Category Archives: Organizing Infrastructure

See the thinking

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Source: http://www.reunitingall.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/thinking_outside_the_box.jpg

Introduction:

I’m an enthusiastic consumer of cheap book alerts from BookBub.com. One recent $1.99 Kindle book I am thoroughly enjoying is Every Patient Tells a Story, by Lisa Sanders MD. Sanders came to medicine by way of covering mostly medicine news, mostly for CBS (Kindle L274).  Chapter 2 opens with a description of “the doyenne of diagnostic dilemmas,” Dr. Faith Fitzgerald, working through a diagnosis in front of a packed conference audience of enthusiastic MDs. When Fitzgerald does not correctly diagnose the first case in a “stump the professor session” Sanders asks “Aren’t you disappointed that she got it wrong?” (L660, p. 26) the responses that come back are “No way. This is about the process..” and “I didn’t come for the answer, I came to see the thinking.”

GTD hook:

Seeing the thinking is the best thing about Getting Things Done, for me. The anchors of GTD:

All take the raw materials of thought, and pre-process them in some way. Allowing pre-thoughts to be captured, tamed, pre-digested, and gradually fit together. 3×5 cards capture ideas in a way that makes ideas modular.  That is, easily connected and rearranged with other ideas. Rough organizing allows me to explore how ideas fit together, seeing both local and global optima, in a pre-argument form. So that by the time I am laying out arguments step by step, with a word processor, the “under brush” of local optima, have been cleared. No more throwing out a laboriously produced draft, because it “has gone out of focus,” no more writer’s block.

What tricks have you found, to help you “see the thinking” in your work? Share in comments please?

bill meade [email protected]

An update on Evernote, after about a decade part 2

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Introduction:

Evernote is great. = an anecdote. The plural of anecdote is “data” and purpose of this article is to analyze the data on my Evernote journey, out loud and share the impressions of value in use over time.

Member since May 2008 (119 calendar months), but did not start adding notes to Evernote until July 2009 when I listened to the passage of GETTING THINGS DONE covered in the previous post. So I’ve been an active user of Evernote for 105 months of the 119 months I’ve had an Evernote subscription. After my “Aha! I should use Evernote as my reference fling system!” I broke my 14 month string of zero captured notes. Here is a raw time series:

Here are the data by month. October to February is moving time (5 times in 10 years) where I scan like crazy to recycle paper and avoid moving atoms. Bits are lighter. 

Notes By Month
Month Max of EverNotes/Mo Average of EverNotes/Mo Count of Mon
Jan 542 260 10
Feb 906 243 10
Mar 381 192 10
Apr 369 167 10
May 600 187 11
Jun 458 152 11
Jul 637 186 11
Aug 464 174 11
Sep 364 149 11
Oct 1,260 382 11
Nov 808 206 11
Dec 1,173 487 11

In earlier years, before Evernote went to a 10 GB upload limit per month, I could scan more documents than I could upload in a month. So for 2011 I was waiting until the end of the month, then uploading as many documents as I could. Evernote for a while then, allowed me to buy more uploading capacity, and I did that several times.

Notes By Year
Year Max of EverNotes/Mo Average of EverNotes/Mo Count of Mon
2009 464 147 12
2010 1,090 139 12
2011 1,260 328 12
2012 1,177 291 12
2013 238 128 12
2014 906 316 12
2015 222 150 12
2016 808 260 12
2017 1,012 284 12
2018 440 382 12
Avg. Notes By Month and Year
EverNotes/Mo Year
Mon 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Jan 68 542 276 165 113 132 238 370 440
Feb 61 71 110 88 906 216 219 194 323
Mar 53 381 184 117 179 154 255 216
Apr 27 65 118 100 369 208 154 298
May 46 37 120 132 600 138 132 290
Jun 31 68 109 167 458 124 118 140
Jul 165 20 98 637 165 139 142 149 155
Aug 464 15 50 311 94 222 57 120 234
Sep 36 18 137 174 100 364 130 242 143
Oct 10 25 1,260 1,177 238 228 157 160 183
Nov 127 212 56 163 81 127 116 808 167
Dec 80 1,090 1,173 111 84 91 222 522 1,012

How to track how many notes you have by Month in Evernote. Expand this image:

Trick #1 is to set the Evernote client to “Snippet view” so that you see the monthly note totals, and Trick #2, is to type “created:YYYYMMDD” in the search dialog. Evernote will then show you all the notes since the date you entered. So to find all the notes since 20100101 (the example above) you type in created:20100101 and then look at the top of the notes list, for the count for the month. I regenerated the notes count from scratch for this post (long ago I could count by hand!) 10 years is 120 data points. Easy.

