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History of Machu Picchu

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Thu, 16 Mar 2017 00:50:09 +0000

History of Machu Picchu

Archaeological evidence uncovered around the site suggests that the area was first used for agricultural purposes back in 760 B.C.

The war of Vilcambamba Pachacutec in 1440 established the first settlement at the site. It was called the Tahuantinsuyo Empire which was later followed by the formation of the government of Manco Capac.

It is thought that Machu Picchu was first inhabited by 300-1000 inhabitants, who were of the highest Class or "llactas".

The valleys around these areas were important for their agricultural contribution, however after death of the Emperor Pachacutec, it lost it's importance, with the establishment of new sites like Ollaytantambo and Vilcambamba. The building of these new sites by his successors, in more accessible terrain made Machu Picchu less appealing.

From 1527 to 1532, two brothers Huáscar and Atahualpa fought against each other in a civil war over the Inca Empire. Their father, Inca Huayna Capac had given each brother a section of the empire to manage, one in Huáscar in Cuzco and Atahualpa in Quito. When Huayna Capac and his heir, Ninan Cuyuchi, died somewhere between 1525 and 1527, the two brothers Atahualpa and Huáscar went to war over who should rule.  The population who had come to live in the Machu Picchu area from rural or remote locations left after the war ended to return to where they came from. Later another brother, Manco Inca was sent into exile in Vilcambamba, and Machu Picchu was deserted.

Antonio Raimondi was an Italian geographer and scientist from Milan who visited Machu Picchu in 1851. In 1867 Augusto Berns arrived to mine the site.

Hiram Bingham re-discovered the ruins in 1911. He documented and publicised his "discovery".

Hiram Bingham


Full Article

  • Machu Picchu Inca Trail

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Remote Working: The home office desks of Basecamp

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 20 Mar 2020 20:35:47 +0000

People are always curious about work-from-home (WFH), remote working setups. So, I posted a Basecamp message asking our employees to share a photo of their home office, desk, table, whatever. Here’s what came in. First, the ask: And the answers, in the order they came in: Andy Didorosi, Marketing Justin White, Programmer Jonas Downey, Designer… keep reading


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  • Uncategorized

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A live tour of how Basecamp uses Basecamp to run Basecamp

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:40:33 +0000

David and I spent nearly 2-hours giving a livestream tour of our very own Basecamp account. We wanted to show you how Basecamp uses Basecamp to run projects, communicate internally, share announcements, know what everyone’s working on, build software, keep up socially, and a whole bunch more. Our entire company runs on Basecamp, and this… keep reading


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  • Uncategorized

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Live Q&A on remote working, working from home, and running a business remotely

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Wed, 25 Mar 2020 14:43:34 +0000

In this livesteam, David and I answer audience questions about how to work remotely. At Basecamp we’ve been working remotely for nearly 20 years, so we have a lot of experience to share. This nearly 2-hour video goes into great detail on a wide variety of topics. Highly recommended if you’re trying to figure out… keep reading


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Working remotely builds organizational resiliency

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 27 Mar 2020 14:37:37 +0000

For many, moving from everyone’s-working-from-the-office to everyone’s-working-at-home isn’t so much a transition as it is a scramble. A very how the fuck? moment. That’s natural. And people need time to figure it out. So if you’re in a leadership position, bake in time. You can’t expect people to hit the ground running when everything’s different.… keep reading


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The Majestic Monolith can become The Citadel

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Wed, 08 Apr 2020 18:50:15 +0000

The vast majority of web applications should start life as a Majestic Monolith: A single codebase that does everything the application needs to do. This is in contrast to a constellation of services, whether micro or macro, that tries to carve up the application into little islands each doing a piece of the overall work.… keep reading


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  • Uncategorized

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Seamless branch deploys with Kubernetes

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Mon, 20 Apr 2020 18:09:12 +0000

Basecamp’s newest product HEY has lived on Kubernetes since development first began. While our applications are majestic monoliths, a product like HEY has numerous supporting services that run along-side the main app like our mail pipeline (Postfix and friends), Resque (and Resque Scheduler), and nginx, making Kubernetes a great orchestration option for us. As you… keep reading


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  • Uncategorized

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Hiring programmers with a take-home test

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Tue, 28 Apr 2020 22:31:34 +0000

There’s no perfect process for hiring great programmers, but there are plenty of terrible ways to screw it up. We’ve rejected the industry stables of grilling candidates in front of a whiteboard or needling them with brain teasers since the start at Basecamp. But you’re not getting around showing real code when applying for a… keep reading


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  • Uncategorized

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Employee-surveillance software is not welcome to integrate with Basecamp

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Thu, 07 May 2020 20:17:17 +0000

We’ve been teaching people how to do remote work well for the better part of two decades. We wrote a whole book about the topic in 2013, called REMOTE: Office Not Required. Basecamp has been a remote company since day one, and our software is sold as an all-in-one toolkit for remote work. Yeah, we’re… keep reading


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  • Uncategorized

m

Play the Numberwang game

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-21T16:45:00

Part of the They've got the look promo for the BBC UK Homepage


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All about the programme

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-21T16:45:00

Part of the They've got the look promo for the BBC UK Homepage


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At a glance: Best picture films

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-22T12:30:00

Part of the Going for gold promo for the BBC UK Homepage


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An Oscar nominee's diary

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-22T12:30:00

Part of the Going for gold promo for the BBC UK Homepage


Full Article


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Video: 3D map of Antarctica

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-26T13:30:00

Part of the Antarctic diary promo for the BBC UK Homepage


Full Article


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More about this programme

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-26T16:20:00

Part of the Food for thought promo for the BBC UK Homepage


Full Article


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Walliams swims for Sport Relief

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-27T12:00:00

Part of the Sport Relief promo for the BBC UK Homepage


Full Article


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Sign up for the Sport Relief Mile

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-27T12:00:00

Part of the Sport Relief promo for the BBC UK Homepage


Full Article


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Find out more about Sport Relief

By www.bbc.co.uk
Published On :: 2008-02-27T12:00:00

Part of the Sport Relief promo for the BBC UK Homepage


Full Article


m

Video: Merlin's Time & Attention Talk (Improvised Rutgers Edition)

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:57:09 +0000

Video: Merlin Mann - "Time & Attention Talk (improvised)"

Audio (mp3): "Merlin Mann - 'Rutgers Time & Attention Talk'"

This is a talk I did at Rutgers earlier this month. I kinda like it, but for a weird reason. Something something, perfect storm of technology Ragnarok, and yadda yadda, I had to start the talk 20 minutes late with no slides. Nothing.

