FeedWearing noise canceling headphones in a noisy data centre.
Listening to industrial/ebm music.
Sounds weird.
Popularity: 44% [?]
Tasks of the Day
So, as I was not very happy with how my projects were advancing I had to research and implement various systems to help me move forward. After much fiddling GTD was the first breakthrough. It helped me to get my current affairs in order and gave me the peace of mind to go to the upper levels. I identified my big goals and sought to align my actions with these goals. I learned to distinguish between task’s urgency and importance. Things started to gradually get better but still not good enough. I was still missing something… and it turned out that my daily routine is weak and allows me to procrastinate 
Basically I didn’t have a daily routine. I used to just open the list with tasks and diligently delay the more difficult looking ones until they fall off the current day and were left off for the next day. Probably these are just my personal flaws but the good news is there are fixes. The concept of Most Important Tasks of the day saved the day.
I was doing my daily task lists for some time when I stumbled upon the term MIT on the Zen Habits blog and I adopted it (I’m not a native English speaker).
Essentially you need to pick a bunch of tasks to do for the day. These are the Most Important Tasks. Of course you may do other things as well but you should throw all of your energy at completing these MITs. Make separate list with these tasks and stick to it.
Start with the most difficult or daunting task. This is important. Direct your efforts at the task you need most energy to accomplish. Keep an eye on the other important and urgent tasks. But you have good chance to do these later if they are easier and not that scary as the MITs. Thanks to my GTD based approach my tasks already have attributes like Energy (mental and physical), Importance, Urgency, Context and Time (ETA) so it’s rather easy for me to sort and choose.
It’s important to start with the tasks that require most energy because with the advancement of the day most people’s energy levels start to drop. If you delay the MITs too much you will not have the energy to start or complete them.
For example I discovered that my ability to concentrate varies greatly throughout the day. Even though I might think that in the evening I’m at the same energy level as in the morning I can easily prove myself wrong. Just have to try to focus on something more difficult while there is some distraction like say TV. I do ignore distractions much more easily in the morning. And it’s nearly impossible for me to do the same in the evening.
Because MITs list is small it allows for better focus. Most people have tens if not hundred of tasks in their lists (or worse – in their heads). If you keep this enormous pile of tasks in front of you it easily makes you feel overwhelmed and hesitant to start working on it.
The process of choosing tasks for the MITs list is essentially a planning process. The usual disclaimer about plans apply: circumstances may force you to abandon your plan but the planning process is important. Planning forces you to do the required thinking. As the saying goes: the failure to plan is a plan for failure. By keeping the more important tasks first you have the chance to complete them even if you’ve underestimated how much time would they take.
And finally the MITs list is a commitment. You bind yourself to the course of action.
For example that’s how I do it:
First I identify the hard landscape for the day. Are there any tasks that must be done at a specific time? Any meetings? At very least there’s your lunch and it’s definitely important.
After putting my hard landscape on the calendar I’m ready to distribute other tasks between the fixed ones. I keep in mind the context, energy levels, urgency and importance. You can’t do a task if you are not in the right context. And it’s a whole lot better to do some hard work that early in the day when you are still fresh. Don’t overcommit! You can always pick some more things to do if you finish earlier but people tend to underestimate the time required to complete a task. And in my case new things pop-up every now and then during the day.
It sounds like common sense but unfortunately it took me some time to figure out and more importantly to establish the habit. I was underestimating how important it is until I forced myself to include it in my daily routine and never miss it. Almost every time I skip it I got sloppy results. Of course the GTD still applies: if you find yourself stuck somewhere or your energy level drops dramatically for some reason – you can always pick another Next Action that matches your current context or energy level.
Popularity: 37% [?]
