Archive for the 'Productivity' Category

Ubuntu or Mac? Your thoughts please…

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/4/3
in GTD, General and Productivity
. 21 Comments

After this weekends Blue Screen of Death problems (BSOD) I was totally ready to go to the Apple store in Central London and just buy a MacBook Pro. Totally. Why buy another PC machine that will run Vista when everyone knows Vista is no-where near ready for stable production use / primetime? For that matter, why buy a PC machine now with XP on it, when you can get OSX or Ubuntu on it?

I’ve been a Windows user for 12 years now so know it intimatley, and have used every flavour of Windows since ‘95, but I’m just not feeling it anymore. Granted, the BSOD problems on Sunday are hardware related, so I can’t blame the BSOD on Windows, and granted I’ve not had a BSOD since my laptop died last year, so I’m not getting them often and therefore have no reason to complain.

But that said, I am in the market for a change of scenery.

I’ve almost weaned myself from Outlook (we use Google Mail for Domains to run our business email, and all my other email is handled with Gmail and Yahoo! Mail - I still find the Gmail interface kludgy though), and most of the other apps that I use I can use on a Mac or Linux (Zend Studio, Navicat, Mindjet MindManager) and/or I can find alternatives that work just as well.

I’ve also shifted most of my stuff from desktop apps, or to local files on my local machine, to online services or files stored online (Basecamp being a good example, Newsgator another). So I’m not that reliant on Windows anymore.

So I guess I’m trying to figure out what the next step is - do I go Mac (MacBook Pro, MacBook?) possibly mitigating by selling my Thinkpad T42p, or do I just carry on using my Thinkpad PC and put Ubuntu on it?
If I was feeling flush, I could even get a Mac and then keep the Thinkpad as a spare/backup/dev machine with Ubuntu on it, and getting the best of both worlds in the process…

Demian reckons that I’ll go Mac and never go back, becoming a massive Mac evangelist in the process. Ido thinks that I should just do it - he’s gone from Windows to Mac and is loving it. Ryan swears by the Mac, and Ryan has recently moved to Mac too…

I love the ideals, progress and freeness ;-) of Ubuntu, but I also have to balance that with work, software and project needs (not just development/coding needs), so I would like to ideally just go Ubuntu… But then I also see firsthand the joy that OSX brings and see every day what you get with it, and how tight it all is…

So, I’m curious as to your thoughts? What would you do?
Would you go Mac, Ubuntu, or stay with Windows? If you went Mac, would you go Macbook Pro, or would you just go Macbook?

The pain of blogging

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/3/15
in GTD and Productivity
. 0 Comments

It seems an age since I last blogged regularly. I mean, I used to live blogging. I love the ideal of it, the ability to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world with access to the internet, the way the long tail brings you together with people in a way that you never thought entirely possible. I love the application of blogging too - support tool, notification tool, reminder tool, news tool, memory tool, family tool, community tool, collaboration tool - and in each of these ways I’ve missed the contact I used to get every day through blogging.

People used to laugh at me and ask me why I blogged - “What’s the point?” they’d say; “Who’s reading your blog?” thay’d ask; and so it went on and on and on. I just smiled and told them that it was more for me than anything else. The catharcism of blogging is unique in human existence I think. When else were we as individuals able to communicate with so many of our own kind at the click of a “Publish” button? That was my excuse and I’m sticking to it. [ As an aside, to all the doubting Thomas', today I can honestly say that I have a business, doing more business than I could have ever imagined a year ago, with two partners I would have given my left testicle to work with a year ago, doing the kind of work that I love doing, because I blogged. Put that in your pipe and take a deep breath ;-) Blogging works. ]

I used to just read and absorb as much as I could, and then simply point to it. My blog was only useful to people who wanted to find the kind of stuff that I was pointing to. Now, when I do blog, I try to make my blogging useful in it’s own right. There are loads of people pointing so why add to the noise? If you are any good with a search engine these days, you shouldn’t need a pointer - blogs are indexed so regularly now that if you use the right search phrase and you’re specific enough, you go right to the source - so I’m not going to try point anymore unless it’s really something I think you might benefit from, especially if it’s a bit of humour, or something I’ve got first heads up on ;-)

The pain is that good blogging takes time. It’s time consuming because to write something good takes something out of you, and it requires that you think before you write. At the moment, everything I have is being poured into my business to get to where we want to be, so I have little left to give outside of getting sleep, going to gym and running, eating properly, and having a small semblance of a normal social life. I don’t bemoan it, but I do feel guilty for not blogging more than I would like to.

