The Human Option

The Human Option | D*I*Y Planner: Given our reliance on computers for most things, attempting an analog --and more human-- option is a worthwhile endeavour, if only to discover what is possible in a technological age.

Hear, hear!

Top 10 GTD tips

Over at murtworld blog is a list of 10 good GTD tips written by a Getting Things Done acolyte. My favourited are "Simplify" and "Process frequently".

murtworld: My top 10 GTD tips

My new laptop bag

Yesterday I aquired a Targus Global Executive Standard laptop bag. This bag is better suited for traveling since the laptop has its own compartment. I can easily pull it out for security check without having to dig it out among paper, cables and other stuff. It has integrated waterbottle holder and a pull-out holder for passport and boarding-cards and a removable accessory pouch.

It will soon be tested since I'm going to Germany in a couple of weeks.

For more views on bags, follow the trail starting with Whats with that bag?

Friday screensaver

I have started to use Slickr as my screensaver, and have it showing photos from the Annotated Workspaces Flickr group. When I look up at my screen I get a glimpse into someone elses world. Fascinating.

Speaking of screensavers, I recently discovered the Pong Clock from BVKS. I want one. Meanwhile you can download the almost as cool Pong Clock screensaver.

Keeping Your In-Box “Real”

I know this article has been blogged by others, but getting my e-mail inbox from 234 to zero was THE best thing that Getting Things Done (GTD) helped me with. If you have a overflowing e-mail inbox, read Julie Daniel's Keeping Your In-Box “Real”.

Chandler Personal Information Manager

Via BoingBoing:

Chandler is a free and open personal organizer being developed by the Open Source Applications Foundation, with design by Andy Hertzfeld of the original MacOS GUI team. Eventually it's meant to integrate email as well as calendaring and to-do items, but for now it's just the latter -- that said, the latest release, 0.6, is finally something in shape that's usable by civilians.

I have installed this pre-Alpha release and my impression is that this is a very promising product. I hope that a full version is not far away in time.

Chandler homepage ->

Whats with that bag?

This post on D*I*Y Planner, Whats in a bag?, reminded me of my old posts regarding bags (Whats in your bag?) and my own exercise to lessen the amount of clutter in my own bag (What should NOT be in my bag?). Some good advice is also offered:

• Plan ahead.
• Style matters.
• Try before you buy.
• One open space or a million pockets.
• Price and fabric.
• Ergonomics.

Link ->

The Annotated work spaces

This is very cool, the Flickr pool Annotated work spaces. The group is started by Dave Gray of Communication Nation. The photos is not only annotated, but also of photo studios, train engineers, music composers, TV control rooms, artists and so on. Loads of inspiring and creative stuff here.

Getting a Life by GTD

I would like to go back to my post from December, The same amount of work done in less time, then relax. I wrote:

From what I read on the different GTD blogs it seems that people use GTD to squeeze even more productive hours out of their life. Hey, Steve Pavlina even changed his sleeping pattern! Once again, "get a life".

And Steve Pavlina replied:

The whole point is actually to get a life and to enjoy it.

Well, sorry Steve if my words sounded harsh. Hey, I even tried changing my sleeping patterns myself based on your earlier experineces! But polyphasic sleep is over the top IMHO.

Anyway, the key phrase in my post is "it seems that people use GTD to squeeze even more productive hours", and I just want all new GTD followers to relax. The point is, as Steve says in his comment:

The idea isn't to work more and more but rather to get more and more value out of life. Nothing wrong with playing video games if it provides value for you. The right game can be a lot of fun.

So, you who have just found out about GTD, personal productivity and lifehacks, keep a cool head. Keep a life. With a proper personal productivity system in place you can sit down and play a game and feel good about it.

Most popular posts 2005

Time to summarize my first blogging year. Over 100 posts of varying quality, most of them about Getting Things Done, GTD, lifehacks, HPDA, Hipster, notebooks, pens, Moleskine and my precious Sony PSP.

The most popular posts are (drum roll...):

1. Google Maps on PSP, it is still visited daily mostly via Google searches.
2. Zipster, my Hipster clone. Putting specially designed index cards in a Iomega Zip case is still drawing attention. As featured on MAKE Magazine blog.
   
3. Terry Pen-Holder hack. I'm still getting e-mails from people who want to know where to find this gadget. I still don't know any retailer. Do you?
4. Make a Fliptop Hipster PDA in two minutes.
   
5. Notebook Note-Holder hack. As featured on Moleskinerie.
   

Looking at the list I realize that my hacks is more interesting then my posts, at least in the long run. Anyway, I'm always surprised that anyone finds any interest in my ramblings.

Looking forward to another year blogging, and this time I aim to double the number of posts!