So, I riffed.

And, I ended up talking about a lot of the new stuff you can expect to see in the Inbox Zero book—work culture, managing expectations, the 3 deadly qualities of email, and one surprising reason email's not as much fun as Project Runway.

Some people liked it. I think. I liked it. I hope you do, too.

Here's the slides I would have shown. ;-)

Who Moved My Brain? Revaluing Time & Attention

Many thanks, again, to my great pal, Dr. Donald Schaffner, for bringing me in for this visit. I had a great time and met some fantastic, passionate people. Much appreciated.

 

Hey—know anybody who should hear this talk? Hmmm?

I’ll bet. Lucky you, you can hire me to deliver this or any of my other talks to the time- and attention-addled people you work with as well.

Current topics include email, meetings, social media, and future-proofing your passion.

Drop a note if you have an upcoming event where you think we two might be a good fit.


update 2010-04-27_13-50-00

Apologies—my friends at Rutgers (inexplicably) have placed this video under lock and key. Fortunately, I have a lock-picker called Firefox. Samizdat video available soon...

update 2010-04-27_14-42-24

Yay, fixed! Many thanks to my hero, Jesse Schibilia.

”Video: Merlin's Time & Attention Talk (Improvised Rutgers Edition)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 27, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


Full Article

  • Time and Attention
  • Videos
  • world of work

m

My Faith in Nerds: Stronger Than Any Gelatinous Cube

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:01:57 +0000

dConstruct 2010: Merlin Mann - "Kerning, Orgasms & Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks" (NSFW)

ME - Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks on Huffduffer

Download the audio | Huffduff it


Let's be honest. I don't go...mmmm...places very often.

I sit in this chair. I go to the Safeway with my daughter. Sometimes, I take the train downtown to get a haircut. I check the mail.

But, by and large, like most nerds, I'm without question, a bit of a shut-in.

Which makes it more than a little ironic that my first trip off the North American continent brought me all the way to Brighton, England's wonderful dConstruct Conference.

Which wonderful conference placed me inside a very royal complex, alone on a very large stage, 90 seconds after being informed I'd better be entertaining, because I'd be conducting my oration on the same spot where, a scant 36 years earlier, ABBA had become international stars by singing an up-tempo number about giving up. So, y'know. No pressure.

Commanded to this location by two of my web heroes, I was told I could speak about whatever I wanted. So, wow, to quote the ladies of ABBA, how could I ever refuse?

Thus, I stood on that stage for over 35 minutes, rambling to 800 talented, creative people about Dungeons & Dragons, japanese toothpicks, torrenting Photoshop, as well as what I used to find myself doing after a long evening of shooting mutants in Stargate.1

But, mostly? Yes. Mostly, I stood on a stage thousands of miles from the chair from which I barely move, and I told a lot of really smart people that they were nerds. I also told them they should get out more.

I swear: it made sense at the time.

Some Serious Talent

My talk about the challenges and opportunities of being a giant nerd seemed well received. Honestly, I'm very happy with how it turned out. But--oh, brother--was I ever up against some heavy hitters. Serious Lou Gehrig shit.

I'll leave it to other, more eloquent folks to tell you what a wonderful day this was. But I will very much suggest you learn this for yourself by listening to the audio of the fantastic talks. Because every one of them is a corker.

Additionally, like I said, Tom Coates put on one of the loveliest slide decks it's ever been my pleasure to see (56MB PDF).

Great speakers, great hosts, wonderful attendees (who aren't above buying a yank a pint [thanks, everybody]).

And, Thanks, dConstruct

I have to admit, I'm kind of over conferences as a thing, which makes it even more crazy when I go to one, and it blows me out of the water with the care and quality of the event, the speakers, and the attendees. dConstruct was absolutely one of those blown-out-of-the-water events.


(photo: happy.apple)

As I learned over and over again--yes, like me--these folks are nerds. But, brother are they ever talented nerds who care and care. Which I just love so much.

I'll take a nerdy bunch of fontdorks and cellists over a splashy mega-conference full of VC pitches and skanks pushing free Red Bull anytime. Anytime.

dConstruct was simply a top-notch operation from end-to-end, and I'm insanely grateful that I was invited to participate. Thanks, Clearleft.

And, you, the reader? If you get the chance next time, go. Heck, I might even leave this chair and go there, myself. Maybe.

I suppose when Dr. Who's over, I could just let these 20-sided dice decide for me. Lemme see...what's my Armor Class and Hit Points...?


Listen for Yourself2

dConstruct Podcast

  1. MARTY NEUMEIER - The Designful Company

    The Designful Company on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  2. BRENDAN DAWES - Boil, Simmer, Reduce

    Boil, Simmer, Reduce on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  3. DAVID MCCANDLESS - Information Is Beautiful

    Information Is Beautiful on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  4. SAMANTHA WARREN - The Power and Beauty of Typography

    The Power and Beauty of Typography on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  5. JOHN GRUBER - The Auteur Theory Of Design

    The Auteur Theory Of Design on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  6. HANNAH DONOVAN - Jam Session: What Improvisation Can Teach Us About Design

    Jam Session: What Improvisation Can Teach Us About Design on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  7. JAMES BRIDLE - The Value Of Ruins

    The Value Of Ruins on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  8. TOM COATES - Everything The Network Touches

    Everything The Network Touches on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it

  9. Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks

    ME - Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks on Huffduffer

    Download the audio | Huffduff it


  1. Hint: Number Three. ↩

  2. Code for these was stolen wholesale from the dConstruct site. Jeremy, et al - don't hesitate to tell me if that's a problem.Srsly. ↩

”My Faith in Nerds: Stronger Than Any Gelatinous Cube” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on September 10, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


Full Article

  • dConstruct
  • Geeks
  • Knowledge Workers
  • Nerds
  • Speaking
  • NSFW

m

“Distraction,” Simplicity, and Running Toward Shitstorms

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:49:56 +0000

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

—Albert Einstein, “On the Method of Theoretical Physics” (1934)

Context: Last week, I pinched off one of my typically woolly emails in response to an acquaintance whom I admire. He’s a swell guy who makes things I love, and he'd written, in part, to express concern that my recent Swift impersonation had been directed explicitly at something he'd made. Which, of course, it hadn’t—but which, as I'll try to discuss here, strikes me as irrelevant.

