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Today through Saturday: Merlin's Advanced OmniFocus Demo (MacWorld Booth #760)
I’ll have a more proper Monthly Pimp on-deck here soon, but – time being of the essence here – I wanted to make sure and extend an invitation for something I’ll be doing in town today.
If you’re one of my nerdy band of brothers who’s in San Francisco this week for MacWorld, please do come visit me between 1:30 and 2:30 (today, Friday, and Saturday), at the giant, glistening, Oz-like Omni Group booth (#760).
As below (via), I’ll be blowing minds and curling shorties with some of the most advanced-level, post-doc OmniFocus fu that I know. And, as is my wont, I’ll also be sharing some of the deeper mojo that explains why OF was built the way it was (read: why it’s so [ugh.] ‘complicated’), and how you can choose to leverage that functionality in building a personalized and friction-free workflow. And, yeah, while I’ll certainly be touching on the connections with GTD, the big focus will be on thinking about how to support that phrase Ethan and I came up with so many years ago:
Always focus on shortening the path from cognition to completion.
Love that. Pretty much sums up my take on the whole productivity game in one sentence.
Me? I’ll be easy enough to recognize today – I’m the one with the throwing stars in my gi and the sandalfoot pantyhose1 on his head.
from the Omni Group’s post:
Merlin Mann: Advanced Secrets of the Omnifocus NinjaThursday through Saturday afternoons from 1:30-2:30pm, Merlin Mann (43 Folders, MacBreak Weekly, You Look Nice Today) will stealthily rappel into the Omni Group’s booth (#760) to demonstrate the arcane and deadly methods of the OmniFocus Ninja. Long thought by many to be an elaborate myth or hoax, these ancient productivity moves unlock the hidden power of Omni’s award-winning task management app.
Working the bookmarklet
Friction-free task management right from your iPhoneTricking-out your Perspectives
Slice and dice your work into perfect-sized cubesNovel uses for on-hold projects
Out of sight means out-of-mind — until you need itLocation, Location, Location!
Using the power of location-awareness in your contextsBONUS: Five more tiny OmniFocus tricks almost nobody knows about
(seeeeeekr1t!)
Hope to see you there!
Come. Love. Booth. Okay?And, yes, I the Titular Ninja also really hope to see you and your neckbeard in ole 760 today.
Because, seriously? Don’t be that guy who hangs back and doesn’t come up and say “hi” like a person. You must introduce yourself and high-five or shake hands or take a picture of us frenching or whatever. I don’t want to see a bunch of toots about how you almost came up. Don’t be that Lizard Brain guy, right? Exactly.2
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Noooooo….I’m not actually wearing sandalfoot pantyhose on my heard. Everybody knows real ninjas wear taupe Sheer Energy® Control Top L’eggs®. ↩
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Well. Frankly, we don’t have to french. That’s just what we in the industry call “a value add.” If you want, you can just learn to become insanely productive, then go drink with Gruber, Moltz, Seoulbrother, and the rest of the Dream Team. (That’s what I’ll be doing, anyhow) ↩
”Today through Saturday: Merlin's Advanced OmniFocus Demo (MacWorld Booth #760)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 11, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
First, care.
Asked and answered by the wonderful Frank Chimero:
Anonymous asked: ‘How do you maintain focus (on work, dreams, goals, life)?’
You do one thing at a time.
You might be amazed how many times–and over how many years–a given person can ask this same simple question, hear that same simple response, and still find themselves casting about for the great and arcane “secret” to achieving real focus.
But, this is pretty much it. Mostly.
Although, I must add one important “Step Zero,” borne of my own tedious experience.
Before you sweat the logistics of focus: first, care. Care intensely.
Specifically, if you discover, in frustration, that you’re pathologically incapable of doing one thing at a time, consider the possibility that you’ve been unknowingly trying to “focus” on two, twenty, or twenty thousand disparate things that you don’t really care that much about. Just consider it.
Because, in the absence of caring, you’ll never focus on anything more than your lack of focus. Think about it.
Think about those times when you really disappeared into challenging work. You had to tear yourself away, right?
Because, during those happy times you were fortunate enough to find yourself engaged with something that you cared intensely about, you probably started asking a really different sort of question.
A more transitive, muscular question that shows you own the attention that others may see as a bowl full of complimentary Jolly Ranchers, free for the grabbing.
That’s when you ask,
How many things do I need to shed, cancel, defer, drop, shank, or shit-can with extreme prejudice in order to singlemindedly focus on this one thing that I love?
In my experience (yes, as I said, hard-won experience), obsessing over the slipperiness of focus, bemoaning the volume of those devil “distractions,” and constantly reassessing which shiny new “system” might make your life suddenly seem more sensible–these are all terrifically useful warning flares that you may be suffering from a deeper, more fundamental problem.
Where’s the care?For as long as you know in your heart that what you’re making or doing matters, and, consequently, for as long as you accept and embrace the immutable laws of scarcity, your options for maintaining focus will, like Frank’s perfect answer, remain stunningly obvious.
You “focus” on the one thing you care about, as you “unfocus” on everything else. If not for every minute of your life, at least for the time you set aside to pursue the thing that matters.
If that sounds fancy and oversimplified, then you “care” about too many things. Period.
My suggestion? Own your distractions, resist fiddly half-measures, and never for a minute allow yourself to believe that productivity systems, space pens, or a writing app that plays new age music while you stare at a blank page in full-screen mode can ever teach you anything about how to care.
That’s all on you.
So, first, care. Then, as you’ll happily and unavoidably discover, all that “focus” business has a peculiar way of taking care of itself.
