Blog
Falling for Evernote
[Sep 16, 2011; Personal]
Traditionally I have been collecting my notes in various ways, but doing so online wasn't one of them. It seemed wrong to put so much information "out there". It could either leak or just disappear.
I can't say why anymore, but two days ago I decided to give Evernote a chance. I should probably have been warned by the large number of addicts. But now it is too late anyways, I have taken the blue pill. Here is why:
Omnipresence
Apart from the mandatory browser client they offer a wide range of additional software. It makes note taking (and often viewing) as painless as it can possibly be. Here is what I have played with so far:
- Filing a geo-tagged picture of a nice bike spot using the Android app
- Filing an interesting mail by forwarding it to my Evernote email address
- Filing a web page including its contents using the Firefox plugin
It is always at my fingertips and takes little time. Chances are I will continue to use it after the first excitement has gone.
Trust
Evernote makes money only from its large group of paying customers. They will do all they can to make me believe my notes are well protected. The best approach for this to work in the long run is to actually protect the notes.
All-in-all it provides so much convenience and makes the risks seem so low. Ignorance is bliss.
Toodledo & Got To Do
[Dec 11, 2010; Personal]
I've been using this bundle for half a year now and am quite happy with it. Both tools provide a similar lightweight Getting Things Done implementation. They get stuff organized a lot quicker than ThinkingRock with its cumbersome by-the-book workflow.
Toodledo is a online to-do list service and acts as cloud store and web access for my tasks. Got To Do is an Android GTD-style app which synchronizes with Toodledo.
There are slight differences between the two tools, like the missing inbox view in Toodledo. However, both tools support task status (which Got To Do uses to assign entries to the inbox) so that no data is lost when synchronizing back and forth.
Getting Things Done
[Apr 28, 2009; Personal]
Gettings Things Done (GTD) is a self management method which has been around for a couple of years now. There are many websites, blogs and books dedicated to it. I put some useful links below.
I had already looked into it some time ago, but quickly lost interest again. The overhead of the processing flow in GTD made it look inefficent compared to a simple task list. After being swamped with work to an extend which renders a simple task list useless, I changed my mind and rediscovered GTD. Interestingly the overhead grows little compared to the amount of work managed with this system. There is a point at which GTD becomes easier to work with than simple lists.
I selected Thinking Rock and Freemind as my tools of choice for implementing the approach.
Last but not least: Having read freely available information on the web, the book classic from David Allen didn't really provide many new insights. So you might want to spend that money on something else.
Getting Things Done (Wikipedia)
Getting Things Done (Talk at 24C3, Video, German)
Thinking Rock (Free Java GTD Software)
Freemind (Free Java Mindmap Software)
Trotz GTD wird aber die eigentliche Arbeit nicht weniger. Man bekämpf letztendlich damit nur das Symptom - eine stetige Zunahme von Aufgaben.
Es heißt ja auch nicht "Doing Your Things For You". :)
Der Idee ist ja, dass man konzentriert arbeiten kann, auch wenn ständig irgendwas hereinprasselt.
Die Welt is schon komisch, genau die Zeit in der ich aus technischen Gründen nicht hier reinsehen konnte, hab ich damit verbracht GTD zu lesen ..
.. klingt zumindest mal nach nem Lösungsansatz für das Chaos was sich hier Workflow nennt ..
Klar, GTD ist nicht dafür da, die Aufgaben zu erledigen. Aber wenn wir durch unsere Arbeit mit einem sinnvollen (menschlichen) Maß an Aufgaben belastet wären, würden wir GTD gar nicht benötigen. Der Bedarf nach GTD ist Ausdruck für eine Überlastung mit Aufgaben.
Jein. Dann wäre ja auch ein Auto ein Ausdruck für eine Überlastung mit Entfernung. Technik zu benutzen, um unsere Fähigkeiten zu erweitern, ist für Menschen durchaus natürlich.
From the Very Beginning
[Aug 20, 2006; Personal]
I just learned from wikipedia that my set of SuSE Linux CDs from November 1995 was actually the first SuSE Linux ever. It was my first Linux too. Counting boxes and CDs in my possession, I've run through about 10 versions of their Linux Distribution since then.
If it wasn't considered lame to use SuSE, I'd be pretty l33t with such a collection.
Poppitz the Movie
[Oct 8, 2004; Personal]
What are there chances there is a movie going by someones family name? That's right, about 100% if the time frame is big enough. As far as the name "Poppitz" goes one would expect to have to wait for an eternity. But nah, not anymore. It's been done: "Poppitz" is out
Too bad the movie is not all that great. There are some nice scenes, but its overloaded with stereotypes like the 13 year old goth daughter.
Who the fuck is Poppitz? This question drives car salesman Gerry insane on his vacation. Poppitz is the name of the mystery man who Gerry's junior boss phones with all the time.