Archive for March, 2009

Really, everything! I was watching the Adam Savage talk from TED on Lifehacker, which besides being very entertaining and thought provoking, has a great tip on collecting ideas. I regret that Adam didn’t go into more detail about his thought collection process, but he let on to enough to raise my interest.

Basically he has a folder, which now contains 20Gb of info now, which is his ideas folder. Anything he wants to do, has though about doing, has started doing, might want to do whenever, he finds interesting, etc is placed here. It looked to me like he had a folder for each project, with documents and lots and lots of images in each.

Based on what he said (I’m extrapolating here, he didn’t actually say this), I think he is a very visual person. His first step into researching anything, or just finding ideas is gathering lots and lots of pics. Of course this comes with his line of work, but I think this can be applied to any job, images can be very strong, regardless of what you do. He just gathers and gathers until he feels like starting a project, or gets a sudden spark.

Once he starts doing something he collects even more information, but in this “round” he collects more raw data and statistics, rather than images. I am guessing he stores this info in these folders too, so in the end he not only has a great resource library for anything he wants to do, but he has a pretty well documented project portfolio.

This is a great approach, I especially like the way he is not picky about stuff. If he likes something he just puts it in there without thinking. He then probably takes a look in there sometimes, and if he likes something still he might create a project or something. This is a very efficient procss in the long run, since you might waste a bit of time for nothing, but when you actually start to do something, you’ll have so much to work with it will be easy to gain back your lost time.

Reading a post about standing tables on Lifehacker, their point really hit me. I mean right up until a bit before the computer and office  age, how much time did people spend sitting down? Way back, for millions of years people would be hunting, gathering, washing, cooking, doing all the chores that required them to stand up.

In fact, I doubt people sat down much at all, apart from perhaps eating, and maybe at the end of the day, apart from that they mostly laid down I would think. Later on nobles and kings might have done some sitting, but even they were on the move much, much more than the average person today. Serfs and peasants also had their hands full of stuff to do, so up until not too long ago, sitting was not a big part in a persons life, at least not compared to today.

I spend at least 13 of my 16 waking hours sitting down and it takes a huge toll on my back. I can constantly “feel” my back, and toward the end of the day it hurts. It doesn’t really help if I stand up often, since 90% of my time is still spent sitting. Once I read the post above, I decided to try it out for myself.

There’s a small telephone table here which is actually in perfect height for me, and I spend 30 minutes working standing up. It feels a bit werid, but it was surprisingly refreshing. I can’t tell yet if my back is better, since one day won’t make a difference, but at least it was different, a change from my usual modus operandi.

In any case, standing is a much more natural state for your spine, so if you have the opportunity either buy, or build a standing desk, so you can alternate between standing and sitting. I can’t use the phone table because I can’t live without my mouse, and it’s just big enough to hold the laptop, keeping me stuck with the touchpad. Please, please let me know if you have any experiences with this or any tips!

For some reason freeware and open source is very rare if you’re looking in the video and video editing area, but I did find one particular tool very good. CamStudio is a screen recording application, which is open source, so you’re free to do whatever you wish with it, and it supports a fair amount of features.

It enables you to record a region of the screen or all of it, and has built in panning to move the region around as you move the mouse. This is a really handy feature for screencasting, where space is at a premium. Magnification is not built in by default, which is a bit of bummer, but there is a tool called Magnifying Glass which you can use easily to magnify while recording. Downloading the free version is sufficient to use while recording.

If you’re uploading to youtube, or adding your recordings to your website CamStudio is able to convert the avi file it records to swf, it can actually record straight to an swf format. This means you won’t have to use separate converters and will shorten the process a lot.

Personally, if I’m making a video I probably convert it to this and that and compress it a bit using Super, which can do a lot, so I don’t actually use the conversion functionality of CamStudio, but I have tried it, and it works like a charm.

There are a few added options, take a look, if you need a quick, open source solution to your screen recording problems, try CamStudio, it’s extremely simple and intuitive and pretty powerful as well.

