Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
We begin today with a fun fact: when you drive, the thing you should do is drive. Not text, not read emails, not read Atlas Shrugged, not brush your teeth while doing your makeup. Crazy, right? Yet, somehow, I’ve seen all these things being done while the driver hurtles at unnatural speeds toward large objects both moving and inanimate.
There’s a balance to be struck somewhere between single-tasking on the road, and ultimate productivity. The balance, I think, is technology. There are a bunch of applications and services out there that will let you get done the things you need to get done, all while keeping your eyes and (most of) your focus on the road.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Just for fun, I tracked the other day how I communicate with people. Not how I interact with people, or “socialize,” but how I carry on a direct, one-to-one conversation with someone. The results were a little ridiculous: I used Facebook Chat, Twitter messages and replies, AIM, Gmail Chat, text messages, phone calls, Skype, and even the chat within Words with Friends, a Scrabble game I play with my girlfriend.
That’s totally backwards. Instead of making communication easier and simpler, it’s turned into a siloed, time-intensive experience that involves tons of inboxes, different means and methods of communication, multiple devices, and a lot of effort I don’t want to have to give.
So I humbly propose an alternative. Instead of the nine things I use (and the at-least-that-many you probably do too), let’s use one system that can handle 99% of our communication: Google Voice.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to simplify my digital life. I use way too many applications to get things done, and want to bring my number down to as few as possible.
It’s actually been a much easier task than I had figured it was going to be, and it’s largely thanks to Evernote. By thinking a little bit outside the box about what I could store in Evernote and how it could work for me, I’ve gotten rid of my need for a lot of applications, instead keeping everything in Evernote. It’s helped me remember more, find what I need when I need it, and be more on top of everything at once.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
We all get distracted by computers, even though there’s nothing inherently distracting about the technology. Whether you’re reading, writing, or doing anything else, there’s just so much going on that it’s hard to focus on a single thing.
It’s not the reading of long things that’s hard, it’s how friggin’ distracting everything else is. You’re reading, and DING! You’ve got an email. Or your taskbar starts flashing – something’s happening! Especially when you’re reading something long, which deserves an immersed and devoted period of time, it’s easy to get thrown off. That’s why newspapers and magazines are still a great medium – there’s nowhere else to go. You’re just sitting on your couch, reading. You can flip pages, sure, but the magazine leaves you nowhere else to go.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
People like to rag on email, and with good reason: for many, it’s a giant time-sink without a lot of productive use. But the beauty of email, and the reason I don’t think it’s going anywhere, is that everyone uses it. I can’t think of any medium other than the phone that is so universally used, accepted, and understood. Heck, my Grandma even emails me – it’s got really large text that I imagine looks like it would if she’s yelling at me from the sky, but at least she’s emailing me.
The other thing I love about email is that it’s so constantly available. You can send text messages to an email address, any smartphone can send email, any Internet Café will let you into Gmail, and so on and so forth.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
I hate mornings. You wake up, stumble bleary-eyed into the bathroom where you drink some water, splash some on your face, and get into the shower. You have coffee and breakfast, maybe read some news or watch SportsCenter, and then go do whatever it is that you do.
You become awake and alert at some point in that process, but it’s not always clear exactly when. For me, it’s typically about five and a half hours after I step out the door that I really wake up – right around two in the afternoon. Mornings are dark times, folks.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
For the sake of clarification, this article will not be any of the following: instructions on how to steal every computer in existence, how to hack every computer in existence, or how to make so much money you can just buy them all.
What it will be is a look at a couple of ways to make it so that you can use any computer without changing how you work. Why? Think of it this way: on your home computer, you’ve got a set of bookmarks. You’ve got passwords saved, all your files, and a whole workflow for how you do things. Without an enormous amount of work on your part, any other computer you use – work, laptop – is going to look different. That means re-entering passwords you’ve probably forgotten, hunting down websites you forgot the URL for a long time ago, and a lot of hassle.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
This is a long-overdue post for me. I even promised to write this post tomorrow, five weeks ago. But, at long last, this is the full explication of how it is that I get things done.
The first thing I should tell you is that this is an ever-evolving system. There are a few things, hardware and software, that have been around for a while, but there’s also a rapidly revolving door of applications, gadgets, and all sorts of things that come and go from my desk. What I’m sharing here is a snapshot, a look into the things that make me tick and keep me ticking right now.
I share these things not because they’re unique, or even particularly interesting. I do it because I’ve gotten so much from reading how other people organize, get things done, and work – this is me giving back, so to speak. And here we go!
