Nice little productivity article from Zen Habits.
Numbers 6 and 7 speak to me right now.
6. Use one simple tool. For me, I just choose one text editor to write (usually either WriteRoom or TextEdit). The simpler the tool, the better, because full featured tools end up being distracting and you want to fiddle with all the options. A pen and pad are also great. If you must use more than one tool, keep them small and simple.
7. When you’re overwhelmed, focus on less. If the project is too big or complicated or just hard, narrow it down. If you must write a book, don’t focus on the whole book, or even a whole chapter. Just write a section — something you can do in a few hours or less. If you’re starting a new business, don’t worry about getting the whole thing up and running — what’s the smallest amount you can offer at first, the smallest unit you can create? Focus on that.
Read the Article
A while back, I posted an article outlining my plan for a series of posts about my setup. It’s fallen into the “when I have more time” category for now.
However, part of the reason I haven’t posted is because my setup is in a bit of disarray at the moment. When we moved earlier this year, I was stoked about the 10×10 ft. office built into the oversized garage. It was perfect for me.
Unfortunately, I found out in July that it was not properly insulated, and the windows were horrible, so, even though there was a portable AC unit pumping air into the room, it was unbearable in the Texas heat, so I moved inside, with plans to upgrade before next summer.
After spending the summer with a tiny desk that’s not a good ergonomic fit for me, I’m very ready for the cooler temps so I can move back to the real office.
When I do so, I’m in the market for a new chair. The one I have now is an old OfficeMax managers chair I bought for about $75 10 years ago.
I’ve heard pros and cons of spending a lot of cash on a good ergonomic chair, like the Aeron (including this hilarious review on Dack). I wonder if anyone reading this has any advice, or recommendations based on what you use, or if you’ve gone through my experience in the recent past, and what your solution was. Tim Ferriss has a decent review here as well.
I’ll hopefully be back in the outside office in less than a month, with a new chair, and then I will finally start – and, hopefully, finish – the series.
This is a great article from Wired about how technology that is “good enough” can rule the marketplace.
I attended a session with a similar theme last year at the Adobe Learning Summit, which targeted the explosion of online video in training and the 80/20 rule.
“If that 80 percent number rings a bell, it’s because of the famous Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. And it happens to be a recurring theme in Good Enough products. You can think of it this way: 20 percent of the effort, features, or investment often delivers 80 percent of the value to consumers. That means you can drastically simplify a product or service in order to make it more accessible and still keep 80 percent of what users want—making it Good Enough—which is exactly what Kaiser did.”
The point being, users will put a higher value on lower quality material that is available right when they need it and want it, over higher quality material that takes longer to develop. It’s in line with the Just Enough, Just In Time model of training that I find highly effective in most instances.
Think about it, then talk about it. Here or on Twitter.
