He just did a blog post that addresses one of the banes of my existence: e-mail overload. I hate e-mail for the purpose of sharing links, collaboration, coordination, or keeping up with tasks and project. But I can’t seem to wean from e-mail the people I need to connect with on that stuff. Everyone uses different tools and services to manage their own processes, and too often the lowest common denominator is e-mail.

In Inbox Zero and the Critical Mistake That Saps Productivity, Stever writes:

“I believe that an empty inbox just means you’ve ceded control of your thinking and priorities to everyone who emails you. They control the volume, order, and substance of your attention for the time you’re processing your email. It *feels good* to have an empty inbox, but it also feels good to gorge on Oreo ice cream cake. That doesn’t mean that Oreo ice cream cake is good for you, only that it feels good. Inbox Zero has the extra sugary bonus that since *some* email is an essential part of our job, it’s easy to believe (with no evidence at all) that therefore it’s useful to spend some time on *all* email.

“Rather than striving for inbox zero, I advocate learning to identify the truly relevant emails very, very quickly, with an absolute minimum of cognitive load or context switching.

Whew! I don’t feel so bad now about the nearly 1000 items in my Gmail inbox…

I actually do a pretty good job of using gmail labels, filters, and other tools to identify my high-priority e-mails as they come in and handle them. I also do a good job of killing the messages that I just don’t need to deal with.

That leaves a vast pile of messages that either don’t need to be dealt with quickly, or that couldn’t be quickly parsed into tasks or other actionable items of useful buckets.

Some of these are lower-priority messages that I might need or want to review, and some may be higher priority but the sender just forwarded me stuff with little/no thought of how to make the content easy for me to parse.

And frankly, if it lands in my inbox, MY needs and priorities are what matters.

With very few exceptions, I take the approach of just letting hard-to-parse e-mails fall through the cracks. And if people get annoyed that I didn’t respond or do what they wanted, tough. They need to learn to communicate more effectively through e-mail. I can’t keep taking up the slack.

What works:

1. Craft a clear, intuitive, action/purpose-oriented subject line. Don’t just forward something to me without changing the subject line. If I’m not expecting it and I don’t know why I should care, I probably won’t open it.
2. Get to the point. Explain in a sentence or two up front why you’re sending it *to me*, what you expect me to do with it, and whether it relates to an existing project or topic we’ve been discussing or something new.
3. Set the time frame. If you want me to do something in response, indicate by when you want me to take action.
4. Send ONE e-mail per topic/project, ideally only once per day. If we’re talking about several different projects, topics, etc., don’t make huge switches of topic midway through an e-mail and expect me to read the whole thing. Break it up into one e-mail per project or topic. Similarly, if you have several things to tell me about a project or topic, don’t pelt me with 50 separate e-mails about it – especially if they’re forwarded. Gather all those loose ends together into one e-mail and send me that. If we need to be talking about this project or topic more than once/day, e-mail is probably not the best way to handle that communication. Chat, social media, or phone might work better.

I get anywhere from 100-500 e-mails daily, not counting spam. I have to be a hardass about this. I know it pisses off some people. I’m sorry. It’s the only way I can keep my head above water with e-mail. If I can’t wean you off e-mal,

This is why I like tools that allow reporters and others to break “story box” by creating real-time collages that combine original reporting and commentary with curated contributions from social media and elsewhere.

The past month, NPR senior strategist Andy Carvin has been doing this via Twitter — first for the Tunisia uprising, and now with the Egyptian revolution. Today Berkman Center research Ethan Zuckerman published an excellent interview with Carvin exploring why he’s been posting an average of 400 tweets daily for the last month, and what others can learn from his efforts.

I summarized some highlights from this interview that might especially interest news professionals over at the Knight Digital Media Center site.

See: How NPR’s Andy Carvin is using Twitter to tell Egypt’s story

Today Twitter has begin a broad rollout of a new feature, Twitter Lists. The feature had been available only to a select group of beta users, but product manager Nick Kallen tweeted yesterday, “Currently, 25% of all users have Lists.” I don’t have access to Lists yet, but I expect it’s coming soon.

