This text is a sort of “spin-off” from my previous post “Productivity the Spartan way”, which was about my experience using a vintage computer (God bless it). Now, having spent some time back in my century, I’d like to share with you some of the enhancements I brought with me and a few general considerations that you might find useful for your personal productivity. There are zillions of lifehacking hints and tips in Internet, but I thought maybe a sort of mixed-up and non-exhaustive post on the issue could be nice.
By “keeping your brain at hand” I mean: not allowing technology to interpose between you and what you want to do. Finding the shortest way between what’s in your head and the desired result. Making a course as linear as possible through the dreary valley of opportunity costs and the paradox of choice. Computers are designed to diverge. It’s in their nature. But there is no freedom without limitation. The most useful tricks my experience has taught me (or forced me into) are:
Basic premise: squeeze to the extent the most simple of configurations
As I mentioned in the other post, using a very limited equipment is not for lazy minds. It puts you in motion. What I found out, and I hope I don’t forget now, is that it is better to have a few, well sharpened tools, of which you have an intimate knowledge, than adding application after application or widget after widget every time a different task comes in your way. I’m sure you know what an excess of widgets can do to your attention/productivity.
In our days, sadly, it is still very usual to find people with a very superficial knowledge of their own programs. People who go through blood, sweat and tears when they have to find an option that is hidden two or more menus deep. I’m sure you all have an acquaintance at job or a brother-in-law who is like that. They usually face the whole experience with a a mixture of anxiety and forbidden profanation and, when they happen succeed, a grin in their faces reflecting both their huge feeling of achievement and the hope not to ever, ever have to go through that again. Paradoxically, this kind of people is more bound to be victim of the mermaid chants of widgets and eye candy.
Certain inventions cannot be improved, only fattened (books have been for centuries the instant example; “Kindle, Kindle!”, I hear you say now, but, is it an improved book, or a completely different thing?). Web browsers, in spite of appearances, belong to this category too. All you can do is make more things happen at the same time, but what’s the use? Human attention has a limit.
The power of home page
Home page in web browsers is usually a perfect nightmare for brothers-in-law. Which is a shame because flexibility with this option is essential. I wonder if programmers ever use their own programs: it is not an optional flash animation of a dancing frog I am asking here, it is a decent degree of control upon the first thing you want to see when you open your browser. I think it should not be hidden behind two keyboard shortcuts and several mouse clicks.
Due to such obscure reasons (do they ever use their own programs?), it requires a previous training period, but once you learn to change its contents with ease, there are a lot of uses for your home page. For example, as an “alive” reading or to-do list: if there is a series of webs that you want to visit later, instead of hiding them in some obscure bookmarks list, put them as tabs in your home page and then bookmark all of them together. It will also let you to know, at a single glance, how tall is your pile.
Some services, like netvibes or pageflakes, have realized the power of home pages, and do this kind of gathering for you in a sort of “industrial” way. They are good at what they do, and an alternative if you don’t share my vintage/widget-less mentality. (And if you have a powerful connection, too, because they are still a bit slow to load).
The power of initial applications
Even if the application you use daily takes only 0.2 additional seconds to open, switching on your computer and seeing it pop up by itself will have an important psychological impact on you: the underlying impression you get is that THAT is the precise purpose of your machine, so you have to work at it, there is nowhere to run to. A really good remedy against procrastination. Having to press the required icon, that 0.2 secs additional shortcut, adds a new uncertainty to a system that has too many, and, no matter how good is your procedure, there might come a circumstance in which you forget to press that icon or key shortcut. This works the same as David Allen’s advice of writing phone numbers close to their corresponding list items -it would only take you a few seconds to check those numbers, but those seconds can make the difference between procrastinating and making the call.
Take e-mail, for instance. Regarding e-mail, there are two kinds of beings: those who find hard to be more than a quarter of hour away from it, and those who find hard checking it more often than weekly (each of those groups finds the other one aberrant). The second ones will find really helpful having the email program open by itself, even if their first reaction during months is still closing it as fast as possible. Now replace e-mail in the equation with your most dreaded/loathed task. Presumably, it will change with time, so it is also wise to dominate your OS’ system to set initial applications.
And by the way, of course you know it, but it is always good going back to the basics: never wait for a boot or even a progress bar to complete… go to a different thing, it is YOU who make IT wait, make the computer know who’s in charge here…
Why do you think the most important options are always buried out of sight? Are you widget addicted? Do you have any original using for your home page?
Related posts:
Keep your brain at hand (part 2)
Productivity the Spartan way
Reach for the moon, but start with your (two) shoelaces
The GTD First Aid Kit (and 4)
The GTD First Aid kit (Part 3)