A few months back, Brian Bailey asked me to contribute a short essay for his new book, The Blogging Church: Sharing the Story of Your Church Through Blogs (neat idea for a book).

As I'm sure Brian realized at some point, a lot of the advice in the book (creating an online image, deciding who the blog's for, and improving your blog over time) will also be of interest to small business and garden-variety bloggers. I enjoy Brian's writing and think he has a sound grasp on what makes blogs work (or not). Good stuff, and red meat for anyone thinking of taking their church (or their business or their kittens) to the web.

Here's an excerpt from what I sent him.

Goldtoe Lemon.Nut: The 170-day Weekend

Goldman's back from taking a few months off, and shares a nugget that I like a lot:

When you have fewer responsibilities, those you do have take on a disproportionately larger weight. I found that no matter how little I actually had to worry about, I'd find some task or obligation that would become the "one big thing" nagging at me from void. Sometimes this one big thing would be laundry. The point is that you can always identify one obstacle in your life that, if removed, would make everything better (an annoying co-worker, a bad debt, a rash). Turns out this probably isn't true at all.

Amen, brother, and cf: 83 Problems.

[ via Nelson Minar's Linkblog ]

Since the Bronze Age of personal productivity, conventional wisdom has taught us the importance of priority in deciding how to plan and use our time. And, in the abstract, anyhow, that notion of putting your time and attention into those things that are the most valuable to you seems so "obvious" as to be a tautology, where "productivity = acting on priorities." (Of course, whether people's execution of the things they claim are important always maps to their stated intentions is another matter for another post a really big book.)

But, we can probably agree that in the post-Lakein world of productivity and time management, everything from Covey's Quadrants to the Pareto Principle to the four criteria to -- what? I dunno -- firewalking, has been used to help us train our attention on the things that need us most and provide the greatest value in our world. Priority.

But, in practice, what the hell does "priority" really mean?

TWiT 88: Batteries Included

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Hosts: Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann, Tom Merritt, Wil Harris, and John C. Dvorak

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Quantum computing, teraflop chips, and iPod bans...

In which I definitively address the origin of my oft-discussed username for Skype, AIM, Twitter, etc...

Download MP3 file

FM3 BUDDHA MACHINE

I've been hearing about the $25 Buddha Machine for a while (I recall Leo mentioning it once) and was tempted enough to go ahead and order my own today over on Forced Exposure (probably not least because of the amazing exploded drawing they use as a logo).

From the FAQ (which comes from a Pop Matters review):

The Buddha Machine is a little plastic box that plays music.

Specifically, FM3 constructed nine drones, varying from two seconds to 42 seconds, which repeat endlessly in the listener’s ear until the “track” is switched to the next drone (or the two AA batteries run out).

Sean notes that the manufacturers will also let you download uncompressed versions of the 9 included drones for free, so you could presumably emulate some of the functionality on your iPod. Friendly.

Anybody out there got one of these? How you enjoying it?