The point of Twitter lists is relevant discovery: It’s an easy way to find and follow Twitter users you might not otherwise know about, but would be interested in. However, you might not be interested in everything (or even most things) a given Twitter user in a list has to say. This is more likely if you’re more interest in topics than people. In this case, Twitter lists might deliver more noise than signal.

But I think if you use a good tool like Tweetdeck for accessing Twitter (rather than just the Twitter site, which has always sucked for usability), you can combine Twitter Lists with filtering to end up with something very useful indeed, especially for staying abreast of news or topics…

As far as I understand it, Twitter Lists are defined groups of Twitter accounts. If you follow a list, you automatically follow all the accounts in that list. Kallen described it this way: “For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time, athletes, local businesses, friends, or any compilation that makes sense.”

…Well, that kind of list would be useful in some cases, but in many others I think it may not be what Twitter users or others are looking for. That’s because people don’t have one-track minds.

People who use Twitter most effectively tend to post about a lot of different topics that interest or affect them. Generally, Twitter accounts that only post about one topic tend to be more about publication than conversation, and that gets boring in social media.

For instance, many journalists follow me on Twitter because I have a lot to say about journalism. But I also tweet about my former abode Boulder, and my new town Oakland. And I occasionally mention other topics I love, like zombies, polyamory, my recent experience with knee surgery. Plus I cover live events via Twitter, too.

…Yeah, I tweet a lot. And not everyone who follows me is interested in everything I talk about. That’s fine for some folks, and not for others. And that’s pretty typical.

Someone who’s interested in zombies might decided to create a Twitter List of people who tweet about zombies. Right now, near Halloween, that would probably be a long list indeed. And I’d bet that most of those zombie tweeters would also be tweeting about a lot of other stuff.

So if you’re only interested in tweets about zombies, then the smart thing to do would be:

• Designate a group in Tweetdeck based on the zombie Twitter List (see the problem with this, below)
• Display tweets from that group in a column.
• Use Tweetdeck’s filter function on that column to display only tweets from that group that include “zombie” or “zombies.”

That way, you’d only see relevant tweets from the selected list of Twitter users.

LIST + FILTERING TO THWART TWEETSPAM & HASHTAG HIJACKING

Sticking with this example: If you use my strategy, you’d be viewing zombie tweets only from a selected group of users (and not from anyone who uses that keyword). Thus you’d avoid the growing problem of keyword tweetspam — when spammers post spam tweets that include keywords which anyone would see in a Twitter search. That gets really annoying, especially for trending topics and other popular search terms or hashtags.

In fact, the Twitter user convention of hashtags arose in part as a way to curate the quality of tweets about a topic. Twitter users who use hashtags when discussing topics or events generally tend to be especially dedicated to the topic or community — and often just better (or at least more experienced) at using Twitter.

The problem is, anyone can include a hashtag in a tweet. Which is why spammers start bombarding hashtags that get popular.

Also, hashtags can be “hijacked” by people who wish to disrupt ongoing discussion or coverage of a topic or event. For instance, often hashtags related to healthcare reform or climate change get heavily used by people who oppose action on both those topics. They’ll post rude or otherwise disruptive tweets that include the hashtag in order to make it difficult or unpleasant for people trying to have a civil ongoing discussion.

However, if you’re starting from a defined Twitter List and then filtering by keyword or hashtag, you’d never see spammy or disruptive tweets.

Keeping up with changing lists? I don’t know yet whether additions and deletions made to a Twitter List after you follow that list are automatically reflected in your own Twitter friends list (the people you follow). That kind of updating could be useful to keep up with a shifting array of recommendations or players. However, it could also be abused by spammers or other nefarious characters. I’ll experiment with that and report back later.

PROBLEM: MY BRILLIANT IDEA DOESN’T REALLY WORK YET (EASILY)

Combining Twitter Lists with keyword filtering would be great, IF: Tweetdeck or other sophisticated Twitter tools (Like Seesmic Desktop and Hootsuite) allowed you to automatically import a Twitter List as a group. As far as I can tell, they don’t do that yet.

So this brilliant idea of mine doesn’t really work well yet. Because you’d have to follow a Twitter List and then manually select those Twitter friends to create a Tweetdeck group. And then you’d have to apply your term-based filtering to the column for that group.

