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I haven't blogged about critical thinking for a while now, but that is not at all due to the fact that I have lost interest in it, or no longer think it is valuable.

On the contrary, I think that we all owe it to ourselves to approach claims and facts presented to us critically and with healthy skepticism. After all, these two things are how we protect ourselves from being taken advantage of.  It's that simple.  Everytime you ask questions about something, you gain more knowledge.  It is with knowledge, and knowledge alone, that you can help yourself to avoid the common pitfalls and traps employed by scheisters, con-artists, and advertisements.

Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland has posted a very good entry over at The Chronicle related to the Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science.  This reminds me a lot of Brian Dunning's excellent introduction to critical thinking, Here Be Dragons, The Movie. 

It is important to understand that Robert and Brian are only pointing out warning signs.  No one is making the claim that just because any of these signs happen to be present means that something is definitely a scam.  It just means that, upon noticing something like this, it should trigger a red-flag for you, and cause you to ask perhaps a few more questions that you might otherwise do so.

Do yourself a favour and check out the post here.

Above all, remember: think critically.  No one else is going to do that for you, and the people that put forward these kind of claims will do everything in their power to shut down your skepticism and critical thinking.

Well, apparently my recent post about hating the look and feel of this blog was enough to spur me onwards to make the changes I needed to.  If you are reading this through an RSS reader, then you won't be able to tell, but I devoted Sunday to making some small changes to the site layout, and then tackled the task full on once I got familiar with what I had available.  Below I'll detail the changes I've made, and what's in store for the future.

I managed to get to the bottom of my relatively large inbox at work for the first time in a while, and so I found myself with a little bit of downtime. Rather than waste the time perusing Google Reader (Great web-app, excellent productivity destroyer!), I figured I would instead devote some time towards writing about the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology.

This entry actually stems from a presentation I decided to give at work. Since I'm the only project manager at work, I hoped that it would be interesting for co-workers to see how I go about managing the large volume of tasks that constantly filter across my desk.

There are already a lot of websites out there by various gurus of productivity (some self-proclaimed, others widely recognized as such), but most of those delve right in to the details and discuss ways to optimize the system to suit your own needs. I don't care - I want to write about this subject, and I think I'm pretty decent at articulating concepts, so here's hoping that this post provides some benefit to some people that are not intimately familiar with the subject matter.

Before I begin, I will state for the record that I am not a GTD guru, self-proclaimed or otherwise. I am simply taking this opportunity to provide my own insight into the subject.

What is GTD?

Let's start at the top. GTD is, at its core, a time-management methodology. It is a way of dealing with the myriad of distractions that bombard us on a daily basis, and handling all of the various tasks and todo items that crop up as a result.

Who can use GTD?

This is hardly ground-breaking, but the people that will benefit the most from GTD are those that experience the things I've mentioned above frequently. People in management positions will typically be bombarded with e-mails, phone calls, etc. on a fairly constant basis throughout the day. The more focused your task at work is, the less likely you are to need to implement a new system in order to stay organized and get everything on your plate finished.

That being said, I feel that GTD can benefit everyone to some extent. Although I use it the most at my day job, I find plenty of the principles apply on a daily basis at home.

The principles

At its core, GTD is built on some fairly simple principles (note: simple does not equate to easy).

The principles, at least, the ones that I make use of, are:

• Two-minute rule
• Zeroing your inbox
• The paper system and the 43 folders (the tickler)

I'll explain each of these items in turn.

The two-minute rule

The core of the two-minute rule can be summarized as follows: If a task takes two minutes of less to complete, you should do it, right now. Simple right? I take this concept one step further, and say that every item that pops up can be dealt with, to some extent, within two minutes. In this context, dealt with does not necessarily mean you can complete the task. It just means that you can either complete it, or file it away, or make a note of next steps, or break it down, etc.

This sounds so very simple in theory, but in practice it takes disicipline to limit yourself to two minutes of interaction for a given distraction when you're in the middle of focusing on something else. Don't worry - we've got some other tricks up our sleeve to help.