  • Three “I likes” for Evernote:
    • The web clipper add in for web browser is great, the single most important thing for new Evernote users to do, is to install WebClipper.
      • But web clipper does not always work. Internet formats are ever changing and WebClipper is always a little behind. But web clipper alone makes Evernote worth the investment.
    • Evernote allows reference files to be wherever you have a computer.
    • I love using OneNote and Evernote together. This drives my friends a Microsoft a little crazy, but I don’t see Evernote and OneNote as competitors.
  • Three “I wishes” for Evernote:
    • Evernote had an imaginative simulated note metaphor.
      • If you’ve seen the HP Sprout demo videos on Youtube, they have an interface for graphics that is projector/touchpad based:

and I wish that Evernote had this kind of interface to manipulate notes

  • Three “I wishes” continued:
    • Evernote had a cross between data validation, and hard drive defrag.
      • I’m almost 100% PDFs stored in Evernote, and it *feels* to me after using Evernote after a decade, that PDFs have a tendency to multiply like rabbits. Cloned rabbits. Multiple copies over time.
      • I have lost notes, and figured out that the notes were lost a few times over the past 10 years (the “shepherd’s pie recipe debacle of 2015”), but mostly, I just have to trust Evernote.
    • For high quality Android clients
      • Evernote is worth having on a phone so you can capture picture notes. But don’t try any heavy lifting.
      • On Kindle Fires of recent vintage, Evernote android app is un-useful. Kindle Fires just do not have the storage capacity (even with a 128 GB memory card) or CPU speed to manage Evernote.

billm

Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade! - Part 3 Back of the iMac

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Introduction:

GTD Desk 5.0 with 2017 iMac

The first post on this blog, 2011/12/31 GTD Desk 2.0, had as its centerfold, a 2008 24″ iMac on a monitor arm with a hideous array of accessories mounted out of sight. Flashback:

2008 24" iMac on VESA adapter (anyone want the VESA adapter?)

The purpose of this post is to update post 001 (today’s post is 185) over seven years, and two iMac generations.The previous two posts on GTD Desk 5.0 covered desk resurfacing, and a sit/stand upgrade.

However, in addition to these upgrades, I have also graciously accepted Apple’s offer to take my money for a new iMac (first full iMac refresh in 6 years!) when I bought a 2017 iMac. The 5.0 update adds an external DVD drive on the left, with a 4 port USB hub, a board which allows speakers to be mounted to the iMac stand, and kept for the most part, out of sight.

Finally, on the right is a cardboard box that holds blank 3×5 cards to keep one piece of paper, available to capture ideas. The entire iMac back, remains a hideous melange of cables, cables, cables. But, I don’t care, I don’t have to look at them. Out of sight, out of mind … like water. :-) 
The best innovation of GTD Desk 5.0 is mounting of speakers up behind the iMac screen, angled down, to bounce sound off the desk almost invisibly. Step 1 bolt the speakers to board, step 2, tack the board to the iMac stand with two wide headed screws. 
Step 3 mount audio control on the base of the iMac, to make practical use of the impregnable iMac stand. Alas. But, mount a sound control on the base, and you can at least get SOME use out of it. 
 Why not use the stand integrated into iMacs? Simple, because I need a desk, not a giant monitor stand. If you don’t have your monitors floating free, you don’t have a desk that can do rough organizing.

The final upgrade to GTD Desk 5.0 is the addition of the Jabra 510 speakerphone to the lower left hand corner of the iMac. With Google Voice and the Jabra, I have at long last recycled my office phone. More clear desk space!

bill meade

Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade! - Part 2 Sit/Stand

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Before:

Fixed Height Desk - (Modified) Galant Conference Table from IKEA

After: 

https://www.standdesk.co/

After starting a new job in January 2017, I discovered the awesomeness of sit/stand desks. And since I was moving, and had the Perfect GTD Desk V4 in pieces, I decided to replace the fixed height legs with a sit/stand mechanism.

Most important = lift capacity of the mechanism, second most important = cost. Searching the internet while the moving van was crossing the country, I found StandDesk which has a 350 pound lifting capacity, and cost $429 delivered. I ordered my StandDesk from Amazon.com but alas, Amazon no longer sells StandDesk mechanisms.

