initiated and focused in a way that sets you up for following through on your intentions. He gave me a clarity about sessions that I had been seeking.

Process inboxes after each session.

In the past I've been consistent in clearing my inboxes every morning. But Dini suggests clearing them at the end of every work session. This is mostly due to his recommendations on how to leverage the power of an inbox while in the middle of a session, but it has me clearing "in" more often each day. And the mental freedom that has come with it has been surprising. It is certainly a practice I intend to maintain.

Dini's music is excellent for work sessions.

As part of the course you get a bonus album of Dini's music. I have long been searching for soothing music that is suited for my writing time and have yet to discover anything as perfectly suited as this album. I've known Kourosh composes songs for a while but for some reason I've never listened in the past.

Zen & The Art of Work is an excellent course for those looking to be intentional with the work they do. It's perfectly suited for newcomers to the productivity space and will be at the top of my list of recommendations for where to start. But it's also a great resource for those who've been at it for a while. The real world examples are invaluable and Dini can easily demonstrate how to implement these concepts. I highly recommended this course.

For more information on the course, you can visit zenandtheartofwork.com.

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of the course for this review and it includes affiliate links. I can honestly say my opinion of the course hasn't been colored by this fact, but regardless, it's something I felt you should know.

Targeted OmniFocus Templates With Workflow

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I've been impressed by the speed of the Omni Group's release cycles lately. It's obvious they are hard at work on the automation methods for both iOS and macOS. One of these recent releases introduced the ability to create new projects within a specific folder on iOS.

It's pretty straight-forward. You use the /paste URL as before but replace target=projects with target=/folder/FOLDERNAME, so you now get something like this:

omnifocus:///paste?target=/folder/Articles&content=TASKPAPERCONTENT

This opens a lot of doors, but I prefer to keep things simple by using a single Workflow. This new Workflow takes a text file in DropBox (containing a taskpaper template), replaces any placeholders (using this format: «PLACEHOLDER»), and places the new project in the folder you choose from the menu.

You can get this Workflow here.

If you look through the steps, you'll see an action that looks like this:

These are the selectable targets in the Workflow. You'll want to alter these to fit your structure. Just pay attention to the text and variable assignment under each choice and be sure to copy that format.

In the end, this allows me to pinpoint where I want my templated projects to land within OmniFocus without needing to manually move it after creation.

Using Gmail Permalinks [Video]

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Earlier this week, I published an article eluding to my use of Gmail's permalinks. It sparked a number of unexpected questions about how to get them and how I use them on both macOS and iOS. But rather than write it out, I figured a screencast would help convey the process better.

Here are the Workflows I mentioned in the video:

Open Gmail Permalink on iOS - Workflow

My Altered Workflow

Forget Third Party Email Apps

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 18 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Folks are quite passionate about the software they use to access their email. I fell in that camp for a while but anymore I just don't get it. I think that stems from my intent to touch emails only once, keep my inbox as empty as possible, and use a single archive folder for all emails I want to keep.

My needs in an email app are just as simple. I need an easy way to move an email to either an archive or the trash. That's it. And since there's an internet connection and a Mac with me 99.9% of the times I check email, I do all of it in the browser with Gmail.

That means I have no need for integrations with other apps because I always have a URL to reference an email. I can always grab the link, drop it into a notes field, or save it as part of a reference document. It also means the email is always a click away.

I have no need for fancy folder structures and snoozing mechanisms. They don't make sense to me. It's an extra layer of complexity and decision deferment that delays progress on the requests represented in the emails. I don't want to postpone my action on it for later, I make the decision the first time I see it.

When I read reviews or hear comparisons of new email apps, I'm usually left asking "why?" Why are all these extra features necessary? Why is everyone trying to solve the "email problem?" The extra bells and whistles won't make your decisions for you. It won't write your responses for you. That's up to you.

We all get email. Some of us get a lot more than others. And if you feel you have an email problem, you need to do something about it. The issue isn't the app. Don't complicate matters looking for a third party app. Keep it dead simple and own your decisions. You'll feel a lot better in the end.

Building Systems You Won't Use

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I'm always looking for a way to automate a process or develop a structure that removes steps from a frequently repeated task. That's to be expected since I enjoy the world of productivity and do a fair amount of development.

But building new systems to increase efficiency and accomplish new actions used to be relegated to the Mac or PC. You can write scripts and code there that do really sophisticated tasks. The only limit is your imagination and time devoted to it.

With the creation of apps such as Workflow, Launch Center Pro, and Editorial, the system building process has more or less made its way onto iOS. And I leverage these heavily in my daily iPhone use.

Although this ability comes with a plethora of benefits, it also comes with a very large downside: time consumption.

My general rule of thumb for development and systems building is "if you can think it, you can build it." If you have an idea for a script or a new system, you can generally make it happen given enough time and resources. Yes, there are occasions that this assumption falls down, but in my experience it generally holds true.

If you combine this assumption with the flexibility, ease, and novelty of an app like Workflow, it's easy to find yourself looking for ways to use it. "It has so much power, I should use it for __________." And new workflows are fun to build, so you get to "work" on a new process that will help you later.

The trouble is that it's time-consuming to build these new systems and since we utilize an app just because we can, we end up building things that serve no real purpose in our daily activities. It's cool that you can turn a series of pictures into a GIF but how often do you need to do that? Is it really necessary to spend time building these out if you're only going to use it a couple times, if ever?

My point is this: don't waste time building new systems just because you can or you think there might be a use for it. Determine the need up front and then get to work. Make sure it has a necessary and legitimate use before you spend time creating it.

Creating Drafts Actions In Bulk

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

When the Omni Group implemented the new automation methods in OmniFocus for iOS, I was both excited and worried. I had over 30 actions in Drafts that send text to OmniFocus using background emails as an action method. Switching all of those to use URLs was going to take some time.

But then I remembered Drafts has its own URL scheme that allows you to import actions. So I embarked on a journey to create my 30+ actions in bulk. I likely spent more time working this out than it would have taken me to just edit each one by hand, but now I have a trick to share with you. You're welcome.

1. Manually create a template

You first need a template to work with. Create one action that the rest of your actions will be modeled after. In my case, it looked like this:

2. Copy the action

After your template action has been created, open it up and use the Share Sheet to copy it. This copies the import action URL for the Drafts action that we'll dissect.

Here's a paste of this action so you get an idea of what you should see:

x-drafts4://x-callback-url/import_action?v=2&tintColor=%5B%0A%20%200.451,%0A%20%200.29,%0A%20%200.553%0A%5D&shouldConfirm=0&logLevel=1&uuid=0E3E5B59-15B5-4010-8E8C-C9A69EE0CA88&disposition=2&actionSteps=%5B%0A%20%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%22actionStepType%22%20:%20%22URL%22,%0A%20%20%20%20%22urlTemplate%22%20:%20%22omnifocus:%5C/%5C/x-callback-url%5C/add?x-success=drafts4:%5C/%5C/&name=%5B%5Btitle%5D%5D&note=%5B%5Bbody%5D%5D&project=Bulk%20Actions%20Template&context=Running&autosave=true%22,%0A%20%20%20%20%22useSafariViewController%22%20:%20false,%0A%20%20%20%20%22encodeTags%22%20:%20true%0A%20%20%7D%0A%5D&description=&modifiedAt=2016-09-07%2012:02:42%20+0000&name=Bulk%20Actions%20Template&iconImageName=429-checkmark2

3. Transfer to Numbers or Excel

You need to get this copied URL into a spreadsheet. I did mine on the Mac so I also needed to transfer it across devices. We'll use the spreadsheet to create new URLs in bulk.

4. Create a list of new actions

You need a list of the new actions. Specifically, you need a list of the text that changes in the URLs. This will be used to create the new import links.

5. Break up the URL template

This really depends on the complexity of your Drafts actions but you need to look through your URL template and break it into the pieces that stay the same across all the new links. You want to remove the text that changes and keep the remaining pieces in separate cells in the spreadsheet. This makes our lives much simpler when we start putting it all back together.

6. Format the replacement text

In my case, the URL template used a project name that matched the name of the action. So I created one format to the right of my list that handles both cases. Just pay attention to how your template looks and make sure your new text matches the original format.

7. Create the new URLs

Once the template is broken apart and the replacement text has been formatted, we can concatenate all the pieces back together to create our new URLs.

8. Transfer to iOS and import

Select all those new URLs, copy them, and transfer them to iOS. I just pasted them into a text file that syncs via DropBox and opened it in Editorial. Then it's just a matter of tapping the link to add each action to Drafts.

I'll admit this isn't a clean process, but it gets the job done. And for the spreadsheet wizards, I'm aware that there are more unified ways of creating the new URLs. But if you know those methods, you likely don't need this tutorial.

When Deep Work Strikes

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0500

There are a plethora of articles promoting and dissecting the tenants and principles proposed by Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work. That's what led me to picking it for an episode of Bookworm. After implementing my takeaways for about a month, I can see a decided difference in my productivity and effectiveness. It's what allowed me to release Working With OmniFocus when I did and to develop the depth of detail in those videos.

If you haven't read Deep Work, I will join the crowds in saying you should. It can change your methods of working and make you rethink the importance of the internet. In my case, it led to alterations in many core routines and habits I maintain.

The biggest change I have successfully implemented is a simple contact form over a blanket email address on this website. Over time I had begun receiving hundreds of emails each day. It's not possible to keep up with that kind of volume. And as Newport points out, email rarely produces a meaningful result. By putting systems in place to help me cut back on email received and removing expectations that I'll respond to every one of them, I take back more of my time and free myself to focus on essential projects. Email is still important, but it's not worth sacrificing my mission in life to answer the requests of others.

Newport talks about the value of a shutdown ritual, which is a way of closing off the work of today, preparing for tomorrow, and transitioning from work to family. I've experimented with an "End of Business" ritual before but I have always struggled getting it to stick. Reading Deep Work made me dust off my old checklist and give it another try. The clarity that comes when I follow through with this ritual makes me wonder why it was so hard to make this a habit in the past. I can only assume that a difference in perspective and season of life makes me see a greater value in closing off the day and intentionally shutting down my work mode.

Easily one of the most valuable action items you can take from the book is scheduling deep work sessions: time when you disconnect from all external inputs and focus on the one task in front of you. This is time spent unplugged and head down on a creative or critical project. And it is paramount that you keep the internet at bay. Its ability to send you down rabbit trails is uncanny and detrimental to the work that matters. To help combat the allure of infinity apps and their addictive tendencies, Newport suggests scheduling time for going online.

On the surface, I love this concept. Only allowing a set amount of time for the web forces you to be intentional with that time and see it as a tool with a purpose. But in practice, it's been extremely challenging to even put a plan together. I know there are benefits on the other side, but my business is online. It feels irresponsible to limit that time. But taking a cue from Joshua Becker, I think I'll have to pick a day and experiment with less time online. My anxiety is likely an indicator of the importance of trying.

To help with this trial, I reviewed a topic on the Discussion site by Jay Blanco about setting up a deep work phone. The thoughts shared there and my own reflections on the internet-as-a-tool mentality have led me to turning off cellular data and Wi-Fi on my phone.

Deep Work has lead to great progress on projects with a lot of value. I have some ground to cover yet, but the simple understanding of how to engage in deep work and suppress the time and energy devoted to shallow work has exponential benefits over my normal methods of getting things done.

Introducing The New Working With OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Working With OmniFocus has been recreated in video format! It's now available on the new dedicated website: workingwithomnifocus.com.

Something I didn't plan on with this project was the expansion of content. By the time I finished the set of videos, I realized there are over four hours of content and an additional 40% in topics covered over the book. And I already have another hour worth of topics in the queue. So it's easy to say that this is a pretty extensive resource and I'm really excited to share it with you!

Quick note: if you've previously purchased the book, check your email. There's a present waiting for you there. If you haven't bought the book, you can still get it as part of the video series. I'm keeping it simple and throwing it all into one package.

Go check out the new website! There are a handful of freebies there even if you're not planning to buy.

A Year Without Extra Screens

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 19:00:00 -0500

For the last year I've been running my business from a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. No iPad. No Watch. And no external monitors.

This started out of necessity. I had jumped into bootstrapping my business quicker than I wanted and knew I shouldn't spend extra dollars on unnecessary gadgets. So I took on the bare essentials.

At first, this was painful. I had done development and data analysis work for quite a while and had been able to use iPads and at least three monitors for years. I could easily argue the validity of multiple monitors for someone doing my line of work. To go from three 27" Thunderbolts and an always-on iPad at my desk to nothing more than a MacBook Pro screen was not fun.

To be honest, the freelance development and online business world isn't all roses and rainbows. I haven't felt comfortable spending extra dollars on a nice-to-have that isn't necessary for me to do my job. So I've spent the last year working with the same minimal setup I started with.

Despite the wounds this inflicted at the onset, I've discovered some unexpected benefits and learnings from this unwanted experiment. I can't say everyone will experience these and frankly some will say these are illogical conclusions. Regardless, my feelings on the topic remain.

Multiple screens don't increase productivity.

When forced to work from a single, small screen, you find ways to make the process as easy as possible. Instead of designating apps to specific locations on a specific screen, I found a way to quickly switch to a screen filling view of an app. With a single keyboard shortcut, I jump from program to program. But that means my need to see multiple things at once is no longer necessary because I can switch about as fast as my eyes can move to another screen and back.

The other aspect at work here is pure willpower to focus. Multiple screens increase the speed at which I can be distracted. Even if the distraction is productive, it still takes me away from my intended task. A single screen forces me to look at the application and task in front of me. I have to make a conscious decision to navigate elsewhere.

Device overlap is detrimental to focus.

When I owned an iPad, it served two purposes. It was used to read articles and watch videos and it became a dashboard for my task list, outline, or reference material. Without it, I read articles and watch videos on my phone or Mac. But honestly, I do this very little anymore. And from what I can tell, I'm better off scaling this back even further.

The lack of the dashboard has been a different story. It was a big loss initially since I've been using an iPad that way for three years or better. I struggled to find an alternative. As expected, I eventually found a combination of tools and techniques to simulate what I was doing previously. But what surprised me was the fact that my "new" methods were already in place. I had been switching between the iPad and my iPhone for a task list. My outlines and references were a shortcut away on the Mac. I had been duplicating the main purpose of the iPad on the Mac and iPhone already.

It's tricky, but I found there was a split in focus when there were options about which device to use. Because I could choose between devices for a given task, I would have to make an extra decision (iPad or Mac?) about the right one in the moment. Remove the decision (the extra device) and I can get to work quicker and, in most cases, more effectively. Without the choice and the potential overlap in devices, I'm free to focus on the task itself instead of asking which device to use for the task.

Owning every Apple device isn't logical.

I'll say it. I'm an Apple fanboy. Every product with an Apple logo has me looking for an excuse to own it. But each time I consider one, I've had to ask myself, "What does this enable me to do that I can't already do and need to do?"" It's the last piece of that question that always throws me off. There's a lot of new and shiny with Apple products, but at the end of the day, I've learned that it takes only a couple of them to do what I need and to do it well.

All that said, there are changes I would make and I would increase my screen count by one. But I would only do so in the realm of Macs. Given my work in audio/video lately, I would put in either an iMac or a Mac Pro with a single, large monitor. I'm unsure of the exact hardware needs at the moment. But to allow travel, I would pick up a new MacBook. I can do a light weight machine for this, since it only needs to do email and raw text when I'm away from my office. I wouldn't buy an iPad and I wouldn't go for more than a single monitor for the Mac.

When will this happen? I don't know. But learning how to work with so little has taught me where I want to go.

Information Overwhelm Without The Internet

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I hear people refer to information overwhelm more often than I would expect. The context varies but the idea is the same: finding information on the internet is so easy that the person has a hard time deciphering what is right and what to question. Some even take it as far as to suggest Google is making us dumb.

The validity of that statement and my opinion of it aren't important for the context of this article. What is important is the cause of the overwhelm: a broad range of topics at our fingertips. Type a word into any web search tool and you are hit with page after page of words to consume. It boggles your mind when you try to comprehend the complexity of the systems behind the interface that deliver those search results.

And regardless of your opinion on the effects this has on our brains, it's safe to say that most of the results are surface level articles. In other words, the vast majority of the internet articles out there will focus on the introduction of a topic or dive deep into one small aspect of a broader discipline. When combined and reviewed collectively, it's possible to ascertain expert levels of knowledge about a given search. But more often than not, it requires a great deal of time and experience in scouring the web to develop that level of expertise from search results.

In most cases, we aren't going to take the time necessary to understand a topic fully. We would rather skim the headlines we find, get our answer, and move on. This is where the traditional sense of information overwhelm comes in. There are so many potential solutions to our query that we have difficulty discerning which trail to follow. It's overwhelm due to a wide variety of topics made available to you.

But I've recently discovered a different type of overwhelm. Instead of this broad topics overwhelm, there's also deep topic overwhelm. Both flavors come with two constraints: a lot of information going into your mind in a short time frame. With the broad form, we see a variety of subjects available to us through systems like Google. But the deep form flips the equation and gives us a ton of detail about a single realm of knowledge. In my case, this is revealed through the rapid consumption of business and productivity books.

You could make the argument that given wisdom in writing queries you could create a list of search results that would emulate deep topic overwhelm. But again, you will be presented with a series of webpages that would need to be reviewed collectively and digested over a longer period of time. At that point you no longer fall into the constraint of a short time period, whereas reading multiple longform works on a single subject in short succession does.

A prime example of this difference is the book, Getting Things Done. There are countless people, myself included, who discovered the GTD framework through searches and failed to implement it successfully until they broke down and actually read the book. Despite the thousands of articles out there about GTD and, in my case, months of reading them, you'll never reach a level of full understanding until you read the book.

But if you read a lot of these types of books in a short time, you'll quickly start to feel this deep topic overwhelm. There's so much information and an incomprehensible level of rationale behind each author's arguments that you can't help but notice numerous aspects of your life and work that you want to change or develop. You have loads of data entering your mind that you want to act on and feel like you can't keep up.

The logical response is to slow down. Give yourself time to process and adapt. In my case, that's not possible since my quick reading is a part of Bookworm. But I'm convinced I would continue my biweekly pace even without the podcast and accountability. There are two reasons for this:

One, I'm able to draw correlations and similarities I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Given the short timeframe that I consume these books within, I have found that I still have a deep recollection of the last seven to ten that I've read. The book I am currently reading ends up being colored by what I've learned across thousands of pages I am still intimately familiar with. I find connections across multiple texts that I would normally miss.

Second, the new information I'm learning becomes motivation to keep moving forward with action items and deepens my rationale for what I've learned. Reading a thought-out reasoning for an author's belief will encourage you to either develop your own perspective or challenge you to reconsider your existing view. In both cases, you come out better on the other side.

When you have the ability to be both broadly overwhelmed and deeply overwhelmed, through the internet or through books, you can choose between two responses: you can wait to learn until you need a piece of information, or you can take advantage of your good fortune and learn as much as possible right now. I'll take the latter.

Woodworking Versus Websites

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 07 Aug 2016 19:00:00 -0500

One of the most difficult aspects of building websites or doing knowledge work full-time is the lack of motivation and pride that typically comes from physically seeing the work of your hands. Yes, it is possible to achieve this sense of accomplishment when working purely with information and computers, but it's far from natural.

Looking at my own life, I compare it to woodworking. When I build a piece of furniture I rarely need a to-do list for it. And (given available time) I don't struggle with getting to work on it like I do a bug-fix. I know that I can go to the woodshop, see my current progress, immediately determine what comes next, and get to work. And when I'm done, there is a innate joy that comes from having built the piece or at least made progress on it.

But when it comes to websites, it's a different story. I need a list to know where I left off. And I have to develop tricks and rituals to motivate me to get to work. Even after I'm done with the build I need to reflect on my work and put it in perspective to understand its value and develop pride in my work.

The weird part of this is that I really enjoy both. But I do think there's value in understanding the feelings and mechanics that come with working as a craftsman. If they can be applied to knowledge work, I think there is a drive and enjoyment we can achieve that has typically been reserved for those working with their hands.

Moving OmniFocus Scripts To iOS

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I have been hesitant to adopt the new automation methods in OmniFocus for iOS. The abilities of the new URL Scheme are exciting but there's still quite a bit missing from the structure as it stands.

The main piece I found missing was the "autosave" parameter to the /add URL. My current structure uses the Auto-Parser which allows Drafts to send tasks to the app without the need to confirm or edit an item. Thankfully, the Omni Group introduced this feature recently and I can now add items directly to OmniFocus on iOS and come back to Drafts without any extra steps. Here's the URL I'm using to add new Blog Post Ideas:

omnifocus://x-callback-url/add?x-success=drafts4://&name=[[title]]&note=[[body]]&project=Blog%20Post%20Ideas&context=Running&autosave=true

The /paste URL is a different story. Combined with Editorial or Workflow, this thing is awesome! It allows me to port two of the AppleScripts I use over to iOS.

The obvious one here is templates. Ken Case shared an Editorial workflow that takes a template project in Taskpaper format and adds it to OmniFocus. I'm using his workflow unedited and found it really easy to recreate my templates on iOS. Navigate to the project you want to use as a template, tap the Share button, and copy it. In Editorial I simply pasted the project into a new Taskpaper file and I'm set. All I have to do is open the template and run the workflow.

The other script I moved over was the "Read Book Tasks" script. This was a complete rebuild of the code in Workflow. Using it on iOS is the same as running the script on a Mac. Run the workflow, answer the prompts, and you get a sub-project for the tasks added to your inbox.

OF Book Tasks - Workflow

Everything above is about creating new tasks. In the world of data, we often refer to CRUD - Create, Read, Update, Delete. It's shorthand for the four ways you can work with information. You can make new data - Create. You can get existing data - Read. You can change or edit existing data - Update. And you can destroy the data - Delete. If you have the ability to do all four of these, you are able to do anything you want with the database.

If we overlay those four methods on top of the new OmniFocus URLs, we see only the first (Create) as a possibility. So we're still limited in what we can do on iOS. It's also why I'm not able to move all of my scripts to iOS. It simply isn't possible. Given the support for AppleScripting that the Omni Group shows, I can imagine it is only a matter of time before the RUD of CRUD makes it to iOS.

Too Much Tech?

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

One of the common threads in the books we've read for Bookworm is the impact of computers on our effectiveness, self-control, and overall happiness in life. Their prevalence and ubiquity in our world coupled with the newness and speed of their adoption has a lot of us wondering and speculating about the positives and negatives of this shift. So I would expect any book written in the last decade to incorporate thoughts on the topic.

David Allen is a big proponent of using the latest technology in creating an external brain. The ability of these devices to manage information and deliver it at will is astounding and enables us to find whatever we want, whenever we want it. David's GTD methodology (proposed in Getting Things Done) is perfectly aligned with and almost dependent on the mobility and universality of computers.

In The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal explains the neurological processes and chemicals released when using many of today's most popular applications and social networks. They are a double edged sword in that they connect us with people all over the world, but they also create never ending potential for distraction that we must overcome by developing a level of willpower. This is similar to Stephen Pressfield's view of Resistance in The War Of Art. It's easy to let the notifications and possibility of something new keep us from creating our best work.

And if you start asking yourself questions about what is absolutely essential in your life as Greg McKeown suggests in Essentialism, you start to question the necessity of technology in general. Our access to information and interconnectedness are nothing short of remarkable. Throw in home automation and our capabilities are hard to fully comprehend. But to what gain? Are those things indispensable? Do they introduce an unnecessary level of complexity just because we can? Where is the line of too much?

I hate those questions. I have a tendency to adopt new technology because of the cool factor and for the sake of experimentation and knowledge. I want to know how something works and see how I can use it. The pros and cons battle hardly enters my mind. I don't want to consider its benefits because I'm afraid there are none. And in most cases I know that it will be another thing to maintain and support when it doesn't work correctly.

For the past year I've been without an iPad. For someone in my line of business, that is absurd. It wasn't a goal or even intentional at first. I left the company I was working for at the time and needed to return the company iPad I had been using. Finances didn't warrant the purchase of a replacement right away so I was forced to go without an iPad for the first time since they were introduced.

After 12 months without one, I'm seriously wondering if I would ever buy one as a replacement. I can't find a legitimate purpose for it in my life that doesn't increase the complexity of what I do and how I work. In other words, I don't miss it.

It's this same rationale that I've applied to an Watch. What does it gain me that I can't already accomplish? I already wear a watch and I always have my phone around. I simply cannot justify it.

However, there are a couple areas I would like to introduce a bit more tech. External monitors and an external hard drive for my MacBook would help me out considerably. But even then, I'm only augmenting an existing computer as opposed to introducing a new device entirely.

I don't think there's some magical line for technology to which we all need to adhere. The level of interconnectedness and digitization we each desire and can manage in our lives is different. But I think I have my line for now and I enjoy the freedom these limitations give me.

Embracing The New TextExpander

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

When Smile introduced the new "Snippet As A Service" version of TextExpander, there was quite an outcry. To be completely honest, I was confused by and resistant to the change at the onset. However, if I look at the new version without allowing my previous experience to color my opinion, it is striking how similar it is to my other choices for software.

Data

One of the big complaints is the location used for data storage and syncing. Previously, we used DropBox or some other syncing service to host and update our snippets as we alter them. The new version forces you to use textexpander.com as the backend. I understand the concern over data control here but it really doesn't apply to me. I already use the backend for other software and services like OmniFocus, Workflow, and Overcast. This isn't much different.

Pricing

This is the one that got me at first. Year-over-year, the price to me would increase almost twofold. At least, that's what it was originally. Since release, Smile listened to the flood of feedback and generously implemented a 50% upgrade discount for life. In the end, that means I'm paying no more than I have in the past. It's a wash.

Subscription

Anymore I'm slow to upgrade hardware. But software is a different story. I deliberately limit the number of tools I use, which means I pick quality, pro-user tools with a lot of features and flexibility. Any time these tools have an upgrade available, I like to jump on it quickly. If you look at it from a high-level, I am effectively paying a subscription plan already. By adopting this recurring payment structure, I get no-hassle updates without the worry.

New Features

My big question when I first saw the release of the new TextExpander was about features. What's new that would lead me to upgrade? I didn't have an answer. But then I tried the trial and found two features that are important to me and a third I'm considering.

The first is inline search. You type a keyword anywhere, hit a keyboard shortcut (that you can customize), and see search results of your matching snippets. Since we typically have these memorized it may not sound very useful until you consider the pain of changing your snippet abbreviations or a database with hundreds of snippets. I find the need to alter abbreviations every few months which means the inline search ability has received a lot of my attention.

Second, the website. It seems unnecessary at first. If you have the apps, why would you use the website? Then I ran into a couple instances where I wanted a block of text from TextExpander while on a different profile on my computer. I don't want TextExpander on it for other reasons but it's incredibly handy to log on to the website to access that data. It makes it possible to retrieve the info I want without a software installation.

And the feature I'm considering is the one that initiated this whole thing: teams and sharing. I can see a lot of value in sharing email templates with clients or for Bookworm. Anytime there are communications, blocks of text, or forms that are used by multiple people, this could save us all a lot of time. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking for the opportunity.

Personal Use Only?

With all of this in mind, I'm happy with my choice to upgrade to the new TextExpander even if I choose not to use the sharing features. There's enough added value in the new version and consistency in pricing (for me) to convince me to buy in. TextExpander is one of those core applications I incorporate into a lot of other tools. That means I want it up-to-date. And since there are new possibilities that come along for the ride, I'm exploring the options that the new functionality gives me.

Leaving Pocket For Instapaper

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I follow specific websites less and less. I'm more inclined to follow people and services on Twitter and Medium that act as sources of curated articles. This gives me the ability to find sites I normally would have glossed over and still read my favorite writers.

But regardless of where I find these articles, I still need a way to save them for later. I rarely have time to read an article the moment I discover it. In the past I've used Pocket, but I have now moved to Instapaper.

Originally, I chose Pocket for its IFTTT integration. I had built a number of recipes that acted on the tagging ability of Pocket. But over time I slowly turned these off one by one, mostly due to my move away from tagging articles.

I still would've stayed with Pocket if they had simply left the URLs of the articles alone. When I'm finished with an article, I either archive it or share it. But if you share it through Pocket, they insist on shortening the URL with their custom link. The only way around it that I have found is to have Workflow expand the the link before sharing. When I see links shared by others, I use the top level domain (TLD) of the link as part of my decision about whether or not I want to read it. So I don't want my own links preventing that ability.

Coupled with the link shortening is the difficulty in sharing quotes from Pocket. It is similarly complicated to do so without the Pocket custom link. Contrast this with Instapaper, where it works perfectly without the need for Workflow actions to expand the link and format the text. Instapaper uses the link you originally saved and gets out of the way.

The reading experience is also far better on Instapaper. They give a lot of options to customize the reading view. And since these are apps designed for reading, I feel this is paramount. The experience in Pocket is not bad, I simply prefer the environment created and allowed by Instapaper.

