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What Andy's Doing
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Recently Written
- Passionate People: Get What You Deserve, Become a Career Renegade!
- Featured Blog: Patrick Rhone and His Journal
- Ask The Readers: Can You Disconnect And Still Be Productive?
- Why Working Long, Hard Hours Gets You Behind (?)
- How to Help Great Productivity Blogs Get Discovered
- My Scandelous Confession and A Royal Rant About GTD
- On New Beginnings (And More About Your Host)
- Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
- How to Use Basecamp and Backback In Perfect Harmony
- How to Chill Out
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Eliminating Distractions is Easy.
OK, maybe it’s not “easy”, but there’s certainly no magic to it. Books upon volumes have been penned about this fairly straightforward topic; books full of hacks, wisdom and tricks that will help you maintain your focus and not get sidetracked. But I’ve got some news for you, Jack…
It’s entirely up to you. Anything that you allow into your peripheral vision while you’re hammering away on that big proposal is, yep, your fault. That said, it’s time for a little thing the Russians call “tough love”.
When people in this day and age refer to distractions, most of the time they’re talking about computer-related things. Mind-yankers like instant messaging applications, Facebook, your fantasy underwater basketweaving team, etc. You need to relegate things like this to your discretionary time (obviously). And if you want to remove them as distractions, you have to get freaking guerrilla about it. Removing them from your bookmark toolbar in Firefox isn’t going to cut it (as you probably already know), because the temptation is too great and the satisfaction is too immediately had.
How to Reclaim 15 Hours of Your Life Back - Every Week!
A guest poster over at Get Rich Slowly recently shared an incredible tip for how to use a recording device to get control of your TV watching habits so you can redirect your attention to far more productive endeavors.
Erica Douglass writes:
750 hours a year is 14.42 hours a week, or just over two hours a day. Besides housework, “market work” (the term the book uses to denote paid-for jobs), and sleeping, what activity consumes the most time?
The answer shocked me: It’s watching television.
She goes on to suggest using a DVR to strategically record shows you are interested in and only actually watch what is necessary. I actually have been using this technique for about a year now. It’s been very good to me. Here are a couple thoughts / suggestions not discussed in Erica’s post:
My Son Teaches Me about Professional Communication
One of my favorite things to do with my kids while my wife is at work is to take walks around the neighborhood. We usually have a destination, but if the weather is especially nice and we’re having a good time, I won’t exactly rush home.
Recently, we were on just such a walk on a very mild summer afternoon. My son was sipping on a cold chocolate milk and asking all sorts of questions about the various cars and houses we passed as we walked. It wasn’t until we were getting close to home that we happened upon this, sitting in the grass near the street:
Thing to Remember When Your Kids Are Driving You Frickin’ Insane
Watching a small child slowly grow into an actual, real-live person is an interesting thing. They watch you so intently when you speak, drinking it all in. This gives way to imitation as they take on your specific habits and behaviors (which they’ll then mold to fit their own personalities and such). There are times when I’m blown away by how much my son acts like me, enunciates words as I do, even the slightest mannerisms look like mirror images of myself. It’s one of the first times as a parent that you truly realize how heavily you influence your kids, down to their very essence as people.
Now, all that touchy-feely crap aside, there are times when the whole “learning everything” bit can get a little exhausting. The most common example is the “Why?” phase that hits right around 3 years old (I’m hip-deep in it as I write this). Just for those of you who either don’t have kids or have forgotten how this tends to go, I’ll give you a short example of the kind of thing I mean:
Parents: You are Their Best Friend
As many of you know, my wife and I have two wonderful kids. Our oldest will be 3 years old next month which is crazy. And as most parents of toddlers will tell you, they can be a bit of a challenge (to say the least). They can be defiant and stubborn, and the word “no” will escape their lips way more often than you think. Love them like we do, toddlers can be a great deal of work.
Another thing most parents will be able to tell you is just how tiring this parenting business can be. By the time the late afternoon rolls around, it’s not uncommon to be completely devoid of energy. This lack of energy can lead to crankiness and a “short fuse” on the part of the parent, which can then lead to snapping at your kids or not wanting to really get involved in spending quality time with them.