If there is one thing that everyone should take away from GTD, it is this rule. In my mind, everything else about GTD flows from this one single principle. I feel that implementing and sticking with a two-minute rule is the best way to ensure that you avoid procrastinating, and ... get things done. You may find that it is difficult initially to make this happen, as you don't have a system set up to enable this. I'll talk more about this shortly, and follow-up this post with another one detailing how I maintain a similar system at home.

Zeroing your inbox

The next concept is that of zeroing your inbox. The goal here is that you complete each day with an empty inbox. No straggling e-mails, no tasks that you probably could deal with now, but should instead pick up on later.

This is the concept that most people find the most difficult. Many people where I work like to use their inboxes as a task list, or a holding place for things they have not yet had a chance to work on. This is a bad habit, as it creates mental clutter, and generates additional overhead when you need to focus. A blank inbox provides many benefits, but the most significant one for myself is the ability to immediately determine whether or not I have dealt with a new distraction (if it's in my inbox, I haven't).

In addition to my e-mail inbox(es), I use a physical inbox for my paper system. This must be zero'd out at the end of the day as well. No cheating!

Okay, so what do you do with all this e-mail that you're supposed to be removing from your inbox? That's where the paper system comes into place.

The paper system

The paper system is how I keep track of my tasks to be completed. To me, one of the benefits of the paper system is that having an action item or a task attached to something tangible provides it with more weight, and allows me to physically deal with an item when I have completed it (believe me, it feels great tearing up an action item once you've completed it). On that note, I have found that it is generally not appreciated when you touchdown-spike the crumpled up piece of paper off of your co-workers forehead. Still, it's pretty fun.

The idea is to have only one task per piece of paper. Your system may vary, but my paper system has three components: the tickler (more on this shortly), the physical inbox, and the physical waitbox.

The physical inbox is the place where I store all tasks that I intend to complete before the end of the day. "But where do these tasks come from?", you ask. I will tell you.

Every incoming e-mail, every phone or face-to-face conversation, and every set of meetings that I attend get broken down into tasks. Remember our two-minute rule. As soon as a distraction comes up, determine what the next steps and action items are. Ideally, you want one action item per piece of paper. These action items are then sorted into the tickler, or placed at the bottom of your inbox. Each task should contain the action to be completed, along with any necessary context (does it relate to an e-mail? Print off the e-mail, and write the individual task underneath that). Ideally, you want to be able to pick up the piece of paper, and without any further effort, be able to act upon the item.

If this is getting confusing, don't worry, I'll have an example soon.

What about the waitbox? The waitbox contains any items that I am ready to act upon, but are delayed waiting on something. Whatever it is that I am waiting on, the anticipation is that that thing will be resolved today. If it is not, I file the item in the tickler.

A good habit is to check your waitbox each time you come back from a break, which should be roughly three times a day (morning, lunch, and afternoon). If you're not taking regular breaks, then you should also consider doing yourself, and your back, that favour (I'm not advocating long breaks, but give yourself a ten minute walk. It's not good to sit for too long).

When reviewing items in the waitbox, ask yourself the following:

• Can I act upon this now?

If so, either do it now, or put it in your inbox

• Am I still waiting for something, and will that thing be done before the end of the day?

If so, file it back in the waitbox

• Am I still waiting for something, and will that thing not be done before the end of the day?

If so, file it in the tickler for an appropriate date

Okay, enough teasing about the tickler. Let's talk about that.

The 43 folders (or, the tickler)

The tickler is composed of two different sets of accordion folders. The first one is your monthly tickler, and has slots labelled from January to December. The second one is your daily tickler, and has slots labelled from 1 to 31, for days of the month.

The tickler serves two purposes. First, it is a place to file away anything that you are not yet ready to deal with, but will need to acknowledge at some point further down the road. Did an item come up that requires talking to someone on vacation? File the action item in the tickler for the day that they return. Secondly, the tickler is a system you can trust to remind yourself when you need to act on an item.