I just checked out help files for Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop, and HootSuite. So far none of them allow you to import a Twitter List as a group. I’d expect, they’ll add that automatic feature soon (nudge nudge), because Twitter Lists are likely to be popular — and maybe even supported directly via the Twitter API.

In the meantime, keep my filtering strategy in mind. It’ll work — it’s just clunky.

ALSO: If you create Twitter lists: Suggest filtering terms (formatted as a boolean “OR” search query). This will make it easy and fast for your List subscribers to filter for exactly what you intend your list to focus on.

…What do you think of my strategy? Any corrections, suggestions, or updates? Please comment below.

I’m doing this as a pilot test for a new professional service I’d like to start offering: Great live event coverage.

In my experience, most online event coverage isn’t so great. A few folks will be tweeting or blogging in several places, some hashtags will be used, but it’s all rather confusing and inconsistent to follow. Also, a lot of people tend to tweet items like “Jane Doe is speaking at this session now.” Uh-huh… AND….?

Liveblogging/tweeting has turned out to be a real strength of mine — I’m good at it, and I enjoy it. I’ve also had the good fortune to collect a sizable Twitter following among folks whose interests in media, business, and other fields overlap with mine — and who enjoy my particular blend of reporting, analysis, and attitude. (Or at least I guess they do, because every time I do live event coverage my Twitter posse swells noticeably and those folks tend to stick around afterward.)

I do a lot of live event coverage via Twitter and CoverItLive. For instance, earlier this month for my client the Reynolds Journalism Institute I liveblogged/tweeted J-Lab’s Fund My Media Startup workshop at the 2009 Online News Association conference.

So, being a longtime entrepreneur always on the lookout for new opportunities, I’m looking for ways to offer live event coverage as a service for my clients. Today’s event is an experiment on this front.

I want to figure out how this service could work in a way that would appeal to my Twitter posse, maintain my integrity and independence, and provide value to clients who’d pay for it.

Here are some of the issues I’m wrestling with, that I’d welcome your thoughts on…

QUALITY AND RELEVANCE

I wouldn’t accept just any live-coverage gig. It has to be a good fit for my interests, and those of my Twitter followers. So I’d be concentrating on events in areas such as:

• Media and journalism
• Energy
• Environment
• Government transparency and civic engagement/action
• Key media technologies (mobile, mapping, databases, collaboration, etc.)
• Social trends/dynamics (including race, gender, sexuality)
• Offbeat entertainment (science fiction, indy arts & music, strange festivals, zombies, etc.)

INDEPENDENCE

I’m a lousy lapdog. I don’t generally go out of my way to be rude or snarky — especially when someone has invited me to their event and given me a platform. But I do have attitude, a sense of humor, and I say what I think. I must always feel free in my event coverage to disagree, question, criticize, or challenge.

The people who hire me to cover their events need to understand that at some point I will say something they won’t be 100% comfortable with. I am not their mouthpiece. I am providing a service of visibility and engagement. That’s always going to be a bit uncomfortable. In fact, that’s the point.

So, hiring me is not like hiring a PR agency to make you look good. It’s more like issuing a press pass — but knowing that there will be consistent coverage throughout the event. I’ll also work to make sure the online audience gets represented in the live event, by posing questions and comments on their behalf.

TRANSPARENCY

Here’s the background on today’s gig, so you know what the terms of this coverage are.

Doyle Albee, president of Metzger Associates (a PR/communications firm based in Boulder, CO) has hired me to cover this event. I chose to do this because:

1. Doyle is a cool guy and a friend of mine from Boulder. He appreciates my perspective, even though we regularly disagree. He likes how I cover events and wants me to just do what I do — which includes allowing me to question or critize what happens at the event, if I see fit to do so.
2. Dave Taylor, another longtime Boulder friend of mine, is co-leading the event. Doyle and Dave are both great presenters, and I learn much from observing them.
3. The lineup of speakers looks pretty good.
4. This isn’t a mob scene. While I like covering events, major mob scenes like South by Southwest tend to put me on sensory/info overload pretty quickly, and leave me quaking in a fetal position. I prefer covering events for small-to-medium groups where I can get a real sense of what participants think, how peoples’ thinking evolves, and which takeaways are most meaningful.
5. It’s not summertime. Vegas summers slay me. Today is a pleasant, cool early autumn day, more my style.