When I realized I was no longer using IFTTT with Pocket it gave me the freedom to explore other options. And because I have been watching Instapaper for a long time hoping their IFTTT integration would progress, it was the perfect time to switch. I no longer needed Instapaper to adopt a deeper relationship with IFTTT, so I could make the transition with zero compromises.

Updates For Working With OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

It's been about nine months since I released Working With OmniFocus. A lot has happened in that time and my systems around OmniFocus have morphed quite a bit. Throw in a pile of learning accrued from other projects and I have decided to make some significant changes to the book.

Video

Easily the most prominent change will be the medium through which the content is delivered. Words on page work well, but when software is involved video can be a better route to follow. The ability to visually demonstrate a concept and how it works can dramatically increased the comprehension level of the viewer. So in the near future Working With OmniFocus will no longer be a book, but a repository of over 60 screencasts explaining and visualizing the idea at hand.

Location

I originally built a custom Ruby and Rails application to host the sales page and associated mechanisms for the book. That works well but gets to be a lot of maintenance that I'd rather not have. So Working With OmniFocus is moving to a new home on the web: workingwithomnifocus.com. Obviously, this is currently under development and will continue to change over the next few weeks.

Dynamic

One of the major difficulties in writing a book about software is the static nature of a book compared to the continual development of the software. It makes it difficult to keep the book up to date. By moving to web-based video and breaking the content into smaller pieces, it allows me to tweak the content as the program changes.

Pricing

I hate pricing. Throw in discounts, launch promotions, and levels of access and it's a nightmare to me. I have avoided much of this by sticking with a single price and I'm not leaving that mindset. In this case, the content will be more advanced and have more depth so I know the price will need to increase over the price of the book. I don't currently have an answer on what it will cost, but I do know that those who have purchased the book (and those who purchase it before the relaunch) will receive $20 off the videos.

Affiliates

The current affiliate program for the book has been a big success for me and I plan to continue to run one for the videos. But since I'm rebuilding the site, the mechanism will be different and will require you to sign up again for the new program. I know this is inconvenient but it will be better for all of us in the long run.

Book?

I'm not planning to update the book itself and the ability to purchase it by itself will go away. I will, however, make it available to those who purchase the video series with the caveat that my processes mentioned in the book are out of date.

Overall

I'm really excited about these changes. I will be able to explain the mindsets and demonstrate the app mechanisms in much more detail than was ever possible through the book. I'm devoting most of my current working time to these edits and plan to deliver it in mid to late August.

TextExpander And OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 17 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

TextExpander and OmniFocus are two of the first tools I install on any new device, so it's no surprise that the two work well together. You may expect some kind of Applescripting or shell magic, but I keep this extremely simple and only use true text expansion with OmniFocus. I run the scripts manually or behind the scenes with Hazel.

xwait = "Waiting for "

This is easily the most commonly used snippet I have for OmniFocus. Any time I need to create a new Waiting For task, I always type xwait and keep going. It's not a huge savings in one instance but multiply this by the average 20 uses a day and it really adds up.

xresp = "Waiting for response from "

Similar to the first, I use this one a lot. I receive and send a ton of email. Any time I send one that warrants a response, a new task is created and this is where the naming starts.

xplan = "Plan project for "

Most of the time when I decide to take on a new project, I don't have time right then to plan it out. So I use this to create a task for the planning process.

xpfm = "Plan for meeting re: "

I don't use this as much as I used to, but this helps me create a new task as a reminder to review meeting materials and get resources together for a call.

xlook = "Look into "

I do a ton of research to help me get better at a project or learn how a new process works. I always start these tasks with "Look into" as an indicator to Google, read, or learn about the item.

xdwc = " (Delete when complete)"

I stole this one from Kourosh. I sometimes have repeating tasks that are creative in some form or don't have a clear definition of "completed." I augment the end of the task title with "(Delete when complete)" so I know to delete the task instead of check it off when I'm done with it. That will keep it from repeating when it's done and allow the project to move on.

x5tom = "5am tomorrow"

Occasionally, I need to push a task off until tomorrow. When I do, I use this in the Defer Date field to push it out one day. I could hit the "+1 day" button but this is habit.

Overall, this is extremely basic compared to what is possible. But this does all I need, there's no point overcomplicating it.

My Current Home Screen

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

When I consolidated a handful of my inboxes into my email it made me rethink my home screen. I had previously kept it slim but this takes it a step further and creates significant resistance to activities better left undone.

The biggest time wasters on my phone and the ones I have consolidated are social media, RSS feeds, and email. Once those were all funneled into email, they didn't need to be on my phone at all. That meant Feedly, Google+, Pinterest, and LinkedIn all disappeared.

The big one here was Feedly. I normally used it as a triage tool, sending articles I wanted to read to Pocket. But I've always disliked their need to auto-shorten links when I share an article. It was bad enough that I built Workflow actions to overcome it. The main reason I originally used Pocket was the IFTTT integration. This inbox consolidation process made me comb through my recipes and realize I wasn't using IFTTT with Pocket anymore. I had slowly turned off all the connections with it. Goodbye, Pocket. Hello, Instapaper. I've wanted to switch for a while anyway.

Once I deleted a few apps, I started thinking through how I use my phone. If the app isn't on the front screen, I swipe down and search for it. If I'm going to launch apps with Spotlight, why keep multiple folders of them? I combined them into a single folder in order to bury the apps that are most tempting, but still keep them around for their Share Sheet functions. These are primarily Twitter and Instagram.

I've been using my phone this way for about a month now and it has seriously helped me limit my phone usage. It's geared toward getting work done as opposed to blowing time. If I'm going to blow time, I'm better off reading.

43: Big Project Decisions

Joe Buhlig — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I have a lot going on with a number of new projects taking off. But with new doors opening, a few doors need to be closed.

Working With Ideas

Bookworm – Podcast Book Club

@bookwormfm

Mike Schmitz

Working With OmniFocus

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

Working With Ideas: Now Open

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Our ability to come up with ideas is like a muscle. If we work on it and develop the right habits, we get stronger and have more options available to us. But it's difficult to build muscle if you don't understand "how" the muscle works and the mechanics behind its improvement. Getting ideas is challenging until you learn what they are and how they work.

That's what Working With Ideas is all about: how do you create an idea and what do you do once you have it? And I'm excited to say Working With Ideas is now open!

For two weeks, the course will be $25 off its regular price, so get in early to take advantage of the launch price. You can learn more and get a free sample by going to the course homepage.

Mindsets Before Tools

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Every time I come across an article that compares applications or declares an app to be the best at something, I cringe. Very few of them explain the scenarios necessary to make their conclusion valid.

We all operate differently, and we all have different skill sets and ways of thinking about the tools we use. We have varying needs and that means there is no absolute on the best tool for a task. This is why I always say, "I don't know" when asked what task manager you should use. I have no clue what your circumstances are and what you need from a list manager.

This is precisely why many people (myself included) recommend using tools you already know when taking on a habit or system. It eliminates the need to learn a new tool and a new structure at the same time. But it's more than that. The new structure will push you to develop a new mindset. Over time, you will begin to think about the items within your process in a more nuanced way as your ideas and rationale behind it progress.

Tools can get in the way of developing this nuanced thinking. You may start searching for an app to solve procrastination when you actually need to name your tasks differently. You need to understand yourself, how you operate, and what you need before deciding a new tool is the solution. And you can only take on a new tool successfully when you know what it offers that will suit your mindset. That's when the articles comparing software are helpful.

It is only when you can sit down and spell out how a new tool will help that you understand your mindset well enough to warrant a potential change.

My Podcasting Setup

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I have detailed my writing process quite a bit lately, but that made me realize I have never pulled all the pieces of my podcasting setup together. Let's change that.

Equipment

I did a lot of research on beginners microphones before I started podcasting and although there are better ones out there, I landed on the Rode Podcaster. I have a dream of upgrading to a Beta 87 at some point, but this does a great job for now. Altogether here's what I'm using:

Software

I have been a subscriber to the Adobe Creative Cloud for a while now and really enjoy the power of their tools. They aren't for everyone, but if you have access to it Audition CC does a great job of editing and recording. When I'm recording with someone else, I use the traditional set of software that most podcasters use:

Hosting

In my opinion, the gold standard for hosting your files is Libsyn. It just works and I've never had an issue with them. My feed is a custom XML file generated with Jekyll. If you are a Jekyll user and want to run a podcast, you can get the source code for this here.

Time For Books

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

In order to read a book every two weeks (and sometimes every week) I have had to make reading a practice that is incorporated throughout my day. Having a single time for reading isn't enough and it has become a ritual I like to incorporate as many places as I can.

Each day is different, but I know I can count on a handful of repeated situations that allow me to read consistently.

Early Mornings

Every morning, I get up at five, grab a shower, and make a hot breakfast for myself. This early breakfast always consists of two eggs fried in a cast iron skillet and a banana. While the skillet is warming up and the eggs are cooking, I read. When they are finished cooking, I read while I eat. This is easily the most reliable time I have for reading. It's a relaxed, ritualistic, and energizing time that is perfect for creating motivation for the day ahead.

Transitions

Whether it's a few extra minutes before a meeting or a quick break between tasks, the transitional periods throughout the day serve as excellent times to grab a book. It may only be a single page, but one page here and there can add up quickly. The beauty of reclaiming these transitional times comes from what it replaces: social media and email checks. Instead of losing 10 minutes to cruising Twitter, I finish a chapter in my book.

Waiting

I have started taking a book with me whenever I leave the house. I'm early to most meetings and often find myself waiting for others to show up. Having a book with me means I can get a few more pages read instead of perusing blog articles or email on my phone.

EOB Ritual

At the end of my workday, I go through an End Of Business ritual that helps me unwind and clear my head for spending time with my family. I have tried various tactics during this time, but I have found that learning is the best at hitting the brakes on my mental race car. And what better way to learn than to read? So I've made it a habit of reading for about 15 minutes before calling it a day.

Bedtime

The least reliable of my reading times is likely the most consistent for others. I am sporadic at reading before bed, but it is another time that is easy to take advantage of and turn a few pages in a book.

The Pattern?

When I reflect on each of these scenarios I notice a recurring theme. In every instance, I have historically focused my eyes on a screen instead of a book. It's easy to check my phone for a few minutes before bed or while I am eating breakfast. But if I pay attention to how I feel afterwards, I always prefer the feeling of accomplishment after having read a book to the feeling of inadequacy that comes from checking a screen.

42: Deciding On A Medium

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

If you create content in any form and have dabbled in multiple mediums, you're left with a decision about which method of consumption is best for the topic you want to present.

My Book - Working With OmniFocus

My Video Course - Working With Ideas

Introducing Working With Ideas

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

There are times when you realize a project needs to take a hard turn. Your original intent is good, but it doesn't accomplish your goal as well as it might.

I find these moments bittersweet. They often result in something much better, but they also bring with them an extensive amount of rework. This was precisely my experience when I took on my second book, Working With Ideas.

I was working on the outline and collecting segments of content when I realized the medium for this content and its delivery system was wrong. It needed to reveal more emotion and story with more camaraderie than an e-book can provide. So I changed direction and turned it into a full video course with a community of idea workers to share the experience with.

I consider this my best work and I'm thrilled to share it with you. I'm so excited about it that I decided to make it possible to get the course for free! To get started, you simply need to sign-up for the launch email (which gets you $12 off by itself).

If you're interested in learning more about the course, you can check it out here: workingwithideas.co.

An Open Letter To Productivity

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

My friend,

We've come a long way since we met five years ago. And I cannot thank you enough for the clarity and direction you've given me through the multiple transitions and big decisions I have faced in recent years. Without the systems and tricks you've taught me, I would accomplish much less and fall short of numerous goals. For that, I am grateful.

I know I don't always stick to the structure you've helped me build, but you're always there when I realize I've stepped away. I know that if I trust the guidelines and follow them, my days are efficient and invigorating; and that makes me want to keep going and do more. It reveals my ability to do something great.

But sometimes I need space. I know you want me to be efficient with my calendar but there are periods when I need to blow some time with no expected outcomes. I need a little freedom. I need to be flexible and play once a while.

I think you would agree that margin is beneficial, but you often expect a measurable result when I take a break. I can understand that. We both know that taking time to re-energize can lead to greater gains elsewhere. But that's my point: I can't always look for the benefit of an activity. Why must everything have a defined positive outcome? Why not be content with the lack of definition and embrace spontaneity and play?

I want to continue our friendship, but with a different perspective. Let's focus less on doing more and more on doing right. That likely means fewer projects, but I want them to be better projects. I know you're with me here. But let's also invite Play to our meetings. I'm aware of the love-hate relationship between you. Let's work through that together. Between the three of us, I believe we can accomplish something awesome.

I'll see you tomorrow.

Joe

Reading Books On A Schedule

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

For years I have wanted to read more books. Prolific readers rave about the benefits and world-renowned leaders often attribute their ideas and successes to their habit of reading, but to me the benefits of having read a lot of books was secondary to the innate sense that a realm of knowledge and experience was available to me, but I was missing it.

Missing out on something is not inherently bad. It is actually a good thing in many cases. With firehoses of input available at every turn today, we need to decide to miss out on some things. And the more we can cut, the more head space and time we have to expand our minds and work towards our goals in life. I will be the first to say I am bad at this. Resisting the constant pull of potential updates is a war I fight daily.

In time, I have cut back on these overwhelming streams of unnecessary input, but I have only done so successfully with the addition of a replacement habit: reading books. Frankly, I don't have the self-control to pick up a book instead of my phone when the "just check" bug bites. I rely on staged environmental circumstances to make it happen. I leave my phone out of reach and keep a book readily available. That helps significantly, but taking it another step, I have committed to completing a book every two weeks.

This accomplishes two things. One, I need to read a significant portion of a book each day to hit my mark. Two, it forces me to look for time to read in the day. The combination of these two means I do not have near the time for social media and email as I did previously and instead use that time for books.

But there is a flaw in this design that I discovered early on. My procrastination tendency leads me to back loading the two-week period with higher page counts. This is mostly due to not knowing if I am on track to hit my goal on a daily basis. It appears simple to take the number of pages in the book and divide by 14 to know how far to read each day. But after day three or four, I start to lose track and do not want to continue recalculating where I should be.

Each time I start a new book, I create a new OmniFocus project for it. I have a series of tasks I complete after finishing a book. Since this project already exists, I took it to another level and added a "Read Book" group with subtasks for each day's reading. With that group flagged, I know what today's expected page count is by looking at my Dashboard.

But reading a book every two weeks means I create these tasks quite frequently. And you can't expect me to do that manually every time, can you? A new script was in order.

When run, it asks four questions:

What is the title of the book?
How many pages are in the book?
When do you want to start reading?
When do you want to finish reading?

Using these answers, the script breaks the book into the correct number of tasks (one per day), each having the same number of pages to read. It adds these to my OmniFocus inbox so I can copy/paste or move them as I like. It programmatically adds @Read as a context, but the script can be altered as needed to fit your system. This script can be found in my OFScripts repository on GitHub.

The result of this is a daily view of progress I need to make in order to hit my goal. Knowing the day's goal forces me to make time and cut back on the less important, trivial actions.

41: Fountain Pens

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I'm pushing pen addict status. I don't think I'm there yet, but I do have three fountain pens that I thoroughly enjoy using.

The Science and Experience of Analog Writing

Monteverde Invincia

The Goulet Pen Company

Brian Goulet's Blog

Brian Goulet's Videos

The Deception of Working on a System

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

It's a trap so easy to fall for: we find ourselves spending multiple hours fine-tuning, tweaking, and developing the simple structure that will automatically create more time and 3X our daily productivity.

If you're new to productivity or systems, then giving yourself a couple days to put these processes in place may pay off big and be well worth your time. Even if you're a pro it can be helpful to make adjustments to how you do things with the intent of increasing efficiency, meaning, and output. I make tweaks to my structure frequently. But I need to remind myself of a lie that creeps up when I embark on one of these system alteration endeavors: this is productive.

False. It is not productive. It is meta-productive. It feels productive because we are doing something that has meaning; this will make me a better, more efficient person. We are given a sense that we will be able to do more and live a better life, no matter how small the impact, in the future. But it doesn't inherently make us more productive. It makes it possible, but it won't make it happen on its own. It simply sets up the environment to be the best it can or should be for us to act on.

This is where the "meta" part comes in. We are completing tasks that allow us to complete tasks more efficiently or effectively. It's one step removed from the real work to which we've committed.

But the deception here is the sense of accomplishment that comes after we have been meta-productive. We've done the work necessary to make us better in the future and that gives us the feeling that something important has been completed - even though we haven't touched one important task the whole time. We get excited about this new or updated system because we've made the decisions that will help us accomplish something new or something big. But we haven't taken an action on the thing itself.

Don't fall for this feeling of completion after you've worked on a system. Don't celebrate until you've worked on the items within it.

Analog Writing Organization

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

When I made the decision to embrace pen and paper, the need for structure quickly showed its face. I wanted my writing to live in a single notebook, but that meant I needed a method of tracking progress on pieces without thumbing through the whole notebook.

The logical conclusion here is an index which allows me to see each composition and the headway I've made. That progression consists of three steps which need to be incorporated in the indicator. First is the initial draft: the dump of the ideas at the onset. Second is the editing process of the first draft, and the final step is to transcribe the writing to the computer for one last look. Once it is moved from paper to screen, the tracking process is handled digitally.

In practice, this means I need a list of articles augmented with the location within the notebook and the progress I've made on it. A simple page number will do for the location, but I wanted an evolving indicator for the progress meter. And since there are only three states to track, I went for the slow build of a star: "/" → "X" → "*".

When there is no indicator, I know I have made a commitment to the piece but haven't started writing. The "/" tells me I've finished the first draft. The "X" tells me the editing process as been completed. And the final "*" is a picture of completion when the transcription is finished. Altogether, this is what it looks like:

Now, I can take the first few pages of any notebook to create this index over the life of the notebook. I could also add page numbers to any grouping of paper I feel inclined to use. Throw on top of this my want for good fountain pen paper and I was certain I would need to hack together a custom notebook or make compromises. But that's not the case.

I found the notebook, Leuchtturm, that has all of these features plus a few I didn't realize I wanted. They have a built-in index as well as page numbers. It's high-quality paper and has dual bookmark ribbons, one for finding my index and one for the last used page. There's even a slot in the back that acts as an inbox while I'm out and stickers to help with archiving the notebook. I haven't made a decision about keeping these when I fill it, but having the ability to easily do so and knowing the quality of the notebook makes me consider long-term storage of my hand-written words. Though storage space will likely make my decision for me.

I've chosen their Master Dot Grid notebook because it's larger and keeps my pages clean. The bigger pages allow me to see more of the piece at one time and requires less page turning when dictating the words into a microphone. It also fits nicely into the computer slot in my backpack which is perfect for writing ventures away from the house. I'm a big fan of the Dot Grid paper because it limits the markings on the page yet gives me a bit of structure to keep my words in line.

If you're looking to write by hand and need an organizational structure for your writing, take a look at Leuchtturm. Their notebooks fit perfectly.

Note: this article contains affiliate links, but this is not a sponsored post. I'm simply a big fan of Leuchtturm and have found their products exceptional to use.

40: The Problem With Audiobooks

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I sometimes listen to books via audio but there are a couple flaws with audiobooks that have me avoiding them when I can.

The Overwhelm Inbox

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 05 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

The purpose of my inbox consolidation project is to cut back on the number of places I go to make decisions about my "open loops". Between feeds, social media, and our always-on expectations, it becomes a habit and struggle to keep up with the mass of apps and information thrown at us. My theory was to create an aggregated inbox via email that combines these potentially overwhelming sources of inputs. The hope was to build a system that helps me scale back on the time and impulse to repeatedly process these inboxes.

Using email as a base for this is the simplest solution since it can be connected to almost any service out there. Most systems already have an email notification system built-in. By turning these on, I go from repeatedly checking websites to see if anything is new to processing the important parts at a dedicated time. But not every source of new information has this ability. For me, the outstanding inputs are RSS feeds and social media.

For social media, I had to first be honest with myself. What do I really need to know about? I know that I want to keep up with more than I should so I'm immediately faced with scaling back. For the inputs that make the cut, I use IFTTT to send me an email about each item. For example, I have a rule that emails me when I am mentioned on Twitter:

Another set of overwhelming inputs is the huge variety of articles that I want to read. It's already a habit for me to send these to Pocket from any social media app or browser I'm using at the time. To funnel these from Pocket into my email, I'm again turning to IFTTT:

Now for the big one: RSS feeds. You can set up recipes to send new feed items to your email with IFTTT. However, I am subscribed to about 100 RSS feeds. That would require 100 recipes to make it work. No, thank you. Instead, I found a service (feed.informer.com) that allows me to create a single RSS feed out of multiple feeds. In my case, I created two of these "digest" feeds that I then used in these recipes, which is a lot more comfortable. This has the added benefit of eliminating an app, Feedly, that I was previously using.

Of course, it's easy to see that this leads to a potentially enormous number of emails. A fair amount of these can be deleted without opening them; I have everything I need to triage them in the subject line. But the key is to clear it out once daily. If I hold to that and avoid the temptation to check more often, I am given the freedom to spend more of my mental energy on important tasks. It also makes it easier to leave my phone somewhere other than my pocket or within reach at my desk.

The other, unintended, benefit of this has been visibility into the sheer volume of tiny bits of data that are available to us. We can easily consume thousands of pointless and potentially detrimental inputs that are better left unnoticed. Pulling all of these into one place provides a picture of information overwhelm that is catered specifically to you. I never realized how many sources of information I've tried to keep up with until now. It has led me to ruthlessly curate and cut back in ways I wish I had done sooner.

And as I expected, this is led me to change the purpose - and therefore layout - of my phone's home screen for the better. But we'll save that for another day:

Editorial As A Database Viewer

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 19:00:00 -0500

One habit that Evernote taught me was that of creating databases, collections of text and pictures that revolve around a specific topic or item. I'm yet to export my Evernote data into my alternative storage system but I have solved my most glaring issue: searching and viewing these databases on iOS.

These consist of three data types: text, documents, and pictures. All text is created in markdown files. The documents are primarily PDFs and the pictures are... well they're pictures. All of these files have a very simple organizational structure in DropBox. There's a folder named after the type of database (Drinks), a subfolder if necessary (Coffee), and then the files which are named after the item itself (Caribou Mahogany.jpg). If there are pictures, documents, and text for the same item, they'll get the same name (but with different file extensions) to make it easy to search.

It's a very basic structure, which makes it easy to find and interact with these different files from different apps on iOS. My app of choice for text files is Editorial. There's a lot of power in Editorial that I've never utilized but I do know that it's excellent for editing and reading markdown.

I was typing out a few sentences for an article while waiting for a friend when I accidentally tapped the name for a PDF within Editorial. To my surprise, I was given the ability to "Quick Look" the document within the app. I am not sure why I never tried this before but it singlehandedly changed my methods for interacting with these databases from a multi-app approach to a single point of access.

This means that given a file structure that works for you and a text-heavy implementation of databases, Editorial can act as a user interface similar to these catchall tools like Evernote. Yes, there is the downside of not being able to capture documents and pictures directly into Editorial. The trick is to capture these into DropBox and let Editorial be the viewer instead. But since my databases are primarily text, I'm able to leverage the power of a tool that was designed extensively for text and maintain the majority of my editing needs. Add to that the ability to view the extra files I compile and iOS now has a database interface I didn't know I wanted.

39: Morning and Evening Rituals

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 31 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

What you do for your morning and evening rituals doesn't have to match what others do. The top 10 things that highly successful people do in the morning may derail your day entirely.

The “Why” of Getting Up Early

Routine vs. Ritual

Checklists in OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 29 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Keeping different types of information in separate apps or systems is sometimes worth the extra infrastructure. But there is also a lot of value and mental freedom in using an existing process for multiple forms of data.

When you have a tool as flexible and powerful as OmniFocus, it gets easier to combine needs into one database. That is why I originally moved my Someday/Maybe lists into OmniFocus. The simplicity of having a single place for active and potential tasks eliminated a bit of resistance to capturing an idea. This ease was also my rationale for moving my checklists from Evernote to OmniFocus.

There are a lot of ways to keep checklists in OmniFocus, but I keep the process as effortless as possible. I manage a single folder that holds all of them. I don't have so many that I feel the need to subdivide them. They are all together in one list and each checklist has the same settings:

Parallel project set to "Complete when completing last action"
Repeat set to Defer Again in one minute

When I sit down to go through a checklist, I work from the project view so it doesn't matter if the project is Parallel or Sequential. I see every item on the list regardless. My default for new projects is Parallel so I leave it alone. I want these to autocomplete and recreate themselves when everything is done; the repeat and completion settings make it happen.

I've used checklists for packing lists, payroll, and even rituals for quite a while. But during a recent Weekly Review I realized I was putting a handful of checklists elsewhere and treating them differently when I shouldn't. The lists of steps for all my reviews has been living in my Guidance folder, so I flagged them to display on my Dashboard.

This is a prime example of how fluid a GTD system can be. It needs to fluctuate with how you work and morph as you learn about yourself. I very recently wrote about how I work with my OmniFocus Dashboard. And here I am changing its purpose entirely. I realized I had abstracted and complicated these meta-lists unnecessarily. Yes, they are Guidance projects to complete at regular intervals, but those intervals are better placed on the calendar and the checklist put where they belong. By breaking them off into their own category, I was required to maintain another level of the structure. If I can simplify it and uphold my level of productivity while eliminating mental strain (no matter how small), why wouldn't I reduce the complexity? This is especially true when the work required to pull it off is miniscule.

All of this is to say that I've moved my reviews into my checklists folder and pulled them from the Dashboard. I reserve time on my calendar for them and go through the list at that time. It cuts back on the automation going into my daily task list and gives me the freedom to put off a review for a few hours or days if I need to go heads down on a project. It also eliminates some of the overwhelm from seeing a Dashboard with 30+ items on it in the morning.

Inbox Consolidation

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 26 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

As part of a new project that will be released in a few weeks, I recently reread Getting Things Done by David Allen. I found it interesting that David hasn't changed his tune when it comes to information overload. Despite a dramatic increase in technology and the volume of inputs as compared to the original writing, he still advocates for the same capture mechanisms and clarification process.

This is to be expected but reading his thoughts on the subject of social media struck a chord with me. I have long considered Twitter, piles on my desk, and the bench in my woodshop as inboxes. Developing an awareness of where "open loops" collect is a process that reveals a large number of inboxes we may not realize we have. And when we consider the number of apps we use that have an "in" feature, this number can explode. Unless we do something about it we'll spend all our time clearing our trays, and as soon as we get through them once, we'll need to start over again. The easy and obvious solution here is to cut back on inputs and create "aggregate inboxes" or places that pull captured items from multiple sources.

Cutting back is the best alternative here, but often times we can't do this or don't want to. So the next option is to create consolidated inboxes. I like to think of these as smart inboxes. We may not be able to pull everything into a single inbox but the fewer places that need cleared, the better.

And to be honest, I don't want everything in one inbox. And I don't need to process all my inboxes at the same intervals. My voice mails need cleared out multiple times a day, but that pile on the bench in my woodshop only needs clearing when I want to make sawdust. That means my aggregate inboxes can't be consolidated beyond my clarification frequencies.

Let's take email for example. Like most, I have multiple email addresses. Whenever I process email (which is way too often), I prefer to take care of all my emails at once. So I pull everything into a single, master email account on Gmail. That allows me to see every new email and act on it from one place.

On my phone, I group all social media accounts into a single folder. I can check them all at once (again, too often) instead of bouncing in and out of them individually. It can become a check pit if I don't group them.

Although I have done some of this aggregation already, I'm now trying to further the automated consolidation and looking for ways to cut back on physical inboxes. The easier of these are the physical inboxes. I need to notice and combine them to cut back on the number of collection points. The digital side is more treacherous. It's too easy to draw the conclusion of auto-forwarding all emails or Twitter mentions into OmniFocus. If you're a social media manager, that might be a good idea. But as a writer and developer, that would be detrimental to my daily work. I would quickly develop a habit of clearing my OmniFocus inbox every 10 minutes.

The better solution might be my existing email account. If I'm already strictly limiting my time in email, that could easily be a better place to send these inputs. And if I can craft the format of the email in a way that enables a quick decision or even an automated decision then my information overwhelm can slowly dissipate. At least, that is the hope.

So the idea here is to bring all digital inputs created by someone other than myself into my email. That sounds a bit scary at first, but if that single inbox can help me cut back on the growing number of digital places to clear, allow me to remain on top of those inputs, and limit the mental strain of multiple collection points, I have succeeded.

38: Using Multiple Desks In One Office

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 24 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Since starting to exclusively write with pen and paper, I've added a dedicated writing desk to my office. This week I explore the pros and cons of using multiple desks in my office.

