Green Oasis

Why do I long for free time yet feel lost when I achieve it?

Merlin Mann is a smart guy who spends a lot of time thinking about how to accomplish the important things in life (as opposed to checking your email inbox every five minutes). Here’s his presentation called Who Moved My Brain? Revaluing Time & Attention.

I know you’re all waiting breathlessly to hear my New Year’s resolutions. Please resume respiration because they’re never coming. If I have a New Year’s resolution, it is an anti-resolution resolution. I hereby swear off resolutions for all New Year’s Days, present and future.

Every year, I go through the same self-deceiving charade of making resolutions as if my efforts were going to last past President’s Day (Martin Luther King Day, maybe). Resolutions did nothing more than make me feel crumby for failing at my self-appointed goals. In the ultimate end, I will probably still end up a little chubby, a little disorganized, a little poor, and a lot dead regardless of how many good intentions I gather up on the doorstep of another year. I’d rather die a little happier for not having made so many ineffectual and guilting New Year’s resolutions.

This doesn’t mean that I won’t set goals, of course, but there is a better way.

So here’s to some healthy perspective (and knowing when it’s better not to even try)! Oh, and I wish you all the best on your resolutions!

That’s what my computer desktop looks like at work. I’m going for a simple aesthetic, something that strips everything down to its barest, functional essential. No distractions from what I want to do. Yet my desktop isn’t boring. It cheers me up every time I see it.

To accomplish this I:

• found a desktop image that makes me happy like the one you see from Mike Swanson’s beautiful collection;
• remove all icons—there’s no need to stare at the Recycle Bin when hitting the Delete key works better than dragging a file to the Recycle Bin icon—My Documents and My Computer are only a Windows + E keystroke away;
• set the taskbar to autohide—it’s only a distraction—Alt + Tab is my friend
• apply the inbox zero concept to my desktop—my desktop is only a temporary space for files that I’m actively working on—the half-life of files on my desktop is around one hour;
• use an application launcher like FindRun Robot—it feels like the Stone Ages whenever I actually have to slog through my Start menu;
• use a multiple desktop manager like VirtuaWin—each desktop has exactly one task (which may require more than one window) and nothing else—a clean, cheery desktop is never more than a keystroke away;
• and use the sleek Analog Clock from Google Desktop to keep me aware of the passage of time.

Using my computer used to feel like treading water in a polluted pool. That wasn’t very conducive to reaching the flow state. Now I feel like I’m swimming in a clear stream.

An excellent introduction to the central philosophy behind Getting Things Done from the man himself. GTD (as it’s known to the dark cult that surrounds it) is the art of stress free productivity.

(via lifehacker)