Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
”What’s 43 Folders?”
43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.
Personal Productivity43f Podcast: David Allen on interruptionsMerlin Mann | Nov 6 2006Productive Talk #06: Interruptions 43 Folders and The David Allen Company present the sixth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done. Summary
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen here (after the cut). Merlin's commentsIn this episode, David makes the excellent point that if interruptions are a baked-in part of your job, they shouldn't necessarily be seen as a Bad Thing. It's just something you need to prepare for by "clearing the decks" in a way that opens you up for the opportunities and game-time input that new information can bring into your world. Something not to miss -- David is just truly a whiz at changing gears based on his own system. If new stuff interrupts what he's currently working on, he scoops all the current work back into "pending," and basically says "Bring it on!" read more »20 Comments
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Naps: Endangered species in modern life?Merlin Mann | Oct 31 2006My Make column on napping is overdue, and yet right before dashing off to steal a rejuvenating 20-minute nap, I take a spin past del.icio.us/popular to find this little gem: read more »POSTED IN:
David Allen Interview: Getting Things Done with EmailMerlin Mann | Oct 30 200643 Folders and The David Allen Company present the fifth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done. Summary
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen here (after the cut). Merlin's commentsEmail was one of the topics that I was most interested in talking to David about, and I found his responses to my questions thought-provoking. David makes the case that email is basically just another input -- like voice mail, for example -- that needs to be emptied and processed every day. That it's not substantially different (apart from how badly mostly people do it right now). While I absolutely agree on processing to zero, I think opinions may differ on the significance of email's impact on the life of the average knowledge worker. read more »POSTED IN:
Life hacky door matMerlin Mann | Oct 26 2006
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Post your MacBreak Weekly ideas to del.icio.us: "mbwideas"Merlin Mann | Oct 24 2006I'll steal a page directly from Amber's book on this one -- if you have something that you think might make a good story for us to cover on MacBreak Weekly, you can add it to del.icio.us with the tag "mbwideas". We check that page pretty regularly (I actually look at it once a day or so), so it's an easy way to get your favorite Mac and Apple stories of the week into the queue for consideration. read more »POSTED IN:
Vox Populi: Best practices for file namingMerlin Mann | Oct 23 2006If it wasn't apparent from my pathetic cry for help the other day, even I -- one of your more theoretically productive persons in North America -- struggle with what to call things. Tags, files, and -- dear Lord -- the innumerable assets associated with making web sites, graphics, audio, and video projects; it's all a hopeless jumble unless you have some kind of mature system in place for what you call your stuff and its various iterations. Of course, if you're like me -- and I hope that you are not -- you still have lots of things on your desktop with names like " For prior art, I still treasure this Jurassic thread on What Do I Know where people share their thoughts on this age-old problem, but, frankly I haven't seen many good resources out there on best practices for naming. Anyhow, during a recent MacBreak shoot, I noticed that Alex and his team seem to have a pretty fly system for naming the video files that eventually get turned into their big-time IPTV shows. Thus, I turned to Pixel Corps' Research Division Lead, Ben Durbin (co-star of Phone Guy #5) for insight and sane help. And, brother, did he ever give it to me (see below the cut for Ben's detailed awesomeness). But, just so I don't lose you, do give me your best tips in comments: What are your favorite current conventions for naming files? How does your team show iterations and versions? Do you rely more on Folder organization than file names in your work? How have Spotlight, Quicksilver, and the like changed the way you think about this stuff? read more »POSTED IN:
43f interview: David Allen on Getting Things Done with your teamMerlin Mann | Oct 23 200643 Folders and The David Allen Company present the fourth in a series of conversations that David and Merlin recently had about Getting Things Done.
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here: read more »POSTED IN:
Text Expander for automagic typo correctionMerlin Mann | Oct 23 2006TextExpander AutoCorrect Snippet File Recently, I was emailing with our friends over at Smile on My Mac about how I use Text Expander as an automatic spelling and typo corrector, and I realized that there wasn't a canonical location for the user-created "snippets" file you need to import in order to get this feature working. read more »POSTED IN:
43f Podcast: Ian Shoales on Wasting TimeMerlin Mann | Oct 20 2006Odeo: Ian Shoales on Wasting Time
Grab the MP3, learn more at Odeo.com, or just listen from here: read more »POSTED IN:
Vox Populi: How are you using Mail Tags?Merlin Mann | Oct 18 2006I open the floor to all of you on a question of particular personal interest to me: How are you using Mail Tags? While my uses of it to date have been helpful, I keep getting the feeling I'm not getting all that I can out of it -- especially since the ability to associate Projects, Priorities, etc. to a message could make for some really enticing Smart Folders. I wonder if my question is ultimately more taxonomic in nature -- ultimately more about Spotlight in general or Tags in very very general: When tagging items on your Mac, what kind '-onomy' are using? How strictly do you enforce your vocabulary? What are the best practices for someone who's new to this? read more »POSTED IN:
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