I use the word trust in the previous paragraph because this is an integral part of a successful time management system. If you can't trust the system that you are using, you will inevitably waste time going back and forth trying to confirm to yourself that you have in fact not let something slip through the cracks, and now we're right back to where we started. You'll probably spend some time doing this initially, but we want to minimize the initial part of that learning curve, not integrate it into the system itself.

How does the tickler remind you of items you need to act upon? Simple. At the start of each day, you pull out all of the items filed in your tickler for that day and move them to your inbox. At the start of each month, you pull all of the items filed for that month out of the monthly tickler, and determine whether you can deal with them now, later on today, or later on in the month. File them in the physical inbox, waitbox, or daily tickler accordingly.

At the end of your day, if you have any items left over in your inbox, sort through them and determine, realistically, when you will next be able to deal with them, and place them in the tickler, accordingly.

How about an example?

I feel like this has been pretty dense so far. Hopefully any example can keep us on top of things. Let's say I get the following e-mail:

Hi Adam,

I am no longer able to pick up orders from our application, as I should be able to. Also, could you send me an update on the Budget?

Thanks,

Jorge Mexidando

So, how would I break this out? As I see it, there are two main tasks here:

1. Forward along e-mail to one of my developers, and ask them to look into it.

This is a task that will certainly take me less than two minutes, so I will do it immediately.

2. Respond to Jorge's e-mail

This task is not something I can do immediately, as the next step is to update the budget. I will print out this e-mail, write on it that the next step is "Update Budget", and then file it in my tickler, as I do not have enough time today to complete this task.

For the record, I don't actually have any clients named Jorge Mexidando. I wish I did though, because that is an awesome name, and I would probably call them by their full name at every opportunity.

What will it do for me?

Okay, so that's that. What exactly will GTD do for you? Well it will actually do a couple of things for you:

• Reduce mental clutter and overhead


• Minimize your overhead so that you can actually focus on doing stuff


• Allow you to multitask efficiently

When I presented this information at work, a co-worker asked a very pertinent question: "What about situations where you forward along an e-mail to your co-workers, and then they never respond?". There will always be situations like this. When your team is very busy, you will have to take on additional overhead and put a reminder in your tickler to follow-up on your question.

More important than that though is the fact that using GTD to clear out tasks as efficiently as possible will free your mind to keep things like this in mind. No system is perfect, but the more you are able to keep outside of your mind and put into a system that you trust, the better equipped you will be to handle situations like the one my co-worker mentioned.

What won't GTD do for you?

Well, it won't stop you from procrastinating, and it won't prevent you from being lazy. GTD is simply a system for making yourself more efficient at doing work. If you are still prone to procrastinating, GTD will actually make this easier for you, as you can simply repeatedly re-file items back into your tickler.

Most important of all, GTD won't solve all of your problems. There's no such thing as a silver bullet, and that maxim remains true in time-management just as much as any other domain. While GTD will minimize the amount of time that you lose to mental overhead, it will not make you a superman, able to handle more tasks than you are capable of. If you've got too much work, the only solution is to remove some of that work from your plate.

So, where do you go from here?

Most important of all, follow the rule that "If it isn't broke, don't fix it". If you have a system that is currently working for you, or you are able to manage your existing tasks without wasting time, you probably don't need GTD. I don't recommend changing over to a new system unless you feel that you will have a use for it.

If you think you would like to give GTD a shot, try and determine how well this system will integrate with the way you currently manage your tasks. If your current system is drastically different, you will need to look for ways to start moving in this direction. I'm an advocate of gradual changes that stick over drastic ones that feel great at first and then get discarded after two weeks, so look for ways to start integrating GTD principles into your routine that will stick. The easiest place to start is probably working towards emptying out your inbox. This is a fairly simple task, and seeing an inbox with no e-mails will give you a huge sense of accomplishment, and the motivation to keep making changes.

It's also a good idea to get into the habit of determining what action items and next steps arise out of incoming e-mails and requests. This is a good way to look at all new items that pop up on your plate, and will help you trim away the fat and focus on the essentials.