Full disclosure: Metzger has paid my expenses and waived my fee to participate in this event. I did not ask for a fee for this coverage since I’m fine-tuning this service offer. However, for future live event coverage with this or other clients I will get paid a professional rate for the service.

I decided to not ask for a fee for this event because I want to engage my Twitter posse in a discussion about how I can do event coverage as a professional (fee-based) service in a way that works well for my Twitter followers. That is, I didn’t want to start selling this service before talking to my tweeps about how I can make this work for them.

My liveblog is appearing on Metzger’s site, and I’ll be cross-tweeting to Metzger’s own Twitter account. So while I might occasionally have something to critize, since they’re opening up their platforms for me to use I’ll be civil. Unless something truly egregious happens — and in that case, I’ll still be civil, but I’ll say what I mean.

Anyway, that’s the general plan. What are your thoughts, opinions, questions, criticisms? Please comment below, or tweet me @agahran, or e-mail me.

Again, this is an experiment. I’m not expecting everyone to be happy, or everything to run smoothly. But I do expect to learn a lot. Let me know what you think.

It makes my brain hurt.

This video from EpipheoStudios.com nails exactly why I hate e-mail, and how Google Wave is trying to solve the problems of e-mail.

YouTube – What is Google Wave?.

I don’t know whether Google Wave will actually solve these problems. But dammit, at least they’re trying to tackle the problem. And they have the development power and user base to stand a chance of pulling it off.

A friend has sent me an invite. I haven’t received it yet. But when I do, I’ll give it a try. UPDATE: I just got my Google Wave invitation today! I’ll get a chance to play with it over the weekend. I expect it to be rough. (OK, everyone who’s whining about it: rough is what “alpha testing” is all about!) And hopefully I’ll start to glimpse an end to the e-mail madness.

White Elephant: A possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to the owner. (Random House Dictionary)

Today, AP debuted its AP Stylebook iPhone app.

According to the press release. “AP Stylebook fans have been asking for a mobile application so they can have style guidance wherever they go. Journalists never know when they will need to run out the door to chase a story, so as long as they have an iPhone in their pockets when they go, the Stylebook can go with them.”

…Which indicates the strategy here: The AP Stylebook iphone app is basically an app as e-book. Which almost explains its exhorbitant price: $28.99.

Yep, that’s right: $28.99 for an iPhone app. Seriously.

Beyond displaying the text of the AP Stylebook 2009, this app adds a little extra functionality: “The 2009 AP Stylebook app features searchable listings for the main, sports, business and punctuation sections, along with the ability to add custom entries and personalized notes on AP listings. Stylebook app users are able to mark any entry as a favorite for easy access.”

…In other words, similar with what you could do with this book on a Kindle. Only AP doesn’t offer a Kindle edition of the Stylebook.

AP does offer online Stylebook subscriptions: $25/year for an individual, with cheaper bulk pricing available for organizations. Which means that the iPhone app is more costly than an online subscription. So why wouldn’t iPhone users buy an online subscription instead and access it through the mobile Safari browser?

Here’s another thing baffles me: Why sell an app that’s basically a standalone e-book? Why not offer a free app with some free content/service that also can allow paying subscribers to log in from their phone and have a mobile-optimized experience? It seems to me that AP is reinventing the wheel with this app, missing obvious opportunities to grow its Stylebook market, and positioning this product poorly through ludicrous pricing.

It gets worse… but it could get better too…

USABILITY HURDLES

I own an iPhone, and I use it a lot. Typing and editing on this device is a frustrating chore. Given the difficulties of typing on an iPhone keypad, who would want to do any copyediting on the iPhone? It seems to me that most news professionals would be writing or editing on a computer. They wouldn’t actually write or edit stories on the iphone.

However, some reporters may file brief updates or field reports via iPhone. And they may want these to be stylistically correct — if the updates are being published live, without further editing.

In this case, there’s a usability hurdle: you can’t run two apps at once on an iPhone. So in order to check something in the Stylebook app you’d have to:

1. Save your work
2. Close your writing app
3. Open the Stylebook app
4. Look up the answer to your question
5. Copy the relevant info (or just remember it)
6. Close the Stylebook app
7. Reopen your writing/editing app
8. Put the AP info to use.