I do spend a lot of time on the net, using cool apps which make my life so much easier, but I have to point out that the common Post-It is one of the most awesome tools you can have in repertoire. You can take it anywhere, use it to doodle and sketch, you can play some oregami with it, you can take notes, even manage yourself properly.

You can create a small calendar “application” for yourself by tearing off 31 (or as many days as needed) pieces and stapling them togheter. You can then use it to jot down reminders or keep a diary, tearing off the days as they go by. You can keep this in your pocket, stick it on your wall, or just have it lying around anywhere.

You can also buy Post-Its in about 3 zillion forms, so you will be able to find the color and shape to match your style and needs. If Post-It notes were an application, they would definitely be Remember The Milk or Outlook, or something of that magnitude, really one of the best stationary items ever.

We all know and love open source software like Wordpress, but there is a whole range of open source hardware projects out there! These usually do require some investment, as you need to buy the hardware part but otherwise you are free to modify it, or build it from scratch and not pay (if you can).

The DIY blog Make has a huge list of available projects, ranging from a small gadget attached to a pencil that makes cool sounds when you draw to printing anything in 3D, you’ll find something you like, I guarantee it. There are lots here for beginners, personally, I am probably the worst mechnic ever, but I’d have some great fun soldering and getting these to work (and probably failing).

I found two of the easier ones particularly cool,  for example, the awesome Digg counter, which is just awesome, and priced at $15 it’s not much of a bank breaker. I’m not sure if you can get it to actually work with digg to display a digg count, but you can get it to scroll messages, and do anything you like with it, some great docs on site too.

My favorite though is the Meggy Jr, which is a developent kit for led based games. It is sold as a soldering kit, so you will have to put it together, but this one actually look absolutely fantastic! This one costs  a but more, you can spend anything from $65 to around $100 on it, depending on what you need. You can then program endless amounts of games, I already have some awesome ideas, if I ever start one of these projects it will be this one!

If you have some technical skill, or want to learn something, these are great projects to work on, you will probably also do a load of thinking while programming the, great stuff!

While I have already written numerous posts about the benefits of a good sleep schedule, I don’t really like to sleep, in the purely “efficient” sense. I mean sleep is basically 6-8 hours of time you could spend on something, and if you weren’t tired, you could use the time really well.

I mean even if you didn’t work, you would have a whole lot of time to play a game, read your book, watch movies, take a long bath, and so on. A lot of times when I wake up and feel fresh, I can’t help thinking that it would have been so cool to keep on staying fresh throughout the night.

This would even more so be helpful because nighttime is one of the most efficient periods for me. I am most active in the morning from 6am – 11am, but if I stay up late, I am also very alert from 11pm – 4am. It’s dark outside so you can set up some ambient lighting, it’s quiet, you’re alone, everything is perfect for a night’s work!

So then why in the world do we need sleep? Well, the answer isn’t actually that simple, or known for that matter. Scientists know a lot about sleep, but they also don’t know a lot and do a lot of guesswork in this area. You would think that your brain stops to regenerate, but in fact it doesn’t, it is just as active. If you ask me, I’m damn sure that it does rest, perhaps the rest it needs is not the absence of work, but a different type of activeness. I mean I was up all night yesterday, and in the morning I was slow, I couldn’t think properly and now I feel and can work, much better, so something definitely happens in there. Rebuilding definitely happens, this is apparently when your muscle tissues regenerate, and a whole load of other things. I can’t remember where I read this, but there are various functions your body only performs at night, there’s something going on in your kidneys I think and if you’re asleep, the “bad stuff” goes to your kidneys, if not it goes somewhere else, which is not the best, and builds up fat. Sorry about that completely bogus sentence, but it shows that you really do need sleep, not just for your brain.

I think that sleep study could be a crucial fact to productivity and “self scheduling” in general, the more we understand about the process, the more we could use it to our advantage. I don’t think they’ll ever come up with a method where you don’t have to sleep, but just determining the absolutely best sleep-waking schedule on a personal level would go a long way.