To paraphrase Bogie, I played it for him, so now I suppose I might as well play it for you.


(n.b.: Excerpted, redacted, munged, and heavily expanded from my original email)

There are at least a couple things that mean a lot to me that I'm still just not very good at.

  • Make nuanced points in whatever way they need to be made; even if that ends up seeming “un-nuanced”
  • Never explain yourself.

I want to break both these self-imposed rules privately with you here. [Editor’s Note: Um.] Because, I hope to nuance the shit out of some fairly un-nuanced points. And, to do that, I'll also (reluctantly) need to explain myself. But, here goes.

First [regarding my goofing on “distraction-free writing environments”] I think there are some GIANT distinctions at play here that a lot of folks may not find nearly as obvious as I do:

  1. Tool Mastery vs. Productivity Pr0n – Finding and learning the right tools for your work vs solely dicking around with the options for those tools is just so important, but also so different. And, admittedly, it’s almost impossible to contrast those differences in terms of hard & fast rules that could be true for all people in all situations. But, that doesn’t make the difference any less qualitatively special or real.

    Similarly…
  2. Self-Help Vs. “Self”–“Help” – Solving the problem that caused the problem that caused the problem that caused the symptom we eventually noticed. Huge. Arguably, peerless.

    • Viz.: How many of us ignore the actual cause of our problem in favor of just reading dozens of blog posts about how to “turbocharge” its most superficial symptoms? Sick.
  3. Focus & Play – Yes, focusing on important work is, as Ford used to say, Job 1. But, that focus benefits when we maintain the durable and unapologetic sense of play that affords true creativity and fosters an emergence of context and connection that’s usually killed by stress. BUT.

    • Again, what conceivable “rule” could ever serve to immutably declare that “THIS goofing-off is critical for hippocampal plasticity” vs. “THAT goofing-off is just dumb, distracting bullshit?”
    • Impossible. Because drawing those kinds of distinctions is one of our most important day-to-day responsibilities. Decisions are hard, and there’s no app or alarm gadget that can change that.

      • Although, they certainly can help mask the depth of the underlying problem that made them seem so—what’s the parlance?—“indispensable”.
      • Think: Elmo Band-Aids for that unsightly pancreatic tumor.
  4. Reducing Distraction through Care (Rather than braces, armatures, and puppet strings). Removing interruptions and external distractions that harm your work or life? Great. Counting on your distraction-removal tool to supplement your non-existent motivation to do work that will never get done anyway? Pathetic.

    • Frankly, this is a big reason I'm so galled when anyone touts their tool/product/service as being the poor, misunderstood artist’s new miracle medicine—rather than just admitting they've made a slightly different spoon.
    • Because, let’s be honest: although most of us have plenty of perfectly serviceable spoons, everybody knows collecting cutlery is way more fun than using it to swallow yucky medicine.
  5. Using a System Vs. Becoming a System. Having a system or process for getting work done vs. making the iteration of that system or process a replacement for the work. This is just…wow…big.

    But, maybe most importantly to me…

  6. Embracing the Impossibles. Getting past these or any other intellectual koans by simply accepting life’s innumerable and unresolvable paradoxes, hypocrisies, and impossibilities as God-given gifts of creative constraint. Rather than, say, a mimeographed page of long division problems that must be solved for a whole number, n.

    • I just can’t ever get away from this one. For me, it’s what everything inevitably comes back to.
    • The very definition of our jobs is to solve the right problem at the right level for the right reason—based on a combination of the best info we have for now and a clear-eyed dedication to never pushing an unnecessary rock up an avoidable hill.
    • YET, we keep force-feeding the monster that tells us to fiddle and fart and blame the Big Cruel World whenever we face work that might threaten our fragile personal mythology.

      • “Sigh. I wish I could finally start writing My Novel….Ooooooh, if only I had a slightly nicer pen…and Zeus loved me more….”

All that stuff? That there’s a complex set of ideas to talk about for many complex reasons—not least of which being how many people either despise or (try to) deny the unavoidable impact of ol' number six.

But, here’s the thing: as much as saying so pisses anybody off, I think the topics we're NOT talking about whenever we disappear into Talmudic scholarship about “full-screen mode” or “minimalist desks” or whatever constitutes a “zen habit”—those shunned topics are precisely the things that I believe are most mind-blowingly critical to our real-world happiness as humans.

In fact, I believe that to such a degree that helping provide a voice for those unpopular topics that can be heard over the din is now (what passes for) my career. I really believe these deeper ideas are worth socializing on any number of levels and in many media. Even when it’s inconvenient and slightly disrespectful of someone’s business model.

So, that’s what I try to do. I talk about these things. Seldom by careful design. Often poorly. But, always because they each mean an awful lot to me.

[…]

But, no matter how I end up saying whatever the hell I say, I believe in saying it not simply to be liked or followed or revered as a “nice guy” who pushes out shit-tons of whatever to “help people.”

Because, believe me, friend, a great many of those apparently “nice guys” swarming around the web “helping people” these days are ass-fucking their audience for nickels and calling it a complimentary colonoscopy. And, while I absolutely think that in itself is empirically wrong, I also think it’s just as important to say that it’s wrong. Sometimes, True Things need to be said.

Which in this instance amounts to saying, a) selling people a prettier way to kinda almost but not really write is not, in the canonical sense, “nice”—but, far worse, b) leaving your starry-eyed customers with the nauseatingly misguided impression that their “distraction” originates from anyplace but their own busted-ass brain is really not “helping.” Not on any level. It is, literally, harmful.

“Helping” a junkie become more efficient at keeping his syringe loaded is hardly “nice.”

It’s the opposite of nice. And, it’s the opposite of helpful. These are my True Things.

And, to me, saying your True Things also means not watering down the message you care about in order to render it incapable of even conceivably hurting someone’s feelings—or of even conceivably losing you even one teeny-tiny slice of that precious “market share.”

Well, that’s the price, and I'm fine paying it—best money I've ever spent.

But, it also means trusting your audience by letting each of them decide to add water only as they choose to—by never corrupting the actual concentrate in a way that might make it less useful to the smartest or most eager 5% of people who'd like to try using it undiluted. Because, at that point, you're not only abandoning the coolest people you have the honor of serving—you risk becoming a charlatan.

And, that’s precisely what you become when you start to iteratively inbreed the kind of fucktard audience for whom daily buffets of weak swill and beige assurance are life’s most gratifying reward.