Fear not, StandDesk sells the bases now for $399 without top. The telescoping mechanism is different, but no worries, the lift capacity increased from 350 to 400 pounds.

Why does lift capacity matter? Because I hang a 27″ 2017 iMac from an arm, iMacs weigh one pound per diagonal inch of screen size, so the iMac with USB hub, Bose speakers mounted hidden, along with the floor tile re-covering of the desk, Scanner on the desk, and heavy computer building projects, make me want max lift capacity.

After After:

The work surface has a minimum height of 24.5″ and a maximum height of 50″ which is way more flexibility than my at-work sit/stand desk.

Next post will be “Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade! - Part 3 Back of the iMac” where I reveal how I finally moved my speakers out of sight, without impairing sound. Two bolts, four screws, one piece of wood, and ZAP, sight-lines clear.

Bill Meade

 

Perfect GTD Desk V5.0 Upgrade!

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Before:

The converted Ikea Conference Table GTD desk has been looking ragged, ever since I plugged the pre-cut trap door cut-out. I’ve been meaning to recover the desk for years, but three moves in three years = no veneer. Instead of veneer, I decided two weeks ago, I was sick of being in a GTD slump. So I went to Home Depot and found an inexpensive peel and stick solution. Bricolage, does not look cheap, but was = $30.

After:

What I found was 1′ x 2′ sheets of flooring, peel and stick flooring. And in an afternoon I re-covered the Ikea table with industrial stone.

I cut 3/4″ x 12″ pieces of flooring to edge band the desk, and nailed the strips on with finishing nails to insure adhesion. The floor tile has added about 50 pounds of weight to the desk, and made it more stable. A surprise.

The flooring is enough tougher than wood, that I do not have to flinch when I put a heavy object on the desk. I liked the look so well that I bought a second box of tiles and have been resurfaced my side unit.

Side Unit Before:

The top of the side unit actually looked more like the moon surface, with drywall screw craters where the previous configuration of organizers were anchored.

Side Unit After:

The stand at top left is an inverted iMac stand, with the flooring trimmed around the footprint. This will be a table for my label printer in the current evolution of the perfect GTD desk.

Bill Meade

GTD in Overcoming Adversity

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Introduction:

Came across an awesome post on overcoming adversity on Hacker News (http://news.ycombinator.com) this morning. Here is the original question:

And here is the first response up when I looked at this thread:

Wow, I wish I’d written this! I’ve touched up against the edge of saying this before (About Fear, Scroll down to Stations, and GTD System Notable). But when you read the above answer, and think “What would David Allen think of this?” to my mind *ka-ching* I think “David Allen would emphatically agree!”

bill meade (from Traverse City, MI)

What is “clear working space” on a desk? Involuntary Clutter Makeover for RandsInRepose.com

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Source: RandsInRepose.com’s CAVE ESSENTIALS

Introduction:

I’m still reflecting on RandsInRepose.com’s CAVE ESSENTIALS post. And while I think Rands has the perfect idea about the job of a desk:

“A desk’s job is to build productivity, and for me, it achieves this by first providing an immense amount of clear working space.”

I don’t think Rand’s desk meets his criteria. Why? Because:

  1. Rand’s desk is neither clear
    nor
  2. Immense

Wut?

Here is a close-up of Rand’s desk:

The elements of a desk being “not clear”

Clutter is the STRATEGIC enemy desk productivity.  It is impossible to remove all clutter, but the more you remove, the less brain energy wasted. For example, I think facial pictures are “the queen mother” of all clutter. Why? Because our brains are hardwired to recognize faces. Whenever a face is in front of your eyes, part of your brain is concentrating on an infinite decode loop (“Who is it? Who is it? …).

One of my MBA students heard me say facial pictures are the queen mother of clutter, and moved her daughter’s picture from next to her monitor, to out of her peripheral vision to the left. The pic is still there, she can look at the pic whenever she wants, but she is not burning energy decoding the picture when she’s trying to work. The result:

“I can’t believe how much less tired I feel at my desk.”