That process is so clunky as to be deeply impractical. Especially if you’re covering fast-breaking news in the field.

HOW AP COULD DO BETTER

I’m not trashing the mobile app-as-ebook concept. It can be useful, especially for reference material. And it makes sense for how-to content that is periodically updated.

But in order to justify a price that drastically exceeds the print edition ($18.95 for journos, cheaper for member papers and college bookstores, even cheaper to buy it used online), a mobile app must offer more functionality than just taking notes, bookmarking items, and making custom entries.

AP completely missed the mark on this one. It’s yet another example of how badly this news behemoth really just doesn’t get online or mobile media. It’s like they’re not even trying. I’d be surprised if more than a handful of mainstream journos who just got their first iPhone and think this sounds like an appropriate professional tool would  buy this. And I suspect those that do will quickly regret it.

Fortunately, AP has room to redeem itself on this. It could:

1. Rework the app to make it an access tool for paying online subscribers.
2. Re-release it as a free app. (Maybe give a year’s subscription to the suckers who bought the pricey app.)
3. Offer a “try before you buy” demo — maybe five free searches, so people can get a feel for the user experience.
4. Include a “subscribe to Stylebook” option prominently in the free app. to make it easy for people to buy after they try.
5. Offer some free content with the free app. (500 most common stylebook queries, etc.), as well as a daily tip or other fresh content. In other words, PROVE that the Stylebook is, in fact, relevant and useful.
6. Make sure the free app works with bulk (corporate) accounts, not just individual subscriptions.
7. Gather data from the free searches about what kinds of terms they might want to include in future Stylebook editions.

distraction hierarchy

Hierarchy of Digital Distractions: Top of a brilliant, too-accurate pyramid infographic by InformationIsBeautiful.net

Productivity and task management seem like strictly practical issues, but in fact they’re deeply emotional. That’s what David Allen describes at in the first chapter of Getting Things Done, when he talks about the sense of calmness instilled by having a mind like water.

It seems to me that tuning into and recognizing your own feelings (especially hope, shame, relief, and fear) is THE crucial first step for figuring out what to do, getting stuff done, and letting stuff go. That’s what I’ve been working on today. Here is a little background, and some thoughts and lessons on this theme…

In the last eight months I made several major changes in my life: I ended my marriage (on the best of terms), sold my house, moved to a new state, eliminated my debt, stopped working on some projects I’d outgrown, began some intriguing new projects, had a brief painful relationship with a thoroughly incompatible partner, began a rewarding intimate relationship with a wonderful friend, and downsized my possessions to fit in a room plus small storage area. Plus, I got knee surgery to fix a torn ACL. Plus, a fair amount of business travel thrown in.

Yeah, it’s been a lot to manage — with a lot of mixed, deep feelings involved in every step. And a lot of stuff that needed to get done: projects, tasks, and priorities. Everything from figuring out where stuff goes in the kitchen to selling a house.

Through this process of major life-surgery I’ve had to face something I’ve avoided: I’ve spent most of my life in a near-constant sense of dread. I was scared that my life and work were spinning out of control, and that all sorts of disasters were waiting to pounce due to my inattention or ineptitude. I coped with it by keeping busy. If I just kept doing enough, surely I’d get ahead. Then I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a flat-out panic. And I’d work all day and feel like I’d accomplished nothing by evening, and feel terribly guilty and ashamed. I felt like I was failing at nearly everything.

In fact, I wasn’t failing — at least, not most of the time. Not any more than most people do. In fact, in a lot of ways I’m doing pretty damn well with my life. But because I was certain I was failing, and constantly braced for the next crash, I avoided looking too closely at what was happening, at what I needed to be doing.

It’s kind of like how you shut your eyes and cover your face before a car crash. It’s a reflex. You don’t really want to watch.

But when that kind of mental flinching becomes a permanent way of life, bad stuff happens. Namely, disorganization and procrastination — with all the bad stuff (tax penalties, pissed-off partners, missed opportunities, poor health) that go along with it.

It’s important to recognize that for all the pain that disorganization and procrastination cause, they do offer immediate, addictive emotional relief.