Writing Articles By Hand

The Science and Experience of Analog Writing

Leuchtturm Master Notebook A4 Hardcover Dotted Black

Rhodia Dotpads

Pilot G-2

Pilot Metropolitan - Notetaking fountain pen

Lamy Safari - Long-form writing fountain pen

Monteverde Invincia - Specialty writing fountain pen

Herman Miller Aeron

Palm Rest

Duncan Phyfe - Wikipedia

A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop - Scientific American

Intentional GTD Titles

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 22 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

When I started with GTD five years ago, I was certain it was the missing piece to my mental overwhelm puzzle. It was the five-step framework that would keep me from procrastinating and give me the motivation to accomplish everything to which I kept saying yes.

And although these are possible outcomes, they are far from implicit. GTD can help you stay on task and give you the means to work on the right next action, but not without your discipline and persistence. And then it only works if you do all of the thinking about a task or project when it is initially processed. Take these projects for example:

Wife's birthday

Cake
Present
Plates and silverware
Invite friends

example.com

Complete web design
Decide on host
Email?
Launch date?
Commerce section

New product

Photos for website
Quality across lines
Market?
Retailers
Press release

At first glance, these may seem fine. I have a list of projects and a list of tasks that go with each project. But you may see a glaring issue here; there's still some interpretation necessary to decide what each requires you to do. Is "plates and silverware" a reminder to set the table or is it part of your shopping list? Are you asking about the addition of email addresses to the website or the set up for an email newsletter? Does "press release" mean you need to write it, publish it, or review it? Granted, some of the detail missing here may be implied depending on the context assigned to each. If "plates and silverware" has the @Errands context, you have your answer.

But the projects themselves leave you in question as well. Do you have a shopping list for your wife's birthday or a list of setup that needs to happen on the day itself? Are you writing the code for the website or overseeing the project? Are you exploring the addition of a new product for your company or is it a new thing you're exploring personally? Again, some of this may be implied through the metadata you assigned but the title itself is still lacking. This set of projects leaves a lot of questions and requires you to decode a series of assumptions before you can take action.

Part of the why of GTD is to eliminate the need to hold information in our minds since we are terrible at recalling it when we need it. But we inevitably develop a need to remember our intent for these projects and tasks if we treat them as nothing more than a list of triggers. We've left ourselves with only half of the thinking completed and retain the other half in our minds, which defeats the goal we originally set out to achieve. We better serve ourselves if we finish the process and put all of the data we need or have for the item in the name.

That naturally begs the question, "how should you name them?"" The answer is simple in principle and challenging in practice. These titles should tell you exactly what needs to be done without the need to augment it with information you are still trying to remember. From a tactical standpoint, that means starting with a verb and giving so much detail that you can wake up in the middle of the night and still know what to do when you read it.

Wife's birthday → Celebrate wife's birthday at home
example.com → Build example.com for client xyz
New product → Launch new line of sweatshirts

By renaming these projects, you instantly see an increase in clarity and you know what done is just by reading the title. It takes more work up front to give this level of definition, but I can tell you from experience that those extra few seconds will save you the time and hassle of rethinking them each time in the future.

Cake → Call Deli re: custom cake for wife's birthday party
Email? → Email client xyz re: how many email accounts are needed prior to launch?
Press release → Write first draft of online press release for new line of sweatshirts

It's no small task to spell out this much detail, but the benefits are invaluable. Instead of seeing a few words that require interpretation (which becomes a task itself), I see an action to be taken. Eliminating that miniscule amount of resistance can be the difference between productive work and procrastination. Don't let a desire to save time up front create an excuse to do nothing later.

The Science and Experience of Analog Writing

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 19 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I began hand writing articles with a lot of skepticism mixed with hope. I didn't know what to expect but I wanted a positive outcome. As much as I lean toward an integration of technology in every aspect of my work, I felt a sense that paper had benefits I had never understood.

I committed to writing five articles by hand, but after the first three I realized there was something powerful happening during the process of putting words on physical paper. It was like I had discovered a well of untapped resources within my mind that could only be used when analog tools were the chosen medium. And no matter how much I reflected and searched myself for the reasoning behind this, I couldn't find the answer without searching for neurological science comparing pen and paper to the keyboard.

Brain Organization

I learned that it all starts with how our brains organize modes of thinking. It's common knowledge that there are two hemispheres in our brains and that they operate in a transposed manner. The left brain controls the right side of the body and the right brain controls the left side of the body. We also know that modes of thinking occur on one side or the other. The left brain is known as the analytical brain because it controls the mathematical, logical, and scientific modes of thinking while the right brain - known as the creative brain - controls creativity, music, and imagination. The skills required to write (language, speech, and linear thinking) are found in the left brain.

Brain Dominance

Each of us has one side of our brain that is more dominant than the other. And the level of dominance is different for everyone. In part, this is why we find such a diversity of personalities and skill sets. Sometimes there's a strong dominance, other times it's hardly noticeable. Regardless of the level of dominance, this side of the brain reveals itself in your strengths. A left brain dominant person is likely to be a math whiz, analytical, and following a career in the sciences. Someone who is right brain dominant has a tendency to be good at relationships, art, and visualization. These are not hard rules, but guidelines and stereotypes. I've known that I'm an analytical person for a long time, which means I'm left brain dominant.

Hand Dominance

With rare exception, we all primarily use one hand or the other to write. How we develop or choose a specific hand for this task is genetic, but has cultural influences as well. The whole picture of how this comes about is still unclear, but whichever hand you write with is typically your dominant hand. And for most of us (90%), that dominance is found in our right hand.

Dominance Correlation

Things get interesting when you correlate brain and hand dominance. Being left brain dominant does not make you right-handed. Nor does being right brain dominant make you left-handed. But when you are left-handed, the right brain is controlling your writing hand and vice versa. So left-handers are using the creative brain when writing and right-handers are using the analytical brain. And since we know that language, speech, and linear thinking come from the left (analytical) brain, right-handers, like myself, are naturally engaging the portion of their mind that allows them to formulate words and sentences.

Obviously, this is not to say that left-handers cannot write well. The brain is much more complex than that. But generally speaking, it might explain some of the stigma around teaching left-handed children to write. It's possible that it doesn't come as naturally to them as drawing or creating art.

The Keyboard

The physical process of typing is much different than using a pen. Writing on paper is primarily a one-handed task. Your off hand may be busy keeping paper aligned or holding a pen cap, but the main work is being completed with one hand. Contrast that with the keyboard. The keyboard is designed for both hands, which is partially why it's much faster to type than write.

By using both hands to type, we engage both sides of our brain more fully. That is not altogether a bad thing, but it does mean that we aren't focusing on one mode of thinking. We're switching from linear, language thinking to spatial, emotional thinking and back again. Some people are better with this dissonance than others, which is why some say there is no difference between typing and writing by hand. I personally struggle with this neurological bouncing during the writing process. But when I pick up a pen I can trace a thought and explore it without all the mental jumping around.

Studies

There's a growing body of science exploring the comparison between hand writing and typing. Researchers have shown that writing lecture notes by hand gives students an edge over their typing peers. We know that kids with and without handwriting disabilities are able to write more when using a pen than when using a computer. There's even a study from 1987 that hints at a potential influence on writing when done from a computer. If you search Google Scholar for "pen paper writing versus computer" you'll have more than enough material to keep you busy for a while. But here are a few of the resources I found interesting when I began my exploration:

The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard

What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades - The New York Times

The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children

The Contribution of Handwriting and Spelling Remediation to Overcoming Dyslexia - InTechOpen

A Study of Professional and Experienced Writers Revising and Editing at the Computer and with Pen and Paper on JSTOR

Does the medium make a difference? two studies of writing with pen and paper and with computers

How Handwriting Boosts the Brain - WSJ

Why Writing by Hand Could Make You Smarter - Psychology Today

Digitizing Literacy: Reflections on the Haptics of Writing - InTechOpen

The Benefits Of Writing With Good Old Fashioned Pen And Paper

My Experience

To say that I've enjoyed the process of writing by hand would be an understatement. Some of the benefits I was expecting did become a reality. By taking longer to write by hand I am able to formulate my thoughts more clearly and fully; I feel better about what I've written when I'm done. But going further than just quality of words, I've discovered a few other benefits and one glaring downside.

Distraction

As I expected, I'm not nearly as distracted with paper as I am with the computer. And it is primarily due to availability. Because it is so easy to take a quick peek at Twitter, I don't stay on task nearly as well on the computer. Pen and paper affords me only one thing to do: put words on a page. It naturally allows me to focus on the task at hand.

Motivation

Previously I had to put tricks in place to bring myself to write. I've always enjoyed the accomplishment of having written, but the process itself has always felt like a burden. I had to write in the morning, my most alert time of the day, to focus enough to write. It was the only way to get it done. But when I started exploring analog writing, I discovered an innate interest in pulling out the paper. Most of the tricks and timing are unnecessary. There's joy in inking a fountain pen, opening a quality notebook, and laying words on the page that allows me to write more without it being a hardship.

Time

Here's the downside. It takes longer and that's for two reasons. One, it takes longer to write by hand than it does to type. That comes with the positive of higher quality but it's still a hit to the efficiency I had with typing. Second, I write longer articles when writing by hand. I spell out more detail and develop thoughts more fully. Again, I see this as a positive, but it means I need to be willing to cut time elsewhere.

Results

I've always felt that writing was synonymous with typing. "That's how it should be done. It's faster and more efficient." But for me, the trade-offs aren't worth it. I'll be sticking with pen and paper. I've even gone to the extent of setting up a dedicated writing desk and purchasing a special notebook for it.

37: Reading Books vs Articles

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 17 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

As I learn how to handle the good and bad that comes from being ADHD, I've learned the power of reading books over articles.

Delivered From Distraction

Alternating Types of Tasks

Writing Articles By Hand

MacStories - Federico Viticci

Guest Posting

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 17 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Over the past month I've made some design changes and layout alterations here on the site. Some of that was purely for aesthetics and ease of use, but it also included some back-end alterations to allow guest posting. I've debated this for a long time and I'm finally ready to pull the trigger.

You can read the details about how to participate on the guest posting page.

One of the best ways to expand our thinking is to explore new ideas and perspectives that may differ from our own. It forces us to formulate our own opinions on the subject. We may love the thought or think it's trash but either way, making that decision helps us understand our own reasoning behind the subject. By allowing others to write articles for this site, we can see glimpses of how others operate and think, which broadens the perspective on productivity conveyed here.

This also frees up some of my own time. I really like the current posting cadence, but I'm looking to direct some of my writing time to new areas. I have a couple important projects I'm working on that I want to dedicate more time to and I know there will be more projects when those are complete. Guest posting will allow the rhythm to continue and these new areas to accelerate.

I can continue listing reasons why I think this is a good thing, but you get the point. There's a lot of value that can come to all of us. So if you're interested in sharing your thoughts and words with readers like yourself (even if you've never written an article before), check out the details on the guest posting page.

Alternating Types of Tasks

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 15 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

There's something liberating about putting a name to something you didn't understand. This was my exact experience when I learned I am ADHD. It gave me words to explain the way I think and those words have given way to a deeper comprehension of how I operate.

Putting a name to it also makes it easier to connect with people in the same boat. And it makes it possible to learn what others do to take advantage of the positives and overcome the negatives. So naturally, I did some research and found that many try to eradicate it entirely. It's seen as a disease to overcome. But you may be doing yourself an injustice by trying to delete a portion of who you are. I would rather heighten the useful aspects and downplay the detrimental. If I have an overactive mind, is there a way to allow myself to bounce from thing to thing and still accomplish my creative work? After a bit of experimentation, I've discovered a way to do this.

I can only will myself to focus on a new task for about 20 minutes - unless I'm really excited or interested in it, then it can be days before I come up for air. But when I'm not in hyperfocus mode, 20 minutes is about all I have.

For a long time I've been breaking my projects down into 15 - 20 minute tasks. My focus-ability may be why I've done that but I can't say for certain. Typically, I would sit down and work on a project with the intent of completing three or four of these tasks. And I've had fairly good success doing so. But it's never occurred to me that this was a bad idea. It's what everyone else does and they seem to have a great success with it. Why shouldn't I follow suit?

Learning that I am ADHD gave me the clarity I needed to explore other options. If I can naturally focus on a task for 20 minutes, what if I started a completely different type of task afterwards instead of doing more of the same? What if I alternate between coding, writing, learning, and admin every 20 minutes?

Bingo! It turns out that I've wanted to work this way all along, but I couldn't see it. Yes, there are times when I get into flow and won't switch. If I can focus for longer, why move on? But if I can't focus, I don't fight it. I switch to a different type of task and come back at the next switch off. After all, I tend the bounce quickly. Why not take advantage of it?

What To Review

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 12 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

The longer I practice GTD principles, the more intentional I try to be with the time I spend updating my systems. I need my commitments to be thought through and my decisions to be made ahead of time. Knowing that I am prone to starting new projects before I have time for them leads me to a need for a recurring time of reevaluation.

David Allen declares the Weekly Review a vital component of the framework. And I would agree that this once-weekly update is a make it or break it step to success. Without it, I would have a growing list of stalled projects that should be dropped, or at least moved to a Someday/Maybe list. But I've also found other levels of review to be beneficial. And those are better done at different intervals than the Weekly Review. It's not worth my time to evaluate each context and project every morning. I would spend the vast majority of my time in reflection and never accomplish the tasks I'm reviewing.

The glaring question here is "What do you actually do during these reviews?" The easy thing to do is share a picture of my checklists, but that fails to explain the reasoning for the review itself. You are free to copy these, but be sure to think through your intent and understand why you are doing it before you tweak these to fit your personality. There's potentially more harm in aimlessly going through these than in skipping them altogether.

Daily Review (~20 mins)

The first step in GTD is Capture. It all starts with the habit of putting tasks and ideas into an inbox. My problem is that without daily time for making a decision about each item, inboxes perpetually grow. At the same time, I struggle to jump start my day. Despite the system, I'm drawn to the most urgent or interesting thing on my mind and want to focus on it first thing in the morning. To combat this I set up the Daily Review with the purpose of clearing inboxes and creating motivation on the right task.

Process Inbox: Paper
Process Inbox: Email
Process Inbox: Drafts
Process Inbox: Browser
Process Inbox: DropBox
Process Inbox: OmniFocus
Review @Waiting For
Review Forecast
Review Calendar
Review Weekly Plan
Review Completed

Weekly Review (~70 mins)

The core purpose of my Weekly Review is to be honest with myself and verify that I'm headed in the right direction. I'm terrible at getting a feel for this and can easily get off track in the course of an afternoon. My tendency is to put off projects that are no fun or that have a daunting next action. I need to limit the projects and tasks available to pick from. I also need to review projects that aren't moving and ask myself why they are stalled.

I should note that the tasks on this checklist look deceptively simple, but they're far from it. Clear Review Perspective is a 30 minute or longer task that forces me to decide if I'm going to keep the project in the active queue, put it on hold, or drop it entirely. Review Stalled Projects makes me look at projects I keep thinking I'll work on but continue failing to follow through on. These two steps alone can sometimes take an hour. But if I skipped that hour of commitment reevaluation, I'll spend weeks working on fluff that takes me nowhere.

Process Inbox: @Joe in Kitchen
Clear Review Perspective
Review Stalled Projects
Set Weekly Plan
Weekly Reflection
Clean Workstation
Empty Trash

Monthly Review (~30 mins)

It's impossible to validate my direction in the Weekly Review if I don't have goals and a mission by which these projects are guided. The simple purpose of my Monthly Review is to create guidance and help me design my days to realize these goals. I look over my Horizons of Focus and make sure I have a sense of direction for the upcoming months and years. Granted, I'm always revising this. But it's this process of reading and altering the plan that allows me to course correct quickly.

Review 50,000
Review 40,000
Review 30,000
Check Old Projects
Evaluate Morning Ritual
Evaluate Evening Ritual
Evaluate Daily Schedule
Evaluate Contexts

Annual Review (~3 hrs)

I've found some value in rethinking the basic aspects of how we as a family operate once a year. Those can include insurance and savings, but they should also encompass your goals as a family or couple. And they do not need to be done all at once or alone. Involve your spouse and kids if you have them. But remember that your tolerance for this type of thinking than may be much higher (or lower) than your spouse's. Break it up across a few weeks if you need.

Becky: Big accomplishments in the past year?
Becky: Big goals for the next year?
Becky: Evaluate financial state
Becky: Evaluate insurance state
Determine monthly goals for next year

Again, this amount of review may be overkill for you. As long as your system helps you drive down the right road, you're golden. But there are always times when we need to reference the lines on the road to keep us from hitting the ditches, and some of us need more reference points than others to stay on the road.

36: My Current GTD Structure

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 10 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

It's been a while since I've shared my entire GTD structure. And now that I'm rereading the book, I figured it would be a good idea to share what I'm currently doing before it changes.

Getting Things Done - 2015 edition

What Is An hPDA and How Do I Use It?

Drafts (iTunes)

Inbox Zero Origin

OmniFocus

An Alternative to Evernote

iOS Automation in OmniFocus

Using the Analog to Grasp the Digital

Writing Articles By Hand

12: The Higher Horizons

Hazel Keeping OmniFocus Updated

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 08 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

There are times when you need a feature in software that doesn't currently exist. Sometimes that leads to exploring alternatives or even creating your own, which is how inventors and entrepreneurs get a lot of their ideas.

In our current app culture, there is a growing push for extensibility and the ability to interact with the core data of a service from other apps. This ability has become necessary in my core applications. I've reached a point where there are no apps out there that have all the features I'm looking for.

I don't see this as a bad thing. It simply means my view of software and my willingness to augment the existing functionality reaches beyond the current options. This does not mean an app is the wrong choice. Basically, I'm asking for things that either don't exist in any current app, such as shuffling tasks, or it means that the developer has yet to implement them.

With something as personal as a task manager, we're certain to find shortcomings in every option available. Some people decide to work within the system they've chosen while others search for and create structures to fill in the gaps with new, bolt-on features. Again, this doesn't mean you've chosen the wrong tool. It means you understand yourself and the app well enough to develop a system that is specific to you.

I've done this feature augmentation with OmniFocus. The Omni Group is excellent at making their apps scriptable and they have zero intentions of changing that. This is only one of the reasons I've made OmniFocus my life manager of choice. They understand the impossibility of creating a tool that fits everyone, so they make it possible for us to customize our experience.

The experience I've created on my Mac has a hands-off mentality. I've written a handful of AppleScripts to create features I rely on. I could run these daily or every time I want to my database to update, but here's a better solution: Hazel.

Hazel has the ability to run a script when a certain criteria has been met. That criteria is extremely flexible and has allowed me to fine-tune this new functionality. The following is an overview of these augmented features that Hazel has allowed me to add to OmniFocus without any manual interventions.

Auto-Parser

There has been great progress on this in recent weeks but I often have a desire to capture an idea and send it to a specific project and context from my phone. I could use the new URL scheme but it's not as quick and smooth as using the Auto-Parser. I've written about this in the past, but the short of it is that it allows me to email a task into OmniFocus and let my Mac put it into the correct home within my database. I let Hazel run this script in the background every time OmniFocus syncs.

Scheduled Reviews

Some people love the ability to do daily "mini-reviews" in order to keep their projects updated. I prefer to do them all at once and on scheduled days. Since OmniFocus doesn't currently support this, I wrote this script which resets the "Next Review Date" to my scheduled date depending on the review cycle I have set for that project. I used to run this manually whenever I saw the perspective highlight but now I let Hazel run it (without the confirmation) on a daily basis.

Weather Activation

Sometimes I add features that I feel should be a part of the core software, like scheduled reviews. This is far from that. I wanted to turn projects on or off depending on weather conditions, namely temperature. This script does exactly that. Again, I let Hazel run it daily and it searches for projects with notes that meet a certain criteria. Based on the results, it decides if the project should be made active or not. This is really handy for spring and fall maintenance projects.

Text File Report

I generate a daily report that shows all the tasks I've completed that day. It gives me a historical record that I can use for clients, but mostly I just like to be able to look back on a certain day and see what I did. It's not necessary but I like the satisfaction in seeing it. This script takes the tasks completed yesterday and puts them into a text file. Hazel runs it daily to give me a single file for each day.

Although I would love to see these features built-in, I understand they are too specific to my preferences and a broader implementation would add too much to an already intimidating and powerful tool.

Writing Articles By Hand

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 05 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

After reflecting on the process of writing a daily schedule by hand and discussing the benefits of the analog over the digital, I've decided to try writing articles with pen and paper.

I've accrued a variety of theories for why I should to this, but ultimately, I'm curious to know if there are any benefits of analog writing tools for someone who writes for the web. Even contemplating this makes me think it's a crazy idea. Why use pen and paper when typing is so much faster? And wasn't typing speed part of the rationale behind my Dvorak transition? On both counts, yes.

And to be honest, I hope to return to typing them. But my curiosity won't leave me alone. I cannot help but wonder if the physical process of putting ink on a page has benefits I'm unaware of. I can speculate what those may be, but until I give it a real and genuine attempt, I'll never be able to let the idea go.

It is all the unknowns surrounding the process that has me writing this away from all screens with fountain pen in hand. Will the slower pace lead me to clearer thoughts and better phrasing of my ideas? Is there a deeper satisfaction in the writing process? Does a pen help me focus more than a keyboard? My presumed answer to all of these questions is yes. If the quality of my articles goes up as a result and the extra time is available, then it is certainly worth the extra effort. And if that's the case, why can't this mode of thinking and way of writing be duplicated through a keyboard?

My normal writing environment is in Distraction Free Mode inside Sublime Text. It's nothing more than full screen mode with all display panels hidden. The theory should hold that I'm writing in the same environment as analog: with no outside distraction or tendencies to deviate from the task at hand. But one major difference remains with the availability of distractions. There are easily more opportunities to jump in and out of alternatives on the Mac. So in theory, the analog process should yield greater focus.

My hope is that the slower pace allows me to process and develop my thoughts more completely. Too often I reread an article I released a few days prior and see a gaping hole in my rationale. Or I'll see a point that I touched on but could have spelled out in more detail. My brevity isn't wrong, per se, but I would prefer to put it all out there in most cases. My shortness is due to a lack of decision more than a set intention. I don't want to hold back without realizing I've done so. I know the slower pace of hand writing my articles will have an impact, but is it a noticeable and valuable difference?

I am also tempted to think that the overall process of writing an article will be faster. As much as I like to think that typing can be done distraction-free and focused, I have to confess to "checking in" when I have a pause in words. By stepping away from the screen entirely, those "just checks" and the time they take should disappear and allow me to develop a better phrase instead of defaulting to my original and often predictable way of stating the idea.

I've committed to writing five articles by hand - this being the first - so I have four to go. It doesn't sound like a lot but I'm fairly certain it won't take long to draw a conclusion. I will give it my best try and explore the results because, as usual, my curiosity has gotten the better of me.

35: Why I'm Into Productivity

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 03 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I've been actively exploring why I am big into productivity for the past two months. In part, that led me to seeing a counselor and discovering a missing piece to my mental puzzle, even though it's likely obvious to most.

Asian Efficiency Dojo

The OmniFocus Dashboard

Creating a Personal Book Index

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 01 May 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I used to just pick up a book, start at the beginning, and read it to the end. I tried not to bend any pages and always used a bookmark to make sure the book still looked brand new when I was finished. I had an unwarranted fear of ruining my books because I held them in such high regard.

I think that does the author an injustice. Yes, we're reading the book. But are we doing anything with what we're reading? Are we thoroughly comprehending it and engaging with the content? For me, the answer to those was "No". Sure, I would learn a few things, but most of the time I found myself skimming the whole thing trying to find a section with the solution I was looking for or an aha moment to teach me something new.

After reading this way for a long time I eventually started underlining or highlighting passages I found interesting or inspiring. That was a big step for me. But those words, despite having an impact on me, would eventually be lost. I might remember reading something in a specific book and then go back and look for it but this rarely happened.

While reading my latest books I started creating my own index of these highlights at the prompting of Tim Ferris and Maria Popova. I wasn't sure if it would be worth it or not, but I can now say that being able to glance at the back of a book to see the location of these important passages makes it a much better experience and well worth the extra seconds it takes to create it.

What I'm doing is simple. When I underline or highlight some text, I go to the back of the book where there are always a couple blank pages, create a topic heading or find one that already exists, and I add the page number of the text I just underlined. Done.

When I'm finished reading the book, I do my best to write a quick overview for myself in a text file. As part of that process, I transcribe this book index into a digital format at the bottom of the review. This makes it possible to search for topics and see the books I've read that pertained to that topic. It also allows me to see what pages in the book pertain to that topic.

The searching piece is just icing on the cake, though. To me the real joy is having that personalized index at the back of the book to thumb through. I know that if there's something that struck me in the book, I can always get back to it quickly and easily.

Is Dvorak Worth It?

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

After almost three months of typing with a Dvorak keyboard, I've reached some conclusions about this QWERTY alternative. Like most comparisons of this nature there are some significant pros and cons between the two. But I don't think it's fair to draw any conclusions until you've experienced both sides.

My conclusion: I'm sticking with Dvorak.

Speed

One of the main reasons given for using Dvorak is typing speed. Because the layout is designed to limit finger travel, the theory is that you can hit the keys much more quickly and create words faster. There are a lot of studies refuting this rationale and I don't know what the real answer is when you look at the best of the best in each group. But I do know my own results are quite conclusive. When I started this journey I was typing 72 WPM on QWERTY. Today I'm averaging 84 WPM on Dvorak. Again, this is after only three months. And since the majority of my work is done by typing, this leads to potential gains for me even if they are small.

Keyboards

One drawback of going with Dvorak is access to the physical keyboards needed to make it work. Yes, you can learn it and use a QWERTY keyboard to type Dvorak. But I find that having a cover on top makes it a lot easier. There are a times when most typists glance even slightly at the keys for reference. Having the actual key displayed can have a big impact. I use a cover that fits both my MacBook Pro and the Apple Wireless Keyboard since those are the two I use. That is an added expense to consider here.

Multiple Users

My wife uses my primary machine from time to time and that means she needs QWERTY to remain available. What I've found is that it's really a non-issue. You can set the layout on each profile and once logged in it will always goes back to that layout. Even when switching users on the lock screen it changes the layout. I sometimes need to use QWERTY from the lock screen but that's the only time it's an issue. My wife never has to deal with it.

RSI

I wouldn't say that I have RSI but I do know when I've had a heavy typing day. For me that usually means typing 4,000 words in a day or more. I've had a few days when I hit 7,000 and my hands really need a break afterwards. I don't have any data behind it but I know that since the switch I've had a couple 5,000+ days and I didn't realize it until I saw the numbers later. I normally would have felt it at that level. To me, that's a good indicator of positive long-term results.

iOS

On iOS I find my biggest complaint. There is no built-in Dvorak keyboard so I end up using a third-party keyboard. But there are still times when those keyboards aren't allowed or won't show up reliably. Searching in Spotlight or typing in passwords are the biggest culprits I've found. So there are still times when I'm using QWERTY on iOS but I don't always know when I'll be required to do so. I would love for Apple to add this to their built-in options.

Retaining QWERTY

There are still times when I've found myself using another computer or device. The tech and sound booth at our church is the most common one. But I also use my wife's profile once in a while. So I still find myself typing on a QWERTY keyboard from time to time. I did a quick test out of curiosity and found that I'm still at 45 WPM on QWERTY. It's nowhere near my original speed but that's to be expected. I'm alright with where I am, but I'm not actively trying to keep it around.

In the end, I'm quite happy with the transition and benefits I'm seeing with Dvorak. And since I've only been at it a short time, I can only hope that the positives continue to surface, my speed continues increasing, and the strain on my hands remains limited.

34: A Web Developer Using Markdown

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Markdown has become a major part of how I do all of my writing despite being a web developer. It has a lot of benefits even if you know how to write the HTML itself.

Daring Fireball: Markdown Basics

Daring Fireball

Twitter conversation about markdown on paper

kramdown

Markdown Tables

Jekyll • Simple, blog-aware, static sites

joebuhlig/discourse-feature-voting

Sublime Text: The text editor you'll fall in love with

revolunet/sublimetext-markdown-preview: markdown preview and build plugin

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9: Really? Journaling?

Using the Analog to Grasp the Digital

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I'm guilty of looking for ways to accomplish tasks on the computer long before it crosses my mind to try paper or the whiteboard. It's almost embarrassing sometimes. The idea of going to a notepad as a first instinct is hard for me to grasp.

I'm slowly growing fond of pen and paper. I've written meeting notes on paper for a long time but it's only been the last few months that I've really embraced the value of writing daily schedules and brainstorming sessions on a notepad. And for someone so devoted to digital tools I must confess that the results have baffled me.

Mike Schmitz and I talked about this on the podcast recently. Because physically writing something down engages more of your body and requires you to use more of your self to get the idea out of your mind, you have more memory indicators created in your brain. In turn, it leaves you with more connections made and more ability to recall the thing you wrote down. In other words, writing it on paper helps you remember more than typing it into a computer.

