Membership

I’ll never be able to say enough how just thankful I am to the members of this site. Thanks to those of you who are willing to pitch in $3 every month, I’m entering into my second year of writing this site full time.

This year I recorded 156 episodes of Shawn Today. Among my favorites were the week-long coffee-gear video series, the new “Ask Shawn Today” series, and the oodles of shows talking and musing about diligence and focus. Believe it or not, I’ve heard from many who claim they’ve listened to every single episode. Amazing. I haven’t even listened to every episode, and I was there when they were recorded.

The Boy and The Schedule

This year, Anna and I had our first kid. Noah. Having a kid is so wonderful. It’s been amazing and beautiful and oh so inconvenient.

Being a dad is the best thing in the world and I would never trade it for a second. It has also been the most disruptive thing to happen to my working life.

Anna and I share responsibilities with Noah. I watch him about 20 hours a week, mostly in the mornings. For a guy who likes to have a semi-regular work pattern and who does his best work in the pre-lunch hours, this new routine has been murder to my work life.

The changes to my working (and sleeping) routine have forced me to write when it’s time to write, not when I feel inspired. And though that’s not quite as fun, it’s shown me that when you write day-in and day-out, words start to get in you. You begin to trust your subconscious a bit more and you’re okay with not waiting for that magical moment of inspiration. You sit down, you write, and later (after a few tears and edits) you realize, hey, that’s not so bad.

A Few Faves

Some of the most fun I’ve had on this site has been with the members-only podcast. The near-daily show hit a stride this year and the feedback with listening members has been great.

And, of course, I’ve had a lot of fun writing.

• After spending an unnatural amount of time with three noisy keyboards, I wrote a super-nerdy review of some popular Clicky Keyboards. Not only does the review make a great white-noise track for typing, but it also led me on to discover the Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 tenkeyless keyboard. A most excellent typing apparatus.

• Though there were many, a few reviews I most enjoyed writing were Day One, the New Codas, Diary of an iPad (3) Owner, and my hunt for the best mirrorless camera.

• My article about finally solving the paperless puzzle stands as a hallmark for me, personally, in that I finally made the move to a paperless office and I’ve been loving ever minute of it.

• And, not everything I write here is a review of something. Some of my favorite non-review pieces: It’s Just Stuff, The Urgent Versus the Essential, Most People, and For Noah.

* * *

All this to say, thanks for reading. I am seriously looking forward to doing awesome work in 2013 and I bet you are too.

Recently I’ve read a few new articles about scaling back from Twitter and RSS. This is a common theme, especially amongst the group of bloggers I follow. And I’m glad that it’s a common theme because things like scaling back, clarifying our goals, identifying distractions, and the like are all moving targets.

There is no set-it-and-forget-it because small distractions are always creeping into our lives. It’s a constant battle to keep even a modicum of focus and creative breakthrough as a part of our daily lives. But it’s a battle worth fighting.

* * *

Patrick Rhone, “What is Enough?”:

I’m convinced that a successful life is largely driven by balance and moderation. […]

We all have a center of balance that is unique, different from everyone else. My center of balance is different from yours. My daughter’s, from mine. As she walks the wire, hands out, wobbling to and fro, this is what she is in search of. As she gets older, this process might become easier, faster, with less wobble, but it will never end. No matter how good she becomes, she will always need some device to assist her — arms stretched, a long pole, a racquet or fan. Even the Flying Wallendas, perhaps the greatest wire act to ever perform and a family team stretching back 10 generations, still wobble and use devices to maintain their balance.

Frank Chimero, “Digital Jubilee”:

The Jubilee offers a way out of oppressive expectations, even if they are our own. This year, I’m practicing a digital jubilee by archiving my inbox, deleting my RSS subscriptions, and unfollowing most everyone on Twitter. These, of course, will fill back up as time passes, but now I have a recurring way to purge. Practices like these have been coined “declaring bankruptcy” by the digital lifestyle blogs, but I think the phrase misrepresents the practice. Cleaning the digital slate is not a practice of giving up. It is one of self-forgiveness.

Yours truly, in an interview with Matt Alexander:

I’ve never felt that technology itself was too entwined in my life, though I have gone through seasons where I feel the need to slow down or step away. But that could be true for any and all hobbies or distractions. There are people who admit to spending too much time wrenching on the car, or too much time golfing, or whatever it may be.

Technology, gadgets, and the like are not bad in and of themselves, it’s us who need self-control to live balanced and purposeful lives.

Adam Brault: “I quit Twitter for a month and it completely changed my thinking about mostly everything.“:

I used to believe that time was the most important thing I have, but I’ve come to believe differently. The single most valuable resource I have is uninterrupted thought.

Paul Graham, “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule”:

But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in.