The Internet Tablet Revolution
Since the introduction of the first Palm devices back in 1997 I was tracking the evolution of pocket computers with great interest. However, for a very long time I couldn’t find the combination of factors that would make me buy one. The first device I seriously considered was N770 from Nokia. It was breakthrough in many ways but still quite limited in it’s memory and processing speed. I kept an eye on its development and when Nokia released it’s successor N800 I was sold. I bought one and used it for about 9 months when N810 was released. I immediately upgraded. I wear my N810 wherever I go for more than a year now and I’m very satisfied.
Some of the reasons I didn’t like any of the previous generations of PDA were their small screens, the use of closed operating systems or their high price tag. So the main advantages of N810 over it’s rivals at least for me are:
Superior display than most of the PDAs. 4.1″ is very good and balanced size. Any bigger and it won’t fit in your pocket. Superb 800×480 screen resolution – you can’t go better for a display of this size. And due to the fact this display is transflective it’s readable even in bright daylight.
N810 is more mobile than the netbooks, which are gaining popularity recently. It’s smaller and lighter and it fits in your pocket or in a lather sleeve like this one. Better mobility is also aided by the very good battery life. I use mine to read while commuting, some internet browsing and I might turn on the gps once in a while. That’s about 1.5 hrs daily and I keep it in off-line suspended mode (but instant on – less than a second) for the rest of the time. Its battery lasts about 5 days between recharges with this usage pattern.
N810 runs an open source, linux based OS and application stack designed for use with touchscreens. Openness, flexibility, best of breed package management (debian’s apt). Want maemo mapper + openstreetmap, xterm + openssh, Doom or other popular application? No problem – check out http://maemo.org/downloads/OS2008/. Not strictly related but it’s browser is gecko based (that’s mozilla & firefox engine) and has flash support. Some of the greatest apps for N810 are written by the community.
N810 has built-in gps and comes with Wayfinder pre-installed. If you want turn by turn navigation you’ll have to pay a modest subscription fee to use this option. maemo mapper is a free mapping and navigation alternative. maemo mapper’s routing capabilities are not as extensive and route recalculation needs an Internet connection but it’s very good app nevertheless. Go try it. There’s also navit – a very promising navigation app in the making. This gps led us trough most of the southern Spain few months ago.
As expected for an Internet Tablet N810 has bluetooth and wifi. No device is useful without good connectivity options in this day and age. Hook it to the nearest WiFi hotspot or your 3g enabled bluetooth phone. And it’s WiFi is among the best I’ve used – very good range and compatibility with hot spots around the world.
One of the great surprises was the quality of the built-in qwerty keyboard. I didn’t expected nearly as comfortable typing. Sometimes I have this feeling that I didn’t hit the right key but when I look at the screen it’s all correct. Very good job, Nokia.
Another surprise was the amazing sound for a device this small. It actually sounds better than my ThinkPad X41. It’s last.fm player, vagalume, is killer app. Use it like a portable personalized radio.
There are built-in camera and mic as well. Combined with the pre-loaded software like jabber client with voice and video support (and gtalk), gizmo and skype it’s the ultimate communicator.
It’s light sensor is very handy. Based on the current light conditions the display brightness is adjusted to save power and make work with the tablet more comfortable.
And last but not least the price: it was first released at $450 and is currently (Dec 2008) being sold for about $335 in various on-line stores.
What’s next? There are quite a lot people that prefer their internet tablet to have some built-in long range connectivity options in addition to WiFi like GPRS, 3G or WiMAX. Nokia responded to this demand with N810 WiMAX edition. I personally am completely satisfied with 3G via bluetooth phone.
But what’s more interesting is the upcoming fourth generation internet tablet (N900?). Rumours are that it will be OMAP3 based, will have built-in HSPA connectivity, high definition camera and hardware based graphics acceleration. Recently nokia released the Maemo 5 SDK which is targeted at this future device’s developers.
I’m glad someone (Nokia) finally has taken this technological way. I hope they continue evolving the internet tablet series in the same way and spirit. Can’t wait to see what N9xx will look like…
Popularity: 42% [?]