When I started writing out a daily plan on paper I found that I didn't need to reference the paper nearly as often as I used to reference my digital calendar. I was able to move from one task to the next with little or no transition cost. I knew what the next step of my day was without needing to look at the paper.

After doing this for the better side of a month I went back to using my digital calendar with no loss of results over the paper version. The experience of writing it down with pen and paper solidified the rationale and nuances of the process. It showed me the importance of deciding where the minutes of my day will go and the repetitiveness of my real schedule began to come through. It was only after I developed the memory through handwriting the daily schedule that I was able to best utilize the digital calendar and understand the cycles I naturally fall into.

And that proved to have great value. Developing an awareness of how you work is the best way to create truly productive systems. But it turns out that once I went back to the digital calendar, the side effects of relying on calendar alerts and the use of repeating events aren't worth the move back to digital. I can now understand how to set up my digital calendar in more detail. But doing so and using it leaves me with symptoms I'd rather not have. So I'm back on the paper for my daily schedule.

The time it takes to write it out by hand and think it through in detail every day develops a memory that I can use throughout the day and relieves me of the robotic nature of recurring events that aren't regularly kept in check.

The OmniFocus Dashboard

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I write and talk about my OmniFocus Dashboard a lot. And that's for good reason: it's the central hub of my day-to-day work and the place where my decisions about the day surface.

The intent behind the Dashboard is to show me a list of tasks to be completed today. I want those tasks to be shown in order, meaning I start at the top and work to the bottom. There's no need to choose the next task because I've already decided ahead of time.

Before I get too far into this, let's go through the setup. All the Dashboard contains are tasks that are Due or Flagged. The task needs to have a due date within the next five days or I must manually flag it before it shows up here. As for the display settings, I want it to group tasks by context but sort by project.

I keep my contexts in order of importance from top to bottom. And I give my @Admin tasks the highest priority. If the task impacts the state of my system and accuracy of the projects in it, I want that task to be completed first. I want to trust that I have all the appropriate information collected and in place before I move on. With the perspective grouped by context, it first sorts the tasks by context; and with the @Admin context at the top of my list, it shows up first on the Dashboard.

I also sort my projects in order of importance. See a theme here? At the top of my project list is a folder called Guidance. It holds my higher horizons, reviews, and meta projects. Again, I want these at the top of the list because these projects keep my daily activities in alignment with my long-term goals. With the Dashboard sorted by project, the tasks within the context groupings maintain the priority I give my projects. I should also note that all projects in this Guidance folder are flagged and their tasks are given the @Admin context. The flag is what pulls them into the Dashboard and the context ensures they will always be at the top.

Reviews

The projects at the very top are my reviews: daily, weekly, monthly, and annual in that order. I need to complete my daily review before I go on to the weekly review. The same goes for the monthly and annual reviews. I can't make decisions about which projects to take on or drop if there are still unprocessed tasks in my inbox. The system must be up-to-date beforehand. Again, these projects are flagged and all their tasks are given the @Admin context, so these tasks show up in the first grouping of the Dashboard.

Due or Flagged

Once all reviews and important tasks are completed, I move on to the tasks that will be due soon or that I've decided to work that today. The due soon tasks show up automatically based on how close I am to the due date. For me, that means five days out from the assigned date. I want a little lead time on these. But I fill the remainder of my day's work with tasks that I've flagged. Sometimes these apply to the projects on my Important Projects list, but often times they are simple one-off tasks that are bugging me and I want done.

Reality

The nice thing about this Dashboard is that it is mostly robotic. It happens on its own. Each day these tasks show up without me needing to do anything. But there's risk involved with that. You can become numb to seeing them every day; if you skip one day, it becomes easy to skip them the next; or you start looking through the list, get overwhelmed by it, and do nothing. For me, the problem can arise when I start re-thinking my previous decisions that led to the list in the first place. I'm not always the best at sticking to it, but I know if I trust my previous self that I have a greater tendency to create flow and accomplish more by the end of the day.

33: Analog vs. Digital with Mike Schmitz

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Mike Schmitz joins me this week to talk through the use of analog tools and how that can help us understand when and where to use the appropriate digital tool.

Mike Schmitz - Asian Efficiency

The Productivity Show

The Sweet Setup

mikeschmitz.me

Thou Shalt Hustle

The Important (Not Urgent) Projects

TPS57: Advanced OmniFocus Setup + Workflow w/ Joe Buhlig

TPS11: Joe Buhlig

OmniFocus Workflows: Shawn Blanc - Learn OmniFocus

Discussion about daily planning

The Dash/Plus System

The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard

Moleskine Evernote Smart Notebook

Sketchnotes

The Sketchnote Workbook

Steal Like an Artist - Austin Kleon

Show Your Work! - Austin Kleon

Choosing Tools for GTD® - YouTube

How to Think Like a Geek

Cortex #26: Pick your Poison

Automation in OmniFocus 2.14 (now in TestFlight)

The Flawed Foundation of Diets

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 17 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

After working on multiple sides of agriculture and seeing how the back-end of the food industry operates, I've come to the realization that there is some really bad information out there about agriculture and how we decide what to eat.

Most of our decisions about what to eat are adopted from a huge list of diets. There are a lot of cultural diets, but anymore most Western diets are put together with a purpose in mind. Some of them help us put on muscle and some help lower cholesterol levels. There's even a breathing diet to help you lose weight. No matter the goal, diets face an underlying flaw in their design.

When you break it down, a diet is simply a recommendation on how to achieve health through the food that you consume. It's a way of eating that provides you with a long, energetic life. But the problem we face today is the plethora of diets out there all claiming to be the best way to eat. A lot of these diets contradict each other and leave us wondering which ones are worthwhile. What's worse is the regular discovery of new scientific evidence revealing the fact that some diets actually make us less healthy than we were originally.

Why is that? Let's go back to the premise of what a diet is: a recommendation on how to eat. In order to make an honest and accurate recommendation we need information and experience with the thing we are recommending. Generally speaking, you wouldn't ask a web developer to work on your car. Most developers don't have the deep knowledge about cars that they would need to find the issue with your motor. The food industry is much the same.

The vast majority of diets are based on research done by scientists. We run across diets created by individuals once in a while but those typically have a base derived from the research done by scientists. We learn that antioxidants can help fight or prevent cancer, so we put together a recommendation on how to get more of them into our daily food intake. We even go to the extreme of adding them into products where they don't naturally exist so that we can consume even more of them. But that mindset can give us alarming results.

Any time we develop new research that shows a way to prevent or fight a disease or that shows the health benefits of a specific nutrient, we blow it out of proportion. You would think that with all the research being done and the experience we have with eating that we would know how to eat healthfully. Why can't we get this right?

In order to make a perfect recommendation, you have to know everything about the thing you're recommending. If you don't know everything about it, there will inevitably be flaws in the rationale behind the recommendation. Sometimes those flaws are no big deal but sometimes they have unexpected results.

Say I recommend a wireless router to a friend. It's one I've used for years and have a great experience with. My friend trusts me so he buys the router. He sets it up and has nothing but issues with it. I come over and give it a try with no luck. After digging into it, I find out that this router doesn't play nice with his specific modem. I made what I thought was a great recommendation but it turned out to be a nightmare for my friend. If had known about the pairing issues of that combination, I wouldn't have recommended it. I didn't know everything about the router even though I thought it was excellent.

We have a lot of data about the human body. We understand things about it that our great-grandparents could only speculate about. And that means we have a ton of information at our disposal that we can use to build the perfect recommendation on how to eat. But remember what I said earlier:

In order to make a perfect recommendation, you have to know everything about the thing you're recommending.

In order to make the perfect diet, we have to know everything about the human body. We have to know about every nutrient that exists, how they work in combinations, and what our digestive system does with each one. We also have to understand how we break those nutrients down and how they help brain function. We need to know how our nutritional needs change as we age and develop. But it turns out there's a lot we don't know about ourselves:

What we know about the brain

Ten things we don't understand about humans

Scientists Discover a New Part of the Human Body

Body’s bacteria don’t outnumber human cells so much after all

The other side of this is that we don't even understand the food itself well enough to know how it fits into our own nutrition. Take the tomato for example. It's consumed all over the world and yet we know very little about why it has more genes than we do. If we can't explain everything about our own bodies and the food that we eat, how can we expect anyone to develop a diet that completely meets our nutritional needs?

It simply isn't possible to develop a diet that is completely accurate and 100% reliable. We don't know enough to do that. Yes, we can put together good guesses and see great results, but we often don't see the long-term effects for many years and by that time we may have learned that it was actually a really bad idea all along.

Scientists are doing an excellent job of learning about us and the food we eat. We've been able to create diets for people struggling with diseases and help patients extend their lives and have a higher quality of life at the same time. There's a lot of value in these continued attempts to make the best recommendations we can. And the more we learn about ourselves, the better these recommendations get. But we will very likely never have the ability to build the perfect diet and we will never be able to manufacture the perfect food.

At the end of the day, we simply need to keep in mind that the diets we choose to follow are never ideal. Scientists are great at giving us information to follow, but we need to remember the basics when we decide what to eat.

Evernote vs. Raw Files

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Ever since I published an article about leaving Evernote I've received numerous recommendations for alternatives. It seems there is an endless supply of catchall buckets that you can drop information into. I appreciate all the ideas, but it isn't the point.

The majority of my complaints with Evernote revolve around portability and a proprietary format. It's not an easy task to work with the notes in other applications and it's not trivial to take the text out of the note, work on it, and bring it back in on iOS. But there are a lot of the details that have me avoiding Evernote and its alternatives.

Formatting Text

I just don't do it. 95% of all my writing is in markdown. I'm even starting to do this when I take handwritten notes. The only time I don't use markdown is when I'm creating a Pages document for a client, which is rare anymore. So I never have a need to create rich text in any way. That mostly stems from my medium of sharing words: the web. Everything eventually ends up in HTML and the words I type that don't end up on the web are short-form or for personal reference. In either case, I don't have the need or the time to make something bold or change a font size. To me, it has just as much impact in its natural state as it does formatted.

Checklists

I used to keep all my checklists in Evernote. I even found a way to do recurring checklists in Evernote. But that was before I moved every task item into OmniFocus. My Evernote lists worked great at the time, but I prefer the consolidation of every action item in one place and all reference material in a separate place.

Pictures and Files

One major benefit to using Evernote is the ability to keep pictures and files right alongside of the text that you're storing. It's an awesome feature, but it comes with a lot of downsides. What if I need to edit the picture or file? It's rare that I don't make changes to them in some way. It might be annotations or adding lines to a spreadsheet but if I want to do anything with them I need to make sure I'm on my Mac. It works pretty well there, but the moment you try this on iOS it gets really messy, really fast. The extra work and time involved in pulling it off is not for me. Keeping everything in a single folder in DropBox is much more compatible with the tools I prefer to use.

Storage Style

I'm grateful for all the suggestions on alternatives to Evernote. I now know there are a lot of great ones out there. But I think I've developed a new (old?) information storage preference. I enjoy the flexibility of working with standard file types themselves. They're easy to use and predict, and my use of them is not dependent on the features of a single company or application. If I want to make edits to my information, I don't have to use a specific app to do it. And I can move from one system to another with little to no overhead and migration steps. I'm free from a single ecosystem; that's what I like about it.

32: Doing the Task Shuffle

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Here's an update on the new TextExpander pricing and a deep dive into why I wrote a script that shuffles my tasks. That's right. There's a big benefit to randomizing a task list.

TextExpander Adjustments - Smile

What I’m doing now - Derek Sivers

Now - Joe Buhlig

Mac Power Users #314: Trials and Tribulations of Katie's iPad - Relay FM

OFScripts - Task Shuffle AppleScript

The Important (Not Urgent) Projects

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

We all have those projects that we know we should be working on, but without a deadline or someone relying on you it's hard to keep it going. Things come up and the easy tasks to put off are the ones without urgency pushing them on.

I have a tendency to pick up a shiny new project and set aside the projects that move me toward my longer term goals. It's easy to do because those long distance projects have no (noticeable) ramifications when they're delayed. I can always make up the difference later or move the potential launch date back a bit without anyone noticing.

But that undermines my own mission. If I want to help others get better at their systems and develop a more meaningful life, I need to stay the course and keep working on the projects without a deadline and that have a bigger long-term impact.

I recently spent some time reflecting on these projects, trying to find time for them each week. I wanted to put my hands to work instead of just thinking or talking, because "It's the thought that counts" isn't much of a business model. I thought about dedicating one or two days a week to them, but that would lead to slower progress in the end. What I really need to do is check something off for these projects every single day. They need to move forward every day no matter how small the progress is. Those incremental gains can make a big impact over time.

If I'm going to step up and work on these every day, it makes sense to create a checklist of the projects and tasks I need to complete each day. It also feeds my love of lists.

This shows up on my OmniFocus Dashboard every day and I go through it top to bottom along with everything else I do in the day. This means I set aside more of the "procrastiworking" tasks I tend to work on instead of my key projects, which is a good thing. There are some short-term sacrifices I make to do this but I don't think anyone would say it's not worth it.

To get a little more technical on the how, here are the settings I use for the project itself in OmniFocus:

The idea is to flag the project to add it to my Dashboard (Due and Flagged), have it repeat every day, and mark the project complete after all tasks are completed.

Now I have a daily reminder and checklist that ensures I make progress on these important projects. I don't care how small it is, but I will move them forward. It's that small contribution each day that really adds up.

And Now...

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I ran across this idea when reading an article by Derek Sivers. The premise is simple: creating a frequently updated page to show what the person is currently doing. The concept really resonated with me, and I expanded on it a bit.

Sivers calls it a Now page and even created an index of these pages. I started looking through these pages and loved a lot of the ideas I found. It was a classic case of being unable to make up my mind. So instead of picking one area or one page to keep updated, I built a site that showcases where my time goes, what I'm reading, what I'm currently developing, and a growing portfolio of my work.

In the future, I'd like to add an Apps page that keeps a list of the tools I'm using on my devices, but that's an extensive addition, so it needs to come at a later time.

So if you're curious about what I'm up to, go check out now.joebuhlig.com.

31: Apps, Websites, and TextExpander Pricing

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I go on a rant about building websites instead of apps. That leads me to a subsidiary rant about the polarizing changes to TextExpander.

Discourse does need an App, here is why

The New TextExpander - Smile

Smile Press Release

Introducing 1Password for Families

Thoughts on TextExpander 6 - mikeschmitz.me

Timing Tasks

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 19:00:00 -0500

In a previous role I spent some time researching project management software and evaluating it for company use. One of the turn-offs that my end users brought up was an extreme distaste for running a stopwatch on the tasks being tracked. I get it. No one wants to be stuck to a clock, especially when those reviewing the numbers are your managers.

I didn't want to go that route either. I've always had a resistance to due dates, but some of it was fear that the data would be used against me. It would be hard not to compare my times to that of my coworkers. It wouldn't matter if I came out better or not, quality of work would no longer be the main consideration if speed took over as the primary indicator.

When I started working for myself, I finally came around to the idea of starting a stopwatch at the beginning of every new task. The data was staying in my own hands. It could help me maximize my time without the potential for negative consequences. So I set up a process with Launch Center Pro to help track my time.

My intent was to understand where I spent the most time and look for places to cut back. I was seeking maximum impact for the least amount of time spent since every action I take can directly influence my income. But after timing my work for a while, I found there were more benefits to starting that stopwatch than I expected.

History

The first of these was my original (and only) intent: a record of how much time I spend on tasks. Keeping track of how much time I spend on tasks helps me see if I'm allocating too much of my day to one activity. I can't say that I had any big aha moments as I've looked through the data, but it's at least interesting to see how much time goes into writing an article or designing and building a website.

Estimations

Once I know how long something usually takes, I can estimate how much time to allocate to a task prior to starting. The past is the most accurate indicator of the future. This is why it's so dangerous (and manipulative) to make even slight changes to history books and data records. If you want to honestly understand where you currently stand and how something will pan out in the future, you can study the past and see how things work out. History is an indicator for our actions in the present. The same is true for the time it takes to complete a task. The more we know about our completed tasks, the better we are at predicting the outcomes of our current and future tasks.

Self-Competition

If we know how much time something usually takes us and we are about to begin a similar task, we have a benchmark to compare against. We have a time to beat. I think this holds the most value if you are the sole owner of the data and want to get better at the task. You can choose to let the time go longer if you're working to improve the quality or you can work on speed if you're trying to gain efficiency. In both cases, though, you know and understand your goal.

Focus

I was caught off-guard by this one. When I start that timer, I know that I'll be recording the number when I'm done. The time will go into storage and into the broader history of the data I've stored. The last thing I want to do is have that number include tasks outside of what I recorded. It will muddy the waters with false data, and I cannot stand false data. If I spend 10 minutes checking Twitter in the middle of designing a logo and I record it as time spent designing, the record is incorrect. So I take advantage of my loathing for bad data sets and use it to stay focused on the task.

Everything?

Absolutely not. Don't be crazy. You should not have a stopwatch running when you're having coffee with your spouse. Only time the tasks that need a record or that tend to get away from you. Leisure and play should be allowed to roam. Tasks for work or your side projects are likely the primary commitments worth timing. Those are typically the only areas where we strive for efficiency and focus. It doesn't work to be laser-focused while at the beach on vacation.

A Text File Weather Forecast

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

It never fails. I sit at our kitchen table over breakfast and mention to my wife that it's going to snow that day. The first question she asks? "How much?" I don't know! All I know is that my alert says it's supposed to happen!

After going through this exchange so many times that my wife realized she was driving me crazy then continued to ask because she enjoys taunting me, I gave up and created my own weather forecast. I wanted to know temperatures and precipitation amounts and keep a daily record of each forecast. I figured if I was going to go through the trouble of creating it, I might as well make it possible to search a date and get the forecast from that day. I turned to text files and Google Scripts.

Today

To set this up, you'll need access to Google Drive and a developer account with Weather Underground.

Create a new Google Apps Script in Google Drive.
Paste the code below into the script.
Replace the _X_s in the script with your Weather Underground API key and change the city/state to your location.
Set up a trigger to run the function automatically (Resources > Current project's triggers).

Here's the script you'll need:

When run, the script will create a text file at the top-level of your Google Drive. From there you can use Hazel to move and rename these files however you like. For example, I use Hazel to rename the files to just the date and move them to DropBox within my text file setup.

Yesterday

Once I had today's forecast working properly, I took the next step: keeping a history of what actually happened the day before. This was primarily so I could determine how much rain we had yesterday. I grew up on a crop farm. The most common question in a farming community is, "How much rain did you get last night?" That almost instinctual curiosity has never left me, but instead of setting up a rain gauge like most good farmers, I just altered my forecast script to give the data from the day before in the same format.

Everything for this historical record works the same as the forecast. The only difference is the location of the API call and the parsing of the data.

The benefit of having both of these in place is the ability to compare the forecast to what actually happened. The only issue with doing this is the result: it shows just how bad forecasts really are at predicting weather. But hey, at least breakfast with my wife is less maddening.

30: Decision Analysis Paralysis

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

When you have a large amount of data available, it's easy to be paralyzed in making a decision about how to analyze it. The same is true when you have a lot of tasks and little clarity.

Analysis paralysis - Wikipedia

The Truth About Frogs

Articles about Reviews

The battle between your present and future self - TED Talk

Making Time for Contexts

A Time For Things - Patrick Rhone

Choosing OmniFocus Settings

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

No application setup is complete without tweaking the settings to your liking. This is the power (and struggle) of OmniFocus. Some of the available options make drastic changes while others lead to subtleties you may not notice.

I use the Mac version of OmniFocus as the "home base" of my setup. I make most of my changes there and let them sync to iOS. There are a few settings specific to mobile, but the majority of the following options will be dedicated to OmniFocus 2 for Mac.

General

One of the most powerful advantages of high resolution screens is the ability to condense information and see the full context of the current task. The more you can see at once the easier it is to understand what's going on. That's one thing I love about being able to adjust the text size in OmniFocus. Try to make it as small as possible while still being able to read it. If you can see every task assigned to a project when you're reviewing it, you can make a clearer decision about it.

It can be painful when vital keyboard shortcuts change on you. Muscle memory is not overcome without a number of frustrating mistakes. There were a number of simple keystrokes in OmniFocus 1 ingrained in my fingers that were changed in OmniFocus 2. You can revert to the old way by using the Classic Mode for outlining, but when applications make changes on this scale, it's typically for a good reason and I try to bite the bullet and change with them. It's always possible that the old way will be dropped entirely in the future. To save myself trouble later on, I use the Modern Mode for outlining. And to be honest, after switching it does make a lot of sense.

The Quick Entry Shortcut and the Clippings Shortcut are both settings you should tweak to your liking. I use a combination of the Spacebar and other modifier keys to invoke most blank capture and search mechanisms. So in my case I use Control + Option + Space to pull up the Quick Entry Dialog. If I'm capturing selected text or existing data, I use Command + Shift and a letter to indicate the program I want the data to land in. In this case, I use Command + Shift + O for the Clippings Shortcut.

Organization

I highly recommend cleaning up items only when they have both a Project and a Context. This means new tasks only leave your inbox when they have both of these assigned; any other scenario leaves the task at risk of not being clearly defined. Even if there needs to be a placeholder context or project, it's still better than making a partial decision about the task. Let this setting push you to be as clear as you can.

You have an option for doing this cleanup process automatically (as soon as the criteria is met) or when you change views or perspectives. I've found that it really depends on how you like to work with tasks. If you like to see completed tasks sitting there with a checkmark, set this to When changing views. But if you're like me and you want your list to shrink as you check things off, set it to Immediately.

Do you have a tendency to create new projects already thought out with a series of tasks that must be completed in a set order? Or do you tend to add tasks as you think of them and most of your projects don't follow a set pattern? In the case of the former, you will likely want all your new projects to start off as sequential. I fall into the latter category and prefer them to start as parallel. That allows me to keep adding tasks to the project and have them show up on my context lists immediately.

The last option here is for showing the projects and groups in your context lists. This is mostly preference. If you have a task group assigned to @Computer, that group will show up in your Computer context list. Personally, I feel that this adds clutter to my list, so I leave this unchecked.

Layout

Remember what I said about data density? I think there's a lot of value in condensed formats. Seeing as much information as I can at one time helps me understand the situation better. So I prefer to use the Custom Columns or Fluid layouts. You can see the exact columns I'm using in the screenshot. Those specific columns help me make the best decision on the next task to work on.

Dates & Times

When do you want tasks to be marked as "Due Soon?" When you mark a task with a due date, when does that task show a yellow indicator? This really depends on how quickly your tasks come and go and how long it takes to complete them. In my case those combined criteria lead me to a five day lead time. I want an indicator when something is due in five days or less.

The next three settings are about default times. You'll want to set these in a way that makes sense based on your daily schedule. When I defer a task I want it to show up the morning of the date I set, so I use midnight as the default defer time. I typically go to bed around 9pm, so I make sure tasks are completed by then if they are due. Finally, I want to make sure every project is reviewed weekly. In rare cases, I'll adjust a project to go further out but the vast majority of my projects need a weekly look.

Notifications

In 99% of cases, I turn off notifications from apps on my devices. There are very few alerts important enough to warrant a change in direction, but OmniFocus is an exception. If OmniFocus notifies me, I need to know about it. It is an indicator that I missed something and it needs to be dealt with immediately. I can't afford to let those slide.

To help with getting my attention, OmniFocus has the ability to use "soft" alerts. These are the dock icon badge and perspective highlights. I use both to indicate when I have tasks that are due soon or flagged. I rely on my phone for these because I prefer a single place for alerts and since my phone is always with me, it makes sense as the central hub.

When I do get alerts, I want them to be important. I avoid due dates on my tasks as much as I can so when I see a badge icon or get a notification, it has some weight behind it. To maintain that importance, I limit alerts to tasks that are due in some way.

I don't use it on my Mac nearly as much as my phone, but I really like having my Dashboard (flagged and due tasks) in my Today view. It's nice to see this list with a single swipe.

I've never been a big fan of putting my tasks on the calendar. That may work for you, but I've never found a way to do that without creating my nemesis: clutter.

Synchronization

You can get fancy with how you sync your data but I prefer to trust the Omni Group. They know their data better than I do, so I stick with their service to move the data around.

Update

It's good to get new features and bug fixes, so I enable checking for daily updates. I know that some folks prefer not to send information back to companies, and in some cases I might do the same. But the Omni Group has gained my trust and I want to help them continue to build a quality product. So in this case, I opt to send them anonymous data.

A Record of Completed Tasks

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

There are times when I want to look back and see what I did on a specific day. This is extremely helpful when I need a record for a client, but no matter the reason, I find myself referring to my task history frequently.

There are two ways I access these completed tasks: in an OmniFocus perspective and in daily text files.

Daily Review

The OmniFocus perspective that I use to view my completed tasks is one of the stock perspectives, and doesn't require a Pro account. Here are the specific settings I'm using:

Some days it can be a challenge to pick up where I left off the day before. I can look at the upcoming tasks on my Dashboard but that doesn't give me the context of what I just finished doing for those projects. So at the end of my Daily Review I look over this Completed perspective. It's a quick view of what I've been working on and helps me pick up where I left off.

Text Files

For longer term storage of completed tasks, I create text files detailing the progress of tasks and projects that day. Under each project is a list of the completed tasks and their completion date.

The idea here is to create a historical record of what I did each day. It allows me to go back in time to any day I want and see exactly which projects I was working on and the progress I made.

AppleScript and Hazel

These text files are created automatically, because there's no way I'm going to copy/paste the data into place every day. I wrote an AppleScript that creates them and the script is run by Hazel, so my Mac needs to be turned on to run it; I can't see the text file for yesterday until my Mac has had a chance to run the script today. I should note that this script is designed to be an external script, not embedded. Here's what the Hazel rule looks like:

And here's the external AppleScript used in the rule:

iOS

You'll notice in the script that I'm saving the text files to my DropBox. The most common place for me to search these task reports is from my phone. With them syncing and being stored with the rest of my text file setup, I can easily search for a task or project in Editorial and determine when I completed it.

29: Get Started and Iterate

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

In this episode, I go through the ideas behind agile development and applying them to get a minimum viable product out the door. This is exactly how OmniGroup has now gotten to the point of bringing themes back to OmniFocus. Oh, and I completely missed daylight savings.

Agile software development - Wikipedia

Waterfall model - Wikipedia

Minimum viable product - Wikipedia

Ken Case — The Omni Group

Kens tweet about styling

A Minimal Alfred Theme

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I've got a bonus for you this week: my Alfred theme. I've tweaked the look of Alfred quite a bit over the few years I've been using it. I wanted something simple and unobtrusive, but I also wanted it to be compact and cram a lot of data into a small space. If that sounds appealing, give it a try.

You can get the theme here.

Favorite Alfred Tricks

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

My Mac is useless without Alfred. That's no joke. I try to use my wife's profile once in a while. It's painful for me and hilarious for her to watch. I keep hitting the Alfred shortcuts and staring at it like it's broken.

I didn't get this dependent overnight. I started using Alfred a few years ago and have slowly built up the number of use cases I have for it. So if you're just starting out, don't feel like you need to adopt a whole bunch of things at once. Find one or two that you know you'll use and build from there. Here are some of the ways I use Alfred.

Launching Apps

I mentioned this in a previous article, but it bears repeating because it's so important. I rarely use Mission Control on the Mac. I'd rather jump straight to an app without hunting down the window that looks like the one I want. I set up workflows (Powerpack feature) that allow me to hit a keyboard shortcut and show/hide the app I want. This pulls up the app I want without a misfire.

Clipboard History

I copy text and links all the time, and sometimes I need to copy/paste multiple portions of text at once. Take my weekly newsletter for example. It has the title, excerpt, and link for each post that was published that week. I could flip back and forth nine times and get everything copied over, but that's ridiculous. Instead I pull up each post, copy all the pieces I need, and use the clipboard history in Alfred to paste each piece without flipping between apps.

Email

I use Google Apps for my email and haven't found a need for a local client because the web client works so well. This means checking my email requires entering the url for Gmail, and because I run a few different accounts I need to be able to pinpoint the exact email address. Using TextExpander, I set up a snippet that expands to the url for the account I want and presses Enter. Invoking Alfred and entering my snippet abbreviation sends me directly to my email. Though sometimes I wonder if I've made this too easy.

xemp = https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox%key:enter%
xemjb = https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox%key:enter%
xemfh = https://mail.google.com/mail/u/2/#inbox%key:enter%

Searching Files

This is a pretty standard way to use a launcher like Alfred. And if you're just getting started with one, it's a good place to start. If I need to open a file, I rarely go to Finder. I almost always start typing into Alfred.

Font Awesome

Because I develop for the web, I use the Font Awesome library of icons a lot. It's a part of nearly every website I've worked with. So when I ran across a workflow for searching and pasting in the classes for every icon, I installed it immediately.