The greater pain is that I have started to realise what I can blog about, where I can actually offer something of value to readers, and the ideas that pop into my head all the time are all great blog posts, but they need time. And like any good cobbler, I’m so busy that I’d rather not blog, than blog something half-arsed and half-conceived.

What do you think?

Anyways, this is a brain fart. I’ve got about 20 mins before I need to catch the last tube home, so I thought I’d post something for a change, and it’s been really cool just letting the words come out. The good news is that I’m starting to change my role within the business, so that I do less code & project management, and more communication, so hopefully that will lead to more regular posts about good stuff. I also need to introduce you to Doris, and I’m really looking forward to that.

Adios for now ;-)

From humble beginnings, new office space in Putney Bridge

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/2/23
in Productivity
. 2 Comments

About 18 months ago I left formal employment with my mind set on developing a web app. Along the way I’ve done more client work, picked up some great clients, done some cool work, and moved a little closer to the web app ideal. Life sure does throw you curveballs, and one of the many lessons thus far is that it’s important how you react to things, and to keep persisting, rather than to hide away in a corner or to stop trying. We’ve come a long way since the little Argos desk at the end of my bed, the dining room and the dining room with 4 of us in it freezing our arses off!

Today, I’m working with 4 other people full time, and another 7 people part time in freelancer / contract capacities, and we’re doing some great Web 2.0 work. Moving into the office for me is the start of Chapter 5 of our little endevour, and probably is the best state of mind I’ve been in for the last 2 years, despite the usual business / startup worries that most people who have done it will be familiar with.

Working at home sure does give you cabin fever, and so today, two weeks after moving into our office space officially, we’re looking more and more like an office, and most importantly, a place where we can be creative and do great work.

Let the games begin… ;-)

PS - if you need some space to work, or just Wifi for the day, please do get in touch.

Backpack vs Tada lists?

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/12/4
in GTD and Productivity
. 1 Comment

OK, so we’re using Basecamp extensively now, so much so that it’s safe to say we’re reliant on it. But it is definitely worth the cash outlay every month.

So that got me thinking that there must be other 37Signals stuff that I can use, since I’m trying my damndest to get off of desktop apps like Outlook (Outlook is still the best PIM client out there, so don’t even try tell me to switch to something else yet - Yay Microsoft!) purely ‘cos I want my “stuff” wherever I am, which means the best place to put it is on the web.

So my day in Outlook basically becomes:
1. check/use the Calendar
2. check/use Tasks (I’ve rationalised these radically lately, so now only keep the most relevant and important stuff I need to do in there)
3. check/use Email
4. store random bits of info I know I want access to in Notes

So now I’m trying to find a place that I can store everything that needs to be somewhere to get it off my RAM, on the web, and easy to use. Enter Backpack and Tada lists…

Except that I can’t figure out which one to use - since they’re both essentially going to be used for lists and a bit of body copy….
Yes, don’t look at your screen with that “stupid git” look on your face ;-) I get it that Backpack is Tada lists big brother, so I guess my question is really: “What do you use both of them at the same time for?”. The free version of Backpack has some limitations, so I could use both as a “web tag team” but that’s kinda geeky and I wouldn’t want to brag about that at the next Baywatch convention…

If you do use both at the same time, or you have any ideas as to why one might, please spill the beans.
If you think I’m mad and that I should just use Backpack and cough up for the 5 dolla fee, tell me ;-)

Note to self (and others) from today…

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/22
in GTD and Productivity
. 0 Comments

Sometimes you need to extract yourself from things to get a clear perspective, and get some inspiration…

Losing my mojo, then finding my flow again

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/9
in GTD and Productivity
. 7 Comments

If you’ve spent any time on this blog at all, you’ll know that I’m a passionate blogger who likes to talk about pretty much anything that takes my interest. You would also have noticed that things have been pretty scant around here primarily because yours truly has decided that for the last little while, blogging has been a secondary priority to building a business. In about 9 months I’ve gone from being a web contractor/freelancer guy to a business owner with salaries to pay and clients to deal with on a daily basis.

