Tag Archives: productivity

Tech Support: Five Programs That Helped Me Git ‘Er Done

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My sister-in-law is writing her dissertation and Facebooked the other day, “Do you suppose I could thank ‘lattes’ in the acknowledgements?” I told her that I almost listed Evernote in the acknowledgements of my book, but decided against it.

In lieu of that, here are the software programs and technological marvels that helped me get the book written. Consider this the “tech acknowledgements” for Sabbath in the Suburbs:

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The pomodoro technique: OK, this is more of a concept than a program, although it does require a timer. The idea is simple: work for a specific amount of time (e.g. 25 minutes), then take a break for a (shorter) period of time (e.g. 5 minutes). That’s it. If you’re prone to goofing off or procrastination, it’s great because a break is never more than 25 minutes away. If you’re a raging perfectionist who has a hard time getting started because it can all be immaculate in your head, pomodoro helps you hack your brain: I’m not writing a book, I’m just working for 25 minutes. No big deal.

Of course you can download the book to learn more, or buy the cute tomato-shaped timer, but really, what more do you need?

I wrote major sections of the book using a modified pomodoro. Consider it a very practical way of living out Anne Lamott’s “bird by bird” idea, which you can read about here. Or E.L. Doctorow’s bit about how writing a book is like driving at night: you can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way.

Wondering how you could write an entire book? Do it in 25 minute chunks.

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Self Control: Self Control allows you to block websites (and apparently e-mail servers) for whatever amount of time you specify. I use this program every weekend during tech sabbath but also on days when I’m feeling like that dog from Pixar’s Up. SQUIRREL!!

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Social media: yes, the big two can be major black holes of time, but they are also great places to test ideas, take informal polls, and even get grammatical reality checks (is it “any of us is” or “any of us are“?). Blogging is also great for these things, of course.

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Things: Things is the to-do list I use for everything, not just for the book. It’s intuitive, it’s elegant, and it jibes with Getting Things Done methodology, though you don’t need to be a GTD disciple to use it. There’s an iPhone app as well, and as of this month, the new version includes Cloud Sync so you no longer have to sync your devices manually. So far, so good.

I used the to-do list to break down the book project into manageable chunks. I do this with every writing project and it helps me maintain forward momentum. Sometimes the tasks are tiny (brainstorm for 15 minutes, print out scripture passages for exegetical article) but those are perfect for an otherwise busy day.

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Evernote: Even if I hadn’t said it in my first paragraph, c’mon, you knew that was coming. I wrote the book entirely in Evernote. First I collected my information (research, anecdotes, quotable quotes) into a series of notebooks. Then I started writing short vignettes and sketches of scenes. Those evernotes became whole chapters as I realized how effortless it was to write in that program.

Writing in Evernote has many advantages:

  1. It’s in the cloud, which offers an additional layer of security and peace of mind.
  2. There’s a note history, which means you can look at past versions of notes without saving versions using crazy names like “chapter 3 REALLY NEW version 2.”
  3. It’s very fast and autosaves constantly, unlike that behemoth Microsoft Word.
  4. It has all the basic formatting you need (italics, etc.).

All that said, there are two pretty big drawbacks:

  1. Evernote for Mac does NOT have word count, which I’ve bugged them about repeatedly. So every so often I’d dump a chapter into Word and see how I was doing. It’s not a big deal, and my publisher required the manuscript in Word anyway, but I wanted to mention it. (I understand that Evernote for PC has this feature. Where is the justice? How long, O Lord?)
  2. While there is basic formatting, it does not do smart quotes. Yeah, that’s big. But once I put the doc in Word, I did a global replace and the quotes came through fine. Besides, once you’ve gotten the thing written you should be editing your work with a fine-tooth comb anyway, right? Dumb quotes help keep you on your toes.

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So thank you to all the product managers, programmers, engineers, QA people, etc. who put these programs together. You made my job easier.

Incidentally, just today I saw this list of alternatives to Microsoft Word. Can’t vouch for them but I’ll be taking a look.

What technological marvels help you do what you do?

Get-It-Done Book Review… and Giveaway!

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See below for a chance to get free stuff in the mail! Yay! Free stuff!

Being busy is a form of laziness-lazy thinking and indiscriminate action… Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant.

-Timothy Ferris, The Four Hour Workweek

I’m a bit addicted to time-management books, but their quality, usefulness and readability are all over the map. I read Ferris’s book and got a couple of things out of it, including the above quote which is brilliant IMO, but overall the book just didn’t hit home with me.

I recently found a new book that embodies the quote above and is actually fun to read. Stever Robbins has a personal productivity podcast (say that five times fast) and has put his best stuff into a book, The Get-It-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.

Robbins’s book blends a lot of high level thinking (what are your goals?) with nitty-gritty techniques for being more productive (here’s one: to keep from getting distracted when working a project, make an “interruption list” of things to tend to when you’re done with what you’re working on). His chapter on procrastination has a lot of practical suggestions and is a great complement to Anne Lamott’s angst-ridden meditation on the subject in Bird by Bird. And chapter 1, “Live on Purpose,” deals with goal setting in a very intuitive way. I’ve never really gotten the “vision/ mission/ goal/ objective” distinction, and his stuff on “goal ladders” is simple and makes sense to me.

Robbins also has a great sense of humor. This may be the only time-management book in which zombies play a prominent role. In a section on e-mail, he talks about templates and macros as a way to streamline your communication:

Let’s say your boss has you saying no to a dozen different requests each day: a dog show invitation, a request for money, and someone claiming to be a long-lost child, asking to be added to the will.

Those are pretty different. You want to respond to each individually, but your responses can have paragraphs in common. All might start like this: “Mr. Boss appreciates your letter. Your tragic plight is touching.” Then you add a paragraph or two crushing that person’s hopes and dreams, and you finish up with, “Mr. Boss regrets that he can’t do more for your deeply troubling situation.”

Some of the latter chapters get more theoretical, and the one on building relationships seemed a little utilitarian. Yes, building a network does help you be more productive, but part of my job is to love people whether they can be useful to me or not. Still, it’s worth a read if for no other reason than that he takes that treacly starfish story (you know the one) and gives it a much-needed twist.

This would be a great book for a young person starting out in a career who really wants to get their life together, although others would find it valuable too. (No book of this genre is going to work on people who don’t want to change or who can’t see the need.) It’s a quick read, with several novel suggestions for working smarter.

And! Because I love hearing tips on how other people make their life work, leave your favorite lifehack/best idea in the comments. On Monday I’ll choose someone at random and send them a copy of the Get-It-Done Guy book.