* * *

For a maker, uninterrupted work time is valuable because it allows us uninterrupted thought. Large blocks of free time so we can focus, freely (or not so freely, because, well, you know how it goes sometimes).

But when we interrupt our own time with habitual checking of email, Facebook, Twitter, et al. then it’s like having micro meetings all day long.

Unfollowing everyone, unsubscribing from everything, and setting up auto-responders in our email seem mostly seem like band-aid fixes. They help in some regard (I’m trying something similar myself with Twitter) but underneath the problem is still there. Yes, apply the band aid, but that alone does not mean the “problem” is “healed”.

Because it comes down to our own choices. Are we going to spend our time the way we want to or not? Are we going to do the work we say we want to do or not? Intentions are dandy, but real men get to work.

“I am the President of the United States of America … clothed in immense power!”

As I’ve continued to think about the movie Lincoln, the above line is one of many which return again and again to my mind. Though it seems impossible (or, at best, unfair) to pick any single line above another.

Lincoln is certainly the best film I’ve seen all year. I found it to be provoking, sobering, encouraging, and beautiful.

The art and craft of storytelling through film seems to be more and more rare these days. In Lincoln, all the components of a movie — acting, cinematography, writing, costume and set design, editing, etc. — come together into a single, cohesive work of moving art. It is moving to watch, moving to hear, and once taken in, it lodges itself in your heart and mind for a while.

The line I quoted at the top was spoken not with pride, but with honest humility and great vehemence. Which is why I think this the line that keeps coming back to me; it sums up the character of Abraham Lincoln as played by Daniel Day-Lewis perfectly. Though you’ll have to see it for yourself in the context of the movie to fully grasp and appreciate why.

The character of Lincoln in this movie was portrayed as a deeply humble and clear-minded man. He knew he was placed in his presidential office by the vote of the people. And therefore, acknowledging and exercising his power as the President was not an act of pride but of humility.

He knew who he was and what he needed to do. He used his immense power as President to fight for the freedom of all men. And in the end, we know it cost him his life.

It’s just after 9 o’clock in the morning, and Noah is down for his first nap of the day. The past couple of hours I’ve spent with him feeding him his breakfast of squashed up mango and banana, changing his diaper, rolling around on the living room floor with him, and holding him in my lap while we read kids books he doesn’t yet understand but likes to grab at the cardboard pages.

Yesterday, November 6, Anna and I took Noah with us to vote. Four years ago when the two of us voted in our first presidential election as a married couple, our little boy was just a thought — a dream of one day when we would eventually have kids. And in 4 years time, at the next election, Noah will no doubt be an older brother with a sibling or two.

Voting is an immeasurable privilege and honor. More than 115 million of us stood in lines all across America yesterday. Some came prepared with their cheat sheets, ready to pencil in every office, judge, amendment, and proposition exactly as they wanted. Some have been voting for decades, across a dozen presidencies and a few wars. Others cut their ballot-casting teeth for the first time yesterday.

Standing in line at the church down the road, the halls were crowded with all manner of folks. Our shared or differing political views aside, there was, as always, an unspoken sense of unity in that line. And that unity stretched through walls and precincts and states to the thousands of lines all around our nation. Most of us were more than willing to giving hours of our day to stand amongst strangers and exercise one of our greatest rights as free Americans.

Thinking about those who were in line with Anna and me, and all the other 115 million Americans who voted yesterday, I think it’s fair to say there is a common denominator amongst us all: we want what is best for our families.

As I sat down with my ballot and pencil in that crowded church room I had a single purpose: I was voting for my family. I voted with my son in mind, and our future children, because they will inherit the country we build for them.

But that country our children will live in is not built in whole through the aggregate of millions of ballots. Nor is their inheritance the responsibility of Washington.

I voted for the men and women who I felt most aligned with the values of my own life. Who I endorse in the privacy of my voting booth is just as important as the actions I endorse in the privacy of my own home.

I deeply want this great country to be led by men and women of character and conviction. Officials who will do what’s right and leave the fabric of these United States stronger than when they started their term. But it is not mostly up to them; it is mostly up to us.

It was, as always, an honor to have voted yesterday. But my civic duty is far from over. I want what is best for my son and what is best for this country. And, as you know, that goes beyond showing up to vote. I believe it starts with making my home a place where children grow up to be wise and strong and free.

When I say successful artist, what first comes to your mind?

The first thing that comes to my mind is financial success. I tend to think of a successful artist as someone who has been fortunate in business with their creative endeavors.

But when it comes to creative work, finances measure only one definition of success. Is there such a thing as a successful designer who makes a below-average wage? Or can a writer who makes no money at all still be successful? Of course.

There is another definition of success: sustained pride in the quality of our work.