Above all, be fluid in your approach. If you like some of the principles of GTD, but don't think that all of them will work for you, then try to adapt as much as possible. I'm a big fan of agilility in all things that we try to do. Adopt what you can, evaluate where you stand after a few weeks, and then adjust your approach as needed. Don't view any stumble as an outright failure - it is simply an opportunity to adapt your approach and then move forward again.

Adapting a new system is something that will take time and some effort initially. One pertinent question I saw asked online was "How will I know when it's time to stop tweaking my system?". You will be able to tell that it is time when you have integrated it into your daily routine. When you no longer need to think about what to do with a new piece of information, or find yourself worrying whether or not you've properly filed something, you've probably reached a point where you can now just use your system.

Above all, remember that GTD is a system that exists only to enable you to get things done. If you find that you are spending more time trying to make GTD work than you are actually completing tasks, that's a good indication that you need to tweak your system. I can't guarantee that GTD will work for you, but it's done great things for me, and I notice that it is starting to bleed more and more into my home life as I take on more personal projects and add items to my todo list.

I've been posting desktop screenshots for a while now, but the next post I will make related to the subject of GTD will detail how these shots actually help my productivity at home. If there are any questions or thoughts, please speak up and post them in the comments.

... and I hate it.  I've had an item on my TODO list for upwards of six months now to revamp the look and feel of it, but I simply do not have the time, nor the desire, to devote to such an undertaking.  Each time I've opened up Photoshop and started playing with some ideas, I either get distracted, or simply frustrated, and walk away.

Why is this?  I consider myself fairly decent at avoiding the demon of procrastination, and have set up multiple systems to prevent myself from falling into that trap.

From various articles I've read, I think I can determine why it is that this task keeps getting pushed back.  Simply, I don't like design.  I don't enjoy doing it, I'm slow and inefficient at it, and although I believe I have an eye for aesthetics, I'm much better at evaluating something in front of me, rather than putting together something appealing from scratch.

In the GTD world, the way you deal with things like this is simple.  You pay someone to do it for you.  This may sound crass, wasteful, and rooted in the past decade's economic debt-driven excess.  But it's not.  This is simply an indication that in the long run, it will cost me much, much more time wasted procrastinating and working inefficiently than it will to simply pay someone to take on the work and complete it quickly.

There's just one problem with this approach.  I've got no money.  Bay's currently in school pursuing her MBA, and that means that money is tight while I work to support us both (I'm not complaining!).

How did we even end up with such a crappy looking blog anyhow?  Well, upgrading from Movable Type 2.x to MT 4.x meant a lot of large changes.  On Davin's (good) suggestion, I simply did a full install, imported the old entries, and then chose a template from those that were available.  The templates... work.  But they're not pretty.  The one currently set for this blog is meant to be a panoramic view of Portland, Washington.  Lovely city, ugly blog template.

So, where do I go from here?  Well, I basically winge about it for quite a while without doing anything.  If anyone is interested in free advertising, you can drop me a line and help me with this work, and I will gladly advertise that the design is courtesy of yourself.  If there's anyone needing some project management on a project, or some other kind of assistance that I can offer, I'm certainly willing to go quid-pro-quo.  And if no one is interested, then let's hope that you're all reading this blog through an RSS feed reader, and avoiding the ugliness altogether.

On Friday I gave a 30 minute presentation at work related to the GTD methodology for managing your time. I've got about 2/3s of that presentation written up in blog form, but until I can find time to complete it (yes, that task is in fact filed away according to good GTD principles), you won't be able to read that.

In the meantime, I just came across an excellent entry describing how to manage paper.  Since posting links to good articles represents a rare opportunity for me to increase my post count without spending too much time, that means it gets shared with you, my beloved audience (consisting mostly of crickets, based on the sound I hear from my comments section).

Link is available here. 

Having a wife that has been raised with the mentality to never throw anything out has presented a whole new set of challenges for both of us to overcome, and reducing clutter is a constant goal of mine around our house (pro-tip: shoeboxes are a great way to keep a bunch of similar objects together and eliminate the cluttered look).  These tips are definitely valid and worth checking out.

Check back soon for the GTD update.