Sure. Those poor bastards may never end up using any of that watery information to do anything more ambitious than turbocharging their most regrettable symptoms. But, who’s the last person in the universe who’s going to grab them by the ears and tell them to get back to work? Exactly—that same “nice guy” whose livelihood now depends on keeping infantalized strangers addicted to his “help.”

Holy shit—no way could I ever live with that. It’s so wrong, it’s not even right. ESC, ESC, ESC!

[…]

Okay. So anyhow, there’s a really long-winded, overly generous, and extremely pompous way of trying to say I don’t know how to do what I do except how I do it. But, I do genuinely feel awful when innocent people feel they have been publicly humiliated or berated simply because I'm some dick who hates people.

Which has to be my favorite irony of all.

When I was a kid, I thought my Mom was “mean” not to let me play in traffic on busy Galbraith Road. Today, I'm not simply grateful that she had the strength and resolve to be so “mean”—I actually can’t imagine how sad it would be to not have people in your life who care enough about your long-term welfare to tell you to stop fucking around in traffic. To where you eventually might start even seeking 12x-daily safety hacks from some of the very same drivers whose recklessness may eventually kill you. Wow.

[…]

Admitting when life is complicated or things aren’t shiny and happy all the time strikes me as a wonderfully sane and adult way to conduct one’s life. That there are so many folks offended by even the existence of this anarchic idea is not a problem I can solve.

No more than I can wish useless email away or pray hard enough that it never rains on anyone’s leaky roof. All out of scope.

And, then, I jizzed on at length about how much I admire the recipient’s work. Which I do.


Good work doesn’t need a cookie

I may admire your work, too. Especially if you care a lot about that work and don’t overly sweat peoples' opinions of it. Most definitely including my own.

For these purposes, it doesn’t really matter whether we're friends and, honestly, it doesn’t even matter whether I love, use, or agree with everything you do, say, or make in a given day.

It doesn’t matter because good work doesn’t need me to love it. Like tornadoes and cold sores, good work happens with total disregard to whether I'm “into it.”

But, conversely, let’s stipulate that the points-of-view undergirding our opinions—again, including mine—will and should survive either agreement or lack of agreement with equivalently effortless ease. Because, like really good work, a really good point-of-view doesn’t require another person’s benediction.

Guess we'll have to disagree to agree

Now, to be only vaguely clearer here, I'm not posting this circuitous ego dump in the service of altering your opinion of either me, my friend, his work, or practically anything else for that matter.

But, I would love it if we could all be more okay with the fact that real life means that we do each have a different, sometimes incongruous, and often totally incompatible point-of-view. Yes. Even you have a point-of-view that someone despises. Ready to change it now? Jesus, I sure hope not.

Then, to be only slightly more clear, I'm also not advocating for that fakey brand of web-based kum ba ya that gets trotted out alternately as “tolerance” or “inclusion” or some styrofoam miniature of “civility.”

I'm absolutely not against all of those things when authentically practiced, but I'm also really skeptical of the well-branded peacemakers who are forever appointing themselves the Internet’s “Now-Now-Let’s-All-Pretend-We're-Just-Saying-the-Same-Useless-Thing-Here” den mothers.

Because we're not all saying the same things. Not at all.

And, it infantalizes some important conversations when we tacitly demand that any instance of honest disagreement be immediately horseshat into a photo opp where some thought leader gets to hoist everyone’s hands in the air like he’s fucking Jimmy Carter.

Nope. Not saying that.

Who will you really rely on?

What I AM saying is that alllllll this seemingly unrelated stuff is absolutely related—that the pattern of not relying on other people for anything you really care about is arguably the great-grandaddy of every useful productivity, creativity, or self-help pattern.

Where’s this matter? Pretty much everywhere you have any sort of stake:

  • Don’t rely on other people to remove your totally fake “distractions.”
  • Don’t rely on other people to pat your beret, re-tie your cravat, and make you a nice cocoa whenever that mean man on the internet points out that your “distractions” are totally fake. (Which they are)
  • Don’t rely on other people to tell you when or whether you have enough information.
  • Don’t rely on other people to define your job.
  • Don’t rely on other people to “design your lifestyle.”
  • Don’t rely on other people to decide when your opinions are acceptable.
  • Don’t rely on other people to tell you when you're allowed to be awesome.
  • Don’t rely on other people to make you care.
  • Don’t even rely on other people to tell you what you should or shouldn’t rely on.

Yes. I went there.

Because that’s the point. These hypocrisies, paradoxes, and ambiguities that people get so wound up about—that many of us are constantly (impotently) trying to resolve—cannot be resolved.

Because, yeah: all of these harrowingly unsolvable problems are immune to new notebooks and less-distracting applications and shinier systems and “nicer” self-“help” and pretty much anything else that is not, specifically, you walking straight into the angriest and least convenient shitstorm you can find and getting your ass kicked until the storm gets bored with kicking it.

Then, you find an even angrier storm. Then, another. And, so on.

“Get the fuck off of my obstacle, Private Pyle!”

Doing that annoying hard stuff is how you grow, get better, and learn what real help looks like. Even if that’s not the answer you wanted to hear. You get better by getting your ass out of your RSS reader and fucking making things until they suck less. Not by buying apps.

You don’t whine about distractions, or derail yourself over needing a nicer pencil sharpener, or aggravate your chronic creative diabetes by starting another desperate waddle to the self-help buffet. No. You work.

And, for what it’s worth, just like you can’t get to the moon by eating cheese, you'll also never leave boot camp with your original scrote intact by telling your drill sergeant to try using more honey than vinegar.

No. That sergeant’s job is to make you miserable. It’s his job to break down your callow conceits about what’s supposed to be easy and fair. It’s his job to emotionally pummel you into giving up and becoming a Marine.

You? You're not there to give the sergeant notes; you're there to sleep two hours a night, then not mind getting beaten for 20 hours until a decent Marine starts to fall out.

Who knows? He may even surprise you by introducing a surprisingly effective “distraction-free learning environment.”

“Tee ell dee ahr, Professor Brainiac.”

Like most humans, I like things I can understand. Like most readers, I love specificity. Like most thinkers, I love clarity. Like most students, I love relevance and practicality. And, like most busy people, believe it or not, I actually do really like it when someone gets straight to the point.

But, here’s the problem. If my 2-year-old daughter asks me about time travel, and I blithely announce, “E=mc2”, I will have said something that is entirely specific, clear, relevant, practical, and/or straight-to-the-point. For somebody.

