Image by Maxine
I’ve been feeling a bit philosophical lately, being smack dab in the middle of Sophie’s World. So beware. I might even should beware myself. Writing posts in the middle of a philosophical muse is probably not the best idea. But it has gotten me thinking about the work I do.
Ever since I found out about the internet (that would be in 1995, when my family got our first computer), I’ve been magnetized to it. It has pulled me in and somehow replaced part of my actual world. As I think I’ve mentioned before, a large portion of my life is lived online.
Most of the time, I’m happy with it. I enjoy my work. I can work for ten straight hours and not realize that I haven’t eaten. Or blinked.
But then sometimes I wonder…is this whole thing even real? What makes something real? Is it more real if you work in a busy office with twenty other people? Would it be more real if my work were on canvas hanging somewhere? Is it more real when people talk about it? When people purchase something from a website I designed? When some kind of physical transaction takes place?
And what about all of these people I know online? These relationships I’m building…are they real? (By now you’re thinking…yep, you definitely should have waited until the philosophical trip was over to write in your blog again. And you’re probably right. But I do have a point…)
Web work is real because it has influence. Sitting here in my home office, typing this post, I have influence. And if you have any kind of web real estate, you do too. If you work on the web, at least part (if not all) of your job is to increase your influence. Most of what we do on the web needs to be accomplishing one of two things:
- Paying the bills
- Increasing our influence
Period. Anything else we’re doing is fluff and can be eliminated.
So that’s what I’m working on this month. I’m de-cluttering my web life by evaluating where I spend my time and where I NEED to be spending my time. Is it paying the bills? Is it increasing my influence? If no, it gets dumped. If yes, I embrace it like a long-lost uncle.
What one thing can YOU eliminate? Think real hard. (And Kelvin, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, you still have to read my blog.)
Image by wilsoncruk
(Wow. Pictures on the blog! Somebody give an Amen!)
Somebody twittered about Zenbe.com the other day. There are so many new applications and services out there that I barely ever give them the time of day. But for some reason I clicked. I think that reason was because somebody said it was “email for social media” or some such nonsense. I was curious as to what that would look like. And when they said I could keep my current email address, I was convinced to give it a look-see.
The simple interface impressed me. It seems to take the “don’t give your users stuff they don’t need until they actually need it” approach. I like the fact that it easily integrates with Twitter and Facebook. It’s so nice to have that all in one place. And let’s face it. It’s just nice to have a new way of looking at your email. Even Mac Mail gets a little boring.
So I was tweeting my little heart out about how great Zenbe was, and then I got a little deeper. How many people out there use rules to organize your email? Am I the only hardcore user of email rules?
Anyway, I tried to set up my rules (I was about to be committed to this thing), and then the weirdest thing happened. I set up a rule for certain emails to be tagged “clients”, which was fine. Then I set up another rule that was tagged “urgent”. It actually tagged it both “clients” and “urgent”. And on and on until every rule had the tag I specified, plus all of the tags I had used since I logged in. Weird. After messing with it for a long time, I’ve concluded that the rules function in Zenbe is possessed. At least in Firefox.
But the good news actually far outweighs the bad. Everything is exactly where you would think it should be. The interface is very intuitive, and the features are extremely useful. I especially loves the task lists, the way the calendar is integrated, and the files panel (it collects all of the files you’ve been emailed in one place - automatically). And the environment is just plain nice.
All in all, I think it could be a really great application. Anything that integrates a lot of those things that I do on a daily basis is fantastic in my book. I think I’m willing to stick the rules issue through and see if it isn’t fixed in future upgrades. But I’m not totally ditching my Mac Mail yet. Almost, but not quite.
I read this article by the talented Toblerone the other day, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. What is my dream productivity tool?
I used to be a huge fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done, but it turned me into a machine. I was getting things done, alright. I just wasn’t really living. It’s an EXCELLENT tool, but it really worked a little too well for me.
Now, I use the “Notes” function in my mail program (Mac’s Mail app, if you’re wondering.) I jot down ideas as they occur to me and pretty much go with the flow. For the past week I’ve been keeping myself on track with David Seah’s Printable CEO. I like how concrete it is. I get to score myself based on the importance of the things I’ve been giving my time to.
I also use the “To Do” function in my mail program. I give myself three things that I need to do each day, and that’s it. I make sure that they are each important things that are moving me toward my goals. It allows me to accomplish much while giving myself a lot of freedom and flexibility with my day.
But if I were to come up with a “dream” productivity tool, I guess it would be something that automatically reminded me of things I needed to do. Something that didn’t require constant maintenance. Something that I wouldn’t really need to think about much. Actually, I think a personal assistant would do the trick quite nicely. 
I just found this amazing device called The Printable CEO by David Seah (available via free downloadable pdf on his site.) It basically helps you narrow your focus to the things that are really important to your business. (Of course, this one is focused mainly on web developers, but you can use the same concept to develop your own.)
It’s so easy to get caught up in minutiae as a small business owner. There are so many “good” things that vie for my time every day. Shortcuts are very. good. things.