It’s just shy of two weeks after the new year, so I think that it’s a good time to check in with myself after the goal I set towards the end of last year to focus heavily on fitness and healthy eating. As I mention in the blog post I’m planning to publish shortly after this one (just needs editing now), I’m not really a fan of New Year’s resolutions. However, I’m absolutely in favour of setting goals that are achievable, pursuing those goals, and treating failures or stumbles as an opportunity to re-evaluate your goals and determine if you need to set your immediate goal a little lower, or stay the course. So, that’s really what this is - a chance for me to check in, see how I’m doing, evaluate my progress, and then see if I need to change.

So, what were the goals? Nothing particularly specific, mostly that I wanted to be mindful of my calories, cut back on drinking, and though I hadn’t mentioned it explicitly, I wanted to make sure I was getting in exercise about six days a week and lifting weights five days a week. When I say exercise, I really mean something aerobic. Lifting weights burns calories, but nothing compared to squash, running or biking. I treat weightlifting as a cross-training exercise.

I was using livestrong.com for a while to keep track of the calories that I was eating on a daily basis. Livestrong is a great tool for this, and I highly recommend it. What did I learn? Well, I was eating about 20% more calories, on average, than I needed to. For those that are curious, this, for me, was roughly 400 calories a day. Cutting that many calories is not that difficult if you are aware of it and willing to make changes to do it. Just not eating is the worst approach, because it’s not sustainable. I made the changes I wanted to by making sure I had healthy snacks at work (fruitsource fruit bars and fresh apples, cheesestrings, low-fat whole grain crackers, and granola bars - make sure they aren’t dipped in chocolate or peanutbutter though) cutting back on drinking (more on that shortly), and snacking less late at night.

Now that I’ve got a general feel for how many calories I’m eating daily, what the number of calories that something contains is, and how many calories I need, based on my fitness regime, I haven’t been using livestrong very much. I think this is fine, since the website was only there as a tool to help me achieve my goal, not the goal itself. I may start using the website again if I feel that I’m starting to slip and eating gluttonously (note: this doesn’t mean drinking one extra beer, it means eating three chocolate bars in a day), but otherwise, I don’t feel like I need it anymore.

Did this change make a difference? Well, it’s tough to say. When I started, I weighed about 190 pounds. When I weighed myself at my parents, right before the start of the holidays, I was roughly the same weight. This doesn’t necessarily indicate a failure though, as I’ve been working out five times a week, and I (and Bay) can tell that I’ve been putting on muscle-mass. As a result, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shed unneeded fat, and replaced that with heavier muscle tissue. Sounds pretty good to me. I’m going to chalk this goal up as a success so far.

Am I going to continue on with this? Absolutely. I don’t set my goals as something that I achieve and then discard, and neither should you. This goal is intended as a lifestyle change, so now that I’ve determined where I want to be, I will keep at it. The benefit is that it only gets easier from here, since the habit is setting in.

How about cutting back drinking? Well, I approached this goal by initially cutting out all of my alcohol consumption, and then gradually re-introducing. This allowed me to re-calibrate myself, and gave me a fresh benchmark from which to determine how much drinking I felt comfortable (from the point of view of obtaining my goal) doing. I also bought, and continued to stock my fridge with, O’Douls non-alcoholic beers. They make a lager and an amber, and although I normally prefer medium to dark beers, I think their lager is the better of the two. Non-alcoholic beers aren’t great, but they’re not horrible. When I come home from a squash match, I feel better about myself cracking open a non-alcoholic beer with 60 calories than I do a regular beer with twice that. Plus, it has a small placebo effect on me that partially quenches my desire for alcohol.

Why don’t I just stop drinking completely? A couple of reasons. The most obvious one, to me, is that I enjoy it. I love the taste of beer, I love drinking with my friends, and I love some irish cream in my tea on a rainy day. Put simply, I don’t want to stop drinking completely, so trying to set this as a goal is just a way to set myself up for failure. I want to make sure I’m always setting goals for myself that are reasonable, and inline with my personality. Anything else is a waste of my time. The second reason, and this is similar to the first, is that it’s something I do with my friends, and is a part of the squash community. Having a beer with a friend after a tough squash match, or when working on their computer, or just hanging out - these are all things from which I derive great pleasure, and I don’t want to remove those from my life.