But, not so much for my daughter. And, to be honest, not even to any useful degree for me.

She'd probably either laugh derisively at me (which she’s great at), or she'd pause and ask, “Whuh dat?” (which she’s even better at).

Thing is, her understanding that jumble of characters less than me—and my understanding it WAY less than Professor Al—has zero impact on the profundity, truth, beauty, or impact of the man’s theory.

Sure. You could quite accurately fault me for being a smartass and a poseur, and you could even berate my toddler for her unaccountably shallow understanding of Modern Physics. But, in any case, you can’t really blame either Albert or his theory.

You're turbocharging nothing

Specifically, Albert can’t begin to tell us what he really knows if we don’t understand math.

So, let’s say this theory you've been hearing about really interests you. And, let’s also pretend, just for the sake of the analogy, that you haven’t completed Calculus III (212) or Quantum Mechanics (403) or even something as elementary as, say, Advanced Astrophysics II (537). I know you have. Obviously. But, let’s pretend. Where do you start?

Well, you could read some tips about learning math. You could find a list of 500 indispensable resources for indispensable math resources. You could buy a new “distraction-free math environment.” Heck, there’s actually nothing to stop you from just declaring yourself a “math expert.” Congratulations, Professor.

Thing is: you still don’t know math.

Which means you still can’t really understand the theory—no more than a pathetic Liberal Arts refugee like me or a dullard Physics ignoramus like my kid can really grok relativity.

Difference is, you will have blown a lot of time hoping that actual expertise follows non-existent effort—while my daughter and I get to remain total novices without charge. Only, we don’t get all mad at the theory as a result; a staggering number of fake math experts do.

I mean, be honest—after all that recreational non-work and make-believe dedication almost trying to kinda learn math sorta—you might actually get frustrated at how brazenly Al defies your fondness for shortcuts by continuing to rely on so many terms and proofs and blah-blah-blah that you still just don’t understand. So annoying.

You may simply decide that Albert Einstein’s a huge dick for never saying things that can be completely understood solely by scanning a headline.

EPIC EINSTEIN FAIL, amirite?

You never really know what you didn’t know until you know it

But, Al just told the truth.

Problem is, Al’s truth not only requires fancy things in order to be truly understood—the more of those fancy things you take away from his truth, the less true it gets. And, by the time it’s been diluted to the point where you're comfortable that you understand it? You'd be understanding the wrong thing. Even I can understand that.

But, not one bit of any of this is Al’s fault. Al doesn’t get to control who uses, abuses, gets, or doesn’t get what he said or why it matters. Especially since he’s been dead for over fifty years.

All I know is, regardless of who has ears to hear it on a given day, it would be to Al’s credit never to mangle something important in order to get it into terms everybody’s ready to handle without actually trying.

And God bless him for never agreeing that your “distractions” to learning math are his problem.

So, yeah, if you only need to hand in a crappy 5-page paper, you could certainly Cliff’s Notes your way through Borges, Eliot, or Joyce in an afternoon, and feel like you haven’t missed a thing. Trouble is, if you did care even a little, it’s impossible to even say how much you're missing since you can’t be bothered to soldier through the source text. The text itself is the entire point.

Even the wonderfully cogent and readable layman’s explanations Einstein himself provided don’t really get to the nut, the application, and the implications of his real theory.

That all takes real math.

That “single datum of experience” matters

Sometimes, complex or difficult things stop being true when you try to make them too simple. Sometimes, you have to actually get laid to understand why people think sex is such a thing. Sometimes, you need to learn some Greek if you really want to understand The Gospel of John. And, yeah, sometimes, you're going to have to just work unbelievably hard at whatever you claim to care about before anyone can begin to help you get any better—or less “distracted”—at it.

The part I really know is what doesn’t work. Reading Penthouse Forum won’t help you CLEP out of Vaginal Intercourse 101. Watching a Rankin-Bass cartoon about the Easter Bunny will teach you very little about the intricacies of transubstantiation. And, if you can’t be troubled to care so much about your work that you reflexively force distractions away, dicking around with yet another writing application will merely aggravate the problem. Ironic, huh?

These quantum mechanics of personal productivity are rife with such frustrating “paradoxes.”

These are True Things.

Achieving expertise and doing creative work is all horribly complicated and difficult and paradoxical and frustrating and recursive and James Joyce-y—and any guide, blog, binary, guru, or “nice guy” that tries to suggest otherwise is probably giving you a complimentary colonoscopy. Do the math.

Want a new syllabus? Sure:

Run straight into your shitstorm, my friends. Reject the impulse to think about work, rather than finishing it. And, open your heart to the remote possibility that any mythology of personal failure that involves messiahs periodically arriving to make everything “easy” for you might not really be helping your work or your mental health or your long-standing addiction to using tools solely to ship new excuses.

Learn your real math, and any slide rule will suffice. Try, make, and do until you quit noticing the tools, and if you still think you need new tools, go try, make, and do more.

If you can pull off this deceptively simple and millennia-old pattern, you'll eventually find that—god by dying god—any partial truth that’s supported your treasured excuses for not working will be replaced by a no-faith-required knowledge that you're really, actually, finally getting better at something you care about.

Which is just sublimely un-distracting.


Dedication

This article is dedicated to my friend, Greg Knauss. No, he’s not the app guy–he’s just a good man who does good work, who accidentally/unintentionally helped me write this rant. He also happens to be a fella who could teach anyone a thing or two about writing with distractions. Thanks, Greg.

”“Distraction,” Simplicity, and Running Toward Shitstorms” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 05, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


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Video: "Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them)"

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:40:08 +0000

A couple weeks ago, my pals at Twitter were kind enough to invite me in to visit with their (rapidly growing) team. The topic was meetings, so I used it as an opportunity to publicly premiere a talk I've been presenting to private clients over the past few months.

I hope you'll enjoy, Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them).

Slides:

Supplementary links and commentary forthcoming, but I wanted to go ahead and post the talk as quickly as the video was available. Special thanks to Michelle, Jeremy, and the crackerjack Twitter crew for a swell afternoon.

I really like this talk and sincerely hope you will find it useful in helping to un-break your own meetings.


