I would be willing to wager that most people, during their first office supply shopping trip after having read Getting Things Done, pick up some binder clips. This is probably because they happened across the Hipster PDA at some point during their GTD travels and thought, “man, that looks like something I could really get into - and for like $5, tops…”. Hell, you could build Hipster PDAs for a small village for like $20, who wouldn’t be tempted by such a small admission price? I know I wasn’t - I’ve got a whole tub of probably 30-40 binder clips of varying sizes that has been very busy gathering dust for many months now.

If you find yourself in this boat, have no fear, for I have compiled some seriously hacky uses for all those binder clips. They may not all have mass appeal, but they are examples of how to take your productivity gear to places it was never intended

• Wallet - Obviously, this depends on the type and amount of stuff you keep in your current, actual wallet. For me, it was nothing more than a big leather thing to house my credit cards, license, insurance and video rental card. So, for the past 6 months I’ve kept all of those cards clipped together using a small binder clip and it’s been fantastic.
• Food Freshness - Most households have those big plastic “Chip Clips” that are used to seal bags of food to keep it from spoiling. These things usually go for a couple of bucks *each* at the Bed, Bath and Beyond. Binder clips work just as well and cost about an order of magnitude less, so put them all over your chips, cookies and what-have-you.
• Hanging Note System - For this one, you’ll need some type of wall mounting hardware (nail, tack, etc.). Hang one of the arms of the clip over the mount and - presto - you have a place to hang pieces of paper (or whatever). This is especially useful for the inside of the front door, where you can hang notes to remind yourself to take things with you when you leave the house.
• Keyring Reminder Caddy - If I’m leaving wherever I am, I have my keys in my pocket (even if I don’t really need them). So, if I ever need to take something with me when I leave my current location, I put my keys on top of it so I see it when it’s time to go. The principle is the same, but with a little more confidence that you won’t be able to leave without seeing/feeling that thing that’s stuck to your keys. Just attach one of the arms on the clip to your keyring and fold it up when you’re not using it
• Glove Compartment Crap Organizer - There’s nothing quite as embarrassing as having to unload 6 months of ketchup packets, paper napkins and other junk from your glove box in search of your registration and insurance information, particularly when John Q. Law is watching you from outside the driver’s side window. Here’s a novel idea - bundle everything you’d need for a traffic stop together with a single clip and stick it somewhere specific in the glove box (the left hand wall, for example.). Because you don’t really need any extra stress factors when you get pulled over, right?
• Clothespin - Not many of us still dry our clothes on a line running across our yard, but if you do - binder clips!
• Cable Sanity - Most of the techie types out there know what it’s like to have an unholy mess of cables strewn about behind your computer/display. Especially as peripherals get more prevalent, it can get downright unwieldy back there. So, get yourself a box of the big, bad, industrial binder clips (the 2-inch ones work best for this) and start regulating on those cables. You’ll feel pretty awesome once that’s taken care of, I promise
• Impromptu Belt - I’ll admit that this one is a little on the ridiculous side, but let’s just say that it’s a damn fine example of the versatility of binder clips.

  One of the tricks my father taught me is that if you ever find yourself wearing pants that are too loose in the waste (and are starting to fall down), just roll the top of the pants down onto itself for a quick, temporary fix. I’ll do you one better - slap a couple of big binder clips over the folds you’ve just made and watch your pants *not* fall down. Try it.

What are some of your favorite binder clip tricks?

Technorati Tags: gtd, binder clips, productivity, lifehacks

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As some of my twitter friends noticed this week, I’ve made the switch back to Backpack as my primary GTD tool. Some found this surprising, given how heavily I’ve pimped Remember the Milk. This post will outline why I left RTM and why Backpack makes so much more sense (for me, anyway).

Let me get one thing out of the way - this post (and my aforementioned switch) is in now way an indictment on RTM as a service. They have an outstanding product and the sheer number of users they have will attest to that. Having said that, here is the main limitation I found with RTM as a digital tool for Getting Things Done:

It was only a list manager for me with no way to easily associate support material. I realize they offer reminders, calendar integration, RSS feeds for days and a rich API, but all of my needs beside lists are met elsewhere (which was part of the problem). If I had a file associated with an action or project, I had to either put it on the web somewhere and link to it from the project/action or print it out and keep it in a corresponding project folder. This was cumbersome for me.