I think I was pretty successful in attaining my goal. As I mentioned above, I was successful reaching my caloric goal, and cutting back on drinking definitely helped towards this. I essentially cut out having more than one beer after a squash match, and stuck to drinking non-alcoholic beers at home on the weeknights. I’m pretty happy about this result, and I’m going to give myself a checkmark on this goal too.

Hey, how about those holidays? Well, I made a decision heading into the holidays. I decided that I would allow myself to open up the gates, cut loose for two weeks, and then tighten back up. I did this because I know that I possess a finite amount of willpower, and I know that the holidays are a time when there are a lot of opportunities to eat and drink. If I tried to restrict myself during this time, I would probably be miserable, annoyed, and severely stretching the limits of my willpower. Atheletes know that to train effectively, you need to spend time throughout the year where you give your body a rest and let it recuperate. The mind is no different, and if you’re exercising your willpower, you also need to make a point of giving it downtime where you don’t have to exercise it.

Incidentally, I read a study recently that had tested whether or not your willpower was affected in the long term each time you tested it, and this turned out to be true. This means that if you have a goal to not buy clothes at all this week, and you go window shopping once every day, you will be weakening your willpower each time you go window shopping. If you want to maintain your willpower, the best way to do it is to avoid situations where it will be tested altogether. (I’m not advocating that you should cut yourself off completely from something you enjoy doing. Just be mindful of the fact that you’re weakening your resolve each time, and keep this in mind before making the decision).

The last goal was to focus on fitness. Generally I try to avoid setting goals that aren’t measurable. I mean, how can you check in with yourself on a weekly basis and ask yourself if you’re really “focusing on fitness”? I actually had something more specific in mind when I decided on this approach though, as mentioned above. Weights five times a week, and no more than one or two days a week without any aerobic exercise.

So how did I do? Well, the first step was getting my bike back from being stored at my parents. It turns out I really like biking, so this made things a lot easier. If I didn’t have a squash game booked, I now had two options that I could pursue instead: jogging or biking.

Generally speaking, I think this goal is the one I am most proud of. I’ve managed to continue with my lifting regime for at least two months now (probably closer to three), and I don’t find that it is cutting into any other part of my life. This is a pretty ideal situation for a goal that involves establishing a change in your lifestyle. If, after pursuing it, you can look at your current daily routine and not feel dread or like you are going to have to make drastic changes to fit something in, you’ve achieved your goal. Like I mentioned before, I’ve noticed a visual difference, and I definitely feel stronger. But, looking any different was not my goal. Let’s check in with the rest of the goal.

To further this goal, I’ve been getting up early some mornings to go jogging with Bay. Bay is part robot and able to achieve her fitness goals based on seemingly impossible conditions, such as having five hours of sleep, but I’m not, so it’s been a challenege some times to get up. Jogging is a great way to condition your heart and lungs, and with a set of headphones and an iPod, it’s very enjoyable. I load up my iPhone with my favorite skeptically-themed podcasts and spend an hour learning while I’m jogging.

As far as being successful, I would say that this goal has been my most successful. I have been training hard on the court, and my game has improved thanks to my efforts, and the excellent coaching of Mike Johnson. However, on top of that, I have absolutely noticed that a higher level of fitness has made a huge difference. I can play in long grueling rallies with the confidence to know that I have the energy and the conditioning to make it through to the end. After a tough rally, I’m recovering my breath faster than before, and in rallies where I’m really chasing the ball to recover, I can make a good shot, settle in, and get back my wind to continue onwards.