”Video: "Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them)"” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 06, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


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Resolved: Stop Blaming the Pancake

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:22:44 +0000

In a classic bit from an early Seinfeld, Jerry and Elaine are at the airport, trying to pick up the rental car that Jerry had reserved. As usual, things go poorly and get awkward fast:

Seinfeld - "Reservations"

JERRY: I don't understand...I made a reservation. Do you have my reservation?
AGENT: Yes, we do. Unfortunately, we ran out of cars.
JERRY: But, the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
AGENT: I know why we have reservations.
JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation--you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And, that's really the most important part of the reservation...the holding. Anybody can just TAKE them. [grabs chaotically at air]

And, how weirdly similar is that to our conflicted relationship with New Year's resolutions?

In Seinfeldspeak?

See, you know how to make the resolution, you just don't know how to keep the resolution. And, that's really the most important part of the resolution...the keeping. Anybody can just MAKE them!

Oversimplified? Probably.

But, ask yourself. Why this? And, why now? Or, why again?

Welcome to Resolvers Anonymous: I'm 'Merlin M.'

A few years ago, I shared a handful of stories on the failures that have led to my own cynicism about the usefulness of life-inverting resolutions. Because, yeah, I've historically been a big resolver.

Here's what I said when I first suggested favoring "Fresh Starts and Modest Changes" over reinventions:

Download MP3 of "Fresh Starts & Modest Changes"

Five years on, I think I probably feel even more strongly about this.

Partly because I've watched and read and heard the cyclical lamentations of folks who decided to use superficial totems (like new calendars) as an ad hoc coach and prime mover. And, partly because, in my capacity as a makebelieve productivity expert, I continue to see how self-defeating it is to pretend that past can ever be less than prologue--that we can each ignore yesterday's weather if we really wish hard enough for a sun-drenched day at the beach.

It simply doesn't work.

Companies that think they'll be Google for buying bagels. Writers who think they'll get published if they order a new pen. Obese people who think they'll become marathon runners if they pick up some new running shoes. And, regular old people with good hearts who continue to confuse new lives with new clothes.

Has this worked before? Can you look back on a proud legacy of successful New Year's resolutions that would suggest you're making serious progress by repeatedly making a list about fundamental life changes while slamming prosecco and wearing a pointy paper hat?

My bet is that most people who are seeing the kind of change and growth and improvement that sticks tend to avoid these sorts of dramatic, geometric attempts to leap blindly toward the mountain of perfection.

I'll go further and say that the repeated compulsion to resolve and resolve and resolve is actually a terrific marker that you're not really ready to change anything in a grownup and sustainable way. You probably just want another magic wand.

Otherwise you'd already be doing the things you've resolved to do. You'd already be living those changes. And, you'd already be seeing actual improvements rather than repeatedly making lists of all the ways you hope your annual hajj to the self-improvement genie will fix you.

Then, of course, we make things way worse by blaming everything on our pancakes.

Regarding "The First Pancake Problem"

Anyone who's ever made America's favorite round and flat breakfast food is familiar with the phenomenon of The First Pancake.

No matter how good a cook you are, and no matter how hard you try, the first pancake of the batch always sucks.

It comes out burnt or undercooked or weirdly shaped or just oddly inedible and aesthetically displeasing. Just ask your kids.

At least compared to your normal pancake--and definitely compared to the far superior second and subsequent pancakes that make the cut and get promoted to the pile destined for the breakfast table--the first one's always a disaster.

I'll leave it to the physicists and foodies in the gallery to develop a unified field theory on exactly why our pancake problem crops up with such unerring dependability. But I will share an orthogonal theory: you will be a way happier and more successful cook if you just accept that your first pancake is and always will be a universally flukey mess.

But, that shouldn't mean you never make another pancake.

So Loud. Then, So Quiet.

I offer all of this because today is January 7th, gang. And, for the past week, all over the web, legions of well-intentioned and seemingly strong-willed humans have been declaring their resolved intention to make this a year of more and better metaphorical pancakes.

And, like clockwork--usually around today or maybe tomorrow--a huge cohort of those cooks will begin to abandon their resolve and go back to thinking all their pancakes have to suck. Just because that first one failed.

And, as is the case every year, online and off, there won't be nearly as many breathless updates to properly bookend how poorly our annual ritual of aspirational change has fared. Which is instructive.

Not because new year's resolutions are a universally bad idea. And, not because Change is Bad. And, not because we should be embarrassed about occasionally falling short of our own (frequently unreasonable) aspirations.

I suspect we tout the resolution, but whisper the failure because we blame the cook. Or, worse, fingers point toward the pancake. Instead of just admitting that the resolution itself was simply unrealistic or fundamentally foreign.

And, that's a shame.

Remember, there's no "I" in "unreasonable"

Granted, I'm merely re-repeating a point I've struggled to make (to both others and myself) for years now. But, it will bear repeating every January in perpetuity.

Resist the urge to pin the fate of things you really care about to anything that's not truly yourself. The "yourself" who has a real life with complicated demands. The "yourself" who's going to face a hard slog trying to fold a new life out of a fresh calendar.

Calendars are just paper and staples. They can't make you care. And they can't help you spin around like Diana Prince, and instantly turn into Wonder Woman. Especially, if you're not already a hot and magical Amazon princess.

First, be reasonable. Don't set yourself up for failure by demanding things that you've never come close to achieving before. I realize this is antithetical to most self-improvement bullshit, but that's exactly the point. If you were already a viking, you wouldn't need to build a big boat. Start with where you are right now. Not with where you wish you'd been.

Also, accept that the first pancake will always suck. Hell, if you've never picked up a spatula before, be cool with the fact that your first hundred pancakes might suck. This is, as I've said, huge. Failure is the sound of beginning to suck a little less.

And, finally, also be clear about the sanity of the motivations underlying your expectations--step back to observe what's truly broken, derive a picture of incremental success that seems do-able, and really resolve to do whatever you can realistically do to actually get better. Rather than "something something I suddenly become all different."

At this point, you have logistical options for both execution and troubleshooting:

  • Make a modest plan that you can envision actually doing without upending your real life;
  • Build more sturdy scaffolding for sticking with whatever plan you've chosen;
  • Make a practice of learning to not mind the duds--including those messed-up first pancakes;
  • Or--seriously?--just accept that you never really cared that much about making breakfast in the first place. Care is not optional.

Otherwise, really, you'd never need to resolve to do anything. You'd already just be cooking a lot. Instead of being all mad and depressed about not cooking.

But, please. All I really ask of you. Don't blame the pancake. It's not really the pancake's fault.

Like me, the pancake just wants you to be happy. This and every other new year.