I’m not looking for a one-stop solution to this GTD thing, honestly. For me, it’s all about the mental distance between two aspects of a project. To use the above example, if one of my actions is to read a PDF on animal husbandry, I like knowing that the actual file is only one or two clicks away from that item in my list. That’s not to say that I couldn’t have achieved this with RTM, but with Backpack I can do it simply by uploading the file to the same page where the list lives.

So, what does Backpack bring to the table that makes me so giddy? Well, several things, actually…

• Polish - Seriously, Backpack looks and acts just like you want it to. One of the driving concepts in the development process at 37signals is that you only include the features that you think most people will need. Obviously, there are tons of people who wish Backpack did [feature] - hell, there are a couple things I wouldn’t mind seeing in the next update - but they choose features to include and make sure they freaking work. And they do.
• The Free-form nature of pages - My Backpack is made up of many, many pages of lists - but there are also a growing number of pages dedicated to specific projects. For example, I’ve been invited to a special luncheon with the Internal Revenue Service in a couple of weeks, and they’d like me to bring along a few things (financial records and such). Before Backpack, it would’ve ended up with me emailing myself a pantload of PDF bank statements, then aggregating all of those emails under a specific gmail tag. Obviously, that would have gotten extremely unwieldy in short order. Now I have all of those PDFs arranged nicely on a few Backpack pages (where you can actually store the files, not just link to them), as well as notes about specific items, a picture of my daughter and a copy of the Gettysburg Address. You shove stuff on a page, drag it where you want it (including to other pages), there’s very little limitation on how you use it.
• Pages can be arbitrarily long - From what I can gather, there’s no set limit on the size of a Backpack page (well, except for the amount of data you’re allowed to store based on the plan you’re using). Using the previous example, I’ve got 38 PDF files on a single page as I write this. I’m pretty sure I could add another 50 and be just fine as cherry wine. I’m also not the least bit concerned with how long my lists get or anything like that, so even you mover-and-shaker types out there can rest easy knowing that you’re not going to “break” the Backpack.
• Each page has an email address - I have one page called “Inbox” where I send random thoughts, new inputs I receive while away from a computer, as well as messages sent from Jott (yep, Jott has built-in support for Backpack through it’s Jott Links service). The magic here is that my new “stuff” is now sitting a click away from the lists that manage the rest of my stuff. Hell, I can even *drag* it to the appropriate list. Freaking sweet.
• iPhone friendly (sorta) - While the default Backpack doesn’t have a special interface for the iPhone (and I’m sure this is one of the most requested candidate features), there are a couple of super easy tricks that allow you to reformat a Backpack page for easy iPhone viewing (without making it look wonky when viewed through a regular browser) and even change the WebClip icon for Backpack when you add it to the home screen.

I know what you’re thinking, “Alright, fine, you like Backpack enough to want to marry it or some crap - but how do you use it for GTD? Be specific, circus boy!”. At least, that’s what I imagine you’re thinking.

Obviously, the primary component you’ll be using for your lists is the… List. Here’s a quick gander at what a Backpack list looks like:

Nothing too crazy, as you can see. But you can rearrange items on a list and move items between lists using the super-cool drag-and-drop capabilities that exist across most of Backpack. And when you check items off of your list, they still live right below the original list so it’s easy to recover from errant clicks. Check it out:

So, here’s a peek at my sidebar, which contains links to Backpack pages (you can decide which pages appear here and which don’t - I have many more pages than listed here):

For the GTD-initiated, this will look pretty straightforward. I don’t have any oddball contexts, except possibly @Mac, which is for things I need to use my home computer for instead of any computer. The non-alpha characters (*, @ and ^) that precede the list items are to force the list to be sorted in a certain way.

Each context (@) page contains a single list. Projects and Someday/Maybe are the same way, but Projects has 2 discrete lists, one for personal projects, one for work. The reason I do it this way is because my work projects typically never number higher than 5-7 and my personal projects number near 30-50 most of the time. I need to be able to see work projects quickly.

As I alluded to before, the real power of a Backpack-based GTD system is in the ability to store many types of information in a Backpack page, not just lists. This brings me to the last three items in the list above, specifically the first two, “Personal Project Index” and “Work Project Index”. Each of these two pages is essentially a list of links to other Backpack pages where project information, support material (including documents, pictures and tasks) and whatnot resides.

