Week 4: gaining speed

So here it is, another week down and another week in review post!

Thankfully, the past week has been far more engaging and active than many of those that preceded it. I got caught up in the whole Ireland SOPA/ACTA debate and wrote a letter which I sent to countless representatives. In retrospect, I feel that letter says a awful lot about how I feel about the way that the Internet benefits our modern lives and promotes culture, artistic expression and even entrepreneurism. Without any of which, we would be a much poorer nation. I'm not sure what impact, if any it had, especially considering the mostly form letter replies I received it response, but that is the way of things I suppose.

I attended two events recently: Dublin Unity3D Development Discussion and the Effective Fundraising Seminar. Ironically enough, they both took place near or at Tog and only a day apart from each other. The Fundraising seminar was particularly insightful, not least because I was the youngest person there by decent a margin. 

I left out that last week I purchased a Macbook Air to bring to these events, conferences and the like. iPads, I find are just too unwieldy for the task of accurate and quick note taking, particularly when what you want to transpose is the exact verbiage of the speaker and there's no hope of me doing that with paper and pen.

So I began using Evernote as my note taking implement of choice and it seems to be working quite well for me. In the past I have had notes summarily deleted or corrupted due to Evernote's synching so I'm still backing up my notes elsewhere until I feel like I can trust Evernote. In the meantime, however I am very much liking it for taking notes. I was able to very quickly take down points of interest from both events, which I think would've been impossible with a notepad and really difficult with an iPad, certainly given the speed at which people spoke.

The text editing leaves something to be desired, you cant edit line spacing and there are some weird bugs if you copy/paste blocks of text from other programs, but apart from that it's doing the job splendidly.

By the way, a Macbook Air 13" does in fact fit inside the iPad pocket of a Scottevest jacket. The zip wont close, but it's better than carrying a bag sometimes.

I also did a bit of investigating of one of the business ideas that's been floating around. Still waiting for a call back from the supplier(s) for that, but nothing really to say about it just yet. I've been working through some other ideas also and have recently come to something that I may be settling on, we'll see. Nothing I want to talk about publicly yet, but its a good sign.

Not much else to report other than that. My printer is playing up, I'm still working on the iOS/Web App from last year despite all efforts to complete that project with haste. 

Day 2: on being organised

Organisation is key, we are told and of course it's true but it's also easier said than done. Simple to-do lists are one thing, but to really be organised in a way the is ubiquitous is a mountain of its own to climb.

It is going to be an experiment of what works and what does not to find what method or techniques really help me to keep organised.

So, take the rest of this post with a pinch of salt as I will revisit the topic at a later date with a discussion on what has worked out for me and what has not but in the meantime these are solutions I thus far believe will work for me:

Apps

The todo app on iOS 5 is entirely inappropriate for the level of detail required to organise business and projects, so we're going to have to reach into the realm of third party apps. In this arena Cultured Code's Things reigns supreme in a number of ways but most importantly for the attention to detail. User experience is all too often misunderstood or brushed away with overwhelming features.

Of all applications for smart devices these days supplanting analog ways of doing things like todo lists, user experience is of critical importance. If you are not offering a better user experience than pen and paper, then your app has failed at the most basic level. Things is far from the most feature packed of apps, but what it lacks in superfluous features it makes up for it with a polish so fine you can see your reflection.

With apps on iOS and OSX, we have the beginnings of a work flow. There is no point in working with a system that locks you into working on your tasks either mobile or desktop but not both.

In the Cloud

I've always found Google's apps to be mostly adequate for my needs and so I don't feel there will be any change here. For over a year now I've used Google Calendar for my scheduling needs. It synchronises well with iCal, iOS and pretty much anything else you might need.

Google Docs are somewhat lacking but are to my best knowledge the best and most free (as in beer) solution available right now. iWork may start to overcome that, I haven't made much if any use of it's cloud features yet to comment, although no doubt the mobile experience would be vastly superior.

Old faithful

A4 notepad and pen. Really not something for regular use, there is no promise that either will be with you when inspiration strikes and it makes editing ungainly. Moreover as a dyed in the wool devotee of the art of chicken scratch calligraphy I find writing notes like this to be tiring and stressful and it should be anything but.

For these reasons and some level of OCD I am extremely picky about the kinds of paper and pen I like to use. A pen must be inky and smooth to write with unlike your typical dirt cheap ball point pens but not overly so and if at all possible lying somewhere between a little blunt and not so sharp as it'd pierce the paper.

Pads I am much less picky about. While working for Decisions for Heroes we got stock of some really nice A4 pads that I have since bought for myself. There's something about it being yellow and fairly nice paper that makes it a good combination. I am however, forever flip-flop'ing between thicker and lighter stock. Mostly because I really am so obsessive about these things that I will tear a page out of a pad and start again if I don't deem the handwriting satisfactory.

The thicker stock makes it feel more real and so tearing a page off feels even more offensive than tearing a lighter/cheap paper stock page. It wouldn't matter so much but I do it way too often. I'm sure theres some psychology to that which as yet eludes me. 

I am aware by the way, that these are just neuroses and make practically no logical sense to most people. Welcome to my brain.

Perfectionism aside, I do tend to take down spontaneous ideas or thoughts, or the odd note while watching videos using just a standard pad and pen. I do actually like the idea of taking down physical notes, it makes the idea seem more real by a sheer matter of fact of its tangibility. I would just rather not sacrifice an entire forest to do so.

That should be enough to keep me organised for the time being.

I'll be spending the rest of today cleaning up this den of inequity and/or squalor. I brought a bed into the office a while back in the hopes that'd help with long coding sessions but it turns out, shock horror, that the blurring of lines between home and work aren't nearly as much of a positive as I had once envisaged so that's going out, along with any tv, game console or other shiny distraction.