”Resolved: Stop Blaming the Pancake” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 07, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


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No One Needs Permission to Be Awesome

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:10:32 +0000

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there.

And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it.

And that is as it should be. Because death is very likely the single best invention of life.

It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new.

[…]

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

None of us should ever have to face death to accept the inflexible and, too-often, novel sense of scarcity that it introduces.

In fact, it'd be great if we could each skip needing outside permission to be awesome by not waiting until the universe starts tapping its watch.

A simple start would involve each of us learning to care just a little more about a handful of things that simply aren't allowed to leave with us--whether today, tomorrow, or whenever. Because, I really believe a lot of nice things would start to happen if we also stopped waiting to care. A whole lot of nice things.

If that sounds like fancy incense for hippies and children, perhaps in a way that seems frankly un-doable for someone as practical and important and immortal as yourself, then go face death.

Go get cancer. Or, go get crushed by a horse Or, go get hit by a van. Or, go get separated from everything you ever loved forever.

Then, wonder no longer whether caring about the modest bit of time you have here is only for fancy people and the terminally-ill.

Because, the sooner you care, the better you'll make. The better you'll do. And the better you'll live.

Please don't wait. The universe won't.

”No One Needs Permission to Be Awesome” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 17, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


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"Back to Work" - Merlin's New Thing with Dan Benjamin at 5by5.tv

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:15:15 +0000

[update 2011-01-18 @ 16:07:40: We're up!]

5by5 Live

Before Christ was a corporal, Dan Benjamin was already a bit of a hero to me.

Since the early aughts–long before his insanely great 5by5.tv podcast network–Dan’s Hivelogic Enkoder was saving us millions of spam messages. His thoughtful tutorials on OS X (including unmissable advice on doing sane installs of MySQL and Rails, among others) are among the best on the web. His CSS has been widely stolen and reused without acknowledgment by thieves as diverse as other people and me. And his polymath posts on everything from Buddhism to The Paleo Diet to how to record a “Double-ender” have shown a charming combination of curiosity and empathy that, amongst numerous other reasons, clearly makes Dan a better human than me.

A propos of nothing, Dan’s also the guy who conducted one of (mp3) the three best interviews with me in which it’s been my good fortune to participate.1

Today, I’m honored to say that Dan and I are starting a thing together.

If it suits you, drop by 5by5.tv/live in about 35 minutes–at Noon Eastern/9am Pacific–to find out what we’re up to. I think it might be good. I’ll just say I’m as excited about this as I’ve been about any new project I’ve started in the past year or so.

Anyway. You can judge for yourself. Whether you can tolerate me or otherwise, definitely do not miss the work Dan’s doing at 5by5. Because it really is outstanding and very polished stuff.

As for our thing? My own goal, to paraphrase a bit from that interview with Dan, is to help you get excited, get better–and then?–Back to Work.

More soon. Thanks.


  1. Favorite interviews. Just for the sake of completion, my all-time favorite interview was conducted by Colin Marshall for The Marketplace of Ideas (mp3); Dan’s “The Pipeline” eppy with me was a close second; and David and Katie’s recent nerderrific interview on my Mac workflow (mp3) on Mac Power Users has turned out to be a lot of peoples’ favorite thing I’ve done in years (love LOVE David’s stuff). ↩


And...we're up

Back to Work | Ep.#1: Alligator in the Bathroom

Download MP3 of "'Back to Work,' Ep. 1"

In the inaugural episode of Back to Work, Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin discuss why they’re doing this show, getting back to work instead of buying berets, the lizard brain, and compare the Shadow of the Mouse to San Francisco, and eventually get to some practical tips for removing friction.

It's a start.

Sexy Audio RSS Feed
Sexy Subscription via iTunes

Episode Links

  • Welcome to BrettTerpstra.com, home of Brett Terpstra and his nerdery
  • carlhuda/janus – GitHub
  • practically efficient — technology, workflows, life
  • MacSparky – Blog
  • The Brooks Review
  • And now it’s all this
  • Dan Rodney’s List of Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts & Keystrokes
  • 43f Podcast: John Gruber & Merlin Mann’s Blogging Panel at SxSW | 43 Folders
  • waffle software · ThisService
  • One Thing Well
  • html2text: THE ASCIINATOR (aka html2txt)
  • The Conversation #27: Missionless Statements – 5by5

”"Back to Work" - Merlin's New Thing with Dan Benjamin at 5by5.tv” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 18, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


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Nerdiest Interview Ever: MPU Workflows Part II

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:34:26 +0000

MPU 046: Workflows with Merlin Mann II « Mac Power Users

  • Download MP3
  • Huffduff It

I have the life that I have because I've made a lot of weird decisions, and they've worked out well.


Not gonna lie to you. I'm a huge nerd. Surprised?

Yep. I can recite big chunks of The Big Lebowski from memory. I can argue for an hour on the merits of Dick York over Dick Sargent. And, I can—and frequently do—catch myself thinking Catwoman, Batgirl, Princess Leia, and Emma Peel should have a light-hearted pillow fight that ends with an hour of genial french-kissing.

Pretty much like you, probably. I dunno, maybe your version includes Kitty Pryde. Po-tay-to/Po-taht-o, right?

Perhaps most saliently, by virtue of having spent a solid 2,399 days as a Fake Productivity Guru, I have been provided with an unquestionably Janusian monkey's paw of a gift; I now know a lot about workflows. Nerdy, nerdy workflows.

I can tell you a few things that almost always work, I can tell you a handful of things that almost never work, and—best or worst of all—I can tell you thousands of things that might work. Sometimes. Maybe. Kinda. For some people. For now.

And, at the risk of gay-marrying my arrogance to my hypocrisy, I can tell you that I also know enough about the unholy diarrhea of potential options for Theoretical Productivity to share two big patterns:

  1. Getting your workflow right matters.
  2. Getting your workflow right to the exclusion of the actual work is a fool's game.

But. Managing to get the most useful and most elegant and least fiddly mix of 1 and 2 right is super-hard. Especially for nerds. Especially for me.


So, as I type this today, I believe there can be no greater testament to these claims—or, at least, no greater place to test the veracity of these claims for yourself—than in this TWO AND A HALF HOUR-long interview for Mac Power Users.

It is reeeeeeeeally nerdy. Almost intolerably nerdy. Just…overwhelmingly nerdy.

But, man, is it ever really good, and really fat with the most insanely granular details of How I Work.