When you deliberately blur your mental vision and don’t look very far around you or ahead, and when you don’t habitually keep close track of information you need, then for short stretches of time you create the illusion that nothing needs to be done or figured out right now. It’s a false sense of security, but it does provide a sense of rest and it’s easy to do. Also, it works about as well as drinking salt water when you’re thirsty.

Since I’ve downsized and simplified my life and commitments, I’ve realized that I don’t want to keep living with that daily dread. I could keep it up — because I’ve done it my whole life. But at this point I’m making a conscious choice to change. Dread eats up too much of my energy. I’m 43 years old, and I’d like to use my remaining time and energy in ways that please me.

So I’ve been focusing on organizing my life, especially projects, tasks and priorities. Here’s what I’ve done so far, and what I’ve learned:

1. I CAN’T THINK AMIDST CLUTTER. Clutter distracts me, and provides a ceaseless nagging of all the things I might have forgotten. I cannot focus on a task when I’m around clutter — unless that task is decluttering.

So I’ve put a lot of effort into organizing my new room so that everything I need has an intuitive place, and that things I don’t need on a daily basis get stored or filed, and things I don’t ever need get tossed. This includes eliminating as much paper as possible from my life: I scan every paper I’ll need, shred most of them, file only a few original copies. I have redundant electronic backups (external hard drives AND offsite backup) for all my data.

The downside: Organizing feels so rewarding to me that sometimes I dive into that for emotional relief as a form of procrastination. I’m working on that.

2. MULTITASKING IS A MYTH. This was truly a devastating thing to admit to myself, since I always thought I was a consummate multitasker. But in fact, tons of scientific research and an honest look at my own experience indicates that human brains really can only do one conscious thing at a time. I cannot listen to two simultaneous voices and understand well what both are saying. I cannot run a quick Google search and track what a client is saying on a conference call. I cannot Twitter or instant message while trying to do another kind of writing. I cannot read an incoming text message while paying enough attention to driving.

Of course, I can TRY to do any combination of these things, or more. And I usually succeed to some level with all of them. But usually not as well as if I’d consciously taken a moment to set a priority and then waited to do tasks in priority order.

Focus is important to getting stuff done. But for me, focus can be another kind of trap. I can get so into doing something that I get obsessive or perfectionist about it, and and up spending way too much time on it. It becomes another type of procrastination.

I’m finding that for me, the skills I need to improve are time management and setting priorities. Not just “what are the things I need to do” but “what are the goals I wish to achieve?” Once I have in mind all my goals, I can set priorities among them, and then decide how much is really enough in terms of moving toward a particular goal for that day.

I’m realizing that my tendency to attempt multitasking often stems from a wish to distract myself (and thus procrastinate), or a wish to please (assuming that people expect me to do everything at once), or boredom.

3. ORGANIZE AT AN APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF DETAIL. I was discussing productivity systems today with a friend. She prefers to list out her to-dos in minute detail, including items such as “find Mr. X’s phone number” and “call Mr. X” in the overall task of “Ask Mr. X. to write me a letter of reference.” That works very well for her because it relieves her of the necessity to figure out the next step to take.

I’ve tried that approach, and I’ve found it does not work for me. The labor involved in listing and checking off so many minute steps feels overwhelming to me, and takes considerable time. In my task-management software OmniFocus I tend to list action items like “Ask Mr. X. to write me a letter of reference” unless I’m noticing that I’m procrastinating on a task. In that case, I may list sub-tasks in more minute detail.

I’m still working with this to try to figure out the best balance for me. But anyone else attempting to use a task management system should tune in to how they feel about using the system. If the system ends up feeling like a chore or a burden, if it scares you, you won’t use it and you’ll feel frustrated or ashamed. Recognize all your emotions involved, and name them. They’re important indicators of what you really need.

4. MOST LIFE-MONSTERS CAN WAIT (AT LEAST A BIT) TO BE SLAIN. For the parts of my life that had become dangerously disorganized, I’ve found I couldn’t just sit down and said “I’m going to face Monster Z right now, and parse out how to vanquish it, and get started.” I tried. I really did. Every time, this effort turned into an emotional wreck, unable to sort out which part of the monster to strike first. I’d make lists of tasks and goals, but be unable to sort them into a doable sequence. I’d feel ashamed, frustrated, and like an even bigger failure than before.