Dictionary/Thesaurus

I find myself looking for synonyms and definitions quite a bit, and Alfred makes it really easy on me. It has a built-in mechanism for searching the dictionary for a word and offering synonyms. I did change the keyword needed to search the dictionary from define to def, just to make it a bit quicker.

Someday/Maybe Lists

Because I keep so many idea lists, I wanted a quick way to pull them up. So I created a workflow in Alfred that uses the keyword ofsm. It opens a link (copied from OmniFocus) to my folder of Someday/Maybe lists.

Text File Setup and Workflow

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

Now that I've moved away from Evernote, the primary way I store information is through text files. It's taken me a while to get it nailed down but I've managed to simplify the number of apps I use and the flow of text across my devices.

File Storage

The back end storage of my text files is DropBox. It's ubiquitous. If you want to build an app that handles raw text, you have to enable DropBox syncing to get any traction. Inside my DropBox structure is a folder, Text (original, I know). Within that folder are a few subfolders: TaskReports, Weather, and Writing.

The main folder, Text, is where the bulk of my files go. I use the same naming structure here that I use in many places across my apps and devices: Tagx_Keywords_YYYYMMDD. The tag is the type of text the file contains. It uses the "x" trick I adopted from Merlin Mann. I try not to add new tags but sometimes it's necessary. Here is the current breakout of tags I'm using:

Bookx - book reviews and notes
Ideax - ideas I have for a project or potential business prospect
Inboxx - temporary files that need further processing
Monthlyx - monthly reflections
Presentationx - outlines and notes for presentations
Recipex - my personal recipe box
Thoughtsx - sometimes I write my thoughts about a concept or big decision
Topicx - potential topics for online forums
URLx - groups of urls I want to keep
Weeklyx - weekly reflections
Yearlyx - yearly reflections

After the tag are keywords I use to describe the file itself. If I have an idea file for a client website, the title would look like this: Ideax_clientwebsite.com_20160314. Or if the ideas are for a potential business opportunity: Ideax_Best solar panel ever_20160314. Having these keywords makes it possible to search the tag and one of the keywords so I can find an exact file. But more often than not, I don't need to search for the tag itself because typing in the keyword gets me close enough to look through the list of results and see the one I want. The tag helps me make that decision within the filtered list.

The keywords are followed with a date so I know when it was started. I almost never use this, but if I'm trying to put the file in the context of time, it's invaluable. And because I create date strings with TextExpander it's easy to append them to each file.

Accessing Files

Let's talk apps. On iOS, I'm using Editorial (iTunes). It has a lot of power behind it and gives me access to my subfolders. There are a lot of great apps for working with text as Brett Terpstra has helped us see, but I find that the ease of searching for text in Editorial paired with its integration with TextExpander makes it the perfect choice for me. Knowing that I can build workflows for text files is a huge plus as well. It feeds my need to be flexible with my data.

On the Mac, I use nvALT and Sublime Text. If it's a quick note that doesn't belong in a subfolder, I use nvALT. The speed of this app is just incredible. And once you learn some of the keyboard shortcuts, you can pick up a lot of speed in navigating your text files.

Any coding or writing that's article length or longer is opened with Sublime Text, my heavy duty text editor. I always have a Sublime window open to my Writing subfolder of text files. Within that folder are breakouts for the different types of writing I do: Articles, Books, Podcasts, etc. Because these are all in one folder, I always know where to go when it's time to write. And with the power that comes with Sublime, I have a lot of tools to make text easier to work with.

Collecting

Any time I need to write down text on iOS, it starts in Drafts (iTunes). There's great flexibility in creating custom actions to send that text almost anywhere. The last thing I want to worry about when writing it down is where it should go. I need to get the idea out of my head, not waste time determining where that text should land before it's written down. If I have to do the latter, there's a good chance I'll lose a portion (or all) of the idea.

The vast majority of the time I don't collect ideas on the Mac. Even when I'm typing away on an article and an idea comes to me, I grab my phone and enter it into Drafts. But if I do collect it on the Mac, I use nvALT. It's super fast, but to make sure I don't lose the text in my sea of files, I use TextExpander to name the file with the Inboxx tag so I can find it later.

Processing

Once the text has been captured I need to get it to the right place with the right name. It's pretty easy to do that with Drafts. I have a handful of actions to create new next files in DropBox. Choosing the right action dictates the subfolder and name of the file itself. This is the main reason I prefer to type things into my phone over the Mac. It's a bit weird to say, but sometimes iOS trumps OS X.

Processing on the Mac isn't anything out of the ordinary. I search nvALT for the Inboxx tag and do the cut/paste/rename routine you would expect. I use TextExpander to make that a bit easier, but I still prefer my phone.

In the end, this system allows me to be extremely flexible with the type of information I write down and gives me a lot of power when editing it later. I'm not locked into any one app or service, and the apps I'm using to interact with the text all have power user features available to create my own custom environment. I guess you could say I'm a control freak with my files, but this system gives me the level of micromanagement I'm looking for.

28: Why Is Focus So Hard?

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

I've slowly drifted away from the mission that gets me excited each day. And that's due to a lack of focus and alignment with my goals.

The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

Choosing the Right Medium

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 19:00:00 -0500

You're reading them right now. And the medium that they arrive in will change their weight. Words. Words in email have less impact than a handwritten letter. And a conversation over coffee has more sway than a phone call.

We use a lot of mediums to share words with each other. We can send written words over iMessage or paper; we can send audible words over Facetime or in person. Each method has its own connotations and perceptions. Add in differing cultures, generational differences, and regional expectations and we now have a mess on our hands.

But if we boil down the options, we see many similarities. Sending short, typed messages can be done through Twitter, Snapchat, iMessage, or email. Long form text is best sent through a blog post, email, or a handwritten letter. Email can do both, and iMessage can also do audio. Here's a breakdown of these types of words:

| Length | Type | Mechanism | Example |
|-----|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|
| Short | Digital | Visual | Twitter, Snapchat, iMessage |
| Long | Digital | Visual | Email, Blog Post |
| Short | Analog | Visual | Thank You cards, Love notes |
| Long | Analog | Visual | Letters, journaling |
| Short | Digital | Audible | iMessage, voice notes |
| Long | Digital | Audible | Podcasts, talk radio |
| Short | Digital | A/V | FaceTime, Snapchat |
| Long | Digital | A/V | FaceTime, podcasts |
| Short | Analog | A/V | Restaurant ordering |
| Long | Analog | A/V | Meeting a friend for coffee |

Deciding which medium to use can be difficult. Some, like Twitter or Snapchat, are more comfortable because they don't require vulnerability from me. Others, like a conversation over dinner, are a risk because I may say the wrong thing. And once it leaves my mouth it cannot be erased or crumpled up and thrown away. But there are a number of factors to consider when making the decision, and comfort level isn't really up for consideration. As long as I consider the medium that is most appropriate regardless of my own preferences, the message will be better conveyed with less chance of misunderstanding.

Publicity

Is it appropriate for the whole world to know about it? If yes, then you can use social media or a blog post. Or maybe you hold a press conference to broadcast it. But if it needs to be a private conversation or it's a sensitive topic, please keep it off of social media and send it directly to the person who needs to hear it. I hope that goes without saying.

Length

If you want to share a thesis regarding your philosophical views on politics, 140 characters on Twitter probably isn't the best choice. iMessage is great if you just need a quick response about a meeting time. The point here is to make sure the medium you choose has the ability to clearly state your point. You're trying to convey your thoughts. Make sure you're able to do so with the mode you choose. And don't shortchange it just because it's easier on you. Be clear.

Sensitivity

I'm never on Facebook. I understand why people use it, but I have a hard time seeing all the inappropriate posts that should have been a phone call or a get-together between friends and family. Facebook can quickly became a way of posting gut reactions to the thoughts of others. I don't need that kind of trash in my life.

If the words you need to share are sensitive, whether due to political tensions, family problems, misunderstandings, or strategic business matters, consider your medium carefully. Anything typed out and sent digitally has a higher probability of being misunderstood than sitting in front of the other person. The higher the sensitivity, the less margin of error allowed in interpretation.

Relationship

How close are you to the other person? The more you know each other, the less you need to say to convey your thoughts. My best friend and I do our best to meet for coffee every Friday. In order to confirm that meeting, we just send a coffee emoji to one another. If I did the same to someone who just started following me on Twitter, they would be dumbfounded. "I know he likes coffee, but what the...?"

Availability

I don't think any of us would argue that in-person conversations are the most effective, but sometimes that's simply not an option. You have to stick with the mediums available to you.

Value

This is likely the most overlooked variable. How much value do you want these words to carry? I can text "I love you" to my wife, but if I write those same words at the end of a love note written on special paper with a fountain pen, they carry more impact. If I say those same words when we end a phone call they have less worth than at the end of a dinner date. There's nothing you can do to change the value of the medium. It's implicit in the method itself.

New methods of communication are always being created and trends have us trying new ways to connect at every turn. It's not always easy to choose the medium for your words, but the more time I spend writing and sharing words, the more cognizant I am of the value they carry in each medium.

Behind The Scenes

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Almost daily, I get an email from someone interested in how I have this site set up. "It's not WordPress and Disqus. What are you using?" We can talk about that, but why not take it a few steps further? Let's go from domain registrar to the reader.

Domain Name

It all starts with the domain name and I use Hover any time I'm buying a new domain. They handle the registration and make it easy to create any DNS records I need. I want a single place to manage my growing list of domains and since they have a valet transfer service and free WHOIS privacy, it's a logical choice.

Hosting

All of my website hosting is done through Digital Ocean. With their one-click installations, cheap prices, and ease of use, it's hard to go with anyone else. I use them for clients when I can and have had a lot of great experiences. I used their one-click install for Discourse when I set up the discussion site and had it running in about 15 minutes. I would never have been able to do that without their services.

Outside of the website hosting, I also need to host the files used for Whaddya Know Joe. For that I use Libsyn. When I started, I knew nothing about the inner workings of podcasting. I did a lot of research and picked up a lot from the guys at 5by5 and Relay. With their guidance, I landed on Libsyn. I upload the file to them, they give me a link to it, and I get a bunch of stats. But the important part is that they keep me from eating up my storage capacity at Digital Ocean.

Email

You don't last long in this world without email. There's no surprise here: I'm using Google Apps for my email and calendar. To be honest, I'm not sure what other legitimate options there are. Google works with everything and makes it all really easy.

But for my newsletter, I'm using Mailchimp. I created an account with them when I started this site and I've always been impressed with their ease of use and integrations. It was a simple plugin when I was on WordPress and now it's a custom form with other connections via API. It doesn't seem to matter what route I go or how much I progress, they grow with me.

Analytics

I've been developing a sensitivity to privacy and the handling of reader information. As a reader, I want my information to be kept in a silo, not spread around for others to use. If I feel that way, I know there are some of you that feel the same. So I moved from the standard of Google Analytics to Piwik. They allow me to keep all the data collected in a database that is accessible only to myself. It goes nowhere.

Home

The domain is registered, hosting is in place, and I have email working. Let's move on to the meat of the whole thing: the blog. It's a static site generated with Jekyll. I write my articles in Markdown and run them through the generator to get a static html webpage that is pushed to the Digital Ocean server. That webpage is what you see when you visit. It's not creating the page on the fly and then displaying it. That's why it loads so fast.

The theme I'm using is a custom build that I'm continually tweaking. The web continues to become more and more picture-heavy which is a challenge for developers. Text has always rendered faster and more efficiently than images so I use lazy-loading on the images to keep the speed up. That's just one one example of altering and adjusting Jekyll to fit my design.

Jekyll users will likely notice that I'm running two separate blogs: one for articles and another for the podcast. I use categories and built a home page that is specific to each one. That makes it possible to then generate an RSS feed for each, but also pull them back together into one feed.

The most common way to deploy a Jekyll site is with FTP. You do a manual copy-paste of the files generated by Jekyll and you're good to go. That works, but it's not very clean and I don't like the idea of opening another application. It also doesn't allow me to easily schedule posts. So for deployments, I set up Capistrano. I use it on other websites and have always had great success with it. Once set up, I can simply run cap production deploy and in about 10 seconds my site has been deployed.

I really wanted a way to schedule posts. This is one of the more complicated tasks in Jekyll since most users publish the post immediately. I tend to post on a schedule and want posts to come out at the same time every week. I also want the flexibility that scheduling provides. So I set up a cron job on the server that generates the site at five o'clock every morning. All I need to do is set the date of the post for the day I want it to go live. Jekyll won't build the webpage for that post until that day, which means I can deploy it with a future date and it will remain unpublished until then.

Tools

I run the Tools site as a subdomain and it consists of a custom Rails/Postgres app that I maintain. I couldn't find a system I liked for selling my book so I built it. Again, I use Capistrano for deployments to a Digital Ocean server to keep everything working in the same manner.

For the payment gateway, I use Braintree. They offer the first $50,000 in transactions free of any fees. And with an extensive number of Rails examples on GitHub, I felt fairly confident in my abilities to build on top of it.

Another step in ecommerce is email. It's a big part that can't be shortchanged, so I went with Mandrill. Mandrill is run by Mailchimp and they have a great reputation, so it made sense to connect the two. Any email that comes from the Tools site is run through them.

Because the Tools site is already wired for commerce and emails, I built a custom referral program that allows affiliates to get paid for any purchases that come from a custom link.

Finally, there is a section of the Tools site that is hidden from the general public. I have an admin section that allows me to create invoices for my clients. I had one in particular that wanted to pay me via credit card so I built this solution to enable it. I can create a payment with a designated url to share with my client. They pay their invoice from that link and it closes the loop (emails included) with both of us.

Discussion

This is the most recent addition to the site. At the bottom of each post is a section for comments. It's an embedded topic from the Discussion site. This subdomain is an instance of Discourse that sits behind the comment piece. It does a lot more than that, but for the sake of this post we'll stop there.

To embed the comments on each post requires the addition of code at the bottom of each webpage. I do a lot of testing on my local machine before I deploy, but I don't want to add the code unless it is being pushed to production. To avoid the randomly creating topic threads or errors whenever I test, I created a block at the bottom of my post layout that only adds the embed code if I add JEKYLL_ENV=production when running jekyll build.

Summary

I know there's a lot going on here and if you don't have a technical background there's much of this that probably doesn't make sense. Don't worry. You don't need to have this level of complexity in a website to have it functioning well. This is the path I use because I like the extra control and flexibility.

If you do have a technical background, you might notice one or more services here that might change in the near future (I'm looking at you, Mandrill). There are always changes to pricing and features that lead to potential switches, but for now I'm really happy with where things are.

27: Pit of Procrastination

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I reflect on my tendencies to fall into a procrastination pit. And a reader emailed me about web designers posing as developers so I go off on a rant.

Using GTD As A Woodworker

Home Screens: Joe Buhlig

Using GTD As A Woodworker

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Hobbies are great candidates for GTD. With all the commitments we tend to take on, free time to spend on our hobbies can be elusive. That means it's helpful to have a system in place that keeps track of where we were and what comes next.

I enjoy working with my hands after a day of thinking. It shifts my mind from the executive mode to the mind wandering mode and helps me decompress. The primary way I like to work with my hands is through woodworking and DIY projects. Whether it's trim in the house or a hutch for my mother-in-law doesn't matter. I get a chance to create something from a tree - that's what I love.

Longer Projects

Sometimes the projects I take on develop over a period of months (hopefully not years) and I need to keep these project plans and supporting materials around for some time. That's where the reference materials and project goals come in handy. I can step away from it for a period and still come back to where I left off.

Thinking Ahead

For most of my furniture builds, I can lay out what the entire project will look like step-by-step. That's good because the joinery involved often needs to be cut early on in the project even though I won't need it for another 20 steps. Once I have a design determined, I work backwards to name every step in the build. This affords me the perspective to see where I need to make specific cuts in the process and ensure the entire project comes out according to plan. It requires me to think through it all up front, which is the point. I have a lot fewer "oops" moments when I've taken the time to think it through at the beginning.

Research

In most woodworking projects I try a new technique, either because it's necessary or because I just want to try a new method. In both, I need to spend some time learning from experts in person or online. When I determine how I want to complete that portion of the build, I keep it in my digital filing structure that allows me to reference it when needed; I make sure I have the material as a link in the notes for that step in the build. The research makes each step a simple process and keeps the build moving much more efficiently than if I tried to do the learning mid-stream.

I hope this series has been helpful. I know it's taught me more about the GTD process by forcing me to think through how it functions in different arenas. GTD is a life framework and a proactive way to approach our information-heavy culture.

Using GTD As A Man

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:00:00 -0600

To be honest, I struggled with this article. I wanted to write it but wasn't sure how to convey what I was thinking. GTD has helped me as a man more than I realized but the impact has been implicit, not obvious.

How do we quantify what a man is and nail down the tasks that make a man? What activities does a man engage in? Pinpointing those tasks is a challenge in our equality-driven society. We strive for equality between men and women, but at the end of the day we are physically and mentally different, which means we're each suited best for different types of work. Neither is any more or less important than the other, but they are different.

Knowing my own mind and reading what other respected men have to say on the subject, I think it's fair to say that there are roles that fit men best. It's these roles that I want to develop, using the GTD framework to create the freedom and focus I need to do so.

Killing Inaction

Atrophy is a real issue. If you stop working with a skill, your ability to use it will diminish over time. I find this to be especially true of focus and being able to stay on task. Brett McKay even suggests that idleness kills manliness. The premise here is that we need to keep moving and continue looking for ways to develop our internal motivation. We need activity to keep us on our toes - that's where GTD steps in. We can use the structure of creating projects and choosing tasks to create this motivation. The specific project really depends on you and what you like to do. It also depends on the manly skills you enjoy using.

Manly Skills

But what are manly skills? The stereotypical view of this might be swinging an ax or shooting guns and there's some validity behind that stereotype. But it goes much deeper than that. The traditional view of manly skills can be generalized into skills of physical strength and violence. And those can be great skills to have, provided they are paired with wisdom and discernment (also manly skills). Without the latter, the former becomes dangerous. We need to develop our intellect, relationships, and leadership skills along with our physical abilities. The tasks we commit to need to include meetings with other men, books that challenge our thinking, regular times for physical activity, and opportunities to lead our families. Choose projects that take you out of that comfort zone we all love.

Providing

I find that I have a strong desire to be the provider for my family and I know I'm not alone. There are countless men I respect that admitted to feeling inadequate when they were without a job. And I know that when things are going well with my business I have a lot of confidence in what I do. When times are thin, I start to wonder about my ability to put food on the table. But GTD gives me an outlet for storing my ideas and creates a series of potential work that I can always kick off. It also helps me make better decisions about where to spend my time. It gives me a full view of my commitments and allows me to pick between them and stay on track.

Mentors

If you don't have regular time spent with other men, do something about it. The absolute best way I've received support and ideas for how to be a better man and lead a better life is by spending time with other guys and talking through what's going on. Get it on the calendar and keep it there. Find some guys to do life with.

Defining the tasks that make a man is not simple. Some are obvious and some are subtle, but they are all important. The GTD framework makes it possible for you to keep up with life and stay on top of your role and skills as a man.

26: The Value of Lurking

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Let's talk about lurkers. Well, I'll talk about them. You can just listen. And that's okay because there's a lot of value in lurking.

Discussion site

Macstock Conference & Expo

The FeverBee Community

I was called out

Using Drafts

Disqus

22: Addiction to Numbers

An Alternative to Evernote

Using GTD As A Dad

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

One of the greatest things a dad will ever hear is the sound of his kids squealing in joy while they play games together. It's energizing and pure pleasure to see the delight and sparkle in their eyes as they ask to "do it again!" Those are the memories that we hope to multiply.

But there's a boogie man that creeps up in these moments: wandering thoughts about something else. This is usually work of some kind but it can also be the worry about an upcoming conversation you need to have with a friend or the wiring in the bathroom that needs fixed. I hate it. I want these focused times with my kids to be cherished and frequent.

Mental Freedom... again

I have to fight against feeling that I can get away with being distracted because they're just kids. That's not fair to them. They deserve my full attention just as my wife does. And they're smarter than we give them credit for. They can tell when you're with them or not. I think kids have an innate ability to read us that they eventually unlearn. So it's even more important that I keep my head clear of worrisome tasks. Having the GTD structure gives me a way to maintain that clarity.

Quantity Time

We've overdone this in the past, but we've found a good balance lately. We want to make sure that we have time together as a family each day. That means we spend a little time together after I get off work and then again from dinner until bedtime. Yes, there are other commitments that come up and we handle those, but we can usually plan on these times as a family. That means I keep those times on the calendar and my wife and I try to plan out our afternoons ahead of time. We know that we both need time to work on fun projects or to just step away for a bit. But we always come back together at the end of the day for dinner and fun before the kids' bedtime.

Gifts and Activities

I do the same for my girls as I do with my wife. I want to keep lists of possible gifts for my girls and activities that we could do together. Coming up with activities for kids can be exhausting if you don't have an idea bank to pull from. Most of the time I can run with whatever toys the girls want to play with, but there are instances when a list to fall back on is extremely helpful.

At The End of the Day

I use GTD to help me remember all the important dates in my girls' lives and keep track of a few Someday/Maybes. With the the other areas of my life under control, I know when I can take time for them and I can do it without worrying. As long as I continue trusting the system (and quit thinking I need to check my phone when I'm around them), I can focus on my girls and enjoy making them squeal.

Using GTD As A Husband

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I find it easy to let my marriage slide. We love each other so it should come naturally, right? Roses every Valentine's, daily love notes, and genuine conversations each night. If that's second-nature to you, I envy you.

Building and growing an intimate relationship with your spouse is a choice. If you're going to choose to love her, you need to do something about it. You need to show it. Step up and make the sacrifices of time and energy to let her know you love her, even when you don't feel like it. It's a choice.

But we all show our love in different ways, different love languages. I won't go into the details of these here but I think you can get the gist of what they are by their titles. If you want more detail on them, check out the book. Here they are:

Words of Affirmation
Acts of Service
Receiving Gifts
Quality Time
Physical Touch

Before you can use GTD to better your marriage, you'll need to have an idea of how you and your spouse each prefer to be shown love. You do things for someone whose love language is Quality Time much differently than someone whose language is Receiving Gifts. In my case, I'm Physical Touch and my wife somehow manages to be a four-way tie for all the others (okay, not really, but they're pretty closely ranked). So we're opposites. You can take the test to find yours on the book's website.

Anniversaries and Birthdays

Let's start with the obvious ones. Dates are important. We have to remember them. And even with all the help of my system, I still find myself putting things off until the last minute. Keep these dates on the calendar and create a project for them a month out or more. I have to do this a couple months ahead of time or I'll fail to do anything at all.

In my case, I typically get my wife a gift and plan a night out in some form. That covers Receiving Gifts and Quality Time. It usually starts with a project for the event and a task that tells me to make a decision about what to do or research upcoming events that coincide.

Gifts

I honestly don't know what I would do without GTD here. When crunch time arrives and I want to pick something up for my wife, I can never think of that thing she said she wanted. But with a Someday/Maybe list for gift ideas, all I have to do is look there and pick one. Sometimes I share items on this list with family members. It makes it really easy to answer the question, "What does Becky want for Christmas?" Giving gifts to my wife has a lot more impact. Receiving Gifts covered.

Finding Time

But sometimes time is a better (and more affordable) gift. This fits the Quality Time bill, and it's where the calendar really comes in handy. My wife and I share calendars with each other so we can see what's coming up between us. Because of that we can work together to find time away from the house and kids. Or maybe we use the time after they go to bed to watch a movie together (or get way too many ideas from Fixer Upper) or talk about our day.

Day to Day

Little things can go a long way in our house. My wife really appreciates help with maintaining the dishes, laundry, plants, toys, etc... These play into Acts of Service for her. Some of these are second nature and I don't need a system for them. They're habit at this point, which is great since my wife loves having the help. But some of these, like watering the plants, require a recurring task in my GTD setup.

There are also some bigger things that come up irregularly that make things much easier on her. If I take on the taxes process, she can sleep a lot better. Without a project in place to handle all of those steps, we would be paying fines every time. I'm not interested in introducing that kind of stress in our relationship.

Mental Space

The most important aspect of GTD for me is the mental space it affords me. When we sit down to talk or go on a walk, I can be there with her. Yes, I still worry about work sometimes and she can tell when I do. If I flex the system and write those thoughts down when they come, it allows me to focus on her, give her the Words of Affirmation that she needs and show her that I care. She's my best friend. I want her to know and feel that.

25: Creating Ideas

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Coming up with ideas doesn't have to be hard. There are four ways I create new ideas. And I had a moment of insight about being content at a birthday party for our girls.

My Omnifocus Setup and Workflow

Pocket

Feedly

The Value of Tradition

8: Waiting to Upgrade

Using GTD As A Writer

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

It never fails. I'll be mowing the lawn or riding my bike and that's when it hits me. There's nothing I can do about it. I wish it would leave me alone until I could do something about it, but there I am; trying to figure out how I'm going to write those lines down.

This hasn't been an easy lesson to learn. Writing things down. I have a pretty good memory for tasks, so I always have this nagging voice telling me "I'll just remember this one. I don't need to get it out of my head. I can handle it."

When I started writing I had a tendency - as many first-time writers do - to wait until the muse hit me and then get to work. When it comes, take advantage of it and write like crazy. When you're tired or the ideas stop flowing, you stop, too. No point in continuing when the good stuff is gone.

But there were times when this flow started to creep up on me and I couldn't do anything about it. I was at work or I was driving. The more writing I did, the more frequently this happened and the more frustrating it was to sit helplessly and watch my inspiration fly past uncaptured.

I'd been using GTD for a while but I was only beginning to understand the more subtle nuances and the freedom that it can create. Because it was helping me so much in other areas, I started to apply the principles and set up systems to help with my writing. I wanted to harness the creativity that couldn't decide on a schedule.

Topics and Stories

If you don't already know, I'm a big fan of Someday/Maybe lists and setting up a list of potential topics was one of the best things I could have done to help my writing. I could be talking to a friend or reading an article and an idea would come to me. Originally, I would think about it for a moment or two and then move on. I couldn't do anything with it right now and if was a really good idea I wouldn't forget it. Well, that was a lie I told myself. I forgot a bunch of them. These days I type it into Drafts and send it away to the ideas list for me to review later when I'm gearing up for a new article.

I also keep a list of stories. If something happens or a situation impacts me, I write a note about it. I don't always know when I'll use these, but if I'm writing and need a story to go with it, I can look here.

Managing Creativity

This is hard. I never know when I'll have a great idea for an article I'm working on, but I have a set time when I sit down to write. One side is sporadic and unpredictable. The other is structured and uniform. The key GTD principle here is ubiquitous capture. I must have a way to grab those sentences or paragraphs when they come, and I need a way to grab them even when my hands are busy. Sometimes that means I'm dictating into Siri and sometimes it means I pull the car over. I know that if I take those few moments to use my system, I'll end up with better words on the page. As a writer, I can't pass that up.

Clear Mind

It's taken me a long time to trust my system. I go through spells when I still want to keep everything in my mind even though I know it leads to trouble. But I always come back to it stronger and more devoted. I've gradually ironed out points of resistance and made it simple enough to use even when I don't feel like it. I can appreciate the freedom my mind has when I sit down to write. When it's time to work on articles in the morning I don't worry about the other stuff I have to do. I don't want that clutter jumbling my thoughts. I want mind like water so I can be free to let the words come.

Using GTD As A Homeowner

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Most of the time when I'm discussing GTD with a friend or online it's in the context of getting more work done more efficiently. I agree that this is the easy target for the framework; our jobs and the work we do each day are the most pressing and stressing in our lives. We need as much help as we can get to stay on top of it.

Once you start to understand the nuances of GTD and you have a handle on your job, there are a couple paths you can take. You can coast and enjoy the peace that comes with having work off your mind. Or you can continue to find areas of your life to integrate into GTD. It's not just for work, but life. And the area of life that most closely resembles the responsibilities of work - making this an easy transition - is homeownership or managing your household.

Small Stuff

I've found that you can never truly be done keeping up or improving your home. There are always light bulbs burning out and appliances wearing out over time. With the changing seasons there are annual tasks that can sneak up on you when you aren't paying attention. With the GTD mindset, these are pretty simple to handle.

When you see something that needs attention, either do it right away or write it down. You should have a place for these household tasks so that when you have time to work on the house (you do have a context for these, right?) you pull up this list and bring the house back up to date.

The Projects

If you're talking to your spouse and the two of you have an idea pertaining to the house, capture that as well. You need to keep an eye on these potentials. I wish I had started doing this sooner. Because I keep a list of these, I can often knock out a few at a time.

I'm currently working on some trim and finishing touches in our family room. We had an idea to add built-in bookshelves, but we've also talked about adding a switch to our fireplace to eliminate potential issues with the remote we have for it. If the remote stops working, I want a fallback and since the remote is currently a bit finicky, I thought it best to go ahead and hard-wire it. With a list of these potential projects in place, I was able to see the work I wanted to do in the family room and bundle it together. It's a lot easier to do the fireplace wiring now when I have a wall opened up than after I have everything painted and back in place.