A little background…
In my career so far I’ve been a part of precisely 5 startups, of which this is the 5th and the one in which I have the most to lose. Of those startups, one has been wildly successful, one I walked away from as a co-founder after 6 months or so, one was shut down by the owner after he realised he was losing money hand over fist, and one was killed by the owner through unnecessary spending and doing unto others as you wouldn’t want have done unto you.

I guess it’s in my nature to work in the agile, startup culture, ‘cos I like the speed, flexibility, ability to change direction and try new things, as well as the potential to learn massively, sometimes well before your time.

Today I received my forms from the UK companies house – basically I have to send them a whole bunch of information – which isn’t really important to you at all, except that it reinforces that I’ve made the first year of being in business, and that I’m not one of those 80% first year casualties of business that everyone hears about.

Most importantly we’re building a team of crack web professionals (who in past history would have been ninjas) where we’re planning on making everyone a shareholder eventually. It’s damn exciting and heavy stressful at the same time, but I guess that’s the way it goes, and you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other way at all.

Back to the mojo thing…
So, I guess the point is that to make all of this happen, I’ve had to make a few choices, one of which was that blogging became less important than getting client work out, or finding some sleep, and another is that I was only going to blog again when I felt inside that it was right. I think I needed some headspace to figure out where I was going, and how I was going to get there.

To be honest, I’ve not done much reading, browsing or playing with new code toys at all, because I’ve been so busy getting client work out the way, and building some neat things that we’ll be releasing in the near future. What I have done however is consolidate a lot of my thinking about the web at the moment, and what we’re talking to clients about, and what we’re putting into our web apps, and it’s exciting – for the first time in a long time, the weariness is giving way to hope and anticipation, which is a great place to be in.

.. and then finding my flow.
I’m a big believer in the idea (not necessarily the religion) of Zen and the state of no-mind (being “in the zone” to Westerners) that advanced practioners of Zen get to when they’re completely and utterly focussed on the task at hand. For me, finding my flow has meant re-discovering the things that I enjoy about work, and then finding other people to work with, that feel similarly.

Having my head down in client work lately has meant that there was little else to think about bar the next deadline, but now that we’ve grown the team a little, and we’ve gotten on top of our workloads, we’re able to take a step back and recognise that we’ve made good progress (the fruits of which I’ll talk about now) as a result of being in the zone, and in doing that I’ve reached a point where blogging has and will become part of my flow again. This is exciting as I’ve got so much to talk about now I’m almost bursting at the seams.

To give you an idea of what we’ve been working on, in the near future we’ll be launching a web app that I don’t want to say too much about here for now, a business blogging service aimed at making blogging easier for business people, another take at personal bookmarking, and a web and emerging technology conference in (Southern) Africa (website still being tweaked and tested) where we’ve got some really good international speakers lined up. On top of that we’re going to be launching a web 2.0 dating site with a client, and helping Seagull become the leading PHP web app framework/platform. Additionally, I’m hoping to find another 2 to 4 days in the coming month to get the first public version of the PHP / CSS framework I’ve been working on and using internally for 6 months now, out and into the wild.

Bottom line is, it’s good to be back, and I hope you’ll stick along for the ride ;-)

The people you meet in life…

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/1
in Productivity
. 0 Comments

This is pretty good…

Breaking the 150 mark

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/10/26
in GTD and Productivity
. 0 Comments

No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get my inbox below 150 emails for any length of time, and I’m loathe to do a DMZ and kill ‘em all… Can anyone hear the chirruping?

;-)

Feed habit, recovered from I have

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/10/12
in GTD and Productivity
. 3 Comments

In the words of Yoda…

I confess, I used to be a feedaholic. No, I didn’t sit and read feeds all day, neglecting client work - my feed inbox just grew to gigantic uncomfortable proportions… But that’s all gone.