I realized that, with most of these life-monsters, I needed to first build up my strength and skills prior to the attack. I needed to attain more of a sense of my life generally gaining order and purpose on a daily basis. After all, I’d put off wrestling the life-monsters so long that I could put it off a while longer.  In the meantime, I set up doable systems to capture enough incoming monster-related  information to spot flags that would require me to speed up my timeline.

So even though organizing my space or developing a new exercise routine may not objectively be a higher priority than, say, developing a retirement plan — giving myself faster, easier “wins” that directly support my ability to tackle longer-term, bigger goals is what allows me to move forward. Right now, if I try too hard to stare down monsters that loom ever-larger due to neglect, I freeze.

Right now I’m only tackling one life-monster at a time. I’ve learned from the last eight months that trying to do them all at once, or in too close sequence, leaves me overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed, and unproductive on other fronts. Getting through knee surgery and recovery (and dealing with insurance bureaucracy and medical bills) is my current life-monster battle. That’s enough.

Down the road, I’m considering working with a financial planner and maybe a life/career coach to figure out some longer-term monster-slaying strategy. I think getting that kind of support might help, when I’m ready for it. But I’m not ready for that now, so please don’t bombard me with pitches for these professionals just yet. When I’m ready, I’ll ask for it.

5. RECOGNIZE & APPRECIATE WHAT YOU CAN DO OR HAVE DONE. Many people love crossing items off their to-do lists. That gives them a sense of accomplishment. That visual symbol has never worked for me, however. It just feels negative, the act of crossing-off. Not creative, not productive.

I’ve realized that when I’ve been getting depressed because I think I’ve been unproductive, it helps to reality-check myself by taking a day to make a list of all the stuff I actually do in a given day. For this list, anything that takes my time/effort counts. It includes things like:

• Making my bed
• Doing my leg exercises (5X/day, to stick with my physical therapy program)
• Taking my vitamins
• Making breakfast
• Corresponding with clients
• Doing actual billable work
• Arranging to get a transit pass
• Hanging a few pictures
• Vacuuming
• Scanning, shredding, and filing
• Sorting out which jewelry needs repairs
• Reading a chapter of a book

…Most of this stuff would never make my to-do list or get crossed off. I don’t need to track that level of detail day to day. But each of these tasks, and many others, need to get done and take my time and effort. I should at least recognize them. They are not wasted time. So if once in a while I make a “done” list of all this stuff, that reassures me emotionally. In turn, that reduces my tendency to beat up on myself, and gives me more energy to get stuff done.

Those are my thoughts on emotions and productivity for now. I’ll be writing more about this, I’m sure. But what are your thoughts on this topic? How do your feelings — and your awareness of them — affect how you get accomplished in life and work? Please comment below.

1. Back up your entire machine onto TWO EXTERNAL DRIVES. It’s a good idea to run Time Machine backup as often as possible. But when you’re running the risk of having to hand over your mac AND your backup drive to a technician (which is always the case when attempting a significant operating system update), it’s a good idea to have a separate copy of your backup in your own possession.

2. Verify the condition of your hard drive. Apple is marketing Snow Leopard chiefly as a way to enhance performance. However, if your hard drive is developing problems (as mine apparently was), that will impair performance. Installing Snow Leopard won’t fix HD problems, and it may even cause your drive to fail during installation (as mine did)

So Verify your disk using your Mac’s Disk Utility before you upgrade. That can indicate HD problems. It’s not a perfect predictor of problems, but it’s at least some help. Had I thought to do this, I might not have lost 3 workdays and be freezing my ass off in an over-air conditioned Apple Store right now.

If your disk verification process indicates problems, and if you’re experiencing decreasing performance, it’s probably a safer bet to get your HD replaced and data restored correctly BEFORE attempting to upgrade your operating system. If you have to go to the Apple Store to do this, make sure they put in the work order that you do NOT want the OS upgraded yet.

3. Check your warranty coverage. I purchased Apple Care when I bought my mac a couple of years ago, and it’s still in effect. So Apple replaced my HD for free. I’m not sure whether the warranty covers drives that are having problems (rather than have already failed), but it’s worth asking about.