Irregular Tasks

There are also infrequent tasks that you can't let slide. We live in Minnesota and with that comes a cold winter. Our house has outdoor spigots that need to be turned off in the fall so they don't freeze and burst the pipes... again. I don't want to relive the memories of that lesson, so I keep tasks like these in an annual Fall Maintenance list. When it starts to get cold outside, I run through this checklist of pre-cold items to make sure we don't have major issues later on.

The Principles

At the end of the day, these are the same tenants of GTD that we're used to. When something comes up or you have an idea about something around the house, write it down; put it into the system; trust yourself. Come back to it when your contexts allow, but make sure you have a dedicated context or a specific time for these things. They won't magically happen just because you wrote them down. Use GTD to help you engage with the tasks around your house as well as work.

24: No More Project Codes

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

With my recent move away from Evernote, I've made the decision to leave my project codes behind. And although there are serious competitors to Evernote, I'm staying away from them.

Creating Personal Project Codes

An Alternative to Evernote

Heavy duty floating book shelves

The Value of Tradition

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Having young kids has made us think consciously about the traditions we want to pass down to them. What do we want them to learn? Will our traditions help them see the importance of our view of the world? Are they fun?

My wife and I have a number of yearly activities that we've adopted from our own parents, and we want to pass them down to our own kids. But why? Is it purely nostalgia or old-fashioned? Should we just let them go and come up with our own?

I don't think we pass them on because of nostalgia. There might be a bit of that, but there's something more. Each tradition we pass on has a background and a starting point. It wasn't something that our grandparents just made up because it sounded fun (though I wonder sometimes). They started with a desire to remember an activity or value, or they just had a great time with family doing it.

Say you have a tradition of watching the football game on Thanksgiving with your cousins. How did that start? Likely, there was someone in the family that turned the game on one year to check the score. Someone else asked about it and the next thing you know you're watching the game together. Since the game is on, a few others started to show an interest and the next year you plan to watch the game. The following year you're upgrading your TV specifically for this event and so on. But it started with a mutual interest and a connection with a family member, and now it's grown to be a thing in itself at Thanksgiving. You come together for a day and connect with family.

This reminds me of any male's rite of passage into manhood. It's a search that every guy goes through at some point and many cultures acknowledge it with a traditional challenge to the boy. If he completes the challenge, he becomes a man. If he fails, he remains a boy. The tradition teaches him to overcome something difficult to show that he is ready for manhood, and that lesson of triumph over a trial will give him the confidence and strength he needs in the future. Without it, he will constantly be searching for his place in society.

Our traditions are typically altered and perfected over time. They can become more intricate or more simple as they are enacted numerous times. That's exactly what makes them so powerful. With years of iterations, they become rich with lessons about values and morals that make our families unique. That's what I want for our girls. I want them to learn these lessons from our grandparents and parents and eventually teach them to our grandchildren. It's one way for me to have a positive impact on the generations beyond me and leave a proud legacy.

An Alternative to Evernote

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I've been a supporter of Evernote for a long time. I've written a number of articles on it and convinced a number of friends and family to start using it. But I've run into some issues with it and it's come time to throw in the towel. I'm leaving Evernote.

Why leave Evernote?

It's proprietary. There are a lot of ways this becomes an issue in my daily workflows.

I capture ideas in Drafts and want to move that text to an article I'm writing. I can't easily get it into Evernote without a copy/paste in some form.
Uploading files to Evernote creates a mess when you want to edit them. This is primarily an issue on iOS. You have to monkey around with sharing the file to and from other apps to make it work and it usually creates new problems somewhere.
I write in markdown and want to convert it to html. There is zero support for markdown in Evernote.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. If you're good with their format and like using the Evernote apps for editing everything, it's great. But the moment you need to share the information with a non-Evernote user or edit it with something outside Evernote, the mess quickly grows.

I understand there is a new sheriff at Evernote, but if I want to have the freedom to use any app I want with the information I'm storing, I need to step away. I'm sure there are good things coming with the change in leadership and I genuinely hope it works out for them. I know a lot of people that rely on and love their service.

The New

I looked into a number of alternatives to Evernote. DEVONThink led the pack with its standard file database on the backend. But no matter which of these "all-in-one" solutions I looked at, they all either have a proprietary file format or they require (or highly recommend) you to use their own apps to work with your data. Neither of those requirements are something I'm willing to meet.

I'm ultimately looking for a way to access standard files from any app I choose. In the current app world, that means the information needs to be stored in raw text, images, or PDFs. In order for these files to be used by almost any app I choose, it needs to use DropBox as a backend. With those two criteria in place, it was pretty easy to whittle this down to a simple folder structure in DropBox.

I should note that I wanted this alternative to be something that is easy for others to use as well. I could build a new proprietary system or one that uses shell scripts and such, but that's not easily picked up by folks who aren't interested in scripting their Mac. I wanted this to be accessible.

The Structure

The base of the system is a folder structure in DropBox. The folder that I use as an inbox becomes the center point for collection. This is identical to my methods in Evernote. It's called !nbox. Unless it has a preprocessed location, information goes here for organizing later.

After the inbox, I treat the remainder of my folder structure much like I would my tags from Evernote. Client projects have a dedicated folder under Clients. Each podcast episode has its own folder under Podcasts. This isn't complicated.

The one grouping that gets special treatment is Writing. I keep a folder for all my writing (articles, podcast scripts, book chapters, website alterations) which is linked to Editorial to make writing from my phone easier. This is also linked to a local git repository on my Mac which allows me to review changes from my editor.

The base file formats I'm working with are:

Text files
Markdown files
Images
PDFs

It's pretty easy to find apps (no matter your OS) that will work with these file types, and their broad use means new apps are always being created to pair with them. Just look at Brett Terpstra's iTextEditors to see how many options you have on iOS for editing text files. There's a bunch, and they keep coming.

Capturing

Storing and working with the files is the easy part. Collecting things is where Evernote shines. It can be dead simple to get stuff into it, but once you step away from features like the Web Clipper, it gets more difficult. In this new setup, installing and using the DropBox app on all my devices eliminates most of the friction.

There are three main types of information I find myself capturing:

1. Web Pages

Sometimes I want to come back to a website because it's interesting; sometimes the design of the site intrigues me; other times I'm just gathering a bunch of research for a project. In all cases, I need to be able to save the webpage for later and I need to be able to do it from the Mac and iOS.

It's pretty simple on the Mac. There is a menu item called "Export as PDF..." under the File menu. You can map this to a keyboard shortcut (look at step 5) to make it faster to access. In my testing, these PDFs are full-text searchable as well.

From iOS, I was a bit stumped on this. I was trying to use Workflow to pull it off and kept thinking about ways to convert html to a PDF. But I couldn't get it to work right, and it seemed jumbled. Eventually I took a step back to think (which is what I usually need to do when things start looking muddled) and deduced that I simply wanted a way to share a PDF to DropBox. Then I remembered the "Save to DropBox" button in the Share Sheet. Hold on to your hats: It turns out that this will convert the web page to a searchable PDF for you. I was pretty darn excited to figure that out.

2. Images

Most pictures I collect are done through my phone. I used to send pictures to my Mac using AirDrop and then move them to DropBox later. But when I discovered the "Save to DropBox" trick, those issues were gone. It saves an image directly to DropBox.

If I do take a screenshot with my Mac, I save it to the inbox or put it where it belongs right away, depending on what I'm doing. Working with images on the Mac in this way isn't much different than how I was using Evernote. They simply land in a new place.

3. Text

If I'm grabbing a quick note on something, it starts in nvALT (which is synced with DropBox). If it's an article or something longer, it goes into a Sublime Text project (also synced with DropBox). In either case, I can access the text from my phone in Editorial.

When I think of an idea or a paragraph I want to add to an article and I'm away from my Mac, I start in Drafts. I always start there, sometimes it stays there for a while. When it's time for the text to leave, I can create new text files out of it or send it to another app. There are too many options for what you can do with it from Drafts to spell them all out now. Again, options are gold, and I can do pretty much anything I want from here.

In The End

I still have a lot of work to do pulling 14,000 notes from Evernote. I'm looking for ways to export the data and move it over, but for now I'm happy with where I'm putting all the new. It gets me away from a proprietary format and makes it a whole lot easier to use the apps I enjoy.

23: White Space

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Leaving space around the edges of your day can have a major impact on your productivity and happiness throughout the day. Also, I'm glad I don't have an Apple Watch.

The Joe Buhlig Discussions

Discussion about paper schedule

OmniFocus Workflows with Shawn Blanc

Margin Month — Shawn Blanc

Lost in Transition

The Apple Watch got me hooked on mechanical watches – Marco.org

22: Addiction to Numbers

Keyboard Maestro 7.0.3: Work Faster with Macros for Mac OS X

How to Create Energizing Rituals

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I learned about creating rituals after I read The Power of Full Engagement over a year ago. Since that time I've been figuring a few things out about building and implementing energizing rituals.

What and why?

We've talked about the difference between ritual and routine before, but the gist is that a routine is similar to a checklist that you go through each day and a ritual is a series of steps you take (just like a routine) that you find energizing or bring you enjoyment. This is an important distinction to make when you start learning to manage your energy levels instead of your time.

If you've ever achieved more in a day than you did the entire previous week, you know what I mean by energy levels. Sometimes we naturally feel super energized and get a lot done. Then we all have "those days," when just checking email feels daunting. When you build energizing rituals into your day, you can start to manufacture those moments of flow; but they aren't always simple to create.

Finding energizing activities

What are your favorite topics to bring up with friends? What are the little things that you like doing or using but can't explain why? What time of day do you look forward to?

I have a thing for fountain pens. I just like the way they write and that they're different. I like the quality of the pens I use and look for excuses to write things down when I have them around.

Building things with my hands has always been a joy for me. After working on the computer throughout the day, I love the creative process of turning a piece of raw material into something useful.

I'm also a fan of the outdoors. Anytime I go outside to tackle the elements, I come back with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

I tell you these to give you ideas. The first step of building these rituals is understanding yourself and what you like to do. I bet you can nail these down pretty quickly if you stop for a couple minutes and think about it. Or if you have a spouse or close friend, ask them. There's a good chance they can tell you what you love to do faster than you can. They have a different perspective that gives them a clearer view.

Converting routines

Whether you realize it or not, you use routines every day. You get up in the morning and get ready for work. You get ready for bed at night. Maybe you have a routine of daily journaling or playing with your kids after work. In any case, most have at least a few instances when they do something similar every day. These are the routines in your life.

You'll have to decide which ones to convert (more on that in a moment), but the idea is to take an already existing routine and turn a piece of it into a ritual by injecting one of those energizing activities into it.

I have a routine that I run through at the end of my work day to plan for tomorrow. Recently, I started to do this plan on paper using my fountain pens. I enjoy using them and it takes a small neutral task and transforms it into an energizing one.

As a family, we enjoy spending time together when I get off of work. In the summer, we often take long walks with the girls. It's a chance for me to get outside, get some exercise, and have a great conversation.

In both of these scenarios, I've been able to take something that I'm already doing and inject something into it. It makes them more fulfilling and gives me energy for whatever comes next in the day.

Which routines?

The big question here is which routines do I try to convert? You don't want to do this for everything or you'll run out of time in the day and likely be way too energetic. We all know that guy who is way over the top and needs to settle down. Don't be that guy.

Here's the question to ask yourself: what times in the day do I feel like watching YouTube? It's at least a good test for me. I know that if the only thing I want to do is stop and blow a few hours cruising YouTube, it's a good time for me to stop and do something energizing. It can be simple, like checking in at the discussion site or it can be bigger, like taking 20 minutes to grab a snack with my family. No matter which energizing activity you decide to do, do it at a time when you need to increase your energy.

One word of caution: don't do more than one at a time. Introduce a single ritual and stick with it until it's second nature. Just like habits, if you try to take on more than one at a time, they'll be overwhelming and have a negative effect instead of a positive.

In the end, you're looking for things to do every day that will give you the energy to be more engaged with the people you see and the work you accomplish.

Budgeting and Irregular Expenses

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

You're cruising along and your bank account is looking good. But then, surprise! You get the bill for your car insurance premium and everything is out the window.

The Budget Flaw

This is one of the flaws that most budgets face because they are weekly or monthly. But the timing doesn't align with all the bills and wreaks havoc on the plan when you least expect it. Some bills come in monthly. Others come in annually or quarterly. But you normally won't have an increase in income at the same time you have an unexpected or unplanned increase in expenses. It would be nice if it worked that way, but it's wishful thinking.

Designated Funds

What if you had a fund set aside to pull from when these bills come in? You sometimes see these in company budgets: designated funds. They know that they'll need to replace their employee computers some time in the future so they set aside dollars to pay for it when the need comes. This is exactly what we do to handle these abnormal bills.

I used to kick and scream about this because it cut into my fun money in a month, but I have to admit that it really helps stress levels. All that's needed is some way to calculate and keep track of the allocated dollars in your budget. Create a separate fund for each of these bills and calculate how much you would pay if the bill was actually monthly (or weekly, depending on your budgeting period). That's how much you need to pay yourself each period. When the bill comes in, just transfer the money you need into your budget for the month (increasing your income) and pay it. No stress involved.

The Savings Tab

I talked about this in the Time & Dollars article. There are items for my business that I know I will need to replace in the future. I want to upgrade my phone and computer regularly, so I need to put money into those designated funds in my budget. For the business budget, I've created a tab called Savings in the spreadsheet to handle everything for me (see example budget). It takes the amount of savings I have for the month, allows me to allocate it to each fund, and shows each fund's balance.

The end goal here is to plan for these supposedly "unexpected" expenses. They aren't truly unexpected when I know how much they will cost ahead of time and when they will be due. As long as I plan and save ahead, stress doesn't have to enter the equation.

22: Addiction to Numbers

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Since I started my business I've developed an addiction to checking numbers. But I watched a webinar last week that really changed the game for me and has me hand writing my schedule for the day.

OmniFocus Workflows with Shawn Blanc

Learn OmniFocus

Tim Stringer

Shawn Blanc

Shawn's paper plan for the day

The Importance of Data Visualizations

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

It's easy to present data in a summarized table, but what about turning it into a data visualization?

What is it?

Data visualization is the display of data in a picture. Its purpose is to give a clear and easily understood visual of what the data is saying. Understanding the story in a data set by looking at spreadsheets and raw data isn't something most people are accustomed to or good at, so we rely on a visualized format of the data, typically a graph or chart, to help us.

False Perceptions

It is critical to do this well or we risk giving the viewer an incorrect perception of the story behind the data. The display should show what is going on behind the scenes and the focus should be the data, not your interpretation of the data. Following conventional graphing methods will make it easier for your viewer to understand it. If you ignore these conventions, you risk building a bad bar chart and deceiving your audience. You can get away with this if you do it subtly, but you're sacrificing your integrity in the process and it will eventually come around to bite you.

Interpretation

When the visualization is done right, it explains what is happening. It's impossible to look through millions of data points and know how things turned out. We can do summaries of the data to help, but oftentimes the summaries are even too complicated. People are visual by nature so a picture helps us see what is going on and interpret the results more clearly.

Patterns and Outliers

When you take the time to pull together this picture, you might be surprised at the patterns that start to reveal themselves. There are times when you may not realize you have patterns in your data until you put it in picture form. There are also times when the visual helps you see something that stands out. Just like the unknown patterns, you may not be aware of an outstanding data point until you graph it.

Take the time to build a good display of data. You want it to tell an accurate story and paint a picture of what is really going on. And it may show you something you didn't know before.

Time and Dollars

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

When I started my business, I wasn't in a place to say no to anything. I needed to provide an income, and every little bit helped. But recently I've had to start deciding which activities are most worth my time and which ones need to be put aside.

This isn't a decision I can make by sitting in front of a fire drinking coffee. As much as I like coffee, it's not that good. I need some numbers to reveal the biggest (and smallest) returns on my time. I started tracking my time, but I need to dig deeper than that.

Budget

Every good business has a budget. And mine, H&A Tech, is no different. Without it, I don't know if I'm making money or losing money. This simple document has a line for income and separate lines for each type of expense I incur. At the beginning of each month I plan the expenses and expected income for the month, and I do what I can to stick to it. Any deviation can create issues for my family later.

This is pretty standard, but it deviates from the norm when I pull in transactional data. I have a second tab that accepts copy-pasted transactions from my bank. Once a month I pull in this data and then augment each line item with a client and activity. It sounds tedious, but with the help of a few filters similar transactions can be filled in simultaneously.

Because I'm correlating the transactional data with the budget categories, I can see a clear summary of each month. How well did I stick to the plan?

Then I have savings. With an online business comes subscriptions and those often have annual payments. I handle those with a savings tab in the spreadsheet, but that's a topic for another day.

Google Sheet

This might be a bit hard to get your head around so I put together an example budget for you to look through. I keep my budget in a Google Sheet so I made a copy and cleared it out for you to see. Here are the tabs you'll find in the example:

Budget - the plan for the month (includes the summary)
Transactions - the bank transactional data
Savings - long term expenses and savings funds

From Budget to Time Tracker

The budget is in place and the time tracker is tracking away. So I created a new tab in the time tracker to import the transactional data from the budget. With the data pulled over, I group the time and transactions by month, client, and activity using pivot tables. It looks like this:

With the datasets each grouped in the same way, they can now be tied together into a single table. I do this with the SUMPRODUCT function as explained here which makes it a one-step process. Once the data is all in one place, I can run another pivot table to figure out where my time is most valuable.

By Client

Is my time better spent on my own projects or working for my clients? And the follow-up question: which clients give me the best return on my time? If I have a client that requires a lot of support and effort but there isn't much for income to compensate, I either need to raise my rates or consider letting them go. It's difficult to know about these situations without data. Once I have the information, I can make my decision with confidence.

By Activity

The other segmentation I need to understand is the activity breakdown. What type of work has the highest monetary value? I ask this because I'm not sure if my return is higher when I write for myself or when I consult a client. By switching the pivot table to group by activity, I can see which types of work give me the highest returns and which ones I should consider scaling back.

Results

Setting this up can be labor-intensive, but I hope you see the value here. Working for yourself can bring a lot of opportunities your way, and knowing which ones to take on and which to pass by can be tricky. This process gives you real numbers to work with and makes it less of a guessing game.

21: Issues with Evernote

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I've found that I have a lot of reasons to leave Evernote. In this episode, I talk through those and give a few updates to the articles I've written recently.

Evernote

Editorial for iOS

Workflow - Powerful automation made simple.

MindNode

Evernote Premium

Evernote Market

Adding Contacts from Business Cards with Evernote

Sublime Text

DEVONthink

The Joe Buhlig Discussions

Topic about Introduction category

Home Screens - MacSparky

My Morning Routine

Tracking Time with Launch Center Pro

Toggl - Free Time Tracking Software & App

Tracking Time with Launch Center Pro

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Lately I've been tracking my time and starting to correlate it with dollars earned. The idea is to help me decide which types of work are the most valuable. This is a look at how I'm doing the time tracking portion using Launch Center Pro.

1. Google Sheet

The data needs to live somewhere and I'm comfortable with Google Drive. So I created a new sheet with five columns:

DateTime - Timestamp of when it was recorded.
Client - Who is the activity for? This is mostly "Joe Buhlig."
Activity - Writing an article, recording a podcast, coding, etc...
Amount - How long was I doing the activity?
Notes - Any notes I have about it.

With this format I can do roll-ups by client or by activity. It allows me to compare the time I spend on a client and the gross income from that client to determine my hourly rate. This makes it easy to know if my rates are where they should be.

It also helps me determine the types of work that are the highest paying. Doing a similar roll-up by activity will tell me if my time is better spent coding or consulting. But I have to be careful, because the answers can be a bit misleading. Writing articles for this site shows a zero for profit, but I know that writing is what brings people to my site. And in turn, that leads to sales elsewhere. So my conclusions are a judgment call, but it is helpful to have the data in front of me.

2. IFTTT

To collect the data I'm using a single recipe in IFTTT. It adds a row to the Google Sheet each time the LCP action is triggered. By passing different parameters to the recipe, I alter the data that is entered into the spreadsheet.

3. Launch Center Pro

In LCP, I set up a different action for each activity I want to record. Each action uses the same url scheme to send the data on to Google. Here's what it looks like:

launch://ifttt/trigger?name={{TimeTracking}}&value1={{Joe Buhlig}}&value2={{Development}}&value3=[prompt-num:Time in Mins]&value4=[prompt:Notes]

The name parameter will always be the same: the Trigger Name in the IFTTT recipe. In this case, I'm passing my own name as value1 because this particular action is for recording development work I do for myself. The last three values record the activity type, amount of time I spent on the task, and any notes I want to enter about it.

In Practice

Whenever I start a new task, I start a stopwatch. When I finish the task or need to move on to something else, I stop the watch, open LCP, and select the action for the task I was working on. I enter the time and any notes about it and I'm done. This creates a new record in the Google Sheet that I can use for analytics later.

A New Discussion

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

It's time. I've been talking about starting a new community for a couple weeks now and we are moving forward.

I've chosen Discourse as the engine behind the scenes. You can sign up at discussion.joebuhlig.com. To start, it will be really basic. My hope is that it will evolve into a community that can help each other out with tech and productivity questions and tips. Here are the categories I'm kicking it off with.

Comments

This replaces the subreddit that I've been using. Each post will have a dedicated topic with replies embedded at the bottom of the post. This makes it possible to continually add to posts and see responses to the most popular questions without going to a different site.

Working with OmniFocus

This is a dedicated category for the book. Any questions about it or ideas for the next version go here.

Off Topic

The majority of this site is based on technology and productivity, but sometimes I'd like to discuss interesting articles and topics that don't really apply. This is where I'll post them.

20: Code Freeze

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

My Dvorak typing speed is picking up and I'll be launching a new discussion in two days. Once that's out, I'll be going on a code freeze.

19: Online Discussions

The Omni Group Forums

Just a Laptop

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

When I started my business I made the shift from three 27" monitors to just a laptop screen. That shift has taught me a few things about how I work.

Different Modes

I have different mindsets and needs when I'm doing different types of work. I can listen to upbeat music and kick back on the couch when I'm cycling through email, but I need instrumental, low-key music and my desk when I'm coding. These two examples were the extremes that made me start to pay attention.

Noticing those subtle differences has brought some pretty big gains in productivity. I used to rarely leave my desk because the monitors made it possible to see so much at once. When I only have the laptop screen it forces me to focus and choose the best (or most comfortable) environment.

Focus

Forcing focus has paid big dividends in my writing. Because I don't have the ability to see a whole bunch of things at once, I stick to the task in front of me. Since the time I'm most vulnerable to YouTube binges is when I sit down to write, this has paid off. I usually enjoy the process of writing but getting started is hard when there's a Twitter feed staring at me from the corner.

Development

One area that has suffered is coding. It's not uncommon for me to have three browsers open, multiple instances of Sublime Text, and multiple terminal windows running all at once. The ease of seeing a bunch of those at once is extremely helpful and allows me to work much more quickly and efficiently.

This isn't my forever setup, but it is good for me to appreciate the advantages and acknowledge the limitations of working from "just a laptop."

Dictating vs Typing

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Dictation is becoming more and more commonplace, and as the software behind it continues to get better we'll likely see it become a bigger part of our daily lives.

It takes some practice, but once you understand the mechanics, dictating can increase your time efficiency. From texting to getting the latest Chiefs scores, there are endless uses for the technology. I use Siri a fair amount and now that "Hey Siri" is wireless in the iPhone 6S, I've found my use cases increasing.

Because of Siri's current accuracy, I decided to dictate the first draft of Working with OmniFocus. I knew that I could get the ideas out of my mind much faster if I were able to simply speak them.

It was great. I plugged in my podcasting mic, turned on dictation, and went to town. I could draft an entire chapter in about 90 minutes. In 6 days I had finished the entire first draft. It felt awesome to be able to do so much in so little time.

When I reflected on that process I realized that I spent a lot of time trying to find the specific words I wanted instead of working to get the ideas out of my head. I was able to input the words so quickly that I had a hard time coming up with the words I wanted. This by itself really isn't a big deal, but it meant that I needed to find a way to pre-process my thoughts ahead of time. In the end I spent an hour writing or typing my notes for each chapter before I dictated them, so there wasn't much for time savings.

Since the dictation wasn't 100% perfect, I spent quite a bit of time deciphering my original intent when editing. Not only was I trying to improve the sentences and paragraphs, but the words themselves were so far off at times that I couldn't figure out what I was talking about and ended up rewriting the whole thing anyway.

More practice would likely improve my dictation, but the slower pace of typing gives me time to process my thoughts more clearly and reduce editing later. It helps me gain clarity faster and spend more time refining the ideas than the process. I will continue to use dictation for smaller chunks, but in my case anything long-form is better suited to typing.

19: Online Discussions

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I'm looking for a good way to promote online discussions. I share my idea about it and give an update on Dvorak. And what about masterminds?

Mac Navigation

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 10 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

Nerdy Mac users are known for customizing their machines. Between keyboard shortcuts, Spaces, and third-party apps, you can effectively set up a computer that is perfect for you and unusable by someone else.

But folks don't typically think about how they move from one application to another. Mission Control or Spaces are the standard solutions. I've found that Spaces doesn't work well because it forces me to pull my hands from the keyboard to the trackpad. And I can never find the app I want in Mission Control.

Hiding

I've developed a process of showing and hiding apps, making it possible to immediately switch to the app I want by hiding the one I was just using. I use the built in shortcut Command-H to hide an application from view. It doesn't close the application, it just moves it to the background. I can get back to it in a couple ways, by using Spotlight or by clicking on the app icon in the dock.

Alfred

But I prefer to use my launcher of choice, Alfred, to bring it back. I can invoke Alfred, type the name of the application I want, and keep moving. To make it even faster, I set up a few shortcuts for commonly used programs so I can go directly to the app I want. For example, I can hit Control-Option-O to pull up OmniFocus. Control-Option-F will open Finder and Control-Option-T opens Sublime Text. They all start with Control-Option to make it easier to remember.

In Practice

Anytime I need a different app, I either type the Alfred shortcut or type the name of the app into Alfred. When I'm done with it, I hide it or repeat the process to open the next one. Just remember to close them when you're done or your computer will be as slow as a slug.

Dvorak Transition

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

I've had an interest in the Dvorak keyboard layout for a couple years now. The concept makes sense to me and I'm finally doing something about it.

For those not familiar with Dvorak, it's a simplified keyboard layout that is designed to reduce finger motion and errors. And by association, many proponents claim faster typing speed as a result.

I'm very interested in the typing speed claims, but I'm also intrigued by the idea of preemptively combating RSI. I don't have any major issues right now, but as someone who makes a living by typing I can't afford long-term degradation.

When it's all over, I would like to know if the switch was worth it. But measuring finger movements would be pretty difficult. It would require setting up cameras and running the video through a sensing algorithm to determine the distance my fingers travel while typing a lot of text. And since Dvorak is already built to reduce motion, I don't see the point. I would be trying to prove it was correctly designed. So instead, I'll be measuring my typing speed to get a comparison.

I'm a data junky and want to make sure I have good numbers. But this case is complicated. I use two different keyboards in two different locations for most of my typing. I use the built-in keyboard in my MacBook Pro (MBP) when I'm writing from the couch and an Apple Wireless Keyboard (AWK) when I'm at my desk. Those scenarios rarely deviate, so I'll be testing each instance.

I needed a baseline, so I started with the QWERTY keyboard I'm used to and picked four texts from typingtest.com. I ran two rounds of two minutes from each keyboard/location. I started on the couch with the MBP and did two rounds of two minutes and then moved to my desk for another two rounds.

However, I have one issue with this: timing. I've always felt that my speed tends to fluctuate from the morning to the afternoon. I did the initial testing in the morning so I did another round in the afternoon. And because I like be extra sure of things, I repeated the whole process two days in a row. All of this was done from the QWERTY keyboard before switching anything to Dvorak. No need tainting the waters.

| QWERTY | Day | Time | Location | WPM |
|-----|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 1 | Morning | MBP | 74 |
| Rules of Baseball | 1 | Morning | MBP | 69 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 1 | Morning | AWK | 74 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 1 | Morning | AWK | 67 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 1 | Afternoon | AWK | 72 |
| Rules of Baseball | 1 | Afternoon | AWK | 70 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 1 | Afternoon | MBP | 71 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 1 | Afternoon | MBP | 68 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 2 | Morning | AWK | 75 |
| Rules of Baseball | 2 | Morning | AWK | 73 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 2 | Morning | MBP | 78 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 2 | Morning | MBP | 76 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 2 | Afternoon | MBP | 73 |
| Rules of Baseball | 2 | Afternoon | MBP | 71 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 2 | Afternoon | AWK | 74 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 2 | Afternoon | AWK | 72 |

I was surprised to see very little difference between the MBP and the AWK. Overall, my average QWERTY typing speed was 72 wpm. Not bad.

