Paste Interactive [Sponsor]  →

In the ’50s Lockheed formed a group nicknamed The Skunk Works. To foster creativity they limited team size, discouraged paperwork, took few projects, and continually worked towards a higher purpose. They were pushed to do something great, something big.

Skunk Works created projects like the Blackbird. It was hard to fly, leaked gas on the runway, and could nearly shake pilots unconscious at low speeds. But once you got one humming, it could zing your butt to mach 3 up near the cold black edge of space.

Our name is Paste, and we like this story a whole lot.

Paste Interactive [Sponsor]

Alarms  →

Many thanks to Alarms for sponsoring the world’s best RSS Feed this week. Alarms is a timer and to-do app that sits in your Menu Bar. Click and drag on it to set an instant timer for, say, 30 minutes of intentional writing, or to reminder yourself in 4 minutes that the French Press is ready. Moreover, you can drag files, emails, URLs, and other items onto the menu bar icon and save those items as to-dos. A calendar slides down and lets you schedule a concrete time to hash out a that action item. You can try out Alarms for free for two weeks.

Alarms

Why vs. How  →

Frank Chimero:

How is coulda, why is shoulda. How is specifics. Why is motivation.

Though it’s two months old already, this piece by Frank is fantastic and clear and lands on my ears in very good timing. I’m finding that as a leader it’s very hard to always communicate the “why” behind your requests. But when you’re working with clever and talented folks, just bossing them around without any regard for motivating them will lead to friction.

Moreover, I’m finding that when I am personally asked to do something, I need to know the why. Even if I don’t agree with the reasoning, knowing the why helps me support those I’m serving. As a boss, I try hard to communicate the ‘why’ to my team, and when my boss doesn’t communicate it to me I’m learning to simply ask: “Why?”

So: build a team that can define how, give them a leader who can define why, and you, my friend, are dressed for success.

Why vs. How

DomainBrain

Many thanks to DomainBrain for sponsoring the RSS Feed this week. DomainBrain is an app which honors that great and glorious tradition of software tools which do one thing and one thing well. It’s a clever and attractive, one-stop app for storing all the credentials for the websites you own and/or operate (but don’t mistake it as just another password manager).

You can download and try DomainBrain for free. If you own more than one URL give it a look and I bet it will prove its usefulness.

DomainBrain