4. Line up a backup computer. If, like me, you work or life could get seriously screwed if you lose your computer for a few days or more, make sure you have handy access to a functional backup machine BEFORE doing a significant system update. Load it up with all the software & data you’ll need to do what you need to do, and test it.

Personally, I’m getting a Linux netbook ASAP.

5. Check your ProCare staus. ProCare is Apple’s preferred service program. It costs about $100/yr, and it’s worth it if you depend in your Mac. If you need a speedy repair, make sure you have current ProCare coverage. You van buy it on the spot at the Apple Store if you need it.

6. Don’t leave the Apple Store without your computer the way you need it. If your OS X update goes dreadfully wrong (as mine did), required them to wipe your drive, have the Apple Store staff restore your operating system and data from your Time Machine backup. Don’t do all of that yourself.

My experience shows that this installation/restore process is trickier than Apple claims. It’s surprisingly easy for the Time Machine restoration to not work right with a freshly installed OS. Make them do everything you need do your machine is up and running. Bring this blog post with you if they balk, and stick to your guns.

This means bringing your external HD with your current Time Machine backup to the Apple Store with you, of course. And before you leave, sync your iPhone and make sure it works. My iPhone sync is not yet working, so I’m staying put in this store for now.

7. Check the “Lemon Law” in your state. The details if this federal consumer protection law are defined by each state. In many states, including CA, lemon laws cover not just vehicles but also consumer products. This may give you recourse if you get screwed by Apple on mac-related issues, like a disastrous OS update you paid for.

Also have the phone number of the local Better Business Bureau handy, and be willing to file a complaint if necessary.

8. Don’t attempt a major system update a couple of weeks after having knee surgery. I’m just saying, it makes everything that much more difficult, aggravating, and risky.

I’ve been here about 3 hours so far.

THE HIGHLIGHTS:

1. My mac was increasingly having performance problems, and Snow Leopard is marketed mainly as a performance enhancer.
2. When I tried installing SL, it failed because my hard drive crashed. HD problems were most likely the cause of my performance problems.
3. Apple replaced my HD, installed SL, and told me to restore from my Time Machine backup. The TM restore failed in a weird way.
4. On my 2nd Apple Store trip, they wiped my HD, installed SL, and gave me new instructions for restoring from TM. Last night that failed too.

For more details on exactly what went wrong, see my posts from yesterday and this morning.

So today, on my third visit, my goals are:

1. Get my HD wiped again. Tech reports this was done.
2. Get the regular Leopard OS X installed, NOT Snow Leopard. Really, screw SL at this point! Tech reports this was done.
3. Restore my apps and data from the CORRECT TM backup, something the SL installer would not let me do.
4. Avoid unnecessary walking. I had knee surgery Aug. 13, & doc says I must avoid unnecessary walking until my leg is much stronger, to avoid developing a hard-to-correct limp. Trouble is I don’t own a car, so had to take bus to Apple store, which involved walking a few blocks. I’m staying put in the Apple Store (they gave me a chair) until my mac is fixed. Been here nearly three hours so far.
5. Check everything out BEFORE I sign off on this repair & leave. And if it’s not fixed, they’re getting a big ‘ol dose of NJ loud ‘n pissed, plus possible action under CA’s lemon law. (Been doing sone research, and it applies to consumer products, not just cars.)
6. Get a refund for Snow Leopard. Yeah. Seriously.
7. Try to avoid homicides. Just on general principles. Especially at the Apple Store. Too many witnesses.

If all goes well, my mac will emerge from brain surgery in the next hour. I hope so, because I’m getting hungry.

It’s cold in here. Glad I brought my goodie.

So far I’ve lost 3 days to this. Most of my work-related data is in the cloud, but not having a backup computer leaves me outta that loop. So I’m researching which Linux netbook to purchase. I’ve been wanting one for travel & portability, but now I see having a backup machine running Firefox with all my plugins and that I can actually type on makes the difference to keep me in business.

Because writing on an iPhone truly sucks. I loathe this #^*+%# touch keyboard. Good thing I remembered to charge up & bring my backup battery.

I’ll post again when I know more. Stay tuned.