I’m recovered now, and vow never again to go over that magical 250 feed mark, where all hell breaks loose, sanity flies away, and it feels like the noise from everyone speaking inside your head just won’t go away…

So, I’ve pruned my feeds down to something manageable - most people have very little of importance to say on a daily basis anyways - and I’ve actually cleaned up my feeds folder so it’s at empty, waiting for the sync tomorrow morning.

So now I’m ready to do battle with the noise again, and even keener to pick up some more blogging, now that I’m getting back into my workflow and my zone, and have come to terms with the fact that I’m never going to lead a normal life, at least not for the next 3 to 5 years anyways…

;-)

The going on holiday post, updater, and the next few months

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/8/18
in General and Productivity
. 0 Comments

So here I am - it’s almost 3 in the morning, the morning before I’m due to go on a short holiday to Greece and Turkey, and I’m still working. My Mom told me to get a few early nights before leaving, so that I could start to unwind… no such luck.

Such has been life of late, although I dare say it’s of my own making. The problem is that I enjoy what I do so much, that I don’t really count the hours as much as I used to - it’s a funny state of affairs.

So here’s the updater…

One of the casualties of the last few weeks has been this blog, so I’m sorry for the lack of any real meaty posts. But I’m also happy to say that life isn’t about “posting on your blog every day, dude”, but about the peaks and troughs, the swings in the roundabout so to speak, so although I may not have been visibly blogging, I certainly have been running things through in my mind - most of which is fundamental to the next 18 months or so, and thus the quality of blog posts here.

My little freelance / contracter practice has grown bigger and faster than I anticipated, so I’m now paying wages, and going to sleep at night just after I mentally do the books. Anyways, the spin off of this is that I’ve been able to finance the development of the prototype for our first web app, and am lucky to have a good friend and trusty accomplice working with me now to get the web app off the ground and into public beta.

Over the coming months I’ll be looking to grow the team into more of a web SWAT team, and less of a web mini-SWAT team; while still doing the client work I’ve been doing of late (mainly backend stuff, with some consulting and project management sprinkled in for good measure and sanity). I’m also going to be setting up a formal business site for my company, a business blog to discuss business stuff that’s important, and quite possibly moving into new shared offices with some other businesses run by mates of mine. So all in all, the next few months are going to be exciting ones to say the least!

I’m going to Greece tomorrow (I’ve never been) and only now do I feel like the kid in the candy store - if I was any less tired I’d probably feel excited. The upshot is that I’ll get some kip on the plane, and then it’s a week or so of rest, relaxation, sunshine and swimming in the Med. I can’t wait - I only hope that my lilly white ass doesn’t scare too many folks away. I’ve charged my camera batteries, had my Lomo fixed, and have a few black and white spools for the F70, so I’m really looking forward to taking some cool photo’s and just forgetting about work - sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself that there’s this whole world out there beyond my monitor, mouse and keyboard…

The only negative thing that I can think of for now is that I am absolutely knackered. I have dark rings under my eyes, my eyes have started twitching again (they do at about 2am), and I constantly feel like there just isn’t any more energy left in the tank. If I allowed myself to, I could fall asleep anywhere and anytime (when I was in university, I mastered the 10 minute catnap between lectures so sleeping on the train is easy), so this holiday is coming at exactly the right time. So my intention is to forget about everything, get some rest, and come back to London with a different approach and renewed vigour.

They say that successful captains know how to re-align the ship onto it’s course when the ship starts to go off course - now I’m not saying that I’ve gone off the rails (hardly, just not sleeping enough!); but just that the last few months have made me realise a few things about myself, and also about the industry I work in, the way I conduct my business, the work ethic I have, and the way I want to live and lead my life.