Once I had all of my numbers on QWERTY, I added a keyboard cover to my MBP and switched everything over to Dvorak. I made the switch cold turkey and won't be trying to maintain QWERTY at the same time. And in the interest of good data, I repeated the entire process above on Dvorak.

| Dvorak | Day | Time | Location | WPM |
|-----|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 1 | Morning | MBP | 10 |
| Rules of Baseball | 1 | Morning | MBP | 12 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 1 | Morning | AWK | 9 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 1 | Morning | AWK | 11 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 1 | Afternoon | AWK | 13 |
| Rules of Baseball | 1 | Afternoon | AWK | 14 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 1 | Afternoon | MBP | 12 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 1 | Afternoon | MBP | 15 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 2 | Morning | AWK | 16 |
| Rules of Baseball | 2 | Morning | AWK | 13 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 2 | Morning | MBP | 11 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 2 | Morning | MBP | 14 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 2 | Afternoon | MBP | 15 |
| Rules of Baseball | 2 | Afternoon | MBP | 17 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | 2 | Afternoon | AWK | 14 |
| Tigers in the Wild | 2 | Afternoon | AWK | 12 |

I have a long way to go before I reach my initial QWERTY speed. My hope is that going all-in with Dvorak will help me get there quicker. It's all for the sake of faster and more efficient typing.

Updates:

Day 5:

| Dvorak | Location | WPM |
|-----|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | MBP | 22 |
| Rules of Baseball | MBP | 24 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | AWK | 20 |
| Tigers in the Wild | AWK | 23 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | AWK | 21 |
| Rules of Baseball | AWK | 26 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | MBP | 22 |
| Tigers in the Wild | MBP | 24 |

Day 10:

| Dvorak | Location | WPM |
|-----|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | MBP | 31 |
| Rules of Baseball | MBP | 34 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | AWK | 29 |
| Tigers in the Wild | AWK | 35 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | AWK | 33 |
| Rules of Baseball | AWK | 34 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | MBP | 36 |
| Tigers in the Wild | MBP | 31 |

Day 15:

| Dvorak | Location | WPM |
|-----|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|:-----:|
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | MBP | 33 |
| Rules of Baseball | MBP | 32 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | AWK | 30 |
| Tigers in the Wild | AWK | 34 |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | AWK | 35 |
| Rules of Baseball | AWK | 31 |
| The Enchanted Typewriter | MBP | 33 |
| Tigers in the Wild | MBP | 36 |

18: Cold Turkey on QWERTY

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

After an awesome break for Christmas and the New Year, I'm back with a slight change and format to talk about my switch to Dvorak, the bloated web, and resolutions.

Tweet about Dvorak - Joe Buhlig

2015 by the Numbers

Dvorak Simplified Keyboard - Wikipedia

QWERTY - Wikipedia

Dvorak Layout Keyboard Cover for Mac Keyboards - KBCovers

Fleksy Keyboard - GIFs, Custom Extensions, and Themes

The Website Obesity Crisis

Tweet from David Allen

2015 by the Numbers

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 18:00:00 -0600

With 2015 completed, we'll start seeing numbers roll in summarizing what happened throughout the year. So I thought I would pull together this site's numbers for 2015. It's been a ride.

Whaddya Know Joe?

One of my goals for 2015 was to step into the podcasting world, and I have been amazed by the number of you who have been listening. Whaddya Know Joe? has only been public for about five months and it managed to break the 10,000 downloads mark right at the end of December.

Here are the top five episodes by download count:

| Episode | Downloads | Published Date |
|----------| :-----: | :-----: |
| 1. 5: Developing a Task Management System | 929 | 2015-09-15 |
| 2. 11: Using Evernote for GTD | 813 | 2015-10-27 |
| 3. 12: The Higher Horizons | 767 | 2015-11-10 |
| 4. 9: Really? Journaling? | 710 | 2015-10-13 |
| 5. 6: Collecting and Storing Research | 691 | 2015-09-22 |

Working with OmniFocus

This is my favorite accomplishment of 2015. I had been wanting to write a book for a long time but never had the time. It seems that there were a lot of you interested in reading it as well. In two short months, there were 667 copies of Working with OmniFocus sold! I wasn't expecting anywhere near that number when I started, and I've been overwhelmed by the feedback. Thank you.

H&A Tech

In August, I left the company I was working for and started my own business. It was a fast and unnerving transition, but I'm thrilled to be where I am today. I'm able to work on the projects I love and build things with little or no delay. If I get a crazy idea, I can pursue it without worrying about politics or the red tape of company approvals. I wish I could have done this sooner.

Writing a Book with GitHub

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

A lot of time and effort go into writing a book. It gets even harder when you need to collaborate with your editor and make revisions.

All of the edits must be reviewed and approved. Do you keep the change or do you toss it? Multiply this by hundreds of edits (or in my case thousands) and the task is enormous. Even when you think you nailed a paragraph, it can come back shredded (that means it's better in the end, right?).

When I wrote Working with OmniFocus I used GitHub to manage all of the revisions and help me see the edits. I was doing all of my writing for the blog in Markdown and I didn't want to change that workflow for the book. It turned out to be a great choice.

File Layout

I kept the file structure for the book really simple. A single markdown file for the outline and a single file for each chapter. I wrote the first draft for the entire book before I went back to start editing. When I finished editing each chapter I uploaded a copy of it to a DropBox folder I share with my editor. That allowed her to get started while I kept editing the later chapters.

I created a local git repository on my computer with the GitHub for Mac application. I could do it via command line, but I like the UI that comes with the app. Every time I made edits to the book, I committed the changes to save a history of the work I was doing.

Receiving Edits

When my editor finished each chapter, she let me know via email or text. I created a new branch in my local repository that I used to overwrite my version of the chapter with hers. That gave me her edits on my machine with the GitHub application waiting for me to merge those changes. I read through each edit and made decisions.

It was simple to see any adds, deletes, or comments that she made. The interface clearly showed what had been done to the file. If I needed to revise what she had done, I could jump over to the file in Sublime Text, make the edits, and save it. When I was done acting on her edits, I committed the changes and then merged them into my master branch in GitHub.

Version History

A big benefit of this process is the version history. I can look back on every commit I have made and roll back to that point in time. It keeps each revision and allows me to come back to them as needed. This is a huge load off of my brain. I don't have to worry about making a change - I know I can always undo it or look back on what I did and see the progression.

I plan to use this method for any books I write in the future. I use GitHub quite a bit, so I'm comfortable with it and it makes the editing process painless. Well, at least logistically.

Trust & Let Loose

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

It takes time to develop consistency in a task management system. I forget. I climb back on the horse, but fall off again. It looks easy - and it is at times - but other times it feels like one more item on my to-do list.

All of the apps and systems are nice, but I go through seasons with them. People see my systems and might think I have it all together. I don't. I forget things all the time. It's why I gravitate to the structure: it gives me a place to put things so I can come back to them.

There are times when I fail to stick to them. It's at those times that I drop the ball and miss a deadline, or disappoint my family. It sometimes takes a painful reminder to push me back into the lists. I know I can trust them, but I don't always.

But the time I spend away from them is continually growing shorter. I climb back into the cockpit more quickly each time. If I continue to collect my thoughts and do something about them, I know they're taken care of. I know that I can go play with my girls without being concerned about work.

Here is one of the deterrents to GTD: You put a system together, but a big urgent project comes up and you put the structure aside. A month goes by before you notice that thoughts about work are invading your family time and that when you're at work all you want to do is go home. You come back to the system and start to find clarity again.

It takes time to trust the system in all seasons. I would say it takes years of developing your personal system before you can trust it in every circumstance. This ongoing cycle of leaving and returning builds the trust you need to mentally let go.

Develop a system you can trust and let loose.

17: Time Off for the Holidays

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

Take time off this holiday season. And try not to spend too much time doing support for family. Also, don't miss out on the discount for Working with OmniFocus.

Working with OmniFocus - Use 'Christmas15'

Bad Bar Charts

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

In previous roles I worked on data analysis and visualization. When you boil it down, that just means I was well versed in Excel and building charts.

I love the challenge of working on a chart until it displays the data honestly. That also means I notice bad designs in charts. There are many ways to skew results with chart design and they all make me see red. If you see a chart with one of these aspects, either ignore it or rebuild it.

Non-Zero Based Scale

This is one of the biggest culprits in bad charts. It's easy to change the baseline of a chart and make it look like there's a big difference between two segments. In the chart above, it looks like "Unsure" is drastically overpowering the "Unlikely" category. But if we change the chart to a zero-based axis, we can see that the difference is fairly small.

Now it's a lot harder to see the difference between the categories, but it provides a more accurate picture of what's going on because the visual matches the real data.

Varying Width Bars

This is more subtle but it can make a big impact on how the outcome is perceived. If you make the already taller bars wider than the others, you increase the visual effect on the viewer and leave them with an exaggerated perception of the data.

Unnecessary Lines

In the same way that a non-zero based scale alters the view of the data, a scale that goes too high can also mislead you to thinking there is no difference between two data points. You want the scale to go from zero to the lowest possible number while still allowing room for the entirety of the bars.

We can now see that Minnesota has a decent lead on the others. But we couldn't draw that conclusion until the scale was set appropriately.

Inconsistent scale

If you don't have all the data points (or don't like them), you either need to forego the chart entirely or be honest. I have seen a similar chart used to show exponential growth of membership when in reality the membership growth rate was fairly consistent. Don't lie with the data.

When you include all of the data points, you can see a big difference. Your perception of the first is that the pace is picking up fast. The second chart shows that the rate of increase is normalized.

3D

This is just bad design. It's hard to get a feel for the difference in the bars because our eyes are trying to follow the perceived lines on the chart. And it looks bad. Don't do it.

Overall, these are really simple fixes. But they can have a major impact on the viewer and how they perceive the data. Don't lie with a visual. If the data doesn't show what you want, then you have bigger decisions to make. Get to work and change your methods to get to your desired outcome. Don't fabricate positive results.

Merry Christmas

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

I'm thrilled to give you a gift for Christmas this year. I've wanted to do something like this for a long time and the opportunity is finally here.

I enjoy helping others and I've heard from a lot of people that Working with OmniFocus has finally showed them the tools they needed to put their life in perspective. Folks have shared stories about being able to start a business because of the principles shared in the book. One reader found treatment for a serious illness in their child because they were able to work clearly with the doctors. That blows my mind.

If you've been on the fence about buying the book, want to give yourself a Christmas present, or know someone who might benefit from reading it, here's a discount code for you to use when buying Working with OmniFocus. Use the code Christmas15 when filling in your information and it will take $5 off the price. The code will be valid through the day after Christmas.

And if you're willing, send me your story. I love hearing from you. Merry Christmas!

16: Geofenced Lists

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

Location based lists have a lot of uses. In this episode, I talk about the main ways I use them and how they've helped me in the past. There's also some follow-up to my time tracking mechanism.

Article on Monthly Planning

Tweet about Coffee

1Password

14: How Much is Down Time Worth?

12: The Higher Horizons

Monthly Planning

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

We're sneaking up on the annual goal setting push. It's exciting to sit down and dream about what you want to do next year. But what if your life moves and changes too fast for annual goals?

Setting goals is something I've struggled with. And it has generally been instigated by the company I worked for. I went through the typical annual review process when I worked in corporate and at the virtual company I worked for. You find it just about everywhere.

Annual Expectation

It always felt like I did it because I should. I even completed a similar process personally because I thought it was the silver bullet to achieving more. I was wrong.

Annual planning doesn't work for me. That's one reason I've always struggled with it. Putting a plan together for how you'll build new technology is fun, but often very inaccurate. It moves quickly and you learn a lot in the building process. That typically means that when 12 months have passed, I've discovered a new area to work on that is more beneficial or more advantageous. Year-end reviews typically involved a discussion of why I didn't hit the original goals.

Move to Monthly

12 months is simply too long in my world. So I've scaled it back. I still set goals, but I turn those into projects and plan them month by month. And most of those projects are only two or three months long.

Because I can usually see the next two - sometimes three - projects that are coming up, I go ahead and plan those out. I'm only looking at the next seven or eight months at a time, and even those later months will typically change a few times before I complete them.

What It Looks Like

I keep a simple list of my monthly goals. Each goal is a single line item with a brief description. For the GTD fans, this is synonymous with my 30,000 Horizon of Focus. Here's what it looks like:

I have multiple goals per month. I put the name of the month in the title of the task so I can keep them in order, and that's all it takes for me to stay on track. When I see this list, I know what's coming up and I can plan my days and weeks appropriately.

Working The Plan

A plan is worthless if it isn't reviewed, so I read each line item once a week and let that dictate what I work on each day. I make sure that I'm on track and that the direction I've chosen is still accurate. I don't get bent out of shape when I change the plan for the next four months; I'm being realistic with myself.

When I'm finished looking over the Monthly Plan, I translate it into a plan for the upcoming week - my Weekly Plan. The Weekly Plan is a simple two or three item list of the things I need to complete next week in order to make progress on the Monthly Plan. It breaks it down into pieces I can digest that week.

Overkill

I'm terrible at remembering, that's why I need these systems. This sounds like a lot of work even for me, but here's the point: 12 months is too far out, and I need guidance. I use this month by month plan to help me decide what to work on each day. It's a single, uncluttered list that is easily reviewed and updated. I don't want complicated. I want it to keep my head on straight and help me hit my goals. If it does that, it's a success.

TextExpander Snippet Nomenclature

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

I currently have 217 snippets in TextExpander. That's likely not a big number for some people, but for my forgetful mind it's a lot. To keep them straight, I use a simple nomenclature for my snippet abbreviations.

The general premise is to use a short group indicator followed by a more specific identifier. It's kind of like tagging. I still use groups in TextExpander to keep them clean, but this helps me remember them.

Links

There are some URLs that I type a lot. I use the links to Working with OmniFocus, OFScripts, this website, and my email accounts (Gmail) daily, so I added them to TextExpander. I use the group indicator link and an identifier like wwo to help me remember them. So I would type link.wwo to get https://tools.joebuhlig.com/working-with-omnifocus/.

link.home = http://joebuhlig.com

link.tools = https://tools.joebuhlig.com

link.pod = http://joebuhlig.com/whaddyaknowjoe/

link.wwo = https://tools.joebuhlig.com/working-with-omnifocus/

link.ofscripts = https://github.com/joebuhlig/OFScripts

Markdown

All of my writing is done in markdown because I can get it into HTML so easily. It's only natural that I have a few snippets to make this even easier. To help me remember them, I use the group indicator md.

This one uses two snippets that I'll mention later
md.curtab = %snippet:xcurtitle%

md.image =

md.reddit = Discuss this on Reddit.

YAML

A couple months ago I moved from WordPress to a static site with Jekyll. Part of the Jekyll environment involves "Front Matter" which is comprised of YAML. Every time I create a new article or podcast, I add this to the top of the markdown file. In my scenario, I also need to create the slug for the article. I've create the following snippets with the group indicator yaml.

For the slug, you first need to copy the text to be slugified.
I usually just copy the title of the article.

yaml.slug = Javascript Snippet

var text = TextExpander.pasteboardText;
text = text.replace(/[^\w\s]/gi, '');
var newtext = text.split(" ").join("-");
TextExpander.appendOutput("/" + newtext.toLowerCase() + "/");

yaml.blog =

title: "Put Distractions in Their Place"
date: 2014-06-08
categories:
- email
- communication
permalink: /put-distractions-place/

image: /assets/posts/Put-Distractions-In-Their-Place.jpg

yaml.pod =

title: "8: Waiting to Upgrade"
date: 2014-06-08
categories: podcast
categories:
- apple
- hardware
permalink: /8/
image: /assets/posts/Waiting-to-Upgrade.jpg
podcast_link: http://traffic.libsyn.com/whaddyaknowjoe/WKJ008.mp3
podcast_file_size: 18.8 MB
podcast_duration: "20:21"

podcast_length: 19715453

Code

I write a lot of code. I build my own websites and do freelance development. I use a number of languages, so I've created group indicators for each language: html for HTML, css for CSS, rb for Ruby, py for Python, and so on. And because HTML can get to be big, I broke it into groupings for individual tags as well.

a.n = %|

p.n =

p.class =

div.n =

html.base = %|

html.clear =

html.img =

IP Addresses

Along with coding, I have a number of IP addresses to keep track of. I don't like referencing a table somewhere or even looking them up in 1Password. I prefer to create shortcuts to them with ip as the indicator.

ip.jb = XX.XX.XX.XX

ip.tools = XX.XX.XX.XX

ip.clientname = XX.XX.XX.XX

You didn't think I'd actually share them, did you?

Catchall/Scripts

There are a lot of cases when I just want something short and it doesn't have to be grouped because I use them so much. Formatted dates are great and so are a few scripts I run frequently. I simply use x at the start of the snippet.

Today's date in the format of YYYYMMDD
xtd = 20151211

Next Monday's date in the format of YYYYMMDD. I have one for each day of the week.
xnm = 20151214

The title of the current page in Safari
xcurtitle = Applescript

tell application "Safari"
set theName to name of front document
return theName
end tell

The URL of the current page in Safari. It removes any querystrings as well.
xcurlink = Applescript

tell application "Safari"
set theName to name of front document
set theURL to URL of front document
set oldDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "?"
set theArray to every text item of theURL
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelimiters
set theURL to item 1 of theArray
return theURL
end tell

xplan = Plan project for

xwait = Waiting for

xas = AppleScript

xgh = GitHub

xof = OmniFocus

15: Messed Up Mornings

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

The way people structure their morning routine can easily dictate your motivation for the day. But what happens when you can't control the circumstances around your morning? What about kids?

My Morning Routine - Inspiring Morning Routines

The “Why” of Getting Up Early

Cortex #3: Good for Brain Health - Relay FM

Keeping Up with Ideas

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

Ideas are sometimes hard to come up with. But what happens when you have so many that you get lost? You have all these ideas begging you for attention and it becomes unclear which ones you should take on and which ones you should let go.

I don't know how to tackle this issue with anything other than a list. But a list is no good if you don't trust it. You have to trust that you'll add items to it and you have to trust that you'll come back to it. There may be mental freedom in writing it down, but if you never look at it again you've just conned yourself into forgetting.

Analog vs Digital

Where you keep this list doesn't matter, as long as it works for you. Most people assume that I do everything digitally. False. Many times I'm writing notes or drawing pictures on a note card. I convert it later, but I still prefer pen and paper.

Choose the process that works for you. If you're using a paper calendar, you'll likely want to keep this list on paper as well. If you don't have a printer, you'll probably find an app for it.

Capture

No matter which form of list keeping you use, it's imperative that you keep something around to grab these ideas when they come. And they will hit you at inopportune times. Think about how you'll capture ideas when you're driving your car or taking a shower. If you don't have a plan, you'll start losing them.

Building Trust

The only way you'll build trust in your new list is to read through it regularly. I've found weekly to be a great starting point. It doesn't matter when, so long as you do it. Schedule a time if you have to, but make sure you don't forget this step; it is the most vital part of the process.

With consistent review, you begin to trust that your ideas aren't lost after you write them down. You will come back to them. And as a nice bonus, you'll start to have more ideas as you go through the list. Seeing them all together typically prompts new ones to form.

Making Decisions

If you create this list, collect ideas for it, and trust it, it's still worthless if you never activate an idea. But when do you start working on an idea and how do you know which one to pick?

Timing is the easy part. You can only choose to work on an idea if you have time (or make time) for it. If you decide to get up early to work on that new side project, you know when you'll work on it. If you feel overwhelmed by your workload as it is, you need to focus on completing current projects before you take on a new one.

Deciding which idea to pursue is the hard part. If possible, you want the idea to have purpose and hold your interest. If there's no strategic or direct value in it, why work on it? It should either be a building block to something else or a straightforward product that you'll enjoy.

When you find yourself having a lot of new ideas, take advantage of it. Write them down, because they don't always come when you want them.

Generating Creative Energy

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

I had never thought of myself as a creative person until recently. Math and science have always been my strengths, so the arty side never took center stage.

Then I started this blog. People say that one benefit of writing is a better understanding of your own thoughts. It's true. I've learned a lot about myself since starting to blog, and it's one of the primary reasons I recommend blogging to others.

But writing on a schedule or regularly creating anything requires a lot of new ideas. When you start, you may have a backlog of these that you've been thinking about. But at some point you'll need more. How do you plan to generate them?

Do a quick search for "releasing creative energy" and you'll find a lot of articles on how to develop more ideas - going on a walk, meditating, getting outside, drinking coffee, people watching, and so on.

These are great tips to help clear your mind and allow you to find and connect new dots. But I've found that there's more to it than letting my mind wander. Sometimes I need to take action to kick off creativity flow.

Check Things Off

Think about the most recent big project you completed. What did you do after it was checked off? Celebrate? Take a week off? Lie low for a while?

And how did you feel when it was done? After a big push like I did for Working with OmniFocus, I felt a huge weight lift and I started wondering what would come next. I had been working so hard for so long that not having that big project in front of me gave me a sense of freedom and excitement. It released my mind to go on to the next thing, which kicked off creative flow.

Analog Brainstorming

There's something about leaving ink on a piece of paper that helps my mind process thoughts more clearly. The process of analog writing is so natural that I can move from one idea to the other with very little friction. Even hitting a keyboard shortcut to add a node to a mindmap can create enough resistance to slow my wandering brain and interfere with the next idea. I have two things to think about - the idea itself and the process of entering that idea. (Talk about high maintenance.)

Between paper and whiteboards, I'm free to roam from one topic or crazy idea to another with zero resistance to connecting the next dot. Writing by hand is natural; when I need an idea for something, I go analog and let my mind meander.

Note: a timer is helpful here. It can eliminate the worry of spending too much time daydreaming.

Talk About It

I often forget this step or don't want to do it, but telling friends about your ideas can spark more ideas. A different perspective on a topic can lead to more connections, developing your idea into something more complete.

I don't like to do this. What if someone steals my idea? I don't want something I've come up with being taken from me. But I've found that rarely happens. If I stick to my trusted circle of mentors and friendships, it's not an issue.

Collect

The more inputs and experiences you can bring into your mind, the more points you have to connect. This is partly why going for a walk, getting outside, and watching people can drive new ideas. These experiences provoke your mind to roam and give you new information to connect to your previous ideas and thoughts.

The more information you can collect about your topic and the more experiences you have, the more ingredients you have to formulate and expand your idea.

My goal in all of these scenarios is to free my mind to have ideas. If I'm able to think clearly without worry, I can create more freely.

14: How Much is Down Time Worth?

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 18:00:00 -0600

I'm starting to track my time. I've struggled with this in the past, but now I want to tie it to dollars. I want to know where my time is best spent.

Contrast - Launch Center Pro

‎Clearer Thinking - What Is Your Time Really Worth To You

13: Wandering Brain

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 18:00:00 -0600

I have more ideas than I can keep track of. And this is the whole of my creative process from idea development to storage.

6: Collecting and Storing Research

OmniFocus Auto-Parser

Using Drafts

The 3 R's of Habit Change: How To Start New Habits That Actually Stick - James Clear

Breaking the Cycle

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 18:00:00 -0600

It's time for a confession: I'm addicted to my phone. I want to check Twitter every five minutes and find myself refreshing Feedly every ten. And I hate it.

I've developed a habit of always wondering if there is something that needs my response. If someone asks me a question on Twitter, I want to get back to them right away. I don't want them waiting on me. I don't like being the one that holds up the line.

Steps to building a habit

There's a lot of research behind building habits, but it doesn't have to apply only to good habits. Understanding this cycle can help break bad habits as well. Break one of the steps and the habit stops.

1. Trigger

I love helping. Finding ways to solve problems for others will motivate me to work all day, every day. The downside is that I will sometimes go looking for problems that need to be solved. I primarily look for these problems in my own systems and tools, so the trigger is simply wondering if someone found an issue or has a question.

2. Reaction

My reaction to this trigger is to solve the problem or look for a problem. Whenever I wonder if there is a problem that needs solved or I think that a question might have popped up, I check the various places where a problem or question could arise. In my case, that's mostly Twitter, Reddit, or email.

3. Treat

Much like our dog gets treats when he does a trick, I get a treat when I solve a problem or answer a question. People tend to say thank you or show appreciation when you help out and that small incentive makes me want to keep helping. The trigger has been set off again.

Breaking the cycle

Scientists in agriculture have become really good at breaking the life cycle of insects. Whether it's interrupting their mating season, creating a bad environment for eggs, or not allowing one of the metamorphosis steps, they can find ways to keep the pests from propagating and damaging crops.

It's this cycle interruption that I'm attempting to put in place. Just telling myself not to wonder will not likely happen. The thought enters faster than I can stop it, so I need to stop my reaction to the trigger - looking at social media and email. My primary means of checking is my phone and the best way to keep me off my phone is to leave it out of my reach. I'm much too lazy to get up just to check Twitter.

While I'm at work I can keep my phone across the room since I don't usually check things on my Mac. I can leave it in my office when I go upstairs for lunch. After work, I have designated a place for it to land. If it's not in my pocket, I'm less likely to get it and check things.

My hope is that by breaking this cycle, I'll be more present with my family and break the habit. I know that my attention has fallen away from them when they need it. I'm not okay with that.

Resources:

Alternatives to the Just Checks — Shawn Blanc

Reviews and Scripting - Learn OmniFocus Webinar

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 18:00:00 -0600

A great asset behind OmniFocus is the community of people willing to share and ask questions; and one place to enjoy the resources this community creates is at Learn OmniFocus.

Tim Stringer, founder of Learn OmniFocus, recently invited me to do a live webinar about my OmniFocus setup on the site and add to this growing repository of content. I was thrilled and honored to share.

In the recording below you'll see normal stuff like setting up projects and contexts, but I also emphasize the importance of doing regular reviews and share a script I've written to help. I like doing reviews on set days, so I needed to be able to move the Next Review Date of a project to match my scheduled review date. If you're interested in this script or some of the others I mention in the webinar, you can find them on GitHub.

Outside of Working with Omnifocus, this is one of the most complete overviews of my entire system. Tim Stringer has generously given me the feed to share with you, so check it out.

12: The Higher Horizons

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 18:00:00 -0600

A quick overview of how I see the higher Horizons of GTD and why they are important. Also, I talk about why I think our babysitter is awesome.

Getting Things Done® - The 6 Horizons of Focus

GTD - Horizons of Focus - Personal Productivity Stack Exchange

Understanding GTD’s 6 Horizons of Focus - The Spill

15,000 Feet: The Space Between Projects and Areas of Focus and Responsibility - Productivityist

How To Be More Productive By Mastering Your GTD Horizons Of Focus

Share Title & Twitter Workflow

Take a Break

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 18:00:00 -0600

Numerous times I've said that being able to put off work is an important step of being productive. And when you have a big push, it's even more important to stop.

I've been working long hours for the last couple months to make Working with OmniFocus happen. There were late nights, early mornings, and long afternoons. Blood, sweat, tears, sickness and exhaustion all came into play at some point. And I've been thrilled at the response.

Many of you have sent me emails and joined the Reddit discussion to let me know what you think of the book. I have received emails from folks who have changed their perspective on how they work and look for better ways to manage their tasks. They are heartfelt and grateful. They drive me to do more and help anywhere I can. It's these people that keep me excited about the work I do.

And I will continue to look for ways to do that, but not right now. After the hard work that's gone into this and the unending support that my family has given me over the past months, it's time to take a short break and give to them. I'll be back at it next week, but I'm taking a long weekend to recoup. Thank you for all the great feedback, it's been a wild ride.

Working with OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 18:00:00 -0600

In the two days before this book launched I checked off 387 tasks in OmniFocus. And there's no other tool I'd rather do it with.

Get Working with OmniFocus

It's been down to the wire, but it's finally here - Working with OmniFocus. A book that takes you through my entire system. It's not for someone looking for a how-to manual for OmniFocus, but for those looking to understand the deeper concepts and nuances of the tool.

I'm super excited that it's finally here! I've spent most of my editing time trying to make sure that it's packed full of details and examples. The more real I can be with you, the better you can understand how it works.

Affiliate Sign Up

If you've read the book and want to share it with others, why not make money while you're at it? You can sign up to be an affiliate and get paid when others make a purchase using your link.

Discuss the Book

I made a consolidated place for us to chat about the book. Most of the time that discussion is more helpful in public. And the quickest, easiest way I know to do that is with Reddit. I have a Subreddit (/r/joebuhlig) where I've posted the link to the book. Let's discuss it there - Reddit Discussion.

Favorite Workflows

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

I've received a number of requests for more detail around my use of Workflow (iTunes). I've said that it saves time, but here are some details.