So, that’s how I arrange digital information using Backpack. You might notice that I haven’t talked about the Calendar or Reminders services that Backpack offers. Frankly, I don’t really use them. Sandy already handles my reminders (in a much more flexible fashion than the Backpack calendar can) and I use iCal on my Macbook and iPhone to manage hard-landscape stuff (though I do have iCal subscribed to my Backpack calendar, so I can add events there and they will trickle into my iCal calendar fairly quickly). This isn’t to say that I find some sort of flaw in how these tools are implemented - just that I’m extremely happy with how I’ve got calendaring and reminders set up and don’t see a glaring reason to switch (especially because Backpack’s calendar/reminder don’t integrate with pages at all).

Now, a couple tips for really getting the most out of Backpack as a GTD solution:

• Email things to one page - Your home page is perfect for this. I have a contact called “Backpack” set up anywhere from which I email (Gmail, Mail.app and iPhone), and I email things to this page liberally. Just make sure you check that page often for new stuff to process.
• “Email me a copy” - You can email any Backpack page to yourself simply by clicking this link in the page footer. A really kickass way to make backups (or even generate a quick lo-fi version of your GTD system if you expect to be away from a computer for an extended period), this is one of my favorite features.

A quick word on pricing. The Backpack plan I use is the “Solo” plan, which costs $7 per month (or, “chump change” around my house) allows for the creation of 100 pages and 1gb of storage for your files (which is ample for me). If you’re just looking for a place to put lists and you don’t need a calendar or anything else like that, you can sign up for the Free plan. You only get 5 pages but you can easily put all of your @ lists in a single page called “Actions” or something. Hell, you could run the whole list-y operation from a single page if you were feeling particularly masochistic. I’d recommend the Solo plan for personal GTD setups, but you can always go bigger if you need more of the collaborative features (multiple users, etc.).

That’s pretty much it - as you’ve probably gathered, I’m a big fan of Backpack. Give it a test run, I think you’ll dig it, too

Technorati Tags: gtd, productivity, software, backpack, 37signals, sandy, rememberthemilk

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.

Before You Call

As you may or may not know, how you act before you even pick up the phone can pay a crucial role in the success or failure of your tech support experience. It can, quite literally, mean the difference between a quick and complete resolution to your problem and a harrowing grudge match that ends in frustration and defeat.

• For pete’s sake, Reboot - Most people either don’t know to do this or, for some reason, think that their problem is big enough to withstand a restart, so they don’t even try. Anybody who’s worked in support will tell you that a ridiculous number of issues will be resolved by rebooting your computer. So, please, before you pick up the phone, reboot.
• Know how to reproduce the problem - If you’re getting some cryptic error from within your web browser or something, be able to make the error happen on command before you call. Don’t call in and say “Internet Explorer said there was an error and had a bunch of weird numbers” if you aren’t able to do this, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the tech’s first request will be for you to make the error happen again. So, do yourself a favor and (to the extent that you’re able, obviously) get this process straight before calling.
• Attempt to fix the problem yourself - Most people seem to have a very strong aversion to this suggestion. Either they don’t feel like they have the know-how to even try to fix it, or they just feel like they’d rather have a pro look at it. I understand all of this, but people who think that way run the risk of wasting both their time (and money, depending on who they’re calling) and the time of the poor schlep on the other end of the phone. See the “reboot” suggestion above for a *classic* example of this.

Assuming you’ve got all of your ducks in a row and the problem is still rearing its ugly head, it’s time to pick up the phone. There are some things you can do while on the phone that should make things easier. But first, there are a couple things that you should bear in mind as you’re talking to the person on the other end.

Things to Remember

• They (probably) didn’t cause the problem personally - As silly as this sounds, it always amazed me when people got me on the phone to help them fix something and conducted the entire conversation with the tacit belief that I was the one who caused their crap to break and needed to be punished. So, please, don’t forget that the poor a-hole on the other end is just doing his/her job and is probably not directly responsible for your AOL email password not working.
• They can’t see what you’re doing - In other words, you need to be descriptive. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to know (and use) all of the techie jargon (and unless you know what you’re talking about, I would recommend not even attempting to do so), but avoid using words like “thingie” when you’re talking about a pop-up window or the mouse cursor.
• They don’t necessarily know the answer right off the bat - Diagnosing a computer problem is just that, an exercise in diagnostics. Trial and error is the name of the game here, so expect to wander down some paths that end up being dead ends. Effective tech support personnel are able to quickly pare down the list of possible causes of a problem, then systematically eliminate the rest until they arrive at the culprit. Just know that the phone call may not be a quick one.