If, in our creative endeavors, we continually do work we are proud of, then that my friends is also success. We don’t make to get rich, we make to make. We build for the sake of building, create for the sake of creating. We do it because we have to.

“We don’t make movies to make money. We make money to make more movies.” — Walt Disney

Of course it’s wonderful when wealth and riches are a byproduct of our work. But for many of us finding a way to make it profitable is secondary.

Things like diligence, focus, priorities, saying no, to-do lists, time management, and the like are important to me. But why?

Well, this quote by Benjamin Franklin pretty much sums it up for me:

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of.”

This past weekend I was in Dallas for Circles Conference. It was a fantastic event filled with equally fantastic speakers. Of course, the highlight for me was the time spent in-between the sessions spending time with the other attendees. (Isn’t that the highlight of all events like this?)

The biggest personal takeaway for me was something Noah Stokes said. Talking about his design shop, Bold, he said that 20 years from now he wants to be working on his company, not in it.

That rings true for me too. In 20 years I don’t expect that writing shawnblanc.net will still be my full-time gig. But I love the tech and design community, and I love contributing to this space.

In the average 9-5, climbing up the corporate ladder is already laid out. Showing up and doing good work will often lead you to the next step in your job because the company has already laid out what progress and promotions look like.

However, for those of us who run our own businesses (or have aspirations to) there isn’t necessarily a “career path” to follow. Not only is the destination something we have to define for ourselves, so too is the path to get there. Maybe success looks like sustaining the work we are doing today, but maybe it looks like something different.

And so, on my flight back from Dallas I found myself pondering what decisions I need to make and what steps I need take now that will begin leading me to the place I want to be in 20 years.

Winston Churchill:

The most important thing about education is appetite.

Robert Frost:

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

Gavin Seim:

I’d rather be improved by honest criticism than ruined by false praise.

Rick Warren:

Emotional maturity is demonstrated by how kindly you treat those who mistreat or misunderstand you.

That’s a line I think I heard Merlin Mann say once in a podcast.

And the way I see it, there are two sides to Social Me-me-media:

• There’s the narcissistic, naval-gazing, ego-centric side. How many followers do I have? Did that popular person follow me back? Has anyone @replied to me, retweeted me, or faved my tweets in the past 30 minutes?

• And then there’s the fighting-against-the-potential-time-sink side. What’s a reasonable number of followers for me to have? How many interruptions am I willing or able to allow? How much time do I want to spend here? How much value am I getting? How much value am I giving?

It is oh so easy to get sucked into the first side and never think once about the second. But now that you are thinking about it, why not give yourself permission to unfollow whomever you want without worrying about hurting their feelings. And to check in, link in, post a picture, or update your status less often without the fear that you’ll be forgotten about.

Make social media about you — not your ego.

“If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”
― Dave Ramsey

Most athletes don’t make it to the Olympics. Most startups don’t strike gold. Most writers don’t get on The New York Times’ Best Sellers List.

And that’s okay. We all have our own definitions of success, and global fame and recognition doesn’t have to be one of them.

But how many entrepreneurs get around to taking that risk and starting their own business? Or how many writers get around to writing that book they know they have in them? How many people save for that vacation they’ve always wanted to take? How many people have become far too comfortable paying for just one more toy using the credit card?

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t surrounded by energetic, highly-focused, successful individuals who can set an example for us. Instead our classrooms and workplaces and neighborhoods are filled with folks who are good at spending more than they make while watching television, checking Facebook, and playing video games. Doesn’t it seem silly to think we have a better chance at achieving our goals while living like most people who will never achieve theirs?

Here’s a metric that can help you determine if you’re on track for reaching your goals: are you spending your time, money, and attention differently than most people?

For the past few months I’ve been contemplating just how useful Yojimbo still is for me.

Often times we don’t know what sort of solution we want, or even that there is an area of friction that we can remove. When we find an app we love we often accommodate a bit to its workflow. And as we get set in our ways, we sometimes forget to tinker.

The longer I use my computer, the less and less I enjoy tinkering. I prefer to lock in with a handful of world-class applications and learn them inside and out. Such has been the case with Yojimbo over the past 3 years.

In my review of Yojimbo in 2009 I advocated the need of an “Anything Bucket” and heartily recommended Yojimbo:

Anything Buckets should be more about ease of use than about depth of features. The very best ones lend themselves to perpetual use. And if you use them, depth will come from breadth.

The info we throw at them can be permanent, temporary, important, or trivial. It doesn’t matter. Regardless of who, what, when, where, or why, the best Anything Bucket is ready to receive any bit of information that threatens to elude you.

[…]

Put plainly, Yojimbo is the simplest way possible to save any bit of spontaneous information. No matter how indispensable or arbitrary that information is.

I still agree completely with what I wrote in 2009. Everything doesn’t always fit nice and neatly into our current set of apps and file hierarchies. But in my willingness to break habits and workflows that may no longer be the case for me — I’m considering a transition away from Yojimbo.