If I find myself doing something repeatedly, I look for a way to automate it. Since AppleScripting isn't possible on iOS, I turn to Workflow for some of the same functionality. Here are my heavy hitter workflows.

Headed Home

Headed Home Workflow

There a quite a few instances each week when I'm out of the house without a specific time that I'm expected to return. My wife often needs to know when I'm headed home so she can plan accordingly. In those cases, I use this workflow to let her know I'm on my way and how long it should be before I get there. This workflow is one of three that I keep in the Today View for easy access because I use it so frequently.

Copy Base URL

Copy Base URL Workflow

This is a rare case when I introduce more steps to a process in order to get a cleaner result. Many times I need to copy a URL but I really don't like having extra querystring parameters at the end of the URL. I use this to expand shortened URLS and strip the extra nonsense off the end. Then it's added to my clipboard.

Save to DropBox

Save to DropBox Workflow

Any time I run across a file (typically a PDF) on my phone that I want to save to DropBox, I use this. I could do the "Open in..." thing, but I know where I want it to go in DropBox before I even start - my DropBox inbox. This workflow takes the file and drops it into my inbox. It's faster than everything else I've tried.

Share Title & Twitter

I have another one similar to this that shares an article with a Twitter handle and asks for a comment about the article. If I don't have a specific thought about an article but still want to share it, I use this instead. It puts the title of the article in quotes, adds a link to the article, and searches the page for a Twitter handle to include at the end of the tweet.

InstaTweet

InstaTweet Workflow

When I want to share a photo on Instagram and Twitter I know I can select Twitter from Instagram, but I prefer to embed them directly. This workflow allows me to select the photo, add a caption, and send it both places at once.

Article to PDF

Article to PDF Workflow

This is a small piece of my research storage mechanism. To save an article for a project I'm working on, I run this workflow which saves it as a PDF in my DropBox inbox. These are processed during my Daily Review and are often moved to project folders.

Take Pic to DropBox

Take Pic to DropBox Workflow

This is similar to the Article to PDF workflow, but it opens the camera. I take a picture and it is immediately sent to my DropBox inbox. This is really handy if I want to save a picture of a restaurant menu or a bag of coffee. When I process these, I move them to their respective locations in my file structure for reference.

Send Pic to DropBox

Send Pic to DropBox Workflow

Just like the previous workflow, this adds a picture to my DropBox inbox but allows me to select pictures from my photo library. There are times when I remember taking a picture that I want to use for a project. This helps me get them into DropBox quickly and easily.

Screenshot to DropBox

Screenshot to DropBox Workflow

I'm building a lot of websites lately and part of my process involves looking for web design inspiration. This means I'm taking a lot of screenshots of other websites. I keep this workflow in my Today View so I can take the screenshot, swipe down, and send it to DropBox right away.

11: Using Evernote for GTD

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

Before I got into OmniFocus, I used Evernote for GTD. I had a few different structures, but I think I ended with a simple setup that worked well for me before I outgrew it.

9: Really? Journaling?

The Secret Weapon - Evernote + GTD

Twitter conversation re: Moleskine

Brad Dowdy - The Pen Addict

Rhodia Black Webnotebook 5.5 inch x 8.3 inch Dot Grid

Matt Vanderpol - Online Craftsman

10: Why I Don't Use Ads

A non-tracking solution for running ads - The Deck

Joe Buhlig - leverage the digital and welcome real life

Stop Being Productive

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

There are a lot of productivity bloggers and podcasters out there. And we're all looking for ways to get better, faster, and create higher quality products. That's pretty obvious when you read our articles.

But if you were able to see my side of the screen you would see my daily fight to be productive. I want to waste a day on YouTube every day. I could do that. I would hate myself for it, but I want to do it anyway. It's a struggle that I think we all fight at some level.

I review my weekly goals every morning. That's what matters to me. I want to get my work done so I can spend more time with my family. And I want to spend time on projects that I find important. That single step is easily the most vital component to a productive day for me.

I can do that routine day after day and I will do it day after day. It's the only way I have a chance of accomplishing anything. And if I'm honest and open with you, I would admit that there are many days I fail.

I have days when I'm doing good to get through my email. I have no idea why, but I really don't want to do anything that's on my lists. I have deadlines coming but I'm doing research for a project that I won't even consider starting for another year. I'm great at procrastiworking.

But stop

Here's the thing. We can all find ways to do work in transitional times and maximize every minute of every day in our calendars. But, I'm tired. I just want to blow some time on Twitter. Is that okay?

I think that's perfectly fine. I do it. I don't recommend doing it a lot and I try to limit the amount of time I blow, but I think it's important to stop being productive once in a while. Or maybe it's best to stop being productive multiple times a week or day. It just depends on what you've been doing, how tired you are, and how much you have coming up.

I've been working really long hours trying to get my book finished. It's tiring and at the end of each day I struggle to think straight. When the girls go down for bed I blow a little time reading articles or cruising Twitter-land. I'm unable to do any work at that time. I don't even want to look at my lists. I just need to stop.

And do what?

When you stop, don't always blow it on YouTube. The number one way I stop is by playing with my girls. They need me more than I need to catch up on Instagram. I try to stop for a while after work every day. I don't check my lists and I do my best to set my phone down. I've been on the computer all day and I have a cycle of catching up on inboxes every 30 minutes or so. When I've done that all day my brain expects me to continue feeding it with new things whether I'm working or not. It doesn't care that I need a break.

But I do care. I don't want to continue feeding that addiction. It's hard, but sometimes it's best to just stop being productive.

10: Why I Don't Use Ads

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

I've avoided ads in my creative work from the beginning. But there's a lot of pressure to use them as a way to make an income. In this episode, I explain why I don't plan to change.

The DECK - an exception to the tracking ads out there.

@WhaddyaKnowJoe - use the hashtag #question to ask a question.

Moleskine Classic Notebook, Large, Ruled, Black, Hard Cover (5 x 8.25)

From WordPress and Google to Jekyll and Piwik

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

This website has run on WordPress and Google Analytics from day one and they've both treated me pretty well. But I've started to see a need for more flexibility in the site, so it's time for a big change.

This is mostly a back-end change that shouldn't affect the UI much. There are a few small UI changes I'm making, but that's to make the site cleaner. The more I've gotten into web development and design the pickier I've become with my site. Ultimately, I'm looking for a simplified user experience for you and more respect for your privacy.

Why WordPress and Google?

For about a year and a half I ran the site on WordPress through Bluehost with Google Analytics. It was easy and quick for me at the time. WordPress has a good, long track record so I fell in line to get my site up quickly. I didn't want to worry about technicalities - I needed to spend my time creating.

The standard for analytics has been Google Analytics for some time. Google has a reputation for having some of the best if not the best reports and tracking for your website. When I started I knew very little about tracking. I was just looking for a way to see what kind of traffic I was getting and almost everyone recommended GA. Sometimes I'm okay with taking the easy road if it means shipping something quickly. I can evaluate the nuances later. And I can always do the research and migration process after the launch if I need to - which is what I've done here.

Why Jekyll?

As a replacement for WordPress, I've decided to create a static site using Jekyll. I ran across Jekyll through blog posts from Brett Terpstra. I then spent a couple of hours researching and reviewing websites built with Jekyll. I was blown away by the load speeds involved.

I started looking at some of the numbers on my site and found that the average page was loading in about eight seconds. All of the tests I was doing on my machine came in around four seconds, but that didn't take into account the various devices that people use. That extra four seconds meant my site was way too slow. Eight seconds? Sites built with Jekyll are typically loading in less than one second.

I've been wanting to get into Ruby and Rails lately. Since Jekyll is built on Ruby and I learn by using a language, it made for a good project. Jekyll seems to be one of the most common static site generators as well. There's a lot of support and plugins for it already, so I felt comfortable joining that community.

Moving to a static site allows me the flexibility to build one-off pages and posts in a highly customized way. Since I'm becoming more particular about how things look and how you interact with them, it only makes sense. Jekyll seems to fit the bill quite well.

Why Piwik?

I want to step away from the data collection that Google does on you. I don't want to share your data against your will and I don't want to put you into their system simply because you wanted to read my articles. I understand that you might be okay with this, but I'm learning that I'm not necessarily okay with this myself. There's a big backlash against ads and tracking right now and although I'm not wanting to jump on that bandwagon, it is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately.

And although tracking and ads are okay in some scenarios, I've found that I'm uneasy about the tracking that goes alongside Google Analytics. That might be unwarranted and unfounded, but I don't want to leave it when it makes me uncomfortable. A great example of this is Marco Arment and his ad-blocking iOS app. He had a great app and it worked well, but it didn't feel right for him. So he pulled it and Apple issued refunds. Google Analytics on this website falls in the same category for me. It might be okay, but I'm not comfortable with it.

I still have a need to understand the analytics for my site so I started looking for alternatives and ran across Piwik. It allows me to collect the numbers that I'm looking for, but the data stays local. There is no master server that the numbers go back to. Your data never leaves the site. I have a database (that only I have access to) that stores the information and it sits on the same server that this website sits on. The data is anonymous and never goes anywhere. It allows me to get those numbers and not sacrifice your privacy in the process. I think that's a great trade-off.

Hosting?

In the process of making the shift to a static site, I'm also launching a new sub-domain that will be running on Rails. I was previously running my hosting through Bluehost, but while setting up a Rails application, I found that Bluehost is not very easy to use for anything other than one-click installations. So I'm also moving my host over to Digital Ocean (affiliate).

When?

Today. I spent the last few weeks working on the static site. There are still some bugs I'm working out, but for the most part it's all here. Let me know what you think!

9: Really? Journaling?

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

I can't believe I've started journaling every day. I've always equated journaling with writing in a diary, which is not for me. But the effects of not journaling caught me off-guard.

Lamy Safari Fountain Pen - Charcoal - Fine

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Install OmniFocus with Note Drafts Action

Using Drafts

Joe Buhlig — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

Drafts is one of those apps that I cannot go without. The funny thing is that my tech-resistant wife is now dependent on it as well. And you can be sure that I am pretty excited about her use of it.

Drafts can be intimidating if you're not used to dreaming up ways to connect apps on your phone. So it's helpful to use other people's ideas as a baseline for building your own methods. Here are a some of my favorite ways to use Drafts:

OmniFocus with note

My primary use of Drafts is to capture tasks that will end up in OmniFocus. It's not uncommon to see the Drafts badge at six or higher. Those are typically tasks that will be moved to OmniFocus but I needed to capture them quickly.

Save URL as PDF in DropBox

Install Save URL as PDF Drafts Action

When I run across an article I'm interested in but I'm not sure what I want to do with it I'll dump it into Drafts. When I'm emptying my Drafts inbox during my Daily Review and run across one of these that I want to save as research, I use this action. It creates a text file in DropBox with the title of the article as the title of the file and puts the URL in the body of the file. My Mac will then turn that text file into a PDF that I can use for later.

OmniFocus list

Install OmniFocus List Drafts Action

Close behind the OmniFocus with Note action is the OmniFocus List action. It works pretty much the same way as the first except I can brain-dump a list of items all at once. Each line in the draft will become a new task in OmniFocus.

Today extension

If I run across a quote that I want to embed in a blog post or share with someone, I can copy it and send it Drafts with the "+clip" action in the Today View. It lands in my Drafts inbox for triage later, but sometimes I go and action it right then.

OmniFocus action key

If I want to be really quick and send ideas to OmniFocus immediately, I can invoke the action key. It sits right on top of the keyboard so as soon as I'm done typing I can hit that to send it to OmniFocus immediately and start typing the next task without any delay. This one feature has me using Drafts for brainstorming sessions.

Siri to Drafts

I have my default reminders list set to a list called "Drafts." Drafts is set up to pull items from this list into my Drafts inbox. This allows me to ask Siri to remind me of something and it will automatically end up in my Drafts inbox.

OmniFocus Someday/Maybes

I've written about these in the past but I have a dedicated list of actions that take drafts and dump them into Someday/Maybe lists in OmniFocus without the need for any triage in my OmniFocus inbox. You can see how I set up the actions here and how I automatically parse them here.

And because I'm proud of her getting into digital capture methods, here's the one my wife uses all the time:

Email yourself a task

Install Email Yourself Drafts Action

Becky knows that having items sitting in her email inbox drives her crazy. She doesn't like seeing new emails that she needs to act on. And she knows that if she emails a task to herself she will move it out of her inbox and into her paper system as soon as possible. Her email inbox is the one digital place that she checks regularly. So it's nice for her to be able to email tasks to herself since she knows she'll act on them. She uses drafts with an action key above her keyboard to type the task and immediately send it to her email. This would drive me insane, but it has been very helpful for her.

Ultimately, I use Drafts to get things out of my head. Anytime I see something online or I have an idea, I add it to Drafts first. Sometimes I can make the decision about what I want to do with it right then and will action it off immediately. But most of time I find myself leaving it in Drafts until my Daily Review. Drafts is my primary tool for keeping my head clear and my mind focused.

8: Waiting to Upgrade

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

I've started waiting to upgrade operating systems and hardware when new releases are available. My impulse is to upgrade immediately, but I've put it off for a variety of reasons.

iOS 9 bugs we’ve found till now - iPhone Hacks

iOS 9 annoyances, headaches and bugs - ZDNet

iPhone Upgrade Program - Apple

Save URL Workflow

Article to PDF Workflow

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Excel VBA Tutorial - Easy Excel Macros

How I Started with Technology

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 19:00:00 -0500

When I was 16 I bought my own Compaq laptop. Remember those? I had been using the family computer quite a bit, but this was my own computer. That was the beginning of my journey with technology.

Sound and slides

I claimed it would be for school work. That was my crap-rationalization. But if I'm honest with myself it had more to do with exploring without consequences. I didn't want to screw up the family computer by running a bunch of batch files just to see what they would do. I would rather create a mess for myself on my own computer. That, and it was a lot of fun to say I own my own computer when I went to school.

Around the same time I started running sound and slides on Sunday morning at our church. If they wanted help with a special event when the sound system or a computer was involved, I nearly always said yes. I was drawn to it, fascinated by problem-solving with a bunch of cords and components working together.

My first Mac

I bought my first Mac while at college. It was different and it seemed as though people who were building software and websites were using Macs. My thinking was purely, "That looks cool. I wanna try." I don't recommend making purchases of this size because something looks cool. But it was college, and I know there's an unwritten requirement somewhere that says you should do something dumb in college.

The MacBook was my first jump into productivity, but I didn't realize it. The Mac made it a lot easier for me to track events and notes. I always had a side-job in college and I needed help keeping track of my schedule. Looking back on it, I didn't have a busy schedule. I just wanted to play with the apps. I guess my mind and digital tendencies naturally drew me to the building of systems that come with productivity.

GIS

Also in college I did a couple of internships that had me working with GIS and handheld computers. They were set up to collect data on soil samples and crop scouting for corn and soybean fields, (yes, if you didn't know, I'm a farm kid. No matter what I do or where I go, I'm always drawn to farmers and growing food. And tractors).

The fun part of those internships was finding ways of using handheld computers to make the process easier. I even began dictating notes into those devices. They were very crude at the time and I spent a lot of time cleaning up the notes I entered, but it was still a system that worked for me. It also taught me a lot about mapping and how to collect and report spatial data on crops.

Excel

During my senior year of college I worked as a teaching assistant in a farm management class and began teaching other students how to use Excel. I was very basic in my use of Excel at the time, but I was more advanced than most of the students and professors. It was my first jump into teaching others how to use software. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it. I've learned that my mind just works the same way computers do, which makes it very easy to catch on to a computer system and then translate it for others.

Databases, VBA, & SQL

When I graduated from college I went into soybean breeding and quickly learned that seed research works with a lot of data. And I also learned how to dissect tiny soybean flowers. My use of Excel grew exponentially and I found myself starting create basic programs through VBA and macros. It was a progression and eventually led me to using bar-code scanners and Excel macros to collect and verify data.

My experience in soybean breeding and the databases involved led me to a corporate position where I analyzed large amounts of data on a SQL Server. It was a very nerdy job and I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. But I knew that I could learn just about anything computer-related pretty quickly, so I jumped in.

There was a lot of data to work with in that role. There were so many ways I could analyze the data that I often got lost trying to figure out what to work on. That's when the productivity monster caught me and I started down the path of GTD.

Corporate, productivity, and design

In the corporate environment I had a big influx of information and creative work that I needed to do. Yes, I had a very analytical role but there's a large amount of creativity that is needed to design and develop interfaces and structures around data. It was essentially the beginnings of web development for me because I wanted to show the data in an easy to understand way. I can't stand looking at the same bar charts every day and wondering if the data has been altered to show a biased view of the information. I wanted them to be clean and accurate. That's when my supervisor introduced me to Edward Tufte and I began to delve into the data design world.

In that process I learned I have a strong creative side. I explored that more fully when I took a position with a marketing company. I started to develop more extensive web reports and began building an internal web application. That's when I started to look beyond what I knew how to do and started building out new ideas and finding alternative ways to do things. In other words I finally let my brain loose and started learning how to pair my creative mind with the analytical.

What's next?

If you listen to my podcast you heard me mention that I recently left my job and I'm now beginning to develop apps and web applications for myself and others. I'm now running with my own ideas and building them. I never thought I would be at this point, but it's been an exciting journey.

Since starting on my own, I've been exploring new computer languages and building some of the bigger ideas that I never had time to tackle before. There's some start-up time involved, but along this journey I have found systems and disciplines that help me stay motivated to focus on the work that I'm doing. Figuring out what technology to build next is exciting, and I'm having a blast.

7: Learning a Computer Language

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

People are sometimes scared to get into coding because they think it's complicated to learn. It's not complicated, so don't be one of those people. In this episode I talk about how I got into development (with no schooling) and how I pick up new languages.

Microsoft Access

Learn to Code HTML & CSS - Beginner & Advanced

jQuery

PHP and Theme Development « WordPress Codex

Welcome to Python.org

The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines - Django

Ruby Programming Language

Ruby on Rails

Jekyll • Simple, blog-aware, static sites

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My Evernote Setup and Workflow

Sharing a Computer

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

When I switched to the MacBook Pro, I also switched from using two computers to one. I know, I know, I was spoiled. But it made my life a lot easier and helped me accomplish a lot more.

One benefit of using two computers that I hadn't noticed was the flexibility it gave my wife and me. When I used one computer, she could use the other. When the job-shift happened, it quickly became apparent that we were used to using them at the same time. I would grab the MacBook Air and she would do some work on the Mac Pro or vice versa.

Two computers was really convenient. However, I'm now building my own business, which means I'm tight on dollars spent. So I'm using a single computer for everything. And that has led to the need to coordinate work with my wife. I have writing and development to do and she has design and editing to do.

Here's what we've learned on how to successfully share a computer:

Communicate

We have a daily conversation about time on the computer. I'm the one that spends the most time on it, but my wife has a few deadlines that she's under as well. We need to make sure we're talking about what's needed, when it's needed, and our plan for making it happen.

Multiple users

This almost goes without saying, but don't share a user login on a shared computer. If my wife tries to do something on my profile, it will most likely do things she's not expecting. If I use her profile, I'll keep banging the keyboard wondering why it doesn't launch the app I want. It just creates unnecessary angst. Get your own profile.

External hard drive

Unless you've upgraded the internal hard drive of your machine as much as you can, you'll probably run into storage issues. The computer I'm on has a simple 128GB hard drive. That's pretty small for having multiple users on it. So I have 4TB of Network Attached Storage (NAS) in the house. That allows us to connect to them over the wireless from anywhere in the house and keeps us from being unable to save files.

Grace

Be gracious. It's hard sharing something like a computer, especially when you need to get something done. It's easy to get upset or frustrated with the other person. Show a little grace and be willing to compromise. It'll make both of your lives a lot easier.

6: Collecting and Storing Research

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

When you have a new project that you're doing research on, you need a great way to grab and store that research. Referencing it later can be invaluable and save you the trouble of doing that same research multiple times.

A Simple Trick for Naming Tags

Article to PDF Workflow

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Scheduled Reviews in OmniFocus

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

Every Friday morning I do my Weekly Review. I do my Monthly Review on the first of the month and my Annual Review on the first of the year. How do I get OmniFocus to play nicely with this?

OmniFocus has a great feature for reviewing projects at specific intervals. You can choose to review a project daily or every 50 years if you want. And when that date comes, the project is available in the Review perspective.

It's a great feature. You can set the date of your Weekly Review as the next review date for a project and tell it to cycle every week. Then the project can be reviewed every week on that day.

The issue

What happens if you do your review a day late? You'd be fine the first time since the project would just wait, but the next week would bring chaos. Your projects would cycle one week and would now be available for review the day after your scheduled review. They cycled by a week, but the day it uses as a base is the day it was reviewed, which was a day late.

If you throw multiple reviews in the mix (bi-weekly, monthly, annual, bi-annual), it can start to get out of hand very quickly. You'll soon have a lot of projects that need to be reviewed, but they don't show up in the Review perspective.

The solution

I wanted a way to enter the day for my Weekly, Monthly, and Annual Reviews and have OmniFocus automatically reset the review dates on my projects to the next date each of these occurs.

In other words, if I have a project marked for review weekly (even if it's every 3 weeks), I want the date for the next review to be the following Friday since that's when I do my Weekly Review. If it's marked for review monthly or yearly, I want the next date for my Monthly or Annual Review to be the next review date for those projects.

There's not a way to do this directly in OmniFocus, so I wrote an AppleScript. You can find the script on GitHub here. I originally set this up with a launch agent like I did for the OmniFocus Auto-Parser, which you can learn more about here. But I've since reworked this to be run on command directly from OmniFocus.

How it works

When you launch the script, it takes the next review date of the project and adjusts it forward to the next occurrence of the review. If the review cycle is weekly, the date is set to the next Weekly Review date. If the cycle is monthly or yearly, it is moved forward to the next date for each.

All I have to do is continue as normal and do my reviews on those days. If I see the indicator in OmniFocus before one of my scheduled reviews happens, I simply run the script.

5: Developing a Task Management System

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

If you've made the decision to get into task management, congratulations! But you need to be intentional with getting started. Here's a look at how I helped my wife put together her pen and paper system the first time.

Drafts (iTunes)

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Smart Passive Income - Podcasting Tutorial

Writing with GitHub

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

I’ve written about my use of Sublime Text for writing, but I didn’t share how I manage the edits from my editor.

I write everything in Markdown, which means the typical “track changes” tools don’t work very well in my workflow. I write the draft of an article, review and edit my own draft a couple times, and then send it to my editor. Since we do everything digitally, I needed a way to see what changes she has made as compared to my original.

The developer in me recognized the issue and immediately went to GitHub for versioning and merging updates. It has made the process really easy for me and for my editor. I don’t want her worrying about the delivery mechanism on top of all the editing. Here’s how I set it all up:

The setup

If you have experience with GitHub, this will all be second nature. If you don’t, I recommend looking at this article to get a feel for the terminology and flow of Git.

I created a folder in DropBox to house all of my writing. This includes articles, podcast scripts, and even the book I’m writing.

Using the GitHub desktop app, I created a new local repository on top of this folder. I’ve found myself using the app even though I know how to use Git from the command line. It’s simple and feels faster to me.

That’s all there was to do, create a new folder and turn it into a repository. I should mention that if you’re inviting someone as a collaborator in the repository, you should keep this outside of DropBox. It can create a lot of issues with syncing. GitHub even warns you about it. I can get away with it because I’m the only one involved and it’s a local repository. Keeping it on DropBox allows me to view and edit files from my iPhone, and I like having that option.

1. Drafting

I work off of the master branch in the repository and make all of my commits there. For example, I’ll write my first draft of an article and then commit it. I then review and edit that draft and commit my own edits.

To make the commits easy to track, I use a TextExpander snippet for the commit summary with this format:

Draftx_Articlex_YYYYMMDD

For the first part, I use one of these tags - Draftx, Editx, Reviewx, Managex. My first draft is under Draftx, my edits are Editx, my editor’s changes go under Reviewx, and any changes to the repository (adding/deleting/moving files) go under Managex. As an aside, here’s why I use the “x” in those names.

The second portion of the commit summary is the type of writing I was doing - Articlex, Bookx, Podcastx, Websitex. Those are pretty self-explanatory.

2. Send to editor

When I’m happy with what I’ve written and have the edits committed, I make a copy of the file and paste it into a DropBox folder I share with my editor. She is then able to do anything she wants to the file. I make sure she knows I’ll find every character that changes when she’s done.

3. Reviewing changes

When I’m notified that she’s done editing the piece, I create a branch off of the master branch. I simply name the new branch after the article or chapter that I’ll be reviewing.

After creating the new branch and switching to it, I replace my version of the file with the edited version. It’s a simple copy, paste, and confirm to replace the current version.

I can then go into GitHub and see all of the changes highlighted. If I want to accept her change, I do nothing. They will come through later. If I want to ignore her change or make tweaks, I go to the file and make the edits. Then I return to GitHub and keep working through the article.

When I’ve finished reviewing the changes and making my final edits, I commit the edited file to my newly created branch and then merge the new branch into the master. I could probably do this from the master branch but it just feels weird bringing someone else’s changes directly into the main structure. I prefer not to hear the neurotic developer in me screaming.

Tracking

Something I’ve wanted to do with my writing for a while is track how many words I’ve written each day. Thankfully, using GitHub makes it possible to pull this off. It’s really technical, so I would say this part is for the power users.

With a Git repository, you can set up hooks to run when certain events happen. In other words, I can run a script when something happens in the repository. In this case, I used the “post-commit” hook because I wanted to run a script after I commit changes.

I added this code to the post-commit executable found in the “.git” directory of my writing repository:

It checks to see if the commit is in the master branch. If it is, then it counts the words that have been added and subtracts the number of words that were removed. That number is then sent to a Google Sheet through a Google Script that I’ve published as a web app.

From the spreadsheet I can see each commit, the date and time of the commit, and how many words I wrote. I like seeing how much progress I’m making and can potentially use this data to find cycles in my writing patterns. If nothing else, it’s fun.

4: Creating the First Checklist

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

Creating a checklist for the first time isn’t always easy. And I did it wrong when I created the initial list for this podcast. I did figure out a better way, though.

The Podcast Method

Adobe Audition

OmniFocus Templates Script

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Dunbar’s number - Wikipedia

OmniFocus Auto-Parser

Joe Buhlig — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 19:00:00 -0500

I love it when my systems do things automatically. In this case, I can capture an idea for a someday/maybe list and it ends up in the right place in OmniFocus.

I wrote about my original process for this here, but I've since refined it. I didn't like having an extra app icon sitting in my dock. I knew there had to be a better way to do it… and I found it.

I'm now using a launch agent. If that sounds intimidating, I completely understand. I originally stayed away because I thought it would be too complicated. But it turned out to be less difficult than I expected. If you need help falling asleep tonight, you can read more about them on Apple's developer site.

It's possible that I'll be making updates to this code in the future, so I added this to a new GitHub repository I've created: OFScripts. All of the code and instructions for how to install it can be found there.

From a high-level view, here's what happens:

1. When you log in

The launch agent starts running when you log into your account. That's all a launch agent does. It is a process that runs at log in. It can either run once or on intervals in the background. In this case, it runs at a specified interval.

2. Run AppleScript

The launch agent is set up to run an AppleScript. It runs first when when you log in and continues to run on an interval afterwards.

3. Parse your OmniFocus inbox

The AppleScript takes your OmniFocus inbox and parses any tasks that start with “–“. You can learn how to create the parsing strings in my original post.

This system has become integral to my use of OmniFocus. With this running in the background, I can now email tasks directly into a project and context. The big one for me is the ability to use Drafts(iTunes) to automatically send tasks to a specific project and context. It makes it incredibly simple to get things into OmniFocus.

Updates:

20150908: Patrick at http://schreibloga.de was kind enough to write a python install script that you can run from command line to make the installation process a bit easier. You can find it in the GitHub repo here: OFScripts

20150908: I had a quick back and forth with Tim Stringer at Learn OmniFocus about the AppleScript for this. We found a way to use Hazel to trigger this immediately when a new item comes to the inbox. If you're a Hazel user, you can set up this rule on your OmniFocus database which is located here:

/Users/YourUsername/Library/Containers/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus2/Data/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus

This has become my preferred way to use the script.

3: Keeping Up with Pain Pills

Joe Buhlig — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 19:00:00 -0500

Ugh. Dealing with water coming into the family room. And of course, I hurt myself and had to have surgery. And surgery leads to pain pills.

A Chaotic Week with GTD

2: The Dunbar Exception

Joe Buhlig — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 19:00:00 -0500

In today’s world it’s easy to connect with more than 150 people. This is how keep up with 300+.

Using TheBrain

Example Brain in Action

Getting Things Done: Introduction

1: New Job New Contexts

Joe Buhlig — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 19:00:00 -0500

If you go through a job change, you’ll need to change your GTD contexts. I walk you through my recent job transition and what I did to determine my new contexts.

GTD Contexts: Proactive vs. Reactive

Making Time for Contexts

MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air