My wife was telling me about a quote she read in a book on disciplining children, which said something to this effect:
Web Warrior Tools - Get Your Smart On
My very good buddies Glen (of LifeDev) and Leo (of Zen Habits) launched their brand new ebook store today, called Web Warrior Tools. Much like their awesome blogs, the main idea behind the books they sell is improving your life. And don’t let the name fool you - these precious volumes are good for anybody, not just us chumps that spend all day tapping on the keyboard.
They’ve already got some killer titles fresh off of the presses, including:
- The Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting
- Email Zen
- The Get Rich Slowly Guide to Roth IRAs
- Secrets to a Healthy Life
The best part their offerings (and ebooks in general, really) is that you can have them now! Click to buy, and you’re ready to go a few seconds later. Gotta love the freakin’ Internet.
All books offer a free preview of a chapter or two, so you can peruse a good chunk of the book before paying a nickel. Run - don’t walk - over to Web Warrior Tools and get yourself some of the finest ebooks from the finest bloggers on the web!
Brand New Site by Cranking Widgets
There are times in life when you decide “enough is enough“. This past week was one of those times.
I get a fair amount of email. Not as much as some, but it’s a pretty steady stream. Sometimes, those messages are from well-wishing friends who thought I might enjoy an inspirational message from an unknown source. Messages like these are almost always sent to a whole pantload of people. And all of our email addresses are nicely collected in the ‘To’ field, where every recipient now has access to my email address.
This is, frankly, infuriating. So much so that I decided to take some (arguably passive) action. I created a website where I can send people who do this.
Humbly, I give you bccplease.com. The idea is pretty self-explanatory, when you send an email to a million people, put their email addresses in the ‘BCC’ field instead of the ‘To’ field.
I hope you can all find some use for it, feel free to direct any email abusers you encounter on over for some tough love.
Enjoy!
Reasons to Get a Tattoo (and Reasons Not To)
I have lots of tattoos. Something like 30 at last count, if memory serves. As tattoos have grown in popularity and social acceptance, it’s very likely that your average 20-something has one or more tattoos. And while I’m certainly not an expert on the art of tattooing, I’ve got a good deal of experience with tattoos (mostly because I get lots of people who want to show theirs to me) and can enumerate fairly confidently what are good reasons for getting a tattoo. I can also tell you what are not good reasons 
People’s tastes in tattoo design has always fascinated me. Everything from beautifully ornate recreations of their mother’s High School yearbook photo to a cup of coffee and a donut (seriously, I’ve seen it). Far be it from me to tell somebody I think their tattoo is dumb (to their face, at least), but I think there are some pretty hard-and-fast rules about choosing a design for your next tattoo.
11 Tips for Better Tech Support
We’ve all been there. Something’s dreadfully wrong with your trusty computer - you can’t print, you can’t get on the web, you can’t play Bejeweled. For whatever reason, the problem is major enough to warrant one of the most desperate acts you can imagine - a phone call to tech support.
Now, before we dig in, let me tell you that I’ve done my time answering the tech support phone calls. I spent a good 3 years at it, so I have a pretty good idea what I’m talking about. And while I didn’t enjoy it for the most part, it was an enlightening experience. The support calls that were the most pleasant (or least unbearable, it could also be said) were with people who took the time to perform one or more of the steps I’m going to outline here. Trust me folks, this is the real freaking McCoy.
The key to making things work with your tech support representative is to make things easy for them. I know that there are a great many jackasses out there who feel some sense of entitlement and indignation when speaking to people in service roles, but believe me - you want them to be happy.
The Single Most Useful Contact on Your iPhone
Like most adults living in America today, I get many phone calls. Some from my wife, my mom, my brother, my friends. But sometimes, I get phone calls from the local health club, the local car dealership or somebody trying to get me to buy 5 pounds of veal.
Unsolicited phone calls. We all hate them with a raw purple passion, but - if you have a phone - they’re almost as certain as death and taxes. It sucks, but that’s the freakin’ reality of the situation.
This little gem occurred to me just a few days ago. This past weekend, I’d taken our car into the local Toyota dealership for it’s oil change/tire rotation/etc. maintenance visit. It went very well, no hiccups or accidental scratches, none of that. Then, the following Monday morning, I got an email from them asking to take a short survey about my service experience. Took less than 2 minutes and I was happy to do it.