All of that aside, the most significant change I’ve noticed has been mental. With a higher level of fitness, I have the confidence to play the best shots in a rally. The funny thing about squash is that the more tired you become, the more inclined you are to play low percentage shots. These are shots that will only be effective a low percentage of the time, but will outright win you the rally when they do win. Generally speaking, you should steer clear of these shots, especially when you’re locked in a difficult rally. However, when you start to get tired, your mind plays tricks on you, and tells you “End the rally now, don’t keep hitting the safe shot up and down the wall. Just put the ball away and win”. With a higher level of fitness, I can quash this voice and say “Sucks to your assmar Piggy, I’m playing safe shots up and down the wall until an opportunity to apply pressure to the opponent presents itself”.

So, definitely a checkmark goes to this goal. As an added benefit, coming back from holidays was much less brutal than I had expected, likely just because I had a fairly high level of fitness going into the ‘days, and so even given the excessive eating and drinking, I was still able to come back afterwards feeling relatively fit.

How about the process of getting back into the swing of things after the holidays? Well, by the end of two weeks, I was pretty much ready to get back into things. I’d had more than enough to drink, loads of junk food, and generally I was feeling pretty lazy. This is generally the way everyone feels when they make their new year’s resolution - fed up with their excess, and ready to get on the healthy wagon. The only difference is that I’m just returning to the same gradual process that I put into place earlier this year, rather than making a giant sweeping change.

So, that’s about it. Hopefully this is helpful for anyone reading that is trying to come up with a different way to set and achieve goals. In summary - set achievable goals, pursue them, check in, and revise as needed.

Just a quick desktop update for the New Year. I know these may be dull entries for some people, but I like tinkering with OS X’s various eye-candy and posting the results, so suck it.

This holiday season has been extremely busy, but good, and productive. I have lots of stuff to write about, but a lot of it can’t be posted for a while yet. More updates to come, no doubt about it!

Some background on my current desktop setup:

The terminal windows I have are saved as window group that is automatically open whenever I start Terminal. The TODO list is automatically loaded up, and I find this a convenient place holder to store anything that mentally pops up and needs to be dealt with. The windows are made transparent using the native controls for Mac, and is saved for each window. I use a slightly dark background, and have also installed a program called “Deeper”, which allows me to set a gaussian blur for the transparency. As you can see, this allows transparency to still be used, but slightly blurs the background and makes transparency actually functional eye-candy, instead of mostly a distraction. In a pinch, I can still read the page directly beneath the terminal, so I can make use of transparency the way it works best.

I also run Safari and Mail.app, simply because they are native to OS X, meaning they are well integrated with the OS, and also allow me to adjust their transparency on the fly using a program called Afloat. Afloat allows me to dynamically adjust transparency by clicking control and alt, and scrolling up or down. I can also move the application from anywhere within the window (as opposed to just from the title bar) by clicking the same keys and dragging with the mouse. When I’m working directly with Safari or Mail, I generally reduce the transparency, then turn it back on when I’m finished so that it blends into the background.

You can see Adium (my MSN/ICQ/etc. client) in the background, in the upper-right, but I have since moved away from this list layout to the “Concise” skin provided by the application. This skin allows me to simply list all of the contacts as a vertical list, without any window decorations other than their buddy icon. It makes for a nice clear look.

I think this looks pretty good, and it’s really pleasing to work within. One thing I would really like to be able to do is hide the menu bar and the scrollbar for the terminals. I could still drag them around using Afloat, but the unnecessary bars really take away from the true beauty of what I think I could achieve. I’ve got google alerts set up for “terminal without menubar”, but haven’t had any results show up yet that achieve what I want. If anyone knows of anything, please let me know.

Okay, well, that’s all for now. I’ve actually just updated my desktop, so this screenshot is a little dated - I’ll post a new one in a month or so. The other thing I’d really like is to be able to apply a gaussian blur to Safari and Mail, so that their transparency can be left on more often, rather than having to adjust it whenever I need the app.

To some people all of this may seem frivolous - why not just turn off transparency and deal with it. In truth, I actually find that my layout is very practical - being able to see through the current app to the other windows open beneath helps make it easier to keep in mind exactly what I’ve got open and what I’m working on.

, a program that allows you to drag your windows from anywhere by holding down control and alt, and also allows you to adjust the transparency on the fly (if needed)