This is a subject that saddens me to even think about, let alone write about.

I’ve used Yojimbo every day since early 2009, and it is the only Dock Application I have set to launch when I boot up my Mac. Because, like TextExpander or LaunchBar, if Yojimbo isn’t active when I expect it to be, I’m thrown off for a moment. I’ve written several custom AppleScripts for it. A huge part of my daily routine revolves around tossing stuff into Yojimbo. I store all sorts of things in this fine app: bookmarks, passwords, serial numbers, encrypted notes, regular notes, and more.

But over time, many of the things that I first used Yojimbo for have been replaced. Apps and services like Pinboard, 1Password, the Mac App Store, FileVault 2, and Simplenote/nvALT have all but obviated the majority of Yojimbo’s daily usefulness for me.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve begun using superior, dedicated bookmarking and password apps. Or perhaps I’ve settled into my groove for how I use my computer and what sorts of files I keep. (It’s probably a bit of both.) But whatever it is, there is now little left for my Anything Bucket.

In fact, the only regular thing left for me to store in Yojimbo is receipts and serial numbers. But receipts is a legacy habit at this point. Now that shawnblanc.net is run under an LLC, I’ve far more tax-deductible expenses than I used to. Which means I no longer use a calculator and add up my receipts for year-end accounting purposes — I only keep them around for just in case. Saving them to a Finder folder is now easier in the long run and more efficient.

Search & Bookmarks

This all started with search. They say a good filing system is one in which you can find whatever you’re looking for in 60 seconds or less.

I currently have 2,523 total items in Yojimbo. About 650 of those are bookmarks, and 800 are notes. As my Yojimbo library grows, I’ve increasingly been having a hard time finding certain things when the time comes. Since search results are not sorted by relevance, looking for an obscure bookmark or a particular note means scrolling through a lot of the more-current but less-relevant items first.

The more I add to Yojimbo the harder it is to find things. This is not a desirable behavior.

It was this search-related friction that led me to give Pinboard a shot. Several months ago I stopped adding bookmarks to Yojimbo and began adding them to Pinboard, and a few months later I’ve grown to love the service.

Pinboard has proven to be fantastic. I’ve easily been able to find specific bookmarks I’m looking for, I have tag completion when adding from the browser, and since apps like Reeder, IFTTT, and Instapaper all work with Pinboard, I can add more bookmarks from more places. It’s a wonderful service and I highly recommend it.

And thanks to this slightly-wonky-but-yet-still-effective script, I was able to port all of my 650-some-odd bookmarks from Yojimbo into Pinboard.1

Encrypted Files and Notes

With the advent of built-in SSDs and FileVault 2, there’s no reason not to encrypt my Mac’s entire drive. For the one-off note, PDF, image, or whatever that needs to be individually locked down, then 1Password can do that (albeit, not as elegantly or easily as Yojimbo).

I already use 1Password to store all of my login and password information and there’s no reason not to use it for the storing of secure notes as well. Additionally, these notes sync to my iPhone and iPad. And with my transition to my iPad as my traveling work computer, having access to some of this information when on the road may prove extremely advantageous one day. You see, the thing with synced data like that is you never know when you’re going to need it.

The disadvantage of 1Password compared to Yojimbo is with how extremely easy it is to add a note to Yojimbo. In fact, that is the whole point of Yojimbo: super easy capture. But the need to create an encrypted note is such an infrequent occasion, I am willing to suffer 1Password’s extra steps (and uglier UI).

Simple Notes

One question I still get on a regular basis is how do I differentiate between notes in Yojimbo and notes in Simplenote / nvALT?

Basically, Simplenote has been for anything in progress and Yojimbo was for anything worth keeping. I don’t write in Yojimbo, I store. And for a long time I didn’t store in Simplenote, I just jotted.

But since finding notes in Simplenote is so easy and quick, I’ve taken to storing some long-term, non-private bits of information in there right alongside the short-term notes. My Simplenote library is currently hovering just under 800 notes. This includes random quotes, articles in process, outlines for potential articles, and even things like my Southwest Rapid Rewards number, relevant specs about my Jeep, and the lightbulb specifications for the various fixtures around our house.

Getting Stuff Out

Something else Yojimbo excels at (that I’ve always known, but haven’t experienced first hand until now) is how easily it lets you export your data. It’s as easy to get your stuff out as it is to get in. With a little effort I was able to port all my bookmarks to Pinboard (see above), and with very little effort I just dragged and dropped all my 2012 tax expense receipts into their own Finder folder.

It’s likely that I will continue to use Yojimbo for odds and ends here and there, but it’s no longer the daily workhorse app that it once was. Times change and so do our workflows.