Lists became natural to me in high school when I would write a step by step list of the homework and chores I would do in the most efficient order, as well as what downloads to start and in what order so when everything was done, I could spend as much time as possible playing Quake, or working on some code.

At the heart of any sort of life hacking or “getting things done” workflow are these same original lists I’ve had drilled into my head since I was a child. What I’ve found though is that these lists are very restricting in that they take extra thought from your brain to extrapolate the context. I am more then likely already spouting off direct lines from David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” but part of me refuses to spend time reading about about how to get things done (oddly this same part is okay with writing about it.).

Context is as simple as a grocery list. If I make a list of all my days errands, add on all the days chores, then add on dependent items that can only be done at certain times of the day or while something else is happening I end up with quite the list. Things get lost in the shuffle. I go out to the grocery store and I have to constantly waste thought processes weeding out the items on the list which are out of context. Things.app has solved this for me. A simple Mac OS X desktop application with iPhone companion application, Things.app allows me to tag all of my items with their appripriate context.

When traveling to the grocery store, doing my chores, or slogging thru code I am no longer thinking about the other items to do in their respective contexts. I’ve trained my brain to turn off repeating these lists over in my head. In these spare brain cycles I think of things to write, come up with new application ideas, solve coding problems. In effect thru relational and structured thinking I’ve freed up my brain to be more creative.

This all ties ultimately into the length of my beard though as any good todo list system should. Recently I have decided to start putting menial tasks into my lists as repeating tasks. Shaving is one of those tasks that I always know I need to do it, but put it off until it bothers me so much I stop what I am doing, break concentration and shave. So I picked a timeframe. I won’t shave or think about shaving until every second Tuesday. A task appears in my lists now under the Personal / Home / Hygiene contexts every second Tuesday. This time frame is short enough to not get frustrated with the length of my beard and long enough to not be annoying and time wasting.

My new shaving method can be applied to all of the most menial tasks around the home. I now think of these repeating tasks like the video game The Sims. If I want to put more energy into my work, I increase the length between times of certain household tasks.

I know this is all a “duh!” notion but putting it down on paper and using tools to plot out how I want to spend my time has instantly improved my productivity and has helped me put time and effort in the activities I love.

After taking these shots and looking thru the past few years of my photo library I started wondering how the next generations will view this generation. Will they feel closer to the current generation due to the amount of high quality media available? To fully the effect I am trying to describe, take a look a a black and white picture from World War Two, then take a look at a high quality color picture from the same era. This effect is even more vivid when looking at the few rare color first world war photographs.

This in mind, I have decided to start carrying my camera around with me more.

I have even spent the last two years looking at sales and hearing how much money the sale flyers net a company for work but the thought never crossed my mind in the context of myself.

Not too many, I don’t pay for things on the App Store. I do not see the point.

This drives me nuts and it got me thinking. Most people have never directly bought any software. They have their operating system, their web browser, and an office suite. All things that probably came with their current computer. They are not used to buying software for their computer, let alone their phone. They will buy XBox 360 / Wii / Playstation 3 games but they don’t make the connection that those games are just software for a different device.

The App Store is great for introducing people to the concept of buying software to add value to their device. The iPhone is the first platform to sell software in a easy convenient safe way and package it all up for casual users. The same people who say they never pay for anything on the App Store seem to end up buying applications or games later on. The App Store makes the process of buying software a one step impulse buy which will hopefully open up the application market to casual users over time.

I found that after the normal nine to five grind my mind cannot process any additional problem solving nor muster up any creativity. My side projects currently are at the stage that require a large portion of creativity to get started. The ideas are rough and unfinished. There are no remedial tasks I can do for an hour a night to further me toward my goals. This makes progress impossible when there is nothing to progress and ultimately it is an inspiration killer.

I have tried many techniques to get the creativity spark turned on for a little bit after the normal grind and they only added frustration. This weekend due to the holiday was a three day weekend, so I tried as hard as I could to not worry or think about work or side projects. Then as almost as my brain had water sitting behind some mental block, sunday night the flood gates opened.

Solutions to work problems popped to my mind and most importantly the brainstorming came hard and fast.

This feeling could be attributed to the higher volume of alcohol consumed on a holiday weekend or the bike riding and endorphins released from exercising. I have no scientific answers, but I do think I have found my decompression point. The amount of time it takes to decompress my head, to sift thru the queue of problems my brain is attempting to solve.

It just so happens to be a three day weekend.

Here is the email in question (sensitive bits removed):

Question, whenever I go into application using a productID, we would get a
Search Error!
no images found for productID
but when we use the other search, its okay.
I think its be happening a few days ago.
Plz Advise

I think it should be noted that productID is not redacted. No example was ever provided and yes those are “sentences” formed by an adult.

This is an example of users who do not want to use your software. All this user knows is that a tool they are forced to use is acting differently then they had expected. It turned out to be an incorrect product ID. The tool was acting properly. Despite this I have taken the opportunity to tune the error message to offer the user some suggestions as to what may have gone wrong.

The message was changed from (note the email was not even a copy and paste from the application as they subsituted the product ID for the word “productID”):

No images found for $productID.

To:

No images found for $productID.

• Please make sure the products ID typed is correctly.
• Try searching on the UPC number to confirm the product ID is in fact valid.

Whether or not this change will have an effect on the amount of poorly formed bug reports that flood my inbox I cannot tell. This report is a great example of a user who has to use your software, but also a great example of how you can improve your software.

Just because you have horrible users who turn you into more of a cantankerous asshole with email each does not mean you can not continue to improve the quality of your software.

I am impatiently counting the days until I no longer deal with this crap though.

You will get that anywhere.

I don’t subscribe to this. I started thinking about what I disliked about my users versus what I wanted in a user and came up with one short requirement:

• Bad: Your users have to use your software.
• Good: Your users want to use your software.

My current crop of users that drive me up a wall would never in a million years purchase a piece of software. It is placed in front of them, they have to use it to complete their jobs, for them it is just another cog in the corporate machine. This is the fundamental difference with users in a corporate environment.

I am learning that there are a lot of hurdles to overcome so I plan to use this web space to document the process. Going from full time developer to indie software developer is going to be hard, and I am downright scared. I am also uprooting and moving from one coast to another.

Hopefully someone will find the oncoming mess of code, rants, and photographs useful, if at least to serve as a warning.