  1. Monitors are not on arms that would:
    1. Lift monitors clear of the work surface to allow the work surface to be used … for work!
    2. Allowing monitors to be effectively removed from the desk when one is not being used
    3. or both are not being used
    4. Allowing use of the desk space now taken up by the base of the monitor stands. Rands barely has space to lay down 3 3″x5″ cards, let alone to try to arrange cards to hot-boot a project.
      1. As my go-to hot-boot project methodology is Rough Organizing with 3×5 cards, this is a major defect in my eyes. *Note* Rands probably does not organize with 3×5 cards like I do. To each brain, it’s own organization scheme.
    5. Allow monitors to be precisely aligned/arranged
    6. Prevent the instinctive piling up of clutter on monitor bases
  2. Visible clutter on the desk
    1. What is visible clutter?
      1. Anything not being used to work, that is within the eyesight envelope of the person working.
      2. Take the above picture, and make the 0 degree line perpendicular to the center of each monitor, and then you can construct the full “clutter envelope” of a desk.
      3. I recently had a work desk that had 180 degrees of isolation when I was sitting. Action shot:
      5. Here is the close up of the work surface
      6. Sitting at this desk, the walls of the alcove were just long enough to shield my peripheral vision from any motion. And having all motion and clutter removed from peripheral vision is FANTASTIC!!!
  3. Wires, wires, everywhere.
    1. Can’t tell if Rand’s mouse is wired, but the keyboard looks wired.
    2. I switched to Apple’s Magic Keyboard 2 and Magic Trackpad 2 this summer and both are “Meh” not great, but they are … wireless and minimally increase clutter.
    3. *Note* that I have a Jabra 410 talking hockey puck speaker phone which is wired, mounted on the lower left hand corner of my iMac.
      1. I just recently discovered Velcro with “Rogue Adhesive” which allowed me to get the Jabra 410 off my desk surface, and removed 1 wire’s worth of clutter.
    4. Pay me now, pay me later.
      There is no such thing as a free lunch. I have just as much wire clutter as Rands, I just insure that I can’t see the wires when I’m working. Here is the back of my iMac:

      2. From left to right I also have a USB hub/DVD ROM driver,
      3. an extra Apple cable to charge my (Meh) Apple Keyboard and Mouse. Tucked in at top center under the Apple.
      4. And a 3×5 card/pen reservoir
      5. And last but not least, I have a low intensity under-counter LED light attached to the bottom of my imac so I can work in the dark on my (meh) keyboard and still see the letters.
      6. 1.E.i. above show the clutter seen when working

The elements of a desk not being immense

Rands’ desk looks like it is 2.5’x5′ which in inches is 30″x60″ which is not bad by today’s standards. But … the I would change about Rands’ desk is to make it deeper. Like a foot deeper. My IKEA conference table desk is 43″ deep, and 73″ long.  Rands likes having his couch super deep, he needs to do the same thing with his desk.

Surface to Arm Ratio

After using my IKEA conference table work surface for a year, I felt like I was not able to use enough of the desk surface, so in true barbarian style, I slid the work surface far forward on the support frame. This made the front overhang off the support by 15.5″ and allowed me to cut a 15″ diameter hemisphere out of the desk front.

I can now roll my chair all the way into the hemisphere and reach both the far left (with my left hand) and far (with my right hand) right corners of the desk. So the surface to arm ratio for me on this desk = 1.

Makeover Suggestions for Rands’ Desk

  1. Two VESA monitor arms + iMac VESA adapter
    1. If your two display devices are vesa, two $30 single monitor arms are the way to go. I’ve tried the dual monitor arms and they don’t allow enough freedom to arrange the monitors.
    2. If you like Rands, have a recent vintage iMac without VESA support, then you’ll need the $100 MacSales.com VESA adapter. 
  2. Larger desk surface
    1. Deeper by at least 12″ is a must
    2. Wider would be nice too
    3. I would look for a larger desk surface at IKEA’s clearance area. There are lacquer panels in blood red that might do nicely while costing next to nothing.
    4. Try mounting the new surface over the top of the existing surface. Height change will not be too great. Chair goes up and life goes on.
    5. Rands probably does not need as much desk space as I do because it looks like 300 3×5 cards are not a big part of his thinking life.
    6. So Rands won’t need the 15″ hemisphere cut out either.
  3. Clutter (pictures, polar bear, etc.) moves left until it is out of peripheral vision while looking straight at the left-hand monitor.
    1. There seems to be a credenza at left, I would move that 3′ into the room perpendicular to the front of the desk (to get stuff out of peripheral vision), and put the clutter on the credenza.
      1. Idea = Minimal change and clutter eliminated.
      2. As David Allen says, you want “just enough” organization.
  4. Wireless keyboard/mouse/trackpad
    1. I switched to a track pad because I move my right wrist less on a track pad, and less movement has led to zero wrist pain.
  5. Twist ties or cable ties to hide all the wires from view while working at the 2 monitors.
  6. ScanSnap iX500 next to the printer at right.
    1. Scansnap is the digital on-ramp to
    2. Evernote to go paperless
    3. Printer is the digital off-ramp

Office Entelechy

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  • Introduction

I’m mid-job-search right now. Decompressing from a 27 month stint at a startup with 60-100 hours a week. Received an awesome job offer last week that reminded me of a Rands In Repose post.

