Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.
February, 2008William F. Buckley, Scourge of 20-pound Bond PaperMatt Wood | Feb 28 2008William F. Buckley Jr., one of the fathers of modern American political conservatism, died Wednesday. Whether you agree with his politics or not, it's hard to ignore this positively startling fact from his New York Times obituary: in addition to writing and editing more than 55 books, read more »1 Comment
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The Case Against Wish ListsMatt Wood | Feb 26 2008Organized people keep lists: to-do lists, shopping lists, lists of books they want to read, movies they want to watch, restaurants they want to try. Sometimes, the lists become a way of taking care of the people in our lives, like gift ideas or reminders for a spouse or co-worker. I keep lots of lists, and depending on what I’m working on at the time, I might have a dozen or so sitting around to keep track of things. On the whole, lists are a good thing. I certainly feel better when I write things down. But a certain kind of list, that long-running, chock-full wish list of stuff you want to try or buy, can do more psychic harm than good. They’re a great way to keep track of all the cool stuff you hear about, but there’s the rub. How often do you actually pick something off your wish list? And how often do you look at your wish list and feel bad because you’ll probably never get to any of it? read more »POSTED IN:
Nuclear reset for .Mac syncingMerlin Mann | Feb 26 2008How-To: Truly reset your .Mac sync data [Ars Technica] I never have trouble finding company when it comes to whining about the reliability of .Mac syncing. It's surely not fair to lay all of this at the feet of the .Mac developers -- sync is, we are often reminded, "hard." But if you want to rely on syncing your Calendars, Contacts, Preferences, snippets, Yojimbo, and what have you via .Mac in a battlefield environment, you're going to need a strong stomach, a lot of patience, and reliable backups. Plus, friends, you will regularly have to _reset frickin' everything_. Entirely overfamiliar with that particular reality, I was pleased to get pointed toward David Chartier's tutorial on saving your .Mac's village by burning it to the ground. It's a handy, illustrated companion piece to Apple's own advice on scorching earth. Very handy, and, yeah, you will eventually need it. So print it out. Maybe even have it laminated.
FWIW, here's a few other things I do (as a raving .Mac paranoiac): read more »POSTED IN:
TWiT 133 with Jonathan Coulton and "Rock Bad"Merlin Mann | Feb 25 2008TWiT 133: Jonathan Coulton - Functional And Elegant
Here's a free, direct MP3 download of TWiT 133. Man, I really loved this episode. Jonathan Coulton's music and performances are inspiring in themselves, but as a fellow (albeit, much more modestly successful) "microbrand," I have huge respect for how he runs the business of his career. (more after the jump, including why we were all on this episode together in the first place) read more »POSTED IN:
Good Morning, SleepyheadMatt Wood | Feb 23 2008Ask Chicagoist: Help Me Wake Up! The always useful Ask Chicagoist addresses a recent obsession of mine, making yourself get out of bed in the morning. I used to be a morning person. When I faced a 30-mile reverse commute to get work by 8:00 a.m., I had to. And for a few months last year, I was possessed by a spirit that made me get out of bed at 5 every day so I could squeeze in some work before the toys started flying. read more »POSTED IN:
43 Folders: Best of GTDMerlin Mann | Feb 19 2008NPR: Tech Junkies Crazy About 'Getting Things Done' As an insufferably huge public broadcasting nerd, I was happy to hear (via our pal, Ryan) that 43 Folders was mentioned in tonight's All Things Considered story about Getting Things Done. Since this may be the first time some folks have visited the site, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite GTD posts from the past four years. We talk about lots more than GTD here, but it's definitely a lot of my readers' favorite topic. Thanks for stopping by. Ton of links after the jump... read more »POSTED IN:
More from Peter Walsh on clutter, quality of lifeMerlin Mann | Feb 19 2008Oprah's Clutter Man: "It's Never About the Stuff" Clean Sweep's Peter Walsh (previously) has a new book out, and Mediabistro had the chance to chat with him while he was out promoting it. While I wish Peter had held out for a more cromulent title ("Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?" Ouch.), I so admire this guy's grip on what clutter does to your mind. Or at least what it does to mine. Typically swell quote:
and, later: read more »POSTED IN:
Video: Merlin's Time & Attention TalkMerlin Mann | Feb 14 2008Macworld '08: Merlin Mann / "Living with Data" Like the talk? Hire MerlinSure, you can hire Merlin to speak to your group. Here’s how. read more » POSTED IN:
Life Without a Laptop, Two Months DownMatt Wood | Feb 13 2008It has now been two months since I sold my laptop and started working with just a Mac Mini in my office and an iPhone, and I've more or less survived. I never expected it to be permanent, but unless my life changes drastically and I have to start traveling full-time, I could probably go on like this indefinitely. My real work hasn't suffered, because I was doing all of that on the desktop anyway, and with Google Reader's killer mobile version, I've been able to satisfy any web surfing urges away from the computer. read more »POSTED IN:
Burn Calories Trying to Catch Your KeyboardMatt Wood | Feb 11 2008
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NYT on a Paperless WorldMatt Wood | Feb 10 2008Pushing Paper Out the Door - New York Times Is it just me, or is the Times tossing softballs for organizational nerds on purpose? Today's story on the ways people are purging paper from their lives gives lots of ink (digital, of course) to our friend, the Fujitsu ScanSnap, and comes with the kind of grand statements that no trend piece should be without: [M]any families may be closer to entering a paperless world than they realize. Paper-reducing technologies have crept into homes and offices, perhaps more for efficiency than for environmentalism; few people will dispute the convenience of online bill-paying and airline e-tickets.read more » POSTED IN:
Clever web dev trick for checking browser historyMerlin Mann | Feb 8 2008Sniff browser history for improved user experience Talk about sufficiently advanced technology. Although you will surely see this post linked many times this week, I have to throw in my own kudos. Fantastic trick, Niall! In a nutshell, Niall shows how you can use a combination of CSS and JavaScript to selectively display information based on previously visited URLs in your visitor's browser history. Have you been to Digg? Then Niall's site displays a "Digg This" badge (and, importantly for Niall's purposes, not 100 other badges for sites you haven't used). Try Niall's live example to see this stunner in action. Dang. That sound you just heard? That's a few million people scurrying to hit " Now, regrettably, I suspect the race begins for seeing how horribly something like this can be abused. POSTED IN:
Links we like, February 6, 2008Merlin Mann | Feb 6 2008
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Snow Day HobbiesMatt Wood | Feb 1 2008It snowed almost a foot here in Chicago last night, and looking at all that white stuff made me think about junior high, when my school was out an entire week for snow. I built most of the eastern seaboard in SimCity 2000 that week, on a 33 MHz PC no less. I was a nerd. It was awesome. I thought about how fun that sounded today after I finished shoveling, and considered digging around for an updated copy of SimCity online. Then I reminded myself that the last thing I need is another hobby involving the computer. I use a computer for work. When I'm finished working, I screw around on the internet. When I'm tired of that, I read books, which isn't a whole lot different, if a little easier on the eyes and attention span. Pardon me while I get out the nostalgia hankie, but I miss the days when my hobbies had nothing to do with staring at a glowing screen. When I was a kid, I could sit down in my room over an unopened wax box of Topps baseball cards and completely tune out the outside world until four hours later, when my mom called me to dinner, handed me a napkin, and told me to wipe the drool from chewing 36 sticks of gum off my chin. read more »POSTED IN:
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