Lo, even these 928.5 days after officially retiring from productivity pr0n, my desire to not "vend stroke material for your joyless addiction to puns about procrastination and systems for generating more taxonomically satisfying meta-work" is tempered by a (widely under-reported) practical streak.

Yes: I continue to despise empty advice about rearranging deck chairs on The Titanic. But, yes: I do also still very much enjoy talking about how all the tips and tricks can or can't work in the context of work you care about. That matters. It really does.


So. Here goes. A one hundred and forty six minute-long, Joyce-ian amble through the Big Stuff and the Little Stuff. David and Katie were very patient.

How I name text files. Why I break iOS apps. Why I love the letter "x." Why I won't row out to islands any more. How a 115,000 word book manuscript is "like a house full of confederate money." How "The Cloud" broke in New Zealand. How I use MultiMarkdown, Scrivener, TextExpander, OmniFocus, TextMate, Notational Velocity, Dropbox, and an explosive combination of Elements, Notesy, Nebulous, Simplenote, CF Outliner, iThoughts, Instacast, Good Reader, and wow wow wow.

How I try not to fiddle—how I sometimes succeed and often don't. But, how I try.

Anyhow. There you go. A perfectly nerdy bookend to last year's first Magnum Opus MPU interview on these same topics, Mac Power Users Episode 46 is just insanely nerdy. And, what have you.

I hope you like it. I hope it's useful. I hope you don't use it to replace real work.

And, as ever, I really hope Batgirl starts having more sexy pillow fights.

Enjoy. And, God save you.


MPU 046: Workflows with Merlin Mann II « Mac Power Users

  • Download MP3
  • Huffduff It

”Nerdiest Interview Ever: MPU Workflows Part II” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on March 27, 2011. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"


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JUST IN: Actress and leader of #MeToo movement accuses Bill Maher of sexually harassing her

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:35:19 +0000

The DML News App offers the best in news reporting.

The post JUST IN: Actress and leader of #MeToo movement accuses Bill Maher of sexually harassing her appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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VIDEO: AG Barr criticizes Mueller’s handling of Steele dossier

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:50:00 +0000

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The post VIDEO: AG Barr criticizes Mueller’s handling of Steele dossier appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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REPORT: Recent documents reveal number of Secret Service agents with COVID-19

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:57:28 +0000

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The post REPORT: Recent documents reveal number of Secret Service agents with COVID-19 appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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BREAKING: Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:20:36 +0000

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The post BREAKING: Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87 appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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REPORT: Governor criticized over highest nursing home death toll

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:34:32 +0000

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The post REPORT: Governor criticized over highest nursing home death toll appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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VIDEO: GOP senator says China made ‘conscious decision’ to allow COVID-19 to spread beyond border

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:53:12 +0000

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The post VIDEO: GOP senator says China made ‘conscious decision’ to allow COVID-19 to spread beyond border appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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BREAKING: FDA issues emergency authorization for first coronavirus antigen test

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 17:05:45 +0000

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The post BREAKING: FDA issues emergency authorization for first coronavirus antigen test appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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REPORT: Obama rips Trump over coronavirus in private call

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 17:08:39 +0000

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The post REPORT: Obama rips Trump over coronavirus in private call appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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REPORT: US slams new restrictions on journalists from this country

By dennismichaellynch.com
Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 17:23:28 +0000

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The post REPORT: US slams new restrictions on journalists from this country appeared first on Dennis Michael Lynch.


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Death toll hits 25 in Simcoe Muskoka as senior's facilities continue to struggle with virus

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 15:58:00 -0400

A woman in her 90s living at the Bradford Valley Care Community is the latest coronavirus victim in the region.


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Woman, 70, airlifted in serious condition after car collides with transport truck in Huntsville

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 12:35:00 -0400


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'Everybody around here is dying,' Shelburne retirement home devastated by outbreak

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 17:17:00 -0400

The Shelburne Retirement Residence has been devastated by an outbreak of COVID-19, with 90 per cent of its residents becoming infected.


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Ontario invests $1.5 million in supportive housing for Muskoka's most vulnerable residents

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 13:59:19 -0400

The province is investing $1.5 million to support a housing project in Muskoka to help people with no place to call home.


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Bradford boy with sweet intentions sparks missing person search

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 11:51:29 -0400

An eight-year-old boy with good intentions sparked a missing person search on Tuesday.


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Alliston Honda plant to resume production with new safety protocols on production lines

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 12:06:03 -0400

After seven weeks, Honda Canada in Alliston will gradually begin operations next week.


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Human remains found in Mulmur Township confirmed to be missing Caledon senior

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 13:11:00 -0400

Human remains located in Mulmur Township in March have been confirmed to be those of an 88-year-old Caledon man who was reported missing seven months ago.


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Bells sound across Barrie to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 17:29:51 -0400

Church bells rang out across the city of Barrie on Friday morning to commemorate the anniversary of the Victory in Europe Day on Friday.


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K9 unit discovers human remains in search for missing Meaford man

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Thu, 7 May 2020 20:32:00 -0400

Grey Bruce provincial police say the OPP canine unit found human remains in Meaford, and one person is under arrest.


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Local health unit credits public with slowing COVID spread, encourages cottagers to stay home

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 16:50:00 -0400

While infection rates remain steady across the region, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is reporting more than half of all 360 cases have now recovered.


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Community support for front-line workers and caregivers 'means so much'

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 19:33:27 -0400

Nurses, PSWs, and front-line workers in long-term care and retirement homes have been dealing with the full reality of this pandemic every day.


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Mother Nature blankets parts of Muskoka with spring snowfall

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 15:03:52 -0400

The calendar may say May, but that didn't stop Mother Nature from blasting some wintry weather in Muskoka on Friday.


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Garden centres and nurseries reopen to lineups of anxious customers

By barrie.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 18:47:38 -0400

The Ontario government gave garden centres and nurseries the green light to open their doors to the public on Friday.


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Police find 8-foot boa constrictor while investigating Oppenheimer Park fight

By bc.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 18:36:00 -0700

Police officers responding to a call about a man with a machete in Oppenheimer Park Friday afternoon found what they were looking for, and then some.


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Too soon? B.C. workers, employers struggle with thorny reopening issues

By bc.ctvnews.ca
Published On :: Fri, 8 May 2020 19:06:00 -0700

As British Columbians digest the implications in the steps the premier announced in reopening the province's economy, some residents have come to the conclusion they’re too much too soon.


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