While on the Phone

• Do exactly what they tell you to do - There’s nothing more infuriating to the tech support guy than some know-it-all, weekend warrior type who managed to install Windows 98 on his own a few years back and is now an expert. These are also the types of people who roll their eyes when the person on the phone asks them to do something they may have already tried (or worse, something they feel isn’t relevant to the issue at hand). Chances are, the person you’re talking to knows more about this stuff than you do. You should operate under this assumption and do precisely what you’re asked. It will make the process go much more smoothly, believe me.
• Be patient - As I mentioned before, the tech will likely try several candidate solutions to your problem before arriving at the winner.
• Context is relevant - If you’re calling about a printer problem, it might be worth mentioning that you recently installed a new cartridge. If your computer is making funny noises, you might want to bring up the series of power outages you experienced in the last 24 hours. It’s better to give more information than not enough, so feel free to share any facts that seem like they might be relevant.
• Don’t lie - The simple fact of the matter is that many, many computer problems are the result of doing things with said computer that you might not want to admit. And I’m not just talking about porn (though, that’s the chief sinner a lot of the time) - it could also be that toolbar you installed for your browser that gives you easy access to pictures of cute cats, or maybe that free Su Doku game. No matter what, if they person asks you if you opened any strange email attachments (or something) recently, just freakin’ fess up, because they’re probably going to figure it out eventually anyway.
• Don’t be an Ass - One of the quickest ways you can get to the land of the banished is to treat the tech like some peon who’s just “beneath you” or something. Trust me, if you want help, humility is like gold. And if you think that certain tech support people won’t give you the runaround if your attitude is sour, you’re very, very wrong. Very.

Most of us will have to get an expert on the horn at some point in our lives. If your time is drawing near, remember these tips and hopefully your experience will be relatively painless.

Technorati Tags: tech support, lifehacks

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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.

Then they called me. “Just wanted to ask you a few questions about your visit”, the polite man said. “Sorry, I don’t have time right now”, (and I wasn’t lying, I really was busy), “call me back tomorrow.” After I hung up, I quickly assessed whether it was worth adding this number to my address book. “Huh,” I thought, and then I saved it under a brand new contact called “Ignore”.

Seriously, everybody with a phone capable of storing multiple numbers for a single contact (especially you iPhone owners - since you can store an arbitrary number of phone numbers, not just ‘work’,'home’, and ‘mobile’) - create this contact right now. I’ll wait.

Now, the next time an undesirable calls you from a non-blocked number, just tell them you’re busy and to call back later. Then, add them to that “Ignore” contact. Presuming all of the outgoing calls from their call center are routed through a single number (which is typically the case), the next time they call, your phone will tell you exactly what to do.

I can hear you saying “well, why not just ask them not to call back?” - this works sometimes, but not always. And even though they’re required by law to not call you back (assuming it’s an unsolicited call from a complete stranger, which isn’t the case for my car dealership), we’ve all heard stories from people who’ve repeatedly asked to be “removed from the list” and still get those calls.

If you’re really savvy, you can ignore everything you’ve just read and sign up for GrandCentral (assuming you can get an invite).

Technorati Tags: phone, spam, telemarketers, iphone, lifehacks

I’m a big fan of Twitter (even though we’ve had our differences in the past - mostly due to my not “getting it”). While my updates may not be as fast, furious or incessant as some of the people whom I follow, I do try to pop on there as often as is feasible without completely kneecapping my productivity at work and home.

Whenever I mention Twitter to my non-techie friends and family, I’m often asked what it is and I can never quite articulate it without making it sound like some über-nerd service that only computer people use. It’s frustrating, because it’s such a fun service (and potential time sink - you’ve been warned, uninitiated readers) and I really wish more people used it.

Fortunately, I found this great video (via Twitter, oddly enough) that does a fantastic job of explaining just what Twitter actually is and why it’s so freakin’ cool.

Oh, and if you haven’t already, I encourage you to sign up, then follow me
(Hat tip to Chris Rodgers)

Technorati Tags: twitter