Scan down to “Deliberate Want” and the part about Michelle. My Michelle is Rachel, but I digress.

Decompression allows this thing, reading for fun, that it has been a while since I’ve engaged in. While in startup mode, I read for survival, not fun. But while I was finding Michelle in the post above, and sending the post to Rachel, I started reading more Rands posts.

  • Do this immediately!!!

And a post on CAVE ESSENTIALS jumped out and hit me so hard, I’m pointing you to it. I’m pointing you to CAVE ESSENTIALS right now! Do not walk, run to CAVE ESSENTIALS and experience organizational ambrosia via the written word.

Entelechy is a fancy way of saying “soul” Rand’s post is the soul of office organization. The elements of Rands office entelechy:

  1. Self-pleasing environment design (red walls that nobody else can understand)
  2. Telling people “The door… it’s right there.” at criticism of your office.
  3. Your “forever desk” …
    “A desk’s job is to build productivity, and for me, it achieves this by first providing an immense amount of clear working space.” There is an echo in this blog!
  4. Deep leather couch (so deep that when you put your back against the couch you are in a new time zone).
  5. “Lovingly curated bookshelves” (14)

Highly recommended!!!

Bill Meade

Evernote 20,000 Note Milestone!!!

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I just crossed 20,000 notes in Evernote, so I thought now might be a good time to update my occasional series on Evernote. Early in the life of RestartGTD I used to manually count up Evernote pages and track them.

Unfortunately my original note counting methodology was a hack that did not work accurately. Because Evernote has added monthly note counts, here is an example for my account as of December 25, 2016, look for the red arrows 1/3 of the way from the left, near the top of the page:

So, since I can use these Evernote generated non-hack counts, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and scrape out the monthly totals for the 102 months that I’ve been an evernote subscriber.

Here is the previous total and the more accurate Evernote-generated total note count for 102 months:

The count totals diverge in 2013 where SKITCH started defaulting to saving in Evernote. But I suspect that the convoluted “trick Evernote into counting notes” method that I was using, was in a word “bad”. Anyway, I trust the monthly total that Evernote now generate as it predicts the actual number of notes in my account within 2 notes. All comes back but 2 tablespoons! (notes)

So over the 102 months of Evernote, I’ve increased my usage of evernote month by month from 1 note per month on average, to almost 200 notes per month. Here is the same graph plotted with a rolling average notes per month plotted on a second Y axis in Excel 2016’s “hideous orange”:

I continue to use Evernote as my GTD reference filing system … only. I’ve tried tracking projects in Evernote but prefer OneNote for detailed next action decomposition work. But as a reference filing system, Evernote has definitely achieved “roach motel” lock in of my information. The pattern in the orange average is very “ratchet” like. Jutting up, drifting down, but then jutting up again, and again.

bill meade

Paperless Resolutions

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Bits Are Better Than Atoms:

Just noticed a Fujitsu ScanSnap on Amazon (not sold by Amazon so Caveat Emptor) for $350 which is just about $100 less than normal price for an iX500. Arrival is already after Christmas, but for those of you taking off for India (not naming names Shobhit!) for a month, might be worth considering.

And, from Amazon, there is an Evernote edition of the Fujitsu ScanSnap for:

  • Brand new for $406 which is still less than the iX500 has been costing. As of post time, this should arrive before Christmas.
  • Six open box iX500s for $356 which might be a deal for a small business!!! All 6 come with free 2-day shipping.

I heartily recommend the iX500 as can be seen by clicking here to read RestartGTD’s 40+ article ScanSnap library.

For those of you on the cusp of buying Evernote due to the 70+ RestartGTD article library, please consider clicking here to support RestartGTD (at not additional cost) as you sign up.

Best Regards for happy holidays and greener pastures for us all in 2017!!!

bill meade