I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that as an entrepreneur, there simply is no nirvana of a 9-5 work-life balance - it’s not possible unless you have seed capital at least - the only balance you can have is to make sure that you don’t work all the time, you get distracted with other stuff that interests you, and that you maintain your human relationships. So on my return from holiday, I aim to puruse all of the above, rather than to the exclusion of… Playing hockey again soon is going to be cool too (I went to my first fitness session of the season yesterday and my body is aching like it should) ;-)

And that about sums it up - I’ve drawn a blank, have a real need for some shuteye, and can’t think of anything more to add here.

Adios, and seeya on the flip side - if I’ve got a mail from you in my Inbox, it WILL get replied to on my return; if you’re in Greece over the next week, look me up - I’ll be the big guy with white legs on the beach oggling all the skimpy bikini’s… ;-) - and if you’re a blogger, stop blogging, go get some air/sleep/food/interaction with other humans!

Web app laser focus

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/7/27
in GTD and Productivity
. 2 Comments

Today was a good day - we sat down and really thrashed out the user case and benefits thereof, for the app we’re building, over a bit of lunch. One of the things that came up continually was the importance of staying focussed on the task at hand, which is “the credit card test“. We’ve all worked for many years in this industry, and all worked in all sorts of environments, but the one thing that is common to all of them is the desire to continually add new features and new functionality, either at our own behest, or at the clients request. The upside in the service model is that since your time is money, you earn more money. There doesn’t seem to be much of a downside as long as you deliver what you promise, apart from stress of course ;-)

In the product side of things, however, not having a laser focus is both deadly and foolish. So what we’ve done is create a list of “nice to have’s” which we’ll keep track of and add to as we grow into our app, but for now, they’re just going to slow us down and add more work, more time and more frustration.

So we’ve really cut back on extraneous features, nailing things down to the absolute essentials - we’re not making any assumptions about what users will want or need, and we’re not going to deviate from that. We have a core offering and that simplicity is what will allow me to go to sleep tonight a happy man - safe in the knowledge that we can build up rather than have to build sideways and backwards.

My current other frustration is that things in the US seem to be blowing up, literally every day. I only have to sync my feeds in the morning to get at least 1 to 3 posts about this or that company getting funding, or releasing a new app.

OK, I’m not in the US and I’m not in the business of creating an unsustainable venture, but I am in the business of siezing on opportunities, and it just seems like the eternal adage of “it will always take longer than you think to get it done” won’t go away - balancing client work with web app development (even when you’re essentially directing, there is loads of business and marketing stuff to think about) doesn’t make for lots of time to try out new ideas.

So, the upshot is that the web app is progressing thanks to some very cool people who are working on it, but the downside is that I’m pushing back my social and relaxation time to get things done. It’s a short term fix, but will hopefully have long term benefits [I'd love to talk to you if you are in a similiar situation or have experienced this situation before] thanks to staying true to the absolute laser focus and staying true to our ideals of providing value over gimmickry.

Can’t access Yahoo! Mail… anyone else getting the same?

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/7/23
in Productivity
. 12 Comments

Strange, just today I can’t access Yahoo! Mail from Outlook, their website (http://mail.yahoo.co.uk), the web browser on my PDA and the mail app on my PDA… So I’m pretty sure something is up.

Anyone else having any difficulties getting their Yahoo! Mail?

Deleted RSS feeds in probation

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/7/12
in GTD, General and Productivity
. 0 Comments

I’ve just deleted everything in my Newsgator “z_Probation” folder, because I’m just getting too much information and not enough focus, and it feels really good ;-) My apologies if I unsubscribed from your feed, but I’m sure you’ll understand.

I’m trying to get into a regular blog habit, but am finding it pretty hard - building a business and servicing clients are priority right now, so anything and everything that is reducing focus and taking time (mostly extraneous stuff that just eats time) is being thrown out - so I’m hoping that reducing the amount I read will reduce the feeling of information drowning and give me more time to blog myself. I’ve started asking myself the 80/20 question almost all the time now, combined with treating everything as an effort in Kaizen, so that’s making a big difference too…

Anyways, thought I’d break the radio silence for a spell!

Hope you’re well wherever you are!

Builders and whiners

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/6/16
in Productivity
. 2 Comments

Ryan’s written an interesting post on people being builders and doers, vs being whiners and trolls…