”First, care.” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 05, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
Mark Pilgrim, On *Really* Writing
I’m a three-time (soon to be four-time) published author. When aspiring authors learn this, they invariably ask what word processor I use. It doesn’t fucking matter!
[…]
Picking the right text editor will not make you a better writer. Writing will make you a better writer. Writing, and editing, and publishing, and listening – really listening – to what people say about your writing.
As I said in that interview with Seth Godin, most people are taken way aback when they unknowingly receive the advice they really need — rather than the advice that’s just fun to listen to. Well, guess what, Fiddly McMaybewriter? Mark’s your new coach, so get ready to run some bleachers.
I don’t always agree with Mark (oh, brother, don’t I), but I’ve always really admired his candor and fearlessness in speaking his mind about the stuff that really matters to him. In this instance, I double admire him for publicly challenging the crap myths of creativity pr0n that create way more fake barriers than books.
Like Mark said, the art here is to combine a thick skin with open ears and a great filter. Because, the real growth opportunities come from getting outside your own head and hearing what people really think of your work:
Learn how to respond to constructive criticism and filter out the trolls, and you can write the next great American novel in edlin.
Heh — edlin.
Also, do be sure to read Mark’s whole UseThis interview (one of which Waferbaby and I are working on for me, as well). It’s a great insight into how arriving at a streamlined, bullshit-free setup could make one guy hope to use precisely the same setup for the next 20 years. Super-interesting.
[via]
”Mark Pilgrim, On *Really* Writing” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 01, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
Admin: Pardon My Dust (On Many Levels)
Forgive the site some hiccups over the next few days. After what feels like decades of neglect (read: ugh, book), I’m happy to say I’ll be returning to occasional 43f posting this week.
Easy tiger: no promises on volume one way or another. Still the same slacker; just trying a little harder, y’know? Exactly.
Oooo, shinyAnyhow, I’m tweaking or adding a few site features over the next few days, including, by popular demand, the return of Remaindered Links, which, in its day, was one of the most popular things on the site. Plus, frankly I’ve missed having a place to put that stuff, and my Tumblr friends are probably getting sick of all that fiddly productivity crap landing in their dashboard.
So, bear with me, and thanks – both in advance and in retrospect – for your patience with me. This week I shall mercilessly pound my Drupal install with a very large crescent wrench until interesting words fall out and land with a productive THUD in your RSS reader. Fingers crossed.
[Also, “Hi.” I’ve missed you.]
Busy, Busy, Busy”Admin: Pardon My Dust (On Many Levels)” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 01, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
`Nerdgasm.txt` - Notational Velocity Now Syncs with Simplenote
Notational Velocity - Version 2.0β2 Release Notes
Two of the best things on my Mac now sync programmatically and without the need for either spit or baling wire— that means syncing with “the cloud,” syncing with my iPhone (App Store link), and, by extension, syncing with every computer I own via the game-changing Dropbox. Yes. Big.
If you live in text files and crave seamless, no-brainer syncing (that doesn’t require growing a neckbeard), that little icon represents a milestone in the evolution of simple, low-friction workflows.
[via Fletcher, whose SimplenoteSync.pl has been a godsend in the interim]
”`Nerdgasm.txt` - Notational Velocity Now Syncs with Simplenote” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on February 01, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
43 Folders - Interview with "Linchpin" author, Seth Godin
43 Folders - Interview with “Linchpin” author, Seth Godin (audio mp3, free on iTunes)
I talk with Seth Godin, whose new book, Linchpin (Kindle, Hardcover, Worldcat, ISBN), comes out today. Topics include, “The Lizard Brain,” Bob Dylan, protecting the well, and beating back the fear and resistance that drive mediocrity.
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- Episode details
- The Linchpin Posts on Squidoo
- Get Linchpin:
By the way, here’s Seth’s lizard brain video mentioned in this episode:
Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain on Vimeo
”43 Folders - Interview with "Linchpin" author, Seth Godin” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 26, 2010. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
Enough
Seth’s Blog: What Matters Now: get the free ebook
A few months ago, Seth Godin asked about 70 people to talk about a word or phrase related to their own idea of What Matters Now. He collected them all into one big ol’ file, and now you can download a PDF of all those contributions, including pieces by folks like Elizabeth Gilbert, Kevin Kelly, Steven Pressfield, and, improbably enough, yours truly.
My essay’s called, Enough.
EnoughSometimes, I forget to eat lunch. So, 3:30 arrives, and I attack an infant-sized hillock of greasy takeout. I inhale it, scarcely breathing, a condemned man with minutes ‘til dawn.
Two minutes after stopping, yes; I feel like I’m going to die. Filled with regret and shrimp-induced torpor, I groan the empty promise of the glutton: “never again.”
What happened? How’d I miss when I’d had enough?
I wonder the same thing about folks who check for new email every 5 minutes, follow 5,000 people on Twitter, or try to do anything sane with 500 RSS feeds.
Some graze unlimited bowls of information by choice. Others claim it’s a necessity of remaining employed, landing sales, or “staying in the loop.” Could be. What about you?
How do you know when you’ve had “enough?”
Not everything, all the time, completely, forever. Just enough. Enough to start, finish, or simply maintain.
Unfortunately, foodbabies only appear after it’s too late. And, if your satiety’s gauged solely by whether the buffet’s still open, you’re screwed. Like the hypothalamus-damaged rat, you’ll eat until you die.
Before the next buffet trip, consider asking, “How do I know what I need to know — just for now?”
Then savor every bite.
Wanna read more of these? Download the PDF of What Matters Now, or view it here using this squirrely widget from that totally annoying Scribd site.
”Enough” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on December 14, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"
